`So still to stars I bludgeon on, `Til suns have spark`d and on me shone!`

...so runs my favourite couplet in an unfinished epic poem about Pixies. It`s written in calligraphy pen across squares of paper blue, red, yellow, beige, green, whose intended use is really for origami. These are sellotaped to a large cardboard box I cut down from 3-d to 2-d. The entire structure is suspended by thin plastic strips, pinned to the wall above my bed.

The Tanabata Festival runs a little similar. It`s my kind of festival. It all fits in with my preferred `tramp chique`.

You`ve got a hole in your trousers? Hey. You`ve got a HOLE in your trousers. Don`t knock it.

In celebration of Tanabata, people write wishes on coloured paper and tie them to bamboo, in turn lashed to upright, immobile structures: lamp-posts, flag poles, policemen etc... And that`s the festival.

Funnily enough, Tanabata celebrates the stars too- Orihime and Hikoboshi, to be exact. On the 7th of the 7th, apart from remembering one day sparks flew down in the London underground, way way way way up there the lovers Orihime and Akiboshi meet, their only chance all year, as the Milky Way thins and parts just for that day. I`ll bet sparks fly up there too.