Right time, wrong place.

It was midnight last night and I had dozed off in bed reading The Independent. My phone rang. It was my best of all best friends, she has a habit of doing this, of phoning me on the way home from a night out. However, I hadn't spoken to her for a month and I had been a bit concerned so I let her off. I say "spoken" advisedly; our conversations are generally one-sided but not through design. I rarely get a decent go. She is also not easily embarrassed. Again, this is not through design, it just happens. We both went on a train once, in the rush hour. She didn't use trains as she lived in central London at the time. "You've never really been on a train before in the rush-hour, have you?" I said. "People are looking at us." She is immense fun, on top of being drop-dead gorgeous.

Last night she was on the tube. After half an hour of me trying to get a word in she suddenly said, "Where are we? Oh, Pinner" then broke down in gales of laughter. "Two blokes have just got off. They were sitting opposite me. One of them asked me as he went past, 'Don't you ever take a breath?' "

There were so many replies I would have given had I been there.