when i was younger i used to hang out by river at the lock, where a young woman in a little hut sold icecreams in summer and cups of tea in the winter. i used to occasionally get hot chocolate dips - a soft ice cream cone dipped upside down into a little tank of melted chocolate for a second - then the chocolate would harden around the ice cream. amazing. she's still there in the hut, and last year i asked her about those and she said she hadn't sold them for years but people still asked her about them. i've never seen them sold anywhere else, but i can't believe they weren't - did anyone else have them? does anywhere still sell them?

places to buy ice cream, then:

from the hut by the lock, obviously (Jesus green)

Marine Ices by chalk farm tube - the lemon ice is amazing. i used to try and take an ice cream to primrose hill on a sunny afternoon, but it never worked, it's much further than i think... i've never eaten in there but i'd like to. they always seem to be having lots of children's birthday parties.

Scoop, between endell street and neal st in covent garden - proper italian stuff served with paddle. last week i had a rather dense pistacchio (in a good way, a bit like home-made ice cream often is), also it was brown rather than bright green and not too sweet, which the young man sculpted into two sort of horns perched on top of the cone (the smalls seem expensive but you get a lot) which refused to be licked into shape. then he accidentally asked me for "due cinquenta... i mean two-fifty" which was quite sweet. lasted all the way to bedford square!

the EAT under new bit at the royal festival hall sells the best soft mr.whippy/'99 kind of ice cream ever. i don't know why, it's just really really nice. it's unfortunately the only EAT i've seen that does it. naturallyif i'm passing i always try to make time for one.

Pizza Express, also on the southbank, the bit between the Globe and southwark bridge, also does surprisingly nice takeaway ice cream - the coffee is very good (but i'm off the coffee - boohoo), hazlenut and pistacchio also good, cookies and cream not very good. i'm going to try the fruity flavours next.

not to go out of your way for, but marks and spencer does quite a nice solero-type thing, and indeed all their takeaway ice-creams are £1, which is cheaper than you'll find a solero anywhere else. i'm always shocked by the price of Sparkles in the corner shop... watch out for their suspicious low-fat low-sugar things though...


that list i found tidying up, it reappeared again in the back of my diary, though i don't remember putting it there... i still haven't worked out what it was for or remember from when. another odd thing is that it's very very messy handwriting, and usually when i was making lists for tapes and stuff i would write them out quite neatly. all a bit of a mystery. anyway in a fit of not-boredom (i'm not, really, just enjoying my day off) i wrote it out:

( mystery list )


clearly i must have liked them at the time, funny thing is, quite a lot of those songs - i can't even remember how they sound.

was in TCR Paperchase today, they are doing some refurb stuff and lots of their fancy papers - handmade, bits of grass etc are on half-price sale. amazingly i only walked out of there with 2 postcards and a small greeting card. also, Falkiners shuts at 5, not 5.30 like their website says. grr.

i don't know where my grey hoody's gone. i'm just wearing my black and white one all the time, which while it's comfy, is a bit joyless. i think i'll try and replace that long beach one that i lost - fastblack mind if i get it posted to you?

many disparate thoughts, no time to (what's the writing version of 'verbalise'?).

so, an easy one - i think i might get an iphone (words i never thought i'd write)
i been topping up stupid amounts on my pay-as-you-go lately. and mobile email would be nice.
but perhaps i should revive my thoughts about getting a netbook instead? better typing but then i would need a phone anyway.

whaddya reckon?

still feel beat. all achey. think i need to sleep for about 12 hours without a noisy radiator and waking up cold. mostly my own fault, stayed up night before last playing with an auto-inking stamp i bought, it comes with lots of little letters for name and contact details etc. and last night, i watched TV. this doesn't happen often.
saw Skins for the first time. quite liked it, certainly um.. compelling viewing, but surprised how it feels like a kids' show, with more swearing and sex. as in, the plot, the characters, even the camera style feels like a kids drama. then, got caught in a show where Waldemar Januszczak enthuses about the baroque. oh deary me it was late after that. i started falling asleep sitting up, even though i was really paying attention to the programme, in very quick little phases. early night tonight would be a very good idea.

some things i might buy for myself:
Swear shoes, or rather little boots. not sure which. they're rather ubiquitous on stylish boys with skinny jeans, but i like them too, despite my oversize hem-ness. they might look a bit daft though. http://www.swear-london.com/view.aspx?remp=925
Silver braille ring (seen at tate modern shop), the one that says "do not touch", undecided on colour. http://www.ambrefrance.co.uk/pieces/braille.html

it would be an indulgence, but i'm considering getting an eee-PC. mostly for the train journeys, it's small, light, good battery life. i wouldn't want to keep much stuff on it, just use it for typing up notes, browsing LJ, writing emails and the such. there are several models on the market, and the prices vary rather. anyone any recommendations? i don't know what operating system i'd want either - i'm on Windows XP at work, mac OSX at home, i've never used Linux, but i probably could if i didn't have to do much behind the scenes - i can use computers pretty well, but i don't understand how they work.

mini Badgemaker in the V&A shop - £6
Bandai Super Badge It! around £20 but seemingly unavailable...
25mm button badge machine - £133.50. Cutters on the same site £30-40.
Badgematic Button (25mm only) - shipped for £166
The Micro Assembler (25, 38 & 58mm die sets, with the full works) - £320

or i could just get someone else to make them: http://www.buttonbadges.co.uk/
but i'd really like to make my own. seems to me there's a market missing between the plasticky, wont-last-long stuff, and the German-engineered, 500-badges-an-hour stuff. seems that's often the way with craft tools - anyone got any good sources? Lakeland used to sell some odd bits and pieces that were quite good - metal and 'serious' but for slow, labour-intensive hobbies, not industrial/commercial enterprises. They've stopped selling craft stuff though.

bit of a funny request here... but i've got in mind a bra i'd like to buy. i was wondering if anyone's seen one like it, or if they see it they might remember to let me know.. basically a regular simple shoulder straps sort of affair, but with just an elasticated ribbon band across the back, not the usual stretchy fabric shaped and hemmed with 2 hook closures. either a single hook closure at the back or ideally none at all and fastened at the front, like some racer-backs. i've seen the various components of this bra on different others, but not all at the same time! (the front-closure and simple cups are on a gap racerback, the thin band across the back is on a triangle lace thing from intimissimi, the plain shoulder straps on most of the usual). preferably in grey, but most likely in black.

in recent years i have got rather into jeans, and trying to find the right, or at least a good, pair. not that i buy a huge number of them, i have several pairs but i never throw them away. on saturday i bought one of the most expensive pair of jeans i have ever seen, at denim purists Interstate, after about an hour of trying things on. only worn them 2 days but so far so good, i like them. skinny cut (for me), so they pull over my calves with a little difficulty when pulling socks up, but not actually tight anywhere.
this really has to stop though. hopefully it's come full circle. it all started with the first pair of jeans i bought, about 9 years ago, which at the time i thought were really expensive (i think they were about £28) and were absolutely perfect. i wore them all the time and they made me feel great, i patched them when they wore through but now they're really too raggedy to wear. so anyway, new jeans. also, new corduroys, Carhart black needlecord, very un-styled. button-fly, not distressed, not too baggy or tight, neither high nor low nor long nor short. real basic. wearing them today, rather pleased with them.

in other news, this is the last week of the Photographers Gallery being at Great Newport Street. the Soho Archives exhibition looks right up my street. i'll be there Thursday evening - open til 8pm (and i've phoned them to check they aren't having any restricted events etc).

right, off to see Of Time and the City. woo!