Loath as I am to jump onto any careering critical bandwagon, I give you Operaboy (for anyone unaware of their minimal oeuvre) the new lords of indie Britpop (this week) with a hint of the Arctic Monkeys and a dash of the Killers (in my opinion…which is all you’re getting)…..jangly jangly jangly.
If you’re reading this then it’s already two days earlier than it would have been this time on Saturday, in other words today is Thursday but I shall be busy drinking mulled wine and watching fireworks in south west London on Saturday and will not, probably, have time to blog. I could I suppose say to the friends with whom we’re staying, excuse me but I have to go and scour the internet for near naughty pictures and write a stream of consciousness word association football for an hour – see you soon, but it could be construed as rude.

So….little has happened this week as half of it has yet to happen, although it is very cold today. Apropos of the paragraph above I always get somewhat afeared watching time travel films, even ‘Back to the Future’ bought me out in a cold sweat and don’t get me started on Bill and Ted – it’s that whole changing the past, affecting the future, meeting previous version of yourselves rubbish. In general terms I am more in favour of parallel and alternate universes – who isn’t? In fact if the universe truly is infinite and, as a corollary, contains an infinite number of planets, then there is, by definition, a planet somewhere where I am the President of France (hurrah), sadly there is also a planet where I’m a bloke in a dressing gown writing about planets where I’m a bloke in a dressing gown etc – I think the latter is closer to home.

So off to Paris on the train tomorrow morning with our onward journey on the Eurostar cunningly booked to allow time off for some steak frites and a pichet of your finest vin merci – if anyone is at Gare du Nord with time to kill , the brasserie (Terminus Nord, part of the Flo group) opposite, as opposed to every restaurant near every other station in the world, is very very good. In fact this link is very useful and served us well on our honeymoon in Paris when we brasseried every lunchtime and evening for a week as I recall.
Saturday is fireworks and Sunday is a wedding in Richmond Park (indoors hopefully, ha ha ha hahaa ha) Monday will be head nursing and Quantum of Solace and then back to the grindstone of French life on Tuesday. I predict much battening down of hatches and preparation of assorted stews for next week as the weather now feels like it has given up for the rest of the year.

Finally congratulations to Liz and Simon and their new progeny, Amelie – I have erased you from my potential dog sitting list.

Yours from the future living in the past.