MORNING LEGS

I was walking to work this morning thinking about ideas for a podcast, when some lady in a doorway looked at me, saw I was wearing shorts, and just blurted out: “Morning, legs!”

People astound me sometimes.

This old lady, like a charlady on a break from cleaning some Victorian dining room in 1894, had simply appeared from nowhere and shocked me into laughter. She laughed too. And then, for something, anything, to say to acknowledge that a thing had happened, I just doffed an imaginary cap and said,

“And good morning to you!”

She laughed again. I’ve got no idea why I said that, or indeed why she found the whole thing funny. My guess would be that laughing relieved some of the awkwardness, or, if she cared, the embarrassment at essentially wolf-whistling a stranger. Laugh it off, say the builders and the scaffolders who were well practised at life in the 1970s, you gotta laugh it off; if anything mate, it oughta be a compliment.

Well let’s not get into the politics. There are better ways of complimenting someone than actively objectifying them. Not that I think that’s what this lady was up to. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s a verbal processor, who literally says what she sees. Ooh cheese! Coffee! Hurrah! Ah! Sunshine! Morning, sunshine! Morning, legs! I’m not certain a lecture about political correctness would have been effective - and anyway, lecturing isn’t really my style.

My podcast idea was just me rambling about life as I walked up the Oxford Canal to work every Wednesday morning, maybe tackling a few of life’s big questions, listening to the twittering birds, and enjoying the tinkle of cycle bells as I went.

The more I think of it, the more terrible it sounds. What an awful idea - I mean who would want to hear me rambling on on about nothing in particular?

But hey, on the bright side, I reckon I’ve got a great idea of what to call it…