Grim News
I bought a pocket watch the other day. It is more practical as a teacher of private classes to have a pocket watch discreetly placed on the table than to be looking at a wristwatch. It is more elegant that a mobile phone’s digital display.
I also wear a hat. A proper hat. It is practical when it is sunny because it casts a shadow over your face (in Spanish hats are sombreros from sombra – shadow). It keeps you warm in winter and dry when the rains come. It can be angled to hint at your demeanour from Eastwood grump to jaunty lad about town. Men who don’t wear hats are imcomplete somehow.
I like boots. They’re tough and splash proof and their pointy tips are useful for any investigation of pavement flotsam. They make a satifyingly solid clump as you walk. Serious feet wear boots.
And that brings me to the bus stop at 7 o’clock the other day as I went to give my English sessions in Alcalá de Henares. There was a chilly wind racing the cars down the street. What a Yorkshireman would call a ‘lazy wind’; it doesn’t go round you, it goes through you. I was wearing my mucus green raincoat and dark purply tartan scarf. It occurred to me that a cloak would have been ideal. It protects you from the elements and yet doesn’t impede your movements.
And then IT kicked in!
I found myself wondering what people might think of me as I walked along the street in a hat, boots and cloak consulting my pocket watch. I seem to have become someone who suddenly gives a f*ck what other people think. That is grim news. Grim news indeed.
