I’m blessed by the fact that I live almost smack-bang in the middle of old London, a pebble’s toe punt from St Paul’s cathedral. Being an aficionado of Charles Dickens and J.B. Priestley, I’ve been able to wander along empty streets and alleys that have been immortalised in such novels as Angel Pavement and Bleak House. When I’m walking around the yards and courts at the back of the Bank of England, I can imagine the nefarious Mr Golspie darting round a corner with an enigmatic grin of triumph on his conniving, pugnacious moosh. Kicking a stone down a street for as long as possible has been a rediscovered pleasure to me over the past year. During the most deserted period of the first lockdown, I dribbled a cracked flint pebble up the middle of a deserted Fleet Street from Ludgate Hill to the Royal Courts of Justice without encountering a single vehicle. At one point I hit a bin with a resounding crack that was as joyful as the sound of morning birdsong. I felt like I was eight years old again.
Some weeks ago, I was quarantining in a schloss near Frankfurt. Since I arrived at night, all I experienced of the hotel before confinement in my room was a looming gothic silhouette and an eerily amicable welcome by an immaculately dressed greeter. The hotel doubled up as the set of Spencer, a feature film about the last Christmas Princess Diana spent at Sandringham before her marriage ended. I had a beautifully appointed two-room suite/cell with the occasional welcome room-service visits from staff who were so surreally charming it was as if they were out of cut scenes from The Shining. One positive was that I’d been supplied with a toaster, a kettle, a bread knife and bananas.
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