Booknerd & Daughter

I'm down in London for the weekend and tonight I'm staying with Goatee ahead of our dad's big birthday celebrations.

It's always good to spend time with Goatee, LOH and my much-loved niece, 'Appy. All three of them are great company and 'Appy is developing into quite the conversationalist. Whilst eating her meal this evening she casually used the word 'hexagram' - which rather blew everyone's minds. She's only just 3!

My blip today just had to be this rather sweet moment between her and Goatee.

The best part of my day was undoubtedly reading 'Appy a couple of bedtime stories (see Goatee's blip for evidence www.blipfoto.com/entry/2170665267250597823 )

The worst part of my day was the journey down from Liverpool. I arrived at Lime Street station to find it packed to the rafters with Everton supporters on their way down to Wembley for the match against Manchester United and dealing with a severe case of mismanagement of ticket sales by Virgin Trains. Along with scores of other people I was unable to catch my planned train to London and had to wait in a 'holding pen' with hundreds of agitated football fans for an hour until I was 'lucky' enough to be allocated a seat on the next train. However, I had to give the seat up at Crewe and spent the next hour and a half standing in a corridor, cheek by jowl with a load more 'lively/well-refreshed' Everton supporters. It didn't exactly make for a relaxing journey and I was as glad as I've ever been to disembark at Euston.

On the way to Goatee's gaff I stopped off at the ICA to see the current exhibition of photographs and design produced for the band Public Image Ltd by Dennis Morris in the late '70s www.ica.org.uk/whats-on/dennis-morris-pil-first-issue-metal-box

Today's song is therefore one of my all-time favourite singles...PiL's first record, 'Public Image', John Lydon's splenetic rant against his time in the Sex Pistols and his defiant manifesto for a future beyond the managerial control of Malcolm McLaren www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIAZ8unRm2c