i was tempted to lie about my name

I imagine that some lab-grown 29-year-old from Woking with a mind honed to identify individuals who fit the profile of Real Londoner (as conceived of by 50 opinion-polled racist builders and their wives in the Midlands) picks a stubborn local who can still somehow afford to live here and passes him along to some creative studio.

i want to do that too

feel you

A roll of 50s is one of the items he dumps onto my table during the search. Of course it is. He asks if I'm a delivery boy or a setter or this or that diamond related job. I keep saying no, I'm enjoying hearing all of these new words. Eventually I tell him that I work in film, which is kind of true. He asks where I'm filming. I'm not filming. He tells me that I can't be that good at it then. He then tells me that he made a film once, in the 80s. It was called Pimlico Rats.

i love it here

abrar?

I'm getting bored and he can tell, so he shifts the topic towards me. He tells me he'd spotted me chatting to a girl earlier, a black girl, and asks what I thought of her, if I liked her. I mimed affirmatively.

The Hatton geezer (fuck off) reminds me of this old failed actor who I'd met at a party a few years ago, another man out of time and out of place. This actor had scored a minor role in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and never really let go of it, had gone on to build his whole identity around it. I can't really blame him.