I don’t usually write about my hometown food, but this time it’s deserved. The last time I ate jellyfish was in Nha Trang, Vietnam. What a discovery that was. Last night I rediscovered it in the dark and gloomy depths of Walworth Road, south London, right by the lyrically named but distinctively ugly Elephant & Castle. So this flashy new-ish Chinese restaurant is called Dragon Castle. It’s by far the best I’ve ever sampled in London. How many slimey. tasteless meals have I had thrown at me by surly waiters probably on slave-wages in our so-called Chinatown i.e. Gerrard St environs? This was something else. Here’s the Seasoned jellyfish with cucumber salad - quite delectable.

It’s hard to beat those Andalucians for energy. The last few days went in a blish (that’s shorter than a flash, marginally longer than a blip) from a rainy Malaga through a misty Carmona to end - at last - in the clear autumnal light of Seville. Instead of my usual solo or duet travel, I found myself in a heaving group of over 30 nationalities, most of whom had never been to Andalucia before. In between being bussed and guided around we were force-fed vast quantities of excellent food and drink. At times it felt like being a goose en route to foie gras status. It’s a while since I’ve been on a press-trip to Spain and I had forgotten just how much this goes on - whiling away an entire afternoon in a restaurant is just for starters as dinner only seriously kicks in around 11pm. Luckily there are quite a few cafés around for recovery, with or without a Virgin Mary poster for company on slow days.

Phew. In tandem with a week of scintillating Indian summer, it’s been culturally full-on from Brian Wilson & his pretty big band belting out Beach Boy classics at the Festival Hall to statically stunning terracotta warriors at the British Museum, to a glimpse of the roller-coaster life of the American photographer, Lee Miller, at the V & A.

Summer seems over and autumn truly here with a bleak sun that occasionally pokes a few warming rays through our traditional cloud-cover. Perfect tennis-weather. Talking of meteorological features, I’ve just marked the September 26th full moon in my diary. This is the extra-ordinary outsize ‘harvest’ moon, unique to this time of year, that looks like a giant UFO rolling across the skyline. I remember seeing it (knowingly) for the first time while driving through northern Italy in my misspent youth. Suddenly a huge pink globe powered upwards and seemed to block the end of the road. Nobody in the car could quite figure out what the phenomenon was but it inevitably generated a stream of animated comments. Mamma Mia!! hai VISTO??? che cos’e quella cosa gigantesca? mi fa paura! potrebbe essere un marziano? Etcetera. Very spooky indeed. But we drove on, no Martians appeared and we made it back to our pastasciutta in Padova.