Sunday.

Quiet. Today I have mostly been rereading the late Desmond Bagley's "Running Blind". It's a spy thriller, set in Iceland around the time it was wrtten - about 1970. There was a BBC Scotland adaptation of it (well, the hero's Scottish, y'see . . . sorta) in the late seventies that I remember watching and enjoying at the time but don't remember anything about. Sometime later - perhaps as late as the early eighties - I swiped my granddad's copy of the book and read it. Somewhat shamefully, I still have it. Barney's pretty much blind now, so he probably doesn't have much use for the thing, but I should probably have gotten around to giving it back sometime in the last twenty years.

If I've borrowed anything of yours and it's been a while, please remember to remind me.

Anyway, I had the map of Iceland that I picked up last weekend open on the floor next to me. As it happens, I visited a few of the locations and travelled a few of the roads that appear in the book. Some of these I was aware of, and some I wasn't.

It's a very good read. Looking around the Marvelous InterWeb, I notice that a fair proportion of people who mention this book also say that they were very taken with the portrayal of Iceland and Icelanders. Some of them seem to have visited as a result. A couple retraced part of a route across the interior by bicycle.

Little-known Iceland fact : after about 90 years of being almost exactly dormant (episodes involving a hundred pounds of soap powder notwithstanding), Geysir has apparently gone off a few times in the last couple of years. The accounts vary in how often they say this is and how impressive compared to its former glories, though. It follows some earth tremors in southern Iceland in June 2000, apparently, which have increased the hot-spring activity in the area generally.

Understandably little-known non-Iceland fact : said Granddad, Barney, joined the Royal Artillery in 1937. After Dunkirk he volunteered for Commando training, which is how he met my Gran - they were based in Ayrshire, which is where she's from and where I (and my mother before me) grew up. The next few years were spent on things like coastal raiding and worrying training exercises. He was then, and is still, a communist, which had more than a little to do with his motivations. Between then and finally retiring, he was mostly a joiner.
The few war stories he's told me revolve around how terrible the officers he served under were.

In practical terms, I've put some clothes in the washer. I had a smallish whisky, which was very nice. After that I decided to get the drill out and finish putting up that curtain-rail. And a moment later I decided that maybe that wasn't such a good idea.

Saturday

Hmm. Yesterday.

My plans were a bit more complex than usual. I'd been asked by an old flatmate, Tom, if I'd help him move his stuff from Stamford Hill to Seven Sisters. This sounded fine, so I'd agreed. My flatmate Raven then mentioned that his flight back to Australia - permanently, to a first approximation at least - was early early Sunday monring, so he'd have to go out there on Saturday night. And we'd been talking about going to the Bodyworlds exhibition. I reckoned I could square these, just about. And maybe fit in a quick drink with Fiona while I was at it. No problem.

So how did it work out?

I got up tolerably early (for a weekend) - before nine. and waited and watched Raven packing. He'd been waylayed and kept up all night by people wanting to talk, so he was a little more tired than he hoped and took a little longer. Nevertheless, finally he was ready to roll and we got on our way about eleven. The car behaved itself all day - no, I still haven't stopped worrying that the radiator's going to fall off again. Maybe I should have paid someone else to do it. I wouldn't fret as much. Anyway, Raven slept a lot of the way down (understandably) and I think missed the amazing tailback in the northbound lane. I was worrying that the Countryside Alliance demo would leave the roads clogged with irate ruralites, but everyone else staying away as requested seemed to have balanced things up. I dropped Raven at Seven Sisters (after getting his Satanphone number off him) and went down to Tom's now ex-place, which it turned out was lovely and in a very nice area. Notable Stamford Hill is full of the Orthodox - I've never seen so many fedoras in my life. Apparently a lot of Russian families have turned up in the last year - Tom claims to have been on at least one bus where all the ambient conversation was in Russian. lso, "Russian women lose some of their remote glamour and unattainability when you see them on the bus every morning". I assume the big furry hats were on the heads of the men from the Russian families. They were very impressive.

It didn't take too long to shift all of Tom's stuff, because it wasn't far. His new place looks quite nice, and is very handy for the shops. I was still running late, though. Tom went off for an audition for the part of transvestite prostitute called Colin. I went looking for Raven, and didn't find him until after I'd managed to meet up with zoo_music_girl for a swift glass of lemonade. And buy a couple of records. Raven had been getting his ear pierced in an interesting was and meeting a friend, and I met up with them by TCR tube. They insisted on going into the big sex shop there for a look around. I haven't been into a sex shop for some years - not, in fact since I went touring the fetish emporia of London with my Bastard Ex some years ago to get her a corset (check, Axford's) and potentially some other stuff (not as it happened). It's much bigger than any of those ones, but had pretty much the same sort of stuff - although I noticed the range extended further tackiwards. I suppose it's in a prime high-street location, though. They had a lot of hardcore, though. Some of it looked very silly. In fact, a lot of it looked very silly. Still, whatever lights your candle.

The three of us went over to Brick Lane, mainly by tube, but when we got there I saw the size of the queue and decided against. I am going to go again (I saw it in Brussels earlier in the year) but at that point I went off to meet Tom again. He seemed fairly pleased with how the audition had gone and we went for some Mexican food on Chalk Farm Road. Just about as we finished, Raven called and said they were out of the exhibition, so I took my leave, picked up the car and picked them up at Liverpool Street Station. I dropped Helen off in Islington and drove Raven out to Heathrow. I waited until he'd finshed repacking stuff, walked over to terminal 2 with him and said goodbye.

I'll miss him.

The way back was odd. Actually, west London on the way to the airport had been strange and frustrating, largely due to it being a roadsign-free zone until I hit the Westway The way back was fine until I reached the Harlow exit, though. The M11 was closed northbound, so there was a diversion (poorly-signposted, natch) through Bishop's Storford. I lost my way, of course, at some point turning left instead of right and ending up heading for Hertford. I decided that sooner o rlater I'd hit the A10 and headed onwards. Just before I reached it I decided to grab some sleep in a layby, after which I felt much better and finally got home about 4.