I bump into a man

Esther rang, asking what I was up to; it was code for "could you come round for a bit and dilute my mother?"

We spent the afternoon watching Royal Ascot and checking for any frailties that might give Esther hope of inheriting. We only started with the second race but Esther's mum went straight the card with winners. We tortured ourselves by calculating that a £5 accumulator would have netted £7000.

At the last possible moment, I am clutched from the jaws of my mum's house in Middlesbrough.

In a hotel room designed to drained all vitality from those who enter, I joined two other people at a presentation by a catering agency. We went through some health and safety questions, before we were tested on them by giving a thumbs up or thumbs down corresponding to the veracity of the statement presented.

The following day, at another agency, I was interviewed by a woman half my age. I only realised as I was walking home that I had had a button in the central chest area undone throughout the interview. No doubt mesmerised by a glimpse of my front elevation, she rang up and offered me a gig for Saturday.

It was for a "family fun day" for people connected with a local arms manufacturer. The inside tables were all set out around Concorde. The exhibits included this huge ugly missile launcher, painted battlefield green, looming twenty feet over children being introduced by their parents to modern "defence" equipment. We were outside all day. I was helping man the salad stall; mounds of colourful, glistening vegetables and feta, which served as my delicious tea.

Apart from slicing a tiny sliver of my finger skin into the cucumber salad after an argument with a mandoline, I got through unscathed. I did try to find it to fish it out, but cucumber's a slippery customer, so whoever got that portion of salad was unknowingly induced into a bit of cannibalism. l felt like God yesterday; a living presence in another.

Down the pub with Hayley, Mick, and a little of his excellent speed which manages to be both soft and powerful. For all the eccentricity of Mick's manner, his voluble and often unidirectional talk while he see-saws on his walking stick like a Russian doll, he's bright; he also never says anything even remotely unkind, dismissive or sexual to Hayley.

Next day, I meet her in town after her job interview. "All he did was talk about himself." We sit in the park drinking Polish lager out of tins coloured Alcoholic Black. What a lovely girlfriend you'd be. "My first boyfriend Mel, he went to jail for seven years..." She's an artist with a talent in inverse proportion to the amount of remuneration it attracts, and is meeting a man who might be able to arrange some studio facilities. She doesn't like him for some reason and wants me with her.

In the street, we meet The Black Potentate -- the man who astonished me in single-handedly, wordlessly, breaking up the ruckus I was involved in a few weeks ago. He always greets me cordially, which gives me that location-less quiver that comes from meeting a person of whom one feels unworthy. I'm still learning his physical language. I've just about mastered the fist pump, but I need practice with the Opposing Shoulder Bump.