Fifteen Minutes. I Timed It. Now You Know.

Roy Sabin

08 Jul 2026 — 1 min read

Do something for me. Get up. Time yourself. Walk from your door to the nearest shop. Then the pub. Then wherever a man goes of an evening. Write the numbers down.

I did. I've not slept properly since.

A man has been warning about this — Richard Vobes; linked here, I've altered nothing:

There's a huge fear… of these 15-minute cities which are being pushed or thrust upon us.

Thrust. Sit with the word. He chose it exactly.

Here's what I found, and I did the working so you needn't take it on faith. From my door in Winshill: the Spar, four minutes. The Wetherspoons, eleven. The bookmaker's, nine. The bus stop that'll take me nowhere I'm permitted to go, six. Every single thing a man could need — not one of them further than fifteen minutes on foot.

Do you see it? They didn't build a town around me. They built a pen, and made it the size of a comfortable stroll so I'd not notice the fence. I lived inside it for years and thought it convenient. That is the cruelty of the design.

And when a new planter went in at the top of the road last month — concrete, a shrub, narrowing the way the cars go — the council called it “traffic calming.” I know what it is. It is a wall with a plant in it.

They are pushing. They are thrusting. And Burton — quiet little Burton that nobody watches — is where they're trying it first.

I'll not be strolling anywhere on command. More soon.

— R.S.

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Last One Tonight — And Why They Can't Pull It Down

I've Backed It All Up. Now Let Me Tell You What It Says.

The Whole Picture, at Last: Two Weapons, One Grid

I Have Found It. I Have Found the Paperwork.