TURNING ROY CROPPER

There are, of course, many ways in which I am NOT like Coronation Street's Roy Cropper. For one thing, I am not married to a post operative transsexual. For another, I do not have an almost morbid fascination with defunct British Railway Station signs (though I DO think they're quite cool - oh God!) But I realised yesterday, as I was walking to the supermarket, that me and Roy do have a few things in common. Maybe a few too many things for comfort, to be honest.

For a kick off, I'm an incessant worrier. As I get older I realise just how true this is. I worry about making coffee too hot and then, having taken corrective action, I worry that I haven't made it hot enough. I worry when my other half puts a status on Facebook that I can't readily interpret. I worry about the damp in the house. I worry about the fact that I'm worrying too much. I'm doing that now. But I also do something else that I've noticed Roy doing - I reprimand other people for worrying. Sometimes I almost snap my words of reassurance at them "Don't worry! You know it will be fine - it's only a couple of days, so just stop worrying about it."

Then there's the fact that I work in a cafe. True - it calls itself a coffee shop and bears very little resemblance to Roy's Rolls, but it's still a cafe all the same. I still make cups of tea and coffee and put things on the grill and have banal conversations with regular customers. And I still do too much of it really to have the kind of sparkling social life that I would like (and Roy Cropper would probably like too!)

But the most worrying and convincing resemblance between myself and Roy is my shopping bag. See, I've come to realise that plastic bags are pretty evil. There's no need for them - they choke up the environment and take forever to rot. So I only get a couple of them a week now (just enough to use as rubbish bags - otherwise I'd have to BUY plastic rubbish bags and that would just be silly). Instead, I've got this little jute shopping bag from M&S that I carry with me to the supermarket. Thing is, Roy Cropper's been doing that for years. Me and my friends used to have a running joke about it. True, Roy's is on of those tartan old lady style bags, and mine is a bit more eco, but the image is still the same. I'm still a man with greying temples, past his best, shuffling to the supermarket carrying a ladies' shopping bag. So, yes, maybe it's time to get on e-bay and start looking for those vintage station signs...

*pours very un-Cropperish glass of wine*