More demolitions: last year.

A woman used to live on Croker Street. She said, "When I grow very old, I will come down the driveway in the mornings wearing my dressing gown. I will collect my mail like this. Then everyone will know who I am."

This she did. Later, soon after she had died, they took out certain parts of the house and laid them on the nature strip outside. Once they had removed the shelf with the sky-blue backing and pictures of geese wearing neckbands, they could demolish the house. After the house was gone, and the garden, and the mailbox as well, they built two ugly units.

Now her driveway is underneath a room. Her ghost moves restlessly through that room at night leaving behind the webbed footprints of a goose.

Zim, 1980

Ian Smith stepped down and Zimbabwe was independent. Birds sang in different colours. Fish whistled like a choir. Plums ripened in your hand. Zexie Manatsa woke from a dreamless sleep when the full moon was at its apex and and played Chipo Chiroorwa on three instruments simultaneously, the accordion, the grand piano, and the marimba, using limbs that he hadn't known he had.

Today inflation in Zimbabwe is so high that people struggle to buy bread. But the plums still taste good.

Television, the 1930s.

One day no families had televisions; a little later every family had televisions. There was a transitional period when only one family had a television. They were the pioneers.

"What do we do with it?" they asked. It was blank.

"You'll be able to watch shows on it, like a theatre."

"How much of the actors will we be able to see?" they said, looking at the small size of the screen. "Their feet?"

"No, no. The actors will be tiny. About this big." The inventor held his hands a foot apart.

A matriarch stepped forth. "Little people! You'll be bringing the Little People into my home! Pixies! Brownies! The milk will sour! The babies will turn into changelings!"

The inventor hung his head. "Yes," he said. "Think, though: your shoes will always be mended."

They considered his offer.

Fashion: the 1800s.

People wore bustles and corsets.

No, not all people.

Women wore bustles and corsets.

No, not all women.

Women in certain societies wore bustles and corsets.

Every single one?

Women in certain societies were expected to wear bustles and corsets and many did.

What about the rest of humanity?

They suffered other constraints, as numerous as stars.

Newport, more demolitions, 2008

They knocked down one of the sheds at the cricket ground near Newport Station. Before knocking it down they removed the contents and put them on the grass: stools, plastic chairs, drawers, and bars of mauve and vanilla soap.

On the gravel afterwards a band of crested pigeons stood in a concrete formation that suggested the wise fortitude and vigilance of sheds.

A van came by and the pigeons blew away. Nearby the cricketers covered the grass with a white sheet.

2008, 150 Woods Street.

The developers knocked down houses in Newport and built ugly units. They were craven vultures with small, vicious brains.

One day, one of them bought 150 Woods Street. It was the most beautiful house in the world, with an art deco ceiling and a thousand different shades of wallpaper. The kitchen had a black bakelite telephone on the wall and the stove and the oven were iron.

In the back garden the developer found a concrete Aboriginal with a broken face. This person had outlived the owner. Unaffected by his spiritual presence, the developer knocked the house down.

A week later, the developer's vision was filled with the colours of a thousand different wallpapers, and when he put his hand to his face he knew that it was broken.

He lived like this forever.

Immigration, the Vikings

In 1970 Robert Plant came from the land of the ice and snow. He took his shirt off and grew his hair. He grew it down to his feet, due to the cold. So he moved around the countryside like a curly yeti, occasionally screaming unbidden. Children who saw him never got over it.

Most of today's politicians were once those children. His influence on foreign policy is incalculable