J: Jump Cut
The Wishbone Alphabet – an experiment, of course, with attitude, life and the eponymous soup. I think I was five, maybe five and a half, because it was summer time when we trooped to the circus to chortle at clowns and be brought to trepidation by the snarls of lions; in those days animals worked the ring, it seemed natural to us; and when the trapeze artists spun in the air time must have stopped. If I was five years six months four days ten hours forty minutes and three seconds old, that’s how I stayed for the duration of the act. Not a clock ticked, not a heart dare beat. Resplendent in spangled fringing, like birds made of jewellery, with make-up so huge we could see their red smiles, even miles and miles up in the domed tent roof, they jumped without fear so I loved them. I dreamt of them. I woke up, I thought of them. At home there was a swing in the concrete yard. Seagulls spread refective white wings above me in clear blue sky, the ground was sharp with hot afterno