purchase ⦠No, it had overtones. Could one tell a female subordinate the length of oneâs inside leg? Or outside leg for that matter?
In my proper context, I can make decisions. But Iâm not in context, Iâm in a cab.
Could one ask, then, a male staff member, someone with trouser experience from a male point of view â¦? No, it wasnât a prudent use of public funds.
Civil servant squanders man hours on fashion-buying jaunts.
Deputy Director experiences ⦠what? Wildlife mishap. Midlife mishap. Late-life mishap. Trouser debacle.
Deputy Director Jonathan Sigurdsson suffers ambulant blackout in Chiswick â cause for concern.
He couldnât work out how heâd ended up in the high street.
That was surprising. He didnât like to be anywhere surprising.
Itâs not to do with women, though.
No, not that.
St Martinâs Lane, near Wyndhamâs Theatre: a purple balloon is carried by light breezes over the heads of pedestrians and then moves safely across the busy road. As it goes it drifts lower, rolling softly over the bonnet of a passing car. It finally drops almost perfectly by the feet of a man in his thirties, quite formally dressed, who is standing at the kerb. He picks up the balloon. He straightens and stands, holding it between both palms. He smiles. He smiles so much.
07:58
JON LEANED HIS cheek flat to the cab window as London stuttered by beyond it. He was halfway to the office, but no further. Matters were conspiring, according to the cab driver, who also found himself unable to comment on whether theyâd be lucky, or crawling and stalled for another half an hour, if not longer. Cunning and manful dodging along alleys had resulted only in their being trapped by the apparently psychotic helmsman of a large delivery van in a space within which only bicycles or mice could possibly manoeuvre.
âSmug, arenât they?â the driver remarked.
âI beg your pardon.â
âTimes like this they get smug â the cyclists. Not so smug when a lorry hits âem. Iâd make them take a test and earn a licence. For their own good.â
âThatâs certainly an opinion.â Jon let his eyes close and carefully made himself think of Berlin earlier this year and seeing Rebecca.
Nice. A consolation. Necessary. And important to spend time.
A holiday for them both. One day, the Sunday, heâd bought them a boat tour on the Spree â bundled up for the cold, the quite kindly March cold â and heâd leaned his cheek flat to the bargeâs chill window as they passed by the Bode Museum, the building fixed in the water, right at the edge of Museum Island like a high round prow, an impossible vessel. Waves patted the stonework at its foot, sneaked and rolled and faltered prettily.
Light in blades on the water, bridges menacing only softly overhead and then a broad European sky. The Fernsehturm spiking up into crisp blue â looks like Sputnik after an accident with a capitalist harpoon, a speared ball, a penetrated curve, although remarkably asexual, unsexual ⦠then again, stainless steel and concrete arenât notoriously arousing. Never were â not even for Young Pioneers.
Iâm not obsessed with sex. Other people are obsessed with my being obsessed with sex.
The Berlin TV Tower â prop for some never-made Bond movie, as fatally dated and inappropriate as everybodyâs visions for their futures turn out to be
. Für Frieden und Sozialismus â
as if either was possible anywhere. Few things say 1960s East Germany like the Fernsehturm, still laden with suggestions of circular ripples emanating from its globe, expanding rings of peaceful and anti-fascist socialist know-how that pushed nobly â with appropriate self-criticism â through the brown-coal-scented air â that particular Braunkohl bitterness â broadcasting the one true faith
In my proper context, I can make decisions. But Iâm not in context, Iâm in a cab.
Could one ask, then, a male staff member, someone with trouser experience from a male point of view â¦? No, it wasnât a prudent use of public funds.
Civil servant squanders man hours on fashion-buying jaunts.
Deputy Director experiences ⦠what? Wildlife mishap. Midlife mishap. Late-life mishap. Trouser debacle.
Deputy Director Jonathan Sigurdsson suffers ambulant blackout in Chiswick â cause for concern.
He couldnât work out how heâd ended up in the high street.
That was surprising. He didnât like to be anywhere surprising.
Itâs not to do with women, though.
No, not that.
St Martinâs Lane, near Wyndhamâs Theatre: a purple balloon is carried by light breezes over the heads of pedestrians and then moves safely across the busy road. As it goes it drifts lower, rolling softly over the bonnet of a passing car. It finally drops almost perfectly by the feet of a man in his thirties, quite formally dressed, who is standing at the kerb. He picks up the balloon. He straightens and stands, holding it between both palms. He smiles. He smiles so much.
07:58
JON LEANED HIS cheek flat to the cab window as London stuttered by beyond it. He was halfway to the office, but no further. Matters were conspiring, according to the cab driver, who also found himself unable to comment on whether theyâd be lucky, or crawling and stalled for another half an hour, if not longer. Cunning and manful dodging along alleys had resulted only in their being trapped by the apparently psychotic helmsman of a large delivery van in a space within which only bicycles or mice could possibly manoeuvre.
âSmug, arenât they?â the driver remarked.
âI beg your pardon.â
âTimes like this they get smug â the cyclists. Not so smug when a lorry hits âem. Iâd make them take a test and earn a licence. For their own good.â
âThatâs certainly an opinion.â Jon let his eyes close and carefully made himself think of Berlin earlier this year and seeing Rebecca.
Nice. A consolation. Necessary. And important to spend time.
A holiday for them both. One day, the Sunday, heâd bought them a boat tour on the Spree â bundled up for the cold, the quite kindly March cold â and heâd leaned his cheek flat to the bargeâs chill window as they passed by the Bode Museum, the building fixed in the water, right at the edge of Museum Island like a high round prow, an impossible vessel. Waves patted the stonework at its foot, sneaked and rolled and faltered prettily.
Light in blades on the water, bridges menacing only softly overhead and then a broad European sky. The Fernsehturm spiking up into crisp blue â looks like Sputnik after an accident with a capitalist harpoon, a speared ball, a penetrated curve, although remarkably asexual, unsexual ⦠then again, stainless steel and concrete arenât notoriously arousing. Never were â not even for Young Pioneers.
Iâm not obsessed with sex. Other people are obsessed with my being obsessed with sex.
The Berlin TV Tower â prop for some never-made Bond movie, as fatally dated and inappropriate as everybodyâs visions for their futures turn out to be
. Für Frieden und Sozialismus â
as if either was possible anywhere. Few things say 1960s East Germany like the Fernsehturm, still laden with suggestions of circular ripples emanating from its globe, expanding rings of peaceful and anti-fascist socialist know-how that pushed nobly â with appropriate self-criticism â through the brown-coal-scented air â that particular Braunkohl bitterness â broadcasting the one true faith
Similar Books
