Putting up a whole post about this is going to make it seem cooler than it is, but my Edinburgh post is going to be so long already, that I had to. OK, the food part of the story:
When we arrived at the library, I wanted to get some food, but we were running a wee bit short on time. We had initially arrived early at the King’s Cross tube station before we needed to meet Michael at the library, so Sienna and I wanted to go get our picture taken with Platform 9 3/4. A bunch of other people came with us, and we’re just about 15 meters away from it when people start getting nervous about time, so they make us turn back. Then I decided I wanted food, but at this point, the only place I could go to get food was on the premise of the library. Sienna and I went in while everyone else - needlessly worried about time - went in to meet Michael (we still had time, mind you) but the café there didn’t have any interesting food. So Sienna and I went in. But because for our tours they were self-guided, Michael was just sending people away in groups. Sienna and I had just missed that one group, so we were standing with Michael and talking, and I guess Geoff told Michael that we had gone to get food because Michael said,
“Did you get any food?”
“No, they didn’t have anything interesting to eat.”
“Didn’t you just have lunch?”
“That was like two hours ago!”
“Do you need to eat often?”
“I just eat small portions at small intervals,” I respond, a bit defensively.
“Here, try these.”
And out of his little black backpack he pulls a tupperware with these cube granola things, and of course I protest. “No, Michael! You don’t need to give me your food, I’m fine!” But he does that thing where he doesn’t really hear what you’re saying, and he gave me one anyway, explaining what they were and where he got them, and man! It was delicious.
So, that’s the story of how Michael and I went on a lunch date. 
Now for a retelling of his anecdotes. Oh boy.
Now, as I’m writing these, imagine them in the voice of Michael Winter, a man who - at first glace - seems incredibly intimidating and brilliant and wise and learnéd and somewhat scary, but is secretly a giant goof ball who knows everything to know about Shakespeare. He started telling us about how he is a people watcher. The first story was how he was on the train once, and this woman gets on, and she’s a little overbundled with bags, and as she sits, one of her suitcases pops open and these doll hands and faces come out and Michael tries to give her a sympathy look - but you’re not supposed to look at people on the tube. She sees him looking at her and gives him a face like the one that accompanies the sound “gruhyrrrw!!!” as she tries to close the suitcase, but a doll head is preventing her from doing so. We’re all laughing, because Michael reenacted this face, and then he falls back with laughter at a story that he just remembered. He starts it off by saying, “Oh, this is funny!”
He was on a bus and there was a woman who is was pretty big, and when they stop at some bus stop, this guy gets off the bus and looks in the window at the fat woman and very clearly mouths the word “OBESE!” And Michael just bursts into laughter and says, “That’s the kind of thing you think, not the kind of thing you say!”
Then later, when he was sitting in his seat before the show started, we looked over at him and he mouths “OBESE!”
So there you have it: two somewhat anticlimactic stories that add up to a wonderful man.
Tags: london
I guess you had to be there
Okay, thanks for sharing.