Another friend of mine told me that her partner was younger than she is. That makes five women I know, who in some way, shape or form, are married to, live with, or have dated men younger than themselves, and in some cases the age gap has been significant.

Life is curious, which is what makes it so worthwhile, at least for those minds like mine that puzzle over things like this. There's a personal element here as well; all these women are around my age, so what does this mean for single men like me. But one thing at a time. Why are women going for younger models?

There's the easy lob answer: unfulfilled maternal instincts. Possibly.

Or what about this: are these are all women who carry the mental scars from vastly unsatisfying relationships with men of a roughly equivalent age, where the echo of he's a" typical man, can't commit" still roars around, so they go for someone younger, who has still to acquire these unpleasant masculine traits, therefore innocent and potentially pliable. It's a guess, not answer, by the way.

Perhaps it's the allure, the excitement, even competitive flaunting, which I'm pretty certain some women engage in, "...of look what I've pulled..I've still got it...". My competitive female theory comes, bizarrely, from seeing women try to over-reach each other in, of all places, a yoga class.

Then again, it could be this bald, simple, unvarnished fact: men of the same age, early to late forties in my case, remind them inelegantly of their own inevitable ageing.

As the Summer pushes on through August, and I listen to nocturnal London play it's unfinished, never-ending symphony of sirens, cars, shouts, hubbub, and screaming motorbikes, I think of what I read this morning that one of my favourite writers died a few nights ago in New York. Tony Judt, a writer who bathed in words, made them sing and a difficult argument luminous.

"I think what we need is a return to a belief not in liberty, because that is easily converted into something else… but in equality. Equality, which is not the same as sameness. Equality of access to information, equality of access to knowledge, equality of access to education, equality of access to power and to politics. We should be more concerned than we are about inequalities of opportunity, whether between young and old or between those with different skills or from different regions of a country. It is another way of talking about injustice. "

Perfectly written, a joy to read, and a statement to live by.

David Cameron, I read this morning, is starting to go grey, and this is a bare three months into his premiership, whilst that well-coiffed thatch is plainly starting to thin out.

Welcome to the club, David. Once you're in the hair loss club, it's for life. I ought to know. I'm at the point where I could probably count the number of hairs on my head. Perhaps, I should give them all names and then ask people to adopt one.

A thick, glossy rainbow over Shepherd's Bush this evening made my bus journey home oddly enjoyable this evening.

I've always liked the crazy charm of this part of London; it's blessed with the face of a boxer and the quivering soul of a madcap poet. Not many areas can carry that off with the swagger the Bush can.

Chance and an adventurous heart, now that's some combination, and Brian, you played that hand perfectly.

The chance: finding a $100 bill outside a Kensington High Street patisserie. The adventurous heart: your spontaneous decision to go to New York based on that chance find. Perfect.

If there's ever a story of a life well lived, then it was yours. Asma, your oldest, dearest friend told me what happened this afternoon. I only met you a few times, Brian, and it was obvious even from those handful of occasions, that you were one of the Good people in life; articulate, witty, artistic, non-judgemental; compassionate, and a good friend to one of my good friends.

RIP Brian.

One of my Facebook friends kicked off a conversation around the difference between two Americans passing each other on a staircase, step to the right or to the left, or collide, and what two Brits might do in the same situation.

The consensus seemed to be that as Brits with an imperial mentality legacy we'd smash straight into each other; I doubt that entirely, it would be more an exercise in apologies and profuse excuse me's

Nevertheless that got me thinking about another aspect of staircase etiquette, which should be always followed using the Tube escalators: tourists and civilians, stand on the right, don't move, leave the left hand side free for people in a hurry. Simple. Keep right or get crushed in the stampede.

Bid for a partial set of Winston Churchill's false teeth as I've just heard is happening tomorrow according to one of the final items on the 9 pm Radio 2 news slot? Perhaps not. Leave that auction joy to the hard core collectors

But I'm happy to celebrate running into an old friend. A real "where you've been all these years...how's it going... you've not changed at all !" encounter.

No lines around the eyes, not a wrinkle, or grey hair in sight, liver spotted hands ? Of course not. You're in great shape, sparky, buzzy, so why had I forgotten all about you?

Even when I heard you mentioned in the office, I still could n't quite place you. Took a good few minutes before the bulb finally popped on again and I recognised you.

All came back. Yep, flooding back. Those heady University essay days, when I'd season virtually everything I could with your good name in order to burnish my credentials as a tyro lit critic.

Leitmotif, how could I have forgotten you for so long?

Please explain, concisely and without evasion, Archimedes, what you are going to do about your flat? No quibbling. To the point. Exactly what ?

If only I knew.

All I have is this vague notion that one day I will move somewhere deeper into leafy, cool, West London.

I am pinched for space. There is nothing that is n't occupied by something, but it's not merely a spatial question, there's a brooding, emotional, anxiety inducing set of questions buzzing around the edges of my concentration: the neighbourhood, down at heel, characterful...but the kind of characters I no longer find entertaining or bohemian; a palpable air of menace everywhere; a shimmering state of tension.

The stimulus obviously is only going to come from me. Nothing truer than the statement that we are the architects of our own fortune. But when?

Somewhere warm, somewhere quiet, somewhere cheap, somewhere that's available more or less now, and somewhere that's not the UK. Heard that cry for rest before ? Guessed you had. My turn. Tough, tough week and I'm feeling pulverised. Time for time off, otherwise something is going to snap.

I'm in a house with no internet which these days is like saying you're in a pub with no beer, so much do we take for granted our digital rights. They have the internet where I'm staying, but I'm stumped if I know how to fire it up.

So how I'm managing to post this then? I'm momentarily chez moi, so grabbing an opportunity.

There's no joy like that of a temporary filling. Comfort after the storm. That dull, throbbing ache in the upper jaw? All gone, put to bed. Able to eat? Yes, with relish, elan, vim, vigour. Get the picture I'm sketching here?

What I've noticed about this episode, other than the cost - grin and bear it. In a good cause - is how close the relationship is between dentition and digestion. I've had to chew everything on my left side, which, oddly affects the way you swallow and breath. End result: a pitching, rolling stomach, buffeted by unruly pockets of air and semi-digested food.

There are two things that Martin Amis and I have in common: both of us revere Saul Bellow - he's written about his affection for the Chicago grandmaster, and I've bored countless with my fervour for anything Bellovian. If it was just a literary quirk, I'd be content, except it's not, it goes further, we are both doomed to expensive dentistry.

By the close of this week, I will have handed over £850 for the rebuild and restoration of one tooth. I love that tooth, as I love them all with the same unbridled passion; still the amount of money invested in my wounded pre-molar would nearly qualify it as an heirloom if I had kids.

Revisit. I stumble over this word nearly every day. Revisit the data, that piece of work, the report, the conclusion, and so on. Strange, but then not unusual for a humble, non-exotic, verb to find itself press-ganged into serving the world of business jargon. But, it's there, it's happened, so live with it.

And in my case, use it. Perhaps I should revisit Dickens, get a couple of his novels, and become acquainted with a world that never grabbed me by the lapels on those odd occasions when I did read him in the past.

The notion of revisiting Dickens came to life as I wandered the rooms and floors of the Doughty Street Dickens Museum, one of a number of houses that Dickens lived in.

How did he do it, day after day, a lava flow of words and plots in a house where the staircase must have drummed with children running hither and thither, with noise seeping through walls, and those claustrophobic rooms that make up the house. Surely none of it conducive to imagination. So again how?

Moreover, did the flow ever abate in those summer days when the heat is as sense dulling and torpid as it is right now.

Walking to my preferred spot on the eastbound platform at Wood Lane, the place where the driver's cab stops if you're interested, I spotted another late evening commuter who set off my deja vu alarm (silent, of course).

Where, exactly have I seen this person before? Part of me thinks she's famous, or close enough to pass for someone who actually is, whilst the other angel billing and cooing into my ear, says no, you've met her, but where?

London, the city where a chance encounter of less duration than a raindrop hitting the ground, becomes a puzzle to last through the night.

This afternoon I spent cocooned in warm summer air, alternately reading, day-dreaming, or just idling. Days are like this are priceless.

Along with most of my friends, I'm at the stage of life where signs of incipient mortality, the frayed threads on the carpet as it were, are starting to nip at our heels. Those outliers of decay: uncomfortable blood pressure, bunions, aches and wounds that take longer and longer to heal; there are things to endure, conditions, worries, anxieties.

I'm feeling all of them today, apart from the bunions. At least that's a solace.

Ah....the England question...at some point I have to answer that. And today might as well be the day.

Let me start with this first: I am reluctantly proud to say that I have n't watched a single kick of England's inglorious passage through the World Cup except for the slew of unavoidable re-runs of the goal against tiny Slovenia

Supporting England is being the unwilling partner in a dysfunctional relationship, with you the bewildered, unhappy supporter endures season after season of betrayal, mind-games, infidelities, narcissism, and pure rudeness. And every time, you excuse them, welcome them home and try to start over again. The one last chance.

Well, I said no to that years ago; enough is enough. England, we're finished. No more taking you back. No more simply putting up with inevitable disappointment. There's nothing else the marriage guidance people can do. Our soccer affair is over. Which is how it's been for nearly twenty years.

Sad, because I would like them to perform, properly and successfully, but until they flush out the narcissists., illiterates, egomaniacs, and general self-absorbed navel gazers, I'm not going back to them.

Furthermore, there's something else that needs to be excised, which is this: England must purge itself of this 1966 fetish. A huge psychological burden and they've been labouring under it for 44 years already. What a Calvary. When do we look forward? We're intimidated by our global football history, not inspired by it.

Baked like a Brie today. Hot weather, skirting the upper twenties which is passing for tropical here in London; hot temper, through missing a train to Doncaster by a single minute for the second month running.

Missing the first was not an accident, nor should the second be seen as a spreading pattern of my incompetence; nope, it's the unseen web of weekend engineering works with the ever-present inability of Central Line trains to stick to a timetable.

Thursday 24 June was the fifth anniversary of my blogging career. I've surprised myself.

I'm not alone...there's someone else who's found out they're wearing a Harry Potter style invisibility cloak . Companionship, finally.

Blogging always takes a back seat during the summer. It's my need to wring as much as I can out of the fine, balmy air, enjoy the leafy cool of Holland Park, and simply relax.

Today in particular, I wanted to capitalise and extend the sense of contentment I've revelled in this weekend: three glorious days in Shrewsbury, with two delicious side trips into magical Mid-Wales. Viva Aberstywth !