pumpkinstrokemarrow

Pleased at Waterloo station to find that someone somewhere has been listening. Some of the retail buildings in the concourse are being dismantled, returning a bit of space to tired commuters to concourse in.

Onto the various beach furnishings which have been installed around the RFH and QEH. Maybe Boris was been so entranced by his success at copying the Parisian bicycles that he was moved to copy their beach - albeit on a rather smaller scale. But I can report that at least one young mother was sufficiently impressed that she had her toddler building sand castles on it. I wondered how they will keep the thing clean - something we used to find a bit of a problem when we had a sand pit.

Then up to the roof garden, a rather smaller affair than I was expecting. All seemed a bit contrived to me, although it was nice and sunny up there and a pleasant place to snooze in. A lot of the smaller plants had been imported from Wisbeach and a lot of the larger ones, in rather small pots, must have taken a lot of watering to keep in the land of the living. A sort of low grade imitation of the show gardens that are de rigueur at flower shows these days - not that I like them very much either. A pretentious version of flower arranging.

After which it was time for lunch, for which purpose we decided to try the gourmet pizza place in the Gabriel's Wharf collection. Plenty of action in Google, but they do not appear to have their own site, while Pizza Express have hijacked http://www.gourmetpizzacompany.co.uk/ and arranged for this url to be a proxy for their own site. So even respectable folk go in for cyber-squatting. Internet non-existence notwithstanding, excellent location and ambience - in our case supported by a Croatian waitress who was old enough to have been taught that much of Croatia used to belong to the land of pizza. At least, the Venetian part thereof. Starter and pizza entirely adequate and supported by a very good value Valpolicella. Tiramisu good and clearly from a factory. It was properly firm, not soggy like a trifle. The sponge bits were still spongy.

Back home to read about another bit of culture, in this case a whole lot of cellophane sheeting hung off the ceiling and a leading contender for the Turner Prize. I grant that the thing was not offensive - it was neither made of unsavoury detritus nor obscene - but it was more or less vacant - at least it appeared so from its picture in the DT. For how much longer are these arty types going to con us out of our mostly hard earned money by persuading us to give them space and grant for this sort of rubbish? When will the emperor's new clothes be seen as such? This particular story is clearly required reading at all respectable universities of creative arts.