Liquid times

Early at Seaford station, so I walked around the corner to look at all the messages and flowers left at the murder scene. I had half a mind to take a photo of them, but there was a young lad standing in silent thought there, so I decided it was in poor taste. As I stood there looking at the teenage messages and bunches of flowers a man stood next to me, and told me that the murder was over £20 (I read later it was to do with a minor drugs debt). He also muttered darkly about drugs crime in Seaford, after I said I thought it was rather a sleepy place. The murdered boy was from Newhaven, just a few miles west along the coast. 

Off to meet Mum in Hampstead today. The sea particularly beautiful and full of white horses over the Salts. I got off at Lewes as usual, and bought a cup of tea and bumped into John White, a fellow poet, who I have met a few times but never spoken to at length. We chatted all the way up to East Croydon. John had worked as an editor at the BBC, mainly producing educational material. 

Apart from the first Seaford train, all trains today were delayed. Met Mum at Hampstead station. There was a film crew of about thirty people wearing bright orange tops pressing themselves against the exterior wall of the station, and down the road. Now that I am a more mature gentleman, I find the air of self importance emanated by these people (doing little visible to the naked eye) risible.

Down Flask Walk, where we were accosted by a small tortoiseshell cat, who wrapped herself around my legs, and reminded me of Calliope. Nice to be in the White Bear again, we had a cheery welcome, and were happy to be there especially when it started to rain heavily for a bit outside. Mum on good form, and we had a cheery lunch. She likes being there among the pictures of white bears, and we watch keenly a clergyman in a dog collar, going out to smoke in a wide brimmed hat and a dryza bone coat as if he has some kind of double life as a cowboy. He is in this pub every time we have gone there. I drank a beer brewed by Allsopp's which was excellent, and I had halloumi and hummus sourdough sandwich, and half of Mum's cod fingers.

Home by a series of delayed trains. I read half of a short book by Zytmunt Bauman, Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty,  which discusses the postmodern breakdown of societal stability due to globalisation, the plight of the refugee, the creation of fear narratives since 9/11, the disenfranchisement of individuals, the inability to escape from a connected world and so on. The introductory pages read like a dull PhD thesis, but once you start chapter one it is fairly brisk -- and it was published in 2007 but still feels pretty relevant.  

Managed to get to Lewes, where the delayed train I was on missed the Seaford connection, and the next train was cancelled, leaving me an hour's wait. But I called Lorraine who drove to my rescue. Home, happy but rather dehydrated. 

A bear on The White Bear's menu.