Tasty

Another early start. Arrived at Farringdon at 8:30, pausing to buy a bacon sandwich from 'Tasty Cafe', which Toby would have liked, as tasty is my brother's highest accolade for food, modified in Japan for oishii, which means the same.

A cheery Friday atmosphere pervading the office, full of colourful East End characters, who among their obvious talents at layout and design, swear vividly and often.  Two of them were talking about John Terry, the Chelsea football captain, who is in disgrace this week for racially abusing another professional during an ill-tempered game. One of them related a heartfelt story about how Terry phoned a dying fan, a friend of a friend, who had a young family. Terry spoke to him for two hours and was nothing but kind. The designer ended his story by saying 'of course, he's still a f*****g c**t though'.

Fairly joyously released back into the wild, artfully dodging down Passing Alley towards the station. A couple of months of being back in the rat race has honed my survival skills. For example, there is lots of competition for seats in the first carriage, for many it is about being able to get out first when we finally reach Brighton station. For me it is about securing a nicer chair. For in the dire First Capital Connect trains, only the first carriage has nice seats with arms. My technique is simple. I board the second carriage and walk through the connecting doors. As everyone bottlenecks in the doors of the first carriage I am already sitting coolly in a good seat. Commuting does this sort of thing to your mind, making you otherise and loathe fellow commuters.

Home to my Lorraine. We went out for a couple of beers and then a tasty curry. All well with the world.

Below my last short walk this lunchtime: a wall on the side of a house in Sans Walk, which seems to say that this wall is everything that Middlesex owns. Also an iPhone snap of a TV in the office, with a politician's head partially blotting out the 'Liberal Democrat Image' sign.