Things come in threes, goes the theory (why not quartets, quintets or sextets? Is it the Holy Trinity?), and such it seemed to be earlier in the week, when your correspondent spied the first of three jarring sights. Super-soaraway newspaper The Sun has taken to London’s streets once again, with human sandwich boards balefully holding front pages to entice readers with the splash. Next to these unhappy creatures are bins that resemble those that the capital’s free-papers live in (including cosmopolitan Sun stablemate thelondonpaper). But what’s this – 30p per copy? How many people just swoop in thinking it’s a free promotion? (They get used to it in gyms, hotels, airports etc.) How is the poor sandwich board supposed to handle that? Does he leave his bin to go on a mad dash for justice, or is 30p here and there considered collateral damage? The Times also does this, you wonder if the mistake rate there is quite as high.
More jarring was the sight of a woman yanking the trousers off a mannequin in the middle of Marks & Spencer – it seemed terrible indecent, although horribly telling inside a brand that increasingly appears to trade class for crass ruthlessness. Was the mannequin to be afforded no privacy? Could this woman not contain herself? (Or was she pretending to be Andrew McCarthy in the 80s?) Strangely, this is less odd in terms of a window display – there you expect it, and models occasionally pull stunts in them. So public, you almost expect the cheeks to blush.
Least jarring of all (and so this is a duo, not a trio) was the sight of ‘Jesus’ in the cat of a family from South Bend, Indiana. Sadly the good Lord would only reveal himself in a chance photo of the feline’s furry underside, and was not visible to the untrained eye. (At least with a pitta bread, he stays in one place.)
News hour, with Jerry Caesar 