Under an apple tree

Hiatus

PS, my other blogs are still being updated, because they take less mental energy to write!

This blog is going into hiatus until November 2009. The reason for this is that I don't have time to write at the moment. I've incredibly busy in the garden, which takes several hours a day, and I also have an Open University course to work at. Together with minding the house, and taking Pippa for walks, this doesn't leave enough time to make the regular commitment to writing which I am determined on.

So rather than keep making excuses to myself, I am calling a halt on this blog and I will be back here in November.

These are the writing-related blogs which I will return to reading then:

http://emergingwriter.blogspot.com/

http://anniewickingsjourney.blogspot.com/

http://rejecter.blogspot.com

Best wishes,

Emily

Owning a place

Lucinda Lambton is one of my favourite ... now what to call her? If I say a writer, that excludes her effervescent television presentation, and the photographs in her books which are such a big part of her appeal.

Anyway, in her "A-Z of Britain", I have just read the following which struck me:

"In 1901 at Plas Newydd in Wales, the 5th Marquess of Anglesey had the audacity to convert the Gothic fan-vaulted chapel of 1809 into a private theatre. He called it 'The Gaiety' and, having enriched it with plush drapes, quantities of palm trees and statuary, installed a gilded stage in place of the altar."

At first I found this very funny. Then it reminded me of the closure of the chapel in Brideshead Revisited ("They have taken Him away").

It makes me wonder about several different things. How much does the architectural integrity of a building depend on its presentation and use for its original purpose?

How sacred is a place whose sacredness is lost on its owner?

If something is in private hands, how much say should outsiders have on its treatment?

New blog

Please note that I have started a new blog called Cetera, also on Blogger, which is to contain every entry that isn't either attempting to be literary or about the garden. The first post is some pictures of today, showing a short walk and some odds and ends at home. I hope you like it!

http://whereeverythingelsegoes.blogspot.com/

Writers are Other People

Writers are Other People. They write; I read: that's how it goes. I'm not saying they're all members of the Garrick or sit about in dressing gowns smoking Gitannes and scaring small children, but... they are Notme.

It's a bit like top French wine: I just can't imagine it being local. It seems inherantly foreign. Not so physically remote perhaps but just as exotic as oriental silk, sultry spices or a palm-fringed beach.

Ideas like this are fun to indulge, but some of the potential implications turn out to be false, and inhibitingly so. It isn't the case that whatever is local must be inferior. As it happens there's a vineyard up the road from us which, for a price, can sell you a remarkably fine bottle of wine. Any small town might harbour a shop, a workshop, or a great factory, in which goods are produced that are the best in the world; distance may lend the goods an alluring unfamiliarity, but to someone, they're local.

"There is a woman within you who already wears Pethek Philippe."

So went the seductive advertising slogan - or at least I found it so, in my more susceptible days (ahem). But there is a writer, who is me. How good she is I don't know (and I doubt she'll ever afford a posh Swiss watch on the proceeds). But I have met her.

The garden blogosphere

We stare into our fires and plan our seeds,
and feast in heated rooms against the cold;
our gardens sleep while others' blaze with green:
a Mexican wave of flowering laps the Earth.

Young human generations unfurl now,
but garden time runs true, life's orrery:
ephemera preserved for them in blogs,
while your reflected sunshine joins our fires.

---------

[I apologise for cross-posting this with my other blog.]

More moon gazing

Just now it's nearly dark. The trees look especially black, like wooden scenery put up in front of a real sky. Mother of pearl swirls of cloud and blue yonder drift around above them. Over to my left a neatly bisected moon slides behind dull thick low cloud in another sky.

I can see time in the growing darkness.

Mr Fitzgerald's Translation

It was a bitterly cold morning with a reluctant, grey light. Hastings, the housemaid, did not knock at the morning-room door because there was no reason for her to expect any member of the family to be inside at six o'clock. She nearly dropped her coal bucket therefore when she suddenly caught sight of the rear half of Mr Fitzgerald, still clad in evening dress. He was on his hands and knees behind the heavy brocade sofa. His front half rapidly appeared and he explained that he had been up all night searching for his latest manuscript. Hastings listened politely to this and then turned as soon as she could to attend to the grate. As she lifted out her papers to light it, Mr Fitzgerald seized upon them with delight.

How they had found their way into the kindling box was never discovered.

The family took breakfast at eight o'clock as usual, in their customary convivial silence, each immersed in their reading matter of choice. The smells of kidneys, smoked kippers and slightly burned porridge mingled with coal dust, and the only sounds were of silver against china and the crackles from the well-established coal fire. Mr Fitzgerald spread his pages out around his end of the table and nearly but not quite avoided getting marmelade on them. Before he had finished ordering them, Hastings knocked to say that his cab had arrived.

He gathered up the manuscript and his leather attache case, and out in the cold hall shrugged his shoulders into his great-coat. Hastings handed him his umbrella and hat, and opened the door.

The driver lent down to open the hansom cab door for him and he swung himself up into the red padded interior. There was an overwhelming smell of pipe tobacco from a previous occupant, and he lowered the window, but the rain immediately blew in so he hoisted it shut again. The cab rolled across the cobbles with the rhythmic swing of the horse's gait, and very shortly Mr Fitzgerald was sleeping soundly. His papers slipped down from his grasp to lodge behind the upholstery of the seat.

After a quarter of an hour the cab drew to a halt and the driver announced their arrival. It was only when he tapped with his whip against the door that his passenger awoke with a start and hurriedly sprang out, handed him a generous fare and eagerly ascended the steps of his publisher's premises. The cab moved off again down the street, and along with it went the manuscript.

The cab's next passenger, an elderly curate, read the first two pages and declared it to the driver to be a heathen abomination. The driver deduced the identity of the manuscript's owner without difficulty and retraced his route in the confident expectation of a tip that would be very handsome indeed, and in this he was not disappointed.

Self-reproach

Alice surveyed the sea of mud around her that would tomorrow become her first show garden, whether it was ready or not. The site was a challenging one, facing north and near the main road, but her design had cleverly turned this to advantage. She thought of the neatly drawn circles on heavy quality cartridge paper and clenched her teeth to stop the tears. The early frown-lines deepened in her forehead and she swallowed hard. She bundled her latest revised timeplan for the final day's work into her portfolio and decided to run on gut instinct in the few hours that remained. First she had to have tea though.

She went into the back of the van and lit the stove. It was a risky business because the table was piled high with a precarious stack of plant labels, unopened envelopes, sweet-wrappers, and parking tickets. Alice turned her back but still felt them looming at her as she rinsed out the least dirty mug she could find. And then she realised it would have to be instant milk. She dug out another Tesco's Finest Belgian chocolate bar from a bag on the floor. There were two more but she was going to be sick of the stuff with nothing else to eat for the rest of the night.

She put the chocolate into the deepest pocket of her Barbour and climbed down from the van, wincing as she realised that yet again, she'd worn her mud-caked boots inside it. Tucked into her boots Alice wore a pair of vintage-style jodhurs with voluminous legs; in daylight hours she crammed an old felt Homburg hat on her head, all year round. She was an American's ideal English eccentric.

All along the front of the garden plot her plants waited in neat rows, tallest at the back, all painfully short of water. She couldn't water them now though because the supply had been turned off at 11pm. Alice put her tea down and tried but failed not to think how much she'd spent on those plants, not to mention the seeds ordered from Kew, the huge deliveries of specialist compost, all unused because she hadn't got round to sowing them herself in time.

She shivered in the cooling night-time air, and then stirred herself to start work again. She picked up two armfuls of pots and walked carefully across the uneven duck-boards that ran along the main bed of the plot. The earth lay in spade-sized clods, shining in the floodlights. Rough brushwood fencing from the adjoining plot formed the rear, and the sides were still open.

Alice felt so sick with nerves, she could hardly taste her tea as more than just scorching hot. From the road came the sound of the commercial bins being emptied, and a rancid smell drifted down on the wind. It was going to be a long night, and by now even Alice had to accept that it wouldn't be long enough.

Street scene, from a child's point of view (an exercise, 500 words)

Mum had gone off with Ed. She'd given me a mint Aero (one of the jumbo ones) and said she'd kill me if I wasn't right there when she came back.

I sat down on the step and looked under the red blanket at the back of it but there wasn't anything there and it smelled of wee. Then I took my phone out and texted Kaz but he didn't answer. People kept kicking into my feet which was really annoying so I sat back against the door.

I closed my eyes and went to look for Hawkwind. He was sitting by the river, fishing. He put a rod up for me too. All around us there were big high reeds, and crocodiles in the water, and buffaloes on the other bank. Then one of the crocodiles got hold of the end of Hawkwind's rod and pulled him in.

A woman was talking to me so I had to open my eyes, even though Hawkwind was shouting out for me. She had glasses on that made her look like she had two sets of eyes. I could tell she didn't know how to do her lipstick like Mum's and Nan's, and her ear-rings were really teensy little ones, just white.

"Are you alright, dear?" she was asking.

"Yes thanks".

"Is your Mummy with you?"

Well that was a pretty dumb question. You could see it was just me there, and the red blanket. I knew she couldn't see Hawkwind.

"Mum's going to be back soon, I'm waiting for her."

The woman stood up again, so I shut my eyes and went to rescue Hawkwind. He was thrashing about and screaming because the crocodile had his jaws round his middle. I waded out and climbed onto the crocodile's back, and reached down to grab his nose, but I had to stop again because the woman was asking me what my name was.

"Felix", I said. It was the first name I could think of, because our cat's called Felix.

She took a phone out. It was really old, with no camera or anything. She called someone up and said the person had to come really quickly. She looked at me and said she'd found something delektable. I was sure she was talking to the police and Mum would go ape if she found out. But I couldn't go back to the flat, because Nan would be seeing her visitors still.

I closed my eyes again and forgot about the crocodile. I could feel Hawkwind really close to me, and I tried to make really real. I tried with my brain to make him come into our world so he could help me this time.

The woman started to sit down with me. She was just finishing cleaning off her side of the step when Mum turned up, with no Ed this time, but looking all happy so I knew she was all right again. She gave the woman a funny look and we went back home again.

Seaside

I walk down onto the beach, as far as the edge of the hard sand. Nobody else is here - the narrow strand edges a steep drop and families stay safely away. I take off my watch, wrap my towel around it and put them down out of reach of the waves. Then I walk out to the sea.

At each step my feet puddle the sand and the water inches up my calves. It feels colder against the warm skin on the inside of my thighs, tickling and starting to soak into my swimsuit. I turn round to face the beach and slide backwards into the water, my hair floating out around me. I arch my back tightly to wet the top of my head.

And then I turn back out to sea, pause to steady myself, and dive into the next wave. From under the water I hear the wave break, and then the sound of millions of particles of sand scurrying back. The back-flow pulls me forward and I make my first stroke into it, the movement deeply familiar. Idly I cover the next few meters, as the beach drops away beneath me.

I tilt upright and start to tread water, legs tucked up under me and arms circling to the front. I breathe deeply, gently, for a minute or two.

Then I duck my head under the water and pull smoothly downwards. The water closes in above me, and the sounds of the world beneath the surface take over. I count my stokes, down, further down. The water grows first colder, and then darker, and my skin starts to press tightly to my face. Something unseen glances past me to the right, and my ears start to buzz. Then through the gloom I see a deeper darkness approaching, and my finger tips reach out to touch the bottom. It was 14 strokes down.

My heartbeat sounds and feels together all through me. I move in slow motion, resisting the growing urge to swallow. Time is scrambled, racing and standing still, and I feel a moment of confusion. I shake it off, and corkscrew round onto my back, to look up towards the shafts of light tinted green by the water. I count to seven.

Then I kick down behind me and begin to rise. It feels as though a cord through my centre is pulling me upwards. The water rushes past my face, my legs tingle, and my lungs seem to have negative air in them. I burst through the surface, to the feeling that the warm air and light have been waiting for me.

I turn over onto my back and start to kick my legs gently, making luxuriantly slow back-and-forth progress to the shoreline. The water gets warmer around me, foam catches in my swimsuit, and finally my bottom touches the ground and I sit up. I sit and look at the grey horizon for a moment, then I get up gradually, kneeling first, then stooped over, to avoid blacking out.

My steps feel heavy and the ground more solid than ever as I walk back to my towel. I retrieve my watch, spread out the towel and lie down, front downwards. I turn my head to one side, and my lower ear hears the sound of the waves carried through the sand. A trickle of water runs down my inner thigh.

Before my thoughts start to torture me again, I send my mind's eye up above me. I look down, at my hair turning to salty cardboard ringlets, at my back covered in rounded droplets, and at my toes burrowing into the sand. I go higher up and see the narrow beach, the empty road beside it, and the parallel lines of the waves moving towards the shore.

The sun warms my back, and all my mind is full of my breathing, in and out, in and out.

Night Demons

The night before last was more than usually full of doubts and worries. They seemed to come from a part of me so distant as to feel like a different person, taunting me by painting luridly convincing scenery around my mind. In the morning I felt the same emotions of self-pity and helplessness, but when I looked for what caused them it was immediately clear that I had been scared by cardboard cut-outs.

These are the work of the Worry Gods' relatives. Like many people, I fret assiduously in an attempt at to appease these malicious little spirits, who without due reverence would otherwise jeopardise my projects in a fit of pique. As soon as I feel secure about something, they suggest to me that I am dependent on it, and therefore susceptible to sabotage from it. I deduce there to be a wider pantheon: there are jealousy gods and loneliness gods too.

It's as though I have a compulsive need to try out various emotions, perhaps to check they are all still working. My brain furnishes scenarios suitable to stimulate them, using characters who really exist but twisting and tweaking how relations are with them to fool me in whatever way fits the requirements. It tends to happen at night, and perhaps it's a circadian rhythm thing - I know most people are less rational in the small hours, especially in the dark. I wonder if it is linked to dreams and sleep: people say you need to dream to sort out the impressions and thoughts of the day; perhaps my mind has waking nightmares to try to sort out my emotions: dress-rehearsals designed to prevent the performance ever becoming real.

The strength of my imagination powers me for good and ill - it can dream up lovely things to send me to sleep, or scare me out of my wits. Stuck inside myself a bit more than average, I forget that most other people don't spend part of their time seeing phantasmagoria rather than reality.

As I make another cup of tea during the morning, I look down into the running tap, and then look out of the window as I rinse the mug. The securely familiar actions comfort me somehow. My mind relaxes a little more and this makes me realise how bad the emotional cramp had been. It does get bad, and the words I spit out at the time are my demon's, not mine. Except of course that it's my demon, and so they are still of me.

Staring at the moon

A few minutes ago I saw the new moon, a tiny silver paring reclining on her back, straight out over the garden. Since then the clouds have thickened and the rain is now lashing the window. The new moon represents good luck to me, although perhaps luck is a mistaken word for it - luck doesn't draw the tides in and out. For all the power associated with a full moon, it's the perennial renewal of the bare sliver that inspires me.

Of course technically the moon was new on Friday night, only then there was nothing to see. Perhaps if I could never see the moon, if I weren't aware of the cyclical dance in the sky, I would feel no effect from it. I don't really think it matters whether I would or not: she's there as my point of reference, an exterior anchor in my overly-internalised world, humbling but affirming. Sometimes my thoughts feel like narration in a book, and what I see seems like the view through the windows of my eyes. I'm half asleep, a ghost haunting my body rather than living in it. The new moon catches my wandering mind: along with the energy to start afresh comes the realisation that a lifetime's moons are numbered. They are not infinite, and this gives them their value and their power.

The skull and the hourglass that have been emblems of fear to me for so long should really be friends, helping to count out the hours and thereby provide them with their energy. I have always privileged the universal, the timeless and the general, but all they consist of is massed ranks of the personal, the present and the individual. It is impossible and unnecessary to run away into immortal abstractions: the everyday present, and the usual two-legged human existence that everybody else thrives in, is more real. Shivers and sighs and yelps underpin the most elegant metaphor. The comfort of a full stomach, a good night's sleep and a shared bed are as much to be prized as any intellectual achievement. It's just yet another oddness of mine that I have to stare at the moon to work all this out.

At last, a stylish fly swat!

I ate my lunch today in the company of one of those catalogues that remind you why you want to live in a mud hut.

The list of things you can buy from such an emporium of good taste and necessities is inspiring: battery powered tea lights; the name of a star; a bag of luck (shamrock seeds in a brown paper bag - for £9); £96 worth of silver plated bucket (for cooling Champagne, obviously); and a wooden sign consisting of letters to spell out the word "think"... just in case you need a little reminder.

This company is very keen on soaps. A deep pink, heart-shaped offering, hand made in France, is suggested as ideal for a girlfriend or a mother-in-law(??) Even more telling is the rationale proposed for purchasing a boxed set of soaps made to look like birds' eggs: "It's the smallest details which linger in visitors' minds. These ravishing soaps... make a memorable impact." Did you know that the warmth of your hospitality was gauged by the quality of the toiletries you provide? Brown sugar cubes shaped so as to perch on the rim of a coffee cup will afford "your chance to be the hostess with the mostest" and are "perfect for baby showers" - I had a feeling the luxurious lifestyles of our American cousins might have had an impact here somehow.

A thing is never quite what it might be until somebody sells it to you. A tablecloth is jubilantly described as being "from Cabbages and Roses, a brand that is very well established and sought after." So that's all right then. A casserole, which I notice is free from such encumbrances as handles, is of undisclosed materials, but it's OK because we know both who designed it and that it will arrive "exquisitely wrapped".

All this from a firm which proudly declaims William Morris's dictum, "have nothing in your house which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful".

An Eagle

I had never seen an eagle before but recognised him immediately, perched on the highest limb of a dead tree in the field before me. He was motionless, and the only striking thing was his size. As I walked up to the fence he dipped his head slightly, leaning forward into the air and gliding off the branch. He wheeled gently just above the ground and after two beats of his wings was as high as the tree again and now climbing languidly in a wide arc. Suddenly he appeared to hang still in the sky, and then he folded his wings back and plummeted, a dark blur arrowing towards the ground. There was a piercing squeal and then the eagle was in the air again with a small creature in its talons. He flew over to the edge of the wood and I continued my walk up the hill, but the ground in front was as good as invisible to me. My mind's eye was dazzled by him: an agile and lethal creature, and yet the most graceful and inspiring I had ever seen.

The Fare Dodger

He staggered through the train doors just as they closed, so that he had to yank his flapping trouser leg out of the rubber seal. Nobody glanced in his direction as he blundered down the carriage, ricocheting between the seats, clutching at the inadequate bright yellow bumps that were supposed to be handles. Another Friday drunk in a suit. He gained the sanctuary of the toilet and sat down.

As it happened he wasn't drunk, but his hands still shook as he reached out to brace himself against the melamine walls. He suddenly realised he'd forgotten the crucial step of locking the door. As he turned back from it he saw his face in the mirror, dripping with sweat, his lips nearly blue. He slid down onto his knees and half knocked, half rested his forehead against the narrow ledge around the wash basin.

Forty minutes later the guard came past the occupied toilet for the third time, just as the train reached Earslwood. She banged on the door. As he levered himself up on the lavatory pan it occurred to him that an absent ticket would be just as invalid for the next station, but he pushed the thought away. For a moment he couldn't work out how the door opened, and then he was in the bright light of the carriage facing abruptly into a very plump West-Indian lady ticket collector.

He knew he could make it. Carried straight down the aisle by panicking feet, shoving past a pretty girl bending to gather up bags, he nearly fell as he stepped down to the platform. Running up the stairs to the bridge he heard the angry guard's voice shouting at him until it was suddenly silenced by the closing of the train doors.

His vision blurred as he got to the far side of the bridge. He took hold of the rail, swung his body over, and before the surprised stares of 32 people on the crowded platform, landed on the rubble and sleepers only a few feet in front of the Gatwick Express.

Rush at Wembley Arena, London

We had a fantastic time when we went to see Rush last night at Wembley Arena. The band had no support act so they played from 7:30 to 11 with a half hour break. I jotted down a few notes in the darkness, trying not to write on the same pages twice.

Long, long songs followed one after another, each a mosaic of complex rhythms and snatches of melody. This music really is in its own world - at one point a song reminded me of something and I tried to figure out what, until I realised it was itself. Louder pieces opened with a ferocious racket of hissing and spitting and then resolved into a scarcely controlled rampage. At the start of the evening it felt as though the band was performing more to the cameras supplying the screens than to the audience directly. Either I got used to this or they stopped doing it - I didn't notice which. The atmosphere was intense but fairly natural - no great stage posturing.

That said, singer and basist Geddy Lee's eyebrows are like a fouth band member. They never keep still, and have a completely independant existence both from their host and each other. To fill the space left by absent bass amps, this tour he has Henhouse rotisserie ovens, which are tended now and again during the evening by stage-hands dressed in kitchen whites. In the most energetic moments, Geddy skips and hops across the stage like a bunny. His voice pitches into the sound, an integral part of it in a way that surprised me given what I had read of his recording vocals separately. How on earth can he sing for so long? It's like a marathon - sprinted.

This show features pretty impressive pyrotechnics, but no fireworks could compare with the drums. I was awestruck and didn't write down much - I stared at the screens, watching as he switched grip for some songs. Neil Peart is an amazing drummer, but his tech must be no slouch either: the sound is superbly amplified - crisp, easy to distinguish yet resonant and satisfying.

Alex Lifeson opens on a guitar that glints in the light like burnished tortoiseshell. He is a model of restrained behaviour on stage. On his amps there is an array of what appear to be plastic dinosaurs; at the front are a matching line-up of something else - perhaps troll dolls?
At times it was too loud and distorted, but at its best his tone in solos seemed to vibrate in my head as though it were my own voice.

The audience, rows of pale faces in black Tshirts, sat or stood quietly apart from a crescent of more manic souls at the front. Some of the people near us sporting Rush Tshirts looked very bored; they were gone by the second set. Whenever there was near-darkness, blue lights of mobile phones showed up like glow-worms.

As well as the usual big lighting rig, there were several in huge blocks, suspended on cables above the stage. They swooped down like winged creatures coming closer to listen, turning their head as solos shifted from one musician to another. Green blades of lasers pierced the darkness, like beams from the eyes of a monster - and indeed there were lots of dragons on the screens behind. The videos and graphics are a performance in themselves, but of course I couldn't watch and write at once, so I only noted a few bits. In Hold Your Fire, splinters emanated from a ball. Later, images of people with added angelic wings were disturbingly beautiful. The high point was in the drum solo when the graphics were uncannily just what I would see in my mind's eye.

In the darkness at the end of a song, we noticed two very high-tech sound desks - I imagine controlling a lot more than the sound. The band members are like the drivers in Formula One - certainly the stars, but set in a firmament created for them by an incredibly talented team.

A Dream

The island I live on is beautiful. A palm fringed beach surrounds it, and the interior is thickly forested with all kinds of tropical fruiting trees. A shaded pool overhung with creepers and fed by a crashing waterfall provides sweet water. Exotic birds fill the trees with all manner of songs and their plumage flashes in the sun. Life here is easy, with food to hand and time to spare for any diversion I can imagine.

Then one day a ship appeared on the horizon and sailed right in to the island's largest bay. From its anchorage the men of the crew were visible to me, busy with a round of mysterious tasks, swarming up rigging, mending sails, cleaning tackle. They shouted between each other, in raucous voices, curt jokes and harsh commands. I stood on the beach and watched.

The next morning it had gone. I searched along the strand and looked hard at the horizon but no trace of the ship remained. Turning back inland I walked through the trees to the pool and started to swim. The island's sounds surrounded me again and I wondered how long it would be until I forgot the ship, and the crew, and their voices sounding to me across the water.

Champagne and Red Bull

Last night we went out. B works opposite what used to be called the NatWest Tower - a huge skyscraper with a footprint the shape of the NatWest symbol, which is now owned by someone else and called Tower 42. Hmmmm - rather like the architectural equivalent of a tattoo to whoever has since become your ex. Anyway, at the top of said icon of capitalism is a bar called Vertigo. We went there as a special treat.

Vertigo has a dress code, but if you have to ask what it is you're not smart enough. The building is undergoing simultaneous radical refurbishment and enhanced security, so to get to the lift you have to be x-rayed, scanned, frowned at, and then bumble between the hoardings and round corners of a building site feeling like a rat in a badly-designed experiment. You emerge eventually from the designated high speed lift to be met by a yellow chaise-longue with accompanying decoration of submerged exotic plant anatomy. Squeezing past this, you get to another reception desk, and see your first glimpse of The View. The City has very few really tall buildings (which is probably an official name), so from this RTB you get to see pretty much everything in London from the height of bird equipped with an oxygen supply. Just by the desk, the view is amazing - the river, the Eye, Parliament, all the bits you know. Right at this point though a waiter dressed like Chris Tarrant will firmly escort you to you designated area, from where you get an equally amazing view, only this time it's of Shoreditch and Hoxton.

The drinks list is Champagne only (in fairness an enquiry revealed that they do also have fruit juice). Olives and nuts are 8 pounds (no, not each, fortunately). There are 4 stools between 13 of us. We are privileged to be here though, and it's nice to be out in a special place with everyone dressed up. I wander round and look at the view after a while, so you are allowed to. Opposite the windows there is a mirrored wall, which goes round in a circle, making the bar effectively a doughnut with the kitchen in the middle. The ceiling is low, and the accoustics rapidly begin to exercize my voice to the same extent as Pippa on Box Hill. We stay for about an hour and a half, by which time I am feeling stressed by the noise and even more spoiled than normal.

We adjourn to the Throg. This is B's usual post-work watering-hole, and now goes nearly to the top of my list of homes-from-home in London. It's on a side street in the City, the buildings around so over-endowed with interest to me that any companion has to be seriously exciting to compete. Inside the Throg (more properly the Throgmorton) is over numerous floors, nearly all of which seem to be underground. I gather the building was originally the flagship of J Lyons coffee houses, but I just can't imagine it ever as a coffee shop! The walls are covered in small gold tiles, here and there embellished with inlay to create floral motifs - it all has a hint of Arabia to it, combined with an enticing whiff of having seen better times. On the ground floor there's a food shop; below that is the bar, with a restaurant hidden away behind it, and below that again is a games room and a very tatty lavatory. The food (if you'll pardon this insanitary jump) is top-notch normal: I had a Hereford beef burger with cheddar cheese and barbecue sauce that was the best burger I've ever had. And, after all the hanging about watching other people drink Champagne, to my great relief they serve Red Bull, so that's all right.