Saturday, April 3/2010

Begin by watching qualifying for tomorrow's Malaysian Grand Prix. it's quite interesting as there is intermittent heavy rain, creating an unpredictable starting grid.

It's on the edge of rain when I go out for a Guardian before qualifying, but bits of sun crep through and we decide to walk over to Kilburn, about a mile away, to explore and also to check out the Cock Tavern, which incorporates a small theatre, currently host to a production of La Boheme - tecommended to us by a man on a bus in Camden Town. Kilburn high road is a pleasure, with some of the rough vibrancy that Queensway had twenty years ago and has lost. There's the Bell pub - where one can have fish and chis and a pint for £6 ($9.25 CAD or €6.60). There are plenty of small shops, some with produce spilling out onto the street, and little street corner markets. At one point we pass a group of exuberant black singers, singing gospel music out of sheer exuberance - no hat out for collections. We find the Cock Tavern. It's a stately brick building, licensed in 1486 and rebuilt in 1900. Upstairs there's a theatre that seats 40, while the downstairs is, apart from the tile mosaic in the entry, a reasonably unprepossessing pub - bare wood floors, a scattering of male regulars and even, as we come through the outer doors, a faint but unmistakeable smell of piss. No refinement, but like Kilburn High Road itself, very real. Unfortunately, it's not possible to buy tickets - or even get prices - here. That has to be done online or by phone.
Take the 31 bus to Camden Town where we get a whole chicken at Somerfield Co-op and then bacon, pitas, milk and trout fillets at Sainsbury's. Then home by tube.