Towns and cities are funny things. They’re a bit like pearls: something a little bit wondrous, something that draws the eye, but something that at its core is made of nothing more than a mundane and unwanted speck of grit. I’m sure that this metaphor could be drawn out further. I could lament on how people are, by our very nature, intruders and despoilers. That the rise of cities around crossroads and river-mouths is nothing more than nature’s response to the irritation we cause it; shells to keep us penned in and away from doing too much harm to the rest of the land. I like to imagine towns and cities as people, transferring their quirks, character and ambiance into more tangible human traits. Glasgow is a dishevelled looking man who wears a string vest and has a beard you could hide a badger in. He spends his time drinking special brew and leering menacingly at people who he doesn’t like the look of. London is a well to-do office worker in “The City,” he weighs 30 stone, wears pinstriped suits and display an outward persona of easy affability while, deep-down, he’s a proper old-fashioned, copper-bottomed bastard who’d sells his own grandmother for a quick buck. Then there’s Slough. Slough is a tremendously boring man in middle-management, he has grey hair and grey eyes, he wears grey suits, he eats grey food and speaks in a dreary monotone voice. Slough is boring, fantastically boring, boring right up until the moment he stabs you in the gut with a blunt knife and steals all your stuff. Slough is not a man you’d share a drink with.

Continue reading