Just what the doctor ordered

I felt like shit this time yesterday - so bad in fact that I didn't think I'd make it to work today.  I take absenteeism seriously; it's a legacy of a Catholic upbringin.  For me even to consider having a sickie requires my feeling truly terrible.  I was exhausted when I reached home last night, so the game was definitely afoot.

The missus was late-ish home, but we decided to pop out for a pre-show cocktail nonetheless.  After returning home, I threw caution to the wind and spent the rest of the evening eating fine foods and drinking fine wines to my heart's content.  I didn't go to bed until nearly midnight, convinced I'd be phoning in sick this morning.  I woke up after 7 hour's undulating and watery sleep (I was woken by a bluebottle.  In February??) feeling much much better, however.  Hmm...chilli, wine and good telly appear to have steadied the ship.  That's good news...I think

Some eye in your sleep

Oh good grief, I'm tired today.  I slept poorly last night, but that's nuttin' new, so why I'm quite so facking knackered today is open to conjecture.  If only I had the energy pour la conjecturage.

I think I must be coming down with something, which troubles me.  My eyes burn with fatigue, but I've done nothing to provoke this.  I'm probably a bit sick then.  Most of the people I work with get the lurgy all the time; they're forever spluttering and hacking up gold watches.  I'm very lucky in this regard.  I rarely get ill, so when I do, it scares the shit out of me.

I'm off home.

The Coast is clear

The missus and I shot down to the coast yesterday.  Don't get excited; it was only the coast of the Thames Estuary in Essex.  The weather has taken a turn for the better over the last couple of days, so we thought we'd make the best of it buying staring at oil tankers entering Canvey and Tilbury.

While this might not sound too glam, the light yesterday was spectacular - worthy of the Pacific coast of California.  Everything, from the most dangerous-looking and prosaic pub to the morbidly-obese locals, looked fabulous.  We had a good old 3-hour march, stopping only for a lunch of pumpernickel bread and cheese on the beach.  Lovely.

From there it was home on the train through Essex to east London.  The light maintained its peerless form all the way.  I swear to Christ that Benfleet looked like Providence, Rhode Island when the train rolled in there.  There were dozen of brightly-coloured fishing boats all lined up along the sea wall next to the station.  All bobbing along in jolly harmony.  It was wonderful.

A Nippon in the air

As we're at a loose end this weekend for a change, the missus and I are in the enviable position of having the whole of London as our plaything on Saturday evening.  It's vital to always have a plan when you live in the the metropolis; otherwise you end up squandering its gifts and are left solely with the sheight bits - the crowding, expense, noise etc.  We were furiously scratching the collective noggin at home last night then when it occurred to me that we hadn't been for a Japanese meal for a yonk or several.

We both adore Japanese grub.  It umami-heavy, which we both enjoy - think Marmite with Worcestershire sauce poured all over it.  It's also possible to stuff one's face with Japanese food and remain lithe and lovely.  That's why the Japs are so trim.  In fact the only downside to it is the amount of salt it contains.  This does lead to seriously high levels of stomach cancer in the land of the rising sun, which, again, helps the populace to stay slender I suppose.

When we lived in north London a few years ago, we discovered a tremendous Japanese restaurant in Camden.  It's dead authentic (like I'd know).  Well, all the staff are Japanese, and one is expected to sit on the floor, cross-legged.  It's uncomfortable, yes, but in a Sunday colour-supplement, north London twat fest way.  

I'm always really mindful of my pees and cues when eating there.  I'm generally a polite person anyhoos, but with the Japanese, particularly so.  They set even greater store by decorum than the English, but they're far too genteel to vent spleen at you for any inadvertent offence caused.  And, as with all things Japanese, eating is pregnant with unstated rules.  A devil-eyed westerner can bone-up on some of these, of course, but not all.  Even rainman would struggle with the myriad complex niceties.

Still, it's worth it.  One little innovation of my own devising would help matters though: hollow chopsticks.  That way one could suck up the miso, using the chopper like a straw, and then wield them in the usual way to see off the noodles and raw kipper.  Bingo.

A tangled web

If London has one overriding virtue, it's its sheer size.  You don't ever really tire of the old place because it would take more than your allotted three and a half score years to become familiar and jaded with it.  This was further evidenced for me today as I had a wander around a then uncharted part of the Isle of Dogs.  I've worked on the isle for five and a half years, but this spot, which is only 10 mins' walk from my desk, is completely new to me.  It's an idyll of suburban calm alongside an old dock, right in the centre of a formerly grimy part of docklands.

I've had stuff like this happen to me in the centre of London too, which is extraordinary when you consider that I'm a native Londoner of some 46 years, who spends all his free time in Soho and environs.  But now and again I'll find myself strolling down some new avenue somewhere, thinking "where the fcuk am I?".  That's what keeps the magic alive.  You can't do that in a town of 5,000 inhabitants, sadly - sorry bucolic types.  You need at least 8 million punters.

My worry about the present construction projects ongoing in Londres, and there are loads, is that the architecture takes no account of the area of London it's proposing to blight.  London, as has been well-documented over the years, is a collection of disparate villages, not a uniform entity.  Each area has its own look and its own ambiance.  When architectural homogeneity takes over, everywhere looks and feels the same.  Take Canary Wharf for example.  It's perfectly fine.  The buildings are well designed and it's clean and easy to navigate, but it has no USP, no birthmark to distinguish it from any other moneyed part of a major world city.

There are developments of this CW kind in both Soho and Fitzrovia, two historic, low-rise areas of central London that thus far have maintained their unique identities.  The new stuff is their to attract Russian money, I'm told.  And our esteemed mayor, Boris, is only too happy to accept their nouveau largesse.  This dolt is going to be remembered in London for centuries, but not for the reasons he supposes.

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."

Kalt following

Jesus wept, it's cold this afternoon.  Not that this should come as a surprise; it's been well-forecast.  It's just that one's ability to objectively recall the pain of cold weather is weak.  I can remember heat pretty well, I think - but not cold.  Why is this?  It doesn't seem on the surface of it to afford me any evolutionary advantage.  Also, I'm London-born to Irish parents.  I was always going to be at the front in the war against shit weather.  That's why I don't tan well.  My skin goes red and then I'm physically sick in hot climes.  

I can see the point of this, though.  My blood wasn't designed to tolerate heat, and evolution hasn't yet come to terms with the rise of budget air travel.  In 50 years, cockneys like myself will no doubt have thick rubbery GM skin that can equally-well withstand alpine Europe in the winter and Dubai in the summer.

But I suppose there is an upside to the chilly temps: the missus and I have a lot of fabulous telly to get through, so it's supper on our knees and the goggle box "on" as soon as we're able most nights.  Last night was "Happy Valley", which is as intense a crime drama and I've ever lain eyes on - and I'm old enough to remember McMillan And Wife.  It's so frantically over-wrought in fact that I dread watching it.  The missus has to insist.  I'm always delighted she does though.  It's absolutely brilliant.

We alighted on this series thanks to a camp barman in a pub in central London.  We were in there one evening in the dead-eyed week between Christmas and New Year.  The boozer was practically empty, and we got chatting to the staff and a nice young couple from Chicago, who where in "London, England" for the night before flying home.  The barman raves so compellingly about H.Val that we had to have it.  It is as good as its shrill hyperbolic billing, however.  When I'm next in that hostelry, I'll tell him so too.

Tonight is "Wolf Hall", with the peerless Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell.  Everyone is being acted off the screen by Rylance.  But no-one fares worse than Damian Lewis as Henry VIII.  This is the worse piece of miscasting since Janette Krankie landed the role of Lolita.  Poor D just isn't magisterial.  He's good-looking, yes, but that's not enough in a production of this haute qualité.  Actually, it is enough for some of my more impressionable female friends.  When the first episode went out, they wouldn't stop tweeting about how marvellous he was in the role, notwithstanding that all the positive notices revolved around his ability to fill a pair a tights.  These are intelligent, professional wimmin d'un certain age too, not dozy young slappers.  They should know better.  Tsk.

Woof! Begorrah...and relax

Well, I'm back at my desk after a tiring weekend at my sister's place in Ireland.  Too much drinking, not enough sleep and approximately half a fluid ounce of exercise have rendered me useless.  I'm physically frail and emotionally running on empty.

It was lovely to spend some time with the sibs and their better halves, as we do this so infrequently as adults, but I always come away from these events feeling slightly down and introspective.  It always occurs to me as I chat with my sisters that we have a lot of collective water until the familial bridge now, and that time is of the essence.  I don't like introspection.  It hurts.

Anyway, back now, so onwards and upwards.  The missus and I have a free weekend this weekend, so I'm not feeling under pressure.  It also helped that I had a day off yesterday, which I spent in industrious, domestic bliss.  I got ton(nes) done.  Again, this industry on my part is another symptom of the time-slipping-by anxiety.  In my 20s, I'd have gone to a gallery or watched an impenetrable art-house film.  Now I regard those pastimes as wasteful and decadent.  My decadent days are behind me I'm afraid.