Reading the city sounds like something a psychogeographer might do, but in a sense we all do it whenever we move around, on foot or on wheels: route, encounter, diversion, disruption. That shop’s re-opened … oh joy, a new nail bar. (Clearly I’m an urban pedestrian. Cyclists and drivers notice other things, but we all register something about a journey, consciously or not.)
Words, too, are there to be read en route: adverts, road signs, street names, all legitimated by commerce and custom. And then the other, illegitimate words, not printed but handwritten: PUZ, FLASH, WEZE, HOOK$. It could locate me quite precisely in one bit of North London, that those are the names I think of first.
I’m talking tags, the graffiti IDs on shutters, hoardings, walls and particularly…