CONCRETE_OLYMPUS_

How did I end up here? Lockdown forced us out of the house we were outgrowing. We found affordability and space in an estate being raised from the clay earth. A former US army airstrip far from anything bombable.  The bookies closed down. Bookies never close down.  When there’s enough of you - residents, that is - the infrastructure will be built - schools, shops, bus routes… It’s not worth doing until there’s enough… of you. The salesman’s trousers were stained from his lunch. Scuffed shoes. A divorced sadness of a man who’d taken too much for granted.  It was a time of being inside and then outside as far from people as you could get. I dug a garden through rocks and clay to give us green against the deadening ochre of brick and fence that extended everywhere. A meditating Buddha sat atop a stack of chalky rocks. His peace divided us.  These are good people. I grew up in community, shared struggle, unlocked doors and every grown up being an uncle or an aunt. I f...

7am Sunday clang. Clumsy gloved hands assembling clothing rails before dawn. Fluorescent £5. Reclaiming the street from the sockless Essex of a few hours before.  We slept tight in a tight bed in a tight bedsit flat above it all. 60 degree white over the landlady’s purple. Groups half listen to the tales of a sadistic serial killer. It’s been long enough. I politely walk through them into the Sainsbury’s. Years before, I’d walked behind army surplus camo jackets and Dr. marten’s to the market.  Every Sunday, I sought out the market seller who spoke with an electrolarynx. He’d try to defer to his Vietnamese wife, but she always just shrugged with indifference. I bought cameras and guitars, none of which worked. The next stall sold Lomo cameras. I couldn’t afford one, but I bought a Holga. The camera came with a roll of black tape to block out the light leakage onto the film. The market closed for redevelopment. Now there’s a Wagamama, if you were looking for one. We met o...

Minidiscs in a carrier bag, closed book pages, online delivery reviews, lost log ins and knotweeds of telephone chargers.  Bosh. The Chinese restaurant’s sign is fading to nothing. Tastes haven’t changed. We love a Chinese.  Ordering went from shouting numbers to politely interrupting a student from their books.  A crisp packet that flew out the car, wedding shoes, milk teeth, a sports day gold medal, bags for life and a puff of dandelion clocks. They can’t find the owners of the Chinese Takeaway to sell or knock the building down. The owners’ kids got degrees.  There will always be a Chinese Takeaway here, it’s just never going to be open. Bricks and mortar. Monosodium red and yellow washed out. Chinese was the takeaway. Noodles or chips? I tried to order a chow mein in Shanghai and they just laughed. Long division and times tables, soggy Sunday league sidelines, church halls, 3pm school gates, sitting at the foot of a bed, lifts, love, time and attention.

1. The address of the rave was texted to us. A car full of 19 year olds, driven by a guy in his thirties. Greg wore designer knitwear and styled his hair with gel like the posters I saw in the barber I used to go to because it was empty. We drove through the crowd of baggy hoods and neon traces and parked on the edge of the field. A few different sound systems stood apart stoning us with walls of trance. Greg disappeared from the car and gurned his way back home to a rave that had died ten years ago.  2. We wriggled through the shallow tunnel under the Glastonbury fence, having thrown school bags filled with pants and socks 3 metres over the top. Waiting for darkness from the lights of patrolling security, we ran through the gap between the perimeter and the festival. Having camped up we set to the stone circle and approached a man with clumped hair, clothing from the incense shop with the statuette of Ganesh. He opened up an Alice in wonderland book they’d doused in LSD and ...