They can print statistics and count the population in hundreds of thousands, but to each man a city consists of no more than a few streets, a few houses, a few people. Remove those few and a city exists no longer except as a pain in the memory, like the pain of an amputated leg no longer there.

Ever wanting to improve my sleep I decided to try the ‘Sleep Cycle’ Iphone app, its very big in japan seemingly.

The first night was fine, a bit late going to bed but a nice gentle wake up.

Went to bed / woke up: 23:48 / 06:27
Total time: 6h 38m

The second night I ended up going for a few pints. Bit late going to bed, a bit steamed but remembered to set up the app.

The gentle wake up wasn’t as gentle the next morning, but imagine my surprise when the graph showed i was in quite a repose for three and a half hours.

Went to bed / woke up: 01:56 / 06:53
Total time: 4h 56m

You can’t beat a few pints to put a stop to that tossing and turning.

Between these two I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequelly shared between them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the advertures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from persuit. Jekyll had more than a father’s interest; Hyde had more of a son’s indifference

HAPPY THE WAYFARER who, aftyer a long, boring  journey with its cold, slush, dirt, sleepy stationmasters, clanking bells, repairs, altercations, coachmen, blacksmiths, and all sorts of scoundrels of the road, sees at last the familiar roof with its lights rushing to meet him, and before him stand familiar rooms, the joyful shout of his people running to meet him, the noise and scampering of children, and soothing soft speech, interupted by burning kisses with the power to wipe out all that is mournful from the memory. Happy the family man who has such a corner, but woe to the bacheler!

Suddenly her door was open. She snatched a brassiere in mid-flight and had it down in her sack before I’d even focused on it. The sheer size of the thing dragged my eyes back into her machine to see if there was anything else as big going round. We spotted one at the same time, and out came a harness that may well have had Dunlop written on it.

After all, I don’t invent any of these scandalous tales myself, I stick to the job of carrier. They say that a few days ago, at five o’clock in the morning, a furious din was heard: all the bells were jangling and there were broken and muffled cries of a man being strangled. ‘Help, help! I’m suffocating, I’m dying.’ These cries came from the master’s room. Help arrives. That huge creature of ours, who was quite out of her mind and had lost all idea of time and place, as happens at such a moment, was still going at full speed, lifting herself up on her hands and dropping on old Casual Parts a weight of two to three hundred pounds with all the violent animation that frantic enjoyment can give. It was very difficult to extricate him. What a fantistic idea for a little hammer to put itself under a heavy anvil!

“At this time, I shared a dark suspician that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles – a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other – that kept me going”

Night bazaar in Luang Prabang, great friendly people selling silk