Mean Streets

Your favourite movie of all time - along with any other of Italian gangster genre populated by Pacino, Pesce et al.

It always seemed fairly evident to me having seen the movie why it should be entitled so - then I started reading around the grief and loss I felt when you left and I discovered the man: CS Lewis, a scholar and writer of note.

He tells us about the world being a "mean street replete with human squalor"; I'd like to add to that a further thought:- replete with human squalor and emotional bankrupts. Sounds about right to me.

I am back in the blog zone John, back here in the parallel universe where we spent a lot of time communing.

I think of the Mean Streets you inhabited and understand that you had a great deal to contend with; too much evidently. You sidestepped as much as you could, but every now and again you would trip over some of that paucity and unkindness. The more you encountered, the harder you tried to overcome it.

And you didn't.

You gave up on this.

We instead keep tripping through those mean streets.