Back from a long weekend in London. A couple of hours of work in Shoreditch, then an evening at the Barfly in Camden on the Friday. Saturday I saw more exhibitions than you can shake a stick at before going along to a friend's birthday party at the Duex Beers in Hatton Wall. I drank way more Leffe than is good for me. The journey back on Sunday involved a train, a bus, another train and another train. The buffet was open on Yeovil Junction station, which was a delight. It's one of those old-fashioned railway buffets, with a long marble counter you can prop up, and tables to sit at. There was a tall young goth standing behind the counter, like a male nilhilistic version of Manet's Folie Bergere painting, and then it became apparent that he - and his 12 year old little sister - were helping out their gran. If it wasn't slightly surreal enough, since such railway buffets seem to belong to a long-forgotten age, they had Johnny and the Bomb on the TV in the corner, so suddenly there was a WW2 song blaring out. You half-expected to see a couple having a Brief Encounter.

The whole weekend has produced two clear ideas for short stories, which is cheering me up no end. I just need to knuckle down to the writing. After doing the taxes. Do you think I can claim the cat attacked it? He's already sat on the receipts twice.

All that journey time means I wrote up a review of the bands at the Barfly for London Shelf. I've been writing the odd review for shiny shelf for a fair old while now, and this is their London-based version about life in the city. So despite not actually living in London, I'll be writing the odd bit for there as well. You can tell I tried to go all Julie Birchill in that music review, as well as trying to make it London-centric with the descriptions.