Saturday 6 March 2004

Hello. Today was a long day, but we were very vague and got little done I think. John might be a working man these days, but we still have different apprehensions of how time works on weekends.

Went into Wimbledon for a quick look at CD Warehouse, and I came out with two early Fall albums, Live at the Witch Trials and Dragnet. John ran into a girl he knew from church and afterwards said how unlikely it was that that should happen.

We went to the Tate Britain and looked at the pre-Raphaelite exhibition and looked at the pictures. "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like." Actually, I'm not even sure what I like. John likes Turner, dislikes Constable. On the way out I ran into the man who used to run the AV department of Exeter University library. I know it was him because I asked him, and when he said he was I said I hoped he was having fun.

We ate at a Wetherspoons at Canary Wharf, where I paid too much for a five-bean chilli which, to be fair, was very nice. It had tortilla chips and rice. And I did some lunchtime drinking while John clung to his sobriety. I had a pint of Dob's something or other, brewed in Devon, which was somehow reassuring. Reminded of how John doesn't find children very easy to deal with, and would rather get some distance between himself and them. I'm the same with animals, though I do appreciate them in the abstract. On some bizarre little train back from da wharf we ended up quite close to a very loud child who kept moaning for no readily apparent reason. Poor John.

We thought we might go to the Science Museum, but neither of us knew where it was. South Kensington apparently, so there we went. Either I'm to morbid, or John is too squeamish, but we went to a special exhibition about pain, compassion and religion, and followed that up with a trip to the top floor which is about medicine through time and different cultures. Both of these things were gruesome, but interesting. Saw some shrunken heads too. Strange idea. Apparently the were meant to pass on the virtues of whoever's head it was.

We came back and John used the internet to talk to Paul and browse the internet. After a fairly long time John put some pizza in the oven. When it came out of the oven, I determined the existence of cherry tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes squirt a little way if you're not careful.

Went to a loud pub in the evening, forget what it was called, but it's right by the site of a little market which we went to today (Sunday). We sat in the non-smoking area and talked religion and families, to a soundtrack of mostly Alanis (Uh-LAN-is) Morisette (Mo-ri-SET). I had some Essex-brewed bitter to drink which was 5% but not very nice, and then opted for coke.