We gather around the start of a causeway down to the Thames. It's a pretty cold night and there's a breeze coming off the river. I've found the girl, or she's found me, and we're smoking a cigarette while we watch the dim silhouettes of the French Raj and his fireworks bearer down on the bank. They're fucking around with the box. I ask her what people do with fireworks for so long before they're ready to light. She doesn't know.

brb i will read and reply sincerely

i see a website though something that reconfigures or is mazelike

so i or you can author smaller fragments that get arranged

but really the thing should be autonomous

i love to walk around and see things and take photos and go online and look at websites and click on links and take screenshots i love to surf and i love to browse

Better Lift

It's loud and he's gone deaf in one ear, so I don't think he's really hearing anything I'm trying to say. We're both pretty drunk too. It's making for a kind of surreal interactive Business Insider YouTube video of a conversation. He talks, waits for my response, sees my mouth moving but doesn't hear my words, then he imagines something in their place, and replies to that. At least I don't really have to do anything but drink and mime and listen to a lot of bullshit fake gangster talk, being an actor, boxing, the old days, blah blah blah.

i see a website

you know who you are. no more time, not like

1

i understand

not so on: yvf(wthw)

I'm in a crowded lift and a girl I've never met tells me she thinks she might love me.
The lift won't stop at any floor, and I can't talk in front of all these people.

somewhere between instagram and chatgpt

plato

no i haven't really read anything

plato

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.

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 23:49:08

I wonder if she knew I was down there listening? I wonder if she would've said something more true, more personal, more raw, more heartfelt, more harsh, more seductive, more freeing, more exposing, more risky, more romantic, more rude, more honest, more anything, if there hadn't been an audience.

I wonder if the birds knew I was watching?

It Will Get Lighter

She says something that isn't really right but isn't really wrong. I'm not taking in their words any more, just their voices, trying to get a feel for whatever is going on between them. I'm imagining what it's like for them in this delicate situation, what I would say if it were me. She has that perfect upper-class accent, and she's using whatever upper-class tact that comes with it to navigate this. Style. They can't be together, but their voices are betraying them.

I imagine that some lab-grown 29-year-old from Woking with a mind honed to identify individuals who fit the profile of Real Londoner (as conceived of by 50 opinion-polled racist builders and their wives in the Midlands) picks a stubborn local who can still somehow afford to live here and passes him along to some creative studio.

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.