Sophie and a CSR

Off up to the Smoke today. First to Highgate to see Sophie. We snuck off for lunch in a pizza place, where Andros joined us, full of information about anaesthetics. Sophie talking about a new insight that Buddhism has taught her: that we know we can influence our cast of mind for the good, because we can influence it negatively with such ease. Then back to Sophie's office. She is pitching for new business on Friday and we brainstormed with her assistant Suzie about this for a couple of hours before I left them to it.

I tubed down to the South Bank to go to the Poetry Library. Bizarrely, however, there was the Marks & Sparks AGM taking up the whole of the Royal Festival Hall. I felt vaguely affronted by this: selling off the cultural crown jewels for a spot of corporate lucre. But of course if it helps keep it all going, that's fair enough. I was told the Poetry Library was open but I had to go to the artist entrance. Rude security guards told me to wait to be escorted up to the fifth floor, and after waiting for five minutes for the guide to arrive, I lost patience. Instead drifted about the South Bank where I worked about 14 years ago. Peered into the side of the IBM building into the room I used to sit with Reuben, Kate, Anton, Marja and lots of my other folks who are still friends.

Chatted on the phone to Bob and Anton, and then went to the bar at the Young Vic where I met First Matie and Reuben. For a long-overdue CSR (Copy Shop Reunion). Great to all be together again, after some years, and threads picked up instantly. We popped into a couple of pubs and ended up strapping on the nosebag in a very good Indian Restaurant opposite Waterloo Station. Really fast service, and lovely delicate food.

After fond farewells with Kate who has decided to return to live in London, Reub and I caught the fast train with a minute or two to spare, and put the world to rights all the way to Brighton.

Lorraine and Calliope snoozing in my bed when I got home, L having larged it with some of her mates in the Sussex Yeoman.

Below some shots of the area around the IMAX theatre near Waterloo Station. This was when I first worked at the South Bank a cardboard city of homeless people, and it is still a place where people come to beg. But it looks beautiful now. This kind of planting always reminds me of one of my favourite Sci-Fi scenarios, when all people have been eliminated and nature begins to reclaim the cities.