Francis and 'M'

'You still doin' alright there?' asks the man in the museum shop.  I am looking at a toaster that toasts the face of the President of America onto sliced bread.  'Yes, thank you', I reply and tell him how much I have enjoyed my visit.  I have seen a mechanical version of the story of Icarus, a sculpture garden dedicated to Anita Roddick and a locomotive in the form of a gigantic pink poodle called Fifi.

'I've been running the store here for fifteen years', he tells me.  He is wearing a green and brown Hawaiian shirt over jeans which are tucked into leather boots. I decide to ask him my question.

'I don't have one', he says, 'I've only got an initial'.  He calls over to the boy behind the counter, 'What's your middle name?'  The boy, with thick NHS-style glasses and a quiff, gives an answer.

'We were too poor to have middle names', he continues.  I ask what initial his parents chose.  He tells me.  Then, moving on; 'We were so poor my mother had to cut out the pockets of my trousers to give me something to play with'.

It takes me a moment.  Then I get it.