It’s surprising, the cold outside, but really only because I have been reading about India for days now. I have been steeped in the noontime tea of the Vishram Vegetarian Hotel. I have been living in pages dusty and crowded, where the beggars clank solitary coins in rusty tins, where the trains are late, where there are small airy balls of pink fluff to be gotten from the cottoncandywalla on the street. The days sound like heavy Singer sewing machines whirring, stopping, whirring, stopping. The land is hot, the time is hot.

So it is surprising, the cold outside, but it is nothing a pair of tights and a red coat can’t solve.

Last night in Southwark, down the street from the kebab place and the fried chicken place, behind a bright red door, Hens made beef rendang, bak kut teh, and a light chai poh omelette for girls in search of the tropics.