He was a proper old-fashioned London geezer (cringe word, hate it, can't think of a better one, worst of all it's the correct word), kind of East Endy, kind of Real London, the kind you don't really meet but if you do it always feels like an uncanny immersive theatre experience. They're anachronistic. They only belong in the London collectively imagined by people who don't spend any time in it.

Picture

i see a website though something that reconfigures or is mazelike

wow, you are the first stranger to write a textwall to me

hiding from the rain

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 23:18:46

but i respect your search

This is a website run by a narcissist who can't produce anything without the hope that it is seen and loved but can't act due to the fear of it being seen and hated. They immediately feel the need to ask Jack GPT to define whatever this feeling is in the hope that understanding it will mean control over it and control over it will mean that they can stop it.

okay this is interesting because pedagogies we have rn are not proper models

Thank you, Jack

Above and in front two birds are darting in and out of a tree. Sometimes they collide to fight or maybe mate, but I can't really make it out in the low light. It's just after

dusk

As we're stood there I notice a middle-aged woman staring at us across the room. I'm trying to catch her gaze, but its kind of vacant. I guess she sees me looking and considers it to be an invitation. She floats over to us in this strange dazed way, and on the approach I realise she's staring at (through?) my Korean colleague / fresh meat. She's saying wow, wow, wow. She seems genuinely so delighted, so shocked, so elated.

the textwall is as much for me as it is for you

Rain, starting

"Anyway, you're you. I mean, look at you!" she says. "You could get with anyone, anyone in the street. Really."

Another Frenchman pushes through the crowd to join him. He's an events organiser who I'd met earlier, and he's holding a large box wrapped in a bin bag. They're the fireworks he'd smuggled in from France the night before. They're Industrial Grade, whatever that means for fireworks.

Pimlico Rats

The only real Londoner remaining is old, bitter, kept around for entertainment, defined by tropes from 30+ years ago. They play gangsters in films, or they work in a pie and mash shop, or they go on Business Insider's YouTube channel to tell you about their crimes. And they somehow still find the time to spend all day hanging about cafes and pubs for you to bump into, to remind you of Real London.

Actual born-Londoners aren't LARPing like this, they sold their shite family home for a million pounds and moved to Malaga years ago. They have their culture and they've taken it elsewhere.

The old failed actor genuinely believed this girl was of a lesser race. He believed she shouldn't be talking with me, shouldn't be here at this party, shouldn't be here in this country. He wanted a white England. I didn't really challenge him on it. Sometimes I justify it with thoughts like I was drunk, or baffled, or it isn't an argument I'll win, or he can't hear me anyway, or whatever. I didn't argue with him. I just cut off his rant and left with a pathetic "In a bit."

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 08:27:13

Thank you, Jack