Reds

Today's task: the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. Apparently watching one bunch of geezers clock off work as a second lot clocks on is a huge deal over here.

Could be the red uniforms. And the funny hats.

Whatever the reason, it was on The List.Fortunately this isn't the tourist season, because even in the off season the crowds were daunting. We had a reasonably good position, with "reasonably good" defined as "I think I saw a flash of red over there".

Getting a prime position probably required getting there two hours earlier than we did. I'm moderately interested in the ceremony, but not that interested. We did see a few bits, but decided our location wasn't really giving us the best prospects, so we decided to move on.This turned out to be a brilliant decision, giving us a great view of the Queen's Household Cavalry passing within a few metres.

A bit further up the road we saw Guardsmen leaving the Barracks on the way to the Palace. This was a fantastic photo op, somewhat spoiled when some idiot German tourist had the idiotic idea of jumping in front of us so his idiot wife could take an idiotic photo of him pretending to be an idiot marching with the Guards.

.

Hilarious.

Idiot.

We continued up The Mall towards Admirality Arch and Trafalgar Square, where we were due to meet Emma's friend Anne-Marie, an Irish woman she worked with in the late 1990s.

(Digression: the Arch was built in 1912, and acquired its name due to its proximity to the royal Navy Headquarters. Two years ago the UK government put the building up for sale as part of its austerity programme, and last year it was sold to a Spanish developer on a 125 year lease for £75 million, and will be converted into a luxury hotel.

And no, I am not making this up.)

We met Anne-Marie under the lions, and found a nearby non-descript pub for lunch.* Anne-Marie is a marvellously engaging personality with a knack for storytelling. The saga about the Chistmas looking after the Burmese cat, two love birds and tank of goldfish was hilarious - if tragic for most of the partisans.

The food was reasonable, although my cheesecake could have been inserted through the eye of a needle without scraping the sides. Our waitress agreed with us, and said she had told the manager the slices were too small.

She disappeared shortly after that. Ominous.

We kicked on to the Scoff and Banter in Leicester Square for coffee and Prosecco, lured in by a charming Polish waiter. This was followed by a bottle of the Spanish red we'd had the night before.

We rang Simon, who joined us. Which required another bottle of red.

Late in the afternoon we were joined bt Anne-Marie's brother Sean, and her friend Zoe. We had run out of wine by this time, so ordered another bottle.

This seemed as good a place as any for dinner. Although this did mean we needed another bottle of wine. The Spanish red seemed as good as any.

Any plans for post-dinner activities were looking shaky, as was my ability to walk in a straight line. we ambled off towards Oxford Street, only getting a little lost, and caught the bus to Shoreditch.

Shoreditch on Saturday nights is quieter than Shoreditch on Friday nights, in the same way a hand grenade is quieter than an artillery shell. I didn't drop off to sleep until after 1am, with yet another big day ahead of us with the British royals.

* I'm using non-descript in the English sense, as in "that old 17th century thing? *Yawn*".