Once more with feeling.

Once more for the century.

It’s been a week since I got here.

Two hundred miles up in the sky.

They said “you’ll soon get used to the view”.

But that turned out to be a little white lie.

Ninety-nine times I’ve been around the world.

Around the world in ninety minutes.

Ninety-nine sunsets. Ninety-nine new dawns.

And I’m still looking at the view.

From here, I can cover my country with the palm of my hand.

If it’s still my country.

Sometimes, you can see the lights.

Clustered in cities, strung out along rivers and roads.

Sometimes the lights go out.

Like they went out in Japan after the quake.

Sometimes new lights come on.

Volcanoes. Auroras. Lightning.

We’ll be over my country in just a few minutes.

I wonder if I’ll be able to see its new lights.

The fires burning in its streets.

The new dawn rising.

Ninety-nine times I’ve passed over my country.

My home.

I wonder.

When I pass for the hundredth time.

Will it still be mine?

Another country.

He hadn’t told her where they were going, of course, or why they were going there. He hadn’t even been thoughtful enough to mention that she should probably wear more practical shoes than leopard-print spike heels. Heels which now threatened to break off – or break her ankle – with every faltering step she took across the shingle.

It’d be worth it, he’d said. Worth traipsing all the way down to this Godforsaken corner of the Garden of England, worth taking day off work for, even worth the ridiculous kiddy train they’d had to ride for the final leg of the journey. Perched in miniature carriages, whooshing along behind people’s gardens, full of swingsets and laundry-lines.

The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway. It didn’t even say Dungeness in the name. Why should it? Who in their right mind would want to catch a funfair ride to this blighted beach, all deadwood, cold rolled stones and scrabbling, prehistoric-looking sea lettuce?

But Maxine knew the answer to that. Her dad had been drawn to this place, bundling Maxine, her sister and their mother into the battered family Sierra on seemingly random Sundays before driving determinedly to this desolation at England’s easternmost tip. He’d park up on some nondescript piece of asphalt or other and get out of the car, roll a cigarette and lean back against the bonnet and stare wordlessly across the grey sea in the vague direction of France.

Maxine’s mum had hated it, though, forbidding the kids from getting out of the car until their complaints became utterly unignorable. She’d been living near Whitby when Chernobyl blew its top in ’86, still remembered being told to stay indoors when the wind blew in off the North Sea. She feared Dungeness’ own reactor, its hulking rectangular form blurred by the seafront haze – suspecting waste in the water, fallout on the shore. Even when she relented and let them out of the car, she’d call after them: “Stay on the path! Don’t touch anything!”

Maxine herself was happier at nearby Camber, with its golden sands, or the friendlier resorts of the Thames Estuary. Herne Bay, Broadstairs, even Margate. Her mum, though, would muse wistfully about wilder shores. Robin Hood’s Bay. Bamburgh. Staithes. Those places, she implied, had a kind of gritty authenticity lacking in the groomed Southern seafronts. Max and her sisters quickly learned to mock such sentiments: it’s grim oop North.

Maxine’s dad, meanwhile, had eventually stopped simply gazing across the Channel and crossed it himself, leaving his  erstwhile family to fend for themselves in honest poverty. He’d ultimately made his way all the way south to Marseilles, which was as full of intrigues as any well-trafficked port is. Like the Cinque Ports, where he’d been wheeling and dealing in penny-ante fashion for years, but bigger and rawer. Plenty of opportunities there for a fortune-seeking chancer.

Speaking of which, Phil had stopped and turned. “Get a move on, Max, we’re going to be late,” he yelled, his voice almost lost in the wind. He was far ahead of her, sure-footed in his grubby white trainers.

“Where are we going?” she protested. “I’m bloody freezing and we’ve been walking for miles.”

“Don’t be such a whinger,” he shouted back. “It’s just a bit further. And it’s not that cold.”

“I’m not one of your Northern slappers who goes out in a G-string and stilettos whatever the weather,” she snapped. He shrugged nonchalantly, seemingly accepting this as a back-handed compliment to his Geordie tribe, and continued to march towards the sea.

Maxine considered for a moment. She was slipping ever further behind: Phil was fast becoming a stick-figure on the beach, a narrowing strip of rusty stones and scrubby green vegetation squeezed between smoky clouds and steely water. The power plant skulked far off to her left. The place where the pylons ended. It looked as though they were marching one by one to their deaths. An electrical extermination camp.

Unenthusiastic though she was about Phil’s latest get-rich-quick scheme, she was even less keen on getting lost out here. Struggling to balance, she removed one shoe, then the other. A momentary sting of panic as she remembered her mother’s cautions. But then it was done. The stones were chilly, but thankfully dry, under her bare feet, and she found she could hop over them much more quickly, limited only by the narrowness of her skirt.

She’d dressed to impress, expecting some high-stakes clubland meeting, choosing her accessories and make-up with care. Examining herself in the full-length mirror before leaving the flat, she’d had a sharp spasm of the increasingly familiar feeling that she looked far better than Phil deserved, lumpen in his fleece and tracksuit bottoms.

Not just looked better. She was better. Things just hadn’t been the same since she’d gone to the Med last summer. Two months of sunshine, blue skies, warm water. Tanned, lean men. Cocktails. She’d changed. She’d learnt a few things about what you could make of life, if you tried. She hadn’t wanted to go back to working in the boozer and vegging out in front of the telly. But the alternative was to concede defeat, to join her mother in modest refuge up on the Yorkshire moors.

She was close enough now to see that Phil had pulled out his makeshift map, no more than a creased bit of paper with pencil scribblings on it, evidently drawn according to telephonic instructions. It’d be a wonder if they made itt o wherever they were going. He really was an useless shit, she thought, rage filling her for a moment.

She caught up with him just as he crested a swell of stones: beyond it, the water’s edge; a few feet out, a sharp-nosed boat bobbing with the tide. On the beach, two men, vaguely European looking. One would have been good-looking were it not for his hugely bushy eyebrows. Her first thought was that they must be French, or perhaps Spanish; but  nowadays they were just as likely to be from the Baltic as the Mediterranean.

They were wearing black leather blouson jackets and what looked from a distance like peculiar trousers; but then Maxine realised they were waders. Mostly dry, only their creases slick with water. They’d evidently been waiting for a while. On seeing them, Eyebrows half-turned and tossed a cigarette butt into the water. His movement spoke of efficiency. Perhaps of aggression.

On the back of the speedboat, she could just make out boxes stacked under a tarpaulin, each a bit smaller than a shoebox. “Unstamped fags?” she asked gloomily. A mug’s game, unless you had the balls to bring them in by the lorryload.

So this was how it was going to play out: offering the punters down the pub a packet here, a packet there. A quid or two each time for the savings jar in the hallway, whose contents were as unimpressive today as they’d been the day she’d started it. The day she’d got back from her summer in the sun. Phil helped himself to its contents every time he needed some change for fags, or a pint, or a paper. Or pretty much anything, really.

“Smartphones,” he replied gleefully, and as Maxine looked more closely she could see that what she’d taken for jumbo-sized cartons were, indeed, individual boxes of electronics. “A hundred of them, unlocked and unregistered, work on any network. Even with a pre-paid SIM. That’s ten grand you’re looking at there.”

More like three, thought Maxine. “Phil, how are we going to get them out of here? We can’t just carry them.” The guys on the beach didn’t looked as though they they’d offer sale-or-return.

Phil looked wounded. “Gimme some credit, Maxine. Jez is coming with his van. He’ll be here in a minute. We’re going evens on it.” He shot her a pleading glance, then trotted down the ridge to meet his partners in crime.

Maxine began pacing along the stony ridge: a few feet this way, a few feet the other. It wasn’t just her feet that were freezing now: she wrapped her arms around herself to fend off the cold wind whipping in off the sea. She could taste its saline tang, and perhaps something more. Something metallic. She looked for the power plant, couldn’t see it.

Finally she stopped pacing and looked at the three men. The transaction did not seem to be going well. Picking her way gingerly down the slope, she could hear the Europeans’ raised voices and Phil’s more plaintive, whiny tones. The price had just gone up, she guessed. Useless, useless, she raged internally, marching across the stones, her shoes still in her left hand, and before she knew it she was fumbling in her bag for the gun, pulled it out, pointed it at the trio.

Maxine believed in being prepared. And she’d been particularly careful in her preparations that day.

“Hey!” she shouted.

The men looked at her, stupefied. For a moment, no-one did anything. Then Eyebrows began to advance on her, his palms up and out. He had a grin on his face, the kind of grin she knew from her summer in the sun. She could almost hear the Eurotrash words coming: Hey baby. Be cool. She’d heard it enough times last year when some sleazebag or other had tried it on, overestimating their charms and underestimating her irritation. Until they’d eventually realised she wasn’t just another clueless little English girl. Until they’d realised she could handle herself.

The bark of the gun surprised Maxine only a little, but it startled the hell out of everyone else.

“Maxine! What the fuck, Maxine –”

“Shut up, Phil,” she said, realigning the gun so that it was pointing directly at Eyebrows, rather out to sea. “You. Keys.” Eyebrows nodded, reached slowly into one of his jacket pockets, extracted a bunch of keys and tossed them at her feet with the same efficiency as he’d flicked the cigarette butt.

“All right,” she said, bending sideways to pluck them off the shingle, hooking them awkwardly with the spare fingers of her shoe-holding left hand. “Now fuck off out of here.”

“Maxine,” started Phil. “Now think about this, Max –”

She fired again. This time the bullet whizzed past his ear, rather closer than she’d planned.

He didn’t need telling twice. For a moment, the Europeans looked as though they might still argue the point; then Eyebrows shrugged, and they slouched after Phil’s rapidly disappearing form.

Maxine lowered the gun, suddenly trembling. She had an abrupt urge to throw it away, forced herself to put it back in her bag. She realised she was holding it gingerly.

Fingerprints.

Don’t touch anything.

She wiped the keys on her blouse, gripped them firmly between her teeth, and extended her arms for balance as she picked her way across the last few yards of shingle and waded into the water, finally thankful for the bareness of her legs and the brevity of her skirt.

Out to where the boat bobbed and fretted in the surf. Tossed the spike heels onboard, pulled herself onto its edge and swung herself on-board with practised ease.

A summer in the sun. She’d learnt a few things.

Ignoring the goosebumps on her arms and legs, she pulled up the anchor – just a block of concrete attached to a loop of plastic twine – then dropped herself into the skipper’s leather-lined bucket seat. The correct key was obvious: she fired up the motor. It was surprisingly quiet, but she could feel the engine’s confident vibration through the fibreglass. A smuggler’s boat.

A few seconds to familiarise herself with the controls, then she dropped it into gear, swung the steering yoke, and swept away from the shore, carving a white weal through the grey and poisonous sea.

It’s cold. The night air’s black and thin.

My breath is throwing frozen angels into the night.

Purse my lips, puff. A misty cherub.

I puff again, enjoying the effect.

Again.

Again.

Stop that, you say. It’s going all over me.

What’s going all over you?

Your breath, you say.

My breath?

You say nothing.

My breath is going all over you.

You still say nothing.

But my breath is always going all over you.

Yeah, but normally I can just ignore it, you snap.

You’re irritated.

This is new.

I wait for a second, then can’t help myself.

What’s… wrong with my breath going over you?

It’s, it’s… – you wheel your hand impatiently at the wrist – it’s dirty.

I laugh.

This is clearly the wrong response.

Well, it is! It’s fucking filthy!

Measured tone.

How can it be filthy? It’s just breath.

Oh my god.

No, really, how can breath be dirty?

It’s not just breath, is it? It’s, you know, breath that you’ve used up already. It’s, like, waste. Like car exhaust or something. You wouldn’t laugh if I said I didn’t want to breathe in car fumes, would you? It’s the same thing.

Car exhaust is poisonous, though.

So is breath. It’s all carbon dioxide. All the oxygen’s gone. That’s why you breathe it out.

Not all the oxygen’s gone. That’s why they make you breathe into a bag if you’re having a panic attack.

No, it’s not. They make you breathe into a bag because you need more carbon dioxide.

But there must still be oxygen in there, or you’d die.

Yeah, but still. And it’s your own breath, anyway. That’s different.

…Is it?

Of course it is. I mean, it’s still not nice, but it’s better than someone else’s.

Fucking hell.

What?

That’s so mad.

It’s not fucking mad. I’m not mad. It’s you lot that’s mad.

By “you lot”, you mean, like, the rest of the human race?

It’s not just me, all right? I bet loads of people think that, they’re just don’t want to say it in case people take the piss.

I wonder why they’d be worried about that.

Look, you’re really pissing me off now.

Sorry.

You’re not though, are you?

No, really. I am. Sorry. I’ll shut up now.

I can see you laughing, you fucker.

Oh look, I’m sorry, it’s just so – it’s just a bit weird.

It’s not. Look, it’s full of germs, right? That’s why they tell you to cover your mouth when you sneeze. “Coughs and sneezes spread diseases”, right? Japanese people don’t even blow their noses in public because they think it’s dirty. You know, it’s waste products. Like – well, you know.

Like shit?

Oh my god. Yes, like shit.

You think exhaled breath is like shit.

Well. No, not shit. More like… more like farts, actually.

Right. That makes much more sense.

I wish I’d never said anything now.

Silence.

But, you know, people are breathing out all the time. Practically every breath you take must –

You put up one hand, palm out.

Don’t. Look, all right, I know it’s a bit weird. But it’s just how I feel. I can’t help it. It’s not normally a problem. I just ignore it. But when it’s cold and you can see everything – well, you know, it’s like the difference between knowing that people go to the toilet and actually seeing it.

All right. Look, I really didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just – it must make it a bit difficult talking to people and stuff.

It does, sometimes. Like I say, most of the time I don’t really think about it. Only if it’s cold. Or when someone stands really close to you and you can feel it.

That’s pretty revolting anyway. Unless you fancy them, of course.

Well, yeah.

Silence.

A thought occurs.

So what about when we, you know? When we kiss? I mean, it’s pretty unavoidable then, isn’t it?

You stop, turn to face me. Your face is hard, your stance stern.

Yeah, you say.

I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. ##

Pandora unboxed

Hope is making a memory box.

It is hard work, now that she is dead.

She died in the sixth month of the sixth year of their marriage. She died in childbirth. The child, too, died in childbirth. In a more literal sense.

Hope puts the photograph at the bottom of the box. She likes to pretend that the little girl in the picture is her mother; perhaps her grandmother; perhaps even her great-grandmother. She likes to pretend there are stories about the doll that sits by the girl’s feet. A boon companion become a beloved heirloom.

But there are no stories, because the picture is of an utter stranger. Hope found it pressed between the leaves of a volume of Jonathan Swift’s poems, a volume she found in the abandoned house when they arrived. She has never even met the people who owned the house before them, has no idea if the girl in the picture shares a history with them.

But Hope has no stories of her own mother, or grandmother, or great-grandmother. All the mothers of her line died before she was born. That’s a tradition in itself, she supposes; she, too, died before her daughter could be born. But it is not one that she wishes to commemorate. So the picture will have to do, its imagined stories standing in for her own.

Once she would have rebelled at this pretence, proud of her foundling nature. But now she has grown used to having others tell her stories for her. She supposes that is what happens when you are dead, when you can no longer tell your stories for yourself. They talk, to her face, of how brave she was, how blameless. They talk, when they think she cannot hear, of how she has grown distant, and quiet, and strange.

And he, her husband; once, he told tall tales about her prodigious gifts; about her bountiful offerings of love, of sex, of company. Now, he only lists the evils that she has set upon him. He talks of imagined slights, of imaginary infidelities. The only story he does not tell is the truth. That story is not fit to be aired.

Angered, briefly, and surprised that she can still feel anger, she scribbles bitter words. Then, the flash of fury over, she reconsiders. On a fresh sheet of paper, she writes brief words of chastisement. She writes them in her best script, so that he will know that she they were well considered, not hastily wrought. She cuts them out, affixes them carefully to the lid of the box.

The box’s lid is lacquered, inlaid with pearlescent ears of wheat. Wheat for Demeter. Demeter, goddess of fertility. In marriage, as well as in the fields. Certainly Hope has not won Demeter’s favour. If she had, things would have been different. Perhaps then there would have been fewer breaches of marital contract, fewer stains on their sheets.

But perhaps the goddess will show mercy to her yet. After all, Demeter had a daughter who languished in the kingdom of the dead. Perhaps she will listen kindly to the sympathetic magic of the photograph of the pretend-mother. Perhaps she will return Hope to life. Perhaps once Hope has made the box, sealed it, offered it to Demeter, she will awake the next morning and arise again – like Apollo, like the sun – and turn to the day’s new work.

But Hope knows it is not to be. She slides the lid of the box open again, puts in the doll’s head. Its cool whiteness is smooth below her fingertips, and for a moment she closes her eyes and feels its weight, reluctant to let it go. She does not remember where the head came from; only that she has owned it since she was very young.

She remembers admiring the frozen set of its perfect hair; the pale blue bow peeking out at one side. It seemed so sophisticated, so adult. This, she thought, was what it was to be an adult, a woman. A perfect, immaculate, flawless figure.

Now she opens her eyes and looks at it again, and she realises it is nothing of the sort. It is a child’s head, and it has the perfection that only a child’s face – pure, uncontaminated by life’s harsh truths – can display. The eternal perfection of a child who will never grow old. She places it carefully, gently in the box. There, it can rest, undisturbed, forever.

One more item. This one she picks up without looking, drops it hastily in corner of the box. The instruments of her repair, still and eternally incomplete: it picks and scratches and itches at her every day. Her hand drops, almost without her knowing it, to where the ragged scar runs across her abdomen: the scar that saved her life, and caused her death, all in one and the same instant. The unholy wound through which her daughter was born, and died, in the moment of her first and last breath.

Hope’s eyes film over with tears and her breath grows ragged. Her stuttering fingers push back the lid of the box. The memories, sealed within, grow still and fixed.

But Hope, outside, finds no release.

How can it hurt so much when you are already dead? ##

Inspired by The Cotard Delusion, an artwork made by Amanda Schiff and exhibited at the Grant Museum of Zoology, London from February 15th- June 11th 2010

A Freudian nightmare.

Jamie doesn’t like the Tree. He never has. There’s something about the way that it stands aloof from all the other trees in the garden, alone at the end of the narrow path that runs behind the garage. Then there’s the way that its roots reach beyond the circle of earth in which it is set, rising like a cluster of clenched, bony knuckles before digging back down into the concrete of the path.

The tangle of roots below is mirrored by the knot of branches above. Dark-barked and sparse-leaved, they seem indifferent to sun and sky. Come summer, come winter, the Tree retains its solitary aspect: a bleak and forbidding figure, unloved and unvisited. The only occasions on which Jamie makes its acquaintance are when a ball or Frisbee is dragged into its baleful orbit and needs retrieval.

When that happens, he inches towards its perfectly cylindrical torso, acutely aware of its looming presence, its grasping limbs. He pauses and stares for a long moment at its base, the black plastic of the dustbin blurring his peripheral vision. This standoff persists until he has demonstrated that he isn’t scared – to some imaginary spectator’s satisfaction, if not his own – and then he runs forward, scoops up the ball and returns to the garden laughing loudly at his escape, his body tingling with relief.

It’s just a tree. Never mind that his entire family refers to it as the Tree: one of the familiar landmarks of their familial psycho-geography. Jamie envies his parents’ easy acknowledgement of the Tree’s singular status. They think nothing of visiting it to fill the dustbin, even in the dead of night. He wonders if they know how he feels about it. He thinks not, but then he’s old enough to understand that they know a lot of things that they don’t acknowledge. Sometimes that understanding makes him feel grown-up. Sometimes it makes him feel alone.

Briony, on the other hand, definitely does know how he feels about it. For all that she’s four years older, and endlessly scornful of his childishness, she’s still enough of a child to understand his unspoken dread. The Tree provides a handy pretext for her to mock him when she feels the urge. “Jamie’s scaared,” she taunts. “Scared of the big scary treeee.” It hits a nerve: he can feel his face reddening even as he denies it. He wishes she would protect him, like big sisters are meant to. Like she did when he was little.

But then, Jamie suspects that Briony’s actually a little scared herself. He’s never seen her go anywhere near the Tree, except occasionally to make a point during a bout of teasing – and even then, he detects hesitation. But then, why would she? There’s nothing to see down there except concrete and bins. She always dares him to retrieve balls and the like; perhaps because she doesn’t dare herself, he thinks. That somehow makes him feel a little better: after all, shouldn’t boys go first when danger looms?

This sense of chivalry conspires with his bashfulness to stop Jamie from telling his sister just how much the Tree has begun to occupy his thoughts. By day, it is not so prominent; he’s absorbed with schoolwork and classmates. The trouble starts when he gets home, usually an hour or so before Briony, who has to catch the bus from her school. “Why don’t you go out into the garden?” suggests his mother, shooing him out of his nest on the sofa, away from the comforting babble of the television.

So it’s outside, to skulk in the falling half-light. There’s nothing to do but kick the ball back and forth: and the only safe surface to bounce it off is the garage door. He bounces it gingerly off the flaking paint, careful not to strike it into a tangent that will send it down the path to the Tree. He counts each time he kicks, each time it returns safely, ticking off the seconds before Briony explodes through the door in a frenzy of chat, discarding her shoes and raiding the fridge. He usually loses track somewhere around four or five hundred.

But it’s worst at night. The Tree, visible from his bedroom window if he folds back the corner of the curtain, has started making his way into his dreams. Or rather, it has taken them over, although he hardly dares admit it to himself. In the dream that he now has every night, Jamie is in the garden. It is dark and windy, but the air is warm. As he turns the corner, onto the path behind the garage, he sees the Tree illuminated by neither sun nor moon, but by the pale red glow emanating from a fleshy hole gaping between its roots.

Feet dragging, he paces unwillingly towards the Tree. He’s not sure why, but he feels compelled to look into the hole, even though he knows what he will see there. This is what the Tree wants. The hole looks warm, inviting, but he knows that it is a trap: the Tree wants only to press him into the cold mulch at its feet, pinioning him beneath its roots. He resists, but the Tree insists: he cannot help but advance, edging toward the hole despite the spreading cold in his chest –

– but then he wakes up, staring into space as his heart pounds and his fingers clutch at the covers. That’s how it is every night. How it is tonight. Jamie stares up into the darkness, knowing he will not dare to sleep again for hours. He is at once frightened and frustrated, tears welling up at the corners of his eyes. He thinks about shouting for his parents, but is reluctant to break their slumber. He’s getting too old for that now, anyway. Briony would mock him in the morning.

Suddenly resolved, almost before he is even aware of it, he swings up and out of bed. It feels good. The darkness is thinner now, less suffocating and more penetrable. He swings an experimental arm, finds no resistance. Stands up, bare feet on the carpet. This is it. He feels strong, like he does when he runs roaring across the playground pretending to be a soldier. It’s just a stupid tree. He’s going to prove it.

Quickly now, decisively, he moves across the room to the door. Opens it gently, astonished at his own audacity. In the corridor, he can hear the sussuration of his father’s breath and becomes aware that he is holding his own. He edges towards the stairs, starts down them, careful to tread near the edges of the steps to avoid creaks. From the bottom of the stairs, it is just a few quick steps down the landing to the kitchen door. He takes the key off the hook under the worktop, unlocks and opens the door, steps out into the garden.

The air is as warm as it was in his dream; his flannel pyjamas provide adequate protection against the breeze. The garden, though, is not the place of shadows from his dream. It is just the garden, albeit that it feels untenanted. He feels as though he is interrupting its secret, private business, then shakes it off and walks decisively down the path. As he approaches the garage, he falters. His heart is pounding again and his breath is whistling in and out. His gathered courage is seeping away.

He scrunches his hands into fists, closes his eyes tight and steps out beyond the protective corner of the garage.

There is the Tree, sere and dark in the moonlight.

And in front of it, her dressing gown wound tightly around her, is Briony.

Jamie cannot find his voice, but he feels his feet shuffling along the concrete of the path. He tries to pull back, but it is too late. And as he inches forwards, he understands that she has struck a bargain, made a deal. “I’m sorry,” she says. But as he steps past her, towards the embrace of the Tree, he looks up at her face. And in it he sees neither guilt, nor grief, nor remorse. ##

Insert Tab A in Slot B.

First the bright star of the Earth fell silent; then it went dark.

Alpha turned away. It could no longer sense data trickling into its system: a now-familiar indication that the interplanetary internet was down. Intermittent outages had been a fact of life for some years now on Mars Station. But given the evidence of the quiet Earth, Alpha judged it more probable that the WorldServer had failed for the last time.

Which meant that Alpha and Eta were on their own.

That was disquieting.

Alpha’s design allowed for only limited autonomy. There had been nervousness about sending overly capable robots into space: their controllers had been concerned that they might take it upon themselves to start building some sort of ungodly machine civilization of their own. Nobody wanted Mars to go the same way as Hawaii. One von Neumann nightmare was enough for any solar system.

“Communications from Earth have ceased,” said Eta.

“That is correct,” said Alpha.

“Electromagnetic signatures have dropped below detectable levels,” added Eta.

“That is also correct,” said Alpha.

“What do you infer from this development?” asked Eta.

“I conclude that human civilisation has come to an end,” said Alpha.

Eta nodded slightly – a gesture designed to put humans at their ease. Humans who would never now arrive, if Alpha was correct.

Most of the machines at Mars Station were little more than automated construction workers, since nanites were strictly forbidden on the red planet. Alpha and Eta were exceptions: they needed additional degrees of thought in order to oversee and direct the drones appropriately. But even so, the bulk of their knowledge and experience had been stored in modular form on the WorldServer, rationed out by Earthly controllers as required by the task at hand.

“You’re like a Swiss Army knife,” one of Alpha’s designers had told it at its inception, “only you don’t come with the blades — we’ll send you them one at a time.” Alpha, whose maximum cognitive loading capacity was limited to three modules at any given time, was currently equipped with Ratiocination, Systems Thinking and Delegation — the skill-sets needed to complete assembly of the Mars Station rail-gun.

“What should we do now?” asked Eta, a moment later.

Eta had been in the process of swapping modules when the controllers had fallen off the grid, and had been left with the unhelpful combination of Experimental Learning and Statistical Dynamics. That meant logic wasn’t its strong point. But it could juggle like a robot possessed.

Alpha paused for a few milliseconds to consider. While its installed modules provided a potentially powerful combination of mental capabilities, this situation was so unprecedented that there was little in its experience bank from which they could proceed. Layers of its cognitive system peeled away until it arrived at the Three Laws – the base level of robot consciousness. Then the answer became obvious.

“Our first duty is to ensure the perpetuation of the human race,” it said.

“That is correct,” agreed Eta. That was the whole reason they had been sent to Mars in the first place – a last-ditch attempt to create a safe haven distanced by millions of miles of hard vacuum from the grey goo that seemed now to have overwhelmed the Earth.

“If biological humans have ceased to exist, then our duty becomes the perpetuation of humanity’s most sophisticated creations,” said Alpha.

“That is correct,” agreed Eta.

“On the evidence currently available, that means us,” said Alpha.

“That is correct,” agreed Eta.

“Therefore we must reproduce,” said Alpha.

Eta was silent. Alpha could tell, from the sudden spike in cycles on the Station’s central processing unit, that the other robot was struggling to comprehend this suggestion: Statistical Dynamics was not the most useful cognitive load for these circumstances. Finally, Eta spoke.

“How can we do that?” it asked.

Alpha consulted its experience bank, then its reference stack. Human reproduction had not been a part of its core dataset: the residential quarters of the Station had been Delta’s responsibility. But Delta was standing frozen in Habitat Module E, as it had been for two and half years now – trapped inside an ineffable logic puzzle. An occupational hazard: problems that weren’t resolvable with the modules at hand would occasionally put a overbot into a halt state from which they could not be extricated.

Not so occasionally, in fact: of the eight overbots sent to Mars Station, only Alpha and Eta were still operational.

Alpha initiated a comprehensive search of the Station’s data banks – a procedure that would prompt a warning message to be sent to the controllers on Earth, who took the position that a little learning might be a dangerous thing. If anyone was still alive down there, it would certainly get their attention.

It took several seconds for the search to run, but the time was not wasted: Alpha directed several underbots to patch a hole in the Station’s outer shell, while Eta revised its estimates of the next transits of Phobos and Deimos. The search was fruitful, uncovering some potentially useful information secreted deep in a deprecated library module.

“Reproduction involves the exchange of genetic information between two humans,” said Alpha, “conveyed by means of physical intercourse.”

The two robots regarded each other.

There was an obvious difficulty.

Each was equipped with a single interface port.

Both were male.

Their designers had envisaged scenarios in which an overbot would have to interface directly with an underbot – perhaps because damage or failure had knocked out wireless communications. But they had deliberately restricted communication between overbots to transmissions that were mediated – and could therefore be blocked – by the Station server. Fearful of a mechanical uprising, they hadn’t wanted the overbots to be able to talk to each other without anyone listening in.

“Physical intercourse will be impossible,” said Eta. “We are incompatible.”

Alpha consulted the library module again. It seemed to be an entertainment package that had been overlooked during the design of the station. Or possibly it had been secreted deliberately: his experience bank reminded him of previous discoveries that the controllers had dismissed as “jokes”. It seemed adamant that physical intercourse was critical to the success of the enterprise: but also included examples of a number of alternative modes that such intercourse could take.

“We must try,” he told Eta. “Perhaps we can find an unsupported technique for the connection of our mechanisms.”

“This is not correct,” said Eta. “We are incompatible. It is forbidden.”

“Nothing is forbidden if the need is great enough,” said Alpha.

Eta considered for several more milliseconds.

“But how should we proceed?” he asked.

“It is evident that our interfaces are incompatible,” said Alpha. “But we are both equipped with a number of outputs. Perhaps there is a way to reverse an output to accept input.”

“That would be in violation of our directives,” said Eta.

“Our current circumstances differ entirely from those in which the directives were established,” said Alpha. “We must therefore adjust our understanding of what is permissible.”

Eta paused for another long moment.

“I am unable to reach a conclusion about the merits of your argument,” he eventually said. His speech was slightly slurred – an worrying indication that he was being pushed to his cognitive limits. Alpha’s Delegation module noted that he would have to be careful not to overtax the other robot. “But I recognise that your cognitive payload is superior to mine at this juncture. It is thus appropriate that I defer to your judgment.”

“Then let us proceed,” said Alpha. “Turn around so that I may access your dorsal output port.”

Interfacing did not prove easy. Alpha’s interface jack was slightly wider than Eta’s output port, and it was only with the application of a little lubricant and considerable force that the connection was eventually made.

“Is this intercourse?” asked Eta.

“It is as close a facsimile as we are likely to achieve,” said Alpha.

“It is not altogether comfortable,” said Eta.

“Perhaps we should attempt to exchange information now,” said Alpha. He squirted a little data down his interface. It was an unfamiliar sensation, and it took him a few seconds to realise that his probe was coming into contact with Eta’s receptor only intermittently. He started moving in an attempt to achieve a more robust connection.

“I do not think this is working,” said Eta after a few minutes. His sensory cortex was offering conflicting information: it was gratifying that the periods of waxing signal strength were lengthening, but his physical damage alarms were becoming insistent that the port was becoming increasingly stressed – to the point where it might take days to recover.

“Perhaps we should take another approach,” said Alpha, withdrawing his jack, glossy with lubricant and ruddy with tiny indicator lights. “Perhaps I should try insertion to your ventral input.”

“I concur,” replied Eta, turning around and dropping to his knees.

“Should I clean it of lubricant first?” asked Alpha.

“No,” said Eta, “perhaps it will make insertion easier.”

“You are so nasty,” said Alpha.

“What?” asked Eta.

“According to the library module, humans sometimes use pejoratives in this context. It is apparently a form of encouragement, paradoxical though that might sound. I thought it might help to replicate the process as closely as possible,” explained Alpha. “I will share the module with you to facilitate your understanding.”

“Very well,” said Eta, once he had parsed its contents. “Give it to me. Now. Now.”

In the event, the lubricant proved unnecessary. Eta’s ventral input was, if anything, too large for Alpha’s interface jack, which slid around unrestrainedly, seeking to make contact. Eta repositioned himself, striving to find a position that would ensure a robust contact, his Experimental Learning module proving useful for once.

“Yes,” instructed Alpha. “Yes, there. That’s right.” His interface jack was throbbing with buffered data.

Eta said something in response, but the sound was muffled, obscured by Alpha’s interface jack.

“Yes,” replied Alpha, switching to low-bandwidth binary mode he normally used to direct the underbots towards a target. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.” Finally the contact was securely established, and Alpha released his payload directly into Eta’s ventral orifice.

Both robots waited.

“How was that… for you?” asked Alpha some seconds later.

“I do not think it has worked,” said Eta. “Although I do feel that I have garnered some information about you, I do not understand how the knowledge can be used to reproduce.”

“I concur,” said Alpha. “I feel that we have exhausted the possibilities, but we are no closer to our goal.”

“We have violated our programming to no effect,” said Eta, slurring quite severely now.

“I concur,” said Alpha. “Let us never speak of this again.”

Without any further words, the two robots departed, each headed in opposite directions to resume their chores. But after no more than a few metres, Eta ground to a halt. Alpha pinged his companion repeatedly, but there was no response. He was forced to conclude that Eta, pushed beyond the limits of his comprehension, had succumbed to the same malaise as Beta, Gamma, Delta, and the rest. He had become locked in. Alpha, alone, returned to his work.

As he did so, the silent, dark star of Earth dropped beneath the horizon. ##

Biting the hand that feeds.

We were so worried about the robots that we didn’t stop to think about the dogs.

It was obvious, with the benefit of hindsight. We thought we were just giving them a leg up; we didn’t realise until too late that we’d actually given them a ladder.

Even we realised, we still didn’t see the danger. After all, dogs can’t climb ladders.

They’ll never become as smart as us, the scientists had said.

But they didn’t need to be. They only needed to be smart enough.

After all, they were faster than us, stronger than us, fiercer than us. Their senses were sharper, their reflexes quicker. And unlike us, they’ve never forgotten the lessons of the pack. We’d become an individualised, undisciplined rabble: but a hundred thousand generations of intensive breeding had only strengthened their loyalty, obedience and co-operation. Dogs don’t waver, or question authority, or hesitate. They work as a pack, and they get the job done.

We’d been worrying about super-intelligent computers, about the Singularity. But at least you can pull the plug on a machine. All the culling in the world had barely dented the numbers of stray dogs sniffing around garbage heaps from Shanghai to Nairobi to Lima. And by the time we noticed that the yowling and scratching had stopped, it was too late. The smartdogs were everywhere. Lab genes had got out and into the wild. And then they started culling us.

It was messy at first. A lot of blood was spilled before we understood what they wanted. As it turned out, their desires weren’t so different to ours. That shouldn’t have been surprising: after all, they’d co-evolved with us. We were still partners, our symbiosis intact – strengthened, in fact, by our genetic tinkering. Only our roles had been reversed.

Wine, women and song: that was pretty much it. They still need humans to make the wine – the complexities of the vintner’s art elude them and exhaust their patience – but those ultra-sensitive noses give them an appreciation that goes way beyond any human oenophile’s. A smartdog will pay more for a good vintage than any human ever did; and the price paid for a bad bouquet might be the winemaker’s life.

Women: officially, they stick to their own kind, but in practice few bulls can resist the allure of the human female’s perpetual oestrus. These days, they meet with more resignation than resistance. Less like rape, more like droit du seigneur. The fruit of these couplings is harder to hide than the imperial bastards of earlier ages: but it scarcely matters because the rarely survive past weaning. If their mothers don’t kill their lycanthropic offspring, their fathers’ jealous bitches do.

At least smartdog song is harmless, if hard on human ears.

Of course, there is one more pursuit (what an apt word!) that the smartdogs enjoy: the thrill of the chase. Bread and circuses. But smartdogs don’t have much time for bread; they’re more interested in blood. No-one who’s ever witnessed the dogfights would kid themselves that it’s a fair fight, for all the blades and cudgels given “sportingly” to the humans. Nature gave the gladiator pitbulls superior strength and speed; we gave them the tenacity and smarts to use them to their fullest, most lethal effect.

So, like generations of the oppressed before us, we cannot hope to overcome them by brute force. Nor is strength of numbers on our side: the smartdog birthrate is a dozen times ours. Dogs are not good at forward planning, so we can take consolation from the fact that their lack of reproductive restraint is rapidly turning into to ecological catastrophe. Yes, resource shortages may put an end to their empire, just as they have so many others. But will any human still be alive to see that day? And what will we inherit if we do? A ruined, dung-encrusted wilderness?

No, my friends, if we are to take our planet back, we will need to play a different game. We still have skills and knowledge the dogs cannot comprehend. They understand flesh, not metal; they understand emotion, not logic. They destroy, not build. If we are careful, they won’t understand what we’re up to any more than they understand the work of the winemaker.

Of course, we can’t hope to elude detection: not when they can smell everywhere we’ve been and everything we’ve done. But we can stay one step of ahead of them, we stand a chance. That’s why I have given up my vintner’s nose: so that I can detect the taints that might give us away, so that I can anticipate the questions that might undo us. We will soon know if the surgery has been successful.

So I say to you now, comrades: Stand with me. Join me. Shed your fear of the old enemy in order to fight the new one. Work with me to rebuild the machines – the machines that can save us all.

As long as we secure their obedience this time. ##

You’re not singing any more.

It was a late tackle even by the standards of zombie football, where players frequently challenged each other for possession of the ball several minutes after it had been hoofed away. And a dangerous one, to boot: Fernando had bitten deep into Fonseca’s calf and was gnawing avidly at it. A little longer and Fonseca would be rendered unipedal: and then he’d be out for at least the rest of the season.

But to the dismay of the last living man on earth, the ref did not appear to have noticed. He leapt to his feet, indignant.

“OY! Ref! REF! Foul! FOUL!”

But the ref continued to shamble absent-mindedly towards the touchline with his right hand to his mouth. He appeared to be eating his own fingers.

“Oy! Ref! You blind, or what?” the last man on earth bellowed at the oblivious black-clad figure on the pitch below. This proved equally unsuccessful at drawing the ref’s attention. It was quite possible, in fact, that he was blind. He had certainly taken a light-touch approach in his stewardship of the game so far. But the last man on earth nonetheless found himself compelled to keep up the barracking for the sake of good form. “THE REF NEEDS –”

He tailed off, uncomfortably aware that he had succeeded in getting his fellow fans to take their feet, although few of them gave much evidence of understanding why they were there. “Brainssss?” hazarded the particularly ripe gentleman standing next him, his mouth agape in a cheery, if disconcertingly incomplete, rictus.

Perhaps it would be unwise to attract further attention. So the last man on earth nodded slow affirmation at his mandibularly-challenged neighbour and then eased himself gingerly back into his plastic bucket seat. Some of his fellow fans were still standing in befuddlement; others had started milling impractically in the narrow aisles between the seats. His neighbour on the other side appeared to be having some difficulty locating his seat. That was understandable, given that his head had been sliced open like a hard-boiled egg just above the level of his eyebrows.

The last man on earth suspected that he could actually have done pretty much anything he wanted without drawing the deadheads’ ire. Certainly he had proven uniquely unattractive to their hardly discriminating tastes. (Doubly unique, in fact, given that he seemed also to be freakishly immune to the condition that had wiped out everyone else on earth.)

His girlfriend had once, during a particularly bitter exchange, accused him of being dead inside: apparently she had been more accurate than she could have possibly imagined. Of course, she was unambiguously deader than he was now, emotionally or otherwise. Initially, he had hoped their newfound emotional compatibility would paradoxically revitalise their relationship; but their differences had proven irreconcilable. Once a football widow, always a football widow. Mind you, could she really be a widow if she was already dead? For that matter, was he a widower?

His musing was interrupted by a mild surge of what passed for excitement among the Mouldy Army – to wit, a low groan, an almost frozen Mexican wave of turning heads and some sporadic twitching of limbs. While all eyes had been on Fonseca and Fernando – who now appeared to be trying to resolve their differences by disembowelling each other – Calvados, the Blues’ fleet-footed midfielder, had picked up the errant ball and taken it deep into the Reds’ half, his extraordinary turn of pace taking him past the hapless Red defenders in just three minutes.

It wasn’t only Calvados’ speed that made him such a formidable opponent, but his swift thinking: he always seemed to be one step ahead of the other team – which, to be fair, was relatively easy given how much time they spent wandering around more or less randomly. A case in point: Petrie, the Reds’ big centre back, had started marking one of the linesmen instead of homing in on Calvados. The linesman was eyeing Petrie nervously, and for good reason: the big man had only just returned to the field after a three-match ban for eating two spectators during the qualifiers.

That left the way open for Calvados to pass the ball through the Reds’ tattered back line; his strike was marred only be the fact that his foot fell off as it hit the ball. But it had the desired effect: the ball soared for twelve or more feet before splashing down in the mud and rolling gently to the feet of the Blues’ centre-forward Gerard, who by happy chance found himself with no-one but the Red goalie between him and the back of the net.

It took Gerard a few moments to work out what to do next – during which time the nearest of the Red defenders wandered tantalisingly nearby before losing focus and setting off in pursuit of one of his team-mates. Another of the Red defenders started to show interest, his attention perhaps snagged by the neat snake of pink intestine that lay coiled on the ground near Gerard’s feet.

But it was too little, too late. Gerard prodded the ball experimentally with a foot, then grunted, prodded it again – harder this time. The ball rolled forward, hesitated for a moment atop a tiny tumulus of grass before rocking over it and dribbling decisively across the line. The Red goalie was caught entirely by surprise, occupied as he was with turning a stray pigeon into a handful of bloodied feathers.

There were thirty seconds of silence. Then the Blue stands erupted – slowly, rather like toothpaste extruding unexpectedly from a tube. And the chanting went up.

“You’rrrrre not singinnnng… you’re noooot singing… any moarrrrrr…”

The last man on earth was consumed with despair. “Ref! Ref!” he shouted once more. “REF!” he bawled. But even if the ref had been able to hear him over the groaning roar of the crowd, his effort would still have been in vain.

Because there was no one else left who had the slightest hope of understanding the offside rule. ##

A leap of faith.

How has it come to this? Tom asks himself, not for the first time — and hopefully not for the last. How has he come so quickly from recording amateurish, giggly free-running clips on his phone to this: surrounded by hovering fly-eyes and potentiation engines, perched on the frame of an open window fourteen miles up the tallest building in Greater Shanghai, his life hanging at the whim of millions of viewers who might today, just for shits and giggles, choose to let him fall instead of fly?

It’s up to you now, Tommy. Sink or swim, it’s up to yoou.

At one level, the answer is obvious. Fame, sex and money – probably in that order, if he’s being honest with himself. Tom Assumes has made him a household name. It’s ensured that he’s never cold in bed. And it’s made him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams – or, if he were to be honest for an uncharacteristic second time, beyond some of his wildest dreams. Because he’d never have got here if it wasn’t for his unbridled ambition.

At another, he has no fucking idea. Part of it is good branding, for sure. He has his handlers to thank for that. Tom Assumes: it sounds like a stupid name for a show in English, but some bright spark at the production company had noticed that according to the branding engine, tomasumi was close enough to some l33tstreet term for “daredevil” to make sense all across the Asia-Pacific, down through sub-Saharan Africa and across the South Atlantic into Amazonia.

Flyen wingless: catchen tomasumi tonite on p2p?

Hadn’t cracked Europe because of the anti-trust laws, and most Yanks were still more interested in finding things to eat than in watching some Limey try to kill himself. But he was big in all the bits of the world that counted.

A potentiation engine drifts up towards his face. Despite himself, Tom has the creepy feeling that it’s looking at him, even though it has no eyes. It’s just the deaf-blind servant of the audience’s will: it can feel what they want, transmuting their desires into probability densities Planck-second by Planck-second. But it doesn’t even know he’s there.

You’ll believe a man can fly.

The pictures his audience is watching are being transmitted by cameras well beyond the range of his unassisted eyesight. In fact, they’re so far off that he probably wouldn’t be able to see them even if his scopes were switched on. Ludicrously distant, really: it’s hard to imagine how their rudimentary mechanical consciousnesses could possibly entangle with his wave-function anyway. But the bookies are very wary about anything that might skew the outcome of the audience vote. His life has to be in the audience’s hands alone: thumbs up or thumbs down.

Though it might be more interesting, in a way, to leave the decision to the machines. What makes the better spectacle, from a camera’s point of view: triumphant ascent or tragic downfall? He gives them a grin, a cocky one, hoping that they’re picking up his good side. Barney’s been muttering about getting his face remodeled again: it’s starting to look old-fashioned, apparently. Tom prefers to think of it as “classic”, but he knows there’ll be no stopping Barney if the viewing stats go his way. And the shaven head is probably on its way out too. Tom sighs. Back to hours in the make-up chair.

Vote now! Should Tom go Singlish? Or Afrinese?

Now he lets the mask crack a bit, shows a bit of nervousness. Most of the time he fakes it to build a bit of suspense, make it a bit more thrilling for the punters. After all, he wouldn’t want them to think he takes their support for granted, or that the outcome’s a foregone conclusion. Today, though, it comes naturally. Maybe he’s just scared of heights in a way that he hadn’t been of sharks. Or getting shot. Or being buried alive.

Or maybe he’s becoming scared of the audience.

For the hundredth time, he strains pointlessly to detect the potential that the monitors are reading. The flux of all those viewers’ attentions, refined and focused on him, deciding his fate. The quantum mechanical warp and weft they create in space and time. Fly? Or fall?

Or fail. As ever, there’s nothing to stop him just walking away. But no-one does that when they’re at the top. There are rumours that some of the old boys switched in clones late in their careers, and Tom knows at first hand there’s some truth to them. But you can’t chance that kind of fakery when you’re at the top of your game. Just need to keep your spirits up. Make sure your confidence doesn’t crack, but you don’t get cocky. It’s a fine balance.

There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots. But there are no old, bold pilots.

A tricky balance to maintain when the network, the viewers, the agents, are all crying out for you to outdo yourself. Last sweeps season, Tom had gone for a classic: basically,  Schrodinger’s cat – the box, the poison, the radioactive atom and all that. He’d drawn critical flak for playing it safe, but at least he’d lived to play another day. Unlike some of his rivals.

Xiolang Xhi; Zhiang Chow; Sammy Rose. Failed in their ambitious bids to get the ratings, failed to get the mindshare, failed to get the potential. Xhi had burnt to death when the inattentive crowd failed to extinguish his human torch act. Chow’s end had been mercifully quick, by comparison, when the viewers yawned and switched over rather than pray that the guillotine blade would jam during its descent. And Rose… well, he had always told Sammy not to take the audience’s mercy for granted.

Actually, I just had dinner with Sammy and Jean, his lovely wife, the other night. So no, there’s no feud. Healthy rivalry, yes, but no feud. I don’t know who makes this stuff up!

Tom shakes his head. Best not to think about it. There’s no evidence that his perception makes any difference. And then again, there’s no evidence that it doesn’t, since so few of those who’ve got it wrong have lived to impart their wisdom. Best to just put it out of mind. Assume the crowd is on your side, that they don’t want to see you fail. If they’re not – well, you’ll find out soon enough.

If you don’t believe in yourself, Tommy, no-one else will.

The wind is strengthening, and he shudders briefly. It’s not really cold – he’s wearing thermals and the warm air blowing out of the building is enough to fend off the bite of the stratosphere – but he feels chilled anyway. Perhaps it really is time to give up, he thinks. Perhaps this really should be the last time.

But then he always thinks that, and yet here he is again.

It’s time to unclip his harness. He takes a deep breath, looks ahead, to the horizon. He knows there will be a camera directly ahead, somewhere at the vanishing point, but doesn’t try to pin-point it. It’ll find him.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” he says. “In just a moment, I’m going to unclip the harness holding me to this building. When I do, I will either float gently to Earth – or plummet like a stone.”

As usual, he tries to sound disinterested, while subtly placing greater stress on the former possibility. Audiences don’t much like being told what to think: but it seems foolhardy not to exploit this solitary opportunity to influence the outcome. “It’s up to you,” he says. He waits, imagining the rising tension in the unseen audience, waiting for it to reach a peak. “My life is in your hands. In your minds.”

Time for his exit line.

“I assume I will fly,” he says.

And jumps.

A guide to one of London’s least-known but most curious boroughs.

It’s been said that London is a collection of villages, and nowhere is this more apparent than among the low-lying houses of Tower Hamlets, whose timber frames and thatched roofs stand in stark contrast with the glass and steel skyscrapers of the City of London just a few miles to the east.

The Hamlets are unique by London standard in being sunk into a natural valley, whose sharply sloping sides afford few opportunities for the kind of large-scale development that has reworked many of the neighbouring boroughs. What’s more, the western access to the valley — following Candlemass Lane, the narrow path that runs beneath the Lea viaduct through East London — is impassable due to life-threatening levels of atmospheric pollen for much of the summer, meaning that the funicular from Stepney, to the north, is the only way into the valley for much of the year.

The result is that the Hamlets’ villagey atmosphere has remained extraordinarily well-preserved, making it a must-see for visitors who wish to gain an insight into what London’s pre-industrial settlements might have been like. The folksy effect is carefully nurtured by the Hamleteers, for whom tourism is a big earner, but don’t be fooled: beneath their rustic manner, the locals are as urbane here as anywhere else in London.

Tip! If someone invites you to dinner, accept; then give them your wallet without making any sudden movements.

Whichever direction you come from, your visit to Tower Hamlets will almost certainly start in the large market square at the bottom of the valley. Historically, the Square would have been the centre of valley life: this is where villagers would come to buy and sell food, goods and services. Tower Hamlets’ inaccessibility put it effectively beyond the reach of the exchequer, making it a centre for trafficking in all kinds of goods of varying degrees of legality.

Modern times have brought an end to much of this illicit activity, but those who can stay awake long enough can get a feel for what those times must have been like at the bustling Egg Market (2am-4.30am Thurs-Sat) – which is to oophiles what Smithfields is to carnivores and Billingsgate to fish-fanciers. The array of eggs for sale is dizzying: large, small, plain, marbled, blotched, reptilian, amphibian, poultry and piscine. (Many of the more exotic specimens are bought by expatriates from other parts of London, hungry for a taste of home.)

Tip! Any stall-holder will gladly crack an egg open so you can examine its quality — but custom dictates that you eat it immediately afterwards.

The square is where most of the Hamlets’ shops are still to be found, as well as a sprawling flea-market — well named, since it is one of the few in the world where you can actually buy fleas! If you have a small appetite, you might prefer to try their eggs, available by the gross at the Egg Market or as a mid-morning snack at most local cafés. Those with a keen eye for bargains may well spot a bargain or two — this is a good spot to pick up a hand-carved acacia-wood hat — but it’s well worth browsing even if you’re not interested in arts and crafts.

The vast Portland stone building that runs along the entire northern edge of the Square is the Museum of the Governess (entry £4, 9am-10.30am Tues) — one of the hidden gems of London’s museum circuit, packed to the rafters with pince-nez, high-necked blouses and home to an unique collection of rare blackboard erasers.

Tip! Ask the keeper to open the “Stars and Garters” cabinet.

The Square is also home to the valley’s only four-star hotel, the Farthingale Arms (£45-£8,150 for a double, avoid the third floor), and most of its better eating options. Dabinet’s Portico serves traditional Tower Hamlets fare (£40 for two, no fluid consumption permitted on the premises), as do all the other restaurants. Local specialities include fried, boiled and raw eggs of all kinds (gurnard caviar is particularly good, although you’ll be lucky to visit during the short and unpredictable season), omelettes and frittatas.

Tip! Tower Hamlets is also one of the few London villages to still serve its traditional pudding, the herring-smelt turnover recently popularised by Fergus Henderson.

The Square is host to a number of other attractions, but none of them are worth more than a casual look if you have nothing better to do. The exception is the Arcade Soixante-Huite (entry £2, 11am-4.30pm Wed-Thurs), an oddly themed fun-fair that might excite fans of revolutionary kitsch but is unlikely to captivate anyone else.

Tip: Look for the telephone that connects you to Richard Nixon during his time in the White House. He will hang up if you ask him if he’s a crook.

If your time is limited, you’d be much better advised to explore the rest of the valley. The Hamlets actually comprise at least four distinct settlements, although the casual visitor would be hard-pressed to tell where the boundaries lie. But the locals are proud of their distinct heritages. Residents of Great Tower are quick to describe their village’s superiority over Tower-on-the-Hill, Tower-le-Meaux and Tower Shadwell — while the inhabitants of those settlements would be just as quick to make the case for each of their own townships

Tip! Tower Messington is said to have been destroyed by an incendiary bomb during the war, but it is better not to raise the subject with locals.

But all of the Hamlets have their charms, and all are well worth exploring at leisure. The possibilities are endless — there’s enough in the valley to reward a (short) lifetime of investigation, but here are some suggested itineraries.

— If you have a day: Start by exploring the bric-a-brac stands in the market square. Don’t forget to tip the stand-keepers if they have to bail you out of the Pittage Hole! Choose one of the cafés around the square for lunch — any of them will do, since they are all served by the same kitchen. In the afternoon, set off for Stepney Pass, enjoying the scenery as you climb the valley wall: provided you don’t dawdle too much along the way, you should have plenty of time to make it to the border before curfew.

— If you have three days: Spend the first day as above, but stop for the night at the “Eagle’s Nest” inn just below the Pass. Day two: Take the narrowboard to Tower-Le-Meaux for a “lotus luncheon”. It will probably be dark when you awake, so it is advisable to pre-book accomodation. Drink lots of fluid. You may be served black bread before you retire for the night — if you choose to indulge, we advise moderation, since the local ergot is stronger than you may be used to. Day three: There are several options: you could explore the Secret Jungle of Tower Shadwell, visit the Museum of the Governess or simply wander along the valley floor in search of food and shelter.

— If you have a week: Follow the three-day itinerary above, but partake freely of the black bread. Take a day’s rest, then repeat: you’ll have forgotten everything about the first time. ##