There are huge iron frames on New Burlington Street, squares of construction metal spreading out onto the main road. My head’s full of two references: a woman I vaguely knew who was killed by a falling window from a scaffold overhead, and the historical Iron Frame in India, the bureaucratic apparatus of empire. The newspapers today are full of echoes of the Raj because of the royal baby. And while all that is curdling in my thoughts, some guy wants to sell me a waxing treatment on the street.