Seasider:

The train pulls into the station, I am generally the only one on it and in these tarnished days of death, stupidity and corruption I am the only one wearing a mask.  I unplug the EarPods, my middle-aged brain, humming from the human warmth of Shaun Keavney's podcast.  

I slide along the edge of the platform, into the street. Make the necessary purchases in a shop I haven't physically been in for nearly two years.  A Pandemic tends to do that, to both re-wire and replace your habits.  

It's a high street chain, but this seaside town is generally populated by shops selling tat or greasy food.  Some of whom are shut for the Winter.  I gaze at the pensioner's menu in the chippy and wonder if I am old enough for it (£5.95 cod and chips and cup of tea, 55p extra for gravy or curry sauce). 

I walk along the coastal road, away from the holidaymakers and the Christmas shoppers.  The road is getting quieter and it is only the clacking of my roller suitcase's wheels that keeps me company. I am approaching three days of rest and writing, in a room that (once I have mastered the heating) will be womb-like.  I set up a desk, with a laptop next to a kettle.  I decorate it the next day with two ornaments of gnomes I have bought as a present for my wife. 

It's hardly Woolfian, but it suits me and my personality fine.  I'm more familiar with that quote than her work. My literary heroes are Iain Banks, William Gibson, Marian Keyes, David Mitchell... I think of writing as a liquid, evolving universe that as you swim in; you discover another layer. I chat to writers a lot on Twitter, the vast majority are pleasant, polite and friendly.  

And so, I hit on a schedule, the following morning.  Write, in roughly 500wds chunks. Break for a cuppa, break for Popmaster (the finest quiz on the radio, I am still honoured to have appeared on it just over a year ago).  Repeat four times, go for a very long walk.

The route is up the coast, into the town centre.  Past the railway station, sometimes waiting patiently at the level crossing.  This almost seems a leveller of people's character.  There are those of us (I am in this category) who wait patiently, some are too busy for all that kind of nonsense and go over the bridge.  

There is a tattoo parlour at the level crossing.  Painted on the wall outside, in elegant, flowing script and various typefaces is the legend:  

"Blessed are the weird people.  The poets and misfits, the artists and the writers and music makers, the dreamers and the outsiders - for they force us to see the world differently."   

This, cheers me every time I see it. It makes me feel a member of an elite club, an unsung group of superheroes who, in their small, significant heroism make the world slightly more palatable. Writing is a lonely occupation at the best of times.  Not well paid and involving long periods of being alone and wondering if it all actually means anything.  

Having been a writer since I was ten years old, I am considering it far too late to back out now. I am determined, in my own, small, obstinate way to carry on till I am somewhere else.

The seaside town itself, is one of fading Victorian grandeur.  It still has elegance and grace and history, but the theatre where Pirates of Penzance premiered in now a branch of Poundland. Like most places in Devon, it is represented by a Tory MP.  And myself, a lifelong socialist is mystified by this.  

It exists with a much more genteel, cultured, pale blue town up the road.  Here, there is a drug abuse, homelessness, teenage pregnancy.  Up there is a theatre which has seen shows ranging from Puppetry of the Penis to An Evening with Nigel Farage.  Perhaps, there is little difference between the two.      

And yet, I feel more comfortable here than I would there. I am from Scouse, working-class stock, Irish on both sides. Even here.  I am not English - if English means ignorance, an acceptance of poverty, misery and stupidity, then count me out.  

Along the level crossing is a Nepalese restaurant I recognise from the local news.  It suffers anti-social behaviour from teenagers.  It co-exists with a hipster coffee shop, offering Beef and Boursin toasties at a fiver each.    

And there, in brick and food is the great contradiction of this country.  We want to appear cultured, sophisticated and hungry... but at the same time, a lie has been both carelessly and callously cultivated that anyone who isn't white are the problem.  Plus, the factor that it is been compressed and curled into the DNA of another generation makes me want to emigrate.

There's a lot of Panglossian talk about the next generation being better.  I'm personally not convinced.  There is this great, hopeful myth that we're raising children that are going to solve the problems of global warming, sexism and fascism.  

I walk through the park facing the beach.  A wall is being installed to stop the town flooding due to global warming.  People are protesting against it, complaining at the lack of consultation. The plans from the council have counter-protest posters stuck all over it.

And as we're still in the midst of an endless pandemic, even that is sending people to the furthest edges of their sanity.  A sticker, alongside the Covid restrictions for the park says, in a strident, macho, tinfoil-hatted voice: "My freedom does not end where your fear begins."

It's all about time.  And I realise then, it's a fluid, liquid energy.  It can be measured, but not stopped.  It can be marked, but not frozen.  Things remind me of things - places, emotions, times.  Sitting in a Subway shop on a late Winter afternoon, with a Tiger Pig Sub reminds me of so many things.  And I am comfortable with that.  

And then, a few days later a young girl will be stabbed to death in my native Liverpool, whilst Christmas shopping.  It's an echo of so many events: Hillsborough, Jamie Bulger, Rhys Jones... not named, but always remembered: the death of a young lad I played out with as a child.  He died in an accident (an accident, of all things) in the First Gulf War.  

I am immensely proud of my Scouse roots.  I will defend the city to the hilt, with the last drop of my red blood. Those who condemn Liverpool have generally never been there.  The jokes about stolen cars and foodbanks can be told as easily elsewhere.  The writers of comedy panel shows and part-time fans of football clubs, funded by bank notes, stained with blood or oil should turn their snark or ire in the right direction.  

Back in the hotel, in a writing break I watch Boris Johnson give a live speech.  He loses his place halfway through and begins waxing lyrical about Peppa Pig.  He does this on a day, where the future of care in this country is being voted on.  It's too easy to dismiss this as a dead cat.  This, is a public act of prime stupidity.  Not eccentricity, or maverick genius. But pure, unadulterated idiocy.  

Johnson's whole life has been defined by what he can get in the next five minutes.  And, now the whole country has to suffer for that.  Britain is irrevocably broken, not just because of him - there are far too many reasons for that - but he sits on the wreckage of eleven years, gradually and systematically making things worse.  He is the village idiot who turns up as your house catches alight with a nice, big can of petrol. 

We need a revolution in this country.  Not necessarily one with guns and show trials. Not angry Frenchmen in HiVis vests.  Not even the funky one triggered by Valentine Strasser in Sierra Leone, with Ain't No Stopping Us Now by McFadden and Whitehead as the anthem.  

I'm talking about a revolution of the soul.  True acceptance of anyone who is different to us, coupled with compassion for people who need our help.  A few tins for the food bank, a donation to charity, a kind word or a clap isn't enough anymore. The things that send people over the edge - a black family in advert - shouldn't.   To paraphrase Victoria Wood, "There wouldn't be a revolution in this country unless they banned car boot sales."

I come home a few days later.  Pleased with my productivity (5,000wds a day) and breaking out of the habits of alternating writing with walking.  Back into my old habits of caring for my wife and trying to relate to my teenage stepson.  

The train is relativity empty to start off with, it fills to about halfway as we get nearer to the big city. Most people aren't wearing masks and a few days later, a new variant of Covid; given a name like a 1970's Doctor Who villain is the new anti-Santa.

I am back at the beginning, a masked man listening to a podcast.  I am loved in this life, but at the same time: wary, angry, hungry.  Fighting for attention from my brothers, pushing myself to the front of a queue of writers.  At my desk with a pen in my hand, or a laptop in front of me.  Walking an endless beach.