Yesterday we went to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, both parts. It was brilliant, and worth the extravagant price we paid for the best seats. Good story, good acting, great staging, and fantastic effects. I’m not going to say any more, except Wow!

Before and between the shows we wandered around Soho. When I was young and living in the UK I would head for Soho whenever I had time in London, because that was where Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed, the best SF bookshop in Europe, lurked. Back then Soho was a jumble of strip clubs, jazz clubs, peep shows, bars, porn shops, Italian bistros, prostitutes. There was also chinatown, most of the British film industry, and the British Board of Film Censors. I always thought it amusing that the people cutting the sex and violence out of movies had to walk past hundreds of hookers’ apartments and stores with thousands of porno mags on the way to work.

These days almost all the old Soho sleaze has gone. We only noticed one remaining strip club, and two massage parlors, one of which was giving actual massages. The restaurants have expanded to fill the available space, with every cuisine imaginable. We had lunch at a French bistro, sitting outside as it was an unusually warm day.

There was an Italian place next door, lobster rolls across the street, and sushi, pho, and moroccan burgers within a few yards. For dinner between the shows we went out to Chinatown, and had some excellent dim sum.

We rode the bus back to Lisson Grove after the shows, walked along the towpath to the boat we are staying on, and just after we were on board a huge thunderstorm passed over, but it wasn’t as impressive as the special effects in the show.