Overheard - 14.40ish, 30th January 2010, Whitechapel Sainsburys (E1)

Woman ahead of me in line at the cake counter, talking to partner about Asian (and possibly blind) gentleman who had presumably just pushed in front of her and had his order taken before her. Said in deliberate 'I hope he can hear me way', whilst her young toddler stood next to her.

“These lot pushing in! Think they can do what they like when they come over here. Think it’s their own fucking country!"

EAT generosity.

Monday 18th January: Walk into newly opened EAT. 'Grande, Skinny Latte to go please'. Lady next to me, noticing I was about to pay 'Do you not have a free-coffee voucher? Here use mine, I'll get another on the way out'. 'Thank you very much', I answer politely. Make some lame joke and we both smile politely. My coffee is made, and I sidle out, aware that the voucher is probably only valid for small, normal coffees, and not big lattes. FREE coffee.

Thursday 21st January: Three days later, walk into now fairly eastablished EAT. Me - 'Grande, Skinny Latte to go please'. Same lady that served me three days earlier passes on order, then sidles off to make someone's large porridge with banana and syrup. I get £2.15 out of purse to pay. Same man who made coffee for me three days earlier, makes coffee for me. I'm annoyed that lady hasn't returned to her till to take my money, and is just standing around idly (I haven't got time to be waiting around - I'm probably late for work). About to leave my money on counter when coffee-maker man says to me, 'No charge for you, lady'. I make a slightly puzzled face, but pocket money, take coffee (and three sachets of sugar to make my porridge when I get to work) and leave. FREE coffee.

Friday 22nd January: Today, walk into EAT near my office. Select Cheese baguette and diet coke. Me - 'Just these please and a chocolate muffin'. Manager calls for chocolate muffin. Pay for items on card. Walking away, realise he did not charge me for the muffin. FREE muffin.

Total result of a week.

Overheard - 11.40ish, 9th January 2010, Princelet St (E1)

Man with shaved head, wearing grubby jacket and well-worn UGG boots, angrily – ‘If it’s that Denise again, I’ll wallop her!’.

Friend, of similar attire – ‘It’s not. I’m never going near that bit*h again’.

Monday 4th January, 2am - 5am Pt. 2.

I was tied to a wooden chair in a comfortable looking lounge. There was a glass-panel door to my left which looked like it led to a kitchen. In front of me were a man and a woman; the psychopath and his hostage. They were talking like friends. I knew I’d been right about her mental state. She began talking to me, much more alert and confident than she’d previously seen. She moved a mobile phone back and forth between her hands, taunting me that I was trapped and couldn’t call for help. I looked at the phone in her hands, and thought that if I even managed to make a call it would probably be futile. The couple untied my ligatures, but forcefully held me in place on the chair. I was frozen with terror; they were going to cut my throat and I was helpless, my life entirely in their psychotic hands. And suddenly I got angry. Enraged at the thought of someone else being in control of my life and my body, being able to decide if I lived or died. How dare they inflict themselves on me? My life was my own. The psychopath went to sit on the sofa opposite me and I took my chance. I lunged from my seat and propelled my right fist into the girl’s jaw, grabbing the mobile phone with my left hand. I stumbled to the door on my left, and shut it behind me, leaning my entire weight against it to stop them from entering. There was a key and lock on the door, and I turned it, taking the key with me in case they broke the glass and could reach through and unlock the door. There was an identical door to the right of the first, and as I went to pull it shut, I noticed a figure lying in the room beyond. It was one of my colleagues, and his throat had been cut. A huge pool of blood drenched his clothes and the floor around me. Dead. I pulled the door shut, and locked it, again pocketing the key. I could see movement behind the first door and I moved out of sight, behind the counter and fridge before shakily dialling the police. I was certain that the psychopath would have somehow intercepted the line and I wouldn’t get anywhere, but to my relief a different voice answered on the other end. Whispering, though I knew the couple wouldn’t be able to hear through the door, I explained that I’d been kidnapped by two psychopaths and was being held in some house by the woods. The voice asked where the house was. I told him I didn’t know, though I remembered gaining consciousness as I was being driven along Tye Common Road, and so most likely the house was somewhere bordering Bluebell Woods. I heard the voice asking me if I knew anything more about the location when suddenly the woman appeared in front of me. Though she wasn’t a woman; her features were stretched into the shape of a dog’s and she had teeth like a wolf. She tried to rip at my face, but I managed to get my hands up, and was holding her mouth back. Being of a thin frame, she didn’t have too much strength, so I was able to grip her top right tooth and bottom left tooth with my fists. She kept at me, angry that she’d been thwarted, and it became harder and harder to hold on. I could sense the man to the left of me, moving toward the corner, casually resting himself against the worktop and looking in our direction. He didn’t interfere, just watched us with his eerie eyes. The woman lunged and her teeth came inches away from my face. Still gripping them, I used my strength to pull them away from each other, and could have ripped them from her mouth or at least yanked them out of shape and caused some blinding pain, but something held me back. I knew it would hurt her, and whilst it was the only way I could survive, I couldn’t bear to inflict pain on another being. The woman-dog kept at me, but every time I started to pull at her teeth I found my stomach turning, and I had to stop. We’d scuffled into a different position, and I could clearly see the man in the corner. He’s placed what looked like four Mahjong pieces in front of him on the counter and was repeatedly rearranging them into difference formations. As he lifted each piece, I noticed that they were all number four tiles, in some form or other. I recalled what he’d said earlier, about killing four people. My colleague in the other room…me…Maidenhead…They were going to cut my throat and then their own. The police would never get there in time. I was going to die.

Monday 4th January, 2am - 5am.

In a cold, stark country-style kitchen, in a house surrounded by woods, a psychopath held a girl hostage. We knew she was in there, and standing outside, planning our strategy, my team of specialists knew they had to rescue her; she was of no personal significance but she was of such importance to someone powerful that she needed to be saved. My mind worked over the situation, and I couldn’t shake the sense that our rescue attempt was a bad idea, that there was something wrong with the girl and maybe both she and her captor were both part of a psychotic plan. A small, distant part of my mind was screaming at my body to stop walking, but the screams were muffled and did not register as I followed the team into the house. Our strategy was to entice the psychopath into everyday activities, act as though we were a group of friends merely spending an evening together. We were unarmed; I can’t recall why, but we didn’t have time to wait around for back-up. As we entered the house, it was clear he was expecting us. Glancing through a door on the other side of the room, he beckoned us into the kitchen, showing no surprise at our presence. I smelt food cooking – some sort of pie - and I noticed a saucepan being heated on the stove. We sat on the three chairs nearest the door we had entered, with the hostage girl sitting opposite me on the other side of the dining table. There was another door on the opposite wall in the left hand corner, leading outside. There was no garden though; the path from the door led directly to a forest area. The psychopath stood close behind the girl, casually holding a large knife in his hands. His eyes were cool, and as we sat there, I noticed that he very rarely blinked. My superior initiated the conversation, aiming to quickly establish a sense of familiarity, which would hopefully encourage the psychopath to let his guard down. Whilst he was talking, I discreetly surveyed our surroundings. Across the table from me the girl was quiet, looking at her hands which were gripping each other fiercely on top of the table in front of her. She was clearly agitated, but I was unsure if it was caused by being taken hostage or something else. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. I glanced out of the kitchen window and saw a sign in the distance, angled away from me slightly. The wording was hard to make out, though I could tell that the first letter was a large M. I could sense it was important that I knew what was on that sign, and from time to time I looked back at it, hoping it would become apparent. The psychopath asked the girl to serve the food, which she did before sitting down to join us. All the while he stood with his back to the worktop, looking on as he played with the knife in his hands. My superior had lead the conversation to the futility of holding the girl hostage, when the psychopath calmly interrupted, ‘But I have to kill four people’. He then lifted himself away from the work top and walked through the door to the garden. My superior stood and watched his progress through the window. I saw him glance at the sign, and a look of horror came across his face. ‘Maidenhead’, he croaked, ‘Run! Everybody run! It’s Maidenhead!’ My heart pounded, and the once muffled screaming in my head escalated to a fearful shrieking. Grabbing the girl by the arm, we ran out of the house, through the bleak, dark woods, stumbling in our haste. We somehow got separated. I had the girl with me, but we were too slow and I could feel the psychopath close behind us. As I dodged through the endless wall of trees, I took a quick look up, wondering if we could climb and hide in one of them. I caught my foot on a half-buried branch, and fell to the floor. Hastily standing up, I felt a whoosh of air rush at my face before everything went dark.

Overheard - 21.00ish, 6th January 2010, Camel & Artichoke (SE1)

Irish man - ginger hair, fairly rotund, guinness in hand - walks up to three girls in a pub. In a drunken manner, accuses girls of being unhappy with their lives and boyfriends, and says 'I'd walk barefoot over broken glass to fuck any one of you'.

Further to this:

"I don't buy my council house because I agree social housing"