Spectator Competition: Environ-mental

In Competition 3364 you were invited to submit a piece of psychogeography exploring a mundane journey. A cartoon in the Guardian recently defined psychogeography as ‘walking around criticising gentrification’ – though it can be down on decline too. One rule of thumb is that if you can imagine Will Self saying it, it’s probably right. You rose magnificently and pretentiously to the challenge and if there were space and £25s enough, I could haveincluded three times the number of winners.

If Huddersfield is the world, then B&M Bargains, trading at the great crossroads, is its Istanbul. And just as memories of Constantinople and of Byzantium haunt that extraordinary city, so in B&M we cannot avoid ghostly reminders that Marks and Spencers once occupied this site. For this is Marks gone topsy-turvy. Food is now upstairs, where nightdresses and cardigans once flourished, while downstairs, where the Food Hall previously offered delicious ready-meals, household goods now languish. Customers seem disoriented. Eastwards, in Cloth Hall Street, different ghosts prevail. For here is the Coffee Cup. Call B&M Istanbul, then is this Huddersfield’s Vienna, its centre of café culture? Hardly. For here one feels, achingly, other absences. Those elderly ladies discussing their illnesses do not bring to mind the sparkling conversation of the Café Sacher. It is precisely because of his spirit’s absolute non-presence that here we cannot avoid thinking, achingly, of Karl Kraus.

George Simmers

I entered a profound, meditative state as I paced this cusp of suburbia, my sneakers bouncing joyfully over concrete. I was a Viking in a longship, a pilgrim walking to a holy well, a dandelion seed on a breeze. My soul revelled in the colourful contrast of the detritus of chewing gum and discarded coffee cups. The tranquil beauty and stillness of ice-cream wrappers evoked memories of exhausting summer holidays. A scarlet mailbox reminded me of our need to communicate; our delight in online shopping, the increasing cost of stamps.