The Great Wall of Soho

There's this place in Soho called Gail's. It's a neat Italian café at St. Anne's Court. They have only one square table in the back of the store, but several stools along the side. When you take a seat there, you have a gorgeous wooden herringbone floor under your feet, a single naked light bulb above your head and a busy counter in your back.

You'll hear people greet other people, and other people who place their orders. The coffee machine grinds roasted beans and the frothing machine does its part as well. You'll hear shouting voices, laughing voices, demanding voices. Cups are being put on saucers, tea spoons placed on their sides. The register springs open and coins are put together to become change.

But the best part is the window. Not the window itself, even though it is a nice window. A clean double-glassed beauty, as wide as two and a half metres, rimmed in a white wooden frame and split into two, a stagnant higher half and a lower half that slides up and down when necessary. When you put your hand near the bottom you can feel the cold from outside.

No, the best part is what you see. A narrow alley, perhaps three metres wide, with an mesmerizing brick wall on the other side. Hundreds of rust-coloured rocks, bricks of slightly different size, stacked and pasted next to each other, upon each other, between each other. Weather has left its marks over many years. Cracks and holes, beige and brown spots. An amazing wall, it makes you think.