On route to London

Down to The Calls, IF... on Call Lane, for a hearty breakfast - it's not too expensive at £11 and you get a good feed here with a lot of attention to detail like home made baked beans, grilled halloumi, a nice veggie sausage and bacon rasher. I don't know anywhere else in Leeds that does such amazing fayre, except Eat Your Greens on Kirkgate: but that's a lunch and dinner venue.

It was quite quiet along North Street and Vicar Lane. Passing through Kirkgate Market and alongside the Corn Exchange to a buzzing quarter of Leeds: where all the most lovely/awful happy/angry folks pour out in the early hours of the night before! But on this Wednesday it's tranquility incarnate. There is the dichotomy/dualism of life. 

I've not been out at night down here, under the railway bridge, since Everton and Umberto(owners of Hip Menswear) did Ucci night's at the Backroom(it wasn't called that back in 2000/01 and Norman(now no longer called that). Steven and I went to Space around here quite a bit when we lived together at  Whitehall Waterfront... Dancing all night long and E'd off our tits! I guess that was around 2005?

That was a different age of man for me - I've not really taken any illegal high for 15 plus years ... and never will... The last time was that cocktail of legal highs I bought from Dr Herman's! Man was I wired in North Bar (when it was good). It was one of the girls first shift and I don't think she ever forgot how literally off my head I was then - our relationship was tinged! It was a fantastic evening. Probably the last great one I ever had in Leeds: I stumbled to the flat in the wee hours and wrote a novella! It was very like something Philip K Dick wrote! I forgot I wrote a novel in one day... Under the influence.

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Gosh it's not that bad... It has lots of ideas in it. These beings who inhabit a shadow world  - the world but out of phase from the one of everyday - who try to influence people, for the long run, into a optimistic and beautiful future.

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Very helpful staff in Cotwolds store on Land's Lane in Leeds. My foot problems need a customized arch support insole: not the one they sell at £40. I nearly wasted money on socks and insoles to remedy the pain I have, but they would do nothing. It's probably why I feel little pain when I walk barefoot aka as nature intended.

An hour or so left until I leave The North for London. The guy at Cotwolds told me they'd replace my footwear no problems when I return as there is a problem with the gortex on the right toe: crumpled. If I can locate a store in London between King's Cross, Liverpool Street and London Bridge I could get a replacement.

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I have reached a stage in life where I feel like I am transparent to other people. I always felt very unobserved, but now it's absolutely blanked - unless it's in pubs full of sinister Leeds United supporters? I've always been a watcher of other folks, and perhaps that isn't normal, but I don't know if I inhabit the same presence as others: as though I am subtly out of phase with billions of people. To be alone. I definitely feel closer to Lola, and the robins who collect worms off my allotment, than people treading the same pavements.

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Leeds Station and no mens toilets in the main entrance or on platform 6. Just two cubicles on platform 12, both occupied. This is the city I am leaving. They're redeveloped the station, but they haven't increased the number of conveniences...

And I've not been into a large station for several months, other than a brief visit to Manchester Airport, and I am anxious. A Scottish man asked me what the time was - which is either a euphemism for do you want sex, an excuse to pick my pockets or distract me until someone does or genuine stupidity?

And now the train departs platform 9. I'm in carriage G and the guy opposite is talking loud in some Indian voice... I've moved slightly away from him. Seat 6, but still his voice puts me into a strange state. Someone has put a gun to his head and so now he is silent; foreve and that's nice?