Lord love a duck, I’m as tired as—

something lah.

I appreciate the work and all, but having a job sure keeps me from doing other stuff during the day. (I can think of at least two of you who are rolling your eyes at me.) (And maybe one who has taken off his glasses and is rubbing his forehead.)

And then before you know it, it’s after six and I’m catching the rush-hour bus across the city—or rather, I’m sitting in a bus that’s going nowhere fast, because it is the rush-hour bus across the city. I was late enough to meet Nicole last night that seven o’clock found me sprinting—in heels—(pink heels)—down Grosvenor Place, by the Buckingham Palace Gardens. The queen may have tsk-tsked.



Yesterday’s lunch-time excursion brought the one empty seat at Café Kick. At Café Kick, the football scarves are pinned to the rafters. Aberdeen, Benfica, Marseille. “Notre coeur ne cessera jamais de battre.” The wood counter is smooth, at Café Kick, and polished by the years. The bartender has thick dreads and a big smile.

There are fairy lights strung any old how at Café Kick, weaving in flickering red through tin lanterns hung above the kitchen, twinkling in white against a 1982 Copa del mundo de futbol poster.

Office boys at lunch played foosball and cheered each other on, while office girls—well, this office girl—dipped hunks of crusty, chewy bread into a bowl of tomato soup. The soundtrack was chill, Brazilian, and you almost forgot it was winter outside.