Toilet Etiquette

In a bar, off Alma Street, at the Alma Street Festival.

"Is this the queue?" I ask, and four people nod in the affirmative,
"For the loo?" (you know, just to make sure...)
"Yes," comes the reply and more affirmative nodding
"I'm after you?" I ask the woman before me.

"There's something in that," she says. "I could use that.. is this the queue, for the loo..."

" am I after you?" I counter in a jokey fashion.

"Yes, yes...is this the queue,...for the loo... after you..."

I laugh, as you do, when you're waiting for the loo, and think nothing of it. She disappears and another woman appears and says "Is this the queue for the loo?" and I say "Yes, and am I after you now?" I ask the man who was before the woman who was before me before.

He looks around him, as though looking for the woman, who has disappeared, and says "yeah."

Then just before it's my turn the woman comes back and I say to the girl who came after me "I'm after her," and to the woman "after you."

Then the woman says to someone near her "I went to write it down. I might use that in a song somehow."

And I'm like "Oh, you sing? What's your stage name?"

And she says "I don't have a stage name, I use my real name, Dawn Penn."

"Oh you're Dawn Penn who we're waiting to see!!!"

No no nooooo, you don't love me and I know now.....

Eh. you say you'll credit me if you use it?

Her set was incredible at the Alma Street festival. She transcended all the problems with the speakers and sounds.

My son, who'd been agog at the front watching Rough Science perform their fantastic rock, then restless listening to hip hop, was again swept up and stilled by the sound of her voice.

No no no, you don't love me
is a great track
by a great woman
who I met
in a queue
for the loo