After Eight Mints

I have a love hate relationship with After Eight Mints. They are right down there with Ferrero Rocher balls - they are retro in an uncompromisingly uncool way, they are cloying, they are low grade, and most importantly,they run out far too soon. But they also remind me of my childhood when they were the last word in cool, with the possible exception of filter coffee, which I never drank because I was strictly a Cadburys Chocolate Powder girl and coffee was off the scale bitter compared to my palm oil coated palate. Today was an After Eight kind of day. Oddly instead of the usual caterwauling from unoriginal commuters about injuries blah blah, I was first addressed by a nice elderly lady on the Northern Line who told me she loved the way I had folded my surgical sock over my surgical boot because it made it look smart (hmmm, I think - beauty in the eye of the beholder, particularly as the The Sock is one of those nasty inverted flannel leg warmer things that flatter nobody and has, besides, been through at least 50 washes, none of them whites, which has turned it an unappetising mousy colour). Then, as I was sunk deep into the Times Quick Crossword, which takes me ages to complete and makes me feel, routinely, like a total numbskull, a fabulously flamboyant image alighted on the Victoria Line. If you are a commuter in London you will know that we don't make eye contact with ANYONE - not because we are worried about weirdos or axe murderers, but because we simply abhor any kin of human interaction in our quest to get home, or to work. We use peripheral vision at all times. Tourists must be routinely freaked by the covert sidelong looks they get from us Londoners and though I've scoured the various London guides I see nobody has yet broken it to them. But perhaps we don't want to, perhaps we want them to be freaked, because if they are, they won't come back and that'll mean more Tube seats for the rest of us. Anyway. With my peripherals I register the flamboyance of the latest commuter to join my carriage, and am about to settle back into my crossword, when an unavoidably ringing voice floats across at me "LOVE what you've done to the boot. All it needs is a bit of glitter on the sides". I look up. No choice, right? A gloriously effeminate man is talking to me with his hand placed on my knee, the one wearing The Boot, for emphasis. He is wearing silver 1980s tight jeans, and a black biker jacket with fringes. He looks fabulous. Because he is not dressed in sludge he has instantly transformed this morning's commute. I grin at him and agree emphatically that glitter on The Boot would transform the look. He swaps seats to come and be next to me, and for the next four or five stops we talk enthusiastically about how to glam up NHS surgical appliances. We work through insoles, crutches (bit of Barry M neon nail polish on the handles), blow up ankle supports (why not do them in PINK!) and I tell him about Terry, the lovely plasterer at my orthopaedic outpatients clinic, who gave me my wonderful blue fibreglass cast after my operation, which has my fellow commuter nearly in hysterics, he is so jealous. He gets off before me and the train is suddenly very quiet. I have also become a pariah - peripherals are shooting daggers at me because I have Broken The Code and interacted with another commuter, thus breaking The Cone of Silence. But no matter. He has left me in a retro haze. When I get home, rifling through the cupboards for dinner ingredients, a box of After Eights falls out. It's a sign. A retro end to a retro day.