I wish we had that here.

Last night I had a band practice and left the studio at about midnight, drove home and realised that I hadn't eaten since lunchtime. So at about 12.30 AM I was driving around my locality, a suburb about 8 or 9 miles outside central London, desperately looking for a takeaway joint and nothing, nothing at all was open. Not a sausage, quite literally.

One of the many things I love about Sri Lanka is that there is always plenty of activity going on whatever the time of day or night. Here in the UK after about midnight, except in central London, everything just shuts. There are no people on the street apart from the odd drunk staggering home or the occasional night worker. There is no noise and the streets are deserted.

In Sri Lanka I find that "busy" atmosphere on the street electrifying. The constant buzz, the continual noises, the little kades serving hot food and drink that are open on every street corner, the three wheelers plying for trade.

The commodity of time always appears to be more plentiful in Sri Lanka. Or maybe here in London we just don't have it. I see people on the street in SL, it can be any street, and they happily stand around watching the world go by. They're not rushing to get somewhere, they're quite content as they are. Here in London anyone who behaved that would be weird, we constantly do everything at the maximum speed possible. We never stand still, we are always on the way to somewhere or something.

So there are two pearls of wisdom I wish to impart:

1. Work for tomorrow, but enjoy today too.

2. Open an eating establishment near my house. Serve rice and curry 24 hours a day. Please.

Thanks.