Two bouts of usefulness today.
First is a paid stint as a clue-giver in a Treasure Hunt. Sarah H has hired me to stand on the bridge in St James’s Park as ‘a suited man’, for about an hour. Various teams find me, I give them the clue to the next bit of the hunt, and they move on. It’s work even I can do okay, it’s fair to say. Particularly the being distinctive in a suit bit.
One small boy passing me checks to see if I am a living statue.
Second usefulness is on the way home, waiting at Tottenham Court Road tube. I am sitting on the bench closest to one end of the platform, when a couple of tube mice begin scampering around close by. I rather like the sight of mice scampering around the floor, dirt-covered or not, but the lady sitting next to me on the bench has a rather different attitude. She suddenly grabs my arm and shouts, ‘Oh my god! Oh god!’ Clearly not a mouse person.
‘It’s okay, they won’t come near, but I’ll shoo them out of sight,’ I offer. Which isn’t exactly a Herculean task. It only takes a sudden movement in the mice’s direction to clear them off the platform and into the tunnel. But the women is effusive in her gratitude, with audible relief in her voice, and for once I feel almost manly.
Just as well there are no Tube Snakes.
