LCD Soundsystem:It Feels Alright As Long As Something's Happening.

It feels alright as long as something's happening? It certainly does. For once in my life, I was neither in the bar or in the toilets when the band I was watching played my favourite track of theirs. With LCD Soundsystem, that's Tribulations. But it hardly stands alone in a back catalogue that is now so replete with certified bangers that there simply wasn't time, in a two hour long set, to squeeze them all in.

Brixton Academy is a pretty small venue for LCD these days, last time I saw them it was at Alexandra Palace and they could probably sell that out several times over, but it seemed a good choice of venue as people were dancing as far back as you could see, the bar was four deep, and the balcony was a sea of waving arms as James Murphy and his gang led us through an evening of cowbell laced disco punk bacchanalia.

Murphy, whom I once briefly met sipping a flute of 'blush' wine backstage at Lovebox, makes for an unlikely frontman. As remarked before, he looks like he's just crawled out of bed and spends about half the set milling around behind the other musicians but he commands, with ease, all that stands before him. Behind him, the rest of the band (minus Nancy Whang - imperious on keyboards as ever) are laid out as if in one of those mocked up newsrooms so beloved of television news.

But whereas the news, of late, constantly feeds us bad vibes, LCD Soundsystem are all about the good time. Pam, Kathy, and myself arrived just as they were taking the stage (no support) and though the opening salvo of Us v Them and American Dream suffered from a slightly muddy sound, the infectious groove still came through. I was dancing on the spot so well that my daily step count (15,845, thanks for asking, I walked to Brixton) got a boost.

It was with I Can Change (and its intro - Kraftwerk's Radioactivity) that things really got going in. The live LCD experience may steamroller some of the nuance, even some of the knowing archness, from their songs, but it exponentially ramps up the sheer danceability of the band. 

Daft Punk Is Playing At My House, You Wanted A Hit, Yr City's A Sucker, and Losing My Edge all emerged from the relentless wall of noise and each was received like an old friend. Lesser known tracks (Tonite, Other Voices) were equally taut and the whole set passed without slack. There's not an ounce of fat on any of these tunes.

After the band had gone for what I assumed to be a communal piss (Murphy is very keen on saying they don't do encores, they just stop for a wee and come back on) an encore of the hectic Emotional Haircut, the maudlin New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down ("there's a ton of the twist but we're fresh out of shout"), the incomparable Dance Yrself Clean, and, eventually, the emotional and anthemic singalong of All My Friends.

A song that went down as well as the touching Someone Great, and the banging Tribulations, had done earlier in the set. LCD Soundsystem may not have released any new material since 2018 (a cover of Heaven 17's (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang!) but they don't really need to have done. They've earned their right to coast on a back catalogue this fine and even the bar, at one point, running out of everything except Carlsberg couldn't ruin what felt like an emotional return to London. Thanks to Kathy and Pam for joining me.

Kakistocracy XXXV:Planes, Trains, And Automobiles.

It's good, finally, that most of the UK are wising up to just how unfit and amoral a leader Boris Johnson is but could it be too late? I hope not but some of the sounds coming from Johnson's corner at the moment suggest that, like his nearest analogue - Donald Trump, he won't go easily. When even the likes of Michael Howard and William Hague (both former Tory leaders) are calling for Johnson to resign you'd think, surely, the gig is up.

But, of course, it's not. Because Boris Johnson has no shame and he has no sense of either morality or truth. At least many of the voters of Tiverton and Honiton did when the Tories lost their seat there (to the Liberal Democrats' Richard Foord) and where their share of the vote fell by 21.8%. The voters of Wakefield, whose by-election took place on the same day - and for the same reason - Tory sleaze, also decided they'd had enough of the Tories. There the Tory vote fell by 17.3% and they now have a Labour MP in Simon Lightwood.

Boris Johnson, of course, doesn't seem to particularly care about this and has, instead, bullishly talked about a third term that would take him into the 2030s before, hinting - very ominously, that when that happens they'll take a look at how things are done. I'm not saying Boris Johnson is planning on becoming a dictator. Just that his words are very much the sort of words that someone planning on becoming a dictator would say.

Hopefully, the systems of checks and balances we have in this country will prevent that scenario should Johnson choose, or already have chosen to go down that route. But then with Johnson and his cronies constantly rupturing, or destroying, those checks and balances we shouldn't be totally confident they will. We saw how close Trump came to destroying democracy in the USA and we only have to look at the disgusting reversal of Roe vs Wade to see that Trump is not finished yet.

Since I last wrote we have seen Johnson throw as much red meat to his rampant, and racist, base as possible but none of it seems to have landed quite where he'd hoped. That's not to say he's finished with those tactics. Let's take the intended first forced flight of asylum seekers to Rwanda as a very clear example.

It had been said there'd been one hundred asylum seekers on board but come the day of the flight the number was believed to be somewhere between ONE and EIGHT. Which is still one (or eight) too many. Then, as we all know, the flight was stopped by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). That was, of course, good - but will (and has), equally obviously, given this government of division the perfect excuse to relitigate arguments about Brexit (their biggest (s)hit) and complain that the ECHR are run by our old friends, the "lefty" lawyers.

I suspect this is the start of the campaign for the next General Election where, like Brexit beforehand, the government will likely juice division between those who believe in human rights - and the ECHR - and those who think we should scrap human rights pretty much in their entirety. I remember my dad telling me he didn't believe in human rights once and it struck me as a very strange thing to say. 

What with him being a human and all that. The thing about the flight to Rwanda was that it didn't matter if it happened or not. The threat of doing it was enough, as it got the right wingers foaming at the mouth in just the way it was intended, and the fact the ECHR stopped it is almost perfect for Johnson and his culture wars. But not only was the aborted flight pretty much a publicity stunt, it was a stunt that Johnson and his government made us, the tax payers, foot the bill for. We're paying our own government to troll us now.

It's worth noting a couple of things - the ECHR is not part of the EU and the UK is one of the founding nations of the ECHR. Because of the Brexit agreement it is now harder to leave the ECHR than it was before leaving the EU. Also, there seems to be some kind of myth, no doubt borne of exceptionalism, that the UK takes more migrants than anywhere else. 

That's not true. Percentagewise, we're 26th on the global list (topped by Bahrain, Maldives, and Oman) and 10th among European nations (behind Luxembourg, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Belgium, Cyprus, and Sweden). We're also behind Australia on that list which is quite surprising as right wing Tories often cite Australia as a country who's example they'd like to follow.

Some will suggest we should leave the ECHR so we can carry out these forced flights but that would put us at odds with every single country in Europe except for Russia and Belarus and are they really the bedfellows we want right now? Do we really want to be lining up alongside them? It'd be a strange case for Boris Johnson to make while he calls, at the same time, for a total victory for Ukraine in Putin's War. 

But then consistency is not Johnson's strong suit. If anything, inconsistency is. Look at how the protocol of the Irish sea border (which was both agreed and signed by Johnson - who then won a general election on the back of it) is being dangerously scrapped and look at how Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he wanted to ban the fire and rehire practices used by P&O to sack their staff but now says he wishes to adopt those exact same methods to punish rail workers for striking.

More and more people have had enough of all this bullshit and when people like Lord Geidt (Johnson's ethics advisor - surely the most ludicrous and laughed at job in the whole country, I'd rather wank off turkeys for Bernard Matthews) and Oliver Dowden (previously an absolute Johnson arse licker of the highest order) resign we can see that more clearly than ever.

How some people have taken so long to come round is beyond belief. The fact that some still haven't suggest they are basically cult members and need deprogramming. Perhaps, what says more than anything about Johnson the man is just how craven he is and how compliant some of the media is in his dishonesty and corruption.

The Times, mysteriously, dropped a story about Johnson trying to make Carrie, then his bit on the side and not his wife, Chief of Staff for the Foreign Office (£100k pa) before that was quashed by Geidt (one of many things that may have been on his mind when he quit). It soon transpired that the government had pressured The Times to stop the story.

Although Johnson wasn't PM at the time, he was the Foreign Secretary and was still married to his second wife Marina Wheeler. Wheeler had cancer and while she was suffering with that Johnson took up with Carrie. It shouldn't be a surprise as, while married to Wheeler, he also had an affair with Jennifer Arcuri and gave her £100,000 of taxpayer's money.

He's pissing our money away, he's pissing our country away, and he's pissing our democracy away. Every time I think of him I become sad, angry, and scared for the future of the country. So, obviously, I write it all down in this series of blogs and then try and focus on the good things of life and, luckily for me, there are still plenty of them.

I've chatted with Adam, Simon, and both my parents on the phone, I've been to a great Walter Sickert exhibition with Vicki, had a nice curry (in Shad, near London Bridge) with Ian, and visited Dream Machine at Woolwich Works (read all about it). Better still, I had a lovely walk around Lewisham (to celebrate it being this year's London borough of culture) with Mo and Roxanne and, best of all, I've just returned from an absolutely lovely holiday in Hafan y Mor, near Pwllheli, with Michelle and Evie.

It was an absolute tonic and tonight I'm meeting Kathy and Pam to see LCD Soundsystem at Brixton Academy which will, surely, be a good one too. But I still need to write about what I see as a historically important moment in our history. The time that the UK fell into the hands of a criminal government and the dangers that spells for our future.

At the moment in this country it feels like you can't get a plane (unless you're a migrant and even then you just sit on the tarmac as you're used as a pawn in a Tory election campaign), you can't get a train (because Shapps and Johnson are refusing to sensibly negotiate with the unions), and you can hardly afford to fill your 'automobile' up with petrol. 

In the 1987 John Hughes film Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Steve Martin found himself stuck with the annoying John Candy on a journey that used all three of these forms of transport. In the UK, in 2022, we find ourselves stuck with the criminal liar Boris Johnson. Steve Martin didn't realise how lucky he was.

My Weakness Is None Of Your Business:Avoidance.

Jonathan is a kind man, Jonathan is an intelligent man, and Jonathan is a caring man - but Jonathan is a weak man. He won't raise his voice, he won't complain if a cafe gets his order wrong, and he's intimidated by pretty much everyone he ever meets - including schoolkids. He won't even admit his relationship is over.

To either himself or his son. It takes a short while to get used to Romesh Ranganathan in the lead role of Avoidance (BBC1/iPlayer, directed by Benjamin Green who created the story with Ranganathan) but not as long as you might think. That's, possibly, because Romesh appears to be playing an exaggerated version of himself. He's acting - but not much.

It really doesn't matter because Avoidance is a good watch You may not end up howling with laughter, rolling on the floor, or involuntarily urinating inside your clothing but you will snigger, titter, and guffaw and you will admire how well observed it all is. There may be a few lines that aren't quite as funny as they think they are but by the end of the series you may find yourself, like me - predictably, in tears.

That crept up on me and I was surprised to find I'd become so emotionally invested in this tale of Jonathan, a speed awareness instructor, being dumped by his long suffering partner Claire (Jessica Knappett) and having to move into his sister's house with his young son Spencer (Kieran Logendra) who he can't face breaking the news to.

Danielle (Mandeep Dhillon), a therapist whose clients include a man addicted to wanking, lives with her forthright wife Claire (Lisa McGrillis) and they're not without a few problems of their own. Danielle wants a baby (or at least a dog) but Claire is not the maternal type. In fact, the only things she seems to like less than babies are dogs - and men.

One man she most definitely, and performatively, does not like is Jonathan whom she considers to be wet and pathetic. Which, to be fair, echoes his own self-assessment. Set in a world of bus station cafes, rainy school playgrounds, and laser quest centres (Horsham, basically) and with a soundtrack that takes in Bright Eyes, Lou Reed's Satellite of Love, and multiple rewinds of Funkadelic's Can You Get To That, Avoidance contains enough funny moments to keep you interested until the dramatic thrust of the story takes over.

There's Jonathan threatening to throw a mug out of a window of his own house, there's the time he confesses to skiving work to eat cheese sandwiches and go on the dance machines at his local arcade, and there's a priceless moment when he asks Spencer if he wants a milkshake for breakfast. When Spencer points out it's only 8am, Jonathan retaliates with "milkshakes don't get healthier later in the day" before retracting the offer.

Though there are a couple of genuinely cringe inducing scenes (intentional ones too), it is Jonathan's relationship with Spencer as well as the one he eventually forges with Courtney (when she helps him look for somewhere to live, ostensibly to get rid of him) that provide the warm heart of this understated drama.

There's a couple of great cameos from Tony Way as Claire's work friend Steve and Tony Jayawardena as Jonathan's clueless boss Keith but the drama belongs to Ranganathan, Logendra, McGrillis, Dhillon, and Knappett who all put in fantastic performances. The whole thing ends up with Spencer having a birthday treat in a zombie themed hotel but these people are not the living dead. They're very much alive. If only Jonathan could find the voice to express that.

People In This Place Hate Forever:Peaky Blinders S4.

"Mr Shelby, it's almost as if you want trouble" - Jessie Eden

"When you're dead already - you're free" - Polly Shelby

The fourth series of Peaky Blinders (BBC2/iPlayer, originally aired November/December 2017) proved to be the most addictive, best plotted, most moving series of all the ones I've seen so far. I'm not 100% sure why but it felt like everybody (from the actors to director David Caffrey and on to writer Steven Knight) put in that little bit extra for this one and the hard work paid off.

The action begins with Arthur (Paul Anderson), Polly (Helen McCrory), John (Joe Cole), and Michael (Finn Cole) with their heads being placed in tightened nooses in preparation of being hanged. But, of course, Tommy (Cillian Murphy - who in this series seems to have perfected his impenetrable steely gaze as he regular surveys the empire of dust he's built around himself) saves the day.

When we rejoin the Peaky Blinders, one year later - in the run up to Christmas 1925, they're no longer together. Ada (Sophie Rundle) is in Boston, Arthur is rearing chickens with wife Linda (Kate Phillips), Joe's still knocking out kids and scrapping with wife Esme (Aimee Ffion-Edwards), Michael's doing cocaine and taking care of business, and Polly? Well, Polly's drinking.

Tommy, somewhat remarkably, has been made an OBE (what next? A criminal as Prime Minister of the UK?) But having those three letters after his name doesn't mean he can escape the inevitable trouble that comes his way and in this series that comes in many forms. Primarily, in the person of Luca Changretta (a terrifying and captivating Adrien Brody, rarely seen not chewing on a toothpick).

Each of the Peaky Blinders receives a letter from Changretta with a black hand in it. It's a sign from the New York branch of the Sicilian mafia that a vendetta is in place for the killing of Vicente and Audrey Changretta in the previous series. A vendetta that can only end in death. When a customs official at Liverpool docks asks Changretta "what's the purpose of your visit?" he gleefully replies "pleasure".

The black hand letters do have the affect of bringing the Shelby family uneasily back together and when Changretta's assassins commit a bloody murder in broad daylight, the gypsy mercenary Aberama Gold (Aidan Gillen - a man with a very impressive CV) is brought into the picture.

The 'war' between the Shelbys and the Changrettas takes place against a backdrop of strikes and this allows Tommy to make the acquaintance of the young female trade union leader and campaigner for equal pay Jessie Eden (Charlie Murphy) who objects to him calling her 'sweetheart' but still, quite clearly, is in danger of joining May Fitz Carleton (Charlotte Riley) and Lizzie Shelby (Natasha O'Keeffe) as a nother notch on his wrought iron bedpost.

Elsewhere, Ada is suspected of being a Communist revolutionary seditionist, Finn (Harry Kirton plays the youngest Shelby brother as if an Evelyn Waugh character or an Aubrey Beardsley illustration) is elevated to the senior ranks of the Blinders, and Tommy's power struggles with both Polly and Arthur show no sign of abating.

There's side stories about horse racing and boxing (Aberama's son Bonnie (Jack Rowan) is a fiercely talented welterweight and the boxing rings look as if they've been painted by George Bellows), the glorious return - or not - of Alfie Solomons (Tom Hardy), a debut for Polly's classic 1920s Betty Boop hairstyle, a play on the line 'Let Him Have It' for scholars of Derek Bentley, a quote from a Junior Murvin tune ("guns and ammunition" from Police And Thieves), and endless scenes of long johns hanging on washing lines in back gardens, screw top beer bottles, and dimly lit offices that look like prison cells.

The Peaky Blinders grandad shirts still look good, still have a certain cool, but the Italians come in tailor made suits which sees Tommy Shelby raise his sartorial game. With the mafia now involved Birmingham starts to look a lot like the Chicago of Brian De Palma's 1987 movie The Untouchables. There was, at time of airing - however, much controversy about the portrayal of Jessie Eden. One of a smattering of real life people who have been co-opted into the world of Peaky Blinders.

That caveat notwithstanding, the series gets off to a flying start and rarely slows down. There's less fat on its bones that in previous seasons and you find yourself caring more about what happens to the leading protagonists. The soundtrack, as ever, is crucial and features the likes of Johnny Cash, Radiohead, Skepta, Idles, Rachel Unthank, Savages, The Kills, Laura Marling, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Imelda May, and Foals as well as Iggy Pop and Jarvis Cocker's version of the show's theme Red Right Hand.

Nick Cave, of course, is in there too and a version of The Mercy Seat soundtracks a tragic death in one of Peaky Blinders' most moving scenes. Series four also contains one of the show's most violent murders - in a kitchen already dripping with the blood of slaughtered livestock - as well as possibly the funniest scene in the whole four seasons so far when a Sicilian gangster complains about how disgusting spotted dick tastes.

So you get to laugh, you get to cower, and you get to feel sad. You also get caught up in the action and end up binge watching the whole thing very quickly. Once I've calmed down and had a little palette cleanser I'll be on to series five.

Salis Populi Suprema Lex Pt.I

Salis populi suprema lex.

It means "the health of the people is the supreme law" and it's the motto of the London Borough of Lewisham. The borough I live in and the borough that just happens to be London borough of culture for 2022. 

Not that you'd know it. It's not been widely publicised and the borough is not exactly heaving with cultural events - or at least no more than normal. At least the roundels at Honor Oak Park station have got with the programme. Many of my walkers didn't. For the first time ever in TADS/LbF/London LOOP/Capital Ring/Thames Path history, neither Shep or Pam were to join me for Saturday's walk.

Which felt a bit weird but Mo and Roxanne made for more than able replacements - which is just as well as I had a couple of late drop outs and I was starting to fear the walk may be something of a solo mission. It certainly began that way as I took the Overground from Honor Oak Park to New Cross Gate and walked along New Cross Road to Deptford.

I could hardly fail to be reminded that the area has, historically, been one that has seen more than its fair share of racial tension (a plaque commemorates the death/murder of fourteen young people in the New Cross fire of 1981) as well as a centre for the fight against racism (another plaque marks the spot of 1977's Battle of Lewisham and some modern graffiti simply reminds us to "LOVE MUSIC, HATE RACISM".

The latter two examples are one of the reasons I've come to love the borough and have now lived in it for twenty-six years. But I also love its neighbouring boroughs (Southwark, Bromley, and Greenwich) and if the walk should stray into any of them, which it did, that would simply be an example of neighbourliness. I was joined at the lively Jenny's Cafe by Mo (representing Croydon) and Roxanne (Southwark) and as I got there early I had both a can of Coke and a cup of tea to wash down my chips, beans, egg, and toast. Mo had something meaty and Roxanne had already eaten.

We passed down Deptford High Street, tempting though the Starburst themed outfit was I managed to decline, and commented on how lively a parade it is. It was once known as the Oxford Street of South London but now, small patches of gentrification and mock-rustic Antic pubs aside, it's a little more careworn. 

The Nightingale Pharmacy was painted up as if it was in Latin America but more typical of Deptford High Street is the Bao Long Vietnamese and oriental supermarket at the junction with Evelyn Street which we crossed into New King Street before making our way to Sayes Court Park. We'd be doubling up, briefly, on a recently, January, walked stretch of the Thames Path.

Deptford is named for a ford on the river Ravensbourne and is the former site of the Deptford Dockyard, the first of the Royal Dockyards. It's home to musical legends Dire Straits, Squeeze, and Mark Perry of Alternative TV as well as Danny Baker (which caused a heated debate as to who is worse, him or Piers Morgan. Answer:Piers Morgan by far) and is where Francis Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I and where Peter the Great of Russia came to study shipbuilding as a lad.

The tree in Sayes Court Park, below, was planted by Peter in 1698 in what was then the garden of the diarist John Evelyn. A man whose work, in recent decades, has been overshadowed by that of his contemporary Samuel Pepys.

As if to rub it in, the next two parks are Lower Pepys Park and Pepys Park. Neither of them have a tree planted by a tsar in them though. Although they do lead us to the banks of the Thames and a view over to the Isle of Dogs and its skyscrapers (borough:Tower Hamlets, fact fans).

As an aside, the borough of Lewisham's population is just over 305,000 so if it was a town/city in its own right it would rank between Doncaster and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Which means its pretty busy. There are 32 boroughs, plus the City, in London so imagine 32 Newcastle's shoved up together and you get an idea of just how vast our capital city is. 

We stopped to read a plaque about Francis Drake (the day's pace was steadier than normal, that's for sure) and to admire, or at least inspect, Martin Bond's Wall of Ancestors. At the foot of the Aragon Tower there are masks of Deptford people - both famous and local. Among them, and they're not all that easy to make out, you can see Peter the Great, Sir Francis Drake, Queen Elizabeth I, anti-slavery campaigner Olaudah Equiano, and the wood caver Grinling Gibbons.

As well as the professional clown Dr Burnhart Gloss! It's near where Christopher Marlowe is said to have been murdered in 1593 but there's no plaque to mark that. There is, in the Thames itself, a permanent sculpture by Chris Marshall called Circumsphere. We were distracted by the rather unusual sight of a large cruise ship pulling up near the Cutty Sark in Greenwich. I saw a seal from a pub window in Greenwich once but this was, if anything, an even more unusual spot.

Wrong turn? Who knows? Just before South Dock we turned away from the river for an unremarkable stretch that was livened up by a gaily painted former pub that had been converted into some kind of religious 'center' (their spelling, not mine).

A path led us by the imposing South East London Heat & Power centre (makes a change to the Tate & Lyle refinery) and Millwall's football stadium, The Den. Not generally considered to be one of the friendliest stadiums in the country although I've been twice (supporting Reading) and received nothing worse than a few hundred wanker signs.

After that we crossed Surrey Canal Road and passed through what must be rated as one of London's least used, and emptiest, green spaces. Bridgehouse Meadows is actually quite pleasant, with commanding views if you fancy an uphill trek, so it's something of a mystery why so few people make use of it.

From there you carry on down Avonley Road to the former Montague Arms. My friends Mark and Natalie used to be frequent visitors and would regale me with tales of locals performing Elvis karaoke while wheezing through asthma inhalers. I'm sorry to have missed out. I wonder if the peculiar fizzogs daubed on its former windows are those performing patrons.

On the other side of the road there's an impressive ex-fire station with a plaque to a certain George A Roberts (1890-1970). It describes him as a "First World War soldier, Second World War Leading Fireman, and a West Indian Community Leader". He'd worked at the station from 1939 and, by the sounds of it, was an all round good egg.

As was, quite clearly, Olaudah Equiano who we were to meet again in the impressively manicured Telegraph Hill Park (Lower Park). We took time to both admire him and his work and the graceful gardens but we also had to concede we had left the south London flood plains and were now reaching the hills. There wouldn't be much walking on the flat from now on.

Telegraph Hill Upper Park, abandoned office chair and all, was hillier still and once we'd strolled along the rather prosaic, somewhat suburban, Avignon Road, Friendsbury Road, and St Norbert Road we'd be turning, via Brenchley Gardens, into One Tree Hill. The hill part of its name doesn't lie but there's a lot more than one single tree there.

The 'one tree' in question, now a replant - what a swizz, is believed to be where Queen Elizabeth I took cover when 'maying' back in 1602 and near the gun placement at the top of the hill, it is said that Dick Turpin would look down on the city and decide who to rob next. A story that seems highly unlikely as people have a tendency not to stand in one place and wait for highwaymen to divest them of all their worldly goods. Even dandy highwaymen.

What I can vouch for, as regards to One Tree Hill, is that I once buried a pet rat, Chester, there in a shoe box. He was a good rat.

Once we'd descended One Tree Hill, it was a short walk to what is my local pub. The rather pleasant Watson's General Telegraph. It was formerly the Forest Hill Tavern (giant St George's cross with MILLWALL emblazoned on it in the window) and then The Rose (blasting out techno at 3am) but seems to have found its way since it's been the WGT.

I've been there countless times, the bar staff know me, and I normally drink beer there but, as with my Wednesday evening night out with Vicki, I stuck to blackcurrant and lemonade. I got Mo to take a picture so I could send it to Shep who, remarkably, wasn't even horrified at this potential breach of etiquette.

Mo, as ever, had a lime'n'soda and Roxanne took her one alcoholic drink of the day - a Timothy Taylor Landlord. Without the likes of Shep and Neil Bacchus, it's safe to say that Saturday's walk was a lot less boozy than normal.

We left the pub and passed through Camberwell Old Cemetery (a lockdown favourite of mine), up Langton Rise, along Wood Vale, and through the very pretty Horniman Gardens with its great views, lovely bandstand, and bizarre concrete football pitch (in a park full of grass they intentionally made a concrete football pitch).

There seemed to be a wedding or two going on which reminded me of when, nearly ten years ago now, I had the great fortune to attend my friend's Dan and Misa's nuptials. I pointed out the totem pole, talked a bit about the museum, and we passed across the A205/London Road into the less populated, understandably - though it does have a good play area for kids, Horniman Play Park.

From there it's a steep climb up Sydenham Hill (if you look back you get another great view of the London skyline(s)) and on the top of that we took a path into Dulwich Woods and Sydenham Hill Wood.

I love it there and it's surprisingly large. I've never once been in there and not got a tiny bit lost but I've always come out more or less at the intended point and so it was to prove again. We stopped briefly to admire the folly and read about the history of the woods. It was once heavily populated with large country houses and, indeed, follies for people who wanted to be near Crystal Palace.

Now it's a spot for joggers, dog walkers, curious locals, and I would imagine a fair amount of wildlife. You come out on a path that leads steeply downhill to Sydenham Hill train station and one of London's only working toll roads. Or steeply up to the Dulwich Wood House pub. See if you can guess which way we went.

The Dulwich Wood House is a lovely pub. A huge garden with lots of covered seating which, as it was starting to rain, was soon nabbed. I had an Estrella, Mo a lime'n'soda, and Roxanne went drinkless before saying goodbye. Mo and I chatted about office chairs and cheap meal deals and soon made haste, the Crystal Palace Tower that had been on the horizon much of the day now looming close, along the flat part of Sydenham Hill to Crystal Palace itself.

The pubs, and the triangle, were busy but Timur Indian and Nepali restaurant wasn't too busy and, anyway, it's never too hard to get a table for two. The Kuwa beer (a brand I'd never heard of before) had sold out so I took a Cobra (my second and final beer of the day) to wash down my Kashmiri Dum Aloo, Dal Makhani, and naan bread. Mo reported that her lamb tandoori and pilau rice was good and we both enjoyed some poppadoms before heading back to Sydenham Hill to catch our respective buses home

I think it's the first ever time I've got back from one of these walks before it got dark and it's probably the least I've ever drunk on one of them too (I did buy some beers from a local offy on the way home but fell asleep before I even cracked the first one open) but it was still a bloody lovely day with top company (thanks to Mo for the maps below and to both her and Roxanne for making the walk happen) and I look forward, in August, to completing the second, and final, stage of the Lewisham borough boundary walk. Before that, however, TADS are heading down to Portsmouth for another motto themed trek. Be good to see you there. Salus populi suprema lex.