Walking home one lunchtime I saw a small cockatoo outside enjoying the mild weather. ‘His name is Nietzsche’, his companion told me. ‘Does Nietzsche ever speak?’ I asked. His companion said no, but Nietzsche, although silent, nodded his head vigorously. A few days later I saw Nietzsche’s companion locking up his bike outside the house. Shrill cries came from indoors. ‘He always knows when I’m on my way home,’ the man told me happily.
Coming back from a visit to the dentist, I was too slow to take a photo of the Amy Winehouse lookalike being rushed into Camden’s Dublin Castle pub under a huge striped umbrella, but got talking to one of the film crew members on the street outside who was loitering amongst vast van loads of equipment. He told me he’d started out as a lad at Shepperton studios. ‘I learned my trade from a man who’d stood next to Marilyn Monroe when she was filming The Prince and the Showgirl. Just think!’ he said with a faraway look in his eyes, then explained what a grovel pad and a bazooka pot was. Love the strange and specific equipment names.