The serving woman behind the counter remarked as I entered the café, 'Your beard, it is long now, yes?'

'Yes,' I replied. I then could not think how to continue this conversation, so I added: 'Like Father Christmas.'

Knowing from previous encounters that the woman hailed from somewhere near Warsaw, I spent a few seconds wondering whether Father Christmas was recognised in Poland. I was not encouraged to elaborate on my simile when the woman resumed her critique of my facial furniture.

'It will soon be down here, like this,' she said, pushing both hands palm downwards to a position just below her tits.

It did occur to me that the purpose of this gesticulation might be to attract my attention to the Polish breasts, which stood firm from within some cheap, stretched material that appeared to have been sourced from Primark. But then she said: 'You will have to paint it.'

We had returned to the relative safety of Saint Nicholas. 'Yes,' I replied, 'I will have to paint my beard white.'

'And it is soon be Christmas, yes?' she resumed. I nodded in a vague way. It was still the month of April, and I no longer knew what the woman was getting at.

By now my falafel wrap had been prepared by the woman's colleague, a greasy fellow of unknown origin who only a few days previously had commented, 'Your beard, it is getting big now', before rambling on in disjointed English about the perils of shaving. He said everything while tittering, and I resented him for drawing the attention of his patrons to my face.

His falafel wraps, however, are second to none, and I still go there.