Today was good. Let me tell you of today.

Well the first bit was, if not bad, slightly disconcerting anyway. I waved goodbye to Nicholas, leaving for the vehicle-licensing capital of Britain, and shall not see him for some time now, unless I visit him. I suppose me going to Exeter has pretty much the same result, but it's strange him not being in Camberley. That was fairly early. I waved goodbye in style; barefoot on the gravel in a dressing-gown, and thne wandered into the house to get ready to go to London, city of things.

Got a travelcard for £8.8O and rolled into Waterloo on a commuter route; only one stop. I was, predictably, well early, so I wandered round a bit. John and I had agreed to meet under the cubic clock at Waterloo at 11. Being a man of my word, I stood in a such a position that if the clock were to fall, I would be crushed. He rolled up about a minute late, andapologistsd for being about a minute late. Then he shook my hand, and I was a little amused, and he didn't think it was too formal at all, actually.

Other things happened. I guess it's about time I told you some of them:

Firstly we went to see a man in a box. They had a bag-check going on, to stop people pelting him with stuff. Ultimately what he's doing seems pretty pointless, but I can't understand whypeoplee would want to throw stuff. He was doing well I think. Two weeks of no food and still with the patience to wave to the crowd about every minute. I asked John how long Blaine had been up there and he told me, to which I replied something along the lines of "Really? Well, time flies when you're not in a box." He thought this was quite good, so I note it for posterity.

Forgive me if I get the order all screwed up. We went into the Tate Modern for a bit, but I got a bitfidgety. Not really in a very art-appreciation mood. I should mention, by the way, that John was a perfect host, desiring to do nothing other than what I felt like doing on a whim. So we came out of there and into modern life.

I was getting quite hungry by this point, so we stopped outside some pub andmilledd lunch over. John seemed quite surprised that I'd had breakfast at about 0830. Because everything was very expensive, I went for a (relatively) cheap and cheerful cheddarbaggede while John procured some nourishing chipped potato product. John bought me a Greene KingIPPA from the pub, but for his own part drank a temperate cola.

As ever, I said that I didn't really know what to do at this point, so John asked me if I'd ever been to Covent Garden. "No", says I, so down (or left or right or something) we go. It's pretty nice. It'd be a good place to shop, but I shop better on my lonesome. I did check out a bookshop to see whether they had any Asterix books that I hadn't read. Unfortunately not. I had some lovely melon sorbet, purchased while John was wandering round. I think he was looking at the bouncing people, drumming people, and the tightrope-walking, knife-juggling man. The bouncing people bounced ion trampolines with, I think, bungee cord attached to them, so that they could jump; realy high and stuff. The drummers were incredibly boring and repetitive. I didn't pay much attnetion to the circus dude. There was a group of musicians in a lower system. That was pretty cool, but they started playing "Canon in D" by that guy with the name, and I got bored.

I told John what the words "novel"(new) and "agnostic"(without knowledge) meant at some point in the day, but I asked him what "facetious" meant. Off-the-cuff apparently. It's one of those words I'd never bothered to find out.

It was a dashed warm day, and we both got fairly dehydrated, so we went into yet another pub for a brace of refreshing cola pop drink.

Where now? Westminster, we decided. We preferred Westminster Abbey to the cathedral so we went there. Above one of the doors was a pieve with the twelve in. I was hoping to be able to identify a few apostles, but I could only work out Peter, who's a bit easy really. There were absolutely tonnes of weddings today. We saw a marriage party both at St. Paul's and here. Must cost a bomb. Much like admission to these great religious houses, which we declined. A fair quantity of people asked us for directions too, including an oriental couple (Westminster Abbey? - Just over the road) and a pair of black girls who'd apparently cycled from Brixton (Tower Bridge? - Just keep cycling, you young snappers of whips).

I found myself strangely drawn to some ruins, which apparently were The Jewel Tower, with a polite notice outside pointing out that the crown jewels were in quite another place. Actually, it wasn't really ruined at all, it's just that what was the garden was mostly gravelled over now, and there was a slight lack of water in the moat. The Jewel Tower was by far the most reasonably-priced attraction we came across that day, but neither of us coughed up. On the other hand, I bough a wooden ruler with a list of the Kings and Queens of Britain, and a ginger beer of the brand that I believe I quaffed many moons ago in Cheltenham with Will. There was a small section of moat with iron bars across, that I thought would make a pretty groovy bedsit. This was just across the road from parliament, and we somehow ended up talking about the adequacy of this small space fo blowing up the houses of parliament, Guido Fawkes stylee.

We walked for aaages along the river, stopping occasionally in parks, and to look over the river. There are some cool amphibious vehicles that we saw kids in on the streets and later on the Thames - a fab idea. Eventually, we came to the Tate Britain. Neithge of us had any idea that it was where it was, but we wandered in to catch the last quarter of an hour before closing time. John was very enthusiastic about the Turner exhibition. He said things like "Don't you think it's quite powerful?" As I say, I was not in an artistic mood that day, and felt somewhat unable to respond to these kinds of notions. I couldn't get into Turner as much as John was, mostly because we were in a frightful rush, but I did manage to discern his very distinctive style, which I shall not attempt to describe, and say to John that it was pretty suggestive of modernism. I expect I was wrong about both.

This whole entry seems to leave John slightly out of the picture. I suppose it's mostly because he did the same things as I did, and because he operates more on a verbal level than on a "Whoo, look at all the crazy things I am doing!" level. We wandered back to Waterloo and parted company with another handshake. Hopefully I shall see him again fairly soon.

Sometime during the day we had been talking about the institution of marriage and about romance generally. "Opposites attract, apparently.", quoth I, but John reckoned that my opposite would drive me mad. I mention this because on the journey home I was very well entertained by one female in a party of three who appeared to be fairly well opposite to me (saving John's criterion that the opposite of myself would be Scottish - make of that what you will). The three of them were just charmingly daft as a unit all the way home,and I didn't really speak to them, but I think they could tell I was amused.