People listening to Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars...

[Jeremy]

But the latest KT Tunstall CD sounds cracking through those speakers...

[Otta]

And the bass man, the bass. It can be tweaked, so Flea's playing is so clear! Of course, that band were rubbish until the Stadium Arcadium album. Now that is music!

[Brendan]

The i?pod sits proud in its docking station. The faux-flock cover of puce floral now showing scratches, signs of slight age and complete obsolescence. As a fleeting moment of self-consciousness floats though his insipid doom he wonders if it should still be on display or if it?s day had passed like that of the ?trophy home in this irresistible area full of bars, boutiques and boho hangouts? (sic) which the brochure had promised.

He allows his mind to venture back.

An oversized mirror hangs over the saloon bar of the EDT reflecting their faces as they sat there that first night those years ago, the smell of cardboard and bubble wrap still in their nostrils and the headiness of self-affirmation and pinot in their laughter.

The faces contort to the grotesque and the laughter turns to mockery as he is wrenched back into reality but immediately recoils in desperate fear, preferring scathing memory to cold reality.

He is not sure how much time has passed when he becomes vaguely aware of the chill growing through his feet up from the laminate floor and the drone of a folk anthem beating its way through the house.

He withdraws further.