Civilisation Ends in Croydon

It was a reasonably early morning. Birds shrieked their spring songs while toads and frogs croaked away in their boggy choir. Every now and then the sun managed to send down a weak ray of light between the dark clouds, while the northerly wind did its best to cling on to the night frost. All in all, just another ordinary early spring morning on the edge of the city.

About then, in a nearly abandoned street of derelict houses not far from Highgate Cemetery, one might have seen a fat fellow wi...