"I'll have whatever she ordered, please ..."

I alighted at South Kensington tube station on the Picadilly Line and mindlessly followed the shoal of drifting bodies up the stairs, towards the long escalator going up to street level. There was a pretty girl some steps in front of me. I noticed her because she was striking, glowing with a natural, un-airbrushed, un-photo shopped presence.

She turned back, fixed her gaze on something behind me, and smiled extravagantly. I looked where she looked. There was a busker on the platform, strumming wildly on his guitar. How funny that I barely even heard his gnashing chords when I strode past him. This time I listened hard ... not an earth-shaking tune, but endorsed by a Beautiful Being, so my mind was more open to it. More open to making excuses for it.

"Must be a new strain of rock that only trendy people are clued in to," I rationalised irrationally to myself.

At the top of the escalator, I craned my neck to see where she would go ... secretly wishing that she would whirl into a cafe, confirming its pedigree (I would then appear all-knowing when recommending it to friends as the 'in' place).

I'm totally unlike her, not blond, tall, nor a fan of chang-chang music. But celebrity endorsement sure as hell works and a stunning stranger has shown me what I didn't know I really wanted.