37 Great Portland Street

   (This is what's known in the trade as a "deadpan photo") 

 I did look at the chairs in IKEA, at Wembley, just for the pleasure of driving on the slowest parts of the North Circular. I have one of their Stradmon wing-back chairs, and since then they seem to have been through one cost-cutting round too many. Everything is one of four slightly muddy shades of grey (except the yellow and red Stradies), the material feels cheap, and the cushioning feels like it might give up too quickly. So I went back to the semi-fancy furniture shop, because looking for value is one thing, but being cheap is another, and I had one more round of sitting on all the chairs and then ordering two of the same swivel chair, one navy, one black. How much did they cost? Less than my hi-fi amplifier, more than the TV and DVD player.  

Southend Pier

(Southend Pier is the longest in the UK, because the Thames Estuary is very wide and very flat, and the pier was to disembark passengers from the London boats. There's a train from the land to the end of the Pier. It's all pretty neat and way more chill than Brighton Pier.)

The Big Day was calling the council to come collect the bed. I have to get it into the front garden, so it's a good thing the mattress is a bit flimsy (though "orthopaedic") and the base is two boxes made out of wood that takes the weight but not if you stood on it directly. The decline in the quality of our lives is hidden in such details. I had to clear the hallway to get the bits down - because I was Thinking Like A Designer and planning ahead. I moved the bases and mattress into the hallway the previous evening, and woke up at 06:00 the next day to wrangle them into the garden, covering them with some plastic against a light shower. They collect between 07:00 and 15:00, and showed up at 11:00. I spent the afternoon clearing the back bedroom and laying plastic sheeting over the fitted carpet, before laying sheets over the plastic. Because I was going to put a second coat of white over the walls and ceilings. I'm not really a pro, but I have learned some of the tricks.

Regent Sound Studio, Denmark Street

 Also I want to read more. At the moment I read in three places: the train, in bed, or in my garden chair. If I try to read on the couch, I fall asleep within ten minutes. I read paperbacks and on the iPad, and I also read hulking art books that need to be on my lap, a table, or better still, a bookstand. This means I need to find chairs I find comfortable to read in that don't come from garden centres. Try it. I wound up Googling "reading posture" but all I got was the usual posture Nazi stuff about sitting upright with a straight back and the book held at head height. The same posture they recommend for using a keyboard. These people have never in their lives cut a line of code, written a paragraph of fiction, edited a photograph or anything else requiring thought. That advice is for people who spend all day typing other people's words. The moment the brain focuses on a difficult problem, it takes resources from un-important activities like, yep, maintaining posture. So I added in some trips to a local decent furniture store, as well as IKEA.

Regents Canal: Islington Tunnel to Kingsland Bridge

(This is a very pretty part of the canal, until about the A1200 bridge when the Council must change, because it's a bit scruffier.)

Think Like A Decorator wants you to think about what you want your house / room to say about you, and about what you're going to be doing in it. Socialising? Escaping the human race with a good book? Mostly Leslie Banker is socialising New York style - as we might expect - there's not a hi-fi listening room, a TV, or a computer gaming rig and chair in sight. Never mind, I can adapt the principles. I could also figure out what I thought was ridiculous styling, and thus what I might find acceptable. (You can't escape styling: you have so much as one plant in the house, that's an attempt at styling.) I realised I was trying to use one room to do too many things, and that a music listening room should be pretty much just that. It should not also try to be the room where I eat and do all my creative activities. That's why the back bedroom suddenly stopped being a bedroom. The guitars, piano keyboard and breakfast table are going there

Russell Square and Around

 

(Russell Square is right by a large chunk of Academic London: SOAS, Birkbeck, a Law Institute I didn't even know existed, Senate House, the UCL School of Pharmacy and Royal Free Hospital, with the LSE and Kings College down the road, and bits of UCL scattered all over the place.)

I have no innate talent for interior design, decoration and styling, but there are people who aren't professional designers who do. I have to read a book. The one that made sense to me this time around was Leslie Banker's Think Like A Decorator The pictures are pure decorator pornography, as in all those books, but the text is actually quite practical. At one point she explains that those photos are of rooms that have been re-arranged, styled to within an inch of their lives, and then had the power points, light switches and other intrusions Photoshopped out. But then there was the remark about thinking through the exact order you do things. For instance, when do you wallpaper the narrow corridor to a bedroom that needs a new bed moving into it?

Little Venice

(Little Venice is less than a mile from Paddington, and off Warwick Avenue. There are boat trips between it and Camden Town, which is why we were there.)

Another round of gratuitous catch-up. I've been deep in thought about re-jigging the back rooms in my house. I spend way too much time in one room, in one position, because hi-fi soundstage. The upstairs back bedroom dates from when I had lodgers, and I haven't had those for the longest time, but neither have I had anything else to do with the room, so it just stayed that way. Now I have an idea for what I could do in there, so it's time to move this, throw out that, buy a couple of those, re-paint the other and all that jazz.

Free Cinnamon Bun