STEAK AND COCKNEY PIE

I carve ( crave too ) peace and quiet and wonder why I settled for a country unable to sort out its inner and outer turmoil. So it is much to my chagrin that I appear to be going deaf. This would seem to be a blessing but it has arrived in the form of tinnitus, something I have always had and blame on a very loud nightclub circa 1989. The ringing was always going to be a part of me and I often wondered if I would be crooning 'do you hear bells baby?' in my old age but it has now taken a sharp turn and only amplifies the sounds of classes 3 and 2 both As and Bs. I hope this is just another phase.

I know among others two Basques who have names that I can't help pronouncing with a cockney accent. Aynoa and Imanol. If it is too difficult to work out it sounds something like 'I know 'er' and 'im an all'.

Talking of cockneys I will be back in olde worlde London towne within the next 24 hours or so and wonder if I will have time to write this blog if I am to attend all the shindigs I have been invited to. It is going to be a struggle to find the cafes of my youth as it seems the majority of them have gone. The New Piccadilly, Norrman's ( spelt like this ) in Bayswater, The Polo in Soho.
I think The Maison Bertaux next to The Coach and Horses is still there and I have made a pact with the devil that I will not be parting with my money in any rip off coffee houses.

Last night I paid Mercedes and Piti a visit to warn them I won't be here for couple of weeks and feel free to make as much noise as they want as if it would change anything. The tele was on as it always is in her household and I found myself watching a watered down Spanish version of Jeery ( another one I'm keeping although it is too obvious and I can't be the first...) Springer. In fact it was quite civilised considering the subject matter. Ranging from transexuals to men with what is known here as a 'micropene'. Little Hampton I think we would call it. I did ask Mercedes if she thought the people had any shame and she said the whole village would know and couldn't imagine the consequences. Anselmo, Mercedes' husband looked on aghast and when it was all over he said something on the lines of 'anything goes nowadays'. I wanted to say that I had seen it all before but I had to remind myself where I am and how Spain has certainly caught up with the rest of the world when it comes to what used to be known as the fringes or freaks of society. All this at eight o'clock of an evening and I hadn't even had my dinner.