The Liquorice Tree

Between two smallish trees in Clissold Park there is a long length of red twine that somebody (conceptual nature artist or mischievous kitten with a ball of wool) has wrapped round and round many times. It's saying "we are connected in ways that we don't fully understand". It's also saying "imagine a world where red licorice grows from the trees. Yum!" It might also be an advert for the wool shop on Blackstock Road. Or perhaps it's saying "look how fragile is mortality" or "look how fragile is the Arsenal back four when a ball is played over the top".

The Investment Bank Metaphor Bike

At the end of our road there is a bike chained to a lamp post. Over the last two or three months the bike has slowly been stripped of various parts. Its seat went first, then front wheel. The frame is there and the chain, but no-one seems to want that. 

Bike chains and feng shui

On Riversdale Road today, on the same part of the road that was the other day covered in rubbish, one of my neighbours was trying to put the chain on her bike.

"Her chain's bust," shouted the tall Irish bloke from across the road, out tending his front garden on the other side of the road.

I stopped to help. The bike wasn't in good nick and I couldn't get the chain to work. The Irish bloke came over and we started discussing how this part of the road might be haunted, as my hands got more and more covered in oil.

"It's bad feng shui" said the tall Irish bloke. "All the chi is flowing off down Wyatt Road. That's why I'm poor," he laughed, pointing at his jumper full of holes. I told them about the New River which used to flow under their houses and we started discussing plans to reinstate a stretch of it on Riversdale Road.

"Did you know there was a battle between the Danes and the Saxons round here," said the Irish bloke. I said I did, though I can't remember how I found it out - perhaps on a rainy afternoon in Guildhall Library from an obscure book whose title I wrote down in a now lost notebook. The area was once known as Dane Bottom, a reminder of a group of Scandinavian lads who came over for a European away tie and never went home. We discussed the possibility that the road might be haunted by the ghost of a Viking, then the tall Irish bloke realised he hadn't done any front yard tidying for at least 15 minutes, and scooted off home.

Dirty foxes

Walking home along Riversdale Road I see the tall Irish bloke who's always cleaning and painting his front yard. He's standing in the road looking forlorn. As I get closer I can see rubbish - papers, bags, crap, clothers - strewn all over the place.
"How are you?" I say.
"Foxes." he replies. "They can smell the dogshit. What a mess."
I decide to help him clear up the rubbish. It's in front of his house and he's very proud of his place, I know. As if reading my mind he says "I like tidiness. I hate mess like this."
I find a brown shoe. "It was a stylish one legged fox," I say. He laughs. I find a copy of Marie Claire. "It was a stylish one legged fox who is into fashion and make up tips." He laughs again.
I see him later in the day and he waves. He is once more cleaning his front yard.

Goodbye Football Tree

A while ago (I can't remember - was it three years or six months?) a wicker sculpture was placed on top of the remains of one of the old trees that had died after the 2003 drought. It seemed to be saying that the tree could continue to have a life after it had died.

Every day my two year old son and I walk through Clissold Park and go up to touch the Football Tree.

"Football Tree!" my son will say. We'll then both have a quiet think about how great football and trees are, and walk on.

But the Football Tree is no more. The other morning as we approached it as part of our daily pilgrimage, we saw the wicker sphere lying smashed on the ground. Next to it was an iron pole, part of a nearby fairground display. Still fresh in the air was the sense that someone had decided that good stuff was rubbish and had to be ruined. Was this part of the artist's planned trajectory for the sculpture - to hire a gang of bored and drunk idiots to destroy it?

My son said he wanted to fix the football tree. I told him that it couldn't be fixed because it was a metaphor for the world's problems. Or the problems of bored and drunk idiots hanging around in parks at night. Or the England football team's problems. Or the problems of sentimentalising outdoor installation sculpture

Clissold Park Bowling Green Martial Arts Society

The old bowling green in Clissold Park has recently become a martial arts zone. Of particular interest is the modern hybrid form practiced by two white-tracksuited youngsters. It looks to be a combination of tai chi, judo, robotic dancing and generally hanging around looking bored. Quite how this form would fair in straight combat is hard to say, though the bright white robes/shellsuits might be off-putting enough to an attacker for the martial artists to leg it in the other direction.

Golden skies over Holloway

The daffodils are out in Clissold Park. Squat dogs round and through them.
"Kaiser! Butch! Over here!" shouts an angry looking man with little hair. The sky over Lower Holloway is golden but greyness is descending as the wind picks up. A blue plastic bag joins us on our walk and keeps pace for a while before blowing up into the branches of a tree.

The old tin box factory on Blackstock Road

In my post-pub dreams the old deserted tin box factory on Blackstock Road was going to be turned into something exciting. Any day now. Over the years it has been the site of:

1) A writers' retreat with running water and personalised minibars
2) A cafe for nymphomaniac jazz chicks
3) A zoo for put-upon grey squirrels
4) A cinema for stay-at-home dads
5) A swimming pool for people with dodgy knees
6) A museum of cheese

Unfortunately I always dreamed these things but never did anything about them. Now the bulldozers have arrived and the old deserted tin box factory on Blackstcok Road is now just a few piles of browny-yellow brick.

So which of my ideas will become reailty? Or will it become just another shite block of modernist flats?

Avoiding the sailor

On days like this when I’m really busy it’s essential that, when popping out on errands, I manage to avoid the sailor. Whenever I bump into the sailor he tends to take up a blocking position that is impossible to counter. And I am stuck.

The sailor’s favourite topics of conversation are:
1) The speedbumps in the road that lorries drive over and keep him awake at night
2) The inevitablity of the UK become a Muslim state
3) Women and how he doesn’t have much luck with them

A while ago I rushed out to the corner shop to buy some herbs for some fish I was cooking. The sailor must have been hiding in undergrowth in his front garden for he suddenly popped out in front of me, took up the blocking position and started to tell me about his relationship with Michael Flatley, the Riverdance bloke. He even had a photo of the two of them in his jacket pocket.

ME: Got to go. I’m in a hurry.
THE SAILOR: You’re always in a hurry. You need to relax a bit more.

And it's true. I only ever seem to meet the sailor when I’m pushed for time.

Now and again I will try to predict where I’ll meet him. I’ll change direction at the last minute, but there he’ll be. He must have some kind of high tech sonar equipment built into his fedora.

“In 15 years time we will all be Muslim, you know.”

Parkland Walk

A slow walk with my daughter to Park Walk on the western edge of Finsbury Park. It's on the route of an old railway line which the Victorians built to link Stroud Green to the Winchester Hall Tavern on Archway Road. Commuters would leave the Finsbury Park area in the eary morning then get massively drunk at The Winchester and roll off home in the evening.
"Did you have a good day at the office, dear?"
"God it was tough. Took ages to get served."

The Newspaper Dilemma

On days like this when I'm really busy playing Operation with my daughter I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I go to the nearest newspaper shop, where the head guy doesn't really speak English (apart from 'hello' and 'yes boss') or go a bit further away - in fact, cross over the border into Hackney borough, on the other side of Mountgrove Road, to get my papers from Dursun. Dursun and his family are interesting talkative types. But his shop is about 30 yards further away.

I used to go to Dursun’s all the time but now I try to save time by going to the shop that’s nearest. What I think I’m going to do with this saved time I haven’t really considered. It's only about an extra minute. And I only buy three newspapers a week these days. That’s three minutes a week, 156 minutes a year. Could I write a novel in the time available? Yes, in theory. In 156 minutes I reckon I could do around 1500 words. So for a shortish 80,000 word novel, it’d take me 53 years. So I’ll have finsihed it by the time I’m 93.

It seems ridiculous but I think it's a worthwhile project and soemthing to keep me occupied when I’m an old dodderer. I’m going to give it a working title of The Newspaper Novel. One minute a day.

By the way, today I persuaded my wife to get the paper as I didn't want to leave the house. Some of the plastic bones from Operation have gone missing and I needed to do a scan of the living room. I think they’ve been deliberately hidden because my daughter knows they are my lucky bones.

Fox Rodent Hybrid Nut Fiends

A mother is walking through the park with a small boy following behind, dribbling a football. A squirrel runs across their path.
"I used to see red squirrels when I was little," says mum. The boy isn't listening. He's doing commentaries to himself as he jogs along.
" There were lots of them at my Auntie Jo's house," she says. The boy kicks the ball against the fence and makes a crowd noise. His mum sighs.
"They're mostly grey squirrels now."