Is it only a storm approaching?

I went back to Costa Coffee in Highgate today to spend the morning writing. It felt like I was visiting an old friend. Much was made in the court case about the fact that I write music on a computer in cafes, which apparently precludes me from writing music that is suitable for the human voice. So it was with great a great sense of triumph that I entered this morning. I poured my anger onto the page with relentless bars of drumming and dissonance! It’s not much fun to lose a court case, but at least it's creatively inspiring!

My cold is now in full throttle. I feel like I’m perpetually swimming under water, and find myself particularly effected by low vibrations like lorries, which rattle around my head like small earthquakes.  My voice has dropped an octave, and I woke up this morning coughing like a maniac; a horrible dry, tickle, which threatens to give me some form of brain injury.

I sat opposite a woman today who was moaning prolifically about the fact that she had to go on a speed awareness course. Apparently, the people who run these things are right “fascists” because they don’t allow you to miss them if you have young children who it’s inconvenient to leave with someone else. I think she might have been guilty of misusung the word "fascist," but I gave her the benefit of the doubt, and continued to eavesdrop. As she whinged away in her Sloanney tones, I began to despise her. She was plainly a wealthy woman, with little to do in life, but sit in cafes and drive too quickly. She obviously believes the world should treat her with the respect she was born expecting. In my view, you do the crime, and then the time, although my recent "double whammy" experience of the English justice system partially throws that argument to touch. Anyway, she was holding a baby, and absolutely repulsed me at one stage by suggested it have “a quick slurp,” before lopping her breast out and allowing said kid to get slurping. I've never heard such a repugnant term used to describe breast feeding and hope I never shall.

I came home after just one cup of tea. I normally have two – but I spun this one out, allowing it to go cold and horrible for the sake of saving another £2 to put in the pot. Life is good. I'm now 100th of the way there! In any case, I was drinking way too much tea, and regularly coming back from the cafe at lunchtime all jittery and needing constant loo breaks.

It would appear that my next job has come through, oddly in the form of an email which arrived whilst I was in court. All being well, I shall be working for the BBC in Manchester, making a short musical film about the troubled Hattersley Estate. I’ve been asked to write something dark and intelligent, which will be a lovely change from the celebratory films I'm normally asked to make.

During a journey along the Thames 350 years ago, Pepys saw for the first time King Charles II’s new pleasure boat, which was called The Bezaan. It had been built in Holland. It was sailing down the river, rather proudly, flanked by a pair of gondolas which were, apparently, very rich and fine.

Pepys called in on Lady Sandwich and found her out of her “child bed”, which he was pleased to see. Childbirth in those days was a hugely dangerous hobby!

He spent the afternoon, yet again, trying to sort the finer details of his Uncle’s Will, and at one stage was forced to meet relatives in a pub on Shoe Lane called the Gridiron; a place that he was ashamed to be seen going into.

He returned home by link and called in on Sir William Batten to be told that all the jolly japes involving Sir William Penn’s beloved tankard had gone down as well as a pot of sick at a party! I'm not surprised. Since when was it amusing to kidnap a silver cup?