Things slow down

I hate Buck Pal. I hate that overindulged heresiarch whore Victoria squatting in oversized representation outside the gates, dewlap jowls and voluminous skirts an allegory for all of Empire, and the easy forgetting of the million screams it took to build it. And I got another reason to hate Buck Pal tonight which was just how peaceful and ease I felt wandering around it with all the other Commonwealth drones buzzing in aesthetic rapture around their marble Queen Bee. This was entirely ideologically unacceptable to me.

Thank heavens for the crow sitting on the Queen Victoria Memorial, defecating on it and then singing.

Today was absolutely wonderful though. I mean it was wonderful in every way. Stuart and I started the day really slowly with coffee and toast and a lot of catching up on social media.

Then I caught the tube alone to Upton Park to meet my friend Nick whom I had met on Twitter many years ago. Nick is an ebullient, clever, sweet and handsome Canadian. The part of London he was showing me was so different to Vauxhall: it was far more multicultural, scruffier, less corporate, grungy, and the streets were filled with houses with bay windows. I felt absolutely at ease there. It reminded me of a couple of different neighbourhoods I saw in the 1990s in Australia: Cooks Hill in Newcastle; Newtown in Sydney; Brunswick in Melbourne.

When I got back, Stu was raving about Victoria which, it turns out, is not merely an underground portal from purgatory to hell, but a thriving neighbourhood next to Buckingham Palace. We went to Rail House Victoria and were nearly turned away by the Maître B (The B is for Bitch) until we told her we would like to eat dinner and spend many of the money. Suddenly we had our choice of tables. A slow cooked lamb (fussily prepared, but strictly traditional in flavour) and a coconut chicken (fricken bizarre flavour profile, but magnificent really) and we were very happy. It was all very posh, by which I mean that paying for it hurt, but we will eat pub food tomorrow, and probably in most places from now on. Maybe Guildford will have a Michelin Star restaurant. Or at least, a Michelin Star KFC.

Tonight I went for a walk to Tesco on my own. Seeing Vauxhall on a Saturday night, full of gay guys who all look amazing, was one thing. But being in the cleaning products aisle of Tesco with the good looking gay introverts who had domestic Saturday night plans? I was in my element.

I needed a slower day. This happens every trip, you know. I start out wrecked and finish up wonderfully.

Off to the British Museum tomorrow. I am excited about the gift shop.Read more