no , not hate , stopping at the kerb , but a growing misanthropy , a desire to cross at the green man and leave those shuffling apathetic souls to the mess of road signs that strew their asphalt lives and redirect mine along st stephen 's row , past the symbolic dirty brown cigarette packet floating puddle outside barclays bank , the two-faced capitalist , racist bastards who offer the neat efficient banking service to plastic middle class jokes that idolise materialism and success and believe the plight of the africans to be in good hands , watched by america and the un secretary general , christians all in this day and age , it would never happen to us because we 've got security at ten percent , if only they were prepared to work ; to work , then , once again , a pigeon fluttering before me like a photograph , wings blurred as the hero crosses red square , a grey misty , melancholic hero with a lost love who had black hair and green eyes and spoke in a soft , difficult to place accent , celtic perhaps , her fragile frame a trap , her power almost mystical , of sea and sky and seagulls , not fat fool city gent pigeons that explode into action only to fall like industrial waste onto the shifted flagstones of this pompous bestatued square , a testament to dullness , where birds and people strut like egyptian court jesters , humouring the dead .