Lauren in London

Things I will miss about London

2009-02-25T14:55:00.010Z

Let's start with something obvious. Red phone boxes.

Any cuisine, any time (pictured: North African)

Daffodils on the street

Tate Modern (and Tate Britain)

Blue plaques

Days like this.
Moss on my neighbour's brick wall.
The mosaics at Tottenham Court Road.

How my street becomes an explosion of colour in May.

Tube shenanigans.

The way English people lie down in the sun anywhere, any time, any place.

Autumn

Back streets (of the non-boy band variety).

Front streets
Excellent music.

Random snow storms.

Feeling like an expert on the tube routes (relative to tourists, anyway).

Carpets of blooms (and Kew Gardens).

This earnest drag queen and his mates at Central Station.

The Intrepid Fox

Gunnersbury Park (and all the other parks).

Friends

The one thing I can't really photograph is what I love the most about London. That there is always something new and amazing to discover and to find it, often all you have to do is walk around a corner. Thanks for everything London. And thanks for reading, everyone.

Lauren in London (till Saturday)

Things I will not miss about London

2009-02-25T14:28:00.006Z

Living in a house full of someone else's old furniture and where everything else is still on boxes...

...and with this couch and curtain combo.

The depressing point where Holland Park becomes Shepherd's Bush.

Staring at other people's feet while sitting out the sometimes interminable tube trip home.

Being so bored on the interminable tube trip home that you can't help reading the tube advertising.

(Of course) the endless stream of days like this.

My job.

The lack of flat whites.

Before you become completely alienated, I'm planning to follow this up very shortly with a post on some of the many things I will miss about London.

Primrose Hill and Camden

2009-02-19T12:28:00.000Z

Today I bid farewell to my place of employment for the last 20 months. I am fluctuating between not really believing it, and getting carried away over every little event ("this is the last time I'll use this photocopier/drink from this coffee machine/sneak into my office 15 minutes late"). We're T-minus 9 days and counting from leaving London (although we're back for a little while in March before our ultimate departure from Europe).

People keep asking me if I've got a list of places to go before we leave, and I struggle for something to say. I think we did an OK job of getting out and about, and seeing new places as well as making ourselves at home in some other ones. I do feel sad about leaving all this potential for new (and old) excitement behind for the familiarity of Brisbane. But also I am looking forward to being part of the place again. I'm not sure why - maybe a combination of shyness and lack of awareness - but a lot of my memories of discovering London involve me creeping along the sidelines, staying out of people's line of vision, and snatching quick photographs before anyone notices. Very much like an outsider. I'm not unhappy about this - it's just the way it is (and the way I am). But I am looking forward in some ways to being somewhere where I know the bars, and the buses, and whether or not its appropriate to smile at a stranger without having to investigate and analyse before acting.

Having said all that, a couple of weeks ago I realised I hadn't yet made it to Primrose Hill, and for some reason this seemed worth rectifying, so we spent a Saturday walking through Regent's Park, up Primrose Hill, over to Camden and then back down into the city for a drink at the Intrepid Fox.

The boating lake at Regent's Park and a photographically opportunistic seagull.

Regent's Park on a fairly typical late January morning - chilly and bare, but still full of life.

London from Primrose Hill

After our momentous trek up Primrose Hill. It took a good three minutes.

This is nearby Chalcot Square, where Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes lived.

In fact maybe all this candy-coloured Primrose Hill sweetness was to blame for Sylvia's troubles in the first place.Stray wine glass on a Primrose Hill wall. I like to think this is the last remnant of an ridiculously extravagant soiree the evening before, just casually set down before the user jumped into the back seat of his town car and made off for Mahiki with his polo mates.

Getting closer to Camden, where even the real estate agencies have pop culture credibility.

Camden Markets

I also got to see inside the quite amazing Royal Automobile Club this week, but sadly I was intimidated by all the poshness into keeping my camera shut away in my handbag. So I can't show you pictures of the amazing gilded ceilings, the Turkish baths, the pristine indoor pool or the very smart navy blue 1952 Jaguar I saw. Take my word for it, it was worth seeing. I have been hatching plans to impersonate the kind member who took me there so I can sneak Ted in as well.

Boxing Day in St James Park

2009-02-13T10:47:00.001Z

Sometime in January, when I may or may not have been boycotting a trip to Brighton with our houseguests, I took a rather ill-advised late afternoon trip into town and ended up in St James's Park. This is one London park I hadn't visited in at leats five years so it was charming to see, but as I mentioned, ill-advised. Because it was FREEZING. I don't think I've ever been so cold, even when were standing on that glacier in Iceland being buffeted by icy winds and snow. Of course this was mostly my fault as I had let myself be lulled into a false sense of insulation security by some milder weather and was therefore not sufficiently rugged up for a sunset stroll, outdoors.

St James's Park is of course adjacent to Buckingham Palace and Green Park, so I took the obligatory wander through the first park and past the palace. I felt a bit ghost-like, weaving silently through the excited tourists snapping photograph after photograph of the palace, which (of course) stubbornly failed to produce any royal people for them to look at.

The park itself was much quieter, possibly because most people are as not stupid as I, and were therefore probably at home drinking mulled wine under a knitted rug on the couch.

I do love this common London sight though - tangled bare branches arching across the sky. It reminds me of those eerie old fairytale books which haven't had the stories edited into child-friendly sweetness. I recommend you click on the photo to see the larger size.

There were a few souls bravely feeding birds at St James's Park Lake. Although I think I remember reading a very twee English book once (about a girl and her pony - lots of gymkhanas and lemonade) which explained that it was bad for ducks, nutritionally speaking, to eat white bread because it makes their organs swell up or something. I should try to verify that.

The park looking decidedly wintery

Signs of life...

Pigeons huddling together for warmth

Speaking of fairytales, the view across the path to Westminster struck me as very much like enchanted castles in the distance (click on the photo to get a better idea).

Wikipedia fact of the day: the area around St James's Park was named St James after the leper hospital, St James the Less, formerly located near the park.

This guy (below) seems to ride to the park on his bike with stocks of nuts for the squirrels. I didn't really manage to photograph it successfully but it was very entertaining - the squirrels seemed to have worked out a perfectly-timed roster under which, one by one, they would run along the fence in the background, down the gate and over to the man, only to take the nut, run off and be replaced by the next in line. If he got distracted and wasn't quick enough to produce the next nut, the waiting squirrel would sometimes run up his leg.

I hate to backtrack, so having entered the park at the Buckingham Palace end, I exited at the opposite end near Westminster. This is the Horse Guards building at the Westminster end (and a bit of the London Eye to the right).

I walked through the central archway of the building looking for Westminster tube station and found myself (along with hordes of tourists) in the midst of a Household Cavalry guard changing ceremony. There were policeman there directing the crowds into an orderly mob so no one would get in the way of the choreography. This made it impossible to escape as the exit gates were blocked by people, so I watched the entire thing while trying not to think about what would happen if I got frostbite of the nose. According to Wikipedia only the monarch is permitted to pass through the archway but that's either Wikipedian rubbish, or no one bothers enforcing that rule on Boxing Day.

Fittingly, I ended the trip with this view, before heading down into the subway and the tube.

I'll miss the way London always manages to effortlessly present another amazing view or eccentric scene. I won't miss the regularity with which I see vomit on the street, but that's a mystery for another day.

Lincoln's Inn Fields

2009-02-12T10:09:00.006Z

I'm currently reading Peter Ackroyd's London: The Biography, which someone very kindly gave me just before I left Australia. It's quite a weighty tome and although I made several concerted efforts to read it when I first got here, it always ended up back in the pile beside my bed, unconquered.

Recently I picked it up again, wondering how ludicrous it would be to finally read it in humid Brisbane. I was pleasantly surprised to find how much more it all means to me now. The detailed explanations of how the road layout developed organically since Roman times is no longer pointless to me, because I've spent the last 18 months negotiating (and cursing) that very road layout. Ackroyd uses modern day landmarks and existing street names to describe the layout of the city during the Middle Ages and onwards, and now that I know (some of) the areas and street names he refers to, I can see the teeming city forming over time in my mind. When he talks about 16th century London and its clearly divided trading areas - butchers in Smithfield, fishmongers in Bishopsgate, old clothing dealers in Old Jewry, to name a few - I now know how closely proximate these areas are and can imagine the amazing and dangerous cacophony of noise and life (and odour) he describes.

I still don't think I'll finish it before I leave though, with all the goodbyes and packing and organising to fit in. Plus (only!) seven more days of work. Not that I'm counting.

I've mentioned here a couple of times London's unique way of revealing (and hiding) open spaces just when you think there are only office blocks, pubs and warehouses in your 5km radius. Well, I've spent the last 18 months working in Holborn without ever realising that Central London's largest open space, Lincoln's Inn Fields - mentioned in London: The Biography several times - was just a few blocks away. Imagine the Vitamin D I've been missing out on by never venturing there for a sun-drenched lunchtime sandwich! So once I made this amazing discovery (about two weeks ago), I was determined to go and see it at least once before departure time.

In the meantime, the weather gods played a trick on London, so my outing was less sun-drenched picnic and more slow and careful shuffle along icy pathways. But it was still beautiful, and definitely worth seeing.

I posted this shot on flickr and someone very astutely pointed out that the snow-person looks like a busty E.T.

Someone else on flickr suggested this was a snow-vampire.

Abstract snowman perhaps? To go with the existing art I suppose.

This is Lincoln's Inn itself, or more precisely the library. Lincoln's Inn is one of the four inns of court - where the barristers hang out, study and work from - in London and it's been around since the 1400s.

Finally, berries and snow.

Less than great expectations

2009-02-11T10:41:00.002Z

The good thing about the fact that almost no one reads this blog is that there's very little expectation of me to react quickly to current events (like the horrific fires in Victoria, or Obama's inauguration), or to produce lots of witty, original content. Maybe I'm getting confused about the chicken-and-the-eggness of it all, i.e. if I was more topical and produced a higher volume of interesting content more people would read me... hmmm, something to ponder. But then that was never really the purpose of this blog.

The purpose of this blog was to give my family in Australia a visual grasp of what my life was like here so we didn't become completely disconnected. Unfortunately I (or the blog) have also failed to meet that key performance indicator as I don't think anyone in my family, other than my mother, actually reads it. (Hi, Mum!) I'm trying to decide now whether to wrap things up here when I leave London in 16 days. Is Lauren in Brisbane worth recording for the world to see? I suspect not. Anyway, it's been to nice to find the few random kind people who bothered to drop by and leave comments which led me to their blogs.

I do feel ashamed of posting photos of my comfortable life at the moment though, while Kevin Rudd is on the TV in tears and photos of obliterated townships and scorched animal corpses dominate the news media at home. But then there's always something indescribably tragic going on somewhere in the world. The bushfires in Victoria logically should not hold more gravity for me just because they are in Australia and I am Australian. Australians are not more important than other people. Many people, including me, criticise the news media in Oz for (for instance) spending 80% of coverage of major disasters reporting on the one injured Australian while hundreds of non-Australians have been killed or injured. But it would be impossible to acknowledge and feel sadness for every waking nightmare the world serves up to us. Maybe it's just a logical filtering mechanism.

Anyway, no photos today. Maybe tomorrow.

White Tuesday

2009-02-09T10:02:00.002Z

As I think I mentioned, Tuesday last week was one of those clear, freezing days, at least in the morning before London fulfilled all expectations and turned overcast by early afternoon. I can't resist posting a few shots of that glorious morning though.

Our street in Ealing looked like that until Friday or so last week, except that it became more slippery and compacted by the day until we were all trekking up the centre of the road in our hiking boots, dodging invisible patches of ice and muddy piles of slush. Meanwhile, the Central London cleaning up process reached Holborn Viaduct by midday on Tuesday.

Just as well too - that ice-and-muddy-slush combo was making walking down the road for a sandwich a bit too perilous for my liking.

I also managed to add another shot to my multi-seasonal coverage of That House Down the Road with the Nice Path

Shame they're a bit wonky all together like that. One day when I have Photoshop instead of the useless piece of rubbish I use (iPhoto circa 2004) I'll fix that up and make a pretty triptych.

Some photos of a trip to snowy Lincoln's Inn Fields yet to post, and then that should be the end of the snow photos, for now. More heavy snow showers are forecast for tomorrow but I think that might just be wishful thinking by a populace who all got to stay home last week.

More White Monday

2009-02-03T08:44:00.003Z

Well, we did make it home last night, although it involved quite a bit of waiting, and at the end, quite a bit of walking through the snowy streets. Luckily our respective employers realised the danger of keeping those who hade made it in to town captive until 5.30pm while the means of transport home were being withdrawn one by one, and let us go home early. I think there was some expectation of working from home once there, hmm...

It snowed steadily until 7 or 8pm last night. We woke up today to an amazing blue sky and carpets of sparkling whiteness in Ealing. However, the streets in central London are now a perilous combination of slush and ice, and as I have completely lost my nerve after my last tailbone-breaking encounter with an icy road, it takes me about 15 minutes to walk 10 metres. More snow forecast for tomorrow and for Friday.

Some shots from the journey into work yesterday are below. One of the best things was the stillness - due to almost no traffic and the acoustically absorbent snow everywhere, I suppose.

White Monday

2009-02-02T07:58:00.004Z

Things have been quiet round here of late, but I'm sure no one minds, especially if they're just here by accident looking for Sesame Street birthday cakes.

But I had to come out of slackness to share some pictures which the poor Melburnites will not be able to relate to at all after their recent heatwave.

I give you the view from our house, @ 8.30 a.m:

I took some more on the very long, slow, freezing journey into work this morning which I'll post tonight. That's if I ever make it home. The forecast is for worsening conditions this afternoon. At least half the Underground lines are completely closed, the remainder are partially suspended, Paddington station is closed (so no overground rail homewards) and all London buses are cancelled. We overheard many a commuter this morning grumbling about how the transport infrastructure completely fails every time it snows. But I also understand it hasn't snowed like this for a decade so surely it's not worth spending millions of pounds to upgrade everything to snow-invincibility just for a one-in-10-year weather event.

Anyway, walking from home to the tube station was all sorts of fun, and also very beautiful.

Waylaid visitors

2009-01-23T11:02:00.003Z

I use a site meter program thingy to track the number of visits to this site. The results are confusing and not very helpful (and probably wrong) but it's still interesting to see who turns up here and (sometimes) why.

One day in a fit of whimsy I wrote this post about Sesame Street birthday cakes using a photo yoinked from a birthday cakes site. That's probably not legal but I'll take it down if they ask me to, and anyway, their URL is plastered across the photo.

Ever since I posted that picture, the hit count on this page has gone up to about 20 hits a day, which is about 19 more hits than I used to get on average. Almost all the IP addresses are from places in the US like Tacoma, Washington and West Bloomfield, Michigan. According to my site meter results, very few of them stick around for more than 3 seconds. I guess this is because the picture is coming up on a google images search or something like that, and once they get here they realise I am not going to tell them how to immortalise Bert and Ernie using flour and sugar, and they leave.

So, hello to all you thwarted birthday cake makers and good luck in your quests. Sorry to disappoint you.

Meanwhile, I have 19 working days left before we start our dawdle home to Brisbane via Holland, Belgium, Hungary, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Qatar. My desk is a tornado of hotel bookings, flight confirmations, newspaper articles and visa applications. I sometimes wonder how it will feel to be back in Brisbane, settled into home and back at work. Scarily permanent perhaps? But then I think of walking down the river's edge in the sun in bare feet, and the 10-minute bus trip to work, and I feel a bit better.

I've posted some photo sets from Italy and Scotland up on flickr too, here.

Lauren in London Edinburgh bar awards

2009-01-21T09:31:00.000Z

We found a lovely bar in Edinburgh called The Voodoo Rooms. I don't really have any wacky anecdotes to relate about our visits (although Ted did spill an almost-full Kronenbourg there), but some sort of atmospheric photos are below. We found it completely by accident on our first night there, and then when we were back in town a few nights later we took our friends there for a pre-dinner drink. It's upstairs above another pub so it just looks like some stairs with non-existent signage.

I don't really approve of the name but the decor is excellent. Also they make Bloody Marys just how you like them, which for me is with lots of lemon and tabasco. You can the friendly bartender in the process of making one below.

So my award is a trifle unfair as we only visited this bar and Edinburgh's understated attempt at a goth bar, The Rose Tavern, but I still say this is the best bar in Edinburgh.

Things to look at

2009-01-16T09:47:00.000Z

I am at about zero creativity right now after several very late nights at work. (Also, sitting at a desk for 14 hours a day is not what I would recommend for a cracked coccyx. Shocking, I know.)

I am pushing through the last bit of property law torture right now and am looking forward to tonight, when I will come home to my beloved couch and zone out for as long as possible.

In the meantime, here is a bit of Edinburgh Castle to look at.

Mons Meg, 15th century siege cannon. Not the sort of thing I would usually be excited about but it gave me a chance to do some arty photography with the frosty rock face in the foreground.
Ted in traditional posture, on the battlements

This is a 19th century cemetery for soldiers' and regimental mascot dogs.

The view to Arthur's Seat
I suspect that's it for me this week but next week I'll post some atmospheric Scottish countryside photos. Hold on to your hats!

In which I and other people spill things

2009-01-14T10:54:00.002Z

A few months ago I had a pretty special night of dinner at The Landau* with The Boyfriend, our mutual friend who sort of introduced us (and was also one of the guilty parties in that unfortunate incident in Spain) and her parents, who were visiting from Brisbane. We had an amazing five courses along with a great deal of excellent wine.

We were presented with a welcome complimentary champagne when we sat down at the table. Unfortunately my stand out memory of the evening is alarmed waiters discreetly rushing over when my neighbour knocked her almost-full glass of champagne on to my lap. Even though I was, for once, not responsible for the spillage I felt bad about the way that the beautiful and probably heritage flute shattered on the floor. Luckily, the next course arrived to distract us with its deliciousness and the staff were left to (probably) grumble amongst themselves about those uncouth Australians who didn't order the set menu.

I then had to attend the dreaded work Christmas lunch a few weeks ago and was again plagued by falling glassware. Longtime readers will know I have not found many boon companions at my workplace and I only went along to the lunch this year because I wasn't quick enough to think of an excuse not to attend when I was asked directly whether I was coming. It's a bit hard to have convenient "other plans" when the lunch is held on a weekday, i.e. when I should be at work.

So first, the flustered waitress managed to spill half a bottle of red wine on the table as she was attempting to pour a glass for my neighbour. Because her clumsiness was accompanied by yelps of horror from the few onlookers, everyone who wasn't already looking turned to see what was happening, and it was then that I involuntarily held out my hand to help her... and somehow made it look as though I had spilled the wine. Silently accepting the blame seemed more graceful than loudly proclaiming that I didn't do it.

And then later in the meal, in a rare moment of animation while talking to my colleagues, I really did spill my own glass of wine. And then I slipped on some water while trying to clamber out of my seat (the pokey restaurant was so full we were placed on one side of a long table so that everytime someone needed to get up, everyone else had to slide out first). So I looked like a complete lush and/or klutz, which made my restraint with respect to actually drinking the wine that day completely pointless. Given that performance, and especially considering I'd resigned by this point, I may as well have gotten wasted and gone out in flames.

*Websites with annoying flash intros and music are second only to pop-up advertising as one of the scourges of the internet. The difference is that pop-ups are almost intentionally annoying - as long as they get your attention, their job is done. Lengthy flash intros, especially ones that don't give you the opportunity to skip them, are obviously supposed to be impressive - but really they're just a big waste of your web design dollars. Says me.

More inanimate indecency in Edinburgh

2009-01-12T10:40:00.001Z

As I mentioned previously, Edinburgh in the final days of December was basically like one big party. The one good thing about not actually being there on New Year's Eve (i.e. the best night of the year to be in Scotland) was that we were not subjected to too many drunken rabbles and instead the streets were just buzzy and pleasant. On one trip back from the Old Town along Rose Street to our hotel, we were treated to some fireworks coming from the opposite end of town.

This meant I had to stop whinging about how we would be missing out on special Scottish Hogmanay fireworks on NYE (due to the fact that we would be ~~held captive~~ staying in a cottage miles outside Stirling for the actual Eve part).

It was a moment of spontaneous joy and contentment as we stood in the cobbled street and watched the fireworks. Then I looked over to my right, and was greeted by some quirky Scottish kilt humour.

Forgive my ignorance but I'm not even sure what this animal is supposed to be. Deer? Elk? Moose? Anyway, I'm pretty sure whatever it is, that the next picture is not an accurate anatomical representation (click on the photo to see more closely).

Speaking of rear ends, I slipped on a huge patch of ice on Saturday evening and now have a cracked coccyx. And I hadn't even had a drink yet! It's quite unpleasant, but at least the trip to A&E on Sunday morning was amazingly quick and I did not have to wait for six hours to be treated, or witness any vomiting or hideous injuries. London has been absolutely freezing for the last few weeks, with actual proper snow that didn't immediately melt over the weekend, and I have to say it's no longer a novelty... I am dreaming of wearing bare feet and sundresses in Brisbane in a few short months.

Edinburgh the Brave

2009-01-06T09:14:00.000Z

Much of last month was spent between England and Italy ~~tolerating~~ entertaining some of The Boyfriend's relatives. Their stay with us culminated in a week in Scotland over New Year's. Base camp was a cottage about seven miles from Stirling, but The Boyfriend and I spent a couple of days braving Edinburgh on our own.

We left a typically drizzly, grey London in the final days of 2008, and were deposited a short while later in Edinburgh. I'd been there before with my parents in 1995 but, other than a pilgrimage to my father's ancestral home in Caledonian Crescent, I don't remember too much about it other than lots of greyish buildings and a big castle atop the hill. If this year's travels have taught me anything, it's that these sort of low -to-neutral expectations are the best way to approach a new city, because I always end up pleasantly surprised, and in the case of Edinburgh, pleasantly adoring as well.

I think it helped that the minute we walked out of the airport and gazed at the crystal clear skies, people were falling over themselves to help us. And in those lovely accents too. At least two people stopped us to offer help on the way into Edinburgh before we'd even started to think about looking lost, just because we had suitcases and were obviously on our way into town. After 18 months in London we are so used to ducking and weaving through crowds with surly looks on our faces (so as to scare off freesheet vendors and charity collectors on commission) that it took a while to readjust, but soon I was smiling at strangers and being generally charmed by the whole place.

Of course, this time of year in Scotland means Hogmanay festivities and so Edinburgh was essentially half amusement park, half bar. In conjunction with the beautiful architecture, the castle, the great food and the pervading aura of friendliness we couldn't help but enjoy ourselves.

This here is the Scott Monument, ever so respectfully dominated by a ferris wheel. Of course we had to have a go...

The view over North Bridge to the River Forth.

Behind us was what I initially thought to be a real live independent Scottish department store, Jenners. Apparently I was mistaken because later I saw signs indicating its owned by UK chain House of Fraser. Anyway, it looked lovely with the sun glowing softly on the Edinburgh sandstone and the flag wafting in the slight breeze...
Until we looked more closely:

(Click on the photo if you would like a closer look at this mysterious display of exhibitionism.) I have no explanation for this but I certainly hope it's the work of a mischievous department store clerk (perhaps a fan of Are You Being Served?) and not just a storage accident.

Interim report

2009-01-05T10:12:00.002Z

Well, happy new year to you all. We've been enjoying New Year festivities in bonny Scotland so apologies for my unannounced absence. I hope everyone's New Year will be filled with peace and understanding, and sunshine and lollipops. Or at least good customer service and plentiful parking spaces.

Speaking of sunshine, it's snowing in London today. Pretty, but also dangerous - the road to the tube was like an ice-skating rink.

The dead centre of Acton

2008-12-23T09:31:00.000Z

Since I moved to London last July, I've travelled into to work every weekday on the Central Line, which takes me through through Acton, White City, Shepherd's Bush, Holland Park, Bayswater and into the city. Peeking over the fence at North Acton station I would often notice the wingtips of a stone angel, or the curve of a Celtic cross, and make a note that I must visit that cemetery someday. And then I would promptly forget all about it. Finally in October, before the trees were bare and the sky was eternally grey, we spent one Saturday exploring the cemetery as well as some less than salubrious parts of Acton and Park Royal.

Let me save you the time right now and say that there is no reason to explore Acton and Park Royal, unless you are particularly interested in mercilessly unending major roads, blocks upon blocks of grey concrete warehouses, and the odd deserted pub. And Acton Cemetery. We only did it because we got lost in a vortex of roundabouts and endless identical sidestreets on the way back from the cemetery. We were trying to find the cinemas in Park Royal in time for the 2.15pm showing of Burn After Reading. Later we realised that we'd been walking in exactly the opposite direction and had no hope of ever making the movie. Still haven't seen it either.

Acton Cemetery looks newer than the more central London cemeteries I've seen, which is logical as it was only opened in 1895 and not the 1600s. It's now closed to new burials but if you have an existing family grave in there you can still be buried in it. Sadly, that's about all I was able to discover about Acton Cemetery by Googling it.

This building was gated so I'm not sure it's a proper church/chapel or just a shelter.

Wonky graves (a bit like the inside of the Intrepid Fox).

Autumn redness
Now, I consulted Google about this as well, but had no luck discovering the significance of the rubber ducks below. They were on several graves around the cemetery but I couldn't see a pattern between those memorialised by toy ducks in sunglasses. I suppose I prefer them to fake flowers though.

Mysterious ways

2008-12-22T09:40:00.001Z

Another point of noteworthiness near my office, in some circles at least, is England's oldest Catholic church, St Etheldreda's. It was built in 1250. That's about 650 years older than the oldest buildings in Brisbane. It's sandwiched between two other buildings on Ely Place, Holborn.

Ely Place is another London anomaly - it looks like normal London street (albeit dead-ended by a massive brick wall) but it's guarded by a beadle who sits in his little gate house at the entry to the street, presumably making sure no unsavoury types go near the barristers' chambers and classily understated businesses which fill the grand rows of houses. I think this is because the street happens to still be the responsibility of the Crown, rather than the City of London like most streets. That might be right, who knows... it's nice to see how much my property law knowledge has come along since my arrival in the UK 18 months ago (i.e. not at all).

Moving back to Princess Etheldreda, the church's namesake, she sounds like one of those medieval heroines who was lauded then, but would be a terrible bore now. According to the church website, she hoped to be a nun, but agreed to a politically-motivated arranged marriage with a neighbouring king on the proviso that she could remain a virgin. When her husband tried to talk her around, she ran off and founded a religious community. The website says she then lived a life of "exemplary austerity". There's also a vague hint that she had some sort of supernatural properties which prevented her body from decomposing at the normal rate upon her death. Perhaps it was something to do with all that austerity.

This puts me in mind of Mansfield Park (which I finished reading a few weeks ago), and its heroine who is so prim and disapproving of everything (other than sewing and doing what she's told) that I spent the whole book hoping she'd loosen up a bit and run off with the dashing villain instead of marrying her annoyingly virtuous first cousin.

The website also says Etheldreda was the daughter of "King Anna". Sounds very progressive for 600 AD.

More recently, the church has been the subject of extensive controversy (according to the Telegraph) because apparently the new rector this year is "not very enthusiastic" about giving mass in Latin, which could impact on the entrenched tradition of giving the 11:00 mass at St Etheldreda's in Latin. And, even more shockingly, the new curate "doesn't know Latin" so he will say mass only in English. He also "declines to wear the church's sleeveless embroidered Roman chasubles". I have no idea what a chasuble entails but it certainly sounds like some moneyed London matrons would have been clutching at their pearls and repressing their outrage in true English fashion earlier this year. Or maybe that stereotype is inaccurate for Catholics? :>)

(Just look at the photo of that journalist on the Telegraph site - a poster-boy for prim disapproval if I ever did see one.)

One the same day I wandered past St Etheldreda's, I came across St James Clerkenwell - from a distance, a fairly normal-looking London church (you can see it here). Now I'm not attempting to have a go at churches or religion in general today, but I don't know what this was all about:

Stairs to a brick wall? Is this like in Indiana Jones, where he had to walk across an invisible bridge to show his faith?

Things that made me seethe last week #1

2008-12-17T10:25:00.003Z

We spent a bit of time on trains between northern Italian towns last week and I amused myself intermittently by listening to various podcasts from Radio National, an arm of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's radio empire. One particular program featured, among other things, an interview with Cathy Day of the Australian National University, on her recently completed study of inbreeding in English rural villages. There is a report on it here if you feel compelled to learn more on this subject.

Towards the end of the interview, the interviewer (Richard Aedy) asked Day what the residents of Stourton and Kilmington, Wiltshire, thought about her coming to delve into their respective shady ancestral histories. Day responded that some of them were much more bemused by the fact that a colonial was conducting a research project in the first place. She went on to say that several people said they had not realised there were any universities in Australia as there are none on Neighbours. One gentleman likened the situation to "an ant coming to study the entomologist".

I'm struggling to craft a response to this which isn't guilty of similar offensive generalisations and ignorance about the British. Or one that has any sense of humour. Perhaps I'll just let the powers of deduction behind the Neighbours reference speak for the residents of Stourton and Kilmington.

Thank you, travel gods

2008-12-16T11:24:00.003Z

This was St Mark's Square, Venice on 5 December:

This was St Mark's Square on 11 December:

(Note these are not my photos. The first is from the International Herald Tribune and the second is from the Orlando Sentinel.)

Luckily this was St Mark's Square on 8 and 9 December, when we were there.

Sometimes the travel gods smile on you.

Although we also picked up dismal colds so I suppose it all evens out in the end.

Sesame street scariness

2008-12-05T11:55:00.003Z

For my birthday when I was little (I couldn't say for sure how old) Mum made me one of those old classic Bert-and-Ernie-from-Sesame-Street cakes, like this one (although I don't remember the colours being so lurid):

That night I had a nightmare that the Ernie reached out from the cake and pulled off my nose.

I'm not sure if that's why these cupcakes (below) freak me out so much.

Maybe it's just the slightly evil look of glee they have ... as though they're about to come and eat me. Like little cake piranhas.

Notes...

2008-12-03T11:13:00.004Z

1. Sitting on the tube to my home station the other night - usually an iPod on, put-my-head-down-and-bear-it experience of unexplained delays, mysterious odours and forced close proximity to others - the trip was hugely improved by the train driver. He had a more pleasant and calming intonation than your average TV host and his announcements managed to be both concise and slightly entertaining. (You don't want to be too entertaining in that environment - people's fuses are too short and you end up with eye-rolling and impatience, like on Virgin Blue in Australia.) Anyway, I was completely charmed by the driver's voice, so once the trip was over I looked out for him on the platform. Luckily he seemed to be at the end of his shift and so was packing up and alighting along with the rest of the passengers (the station is the terminus for that branch of the Central Line). He was chatting animatedly with a co-worker and I noticed he was carrying Buddhism for Dummies.

2. It is so cold here lately that the footpath was actually slippery with frost this morning. Even with my killer Doc Martens on (not white) it was like ice-skating at one point.

3. I can't believe I didn't mention this earlier, as it was quite exciting for me, but I've resigned from my job and am now serving out the purgatory of my three-month notice period. I'm sure my firm would quite like me to leave earlier but the contractual requirement is three months' notice so I couldn't leave it till later on and cross my fingers that they'd let me go earlier. After all, we have a plane out of London and into Cairo all booked.

Kew Gardens

2008-12-01T09:52:00.001Z

While I'm still on Autumn, here are some shots from Kew Gardens in late October. I'm feeling a bit fuzzy and in need of a holiday (which I'm getting next week) so expect things to quiet down here again until I get back from Italy with some more photos and hopefully some more inspiration.

General autumn-ness

That's The Boyfriend playing a corpse under the spectacular tree.

Autumn apples
The Boyfriend on the skywalk thing - a huge wood and metal walkway through the canopy (sponsored by Xstrata, of course).
I don't know what these flowers are (they look a little like fresias) but when I was small and read old picture books they'd always have illustrations of woodland with carpets of individual blooms like this. I recommend clicking on the picture to see it more closely.

The incongrous Kew Gardens pagoda in the distance.

A typical London sight - prostrate person shamelessly and desperately soaking up the fleeting sun.
The Boyfriend was very excited about this greenhouse because he thought The Cure made a film clip there. (We think it was actually a different one on the other side of the Gardens, but I didn't take a photo of that one, so...)

The full set of photos, including close ups of The Boyfriend's "corpse", is on flickr here.

Autumn again

2008-11-28T09:39:00.001Z

Our street is, like most of the suburb, lined with deciduous trees which are a riot of green all through spring and summer. About this time last year I remember being struck by the sudden change the trees go through - I moved to the UK in July so I turned up just in time to see all the greenery before autumn turned everything into something out of a Rob Reiner movie. Well, that's what it seemed like. As I would have said at the time, they have real seasons here! What I'm trying to say is that this is exciting for me, because autumn in Brisbane looks pretty much the same as all the other seasons.

This was our street one morning a few weeks ago.

I also saw another bit of picturesque continuity - this house a few lots down with a carpet of leaves adorning its path.
I photographed this same house and path sometime in April when it had a different seasonal carpet:

The street looks quite different again now. The trees are bare, and the only thing lining the streets are a few rotting remnants of the autumn leaves, and people's recycling spilling out of their front yards while it waits to be collected. Most of the houses seem to have to leave their rubbish and recycling out on the footpath and because most of it is in bags or open topped containers, the squirrels have an excellent time sorting through it all and then leaving all manner of disgusting things strewn all over the footpath. It's been cold and drizzly all week so this makes the street look particularly unpleasant. I'm sad we'll be leaving before things turn around in spring, but then again, the end of February seems to be London's least inviting time of year so perhaps it's the perfect time to go after all.

The Boyfriend's London

2008-11-26T08:50:00.003Z

On a recent Saturday we set out to buy The Boyfriend some jeans (you'll see why shortly) and to visit the Tate Modern, which I keep harping on about because our annual membership is going to expire shortly. To be honest the Tate is never that appealing on a Saturday afternoon as it's packed to the rafters with people, mostly families, and the Members' Room is a stroller/pram/frazzled parent obstacle course instead of the calm refuge with bar I always hope for.

So after we'd braved the ludicrous crowds on Oxford Street, we decided to walk down to the Tate. However, we got distracted by the shops on Carnaby Street and then Soho, and never actually managed to make it to the art. I suspect this was a ploy of The Boyfriend's to avoid the Tate, because I've never seen him so interested in shopping as he was that afternoon.

Carnaby Street's Christmas lights this year are comprised of giant, white, obese men lit from inside who float above the arcade amongst white snowflakes.

The Oxford Street lights seem to be the same ones as last year - is this normal? I thought they changed each year?

We followed up a fruitless quest for new shoes for The Boyfriend with lunch at Cha Cha Moon in Kingly Court, which was a revelation as it keeps getting terrible reviews from all the snobby food critics in the UK papers. Now I think about it, the negative reviews seemed to based mostly on either the acoustics, which really seemed to offend one particular reviewer, or the fact that the food isn't authentically Chinese enough, a sentiment I find pretentious and annoying - the mains are £3.50 each for goodness' sake. We had awesomely cheap (for Central London), delicious crispy duck and jasmine tea-smoked chicken liao mian in completely inoffensive ambient conditions and I'm sorry we didn't discover it earlier in our London stay.

After a few hours wandering in Soho, we inevitably we found ourselves at Forbidden Planet, the flagship of the famous comic book/sci-fi pop culture store. This is probably The Boyfriend's favourite place in London, except perhaps the street with all the guitar shops near Charing Cross Road.

Here is The Boyfriend checking out the merchandise.

As you can see, his unfashionably saggy jeans prevent me checking out any of his merchandise. We purchased two more snug fitting pairs at Gap this same afternoon which are much more flattering, although The Boyfriend's friend back in Australia heard he'd bought some tight jeans and warned The Boyfriend in no uncertain terms not to come back wearing some crazy European wardrobe like their mutual friend who returned from his London stint sporting some lovely lederhosen-style short shorts. And not in a humorous or ironic way.

There are a lot of puzzling and or amusing things to find in Forbidden Planet, which has two enormous floors of comics, graphic novels, figurines, costumes, books, DVDs, toys, collectibles, etc devoted to every feature of pop culture with even the most tenuous connection to science fiction you can imagine, and probably much more. This particular shelf caught my eye though. That's a fairly specific category.

Finally, we ended up at the Intrepid Fox, a goth bar near Tottenham Court Road station.

This bar is adorned with the usual gargoyles, headstones, headless creatures etc but it plays a pretty good selection of metal and rock music (which means The Boyfriend will tolerate being there - pubs that play top 40 pop music bring out his petulant side) and the crowd is definitely more interesting to watch than the tourist and hen night crowds in most of the watering holes in the area.

White Docs: they do go with everything, don't they?

Of course, after an afternoon of retail and cider, we were rather jolly on the way home and recorded some aspects of our journey back into West London.

The Boyfriend and friends

This is me with the Paolazzi mosaics in Tottenham Court Road tube station. As you can see I was not really suitably attired for the goth bar (although I suppose the font on the front of my hoodie could be described as Gothic). If only we'd known where the afternoon would take us, I would have gotten my white Doc Martens out. If I had any.

Sand dollars

2008-11-25T08:21:00.002Z

On my way to Waterloo Station to catch the train to Brockenhurst (for our New Forest adventure, see below) I walked along the South Bank of the Thames, past the Tate Modern, Oxo Tower, National Theatre, and the British Film Institute. As this was late October, the sun was actually still up (only just) at 5pm. Unlike now, when you look out the office window at 4pm into pitch blackness.

This was the view from the northern end of Blackfriars Bridge across to Westminster.

And the view back towards the bridge and the City from the South Bank.

I also spotted something with some continuity to an earlier post, which was nice. Early this year I posted some (grainy) photos of sand-dwellers in this particular area of the South Bank who were merrily sozzled and singing to the passers by while crafting couches and other things from sand. The primary purpose of all this was to coax money out of us, for beer they said, but the whole effect, with their roaring fires and sand furniture and straight-to-the-point chorus, was decidedly entertaining.

So I passed by this spot on the way to Waterloo and found some more sand-sculpting but of a more morbid (yet still enterprising) variety.

The headstone says:
'Here lies a sandy queen
Waiting for next Halloween
In 7 days she will wake up
So throw a coin and wish her luck.'

(As always, click on the photo for a better view.)

I like how he has her showing a bit of leg, just in case that would reel us in.

The New(ish) Forest

2008-11-24T08:23:00.004Z

The Boyfriend took me to a fancy English spa hotel a few weeks ago. This is extremely unlike him, as he usually makes a point of broadcasting that he hates "all that rubbish" and just wants his punk music and his computer and a bottle of wine. But he seemed to be actually feeling the stress of being a City professional in the current economic climate and, after encouragement from a workmate, booked this package at a hotel in the New Forest, Hampshire.

Soon after we arrived, The Boyfriend took in the embossed wallpaper, chintzy curtains and the spa treatment list that started at £60 for the most basic treatment, and realised his folly. While I was quite happy to book an overpriced massage and to recline in front of an open fire while the wind whistled outside, I'm pretty sure The Boyfriend was almost terminally bored. It was a nice experiment though. And also interesting to experience the dining room, which seemed to be a relic of English upper-class country life (no denim or t-shirts, attentive and polite service, no changes, excessive amounts of meat). There was actually a man at the next table on our first visit with a white bouffant, salmon sports coat and cream trousers looking snootily around at all us pretenders.

This was the hotel:

Not too bad really.

We decided to take a ramble through the New Forest itself, and on our way we came across actual livestock, roaming the streets and fields at their leisure. This seemed a bit unusual to me. Is this laid on for the tourists?

(OK, I've looked it up - this is another legal hangover from hundreds of years ago which gives the peasants the right to turn horses and cattle (and pigs, presumably) out to graze in this particular forest.)

The New Forest itself was uneventful, particularly because a large part of it is actually new, so that part is mostly scrubby bracken and young pine trees planted in neat rows. But deeper into the forest, things became older and more enchanting. (Click on these to see them properly.)

We decided to walk the 9 miles to Lyndhurst, the path to which the hotel receptionist ensured us was clearly signed. We saw one sign, which seemed to have no correlation with the map she'd given us. Other ramblers also seemed to be taking different paths from the ones that seemed logical. They were dressed in Gore-Tex from head to toe, wearing hi-tech footwear, and carrying those professional walking stick helper things. Maybe they were expecting to discover some as yet undetected mountains?

Anyway, somehow we made it to into the town, which seemed to consist almost entirely of antique stores and luxury car dealerships including Maserati and Porsche, so The Boyfriend was rewarded in the end by being allowed to gaze on the shiny, monstrous glory of European vehicle technology (until I couldn't bear it any longer and hauled him off).

The rest of the weekend was spent, frankly, eating and drinking, so I'm certainly not going to complain about that.

Friday vegetable update

2008-11-14T13:41:00.005Z

Over here, some things in the supermarket are a little bit different than in Queensland. For one thing, you can buy alcohol here (because unlike in Queensland, the government has not been hamstrung by a super-powerful alcohol distribution monopoly). Also, there are massive aisles of pre-prepared "ready meals" for one which cover a whole range of cuisines but by and large manage to taste almost exactly the same as each other. "Woolies" here is not the dominant and most profitable supermarket in the country, but a minor purveyor of homewares and hi-fi equipment. And finally, things have completely different names: what I know as a snowpea is mangetout, those orange pumpkins are butternut squash, eggplants are aubergines, and zucchini is courgette. Plus, for somewhere with a decidly non-tropical climate, they all seem awfully keen on pomegranate. I don't think I'd ever seen a pomegranate before I arrived in England.

Today I had my first British experience of an entirely new vegetable (rather than something with a different name), the golden beetroot. In Australia, beetroot usually means violently magenta hued, very sweet slices extracted from a tin made by Golden Circle and served at barbecues. Possibly for serving with pineapple on a hamburger. Occasionally someone (like my mother) might bother to buy fresh ones and cook them (meaning they would have about 400% less sugar than the canned variety), but most Australians I know probably don't even realise this is possible. However, I had no idea it was possible to get beetroot in different colours. It was like the time I first encountered those purple potatoes.

The weirdest thing is, it tastes almost exactly the same as red beetroot, so while eating it I experienced a weird sort of sensory confusion. Apparently golden beetroot used to be very common in England before being supplanted (ha!) by the red variety. So there you go. Maybe I should start farming it in Australia and selling it with a mark-up on the red beetroot price. It's not really golden though... more of a dull, slightly translucent yellow.

Another thing I've learned about golden beetroot is that it seems to emit some sort of invisible forcefield that prevents the camera from being in focus when someone tries to take a photo of it. This the only possible explanation for the range of substandard photos Google Images brings up when you search "golden beetroot".

I personally, at this moment in time...

2008-11-11T10:06:00.007Z

I'm not really in a cheery blog posting frame of mind at the moment, for a variety of reasons that include my deteriorating spine and how that might prevent me from my rice cracker hookup later in the week, and if I wrote about how I was really feeling it might be a bit too profane for my family-friendly little blog. However, this article about the 10 expressions English people find most irritating is giving me a welcome sense of superiority and well-being. In case you can't take the suspense of waiting for the page to load, here is the list:

1 - At the end of the day

2 - Fairly unique

3 - I personally

4 - At this moment in time

5 - With all due respect

6 - Absolutely

7 - It's a nightmare

8 - Shouldn't of

9 - 24/7

10 - It's not rocket science

I don't really see what the problem is with no. 7. A resigned exclamation of "Nightmare!", usually in the context of supermarket or ATM queues, is definitely more prevalent here than in Oz but I've found myself adopting that particular piece of annoyingness.

I heartily agree with no. 1 though. It's right up there with people around the office who say "ramp up" and "on the same page" and [shudder] "synergy/ies". I thought everyone had finally caught on to the uselessness of all that indirect, pointless business jargon, but apparently I was wrong.

I suppose glib top ten lists would fall into some people's idea of irritating too. But it's nice to have something straightforward and concise to refer to, particularly when you're cranky.

Coram's Fields

2008-11-06T16:10:00.006Z

Since I reigned myself in from binging on all manner of artery-hardening junk food when bored, one of my life's greatest pleasures has been snacking on tzatziki with rice crackers. (Oh yeah. I live on the EDGE!) Not those cardboard-tasting, frisbee like puffed rice discs, and not the glazed, sweet Japanese-style ones, but the small, fairly basic rice cracker you find everywhere in Oz, looking much like this:

(These are the barbecue-flavoured ones, which are okay, although I'm more partial to the seaweed flavour.)

When I first moved to the UK, I was gutted to discover that neither Tesco nor Sainsbury's (our local supermarkets) stocked this kind of rice cracker. At one point Tesco had something similar, but in these almost surreal-ly insipid flavours (something like "Oriental Spice" and "Sweet Thai Herb") and not only were they so sweet as to be almost inedible, they definitely didn't go with the all-important tzatziki.

For the following twelve months I would duck into every single off-licence and corner store we happened to pass in the hope that I would find a rice cracker with which to satisfy my cravings. Everytime I spoke to other Australians living in London I would interrogate them about where and when they'd seen them for sale in the UK. Occasionally I would find an almost-adequate substitute (e.g. there is a "chilli-flavoured" version which actually almost resembles something flavoured with chilli) and buy five or six packs in order to hoard them until more could be found. But when I'd return to the shop, I would always find they hadn't re-stocked since the last time I cleaned them out.

Finally I stopped bothering The Boyfriend and others with my insane rice cracker obsession and started to look for other snack alternatives.

Then, when I moved into my new group at work, my lovely temporary office-mate, a Kiwi, happened to mention something about rice crackers and I gave her my sad story of defeat. And she replied casually that they sell them at Waitrose (one of the UK's largest supermarket chains, i.e. freaking everywhere). There is a Waitrose in our area but the Tesco and Sainsbury's are much closer so we'd never bothered to trek down to it. Imagine my pleasure (and dismay at all those wasted months).

I've now taken to making a regular sojourn on the way home to the Waitrose near Russell Square in central London to stock up on just this one item, Sakata rice crackers (seaweed flavour). I am a much happier person generally.

This has been an enormously long (and dull?) segue into how I discovered Coram's Fields, which is located along the walk from my office in Holborn to Waitrose, Russell Square. There is a lot to see on this particular walk, including as it does parts of Clerkenwell and Bloomsbury and therefore lots of beautiful old terrace houses and antique and/or seedy bookshops. However, I was overjoyed to find on my inaugural Waitrose trip another London park to add to my list of favourites.

My joy was diminished almost immediately because as I discovered, you can't go into Coram's Fields WITHOUT A CHILD ACCOMPANYING YOU.

I see from Wikipedia that Coram's Fields offers a playground, sand pits, a duck pond, a pets corner, a café, four half-sized football pitches, one normal-sized pitch, and a basketball court. As I had no child at my disposal (and am not likely to at around 6.30pm on any weeknight), I couldn't verify this with certainty. I recalled later that some of the companies around London play sporting fixtures at the Fields, and wondered how this rule was applied to them. Does every member of each team need a child, or is one per team sufficient? How do they verify the children's ages anyway? Does the child have to want to be there, or can they exclude you if the child is throwing a massive temper tantrum about wanting to go home and watch Dora the Explorer for the 89th time?

Anyway, it doesn't look all that nice inside the high fences. In fact it's so dull the photo I took is not even worth posting. Take that, Coram's Fields. I don't need you anyway.

Adventures in North London

2008-11-04T14:47:00.004Z

Last Tuesday night was a strange one, and not just because I stepped out into the streets of King's Cross into bucketing snow. I happened to be in King's Cross to attend an x:talk fundraiser with my friend Sarah. After work I walked up north, arriving in King's Cross about 45 minutes earlier than planned. However, there was lots to look at while I waited for Sarah. The upside of the sun going down at 4.30pm is that all the bars and restaurants and houses look so inviting and cosy, full of warm, happy people and glowing light. Sarah told me there is a word for this in Danish - hoogli (??) which doesn't really have an equivalent in English.

It was also pre-Halloween so some of the shop windows were full of extremely tempting themed treats.

Some interesting graffiti along the way (I never see much in the way of really cool graffiti here, despite being in the land of Banksy)

x:talk provides English language classes for migrant sex workers in London, and the fund raiser was held at an extremely pleasant gay bar not far from King's Cross station. I was not shoved or ignored once at the bar, the music was excellent, and everyone was chatty and interesting. There were also a number of live performances including an S&M reading by a delightful lady in a leather dress, and a rather cryptic piece by this young man, who also did a reading and then stood at solemn attention with a red cloth over his head while a clip from Dolly Parton's The Littlest Whorehouse in Texas was played on the TV behind him. He seemed very earnest and emotional about it all but I wonder if there was something I missed.

He was also wearing the most hardcore shoes I've seen in a long time. Good on him, I say.

2000 Trees Festival

2008-10-31T10:38:00.004Z

Waaay back in July, just before we ran the gauntlet of the music festival in Spain, we went in for a slightly different type of music festival experience. Benicassim involved a lot of ceaseless sunshine, beer by the litre, scantily-clad punters, and big names in music (Morrissey, Siouxsie, Gnarls Barkley, Leonard Cohen, Hot Chip). The 2000 Trees Festival on the other hand... well, there was some sunshine, lots of organic cider, wellington boots and anoraks (the garment, not the people) and a lot of, shall I say, up and comers in the music business.

To be fair, 2000 Trees is a completely different festival (even without the climatic differences betweem Benicassim and Gloucestershire). Firstly, its primary focus is social and environmental responsibility - so there's lots of earnest pleas on the website not to drive (we did, and in a BMW 4WD - but not ours, so don't hate us) and information all over the farm site it's held on about environmental conservation projects and new energy technology (along with the more usual stalls selling candles, leather sandals, herbal mood enhancers etc). Secondly, the lineup is a deliberately lesser known and younger collection of artists. To give you an idea there were about 60 bands on the bill and The Boyfriend, who is a long-time voracious consumer of all types of music media, had heard of exactly one of them.

And then there was the weather, appropriately (this being my blog about living in England and all). About 20% of the day, the main (and only) stage looked pleasantly similar to this:

Then suddenly, with little or no warning, the rain would pound down from gathering clouds, sodden music fans would scurry away from the stage for cover, and it would look more like this:

Which meant that by about midday, the rest of the festival site looked pretty much like this:

But the English were more than used to this, mud being the primary feature of just about everyone of the hundreds of summer musical festivals in the United Kingdom, so everyone seemed to be armed with protective clothing and a sense of humour about it all.

Frankly, we were a bit bored by the end of the day. There's only so many times you can listen to a few bands, go to the bar, browse around the stalls, head back to the camp site for a sit down, and wander back to the stage. We probably could have tried a bit harder - there were organised country walks and things going on - but I think we were more used to the sort of music festival that beats you around the head with new things all day until you can't think straight. But the end of the day came with a gorgeous sunset, which was nice.

It also brought closer the headline act - the one band we'd heard of, Art Brut, who were extremely good despite having to start about half an hour later than scheduled because all the water had shorted out the power supply to the stage. The very entertaing lead singer, Eddie Argos, was forced to come out and juggle things under backup lighting while the problem was fixed. Another artist might have failed to keep the audience on side for so long, but he managed to win everyone over. The poor guy ended up sculling from a winebag thrown to him by the crowd in a desperate attempt to keep the crowd's impatient shouting at a manageable level.

After that we found our way back through the dark fields to our camp site. However, our unfortunate camping companions found that their newly-purchased air mattress had holes in it. They were packed and ready to go at 5am after spending an unpleasant night trying to sleep through our rowdy neighbours inane conversations while battling the steadily deflating mattress. I didn't blame them for wanting to see the back of 2000 Trees.

Maybe it was some sort of karmic punishment for driving a BMW 4WD?

Lots more photos on flickr ~~soon~~ here.

Scenes from King's Cross, about 9.30 last night

2008-10-29T08:21:00.002Z

[Edited to clarify for the confused that this is snow, not rain!]

Incongruous

2008-10-28T10:15:00.004Z

I'm on hold with American Express at the moment. The hold music is the theme to For Your Eyes Only (the Bond film). Weird.

I'm calling them because for the third freaking time British Airways has double-charged our credit card for flights. The ridiculous thing is every time we ring up AmEx about this, at first they argue and insist there's no problem. Then I have to point out that our available credit is less than it should be. And then they admit that there's been a "double exposure" for the BA flights and agree to refund us (in 5-10 working days). The first time it happened the guy actually said that it happens all the time. So AmEx know it happens, and presumably BA know it happens, but no one does anything about it.

It's actually a little bit suspect, as the extra charge doesn't appear on the statement - we only noticed it because our available credit and the balance didn't match up. I wonder how many people never notice it and end up paying twice as much to BA without realising it?

Ooh, now it's Live and Let Die by Paul McCartney & Wings! At least it's not Idiot Radio FM. Or Celine Dion.

Who killed Amanda Palmer?*

2008-10-23T10:08:00.003+01:00

One freezing Friday night a few weeks ago we ventured up to the famous Camden for an evening of live entertainment - a solo show by Amanda Palmer (of Dresden Dolls fame). For those of you unfamiliar with the Dresden Dolls oeuvre (ha! I can't believe I used that word) it's described by Wikipedia and other sources as "Brechtian punk cabaret". Amanda's new solo album, which she apparently co-produced with Ben Folds, leans more to the cabaret angle if the show was anything to go by (we haven't actually listened to the album, yet).

Amanda is clearly a committed and talented performer, not least because she did the entire show in just a bra without ever showing a hint of self-consciousness. Well, she was probably wearing something on her lower half but we were too far back to confirm. After walking up to Camden from town and enjoying some massive pizzas (and a bottle of pinot grigio) at a nearby restaurant we ended up right at the back of the venue, which sadly, always makes it a bit harder to get really involved in the performance. But her excellence was not lost on us completely.

Speaking of the venue though, it is one of my favourites in London so far although it has a terrible name - Koko. Reading up on it this morning I discovered it has been variously known as the Camden Theatre (upon opening in 1900), the Camden Hippodrome (when Chaplin was on the bill!!), The Music Machine, Camden Palace as well as being a BBC radio theatre during the 1940s - 1970s and hosting such landmark programs as The Goon Show.

Being inside Koko is sort of like getting lost in a 1980s avant garde film clip. Everything is dimly lit, but all red and gold, and ornately decorated. There are actually about six floors of audience space with a warren of staircases and landings and half floors in between, so whenever you walk down a corridor you have no idea where you'll end up. Last time we came, to see the now-defunct Electrelane, the band wasn't all that good, so we amused ourselves by wandering between floors and watching all the emo girls dancing. Moving back and forth between the levels into dark, red corridors echoing with muffled beats and then emerging back into the glow of the stage and the loud music certainly adds something to the live music experience.

I was disappointed to read today that the over-the-top classical decor is not genuine - when it was the Camden Palace apparently it had an industrial-themed decoration scheme, so I guess the red and gold is all new-ish. Unless they reinstated it. Or copied the original design. Who knows. It still looks pretty.

Koko interiors

Amanda and lighting effect

Some imaginative folk sprinking white rose petals over the crowd during a slow song:

This was the best I could do from the back row.

This is Neil Gaiman delivering some lyrics he wrote for the album. If you don't know who he is you probably don't care anyway, but he's this sort of literary goth hero in the graphic novel world.

The Boyfriend - a literary goth hero in his own world?

*That's the name of Amanda's album, so I can't claim any credit for "adapting" it from Twin Peaks - that was all Amanda herself.

Clerkenwell

2008-10-20T09:21:00.003+01:00

Sometimes, when I can talk myself into it, I go for a wander around the London streets at lunchtime. When I do go, I always discover loads of new things and have to tear myself away to get back to work in time. It's just that I spend so much time sitting at this desk it's sometimes hard to build up the energy to leave, when I could just eat my lunch right here in front of the computer like a depressing lump.

Anyway, recently I did manage to haul myself up and out, and this time my wanderings took me around Clerkenwell. I work in the Holborn/St Paul's area of London, and when I first started working here, I was disappointed with what seemed to be a heavy traffic area lined with dull, post-war office buildings, Tescos and Subway sandwich shops. This wasn't what I moved to London for! I wanted Victorian architecture, tiny alleys filled with cosy pubs, and history and meaning bursting from every doorway.

After a while I discovered that there are a lot of those things all around this area. I just had to take myself off the main thoroughfares and find them. After a bit of research I realised that I was in one of the oldest parts of London - populated since before it was even called London - the site of the Great Fire of London, close to St Paul's Cathedral and countless churches and cathedrals, St Bartholomew's Hospital (founded in 1123, people!), Postman's Park, the diamond district, The Old Bailey, the Inns of Court, and the list goes on. And even more interestingly, there are countless dark alleys and unexpected lanes that look completely uninviting until you walk down and find a six-hundred year old tavern, and next door a record store, and next to that a shop selling only doorknobs. No Tesco or Topshop in sight.

It also seems to have been the site of a disproportionately large number of London's most notorious jails over the years - if you believe Wikipedia.

Anyway, my trip into Clerkenwell (and bits of Farringdon and Barbican) went well. Some shots are below, and the rest are in the Around London set on flickr.
Legitimately old looking brick buildings

Ever so cool students congregating in the sun outside ~~some college - perhaps the London College of Communication, whatever that is~~ Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Back Hill

Stairs to ~~viaduct (possibly)~~ Rosebery Avenue bridge in Clerkenwell

Queuing for fresh Ghanaian food in Exmouth Market

The absolute highlight was finding somewhere (in Exmouth Market) to buy a flat white. For the un-enlightened, a flat white is an espresso with a moderate to small amount of milk, without foam. It's a cafe standard in Australia but much rarer in latte-obsessed England. I hate the enormous, milky coffees you get from the coffee chains here so finding somewhere that sells a flat white was very exciting. It's about 1.2km from work, so not quite close enough to dash off to every morning, but at least a flat white is no longer entirely out of the question.

It was about time for me to get back to work, and following my newly-cultivated habit of heading down dark alleyways, I headed down here:

And was greeted with this.

Standing in busy Exmouth Market, there is no clue that a peaceful green space is less than 50m away from you. This happens to me all the time in London. It's such a muddle of lanes and building add-ons and overpasses that I'm constantly finding something lovely like a park or courtyard or overgrown cemetery completely by accident. That's something I'll miss when I go back to the familiar grid system in Brisbane.

Chaplin

2008-10-17T10:16:00.001+01:00

Early in October we took in some old Charlie Chaplin movies at BFI Southbank cinemas . We saw The Champion, A Night Out and His New Job - all from 1916 during his period with Essanay.

It's strange to watch them now - what was comedic genius then sometimes looks like a bunch of repetitive pratfalls when you're used to all that self-referential wordiness we apparently like in comedies. But there is something special about Chaplin himself, especially in scenes where it's just the camera and Charlie, mesmerising you with his graceful movements and wide-eyed mischief. There was a live piano player providing the music as well, so the whole experience was very pleasant - although the cinema was so warm and comfortable it was hard to stay awake. Too hard, in The Boyfriend's case.

It put me in the mood to watch one of my favourite movies, Chaplin. But I think The Boyfriend declared himself to be Chaplin-ed out and we watched Happy-Go-Lucky instead. I definitely enjoyed it, and am baffled about how Sally Hawkins managed to make her character Poppy so charming, when she was so potentially annoying. I've never met anyone so ceaselessly optimistic and chatty in real life but I suspect I'd find it exhausting at best.

It's also really interesting to watch movies set in London now that I have more of a handle on the geography and can impress myself by recognising landmarks and areas without being specifically informed by the movie where they are. Although (other than noting Regent's Park) the best I could do with Happy-Go-Lucky was identify the area Poppy lived in as "north London". That's a pretty big area.

The movie also involves a driving instructor who goes more than slightly off the rails. This reminded me a little of the time my driving instructor decided that the best time to convert me to born-again Christianity would be the drive home after failing my test for the second time. He must have sensed I was in a moment of vulnerability. After that the driving school sent in their director to see what was wrong with me. I think the only new tip she gave me was to release the handbrake as I engaged it so as not to wear the mechanism out, or something.

Oh lord, won't you buy me a pound of beef mince and some sausages

2008-10-16T11:01:00.003+01:00

This story, about a singing butcher under threat from cranky neighbours, really struck a chord with me this morning. As Londonist puts it:

"It would seem that a former resident of the flat above Brian’s Meat Market had complained about the early morning chopping noises and sing-songs. And so Barking and Dagenham council have asked Brian to desist, and to sound-proof his ceiling to stop the sound rising.

We say that a) anyone who moves above a butchers’ shop should expect to move with the larks – night owls should find themselves a flat above a restaurant, and b) what the devilled kidneys is wrong with singing at work? How fantabulous to find someone happy enough in his work to express himself thus!"

I couldn't have described it better myself. Seriously, people who move into accommodation in full knowledge of the characteristics of the area - the downstairs butcher for instance, or many popular (and noisy) music venues like in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley - should not be able to decide that it doesn't suit them after all and they'd like everyone else to change their longstanding behaviour, please. Even worse, the cranky upstairs tenant has apparently moved out anyway.

I would like to know what his repertoire is though. If he's belting out Celine Dion ballads at 6am I might feel differently. I like to think he does jaunty Irish folk songs and maybe the occasional show tune.

Poor old Mr Singing Butcher. I hope he prevails.

London Zoo

2008-10-14T10:57:00.003+01:00

The Zoo was sort of a mixed experience for me, so I've summarised in handy pro/con form below. The rest of my shots are up on flickr at the link to the right.

Pro: generally, enjoyable way to see animals other than cats and dogs.
Con: it costs £17 to get in.

Pro: there was an extremely broad range of different species and it was hard to tear myself away from some of them.
Con: I only left myself about 2.5 hours of opening time to see the place, so I found myself rushing past the less "entertaining" animals in favour of the toucans, gorillas, penguins etc.

Pro: the animals were all interesting in their own unique ways - cute, rare, characterful, sometimes beautiful.
Con: the animals on the other side of the railings were more irritating and badly behaved than any of the zoo captives I saw. Including the hyenas.

The behaviour of my fellow spectators was really appalling. Despite the prominent signage about not feeding or disturbing the animals, and asking for quiet around nocturnal and more fragile species, the adults and children I saw in almost every section of the Zoo were loud, rude, pushy and basically just freaking annoying. Two of the worst incidents (among many) was the father encouraging his children to knock on the glass of a nocturnal marsupial in full view of about six signs asking for quiet - to make it do something other than sleep or hide, I guess - and the bevy of idiotic women who let out a chorus of screams when two okapi (similar to zebras) tried to "get busy". Of course the okapi were startled and immediately erm, disengaged and ran away. I could just imagine the animal keepers smacking their foreheads and lamenting the months they'd spent trying to make the okapi breed.

Then there was the gorilla house, where crowds of people had gathered to rap on the glass and squeal with delight at the charismatic gorillas and their wacky antics. A keeper actually had to come out and tell them all to be quiet because the female gorilla they were focused on had started running at the glass because she felt so threatened.

Still, the quieter parts of the zoo - with the less popular animals I guess - were lovely, and generally the animals seemed to have lots of space and be well cared for. And seriously, I don't blame them for charging 17 quid to get in or flogging merchandise at every turn if it means they can keep the animals well, and run education programs and breeding programs. Maybe the Saturday afternoon zoo crowd could do with some of those education programs; like ones that demonstrate how to be a good example for your kids and not to treat an animal park like a fun fair.

End self-righteous pontificating. Brandon Walsh would be proud.

These hyenas were desperately trying to get to something, presumably edible, that was hiding in the logs. They were whining and digging furiously, but no one looking on seemed to know what was under there.

The giraffes were surprisingly beautiful. I've never really thought too much about them before but they were graceful and gangly all at once, strolling about calmly together in polite indifference to the crowds of squawking people.
Meerkat doing its thing
Man draws gorilla
More gorillas
Pygmy hippo
Finally, the llama.

Regent's Park

2008-10-12T21:40:00.001+01:00

Out of all the great things about London, I'd have to say the parks are my favourite. There are so many different kinds - tiny ones sandwiched between office buildings (filled with office workers clutching Pret sandwiches and huddling together against the cold), huge open spaces populated by joggers and dogwalkers, unkempt but charming ones like Gunnersbury Park, suburban playgrounds, etc etc.

London (and probably England) is especially good at my favourite kind of park - one with lots of different parts, hidden nooks and coves to discover, cool green pathways, and maybe a few sculptures. A good rose garden also doesn't go astray. Big open commons have their place, but it's not quite as interesting as finding a new lake or grove or roman-style refuge everytime you turn a corner.

While The Boyfriend was celebrating nothing in particular with one of his more debaucherous mates one Saturday not long ago, I took myself on an excursion to Regent's Park (and London Zoo, see next post). I'm quite annoyed with myself for not going sooner, because now we have less than five months left in this town, and I've only just found my favourite London park.

Even more magical was the trip back through the park at dusk on the way to the tube from the Zoo. This section of the park (part of Queen Mary's Gardens) has a vibe of maintained wilderness, in contrast the part I was in earler in the day. Instead of meticulously groomed lawns and avenues of carefully colour-coordinated blooms, there are paths meandering through small forests, mysterious hideouts, a waterfall and a series of lakes and ponds. Something new each time you turn a corner. There was also a Japanese-style garden hiding behind some pine trees, and a huge fragrant rose garden. The rose garden was hosting an Indian (I think) post-wedding reception so it was filled with excited children chasing each other around the place in white taffeta, women in beautiful saris, and besuited men conversing seriously while surveying the proceedings.

And the place is so immense I didn't even get to things like the open air theatre or the boating lake before I was chased back to the tube by the darkness.

I don't mean for this blog to sound like a Pollyanna tourist guide of London all the time. But Regent's Park was truly lovely, particularly because I'd forgotten what it was like (since visiting quickly once about eight years ago) and therefore was pleasantly surprised while discovering it again. Perhaps I need to start writing some cranky, sarcastic rants to balance things out. If I sit here and relive my experiences on the tube this week, or battling the crowds in Oxford Street last Saturday, or of the appalling service I got at Ping Pong in Soho recently, I'm sure I could come up with something.

The rest of my photos of the day, including of London Zoo, are up on Flickr here.

Her Majesty

2008-10-08T10:11:00.005+01:00

Last week we met some friends for a Sunday drink on the Queen Mary, a floating bar/restaurant on the Thames with views of Westminster, the London Eye, etc. Apparently it used to be some sort of social institution but with the recent smoking ban, and an inexplicable decision to stop serving food on the deck (forcing you to eat in the gloomy, stale-smelling internal area, whatever you call that part of a ship), it's lost some of its charms. Fortunately the day was beautiful - clear and almost brutally sunny - so we enjoyed our beers on the deck, and then headed into town for lunch.

I spent some time staring directly into the sun while trying to take some shots of the view. I couldn't really see what I was producing at the time due to the glare, but this one is a pretty accurate representation.

This is The Boyfriend and friend. Maybe it was more than "a" drink.

Clare Bowditch (solo!)

2008-10-08T09:55:00.006+01:00

A few weeks ago I did a solo trek into north London (well, only King's Cross) to the London Scala to see Australia's Clare Bowditch and Australia's Gotye perform live. Clare was very entertaining to watch - doing almost a stand-up comedy routine in between her breathtaking songs (although she seemed to struggle a bit with her new guitar, and some of the songs are just not quite the same with the full band). When she played an acoustic version of The Moon Looked On, she happened to look right at me (the dork looking on earnestly in the front row) and I was almost overcome with some sort of emotion... a positive one anyway. This is the album version of the song:

It also happened to be Clare's birthday, so the producer/sound girl/whatever she was put a surprise on the stage for Clare before the performance.

Here are some shots of the lady on stage. She managed to be both beautiful and graceful despite coming out in a crumpled sort of dress thing, a sticker on her arm, and tatty cowboy boots, which she proceeded to take off early on because they were uncomfortable.

It was interesting to see her in London, because she's basically unknown here, whereas in Australia she's been around the music traps for years and last year won the ARIA (like an Australian Grammy, sort of) for best female artist. Here she was supporting Gotye, who as far as I'm concerned has a lower profile than Clare in Australia. So very few of the audience seemed to know the songs and sometimes it seemed awfully quiet in the room; like we were seeing a classical quartet instead of a pop singer.

This is her finale piece de resistance - playing a teapot.

After all that, I didn't have the stamina to stay for Gotye. It was a weeknight!!

World in turmoil, or something

2008-10-07T14:11:00.008+01:00

Fortunately for me, I'm in a position (so far) to be self-righteous and judgemental about all the financial doom and gloom being peddled by everything from the Times to the free Metro paper on the morning tube. Sure, lawyers are starting to be made redundant in London, but there's not the constant likelihood of my firm actually ceasing to exist overnight which would plague me if I worked in a bank or as a trader. The risk of me ever becoming one of those things is also ridiculously low. Sometimes I fail to understand how I even ended up as a lawyer, given the amount of space in my head that's devoted to trivia on 1990s American television rather than what constitutes a binding contract or how the court system is structured.

Anyway, ~~for no particular good reason - just a hunch, and a favourable Australian dollar conversion at the time~~* - we closed our savings account with the English arm of Icelandic bank Landsbanki a few weeks ago. Today the news broke that all the Icelandic government has had to take over Landsbanki (see the Guardian article). There's not really any concrete word on when account holders will be able to access their money, although I think a certain amount of loss is guaranteed between the UK and Icelandic governments. Once you've gone through probably frustrating and lengthy compensation application processes. So as I said, we closed our account before all this happened, which is excellent and also lucky for us. I feel sorry for the Icelanders though. Although at least they live in a fantastic country. Perhaps that softens the blow a bit? Perhaps not.

I've tried to get by being deliberately oblivious to how markets work in terms of my personal finances but maybe I will have to start paying attention now.

*I'm now told we did it for a very good reason, which is that The Boyfriend knew this was about to happen. I'm glad someone did.

Stand by

2008-10-06T12:38:00.003+01:00

I've been meaning to post again soon but we managed to spill coffee on the poor old iBook this weekend, which put the mousepad and keyboard temporarily out of action. They seem to be OK now that the sugary-y coffee grounds have solidified but who knows how long they'll hold up. I always prefer not to know how disgusting my keyboard has gotten below the primary surface and being forced to prise the keyboard off and take a look was not an enjoyable experience.

So anyway, more words soon, provided the computer holds up.

How many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall

2008-09-21T17:36:00.010+01:00

Completely by coincidence, we found ourselves at the Royal Albert Hall twice in two weeks. The first visit was for one of the BBC Proms series - Prom 73 to be exact, which included a Vaughan Williams piece inspired by Antarctica, a percussion piece by Iannis Xenakis, and finally the full Planets Suite by Holst.

We didn't have a terribly auspicious start to that evening as I was about one minute late for the first piece. This being a proper classical music venue with humourless ushers (appalled at my gall in not being seated 20 minutes before the conductor walked on), I was not allowed in until the end of the first movement. Of course we were seated right in the middle of the cramped front row of one of the balconies, and as the usher was reluctant to have me push past the audience members already seated, I decided to wait until the first interval and miss the Williams. Meanwhile The Boyfriend had not even left work yet. Surely it is not possible to make it anywhere by 6.30pm on a weekday in London?

But we made it inside for the second piece, and what a piece it was. I won't go on too much, but I think the word 'experimental' would be the most fitting way to describe it, and one man in the audience felt so strongly about it that he obviously couldn't control his urge to scream "Nooo!!!!" several times, right in the middle of the second movement (there were six). There is a review here if you're really interested (and another very positive one here). And I actually quite enjoyed it, although The Planets was another level of excellent.

My previous impressions of the Albert Hall were almost entirely composed of hazy childhood memories of a book called The Great Jelly of London, in which the hall is used as the world's largest jelly mould. (I looked online for illustrations to pilfer but the book seems to be out of print and not well represented. A worn, second-hand copy seems to be going here for £85 so Mum and Dad, I hope your copy hasn't been thrown out/given away!) I was able to (mis)appropriate this quote though:

"Slowly, majestically, as the children cheered, the whole shell of the Albert Hall was lifted higher and higher till everyone could see the splendid orange jelly wobbling and gleaming in the sun. It came out perfectly. Hardly any of it stuck to the Albert Hall. You could see exactly where the organ had been."

(You can see the organ in the photo above - the pale blue section at the back.)

Anyway, the most interesting part of the trip (aside from the music, of course of course!) was contemplating the unusual measures implemented to deal with the terrible acoustics the Hall's unique shape results in. Hanging from the ceiling are these sort of up-side down flying saucer-like white things, which are made to look even more alien by being lit in different colours throughout the performance.

The second visit was rather different in tone and target market. Surrounded by serious, black-clad thirty-somethings clutching glasses of red wine, we saw Echo and the Bunnymen - one of The Boyfriend's favourite bands. This was something of a comeback/reunion show, with the band performing every song from what seems to be their most-loved album, Ocean Rain. This time our tickets were for the standing area aaallll the way at the top of the Hall, so while we would have liked to have been a bit closer, the spectacle from up there was pretty amazing.

Not being a diehard fan (although the title song was awesome) I spent a bit of time taking illicit photos around the back of the Hall. The lighting from the stage often hit the back wall, reflecting the audience in constantly moving and changing coloured patterns. The rest of the photos from both trips are up on flickr at the end of the Around London set here.

Progress (and rodents)

2008-09-12T11:29:00.004+01:00

Well, the first week in my new group has not been so bad. I still feel like I'm trapped here doing something I don't want to do, and that it's a big step back after practising for 6 years in a different area. But the people have been very nice, and I finally got an actual positive comment about something I'd done. You won't believe me but that's the very, very first time that's happened in my current workplace in about 15 months. Also the job involves reviewing individual cases and reporting on their validity, which is more satisfying in the short term than my previous role because I actually get to finish things and move on quickly rather than working on projects that go on for months and even years and sometimes still don't actually reach completion in the end.

Also, not having to deal with property agents and surveyors makes a big difference. I think I can be fairly safe in the knowledge that no one working in those professions reads this blog so I'll push on without fear of causing any offence.

So the only thing I really have to complain about right now is all the mice in the new building I'm working in. They turn up every night, basically on the dot of 6pm, and wander around the office checking things out, searching for crumbs, and generally creeping me out. I've developed this weird almost-involuntary stomping dance that I do at my desk, out of an irrational fear that one is preparing to run up my leg.

The building I'm in now is a super-snazzy new one, younger than the average London office building by, oh, at least 150 years I'd say. How can it have a mouse problem already? A group email went around last week telling everyone to stop leaving food in the offices (including in the waste bins?!) because apparently the mice are so well fed, there is no incentive for them to eat the poison in the traps lining the walls. This email then got leaked to a legal news and business website, which gleefully published it in full. If that takes down the ego of a partner or two a couple of notches, the mice can stay.

Paris

2008-09-06T18:02:00.007+01:00

I've posted a rather large set of photos from the bank holiday in Paris here.

Much of the trip was spent in the company of dead people - long dead in most cases. The Boyfriend bought me this book, Permanent Parisians - An Illustrated Guide to the cemeteries of Paris for my birthday. So we paid visits to the cemetery in Montmartre, the catacombs, and a return (for me) to Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. This time I made sure my camera battery was charged and after the obligatory stop at Jim Morrison's grave we headed straight for Oscar Wilde.

We also spent lots of time eating enormous, rich meals and alot of time walking, and walking, and walking. Seriously, The Boyfriend is a hard taskmaster. We walked to the Latin Quarter from Gare du Nord on Friday after taking the Eurostar from London. On Saturday we walked from our hotel in the Latin Quarter through the Jardin des Tuileries and up the Champs Elysees, past the Arc de Triompe and about another 2km out of our way before we realised we were further along the map than we thought, then back up the hill to Montmartre, and back down into the centre and over the river back to the hotel. (It took a lot of willpower for me to say "we" then when I meant "The Boyfriend".) Then all over the islands after dinner. On Sunday we walked south to the Catacombs, then a loooong way east to Pere Lachaise, back to the Bastille for dinner, and then back to the hotel. And Monday was laps of the Louvre, a fruitless trip to the Musee Rodin (which was closed), back along the Seine and up to Gare du Nord to leave for home. Given the amount of calories we consumed during the trip (steak (for The Boyfriend), oysters, fish, wine, croissants, french fries, cheese, everything with cream/salt/sugar and all absolutely delicious) I'm sure we probably broke just about even.

The hotel was the same one some of my family and I stayed in when we came to Europe in 1995 and it hadn't changed at all. The stairs are still sagging away from the wall on crazy angles. Climbing the staircase to the fourth floor after those long days of walking and a few wines with dinner was sometimes rather challenging.

This and that

2008-09-05T13:03:00.006+01:00

On Monday I have to move into a new group at work for three months. The move is pointless because it's necessary in order for me to qualify as a lawyer in the UK, which I probably won't end up doing. But I have to do it anyway. The group I'm moving to seem very nice, but I'll be doing an extremely specialised, isolated role in an area I know absolutely nothing about, and the knowledge I build up will be of no use in any part of my life or career. It's going to be a steep learning curve, and I'll probably just be getting the hang of it when it's time for me to go back to my current group in three months' time. So, good times!

If it's not obvious I'm feeling apprehensive and a bit negative about the move. It's been hard enough getting across all the nuances and changes in the area of law I actually work in between Australia and the UK. And now I have to do it all again in an area I don't know or really care much about. Then again, it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing where I am at the moment either. Maybe things will be great in the new group. Hmmmm.

So, lately we've not done too much. We showed last week's houseguest around Oxford and parts of the Cotswolds, which meant lots of time on southern England's fabulous motorways. The Boyfriend's grandmother was very interested in seeing some cottages with thatched roofs so we found ourselves in Chipping Camden, driving around the backstreets like stalkers, looking for suitably photogenic thatched roofs. My overall impression was that only wealthy people must be able to afford a house with a thatched roof, as all the ones we saw were absolutely immaculately maintained - and covered with a protective layer of chicken-wire. Sadly, the unsightly wire really stands out in photos. Ah well. Perhaps these people prioritise a weatherproof roof over picturesque scenes.

We also saw The Breeders during the week at Shepherd's Bush Empire, which was a nice interlude in the general slog of work and rain we've enjoyed lately. Seriously, I know it's an internationally-held stereotype that English people talk about the weather all the time, but I find it's hard not to when it governs your entire existence. Every move you make involves a whole new set of planning about equipment -decisions re: umbrella vs coat, something warm enough to brave the wind and rain but cool enough or involving enough layers so that the cramped 40-minute tube trip is as low in sweat as possible, suitably waterproof shoes that are also robust enough to withstand the perilous hundred-year-old footpaths but go with your suit for work, the necessity of sunglasses (rarely required), on it goes...

I fully intend to post some photos this weekend. We have no specific plans and will be at home, so I'm sure I'll be fitting in some solid time with flickr. There are also some exhibitions I'd like to see: Mark Rothko at the Tate Modern, Francis Bacon at the Tate Britain, this one with old Indian painted portraits, and also London Through A Lens, a collection of images of London over the last 100 years or so. It might be a question of which of these The Boyfriend is in the mood for.

Tumbleweeds...

2008-08-28T11:29:00.005+01:00

Unfortunately I've not had much time (or the inspiration) to post in the last few weeks. We have a houseguest at the moment but after she leaves, I hope to have more time to spend hunched over the computer posting photos and writing words.

Lately we've had a long weekend in Paris, and visited my ex-choir friend Andy while he was house-sitting in Lansdown, near/part of (I'm not sure - it's certainly very close) Bath. Photos of both trips will be posted on flickr eventually. We've also visited other Australian friends who live in Snaresbrook, east London, for a Saturday afternoon barbeque in some very welcome and unusual sunny weather. That was rather short-lived - this last couple of weeks have been an absolutely dismal mix of overcast skies, chilly winds, and drizzle. Paris was also quite rainy so I'm glad we got some Vitamin D during the barbeque while we had the chance.

It worries me vaguely that I've made so few English friends here. If any. I'm sure the reason for this is combination of many things: natural reserve (both me and the English), the fact that we have so many Australian friends living here anyway, and the fact that the only English people I really meet regularly are at work. My work colleagues have not made me feel overwhelmingly welcomed by any means, and it's a rather alpha-type, heavily ambitious collection of individuals anyway... not a prime environment for casual conversation or my usual MO: sarcasm. However, I've certainly met some lovely Brits at parties and I probably should have made more effort to see them again, or something. We've booked tickets home though, so it hardly seems worth it to start now.

Espana

2008-08-01T17:13:00.005+01:00

Photos of Barcelona are up here, and photos of the festival in Benicassim (and a few shots around and outside the town) are up here.

Both places were great: lots to see and do and eat and drink. A lot of the festival photos are just a stage in the distance but they mean something to me. Also the video screens made it easier to capture some close-ups. (This is David Johansen of the New York Dolls.)

We also managed to drive out of Benicassim a few times during the four days of the festival to see some of the mountains and villages, so that explains all the Stanthorpe-esque landscapey shots.

Probably the most interesting story from the whole trip was that one time, ha!, when The Boyfriend and our friend C and I were driving along the motorway to visit some friends staying in the next town. So there we were, speeding along in our unfamiliar rental car, with me in the back and The Boyfriend and C up front arguing about something pointless as usual. Then C decided it might be wise to fill up on petrol in preparation for the drive back to Barcelona the following morning. She pulls in to a small BP station and slows next to a bowser, and then asks in a troubled voice which side the petrol cap is on. I obligingly get out to check, tell her it's on the other side from which she's parked, and - thinking I'll fill the car up once she moves to the other side - shut the door and move away from the car. The car drives slowly forward and then... accelerates and drives on to the motorway. While I am still standing at the petrol station.

So I should just say that The Boyfriend and C are not at all malicious and this was a not a practical joke. This was truly a case of general absent-mindedness, not being helped by the fact that we'd all just completed four nights of festival gaeity, much past our usual bedtimes.

The funniest bit was that they got all the way to Orpesa del Mar, about 15 km away, and parked the car at the beach where they thought my friends lived, before turning to the back seat and realising I wasn't there. Apparently, as I found out when they made it back more than an hour later, this was my fault for being too quiet in the backseat. Frankly, I would have said something nasty in return about the quality of the conversation if I hadn't been so glad to get in the car when they finally arrived. I was very happy to no longer be standing at a busy service station in coastal Spain wearing only a bikini and sundress, with no money, phone or ID. Plus The Boyfriend's usually unflappable demeanour had totally eroded during the trip back to find me in his distress at leaving me behind (and while they got lost several times attempting to take short cuts), so that was certainly gratifying. In future I'll at least strap a book to my person. It was very dull standing there for an hour.

The day didn't really pick up from there. We decided to push on and head back to Orpesa del Mar to meet my friends, several hours later than originally planned. We parked at what we thought was the correct beach, and started following the signs to "Marina d'Or", the hotel they were staying at.

Unbeknownst to us, Marina d'Or is the name of a massive development including hotels, private accommodation and shopping precincts, AND we were actually about 2km away. But because the signs didn't say anything other than "Marina d'Or, -->" we kept following them on... and on up the coast.

On the bright side we got to see some beaches and people and Spain and stuff but it really wasn't ideal. At least we found a nice pizza place selling my new favourite wine, blanc pescador in the end.

More London

2008-07-23T12:19:00.003+01:00

I've added yet more photos to my Around London set on flickr but they're nothing too exciting -- just some shots from a day several weeks ago when I found myself released from the office shackles to attend an all-day training conference in Bloomsbury. Unlike work, training conferences tend to involve a full hour or more of lunch break - no eating at your desk - so I got to spend a pleasant afternoon wandering the Bloomsbury streets, primarily in the Tavistock Square and Gordon Square areas.

These squares are (what seems to me to be) those very London-specific spaces, the urban common gardens. They're surrounded by rows of terrace houses and were originally for the private use of the residents. Now they're open to the public and at lunchtimes they accommodate lazy streams of office workers, tourists, and students looking for a park bench or patch of grass on which to eat their sandwiches. (I actually had a jacket potato nestled in environmentally unsound polystyrene - very difficult to eat on your lap, FYI.)

In terms of the actual gardens, Tavistock Square is relatively sparse. However, it's home to monuments to Virginia Woolf (who lived in one of the neighbouring houses), Louisa Aldrich-Blake (one of Britain's first female surgeons), a very prominent and life-like Mahatma Gandhi, and a stone commemorating the conscientious objectors of the world.

Less happily, it is also the spot on which the bus exploded on the 7 July 2005 bombings of London's transport system. (There is small memorial to the dead on the fence across the street from the Square.)

Gordon Square in contrast, is much more lush and ornate (plant-wise), but without the obvious political and literary dedications. Some of the Bloomsbury Group did live on the Square though.

My photos also include several shots of what probably look like fairly average buildings/houses in the area. I bothered to post them to flickr because it seemed there were so many different styles of architecture in such a small area, from Georgian terraces to some sort of gothic revival to a brand new wood and steel creation that would look more at home in Brisbane. Hmmmm. Perhaps it was my near-euphoria at not having to be in the office that day that made it all seem so interesting.

We're back in the real world today after a week away for the Festival Internacionale de Benicassim, a music festival in coastal Spain. More on that next post!

The "beach"

2008-06-27T13:38:00.007+01:00

I've put up some photos on flickr of my recent enforced trip to Brighton with work. The less said about the work part, the better, as it's a well-known fact that being negative about your job on the internet can get you fired.

Brighton itself was surprising - I think I expected something louder and tackier after the reactions you get from most Britons when Brighton is mentioned. But it seemed quite sedate and regional, with the added bonus of a beach. There was also the tangled wreck of the West Pier, which I found fascinating and had to go and research the minute I got home. (I hope that gentleman won't mind me linking to his site. Please let me know if you do, sir!) Here is one of the photos:

I also visited the Royal Pavilion, which I'd never heard of before. It was built for George IV as Prince Regent during the 1800s as a seaside retreat, and later used by Queen Victoria and family (although they found it wanting, and soon sold it to the local Council). After seeing so many grand old building lately I was prepared to be underwhelmed. But the Pavilion was quite amazing, with this monstrous dining room over which 5 huge chandeliers covered in crystals and dragons and lotus flowers hung ominously. (I've been searching for a photo of this room as I really can't do it justice with my words, and photography wasn't permitted, but no luck. You can see an artist's rendering here

although it doesn't really show how much that dragon on the centre chandelier dominates the room.) I had thought it would all be a bit like The Hermitage in St Petersburg - beautifully decorated but sort of run down and bare - but it was quite different in that each room has been fully restored and set up as it was in the Prince Regent's time - so it looks as though people live there. In outlandish levels of comfort and luxury!

The hotel was also comfortable and luxurious, in an old-fashioned kind of way. That is always the one bonus of having to go away with work - the accommodation is usually good. Also, as an extra bonus, my lowly junior associate-level room was not ready, so I got a suite on the top floor! Anyway, you can see some photos in the flickr set. Interestingly (and sadly, I suppose) the hotel was actually bombed by the IRA in 1984 (which you can read about here) and when I looked at the photos on Wikipedia, it seems my room was right in the spot (or perhaps above) where the bomb went off.

I'm looking out the window now at some very miserable looking grey sky and drizzle. What a lovely start to the weekend! It's actually warmer in Brisbane today than it is in London. Summer is a totally different concept on this side of the world.

London things

2008-06-17T12:19:00.008+01:00

My Christmas present from Mum and Dad in Australia was a voucher for Tea at the Ritz, a London institution since the early 1900s when the Ritz opened. In fact, it's so popular that they run 5 sittings a day, and you still have to book months in advance. So our time finally rolled around a few weeks ago.

Coincidentally I'd managed to get cheap tickets for Spamalot on the same day. As most of you know, I am a Monty Python fan of old, and I was swayed by the rave reviews the show has been getting. So one sunny Saturday we boarded the Central Line, The Boyfriend cursing his tie and jacket (the Ritz enforces a dress code), and set off to Covent Garden.

Sadly, we didn't really enjoy Spamalot. TV's Alan Dale was starring as King Arthur, and while I'm sure he pulls in the Neighbours and The O.C. fans, he was a hesitant singer and a weak dancer. The chief attraction for me had been the promise of new (to me) Python material, but anything not in the movie fell strangely flat, and everything from the movie didn't turn out to be as funny when not being delivered by Eric Idle or Graham Chapman. Plus there was this borderline offensive (and not at humorous) closet homosexuality story about Sir Lancelot which really stomped on my optimism for the show. Does anyone really find "gay men all dance like Peter Allen and wear pink" jokes funny anymore?

I didn't manage to get a photo of The Boyfriend actually sleeping as photography wasn't permitted inside, but rest assured, he did sleep, and for quite a long time. There is one blurry shot on flickr of the Knights who say 'Ni' which I took covertly, just to record the experience.

In fairness, it has been playing for years, and part of the problem was the claustrophobic staging and distinct lack of enthusiasm permeating from the cast... some of whom probably have to do this 8 or 9 times a week for jetlagged tourists for not very much money. Anyway, it wasn't all bad, and now we've done the West End show thing.

We then had a few hours to kill before Ritz time, so strolled down through Covent Garden, past Chinatown, and into Piccadilly. Waterstone's (a huge UK bookseller) has a bar on the fifth and top floor, which just peeks above the roofs of the Piccadilly buildings, so it's London's version of a good view. We decided to fill in some time by having one of their famous cocktails. I went for a martini, which I've never managed to try before. As you probably know the taste can be best described as medicinal but I'll probably keep trying because they look so cool.

With some more time to kill we checked out Fortnum and Mason, and the windows of the Jermyn Street suit shops, and then wandered down to Green Park. This is The Boyfriend in Green Park.

Despite his expression I think he actually enjoyed the afternoon. Buckingham Palace is on the far side of the park, and we couldn't really wander so close to the Palace without having a look, so look we did. There didn't seem to be much going on but perhaps the Queen also enjoys a martini indoors late on a Saturday afternoon.

Finally it was time for Tea, and so we entered the beautiful Palm Court and took our seats. The service was outstanding and the room was amazing, but that all paled in comparison to the food. I had thought Tea would involve tea, and perhaps some small to eat. We were overwhelmed by the three-tiered tray of dainty sandwiches (including cucumber, of course), scones, and some of the most delicious pastries I've ever eaten. The scones, with strawberry jam and clotted cream, were so good we couldn't stop eating them, despite being stuffed. And of course, my Earl Grey tea in its silver teapot was perfect. (The Boyfriend had coffee.)

So thanks very much Mum and Dad, it was a special experience. I couldn't get many photos as photography was (again) not allowed, but I did break the rules and take a few, mostly from inside my handbag.

There are also some new shots up of our wander down to Chiswick House Gardens a few weeks ago, and some more new shots in the Around London set (because I can't resist all the summer flowers around at the moment).

Soapbox

2008-06-05T15:33:00.005+01:00

This protest by bikers in Northern England against rising fuel costs is totally nonsensical. Were they stoned when they came up with that? Just some of the reasons why:

a) If the fuel is really too expensive, how do they justify buying it in order to stage the protest?

b) The protest conveys their message to ...who? The motorists legitimately using the motorways to travel between work and home who have their journeys lengthened (meanwhile burning through more fuel while sitting in queues)? Or perhaps the fuel sellers in the region who probably smiled happily as hundreds of motorcyclists bought their fuel?

c) A litre of fuel costs only slightly more than a similar amount of milk or spring water in the UK. For something that actively damages the environment and that people should regard as a privilege to use, I don't consider that to be expensive.

I know this could be said about any number of protests, and it's true that you need to do some headline-grabbing to make your cause known, but (in all seriousness) how about blockading ExxonMobil HQ with their bikes instead? Or perhaps the Houses of Parliament? Local MP's offices? At least that would have a tangible impact on organisations that contribute to, and profit from, the "problem".

Maybe I'm missing something. Please comment if you think I am.

More disturbingly, it doesn't end there - according to the last paragraph of the Times article, a national protest for all vehicles is being organised via Facebook for June 22. I can't find the particular Facebook group, so I can't determine the level of interest. However, there are a lot of small groups with exclamation-point riddled names which seem to regard cheap petrol as a god-given right. For somewhere as small as the UK, with a reliable, far-reaching train network, there's no reason it should be.

Candy's wedding

2008-05-29T16:34:00.004+01:00

So, Candy's wedding was fantastic - a short ceremony in an exceptional venue, a beautiful and charismatic couple, and spectacular food and wine at the reception. No offence Australian wedding caterers, but you are PUT TO SHAME by the French. Escargot, multitudes of fish arranged in nautical shapes (e.g. ship anchors), prawns, langoustines, terrine and that was just the first bit. Then veal that gave new meaning to the word, and cake as far as the eye could see. Plus palate cleansers in between each course (including Calvados over apple sorbet which sounded like a bad idea but was in fact, amazing). And all those cutlery implements which stump me time and time again. Fish fork? And the wine - oh, the wine.

(I should just say here that we were fed beautifully at Julien's wedding reception. But that was at a swanky resort. This reception was at a soulless room-for-hire in the middle of an industrial estate.)

I really wish I'd taken a photo of the langoustines actually, because they were hung from a wooden rack, bent backwards with their heads stuck to their tails so that initially we thought they were large, funny-lookin' mutant prawns that had somehow grown lobster parts.

The Australian contingent, or at least some of us... OK, me and The Boyfriend, and one other couple; were also put to shame in another way. We left at 2am, totally exhausted, while the great-grandparents were still partying on. Even the toddlers were still running around, tantrum-free and all. Meanwhile the twenty-somethings from Oz are barely able to keep their eyes open. I blame the overnight ferry we took to get there.

Candy looked excellent in her dress (from Paris, of course) although there was that small, seemingly inevitable strapless dress issue:
(I've got about 300 photos which are a variation on this theme.)

The rest of the photos of the wedding and also our wanderings around Caen here.

Cooking shows... mmmm

2008-05-29T12:23:00.003+01:00

There's an article in The Guardian today which purports to pit Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall against Gordon Ramsey. The piece sort of half-heartedly argues that Gordon is casting his new zero tolerance stance on non-seasonal produce as original thought, when it's been Hugh's policy for years. I can only assume this article is the product of some unspoken but widespread UK newspaper rule which dictates that each edition must contain at least one article mentioning the following persons:

- Gordon Ramsey (describing him as foul-mouthed);
- Amy Winehouse (preferably photographed at her least flattering angle); and
- Kate Middleton (that's a tough one because she rarely seems to do anything at all interesting).

Maybe this rule is actually dictated by the advertisers. Who knows. Anyway, the reason I noticed it was because we actually watched the first episode of Hugh's new TV show River Cottage Spring last night, and I was shocked - shocked! - to see Hugh openly have a go at Celebrity Cooking's former first lady, Delia Smith. Not because I think Delia is awesome and un-challengeable (on the contrary), but just because usually, cooking shows are all about the soothing sizzle of the frying pan and the encouraging, confident voice of the chef making you think YOU TOO could whip up foie gras-stuffed quail with fennel and licorice using ingredients from your own garden!

So Hugh made two Shepherd's Pies - his mum's old Shepherd's Pie recipe, dutifully using the leftover Sunday roast lamb and home-grown potatoes, and Delia's version from her controversial new book, which happens to be based on canned minced lamb (fortified with glucose and preservatives!!) and frozen mash. He then planned to serve both of them to the same diners without first explaining the origins of each recipe. I was totally rooting for Hugh's, in case it wasn't obvious.

The only problem was, he cooked them for a rabble whose favourite foods seem to range from chicken nuggets to chips and no further. And he burnt them, because he cooked them outdoors in dutch ovens. So the ending was sort of anti-climactic... the final score was Hugh's mum - 7 votes, Delia - 5.

Oh well. I might have to continue to count on Gordon for my culinary controversy from now on.

St Petersburg the Great

2008-05-16T11:02:00.005+01:00

Photos of St Petersburg up on flickr here.

This morning The Boyfriend called me into the kitchen to see the squirrel sitting right outside the (closed) window, looking expectantly from me to The Boyfriend and back. I don't know what he expected - that we would open the window and give him our coins this time? The Boyfriend suggested Mr Squirrel might have a message for us from the Fairy Queen.

I actually felt a bit sorry for him - he stood there for ages, trenbling slightly - and for a minute I was tempted to give him some food, but that would kick off a whole new set of squirrel-feeding obligations and seriously, they eat pretty well out of the garbage bins anyway. I saw one of them flip the heavy metal lid off a bin yesterday and make off with avocado remnants and some kiwi fruit we'd thrown out.

Intruder alert

2008-05-13T12:22:00.002+01:00

This morning I awoke to what sounded like a coin dropping on the kitchen floor. For a minute I thought there might be a burglar in the house, but anyone who's visited our place knows that the creaking symphony of floorboards would make it impossible for anyone to enter undetected without the ability to levitate from room to room. I relaxed, decided I must have imagined it, and settled back for another half hour of semi-oblivion. Then I heard some other, unidentifiable noises. Something made me get out of bed (if only this would happen every morning) to investigate.

I opened the bedroom door and saw quite a large squirrel hesitating in the kitchen window. As I advanced he (or she?) jumped out onto the balcony... but not very far. He actually just stood there looking at me, rather defiantly I thought. Unfortunately my camera was not to hand but I swear, it showed no fear. We'll have to stop leaving the window open at night. Probably for the best, as my friend Sarah climbed through it once and into the house when her key to the back door wouldn't work (because I left our key in the lock on the inner side), so it would be no problem for any passing levitating burglars to jump through it and steal the 4 valuable things we own.

There are collections of various currencies all over the kitchen so the squirrel must have been examining one of those, although I'm surprised the money is what caught its attention (rather than the overflowing bin, or the bananas/loaf of bread sitting on the bench?). A pair of them live in a tree right next to the balcony and they long ago worked out how to open the communal rubbish bins on the outside stairs. Maybe they're now moving into Phase 2 of their scavenging operations: money can be stolen and then exchanged for goods and services.

Anyway, photos of St Petersburg coming up when I next have to chance to sit on flickr for hours labelling the damn things. We are in Caen, France this weekend for Candy from Toowoomba's marriage to her Frenchman. Apparently there will be karaoke. What does one wear to a karaoke wedding on the French coast?

Photo update

2008-04-29T13:20:00.007+01:00

I'm on delicious holidays at the moment and have a few days to myself while Mum and Dad are in Helsinki and The Boyfriend is working. I've been making excellent use of the time playing with our new stereo, watching DVDs and updating my photos on flickr.

So there are new shots added to the Poiana Brasov (Romania) set here which were given to us by Harris, who was brave enough to take his camera up the slopes - so they show some of the beautiful snowy views from the summit like this one:

Also a new set from Lisbon and Portugal here, new photos added to the Around London set here, and a new set of our visit to Whitstable and Canterbury a few months ago to see my friend Sarah from Toowoomba (she is studying at the University of Kent now).

Lisbon and Porto were surprising and often beautiful, especially at Sintra (around Lisbon) where we did a mammoth mountain trek to reach two castles and some amazing gardens. Both cities also had a heap of interesting stencil-style graffiti which I diligently captured a wide range of.

We will see Mum and Dad again in St Petersburg on Thursday. I was hoping for cold weather there as it would make packing way easier, and because after our pickpocketing experiences in Lisbon, I thought solid layers might help repel St Petersburg's notorious thieves. It looks like it's up to 20 degrees there at the moment though, unfortunately.

I'm planning a trip to a travel bookshop this afternoon for a St Petersburg guide, and am also hoping to get to the Peter Doig exhibition at the Tate Britain, but it's been raining solidly all morning ... which makes staying here in the living room much more attractive.

2008-04-07T21:05:00.008+01:00

Forget White Easter - our second weekend road trip with Mum and Dad saw proper snow fall over all of England, including London. And this after a Thursday when the mercury, as they say, hit 18 degrees and we all thought actual springtime was here. Sunday morning (staying in Coventry with Mum and Dad) we woke up to this.

The previous day we'd driven north-west to Stratford-on-Avon and checked out all the Shakespeare-related sights, including two amazing gardens (one at Shakespeare's birthplace and one called the Great Garden, at Nash's house (another historically significant house in Stratford - built by Shakespeare's wife's father or someone). Consequently the flickr shots are dominated by pretty flower shots which I love but perhaps they're not so interesting to everyone else.

We stayed in a small hotel outside Coventry called the Glengarry. It looked pretty ordinary from the outside, especially given its location on the corner of two converging major highways, but inside it was cheerful and relaxed with a bar that played great music from the '60s and '70s and a conservatory-style glass-lined restaurant. We had a drink or two in the bar and then some huge, delicious meals served by the charming waitstaff. London does have its moments but I always feel like people outside the city are so much friendlier and genuinely interested to talk to me. In London I very often feel like the minute people realise I'm "just another" Australian, they're even more cold and dismissive than usual. Anyway, the dinner was perfect after a long day in the weather and we slept well, particularly as we weren't being subject to bone-shaking dance music from the bar below like we had in Yeovil!

After the surprise snowfall overnight everything looked like a wonderland, and added to this the sun was shining in a beautiful clear blue sky. We drove into Coventry, and then pretty much drove straight back out, partly because the combination of one-way systems, bus-only lanes and roadworks meant we spent a long time driving up and down the same roads trying to find a way out!

Then we were on to Leamington Spa, which is obviously always quite picturesque but with the snow and blue skies, it was one of the most beautiful places I've been in a long time. We took a long walk through the snowy Jephson Gardens. There was a marathon or fun run or something being run so there were lots of people about, and there were excited kids playing in the snow, more amazing flowers, swans in the pond, all set to the sound of church bells from the nearby church. I took a ridiculous amount of photos but I tried to restrain myself and not post too many on flickr.

Finally we drove into Oxford and wandered the streets, before piling back into the car for the trip back into London.

Mum and Dad are in Ireland this weekend and I had a friend's birthday drinks last night so it's been a quiet day. Next weekend: Portugal.

White Easter

2008-03-30T20:55:00.006+01:00

Mum and Dad arrived just in time for a rather unusual white Easter. In fact the weather the weekend they arrived was freakish in a number of ways. Friday morning last week dawned to blue skies and just a few fluffy white clouds. However, by the time we were standing in Heathrow waiting to meet our visitors, ominous dark grey clouds were looming, and then, just as we climbed into their hire car and shut the doors, actual hail started pelting down. Having not taken the extra insurance for windscreen and tyre damage, there was some panic, but we quickly regrouped and The Boyfriend drove us out onto the M5 for our first London driving experience. Which actually went surprisingly well, other than a wrong turn that sent us into deepest Chiswick - not much of a problem though because we had never been there before, and it actually looks quite nice.

The next day we headed west out of London for a drive around the Dorset/Cornwall area. We stopped to check out Salisbury after driving through or past Basingstoke, Andover, Amesbury and this very picturesque but tiny place called Thruxton, courtesy of a wrong exit off the motorway. England continued to shock us with more sun, but it wasn't to last. The skies clouded over just as we left the motorway just out of Salisbury and drove into a small place called Burcombe, and while we were enjoying an amazingly good lunch at this place, snow started falling. This is the first time we've seen both hail and snow in England, so all in one weekend, and Mum and Dad's first couple of days - I felt that even for London's notoriously contrary weather, it was fairly impressive.

After piling back in the car, we kept on towards the west through a bunch of places including Wilton, Shaftesbury (past Stonehenge), and Sherbourne, finally reaching Yeovil where Mum had booked to stay the weekend. We wandered around the town and had delicious pizzas and lots of wine for dinner, and then walked home. Yeovil itself was not the most exciting place, but we used it as a base to drive all the way to Torquay the next day - along the way seeing a large range of English beach towns including grand, run-down otels and uninviting, pebbly beaches. We managed to find another fantastic place for lunch - again completely by accident - and some gorgeous bay views in Torbay.

After so many huge, delicious meals we had a little trouble finding something light for dinner on Sunday night, so we trekked around Yeovil again (at times accompanied by drunken singing and/or torrents of cursing from the local football fans on their way to or from a game, which I think Dad discovered later had involved the local team. So I didn't blame them for their dedicated celebrating.).

The next day we were back to London and after an extremely welcome long weekend, back to work. I have had some really long workdays recently, including a 2am arrival home the previous Wednesday. Hopefully not too many of those this week. Photos of the weekend on flickr here.

Sarajevo

2008-03-15T13:18:00.003Z

My photos from a visit to Leah in Sarajevo are now up on flickr here. It was a really interesting place - old and new, damaged and reconstructed, so many religions, and so many graveyards. Awesome food - lots of Turkish-style spinach and cheese pastries as well as great Turkish coffee shops and Italian restaurants. Leah is working on war crimes case; she has a few more weeks to go, and then she's moving to The Hague to work on another one. I can't imagine how she handles hearing about all those tragic things for 6 months, and then moves on to another one.

Some other friends came along so we had a great weekend catching up and wandering around the town, eating and drinking lots. We also went to this really interesting museum located at the point where the Bosnians built a long underground tunnel under the airport runway to a free part of Bosnia, so food (and arms) could reach the surrounded Sarajevo. Unfortunately I managed to flatten my camera battery the night before so I couldn't take any shots but it was really cool, and confronting to think what a short time ago the city was completely under siege.

Mum and Dad are here next week so there might be a few more people in the shots for a few weeks! We are off to Portugal and St Petersburg and I have a few weeks off work, which I am very much looking forward to!

One of the excellent things about London...

2008-02-17T16:38:00.005Z

is how much there is to do. In fact, after dutifully subscribing to Time Out, I thought I'd be able to keep on top of the things I wanted to do each weekend. But really, it just makes me feel inadequate and maybe a little stressed about the sheer volume of cool things to do, that I could never hope to find the time for. And then by the time the weekend rolls around, I feel like I've spent so much time on the Tube already that week, I can't bear to do it again. Not many of these cool things are going on in my London suburb, I must say.

Yesterday I put in a pretty good effort though. I met Alice in Kensington and we went to see the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum. You can see some of the photos here. We loved it - there were some especially striking shots of wildlife in the Arctic and Antarctic - polar bears, penguins and these narwhal whales with long tusks which I'd never seen before. We didn't really agree with the winner (see here) - interesting but not as moving as lots of the other shots. A lot of our favourites were in the category on this page.

After some lunch in an excellent healthy food chain they have here called Leon, I left Alice and took the tube to Southwark, south of the river to meet The Boyfriend. We went to the Tate Modern to see a new exhibition (which if you're so inclined you can see about here and if you do, don't miss the slideshow of some of the works). We became Tate members a few months ago so I wanted to go and take advantage of the members' room on the sixth floor. Only members can go in and they have great food and drinks for decent prices, plus the gallery is usually so crowded, it's nice to get away. Unfortunately many, many other people had the same plan so we had to sit outside on the cold balcony. Nice view though.

Then we went to the British Film Institute - just down the river - to see The Killers, a 1946 film with Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster I've been really wanting to see since I read a biography of Ava Gardner a few months ago. It was great - quintessential film noir with the gorgeous temptress and big dumb hero, plus a lot of shifty, amoral crooks and moody lighting along the way.

Then we walked back to St Paul's to catch the tube home. Along the way we saw some friendly gypsy types camping on the banks of the Thames. They had built some fires (also some ingenious sand sculptures including a couch!) and were singing wiht guitar accompaniment to the crowd ("We'd like your money noooowww, so we can buy some beeer"). Sounds dodgy but they were quite charming and the singing was actually very good.

Today we stayed local and went for a wander to take advantage of the sun finally showing itself. It's still freezing - five layers worth today - but at least we can get some Vitamin D. And some parts of my London suburb are very pleasant to wander through - lots of greenery and old houses. And the unseasonable warmth we had a few weeks ago has even resulted in some flowers as well. I can never get used to way flowers just grow unbidden and uncoaxed on the footpaths here. I guess they can't help it with all that rain.

Rest of the photos from yesterday and today on flickr here.

Cold and frosty

2008-02-16T11:15:00.005Z

Not much going on this week for me to report. I saw some friends for a quick drink on Thursday but other than that, it's mostly been wake up, tube, work, tube, home, dinner, sleep, wake up and so on. We didn't do anything for Valentine's Day, which is OK with me - I think couples should be nice to each other and do special things all year round rather than just being able to spend money on cards and flowers and dinners at inflated cost on one night a year and get credit for it! Not sure why The Boyfriend abstains - probably because it suits him not to bother...

This week has been freezing - between 0 and 2 degrees most mornings on the way to work. This is Thursday morning on our street:

Romania: vampire-free

2008-02-02T17:59:00.001Z

We're just back from Romania today and quite exhausted, although smug about all of the exercise we got skiing over the last week. The photos are up on flickr here.

We stayed at a ski resort called Poiana Brasov, which is near Brasov, one of Romania's prettiest towns and therefore a bit of a tourist attraction. I didn't manage to get any action shots of us speeding down black runs or head first in piles of snow (too wimpy about bringing the camera out on the slopes in case I had a massive fall and broke it) so they're mostly snowy landscapes and some shots in the town.

The main attraction of the area, at least as far as The Boyfriend was concerned, was Bran Castle. This was one of the homes of Vlad the Impaler (as he is known), whose brutal behaviour inspired Bram Stoker to write the Dracula story. He lived in the 1400s and the castle has since been home to lots of other people including the Romanian royal family, so it's not all bats and dripping blood like you might expect - mostly old furniture and nice views, although there was a vaguely ominous feel about that bed (see photos).

Back to work on Monday sadly. We're seeing a band called Art Brut on Tuesday night which should be cool, and seeing two lots of Aussie friends next weekend. Plus The Boyfriend has a list of movies to see as long as his arm so that should keep us busy.

Slow news month

2008-01-12T17:57:00.000Z

Not much to report and no new photos really, although we are off to Romania at the end of the month so in a few weeks there'll be loads of new pretty pictures. In the meantime I have added some pictures of my trip to Berlin in September last year here. Enjoy!

Christmas Eve

2008-01-05T14:04:00.001Z

So as to give a better idea of how glamorous living in London isn't, here are some photos of our Christmas Eve. After returning from Bruges in the early afternoon we... had a nap, I think. Then I cooked some risotto, which seems to be the only thing I can manage to cook these days which is edible. Then we watched some episodes of Northern Exposure, including a Christmas episode. After that, I'm pretty sure we went to bed.

Here is our little Christmas tree. We caved at the last minute and bought one just a few days before Christmas. Most people here seem to have real trees, but they're cut off at the trunk and embedded in concrete or wood. I didn't really like the idea of that so we got a very small living one, which I think we'll eventually plant in the garden. It was about 40cm tall when we bought it but it's already closer to a metre. Our Christmas spirit did not extend to tree decorations.

Some Christmas cards from home...

The Boyfriend's usual evening posture:

(Bron, you can see your present on the chair to The Boyfriend's left - sorry, I couldn't resist opening it early!)

This was my Christmas present from The Boyfriend - a print by an English artist called Becky Blair. We managed to overpay for it by almost 100% when we were seduced by a quirky little store in Whitstable. I later found you can get it direct from the artist for far less. Ah well. At least we're supporting small business.

Merry Christmas, etc

2007-12-25T20:55:00.001Z

I've put our photos from the pre-Christmas Bruges trip up on the flickr site here. I missed Christmas with the family at Coolum, but The Boyfriend and I visited the pub after braving a very London-style rainy Christmas day. Then The Boyfriend cooked a fantastic turkey dinner. Nice having someone around who doesn't manage to ruin everything he cooks!

A couple of Bruges shots to convince you to bother checking out flickr.

Iceland revisited

2007-12-12T22:24:00.001Z

Unfortunately we have not yet re-visited Iceland, as much as I would like to. But Alisha, one of our compatriots and fellow Iceland visitors, sent me some great photos of my favourite bit of Iceland - Þingvellir National Park, where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet. This spot was the first stop on our day tour out of Reykjavik and it was amazing. Snow-dusted cliffs wrenching out of the ground where the pressure between the plates has forced them up and across, and a beautiful clear blue sky reflecting off the water between the rocks. Plus a sunrise. What more could you ask.

Somewhat typically, the battery in my camera ran out right after we got out of the jeep to walk across the park, and as the spare was in the car, I couldn't take any photos. I have added these couple from Alisha onto the flickr site but since there are only 2, and they're almost my favourites of the whole trip (although The Boyfriend and the bicycle is up there), I have posted them below.

We're slogging through the last couple of weeks of work before Christmas. Bruges in 9 days.

Night lights

2007-12-01T12:05:00.002Z

This is Somerset House in Central London a few nights ago. They set up ice-skating rinks at some of the public buildings and parks at this time of year. You can pay about 10 pounds or thereabouts to go skating for a night. The rink wasn't open yet so I couldn't get any closer.

At this time of year it's all Christmas lights in Oxford Street. D-grade celebrities like X Factor contestants and S Club 7 usually turn them on during November. I was on a mission for pillows the other night so here are some shots of the street.

These are some of the more pretentious Christmas windows along the Bond Street end - Selfridges:

(Still can't seem to hold that camera straight.)

And Debenhams' more family-friendly ones. All of the bears were on strings and moving; tangling themselves in ribbons and decorations or stuck in the Christmas tree ... actually pretty cute.

Iceland

2007-11-17T13:02:00.000Z

I have too many Iceland photos I wanted to post, so I have put them all on flickr.com at this link.

If that link doesn't work, you might need to join flickr.com to check them out but please send me an email or make a comment below if that is the case, and I can send you my login details if you like.

Page

2007-11-12T11:14:00.000Z

I've amended the page settings so there are fewer entries on each page, so it should load a bit faster. The internet speeds are much faster here than in Oz so I forgot about how long the photos would take to load over there.

Stay tuned for Iceland photos.

Richmond

2007-11-04T10:49:00.001Z

These are just some more boring park/landscape photos but if you imagine the cold, misty air and falling leaves it makes it more interesting. Soon there won't be any leaves on the trees at all and then I'll stop posting photos of them all the time.

This is at Richmond, which is a short-ish tube ride from our flat. It's full of very grand houses and posh shops. The Thames also flows through here, in a far more picturesque fashion than in it does in Central London. There are little boats huddling under bridges, and weeping willows and crumbling mansions on the banks.

We actually went there in search of warm clothes for our Iceland trip this weekend as braving the crowds on Oxford Street or Kensington High Street is not a happy weekend excursion.

I took these from a tiny little restaurant perched halfway up a park hillside. The Boyfriend had an awesomely delicious wild mushroom tart (which we'd seen for sale earlier in a farmer's market in town) which I kindly helped him eat. I didn't order anything myself as he keeps cooking bacon and eggs for breakfast on the weekends, removing the need for proper lunches.

You can just see the Thames through the trees here.

In the autumn...

2007-11-04T10:39:00.000Z

They have real seasons here. This is the tree outside the bedroom window about 2 weeks ago.

And this is what it looks like now.

Hyde Park

2007-11-03T11:46:00.001Z

Shortly after The Boyfriend arrived we went for an expedition into town to Notting Hill, and then through Hyde Park into Kensington. Hyde Park in autumn reminds me of watching To the Manor Born or All Creatures Great and Small. All green grass and dogs romping under the trees and women in tartan wool skirts and boots.

The Boyfriend, looking a little jetlagged. Or like he's planning an armed robbery before lunch.

The Prince Albert Memorial and the Albert Hall. We couldn't help but comment about how we felt Queen Victoria went a little over the top.

It was slightly more pleasant than Monday morning this last week, when the train I was on stopped at Notting Hill Gate, and the driver announced in a friendly yet neutral tone that he didn't know when we'd have clearance to move again. Signal failure or something. After waiting 10 minutes I got out and walked to work. It took an hour and 20 minutes, including about half an hour walking the length of Hyde Park into the city. Enjoyable at first but after about 40 minutes, with a whole day of work ahead, I was cursing the London Underground.

Fairytale castle, where millions of pensions were born

2007-10-26T20:57:00.001+01:00

Just a quick one...I took this a few weeks ago a block or so from my work on Holborn Viaduct. It's the old Prudential Assurance building. Looks more interesting than it sounds...

Celebrity sighting

2007-10-08T22:04:00.000+01:00

On the way to Waterloo on Friday I had my first proper London celebrity sighting, and it was a good one. No Big Brother rejects or Neighbours cast for me. Dustin Hoffman!

I heard a security guard say they were filming a movie to be released next year. He said the title but it's completely slipped my mind... something with the word 'Harvest' in it?

Bonsoir, ma famille

2007-10-07T21:14:00.001+01:00

On Friday I took my inaugural Eurostar trip. Firstly, I have to say how excellent the train is, and how I never want to fly again. No queues, normal bar prices, comfy seats, friendly staff, no liquid restrictions on your cabin baggage, and only one security check. You catch the train at Waterloo, which is right in the middle of London (or as was drilled into me on the trips over and back, from King's Cross St Pancras from November 14!), and less than 3 hours later, you emerge in Montmartre.

Anyhoo, my trip was to Paris to meet some ex-Australian Voices friends. Kent and Kelly have been travelling through Mongolia (on horse-back for 2 weeks!) and then through Russia. They met up with Kelly's sister Sarah, and we all met in Paris along with Anika who now lives in Cologne (Germany) with her boyfriend Florian, Andy who lives near Bath (England), Clare who lives near Glencoe (Scotland) with her boyfriend Jamie, and Brodie who is living in Besancon (France).

Kent, Sarah, Brodie, Kelly and I hit Sacre Coeur early(ish) on Saturday morning as our hostel was only a few hundred metres away. Absolutely gorgeous day. It's weird the way London is so close to Paris, and Paris' weather looks like this, while London manages to be overcast 90% of the time.

Then we caught the Metro down into the Centre of town. Unfortunately, and unusually for me, I was not the wielder of the guidebook, so now I can't remember the name of this building. Quite embarrassing because it's the scene of the major events of the French Revolution.

We wandered onto the Ile de Cite to Notre Dame. I was tempted to make a hunchback joke but luckily I curbed that impulse in time.

After some amazing ice-cream (for the others) and a croissant (for me), we found ourselves in the Jardins des Tuileries where we took some sun. Unfortunately you are not allowed to sit on the grass in this park (or many of the other Paris parks, it seems) so some of us squeezed onto a bench, and the rest onto the autumn leaf-covered gravel. I think we're still searching in vain for grass without a 'Pelouse Interdite' sign.

We had dinner at a Greek/French restaurant not far from where some of my family and I stayed in 1995. The restaurant was very touristy and the food was not fantastic but with the 12 of us, we were not likely to get a table anywhere else.

In any case, it was the night of the France/Argentina Rugby World Cup game so every restaurant had a big screen TV and hordes of excited Frenchmen. They actually shushed everyone when the game started. Luckily France won, or the jubilation in the streets after the game could have become something much uglier. There were people absolutely everywhere dancing and drinking and celebrating the win. I am utterly sick of rugby after all the attention it gets in England, but it was an experience to be on the streets of Paris and see the excitement. We walked down the Seine in the moonlight, and there were car horns going non-stop and people hanging (very dangerously) out of cars brandishing French flags. The guy in the middle below was a random excited French guy who wanted to be in our photo.

The next day I just had time for a Metro trip to Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Paris' most famous cemetery. Hundreds of famous people are buried here, including Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, and Oscar Wilde. My camera's battery died shortly before reaching any of these graves but here are some shots in the cemetery.

I was exhausted on Sunday night - our hostel room was right on the courtyard and consequently we all spent a few early morning hours listening to inane backpacker conversation - but I am still amazed about being able to just pop over to Paris for the weekend.

Navigational issues

2007-10-03T17:18:00.000+01:00

I am seeing the Dandy Warhols tonight at a place I haven't been to yet called the Electric Ballroom. It is in Camden, home of the famous markets, which is quite easy to get lost in as the tube station comes out onto an intersection that has about 7 new roads leading away from it and limited street signs. It looks quite close but I find in London, being used to the relatively new cities of Australia, that it is exceedingly easy to fail if you go somewhere new with a cocky faith that you will find what you're looking for quickly.

The streets branch off and double back and loop and are not sufficiently signed and even if they are there is a much wider range of things that may be a street name than one is used to. They have roads, streets, lanes, courts, crescents, squares, rows, drives, ways, closes, places and terraces which together are about the extent of what you might expect a road to be called in Australia. Here there is also [ ] Villas, [ ] Gardens, [ ] Hill, [ ] Fields, (despite having no common features with a villa, garden, hill or field), [ ] Mews, [ ] Viaduct, or something not even resembling a street name at all like "West Smithfield". So until you become familiar with the street sign layout in the particular borough it's very, very easy to get lost.

As an added level of trickiness most people look at you like a) you do not exist or b) they want you and everyone else to die a painful, slow death so unless you're really desperate, asking for directions is not very appealing.

So, in summary, if I'm not back in 24 hours, send help. And thank goodness for Google Maps.

One rainy night in central London

2007-09-29T18:36:00.000+01:00

After work last night I decided to eschew drinks after work and go for a stroll into a new bit of London. I work near St Paul's, which is just across the Thames from the South Bank where you can find the (New) Globe Theatre (remember Shakespeare in Love?), Tate Modern, the Tower and London Bridges and lots of other London sights. It was actually raining rather than just being the usual overcast, so while that makes it colder, it also makes concrete, smoggy London seem a bit more magical and cosmopolitan.

This is St Paul's from just near my work.

If you then walk around St Paul's and towards the Thames, you come to the Millennium Bridge (which the British Government built for the 2000 celebrations and then took a lot of flak for as the the bridge was architecturally flawed and wobbled). From the bridge you look one way and see the Tate Modern, and the other way, back north to St Paul's.

Here's a better view of the bridge itself.

The galleries and museums are all open till 10pm. I wasn't allowed to take photos in the Tate, but they have some really interesting and sometimes controversial art (being a modern art gallery). A lot of things that you think a 6-year-old could create, but also some really amazing things, and some famous works from people like Andy Warhol, Picasso, Frida Kahlo and Joan Miro. I particularly liked the photos by an artist called Francesca Woodman - a bit depressing, especially because she killed herself at 22 - but very original. So anyway, I took a photo of an installation outside just to get one art photo, and also one of me because I know how dull photos with no people can get. I also took a shot of the escalators because they were kind of beautiful all on their own.

And finally a night shot of St Paul's on the way home to the Tube.

One sunny afternoon in west London, part 2

2007-09-29T15:45:00.001+01:00

While it was still sunny, I wanted to make my way to Gunnersbury Park, about 20 mins walk from home. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunnersbury_Park.

On the way things were again looking typically English. The novelty of that is almost wearing off for me.

I came to this:

which sounded better than it looked.

However, Gunnersbury Park was beautiful. You walk off the North Circ into this huge, quiet sanctuary with neverending paths and so many corners to discover. The first part I came to was the creatively named Round Pond (they have one of these in Hyde Park as well) with its 18th century temple. You can just see the Canadian geese (introduced but I think they're more handsome than the native ones).

The park has tennis courts, 36 playing fields, playgrounds, more lakes, even an overgrown bowling green. (It wasn't very photogenic so you'll need to imagine.) After Queensland all that green grass is quite an experience.

This is a ruined boat house (originally a kiln).

The park also still has 2 of the old mansions (from before it was a public park), which sort of remind me of BBC Pride and Prejudice sets, and which might remind Dad of The Lavender Hill Mob, because that's where they shot it!

And ruins of the original Gunnerbury House, which was demolished when the land was divided up. It looks like I've been taking my photos leaning sideways...will have to work on that.

Hello!

2007-09-19T22:35:00.000+01:00

Hi family members

I have set up this blog to show you some photos of where I'm living and maybe some of my travels. I would also really like to see your photos and hear what is happening with you all, so maybe if you have some spare time you could set up another blog linked to this one.

Love
Lauren

One sunny afternoon in west London, part 1

2007-09-16T17:08:00.003+01:00

Last Sunday I decided to wander around my London suburb, as I hear the sun won't be shining for long.

On the way I saw some of the classic English architecture (over behind the constant traffic jam on the North Circular which is one of London's busiest roads):

And not so classic...I think this must be the modern-day equivalent of boarding up a house to keep out squatters. (You can get a closer look by clicking on the photo.)

I also came across Sid James' old house. It's right near my place -- unfortunately the BBC doesn't screen Carry On re-runs anywhere near as much as the ABC.