my pile of rust-red bricks under the Oxon sun, just one subterranean level, access via crowbar. I don rubber gloves and affix peg to hooter, jab at blockage with stick until my eyes smart and stream from the odour released. Where is my lackey? Where my simpering toady, my lopsided hunchback with his coffin axe, my teams of chefs, minstrels and bedturners? Where my blockage-jabber? No staff for me. I am my own chairman and minion, tea maker, pencil pusher and V-wing visionary combined. I am the lone, holed boat on the Pacific slab, an army knife of blunt blades in need of oiling. I get the dirty jobs and dream of the others. But life warrants life’s troubles, and the view of the skies after the pit is more than enough reward.
