9.30 am. Neither the threatened rail strike nor the downpour of rain last night had prevented the trains from running to time. On, then, to London with my laptop engaged (albeit without the ‘courtesy’ power supplied by an on-board ‘plug socket’ — as it was referred to by the announcer — which had failed throughout both carriages). The weather switched, as though between the seasons, from dark and heavy to bright and vibrant, and back again, throughout the journey to Mid Wales:

12.35 pm. I arrived at Grand Central, Birmingham. (Will they cease calling it Birmingham New Street, now that the station has an additional name?):

12.50 pm. On to London Euston and, on arrival, to Bloomsbury Publishers on Bedford Square. I’d come to discuss the conceptual framework and intent of a new book on the Bible, art, and visual culture. 2.00 pm. A face-to-face discussion with the commissioning editor is preferable at this stage of the negotiations; it’s possible to get through a great deal of business far more quickly than by an exchange of emails. I left feeling a strong sense of the (potentially large) work’s direction and of what would be its distinctive characteristics. (Harry Potter does not live here, by the way!):

3.45 pm. Then, I travelled from Gower Street to an Airbnb flat off Fleet Street: a homely, comfortable accommodation with formidable security:

Having settled and brushed up, I ventured back into the city for a place to eat. As a matter of tradition and habit, as much as of a baneful lack of imagination (I’m no foodie), I ended up at my usual Chinese restaurant on Gerrard Street. The standard of cooking has declined noticeably, visit by visit. For desert and solace — an artisan ice cream on St Martin’s Lane.

7.00 pm. I’d tickets for Florian Zeller’s The Father, at Wyndam’s Theatre, which was built by the architect William Sprague in 1899:

It has the feel of a fusty old hotel that still uses blankets rather than duvets on the bed: charming, eccentric, and teetering on the vulgar, in the best sense of that accusation. (My late Auntie Rosie possessed the same characteristics, as I recall.) The set was disciplined and imaginative, but the play was, to my mind, dismal, tedious, and lacking in development and conviction (on the actors’ part):

I’ve a suspicion that actors and directors alike feel an obligation to entertain, rather than to enlighten and challenge, their audience when they play on the West End. One doesn’t attend a play about Alzheimer disease and expect an almost farce-like delivery. But the play has received, in the main, 5-star reviews. There are rumblings in the air about dreadful events in Paris this evening.