Hottest day in recorded history in the UK today (37.9°C at Heathrow). In Birmingham, sudden deluge and seriously sinuous forked lightning over the village pub where we were having lunch. The electricity cut out, candlelight at 2pm under the darkness of the storm. Fourteen people injured from a lightning strike at a football match in Birmingham, others elsewhere. On the train back to London, more lightning at Northampton. Hoping the storm makes it to London before we do, to cool things down. Peter Weir’s The Last Wave feels like required viewing when we get home.
At the end of the sevententh century it was estimated that beer accounted for 28 percent of the nation’s total expenditure …according to Pete Brown’s Man Walks Into a Pub: A Sociable History of Beer. He is of course talking about Britain. I’m on a train to Birmingham for the weekend (with a beer). Been busy hunting for a new house, and working. Moving next weekend to just around the corner from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. View of Docklands and the City. We need to buy architectural salvage gryphons for the corners of the terrace for that Ghostbusters effect…