Grumpy Oldie Man

Caught short – and caught out

Want to spend a penny in Regent’s Park? You’ll need a credit card matthew norman

Knowing the author to be a shining beacon of male inadequacy with so little about which to brag, that mythical beast ‘the regular reader’ will indulge this one tiny boast.

Not once in my 58 and a half years on this wretched planet have I received a conviction for public indecency.

I might have done, on reflection, had a neighbour grassed me up to the Feds that May evening in 1981 when I streaked 100 yards down the road to wrap my Spurs scarf round a letter box in honour of the FA Cup Final replay victory, facilitated by Ricky Villa’s miraculous dribble through the Manchester City defence.

But either nobody witnessed it, or those who did – having no access to the yet-unbuilt Hubble Telescope – were unable to discern any reason for offence.

However close to losing that record of decency I came that distant night, I came a bit closer this week in Regent’s Park. For about a minute, I was sufficiently close to peeing in a public-lavatory sink to be toying anxiously with my zip.

Even in so partisan an era, all of us can surely concur about this. The voiding of a bladder into a device dedicated to the cleansing of hands falls short of the pinnacle of good form. The headmistress of an averagely competent finishing school on the banks of Lake Lucerne would almost certainly mark down a student caught in the act.

Nonetheless, the conundrum that dominated that anguished minute was what alternative could there possibly be?

Somewhere, in whichever department oversees London’s Royal Parks, there is a cabal of demonic maniacs. Whether driven by sadism or by stupidity, these monsters exist only to irk and persecute the innocent.

All parks are an ordeal, as noted here before, owing to the wanton misbehaviour of visitors: the fauxdyspraxic running styles, the tragicomical tennis, the zigzagging without use of a credit or debit card, in the fashion of a tube-station barrier.

Second only to the scandalous disappearance of public toilets in towns and cities, this is as cruel an expression of ageism as we would wish to know. Whether by accident or by design, it punishes old-timers who balk at seeing their juniors whip out a card for a pack of chewing gum. It targets those to whom the idea of a cashless society is an abhorrence.

Not having a card, and with the psychotic fury heightening the urge, I felt my thumb and index finger reflexively joining at the apex of that zip. Yet nearby voices seemed to presage a trip to the magistrates’ court, with not just a fine and criminal record to follow, but possibly a cameo appearance on the sexual offenders register.

As with approaching death, an imminent deluge appears dramatically to speed the thought process. Within a few moments, I had rehearsed a defence predicated on the sink’s placement, on the free side of the barrier, constituting the entrapment of the cardless owner of a middle-aged bladder. Within a few more, it struck me that only an incontinent beak would appreciate the argument – and that, owing to a glaring defect in the justice system, a defendant isn’t entitled to request one of those.

It was then that, blessedly, a deus ex machina arrived, albeit not from above. A man emerged from a cubicle. As he walked through the barrier, I cashed in on the brief delay before it closed to storm through in the other direction, much like an eighties football thug charging a turnstile.

What fresh excruciation the park’s Torquemadas have in store remains to be seen. While we await the revelation, anyone with an unused catheter cluttering up the joint is invited to dispatch it forthwith.

walkers and (worst by far) the sights and sounds of young people having fun.

To anyone whose bloodstream is bereft of borderline-toxic levels of a benzodiazepine, parks represent a monstrous affront to the nerves. Despite this, the crazies in charge of Regent’s Park have seen fit to add two more implements to the torture chamber.

One is a parking machine of such deranged complexity that a bespoke four-year course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology might not suffice. For those who do crack the code, and whose physical reaction to livid stress tends towards the urinary, another ordeal awaits.

What was so distressing here was in no way the entrance fee. Of course, some would take umbrage at having to stump up 20p. Dwelling on the historical roots of the phrase ‘to spend a penny’, they will deem this extortionate.

I am not among them.

For one thing, people were being charged one old penny for the privilege back when you could buy a house in Belgravia for a tenner, and have change for a fortnight in Le Touquet.

For another, it feels naive to moan about paying four shillings when, according to current inflationary forecasts, a piss will cost £2,356 by mid-October.

What distressed me was that there was no (legal) access to the porcelain

‘You’re telling me that’s the result of natural selection?’