All around there is a blindness caused by this notion of what the sighted should see. There is a man selling potato peelers at the corner of 8B who demonstrates his product with the confidence of a veteran stage actor, gestures flying wild with a smile on his face, and all you want to do is discuss John Keats. All you want is to repeat every poem you feel. With that feeling in your voice. Stand up on a bench and shout out what one is told are things you shout out generally if you're here. So you say, All You Need Is Love! with bold capitals flying out into the night. Or this: Let Us Go Then, and look around for someone to catch your cue and launch into a recitation. What's the point, really, everyone knows the lines. But they're repeated and then re-repeated till they become, as you'd say, the next Harry Potter. It's just a matter of time before your head hurts and goes ufff at everything.

But since it is such an ageless thing after all (and what's more, a Favourite), we repeat. We repeat and we repeat. And if I catch myself wondering how people can stand not getting tired of all this reiteration, I stop, because this is where I am. Getting an education and blending in and singing along, everyone does it. Doesn't matter if you're a Rebel or a Rockstar or a Loner, you do it all the same. And if you think too much about this cycle you're in danger of having something else repeated to you, words shot at you straight from the brain, lines memorised because they sound bloody beautiful, don't they. But there's no heart in it when you shout it out for the world to marvel at, which is why my kids - if I have any - shall be brought up on a Polynesian Island. No impressive poetry can get at them there. At least I hope not.