Street Sadness

    I found a tiny little corner shop in Bonnington Square, in the back streets of Vauxhall. It was called Italo. I stepped inside to order a coffee. As I sat waiting for it to arrive I noticed a large, original Jim Dine etching on the wall of a pair of long-handled pliers. The proprietor was a tall, gregarious man with glasses and a dirty tee shirt. I told him that I had been admiring the Dine on the wall behind him. He seemed surprised that I knew of the artist.     "Oh, do you know his work?"    "Indeed I do! I think he is a great artist!"    "I'm always amazed that he isn't better known."    "I agree! I think he is very under-rated."    "My father knew him very well, of course. As a child, we would have holidays at Dine's place in Vermont. I remember that he had a very big wooden dinner table. Over the years all the artists and writers who had ever eaten around the table had carved their names into the surfa...

    I walked through threadbare Kennington Park, which was empty save for five or six chav kids in a run-down pavilion, sitting up on the backs of the seats, smoking and talking about bad boy stuff. I continued along the path. Hundreds of springtime crocuses were pushing up under the bare trees. Some of the paths were closed off by workman’s screens although there was no sign of any workmen, and all of their equipment lay dormant around the muddy edges of the park. I came to a long, low, grassy trench. There was a sign at one end of it. It read: “This is a memorial to over 100 local people who were killed in an air raid shelter in the park during the Blitz. A 50lb bomb fell around 8pm on the 15 th October, 1940, causing one section of the trench air-raid shelter to collapse. Over 100 people died, the majority of them women and children, the youngest just 3 months old.”     As I continued my walk I passed a crunchy-brown, dead Christmas tree that someone ...

    I walked around the streets near my flat. It was a beautiful, almost spring-like day. I took pleasure in getting lost within the winding, meandering streets as I worked out my way back home. Just up ahead I saw a big glob of some indeterminate matter on the pavement. As I got closer I saw that it was a massive clump of chewing gum. It was about the size of a ping pong ball and would have taken some concentrated, determined chewing. As I passed the lump, laying there in a pool of drool, a frisson of horror suddenly chilled me as it dawned on me what this was. An entire molar was embedded into the gelatinous mass of gum, its three-pronged root pointing at the sky. I hurried quickly on, wondering whether this was the result of an accident or an emergency procedure of self-dentistry.