I keep forgetting that I live in London

by Robert Yates

the clientele abusing the computers in the library consist of:
hyperactive schoolkids for whom this is a social centre
once in a green moon they are asked to be quiet
a dotty old bat who can’t enter data without muttering
a convulsant jerk unlodging epileptically the bag he has stuffed behind the monitor
and anyone who can hammer keys like a pile-driver

the nearest supermarket specialises in
overfrozen microchips, crushed biscuits and soggy “crusty” rolls

a painfully thin careers adviser with painfully long fingernails
asks me how many languages I can speak
“None,” I reply, “I’m a
stammerer.”

she doesn’t believe me
the world consists of stammerers and those who want to be
I blame Kenneth Tynan and Marilyn Monroe

my downstairs neighbour has bare wooden floorboards and a wailing child
and a stereo that thuds out over half the estate
he says it is a pocket transistor radio; he should get it patented
he has to get up at half past five in the morning to be a twat

I don’t live in London; I live in london