030206

I've been walking from Baker Street to work in the mornings, wakes me up and gets me thinking. Usually catch the 06.15 getting into Baker just before 7. Marylebone underpass is absent of sleepers these days a few choosing to do shop doorways and a few on early Big Issue duties, are the doorways on Oxford Street any warmer one wonders. Distinct lack of females at this time in the morning. As I'm approaching the platform Crawling, Linkin Park, comes on the MP3 and I press track repeat. It occurs to me that it would be a good intro to a film with someone walking down Oxford Street on a frosty morning observing the contrast between the opulence and the survival. It seems to have been hinted at in Henry Rollins video of Disconnect some years ago (93?) and possibly copied by the Verve.

It's a metaphor for another contrast, that between existence and true happiness, dependent upon understanding that the contrast exists. The lyrics of crawling can be interpretated in many ways, as can Orestes (A Perfect Circle) or possibly Drive (Far Away) (Deftones), inducing mental comparison. Still I had Crawling repeating past Bond Street, Oxford Circus, Tottenham Court Road, Holborn, The Strand and down to the river. It appealed to me to have the lyrics of one song repeating over a 50 minute or so walk and thinking about how the sights fitted in with the images it created.

Just before TCR on the left hand side is a Pret and I've noticed at that time a meeting of the staff in a big circle with the boss addressing. A rah rah rah meeting akin to the sales staff in a car sales showroom perhaps or a holiday timeshare demo. I wonder what the gong, when someone buys an espresso, might be. Outside the Dominion I'm approached by a scouse man with some coppers in his hand which he holds out, 'have you got a 10p mate for the phone?' I rummage, I haven't, I have a pound and a 2p in my hand.'Could you spare the pound mate?' No.

That would be a tinny of super, I wonder if there's a team of ex-scallys working the area and what the gong might be when they achieve 'a tinny'. Maybe a chain of Special Brew empties, to be jangled when a 'sale' is made. Along Kingsway there are a plethora of after rah-rah coffee houses all frequented at 07.30 in the morning, Why? Have the chains become too heavy?

His horns are hidden we surmise, a devil in disguise.