Gobbing distance from my flat in St Pauls, Bristol, there’s a huge billboard that reads “Bristol says no to knives”

It’s massive, and being a clinical simpleton I’ll believe anything written in a large enough typeface:
JIMMY HENDRICKS INVENTED THE UNICORN.
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E.T. WAS PLAYED BY A TROUPE OF HIGHLY TRAINED CIRCUS OTTERS.

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See?

Who ever erected it clearly has an unflinching belief in the power of advertising. For a while I wondered who exactly it was supposed to be targeting. Then last night I realised it was me.

David is an affable, diabetic Chihuahua who resides under an upturned copy of Andy Mcnab’s Bravo Two Zero at the bottom of my garden. I don’t charge him any rent, and in return he guards my collections of Teutonic sausage meats and soiled leotards. I consider us to be friends. We’re supportive of each other. When, for example, the isolation of living inside a hollowed out military tome becomes unbearable for him, I simply tickle him on his little stomach until his involuntary canine spasming scatters his desolate tears over my steadfast lap. He reciprocates by letting me use his trembling torso to massage and exfoliate my heavily callused perineum. It’s your run of the mill pervert / Chihuahua emotional symbiosis. We also share an appreciation for the dramatic dexterity of the actor Steven Segal.

Yesterday I overheard a conversation between some nondescript accents in designer knitwear. They’d’ once inadvertently ventured into St Pauls and even though nothing bad had actually happened to them, were vociferously exploring their shared trauma. They were discussing how edgy and unfamiliar it felt to them. They used ebulliently embroidered language to paint a dark and alien landscape from which they were lucky to escape with their ipods or even there lives. From their tone it was difficult to tell which they valued the most.

I don’t really mean to mock them; I understand that they only spoke of the differences because familiarity is less conspicuous, less remarkable. I just found it funny how if the societal consensus is to be fearful of a thing, our behaviour around it can be bit daft.

This afternoon I was passing the primary school in St Pauls. It was play time and the sun had cast an enriching incandescent gold over the playground. I remembered the conversation I’d heard yesterday and it struck me that the sun shines just as brightly here as it does over Bristol’s more affluent enclaves. Laughter was forcing cold breath into fractals here, just as it does in the private schoolyards of Clifton. The chill stripped trees are just as naked and skeletal here as elsewhere. Birds still sing. Hearts still beat. People still love and worry and shit and dream, just as they do everywhere else.

And as I was pondering this, I suddenly became aware that I’m thirty three year old man, alone, quixotically staring at a playground full of kids.

I got out of there sharpish.

It’s funny how if the societal consensus is to be fearful of a thing, our behaviour around it can be bit daft.