Morning:
9°c
Leaving the house is the principal mistake people are making at the moment. I'd recommend not. From my window I can see forsythia flaring yellow in my sunny back garden - and, two streets behind it, great swagged curtains of rain drifting across the face of the Archway Tower. Give it 10 minutes and the positions will be reversed.
While spring takes its time making up its mind, London is caught permanently in the wrong kit. It's all either soggy girls shivering in mistimed T-shirts in the Bond Street deluge, or beef-faced men sweltering in the north London sunshine in oilskins, fisherman's boots and sou'westers. Look at yourselves, people. This is no time to be out of doors.
Gusty and changeable weather creates gusty and changeable moods. Sun out - a burst of good cheer. Rain whipping round the corner - sudden gloom. It makes for a strange and febrile atmosphere on the street. I don't know about a "summer of rage", but a springtime of paranoia is what I'm experiencing.
Tinned food, bottled water, Radio 4 and patience - or, failing that, the crossword - are what the capital needs right now. The key indicator of when it will be OK to leave the house will be the appearance in the street of the first topless man with a radio. You should be able to see him coming on Google Street View.
* When President Obama visits London, we're informed, his secret service agents will know him by the codename "Renegade". Have you ever in all your puff heard anything more ridiculous? What's the point in having a code name that everybody knows, you may wonder. The only answer is that it "sounds way cool". Indeed, it emerges that the President chose his own code name. That must lower him in public esteem.
Infinitely more gracious and endearing was Al Gore. "I'm so boring," he once announced, "that the secret service code name for Al Gore is 'Al Gore'."
* At last, fresh yeast. Every bread book I own bangs on about how much better it is to use fresh yeast than the lousy dried stuff they scrape off the floors of breweries, and every one assures you that "your local baker or supermarket" will happily provide you with some. Not my local baker or supermarket, they won't.
Clarke's, the Kensington bakery and coffee shop, comes to the rescue. Props, as the young people say, to its living-legend proprietrix Sally Clarke. Her sausage rolls are fatally delicious, too.
Reader views (2)
I saw a man dressed in a suit yesterday which is a rare sight these days when even old men are wearing the Chav outfits. Who started this crazy fashion together with the ridiculous baseball caps where baseball is not played and there is hardly ever any sun.Dont see the "flares" or the "bell bottoms" these days though.
Awesome Geronimo Leeds
- Thomas Hayes, Leeds UK, 28/03/2009 22:59
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Fresh yeast from a bakers. Try yer local supermarket luv. When I worked at ASDA the bakery would hand it out for free.
- Claire, London, 27/03/2009 16:07
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