t was summer in London – if you live within a certain radius of the centre, you learn quickly that the city never really gets dark in July, just slightly dimmer, as though someone has turned the brightness down. Walking around at night is like wading through television static, the particles of the atmosphere strange and charged. I was thinking about killing myself, as I often did around that time, with the regularity and nonchalance one might ponder a city break or buying a new vacuum cleaner. I came to the city already mad, but isolation and exhaustion from working two jobs exacerbated my condition. I didn’t really mind pervasive suicidal thoughts, but the insomnia was more inconvenient. My bedroom in a six-person flatshare was part refuge, part prison. At night I had to get out, but I was too broke and friendless to drink or party, so I
