118, Nutter

What is it about me that attracts nutters?  If you read Brief Encounter (click to read) in November 2010, you may remember the nutter who accosted me on Winchmore Hill Station.

It’s happened again.  I was sitting on a bench by the checkout at Waitrose last Saturday morning.  Caroline had taken the trolley to the far end of the supermarket where “Ladies’ Things” are kept.  

A woman, who is probably about the same age as me, joined me on the bench.  She immediately asked me where I had got my walking stick with its ergonomically designed handle.  I told her that I had bought it from a shop in New Oxford Street at the southern end of Tottenham Court Road in London.

“Oh, I know that shop,” she said, “It’s near the pub where De Gaulle spent the war sitting on his fat bottom.”

“Really?” I said.  “I didn’t know that.  What pub?”

“I think it’s called the French Pub, or something like that now.  It changed its name because of De Gaulle. Overrun in four weeks.  Some General!”

(I’ve done some research and I think that the pub she was referring to is ‘The French House’ in Dean Street, Soho.)

“That was hardly De Gaulle’s fault,” I said.  “The French were fighting against forces with better equipment and larger numbers.   In a military sense, the Germans were superior to them in every way.”

“Nonsense!  The French didn’t put up any sort of fight.  They were more interested in protecting their historic buildings from damage than defending themselves.”

“Nowadays,” she went on, becoming quite animated, “apart from Germany, most of Europe is failing and Germany’s got itself into problems by welcoming in millions of migrants.  Thank God we didn’t take up the Euro.”

“Something tells me that you’ll be voting to leave the EU in the referendum this summer,” I suggested.

“Of course I will!  Why do you need a walking stick anyway?” she suddenly demanded.

I was somewhat disconcerted by the sudden change in subject and amazed that for the first time in my life I had been defending the French.  

I told her about my ankle and that I was expecting a reparatory operation that could possibly mean that I wouldn’t need the stick one day.  On hearing this, she came out with another dogmatic pronouncement:

“I don’t trust doctors but I do trust and I do use, reflexologists.”  

“Homeopaths too?”

“Of course.  You should try one.  Then you’ll see I’m right.”

I may have laughed a little.  I told her that there wasn’t much that a homeopathic doctor could do for my arthritic ankle bones.

She wasn’t interested in any kind of discussion on that topic but informed me that if the recent stories on the news were correct - stories such as those about a possible cancer cure and of stem cell research that enables the paralysed to walk again, we were all going to live to be a hundred.  

On top of that, she told me, it looked as though babies born today would live for hundreds of years and some of them would, maybe, never die.

That bombshell was slowly sinking in but, before I had time to consider it in any detail, she hit me with an opinion that took her out of the classification into which I had previously consigned her - that of being a bit of a “Nutter”, into a group I’ve never come across before.  

In future, before you dismiss anyone of being a racist, just try and work out how he or she measures up to this woman and her attitudes, views and opinions.

“If we in Europe and America are going to live for hundreds of years,” she almost shouted at me in her fervour, “what do we need the third world for?”

I just stared at my walking stick handle, wondering what was taking Caroline so long.  I was lost for words and silently cursing my stick for getting me into this mess.

“Well?” she demanded after a few seconds, “What do we need them for?  What good are they?  What purpose do they serve?  We should just leave them to get on with it.”

“That’s outrageous,” I said.  “How are all those things connected?  By your reasoning, what good am I?  What am I needed for?  I’m non-productive and I’m a drain on the NHS.”

“Yes, but you’re different,” she said.  

“No, I’m not.  How am I different?” I asked.

“Well for a start, you’re British.”

“You mean white, don’t you?”

“Oh no.  That’s not what I mean…” but before she could tell me more, Caroline arrived with the trolley.  

“Credit card please.”   

Consequently, I never found out exactly how I was different or what I was good for.