Tissues and Lies

There’s this guy. I don’t particularly like him and I’m not usually the kind of person who goes round not liking people. He used to live next-door-but-one before I moved. The neighbours used to tell us never to let him into your house because he would, on occasion, remove his trousers. He also had a penchant for going into people’s back gardens, a peeping tom thing I guess. What is a contributory factor in the off-puttingness about this man is the Mark Lamarr, fifties throwback look; the greased quiff – always a winner if you need a look for a bad guy in a British drama: see Little Voice, Wish You Were Here. The man’s reputation was sealed in my mind however when I pulled up behind his Rover in the supermarket car park. He had a box of tissues on the back parcel shelf. I’ll admit it’s not a massive crime and those embossed gold ones you often see on the back of city centre taxi cabs are the essence of high cool. But when you have a box of man-size tissues near your back seat, what signals is this really sending out and what sort of passengers is he carrying? I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. If you’re that concerned about people making a mess in the back of your Rover, don’t let them eat sausage rolls.