Trapped in a box on Veldstraat

I'm taking my guitar with me to Belgium. It'll look good next to me on the Eurostar, I expect, and also when I'm walking the ancient streets of Ghent, looking up at the crooked buildings against the starry sky and wondering which little attic room is mine.

"Isn't a guitar a bit of a cumbersome item to carry all that way, considering you only know one song?" asks Dilwyn, an old schoolmate of mine.

"Two songs actually, Dil," I remind him, crossly. "And anyway, I'll learn more once I'm over there, I'm sure."

Well, if I have the time, that is, between all the other things I'm going to do sur le continent. By day I'll be an artist, of course — or an artiste, as I sometimes call it when I'm being particularly annoying. I've been invited by Getty Images to be a 'contributing photographer', which sounds very exciting but basically means they have some of my pictures in their catalogue; it doesn't necessarily mean that anybody is going to buy them. So by night I'll work in a bar in order to actually, like, eat and stuff. A smokey bar, most likely, with a sullen Frenchman called Claude propping up the counter day in day out, blowing smoke-rings in my face and falling in love with me despite himself. But it is no good, Claude, no; for I am in love with another: a street performer by the name of Klaas who spends his days trapped in a box down on Veldstraat.

Yes, this is exactly what living in Belgium will be like, I've decided.

"Well," says Dilwyn, who has had enough of this rather one-sided conversation by now. "At least if this Klaas guy is trapped in a box then he won't be able to get away."