“London had vanished. In place of the lively, thrusting metropolitan conurbation was an empty rural wilderness of damp brown fields under low autumnal skies.”

“Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron and russet, and the days were clear and crisp under harvest skies.”

“For this, he realized, was the future. It was a place without a single feature of the space-time matrix that he knew. It was a place where nothing yet had happened—an utter emptiness. There was neither light nor dark; there was nothing here but emptiness. There had never been anything in this place, nor was anything ever intended to occupy this place—until this very moment when he and his machine had been thrust upon it, intruders who had overstepped their time.”

“At some point, the Mod look had a short-lived Country Life moment, when the gorgeous mohair sheen of the three-button suit gave way to matte autumnal earth tones. Give it a name: fucking brown.”

“A fully-serviced tower block that is empty for most of the year, whilst most Londoners can barely find an affordable place to rent in London. Houses in London are not being used as homes, but as concrete safes, looking after (often laundered) money.”

“The window opened gently and a still Autumn night entered cat-like. Edwin smelt freedom and London autumn – decay, smoke, cold, motor oil.”

“When I was a beggarly boy,
And lived in a cellar damp,
I had not a friend nor a toy,
But I had Aladdin's lamp.”

“London used to be reasonably priced, clean, and a decent place to live. These days it's polluted and utterly unbearable”

“I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,
Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves;
That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath,
Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,
Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,
And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.”

“It's light work for the gods who rule the skies
to exalt a mortal man or bring him low.”