Thursday, April 04, 2002

What a lovely night last night turned out to be. Warm weather, cold beer, cool bars, balmy breezes, barmy conversation.

Met up with Ian at The Light Bar. We sat on the lawn outside this converted power station and chatted about books and work and friends.

We wandered through the back streets of Shoreditch, reminiscing about The Old Days, before the east end became a lifestyle tourist destination. We found ourselves, quite by chance, at Bluu - the old Blue Note on Hoxton Square. It was chilled and relaxed, and we chilled and relaxed and were inspired to flights of fancy. We dreamt up a clothing range for webmasters: caps which say <head>, T-shirts that say <body>, jackets with a little <style> logo, fetishwear that reads <input type="submit">.

Then to brand-new venue Bridge And Tunnel for the launch of Hari Kunzru's novel The Impressionist. Sadly, there were no free copies of the book on offer, and the claustrophobic basement venue was packed with rowdy yahoos ordering outlandish cocktails from the free bar, but we did manage to have a good natter [relationships, intelligence and books] and we think we sat next to Zadie Smith, so that's alright then.

I hadn't been to Viet-Hoa in years - not since I moved out of my grotty bedsit round the back of the Geffrye Museum - but I was glad to see it hasn't changed. Good food, friendly service, reasonable prices, and more excellent conversation [work, aging and death]. This seemed a natural point to end an excellent evening out. Ian, naturally, staggered off to a vague assignation at the White Swan. I staggered home.

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