I take my new teeth to The Southbank Centre at about 9am. I
am in pain. The problem is this.  I
really enjoy food but I’m unable to eat anything that needs chewing.   Basically I have been eating soup all weekend.  So occasionally  I chew the soup cause then it feels like a
meal.  But there is only so much soup one
can chew.  It’s not even chewy soup.  I am not even sure chewing soup is altogether
sane.

Southbank  Centre is gorgeous.
Sun has hit it. I work  at The Riverside
Rooms and then at noon I  set off for a
quick cycle to parliament. Seconds after leaving the office Jane Bees, a
dynamic worker at Southbank    asks “Do
you mind if Patti is at our meeting?”   We’d organised to meet (Jane and I)  at 2.30pm in a Southbanks eatery . “Patti?” I
asked  “Patti Smith ?”  I blurted  “no. I mean no..yes… I don’t mind… yes
ofcourse ”

I have had the honour to read alongside Patti Smith twice
before. Once at the Southbank and once as part of Cries from The Heart where
Smith  had the audience both in the palm
of her hand and on their feet in ovation. Here’s the
picture  of that finale.    I was
over the moon with the idea of meeting her. 
I was in Pain. I was going for lunch at Parlaiment for the first time,
another momentous occasion of the day.

12.30pm and I enter the glass building of  Port Cullis
to the right of Big ben of the palace of  parliament . Chris Waterman about five ten
with a shock of blond vibrant hair meets me on the other side of security
within the building.   Chris Waterman who is presently the colleague
of formidable Baroness  Helena Kennedy has invited me for lunch after
our chat at the Directors of Childrens services conference. 

Considering the government was my legal parent for the first
eighteen years of my life entering the large atrium of port cullis is like
entering the home of the Alien Mother.  
Chris loves literature and was once the co-organiser of The Word
Festival which spread the length and breadth of London boroughs preceding  The London Literature Festival.    In a
whisk  Chris takes me  underground and through a tunnel beneath the
road to The Houses of parliament.   This is amazing.

We find ourselves in the 
central Lobby. I don’t know if he did it deliberately but we stood still
in the central lobby as The
Speaker of The House walks  walks
past in ceremonial dress while the mace   is carried before him.  This before a police officer announced “hats
off”.  It is a surreal moment where time
stood still as the procession happened before me.   The Speaker  is Michael Martin the first and only speaker
ever to resign  and will only make this
ceremonial  journey a few more times.
This was history in the making him.  To
see him in all the pomp and ceremony  reminds me of a poem I wrote called The
Emperors Proclaimer.    

Chris takes me to see the house of lords (coloured green)
and the commons (coloured red). Memory may have mixed these colours up.    I walk through the cloak room for the Lords
and see the coathangers room where the brass hangers  upon dark wood holdings are adorned with the
names of each lord or baroness.   “It reminds me of a school coat hanging room.”
Says Chris.   Each of the hangers have names above them. I
see Baroness Lola Young’s. 

We have lunch and though I begin with Soup I attempt salad
as a main and I can’t even eat that. The pain shoots through my teeth.   I eat a quarter and leave it. The problem is
I am soOOoo hungry.  And now I am in Pain
and still hungry.   At 3pm I go back to
the Southbank and then straight home with a pulsating headache.   When I get home there is a message from
Jane,  “Lemn where are you. Patti and I  are here!.”