Nell Williams, writer
To make matters worse, the public toilet in our local Asda is situated right next to the fresh produce, so not only are people spitting on the bags, but they’re handling the marrows immediately after handling their unmentionables.
I made sure I gave him a very wide berth. He looked incapacitated. If I just kept walking quickly and didn’t make eye contact, maybe I’d be okay. I got past him, but I still felt uneasy. Then I heard them. The footsteps behind me.
Gone are the days when whole families would gather round the wireless, listening with bated breath to the cut-glass enunciation and gravitas-filled tones of a dickie-bow-clad announcer giving them the news of the day.
But the most annoying people? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the self-appointed online Grammar Police. The hairdressers, pianists, bank clerks and clinicians of this world who love to correct the punctuation and grammar of everyone else on social media.
I have no idea how to construct a lasagne or do the front crawl, but if you come back from the hairdressers looking like a Yorkshire terrier that’s just lost a fight with a Flymo, I’m going to point that out.
We should all feel free to speak out without fear of retribution. If we see an injustice, we should speak out against it. If we see a lack of knowledge, we should educate.
Strangers wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t appreciate the convenience of the butt-flap onesie. Unthinkable warmth and practicality in the same garment, like one of Dr Seuss’s Thneeds.
OCD is not an adjective. It is a debilitating mental health disorder. The acronym OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. You cannot ‘be’ a disorder. You can ‘have’ a disorder, but you cannot ‘be’ one.
When he looked at her, he didn’t see a tiny, frail old woman with failing eyesight and bony hands.
I’ll never forget getting the Number 65 bus to Ealing Broadway, with a carrier bag full of piss that sloshed about every time the driver hurled round a corner or slammed on his brakes to avoid an errant cyclist. Happy days.