How NOT to Chat up a woman, and Nitin Sawhney at the BBC Electric Proms 2008 Pictures

In life, there is an art to everything.  No matter how trivial or important a situation is, there’s always an art that we have to take the time to fine tune to our advantage.

And so yesterday night, the missus and I saw while on a late night train home, a classic example on how not to chat a woman up and why the art of chatting needs to be perfected.  We were returning from the BBC Electric Proms and as usual, the train was filling up with people coming back from Friday night excesses and such. There was this one man that was munching on a kebab and slurpping on a fizzy drink while stomping his way down the train aisle. Have you ever had one of those negative vibes about someone?  Well, this ‘behemoth’ of a dude was a prime candidate. Behemoth sets himself parallel to where we are sitting and makes himself at home, by just being obnoxious.  A couple of minutes had passed and a young lady is walking by and ‘Behemoth’ springs to action:

Behemoth: (In strong South London accent) “You know what: are you from Australia or New Zealand?”

I’m guessing ‘Behemoth’ had tried chatting to ‘Young lady’ earlier, but with no breakthrough, so was trying to score again. Hey! You have to admire his tenacity!

Young lady: (In an obvious English accent) “I sound nothing like that. I’m English!”

Behemoth: “Well, you do sound Australian. So, where are you going?”

Young Lady: (Trying to be polite while walking away) ” On my way home…”

Behemoth: “Don’t you want to sit down and talk to me, then? “

Young Lady: (by now, a huge gap away from ‘Behemoth’, and with good reason to be) “Sorry, I have to go, now!”

And with that, she’s in the next carriage.  Of course, Behemoth, not wanting to lose any more face than he has left, tries to make jest of the situation to anyone who would care to listen: “I  must have scared her off!” You think?!?!? Dude, even I was wary of you! How are you going to chat anyone up with you reeking of kebab breath and imposing yourself on a person?

Undeterred, Behemoth then makes a phone call. Now, there is such a thing as decorum, of which Behemoth seriously lacked.  He puts the phone on speakerphone for the whole world to hear:

Behemoth: “Yeah, it’s me. What are you doing?”

Woman on receiving end: “I’m doing ok. Where are you?”

Behemoth:” I’m on my way. Man, it’s been an f****king busy day!”

Woman: “What did you get up to?”

Behemoth: “I made a f*****king saving of f*****g 300 quid, today.bargain!!”

A slight observation on my part: It’s amazing how the ‘F’ word can describe anything.  As vast as the English language is, people have become too lazy to use real words, but rather just ‘F’ everything. And now, back to the phone conversation.

Woman: “That’s good, you know. So tell me, how did you make the saving? What did you do?”

Behemoth: “I made a proper £300 saving, I did. F****king bargain!!”

Woman: “Yeah, but how did you make the saving?”

Behemoth then changes tact and lowers his tone: “Listen babe, I’m on a packed train, so I can’t talk. I’ll talk to you about it later!” By this time, my mind is playing out different scenarios as to how did he make this ‘saving’?  Either way, my train had already pulled up to my station and it was time for me to bid farewell to ‘behemoth’.

Anyway, on a lighter note, here are highlight shots from the Nitin Sawhney gig at the BBC Electric Proms night at the Roundhouse, London: