Phil Collins as a Writing Tool

I'm sitting in the Genesis Cafe on Blackstock Road, trying to write. A Phil Collins album - possibly a greatest hits package - is blithering out of the speakers at very high volume. Because of this I have to go inwards, block out the outer world. Focus. Must not hear Phil. Must only hear my inner voice and the pulsating sonar of the muse who is currently marooned on a rock in the middle of a vast dark ocean. Now the cafe bloke is making a smoothie and Phil is drowned out by what sounds like an early Cabaret Voltaire track, but is actually a liquidizer. Ah, the calming sound of everyday domestic implements that sound like northern industrial electronica.

But I'm now worried that by blocking out Phil I have somehow allowed him into my subconscious and he will return at a later date. Like in my dreams. Or when I'm trying to think of something to say at a job interview. OK, that last one isn't very likely.

I have to leave now. My mood has changed. 'One More Night' has come on. I can't take it any more. I wonder if this bloke has a license to play Phil Collins like this? Strangely, there are now two other people in here, both French/Belgian women sitting at different tables nattering on their mobile phones. Phil's siren voice must have lured them here. Now they will be stuck with his songs in their head for the rest of the day and they will hate this country and not know why.

Writing in a MacDonalds on a Saturday morning

I'm upstairs in a MacDonalds on Kingsland Road in Dalston, sipping at weak foamy coffee in a paper cup and trying to write. Procrastination is high, thanks to the decent Wi-Fi service and the newspaper. No matter how much I try to concentrate, my mind slips and I start reading about forthcoming football fixtures and surf various sites looking for Christmas presents for the kids.

Next to my laptop is a notebook with my list of weekly tasks for the next few months. I only drew up the list last week but I'm already behind. My eye strays towards a man on the other side of the restaurant. It's late period Leo Tolstoy, drinking coffee and eating a donut, content in the knowledge that he's already written great books and can soon go back to his own time via a pan-dimensional wormhole in the smelly toilets. He'd have been better off going further back in time, where coffee and donuts would have been cheaper.

Crappy Christmas music blares out from the speakers. Tolstoy gets up and stares out of the window. A woman to my left is writing what looks like a dissertation on an old Compaq laptop. Further away two middle ages people talk vaguely about shopping and TV programmes. No-one is eating burgers or chips. In fact, no-one is eating anything. McDonald's has become a drop in centre for drifters.

Tolstoy is now staring at me. I sense the possibility that he'll decide to kidnap me and take me back to the 19th century. It would be interesting but I have presents to buy. Books to write.