THE YOUNG DINOSAURS

   

   

THE YOUNG DINOSAURS

P icture this. A gang of scruffy teenagers, lounging against a low redbrick wall, on a scorching hot summer afternoon. Too full of testosterone and adrenaline to keep still even on a day like this, they leer and snide, taking the piss out of each other and everyone else in earshot. They gabble, and the reek of frayed flares and unformed juvenescence is palpable, just as their lanky, gobby poses are authentically redolent of that gauche arrogance customary to youth. One of them, a thin, long-haired kid in a tight red tee-shirt, adjusts his sunglasses, saying nothing much. He stares vacantly through photochromic Easy Riders, a pair of smoked arabesques that happen to obscure his blank eyes much as the curtain of limp, dark hair conceals his pasty white babyface. This one goes by the name of Prodigo Prodigo.

Kids. We've all been there. So what?

In a quiet London dormitory, during a record-breaking heatwave, these inglorious sons of the suburbs are splaying their gawky limbs before an unlikely backdrop of other people's ‘Union Jacks’. As far as the eye can see, tacky bunting and other patriotic paraphernalia have been strung, like jingoistic washing lines, between bland terraces of inoffensive maisonettes. In this soporific parish, clean second-hand cars are parked neatly alongside the lawns and hedgerows. Here and there, net curtains twitch as suspicious neighbours suspiciously regard our dégagé adolescents with their suspicious appraisals. Mrs Westerlake’s fruitcake is passed around the sunny gardens. More tacky bunting is put up by middle-aged members of the Residents' Association, while along the road the local shops, selling the local paper and car parts, do as little business as ever. The sun bakes the litter-free tarmac.

Prodigo and his fellows gab on, oblivious to the incongruity of their context. They hardly see the chintzy rows of matching lawns.

But they’re not the only sore thumbs on the block...

to be continued...