0900: Hackney/Clapton bus entry--rear. Take stairs to upper level. Sit in front window. "Check the sites"--Hackney Central Station/teeny little roads/Angel/man w/ briefcase. Wonder aloud to A. why you didn't have to pay to sit here. "Just wait."

0930: pay whinging bus clerk (Nike 'trainers', slickblack bald head) 1.70, Brit lb.

0935: read headlines--'I-can't-believe-it's-not IRA' bombing, Foot and Mouth disease spreads (the curious opulence of the scientist who discovered it)--scan for Will Self column. Ask A. what happened to his column, what other catastrophes could occur while you're here. "Mad Cow Disease?"

1000: disembark--Euston Square.

1015: coffee.

1030: attend seminar w/ A. Listen to wackofemale Brit voice speak briefly about the 'Semiotics of the Font' and the 'Transgression of Delight'--feel like Dumb American just for a second...write silly note to pass to A. "What font is she speaking in, you think?" Resolve not to pass it.

1045: get subjected to video full of blood, sliced ears, palms. Think how unbearably boring can be little phrases on a screen addressed to an unspecified audience whilst behind these words there is blood blood and more blood: "You stopped me from running." Write note to A.: "This makes me so sleepy." Do not pass it.

1100: get subjected to video now by and of young American filmmaker cum YBA screwing her boyfriend in graphic filmic detail (shot of boyfriend piss in sink; girl in close-up, tits and large gut and shaft shooting in, out, in, out, in out...). Feel very uncomfortably hot. Cross legs numerous times.

1115: try your best to endure ensuing discussion. "What is this about?"..hmph, hmph, "Well, feminine desire, of course." Write note to A: "I desire a cigarette." Resolve not to pass it. Listen as American cum YBA responds to question about asexuality coming from an obviously gay man w/ glasses and a funny, maybe ?Jewish? look--the response verging on ludicrosity and involving the fact of the existence of photos of the American cum YBA sucking on her boyfriend's penis and the consequent fact that the viewer cannot, really, tell whether American cum YBA is male or female in the photos. Think in raunch-South voice: 'I wouldn'ta told that.'

1200: escape room installation 'Mind of the Urban Environment,' which is not in truth titled 'Mind of the Urban Environment' and really not all that durn bad, coming down to it. Don't let yourself like it, of course. Commence walking: streets streets streets, Picadilly. Take photo in teeny little den for Underground Transit card. Stare at photo while standing in line to purchase card and think My God that hair.

1230: lounge w/ A. on park bench discussing the anthropomorphic qualities of the ducks hissing and snapping at each other. "Mating season already?" Big Ben in distance over pond and wiry, leafless trees.

1252: witness half-change of Guard, most of the viewing of which consists of awe at the large volume of horseshit in the little sentry cubes where the horse and guard stand.

1300: Charring Cross: walk.

1313: pub w/ A. Beer. "Hey I was here before." "Really?" "Yeh. Back in '90." Browse 2ndhand book market; find title--"Alcohol and the American Writer this Century." Look jokingly for entry on oneself. Find Faulkner. Damn.

1630: after long walks, quiet kisses, see film, "Songs from the 2nd Floor," Roy Anderson, at ICA, Danish and about among other things a guy who "wrote poetry til he went nuts" and whose (the film's) main thrust seems to be the line, "Beloved be the person who sits down."

1910: ICA pub/bar. Two Scotch, rocks.

1940: fish/chips in 'quaint' oldstyle little dive. Talk about Chicago, how you wish they'd get on the Fried-fish bandwagon over there. mm-mmm.

2030: Wander seemingly aimlessly through neighborhood (Hoxton?) in search of bar w/ 'Dragon' in its title. Ask directions from guy who looks like he's never heard of the place. Hurtle down indicated corridor, left at pub. Nothing. Ask directions again, this from another guy who, yes, looks just a bit more prised of the situation. Get pointed back the way you came.

2101: Yahoo! Find bar. Whisky 2x + Beer. Talk w/ A. of absurdity, Chicago friends common, you yourself and love and LOVE! LOVE? ____ ?lOvE? just maybe, yes...

2255: after bus homeward, Hoxton-Hackney-Clapton, home! yes HOME! and purchase just before retiring shaving lotion (Faberge) 2.70, Brit lb., in a driving rain.

DAY 2  DAY 3  DAY 4