Jump around. Jump, jump, jump, jump around.

The she-David was away this weekend just gone, which always lends a certain devil-may-care raffishness to my plans. Unfortunately, after asking about I discovered that nobody seemed to be free for some jolly weekend larks, and so somewhere along the line my plans changed from ‘painting the town a fetching shade of crimson’ to ‘eating takeaway food and drinking heavily whilst sitting in my underwear playing Total War’, and once I’d done that feeling a bit bloated by it all and so then to hitting the gym for several hours to work all the excess off again.

I’d been thinking of heading to the seaside on Sunday – the seaside is always a nice place to go when you’re got a day free – but when I awoke I found rain sheeting down outside the window and decided perhaps it wasn’t on. Instead I retired to the settee with a book and the internet where I noticed this interesting bit of news; Britain and Canada agreeing to share embassy space, and the Australians and New Zealanders apparently chatting to us in joining in. I thought this a tremendously fine idea: rather than trying to expand global reach by sharing space with a gaggle of fractious European nations whose leadership don’t like us much and are largely clueless about stuff like elementary economics*, instead teaming up with nations with whom we have a certain number of shared aspects: history, language, culture, legal structures, a preference for honest trade, a head of state, basic rule of law and democracy. You know, minor matters like that.

Intrigued I flicked over to Home Secretary and former schoolmate William Hague’s twitter feed to see if he had anything to say on the matter and there I saw, not anything about any consular planning, but instead a note reading “Don’t forget – Foreign Office open to the public as part of London Open House weekend this weekend”.

Holy bajiggers, I said to myself. Open House weekend? I thought that was weeks ago and I’d missed it. I checked my watch – it was 11am. How much culture could I cram in before it all closed at four?

There was only one way to find out.

Leaping into my trousers, pulling on my shoes, grabbing my coat, descending the stairs and leaving the house with a single, fluid movement (that gym time the day before paying off) I paused only to send alert texts to a few people I thought would want to come along before leaping headlong like Indiana Jones into the nearest public transport and heading for Fleet Street, there to gaze upon the fabulous 1920s art-deco interior of the Daily Express building.
The actual Express newspaper moved out in 1989 when the papers moved from Fleet St to Wapping and the building is now occupied by Goldman Sachs, so there was a conspicuous amount of security looming discretely about the place presumably to make sure I wasn’t one of the 99% come to stir things up a bit. However, I wasn’t overly fussed by that as the building itself is a standout in a city jammed full of ace architecture. Commissioned at the absolute height of the 20’s boom (although not finished until 1932), it’s a sleek edifice of curved black glass and marble whose interior lacks either restraint or subtlety:



And some rather natty Follower-of-Set themed handrails:



Indeed, I learned that the lobby ceiling was made not out of burnished steel or chrome as you’d normally get with art deco, but is in fact one great big lump of beaten silver, and at £22.08 an ounce at time of writing that’s darned tempting for a chap like me:



Once the security men had pried my fingers off their fittings and hurled me out onto the street with a curt suggestion that I not come back, I hurried on. I was on a deadline, and I had to meet colonel_maxim for a shufty through the residence of the Argentinean Ambassador in Belgravia.

Relations between Britain and Argentina have had their ups and downs over the last few decades. They hit something of a low thirty years ago, and then improved slowly until 2007 when the Argentinian government decided that rather than share any South Atlantic mineral wealth (according to Shell, the Falkland Islands sit atop the second richest hydrocarbon source rock in the world after Saudi Arabia, which is a stroke of luck for the islanders) they’d tear up the existing treaties which gave them half and decided they’d rather whine noisily instead. As a strategy it’s pretty good short-term one for distracting attention from internal problems, but when it comes to making your country richer in the long term it utterly sucks.
Anyway; Argentina is one of those countries with whom Britain should be great friends. There’s a lot of shared history (Argentina was Britain’s largest external trading partner for many years), cultural understanding and personal warmth. As usual with these things it’s just the politicians get in the way, and so it proved with the open house. The staff were friendly and welcoming, the whole exercise was plainly an attempt to break down barriers and highlight what an excellent place Argentina is to visit and do business, there was a huge “Argentina welcomes you” display with holiday brochures and pictures of friendly locals… but they just couldn’t help themselves, you see. After going to all this effort to be friendly, welcoming and keen to be seen as reasonable people, they then just blew it by sticking this up in the hall:



Note to Argentinean Ambassador: Diplomacy works by making friends through finding common ground based on shared interests, goals and expectations and then tackling the elephant in the room, especially when you’re dealing with people who might feel a bit jingoistic about the subject in question and aren’t afraid to send a gunship or two to back that up. Not the other way round. Happy to help.
Overall, the residence itself was a Georgian Mansion of the sort which clutter Belgravia and in many ways it reminded me of Argentina itself. Stately, grand and proud, but also shabby, the paint was peeling in the corners, and it looked like some of the furniture had been sold off.

Oh, and the Ambassador has a fantastic South American Dictator hat, all gold braid and feathers, in a case in his office.

Anyway, time was pressing on so we scooted round to the Caledonian Club just round the corner where a) they were doing guided tours, b) they had a rather nice open fire in the grate and it was tipping it down again, and c) the bar had the largest collection of single malts I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
The Caledonian club defies everything you might think you know about Scots by being warm, comfortable and friendly, and during the tour the manager made it clear that Scottishness wasn't a precondition of joining - it's an organisation of like-minded individuals, he said, in a polite, cheery and fairly obvious sales pitch for membership. I've got to admit to being tempted. The Caledonian Club is in an attractive old building, it's splendidly comfortable throughout, the booze is sensibly priced, and I was pleased to see what the modern Scot-about-town is reading these days:



So after glugging our way through the contents of the members bar in a dedicated fashion, that was that. I had to get home to clear away all the discarded scanty underwear left about the place by hot women do the washing up before the She-David arrived home and clouted me one with a rolling pin.


*Germany, Finland and Holland excepted, German, Finnish and Dutch pals.**
**If anyone from any of the other European countries is reading, I’m not being personal but we did say your damn fool Komedy Kurrency would go horribly wrong and you just wouldn’t listen.