I was nearly mown down by an errant taxi this weekend! Before you all rush off to purchase black armbands let me assure you that I am no longer in a critical condition.
Normally, I would hold myself accountable for trespassing recklessly onto a congested street. I cannot begin to count the number of friends to whom I owe my life. These superheroes usually clench me fiercely by the neck just as I am about to launch myself in front of the nearest motorised juggernaut.
However, as I stood on Brick Lane last Saturday, I made no attempt to play Kamikaze. Any reveller ‘worth their salt’ will tell you that Brick Lane itself is ostensibly pedestrianised. The only wheeled vehicles that venture down its cobbled walkways are either taxis or stolen bicycles. Not surprisingly, those cars that do attempt to venture through the milieu of partygoers will be moving no more quickly than the street’s indigenous population of prostrate inebriates. This detail proved to be particularly fortuitous when I felt a tyre make hostile contact with my right leg.
As I stared through the windscreen at the idiot cabbie with a mixture of bafflement, incredulity and an overwhelming sense of my own mortality, I wondered what might have happened if he had been travelling at a normal velocity. The fact that he can’t have been clocking more than 10 miles per-hour when he hit me only added to my hatred of that segment of society bereft of brain-cells. I know I should try to suffer fools more gladly but, for the love of Shreddies, did I really need to be wearing a high visibility jacket and some flashing Christmas lights to ensure my own safety!
After petulantly noting the offending number-plate, I limped along to my party and proceeded to regale attendees with tales of my brush with death.
The shrewd amongst you will realise that, had my injury been remotely terminal, I would have been in A & E, rather than by the spirits cabinet in my friend’s conservatory. My only defence can be that I was the hapless victim of an injustice and that I had been drinking. And, as we all know, drinkers are prone to exaggerate, particularly if they happen to be theatrical ponces.
This time I escaped with a battered calf muscle but next time I may not be so lucky.
Ps: It galls me that I wasn’t even offered a free lift. I mean, the mini-cab driver knew that he had put me in a state of diminished mobility. I ask you, is there no compassion left in this world!? Perhaps he was aiming for me and, if that really was the case, who can blame him.
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