The man with the tartan Thermos, the pea-coat and the all-year-round woolly hat...

The man with the tartan Thermos, the pea-coat and the all-year-round woolly hat has started crossing the road when he sees me. We pass each other at 6am every morning and he’s often the only other person I see as I walk into work. After a few weeks of ignoring each other, I let on and said “Morning”. He didn’t reply. As time went by and I persisted, he started to respond but never seemed very comfortable with it. His eyes would start flickering nervously at me from about twenty yards away, I’d say “Morning” and he’d emit an awkward choking sound accompanied by a twitchy sideways glance. Now he crosses the road and keeps his eyes fixed on the pavement.

A man in a hooded North Face jacket, elaborately top-stitched jeans and Nike trainers is smoking a cigarette and fiddling with a Blackberry on the steps at the entrance to the flats. I say hello as I approach, assuming he’ll move across so I can get past. He doesn’t. He doesn’t respond or even glance up. I squeeze through, my bag scraping against
his knee, but he still doesn’t move or acknowledge my presence in any way. When I come out of the flats ten minutes later, the man is still there, smoking another cigarette and thumbing his Blackberry. I say hello again, he looks up, squints, pulls on his cigarette and looks down again.

Two overweight men in their thirties are talking as they walk past me on Ings Way, “I bet I fucking could”, says one. “I bet you fucking couldn’t”, says the other. “I bet I fucking could.” “You fucking couldn’t.” “I fucking could.” “You fucking couldn’t.” “I bet I fucking could...”

A woman in flat shoes and a very full skirt stops me in the street to tell me she’s been to the ninetieth birthday party of her pianist, “I’m in the choir at the Methodist. The cake was in the shape of a grand piano. It was sponge but it was lovely and moist”.

While I was opening the pouch box on Heatherfield Road...

While I’m opening the pouch box on Heatherfield Road, an old man at the bus stop comments on my bunch of keys, “You’ve plenty of keys there”, he says.

As I’m posting the mail at the Baptist church a young man in a hooded top starts shouting something to me from the other side of the street. I can’t hear him above the noise of the traffic so he shouts again. I still can’t hear so he shouts a third time. And a fourth. I still can’t hear, so he shouts again. I still can’t hear. I go to the very edge of my pavement and he goes to his. He shouts at the top of his voice over the top of the traffic “HE ONLY GETS HOLY MAIL YOU KNOW!” “OH!” I shout back.

Inside the council flats, the window cleaner is talking to an elderly woman. She tells him she’s not been well. “I’ve been here, there and everywhere at the hospital and they can’t fathom what it is.” “Oh dear, there’s always summat in’t there?” says the window cleaner. The woman continues, “Now they’re reckoning it might be Parkinson’s disease so I’m going to have to go for tests for that now too”. “Oh dear, there’s always summat in’t there?”
says the window cleaner again. “Oh, but it is painful in my hands.” “There’s always summat in’t there?” “I can’t even do the washing it’s so painful.” “There’s always summat.” “But I always like to say to myself ‘There’s always someone worse off, isn’t there?’” “Oh dear, there’s always summat in’t there. See you next time love.” The window cleaner leaves the building and shoutsup to his colleague who is cleaning windows on the first floor, “Jesus-God- Alive! I feel like slitting my wrists when I’ve gone in there! It’s your turn next time!”

“Oh Septimus! Oh dear! I told you to go before we came out! Oh dear”

“Oh, Septimus! Oh dear! I told you to go before we came out! Oh dear”, says the woman in the twin set and obvious wig to her King Charles spaniel.

Howard says he shot a rat at 6.30 this morning. He says he’s pleased to have got the bugger at last but his neighbours complained about the noise. At Slack Farm, Mr Haigh comes out of the milking shed carrying a coat at arm’s length. The lining is torn out and It’s completely covered in shit and straw. “Fucking cows have had us coat. They’re a set of bastards” he says. “Eurgh! That’s had it now, hasn’t it?” I say. “Aye, normal folk would chuck it away. I’m gonna wash it.” I follow him up to his front door with his mail, past the tractor with the mature ragwort growing out from under the seat and the neat row of four dead moles laid out on the garden wall. Mr Haigh tells me that moles have a very keen sense of smell and hands like people. “If you smell of fags or booze when you lay the traps you’ll not catch any.”

At the Community Health Centre, the receptionist bursts out through the doors into the car park and vomits next to a Honda Civic.

Back at the office, I see Irfan. He’s been off work for a couple of weeks and when I ask why he tells me he’s been stabbed.

In her garden on Meadow Way, an old woman in a dressing gown...

In her garden on Hart Street, an old woman in a dressing gown empties a jug of custard onto her borders.

A young man with his hand down the front of his trousers and a bloody nose is talking to a man in a snapback cap, “Drop them two off,” he says, gesturing to two young women with low-cut tops and large breasts in the back of a P-reg’ VW Golf, “then we’ll go into town and get wired”.

Later, in the park, I see another man with a bloody nose. He’s talking to a tree.

A squirrel carries a Wagon Wheel (the chocolate kind) across Wren Street.

I found this note on the street on the way into work...

I find a note in the street on my way into work. It’s written in marker pen on a sheet of A4 paper. It’s the third I’ve found bearing this message in the last six months: ‘Iranian intelligence officers lick English Arse’.

Bob is back at work after a week off. I ask whether he’s had a good time and he tells me his dog ate his Yorkshire pudding in a café in Grassington.

Twice today, I’ve been asked for directions to the Spiritualist church.

At County Foods, I hand my paperwork to the receptionist and she fills in her signature while talking on the phone, “I’ve got this guy on hold, he’s ringing from a café in Batley. He’s on about black puddings...” Suddenly, a large dog jumps up from behind the desk

and starts barking at me, its front paws on the sill of the service hatch. The receptionist puts down the phone and drags the dog back down by its collar. A tall man in a suit leans in through an adjoining door and gives her a quizzical look. “Don’t ask”, she says. “Is it a guard dog?” says the tall man. “It’s guarding me from the likes of you, Alan” says the receptionist.

The chubby assistant with the heavy foundation and the glittery bits on her face at the newsagent’s tells her colleague about her unfaithful boyfriend. “He said she looked better

from a distance than close to but he still knobbed her, didn’t he? He’s got a picture of it on his phone!”

At the newsagent's, Christine was on the till...

At the newsagent’s, Christine is on the till. She nods at the pile of Examiners on the counter and says “There’s a new murder every day, isn’t there? It’s like a new craze or something”. “A craze?" I say. “Yeh, you know, like a new craze from America. Like skateboarding.” “Yes”, I say. “Do you remember that craze for blokes hanging themselves not so long back?” says Christine. “No?” “Yes, a bit back, about six months, a year back. Between me and my ex-husband, we knew half a dozen blokes who hung themselves in the space of about three months.” “Seriously?” “Two of them were on our paper-rounds” says Christine. “Blimey! I wonder what brought that on?” “I don’t know. Do you remember him who built our steps? He was one, hung himself.” “Really? That’s terrible” I say. “I know, and the thing is everyone’s always going on about them steps; the top one’s too short. People are always tripping over it and then they come in here and say ‘Whoever did them steps wants shooting!’ What am I supposed to say to that now?”

5.30am. A man with a baby in a pram was rapping hard on the shutters of the newsagent's...

5.30am. A man with a baby in a pram was rapping hard on the shutters of the newsagent's shop. A hundred yards further down the road I passed a drunk goth eating a bag of Skips.

Later on, I saw a woman with a pot on her leg walking up South Lane. She said she wasn't going to the hairdressers now because they were going to squeeze her in on Tuesday instead. She said she was off up to Julie's because she's got a seat outside.

D-MON K!D, $L!T K!D and EV!L BO¥ have all written their names on the pouch box at Winchester Bank.

A man with two black eyes was walking up Manchester Road.

I found a dead prawn in the footwell of my van.

Vincent, my neighbour, caught me as I was leaving for work...

Vincent, my neighbour, catches me as I leave for work, “Er, Kevin, I’ve got something to show you”. He dashes inside, wiping his hands on his pinny as he goes. When he returns he stands on his step, hiding something behind his back. “Do you cook a lot of chicken?” he asks. “Not really, occasionally”, I say. “Well, I’ve got just the thing”, he says and, with a slight flourish, he produces one of those shallow tin trays that chickens come in when you buy them from a supermarket. “Marks and Spencer”, he says, “It came free with the chicken”. “Thanks”, I say.

The pillar box outside the post office is jammed full of junk mail and takeaway flyers with obscenities scrawled all over them in blue biro. Someone has also tried to set fire to them by feeding matches through the slot. I mention it to the woman who works behind the counter, “I know! I caught her doing it”, she says, “it was Mrs Armitage from Whiteley Street”.

A young man in a tracksuit is cutting his own hair with a pair of blue plastic handled scissors as he walks down Cross Lane. He has no mirror and is feeling the hair at his temples with his left hand as he snips with his right.

On the landing, Irfan says the yardies had been threatening him again so during
a quiet spell he nips over the road to the gun shop to buy a bulletproof vest. He returns without one, “They’re four hundred quid so I didn’t bother”.

I could see a figure lying face down on the pavement...

---

06.30am: I can see a figure lying face down on the pavement up ahead. I get a bit closer and I see his right arm move. He rolls briefly onto his side and back onto his front, where he lies still again. He’s wearing new, clean clothes: plaid shirt, dark blue denim jeans and expensive looking trainers. As I pass, I ask whether he’s okay. He rolls onto his side again. He’s young, mid-twenties, dark curly hair. “I’m just bored”, he says. “Oh, as long as your okay” I say. “Have you got a spare cig’?” “No.” “Okay”, and he rolls back onto his front.

I carry on up the road and into the park where a man of about sixty years old, Adidas trainers and shorts, is picking up the dog shit left by his border terrier and putting it into a little plastic bag.