Today, Joann, Diane, Jay and I visited the Columbia Road Flower Market in the East End. The market runs every Sunday morning until 2 p.m. There are stalls selling flowers and plants, and sellers crying "Six pots for a fiver" in Cockney accents. The road is lined with shops signaling the semi-gentrification of the area, but we learned that many of these shops are open on Sundays only.

Joann bought a silver ring with a synthetic emerald, Diane bought a nice scarf (for a tenner!) and I bought two kinds of cheese at mini-food market offering fresh olives, cheeses and breads. We snacked on a Cornish pasty and a cheese-and-onion puff (cheese, onion and mashed potato in puff pastry. Joann dubbed it a pierogi in puff pastry).

Later, we ate lunch at Perennial, a cozy, casual restaurant on 110-112 Columbia Road. We all had Sunday roasts, the traditional big meal you can get on a Sunday, usually at a pub. I had the old standby: roast beef, roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, accompanied by peas, carrots and snow peas. Jay had the same. Diane and Joann had monkfish wrapped in pancetta and stuffed with herbs.

In addition to lunch on Sundays for flower market-goers, Perennial is open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday. I recommend it highly.

Back in London. Our friend from Philadelphia, Joann, is in town, which means even more London fun. Joann and Diane went to the Ritz for tea on Friday. Unfortunately, Joann became sick to her stomach.

Her run of bad luck continued last night when we went to "Jerry Springer -- The Opera." In the middle of the second act, the "flying system" and the system used for set changes lost power. After a wait interspersed with announcements aplogizing for technical difficulties, they canceled the show and gave us letters enabling us to obtain a refund.

So, we went to the Criterion Bar on Piccadilly Circus for consolation drinks. It is a wonderful place with a golden, tiled ceiling and Art Noveau-esque design touches. Diane had a Cosmopolitan, Joann had a Kir Royale and I had a Criterion Cocktail: champagne, a sugar cube, Angostura bitters and brandy. It was great.

For me, the bar's main claim to fame is that it is the place where Sherlock Holmes met John Watson, forming one of fiction's greatest partnerships.

Earlier in the day, Jay and I saw a production of "The Pirates of Penzance" at the Savoy Theater, an Art Deco gem where Gilbert & Sullivan's original company put on their plays decades earlier.

It was a modernized production, with dancing to jazz at one point. I enjoyed it, although at some points I was not totally convinced some particular modern touch was necessary. But Jay and I liked it. One of my favorite songs is "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General."