on the other hand there’s hardly anyone about in Horseshoe Street downhill one of those random lulls in foot or vehicle traffic where all of a sudden it goes silent like a Western main-street just before a shoot-out there was once a time I might have wandered down that way and had a pleasant evening out, all of the pubs there used to be the Shakespeare at the top here and the Harbour Lights another biker hangout in the ’Seventies I always used to wonder why they’d called it that when we’re the furthest point inland but I suppose it’s just another wistful evocation of the sea the way that Terry Wogan called the Express Lift tower the Northampton lighthouse anyway the Harbour Lights the building’s still there but they’ve changed the name the Jolly Wanker, well there’s a big letter W and then an anchor but it’s obvious what it’s saying now I’m all for free speech but I don’t agree with that I don’t see any need you wouldn’t catch me drinking in there anyway I’ve too much self respect besides the whole street looks like it’s unravelling
I wonder how much longer the Victorian gas-holder’s going to be there it was talked about a few times when I was still on the council, council leader a good many years and in the end you have to balance practicality against nostalgia well that’s all it is when it comes down to it nostalgia for a place or thing that no one really gave a fuck about to start with but because they happened to grow up in such and such a street they don’t want anything to change which is to my mind unrealistic nothing stays the same forever everything is going downhill places people we all make adjustments we all start out as idealists or at any rate as something passing for idealists but that’s not the real world in the real world everything and everybody ends up as a Jolly Wanker and that’s their fault it’s not wait a minute there’s somebody do I know him someone standing halfway down the hill on this side of the dual carriageway I’m sure I’ve seen his face just standing there and staring at the billiard hall across the street black leather jacket on he looks like a real villain oh he’s turned his head he’s looking up the hill towards me better look away
perhaps if I went uphill up Horsemarket I could stop in at the Bird in Hand whatever it’s called now the place on Regent Square up Sheep Street just to say I’d had one just to say I’ve got a social life even when I’m the only one at home that man though I won’t turn around in case he’s looking I know him from somewhere I’m convinced of it a face like that you don’t forget it in a hurry with that big hook nose his eyes at different levels different angles to each other honestly his face, it looked like a collage it looked like that old ghost’s face when it runs across the road towards me in my nightmare every other week perhaps he lives round these parts one of the menagerie like that chap that you see walking his ferrets although now I come to think was it on telly that I saw him in a film an advert something of that nature horror story I should think from how he looks but on the other hand how likely is it somebody from telly being in the Boroughs it’s more probable I know his face from Mandy’s work with the police you know the evening sun, Horsemarket on these lower slopes, it looks quite nice
a restaurant an Italian place across the street don’t like the lettering
black movement on the paving not a heart attack the shadow of a bird that’s a relief
some girl young woman she’s quite pretty lovely eyes a hajib she’s Somali
it’s frustrating even two years later the Iraq war I opposed it obviously made a few statements to the paper and yes I suppose that stepping down from council that same year to some it might have looked as if I’d made a stand on principle although I never said that in as many words no to be honest it was more a legal technicality so that I could pursue my business interests without a breach of regulations and I don’t see that there’s any contradiction in a staunch opponent of the war planning a trip to Basra Anglicom we called the company anyway that’s neither here nor there, as I said at the time that’s history what’s done is done yes I opposed the war but when it’s happened then that’s the reality that’s what you’ve got to work with and I think that settling deals to help the restoration of Iraq it’s part of a humanitarian effort when you stop to think about it and I don’t see, I don’t see when there’s a pie that big to be divided up why it should be your Halliburtons getting all the contracts where’s the harm in standing up for British companies me and Colin he’s my partner business partner I should say you have to be so careful with your language these days don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression me and Colin were all set to fly to Basra, 2004, I mean they said the airstrip was secured it was all over or at least up in the north, there was that bloke the source of all the WMD reports what was his name and they were going to parachute him into government all done and dusted so they said, we’d booked the flights announced it in the Chronicle & Echo everything and then it all kicked off contractors taken hostage every other day a car bomb there’s beheading footage posted on the internet we called it off well we announced that we’d postponed it thinking I don’t know there’d be a drop-off in the violence something like that but it’s never going to happen is it look at it the Middle East it’s hopeless it’s all fucked it’s
bloody hell I’m making hard work of this slope I should sign up down at the gym but
Mary’s Street back of the ibis rear delivery yards the fire came down here once
the sunset on the windows of the flats our business in Iraq it wasn’t meant to be
sometimes, sometimes I wonder if the things in life aren’t all laid out from the beginning like town planning, there’s a good example, if there’s only one way things are going to go for say a district or a neighbourhood it’s all already been decided but the people living there don’t have a clue what’s going to happen in their future there’s been public consultation only none of them have heard about it they all think they’ve got a say in how life’s going to go for them they think that their decisions matter but they don’t it’s all a done deal from the start whether they have a job or not and where they end up living where their kids are sent to school and how they’re likely to grow up as a result I mean I’m talking now about the worse off obviously but what if that was true for everything that everything was planned out from the kick-off and although we all think we’re the masters of our lives and free to make our own decisions that’s just an illusion in reality we only make the choices we’re allowed to make already set out for us in the planning documents there’s no effective consultation process how much of a choice have any of us really got it’s like I made a conscious choice to not go left and up Chalk Lane not go up Gold Street into the town centre but it sometimes feels like I’ve arrived at my decision only after I’ve already started doing what I’m going to do, as if making a choice is all after the fact is all justification for things that were always going to happen when you look back at your life some of the things you’ve done that you well not regret exactly let’s say errors that you’ve made errors of judgement where you genuinely tried to do the right thing but when you look back it’s as though circumstance conspired against you where temptations were so huge that nobody would stand a chance where literally you’d have to be a saint an angel it feels like there’s something nudging you, making you go the way it wants and when you look at it like that then who’s to blame for anything