I just got in from my daily stroll, and think I should note something odd. Today, having a question to ask at the council offices – I still haven’t received my voting papers, but was assured they are on their way – I took myself over to Woolwich. It’s a bright, sunny day, so after I went for a roll. I usually just look around the market and high street when I’m in that area, but today I decided to explore a bit. Crossing the road, I suddenly found myself in a quieter, stiller area. Although there were a few cars, the murmur of traffic, constant in London, suddenly seemed gone. Something about that place, with it’s long buildings and wide, deserted streets made it feel very different to the rest of Woolwich and London. This place seemed old, and indeed it was: I had entered the old arsenal, the site of the old munitions factories for which Woolwich is famous. They had restored most of it, and the area was shiny, clean and modern; yet there was a feeling of ancientness to it, an uncanny, unhiemlich feeling, as if the place was once, many years ago, teeming with life but now was dead. The faces of victorian and edwardian factory workers peer out from photographs dotted about the place. This place once supplied the empire with it’s guns, but the empire is faded. What remains, despite the restorations, are ghosts.