Mele e Pere, London

Mele e Pere has such bright neon lights outside that walking past I’d previously dismissed it as a sex shop. It’s not, despite some odd shaped Murano glass sculptures of the eponymous fruits on display, but nor is it a trattoria of yore. It’s modern; the high scrubbed wood tables accessed by the kind of tall stools that present a challenge to puffed out old bloaters like K and myself.

Bianco43 Trafalgar Sq Review

I’ve got a slice of pizza in my hand and I’m looking at a picture of a scruffy bloke with a dark goatee. It clicks. It’s Caravaggio. I recognise him not because I’m a man of art, but because I’m old enough to remember his face on a lira note.

The House of Holi

A puff of blue explodes in my face. Then a puff of yellow. Holy rainbow coloured smoke! I’m surrounded by a mob, and I can’t see much although I’m still laughing. Fortunately it’s not an angry mob but an excitable crowd, intent on causing harmless devastation by primary colour. The occasion: it’s the Hindu festival of Holi.