“This was the winter of 2008/9. Work was ongoing to reinstate a tram system in the city. A lot of people couldn’t see the point of trams and many more disliked the disruption. Streets were closed off. There was almost a sense of ‘apartheid’ as the roadworks made it difficult to move from New Town to Old Town and vice versa. Added to which, the weather was fairly grim. And the banks looked ready to implode.”

“Townspeople themselves were eager for change and experiment. From their point of view, Catholicism was tied in with customs and festivals that made sense in a farming community. People in towns and cities needed to have their industries work without being interrupted by all the feast days of the Catholic faith.”

“I stand on the end platform of the tram and am completely unsure of my footing in this world, in this town, in my family. Not even casually could I indicate any claims that I might rightly advance in any direction. I have not even any defense to offer for standing on this platform, holding on to this strap, letting myself be carried along by this tram, nor for the people who give way to the tram or walk quietly along or stand gazing into shop windows. Nobody asks me to put up a defense, indeed, but that is irrelevant.”

“The tram can run over you only if you are on the tram way! The darkness can run over you only if you are on the ignorance way!”

“Towns are like people. Old ones often have character, the new ones are interchangeable.”

“He disliked contradiction, and still more, arguments that were continually skipping from one thing to another, introducing new and disconnected points, so that there was no knowing to which to reply.”