Brr. Back in London.

I feel like I'm not achieving. I resolve to make a stack of resolutions on Thursday morning, and then get even more annoyed at not managing to keep any of them. I think it's something to do with hanging around in book and record shops, and not seeing anything produced by me on a special stand with a “prices slashed” sticker on. I'd love to be in a bargain bin. At least that would mean that someone had had the faith to print/press up several thousand of the things in the first place.

After mooching around feeling envious, I dragged partner for something to eat at Kettners. (Well, it is Christmas…)

Look. Bottom right. Bill Oddie. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. But no matter how many Hawaiian shirts he might have put on, he was never going to experience anything other than light drizzle. Except, perhaps, heavy drizzle. That'll learn him to dress inappropriately.

Once again, I found myself in the basement of the Virgin Megastore. There were even more kids than usual “having a go” on “the stuff”. One lad laid down a horribly repetetive funk riff that would have seen him ejected immediately from the JB's or Funkadelic, for unprecedented timewasting. His dad stood next to him, exercising considerable self control and managing not to snatch the instrument away from him and suggesting he buys a set of encyclopaedias instead. Opposite, another boy (unrelated) played dismal slap bass. They were not working together on the same piece of music. Cacophony.

I am trying to learn to play slap bass myself, but more as an education on reasons why it should never, ever be used in popular music. Anyway, I took a pic of the delightful scene: