Meet Otaiba. I first encountered the man when he ran away to Canada a few years ago, and he's featured in more than a few classic '*Rueful chuckle* My one buddy over there...' stories.
What you need to know about Otaiba for this story though, is summed up pretty well in the picture above. He is of Pakistani descent, and dark-skinned even for that, with a good Arab nose and a stout build. In short, the sort of person that having seen him, you'd have a hard time associating with the names 'Craig', and 'Leslie'.
Cue my realisation on a late train last night that I'd neglected to settle my tab at a Covent Garden watering hole, and my panicked text to ask our subject if he would be so kind as to retrieve my credit card for me.
There's one more thing, at this point, that you should know about Otaiba. He is possessed of a forceful, one might even say brash, self-confidence. If someone particularly generous had received my text, they might have got off their train, turned around, explained to the bar staff that their friend had left his card behind, and could they possibly see their way clear letting him take it home on his behalf. If you know Otaiba, you're smirking right now. He did get off his train, he did turn around, and he did get my card back for me, but in his own special way. This is roughly how the conversation went, as relayed to me after the fact:

Otaiba: Hi there...I forgot to settle tab number seventy, and I don't have the ticket with me. Could you put it through on my card?

Bar Girl: *examines my credit card, which includes my full name* You don't look like a Craig. What's your middle name?

Otaiba: Leslie. Now give me my card, I'll punch in the PIN, and you'll know it's mine. I don't have time to fuck around.

That she rang the sale through and gave him my card was funny enough, but that she did it without even asking him for any identification is hilarious. I can just see the poor girl castigating herself for assuming that an Asian man couldn't have the name 'Leslie', wondering if she'd offended him.

It had been a little while since I'd had to burgle a house in a foreign country, so I was a little nervous when my new downstairs neighbour locked herself out last night.
Would I still have it? What if I'd lost my touch? I didn't have a hammer, and even if I had the window in their door had that wire cross-hatching in it.
I shouldn't have worried. A little push with the straight end of a short crow-bar, then a more forceful tug with the curved end in front of the lock followed by a satisfying metallic pop as the door opened. I doubt you'd have even known that the door had been forced unless you were specifically looking for it.
It is a bit scary knowing that anyone could force their way into any house on my street in about 30 seconds, though. Whatever it is that keeps people from robbing us all blind, it's not the locks.