I got off at a tube station in central London and climbed the steps to street level with every intention of hitting the book stores for a hangover-soothing browse. A guy stopped me at the exit. Shoes. Hair. Body odour. He wanted a pound.

It was a scam, obviously. Money for a “train ticket home.” But you get asked for a pound 300 times a day in this city, and I said I was sorry, but I didn’t have any cash. He asked for a cigarette. I said “Sorry…” but before I could make a further excuse, he snatched my glasses clean off my face. Those would be, and this is worth noting, a pair of vaguely expensive, uninsured glasses.

“Feel vulnerable?” he enquired, “Because that’s how I feel every day.”

I could only admit that I did. This news seemed to cheer him.

“Let’s go to the cash machine…you get out ten pounds and I’ll give you this handful of change. Or I could just smash your glasses,” he informed me.

I thought I could reason with him on the way, but being British, it seemed a bit confrontational, so I just went along with it, assuming he might be struck by a bout of spontaneous guilt and politely withdraw the threat of his own accord.

The cash machine was on an annoyingly deserted street, and as I approached it, my thieving chaperone politely hung back, out of camera shot. I hesitated over the withdrawal, wondering where everybody was all of a sudden. no annoying crowds when you actually need them, oh no.

I took as long as I could, fumbling with my wallet, pretending to struggle to remember my PIN, but in the absence of anybody happening by, it eventually became socially embarrassing for me NOT to carry on with the transaction, and I did what was necessary and sheepishly proffered the ten pound note.

He grabbed it and I reached, with apparent misguided optimism, for my glasses.

“It’s still not enough.”

“But you have…”

“DON’T MAKE A F***ING SCENE. I’M ON DRUGS,” he added, helpfully showing me his medication, or at least a tube he may have shoplifted from a pharmacy. I guess shouting “I’M ON PRESCRIPTION DRUGS” doesn’t really have the same drama to it.

In any case, the tragedy of being held up with a pair of my own spectacles and a small bottle of antacid tablets was not lost on me.

“Get another £10 out…my wife’s waiting for me. She’s pregnant. And…crying.”

It wasn’t really surprising, I thought, having to bring HIS offspring into the world. But I’m a sucker for a sob story coupled with increasing threats of violence, and whilst I resignedly withdrew once more, he began to open up a little more.

“I don’t usually beg for money…I sometimes sell property in the south of France.”

I assured him he wasn’t in any way begging and complimented him on an interesting career change.

“Don’t f***ing laugh at me, glasses boy.”

I thought about arguing the semantics, since technically, HE was glasses boy at that precise moment, but by now I just wanted out.

I gave him ten pounds more. He thankfully handed over the glasses, suddenly becoming the epitome of politeness.

“Look, can I please take an address so that I can send the money back to you?”

I imagined that this was street talk for “Can I sit outside your house and then relieve you of all your possessions whist you’re at work?”, so I wrote down Sherlock Holme’s address, cursed the day I ever moved to this town, and ducked back into the tube.

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