ROCKS 'N' ROLLER

SHIRLAND ROAD IS THE WORLD.
I love Shirland road, our whole modern, western world, is represented here and contained in this one short street, but it's not the Mansions at its eastern end and it's council Estates at the other that makes it interesting, it's the bit in the middle that make's this short to medium length sized road interesting.
 Starting at its western end you leave Mozart Estate and the park where all the local teens make their 'Badass' Hip Hop videos for You tube. It's just along from there that I've been watching a newly retired man doing up his newly bought old Rolls Royce and it's ever growing paint job that's been getting madder and madder looking each week. You see the car as you go east along the road approaching the Chippenham pub. One of the more noticable jobs on the dark, Navy blue car is the wide, gold coloured sprayed line he put along the side of the car. The cars enthusiastic new owner was obviously pleased with his handywork because he added another line, thinner this time, then another. Then some symmetrical lines were added to the bonnet, and also round the windows, boot and so on. keeping in mind the advanced years of the cars new owner you would of expected him to know when to hold it down, but no, he instead let him run away with himself, and has left himself with a Rolls Royce that looks like it was part of a kids version of Christmas' Mutate Britain exhibition, and still it's patterns grow weekly. Oh, he has had the 'thing' that sits on the radiator gilded but at least its real gold which makes the paint just a little bit cheap looking.
Then comes along to the corner that has the Chippenham pub, Internet cafe, the local Conservative party office and a wierd pet accessories shop for those people who carry their dogs and nappy them. It was while I was sitting on my cycle at the traffic lights one day when I heard a young woman ask an oldish man if he had any spare money, "you forgotten?" he replied, "oh, have I asked you before?" she asked, "so you've forgotten!" he said and walked away. As he did so the woman asked "do you have change of a Tenner?", surprised at the apparent cheek the bloke turned round and the woman changed her question to "have you got a Tenner?", before the bloke could say anything he was told that "if you have a Tenner I could give you a blowjob". The bloke seemed horrified (benefit of the doubt an' all that), looking about him as if he was half expecting Jeremy Beadle to jump out of a bin he caught my eye, I could only respond with an equally surprised, and little worried look, because he must of also seen the womans juttering crackhead jaw as well as I, her lower jaw was going side to side like an electric saw with the safety cover removed, at that speed she could of bitten through a steel bar. Then the traffic lights changed and I moved on, as I got some distance I turned to look to see if the bloke had taken up the offer but he must of been busy with other matters because the lady was bestowing her favours on another scared looking man.
Further along by the junction with Sutherland road is where a bloke often stands around while wearing sort of cheap/comedy Hip-Hop clothes (a cheap gimmick, advert/give away Baseball cap worn backwards is always an essential), he either spends hours staring at the sky, or does a jerky sort of Disco dance along to the music pumping through his 80's style orange coloured foam covered headphones, he occasionally does the same thing back at the Elgin avenue/Shirland road junction.
After that its all leafy trees, houses and the Amberly Estate, where the kids like to run out of a side entrance, turn off bus egines while at their stop, by turning off the back situated emergency stop button, before running back into the Estate.
Sadly we then get to the end, and a Zak/Molly infant school (no-one with a name ending in 'isha' goes there!) and all we have left is the million pound mansions (including Trust & social homes) and the army of bin raiders, which is not so bad, recycling and all that, but its the organised crime which has sprung up around the charity clothes box that amazes me, people sit in cars waiting for clothes to be put in so that they can be then folded and sold again at markets. Whole families also fold clothes while the mum phones a car to come and collect them, leaving the family to walk to the next charity collection point.
A delight for people watchers everywhere, it is serviced by the Bakerloo line, 6, 187, 31 and anothers who's numbers I've can't be bothered to remember.