First line of Against the Day?

[Carvill John]

>balloons
>"on the fourth limb from the top there is a red
>balloon [golden-screwdriver dream]," 40; "a sturdy
>green balloon with a great Z printed on it [Fergus'.......


And all those balloons in GR, including at least one balloonist but most 
obviously the barrage balloons:

"It was very early morning. He stumbled out alone into a wet brick street. 
Southward the barrage balloons, surfriders on the combers of morning, were 
glowing, pink and pearl, in the sunrise."

And it's under these barrage balloons that Roger & Jessica have their 
hideaway, giving rise to one of the most powerful bits of poetry, imho, from 
the early sections of the book, one I'll always remember from my frist 
reading, that made me sit back and have one of those aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 
moments:

"A motorcycle out on the trunk road, snarling cocky as a fighter plane, 
bypasses the village, heading up to London. The great balloons drift in the 
sky, pearl-grown, and the air is so still that this morning's brief snow 
still clings to the steel cables, white goes twisting peppermint-stick down 
thousands of feet of night. "

It was that peppemint-stick twisting that got me!

Cheers
JC