Flag waving

I have found the most patriotic house in Cambridge. Unfortunately it was raining when I took this picture, as I can imagine this house looks even more impressive in bright sunshine. I felt there ought to have been a crowd of people outside, waving flags, drinking nice cups of tea, singing Jerusalem and being slightly sexually repressed.

Look closely at the corgi in the middle of the downstairs window. Is that literally the campest thing you have ever seen? I thought so

There were flags outside Al Amin too. (I say that as if you all know Al-Amin. Al-Amin is the nice shop on Mill Road where I buy my millet flour, of which exciting foodstuff more tomorrow, poppadums and harissa).

Yeah yeah, Al-Amin. Asian, Arabic, Persian and Afro Caribbean but not a single packet of berbere and I can't ask if they've got it because I don't know how to pronounce it. Burrburr? BearBear? Burrburr-eh? Chumley?

I am surprised actually at the dearth of flags and sports propaganda given that the Olympics are starting next week. I keep reading bits in the papers that say it’s because you are not allowed to use Olympic branding unless you are one of the official Olympic sponsors. Is that true? I found this in the Independent, which is obviously faintly worrying, as we have a little Olympic display in the window at work which consists of some wooden rings which we have painted carefully with acrylic paint and hung on transparent nylon thread. Now, though, I realise we have been cynically threatening the profits of Proctor and Gamble and BP, and indeed the ultimate viability of the Olympics itself! So, if you are sitting down next week, all ready with your Big Mac and Coke waiting for the synchronised swimming to start, and suddenly a message flashes up on the screen saying ‘there will be no synchronised swimming because a selfish shop in Cambridge impinged on our trademark and now we can't afford the nose clips’ then it will be my fault. I am just apologising in advance.

Objectively speaking, it would be a good idea for them to make an example of me because it is not like I am not used to lengthy pointless vindictive legal battles. I do hope I will still be able to watch the gymnastics, though, as I like them very much.

No rain next week. Its... summer!!!!. I think I perhaps ought to mow the lawn?