"By Jesus said Paddy"

"By Jesus said Paddy I sing it so well
I think I'll get up and I'll sing it again
Over and over and over again."

I hear voices as I lay. Kentucky Fried Chicken brain, throat like sandpaper. I turn to my right as the sun pushes through the thin curtains highlighting the portrait - from The Face - of the beautiful black girl on my wall.

For a second I place my hand to the left of the bed to see if anybody is there. There isn't. I am home alone. Alone with the voices of Jesus and Paddy. But thanfully no apparition, no ghostly apparition, no Highgate vampire.

Not today, not last night and hopefully not today.

I shower and I'm fine. Lazy Sunday afternoon in my stately bedsit. Or maybe a stroll across the heath. Or down to Camden to see how the punks, freaks, rockabillies and soul boys are doing. Or maybe I should just walk.

Why not? I set off: Through Highgate Woods, up through the village, by the cemetery, down Swain's Lane and onto the heath. Not glancing back. Not looking. Not stopping at those gothic gates.

On the heath I am lost in my own world. This is not my place. I look different to the people on here. There is no reek of money off me. These are the folks with children called Jemima and Piers. Their dogs are pedigree and their friends are chums. They dogs not bum like where I am from. Nannies. Mary Poppins "80s stylee". Swedish au pairs. So cold and so concise. Like the heath itself.

I wander rapidly from the crowd. Bubble jacket to keep ot the cold. Ducks on the pond and duck down in my coat. Keeping me warm. Keeping me fine.

Sony Walkman screams: "Geno Geno".

I am that young soul rebel as I walk faster until I reach Hampstead village. I put my head in Meenys and check their preppie attire as the girls from the JFS take their coffees and shake their tousled hair. Flirting with the boys from Highgate School. Across religions but not across the classes.

I drop in the Flask for a pint and a peruse of the Sunday broadsheets. It is not my place but they do not bother me. In their grandfather's clothes with their arranged brides. And their sons in their hand-me-downs down - or is it up - from Cambridge. But they go their way and I go mine.

From Hampstead to Belsize to Primrose to Camden. A quick walk around the market and some Mexican food. From pudding and chips to Pollo Picado. From punk to post-punk in a couple of years. And now there are people in make-up and dresses thinking they are original.

Have they never heard of The Sweet?

And then I'm heading north. Through Kentish Town and Tufnell Park. Archway, Highgate and home.

Walking for England. Walking to clear the head and clear the nightmares of vampires and how these streets are not paved with gold.

The cowboys in America call it hotwalking; as they walk the bucking broncos around the ring to calm those pesky mavericks down. I walk to cool myself down. I am a hotwalker....