I'm thinking of hiring myself out as a service to distressed parents everywhere.

Yes.

I can't believe no careers advisor ever suggested it. Stupid people all telling my I'd be lucky to get a secretarial post and that would be all I was capable of.

It's perfect.

I realised this the other day. I was entering my building, and before I'd even opened the door I could see the legs of a small child dangling through the bannisters as I looked through the window in the door... and from out in the street I could hear the sounds of this child being ridiculously obnoxious.

The door swings open, and in comes The Lady With The Wheelchair who's just moved into the ground floor flat. It was like the child had a mute button and someone suddenly pressed it. His mouth fell open and he just stared as I entered my flat. As soon as I was out of his line of vision, before I'd even actually closed my flat door, the din of an obnoxious small child started up again. And the staircase has quite a hefty echo going on. It's like some spooky cave (and it smells like one too).

This was when I hit on the idea that muting small children could be my life's calling.

After all, it wasn't the first time this has happened. Half a term ago, some friends and I had a remarkably cultured afternoon. We had afternoon tea at Shakespeare's Globe, followed by a wander around the Tate Modern. As I was with an English teacher, a literary obsessive and a borderline genius, spending time in The Globe could've been very intimidating for someone as thick and uncultured as me. Fortunately we just ate, sang a bunch of songs from the Buffy musical (so, there's 4 lesbians sitting in Shakespeare's Globe singing "His penis got diseases from a Chumash Tribe!") and left.

The Tate Modern was a more eye-opening experience. Especially as we headed straight for the exhibit about nakedness. Where else could we start out?

It was while we were wondering around here, trying to decide if one statue was actually meant to be representing a naked disabled female body, or if they arm had just fallen off it, that I encountered another noisy, obnoxious small... thing.

We were in the Tate Modern, a building full of visual stimuli. And what is it that the child gets so engrossed in staring at that she forgets to make a din for a few moments? Me. I'm more gawp-worthy than art. They should plaster me on the side of buses. Well, not the actual me... that would be cold and no doubt painful, I mean an image of me.

The list of encounters just goes on. I was once shopping in The Chimes (when I lived in Uxbridge. It's not worthy of an excursion, trust me), and from around the corner I could hear the sounds of a brat, fully engrossed in proper tantrum of temper. I rounded aforementioned corner, and said brat opened her eyes between full blown screams just long enough to catch sight of moi. Silence suddenly spread across the shopping centre (well, almost, there was still dreadful muzak) until I'd left her line of vision, and then she suddenly remembered she was pissed about something.

See. I have skills. Anyone wanna give me some part-time work?