Recession? What Recession?

I was queuing to board the 18:28 service to Waterloo this evening when I noticed that all other passengers were staring at a spot on the platform floor near the train's doors.

I looked down and saw a one-pound coin. The train's doors opened, the passengers got onto the train one by one, the doors closed and the one-pound coin was still there on the floor when the train pulled away.

You see, we live in a part of the world where it's uncool to pick up a one-pound coin from the floor – where people can afford to walk away nonchalantly from a one-pound coin on the floor, when someone is getting throttled for even less somewhere else.

Mind you, it could have been one of those one-pound coins stuck to the floor with superglue, like the one I tried to wrangle off the asphalt in Hammersmith a few years ago. . .

Certainly people are even less fussy later on at night. I was queuing before the change dispenser at Waterloo station's toilets before boarding the 10:30 train tonight, and someone in front of me slotted in 50p and left a whole 20p below – two-thirds of a piss's worth – to be collected.

I thanked again London's generosity and moved on . . .

AG