The Smoke: An Urban Country Diary

Buying a good coat

For years I've been meaning to buy myself a good coat. This year I had a decent budget and went up the west end, but with no success. On my way home, walking along Holloway Road, I went into that mad little second hand clothes shop near the college and picked up what looks like a mint condition tweedy overcoat that used to belong to Jacques Chirac, made by some posh tailor in Paris. It only cost £20 and now I am hooked. I've a feeling that this same shop has some of Francois Mitterand's old shirts, a George Pompideu suit and a very tiny 1998 era Manchester United shirt that I'm convinced must have been worn by Nicolas Sarkozy.

Golden skies over Holloway

The daffodils are out in Clissold Park. Squat dogs round and through them.
"Kaiser! Butch! Over here!" shouts an angry looking man with little hair. The sky over Lower Holloway is golden but greyness is descending as the wind picks up. A blue plastic bag joins us on our walk and keeps pace for a while before blowing up into the branches of a tree.