Baker Street

The maroon-jacketed barbers have clearly spent the morning Brylcreeming themselves in preparation. The pictures on their wall — Gregory and Rock and the first Darren from Bewitched — greet us with sneeringly-slick Hollywood sparkle. It’s the bloke who looks like that wise Irish sergeant from Z Cars doing…

Basilica

I have a note I made afterwards. It says, ‘What is the relationship between meaning, context and purity?’ No, no idea what I was going on about either.

I walk in: an embracingly chill air, an exquisite choir. Beyond angels. I soon realise the sweet sound (remember that gulab jamun we…

Broadmoor

You drew a picture once, some therapeutic tiger, and it looked quite lifelike — all striped and fierce and ready to kill, but with an old lady’s smile. I liked you.

Shared gifts: I’d been afraid and hopeful and lost two teeth crashing into a tree as I flew across the stream on a frayed rope, briefly free of…

Man Crush

So your carte is entirely blanche

and you must name one man you fancy

she says,

having just listed twenty-six women

she fancies,

Dear Jane: A Confession

I’d walk past your old man’s rust-ridden Aston Martin every day and wonder if it had an ejector seat.

I’d pass your place on the way to the bus stop and pray you’d choose just that moment to emerge from your weird, pebble-dashed house, greet me with the smile…

Nostalgia

…they chained up the swings on Sundays because breeze-in-face smiling would lead us into temptation and they couldn’t afford to pay Parkie overtime

and they cleaned up the crisp bags and empty tubes of glue once a week because they wanted to save our souls and because the locals had…