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This poky lane by a blackened sandstone church leads, is on my way up to the Council House, now it comes back to me, now I remember, the Council House, the local name for the Town Hall, in this city, where the Council meets, logical enough, now it comes back to me, the Council House, I make my way there, pleased at having put a name to it, this public building.                            The architecture nothing, here, in general, as I remember, not even interesting houses behind the grasping façades of the businessmen's shops, from the evidence of their upper storeys, looking up, no, nor the public buildings inspired by anything but Portland stolidity, ah, these things, disfigurement, but what was there before, here before, that was subsequently disfigured? The cash drive, evident everywhere, why this is thought of as a booming city, ha, this was not a village before the industrial revolution, but nor was it dev-eloped, or at least if it was then they tore so much of it down, replaced it with these Victorian and Edwardian blocks, villas, dwellings, whatever. My mind passes dully over the familiar ground of my prejudices, so much of thought is repetition, is dullness, is sameness.

The accent of the women shoppers, the boy asking toys of his father, in this alley!                      Four, five scooters sweep round the bend. dangerous angle it looks to me now, but I must have gone round corners nearer my earhole when I had a motorbike, you could lay my Ariel Red Hunter over further on a bend than you can any scooter, I know, the respective centres of gravity, and so on, and so forth, but now I know how it must have seemed to those watching, particularly my parents, perhaps my friends, who did not know it was perfectly safe to lay the bike over at such speeds, provided the road was dry, it was dangerous if it were wet, but otherwise safe enough, as these scooter-riders were safe enough, and there is no feeling like it, even in a sports car, the keeling over, swinging through a bend, on a motorbike, or better still, through a series of bends, now leaning this way, correcting, to the opposite side, corresponding angle, and so on, motorways must be dead dreary for motorcyclists, perhaps that is why you don't see them very often, now, on motorways, or at all, very much, these days, motorcyclists, compared with say ten years ago, or fifteen, whenever it was I was a teenager, and had my Red Hunter, there were lots of us then, or more than there are now, at any rate, what does it matter, why do reasons matter?

Yes, this narrower part must be older, though it is hard to see it whole, outwardly.            Why do I feel so aggressive toward businessmen and shopfitters today? But this is good, this black and gold and french-polished mahogany shop, this ancient grocery, the black window, half-high, the great bold gold caps, Sundries and Provisions, curiously, why Sundries, what's a Sundry, here? Is that a homegrown or foreign speciality? Ham, shoulder and gammon, pink luncheon meat, dark rich brown eyes of back bacon, dripping in pot packets, the white marble slabs, glass and chromium corner pieces, hairy brawn, packets of butter with a thick green drawing of a smiling cow on them, ah, how the mind boggles, is that the word? And the male assistants are none of them young, wear blue and thin-white-striped aprons, white shirt sleeves rolled up, a wire cheesecutter on the counter, too, what most readers of the Daily Telegraph would no doubt call the cardinal virtues of traditional grocery. Why do I waste my time here? Because I am interested in food, to keep my mind wasting on anything but Tony's wasting, the idea being to have no ideas, but food, but wasting time before finding somewhere to have lunch, a drink first, but why don't I buy some ham, the shoulder looks almost as good as the gammon, and is threepence a quarter cheaper, why not, I should enjoy that, it would take my mind off why I was ever here before, my mind runs on it, like the tongue seeking the fibre of gristle caught in a cleft between teeth, or a cavity, who knows, it might even help, could it do any harm? Except to my weight, harm, there, but no, in into the shop, sawdust on the floor, small tiles in a chequer pattern, even, the sawdust acts as a kind of lubricant, feels slightly unsafe, they would have eliminated that in a supermarket, but here it makes buying ham something of an adventure, does it, that is too extreme, that is going too far, something of a conceit, no doubt excessive, but the place is excessive, they hardly let places like this exist any longer, at least in London, the ham, it looks good, already in packets apparently of a quarter, is it, are they, he weights it again anyway, the man, the assistant, long hairs combed greyly, neatly, across the expanse, yes, delicate hands, careful to handle my quarter by the paper only, at least in my sight, god knows what mouth-dryings, crutch-sawings, arse-wipings went on in the preparation of these quarters, always the fear, the unknown, I should some time expose myself to experience of working in a shop, a food shop, to see how they handle things, I would hate the customers, myself, would get my own back on the need to be obsequious to them in no doubt a variety of ways, I would take some pleasure in discovering ways of remaining undiscovered while taking my revenge on them, the customers. But perhaps that is not the way their minds work at all, these men, that is simply not how they regard themselves in respect of their jobs or those they serve. It may be that they are in fear of losing their jobs, the older ones who remember the slump, or are under someone who insists for reasons of his own on the hygienic proprieties being observed, a sergeant-major of the preparation rooms or whatever they call wherever they cut the ham up. In any case, why do I want to do this man's job when he wants to do it more than I do? And he does it so well, folds the cut leaves of ham, sheets, whatever, twice, is it, to make them fit the greaseproof bag of optimum size with which his employers provide him, hands it me with something more than a professional smile, takes my money, half a crown, gives me change, fourpence, in pence, turns to greet another customer, who may be a stranger, as I am, in this city, or who may not be, a regular, perhaps, it is all the same to him, that's professionalism for you, but I have my ham, which is what I came in here for, so out, and why speculate further on the ways, the wiles, the whichnesses of shop assistants. Sometimes I think I shall become a Surrealist.

And what have we here but people, people, not even on their way to the match, just Saturday morning shopping, in the way time-honoured by what they call tradition, since the industrial, again, or by the pressures to social conformity, they meet their mates, do they not, they enjoy the great hustle of the marketplace, is not that what they would say if it really came to the point where they were forced not to be inarticulate, were forced to what I call think?

I must walk up, in this direction, not against the shoppers' stream, there is no stream, here, merely patterns of movement in several directions, dictated by the entrances to the shops, the drives of those bent on entering them, only the slope up for me to go against, towards the Council House.

Yes, those kind of food shops, I remember, or is it one shop only, where the food always seems at once so delicious and so expensive that just to look seems wrong, makes me feel guilty on two counts, the Parma hams hanging, the glass jars of meats, chicken breasts outwards, the dark meat concealed in the middle, always, I know, I must have had one, or seen one opened, at some time or another, ah, and honeycombs in packets, sections broken off, the thick clear honey running, all the gaudy packets, the red and gold and green they wrap things in, gaudy is a cheap word, but they are gaudy, the packets, which are not cheap, no. Preserved ginger in a variety of antiqued oriental jars, earthenware, ceramics, glass, redundancy there, one or other must cover all of them, each of them, does it?           It doesn't matter. The lights in here so discreet, the suggestion of music in the air, add to my guilt, yes, and chagrin, ha, for that ham looks better than the one I bought, still, you never can tell, by looks, it probably doesn't taste better, and in any case it costs sixpence a quarter more, no regrets, the pork pies, though, could have one as well, no, should look for somewhere good to have lunch, yes, out of here, though there might be a restaurant here, must be a good one, I should think, though do I want to spend my day's sustenance on just one meal, my lunch, spend my own money on a train dinner this evening, or no, go hungry?         No. So out then, past the jars filled with confectionery, their own makes, not the vulgar mass commercial lines, as they no doubt think, in their primness, no doubt the restaurant would be prim, too, the waitresses, all virgins no doubt, their own make, as well, out, a good pub lunch would be as welcome as anything, but am hungry now, ham, eat ham now, where, then think, yes, in the square outside the Council House, seats, pigeons, across there, flowerbeds of concrete, raised, moulded, green with lichen, of a kind, the seats with concrete frames, too, wooden stretchers, a common pattern, no doubt nationally advertised in whatever catalogues are common in the Borough Surveyors' department, or whatever de-partment is responsible for the purchase of seats for public places, yet welcome enough to me now, it has not been raining recently, though it looks as though it may do, soon, but now the seats are not damp, as far as I can tell, so sit, this one of several vacant, not that many people around, to sit, they're all at their shopping down there, ah.

The ham, a prime consideration, now, greaseproof, unfold, the moist pink and white, ah, and the bite,             the salt satisfaction.                     Across the square a military caravan, recruiting posters, a loudspeaker unit not very loud, a landrover, army equipment of some kind, cannot determine what, something to whip up interest, certainly has interested, corrupted rather, some boys about twelve years old, otherwise they are doing only desultory business, no youths of enlisting age to be seen near, that's good, how oldfashioned the army seems now, recruiting like this, much as it has done for centuries, the Queen's shilling, ever, in the market-place, luring men with the technology, the glamour of it, curious, the way these things, only one slice left, but good, I do not think the better shop's could have been better, could it, even though it was dearer, no doubt just to pay for the overheads, is it, are they, what use is such speculation? I enjoy this ham, here, now, in this way, on this bench, in this place, for their own sakes.                                A boy fires a peashooter accurately at a girl, she rounds on him, gives chase across the square, the pigeons rise out of their way, settle again a few feet away, the girl gives up, returns to her friends, the ritual over, it was like a ritual, or at least it had some sort of practised air about it, I feel the boy was known to the girl, that this was not a battle joined for the first time, that this was but the latest skirmish in a long series of encounters, in a war, in fact. Why do I suppose all this from so little?                                                      A windy place, this square, now the ham does not weight the paper, it flaps, it tries to leave me, greases my hand when I had thought I was finished, why do I eat like a pig in this way, anyway, wipe it on my handkerchief, really should bring two on a job like this, like these, I suppose, yes, roll paper into a ball, edges, thus, yes, again, where to dispose of it, there must be municipal wastebins around here as well as municipal seats, up then, ready, across the square, yes, there's a Gents, I need a pee anyway, and there must be a place to dispose of unwanted balls of greaseproof paper there, certainly, head for there, then, perhaps then a pub, surely I must have gone into a pub round here with Tony, yes, there, of course! Yates's Wine Lodge, marvellous, a drink, there, Tony introduced me to it, of course, the great bar downstairs, the gallery round, the sugary music, though that will probably be only during the evenings, the soirees, the poem I wrote afterwards, after my first visit there.             But first the Gents.