Why There Are Now Doodles In the Margins

 A little scrawling had turned up on the south end of Waterloo Bridge yesterday evening. When I was last here, in the hours of darkness, I'd seen some of it go up. As with the south bank further west, the evening I wandered down to Vauxhall, I'd felt that night like the only one out over the age of thirty.

 

 I remembered how much the scene reminded me of eighties' film dystopias, and how much as a child I'd looked forward to actually living in one. So stimulating! I mean, obviously it would be nice to feel society at large wasn't breaking down, but – at the risk of sounding like the People's Poet – I'd favour this over a future that "kept kids off the streets", as we used to say back in the day. I did wonder though, going back to that night, what it was about pre-lockdown London that had kept the kids away. Was it just other people's evenings out? 

 And then yesterday I passed this:

 

 Oh yeah, of course. There had been an area specifically designated for everything I'd seen in the night, but it was now fenced off. That was certainly one explanation. 

 So simple it probably didn't merit a post.

Here's a Waterloo sunset to make up for it.

 

Enlarge for gulls.