Every night coming from work i pass by this gentleman here selling the Evening Standard. And as usual i stop and take a photo of his headline posters. It was a freezing evening a few weeks back when I felt really sorry for him cause he had to stand there all night.

I asked him if he was cold and he said of course, but the worst was his finger. He showed me his finger which looked slightly de-formed in comparison to the one on the other hand. He then told me the story that years back when he was drunk someone smashed a door and his finger was in the doorframe at that moment. Naturally the finger was crashed. It was so bad that he should have gone to a hospital immediately.

But it happened that on that day in 1987 there was a massive fire at King's Cross Station. He said that he thought all the hospitals would be filled with heavily injured burn victims and that it would be pathetic to turn up there and ask if someone could look after his little FINGER! So he never bothered going to one.

In Germany we have a saying "Falsche Bescheidenheit" - which would translate as "false modesty".

Now everytime it's cold he is reminded of that night.

P.S.: I just read about the fire - it was actually very bad - 31 dead and 120 injured.

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