Bowling around town

I have recently started a job in a call centre. Amazingly, its not as soul-destroying as it sounds. Its really a roomful of people (artists, actors, dancers, etc) who are deciding where to next in their lives or careers while they nag people into doing boring surveys for the government. I like it because its breeze in, breeze out and I don't have to pretend that I'm doing anything other than earning money to pay for acting classes and groceries. And I can have a decent chat about Sarah Kane in the tea room. But getting to work is most fun when, like this morning, I choose to don the bowler hat that called out to me from the window of a charity shop a few months back. I swear, I could send that hat out for a walk by itself. It would come back with some interesting tales. I have people start conversations from taxi cabs, and I have cycled over Chelsea Bridge with an elderly gent regaling me with the history of my chosen headgear (apparently, they were worn by the game keepers of the landed gentry, after being initially commissioned by Sir William Coke). Of course, I am fair game for tourists when I reach Westminster. It astounds me to discover that I, proponent of fashion over function, have managed to stumble across an item of safety gear that looks good and seems to speak to an amazing cross-section of society. People seem to reserve a deep fondness for this very recognisable piece of the past. And it keeps the rain off.