No, I don't know, why do corner shops never stock boxes of tissues? I wondered if it might be because they take up relatively large amounts of space for the price, but that sounds a little farfetched. At the end of a ride to Chiswick and back I had an unplanned excursion to the chemist to finally get some tissues in.

The lodger has managed to destroy the tin-opener, though in fairness I hardly ever use tinned food and so it might have been ready to fall apart for years. Also today I have changed the lock on the front door - a Yale lock, whose inside-the-door part was loose, but once taken off wouldn't go back on again. Turns out the turning mechanism, which is cut to fit, had been cut too short, so I couldn't reassemble it. Have new one. The man in the shop said he wouldn't cut it for me but never said - because at the time I hadn't realised what the problem was - that I'd have to do it myself because he couldn't say how much I would have to cut off.

Yesterday, went to the Hog In the Pound, near Bond Street station, and got talking to a Lithuanian woman, whose friends were Bulgarian and Swiss. That's London for you. Earlier I'd been to the Bar Italia on Frith Street. Sure it isn't my first time there but the first time since I sourced my List of Cafes to Visit. Bar Italia, its walls adorned with Italian sporting memorabilia, would be better if it was cheaper - £9 for a panini and a coffee is as steep as the Alpe D'Huez. And prior to that I'd been for a test ride on an Airnimal, a high-performance folder that I am not going to spend £800 on. More performance for less cash by simply buying a classic touring bike, I think. i am into simplicity at the moment. The Airnimal was nice but too overengineered as it needs to fold.

On Thursday it was the last Writing class and some of us went to the Queen's Larder, a Greene King pub but not bad for all that. I shouldn't have more than three pints, I start talking (more than usual) bollox. I do need to slow things down a bit though - last week, was out on Tuesday (CAMRA meeting), Wednesday (in the Fairfield Tavern), Thursday (class), and Friday (Hog in the Pound). Even if Tuesday can count as Voluntary Work. Well, I won't be drinking for the week leading up to next Sunday's bike ride anyhow.

This afternoon I have been watching eps 4 and 5 of Torchwood, via iPlayer, as Sky+ seems to have indigestion, believing it still has to record programmes that have already gone out, and having 'technical faults' with a lot of channels.

Today I have been walking from Chiswick to Richmond. Only about five miles / 8km but the shoes were not really adequate for the stoniness of the path so I cut short my original idea to walk all the way to Kingston which would have been the same again. A lot of walkers and cyclists there also. Well, the original original idea was to cycle to Chiswick but then I found the Brompton has a puncture and as it is now my only bike I had no choice. Lunch at the Hole in the Wall, but only a crab salad, not the usual roast.

Yesterday, a fella in an authentically tatty LDV van helped me take the kingsize bed over to B's - I was glad of an assist, the bed was in bits but the mattress was heavy.

Of course if I'd realised the obvious course of action originally - replace the king size with a double in each bedroom - it would have saved a lot of money and aggrovation. As it is people are not renting the front bedroom because it's too small, and part of the being too small was that oversized bed. Replacement bed comes tomorrow as does someone who is 'crashing' there for a week. He is on his way now overnight from Scotland. However there is now far too much Stuff in the house as a whole, books, papers everywhere. Aim: there will be no papers / books on top of bookcases. In (where they're supposed to be) but not on top. And replace the wretched stair carpet! What people see when they come through the front door is a tatty carpet with a hole!

Went swimming and to the gym on Friday - felt much better after that. I usually do. I have tomorrow off but will be assembling new bed and welcoming the crash-padder.

I have missed out on tickets for the Mars Volta - it's sold out! I'd forgotten it was so soon. They were £25 each but still.

Current Location: back bedroom
Current Mood: nocturnal
Current Music: noises outside

It was nice of the train to stop on the bridge long enough for people to take photographs!

Friday evening:
went over to Bridget's Artists At Home in Chiswick. She is certainly prolific and inventive.
Saturday:
down to the family at Guildford. Very abstemious, one small can of lager before lunch. Much seafood and salad.
Sunday:
Finally got a floor in the conservatory - wood laminate strips which have mostly gone down very well. Much sawing, I have sore fingers. Then Geraldine came over for tea; after that a possible house-sharer turned up and had a look but I don't think the place has enough storage space for him nor a place for his rather nice bike; then to Chiswick to have supper in a Thai restaurant with Bridget. Finally, out in the garden, as the sun set; so little wind that a candle placed on a table outdoors was unflickering. Small lanterns in next door's trees and the neighbours gave me cherries from their cherry tree.
Tomorrow: dentist, back to work, etc.

Tags: weekends
Current Location: home
Current Mood: mellow

But I thought it was appropriate that Ama$on.co.uk's reply to my email inquiring about the whereabouts of a missing David Gilmour DVD should contain the line,
"we will need a little more information first."
Just the basic facts? Can I tell them where it hurts?

It seems I missed the Mars Volta at the ICA, but they are playing Somerset House on Monday 13 July. Tickets £25 and I have no money. But still.

Tags: music, pink floyd
Current Music: Show of Hands: Ink Devil

My night was killed already; unable to sleep, I formulated Plans A and B for letting this house or a room of it out and living Somewhere Else, whether it be Birmingham or not, and drew up a list of things I actually need, which was surprisingly short. Whatever you'd take on a long holiday? Clothes, camera, laptop, books ... friends ...
At four it was starting to lighten and so I got on the bike and headed off for Richmond Park with an aim to greet the sunrise. There was no traffic. And in the park, rabbits, including some baby rabbits staying close to Mama; deer, lots of deer, some boldly spotted, and wandering along the road, or leaping through the ferns; birds, including crows, and pigeons, though the parakeets are probably still asleep. As I stopped on a path to take pictures, the hammering of a woodpecker echoed from a stand of trees.
There was low lying mist tendrilling over the fields like the gossamer of a thousand spider webs - but fortunately it was actually mist, as I took a path down into it between the cypress-dark trees. It gave the park an exotic atmosphere like some lost corner of the Mediterranean. The sky was now striped with orange, and as I passed the Isabella Plantation and looked back, the smallest corner of red peeked up as that fat old sun got up to play.
Photo here.

Gratuitous image post, which could also be a GWL (Guess Where London), though I am going to give it away. (it's also my Flickr icon)
It's Hammersmith Bridge as seen from the terrace of Riverside Studios at sunset. I was up that way yesterday, walking along from the Bridge in the other direction towards Chiswick, very nostalgic. Passed all the pubs (well we went into the Dove to use the WC), and a wedding where the bride had arrived by boat. It was certainly no day to be indoors.

I didn't go out last night and for once I don't care. Always used to feel disatisfied if I didn't go out on Saturday night. But I sat in the summerhouse and read. Not sure if this is being depressed or not.
Last week, saw euphoricstimuli and arryabsinthe in the Royal Oak, SE1 - the only pub I've ever given 10/10 to on Beerintheevening. That was very pleasant - thank you both.

On Thursday, did a pubs tour of Claygate - good, but on Friday I was so tired going home that I had stop between central Kingston and home. Admittedly I had bags of shopping - groceries and Primark stuff - but it wasn't the weight, it was the weariness. Had no desire to go to the Fighting Cocks and check out the Fred Hot Chili Peppers either (I've seen them before but they would bear seeing again, I mean it isn't like seeing bands more than once is unusual for me).

In Books, I have finished 'A History of Danish Dreams' by Peter Hoeg which was good in a magical realist way but curiously unsatisfying as he seems to rip through his multi-family history without fleshing out much detail. There is no dialogue for a start. At times it reads like an outline for Tom Robbins' 'Jitterbug Perfume' (longevity through fecundity I suppose I mean). Perhaps it needs zombies.
As in, 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies', by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, which I also have.
Looking at the shelves I also have 'The Languages of Pao' by Jack Vance and a book of stories by Neruda. Wha'? He didn't write stories? That's 'Prague Tales' by Jan Neruda, if you please.

I've signed up for Skyros in September, so have that to look forward to.

Current Music: Jazz FM

A variation on the 'Canadian musicians' game is 'Welsh bands'. Catatonia, Stereophonics, Manic Street Preachers, Magenta, GLC, Feeder, Super Furry Animals ... this was kicked off by going to see Magenta on Saturday night and a rendition (not by me!) of the Stereophonics' 'Dakota' on Friday night.

But today started off very badly. During the journey into work:
- someone kicked my takeaway coffee over me
- I tried to get off the train and a very large man tried to shove his way in before I could get off
- I nearly tripped someone up at the station on the way out

when I finally got to work I had to find someone (anyone) I knew and tell that unfortunate person that I had had it and was going to have a cup of tea for an hour.
Curiously my manager was also feeling crook and went home. Maybe it's the day.

Before all this started I was drawing up an ad for renting of the front bedroom, which could bring in some much-needed money. I've renewed my season ticket but only for a month - the annual season ticket was £1300 and I don't know where I'd find that just now. Besides, may be going to Brum for a while even though I didn't even get an interview for the latest job I applied for (and neither did the current incumbent. Makes me wonder what they're looking for).

Not that I don't like this place (I do) but I was wondering why, as I used to commute by bike every day, I moved somewhere too far to do that easily from. I was back in West Ken on Friday and remarked, "I don't know why I moved. Not that I have a great attachment to W14 - though in a way I do - but why move anyway?" "True," she said; "if you're used to Central London you don't want to move out." I do say that I only regret having moved when I have to get home from the centre of town, but that's regularly twice a week and often more. Friday night was so pretty damn good that it carried over all the way through Saturday, and I got some work done on the Work In Progress. Not like last weekend at all. And today of course it has been warm and sunny and I walked up Vauxhall Bridge Road at lunchtime.

It's just a shame about this morning.

Tags: cycling, home, music
Current Location: Living room
Current Music: Stereophonics: Dakota (Decade In the Sun Version)

Watching the final (time trial) day of the Giro d'Italia. Racing on wet cobble setts is, well, interesting for those keen on wipeouts. Yes, it was raining in Rome but not in London.

Current Music: EuroSport Giro coverage

This made more sense when I found out Magenta are a Welsh band, but at last night's gig vocalist Christina Booth, between songs, referred to the pictures shown behind the band and said something like "That one you may have recognised, it was Boadicea. English bird, killed thousands of people."

Now I go along with questioning why someone who razed cities and slaughtered thousands is seen as a national hero, but English? Surely the concept didn't exist until around the 9th century, several centuries after Boadicea / Boudicca? She was a Brythonic Celt, and thus closest to Welsh.

But then Vlad the Impaler is a hero to the Romanians because he fought the Turks.

Current Music: Magenta: Visionary