A small parable of our times
There I was, late on a Saturday evening, drifting between thoughts about ideology, AI, German history, the nature of consciousness, and the meaning of life — when there came a knock at the door.
A knock at 8.30pm. On a Saturday. In St Thomas.
I opened one eye, wondering whether it was an emergency, a neighbour in distress, or perhaps the universe sending me a sign. Instead, standing at my gate was a small, slightly forlorn woman holding a briefcase at an angle that suggested both “Authority” and “Please don’t shout at me.” Her head was cocked to one side in a way that instantly reminded me of the pigeons I’d seen earlier in town — the ones who hover hopefully near your sandwich, waiting for a crumb of human kindness.
She addressed me by name, apologised for the hour, and then — with the earnestness of someone who had clearly rehearsed this line — asked whether I agreed that Kemi was doing a wonderful job. It was only then, still half‑asleep and without my tooth plate, that the penny dropped: I was being canvassed.
At 8.30pm. On a Saturday. By a woman barely taller than my gate, standing like a hopeful pigeon with a briefcase.
What followed was a surreal exchange involving weeds, public conveniences, and my attempt to speak without opening my lips. But the moment itself — that knock interrupting my reflections on the fate of ideology — felt like a perfect snapshot of the times we live in: the examined life colliding with the unexamined world.
“The Weeds, the Loos, and the Pigeon‑Postured Canvasser”
Once I’d recovered from the shock of seeing a pigeon‑postured emissary of democracy at my gate, she launched into the standard script. Potholes, she said, were a major concern in the area. This is now compulsory in British politics — the pothole has become the national symbol of decline, the secular equivalent of original sin.
But as I no longer have a car, potholes are not high on my personal hierarchy of needs. I told her so, trying to speak without revealing the absence of my tooth plate, which gave the whole exchange the air of a man attempting to negotiate municipal policy through ventriloquism.
She looked momentarily lost, as if the briefing notes had not prepared her for a constituent who did not drive. So I glanced across the road for inspiration and saw the neighbour’s wall, sprouting weeds like a botanical uprising. And out it came:
“Weeds. That is the problem that most concerns me.”
Her face lit up. Weeds! A breakthrough! A real issue she could sink her teeth into — unlike me, who at that moment had no teeth to sink anywhere.
She nodded vigorously, as if I had just revealed a deep structural flaw in the British constitution. “Oh yes, weeds,” she said. “They are a terrible problem.”
I could see her mentally filing it away in the briefcase: St Thomas — plagued by weeds.
Then came the second question: “Anything else?”
By this point I was becoming acutely aware of my bladder. I am, as they say, in that demographic. So I mentioned the lack of public conveniences in town — many having been shut down over the years. This, too, delighted her. Her eyes widened with the joy of a canvasser who has finally found a talking point that fits the demographic before her.
“For someone such as yourself,” she said, with the tact of a well‑meaning but slightly clumsy niece, “how do you manage?”
I explained that being on a bike, I could fly back down the hill in minutes if nature called. This seemed to reassure her. She nodded solemnly, as if I had revealed a personal resilience strategy worthy of a government white paper.
And the more I thought about it afterwards, the more I realised how extraordinarily lucky she had been to knock on my door. Anywhere else in St Thomas at 8.30pm on a Saturday and her fate might have been very different.
Had she tried:
- a house full of football fans mid‑match
- a house waiting for a pizza delivery
- a house deep into Britain’s Got Talent
- a house with a dog that treats doorbells as a personal insult
…she might have found herself retreating down the path at speed, briefcase held over her head like a shield. In some parts of town, she would have been fortunate to escape with the briefcase intact, let alone her morale or dignity.
And then it struck me: in other parts of the world, a knock at the door at 8.30pm on a Saturday might mean something far more dramatic. The local mafia coming to collect their weekly cut. The police arriving to frame you for the neighbourhood murder. Someone desperate, seeking refuge from deportation. But here, in Britain, I get a lady with a briefcase doing a passable impression of a pigeon. Only in Britain.
But she came to me — half‑asleep, tooth plate missing, bladder protesting — and still received a polite conversation about weeds and public conveniences. I suspect her campaign manager knew exactly what they were doing. I was the “safe constituent, who does not bite type” the one unlikely to bark, slam, or threaten to insert the briefcase into the nearest dimension.
As I closed the door behind her, I stood for a moment in the hallway, wondering whether I had dreamt the whole thing. The surreal timing, the pigeon‑postured earnestness, the weeds, the public loos, the briefcase held like a relic of authority — it all felt like a scene from a play written by someone who had only a passing acquaintance with reality.
And yet, on deeper reflection, the more it seemed to capture something essential about the age we live in. A time when the great narratives have dissolved, when politics has become a kind of travelling theatre, and when the boundary between public life and private life has thinned to the point of absurdity. A time when a man can be sitting quietly, contemplating ideology, AI, German history, consciousness, and the meaning of life — only to be jolted back into the world by a knock at the door and a question about potholes.
The lady herself may vanish from the statistics after the election. Her briefcase may return to whatever cupboard it came from. Her pigeon‑like posture may never again grace my gate. But she will not be lost to time. Not while I have a garden chair, a German history book, and a website on which to record the small, strange parables of our age.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must find the loo.