I was going to meet a friend, and saw this on the side of a bus.
A couple of days ago all the senior PML-N members of the cabinet arrived in London to ‘consult’ (and pay respects to) Nawaz Sharif, which was pretty outrageous. And this bus was presumably either spending by the high commission or by some chamcha to commemorate it. The URL itself leads to an unbearably stupid and tedious website, of which I shall add a screenshot for posterity.
Anyway I went into Covent Garden where it turns out Muji no longer sells the lightweight highquality and very compact rubber slippers they used to, and which were my preferred bathroom slippers. Instead everyone seems to sell clunky contoured slippers with arch support. Outrageous, in my view.
There are certainly some sad changes in the area, saddest of all being the departure of the Stanford travel bookstore, to which I contributed by never buying a travel guide from there. The more immediately annoying one was the closure of a tea shop on Neal Street, a very dodgy looking place, but from where I had bought the only tea strainer I like, and which is now falling apart so it tears into one’s fingers if one washes it by hand.
I had a very early dinner (due to not having had much in the way of breakfast or lunch) – duck rice with morning glory at one of the old Chinatown establishments (there was a pair of South East Asians on the next table who were clearly unfamiliar with and superbly annoyed at, the legendary rudeness of this restaurant and demanded their full change back so they could ostentatiously not leave a tip). They were nice enough to me and while the roast duck wasn’t the best, it was still quite pleasant.
The other reason for the early meal was that I was to meet the friend at a pub where I confidently ordered a cider and then was badly thrown when they asked what kind. Anyway, I had a half pint (again, was a bit nervous as I wasn’t sure if it even comes in half pints) and it was better than beer or, worse, a gin and tonic. A pleasant conversation, and then back to where the GF and his mother soon returned after a meal at a nice Chinese temple restaurant, a branch of one he and I had been to in Upper Street a few weeks ago.