Blue skies over V V Rouleaux

I had a lunch today with the husband of an actor friend who is looking for a writer for a TV project he is developing with a US rockstar.   He didn’t give much away on the email and he is an interesting man who speaks fluent mandarin, self taught in his 50s and passed on to his two young sons.  He took me to a Chinese restaurant in Baker St, Bright Courtyard, ordered in Mandarin despite the fact that most of the waiters spoke Cantonese, indeed one brought us a menu when he asked for the bill.  We had a good discussion and I surprised him, and myself, by knowing quite a bit about the story they wanted to tell. The power of a career in drama development means that you are lightly educated in many things, most of which you soon forget.  I suggested some appropriate writers and set off home.  

I stopped at the much loved V V Rouleaux which started as a shop of ribbons and embellishments but is so much more than that. It’s a beautiful Aladdins cave of fun. I tried on some appropriate ideas for the party we are going to on Saturday, decided as I have always believed that period costume is dreadfully aging, found a headdress that suited me that is vaguely period so bought that, reasoning that I will look good and might get some future wear out of it.  The people who worked there were fun and charming, and persuasive and the shop was full of people enjoying themselves. 

In the evening we watched the first ep of Paradise on Apple, a deeply weird cop and politics show with a huge twist.  I can imagine the pitch meeting. It was fun! Might stick with this one

Finished Orbital, a beautiful book, more like a meditation than a novel but full of observations that will stay with me.  Have gone for a palette cleanser next, a detective novel set in Bodo, a place on the Norwegian arctic coast we visited in the Autumn, hard to see how they have room for a serial killer but we’ll see! 

The extra is blue skies over Chiltern firehouse.  I wanted to record that the sun has shone and we have had some blue this chilly January.