On a lighter note, went to Ping Pong (a posh dim sum restaurant on Great Marlborough Street near Oxford Circus) for Steve’s birthday today.

I’m a bit 50/50 on Ping Pong I must say, though everyone else seems to love it. I find the service rather off-hand, but actually it’s considerably better than your average Chinese place.

Truth is, I think my biggest gripe is simply that it’s too… European. They’ve taken Dim Sum and turned it posh and white. It’s all quiet conversation, high prices, small portions and nifty presentation. The food is reasonable and they do some excellent fruit juices, but the presentation and decor are the real stars. I want the decor to be cheesy, the china to be cheap, the food to be divine and the bill to be staggeringly low.

Anyhow, lunch itself was very pleasant. Unfortunately I got one, yes, one decent photo. My fault. I gave my camera to Mark to play with before lunch, and didn’t check it properly when he gave it back. Thought the thing was being unneccessarily slow. Didn’t realise he’d left it on AV mode. Damn thing was trying to take everything at F8 in a dark restaurant.

I’ve never been a worrier. It’s not in my nature as a rule, but I have to say that global warming is now seriously starting to disturb me.

The head-in-the-sand 4×4 brigade continue to scoff or pretend that this is a natural phenomenon.

Meanwhile, here in the UK we’ve just had what surely is the oddest summer/autumn ever:

July was the hottest month on record ever.

August was cold, wet and miserable. It hailed at one point.

September was the hottest September since records began.

Now we’re midway through October, the forecast high each day most of this week has been 19 degrees celcius, which is surely much too high for the middle of autumn!

Meanwhile, last week, we had several bouts of monsoon like downpours. Don’t get me wrong, it rains in the UK… quite often even! But not much. I mean, we never get real rains here, just incessant drizzle. This was different. This was like the skies just opening up for half an hour.

It’s official. I’m worried.