A Million Reasons for Wanting to Carry on Living

As I was walking down to the tube today in my usual slow acclimatisation to the horror that is pre-8 a.m., and thinking to myself that it was warm - not sunny, but definitely March-like, I passed a man jogging. "Morning, Baba", he said to me and I looked confusedly at him before carrying on my way. Whatever could he mean? Baba?? Is that some kind of streetslang for 'baby'? Or for something more offensive? Was he calling me an elephant? Is it a term that black men call white women, or am I just being paranoid/borderline racist? Was he making an arcane reference to Ba Ba Rainbow Sheep that the Daily Express got so upset about (and if anyone could explain to me the Express's campaign against death duties, I'd be grateful. "Inheritance Tax is THEFT" (you can buy car bumper stickers and everything). Whatever next? PAYE is larceny? National Insurance Contributions=burglary? VAT is mugging? I can just see those people from the Inland Revenue making the Express journalists an offer they can't refuse). Perhaps he has a friend called Barbara whom everyone calls Baba and he had mistaken me for her (indeed people are always telling me they've seen or met someone who is my doppelganger, although the only person I've met who looks like me is Richard from Hood and he is a man, if I'm not mistaken). It was rather perpelexing. What do I do if I see him again? On one hand, I don't want to resort to the retorts I make to the men who have developed White Van Tourettes Syndrome, but on the other I don't want to give my biggest bestest grin to someone I don't know who calls me 'Baba'. 

Perhaps I should do one of those "I-don't-really-know-you-but-I'm-prepared-to-be-polite-as-an-antidote-to-the-rage-that-so-blights-society-nowadays-and-by-this-mild-grimace-I-am-actually-stopping-the-breakdown-of-civilisation" pretend English smiles.

In other news, after reading the papers over shoulders on the tube, I thought Jensmania had finally hit Britain this morning, but no, an 'English' football team has drawn 0-0 with a 'Spanish' football team. From the roary noise we could hear from the kitchen last night, we thought the Arsenal must be winning 6-0 or something.