Poles in London

Karen and Wojtek have come and gone already. It started Sunday evening with a late night walk in Westminster, Big Ben lit up green, strobe lights forming a halo around Nelson's statue to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar. A celebration masking British melancolia?

Hours ambling through London, along the South Bank threading through bridges, coffee with a priest in Monmouth, Anglicised curries off Brick Lane (what's the obsession with poppadums?), kebabs in a dusky Soho Square, Abbot's Ale in the Ladbroke side of Notting Hill, battling crowds in Oxford Street, post-curry pints in Jack the Ripper's haunt, and for a bit of culture, the latest George Bernard Shaw play starring the most English of performers, Edward Fox.

I smile watching them awestruck by the size, the heaving of London, half wishing I could remember a time when I felt such amazement. Was it Paris or New York? I can't remember.