They only come out at night

Each morning I wake up at 7 am and prepare myself for work. I sit behind an ordinary desk in an ordinary office and perform a function that I don’t particularly enjoy for 7 or 8 hours. Then I come home again. I do this because I have a family to take care of, and a mortgage to pay, and a council tax bill. In short, I have responsibilities.

Every day, on the way home, almost without fail, I am approached by someone asking for money. Over the months I have encountered people attempting to persuade me to give away my money, using every method imaginable. People have asked for specific amounts to pay for a train, or bus fare home. I’ve listened to sob-stories from people who are seemingly down on their luck for various reasons. Ragged, apparently homeless, people crouching in doorways have attempted emotional blackmail. A woman asked me for money to buy clothes for her children once. And on one memorable occasion just over a year ago, I was punched in the face. I never give these people money.

Something occurred to me this morning; I have never once been asked for money on the way to work, only on the way home in the evening. There are never any vagrants around at 7.30 am. Why would that be? The obvious answer would be that they are asleep at that time of day because they have nothing to get up for. They only come out at night.

And then I had this thought; Wouldn’t it be odd if society split along these lines. Two sections of society that never met because one is essentially nocternal. Two separate races could develop. It would be like the Eloi and the Morlocks from Herbert George Wells’ Time Machine. In that particular piece the two races evolved from the working classes and the elite. The elite became the Eloi, weak, feeble, unintelligent. The working classes became the Morlocks, tough, cannibalistic, and also unintelligent.

Yesterday I was approached by a hoody youth of perhaps 18 who asked me for 40p. He walked with that knuckle dragging, gorilla-like gait that seems so fashionable now. I knew what he was going to say. I held my hand up and said, “No” even before the grunting had finished. He accused me of being “fucking rude”. I’m sure the irony of him calling me “fucking rude” escaped him.

Is this entry going anywhere? Probably not. I'm thinking of writing to my MP to draw his attention to the problem of ever more aggressive and intimidating begging. But come to think of it, I already have a backlog of things I need to do. Still haven't sent off those 100 letters to FGW yet.