Liadnan

Athens was fab, and far too short-lived. Best time I've ever had there (nb, Athens is usually somewhere I go through, on my way to more relaxed parts of Greece, sttautory sightseeing aside), fabulous food, and gorgeous spring weather. No pictures I'm afraid, you'll have to imagine it for yourselves. Memo to self though: flying while mildly pissed is fine. Flying while sobering up from being quite pissed is less so. And is it really necessary to have quite so many endless corridors at Heathrow?

I'm feeling marginally more positive and energetic about things, at least as energetic as I ever am, too. Not that that's saying a great deal, but it's something.

I'm also having vague thoughts about moving, mainly for financial reasons. No real prospects on a quick skim though, and there's the possibility of a Thing on the horizon that could have a significant effect on any such plans. And round here really is the best place inm London to live, particularly in spring.

Small* prize for anyone who can identify the quote. Utterly irrelevant to all that follows.

I return from a weekend in Hampshire** to discover that...

my books have fallen down.

A word of explanation for those who haven't been to my palatial residence. Due to a concatenation of circumstances, viz and to wit: (primo) my landlord not providing a civilised quantity of bookcases, and (secundo) my being terminally incapable of actually getting off my arse and doing something about it; that part of my library I keep in London (not including books loaned out some time ago not that I'm looking at anyone in particular but I digress) usually looks something like this. Triple parked, which is very inconvenient but at least keeps them out of the way. (Plus another load round the corner. When I'm pretending there's some structure to all this, I pretend that's history, plus a small bunch of travel books.)

Arse.

Plus my tax return, and more immediately important because those lovely chaps and chapesses at HMCE want it by the end of the week, my VAT return, is buried underneath. Still, I suppose I could just send them the pictures with an explanation: after all, I've spent the money on the books anyway.

How much does Staff cost again?

Yes, this post has been a thinly veiled tryout of livejournal's picture-hosting.

*Very small.

**My father seems noticeably worse. It's been a slow slide, for several years now, but I feel it's accelerating. And when I'm in the mood to pray (with all the usual caveats and conditions) I don't know what to pray for. But I'm not going to write about that.

I cut off work early for the sake of an hour and a half's "continuing professional development" (4 hours down quite a few more to go), which was quite interesting to me, but almost certainly dull if not incomprehensible to almost all of you: about challenging trustees' decisions if anyone cares even that much.

Ah, but it's at this time of year I remember precisely why I expend a quite horrendous proportion of my income to live in a shoebox in Primrose Hill rather than a smaller amount for a larger flat almost anywhere else. It's almost silent outside, apart from the birds, the window's open and the air smells almost clean.

Also I've opened a bottle of retsina. Sadly, being in a good mood, I've run out of things to say, so I shan't say them.

Ho hum.

Accomplished precisely two things this weekend: a hangover and a significant improvement in the cesspit into which my flat had been descending.

Had I been writing this on Sunday evening I would also be able to say I had accomplished the rebirth of my laptop. Unfortunately, shortly after doing so I did something so abysmally stupid that I shudder to think about it, and the end result is that the bastard machine has had to go in for repairs anyway. Significantly more cheaply than originally quoted though: thank something for small mercies. In the meantime I am reduced to borrowing one of the clerks' machines on which to work when there's one free, for the next couple of days. Bugger.

Had there been a Midsomer Murders on last night I wouldn't have been pissing about on the machine while logged in as root and my life would be improved beyond measure. Or possibly somewhat, anyway. So I blame the ITV schedulers. And Janet Jackson, obviously.

***

Last week's case did make it into The Times... I had rather hoped that when a case of mine appeared there it would be in the Law Reports, for arguing a novel and interesting point of law, not in the news section.

***

Still, there are good things in life. They include comp. tickets to the pre-Raphaelite landscapes exhibition for tonight, and a copy of Joan Aiken's penultimate novel. They don't seem to include free sex, free intoxication or free holidays somewhere hot, but I'm sure that's only a matter of time.

***

I just re-read Barry Unsworth's Songs of the Kings and Dan Simmons' Ilium in quick succession. Though both are very good books I don't advise it: I managed to rather confuse myself on which book was which. I'm quite keen to see the Troy film, though I'm not sure Brad Pitt is really going to cut it as Achilles and I forsee another dose of Clash of the Titans/Jason and the Argonauts style lunacy. (I'm pretty sure Simmons references those films in Ilium, by the way.)

Ho hum. Spare me from solicitors who don't do their job properly and expect me to do it without the necessary information. Other than that, mildly cheered up. Somewhat blank to be honest. My new rooftop office is Very Cold.

Seeing K for a drink in about half an hour, and to be honest I don't feel like doing any more work between now and then, so I'm just going to piss about on the internet. Apropos of which, courtesy of Eccles, We Love the Iraqi Information Minister. And for more bad jokes, courtesy of I forget who on the Culture...

Mahatma Gandhi walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail, and with his odd diet he suffered from bad breath. This made him a super callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Apologies all round.

Yes I am bored and somewhat lacking in imagination today, but relatively cheerful nonetheless.

For those of you who were breathlessly waiting for news of my blocked drain, it still is, blocked I mean. Time for the heavy artillery methinks. Eventually I'm going to run out of things to eat off if I can't do the washing up soon...

Well, my plans for Friday went a bit awry and instead I found myself in a rather good and cheap Chinese restaurant on Shad Thames slightly wankered at quarter to midnight. Nevermind, I made it home. Somehow.

Saturday I managed to make it to the river and watch Jenny shout at her eight from Hammersmith Bridge (no, no, she was in the boat, we were on the bridge). Then straight to the pub, and, via a chain of events which would be too boring to describe, by the evening, having re-acquired Jen, wound up in an Italian restaurant which suspiciously resembled the BadaBing from the Sopranos. And the waiter looked like Pussy. This kind of thing keeps happening to us: last time it was the Spanish Mafia, though I'm not going to tell that story.

The lurgy rehit about midnight and I couldn't face struggling back to Primrose Hill, so I ended up staying at R&S flat for the night, as did A. Watched War Porn for an hour or so when I woke up, ("9, wow that's early" "No, it's 10" "Bugger. Well, it's still early") which was as much as I could take: I don't have all they newfangled channels and have been limiting myself to my usual diet of an hour and a half of Today in the morning plus an occasional addition of Newsnight or Channel 4 News. Five minutes of watching a tank trying to shoot down a telegraph pole is enough to drive one to drink. Though the little red button for interactive viewing does make one wonder: how long before the tanks are all on wireless internet and are controlled by a bunch of teenagers with playstations and gameboys wired in?

Anyway, back to the river, abandoning my fine and sensible plans of going home, to pretend to watch the veteran crew of Jenny's club while in fact reading the papers and breakfasting on Bloody Marys. Which is a fine way to breakfast, though the barman did ask me if I wanted vodka in my Bloody Mary, so I had to kill him.

Finally home and up to Primrose Hill itself with a book. It's fantastic living less than a hundred yards from one of London's best views, most pleasant green bits, etc. However, on a good weekend quite a lot of the rest of London invades (how dare they). Still, a good afternoon with trashy fantasy.

Oh, and Cafe Corfu, one of my favourite restaurants, for Greek music all on my ownsome at the end of the day.

And that's why I didn't do my homework miss.

It's actually tomorrow that I technically become a full member of Chambers, though I've been almost so for six months and known I would for sure for quite a few. Cool.