I knew I was in the right place when I saw the car with a unicycle strapped to the back. Along with face paints and people on stilts, unicycles are compulsory for an event to qualify as a fun day. Actually I shudder to think what would happen if one was caught running a fun day without a face painter. Today the fun element was simply bait, luring our tenants into being consulted. Haha! And the bait is essential. Approaching people cold I started to understand why the hell fire preachers and chuggers around the centre of Croydon have a slightly deranged manner.
What I thought I was saying was:-
Good morning sir would you mind helping with our survey?
However from their reactions I must really have been saying:-
Good morning I am a terrible person with a horrid and infectious disease, please flee as quickly as you can!
So a bit of fun day bait is essential to lure them in.
But this is not about questionnaires. This about my phobia of unicycles. I know it is very skillful but like clowns and jugglers it just doesn't tickle the spot for me. It is a completely unfair and unreasonable prejudice but I blame the Timmy Mallet lookalike who stole 15mins of my life on the Southbank . It was years back but the resentment still remains.
It was a sunny day and the man was standing around with a very tall unicycle barking up interest in his act. A decent crowd was gathering an I thought is was worth a look. It was a very tall unicycle and in a uninterested kind of way I wanted to see what he could do. I should have known better. I am not sure at what point I realised but the act was not about riding a very tall unicycle, it was the reverse. It was about not riding it, in a huge number of equally tedious ways. It was not helped by the fact that he was utterly charmless. I watched with growing annoyance as he failed again and again to mount the fucking bike. Then a group of teenagers had gathered. Their attention span had soon been stretched to breaking point. When the little man shouted
'What I need is somebody to help me' a young voice called back
'No mate what you need is a punch in the bollocks.'
I lingered for a minute hoping that the lad would put his words into action. But no, he mooched off and I did the same leaving the now slightly flustered trick cyclist to not mount his bike yet again.
What I thought I was saying was:-
Good morning sir would you mind helping with our survey?
However from their reactions I must really have been saying:-
Good morning I am a terrible person with a horrid and infectious disease, please flee as quickly as you can!
So a bit of fun day bait is essential to lure them in.
But this is not about questionnaires. This about my phobia of unicycles. I know it is very skillful but like clowns and jugglers it just doesn't tickle the spot for me. It is a completely unfair and unreasonable prejudice but I blame the Timmy Mallet lookalike who stole 15mins of my life on the Southbank . It was years back but the resentment still remains.
It was a sunny day and the man was standing around with a very tall unicycle barking up interest in his act. A decent crowd was gathering an I thought is was worth a look. It was a very tall unicycle and in a uninterested kind of way I wanted to see what he could do. I should have known better. I am not sure at what point I realised but the act was not about riding a very tall unicycle, it was the reverse. It was about not riding it, in a huge number of equally tedious ways. It was not helped by the fact that he was utterly charmless. I watched with growing annoyance as he failed again and again to mount the fucking bike. Then a group of teenagers had gathered. Their attention span had soon been stretched to breaking point. When the little man shouted
'What I need is somebody to help me' a young voice called back
'No mate what you need is a punch in the bollocks.'
I lingered for a minute hoping that the lad would put his words into action. But no, he mooched off and I did the same leaving the now slightly flustered trick cyclist to not mount his bike yet again.
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