london1967 | Apr. 3rd, 2008

I may be paranoid of course, but I often get the impression that when I am walking around town, people are after my money.

This is especially true when I walk through Soho after leaving work in the evening; yesterday, for instance, 3 men gave me the once over.

No, they weren’t cruising looks: they were slightly menacing stares as if they were evaluating me. One or two were probably homeless people, and the other either a mugger or a pusher.

Also for some reason, I seem to attract more people asking for money than your average person.

I think it’s because I may look a bit “simple” (or as Adrian

london1952would charitably put it, “approachable”).

The last occurrence was at Gatwick Airport on Saturday when an alleged American guy approached me when I was trying to buy the train tickets from a machine (which wasn’t working as it had rejected 2 of my cards already); he asked me if I was from the UK and then told me that his credit card has been stolen (or lost, I don’t remember which one) and that he needed help (I guess of the financial type as he was quite capable on getting on a train himself) to get to London. I was quite abrupt and said “I’m sorry” and walked away to another machine.

(I must add that I was “in a mood” since I had waited for over 20 minutes at the North terminal’s ticket desk when the guy told us that he was closing; plus we only had a few minutes to catch the train).

I almost positive that the guy would have asked for money promising to return it. We all have been there. With the money never seen again.

But the good Franco still feels slightly guilty thinking that maybe, for once, this guy could have been genuine. Well we’ll never know.

Living in London has certainly given me a thicker skin but at times I miss my old innocent self. I believe in random acts of generosity but intensely dislike being taken for a ride.

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Talking of money, this summer we’ll have new coins. I love the design but I wonder if perhaps the individual coins will look “messy” on their own.

(Apparently many people – including some MPs – are not happy at the disappearance of Britannia from the 50 pence. But as the BBC News article says, it’ll take a while before all the 806 million pieces are replaced).

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Britannia always makes me think of Hyacinth Bucket (pardon me, Bouquet).
In the episode where they missed their cruise ship in some foreign port (I think it was Copenhagen), Hyacinth burst out singing "Rule Britannia" to keep up their spirits.
And that of course leads back to LJ: a number of you has Mrs. Bucket icons, and you are all invited to one of our candlelight suppers!