500 blogs in this series. I should perhaps roll out a great big old ponder for such an auspicious number but instead I am rolling out a softer more ponderous ponder. This small sketch caught my eye. A man, or woman in a hoodie is such an iconic image of our times. The subject of this sketch specifically tells a thousand stories. My first though was that he was like any number of men I have met. Aged prematurely by the life they have led. Sinewy necks created by manual work and a mouth sunken by tooth loss. Specifically to Plymouth he looks like a crewman heading into a local pub after a few days and a few decades at sea. Straight off the boat he has not yet scrubbed up for socialising. His first pint and his crew mates don’t care what he looks like.

Crew could well be printed on the back of this man’s Hoodie. A roadie from countless world tours with rock bands. The younger roadies leap and swing from rigs and stages but this guy knows where everything goes. He knows where to get the drugs in every world city, legal and illegal, and has seen two or three generations of groupies anxious to make out with the band and him if it gets them closer.

Every city has men like this, lost against the brickwork of our streets. Lives lived but in this moment anonymous and passed by.

But who is this man in a Hoodie?

He is a 15th Century Monk and the sketch is attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci. 1452-1519 A simple sketch, so many stories to be imagined. A man we see nearly every day. Somewhere. And for the 500, this man is a little over 500 years old.