John the Indian

An Indian man called "John" called me today to tell me that their "records" indicated that "someone in my family had recently had a road accident." I hate this sort of nuisance call. I hate them as much as I hate the spam emails which tell me all about Ellen de Generes and and wheelchair vans. My mobile is inundated with calls about PPI and the landline gets all this rubbish about accidents. Out of absolute boredom, I call their bluff and often pretend to have an anxiety attack: "Oh my God! Who's had an accident? Has someone died? Who's died?" They usually get all hot under the collar, and start burbling things about "their records" before hanging up out of pure shame.

Today I asked John if I could put him on hold, before balancing the telephone on the top of the piano and practicing a series of arpeggios. After about a minute I picked the phone back up. John was still there; "hello John, do you mind holding again?" "Um, no... Um," he said. I played the piano for another minute, and started singing a bit, before speaking to John again, "just putting you on hold again, John..." I said. I could hear him trying to tell me that he didn't really have the time to go on hold again, but I carried on playing and singing nevertheless. The phone finally went dead after another minute and a half's playing!

I worked in the kitchen for the rest of the morning, and then in a variety of cafés on the Archway Road, dodging the showers and finally breaking the back of a very tricky sequence I've been worrying over for the Fleet singers composition. I met Nathan in a terrible rain storm on the way to the gym. The car windows were misted over and, because of the rain, everyone on the roads were driving like twerps and lunatics. I've basically been wet all day; either covered in sweat or water.

There was a particularly massive rain shower at about 7pm this evening. The heavens opened and huge droplets of water started throwing themselves at North London. The storm instantly overwhelmed the guttering on our roof. Initially the rain started dripping through the windows and then, when we went up in the loft, we could see water pouring down the eaves in the far corner. Within minutes it was coming through the ceiling of our sitting room. There's water on the record player I brought Nathan for his birthday and splashes all over the telly. There are now buckets and towels draped everywhere. It's a scene of dreadful carnage! And it's still flipping raining!