Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

How's that for organisation?

I have a photography project which requires a certain degree of being in London. I decide I'll go and visit my brother at the weekend (the email may well have read something along the lines of "Hi, Borrow floor this weekend OK? How are you BTW?"). At a similar time he's deciding that he'll get the train down to a friend's house to go sailing over the weekend.

I think we're meeting in Waterloo to transfer keys (his housemate having lent and lost the spare sets). Which means a flying visit now has to extend until he gets back on Sunday. Unless I cheat and get a spare set cut, if we have time.

And only now do I notice that the backlog of washing which existed before going away last weekend, and which was only added to by being away, has meant I have no clean clothes (well I do, I just haven't worn those in years, and the elastic's gone in those pants, and if you think I'm going outside in socks like that...).

So has anyone got any recommendations for quirky urbanesque in London? And don't ask me what that phrase means. The conversation which spawned it was about buildings, age, decay, change, then onto people, and then the effects of lighting to create mood. Which given my lack of tripod and very low f stops, means sun, preferably of the low variety (checks weather: metcheck have a big cloud arriving for lunch on Saturday and staying for a week. The BBC has it's annoyingly imprecise nappy advert [apparently the weather will no longer show wind unless it's significant, and they've ditched isobars and fronts as they disenfranchise the thickos. And is anyone else getting tired of the new anti-Londoncentric romp around the regions which means if you live in Stornoway or Sligo you get half an hour to find out what's going on, whereas everyone else gets a fleeting glimpse, and if you live on the South Coast you're screwed. Who gives a damn about bloody Inverness? Do you think people in Glasgow even care about it? So why do we have to linger there for half the report? Is it because the inhabitants are all a bit hard of thinking, and need more time to read the screen? Admittedly you'd have to be a bit Grundy to live in place where when if it isn't snowing it's raining midges. It's not a case of "come friendly bombs" more "come friendly glacier"*]).

* And the first person to point out that I've never been to Inverness gets a prize. Which may or may not be a special ceremony which my hand and your ear meet in unique conjunction. Ok, so they were cheap shots, but hey, the great thing about cheap shots is that they don't cost much, and that's always good. And I have been to Scotland. Once. For about half an hour. I fell asleep. I didn't notice much difference anyway. We bought some Scottish Rock. It was soft. I think they'd missed the point. But I don't really remember it. The place I thought must have been it was apparently the boundary between Yorkshire and Lancashire. I knew someone had fought a war between the two, and that's what countries do. There's not much difference between country and county really. I only discovered years later when I found the photographs of my brother and I standing either side of a stone with two roses on it, which would be a bit odd if one was Scotland. And somewhere near there is a hill with a bloody-minded ram on it. Know the one I mean?

Shall we move on? Oh yes, do let's.

Reasons not to blog, Number 1: Other people write stuff like this: "I’m going to turn you into pate!" It was shouted a burglar. So are we talking foie gras consistency or only Ardennes? If you use a terrine does it mean it no longer counts as self defence?

I'm sure there was other stuff, but I've got other stuff to attend to (no I haven't forgotten it, merely have it left temporarily unthought. I'm too young to have CRAFT moments, especially as it leads to me exclaiming, in a suitably unsuitable situation, "Cockcroft!". Earlier I'd been asked the name of the guy who does the London weather. I couldn't remember, and then I suddenly did, with mouth engaged. I swear someone will realise that asking me a question whose answer I cannot quite recall is a surefire way to make everyone else think I have some curious form of Tourette's. How long can it be before a Dick and Dom [may they rest in peace] fan asks me on my way into Sainsbury's what those wheel block things under trains are called?).

Anyhoo,