I used to live right next to it but fifteen years later I finally made it to Kensal Green Cemetery yesterday. I went with some fairly literary people but there was something here for everyone, creeping around the catacombs with a torch to look at the decaying coffins of outrageous earls, starfucking (we took in Brunel, Thackeray, Birkbeck and a couple of royals among others yesterday), manmade and natural symbolism, engineering (dig the recently renovated hydraulic pump which lowers the catafalque in silence at a rate of one inch per hefty pump), lessons on economics, theft and vandalism. You name it, really.

The scariest moment was when we looked at the monument whose pillars have turned to dust. They've fenced it off with a sign saying 'Beware - Keep Out' which translates into child language as 'Climb Over Here - Unless You're A Great Big Chicken'.

Our guide couldn't resist scraping a bit of dust away from one of the pillars. They should really just knock it down now rather than leaving it up to the monument to decide. Maybe they could charge admission and make a few bob at the same time.

B-)