Wednesday, March 08, 2006

(78) Canning... caning

V
On the evening of December 4th 1991 I was watching a scrabble game between Murray Sharp and a chap called Paul in the Blue Bridge Café in Camden, North London. A dispute arose over the word ‘canning’, which one of them had put down. It was suggested that it might be either a form of the verb to can or to cane. I am unsure how this was resolved, although the dictionary was consulted.

A few hours later two girls who worked there, Sarah and ‘Tigger’, arrived. They noticed that a card had recently been stuck on the notice board. It advertised the services of a prostitute and mentioned caning as one of the options she provided.
For some reason one of the girls seized on this and went on and on about canning.
"What’s canning?", she kept on asking.
I said that this formed a striking coincidence with earlier events in the same room.

And was met with the nastiest and most sarcastic of responses from Tigger.

No comments: