the lesson

I was walking past a building when I heard classical music drifting out of an open window and a woman's voice counting: "... one, two, three and .... up ... and turn ..." And eight pairs of little hands appeared at the bottom of the window and danced in slow circles.

but adolescents are the same

A conversation I overheard today, on people sharing views about their new lives with a baby:

"It's so tiring."
"Head-wrecking."
"They cry and you don't know why."
"They scream and you don't know why."
"You try and help them but it just makes them howl some more."

about a bit of lawn

As I walk to the office - on office days - I cross a bit of lawn clad with dogs' doings , which lets off the most nauseating whiffs during the summer months. The whole of Geneva walks their dogs on a green spot which is barely the size of a large sitting-room. It is a well-known fact now that you are supposed to wrap your dog's stools in little brown plastic bags and then dispose of them. Many people do. Many don't. And some only half do what they are supposed to. The result is a patch of grass which is covered with intact excrements of all shapes and sizes, little bits of fresh stuff the greatest part of which was put into a bag and thrown away, and bags full of brown turds which did not make it to the bin but were left to their own fates on the lawn.

I usually cross this particular patch of grass at the same time as a woman whose necklaces are as large as her dog is small. She never cleans up what her dog does. It must be the only time of the day, in fact, when she pretends that her dog is not hers. After having dragged it across the street too fast for it to sniff a lamp post, lift a leg or deposit a shite, she lets it off the lead the moment she touches the grass. The poor thing is so desperate that it looks for a spot where it can perform, with its arse already at the level of the ground and the beginnings of its creation on its way out, while its mistress saunters distractedly across the lawn, looking with great intent at the clouds forming above or the intriguing architecture on the buildings opposite.

masculine romance

He ran with the train as far as he could, keeping up with his girl friend who was waving goodbye to him from the inside. Once he had reached the end of the platform, he chucked her a kiss the way you'd fling a stone into water.