I have often wondered how I might react if, when walking over a bridge, my hat were to be blown off my head by the wind and cast over the balustrade down into the Thames. The immediacy of the realisation that my hat was lost forever would surely quell any upset or franticness – save perhaps a start and a little gasp of regret. Then, calmly, I'd watch the hat flipping and spinning down into the water, always at low tide in my imagination. And I’d be already calm long before it hits the water. It is the immediacy of this resignation that appeals to me. Yes, I realise it now, this imagined scenario of losing a hat to the river, losing it first to the wind and then to the river, this immediate loss, it appeals to me! Sudden resignation must taste odd and serene. I run through this scenario in my head often. I'm sure there must be a cathartic pleasure in the snap-irreversibility of the loss. I watch myself in my mind’s eye watching the hat flip and spin, not yet even in the water, and then when it hits, watching it float off downstream, smiling, my pulse temperately keeping time, making as healthful music as ever. I'd wish the hat well in its travels and thoughts of a new hat would warm my bare head.