I like pistachio ice cream.  I don't know why that should stick out amongst all my likes and dislikes, or why I should choose that as an introduction to me as a person, but I have done.  Pistachio ice cream.  Strange what we choose as our primary identities.  In an NHS magazine where I work, there was an article in which various hospital employees were asked to describe their typical day.  Most of the accounts began with a description of what they do when they get into work in the morning.  However, one guy began with "I'm 27, single and have just moved to Leeds from Cardiff".  Whatever it was he actually did was totally subsumed by the lonely hearts-style primary descriptor he'd chosen for himself.

As for me, I could have said I was 29, single and exercise.  I could have described a typical day at work.  I could have said I loved the novels of Jonathan Coe or Angela Carter, or the films of Pedro Almodovar.  But no, instead of scoring cognoscenti points, it was the ice cream.  Why?  Because it's rare and creamy and (at the risk of overstating the obvious) nutty.  Because you can't get it in any supermarkets, and only really in a decent, locally-run ice cream parlour.  Its hard-to-get-ness is part of its attraction.  Like people - you can make any old random acquaintance, as common as a tub of shop brand vanilla.  However, I find true friends are at a premium in this world, so far more valuable. 

And when I do taste pistachio ice cream, what does it remind me of?  Walks along the Leas in Folkestone, maybe down to the harbour and the strong smell of raw shellfish when the tide goes out.  Or winding cobbled streets overhung by