Latvians in London in Russian restaurants, a big night out as Snowden hides out in Moscow airport

Our good friends Jim Archer and Janet Tweedie know how to have a good time, so we knew they would enjoy an evening at Sobranie, a Russian restaurant in Victoria.

We pre-loaded at The Jugged Hare on Vauxhaul Bridge Road nearby, in which an eccentric elderly Englishmen danced in front of the bar clad in over-tight lycra sports wear, revealing the morphology of his manhood, and most unfortunate morphology it was too.

On the TV screen, the news came through that the whistleblower Edward Snowden is in Moscow, holed up somewhere in the airport, protected by that well known friend of freedom Vladimir Putin.

Why anybody is surprised that the US and UK governments read our e-mails I don't know - how else can they catch the people that want to blow us up, or hack us to death in the streets. We'll soon moan if they don't nip a big one in the bud. Poor old Obama just can't win, but Julian Assange is a naive fool and Edward Snowden has made a strategic blunder of lifetime proportions. We only get one run at this life, as far as we know, and Edward has blown it. Don't take on Uncle Sam - you don't stand a chance, and Uncle Vlad probably won't be much help for long. The Guardian, who got and ran the exclusive story of Edward's 'revelations',  won't be much help for Edward either, despite him helping them out with something to fill the front page.

But what can any of us do about these things?

You know our line: we must love one another, while we can, and non - violence is the only acceptable strategy of change and protest. Enjoy life and you will learn how to enjoy people. It's much nicer than killing them, honestly!

Look at Jim and Janet here - they are your role models: people who know how to make you laugh, good kind people who look after each other and their families.

In Sobranie, our waiter Denis was another role model of courtesy and helpfulness.

All the way from Latvia, he loves life in London and has decided to settle here.

He is certainly conscientious beyond reproach - he tried to stop us ordering an entire bottle of vodka, suggesting a half bottle instead. Who is he working for? The NHS?

We were having none of it and insisted on self destruction with a full bottle of Russian Standard, on top of the several shots we had warmed up with and the pre-loaded pints. Wise move it was too, as the food and conversation both were excellent and needed the heart warming thirst quenching vodka to keep them properly paced.

Home and to bed in a blur!

We hope Obama decides to forgive Edward - he's only a young boy, led astray by Julian Assange - he's the one you want! Or Sweden wants.

Constables camping it up at Victoria station
probably staying at the YMCA

The many tribes of London town, music, water pipes and helpful shoppers...

That reluctant tourist to these shores , the sun, seemed to be sticking around, so we decided to tune up and boogie on down Kensington way, to The Royal College of Music, where members of one of London's strangest tribes were gathering to pay homage to some of their most distinguished.
Classical music lovers have all the characteristics of a contemporary nomadic tribe: common physical traits from adopting the same posture for many years, especially rounded shoulders, that come from following the musical score as you listen to extended pieces; pale skin, from rarely exposing yourself to daylight, as most classical music is listened to indoors; and finally, at least middle age, because it seems to be a fact of life that people younger than fifty do not attend classical concerts. Of course, the tribe has no fixed abode, but roams from venue to venue in search of new musical pastures for its soul.

But why so few younger members?

How do they reproduce themselves?

We asked a startling and delightful exception to our characterisation : Rebecca (Bex) Herman is young, vivacious, and good looking. She seethes with enthusiasm for classical music but it's hard to imagine that this energising force does not often burst its banks and, like the great Nile, leave everything around revitalised and able to thrive again.

But, like us, Bex did not have an answer.
Maybe, she suggested, the Chillingirian Quartet playing Benjamin Britten's string quartet No 3 is a bit forbidding if you don't know it.

But it's also beautiful, it stretches your understanding and tears at your prejudice and complacency, making you a better person, at least for a while, and it's a shame more people couldn't have heard their searing rendition of a very powerful piece of music.

Bex is a cellist herself, a very good one and she played in the Castalian Quartet, a very distinguished group.

Her parents' are not musical, which just goes to show, we are free after all to follow our own tunes.

Maybe classical music needs to go out into the pubs and bars, take itself to the people?

But the people do come, it's just that they're old people, by and large.

Later, we amble back through an Arabian night, up the Edgware Road, where European looking couples and Bedouin tribesmen seemed happy to smoke water pipes outside the same cafes alongside each other. London showing once again how the world can live together, by sharing, not just cafes or water pipes, but schools, hospitals and district nurses and pharmacies and late night food stores.

Talking of these, as we searched around in one for a late night snack, we were fortunate indeed to meet Ismail Ali, the friendliest shopping guide you could ever hope to meet, who with huge bright eyes and a bigger smile recommended the Falafel to us. We bought the wrong one, but it was delicious anyway.

Ismail just happened to be in the shop as we were looking a bit lost, and he briefly told us his story, which started in Kyrenia, Cyprus, from Turkish parents, who came to Crouch End in North London, and now Ismail is travelling with London's huge portfolio living tribe, writing, creating and helping the homeless and lost shoppers like us.

He is about to launch a blog which will fuse coffee and creativity.
We know it will be good because Ismail is good - and he has an indefinable air of originality about him, which we find in all the big hearted people we meet on the marvellous streets of London.

Rolling down to Richmond, big hearts, beer bellies, smiles and tears......

The wind and rain are back again, which is a shame, as we are rolling down to Richmond, heading for the river and a garden party, and to see some of the life on London's Riviera - a Riviera of rain and cowering under canvas in the riverside bars and cafes.

Richmond is posh, pale and under permanent occupation by the British propertied class and their retainers: their servants, shopkeepers, accountants and nannies. There are occasional forays by small platoons of  the sporting class, mostly big beer bellied rugby men and their biggish suicide blond (they dyed by their own hands) girls. They love a rugger bugger on a wet afternoon.

But life everywhere has the same currents carrying it along, some sad, some happy and many in between. We were to be caught up and propelled along on these when we finally trundled into Richmond on the train from Waterloo, which had bounced and clanked past the bizarre and weird architecture of south London.

Architects must have been given south London as a playground and told to have fun. They put up their living machines and workplace spaces and retired to their traditional georgian townhouses and country cottages, rolling in cash from a clientele too timid to say No! We will not live or work in this monstrosity!

In The White Cross, a beautiful pub on the river down Water Lane, untouched by a modern architect, we are served by Abbi, bright and cheerful, all the way from Redcar in the north-east of England. She has a smile as wide as London and a heart that seems as big and open as the open cast mines of her native town (but much prettier, of course).

Some people radiate warmth and uncomplicated happiness, no matter what turbulence churns away in the depths, and Abbi seems to be lovely in this important way.

Standing by the bar, struggling to be seen because she looks a little like a lost child, is Nadja.

She is from Brazil, via Huddersfield and Halifax. Her accent is Portuguese and Yorkshire, which is arresting until you get used to it, then it is always prompting a happy surprise from an unexpected northern vowel in the otherwise sonorous latin melody.

Nadjia was unhappy that night.

She was alone, stood up unavoidably by friends, and had been unlucky in love.

Strange, because she is very attractive, has the sensuality of the  warm south, and a deep Christian loyalty that yearns to be married and have children.

We hope and believe she will find her man, and that the young cad who dumped her will get his desert.

Chivalrous London men, where are you?

The wind blew harder and the rain spat down, but we had to head off for the ill fated, by the weather,  garden party across the river.

On our way, we encountered a craftsman at work in one of the boathouses.

He was carefully lacquering a traditional clinker built rowing boat and we could breathe the loving care and attention he was devoting to the work.

Mark Baragwanath is his name, and the boathouse is owned by Mark Edwards, MBE, the man who built the Queen's barge Gloriana for the Thames Diamond Jubilee last year. How it rained and blew that day too!

Britain is safe when men like these are hard at work in our boathouses.

We got to our garden party in the end, and when we did, man, that joint was jumpin' and jivin' and so were we!

The propertied classes have one thing in common with the underclasses - they know how to throw a bloody good party!

London life, but not as we know it........

Something was wrong...what was it?

Everything looked normal : the buses were red, the cabs black, the sky overcast and dull, the moon moped around listless, the pubs were crowded on the outside with smokers, The Evening Standard was angry and The Metro was happy.......then it dawned upon us like a parting of the clouds and a calling down from heaven, the air was mild, it was not cold!

Yes, the air was easy and caressed the skin, tender was the night!

It's ben a long, long, long time since we could wander out on a summer evening without a jumper or a coat, but this evening, we could, and lovely it was too.

We strolled along the canal to Little Venice and our favourite canal side pub, the Waterway.

As usual, it was jam packed with the drinking class, a happy sub-section of the bourgeoisie who don't actually create wealth but perform the vital function of re-circulating it, thereby creating employment for us all.

The smoking class live alongside the drinking class, they have the guts to live and love dangerously, out of doors, and they all seem to stare longingly at those they seek to ensnare.

The waiting class employed by the Waterway are among the best in the world - and they are from the world.

From Milan, Italy, we caught Stefano Marchi entertaining his customers with a balletic pose. He regards it as a part of his job to stretch into unusual postures and positions, and we are grateful to him for it.

Next up, we met Lucas Schmitd, from Brazil, a man who knows his product and is proud to recommend it to you. As he put it himself : ' I know my shit. An economist knows his numbers...and I know my shit'

It worked, we bought a pint of the Cerella beer he recommended. Lucas has an irresistible smile, but like a lot of Brazilians at the moment, he thinks Pele is an idiot and should keep his mouth shut and stick to kicking a football.

Behind the bar we met Alberto Bazzoni, a cocktail artist and beer magician, a man whose expertise is in making your drink buds smile.

And the troubadours of our time were well represented by Higher Love, a superb duo who serenaded the bar with songs of love and peace, soulful sounds, bluesy and catchy, perfectly attuned to the carefree atmosphere of this unusually mild evening but adding an element of romance. We asked them for our song - My Girl, by The Temptations, and the vocalist Michael Kamara worshipped it reverentially, exactly and precisely how we feel about it, and on guitar Luke Harvey painted the perfect backcloth for this masterpiece. Catch Higher love whenever you can - they are good.

Once again, we were overwhelmed by the feeling that London knows how to live in peace. ( The riots were a long time ago, and nobody really wants to overthrow capitalism - too many people are having too much fun to want to go back to central planning )

All you warmongers, come, stroll around our town and see how the United Nations can live together. All it takes is jobs, schools, a health service, drinks and music and a strong drinking class.

Later, at Mumtaz on Park Road, an Indian restaurant patronised by Prime Ministers, famous cricketers and us, we met a lovely family from Saudi Arabia. We spoke about how trade, commerce and technology are slowly bringing the people of the world together and will do so - unless the warmongers win and go and ruin it all.

We thank them for reminding us that we are all just doing what we can, bringing up the children and trying to keep them safe.

Here we proudly present the secret of the Mumtaz' success - Mr Monyul Haque, the chef. No more need be said or written. He is an artist.

Rain and Sun in Regent's Park

The sky hung white in the sky like a damp dishcloth.
As we walked into Regent's Park it started drizzling, but the air was mild and the greenery so intense it was almost intoxicating and everything seemed as it should be : specially designed for us by the great designer in the sky.
The wind gusted occasionally though, making it suddenly cold, and all the paddle boats were parked up empty, looking forlorn and unemployed.

Tony Blair, the armchair warrior, is back in the news, urging Britain to intervene in Syria. He says there is evidence that the Assad regime has used sarin gas against its opponents in the civil war raging there.
Tony's got form in this department and it's not good.
If only one of his many properties were located in Damascus - he might be less keen on 'intervention' if it was one of his places that got smashed up. Or if one of his sons was a soldier.
It started raining very hard.

It's not just the weather that's showing the symptoms of madness - the human race is racing towards insanity : machete madness in London, Kalashnikov killers, shoulder fired rocket launcher lunatics, rocket propelled grenade gangsters, drone drivers in bunkers in suburbia, everyone wants to kill someone,or themselves, it's the only idea we've got, the only strategy left on the shelf.
Whatever happened to non - violence, the strategy that threw the British out of India?
But then the sun burst through and the white sky turned blue and the scene was transformed.
Looking up, there wasn't a drone in the sky and all around Shia mingled with Sunni and Muslim sat down with Hindu. Girls in Burkhas talked excitedly about Korean pop stars and the geese and ducks waddled around looking for someone to smile at and found an old lady who smiled back at them and fed them with breadcrumbs. People stopped shopping at Primark, insisting that they wouldn't buy from sweated labour.......no, now I've gone too far!

Parks though, especially London Parks, bring the world together in peace. It has been proven scientifically that people are happier and more creative if they have spent time in the countryside resting their eyes on the greenery it provides. Prime Minister Erdogan in Turkey wants to build on the parks of Istanbul. If he wants his people to live together in peace, he should desist.

Mr Blair, pop down to Regent's Park, stroll around and do nothing for an afternoon. You work too hard. You need rest. The graveyards are full of indispensable people.
It started to get hotter as the afternoon wore on - was this the promised heatwave?
Over to Martha and the Vandellas.
In the sixties, they had heatwaves.

Beethoven in London, Prince Albert waits, Prince Philip fades , us at Lords

It's not my car but it's the same colour as my suit!

Mild air is making an occasional and timid appearance in London, but it's usually chased off by its cold front rivals as soon as they spot us walking out without our coats on, thinking that the summer might have arrived.
But the sun kept the cold at bay for us as we toured the hallowed halls and bars of Lord's Cricket Ground, led by my good friend, former boss, and author of the most important cricket book yet written, Mr Tom Rodwell, Chairman of The Lord's Taverners, which is the leading cricket charity in Britain.

Tom wrote 'Third Man in Havana' to document the power of cricket to change lives.
His qualification for doing so was that this is what he achieved as Chairman of Cricket for Change, and the book is both a hilarious and informative account of cricket played around the world by young people who, within conventional classification, we call disadvantaged, but measured by the more demanding standards of spirit and talent, are among the most impressive individuals you are likely ever to meet. Imagine facing a fast bowler when you are partially sighted, going by the sound of a rattle inside the ball.

The ground at Lord's is the headquarters of world cricket, and a paradox : a bastion of exclusivity and privilege and an inspiration and enabler of opportunity for millions through its generous support and donations to charitable enterprises which give young people a chance to participate in the sport.

It's a private club, wealthy, crusty and posh, with a long history - and it's great!

We stood on the balcony of one of the bars overlooking the pitch. A game was under way and I tried and failed to explain exactly what was going on to Elena.

Happy work though, as we supped the cool refreshing ale and watched the white clad figures who occasionally sprang into life before reverting to a form of statuary.

Later that day, we walked across Hyde Park to the Royal Albert Hall where The Philharmonic were due to give a performance of Beethoven, culminating with the great 9th symphony.

Two towering statues of Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert stand sentinel at the north and south entrances to his eponymous hall.
I stared up at him atop his great plinth outside the south entrance, and wanted to reach up and touch his hand.

'" Oh, she's warm" sprang to mind from the scene in The Winter's Tale, when Hermione's statue comes to life at her husband's touch and  she is resurrected by Shakespeare to remind us that anything is possible.

If the stern Victorian Albert came back to life today he might soon find a vacancy as consort to a Queen. Prince Philip, the present occupant of the role is feeling unwell and is 92 years old.

Most of Philip's views would probably coincide with Albert's so we should expect no change in approach from our Monarchy.
Perhaps if Albert's revival coincided with Philip's departure, we would interview him before giving him the job, rather than it being a shoe in?
What was the relationship between Victoria and Mr Brown?
And while we're at it, why does Prince Andrew look so different from Charles and Ann?
The answers' don't matter, these aristocrats are only human it's true.
So why do we treat them like Gods?

Prince Albert remains domineering in death

Beethoven had a healthy contempt for Princes.
'There have been many Princes', he said, 'and there will be many more, but there is only one Beethoven'
The performance was electrifying.
The turbulence, terror and pathos of the human condition charge through and trample over your soul as you sit before the spectacle of the huge orchestra and choir in the Albert Hall.

Thanks Victoria, for this hall.
We hope it will always be here, and that future generations will listen in peace as Beethoven reminds them that we must live together in love.
Schiller's great lines to the greatest great tune in the world were rendered with Godlike majesty by the huge choir.

Oh friends, not these tones!
Rather let us sing more
cheerful and more joyful ones.
Joy! Joy!

Joy, beautiful spark of the gods,
Daughter of Elysium,
We approach fire-drunk,
Heavenly One, your shrine.
Your magic reunites
What custom sternly divides;
All people become brothers
Where your gentle wing alights.

 Listen up, oh you great leaders of our world, Obama, Putin, Assad, Li Keqiang - reflect on these lines!

All ye tempted to kill and maim to right your wrongs, think again, Gandhi and Martin Luther King showed another way!

Afterwards, we go to The Goats Tavern with friends and drink a few pints of London Pride.

They were good, and we are lucky to be alive.

Leaving the pub, we met two young musicians who had played in the orchestra.
They were delighted that we had enjoyed their performance so much, and talked enthusiastically about the power of music.

If music be the food of love...play on!