yesterday found me cycling from elephant and castle to commercial road on my little bicycle. this morning found me reverse-tracing the route, and also found me battling winds that threatened to blow me, bike and hat away and into the thames.

the ride is quite scenic, especially over the bridge, but can be rather built-up and concrete-jungly for a lot of the rest. i’m rather enjoying the whole act of cycling, getting the wind in my hair and swooshing down the roads, realising how much faster i am on a bicycle as opposed to on my feet (i dawdle, apparently), and jostling with the rumbling cars and trucks for lane space.

it’s also nice to actually get some form of exercise every once in a (very long) while, although my thighs are killing me right now.

but anyway. not everyone’s interested or vaguely excited about me and my cycling escapades in central london, so i’ll leave it at that.

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more media-friendly a topic would be: how i spent valentine’s day.

if you really really must know, it was spent mostly reading about secured creditors and bypassing the principle of pari passu with regards to an insolvent estate, and about civil society and its incarnations in different contexts.

there weren’t any flowers or candles. dinner was delivered by a man in a michelin-man suit (but in black), and was rather good chinese zhr char (cook-fry?). dessert was strawberry cheesecake that wasn’t for me, and the best gift i got the whole day was a free 1.5L bottle of 7-Up from the place we got dinner delivered from.

i also watched CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, and Prison Break. and then i read ‘hideous kinky‘ by Esther Freud, and fell asleep.

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i had thought about posting a poem that was particularly fitting for the day, but my excitement over going cycling got in the way.

my excitement also caused me to forget to bring several important things like the tv aerial wire, so in order to watch tv we had to dismantle an old aerial that was stuck on the balcony, cut the plastic cover off the end of the cable and stick directly into the wall socket - i’ve never watched tv with such clear reception ever.

but i’ll put the poem i had in mind up anyway. because it’s not only for lovers. because it can be recited to so many different people at so many different times of the year. because it’s funny and sweet. and because this is my party and i’ll write whatever i want to.

Giving Up Smoking
There’s not a Shakespeare sonnet
Or a Beethoven quartet
That’s easier to like than you
Or harder to forget.

You think that sounds extravagant?
I haven’t finished yet -
I like you more than I would like
To have a cigarette.

- Wendy Cope

see, i told you. i bet you at least smiled when you read that. don’t you just love good poetry that causes physical and/or emotional reaction? it’s so primal, really, even though poetry is about the most rarefied literary form one can hope to achieve.

hope you all had a good one yesterday, and remember the rebel that was st.valentine.