street hecklers

Every woman gets used to it, I'm sure. The street hecklers. Men in white vans, the builders, the gobby one in a passing group of lads on a big night out. Like tired comics, we all have our routine responses to them too. Tried and tested. This is no time for a delayed reaction.

Then one day, one comes at you so unexpectedly, so spectacularly out-of-the-blue, it leaves you wondering if you have a neon sign above your head. Appalled at not being the Master of the Quick Response, you replay the offending incident over and over in your mind and torture yourself with the plethora of alternate responses you might've plucked from the ether if you'd had your wits about you.

Such an incident occurred to me when I worked in Covent Garden. Each lunch hour, I would navigate my way through herds of tourists, living statues, irate shoppers and gypsies selling 'lucky heather' on a search for something to take back to the office. One day, whilst passing the long haired, slightly greasy, part of the scenery, pavement artist, I hear

"Oi, you! You're almost good looking!"

I turn, and as I see the spittle on his beard evaporate, realise he's talking to me. In a street full of people, I am being appraised by the Simon Cowell of tramps. I can feel my lunch getting cold in my hands as my face burns. I mutter something unintelligible and walk away.

Of course, in a parallel universe somewhere, I reply "Oh yeah? And you're almost an artist" as I step on his chalk rendition of the Last Supper - every day for the next three months.

But in reality, what can you possibly say back to a tramp?