Just as a father says to his son after being given his ‘C’ filled end of year report...

Just as a father says to his son after being given his ‘C’ filled end of year report and reading that his prodigy ‘talks during class’ and 'must try harder' I too am disappointed.

I'm disappointed but not surprised, a once familiar feeling now only cropping up on occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries. Paired with the work thing which relentlessly and rudely intrudes into my day, living life has once again got in the way. It's been four months since my first well intentioned 'blog' in which time I've painted the flat, endeavoured to attach a monstrously large TV to a 19th century wall covered in 19th century plaster, not something I would recommend to a close friend, and once again fallen foul to Ikea's gloss, attempting to replicate page 232 in the living room, page 342 in the bathroom and page 421 in the bedroom. Returning home is now like the scene in Fight Club featuring Tyler's apartment, pre-destruction, thankfully without the Schizophrenia and hopefully less allegiance to bare knuckle fighting.

Having put the house in the country to bed after a succession of weekend house parties fuelled by a combination of Tesco Cava, M&S Finest grabbed from Cambridge station on a Friday evening and blissful pints of cider sat besides the River Cam, I’ve headed back to the City to resume a normal service of rain, grime and Greek Street. Gone are the summer BBQ’s subjecting guests to test their friendship as they tuck into a charred stick which only a few moments ago, they're assured, was a succulent pork and apple sausage.

Cambridge to Liverpool Street, King’s Cross is down as it’s a Sunday due to never ending engineering works. Liverpool Street to Tottenham Court Road care of a thankfully calm and almost tourist free Central Line and then the game of dodgems down Charring Cross Road, Shaftsbury Avenue, the warm neon greeting of Ed’s Diner and home. Door, stairs followed by another door, more stairs, door, sofa, shoes off and lap-top open. A curtain of yellow Post-It notes brushed away from the window reveals Soho in all its finest.

It’s wet and full of the usual crowds of lost tourists looking for the Central Line or Les Miserables, drunks and media types. The latter two mostly combine to create splashes of colour standing loudly outside bars frantically puffing away, sauvignon blanc in one hand, duty free cigarette in the other.

Nothing much has changed from the summer months; city-people are much the same whatever the season. Thankfully the death of summer brings with it less sweat, sadly it also results in less flesh on show which is never a good thing. General grubbiness prevails and thanks to autumn bringing with it more frequent bouts of rain and fallen leaves from Soho Square the grub has become a mud-slush hybrid sticking to everything. Amongst all this the orange clad Krishna, fingers still tinging with suppressed insanity peering out from behind his eyes, stands under the canopy of the theatre opposite and I can’t help wonder why I left my country idle for this cornucopia of...well…everything a city can offer. I guess that’s precisely why.

My job mainly revolves around meeting people, eating with people and listening to people. Soho seems the natural habitat for such a creature, someone who gets to meet the great and the good, the not so good and the utterly dodgy. As someone who deals on a daily basis with a mix of lawyers, accountants, bankers and brokers developing relationships to make rich people richer and do deals with deal doers I’ve been feeling less and less willing to be a people person as the months roll by. With the sad death of a long term relationship behind me and the birth and toddler steps of an exciting and fulfilling one starting up I have been finding it increasingly hard to care about things not directly related to me.

An example of this took place just a few days ago. Soho House full of its Groucho rejects sparkling just a little too much were partying late into the night, a school night, and after an extremely early start and an insanely busy day I put my best Victor Meldrew head on and called Joe the manager to ask if the music could be turned down as the sound of bongos was keeping me up. My request was politely fulfilled and apologies made. After some time mulling over what had happened I decided I should know my rights on what time really is ‘too late’ to be making such a noise. Therefore I opted to call Westminster Council 1st thing in the morning.

Unlike the pile of paperwork sat on my desk all marked urgent, morning came and went and as early afternoon cropped up along with the feeling of hunger I remembered my nightime resolution and picked up the phone. Westminster Council's service team picked up and I was greeted by an utter numpty of a woman. She found it difficult to pronounce her own name and so, having a somewhat exotic surname, I opted to keep things informal and stick to a first name basis. This utterly threw her and kicked off what became one of the most bizarre conversations I’ve ever been involved in.

We finally, mutually, decided on ending the call. It was at this point I realised I just didn't really care anymore. I, the guy who used to look forward to getting a parking ticket just so I could argue my case, explore the joys of NCP's customer service and revel in Paula/Sharon or Mark's utter incompetence as I strive to have my ticket quashed, just couldn't be bothered. Life really was too short and so I put the phone down, abandoning my quest to penetrate deep into the workings of the council's services team and went out for lunch.

So...what to write...

So...what to write...as the saying goes, so many blogs, so little time. So why should anyone dedicate their valuable spare moments to reading this when they could be surfing the web for something with the potential to be far more exciting such as 101 flavours of porn or how to remove a kidney with a broken milk bottle and a squirt of fairy liquid.......What makes me so special to think that anyone outside of my immediate family would be interested in the day to day goings on in my life and the corridors of Babylon also known as London Soho? Well, hopefully a large G&T, mainly G, a barrel of M&S' mini rolls and the desire to appear busy at my desk whilst actually doing anything but work will inspire me, so lets see where we end up.

From my desk/dining table/potential nuclear bomb shelter peering through a rather grubby window across the roof tops of Greek Street, looking down Old Compton towards Ed's Diner one way, G.A.Y. and American Retro to the other I can see the throngs of 'individuals' clad in their aptly named Birkenstocks, Burks-in-socks, and those annoyingly indecisive half-trousers, not quite short enough to be shorts and yet unable to stretch to the ankles ruling them out of the trouser gang. These packs of marketing managers, advertising execs and PA's jostle with bronzed gymbox boys clambering for a front row seat outside Balans, Bar Soho and Cafe 'corporate' Boheme with it's copper bar and similarly-coloured enticingly cute waiters.

It's late June, it's summer and it's hot. Blissfully hot. Unsurprisingly Compton's is full and spilling out onto the street the usual mix of men, boys and indefinables. The barefooted, orange clad Krishna with his desperately eager smile and dead eyes finger-tings his way past groups of Matthew's, Luke's, Jennifer's and wannabies, greeted with a assortment of nervous smiles, blankness and the odd drunken glare. I can almost smell the heat, stale beer, Spanish sweat and hot rubber - thank god for aircon and the humming Argos 'extra' fan I have aiming every 8 seconds at my back.

Since calling myself a 'Westminster Resident' and more specifically the temporary custodian of a tiny studio in the eves of what was once a fine old building I have become fascinated by the street's history as well as the surrounding area. Poor old god fearing Henry Compton would be joining the masses on a Friday night and vomiting outside Kettners if he could see what's become of his namesake street. His church which once proudly stood near the crossing of Greek and Compton now lost to overpriced hamburgers and lumpy milkshakes. God only knows what the founders of what is now the Walkabout would make of it all.

Being a country boy of origin and at heart and whilst still maintaining a deceptively named 'country house' somewhere in the Cambridgeshire / Suffolk mud I have always lusted after the idea of living centrally. I dabbled in a past life but I don't think East London really counts as being in the thick of it. Lets see how this new one pans out...

Any case I digress, what is this blog going to become? A history lesson? PLEASE NO! so, the gentile ramblings of a guy watching Soho-World go by.........sounds about right..........oh well...............until the next time...............