Better and better.
‘Skinny? I’m not sure that skinny is quite the right word either. It doesn’t seem quite thin enough to describe what I can see.’
I love this man, whoever he is. I love them both.
‘You’re right. We have to go down a few sizes to get the proper description here. Stringy? Skeletal?’
‘Cadaverous.’
Clearly the second speaker was a man of some education. Perhaps I loved him more. Then came a long list of words that demonstrated just how educated they both were, and I curled up in my seat with a feeling of sensual happiness that bordered on the obscene.
The train stopped, and I became aware of the two men gathering their belongings together before getting off, but I still caught their last comments just before they moved out of earshot.
‘All I know is, if she ever gives birth, she’ll have to have a caesarean to deliver.’
‘What I think, she’s going to need a ceasarean to get pregnant in the first place.’
Since then, Julius Caesar has always been my favourite Shakespearean character. Perhaps you know the quotation I mean.
’Let me have men around me who are fat.’
I must say, it sounds awfully sexist.
EQUALITY
We’re all equal nowadays, aren’t we? Political correctness demands it, or to be more precise, the Ministry of Political Correctness demands it. In principle I’m all in favour. Equal pay for equal work, fair stab at a job, irrespective of gender, colour, or any one of an increasing number of proclivities, you know the sort of thing. But what I want to know is why, in the interests of strict equality, I, as a stunningly beautiful ballerina weighing in at 40 kilograms, am obliged to wear a bag over my head, lead slippers and a 40 kilogram body belt whenever performing in public?
SANDRA'S CHRISTMAS
We love Christmas, Sandra and me. We love all its traditions, like mince pies, and getting presents, and stuff like that. The best bit as far as I’