It’s 8.30 a.m. (and counting) Cardiff time. On the broad path along the River Taff there are as many pedestrians as joggers and cyclists. A little lower, on the surface of the water, there glides a rowing boat with a crew of students sweating their way to what used to be the Tiger Bay and now is a teddy bear kind of bay. The people I pass are wearing track suits and intensive looks saying ‘I’ve done a lot of thinking, I’ve understood what’s important and I’m doing what needs to be done with my life’. Some even look happy, or content, in a short term kind of way. But there is something unhealthy about this way of starting a day, I feel. Just as I’m beginning to see what, a young cyclist in a flowery-summery dress and high heels overtakes and overwhelms me for a second or two. After she disappears ahead (I’m *older than her; and on foot), I know - enlightened by her body and the lust for eternal youth it aroused in me - what's wrong with this morning and the people. ‘Bastards!’ I think to them, ‘Do you want to live forever?**’
**to quote a concise pep-talk given by one of Napoleon’s generals to his men, when they weren't showing enough enthusiasm after being told to charge an overwhelming enemy.
