Lunchtime Walk

I walked out of the building. Dark, smelly, no daylight. Glad to be outdoors. Till I saw the weather. Mizzly, drizzly, soaked in minutes. Bank of cloud so low it seemed to brush my forehead. Opened my huge umbrella, gay red and white stripes, the only colour for miles. Walked. Limped. Needed my stick. Rat-a-tat-tat on the ground. Blind Pew on acid. Into the Grange. Dripping money. Dripping trees. Yellow poster on a gate advertising a talk on climate change. No climate change apparent here. A surprising number of old Volkswagen camper vans. Bohemian spirit in the heart of middle-aged, middle-class Edinburgh. Roads covered in speed bumps, one of which nearly took the sump off a Fiat Punto. Breeze drifted rain onto my good suit. Romanian wool, guaranteed to shrink at the sight of water. All in all, not much of a walk, really.

"Photo Album"

I take totally rancid photographs. Dozens of albums, some cheap and nasty, others expensive, all chronicling the story of a life. the chronology of events, good and bad. A family, growing up, sometimes in distress, sometimes in happiness. Travel. Blackpool with its glorious illuminations and its extrovert seediness - hedonism - 'Pleasure for all at the Pleasure Beach.' Wallsend-on-Tyne, the town where I grew up, dying, decaying, shorn of investment and development since the death of shipbuilding. Full of friendly and warm people done down by successive governments and councils. Photographs of people, faces fixed with rictus grins behind painted smiles, maybe they're lined with pain - the show must go on and nobody must know.

"Getting Older"

The only way for me from now on is down. My gums are receding faster than the Scarborough coastline and my hair, once blonde, is shot through with grey. My brain continues to slow down. I forget people's names -'Jenny who?' I'm losing my faculties. I've had an injury that has made me walk with a stick. I look like Jake the Peg. My skin has collapsed like a burst souffle. Only my nose and eyebrows continue to grow. I'm like a human Pinocchio, except for the untruths. I'm increasingly sceptical and cynical about everything, especially the Government, banking and the legal profession. I am thinking of forming the 'Anti-everything league'. My philosophy is now one of 'hanging and flogging.' All that, I'm rich in experience, deep in knowledge and rippling with wisdom, I think.

A Long Time Ago.....

There was Blackpool - a long spit of shore separating St Annes and Fleetwood, an archaic pleasure-palace for the great masses and a place that, for a short while, I called my home. I would walk from Squires Gate to the South Shore in winter, when the place was deserted, to marvel at the power of the waves and, if I was lucky, witness sunsets like golden balls of fire erupting from a dark volcano on the horizon-line. Then everything went belly-up and Blackpool became too hot for me to live in, so I escaped.