a propos rien

The French will tell you that your French is good but I suspect it is the same way people tell children, "My, how big you are getting". Everyone knows kids are freakishly small humans but it wouldn't be cricket to point it out to them and everyone else.

In Lille, France, there is a postman that looks exactly like Dick Cheney. When I passed him I mused about what the world would be like if that anti-human's machinations were confined to a few blocks of this provincial Northern town. It is true that those on his route would suffer greatly. Children would receive Christmas cards with the money taken and his scrawling handwriting telling them their parents are liars and there is no Santa. People would find their elderly relatives on the ground howling with pain after he had kicked them in the shins and thrown their mail in their faces. I suppose people would also tire of taping together the letters after mailman Cheney had once again ripped in half their mail before shoving through into the neighbor's box. But, they would be the martyrs for mankind. If it meant a better world, I would selflessly endure once more that hemmoroid I had that looked like the head of Karl Rove.

On the tube again. Just can't wait to get on the tube again

The man beside me on the train poured into his lap two handfuls of cigarette butts. He pinched their contents into a plastic tobacco pouch and, with pickpocket deftness, placed the emptied paper and filter husks into the coat pockets of the business man that stood in front of us. The man gave a nod of acknowledgement to the two snickering teenage boys across from us.