Oh dear, it might be autumn...

Well, here it is Sunday evening and I'm still feeling like a hippo from lunch. After a very nice (but unfortunately short, only 30 miles) bike ride through increasingly autumnal London, I met up with Adrian, David, Avi, and Avi's beau of the month, whose name eludes me. They've apparently been on several dates and still haven't even made it to first base. Truly shocking behaviour - I'm thinking of organising an intervention for Avi - he's losing his touch... Anyway, we went to a pub at the north end of Camden, just at the edge of Chalk Farm (far enough out of Camden to be away from the huge crowds and homeless people, but close enough to be still uber-trendoid) and had Sunday Roast. We all had lamb, except David, who, for some bizarre reason, had chicken. I mean, really - if you're going to have 9 million calories, you might as well go the whole hog and have lamb (I'm sure there's irony in that sentence somewhere, but I'm too lazy to find it). We sat out in the back, in the beer garden (only seats available), breathing in everyone's smoke, which was pretty spectacular, and freezing as the temperature decided to plummet. Headed up the hill after that for yummy dessert at a little cafe with brightly coloured cupcakes in the window. In my book that's a sure mark of a quality bakery - big fluffy, bright cupcakes. I had the chocolate chiffon cake and a fresh peppermint tea. Mmmm...

I biked down to Vauxhall after that, to momentarily rescue Robin from boredom. His friend Mike (who owns a sex store) is in from Munich, and Mike wanted to go to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern to stand around outside with the various drunk and dishevelled queens (too much partying over the weekend) and schmooze (neither Robin nor Mike had been out over the weekend...) The funny thing about the RVT (there are many funny things) is that it's this little shit pub right by a train station, and right by a very busy road. There are a number of clubs and bars in the immediate vicinity, under the arches of the railway, as well as a horrible little park out back, where the trashed gay boys and their fag hags tend to congregate in the summer after partying the weekend away (I have, of course, never done that, and just read about it once in a book, which I then promptly burned). Across the railway is the very imposing headquarters for the MI5 (or is it MI6? Can't remember). Anyway, here, on a Sunday afternoon/evening, at the edge of one of the busiest streets in London, one can always find a (very) ragtag group of gay men of various shapes, sizes and ages, standing around outside the RVT, smoking and talking. A number of them will be just your ordinary pub goers, but at least half of them will have been out the entire weekend, taking unmentionable amounts of illegal substances, and will be standing outside, no matter what the weather, often shirtless, having their beers, happily oblivious to the stares of the passersby, the bus passengers, and the many West Africans who live in the area. The police, who I'm entirely sure have full knowledge of all the silliness that goes on in Vauxhall, seem to look the other way, as long as people behave themselves and don't generally cause a ruckus. I guess, when it comes down to it, if you have a group of drunk and belligerent hetero "lager-louts" causing fights, or a gaggle of saucer-eyed, loved-up gay men, it's not hard to guess which is more likely to cause problems... Anyway, the point of all that is that I stopped by there to say hello to Robin, who was standing around, bored out of his skull while Mike flitted about from group to group like some hairy German butterfly. A very odd situation indeed. (I do like Mike very much, I should add, even if I find him occasionally ridiculous).

Yesterday, what did I do yesterday? Ooh, getting geriatric... Oh, I know - I went running, went to the gym, had a very healthy lentil-heavy, vegetarian lunch at the lesbian cafe (followed by several trips to the bathroom... sigh - the wonders of roughage), and we all sat around on our collective asses last night and watched Angels and Demons. Now if that wasn't a big wet "I'm sorry" kiss to the Catholic Church I'm not sure what is...

And I spent two days, Thursday and Friday, at my first ever computer programming class (MapBasic), where I realized that my brain just doesn't work that way, and that computer languages are definitely created by people without girlfriends.

And finally - the Robin crime saga... The police said they are going to drop the case b/c (of course), the CCTV cameras at the bottom of the hill weren't pointed in the right direction (of course) and they are too lazy and donut-starved to bother with any of the cameras coming up the hill. Go lame-ass British police! Oh, and just to really sparkle things up, poor Robin had the seat and seatpost stolen off his bike last week as well. It is distinctly possible this household might be having politically incorrect thoughts at the moment about ghetto trash, I mean, certain members of the less fortunate.

And that brings me up to now, 7pm on a Sunday, when it is depressingly dark and cloudy outside. Heading into the winter dark... I'm going to have to get my happy-lamp out soon at work (and piss off everyone else in the process...) :-)