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OTT Melodramatic Streetfightin'
At 4 am this morning I was privileged to bear witness to the best piece of Streetfighting I've seen since my legendary 25-second victory with Blanka over Zangeif in 1993, as a young man ('Paul') and his 'bird' - as no doubt he would have referred to her - completed a theatrical argument of empty gestures and overeaction.
Started off unpromisingly with a standard recrimination to do with a text message to another girl. But then he took it up several unexpected notches by roaring 'WELL....I MIGHT AS WELL END IT THEN!' and strode out to the middle of the road, puffed out his chest and adopted a crucifixion pose Scott Stapp would have thought ill-advised.
Unfortunately for him, our street is quiet at the best of times so the lorry he no doubt imagined ploughing towards him to complete his dramatic suicide fantasy completely failed to materialize, leaving him in an awkward spot as the street remained car-free and silent. Unfortunately his girlfriend, failing to recognize the absolute lack of danger, dropped to her knees beside him to claw at his chest, which spared him the embarrassment of having to remain standing in that position indefinitely.
Finally after a few minutes a little family sedan came puttering down the street, so he heroically pushed his sobbing girl to the side of the street, re-assumed his chest out/chin up/arms forced backwards abomination of a jesus pose (if jazz hands were added it could've been the opening stance of a piece of high-camp interpretive dance) and waited for his 'death'. Of course the car saw him, slowed down and gently steered around him - aided by his subtly shuffling out the way, while still holding the pose. All of which was hugely disappointing, at this stage any natural human compassion having been overidden by a desire to see this chav's skeleton smashed up a little bit for waking me up at 4am on a week night.
His girlfriend, again blind to the complete lack of danger in what had just happened, ran back sobbing 'THANK GOD!! OHH, PAUL THANK GOD!!' which led to my favourite bit - a crusty Scottish oldster casually leaned out of his window on the second floor of the house across the street, cigarette in mouth, and bellowed: 'Sort it oot, sunshine. I'm calling the cops!', flicked his ash, and ducked back inside.
I was hoping at this point for a crone with curlers in her hair to lean out a window and throw a rolling pin at them to make it a perfect British street scene.
Amazingly the police actually did turn up and politely told these sadcases to get on their way. Paul, who had somehow during this time become shirtless (should've done it during the crucifixion bit I'd have thought, the amateur) and lost a shoe, managed to over dramatize these gentle instructions to get home safely as 'Pig' brutality for a few more minutes of OTT dramatics, before finally shuffling off.
Just glorious and pathetic. I've spent most of the morning regretting that I didn't try to video it - it was a 200,000 view YouTube certainty. There's not actually much to say to all this, I just wanted to record it here for posterity....