Complete with cinema-scope dual flat screen computer monitors, bean bag, and renovation tools and materials strewn about, Ben’s haphazard London flat awaited my arrival this evening while I took the train ride home from Liverpool Street Station after a visit to the Royal Academy with Christopher Scott. While sitting in the dirty sed seats of the grungy train, I had the opportunity to investigate one of the over abundant social vessels of modern society: the able bodied London young adult. Of the male variety, this specimen had a brown dinner jacket of reasonable quality and a simple but elegant black pull over tight to the neck. Obviously returning home after an evening with friends, on his right hand was a humble brass coloured bracelet and on his left was flashy silver watch of unimportant make. His expensive brown leather shoes made his ripped and faded jeans all the more stylish, which I think was the point. He had rather ghastly dagger side burns.

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It was late afternoon when Steve, Steph and I arrived at Stirling Castle, in Scotland. The parking god arranged a fortuitous meeting with Gary, who was out in the lot directing traffic. A saturnalian Stirling employee, he remembered Steve from the ‘Great Hall Restorations’, a time of epic upheaval. Gary was kind enough to procure some complimentary entrance tickets and recommendations. Prostrations to thee, Oh god of Scottish tourism!

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Again, I was happy to arrange a brisk sunny day for our trip to Rosslyn Chapel last Saturday during my visit with Steve and Steph in Glen Isla, Scotland. For those of you who have read Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ you will remember Rosslyn Chapel as the one that contains a ceiling from which hundreds of stone blocks protrude, jutting down to form a bizarre multi-faceted surface. Each block is carved with a symbol, seemingly at random, creating a cipher of ‘unfathomable proportion’. Apparently, modern cryptographers have never been able to break this code. Moreover, geological ultrasounds have revealed an enormous subterranean vault hidden beneath the chapel, with no entrance or exit and to this day, the curators of the chapel have permitted no excavation…And in case you forgot, it was founded in 1446 by Sir William St Clair. Who was he? Why, he was the third and last St Clair Prince of Orkney, of course! He was said to have brought a piece of the true cross to Scotland (as opposed to the fake cross, which was much larger).

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