Saturday morning blues.

This morning, having read Down and Out in Paris and London (a slightly conceited memoir), I feel that Leeds in 2022 resounds to a similar beat. At 7am the only folks about are those who clean up from the night before and those who linger in doorways alive or dead: who knows. The litter of fast food containers, dropped food, paper cups: things blowing on the breeze down Eastgate. Wrappers dropped and forgotten as these bodies slumbers, post binge, in doorways half covered and beyond redemption.

It's a town which only just hangs on. Without the universities making their six pence worth the town would be as dead as is possible: none of the structures surrounding the city would exist and those areas would appear as decrepit as I see walking through LS7 to venture over the Inner Ring Road flyover to Wade Lane: it wouldn't be dissimilar to Mansfield?

On the verges nature keeps reclaiming as much as it is able. The rats and mice, pigeons and gulls do very well on our ledger of refuse.

After a warm soak I suddenly needed to vomit bile: the combination of hot bath, too strong coffee and returning to this West Yorkshire monstrosity - very psychosomatic!

The sensation has gone and so is the flat until Tuesday - after dog sitting with Ruby on Monday. Just a fine day with Lola today and then to the allotment Sunday?

In the flat I noticed a BO smell pervading: I've not been around for two weeks and I left it pretty tidy... It could be a smell from downstairs? Floor 10...

There is no 'life' at all in Leeds. It's a place which is on the brink, like Sodom and Gomorrah, falling hellfire into brimstone and ash to be returned dust and whipped up into nothingness; blown on the wind. A good score of the strangest sorts and some Immigrants cleaning up after the wastrels of Friday evening... What is humanities excuse this time?