Hot ziggety, Stevenage. Talk about a one-horse town. Full of plastic people and conformists and - "Carl? CARL! Come down here this minute!" - Mother. I saunter down. Cool, like, real cool. "Yup?" "Have you been at the Be-ro again?" she snaps. Shit. Think Clint. "I reckon so," I drawl, spitting, casual-like, at one of the ducks on the wall.

"Well, young man, you can just buck yourself round to the Spar Eight-Til-Eight store and get another packet. And wipe that dribble off your chin!" I pause. Tumbleweed seems to blow across the dark, dark silence. "Can I bring my hoss?"

"No, you may not. I'll need the clothes horse to hang up your trousers. I don't know what you do to get them so filthy. What do you do in that shack all day? Cook pastry?" Silence. Crickets chirp and bones bleach. "Can I bring my lassoo?"

"If my clothes line goes missing once more I'll have you across my knee you young scamp, you see if you're not too old!" I dream of the frontiers and big things.

TUESDAY - I mosey on down the shack. "BANG! Bang! Hey, you're dead!" Paul. Some guitarist. Heck, that sawn-off little runt's scarce outts his short breeches. Still playing that kids' stuff. I stare at my spurs for the darkest of eternities, like a soul at the crossroads of the midnight hour. "Ain't," I says.

"You are! You play possum like you oughtta or I'll tell the Sheriff on you!" I stare into the skies. The day is veering towards darkness and away from the light. "Won't." Eat your heart out, Lee Van Cleef.

The silence is broken at last by the swishing of a plastic tommahawk and a chant of "Hiawatha Hiawatha" as a kid in a hadddress rushes in. That's the drummer, Jimmy "Black, Black!" Black. He's the Indian of the group.

WEDNESDAY - Spain at last! A place where the sand still swirls, the coyote bays and the lonesome church bell rings out for the strong and silent desert wanderer. To be away from this two-bit country with its two-bit people and its two-bit dormitory towns adjacent to the green belt with excellent prospects for sunrise and growth industries, such as the expanding service sector. Coupla guys called Sutherland and Sheehan mosey along too. Sutherland guy looks like he gotta mean scalping. Asks me if I ever heard of "The Virginian" or "High Chapparal" or "Mike Harding." Dark, dark. "I guess I ain't." Those were the old guys, I guess. This is the day of the young pioneer, the railroader who dares cross the darkest of plains, the soul.

"We'll need some sand, bit of backdrop like," says Sheehan. Goddamn disappointment of a one-horse city! Only sand for miles is in some damn plastic sports complex. Guy in a tracksuit trots up. "We geev you five meenutes," he looks at his stopwatch, "then the treeple jump competition must commence." Gotta move fast. We each dig into our underpants and produce two bags of Homepride each. The night, the night. I stare deep into the eyes of Sutherland. "You didn't see that," I drawl.