(no subject)
The number eight bus tends to have youths behaving youthishly in it. But today the kids were amazing.
There was a brother and sister combo this morning, with dad. I'm not great at estimating kid ages, but the brother must've been 7, the sister 5 or 6 (the dad early thirties). The girl was sitting on the dad.
Sister: . . . and I don't need help with much. Nothing really, daddy. Only times tables.
Brother: Yeah, Sasha, I'm the one who helps you with times tables.
Sister: But other things, I can do other things. I like some tractors.
Dad: Tractors?
Brother: Hahahaha
Dad: Do you mean subtraction, honey?
Brother: Sasha! SUB marine, SUB traction.
Sister: Sun traction.
Brother: Sasha! SUB jectivity, SUB traction.
7-year olds in Bow and Bethnal Green are talking about relativism now. I'm lost for words. [And after that, they went on to discuss division, and the brother set some sums for the sister, but she had to be helped.]
Also on the bus, on the return journey, was this small child wearing a yarmulka with his grandfather who had a very large nose (no stereotypes here). He was going somewhere with the grandfather and was very excited, sitting on the top deck and yelling (sweetly, not annoyingly). When the time came to alight he was all "Hurry up Grandad! Come on, come on! Let's go!" Even in the rain. It was sweet.
And also from the bus? I saw this woman in Cheapside - clearly on her way to somewhere else - catch sight of this A2-size poster on a phonebooth advertising an expensive chain strip club. She marched up to it, studied it, then grabbed a corner and carefully peeled it off. She then crumpled it and threw it in a bin.
Why? I'd say it was maybe because the ad was so lurid and tacky that it disgusted her, and removing paid-for adverts in broad daylight is a great step up from consciously defacing posters as a guerilla warfare tactic in the war against advertising. For a moment I thought, wow, good on you, lady; one down, 100,000 million to go; and in Cheapside, even, which is like the soul of capitalism. But maybe she had invested in a rival club, and was destroying the competition.
There was a brother and sister combo this morning, with dad. I'm not great at estimating kid ages, but the brother must've been 7, the sister 5 or 6 (the dad early thirties). The girl was sitting on the dad.
Sister: . . . and I don't need help with much. Nothing really, daddy. Only times tables.
Brother: Yeah, Sasha, I'm the one who helps you with times tables.
Sister: But other things, I can do other things. I like some tractors.
Dad: Tractors?
Brother: Hahahaha
Dad: Do you mean subtraction, honey?
Brother: Sasha! SUB marine, SUB traction.
Sister: Sun traction.
Brother: Sasha! SUB jectivity, SUB traction.
7-year olds in Bow and Bethnal Green are talking about relativism now. I'm lost for words. [And after that, they went on to discuss division, and the brother set some sums for the sister, but she had to be helped.]
Also on the bus, on the return journey, was this small child wearing a yarmulka with his grandfather who had a very large nose (no stereotypes here). He was going somewhere with the grandfather and was very excited, sitting on the top deck and yelling (sweetly, not annoyingly). When the time came to alight he was all "Hurry up Grandad! Come on, come on! Let's go!" Even in the rain. It was sweet.
And also from the bus? I saw this woman in Cheapside - clearly on her way to somewhere else - catch sight of this A2-size poster on a phonebooth advertising an expensive chain strip club. She marched up to it, studied it, then grabbed a corner and carefully peeled it off. She then crumpled it and threw it in a bin.
Why? I'd say it was maybe because the ad was so lurid and tacky that it disgusted her, and removing paid-for adverts in broad daylight is a great step up from consciously defacing posters as a guerilla warfare tactic in the war against advertising. For a moment I thought, wow, good on you, lady; one down, 100,000 million to go; and in Cheapside, even, which is like the soul of capitalism. But maybe she had invested in a rival club, and was destroying the competition.