I don't think we will meet again

I made myself a nice bowl of udon soup with shitake, szechuan pickled vegetables, tomatoes and egg. It was tasty and sharp like a hot and sour soup without the hot - I ate it out of one of the giant ramen bowls Geof bought me for christmas. Pleasing. And then I spent the last hour listening to Mozart's Requiem. Classy. ;-P

And I have a haggis to take to Neal's for tea tomorrow... bought in Sconny Botland and everything! Which reminds me that I should briefly froth in an excited manner about watching Heroes tomorrow. *froths* There. That's better. Night night.

a petition to exempt Shisha cafes from the smoking ban.

I'm glad I found this - there are at least 4 lovely cafes in hyde park alone that are primarily shisha bars and I've been worrying about how the smoking ban would affect them since I found out that they were covered by it - basically there are a lot of small businesses, usually family or community run, across the country that were set up primarily as shisha smoking venues, mostly pretty recently. I think it's pretty shitty that this type of thing is being killed off just as it's gaining in popularity and just after these people have invested a lot of money, time and effort in starting their businesses. I know this is billed as a health and safety 'initiative' for staff but a lot of these places are run by families or groups of friends who decide, as a group, to open them together in the first place - nice of the goverment to save them from this terrible descision and protect their health - who cares if it financially destroys them in the process?

anyhoo if you want to sign the petition on the government site then it's at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Shisha/

i'm interested to hear other people's thoughts on this too. I know I'm being a bit emotive but I like these places and can guess how gutting this must be to the people who've started them.

p.s. you have to log into your email account and confirm your vote before it will show up.