Lord Mayor Magpie

Because he sticks his chest right out when he condescends to the ground, we think him arrogant: there’s parade-ground posh to his strut. Shrewdest of our local lords,

Magpie idles in a limousine of black feather with a slash of white piping that outshines all chrome, and this makes of him the spiffiest parade; he has the brazen glamour of a motorcade.

I’ve seen royalty arrayed in the print of his greedy feet. Lord Mayor Magpie, in his ermine and brocade, doesn’t merely foot the lawn: he processes.

An invisible cavalcade canters behind him as he strides.

Once I saw him drop from a derelict rooftop.

There was furious pleasure in his swoop.

He checked his plunge and soared.

And there was braggadocio in his fall. He flexed and corrected the air with the mischief of a pedant as he emended the dead letter of descent. Though he meant to refute, he turned acclamatory between the third and fourth storey and flew up to his mate perched there on the parapet.

Our vacant crevices, our dull lintels, are Lord Mayor Magpie’s ballroom. There he waltzes, this debonair line dancer in mid-air, domino dapper with morning-coat manners, stiff tailed, caustic of caw, parliamentary of demeanour, our nimble-kneed Astaire

who refuses all obeisance to Lagerfeld or Wintour.

His black eye crackles, his attire is dour. He favours classic all-occasion wear.