Lucky Dip

It's been a funny sortofaday.
On the way to work, I bumped into Mark Ellingham on Camden Town platform.
He used to be one of the Camberwell crowd (which included Vic Reeves, King Kurt and Dirk from Tomato) and he started up the Rough Guides to everywhere. He says he has stopped doing that and has started a Green publishing house. We all used to go to the same parties and drink too much; I don't know how any of us managed to do anything else but we did. In my house, we couldn't work out how anything grew in the dark little garden out the back, until one day we woke up before 11 o'clock and realised the garden was full of bright sunlight and probably had been for hours. The problem was, the Prince William used to lock its doors, and because you kept thinking it was going to close for the night, you kept drinking your drink really fast... and then needing another one. I became a bloated horror.
Mark was with a viola player who was on his way to the Barbican to play a viola-heavy Finnish piece, that he said was rather gloomy.
It took me ages to get to Docklands as usual (on Tuesday a train simply conked out at Prince Regent and I had to get a bus through miles of estates to Canning Town before I could get anywhere), and then the two students who were supposed to come and see me didn't turn up, so Julia and me watched the ferrets on Youtube and also the man who couldn't impersonate Tony Blair or David Blunkett, because he just used his normal voice. Then I went to visit a student doing work experience at a disco equipment store in Deptford, and patiently listened to his boss telling me all about how DJaying has changed since the old days and now people use computers; on the tube back, I recognised the dreadlocks of another awol student from afar on the tube, and did a mobile tutorial between stops (it was really funny, I even had the paperwork he needed just by chance!)
Then I saw Poly Styrene browsing the racks in Top Shop but I was too preoccupied with some daily difficulties to say hello- I don't think she saw me. There was nothing exciting in Top Shop- it was one of their dull periods.
What a funny day, lots of bits and pieces. I'm tired now and wondering whether to go to the Nude Magazine party tonight or not. I think I might; I'll have a cup of coffee and see.