Ladbroke Grove was thronging with rush-hour foot traffic. As ever, a few stray loonies milled around the twenty-four-hour shop by the station, clutching cans of Special Brew, staring out blankly on to a world that had no time for them. One man passed out against the wall, looking like nothing so much as a few bags of spuds with a worn-out broom for a head, a trail of piss leaking from his tattered trousers out across the paving stones. A black man, thin as a reed, with layers of ill-fitting clothes coming off him like unravelling bandages from a mummy, reeling dangerously in front of the bus stop, arms wide , as if in the grip of some biblical revelation. A couple of black kids on BMX bikes were laughing at him. I hurried past, not wanting to make eye contact with any of them, sensing hurricanes of rage within that twisting form and those mocking children that the slightest blink in the wrong direction could unleash.