Visited the magnificent Pere Lachaise graveyard on a family trip to Paris last weekend. I was last there 20 years ago, and wanted to revisit Oscar Wilde's grave, with its stunning Jacob Epstein sculpture. On my earlier visit, it had a few lipstick marks here and there, left by Wilde's fans, and I read later that they were destroying the stone. At the risk of sounding like "incensed of Tunbridge Wells" or some other such middle class citadel, I have to admit to being gutted to see the damage done by so-called "fans" in the intervening decades. So much so that I couldn't even be bothered to hang around long enough to take a proper photo. Whatever happened to quiet veneration?

Travel the old fashioned way

While I confess to being one of those urbanites who can't get on a train without a strong latte and a pile of good reading material, I am still bemused by just how excited I was about something I discovered at Leamington Spa station earlier this week. A waiting room. A rarity today, and, even better, kitted out with good solid wooden benches - and a sturdy matching table. What a treat.

I miss living in London

Leatherhead is a pretty town. It's friendly, and the surrounding countryside is beautiful, in a tame, home-counties kind of way. I'm reasonably content here, although I found the move from London hard.

But last night, just by chance, we caught a televised performance of Madness's latest album, The Liberty of Norton Folgate. It's a bit of an ode to London, north London in particular, and the stage set (at the magnificent Hackney Empire) involved a changing backdrop of Camden scenes.

It made me really miss London. Mention of Soho made me miss Bar Italia, and a shot of the French House took me back years. But it made me feel old, melancholy and exhausted. Thanks Suggs, and your nutty boy friends!

But I do get up to the big smoke now and again - I took this photo of St Pancras while waiting for the Simon Community soup van to pick me up last week.

Does free food keep people on the streets?

I've volunteered with the Simon Community for almost 4 years. It is, I think, the oldest homeless charity in the UK. Having spawned branches all over Ireland - which are now much bigger operations and linked to the London group in name and ethos only these days - it's inevitable that it attracts a number of volunteers from the Irish diaspora in England.

Almost every Thursday night since joining, I've gone out in a van with half a dozen other volunteers, several of whom have become close and trusted friends, stopping at 5 or 6 spots in central London to hand out soup, sandwiches, tea, coffee and sometimes warm clothes.

In my early days as a volunteer, we would see, in all, around 100 people. Now it's closer to 150, and sometimes more, the numbers swollen by recent arrivals from Eastern Europe, many of them unable to communicate at all in English.

Soup runs take a lot of flak - from all corners. One of the main accusations has been that by feeding people, we are convincing them to stay on the streets. I've always found this ludicrous. Good as our soup is, it isn't going to prompt anyone to sleep in a doorway.

But recently, as more and more well-intentioned soup runs appear along our route, I've begun to wonder if we really are helping people. And, more importantly, if we're helping the right people. Last night, I was on the receiving end of a fair bit of unpleasantness from some Eastern Europeans, all of whom have been abusive to me before. This was because I wouldn't give them a second cup of soup each. I don't know if they don't understand that at that stage in the evening we have another three stops, and maybe as many as 70 people, to go. Or if they just don't care. And certainly the most offensive of them didn't want any soup at all - he appeared just to want to have a go. I left the soup run and came home early - something I've never done before.

So now I find myself wondering whether we're doing the right thing. I suspect that more vulnerable people are staying away because of the changed atmosphere around the soup run. And should we be able to refuse to feed someone who is abusive but hungry? Or is feeding someone like this simply sending out the message that this behaviour is acceptable?

Earthquakes - why I hate them

I absolutely hate earthquakes, so news of the latest incident always upsets me.

I spent 6 years in Japan. Like, no doubt, every other Gaijin(foreigner) there, I found tremors exciting at first. Then, bit by bit, they started to bother me, until I reached the stage when they scared the hell out of me.

My Japanese earthquake memories:

1. The times when I leapt out of bed and, as oft instructed, opened the main door of my flat, yet found that as the sole foreigner on the street, I was the only person to have done so. My Japanese neighbours would invariably sleep through the whole episode.

2. A visit to a 7 Eleven with my friend Mike. In the beer section, we noticed that the bottles were wobbling. We stood and watched as, in an eerie rippling effect, the shop's entire stock of bottles began to shake. Needless to say, no one else noticed. And no, we hadn't been on the grog.

3. The Kobe earthquake of 1995. Devastating, but what sticks in mind is the Japanese reaction. For a start, the first organised aid came from the local mafia - the Yakuza.

And the media coverage was, at least to this the western eye, hugely unsettling. The earthquake hit early in the morning. By the same evening, one TV channel was broacasting the names of the dead, on a continuous loop. Set against a black background, with the names in white, and dirge-like classical music playing, it felt deeply, deeply strange.

So all of that, I guess, adds up to why I hate earthquakes.

Blacksmith's empties

In Betchworth for lunch today, I noticed that the local blacksmith had left his empties out for the milkman. No idea why it tickled me, but it did.

The power of coincidence

I was trudging home from the station this evening - remember, first day back at work after a fortnight off - listening to Van Morrison singing "Cleaning Windows", when I saw ... the local window cleaner.

And, searching vainly for the song on YouTube, I came across a cover of Morrison's 'Into the mystic', by Jen Chapin, who I saw live, completely by coincidence, in Chicago last year.

So there, I'm feeling more cheerful already. Although my secret confession about Jen Chapin is that her small son was making so much noise (sitting in front of me) during the gig that I bailed out before it finished. Jen, hope this will make it up to you ...