Journalism
(May 2006)
Beside a manhole in a street in Clerkenwell, I am presented with the things that will protect me in the hours to come: a white paper overall suit; crotch-high waders with tungsten-studded soles that will grip but won’t spark; a hard hat with a miner’s light; heavy rubber gloves, oversized; a ‘turtle’, a curved metal box that holds emergency breathing apparatus, to strap around ...
(March 2006)
Billy: Tony, d'you ever think about death?
Tony: Fuck off!
Billy: Nanight then.
—Billy Elliott, 2000
On a major TV channel broadcast in this country, on an evening drama show, two characters are looking up at a tree. When the camera pans up to the top of the branches, the viewer sees a hanging, blackened corpse, realistically human and dead. On the ground, it shows a patch of ...
(March 2006)
Micky McSharry has never been robbed, but he's glad that his London hackney cab has a glass window between the driver and the back seat, and the protection is a comfort. Not that he needs it most of the time. After 20 years' cabbing, he still has a pleasingly upbeat view of humankind.
"Most people are fine," he says, as we set off around ...
(November 2005)
I have driven the 200 miles between east London and the West Riding so often, I can recite M1 service stations in order: Watford Gap after Toddington, Tibshelf before Trowell. I know after which bend the massive Sheffield cooling towers will appear, and when to expect the first Gouranga bridge (near Junction 37), and upon which hillside Emley Moor television mast will come into ...