i nearly died today

yes, that is true. as i was walking from Chinatown to Soho (i think i was on Great Compton Street) feeling strangely at one with the world, which i thought looked quite beautiful just then, my daydream was interrupted by a loud metallic CLANG. a pipe had fallen out of the sky and hit the pavement about two feet from where i was walking. the pipe was completely bent out of shape when it landed. if i had been walking two feet to the right i would probably have been killed. it was all quite donny darko. it completely freaked me out.

apart from feeling happy and then suddenly nearly dying and then being in a bad mood i did other things today. first i saw the BP portrait award in the national gallery. it thought it was ok, but it always annoys me how people make the most fuss over the paintings that look the most like photographs. after the BP i looked around a few of the old, faded and rather boring exhibitions that they hide upstairs, paid about 50 quid for a salad in the cafe and then headed out to the square again. i couldn't see much 'festival' going on, but there was a big screen in the middle of the square on which they were showing the olympic diving. i found it quite amusing when, at one crucial point, a massive window popped up on the screen saying 'your virus protection is out of date'.

it was nice to stand in the sun and feel the enthusiasm of the people around me gasping and cheering and applauding together.

then i walked from trafalgar through chinatown. i poked around in a few of the chinese supermarkets and chinatown market, which was nice. i was very tempted to buy a lot of the wonderful multicoloured tat but managed to restrain myself, something which i now regret. i definitely think my life would be a lot better if i had bought those hello kitty ears and that purse with the bell on it and those glittery flower transfer tattoos. definitely. i did buy some badges with swear words on which i found quite humorous for reasons that now evade me. and a magazine called 'Milk' which had nice pictures but which cost 6 fucking pounds. i didn't realise until i got to the till and then it was too late because the guy was being all nice to me and i couldn't just put it back and piss off out of the shop so i just had to smile sweetly and part with my hard-earned cash and then piss off out of the shop, scowling. i have decided that i'll have to read it every day for the next month in order to alleviate my guilt. not that i can read it, because it's all in foreign, innit. yeah so there i was trundling along with my new purchases and nearly got killed by the flying pipe, blah blah blah, then i went to oxford street and bought a beautifully soft black cotton pullover from Muji que je porte actuellement. then i went down carnaby to piccadilly and from there managed to find my way to leicester square and covent garden. actually i'm sure i didn't do it in that order (the awfulness of my memory, and geography, never cease to amaze me). i sat in covent garden for a while listening to a busker called terry st clair, or something, whose songs were really lovely. he had a beautiful husky voice. he sang a song about how you can never be lonely in london that got to me.

i'm annoyed that i can't remember the order that i did things in today, because i had such a lovely day. anyway eventually i ended up on the strand and decided to see the south bank. they had a band playing on the astroturf outside the national theatre but on the spur of the moment i decided to go and see a play. i ended up seeing 'her naked skin', which i knew nothing about, but which turned out to be a suffragette love story. a story about passion, love and loss. failure and loneliness. it was nice but made me sad. within the play there was quite a graphic simulation of force feeding which shocked quite a few people. i'm not easily shocked, though, so i thought it was fine, and necessary.

then i got the bus from waterloo bridge to home. now i am home, wishing i had stayed out by the river a little longer