Sunday

Alain De Botton says that small things get in the way of us realising our authentic selves. And that's really it, isn't it? That's the whole thing right there. The denial of the authentic self. And yet even denial is the wrong word. Robbed is the right word but the question is why we let such small things rob (a word that suggests a significant act of which we should probably be aware) us of massively big things that we should be protecting and holding on to at pretty much any cost. Actually we are, all of us, rarely strong enough to stop our authentic selves slipping away and the fact is that we're painfully aware...and then we try to deal with the repercussions of that for the rest of our lives. It's the fodder for absolutely everything: I promise to commit no acts of violence, either physical or otherwise if things come alive.

Saturday

From a house on Kingston Road comes the sound of the Baby Elephant Walk. I'm sure it's being played rather than a recording. Someone gets up on Saturday morning to practice the tuba. In the supermarket a dishevelled man with green dye on his ear and no shoes recites lines from Blur's Boys and Girls to people waiting in the queue. They make nervous eye contact with each other. Supermarket staff start to follow him but he's pushing a trolley like he's fully intending to buy washing detergent and I doubt they can eject him for knowing lots of words to nineties Brit pop. Following the herd down to Greece.

You had to know that I was fond of you. Fond of y.o.u.

It's a perfect moment: Romance Was Born getting into a taxi out the front. The purple stripey stockings propelling me and the salami sandwich towards them. The girl Romance holding her door open longer than required just to get a better look at the stockings. The stockings making me so proud.

Fond of y.o.u.