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Meandering round the M25
With his map at the ready, Nicholas Lezard follows Iain Sinclair's circumnavigation of London in London Orbital
Saturday September 21, 2002
The Guardian
London Orbital
by Iain Sinclair For a couple of years now, the writer, critic and deeply lovable polymath Kevin Jackson has not returned my phone calls. The possible reasons were worrying, and in descending order of probability they were: he had become disgusted with me, he had nothing to report, he had been sectioned. Now I know the real reason. He has recently completed the last section of a walk round the M25 in the company of Iain Sinclair, ending up in the bar of the Welsh Harp in Waltham Abbey. He had accompanied Sinclair and other companions on two other sections, and each time had come heroically misprepared: boots when he needed trainers, trainers when he needed boots, a leather jacket which "will cook him if he wears it; cripple him if he carries it". For the first leg he carries a rucksack filled with books. At a pub his socks have to be cut from his feet. "His blisters have blisters." By the time of the final stretch - including a terrifying twilight march through Epping Forest - he still hasn't learnt. His hair, says Sinclair, "turned grey in the course of the walk from Theydon Bois". Still, he is alive in the Welsh Harp: | |
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