Lunchtime by the river
Hello! You look happy.
Wait… are we really using this format? Isn’t it borderline psychotic?
Aren’t we all borderline psychotic? And Tim Harford gets away with talking to himself like this every week in the FT. Is that an ice-cream?
Of course. One of the new perks of our new office is a strategically parked ice-cream van right by the river.
Lovely. But you can’t survive on ice-cream alone.
We’ve also got nice people selling soup, and Borough Market for lunching.
Is everything really going to be about food? What else has been going on?
Well, there was egg hunting with Abbi two weekends ago…
Enough about food already!
No no – not eggs to eat – but big and beautifully designed eggs scattered across London for charity. Emily and I joined a long list of people who helped Abbi out on her quest to photograph them all.
What a good friend you are.
Aw, shucks. But not really – we had the easy day, when it was all sunny out and not pouring with rain. Plus, let’s balance it out with the fact that I got my first tour of the Mayhew from Joshua that day. He’s only been working there for years.
Well, better late than never. Any other friends you’ve belatedly caught up with recently?
Funny you should ask: this week I caught up with Matt, Caroline and Laura one night in The Banker –
– The Banker? –
Oh, that’s our awesome new post-work pub. And then Oliver and I went to Camden the next night for Italian food and a jug of sangria.
Oh look, food again.
Yeah but come on: Camden! Sangria! It’s such a soothing mental balm of happy memories and tasty indulgence.
Sangria does seem to work for you.
Tell me about it. This week is a year since I persuaded Grace along.
Aw, that’s sweet. You should mark this anniversary by conspiring with her uni friends to turn up unexpectedly at the weekend to say hi.
Great minds.
Anything else?
I went to the opera? Aida at the Albert Hall. It’s an amazing space, although I don’t think opera is really for me – at least, it’s nothing like booting a flagging reading list up a little bit by reading Angela Carter’s The Magic Toyshop, which I also did recently.
What did you think?
Well, Angela Carter will always hold a special place in my heart. And although this isn’t my favourite of hers, for some reason discovering that it was published way back in 1967 (I thought it was later) improves it for me. You can just feel the sexual revolution running through it, tearing through the old world without knowing where it’s all going to end up.
Oh, to be young 40 years ago?
Not quite. Nostalgia is bad enough without imbibing the nostalgia of your parents’ generation too. But I do wonder what the next lot will make of us.
