Ed Sheeran asks for Sellotape

Ideas crawling around in my head (bear with):

• Burning sins through meditation
• Stroking her cat
• The way that conversation should have gone
• That new word you made up today (dummary)
• Ed Sheeran stories
• What to say when I’m empty.

That’s enough for now so let’s begin.

Everything starts with conversation when you don’t have the skill of describing a scene adequately enough for a reader to experience it as if they were watching a particularly compelling movie. So, not being one to be bound by arbitrary rules, I’ll learn how to describe. They say you should start with the senses. But not in any old boring way. No, something interesting must be contained in the scene. Interesting to who? Why, to you, my dear!

You are lying back on a deeply comfortable armchair in a room lined with cupboards full of the best chocolate. You can eat as much of it as you want because it’s being filtered at a gastric level by enzymes that take out all the things that make it bad for you (the fat, the sugar and the tendency for it to alter your mood). You briefly consider what’s left in the chocolate to make you like it as much as you do as you slip another piece inside with one hand while you stroke her cat with the other but the thought is swept away by a wave of sensuous gratification supplied by those delightful little (taste) buds on your tongue.

Someone enters the room but you don’t look around because you’re busy looking out of the window at the glorious sight of …

“Ahem.”

You pointedly ignore the sound of someone impolitely clearing their throat politely behind you.

“Ah, hello, I’m Ed Sheeran.”

You think what a ridiculous idea.

“No, really, I am.”

You ponder the possibilities as you stretch out your free hand, snap off another piece of chocolate and then slip it into your mouth. This doesn’t feel like a dream. The planet just coming into view in the bottom-left of the window is as solid as the smell of aftershave in the room. Her cat is pliantly soft and pulses gently as you stroke it. The chair on which you sit is floating securely above the floor. You are not dreaming. And yet, Ed Sheeran has just announced himself by means of a polite cough; not to mention the fact that he seems to have read your mind.

You know that you can’t turn. Momentum, inertia and the lack of a solid object around which to pivot forbid this manoeuvre. So you try speaking. It’s been a while, but the lubricating effect of chocolate in your throat cancels out the dry rasp you would otherwise have produced.

“Hello, Ed.” No point in not giving your dream the benefit of doubt. “You can’t be here.” No point in denying that your one-person spacecraft can contain more than one person.

“Sorry to intrude.”

Well, at least your impolite intrusion continues to be polite.

“What do you want, Ed?”

“I was wondering if you had …”

“No, I don’t have any spare chocolate. Do I look like a vending machine to you?”

You don’t mean to sound tetchy, but there are limits to a person’s patience.

“… Sellotape?”

“Sellotape?”

“Yeah, I need to …”

You wave an arm towards the large cupboard on the starboard wall.

“Middle cupboard, top shelf. Just behind the Lindt. Do not be tempted to …”

“No, no, don’t worry about that. I’m allergic.”

A wave of pity and something approaching empathy sweeps through your mind. A life without chocolate is surely not something worth enduring.

“What do you need it for?” Normally you’re not inquisitive about such things, but it’s been a slow day and so you indulge yourself.

“I’m going to sellotape myself to the wall.”

Oh, you think.

“I’m trying to meditate and I keep drifting off.”

You swallow the urge to snigger, but, however much this sounds like the punchline to a drawn-out shaggy-dog story set in space you will not be drawn into such trite banalities. Instead, you settle yourself deeper into your armchair, continue your exploration of the warm fur of her pussy with your fingertips, liberate another piece of chocolate from the bar by your side and convey it to your waiting mouth.

One must set boundaries you think as you tune out the sound of a cupboard door shutting just out of eyeshot and turn your attention back to Earth, rising towards the centre of the window now in all her luminescent-orange glory.

Life by Squares – C3

I don’t think that clouds are particularly lonely. Quite aside from the fact that they don’t have feelings, they actually have plenty of company. It’s rare to see a single cloud – especially here in England. No – it was me who was lonely today as I wandered around York.

Again, I chose a grid that was on the way home. And again, it was cold. Nothing new there, but today – I don’t know – I felt more isolated than usual as I walked along these roads:

There’s a lot of conventionally touristy things to see here. There’s Bootham Bar, St Peter’s School (dating from 627AD), the Theatre Royal, York Art Gallery and endless plaques celebrating the lives of people like W H Auden who lived in the fair city of York.

But, typically, I’m going to ignore all this and let you in on some shocking news. Smack in the middle of the pavement, right outside the newly converted flats (that went for a cool £million apiece) on St Leonards Place is this insidious little article:

Yes, that’s right, my friends – it’s a camera lens! Unbeknownst to us all, the Antipodians, who are at the other ends of this pipe, are taking photographs up the skirts of the unsuspecting (and fair) maidens of England! I have no words to describe my utter indignation that they thought of this before me! But don’t worry my fine furry friends – I have a plan!

But for now – here’s a shot of the York Minster basking in the sun as it peeks over the top of some buildings on High Petergate:

Pretty huh!

And here’s something a little artier from a little further down the same road:

I think you can guess what it is.

I took a few more shots after that on various roads, but they’re a bit unimaginative so I left them out. To be honest, I was hoping to get something nice out of the setting sun, but I arrived a little too late to see it. If I had climbed the Minster I would have got it – but ’twas not to be today. Instead, you get this from Earlsborough Terrace:

Yep, that’s right – a telegraph pole. And some wires. They generally don’t put poles up these days; especially not in the middle of town. The wires are mostly all put into ducts you see. So – feast your eyes while you can.

And on I walked – as lonely as a … notthecloud. To be honest with you, once you eliminate the conventional things in this area, like historical buildings, then you’re left with slim pickings. Point in case – here’s a wall on Grosvenor Terrace:

Behind it is a railway line, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that it’s a wall. Actually, there are two tracks behind this wall – one shiny and one rusty. Wonder why they just use one of them these days. Cost cutting exercise?

York City Football Club is around here (on Bootham Crescent) but it’s a bit too ugly to photograph. Sorry, Minstermen fans.

Hey, I just remembered – I wrote my first novel about these streets. It’s called Behind Bootham. And no, you can’t buy it. Not just yet. So, after crossing the self-same Bootham, I entered Queen Anne’s Road. Here I picked up (yeah, no – not literally) on the spoor of that animal known as the Greater-spotted Student:

Yep – empty alcohol and pizza receptacles! Not sure which venerable establishment they would be students of; but St. Peter’s School is just down the road and York St. John’s University is not that far away either.

Just where Bootham ends and Clifton begins is The Grange Hotel (£88 a night if you fancy it), and here’s one the windows of said establishment:

Not sure why they haven’t taken the Christmas decorations down yet, but – hey-ho – it’s still only February. It’s a real purdy effect though, right?

Last shot of the day was from St. Olave’s Road:

Usually, I have no luck with cats. As soon as I reach for my camera – they leg it; but this time, I sneaked up really, really slowly under cover of shrubbery, and I got that fine furry feline just right. Of course, I also got a lot of reflection in the glass of the window too – but I think it only adds to the charm of the shot – what do you reckon?