A Dickensian boy in a heatwave

Hilarity is contagious. At a dinner in London, I listened as a woman described her friend's experience. He'd nipped to his Notting Hill supermarket to get some organic oat milk. As he shopped, a masked gang with knives burst in and began robbing the place. Then a fight broke out among the robbers, and soon the masked gang were stabbing each other in the aisles. Her friend stood there in his cashmere sweater, clutching his oat milk, knives and blood flying around him, and it was like, "Oh my god..."

- Charlotte Grimshaw

The rendition of this was so comic, the whole table was in hysterics. In the midst of successive heatwaves, London is a city pulsing with mad hilarity. Crime is everywhere. At the same dinner, two people reported having their phones snatched by thieves on e-bikes while they were texting in the street.

An open phone is a portal: one had his bank accounts accessed within minutes, thousands of pounds extracted, and his laptop wiped. The other closed the portal quicker, but his phone is now located in Guangdong and he's still receiving sinister messages.

Just before the dinner, as I strolled on the South Bank, boys were riding their bikes directly at women walking alone. They rode at me, then surrounded me in a fence of bikes. I levelled the nearest boy with my most savage and reptilian stare and asked him if he really wanted to get into this. With me. (A human velociraptor.)