London was in a frisky mood tonight. A strong warm wind whipped up the drizzle and swirled it around the streets. I walked down from Fitzrovia, across to the other side of Soho and then on into Chinatown to shop at a supermarket filled with food that had labels I couldn’t read.

It’s not easy working out what is meat free when you can’t decode the instructions on the packaging, but I got the things I was after - I think - by means of guessing shapes and decoding pictures, then headed on through Covent Garden to cross the river on Waterloo Bridge. The view was amazing. A low, dense blanket of clouds had been caught in the glare of the leaking streetlamps, and the whole sky been painted a coppery orange, from well beyong Parliament as far as the furthest end the Docklands.

A light on top of the London Eye winked across the city at Canary Wharf. Canary Wharf winked back.

Walking to the middle of the bridge, I stood among the tourists as they took rain-sodden pictures of St Paul’s, and actually felt excited to be there. It’s a long time since I’ve felt that about London. Usually I can’t wait to get home, but every so often it does you good to walk out through the streets you’d never normally use, and see what you’re missing.

I passed across the rest of the bridge and went down the steps onto the bank of the river where it passed the National Theatre and Royal Festival Hall. Coloured lights had been hoisted up into the trees, and speakers screwed into the concrete walls that line the paving. While the speakers moaned the kind of whale song you’d hear in a new-age crystal shop, the lights shot eratic flashes of light along the wet walkway.

The lights, and the outlines of the few pedestrians out there, were softened in the fine spray of water being shot out from a network of bizarre tubes strung up along the branches of the trees, which shrouded the whole embankment in a colourful wet fog that, for once, everyone seemed to enjoy.

It was a good night to be in the city, out on the streets rather than sat in a pub - even if you were the man in the hat playing guitar in the rain on the Millennium Bridge.

I arrived home three hours late, wet and tired, but none of that mattered.

Tesco is opening a new store on Dean Street, one road up from Old Compton Street, on which London has its densest concentration of gay bars and businesses.

So, are its new adverts at Tottenham Court Road (the closest tube station) amusing, clever, or offensive stereotypes? I’m opting for amusing, but I suspect I may be in a minority.

Christmas gets ever closer, and so tonight was the Sony party at the Groucho Club. It’s years since I’ve been there, and all I remembered about it was that the place was a maze of staircases. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, then, when the party was… upstairs.

The best thing, though, had to be the biggest Scalextric track I’ve ever seen. Admittedly I never had Scalextric as a child, so perhaps it wasn’t that impressive after all, but I was fairly smug after winning a six-lap round.

Then again, I kind of won by default because everyone else span off before I got to the end. No matter - between the curry, the beer, the chatting and the pulling of crackers it took up most of Will, Wendy and my time until we all drifted off. The crackers, in fact, had some …erm… unusual gifts in them. I got a ‘bodywash’…

Caption: ‘Wet body. Move out of direct spray and use the cloth all over, working up a rich cleansing lather. Step back under the water to rinse off.

Searching through the Google newsgroup archive, I came across the first posting on the subject of the Chernobyl disaster. It makes interesting reading these days where we take our news for granted. Here, an American is asking any readers in Europe whether they know what is going on, presumably because they live closer to the Soviet Union:

U.S.A. - Last night on our local and national news, there was an announcement that the Russian’s have experienced a nuclear accident, some where in south-west Russia. The news report said that it is believed there was a melt-down (China-Syndrome) in one of their nuclear power plants. Later on the news reported that it was believed there were 1000’s injured in Kiev, the capital of the Ukrainian S.S.R. Kiev is located in the north-central part of U.S.S.R.

Europe, what is happening over there? I would greatly appreciate reading your first hand reports, and comments. (Source: Google archive)

My bed is wet. I thought it would be dry by now, but as I sit here typing I can feel my toes getting damp. It’s my own fault for being a wimp. Last night was the first really cold night of the year and I succumbed to the temptation of a hot water bottle, zipped up in a fluffy cover.

I filled it from the kettle, slipped it under the duvet and settled down to sleep. An hour later, some time around one, I woke up and slid my feet under the bottle to warm them up. Less than a picosecond later I whipped them back out again, my toes scalded on the water pouring out from a wide cat-claw hole in the side of the bottle. Stupidly I’d not checked to see that Oscar’s needless kneeding of the bottle’s furry cover last Christmas hadn’t done any serious damage, and I’d not used the thing since.

I retreated to the cold, uninviting settee in the lounge and eventually drifted off, but it was the start of a day of disasters.

Lunching with Sarah in a place that’s done pasta since 1955, when such things were considered impossibly exotic - even in London - I showed her how bluejacking works.

‘Look at this,’ I said. ‘It’s really cool.’

And I demonstrated by sending a message to her screen.

‘Best of all,’ I said, ‘you can send them to people whose numbers you don’t even know.’

I sent one, picking a phone at random. The middle-aged man on the table beside us turned to look towards the door, and his eyes fell on the phone in my hand. A second later, the Nokia in his pocket beeped and he reached in to pick it out.

‘I love your hair,’ said the words on his screen, and he looked back once more at the phone in my hand…

The Christmas lights on Oxford Street and Regent Street are such a disgrace. Every year it’s the same tired decorations unpacked and strapped to the lamp-posts in the hope they’ll make us spend more money.

So, determined to hunt out some decent lights in the capital I set out with the camera after work and headed down to Soho, through Carnaby Street and Piccadilly Circus, then up to the Ritz before doubling back on myself and cutting through the fair in Leicester Square on my way to Trafalgar Square. From there, along to Covent Garden and eventually almost back to where I’d started by way of Charring Cross Road.

My faith in the lights of the capital was restored…

Christmas tree on Trafalgar Square

Carnaby Street - giant illuminated condoms?

Clasically understated: Covent Garden

Astrological decorations in Neal’s Yard

I don’t want to eat again for a week. This has nothing to do with staying in last night and watching Delicatessen, a film about an underground band of vegetarian freedom fighters in post-apolocyptic France fighting a canibal butcher (’…this feverish tale of star-crossed lovers and small town cannibalism has endured as a true masterpiece of the fantastique…’ Source: BBC) but more to do with the amount of food I’ve eaten today.

I skipped breakfast, perhaps wisely, then headed off to Galleywood for a pre-Christmas family Christmas meal. I skipped the meat, too, of course, but gorged on everything else, all the while trying to remind myself I was out for dinner tonight so ought to take it easy.

Oh, and then there was dessert. And cheese.

And cake mid-afternoon.

Most of the day was spent reinstalling Windows which got so upset with a new graphics driver it couldn’t even bring itself to boot properly. It would get tantalisingly close, then spontaneously shut down and start all over again just as the loading progress bar got to the last block. Sometimes I find it very easy to irrationally hate inanimate objects.

I ended up going downstairs to watch Thomas the Tank Engine with James while it sorted itself out. It’s bizarre how a mundane story about why Henry had two tenders while Gordon has only one can make the world seem a whole lot simpler.

I stayed there until far too late and then zizzed back into town for dinner with Phil and Kate. He’s back on Match of the Day as producer, after summer working on Question of Sport. It all sounds very glamorour. Kate is doing equally star-studded telly things all over the place and making the whole magazine-editing lark sound very humdrum.

Not seen them in ages, though, so it was good to catch up on what has happened in the … ummm … 14 months, I guess, since their wedding. We’ve never been good at keeping in touch. It’s just as well it’s one of those friendships you can pick up again any time you want…

Love Actually should carry a government health warning: ‘Not Suitable for Diabetics’. It’s so sugary sweet, you can practically taste it, but at the same time it’s a great two-hour escape from the world, worth seeing for Hugh Grant dancing through the rooms of 10 Downing Street if nothing else. It’s his best role in years, but then that’s not saying much.

In fact, it’s worth seeing for the bits where they walk you from the familiar view of the outside of Number 10, through the black door and deep into the house by way of hallways and coridoors. If they didn’t use the real house, it was a pretty impressive scam.

The story itself is huge and runs at quite a pace, dragging along with it pretty much anyone who is anything in British films - Emma Thompson, Rowan Atkinson, Marting McCutcheon, and Alan Rickman (in decidedly non-Hans Gruber mode) among others.

The only trouble is, it’s a Richard Curtis‘ Greatest Hits film, so if you didn’t like Four Weddings, Bridget Jones or Notting Hill you certainly won’t like this one, either.

Canon throws the best Christmas Parties. Practically everyone turned out last night, it seemed, and the drink and food seemed to be neverending. In fact, there was so much of it I rode the train home feeling thoroughly sick from overindulgence. Opposite me sat a man with a ferret or stoat (I’m not sure of the difference) sitting in the inside pocket of his jacket, from where it surveyed the rest of the carriage as he stroked its silky head.

The party was at Bar Blanca down by Piccadilly Circus - a mid-sized venue with an enormous bar where they welcome you with very creamy Pina Coladas before shuffling you quickly onto the ever-flowing wine.

Across town, Clive was winning himself a table football table at the Adobe party while dotted around the periphery of central London we counted no less than eight or nine other parties to which one or other of us had been invited.

As the night wore on, it turned into something of a PCW reunion, with me, Dylan, Ems, Kathryn, Mark, Jalal, Jason, Will, Will, Rory and Clive all bumping into each other at one point or another around a random corner, and I ended up feeling very worse for wear by the time I woke up this morning.

What I got up to, I don’t know, but I couldn’t move my arm, and driving to the station I could barely do the gears. I made it there in the end, though, and had enough control of my thumb to have a lengthy and rather surreal conversation with someone (I don’t know who) on the train, entirely by Bluetooth.

I was deleting some naff pictures of the party when a new message popped up on my screen from someone calling themselves ‘Hacker’:

Hacker: Muppet Lolly

So I replied…

Meeester Nik: Kermit lover

And a moment later, back came a reply…

Hacker: Give me Miss Piggy any time.
Meeester Nik: I’m more of a Gonzo man myself.
Hacker: You tart! Gonzo is a slut!
Meeester Nik: And you’re saying Miss Piggy isn’t

Where it all came from, I don’t know - I can’t bear the Muppets. Who Hacker was, I don’t know, either. I’ll be catching the 0846 again on Monday, though, and see if we can continue the conversation.

For the last four years I’ve been running a webmail service. It’s not quite Hotmail - it only has 483 members - but considering it’s never been advertised I don’t think that’s so bad.

But now the domain has come up for renewal, and I really don’t have the time to maintain it. It’s been drifting for a while now, and I’ve decided it’s time to finally kill it off. Unfortunately for my subscribers, that means their accounts will disappear, too, so not wanting them to log on some time next month and find the lights have gone out unannounced, I logged onto the control panel - somewhere I’ve not been for so long I’d forgotten the password, and send a group email warning of the change.

I also took a look at the addresses being used and it’s left me thinking it was only ever used to cruise for sex. Among the more hum-drum entries, was:

35andgame, 7yearitch, analcherryessex, analgape, bi7×5, biguy115, big_gay_al, bilad23, bimale27, bish.stort.bi (clearly living in Bishops Stortford), bi_babe, blackundies, bumfuck24, croppednhorny, cuminme, cumlover, davesucks, dazsperm, fuckme, gagging4it, gloryman, hard4it, hotandhorny4u, hotlips (a guy), leatherbiker, leathersub, letsdoit, lingerielover, lover237, needmoredrugs, original_sins, pat8inch_thick, rimmer, sexmaniak, sexyboy, sexybum1980, sexybum80, sexyrobbie, sinfulinteriors, slut, southendgayguy, spectulatrix, stevebi, stevebi28, throb, throbbing

I’m quite glad I’m closing it now. I’m also quite glad I don’t know who these people are…