An extremely handsome and well-dressed man is stood outside HMV in Gloucester. It’s mid-December. He looks and listens as the shoppers walk by. The hum of Christmas. ‘I’m going into Superdrug to get some eyelashes, then I’ll meet you in Primark,’ one woman says to another as they pass. He smiles. He notices the accent more now. It slides back onto the man’s tongue whenever he’s home. He no longer lives in Gloucester, but is a stone’s throw from the Gloucestershire border. He loves that border. He’s proud that he didn’t need to go far to find his dream job. The drive back into his home county is like sliding into a warm bath. He refocuses, observes. If you turned the scene upside down, ticked and unticked shopping lists would flutter down like snow. Not just snow but Christmas snow. Pillow-soft, whiter-than-white movie snow ...