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of Boz about the town, street props, a bit of fog and whiskered cheeks. He’s further back than Holmes, before science and steel blew away all the cobwebs. But he’s lurking yet in our modern poverty.

out on the grey roads, fields only a few miles from town. It feels good to pick up speed, I might even break orbit from the ceaseless radio patter of the can’t stay/can’t leave commentariat, with their touted best outcomes of isolation oblivion or a return to what half the nation rejected. I’m not certain there’s any going back after 18 months of torment. We’ve chained the past and mastered the present, but that only serves to make the unshackled future more terrifying.

my Yucateco on scrambled eggs, Fred Wesley, on loud, black coffee with a cinnamon stick and a drop of vanilla, a bagel and honey for second breakfast, lines of text running away wild pony style across the page, sorry, Hank.

part hidden under the bridge, puffing on a roll-up. He doesn’t mind me nosing around, long as I don’t spook the fish. I’ve come to see how they size the water.

that’s living, that’s what agency is. We grow and we’re alive and when you kick out the space falls away to nothing again. And most of us want more space to occupy so we grub around and hustle and fight for that land. That’s the business of living. I’m getting obsessed with measuring things, I walk around with my pockets full of tapes, calipers, scales and gauges. As though knowing the size of things is all that matters. The space they fill.

came in hard no warning, was on us in a biting swirl, a war party of shrieking grit. We still had the windscreen down and the canopy rolled up in the back, had to brake and fall out with hands cupped over our mouths and eyes. The dirt got in, burning anywhere it touched. I stumbled along the doors, got the canopy untied, had to keep my eyes pinched shut, dragged it over the seats. I got one side up and began working the clips around the jeep, scraped my knees open on the steel floor as I clambered in. Thomson had the screen up and I hooked the clamps over the glass, pushed the rods open to form the roof. And then we were both inside the flapping, screaming tent, running our fingers around the canvas to lock it in place, stuffing clothes and paper into any gap. When it was done we sat back in the gloom and listened to the storm. It blew so hard I thought the glass would etch white, a desert frost.

on an errand, stopped to stare at the downs and the open sky. I’m craving another mountain. The noise on the wires will squeeze the life out of you, got to run to find a clear spot.

sober as I wake and face the sun. First coffee, the first hour the best. Meditate by morning, abandon all hope in the long afternoon.

playing September Song, pad out to the canal. But Riverman’s lost to the quiet waterways, his old boat gone and nothing left but a slur of dead weeds and ripped earth where it broke free. Could be a month or a year before he returns. He once told me I could always write to him at the Blue Anchor, Hammersmith, if I needed him. A friendly salt would leave the card behind the bottles until he blew in for a pint, or pass it upriver on the boats. He doesn’t do tech, Riverman, doesn’t trust the digital flicker. This town feels more friendless and forsaken than ever.

with the appropriate traffic cones. The lines are all painted and grooved, we hurtle towards the break.