I am following a journey in my mind... It starts at Waterloo Station on a Friday night where I'm drinking coffee, watching the time and spilling it down my coat as the thin cup flexes in my hand but then it takes me down Lower Baggot St where I walk past Francis Bacon's place of birth at no 63 and head out at the bottom across St Stephens Green. I'm feeling like a jackeen again and I stop to buy a paper to find out what year it is because I look and sound older than the last time I was really here. At Trinity College I lean against the railings to catch my breath before walking across to Wenceslas Square and down to Karluv Most. I stand on the bridge and look down at the water before raising my eyes to the Parliment buildings on the hillside above and I contemplate whether I should walk the hill through the winding cobbled streets up to it or should I cut off right to the Gypsy Quarter where I may find friends and somewhere to stay so that I won't be sleeping rough tonight. It's summer but the chill evening air is cutting in and I can hear the sound of Roma music playing from a bar in this, the most anti-Romany of countries. I find somewhere for the night and the girl I met earlier keeps me company. I show her how to take a photo and she dances for me naked wearing just a pair of black leather fashion gloves and a red silk scarf while I clap my hands in rhythm and sing a Gypsy song I've known since I was a kid. A bottle of whisky and three packets of Czech cigarettes with a lighter sit on the bedside table. When I wake up I look out of the window, the girl is gone, and I am on the left bank. I have work to do today in the Bibliotheque Nationale but first I want to do some shopping in the Marais and go and buy a book I saw there. I love Paris but it is impossible to work in for photographers because of its laws so I am only here for academic research. I spend the evening at The Dome, and next morning I'm looking at the sun glinting off the Sierras. I will walk over later to the Venetian where, on the second floor, I will see Gondolas float past that have been especially created, like all of Las Vegas, for the tourists. I can't seem to take a photo here - too much glitz and too much surface gloss - I can't seem to dig down to the deeper issues. And then I am standing somewhere else. And my camera bag is slung over my shoulder and I'm thinking Christ will they stab me and take the cameras or will they just see that I'm trying to help and let me be and will I be able to walk away from this because I don't want to get stuck with one of their needles but I need to portray their lives and why they steal and the hunger they feel and what I see in their eyes and all the places I've been flash through my head because in that one moment that lasts Christ knows how long is it yes 1/250th of a second I'll see all their tears through all their years and everything they were ever frightened off and whatever hunts them down and the hunger that they feel in this grotty council flat with the cat sick on the floor that hasn't been cleaned up and the social services knocking on the door shouting let us in and I raise the camera to my eye but although it only goes click it actually sounds like a bombshell to me and the man says thankyou for taking my picture as the wife picks up her crack pipe and I say that's alright no worries and as I shut the door behind me and when I leave I feel a thousand needles sticking in and piercing forever the heart of their lives together.