Things I Learned in City Centre

One. the British spell center – centre. I am sure there is a reason for that.

2. Traffic Wardens are just as evil as you thought. Don’t get me wrong, perfectly nice chap, stands by the paper stand and talks to me till the cows come home or till a car makes a wrong turn. It’s nice talking to him as well I mean sure he has the institutional racism that seems to come with the job, he told me story about a dog being poisoned, and dislikes both the rich and the poor, but at least he doesn’t spend his time clapping to music that plays in his head which at least makes him easier to talk to then most of the people I talk to. For some reason with the magic power of my high visibility jacket I am also let into the mystical world of law enforcement. The shiny yellows seems to lure people into telling me things they probably shouldn’t. You see I am no longer the hated ‘student’ who sulks about in late afternoon using up the governments money to get drunk that night – no, no, add the odd comment of “Oh well the youth today…” and I am a working man and now allowed to know such things as: The traffic wardens know that in September when all the students move into their house they are too ‘lazy’ (or you know maybe busy) to get their parking permits right away so they come and ticket the bastards to bastardy. (Is that a word? Well is should be.) Then for all the smart thinking Friday night drinkers who drove into town then played it smart and took a taxi home instead of driving drunk, they go first thing Saturday and ticket the bastardy out of them as well. It was quite funny because as our traffic cop friend stood in the center of the road turning around cars that where not allowed about five work men from across the street where yelling such things I could not repeat in a polite blog and throwing paper at him. I though he played it cool and just ignored them. Then out of all the people he stopped the only one he ticketed was a young man on a scooter, which brought more terror from above. But I found out this morning his chief talked to their supervisor and then him and all his traffic cop friends ticketed all theworkman’s cars this morning. It is funny anyway you look at it.

III. People are oblivious to crime. I have seen more shop lifting as I am walking around town and no one seems to notice. The best was two scummy boys were trying to steal a bike, they thought they were cool – no one notice them fiddling with the locks – and no one was; except me who was trying to make eye contact with them. The number one deterrent of crime is to pay attention. When they finally realized that I was walking straight towards them did they finally leave. I told a cop walking by and walked home.

D.) Everybody does seem to have Lexy’s coat. Lexy was complaining that for the longest time she was the only one with her coat, and got tons of compliments on it, then after the Christmas sales, everyone bought a coat just like hers and it is true. There is a vast amount of people I think are Lexy. I’m just sitting there reading my book when from over the top I see some green-blue-tweed-knit-thing which might be Lexy but then is actually only her coat staggering around - crazy.

5. There really are more freaks and cripples in this town per-capita then anywhere I’ve ever been. I mean that in the nicest way of course. But I’ve never seen so many physical and mental dysfunctions in my life. More on all of that soon. But it really is a Fine city.