In South Hackney I pass Vietnam's Finest Nail Salon. It's definitely not.
In Moorgate, Crossrail intrudes. A large group of workmen are sitting in a row outside a cavernous construction site, chatting and smoking fags. In the old days this would have been called a tea break.
In the Barbican, the queue to enter the Rain Room is already fifty people long. It doesn't open for another half hour, and this is only midweek. Not today, then.
In the Museum of London, half a dozen school trips are making their way around the building. One teacher is trying ever so hard to keep her little darlings quiet before they go in, but Alfie isn't having it. Another group is behaving impeccably wandering around the Medieval London gallery with clipboards. Downstairs a gentleman in a top hat is introducing himself to a class of children, but they don't seem to have cottoned onto the fact he's Mr Charles Dickens and are making an excitable racket. It's not the best day to be looking round.
In Burnt Oak, the wind is so strong that the letter 'O' flies off the front of the Golden Buffet Island restaurant and lands on the pavement near the bus stop. One of the 'E's, or maybe the 'A', look like they'll be next.
In Watford, next to what used to be the Post Office, I get round to buying a new camera. It's no expensive SLR, just another point-and-shoot, but I'm looking forward to dumping my crappy Samsung brick at the earliest opportunity.
In Earl's Court I walk around the edge of the doomed exhibition centre, amongst delegates emerging from Pet Ex 2013. I incorrectly assume this is a gathering of animal lovers, whereas in fact it's a petroleum industry love-in. Signs outside give the dates of next November's expo, but not the location, which probably won't be here if the demolition men have moved in by then. Just how many more prestige housing developments does west London need?
In West Acton I stop for a cup of tea and discuss the newtube map. Apart from the orange loop, and a couple of step-free stations, there doesn't appear to be anything different to the last one.
In Ealing I'm taken for a guided tour of 2011 riot hotspots, including a murderous alleyway and a boarded-up cafe that's never recovered from the night's destruction.
In Bow, it pisses down.
(there's an interesting commercial connection between two of these locations, which I'll tell you about later...)
