Compliment

The concourse at Victoria station is a bustling muddle come lunchtime; I pass an earnest group of young Orthodox Jewish men beside a stroppy-looking group of young Muslim women in a variety of burkhas and headscarves. Dodging the tourists with suitcases on wheels and undeterred, I stride on in search of French bread. As I near my destination, a man with a shaved head and a football shirt double-takes, stares at me and says ‘Cor!’ very loudly. I only catch him and the small boy he’s with out of the corner of my eye, but I notice him turn as I pass, his eyes following my rapidly retreating bottom. It takes a moment for the word to register, and when it does, my amusement is caused as much by the use of such an archaic exclamation as it is by the compliment. The bread is delicious.