(no subject)

Down in an underpass under Park Lane on Friday there's a busker playing a tin whistle. About ten metres further along lies an old, drunk, toothless tramp—trouble not, delicate reader, this one had no romantic designs on me, that's not where this is going—shouting at him: “Shut up with your fucking playing. That’s all I fucking hear. Why’ve you got to come down here and play when I’m trying to fucking sleep?”

The busker stops playing. “You can sleep anywhere in London,” he says plaintively.

“That’s right,” the tramp replies blurrily, “and I choose to sleep here. You can fucking play anywhere in London.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” says the busker, and resumes playing.

“You carry on playing, I’ll fucking get up in a minute and come over there,” slurs the tramp. The busker stops, says “Yeah? Come on then”, and tootles his whistle at him.

“I’ll fucking come over there,” says the tramp. The busker emits a provocative flourish.

“Don’t make me fucking get up,” rails the tramp. The busker chirrups at him merrily.

Repeat to fade as I leave. If I’d had change it would have been worth seeing the effect of giving it to the busker; I think the tramp would have detonated out of sheer rage.

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Talking of folk poetry in underpasses, my mother reports these two pieces of graffiti next to each other in the underpass on her route to work, both followed by a different phone number: “I do back door” and, enticingly, “I stab poo”. Same product, yet quite different campaigns. I'd love to know which number gets more calls.

(no subject)

A Philippines judge who said he consulted imaginary mystic dwarves has failed to convince the Supreme Court to allow him to keep his job.

Florentino Floro was appealing against a three-year inquiry which led to his removal due to incompetence and bias.

He told investigators three mystic dwarves - Armand, Luis and Angel - had helped him to carry out healing sessions during breaks in his chambers.

The court said psychic phenomena had no place in the judiciary. The bench backed a medical finding that the judge was suffering from psychosis.

The Manila trial judge had asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the complaint and return him to the bench, after being sacked in April. “They should not have dismissed me for what I believed,” Mr Floro told reporters after filing his appeal in May.

The judge said he had made a covenant with his dwarf friends that he could write while in a trance and that he had been seen by several people in two places at the same time. Judge Floro reportedly changed from blue court robes to black each Friday “to recharge his psychic powers”.

In a letter to the court he said: "From obscurity, my name and the three mystic dwarves became immortal."

However, the Supreme Court said dalliance with dwarves would gradually erode the public's acceptance of the judiciary as the guardian of the law, if not make it an object of ridicule.