A doughnut, a taxi and the usual suspects

A half squished glazed doughnut for the trip home tonight. One of the late trips. The taxi kind. But a circle of sugary fun is always good, keeping the blood on high alert long enough to keep your senses on the short walk to the taxi office.

The car was waiting, of course, with one of my three regular drivers ready to take the wheel. Into the back and we're away. Unusually the excitement wasn't in Tooting tonight, but more at the Streatham end. Something happens when you cross the reailway line on Tooting Bec Road. Wandsworth gives way to Lambeth ('Welcome to the New Millenium in Lambeth' as the signs say). But like milk turning lumpy, the atmosphere flips, becoming less friendly, with less magic and more police.

Which is pretty much what the revellers found on Streatham High Road tonight at 1.30am. As the taxi pulled into traffic a police van made the flashing 30 yard journey from the station to the pub opposite, where one guy held back another, and two officers manacled a girl with red trousers and a red face. The smeared kind. The long worn alcohol face that appears the same from any distance after too many hours of the fun turned up to a level higher than the mind can handle.

She was screaming, which made good entertainment for the locals craning their necks out of windows, hangin on from high up, leaning slightly too far, perhaps smoking cigarettes.

For us though it was out of here. Up the hill before the sharp left to home. Only tonight he missed it. A quick reverse and onto my street. I saw a black cat on the road as we turned, and yelled out as I thought we'd hit it. But gee, these guys are professionals. He'd seen it. The cat had seen us. No bad luck. The opposite really. Earlier melancholy turned to chipperness. The cat probably felt the same way too.