Unfortunately, today was the middle day of the great 48-hour tube strike.

The traffic, not surprisingly, was horrendous. It took us an entire hour to get by taxi from King's Cross to Paddington, where we stored our luggage.

Then we walked back to Soho, to the quirky Urban Tea Rooms, where we were due to meet an old friend. This, alas, was not to be, as he was hopelessly stuck in the gridlock. A journey that normally would take him 15 minutes took him two hours, and our next appointment, with a friend we hadn't seen for nine years, meant we couldn't wait. After several pots of tea (and a really nice Bakewell tart), we had to move on.

To Zoilo, where we shared exquisite little Argentine dishes and nine years' worth of stories.

But we couldn't spend too long there either. We're flying out early tomorrow, and needed to get to our Heathrow hotel. So we walked to Paddington, along gracious, Monopoly-famous streets, beneath a slender moon, and past Tony Blair's house, which has two uniformed policemen permanently stationed at the front door. After a struggle with the ticket machine (ironically, the decision to install more of these obdurate pieces of equipment is actually the cause of the tube strike), we were lucky to get a train straightaway, and connect immediately with a bus.

Considering the chaos that has wracked the capital today, we came off lightly. But I so regret that missed meeting.