Monday, October 07, 2002

Hyde Park on a pleasant autumn Sunday afternoon. What could be better?

Met up with friends I knew from my Washington DC days for brunch and whatever. A rather average experience in an average Belgian stylee bar in Old Brompton Road - we missed breakfast/brunch. Some terrible things happened to pubs whilst I was in DC. I'm talking about Wetherspoon-isation. Pubs were bad enough before with all that horse brasses rubbish, fat ancient pub dog and fat ancient regulars. But, now too mny have become bland "themed" beer shops. The local one to my office makes great play of the real ales they serve. Too bad they don't know how to keep the beer. "Keep beer? What's that mean? We shift product, we don't want to keep it."

I digress.

It was a day of reminiscing about old times in the home of the freeworld. My friend is back here with his American wife. He's now studying for a Masters in Communication at LSE (former home of radicalism) whilst his wife (formerly of the Discovery Channel) looks for work to support him.

I love his stories about his other half's family. It seems one of her uncles - a native of the "beautiful" Ozarks - owns about 300 guns of various descriptions. By my reckoning that's a small arsenal. And, I think that includes assault rifles, handguns and possibly things that lob large-ish projectiles.

:: Posted by pete @ 13:08