St Paul's Churchyard, WC2. Tues 5th April. 1.55pm.

Neptune fountain.

Lunch in graveyard. Sunny day, spring in the air.


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Embankment Gardens. Mon 4th April.

The early bird; a few days later all were out.

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Parliament Hill, NW5. Sat 2nd April.

Picnic lunch with Tom, Lincoln, Steve, and families, plus Jay. Kids mucking about at the end while we said goodbyes. Daring Harry, Linus following, Billy in his own world, Edie smiling for the camera as usual!


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Airspace above Alps. Wed 30th March, early morning!

Flying back from Bolognia bookfair. Just amazing views of the Alps.


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Apple Store, Covent Garden. Fri 25th March.

9.30am: Queue for iPad 2, launched today at 5pm.

Springfield Park, Hackney. Sat 26th March.

Lincoln and Oscar turned up unexpectedly from Japan, escaping risk of radiation from nuclear power stations disrupted by earthquake. (Poor Mayumi stayed behind!)
Had nice walk through marshes to Springfield Park. Found good climbing tree, ate lunch in cafe, played football.


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Finsbury Park tube. Thurs 24th March.

Rob Perry and me talking about Pauline Brody last Thursday in pub. Then today realised I'd been standing in front of a Tate poster featuring one of Brody's paintings. Coincidence.


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Royal Opera House. Wed 23rd March.

View of Covent Garden Piazza from upper terrace at the Opera House. The occasion: Pearson Results Presentation.

My book -- LEGO Star Wars The Visual Dictionary -- shown on slide. People tittered! Pearson people surprised such trivia could sell so many copies!


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Purley Oaks. Tues 22nd March, 10.40am

Lisa and I shot a werewolf today!

Nick's birthday too... Happy birthday Nick!

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Tate Modern. Mon 21st March, 1.45pm

Fast walk to Tate Modern today in blazing sunshine and some real actual spring heat in the air, playing Velvet Underground on my headphones.


Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds at the Tate.

For the record, 100 million tiny sculptures of sunflower seeds, made out of porcelain and hand-painted by skilled artisans in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen.

I liked how Weiwei says the seeds represent the famine under Mao, and also the propaganda used during that era where Mao’s face would be the sun, and sunflower seeds would represent the people, turning toward him for sustenance. But also that during the Cultural Revolution sunflower seeds were a popular snack that people would eat and share, symbolising a common humanity that abides.


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DK. Fri 18th March. 6pm.

Stunning sunset from my floor at work. Soothing for a day of fuzzy head and sugary tea after being out last night with work then with Steve and Harley.

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Paul Stolper Gallery, Museum St. Wed 16th March, 7.30pm

Met Peter Blake tonight! At private view for a small exhibition of his new work. Mum came, and we drank white wine and listened to PB talking about alphabets. He signed his book to Linus, talked about Bath and living in London, and we went home happy!


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Discover, Stratford. Sat 12th March, midday.

At Discover Centre in Stratford, to hear Ed Vere and Axel Sheffler reading. Ed wrote three of Linus and Edie's favourite books, which we brought for him to sign. He showed everyone how to draw his character mr big, which was great. Axel Sheffler is German and very charming, with a gentle, engaged smile.

Beautiful sunny day, we were there until 3pm, then went home and made pizzas.




Our Mr Bigs...


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Berwick St, Soho. Friday 11th March, 1.50pm

View through prints shop window.
One of those pop-up shops that take over premises for a spell in-between leases.

Spent far too long browsing vinyl in Berwick St this lunchtime. Had to claim I'd been abducted by aliens when I got back to work.

Sunny and springlike. Playing a Greensleeves reggae compilation on Spotify, really reminds me of being a student in Manchester.

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High St, Walthamstow. Thurs 10th March, 8.30am

A slice of East London life: halal butchers looking pretty cool in matching straw hats. The entire staff of five or so wear them. Nice touch. Nasty job.


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Old Bond St. Wed 9th March, 1.30pm

Louise bourgeois and Tracey Emin exhibition at Hauser & Wirth London in Old Bond St.


No photography allowed!



The pictures were watercolour bodies by Bourgeois and doodles and scribbles by Emin. It seemed to be about pregnancy and sex and quite a bit of unhappiness around both issues.

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Kenilworth Ave, E17. Tues 8th March, 8.20am

Very foggy this morning when I left the house. The sun was a hazy disc dimly shining from behind a vast curtain of white.

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Pantone Street. Mon 7th March, 1.50pm.

Everywhere you go in central London, you see rows of Boris bikes, and few, if any, are ever in use. Is this just because they only get used in rush hour? Or is the scheme faltering? I hope not because, despite my opposition to Johnson and notwithstanding the fact that I have never used one of the bikes myself, I want the scheme to be a success. I actually tried to use one once but it wouldn't accept my card, perhaps I needed to preregister online.

Long roundabout walk along Mall and up to Old Bond St to see exhibition but gallery was closed on a Monday. Will go back later in the week.



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Barbican Centre. Sun 6th March, 3pm.

Very cold day.

Day of odd family activities at the Barbican. Hip hop maypole dancing. Dolls house puppet theatre. Drumming with pots and pans.

And a large suckling pig, with a strange little secret show going on inside. The kids had to wear tails so the pig wouldn't be scared of them. Linus and Edie thought it was nothing short of marvellous.





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St James' Park. Thurs 3rd March, 1.40pm.

Those pelicans again. There's four that live in the park. Three are pink, one is white. Got talking to a toothless old guy who knew all about them, particularly the one in the foreground, who he called William. He's naughty apparently, disrupting the Queen's parade, chasing school girls into ladies lavatories, and escaping to Leicester Square so the police had to bring him back in a police van. I enjoyed talking to this toothless chap.

Very chilly, not much sun. Played
Miles Davis' On The Corner album, which I love, for all its punk-funk, coke-addled, wah-wah trumpet, Stockhausen-inspired fetid craziness.

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Adelphi district. Wed 2nd March, 1.30pm

Early London flatshare?

Cold today, but wonderfully sunny. Walked around my favourite secret London district, Adelphi.

Also saw this:





Never heard of numismatists before, sounded like numerologists or necromancy of some sort. Turns out to be the study of currency.

Listened to The Good Earth by The Feelies. Good for a sunny, cold early spring day.

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Wood Street, E17 (part 2). Tues 1st March. 9.30pm.

Love this. Staircase to nowhere.



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Wood Street, E17. Tues 1st March. 9.20am

On way to hospital (minor surgery on a mole), my favourite bric-a-brac market. The display window is genius, and, I think, new. Each "unit" has a single item that stands for the whole. (there's a word for that isn't there?) I love the little tiny fry up, for unit 36-38 (the cafe). And the tiny dolls house furniture, for a second-hand furniture unit.













(I'd like to think the word is synecdoche or metonym.
But I think it's probably just "representation".)


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Orbital Manga. Monday 28th Feb. 1.40pm

Odd exhibition, or wall displays, or whatever you want to call it, in this comics bookshop near Leicester Square.

Cold, cold weather. I didn't walk far. Bought Cornflakes for Edie since she'd been asking me to buy her a new packet since last week.

Reading Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner so looked for others by him in Waterstones.

Playing Brothers by Black Keys.


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St Margaret's Bay, Kent. Sun 27th Feb. 11.35am.

A cave in the chalk cliffs being carefully inspected by Linus and Edie.

Sunny warm weather so different from fog and rain of yesterday. This bay is incredible and the home of Noel Coward and Ian Fleming. I even spoke to the current owner of Fleming's White house which is right on the beach looking straight out to sea. Wonder whether Fleming too watched the Dover-Calais ferries as we did.



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Deal beach. Sat 26th Feb.

Crab shell sculpture.

You should have seen the bag of pebbles collected by the kids. And guess who had to lug them around all day!

My fault though. Edie kept picking the same kind. I showed her how to look for unusual colours or patterns or shapes. She then kept picking them up saying "daddy is this an UNUSUAL one?"

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Dover Castle. Fri 25th Feb.

Dover Castle. Not that you'd know. Hardly saw a thing for the fog, though there was a...




king.

King Henry II in fact. And the kids learnt knight skills, too. Fab!

Weekend at Grannie and Gramps' new home in Deal.


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Rose and Crown, E17. Thurs 24th Feb, 8.45am.

Poster for Dave Bryant's first poetry gig in his own 'burb. And with Mimi Khalvati, an old friend of my aunt Celia.

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Cake Sale. Mon 20th Feb.

Baked by Licensing Dept Cake Club, all for benefit of two charities: Essex Deaf Children and Teenage Cancer Trust. We make over £300, which Pearson matches. (mine are the choc brownies in the front)

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New Forest. Sat 19th Feb.

Linus and Edie in New Forest with George, Christopher, and William. And Grandad and Nana Rosie!

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New York hotel bathroom. Tues 15th Feb.

Last look before catching the red eye back home.

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New York Toy Fair. Monday 14th Feb

Lightning McQueen made from 325,000 LEGO bricks. Yes, I'm at Toy Fair. A gigantic conference centre full of plastic tat. And no kids.

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Soho Grand Hotel, NYC. Sun 13th Feb, 10.30pm

View from my hotel window. Some street in Chelsea.


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Buxted Park Hotel, East Sussex. Wednesday 9th Feb, 10 am.

Sales Conference began with stormtroopers from the 501st assembling, with our deputy CEO dressed as Darth Vader. God help us.

Edie's iphone colouring. Tues 8th Feb.

No walking today. Too manic at work getting ready for conference tomorrow.

Instead, here's two "colouring ins" that Edie did on an iphone app. I like them. The bird is my desktop background now.

Royal Air Force Monument, Embankment. Mon 7th Feb. 1.45pm

All shiny again. Or was it falling down?

The RAF Memorial was built in 1923 to commemorate airmen who lost their lives during World War I.

It was a location in Doctor Who!