Great Regulars: "Since childhood, water has been an excitement,"

he [Sean O'Brien] explains. "The city was built on a swamp: if you dug a hole in your back yard, the water would rise up to look back at you. We fished for sinister-looking minnows in the old storm drains, which grew great mats of algae, thick as hearth rugs, on top of black, jelly-like water. The cellars of the pubs down by the river were said to flood, which presumably had some sort of effect on the beer. And everybody smoked, so everybody had bronchitis, so people were sitting barking in damp doctors' surgeries . . . There was a half-amphibian feel to the place. Water was inescapable."

from Sarah Crown: The Guardian: A life in books: Sean O'Brien

~~~~~~~~~~~