I just realized that it has been over a month since I drove a car. I am certain that this is the longest I’ve gone since my freshman year at Bowdoin.

Standing on the porch of our flat, you can see twenty cranes. The City of London is gradually expanding and swallowing up the surrounding neighborhoods. It is bad enough, but most of the architecture is pretty ugly, which makes it worse.

Update on the Class War: Buoyed by their “success” (or at least notoriety) in the Cereal Killer protest (which I understand made the Boston Globe), these anarchists are going to protest at the Jack the Ripper Museum, because the museum is insufficiently focused on the history of women in East London. I can’t see how it will cause as much of a stir as the Cereal Killer thing (that was a kind of perfect storm).

Today Judie and went to a big wine place on the South shore of the Thames (Vinopolis) using a gift pass that our old Minister, Charlie (and his wife Judy) gave us as a going away present. We had a great time, although it was hard to get anything else done that afternoon.

Afterward, I went to Borough Market (Judie went back to the flat to take a nap and call her sister) and bought duck confit and chanterelle mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes and hare pate and rump steak from wild-raised beef and heirloom tomatoes and bakewell tarts. Resisted buying lots of cheese and salamis and zebra and kangaroo meat and frogs legs. It really is Disneyland for foodies.

Judie is coming back to the USA next week, going to Kansas City. Then she is going again at the end of the month (Las Vegas and New York). We are thinking of taking a trip to Italy next month to meet Robbie and Bob, although Judie’s schedule is so busy, it is hard to work out the details.

I’ll be alone, so I’m looking for course to take (Thai food?) or lectures to go to (there is one almost every day at the London School of Economics). I’m also looking for an art class to take, but most of them started weeks ago.