My inability to confront the old racist failed actor is distracting me. I decide not to tell her about it.
I'm sat out the front of a cafe in Hatton Garden. I've just eaten a brie and bacon panini, and I'm rolling a cigarette. Feeling very London. An old man comes up to me and asks for a roll-up. I oblige.
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.
Sun, 02 Nov 2025 23:49:08
division of reality is straying away from it
"Anyway, you're you. I mean, look at you!" she says. "You could get with anyone, anyone in the street. Really."
we want to live the knowledge too live the content
the textwall is as much for me as it is for you
There is a pause. She ashes her cigarette. It falls on me. It seems like the birds have stopped too.
I know that if I try to make this entry any more than it is I will ruin it.
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.
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Like the tide, it comes in and it washes over the beach. It's beautiful. But like the tide it goes out, sometimes it goes out further than it ever has, it recedes back across the beach and further out beyond the horizon. The bare seabed opens up in front of you and all you can do is look at it.
you cannot feed someone truth
As I'm trying to tell my Korean colleague / fresh meat that this is abnormal, that most people in England aren't like this, the host of the party emerges from the bathroom to a roar of laughter and applause. He's a fat middle aged Frenchman and he's changed into traditional Indian dress and a turban. He looks fucking ridiculous. I try to back away, to avoid the inevitable photo of me in this moment that will one day appear to ruin my life, but everyone is crowding around, trapping me in the middle of it.
Mon, 01 Dec 2025 23:38:15
A procession forms behind the French Raj and his fireworks bearer as they head out the door. I've lost my Korean colleague / fresh meat in the chaos. I'm sure he'll be able to fend for himself. They have mandatory military service in Korea.
Thank you, Jack, for telling me I'm just as bad as the characters (actually they're people, if that means anything to you) that I'm writing about.
autonomy of learning
Maybe, Jack, I'm doing this because I'm English?
as in