My brother and I are filming some 30 second drama spots for a new NSPCC website and so a couple of days ago we were off on a recce, looking for a big house that can provide us with most of our locations. This lead us to a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend’s place in Islington.

Admittedly it was a gloriously hot day with a perfect blue sky but the house was a minor paradise. Too small too comfortably shoot in and far too delightful and uniquely decorated it was the sort of tumble down bohemian idyl that makes you want to instantly sink onto the sofa and strike up a pipe and a conversation about Proust. (Sadly this remains true even though I don’t smoke and haven’t actually read any volume of Temps Perdu… perhaps proving that I only feel at home in Islington because I too am a tosser.)

Out in the back garden beautiful people sunbathed with cats whilst downstairs their kitchen was full of chaos and beauty. Every brick in the place was in someway edible. It took us thirty seconds to realise we couldn’t film there and then thirty minutes to prise ourselves away, and even then only as far as the gorgeous pub at the end of the road which was full of old musical instruments and warm oaky shadows.

Chris and I sat in the cosy gloom of the pub and shared a thought in the silence.

Other people really are living a life aren’t they?