Knightsbridge woman walks out on pork belly sandwich

Picture a one-armed South Bank street performer juggling pumpkins while being sprayed from the Thames by a naked Duke of Edinburgh skidding by on a jet ski and you can begin to appreciate my astonishment upon seeing an elegant, 30ish Knightsbridge woman walk out of the Jack O’Shea butcher shop without one of its incomparable pork belly baguette sandwiches in her possession. “Is that the queue?” she whined towards the single line of 5 or 6 punters ogling the platter of fat-glistening pork belly. She was outta there within seconds, sans un sandwich au poitrine du porc.

How, I wondered later, could anyone get so close to that sandwich yet walk away empty-handed? I tried my very best to put myself in her Christian Louboutins and soon felt a wave of sympathy splash over me: It wasn’t the 3-minute queue that put her off. Rather, it was the startling indifference of the scoundrels on it. My own misbehaviour, I would, if given the chance, assure her, was due less to bad manners than cowardice: I hated to think of the mean looks the other blokes would have shot at me had I, the first on the queue, let her pass ahead of me and therefore them, too. That was no moment to make like Mr Knightley.

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