the corner office

I've been storing some of these for ages...

• Walking through London to catch the train home - "It's completely different in China," says a man to his companion, "over there, they, uh ..." and they passed me. I was tempted to turn around and say "duuuude, if it wasn't for your umming I'd have learned something new today," but of course I didn't, because it was none of my business, and I'm too shy and retiring, and I had a train to catch.

• "What's Five Guys?" a woman with a northern accent, on the same stretch of road. But she'd turned around and said it just as I walked past her, so she was perpendicular to me and almost speaking into my ear, like in a cheesy 80s music video. "Burger joint," I was tempted to say, "not cheap but their fries are excellent and come in huge portions." But I didn't, because I had a train to catch, and I'm too shy and retiring, etc.

• "Wat hulle doen ... " man on a Boris bike on a towpath. He was soon past me so I never found out wat hulle gedoen het.

• American accent, man on an eScooter near Canary Wharf, talking on his phone "We need... we need... mayonnaise."

• Not quite overheard. Also on the Thames Path near Canary Wharf, a cyclist and I reach a slow-down barrier at the same time from opposite directions. "After you," I say. The cyclist is South African: "thenks mate, thenks virry much." I try to think of something suitably South African to say that's not too cheesy, but soon he was on his way and I still hadn't thought of anything.

• "To be fair, Freddy's weed was very good..." the girl who said it was very young.

• American woman "ooh look, a little pizzeria". Starts singing, "pizzeria, pizzeria..."

• "That is the most disgusting toilet in the known universe." Man outside the cylindrical public urinal next to St Martin in the Fields. He's not wrong.

• "So, you've basically destroyed a committed relationship, that's not great..." woman speaking on her phone, in a detached counsellor-type voice.

• American woman in a phone conversation, at the Oscar Wilde sculpture outside Charing Cross. "She can't because it's a f***en balloon." If it wasn't for the train I had to catch I might've contrived to stick around for more of that conversation, shy and retiring or not.