All kinds of everything

Mr Scruff makes tea... and the mint and chilli is amazing

I find that I generally hate planning departments and particularly hate whoever said Camden passage was not of particular importance, it is to me. It is much more important than another branch of a huge chain of shops.

A big shout for the Royal Court theatre, which as the Evening Standard pointed out yesterday was a training ground for oscar winner Danny Boyle and oscar nominee Stephen Daldry and I’m sure lots of other previous Oscars winners and nominees. (Also note to the planners please do not put a road where Sloane Square should be... it’s not clever and it won’t make the traffic any better... nothing ever makes London traffic any better)

Speaking of the Royal Court it features in the beautiful little gem of a film Venus which is being shown on Film Four at the moment. I hadn’t seen this since it came out.



It’s a strange film I suppose but the acting is wonderful, not just from Peter O'Toole(seriously if this man doesn’t deserve an Oscar on merit I really don’t know who does) but also Vanessa Redgrave, Leslie Philips- and all the cast. It’s funny, it shows a side of London with its grimy seen better days cafes and past their best apartment blocks which might not be glamorous but is real to me. You can almost taste the weak tea and see the damp growing in the bathroom.

It also shows the more familiar, the national gallery- somewhere wonderful to go for free even on a pension- and the beach down on the south bank which I love, a tiny oasis of the seaside smack in the middle of the city. I think it brings as much pleasure as a deserted beach in the Caribbean would bring on the right day.

The film has lovely humour running throughout it and doesn’t present old people as old people but as people, it reminds you of what I am only just starting to understand- that some of us are eternally 23 trapped in older bodies.