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Philip

Sunday appears to be extra festive, at the QV market: as we passed through this morning we saw an inflatable castle and a pair of camels being groomed. I got a picture of the animals with skyscrapers in the background while an American couple passed behind me; "at least they're not as stinky as the ones in Israel," one of them observed. I gave a ( Read more... )

How many donuts have I purchased from that man at the bottom of the ramp? I feel that it might be close to a hundred. Today, after all these years, I returned to Footscray and gave the donut-maker a carnation. He was in the process of hand-rolling the balls, but turned at my approach and accepted the gift through the window. I had to reach it over ( Read more... )

Today we bought a new stove (to replace the waterlogged old one) from a man selling all sorts of electrical items out of a shop on Belleville. I entered with a rose, and was immediately transfixed by a wall of televisions broadcasting video-clips of East-European pop ballads - all close-ups of teeth, doves and hair in slow motion. But I snapped out ( Read more... )

Elsa was wearing a cute floral dress as she opened the door this evening, tied at the front with a gigantic red bow. She had bought the dress in New York, recently, en route from a conference on the study of popular music at Nashville, Tennessee. Is she the coolest person on the planet, or what? Just inside the door I handed over a trio of gifts ( Read more... )

There's something apocalyptic about the way in which crowds depart from the metro platform, all sense of community lost as individuals squeeze between person-shaped obstacles and sigh at one another. I'm quite good at this myself, actually, and often win the surface-bound race at Pyrénées ( Read more... )

The flower thing was easy, this morning, because I'd just had an enormous breakfast and was radiating genuine love for myself and the world. I just handed the carnation to the first guy who passed us along St Marys. He was wearing dark glasses, a bandanna, and extraordinarily little shorts. He was tickled by the gift and kept yelling "thank you" ( Read more... )

Today was the first day that I have seen people using the art-gallery fountain as a swimming pool. It was delirious! Much more healthily raucous than life in Liverpool had been. When I passed it for the second time the sun was getting really balmy. There was a woman sitting there with her shoes off. "For you," I said, trying to keep it dreamy. It's ( Read more... )

I rushed home to get my flower just in case Ryan was feeling spontaneous enough to join me at the movies. He wasn't, so I took the bunch to the minster gardens, protruding from my schoolbag in a most eccentric fashion. For a while their inaccessibility made me miss opportunities - like the man in the leather jacket or the tourist with the glasses ( Read more... )

I took the last of my chrysanthemums onto the city walls and enjoyed the childish pleasure of strolling along a footpath with flowers. I was pointing the plant at the ground as if it was perfectly natural for a left arm to be botanically extended, passing a few mundane tourists on the pretty section between Bootham bar and Monk bar. It was at the ( Read more... )