IT'S SATURDAY, I MUST BE IN PETERBOROUGH

And we're back. And off again. Briefly.

No sooner had the LLDD-Hyphen-L and I come back to the UK from our all-too-short visit to Manila did we immediately get sent off on a Valentine's Day trip to beautiful Peterborough for a FilCom event. Now Peterborough may be best known pop-culturally as the hometown of the Erasure lead singer as well as X-Factor runners-up JLS, but my loyalties will always lie with Spandau Ballet, regardless of city I'm visiting. So, Kemp and company...play us IN!

I bought a ticket to Peterborough...but then I came back again

The FilCom Event

The good fil-people of Peterborough were throwing an Induction of Officers/Valentine's Day party, and guess who was invited? That's right, me! (only after they invited the other senior embassy officers, but still). This wasn't the first time I represented the Embassy at a Filcom activity, but it was the first time the LLDD-Hyphen-L and I were ever guests of honor. Seats at the head table, big-ass lapel-ribbons, the whole shebang. I also was asked to give a welcome address, and I thought it'd be more heartfelt and sincere if I spoke extemporaneously and without notes. Why do I find it hard to write the next line, I want the truth to be said, baga. I didn't do too bad, but I still had more mmms... and aaahs... than, well, True

.

If you squint, I look as awkward on stage as Tony Hadley. And as fat.

The Town

The LLDD-Hyphen-L and I didn't get to stay in town long as we had to catch a train back to London. What little we did see was very nice, although the cold wind and rain drove us immediately into a local mall whose feel, layout and wear-and-tear made us swear we were in Harrison Plaza.

Although the DVD vendors at HP are more welcoming

The Cathedral

The undoubted star of the town center (apart from the LLDD-Hyphen-L) was Peterborough Cathedral. Perhaps not as large as others of its kind around Europe, but certainly no less stunning or historic (just like the LLDD-Hyphen-L. Har!). I was particularly thrilled to see . . .

. . . the famous and incredibly beautiful interior designs above (that gave us both vertigo and stiff necks) (which makes me wonder: if ceilings are particularly stunning, can you be floored by them? Har!) . . .

. . . and the burial sites of both Mary Queen of Scots and Katherine of Aragon (which now soorrrtttaaaaa gives me a talking point for when my dream dinner party of the LLDD-Hyphen-L, Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman - all wearing "The Other Boleyn Girl" costumes - finally happens.)

Hey, if just standing in front of the cathedral with can make me look like a student at Hogwarts, anything can happen, right?

Anyway, thanks for everything Peterborough. Spandau! Play us out!

With a thrill in my head, Natalie Port-uh-man

Dissolve the nerves that Johansson

Listening to Bo-leyn (all night long)

This is the sound of my soul,

This is the sound