Golden showers

Hands up if you're beginning to find the rain a tad depressing? I walked behind a woman today who was wearing little summer slip-on ballet-type shoes. She walked through a puddle without realising and instantly became water-logged. The sound of squelching was almost deafening as she walked away... swearing to herself. Tomorrow she'll have trench foot and her life will officially have been ruined. 

I got rained on by an altogether different form of liquid on the train from London Bridge to Catford today. Some irresponsible piss-head had left two almost-empty bottles of beer on the seat next to me, which a brainless commuter decided to move so that he could sit down. Obviously it was his prerogative to move the bottles, but how many people in his situation would have tried to balance the offending items on the overhead luggage rack? As he did it, I thought; "well they're plainly going to roll off the moment the train starts to move," what I didn't expect was the cascade of beer which came from one of the bottles, through the holes in the racks, straight onto my computer and the bloke's lap sitting opposite. 

Of course we both did the typically English thing of saying it didn't matter, whilst dusting ourselves down with bits of half-used tissue paper. Obviously both of us were  seething inside and wondering if the man who'd caused the bother was a wealthy banker who regularly destroys other people's property by being foolish. What we weren't expecting was for him to start cracking jokes, "just don't blame me when you go home to the Mrs stinking of beer!" I managed a fake chuckle, but the other man remained stony-faced.

My rat has chewed through the cable to my speakers. He's also chewed through some headphones. The sitting room smells of wee-wee and damp because all this rain has created some kind of leek above the window. I don't think I'm going to be able to spend much time in there until the place dries out, or the rat stops weeing like an incontinent old lady. 

I suspect the man opposite me on the train is going to beat me up. He's got that look about him. Every time I glance over, he'a staring back, trying, I suspect, to prompt some kind of reaction. I assume I'm meant to ask in a middle-class voice if I can help him, which will entitle him to pull out a knife and request my iPhone because I'm a privileged racist. Something like that. Deeply tedious. 

350 years ago and the Navy office was being audited. The news sent Pepys into something of a pickle and he vowed not to make any more journeys on expenses, which potentially included a trip to Hampton Court to toady around the future Queen. A deeply unnecessary expense by my reckoning!