Overheard

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Introduction

Toy Story

Zip It

The Heroic Potato

The Speculators

The Grieving Process

The Fablus Flautist

The Ear Complaint

Yorkshire Watter

You can’t cheat yer Nan

Year Zero

The Dry-Cleaner

The Crunch

Would You?

The Communication Age

The School Trip

The Comedic Properties of Fruit

Winsor

The Chocolate Teapot

Why?

Reclassifying the Kids

The Art of Luvvy

Wolves

Telegraph Road

Stranger in Town

‘Spolicy

The Man Who Has Everything

Snappy Shopper

The Washing-line of Hope

Scusting

Memorable Elephants

The Endless Queue

Two Birds Having It Off

Multicultural, innit?

The Hot Date

S&M in the High Street

Romance

Rice

Taking Stock

Public Inconvenience

Controversy

Potty

Parenthood

Over-inflated

Not the Done Thing

Nah, Mate!

Mothers

The Celebrity and the Portaloo

Tourist Information

Jimmy Scumbag’s Report

Man’s Best Friend

Tea? Coffee?

Innocence

Maltesers

History Repeating Itself

Mad as a Bee

Goths

Arsebergers

It’s the Thought That Counts

Learning by Example

Fast Food

It Takes Me Back

Esmerelda

Good Genes ain’t Everything

A Building Term

Giving Direction

Battery-powered

Generation XXX

Balham?

Gazebo

Dullest Cat Food Story in the World

Front or Back Bottom?

Death of a Hamster

Finding Sense

Don’t Go There

Focking Americans!

Bounced

Conditioning

Cheese People

As if!

Chalk

Casanova on the 137

Biting Jelly

Dimensions

Cannon Balls-up

A Good Investment

No Great Shakes

Greek

Pity

Care in the Community

Where You Hide Yourself

Offender Profile

Unexpected Delivery

The Birthday Buddy

Undersize Me

Caffé Americano

Man’s Other Best Friends

Objects of Desire

Business

Scaring the Extras

A Mother’s Lament

A Really Swish Showhome

Glee Club

Brazil Nuts

Trouble with Snails

Tough Love

The Tourists

Boys Will Be…

The Naturalist’s Needs

A Higher Power

Boing!

Too Much Information

There!

Salt of the Earth to Planet Boyfriend

The Important Stuff

A Traveller’s Tale

Come Together

Catch 23

Andy’s Do

Another Woman

Memories

Americans in London

Meat

Bliss

Microcosm

Enough Underwear

Bad Medicine

Bacteria

Into the Wild

Guántanamo

The Stuff of Dreams

Guests

Cool

A Simple Truth

A Cracking Bit of Cheese

Haggling

The Inheritance

A Generous Helping

The Suspect

The Actor Who Couldn’t

Teutonic Plates

A Song for Pyewacket

Tara’s Terror

Snippets from a Six-Year-Old

School’s Out

Sculptures

Burning Bright

Not Being Minnie Driver

Expressing Creativity

The Alison Technique

The Grass Being Greener

Mixed Messages

Milk with Three

Bladdy Tourists!

Jeffrey & the Tramp

Jessica’s News

Royal Insecurity

The Lost Aisle

Stripping Off

So, Do You Know Liam?

Ageing Michelle

Fashionable

Culture

RSVP

Santi

Taking Direction from Stanley Kubrick

The Bottom Line

The Muralist’s Tales

The Phantom Pregnancy

Two Very Different Travellers

Mental Lentils

In a Hole

Fruit

Expectations

Everybody Loves Madeira

Ten Seconds of Fame

Rabbit

The Rastafarian Good Food Guide

Charity

Get a Job

Headucation

I Wanna be Adopted

Management Material

All Change

Blackies

A Missed Opportunity

The Gen on Jenna

The Pottery Shop part 1

The Pottery Shop part 2

Social Skills

The Art Lover

Coitus Infinitum

Fair Trade

Animal Trouble

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

Neither of us is quite sure exactly when we each started making a note of other people’s conversations, foibles and quips, but it began a long time before we met.

The decision to turn our little hobby into a book itself probably started with a conversation with friends. Someone probably laughed out loud or put their hands over their mouth in delighted shock, then said something along the lines of, ‘You should write that down.’

So we did. We employed many techniques: eavesdropping, ear-wigging, a little lurking, nebbing, overhearing and snooping, to name but a few. Occasionally little nuggets have been passed down to us by conspiratorial friends who really should know better.

The result, we discovered, was a kind of kitchen sink snapshot of society caught resolutely off its guard, being real, being funny, occasionally sad—even terrifying. It spans every age, class and racial divide—a nation united in inanity.

It seems that the richest vault of human comedy and drama is around us all the time if we just stop, turn off our phones, MP3 players and laptops, and listen.

So why not just turn off, tune out and listen in? Who knows what you might be about to hear, and what you might do with it.

Mark Love & Jacqui Saunders

2008

Overheard something that you’d like to share? You can submit your own ear-wiggings at:

www.overheardconversations.com

PS Oh, just one more thing before we go…Just to make it very clear that the opinions and views expressed by the people in these conversations are absolutely NOT those of the authors or their publishers.

Toy Story

A town centre toy store, mid-December, and the manager and a Sales Assistant are staring intently at the stock on the shelves.

SALES ASSISTANT: Dunno what it is but Barbie’s just not going this year.

MANAGER: Hmmmm…What if we put Superman on top of Barbie? Do you think that’ll get her going?

SALES ASSISTANT: Nnnh, I don’t know…

MANAGER: No! I know! Put Barbie on top of Superman. Yeah, that should get her going!

Zip It

A shop owner has been questioning her male assistant over a prolonged absence from work.

SHOP OWNER: So you’re saying you were off for three weeks because you had an accident with your zip?

ASSISTANT: It’s not funny! Little accidents can turn into something very nasty. I could have died. I was very ill, you ask Frank.

SHOP OWNER: You could have died? What actually happened?

ASSISTANT: I told you, I had an accident with my zip.

SHOP OWNER: Can you be a bit more precise? This is three weeks, not three days.

ASSISTANT: Look, I got it stuck in my zipper.

SHOP OWNER: You got your thing stuck in your zip and it took you three weeks to get over it? Marge had triplets and she was back at work six days later.

ASSISTANT: I got blood poisoning. I’ve only just got over it.

SHOP OWNER: How do you get blood poisoning from getting your thing caught in your zip?

ASSISTANT: I don’t know! But I did! It was really serious at one point. I almost died.

SHOP OWNER: Well that would have meant for an interesting obituary, wouldn’t it?

The Heroic Potato

A teacher has been leading a general studies lesson on genetic engineering. Kirsten, at the front of the class, folds her arms, purses her lips and shakes her head slowly.

KIRSTEN: I just don’t think it’s right messing ’bout with nature, miss. They should leave it alone.

TEACHER: Okay, but what about some of the positive effects of genetic engineering, like being able to grow disease-resistant crops?

KIRSTEN: I just don’t want a carrot that’s been messed ’bout with on my plate. It don’t have to be perfect and all that…

HALEY: Yeah, it doesn’t need to be straight.

TEACHER: Okay, has anyone here heard of the suicidal potato?

CLASS: The what?

TEACHER: Scientists have created a suicidal potato. Basically it recognises when it’s become diseased and kills itself off to stop the disease spreading through the rest of the crop.

A wave of oohs and ahs.

KIRSTEN: Oh no, that’s all right, miss! That’s more heroic, innit? I’d be proud to have that on me plate.

The Speculators

On a commuter train travelling between West Croydon and Balham, a husband tries to read as he is talked at by his excited wife.

WIFE: Darling, you never listen to me about things like this but you have to listen this time! If property prices in Battersea are going through the roof then it’s obvious that Balham will be next. Where I used to live, Blandfield Road; beautiful terraces, close to the tube, good school on your doorstep, Wandsworth Common just up the road…I’m telling you, if we bought a couple now we could make a killing! We’ve got to do this, Roger, it’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities…And the real beauty of it is, nobody else knows about it!

HUSBAND: I think they do now, dear.

The Grieving Process

A young girl reacts to the news that mummy and daddy are splitting up.

ELLA: After Christmas, Mummy, can we get a new daddy? Joe was nice…

The Fablus Flautist

A couple fondly reminisce outside Ely Cathedral.

WOMAN: I mean, he was just a wizard on that flute.

MAN: Was he the bloke we saw at the Guild Hall?

WOMAN: No.

MAN: Oh, d’you mean the bloke at…You know, the one we saw at that theatre.

WOMAN: Noooo.

MAN: I know who you mean! That fella we saw at the outdoor concert.

WOMAN: That’s him!

MAN: Oh yeah, he was fablus, wasn’t he? Really fablus!

The Ear Complaint

A man visits his doctor with an ear complaint.

DOCTOR: Have you had this kind of trouble before?

MAN: No.

DOCTOR: Are you a wheezy type?

MAN: I have very mild asthma. Nothing serious.

DOCTOR: Right well, let’s have look then. Good ear first…Aha. And now the bad ear.

MAN: Ow!

DOCTOR: Oh yes, it seems quite inflamed. Does this hurt?

MAN: Ow, yes!

DOCTOR: Right. So have you been using a cotton bud in there or anything?

MAN: No, nothing like that.

DOCTOR: Hmm. Matchstick?

MAN: No.

DOCTOR: Pencil? Pen?

MAN: I’m absolutely positive that I haven’t put anything at all in my ear.

DOCTOR: Well, it’s worth asking. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I encounter in this job. Tell you what, I’ll make you out a prescription for some antibiotic ear drops. That should do the job…Knitting needle?

MAN: I’m sorry?

DOCTOR: You didn’t use a knitting needle at all?

MAN: No, nothing at all.

DOCTOR: Okay then. Right, there you go. That’s two drops, three times daily. Just sort of waggle it around gently with your finger to make sure it all gets in and come back if that doesn’t do the trick, okay?

MAN: Thanks very much…I assure you I haven’t put anything in my ear that I shouldn’t have.

DOCTOR: Oh I believe you. It’s just unusual that’s all…You didn’t have a swipe around with a bus ticket, then?

Yorkshire Watter

An elderly northern man is talking about his youth.

MAN: Me Dad were a miner, so he spent most of his working life down t’pit. But when he were topside, on a Sunday like, he fancied himself as a bit of an outdoors man. When it were fine he’d take us in t’countryside for some fresh air. Said it helped his cough like. Somehow he’d always make sure there were a stream for us to play in and he’d make a big thing about taking a drink out of it. He’d say, ‘Lord there’s nowt finer than Yorkshire watter.’ He drank gallons of the stuff. Anyway, this one day he fancied walking a bit further, so after we’d built a dam and he’d had his usual drink, we toddled off upstream. Course we ’adn’t gone far when we sees this bloody sheep in t’stream, didn’t we? Swelled up like a bloody beach ball it were. Must have been dead for days. He weren’t so keen ont’watter after that, I can tell thee.

You can’t cheat yer Nan

A rather brash young woman is walking through a very select area of west London with her hounded-looking grandmother.

WOMAN: ’ow can yer cheat on yer Nan? It’s not possible, yer mi Nan!

GRANDMOTHER: Shhh.

WOMAN: But how can yer do it? You can’t. It’s not possible to cheat on yer Nan!

GRANDMOTHER: Shhh.

WOMAN: I’m not using you. Yer me Nan! But yer shutting me out. It’s like, cos I’ve decided I’m doing this, yer shutting me out and I’ve got to do it all on me own. Yer shutting me out!

GRANDMOTHER: Don’t you think I’m entitled to shut you out after all what you’ve done?

WOMAN: But yer me Nan! I’d let you stay at my place any time you wanted. I’d let you eat me food, ’ave a bath, anything! Cos you’re my Nan!

GRANDMOTHER: Shhhh.

WOMAN: And I moved out of your house to give you more room. That’s what I did for you! And now yer shutting me out. I’m not cheating you. You can’t cheat yer Nan!

Year Zero

A publisher stands before her assembled staff to deliver a rousing, morale-boosting speech.

PUBLISHER:…so I know we’ve had our problems. I know that the recent redundancies have caused insecurity, as has the speculation about the ownership of the title, but I want you…or rather I want us, to now put all that behind us and concentrate on building a future for ourselves and the magazine. Today is year zero. Nothing that happened before today matters. All disputes are forgiven and forgotten. Clear slates all around and that includes the naysayers too. I want a better attitude, a more positive attitude. No more grumbling in corners. If you’ve got something to say, you can come and say it to me direct, I won’t hold it against you. Remember—year zero, all right? Okay, let’s go to lunch.

SUB-EDITOR: (quietly) Er, wasn’t year zero the process of systematic slaughter of innocent people by an insane dictator?

STAFF WRITER: Yup. Business as usual then.

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