Japanese food, Indian summer

I just had sushi in the park. The sushi was from Itsu (where the Russian spy was poisoned with the radioactive sushi) and the park was Finsbury Square, not far from my favourite home away from home – the office.

It is 27 degrees in the shade! I wolfed through my generic salmon and tuna sashimi and sushi, saving my favourite bit, the crab and avocado roll, til last. The sushi was not really cold enough, but maybe that’s a good thing? Fridge cold sushi lacks flavour and I read somewhere that in Japan the rice is meant to be the same temperature as the hand that rolled it.

Finsbury Square was oozing with sex. It’s a fairly scruffy little park, officially part of the Islington ward rather than the City, and as such probably a little poorer than its more salubrious near neighbours (e.g. Finsbury Circle). Not that there are that many parks in the City anyway. This one has lots of municipal looking flowerbeds, a dodgy toilet and an unappetising little park cafe/restaurant thing. And for some reason people also play petang (petong? petanq?) here, like we’re in a French village.

Back to the sex. The Indian summer (if one hot day an Indian summer makes) had the office workers out in droves, stripping down and rolling in the grass. I was impressed by the display of nonchalant sun worship. Although I had primly seated myself on a little brick wall, keen to avoid getting any mess on my newish black trousers, others were less concerned. A young man (also with sushi from Itsu) pulled off his business shirt and plonked himself down, displaying impressive muscles and tattoos. Everyone looked. Some girls next to me rolled up their already short skirts and tanned their thighs, to the appreciative stares of some middle aged bankers sitting across from them. A courier youth dropped his bike in the middle of the lawn and ate a Pret sandwich whilst posing in his courier shorts. And so on.

I closed my eyes and imagined I was back on a beach somewhere. I wished I had my Ipod. But it was not to be. A wasp buzzed loudly in my ear and I had to stumble back through the crowds, dropping my sushi detritus in a big pile of similar bags next to the overflowing bins.

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