pumpkinstrokemarrow

The second of the two went down better for my knowing it reasonably well. The first was a touch loud; Douglas being able to make a great deal of noise - but with very little in the way of body movement. Thumper maybe, but not a flamboyant thumper; he must have much power in his hands and forearms. Enough power that sometimes the (Steinway) piano was not able to cope and made complaining noises.

Lunch in the form of egg sandwiches made from my very own bread, out of the oven the previous afternoon, in the church yard.

On the way to Old Street, I had been saddened to find that the fine old tobacco shop which might have given its image to 'Old Holborn' cigarette tobacco has shut. A notice in handwriting worthy of a graphologist directed customers to Smiths in Charing Cross road, an establishment which is old-fashioned enough not to have a web site although it has a considerable web footprint. As luck would have it though I came across a branch of Nicolas in Cowcross Street (appropriately, very near what is left of the central markets at Smithfield) which had a reasonable selection. Settled for the junior relative of the Siglo IV cigars reported on on August 5th. Quite dear enough for me.

Home via Balham, a place where I had a bedsit for a while, while in transit from East Anglia. Having a few minutes to wait for a connection it seemed proper to make sure that the Bedford Arms was still present, which it was, although a little quiet. Decent pint of wallop, but what brand I do not remember. Slightly taken aback to have a young lady hold the door for me as I went back in for a refill. Slightly annoyed to find that the plastic netting which makes up most of my shiny new trainers, strong as steel at room temperature, was as dust in the face of a bit of cigar ash. Must see if I can get some toecaps for the next pair. Then, by way of diversion, there was an old chap going down the road in his mobility scooter, all dolled up with indicator lights and registration plate. Decent of him to get off the pavement but I would not care to drive such a thing in Balham's rush hour traffic. Much safer on a bicycle.

On the way back to the station, found that the station wall had been decorated with a number of works of cement art, one of which is illustrated. Don't think that they were there in my day.

Onto the platform where there were lots of people, mainly quite young. A lot younger mix than you get, for example, at Waterloo. Being a recent convert to red braces, those of one young lady caught my eye. Rather expensive looking things, but worn hanging down rather than up and over the shoulders. The man in Lester Bowden had not mentioned that aspect of the fashion.

PS: the continuing drip of Darling revelations only goes to confirm my belief that Brown was in power for too long. All those years of being surrounded by toadies had clearly gone to his head. Perhaps if we could go back to the days when things were actually debated in Cabinet and when prime ministers were occasionally overruled by the sub-prime ministers, their peers, prime ministers would get chucked out by the voters before they started to confuse themselves with the Almighty. Losing the occasional vote would slow down the onset of dementia. Did Blair having to confess all to his confessor slow the onset down in his case?