I went to see a podiatrist (they used to be called chiropodists) on Monday to get my toenail sorted out. At some point in the summer, I bashed my big toe, leaving a black mark under the nail that was slowly growing out. However, the trauma also left the nail weakened until it came away from the bed and started to split last week, and I was worried that it might split and delaminate further, or get caught and damaged.

So I paid someone to fix it. It was quick and easy and I was out in ten minutes with no blood and having sustained injury only to my wallet. He cut away the loose section, filed it down smooth, and it should now just grow out normally over time. It looks a bit weird right now, but it’s not uncomfortable.

As a bonus, I was right next to Waitrose so I bought a vegan haggis on the way home for a slightly late Burns Night-inspired supper on Tuesday night.

There were at least a dozen uniformed police on Rye Lane on Wednesday, stopping and checking dodgy e-bikes that don’t conform to regulations. This included quite a lot of food delivery riders. They are often a menace to themselves and others, but I feel sympathy towards them. It’s really the delivery companies that are responsible for the abusive conditions that drive them to take unnecessary risks in order to earn what still isn’t really a liveable amount.

And, of course, I blame the treat enjoyers most of all, the people who use a precarious labour force risking death and injury to provide them with mother-as-a-service, to save them the effort of picking up their own takeaways or – God forbid! – cooking their own dinner. This wasn’t a normal thing a few years ago. There were a few types of food that transported fairly well – stir fries and curries and pizza – and you could even get them delivered, but you couldn’t employ casual labour to bring you a single McDonald’s burger on a regular basis unless you were the kind of rich person who had jeevacation in their address book. Now I see people getting fast food delivered for breakfast! And you don’t even have to talk to the staff! The technofeudalists somehow willed it into existence by selling a dollar for fifty cents, got people hooked, and now they can squeeze the margins at both ends.

And that, via a chain of causation, leads to people riding electric bikes without the legal constraints on speed, to make as many deliveries as they can in the time available. It doesn’t have to be this way, but you’d be paying a lot more for that burger if it were fair and not exploitative.

A police lorry with a flatbed and a crane, and a number of electric bikes and scooters on the back

Confiscated e-bikes and scooters (and one monowheel)

There was also a monowheel – one of those suitcase unicycle things – on the lorry of confiscated vehicles. There may be a place for an electrified circus act, but it’s not the public highway.

My cousin Kara performed Zimmerman’s Oboe Concerto on Thursday evening at the Royal College of Music. She won the RCM Concerto Competition last year while still a student, playing the same piece, and the prize is that you get to do it again as a public concert. She nailed it, the supporting orchestra were excellent, and it was a joy to hear. She’s obviously very good – she has the accolades to prove it objectively – but watching her perform such a virtuosic piece made it absolutely clear.

Here’s a representative few bars of the score to give an idea of what the player is faced with:

A single line of music for oboe. There are three bars, each with a different time signature. It's nominally in C, but of the 33 notes (mostly semiquavers), 21 have an accidental mark.

Representative bars

I also thought that I should go to more concerts at the Royal College of Music. It’s easy to get to from home or from Peckham (with a train to Victoria), the standard is excellent, and the value is unbeatable.

A freight train passing the platform in a blur. Between the carriages, the people on the opposite platform are visible. There is a woman walking in front.

Freight train passing through at Peckham Rye

My own musical accomplishments this week have been a bit less rarefied. At Saturday’s Sanshinkai rehearsal, I played the jikata accompaniment to the eisa dancing on my own for the first time. It went OK, although, after fifteen minutes of what is more or less a continuous run of quavers with no breaks, my left hand was worn out. Still, it proved that I can in principle do it, even if I need to practise more.

The book of John Dowland lute pieces arranged for ukulele I ordered arrived, and I’ve been practising the first piece, Awake, sweet love, thou art return’d. I can play it, but now I need to put the expression into it.

Here’s a whole load of links from the past week: