  currently listening to:  elbow -  red " this can't go on too long,  you're a tragedy starting to happen.
 last year ( i don't remember the exact month)  a boy was kicked to death in a dodgy area of my town.  he was only eleven,  or maybe twelve,  years old. and the two boys who attacked him weren't much older than that.  he was a traveller. a gypsy.  he'd come over here from liverpool to visit a friend,  got into an argument with a couple of boys,
 and died on a field after having his head kicked in.  today i drove past the field where he died,  and was quite surprised to see that people are still putting flowers there. and coloured ribbons.  a memorial to a tragedy.  now,  i must admit,  i don't like gypsies. they steal. they cause trouble wherever they go. they put 'curses' on you when you don't buy withered pieces of 'lucky' heather from them.  but they are still human beings.
they don't deserve to be kicked to death when they only wanted to kick a soccer ball around with a friend.  and now the fair is back in town. which inevitably means the town will be overrun with gypsies once again.  but i might buy a piece of lucky heather this time. i've had enough curses put on me in the past.
i could use some luck.  and maybe,  in some twisted way,  i feel the need to make my own contribution to apologising for what happened to that boy in my hometown.  but i have a sneaking suspicion that,  even if i did buy a piece of lucky heather from an old gypsy woman,  i'd get an unlucky piece instead. or she'd still go ahead and curse me anyway. just for the sheer hell of it.  ;
