"The higher the buildings, the lower the morals..."

Come! Come!  The night is young and there is much to see...

Boy howdy does a lot happen when you're not expecting it! Whereas all I could present to you four days ago was an a hand job at 20,000 ft we now have a veritable smorgasbord of occurrences and happenings that it is my pleasure (my extremely narcissistic pleasure) to document.

I'm back in Starbucks. I buy a filter coffee for £1.50 and furtively rescue the marshmallow Rice Krispie bar lurking at the bottom of my bag and hope no one says anything as I nibble it. No one ever does but all it takes is one beleaguered employee in a green apron whose girlfriend told him that "you're just not the man I want to spend the rest of my life with" last night and is itching for a fight but was never any good on sports days and so instead takes sadistic pleasure in throwing me out for bringing in outside food. He probably has low self esteem.

I'm projecting this all on name-tag David. He looks the type.

Any way, I'm here again because of the wish to save the internets that came with the dongle I got offa Vodaphone. Dongle. Sounds a bit rude. Wayhey...

Not that I didn't try to get the blasted internet working at home. Landlady's away for her holidays so it was just me poking at the damned router trying to figure out what was going wrong.

I thought I'd cracked it. We'll just hook up the laptop to the router via wire, the way we did in Madrid! We all remember Madrid.

The problem was this. To get to where the other end of the router was located I had to wade through a room full of all the oddments of 45 years that had accrued in my landlady's study/lounge/spare room.

In fact, the house itself is full of such oddments.

The point is this; the house is a little cluttered because of the aversion to tidying.

Well, I say a little...

So there I am, trying to attach the wire to get what should have been wireless internet. I'm cursing the lack of light; the bulb is blown and I'm relying on the light filtering in from the next room. I look up and realise I am being watched.

I am being watched by hundreds of pairs of glassy, lifeless eyes from the stuffed animals that range the room. And these are not your typical Build-a-Bear animals with lolling smiles and hearts for noses. These are the animals that come up from time to time on Antiques Roadshow. The animals with black, black eyes and oddly stitched grimaces. There is a ventriloquist's dummy with the jaw broken at a frankly alarming angle. The silence is overpowering, which is odd as outside the window there should be a main road. Disturbed by ABSOLUTELY NOTHING an old rabbit tumbles down the slope of a duvet stacked against the shelves.

I get the fuck out of there.

Haven't been in since.

Lessee, Sunday me and a friend did a frankly appalling thing and I became the person I hoped never to be. With the ink on prestigious degrees still drying (well, on mine anyway, I'm the newer graduand) and jobs in the City waiting for us we sat in Regent's Park, drank champagne and lunched on Whole Foods purchases.

Mind you, the champagne was on offer and hadn't even been put in the refrigerator, for pesto's sake and we barely had the ice to chill it dahlin'!

Loved every guilty minute.

On Monday I was clawed a by a rabbit. Clawed, I tell you! I grant you it was like being mauled by limp lettuce but still! I only tried to give the bloody thing its dinner and this is the thanks I get...

"Come here rabbit, that's a good rabbit, nice pellets, nom nom nom, let me stroke yo..YOU LITTLE PRICK!"

We have no idea/cant be arsed to remember the thing's name so we have christened it Fucking Nuisance.

And when I turned round from feeding Fucking Nuisance (FN for short) I am faced with what I can only describe as the opening scene from Lost World. You remember, the second Jurassic Park where the wee girl is on the beach and she's stupid enough to feed the little Compsognathus-es (Compys) and they eat her?

I turned around and there was a cat trying to eat me.

I like and respect cats. I love dogs because I understand dogs. I speak their language.

Growl = no me gusta, back off.
Head dipped, tail up = I want to play
Circle = I want food
Belly up = I am submissive, also, rub my tummy
Whine = I am upset
Loud bark, tail stiff = I think I'm the Sherriff of the world, get the f**k out of Dodge before I eat you.
Loud bark, tail wagging = God you look interesting, come be interesting over here.

I thinks cats mainly just want food. Cats are equals, fiercely independent and tough little sumbitches.

It was waving it's spread claws at me and meowing; it stretched up and down making little clawing motions at me.

"God, I don't know what you want! Take my money!! Also, don't eat the rabbit..."

It was showing a large amount of interest in poor old FN who was swiping again. You ain't got the stuff to face this kitty FN, put that limp wrist away.

Long story short (I almost never use this phrase) the bloody thing is still prowling around outside.

In other news, I am a recent and fervent convert to the London bus. I had been a lover of the Tube. I loved the wee map and the trains and the sense of "I'm very busy and important, look at me not making eye contact because I charge clients for that shit."

But the bus; oh it costs £1.50 a go to go anywhere and you get to see the beautiful city. You feel like you're on your own little tour of London as sights like The Shard and the Gherkin, St Pauls and The London Eye come in and out of view suddenly and excitedly like a magician's silk scarves. You get to speed through areas you've only read about; Whitechapel and Stepney and Westminster and Highbury and Islington.

I took the route to work yesterday just to get used to it. I did it on the way to help a dear friend move into her own London accommodation. Accommodation that I had scoped and signed for her after her own stressy searchings through Spareroom. I were in London. I were free. I am experienced in such matters. I was only too pleased to help.

I tell you I could have been a solicitor if I wanted. I drew up the contract and when I say I drew up the contract I put bare terms down exactly on two black sheets of A4 paper and got both parties to sign. This will be the only time I give a little bit of advice from my own legal education. Do NOT fret about short term leases. The facts are these. You've already made a contract from the moment you both agree to lease, from the deposit is paid and keys are handed over. This is the essence of contract, Written proof is essential but think of it as merely evidence to prove the contract (v v v simplified, my teachers would be appalled). You don't need to download form H39N3 or summat from a verified website and sign in triplicate. Juts have something, anything written down.

Speaking of lodgings, I love where I live but it can get lonely of an evening. I have good friends here, friends who I can go get beigels with (yes, that's how you spell the proper stuff and they're delicious and cheap and in the same shop on Brick Lane you get a jam doughnut for 30p) and who bring me banana bread made by a girl who could sell that stuff for thousands and I'd buy it. But in the evenings it's just me and George Alagiah on BBC News at 6pm. Last night we had chicken, pesto and pepper pizza with a Pinot Noir and spoke of harnessing the same reactions at the heart of the sun via copycat experiment in the South of France."

"...with his report on fusion there. And speaking of the power of the sun, what's the weather like?"

"Ahaha, oh George. Marry me."

Jon Snow and Channel Four are just an hour too late to take me out to dinner.

On a related note, the great and all knowing Mother has already asked if I've managed to meet any nice boys in London, sure you have to put yourself out there, don't hide away in your room, always have a bit of make up on to look your best..."

"You know Ma, in some cultures it is the responsibility of the parents to arrange compatible and lasting partners for their offspring."

"Pure laziness."

She just wants grandbabies to dote on. Not now mind. Not for a good decade. But still, someday...

And so on that note we depart, but I'll in all likelihood be on the wireless sooner than we think because someone's got a birthday this weekend!!

Just to clarify, that someone is indeed me.

I got some nice celebratory stuff arranged and might just go and see about a dress I've been eyeing up at Chapel Market. It won't fit me. They never do. The word "fit" in itself should point to how dresses and the like are calculated. You're supposed to look fit in them.

Shoes on the other hand. I'm a size five/four and a half. Shoes never let me down.

So a dress or shoes. I have £20 to spend given that I haven't even earned my first pay yet. But under the intermittently cloudy/blue sky of London on a gentle Thursday anything is possible.

Anything at all.

xo