  I went up to Alexandra Palace at the weekend. I didn't even know what it was, really. There was a sport stadium in my mind, wasteland, suburbs, estates. When, in actual fact, it is a palace, or a big spa-type building with gaping windows and mellow yellow brick and great halls.
And an ice rink. And a TV transmitter aerial. The first ever, my friend said. I said I thought it would be bigger, and I didn't understand why it was now obsolete. It has a plaque, though. British Heritage stamp of approval. We sat in the courtyard of the pub at a wooden table. The beer garden was next to the car park and borrowed somewhat from the latter's atmosphere. A smattering of tables against cold grey surfacing. Not even tarmac. Bleached grey wood, fat grey pigeons, grey clouds pressing down, the grey of the London landscape, panoramic, stretched out before us.
I didn't realise how far you could see, how high we'd climbed. Gradual inclines don't tell at the time. The glittering gherkin, thread and dot of the Eye, thrusting pyramid tops of Canary Wharf. St Pauls. We looked out, south and west and east, to the hills on the far side of London murky on the horizon. I had a pint of Bud, on tap for once. I've never really enjoyed beer, preferring the sharp bite of cold white, but it slipped down nicely. I could do the refreshed 'ah' and wipe the froth from my upper lip. A motorbike arrived in the grounds with its signature grumbling roar, throttle-heavy.
It pulled up, sleek against the old walls. I don't know the make, or the model. All I saw was yellow and shiney chrome, much more than the sum of the parts. It pulsated and shone in the weak day, the stifled light gleaming on its curves. An ultimate machine, bordering on the animal, the mythological Beast. The owner swung off and left it, regretfully, casting glances back over his shoulder as he turned the corner by the ice-cream van.
We salivated. I wanted to go and stroke it, run my hands over the mud guards, rest my cheek on the grip of the handles, scissor myself into the saddle. A horde of pigeons pecked round its wheels and hyperactive children ran at them, sending them up in clouds of dingy feather and wrinkled claw. 
