venta

So, once upon a time I used to write stuff here about what I did. Which is useful, because I have an increasingly terrible memory.

This summer I have done many things that have not got written. I confidently predict that in about five years time there will be some form of argument in my household about what bands we saw at Indietracks in July, and I will have no record to back up my claims.

I will attempt - successfully or not - to remedy that, but in the interim, I think we better pick up with the now.

( Weekend Miscellany )

Saturday was planned to be the sort of busy day with weird timings where you're never quite sure where the meals are going to fit in. The only sensible way to take on a day like that is to start with a really hoofing breakfast.

My reaction would usually be to cook one, or to head up to the pizza restaurant which (slightly unexpectedly) does decent eggs Benedict of a Saturday morning. ChrisC insisted we should head to The Walpole, a small, scarlet-painted greasy spoon at the other side of Ealing. We've been meaning to investigate rumours of its greatness for some time but... well...

( Don't tell anyone, will you? But I'm not that excited about fry-ups. )

Pottering around in the snow yesterday, I observed a number of snowmen (and one snowwoman, and one ten-foot-tall snowbehemoth, and a rather lovely snowdog). Almost all were built to the crazy three-ball snowperson pattern. When I were a lad child, snowmen were made out of two balls of snow.

When did this madness involving an abdomen come in? Am I right to blame it largely on Calvin? That's Calvin of "and Hobbes" fame, not the guy who founded Calvinism, who probably thought playing the snow was far too frivolous.

I also note that, in the absence of coal being readily available, the go-to objects for snow-eyes are plastic supermarket milk bottle tops. Mostly semi-skimmed, though I did see one wall-eyed snowman who was full-fat on his left-hand side. Carrots are still big news in the snow-nose world.

The answer to my own question, yesterday, of how long before Ealing's businesses decide it's back to business-as-usual was, surprisingly "virtually no time at all".

( Yesterday evening )

I have been out this evening Doing My Bit For The Community - wholly un-riot-related, I have been helping paint a local hall.

The hall is on Pitshanger Lane, which is about ten minutes north of where I live. The Lane is a lovely shopping street of almost entirely independent traders; there is a Co-Op at either end, but other than that I think every shop is an independent. It's got a proper butcher, and greengrocer, and fishmonger, and so on, and a really good offy, and a deli which opens late at weekends and I like it a lot. At around 6 this evening, one of the painters knocked off and left. She phoned in when she got home: don't go down the Lane if you can help it.

Don't go down the Lane? Surely somewhere as pleasant and civilised and, let's be honest, massively middle-class as the Lane can't possibly be indulging in rioters? Apparently Helen had been tipped off by Tiff-from-the-butchers: all the traders who were still open were closing up due to crowds of youths gathering on the streets. Someone still in the hall very sensibly pointed out that, from inside, we could easily see a steady stream of double-decker E2s whizzing by. As long as the buses were still running, there clearly couldn't be that much going on along there.

And, it seems, she was right. I left half an hour or so ago, and the Lane seemed deserted. Presumably said youths had either dispersed, or turned out to be much exaggerated. Or were, in fact, revealed to be the local Brownie pack on a nature walk.

So yes, the Lane was quiet. My walk home was quiet. The roads are quiet. As I let myself into the block I live in, another resident anxiously enquired "what's it like out there?" Well, to be honest, pretty dead. There is a constant, low, background wail of sirens in the distance; I can't really make a sensible guess of how distant. Or, to be honest, what they're up to. Maybe the police are charging about all blues and twos to try and keep any potential troublemakers guessing. I can hear, but not see, what I think is a helicopter, somewhere in the direction of Perivale.

A friend locally reported that the shops in Ealing centre were all shutting up early this evening, and that there was a large and obvious police presence. I'm hoping we're in for a quiet evening.

Incidentally, if anyone wishes to keep abreast of events and hasn't discovered this blog, I commend it to you:

http://thewestlondoner.wordpress.com/

(Although it's becoming increasingly inaccurately named as it expands to cover a wider and wider area.)

Morning, all.

Ealing is still there. I've just been out to check.

( Battered, but present. )

( Photos, 8am today )

I was considering asking for time off work (I'm working at home today) to go and join the #riotcleanup in Ealing, but it's advertised as meeting at "The Horse". Does anyone have any idea what that might be? I'm not aware of any Horse & Jockey, Horse & Groom, or similar equine pubs. There's the statue of the horsie down the side of the Broadway centre, but I very much doubt you can get to that at present.