There seems to be a steady trade in umbrellas, trade being the operative word. They're for sale at little shops all along the high street for £3 ($5 CAD). But only in a downpour should one pay that, because pound shops sell identical ones for only £1. Still, trade is what we seem to do - leave one on a bus, find one on a train. Sometimes trading up and sometimes down. The best of them I lost in Paphos, of all places, last year. We're one up at the moment, having found an extra on a District tube carriage Saturday, but it may not last. Nothing wrong with the umbrella, but they do tend to take their leave.
Remembrance Day, but we're in Starbucks at eleven, and if there's silence it's accidental.
To the Museum of London for a Gresham lecture, this one entitled "Is Man Just Another Animal." Steve Jones, the presenter, is an appealing personality, and entertaining as well as informative, with a gift for putting information in perspective. We may share 95% of our DNA with chimps but we share 50% with bananas. The differences are significant. We are the only primates unable to survive on raw food alone, requiring cooking to compensate for short intestines, small mouths, reduced teeth and a modest stomach. Those who try to survive on raw food alone eventually starve - a man does not live on what he eats but on what he digests. Only in brain size do humans come off superior to the other primates. But human brain size is smaller than that of Neanderthals and no larger than it was 100,000 years ago.
Back to Kilburn High Road for dinner - our first time at Roses this trip. It's always good comfort food at prices the fast food places along the road can scarcely match, and always locals eating there. We start with large bowls of potato leek soup. Then I have roast lamb, roast potatoes and gravy, and J fish and chips. They do fish better than any other place we know, the perfectly cooked fillet longer than the ample plate.
Program on telly tonight on speeches that shook the world. Most original hint (used by Enoch Powell amongst others): don't pee before you deliver the speech - it provides that extra sense of urgency.