Saturday 24th January 2026

Woke around 0400…reckon it took me two hours to get back to sleep! Got up around 1000. Aki cooked a late brunch. Surprisingly sunny morning. Set off for a walk. First stop was Tesco on Stroud Green Road, where we purchased some bits and pieces before heading up and over Crouch Hill for a look at the recently refurbished Hornsey Town Hall. I hadn’t realised it’s now a hotel, with 68 rooms! One of the receptionists showed us a couple of bedrooms…nicely appointed. The first one we saw still had Borough Treasurer written in gold lettering on the door. There’s a cafe, but it was closed for a private event, and a restaurant is planned, as well as a rooftop bar! Had a late lunch in a little Turkish cafe on the main drag…we shared a tasty falafel wrap. Caught a No.91 bus back to Holloway. Cooked a chicken chasseur for dinner, with freekah and vegetables. Watched the first couple of hours of Abel Gance’s 1923 silent epic, Napoleon. It’s extraordinary stuff…the artistic invention in the edit, the central performance, the cast of thousands. Marat is played by Antonin Artaud, the founder of the Theatre of Cruelty. Watched Sunderland go down to a 3-1 defeat at West Ham on MOTD before bath and bed...