Merthyrsexual and Canton Crooks

We have the painters in...well, builders actually – at home, next door and now at work – is there to be no escape from improperly clad young men singing loudly and tunelessly to Radio One. Flaunting their tanned bodies and stretching their muscles – so annoying. (Do I sound even a tad convincing?)

I have my camera(s) at the ready but by the end of day three the sanding begins and we all need masks so as not to breathe in the fine dust – although the masks don’t keep out the lovely smell of the chips they have for lunch each day.

We move our desks to the front room of the building and have a view of the usual Canton crowd – hoodies and pick pockets hang about the kebab shop, bumping into people and stashing the wallets on the lintel above the door so they have no evidence on them if frisked. Knock off DVDs are sold and cars pull up and do the funny handshake – not the Freemason’s one but the one where cash and stash are passed none too surreptitiously.

Years ago Joe Jackson sang about “pretty women out walking with Gorillas down my street”. Now we look out and see well groomed, fashionably dressed young men with waddling girlfriends whose fat hangs over their low-waisted trackie bottoms and badly strangled hair. The men have made an effort although they still look a bit bender-like Beckham. Their clothes are cheap if trendy and their hair a little too streaked - Methyrsexual rather than Metrosexual. When we now ask “Is she really going out with him?” we are just wondering if she knows her boyfriend is gay?