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Collecting Crises on Old Compton Street and Beyond
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Saturday, January 03, 2004
Small World
Yesterday, after successfully refraining from out-Heroding Herod in the infanticide stakes at the HMV sales on Oxford Street, I bumped into an ex on Old Compton Street, someone I hadn't seen for about fifteen years. No surprise there: sooner or later, everyone you've ever slept with comes back to remind you just how desperate you really were in your gagging-for-it twenties. Then I idly rang up an old friend to gossip on said encounter, thinking she'd be at home, but discovering she was buying bread and croissants au chocolat at the classy French patisserie just around the corner. So we met up for a drink in a wine bar I last frequented ten years ago. We were given a complimentary bottle of red by the new management, when it was suddenly realised that one of my best mates is a good friend of theirs. To soak up our middle-of-the-afternoon Merlot, we then went on to a restaurant where we happened to discover that our waitress was shagging the very same French boy whose back I was massaging down the gay club on New Year's Day (don't ask). We got another free bottle of wine. On my slightly worse-for-wear meander home, I waved hello on the street to someone I think I once used to work with, and would have met the ex again, if I hadn't crossed the road and gone the other way. I live in a city of over seven million people. Sometimes it feels just like a small town. |
