Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

I was in Lonedom the other day. I went for a "key industry event" for an industry I'm not currently in, where I learnt I knew much of it, found myself drowning under free linen bags—the event had 'Eco' in the name, so all holistic hemp, Hessian and holier-than-thou, except actually there was a lot of dubiously bad greenwashing [feign well, damn you], and companies who didn't quite get the concept wondering why the plastic bags of plastic bumpf for plastic products weren't shifting—wandering slightly dazed by the oppressiveness of the Proprietary Spreadsheet Software and scintilla-less displays that leave one wondering what the company behind them does, and then hearing my name shouted.

Turns out a friend was manning a stall there, along with giving some of the talks, and my arrival usefully got her out of being accosted by a woman wanting to know why no one was lobbying in the Jamaican government (ah, I'd forgotten the marvels of the logic of the general public), and suddenly free to seek out a talk she'd been recommended, except it took so long to find the listing in the guide and then the place that we missed it. So we adjourned, skipping the overpriced attempt at a pub, to sit on the steps in the sun outside taking drugs (she described mine, having had them explained to her, as 'serotonin supplements' which probably a good way of putting it).

And then we both did slightly lacklustre. There's affection, but a lack of current commonality; she reminds me of where I am not, what I am not, and she is only what I am not, so engulfed, mired, by the job I no longer do, all else planned to be collected at some future, unspecified, wayside. Which might explain why she's ill and I'm subdued.

It's odd to look at someone at wonder where their vitality went, and how I can help them get it back.

And then we parted, neither our best selves, our freest. I disappeared to be happy yet insular, she to be the latter. I'd booked to go to the theatre, yet had only booked one ticket because no one else wanted to go regardless of when. I mean, I know it's a show of a film, but so are most of them (seriously, there's already a King's Speech on? I haven't seen the film yet), and I like the film.

Anyway, so I saw a show where the drencher (technical term that. No, really, it is. Theatres have to have them. They're basically a safety curtain made of water) came on half-way through so they had to spend the interval mopping. That and there were shrieks from the expensive seats (guess who was nearly next to Zeus) because the momentum of the dancers was being artfully displayed.

So that was fun, apart from the Polish people behind me practising their chuchotage and the man in front who, despite apparently having come on his own, so not under duress, had earphones in, was listening to BBC Ici, and kept checking the BBC sports page throughout the show. So people are odd. I wonder if one day that won't surprise me.

Anyway, I liked it, even if it's a show based on a theme created around a song and the dropped g annoys me, although at least they have an apostrophe.

And then I went out into the night, blithely skipping through traffic, along kerbs, not quite into puddles because it is Larnden and it had been a sunny day so that water lying there, well, best not to taste it, and through the bright, happy, laughing city, across its beauty, and then into a final sprint to the platform, pegging it to the far train, scanning for seats and barrelling into the first and last.

And so home to bed, trying not to notice too much the young guy, with his parents on the way from the theatre, not knowing a three letter word for fish eggs despite the accent that was paid for, while I try not answer and to look elsewhere only to find that a quirk of layout means his eyes are all I can see in the window to the left, to the right, and even staring up at the luggage rack.

Not that he was cute cute, just the best looking man of reasonable age within eyesight at the time, so yes, it was a small pond, but he probably would have done fairly well in pond double the size.

One which point, good night.

Anyhoo,