I was walking through Shepherd's with a friend. She was dissing my hood (that's neighbourhood, grandad) saying what an awful place I lived in. I am fiercely proud of the shithole that I call home and defended it against these libellous accusations. Sure the Bush might not be for everyone and many of the people it is for are fighting men, tramps, the drug addicts, gangsters, pimps and hos, but that doesn't mean it can't be for ordinary folks too (though I qualify on at least three of the above categories). Anyway, I like SB. It's fucking cool. She thought it was the kind of place where you could see someone getting stabbed. I told her that I had seen nothing like that in four years here. The worst that had happened was when
a bus hit a lamp post. Later I remembered that I had also witnessed
a fight that had ended up on the bonnet of my taxi, but that was it. In four years. It's no Liverpool.
We went for a drink in the Albertine wine bar - yes and if Shepherd's Bush is so shit, how come it has a wine bar then? See, you can't answer, can you? Because it isn't shit. QED.
After leaving the bar at about 10, we were walking down one of the Bush's main roads, when I noticed a trail of liquid on the pavement in front of us. OK, so the Bush might have a few effluents flowing through its streets, but that doesn't make it a bad place. What part of London to drunk men or dogs not wee in the streets? Maybe not as much as they do in the Bush, but my point stands.
But what was disconcerting about this particular wee trail was still moving and growing. It was a wee that was still being weed. Although common sense might have dictated that looking back to see where the wee was coming from was a bad idea, but human curiosity overrides sense. I looked back and saw that where the pavement slightly widened by a little path off to a primary school a man was crouching and excreting more than just urine. He wasn't hidden, he hadn't made any attempt to get behind a wall or somewhere more out of sight, he was just going for it. There, in broad streetlight.
You may not be surprised to hear that the man was one of the more ravaged homeless people from the area, it might be more surprising if a businessman had been caught short and decided just to go for it there in the street, especially as there was a church with a bit of waste ground behind it right next to where the defecator was squatting. That's where a businessman would have done a shit.
After all I had said this was the worst thing that could have happened. Shepherd's Bush had really shown itself up after I had defended it so vehemently. It had never been like this before, but now when we had visitors it had let itself down.
"Yeah, there you go. That's Shepherd's Bush," I told my friend, "Wonderful Shepherd's Bush".
Another couple were passing and had seen the same thing. The woman was looking disgusted, whilst the man was giggling childishly, especially as I mocked our fine suburb. "It's disgusting," said the woman,"Right by the school as well. Think of the children." Which just made me laugh more.
But don't judge Shepherd's Bush by this or the time that there was that
fatal shooting in Nando's (you don't get that with Chicken Cottage). It is a good place to come, either on holiday or to work or live. In fact if you want to come here, after tonight I am thinking of selling my house.
