"a_taste_of_heaven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lovegrove James)

picked up a pair of trainers from a skip -- these
trainers I've got on here -- and they happened to fit
me just right. Air-cushioned soles, nearly new. That
put a spring in my step, all right. So I had just about
every creature comfort you could think of, nothing
whatsoever to complain about. I wonder if that had
something...? No, never mind. I'll just tell you the
story straight. It hurts too much to think too hard
about it.

"London lives. You know that, don't you? Perhaps
you don't. It's true of every big city, of course, but it's
something you're only aware of if you know that city
well, and the way to get to know a city well is not to
travel across it by bus or tube, not to drive around it
in a car, but to walk through it. That's when you're
moving at its own pace, do you see? Contrary to
popular opinion, there's nothing fast about cities. The
people who live in them may rush around all the
time, but cities themselves grow and change so
slowly, it's hard to see it happening. It's like mould
forming, like a rising-damp stain spreading across a
patch of wallpaper. A building goes up, a building
comes down, and most of the time we're whizzing by
too quickly to notice. Haven't you ever found
yourself strolling down a street you know well, only
to be caught up short because a house you didn't even
realise was being demolished has gone? Whish! Like
a conjuror has magicked it away. And I'm sure there
have been times when you've stumbled across a
brand-new block of flats or a brand-new shopping
centre and, when you stop to think about it for a
moment, you realise you've been passing that site
every day and not once did you spot even one piece
of scaffolding. Shops are changing hands all the time,
aren't they? Faчades get repainted. Black brickwork
gets sandblasted clean. And all this goes on around
you, and yet only occasionally -- usually when you're
out on foot -- does it ever strike you that the city is
constantly renewing and reshaping itself, that it's not
just a great mass of brick and stone that sits there
mouldering and decaying, that the place you live in is
something that breathes, pulses, has a heartbeat, may
even have some dim kind of sentience."

Here Harold paused, giving me an opportunity to
take in what he had been saying so far and prepare
myself for what was coming, which, judging by the
ironic purse of his lips, was going to be harder still
to swallow. I don't think he appreciated how immune