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London, United Kingdom

The last couple of days have seen me return to the gym for a Will(power) &amp; Grace class and an hilarious but hardcore Pilates workout featuring such postures as ‘the kettle’ (a pelvic floor clench to be held as long as it takes your kettle to boil), the ‘Sainsburys toilet seat’ (clearly one for those thigh muscles after ‘the kettle’ has finished boiling) and the ‘George Clooney’ (involving long legs and chest thrust forward in a stretch to catch the eye of the man himself as he walks on by. I’m not a dedicated fan so I had a little rest at this point).

To combat the positive effects of the gym, I met with Elizabeth at the pub to discuss secret women’s business and drink too much and ate yet more fishless chips with Vic &amp; Pete. Other than that, I’ve been tending to matters of admin and also saw my baby nephew, Lucca, crawl to me for the first time over Skype.

Today I was given a second chance to meet Dan at the BFI on the Southbank and this time I was punctual! We started our day with a coffee at Royal Festival Hall before meandering down to Gabriel’s Wharf for our pick of any number of excellent lunch spots. We settled on and in at Studio 6 where we discussed such important topics as what we would do if we won the lottery. Dan has already come to an agreement with another friend to build giant fighting robots and televise the matches. He took on my suggestion that they should be made of a difficult-to-look-at material to discourage people watching for free but whilst I had meant some highly reflective and dazzling metal, he was putting in a bulk order for paisley.

Our afternoon plan had been to go see the new Tin Tin movie but having walked over to Leicester Square we discovered it isn’t yet showing at any of the major cinemas. All those pompous reviews must have come from special preview screenings. Not to worry. We took a round about walk via Pall Mall to the ICA for a drink in the bar (which ought to be way cooler than it actually is) where we discussed science fiction, ghost stories and classic horror literature to get us in the Halloween mood.

On to The Silver Moon near Trafalgar Square for another pint and pondering on times gone by until enough time had actually gone by for us to head back to Furzedown for tricks and treats arranged by Vic. We walked through the front door to find the house haunted by plastic ghosts and ghouls and the table laid with a platter of eyeballs (baby buffalo mozzarella balls with a sliced olive on top – simple, effective, delicious!).Vic had forgone wearing the child’s ghost costume she’d bought from the pound shop but once Pete joined us, she had us all making masks and having the time of our lives doing so.

We had some beers with our jambalotto (the specially of the house combining the best elements of jambalaya and risotto) and then cracked open the chocolate cognac as an accompaniment for the impromptu YouTube party (do yourself a favour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovEDhFfg dOo). The night progressed, one thing led to another and out came the Guinness and Vegemite – it was time for beer connoisseur Dan to meet ‘The Convict’! At this point, Halloween became truly frightening as the regrettable phrase “keep your mind and mouth open Dan!” was uttered to which Pete responded with a line from his favourite dubious Australian anti-racism campaign with an equally dubious Australian accent “that’s never right!”

But it was right, perhaps so-wrong-it-was-right but none the less, I’ve had a brilliant day and night which I hope will haunt me for the rest of my days!

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