Loitering with intent

"The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

As regular readers of this blog will know, I'm currently hankering after an Xbox 360. In fact, I intend to buy one tomorrow. At least, that was the plan... until Xfm started givin' 'em away...

To be honest, I wasn't really paying too much attention to this competition on the first day. The basic idea is that they're sending someone out to a specific location in London with four Xboxes, and you have to decipher three ridiculously easy clues to work out where he is. Then you go there and he gives you an Xbox. Nice.

On Monday he was outside Buckingham Palace. On Tuesday in a pub near Leicester Square.

And today, I decided I'd work through lunch, leave early, and bag myself one of those bad boys. I conspired with Martin so that he would call me and let me know the location I needed to head toward; to be honest he wasn't getting anything out of it, except, perhaps, having an extremely happy Tim bouncing around the office tomorrow. So, at 15:30 I left the office and tubed it up to Leicester Square.

And what did I do then? Well, I loitered outside Xfm's office like a stalker, of course (I figured that it was quite possible I might see Xbox chappy staggering out with the four machines, and I could then tail him - a bit like how Marty follows Biff in Back to the Future Part II).

So I stood there, rather close to Joan Collins' handprint.

And I stood there.

And I stood there.

After about 25 minutes, while I was fiddling with my mobile and acting all nonchalent, a shadowy figure appeared in front of me. Shit, I've been rumbled, was my first thought.

Turned out it was actually Lee. Now, it's always a pleasure to see Lee, although quite understandably on this occasion he was rather intrigued as to why I was lurking in London. So I explained about the Xbox competition.

"How marvellous," he said, although I'm pretty sure he actually meant "standing around on the off-chance of nabbing a stupid games console? I still can't fathom why you don't have a girlfriend, dear boy."

Then he merrily slapped me on the arm, said "do let me know how you get on with that" (i.e. "you're a bit of a twat sometimes"), and scooted off to do important Lee things.

So I went back to my solitary stalking. Then a man came out of Xfm's offices, and looking quite shifty, went and settled on a chair outside a pub.

Ah-ha, I thought!

Suddenly, my phone rang! It was Martin!

"Where do I need to go?" I shouted excitedly!

"Erm, Camden," he replied.

"Bugger," I said. Camden is, you see, not exactly in the immediate vicinity of Leicester Square. They obviously got wise to my plan.

I hung up, and took one last look at the shifty guy outside the pub. Maybe I should just strut up and ask him for an Xbox, I wondered? Then I looked a bit closer, and thought probably best not to. He might steal my iPod.

-----

One post-stalking coffee later and I was walking the streets of Londinium town with the intention of maybe filling the last remaining gaps in my Christmas shopping list and perving over the Xbox stuff in HMV. As I was pounding the streets, I saw the actor Geoffrey Palmer.


Sadly, he was not accompanied by his regular onscreen wife, Dame Judi Dench, but his legendary jowls were in attendance; he looks like he's storing food in his mouth for winter. When he realised that I'd recognised him he quickly looked the other way; I wonder how interested he really was in HMV's seasonal sale? V for Vendetta on DVD for under a tenner, Geoffrey?

He toddled on down the pavement where a young couple pushed passed him and he gave them a bit of a mouthful. Awesome.

-----

Anyway, chances are there won't be a post tomorrow because I fully intend to walk into the comics shop and say "Xbox me up, bitches" (though probably not with the word "bitches" as I don't like to offend), so I'll be playing that all night and through into Friday morning.

To be honest, you're lucky you got this post; Yaz convinced me yesterday to eat some out of date roast potatoes that I had in the freezer, and I was certain I was going to wake up dead this morning.