Robert Smith

I’ve been at war with rodents.  On the street where I lived in Brixton I’d see them sometimes, big, well fed, three or four convulsing a bin bag. Once, some rats even moved in underneath the tarpaulin on our roof terrace, after the fox, our first tenant, had cleared out. Climbing up the rusty fire escape towards our front door, I’d hear them squeak and see them scurrying away. Sometimes I chased them beneath the stairs, cornered them, and then wondered what, exactly, I’d planned to do. Probably I would have yelped and run away if Mister Ratto ever charged me. Eventually, though, we twigged to the rodent colony, binned the tarp, and rid ourselves of the rats.  Fast forward a year and to a new house, new challenger. These were smaller, less intimidating, more insidious, than their ratty cousins. They chosen method of warfare was psychological. I’d wake in the middle of the night to ‘eek eek eek’, the scratching of mousine claws on some err, protein powder (I can explain…) that I

The following is a briefing on UK politics I wrote for my boss, Matthew Parris, on Tuesday 18th, covering the previous ten days.  The air is chillier here now, and not just because of Autumn. Since you’ve been away, EU talks have stalled further. No Deal has risen in prominence. The prospect of economic disaster seems more real, and more worrying, than ever before. This is a step change. Speaking personally, the consequences of Brexit have always felt quite abstract for me. They still do, partly because there seem so many possible outcomes, but No Deal is beginning to get under my skin. Even worse is the problem we’ve had since the referendum: no big figure in either main party is willing to tell the truth, at least while the prospect of their own personal success still glimmers. But when has politics ever been different? The referendum, as we’ve said, changed those rules and those laws, but nobody seems to have noticed, and personal fulfilment, whether of ideology or selfish ambi

As often happens with places you see on a map, on the ground I felt a bit lost. There was the giant, six-lane Crystal Palace Parade, and then a confusing series of one way streets forming a triangle. This…is it, I thought, feeling deflated.  And so it was. I hopped through the three lanes, looking for somewhere to sit and ‘soak up the incredible atmosphere of Crystal Palace’ as I’d told myself in my head. The portents were not great, I have to say. As I crossed one junction the people in the car next to me were having a huge argument with the passenger window down.  ‘Well you’ll just have to let me out right here, won’t you’, said the passenger to the driver as they crossed the big junction onto the equally big quasi-motorway. If he’d been let out he would have been squashed in an instant. He looked mid 30s, with a big beard, and seemed petulantly angry. ‘I can’t put up with this any more.’ Yikes! I was sad to see them turn away. I wanted to keep listening. But onwards.

It can see you. Wherever you turn, you know it’s watching. Think you’re safe hidden within four walls? Think again. Those three evil eyes at the top can see through bricks and mortar with x-ray vision.   What am I talking about? The eye of Mordor Elephant & Castle aka Strata SE1 aka ‘Razor’, one of the more evil looking buildings in London, with its wind turbine apertures that look like eyes. I remember leaving for work in the mornings when I lived in Brixton and casually, even nonchalantly, glancing backwards as I crossed the Brixton Road and BAM. There it was. Staring right back.  Ugh. Creepy.  Thankfully, where there is darkness, there may be light. The fell presence of this all-seeing towereye is combatted by a mast to the south of the city. Hardly exciting sounding I know, a mast. Great. But just as some buildings can produce an irrational disquiet, so can others come to mean much more than what they seem. Rewind to eleven years ago. Edinburgh Fringe. The