It's all gloom and despair in the UK but as an outsider I still think it's wonderful | Brigid Delaney

I've found somewhere where they apologise to you if you bump them with your backpack on a crowded tube It's a summer Sunday in a beer garden in Islington, London, at drinks organised by Ivan, a friend visiting from Sydney. Ivan is inhaling some soggy crust thing covered in gravy and some hard looking peas. Underneath is meat flown in from New Zealand, washed down with a pint of some warm, brownish swill.