under grey skies people scurried nasty young mothers still in dressing gowns on their way to the school gates , kids playing dumbster chasing games , kurds and kosovars hoping to catch the gimlet eye of the gangmaster ; the pavements echoed to the sound of their slippers , their trainers , their boots , all stomping and shuffling behind the drone of the paper bag brigade , the soothsayers of their own imagination , the dirge of the demented .