Early to Borough Market in Southwark, freezing cold but filled with intense low winter sunlight highlighting the stalls through the glass and iron canopies. The Cathedral presiding over the busy scene below like a Cotswold church on market day, pale yellow stone up against a deep blue sky. After coffee in Monmouth's, (watching those who'd got seats sitting round the big artisan's table eating bread and jam), I was left to my own devices whilst cheeses and pies were bought from stallholders who stamped their feet and blew into their hands to keep warm. My attention was of course immediately distracted by this red cow. La Vache Qui Non Rit (to show off my appalling French) perhaps, except for the emetic legend 'Love Me' on its flank. There's another one on the same parapet painted black with another message I couldn't see- probably 'Hate Me'. When everyone's gone home, and after the last brown rice Sunday joint has been hoiked off to Tufnell Park, the two cows probably lock horns and fight like Robert Mitchum's tattoed fingers in The Night of the Hunter. The other odd thing is that the exposure time has rendered the gas jets in the lamp into a neon (funnily enough) J and L. What can it mean? Is it an omen? Sci-Fi title: The Neon Omen.
