Soho alleys

For almost one year now I have been tramping the streets of Soho to and from my offices as part of my daily commute, about as far removed from my original walk out of Pimlico tube station as possible.

I’ve seen celebrities, arty, media idiots dressed like a hurricane in a clothing store, all manner of drunkenness and was once even stunned to be offered “live show darlin?” by a woman behind a glass counter in a Soho alley as I walked back to the office before midday.

This week, three walks to the tube have led to three incidents that sum up this mad collection of side streets in central London. Firstly, I saw three men leaving a side door on a street, where they were immediately approached by two men in plain clothes, who then flashed police ID at them and proceeded to ask them what items they had on their persons. I lingered for as long as I could but didn’t get to find out what happened. It was a surreal moment, though, given how much of just this sort of thing I have been watching on DVD as I finally watch The Wire (see below).

Then, yesterday, two drunk guys were shouting at each other over the cost of some bar / strip joint they’d been in, clearly one was not as prepared as the other to pay “this f**king money” any more.

Today, I saw an elderly gentlemen leave a bar on one side of a road and saunter, a touch wobbly, over toward The Great Windmill Club where he proceed to casually study the menu/information board thing outside, as busy meeja types strolled by, somewhat amused by this.

Great stuff.

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Clowns

Blooming 'elf and safety. Huh, wass the world comin' to eh? Can't even let some f-ing clowns blow their friggen trumpets. It's political correctness gone mad. New Labour? These circus clowns will never outdo their counterparts in Whitehall. They're the real clowns!

Oh sorry don't know what came over me. Although it is a bit of a rum do when clowns can't blow some trumpets because it's classed a live musical performance and therefore requires a different licence.

Laws

This is actually a really depressing story. This bloke spent all this time trying to prove something using high brow maths equations and fancy experiments but was wrong - don't know how he was, whether or not the prosecution got in there own, better university-standard physicists etc but he lost. And it's going to cost him £15,000, or £15,060 - actually I imagine they do add the £60 on rather than included it, just to really grind you down, the bastards.

The final quote too from Philip Gwynne seems a bit rich. Speed is only measured by distance over time so the laws of the land are based in physics. Still if you can happily make snide comments as a qualified university lecturer is hit with a £15,000 fine for having the temerity to use his intelligence to try and use the courts to disprove a £60 fine then you've got to be a bit smug haven't you? The message here is, don't try and stand up for yourself.

Why does he need to be fined £15,000? Using legal recourse to try and defend yourself shouldn't mean the risk of incurring huge, unpayable fines should it? It sounds utterly Daily Mail to say but there will be people who commit far worse 'crimes' than this who will end up getting lower fines or token jail time (which is evidently not so bad), while this poor bloke admits he faces bankruptcy. Nice.

God Bothering

I’ve read some pretty barmy stuff in my time but I think this story about a judge in India ‘summoning’ two Hindu Gods to help in a legal dispute is the most preposterous and ridiculous thing I might have ever read. It is made all the more brilliant by the BBC’s utter lack of humour and completely straight reporting.

When you look at the details of the story it takes on an even higher levels of incredulity. I quote: “The gods have been asked to appear before the court on Tuesday, after the judge said that letters addressed to them had gone unanswered.”

The letters went unanswered? How surprising. But the reasons for this are that, “Judge Singh sent out two notices to the deities, but they were returned as the addresses were found to be "incomplete".

What on earth ‘did’ he put on the envelopes?

So he has taken out an advert in newspapers – because all deities read the news – although surely being Gods, they know everything anyway? Unperturbed the notice states:

"You failed to appear in court despite notices sent by a peon and later through registered post. You are hereby* directed to appear before the court personally.”

That will definitely work.

The year 2007 – legal disputes between Gods and priests – letters and adverts to the Gods asking them to appear in person in court sent by a judge – unbelievable.

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*The spelling on the BBC website is herby.

Delicious

So Charles Kennedy was caught smoking on a train? A great story that could only have been made funnier (and into a tabloid headline writer's dream) if it had been Kennedy's predecessor who had been caught...