Earth, incidentally

I walk deserted streets where cars are immobilised in driveways, houses look unused and it's unnaturally quiet. I sense tranquillity. But has tranquillity a use? Why not review international minutiae from my past?

I'm travelling one of many escalators in a huge department store in Tokyo looking for a novel by Graham Greene. Two parts of my life overlapping.

The tram taking me from a suburb of Pittsburgh to the city centre must be fifty years old. It growls and squeals like a herd of pigs entering an abattoir.

Cycling home to Stoke Newington, a north London suburb, I see a sign - Eggs: 1s 10d/doz. Resuming, with the eggs uneasily contained in a paper bag, is harassing.

We break the flight to New Zealand by staying overnight at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur. The swimming pool simulates a jungle grotto; I swim under dangling lianas.

Slivovitz is sold by the roadside between Opatija and Novi Vinodolski in what was Jugoslavia. It is frighteningly cheap. Inevitably we drink too much.

A secretary brings a trayful of expressos into the office of a managing director in Milan. Her long hair is dyed a deep copper colour I've never seen before. I am stirred.

I read a book as I dine alone in an authentic brasserie in southern Paris. Conversation around me is close to the threshold of pain yet I am at peace. Tranquil, even.

Breakfast in Cologne. A middle-aged woman works a laptop and I ask her opinion on Brexit. A Danish academic; she disapproves.

My only visit to Spain, the location forgotten. I sit in a beachside café while English pensioners shuffle past on a boardwalk, the living dead.

Today, here: A ravishing smell from the kitchen. Chilli on the hob. A fact worth recording.