the absolute best bookstore is powells city of books in portland oregon. its a whole city block and three stories high.

largest bookstore with a million books or more, and independently owned.

and all those old ones you cant find easily anyplace.

^^^
Been there many times; I concur.

You would've liked Tattered Cover in Denver some years back. Three stories, though a 1/2 (1/4?) city block.

Over the years, it's faded to a shadow of what it once was, unfortunately.

A city block is about half a furlong, right?

"Am I interrupting your lunch?" Just a few walnuts. Can't seem to get them out of my teeth, and bits fly out of my mouth every time I speak. But this lady is too polite to acknowledge she's being driven by some kind of village idiot slob. The Edward VII Hospital is where the Royal Family prefers treatment. First rule of royalty: never eat garlic or walnuts. And to Aldwych tube station this evening for a tour. It closed in 1994, and I never used it IRL. Used a lot as a movie set these days, and it shows. Not the authentic time-capsule that careful readers of this blog will remember Euston was.

I’ve been to Covent Garden; it was years ago. Forgot how I actually got there by the underground. I think I was being lead about by my friends from France. It’s all so strange to suddenly pop up from the tube and be thrust into the open-air chaos of London. Rather fun in a way.

I was sorry to hear of the passing of Mr Swire, one of my Knowledge examiners. An unusually intelligent man, by all accounts. I had him twice, the first time when I was 2-2 on 56s, and at the end he hummed and harred, and technically should not have scored me, but was sympathetic and said I had the talent, and he was right. I scored 7-1 before encountering him again, 2-0 up on 21s, just two away from doing it. One impossible 21s points exam, all obscure blocks of flats on the Isle of Dogs, just to let me know, that this is the Knowledge. Following two exams I got beaten up by Gunning and Patel over some more of the finer geographical points, although Patel eventually scored me. Final exam was my first with Harvey, statistically the easiest examiner, but still a sharp guy. What’s the future of it, I got to ask him at the end. It’s okay, but numbers are declining. No wonder; it is an absurd thing to do, and I still can’t quite believe I did it, or even began to do it. People like us, though.

Day offski. Some pints in a Wetherspoons that used be the Marquee, and dinner at Govinda’s. Hare Krishna. Think I once saw the Three Johns at the Marquee.

^^^

"English White Boy Engineer".

Aren't all engineers by definition, White Boys? Especially in England.

*****************

The "Isle of Dogs" sounds very interesting.

******************

Your memorization and testing for 'The Knowledge' sounds like something from the 8th circle of Hell. I think you have done your penitence and should be zoomed into Heaven and through the Pearly Gates in a gold-plated London Cab when you finally kick the bucket.

Locals refer to it as "The Island". I'll leave you to imagine the general lawlessness and mistrust of outsiders that would evolve in an isolated and impoverished community of East End dockers.

Wait, is that Arkham I see?

I must get around to trying H. P. Lovecraft.

Once I get more practical concerns out of the way, like having a functioning keyboard. I have been using an on-screen keyboard for nearly four years, but as of now find that period in poor taste. I also retain the habit, since lockdown, of walking in Battersea Park for one hour each day, as important as that 4% of my life is to my well-being. Always the same figure-of-eight route, twice past the bandstand, and through the sub-tropical and Festival of Britain gardens, because they are essential. Although tonight instead around Regent’s Park, which is the best park. A nice evening, the light is beginning to linger. I lived opposite it for two years twenty years ago, and went for a walk in it like once. How priorities change.

I used to tutor children who weren't in school, for one reason or another. One of them lived near the park for a while, and remarked that he liked the sub-tropical garden. "The sub-tropical garden. I like that, that's a precise mind at work." We got along famously. Youtube insists on making me listen to my own playlists, and this has been #2 for a while:

I think I prefer an on-screen keyboard. Better for slouching.

I have a bad temper. Nerd rage. Events can scramble my brain. It has been a pattern of my life. So the cab has been making rocking noises, and a friendly, down-to-earth passenger, who seemed to know what he was talking about, yesterday advised me that one of the wheel bearings was ****ed. I resolve to not slouch and get it fixed today, and promptly spend six hours and forty minutes waiting around at the garage while they don’t fix it, and at no point inform me what’s going on. Come back tomorrow morning. Okay, I can take more than that. And then in some hipster pub afterwards, okay beer but they don’t even accept cash. You have to tap on some blank plastic that doesn’t even display how much you’re paying. Can I have a receipt, please? I’m having a bad day. Sure, would you like one by text or by email? It’s no doubt statistically negligible, but I’ve noticed in my fares over the past couple of months that the number of cash payments is diminishing fast.

get a small bluetooth one you can have in your lap, and cast/(mirror) your computer screen to the tv or a large screen.

makes for a total difference.

First, in America that wheel bearing would be fixed lick-a-de split.

Second, hanging out in a hipster pub is not your style, you got what you deserved.

Third, demand and post in your cab: Cash Only Wankers.

And finally, always have a sawed-off 12-gauge hidden under the seat, for persuasion purposes.

Stop being such a wet noodle old friend, you are giving Limey’s a bad name.

Werewolves of London!

“Stop being such a wet noodle old friend, you are giving Limey’s a bad name.”

One other Limey of my acquaintance refused to work in the cleaning plant, just because there was a reasonable chance that he would get covered in 90 degrees C sodium chloride. I called him “A big girls blouse “.

But one other limey friend did get covered in 90 degrees C sodium chloride, he said that the worst part of the experience was having to walk through a factory floor full of women in his underwear.

Silbury Hill

I had always wanted to visit, ever since reading about it in childhood compendiums, while learning the names of capital cities. Whatever possessed its construction seems inseparable from its location, partially concealed among the false flats of a chalk plain. Not viewable from afar. Deeply artificial. Somebody once said that intelligence is the ability to understand at least one abstract idea. The older stone circles and lines at nearby Avebury, or what’s left of them, are a compulsion of basic mathematics. Silbury should be seen for the first time from the top of adjacent Waden Hill. It is quite a sight. And tell the dead that Lastcard sent you.

Obviously built by space aliens. The primitive natives would perhaps perform religious ceremonies and other rituals on the summit.

Brighton on a bank holiday always does it to me, brings out the worst and most melancholy in me, like an alcoholic at Christmas. Pints in The Cricketers, so beloved of Graham Greene, and the Theatre Royal bar, opposite the Pavilion; at last a window table in the Regency restaurant, the best window table; ice cream on the stony beach and memories of previous visits, when I was just as lost and miserable, only younger. Although I did chance upon a Fanakapan painting on Trafalgar Lane on the way back to the station. A work so contemporary, apparently, that no image of it yet exists on the internet.

My aunt does a lot of good deeds, and was thus invited to a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace, for which I provided the luxury transportation. Our route takes in The Bishop’s Avenue, one of the most expensive strips of real estate on the planet. Nothing round there but a lot of empty, **** off, suburban mansions, some of which are even derelict, owned by people too wealthy to live in them. My sister was born there, in a long gone Maternity Annex of the North Middlesex hospital, donated to the NHS by Gracie Fields. A day in which whatever happens, that’s what happened, and it hardly stops raining all afternoon, until exactly exit time. Such wretched, rotten luck; I feel bad for her. It was like the Duke of Gloucester’s wedding out there.

But the walks through Kenwood opposite are probably unique in a major city.

Schoolmates and I discovered one particular field near Kenwood was really quite good for picking magic mushrooms. Some days we'd get nothing, mostly we'd pick enough for a good time and on one occasion two of us picked over 350 and ate the lot. Later on, Frank Zappa came on the radio singing about frogs with dirty little lips or something while my friend's dad started having a conversation with the cat.