Europe Endless

Arrived in London yesterday, to find it refreshingly not as bastard freezing as Berlin, although pretty cold anyway. After getting my pay-as-you-go vouchers from Smiths (how the old habits return!) I got on the Picadilly into the city.
It has to be said, for the glamour of international travel, when you land at Heathrow you’re basically arriving in Hounslow.
Riding through the outskirts, I listened to my current “jam” (ugh) The Advisory Circle, which goes quite nicely with snow-strewn signal boxes and trees. Upon arrival at Leicester Square, I set up shop in Pret A Manger and got connected to wifi. A few texts and messages, and I’d arranged to meet with Friend James from popular beat combo blog Both Bars On, mentioned hear many times before. We met at the Chandos, which is as charming as ever, and we had one of our usual fractally-branching conversations, as logged here before. Then it was down to Clapham to our esteemed hosts for part of this trip, Francois and Claire. I’m writing this their kitchen before heading out into the London day for a wander. Claire is a filmmaker, so she and Cassie have lots to talk about, and Francois makes very good music under the name Franz Kirmann.
Francois and I went out for a very nice French dinner at a local place, the Abbeville Kitchen, where we talked at length about, well, pretty much everything (not literally duh), including music, synths, noise, web stuff and so on. This part of Clapham is a lot like where I used to live in Tooting, but with bigger, nicer houses, better restaurants, and bilingual schools. Duly noted.
From Berlin to a London pub to French food to very comfortable bed, it’s good to be back.

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