South bank and Covent Garden, London. I had to return here to London, there’s just too much to say to only give it one day. I’ve chosen these two because it gives me lots to mention.

The street performers in Covent Garden, strange men with obsessions and way too much time on their hands, existing in tiny garrets, juggling until their hands bleed or saved from their toil by trading with an opportunistic devil who comes and makes a quick soul.

The booksellers under the bridge outside the Festival hall, tired men and women wearing their lives on their faces, I imagine these meeting in dark alleyways late at night to summon something forth from the books they keep in the dark wooden chests.

The skateboarder’s paradise, tucked under the concrete walkway where the young man discovers that if he concentrates really hard, both he and his board can float, hovering just off the ground. The Thames, a million stories to tell from countless civilisations, yet its’ darkest truth is hidden deep in the mud, the creatures that will awaken only when the city is under dire threat. The man from the office, who crosses the Millenium bridge every day at lunch, and dreams every day of leaping from it, letting the filthy river rob him of the endless dreams of his lost love. He doesn’t of course. She promised him she’d be back, and he believed her, even as he tried to ignore the trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth.