The Visa Run !!

We're in Embassy land in London between Kensington and Notting Hill. Kim "doesn't like it'', She means the area but says it just like a character in a western before an arrow takes them out.

Beautiful substantial terraces of obviously eye wateringly expensive houses; all converted to eye wateringly expensive flats presumably occupied by very priviledged individuals or families.

All we need now is a line of  girl flower sellers to strut in from one end of the street and some orange sellers from the other chirruping "who will buy".......They could be met by a line of grimy faced scamps tap dancing up the street with their chimney sweeping brushes, top hat "titfers" jauntily cocked....."gor lummy guvna, ain't nuffin like bein' forced up chimeries for 16 hours a day to make yer feel like a song 'n' dance.....let's 'av some larks eh!?"........ Outside of each grand entrance is a small ''polite notice'' ''No sitting, sleeping or sheltering'' Sometimes we must make Jesus very proud.

We're staying at The Grand Royale. Note the E on the end of Royal.....presumably because it's more grand than an ordinary royal? Not so much in room dimensions it isn't. The bedside cabinets are crammed in between the bed and the wall so it's virtualy impossible to pull down the sheets to get into the bed.

We find the bedding all upside down with the seams sticking in to us.  I'm sure the maid probably gets around 20 minutes to make up the room. We take exactly one hour just to remake the bed because of the crammed nature of the room. I know this because we plan to watch Celebrity Bake Off in bed and it starts as we commence the bed remake .....and settle into bed just as the closing credits roll.

By virtue of C4+1 we get to enjoy watching a chap from Eastenders make a biscuit that looks like Spandau Ballet playing at Live Aid in order to help cure cancer. For me it was good to have a reminder of Live Aid. I'm afraid we, along with a group of friends spent the day eating and drinking (to help with the famine) until we resembled little other than a coach load of stroke victims

Bill Turnbull who retired from BBC breakfast spoke movingly about his diagnosis with prostrate cancer and probably did more for the cause than the whole program. Bill finished with some "make the most of every minute" advice.

Not unrelated to the above, I spent some significant time last night manipulating my testicles. Kim has, as usual set the room air con such that the room veers between the temperature of a blast furnace, and that of the deck of a North Sea trawler some where between Dogger and Cromerty in a Nor-Nor Easterly Force 9.

So I'm awake and need something to do, holding my scrotum while it adjusts to the temperature by alternately disappearing with my testes to somewhere around my ears and dangling like a couple of nutmegs in a carrier bag seems like a good option.  I fleetingly considered using "every minute" by learning the tuba, but I fear this and any attempt at physical intimacy would be fiercly rebuffed by a gently snoring Mrs B.