Clovelly

There's a fire truck outside the Chinese cafe and I peer in expecting action. The firemen are sitting on a bench seat ordering take-away. Next door in the bottle shop the television is on and one of the Big Brother girls is telling another that she wants to get to know "the real you". I wonder why you'd bother. There are fully grown palm trees newly lining Towns Place. I wonder why you'd bother.

Dinner is pies and fast moving gossip. I'm amazed and uncomfortable at how much these people know. The pies are Simmone Logue and there's talk of the body corporate meeting at the Horizon when Harry and Deborah came from a long lunch. Pets were on the agenda. Baz Luhrmann was there. Then there's Derby Day and Sandra Sully shouting across the marquee about truthfulness. Or should it be honesty? The celebrity chef wants his Abercrombie and Fitch jeans back, but it can be through a third party. No need for direct contact.

During dinner the police arrive outside and we wonder if it's because we've been stealing music. All of us. We wait for the knock at the door but it never comes and instead we move on to ice-cream, Naomi Robson and the Tracey Grimshaw segue from Beconsfield to liposuction.

Afterwards we look at cathedrals in Florence, Milan and Salisbury on Google Earth. Newcastle lacks deinfition, though, so we don't even bother with Lochinvar.