Can anyone be perfect? Some of us believe so, usually the type of person that wears a black polo neck sweater, a gold medallion, and earns millions by telling everyone else how they can be too. I wonder how we see ourselves? The obvious answer is to use a mirror or a photograph, but what I actually mean is our own perception of ourselves. Those lads in the street this last weekend no doubt regard themselves as good-for-a-laugh salt-of-the-earth characters. What? A bunch of drunken louts?

Heaven knows they try to communicate those sentiments often enough. None of us are perfect, including me. No, really, I admit it. I've no doubt whatsoever that people see me differently than I see myself. A young lady friend many years ago once implied my hair was grey. Didn't that bother me? No, not really, you see my hair started going grey in my teens. I don't really see it when I look in the mirror. She was very amused at my blindness though in truth she totally got the wrong idea. I guess she wasn't the perfect gitlfriend then.

Nonetheless it is remarkably easy to give people the wrong impression. I can forgive the lady I passed the other day for being nervous. She didn't know me, I looked a little shabby, and there was no-one else around. Or perhaps it was my grey hair that worried her? I understand that. But what happens if you've known someone for years informally and they start acting oddly?

There's another lady I bump into on a regular basis. She's polite and pleasant, as far as her profession requires her to be, but that behaviour turns out to be something of a mask. For some reason I've spooked her. She's taken to hiding in a toilet to avoid bumping into me. Why? Has she noticed my grey hair?

For the record, most of the time I avoid her.

Also Worth Avoiding

Also worth avoiding was a fair haired chap who passed me by last week. He pointed past me at a shop window and said "Plenty of trains there" for no apparent reason whatsoever.

No kidding. I'll just keep on walking by.

No Trains For Me

I received the shock news that I've been stopped from accessing a railways website because in the opinion of Swindon Council it ranked along with sex, violence, bigotry, racism, and inflammatory content. Didn't Swindon used to be a railway town? Anyone would think I was selling illegal photo's of steam engines in nightclubs, reducing innocent drunken louts to train-spotters. How criminal is that?

Speculation of the Week

With everyone getting promoted at the museum in front of me, they're running out of staff to give important jobs to. There's only Young S left to compete for that last final "You're now in charge of something". Could be a tight contest - He wears military surplus trousers too. So which of us is perfect for the job? I just hope the boss doesn't see my grey hair.