Text Heavy- A Rant

When friends and family visit London, they are always shocked at my coldness to beggars on tramps on the street. Here is a tale that highlights why I am so cynical.

One summers eve Bianca and I were walking back to my flat from the station. This is now a routine part of party prep, stop home, make-up, heels, B tries on all my dresses and then we clatter out to which ever event we are heading. This particular evening a woman blocked our path as we were walking and chatting. She was short, squat in a tracksuit with cropped bleached hair and a jowlley jaw. Before we could say a word she burst into speech

'Oh hello girls, I wonder if you can help me, I've been up to about 5 women and they all looked at me as if I was about to steal from them. I'm not a beggar, I'm not a weirdo, I not on drugs, I had a fight with my bloke and I'm looking for £2.10 to get a bus home. I thought a woman would help me, we've got to stick together'.

This was delivered with a huffy, puffy, worldly tone with a much head shaking to emphasise her points- namely that as a fellow female we should adhere to a solidarity. Bianca and I sympathetically said that we had no change sorry, which I do believe was true at this time. She furiously condemned us for being a traitor to the female species and walked on her way.

It was perhaps a month later that I was sat with Christelle, maybe 10 minutes away from the station outside a bar. It was a Saturday afternoon and we were having a sneaky glass of wine in the rain. A woman was shuffling down the street and pulled up a metal chair at our table. I thought she looked familiar and it didn't take me long to realise why...

'Oh hello girls, I wonder if you can help me, I've been up to about 5 women and they all looked at me as if I was about to steal from them. I'm not a beggar, I'm not a weirdo, I not on drugs, I had a fight with my bloke and I'm looking for £2.10 to get a bus home. I thought a woman would help me, we've got to stick together'

EXACTLY THE SAME SPEECH. The copy paste tool has never been so easily used, everything, right from the 'I'm not a weirdo' to 'women sticking together'. I sat in disbelief listening to this parrot, and silently hoped that Christelle would not be taken in by the speel.

Luckily, Chris is also a cynic but this episode enraged me! Many beggars lie, I know that, and many also have their favourite one-liners, 'money for the donar kebab fund?', 'change for a ticket to Barbados?' these are regulars in my area but this woman...this woman was under the guise of a woman in need. She tried to steal from us by being disgusted at the lack of understanding between women, yet in doing so totally exploits the entire concept! To think I felt bad at Liverpool St leaving this woman in distress, to think that I felt I was letting down the sex. Her story uses a man exploiting a woman to pull the heart strings, when in fact she is exploiting many of us daily with her lies.

I caught the bus home tonight as it was tipping down with rain. Out of the window I watched pedestrians battling the downpour and saw a young girl being approached by the same woman. The girl's understanding face filled me with pity. I could see the woman shaking her head as she was probably receiting the very same speech again. I didn't see if she got her £2.10 for the bus.