An appeal to my vanity: the two women in their twenties who I share a Sunday afternoon's gallery duty both looked amazed - genuinely - when I said how old I was. "I thought you were thirty-seven or thirty-nine...". Feeling the love that shot through my veins even now.

An appeal to my never quite dormant sense of frustation: the block of flats I live in, mostly occupied by short-term residents who have no direct commitment to the upkeep of it, continues it's slide into becoming a slum. I feel like I'm living in one of these cities that's gradually vanishing under the sands or being slowly strangled by encroaching trees the way Angkor Wat disappeared. I don't know what to do; stay and be submerged by it all, or sell-up at a a resounding loss.

An appeal to my love of cosmopolitanism. The cafe had closed, and most of the tables were empty, but there were still a dozen or so Eastern European men absorbed, either playing or watching, several games of chess on the terrace of the cafe in Holland Park. They were there when I passed an hour or so later and still as preoccupied.