I met a few university friends in Soho on Thursday evening. That was a delight. Soho seemed busy; I don’t know if Fridays are busier or if Thursday is the new Friday because so many people are working from home on Friday even if they have to be in an office the rest of the week.

I walked all the way there and back – about an hour and a half each way – and bumped into my neighbour from across the road getting off a bus as I walked through Borough on the way there. I enjoy a long walk when I have the time and the weather isn’t completely hideous. It was just a bit drizzly, totally fine with a hat and a waterproof coat.

On Saturday, we paid a visit to a sake brewery and tap room in Peckham, which I discovered by accident when looking at the map a few weeks ago. I had a glass of an unfiltered sake that was very nice indeed.

After that, we watched the delayed new James Bond film, No Time to Die. It makes some concessions to the modern age, but in the villains are all characterised by the tired old Bond trope of facial difference: scars, missing eye, scar and missing eye respectively.

It’s fun and gripping, though, and occasionally ludicrous in the way all Bond movies should be. And it’s long. After over three hours (including trailers) my knee nearly seized up from not being able to straighten my legs in the cinema seat.

I don’t usually get around to watching a film on its release weekend, but there’s a buzz and camaraderie in the queue that makes it a more satisfying experience than an empty midweek showing.

The film’s release was delayed by events, and I’m fairly certain that the “nanobots” were a hasty rewrite of a pathogen in the original story as filmed in 2019. I can understand why they’d shy away from that right now, but it made other aspects a bit odd.

There’s a lot of Range Rover product placement in the film, but I came away with the impression that they’re top-heavy vehicles that easily roll over and kill their occupants. Possibly not what they intended.

I started working on a piece of music for the loopop contest. (Brief: make a piece of music using only the provided set of samples, deadline 24 October.) I like the idea of working to a prompt, and this one has very clear limitations. I loaded them into my MPC, and I’ve already got something eerie as a starting point.

We ended up with more cabbage (well, greens to be precise) from our vegetable box than we could eat, so I decided to make kimchi. Pros: kimchi tastes delicious, and it’s healthy. Cons: the entire house smelled of fermenting cabbage and garlic for a day or two. It’s not quite the same as using Chinese cabbage, but it works well nonetheless.

There’s still no petrol (or diesel) at the pumps locally. Maybe there’s more to it than panic buying.