WHO LEAVES THE LANGUAGE It is possible to be precise. The line is drawn at the AIC, Rosebery Avenue, EC1R. The building is Taylor House, although it doesn’t look much like a house. It has the name House because it houses the AIC, as in the verb rather than the noun. It looks through tinted plate-glass windows. To my knowledge there is no sign saying who Taylor was. There are more obvious landmarks. One might notice Finsbury Town Hall, or the various outlets that populate Exmouth Market. We are not far from the City or the British Library. It is at the AIC, however, that the line is drawn, that hour by hour the decision is taken: who leaves the language. I nearly said judgment. Enters also. The AIC is a busy place. There are all the usual security checks so that at the turnstile you offload your belongings, everything you keep in your pockets along with your coat and your bag, like at an airport, and then you go through the metal detector in case you are carrying a knife. But these checks are just routine. Theoretically the AIC is open to the public. Who constitutes the public is interesting. Actually it is the building’s question. Though if public means those who don’t have a function in the proceedings then mostly the public isn’t there. Really, it is the building’s question: who leaves the language. Once through the turnstile you take the lift to a waiting area on the second floor. This is where the action is, though for the most part the action is waiting. Waiting, it turns out, is what engaging the AIC is principally about. Not waiting as in waiting to go in. More like waiting as an administrative weapon. As if in the absence of any other tactic what somebody once dreamed was an indefinitely enduring holding pen. Imagine having that dream. 11 | Who Leaves the Language