A couple of days ago Simon Reid reminded me about Ivor Cutler. A cross between poet, songster, philosopher, and humourist, but always with a touch of surrealism.
Here we have 'Get Away From The Wall'.
When you have digested it, hear that it actually happened to me. Lingering on a Summer's afternoon, and taliking to someone, I rested on a wall.
The owner of the wall appeared quickly and told me it was his wall, and I had no right to sit on it. I could not say his accents were small; I would say they were brusque, perhaps discourteous.
I will not hurt your wall, I said, and left.
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When I was growing up in Enfield, one of my classmates lived in a house in the town centre with a front garden, a low wall and then the bus stop. As a family, they used to get furious with people sitting on that low wall when waiting for buses and used to go and shout at them to move, every morning and afternoon. That went on for six years to my knowledge. He regularly told us about the people he had shouted at when leaving the house in the morning and how he expected to shout at someone else on getting home.
I think there must be some pleasure to be had in shouting at people for an irrelevant transgression of an undocumented personal rule that denies people pleasure or ease. It is certainly common in the workplace.
As children, some of us used to go out of our way to use that bus stop, just so we could dare to sit on their wall.
I wonder how many people do not use the benches at beauty spots that have memorial plaques on them, for fear that someone will come along and shout at them. It is a small fear of mine that I will be asked to move on because I'm sitting on someone's Dad's bench. I would be so embarrassed.