'Spotted'

One main dollop of advice that is consistently doled out to aspiring writers is WRITE. Sit down, grab yer pen and get cracking. It's also frequently advised that you should carry a notebook round and jot down ideas and observations as they come. I don't do this. Which is, quite frankly, a glaring error. I just don't have the room in my handbag once I've stuffed it full of tissues, receipts, leaky tubes of lipgloss and my damp umbrella. However yesterday morning as I strolled up Charing Cross Road from Leicester Square tube station a few things struck me that I thought I should note down.

- A funeral car rolled past, shiny and regal in the sun, with letter-wreaths spelling out the word B-A-S-T-A-R-D. That tickled me. It undermined the whole stony-faced funeral procession and humanised it. It's not for everybody, but I like that two-finger salute to tradition.

- A rather gruff looking eastern european man carrying a child's plastic see-through frog umbrella.

In hindsight the wreath may have spelt out B-E-S-T D-A-D, but I prefer to stick with my original misinterpretation.

Maybe one of these will pop up in a story somewhere, sometime.