My taxi is powered by a well known local kebab chain. In fact all the motorised cabs in the taxi rank had a rosette around the filler cap championing their source of bio diesel. I'd have taken one of the pedal rickshaws, but I doubt they would have been able to haul all my baggage."Are you up from London then?" the taxi driver asks.
"No. I've come over from Europe." This surprises him, I see the twitch of his head as he looks at me in the rear view mirror.
"Were you there long?"
"A while."
I used to say I'd never leave Manchester- then I went travelling for a month that turned into five years. How much has the city changed whilst I've been away? I've heard about a lot of interesting and important stuff being done in Manchester. It wants to be the model for the future of urban living- post war, post oil, green and self sufficient.
I want to see all of this for myself. And I want to meet all my old friends, to find out whether they've still got any of my stuff.
2 comments:
Interesting excerpt, Ian. Where does it come in the book?
I love Stacy Juba--was glad to see her cover featured below!
It's actually the very start of the story. There were other good snippets, but most of them would have required potentially spoilery preambles.
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