Keeps you walking

Strange days have found us. Last week I got a lift to work and we passed a short bald man in tight colourful clothes running in the road with his two dogs. Ten minutes later we saw him up ahead again, charging up the road his dogs beside him. Today a man dressed for summer in shorts and sandals gets off the tube, presumably to start his holidays somewhere in the grime.

Saturday saw me and my friend David's joint 40th birthday party, at a pub called Filthy McNasty's in Angel. I never get the hang of who to invite and kept the invites mainly to people in London, figuring no-one would want to come from outside. Being older seems a strange thing to celebrate. It was good fun though, a good mix of people, and the best thing is I'm still only 39.

Today was payday and hopefully I'm going to clear my overdraft this time round. We shall see. I want to run to the record and book shops and buy myself endless gifts, but I do sensible things, such as buying gas, and topping up my oyster card. Someone said it's all about the money but that ain't true. When it's all about the money so much gets lost.

Tonight I'm sitting in, writing this, listening to the Go Betweens and wondering how something can be as good as 'Boundary Rider'. Songs like that make it all worthwhile.

Gorilla

As I pass the school on Highbury Barn I notice amongst the kids running round and shouting, a young boy lying on the grass, between two trees. I slow down to check he's ok. He's deep in thought staring upwards. The grass isn't real, it's bright and fluffy.

I'm wearing a ruck-sack, both straps over my shoulders, which I suspect makes me look like a tourist. The bag contains birthday presents and a book, 'Just Kids' by Patti Smith, about her and Robert Maplethorpe living in New York City in the 70's, struggling to establish themselves as artists. That book's the only luxury I afforded myself this month. Last month the only luxury I bought was a big red plastic tomato for storing tomato sauce. By the end of the month I was starting to regret it. When I looked in my food cupboards to find the cupboards bare except a big red plastic tomato, I was not happy with my choices. I was ready to blame that big red tomato for everything.

Tracy's birthday so we go to the zoo. It's a cold day and the meercats are hiding away in their hidey-holes. The pelicans are either standing upright or shrunk down, burying their heads into their feathers. The pancake stall is shut. Curse you big red tomato. The big tiger is asleep. The smaller tiger is by the glass and we peer in at him, but he's uninterested. The penguins are ready to perform, waddling to the water before jumping in for a swim. Underwater they look like big fish. The butterfly area housed in a tent shaped as a caterpillar is a refuge from the cold. The butterflies fly around us and sometimes onto us. An old volunteer guy shows me the pupas where the butterflies hatch.

My favourite part of the zoo is the gorilla house. They just make you laugh, the way they slope along nonchalantly, scratching themselves and munching on food. The younger gorilla perches himself on a branch, his arms folded, as if to say: "I ain't performing for anyone." The older gorilla upturns a plastic basket and sits on it staring out the glass at us. He has a really sad look on his face as we peer curiously in.

Don't worry about it Gorilla. You could have evolved and now be spending your time blaming everything on a big red tomato.

On a clear day

Clear days have found us and I'm out from the fog of work and away from the Smoke for a few days at least. I head North, staying in Wirral - the Leisure Peninsula. On a clear day you can see Liverpool from here. Friday we hit the mainland and I meet up with friends from my old work at lunch and later go to the Everyman to meet other, non-work friends. The pubs are full of people I know. Most people don't seem to know I moved away.

"I haven't seen you for ages," they say.

"Well, I don't get out much these days."

After a heavy Friday night we stick to, well, the sticks. We walk five miles to a lighthouse. Later we decide it was more like ten miles. By Sunday it's twenty-six miles. Sunday roast at the Magazines is delicious. There's a guy sat at the table next to ours, with his wife. He reads damning articles about popular culture and sport in a loud abhorrent voice. His wife looks uncomfortable. "Am I talking to myself," he says at some point, before mentioning a festival, he's clearly 20 years too old and cynical to attend, and exclaiming that there's no bands worth seeing. Boy, I hope I'm not turning into this guy.

Back in that London everybody looks hostile on the tube. At the flat it takes ages to warm up. Work is a million soul destroying tasks, the bank account is empty and you wonder what it's all for.

Sound of Sundays

On Northolme Road a couple are shaking out a blanket on the pavement. Sunday morning and it's pretty quiet on these streets. The traffic on the main streets is a low rumble, out of sight. Most people are indoors waiting for the spring. I'm walking along peering through bay windows into front rooms. Rows of books on shelves, tall exotic plants by the window, the flicker of TV images and the back of someone's head appearing above an old brown chair, a brass clock on top of the fire place. The sound of a piano.

I'm thinking about something Steve said last night, when he and David came round mine for our guitar session. He said he liked the sound of the milk bottles as he put them out at night. It's a homely sound. Do you remember that advert in the early eighties, with Brian Glover saying: 'don't let your milkman become a thing of the past'? I'd almost forgotten about the milkman; the places I've lived over the past 18 years don't get milk delivered to.

I like the whirring sound of the electric milkfloat heading up your street in the morning before the sun rises. Or when you're laying in bed late on a weekday morning and the sounds of the street outside have stopped as everyone is now in work or school and all you can hear is the spin of the washing machine . When you're a child, Sunday afternoons always used to be still; the men would be asleep in their chairs and the women could be heard in the distance, talking quietly in the kitchen. But all you could really hear would be the sound of the clock above the fire place as you push a toy car across the carpet and try and imagine a scenario to play out as you stare into the pattern of the carpet.

A woman walks across the street with her washing bunched up in her arms. I'm walking past the houses with their front porches with green mats, brown mats, steps with green algae, the green recycling bins full of old newspapers and magazines. In just over a month's time I will be 40 years old. I head home for a cup of tea and hot cross buns.

Oh! Sweet Nuthin'

Sometimes it takes all day for anything to happen to lift you from the drabness of another rainy day. Tuesday, I didn't feel alright until the Sweeney started at 8pm. It's funny because watching them now you can see simple plot twists; like who's the insider for the gang, and the fact some characters are allowed to get away for a bit so they can add in an extra car chase - sure TV has evolved and 70s TV was just as good and just as rubbish as now - but you've got to hand it to John Thaw as Jack Reagan. Lines like: ' why are you lot standing around like a motorway breakfast?' are priceless. I can never imagine anyone else as Jack Reagan. The voice, the attitude, the whiskey in the office drawer. For my money John Thaw is up there with Leonard Rossiter and Tom Baker, when you talk 70s TV.

But back to the 21st century and on pay day I'm in a fantastic mood for almost 45 minutes before the working day spoils everything. I get to the bank, draw out some money and then once I make a list of all my outgoings, realise I'm going to be broke in a few days. Back into the overdraft for a while, then living on sweet nuthin'. I've been overdrawn for months, and despite loads of nights of staying in, I can't get myself out of the red. I was pondering this for a while, then the working day really kicked in and names had to be added to the enemies list.

Sometimes the week is so bad you forget to notice the guy letting you go by first on the stairs, don't notice that the train pulls into the station exactly as you arrive at the bottom of the steps, and its doors open as if just for you and there's a seat free too. You just want to get home, lock the door shut against the wolves and hope the weekend has some magic to offer.

Sky fell in on me, cloud caught me across the cheek

Last Saturday early evening we were driving into Brighton. It was all there in front of us, the pier lit up against the black of the night sea. We never stopped, there was nowhere to park. Close, but never touching. On the way back into London at 9.30, all the hairdressers in south London were still open.

This weekend I'm being drawn like a magnet into Dalston. I'm doing someone a favour from work, dropping off their band equipment in nearby Stoke Newington. I drift into Dalston and a couple of turnings later I'm outside a familiar house. This is where they filmed Naked. It's a strange house; there's a few together on their own island between three streets. It looks exactly as it does in the film, nobody, thankfully, has come over to spruce it up.

In the evening I'm back in Dalston at Barden's Boudoir to see Veronica Falls. Their website says get there early because the bands are on early. So I'm there for 8.30. The band come on sometime after 11.30. It's a strange club. There's a mix of 80's looking kids and student types, I think. It's hard to tell, it's dark in that place. The music is a mix of rap and rave music. Has music all melded into one now, do the kids like everything? Waiting for the band to come on stage I'm knocked into by girls dancing to rave. Eventually the band shuffle on and chiming guitars and girl-boy vocals abound. I like them, they only seem to have a handful of songs, the guitarist has problems with his classic guitar and it cuts out a few times. They start a song only to re-start it thirty seconds later, but it adds to the entertainment and it all comes through. Thank goodness for shambling indie.

Walking up Stoke Newington High Street to get the bus at midnight and all the florists are still open. Shame, I need a haircut.

Rationale and Reason are pursuing us but we are faster

At 1.15pm on Baker Street I’m running between platforms. The Metroplitan line is saying 10 minutes to King’s Cross, the circle line isn’t giving any information away. There’s a load of kids in my way, all suitcases and rucksacks. When I eventually board the train a few of them get onto the same carriage.

They are talking about Paris. Show offs. Who are they to talk of Paris when I’m gripped so firmly in the jaws of commerce? They are talking of the hotel excitedly and then talk turns to alcohol:

“You’re only 17,” one of the girls says.

I’m looking at them. They look so young; all long hair and innocent expressions, excited and naive about the holiday ahead.

“Yeah but I’m sure we could get served,” one lad replies.

I want to go to Paris with these people. No hang on, that would make me a pervert or worse, the teacher. The teacher can be heard but is dwarfed by the kids surrounding her. She’s telling them about the need to behave as it’s a school trip.

“Maybe we could have a couple of drinks.”

I like the way they say it so gingerly. These kids couldn’t cause any trouble if they tried. One guy, who looks like Euros Childs, is looking shyly at the teacher trying to gauge her reaction.

The teacher relents a little saying no-one will begrudge them a couple of drinks of beer or a glass of wine. She’s having a glass of wine when she reaches the hotel. She does tell them that she doubts they’ll be able to afford it anyway, as Mr Hendricks bought a pint of Guiness in Montmatre and it cost him 14 euros. She adds that it was a nice pint of Guiness, by all accounts.

The train stops at King’s Cross and I get off and on my way while they group together to head for the Eurostar. Have a drink for me schooltrip people and enjoy a world free of work while it lasts.