Soup Kitchen

To anyone living in or visting London, I have one aggressive recommendation for you:

Do. A. London. Walk!

A few weeks ago, when Mama Plog was visiting, we arose one early Sunday morn and headed to Aldgate Tube station where we joined a tour of the historically Jewish East End.

I loved it.

(I've also done Oscar Wilde's London and Jack the Ripper's London. I was only savvy enough to have issues with the latter retrospectively. So ... not that savvy, then)

The photo above is of a building formerly used as a "Soup Kitchen for the Jewish Poor". Now that's a group you don't hear about too much these days! Although they may feature more prominently in a post-Madoff world. Now there's a schmuck! Like we didn't have bad press anyway. Sociopathic dickwad.

Anyway this is how immature my beloved is. Upon seeing the photo above, he giggled like a schoolgirl after three packs of strawberry Hubba Bubba:

"Soup Kitchen for the Jewish Poo?!?!?!"

Oh, Mr. Plog! Mr HANKY, more like.

Smells Like Teen Spirit 2: Incense Boogaloo

Addendum: Hey, just had another thought about incense. Around 1990, my very talented friend A (brother of my very talented friend, L) wrote a song about me called "Everyone Loves [insert Dr Plog's real name here]" -- with such foresight, I hasten to add: this predates Raymond by how long? Anyvey, it contained these lines: She ordains herself in incense before she goes to school which technically wasn't true, but interesting, especially in light of a later anecdote.

In 2005, when I moved to London, I maybe went a bit overboard with trying to establish my corner ... um, half ... actually probably more like three quarters of the apartment. A friend, D, to this day gives me shit about my "shrine" of photos of friends from home, which may have been sitting on some silk scarves which may happen to have been near some burning incense. D felt it necessary to grab some rice from the pantry and make an offering to the gods.

So I do have a history with the stuff. At one point I even decided to call my imaginary, hypothetical daughter Keturah because it's Hebrew for incense ... shit, I'm way more implicated than I thought! I had never considered this mini-history before.

So what's your "incense"? What's something that you always elect to have around you, something that's so normalised in your environment that you take it for granted, yet it's not something that everyone has or even likes? (It can't be a person though. That could get mighty bitchy.)

Smells Like Teen Spirit

I just bought a packet of Nag Champa incense for the first time in ages.

Mr Plog walks past my study, sniffs dramatically and, dripping with distaste, announces "Ugh. It smells like a university dorm in here".

Hmmm. The smell of freedom, experimentation, fun, silliness, learning, engagement with new people and ideas, and rampant promiscuity.

I take a deep breath, and savour it all.