Never in a Month of Sundays ...

This is a photo from Columbia Road flower market in London's East end. Well worth a visit if you're looking for a chi chi experience with plenty of instagramable photo opportunities. Full of beautiful flowers and, often, an equally beautiful and diverse crowd.

Had friends over from France this week and I took them to its sister, Broadway market, on Saturday morning. As we walked round the corner to the market itself my mate Giles exclaimed

"Wait ... is this real or are they making a film ....?"

They were with us for just two nights, taking in a concert (more of which later), trips to Pophams, Shoreditch House, the Yeast Bakery, Broadway market and avoiding any and all of central London. All easy on the eye and nothing like most of the "real" London. But, hey, they were tourists. That's allowed.

Anyway, they were with us Thursday to Saturday, which meant that Saturday felt like a Sunday. And next week we're going away ourselves Thursday to Saturday, so next Saturday will feel like a Sunday. Then we have to make an odd, top secret, trip to North Yorkshire on Monday, so Tuesday will also feel like a Sunday. And tomorrow is a Bank holiday, so .... you get the drift.

I don't even particularly like Sundays as a rule. And here I am today with no family around (daughter gone off to Suffolk in our shared car, boys in Devon at a bike race .... again) ... what is a women to do except, perhaps, write a letter to her closest friends. So here I am. Off we go.

When is a Festival not a Festival

I'll you when. When it's held in a field in Hackney.

It has been All Points East this week - a series of concerts (OK, gigs if you're under 50) - spanning just over a week. Held in Victoria Park. People come on the tube and go home on the tube. No-one camps. The BBC never shows coverage of "festival goers" in their Hunter wellies and little demin shorts, three feet in mud.

So why, then, did the attendees feel a need to decorate their hair with flowers, don something sparkly, show off all their tattoos and paint their face with glitter? It's not Glastonbury. It's not vaguely spiritual. It's Hackney. Get real.

Still, I shouldn't be grumpy. Had a perfectly nice time there on Friday, that's if you discount the 37 minutes I stood in the pouring rain hoping that, if I stood perfectly still, the water would pass me by. I was wrong. I tell you, if Giles & Alex (the French friends) hadn't been there I would have been marching back home after about 3.7 minutes. The cans of gin & tonic helped. Eventually.

Here we are. No twinkly outfit, face paint, flowers in our hair or tattoos. But still smiling. This could have been the gin.

FFS

Long time readers may remember that this column, in its early days, used to have a slot called something like "The Bald Man Slot." This was mean, politically very incorrect and also not very funny so I dropped it.

Tempted to reinstate it today but then decided no-one needs to give any more airtime to that misogynist over in Spain who has indentified a new phenomenon - "False Feminism". Wow. I mean, wow.

Rather than talk about what a spectacle the World Cup was, how women's football is really in the ascendency, how to get more young girls into sport, the fabulous impact that sport of any kind can have on young lives ... the airways have been dominated by this man's behaviour and everyone's reaction to it.

FFS.

Tin Cans versus the South Side of the Moon

Do you know why headphones are sometimes called cans?

It's because in the olden days, as a way of passing the time, two kids would take two empty tin cans and connect them with a string. One would talk, and the other would put the can over their ear; the other kid would be able to hear what the first kid was talking about as the string allowed sound to travel through them; these were the basis for early headphones.

Anyway, the point is, this is what a tin can looks like. Might have made a rudimentary set of headphones but in no way shape or form would you use it as the basis for transportation between two high places.

Thank heavens and whoever you pray to that these people were saved. But "cable car" doesn't really come close does it?

I just found it so shocking that people were using - and do use - this "transportation" to get to school, or to a hospital, in parts of Northern Pakistan. And probably similarly poverty-stricken areas all over the world.

The same week, India managed to land a module on the south side of the moon.

Not criticising either nation, by the way, just made me think about humanity and how we set our collective priorities.

Me and My Tattoo

I don't have one. Almost everyone else at the "Festival" did. Which led my friend Alex and I to have a very serious debate about whether we should. Didn't take long for me to decide I have no need of a tattoo. Specifically:

• I know the names of all of my children and also every pet I have ever owned
• I love my mum and she knows it, not sure it's anyone else's business
• I also know the dates of my children's birthdays and in any case I don't think they would let me forget them
• I like a flower but prefer the kind that's colourful and smells nice
• I don't like snakes
• I bear no relation - nor have I ever borne any relation - to an ancient tribe
• I can't read Sanskrit

The Culture Bit

Sorry, this will have to be quick. My friend Olivia is coming to pick me up so we can walk to another friend's for a drink. This is my new strategy for having a nice time when the kids abandon me. Realised I was overcomplicating the matter.

I'm reading: Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson Small. Wonderful. Set in London. But then, as it would appear, so am I. For the moment at least.

I'm watching: The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. Just started, with my daughter. Very promising.

I'm listening to: Slow Horses on Audio. Now on Book 6. Am addicted.

I'm off.

Happy Sunday