Paul in London

Scenes from Soho Thursday 23:29. After failing to get into a pub on the Southbank where an Australian TV programme was being filmed, Ad and I walked back into Soho and went to a more familiar bar that had a much more cheekier display. The bar dancer moved like he was imitating a spin cycle on a front loader, but the punters seemed to like that anyway... 

On Saturday catching a tube back home someone left a bag in the car I was travelling. The first thing I knew of this was when a passenger pulled the emergency alarm. The rest of us just sat there as the passenger informed the driver of the situation. He must have been awfully worried about this piece of left baggage as he took off while the rest of us just stayed on the car. The driver appeared. He asked the car if anyone owned the bag. Nobody did. I looked at the bag. It was just across from me. It looked very thin. There was a small child sitting there earlier, maybe it was hers. Anyway, surely it was much too thin to hold an Indian Tupperware containing some sort of explosive device. So I just sat there like everyone else. Surely it was harmless.  Station security must have thought so too as after a few minutes a man appeared and grabbed the thing and the journey continued on…

Idle Friday Lunchtime Chatter Paul : I live near Tooting Bec Common now Fa : Well you will have to get yourself a dog so you can walk it in the common Paul : Yes I notice that dog walking or walking small children is the popular thing to do there Fa : Hmm... I would just stick to the dog...

Scenes from SW2 Thursday 11:35. The morning milk run...  

Another rant from Gwyneth this week has set everyone talking. She calls customer service here rubbish and complains about the dirty streets and the weather. Actually she is sounding more and more like a local… Her best advice though was to bring your cashmere sweater when coming to Britain. Of course it is worth noting that cute little outfits that cost a fortune carry no cachet with Londoners . Dress shabby. And of course customer service here IS rubbish. I used a pretty lousy minicab service the other night to get to SW2 and was charged an extra £5 for carrying luggage. Ok so it was a little TV, a monster suitcase and a few boxes but I still thought that was outrageous. I suspected I was being scammed here but in the end I couldn't be arsed to haggle over it. I just made a mental note to write about it on the blog and to avoid that company in future…

I will be moving out of WC1 this week. I will miss living in zone 1, and having the view of the BT tower from my bedroom window. Well maybe for some other time…

Scenes from South London Monday 13:32 - Approaching Clapham Junction on a foggy day... 

A bird in the hand may be worth throwing in the bush as after a week of scaring the general population with threats of 50,000 deaths in the UK from an outbreak of avian flu, this week the threat is what it will do to chicken sales ? While there actually may be no link between the flu and dead chickens, all this talk of diseased birds are certainly putting one off a chicken roast for now. How the rest of Chicken mad Britain reacts is another matter…    

Caught the new Wallace and Gromit movie last night. As it had just come out (in time for the school holidays here) it was particularly popular with the punters. A wasn't sure about seeing such a high culture film but I suggested that since it is a hit in cinemas in several countries it could be considered to be selling British culture to the world. Indeed there were a lot of typically British things on display including: A passionate love for not killing animals Overzealous gardening (and it all looked very organic) Upper class twits and eccentric town folk Edwardian terrace housing, and The usual red telephone boxes and post boxes So who could ask for anything more? On the downside the Odeon cinema where I saw it is such rubbish. It is only five minutes away so it is handy but it smells across between a toilet and a candy store. Indeed the threadbare carpet has a stickiness about it that makes you wonder about how it got that way. Perhaps children gorging on fruit pastilles vomi

Golders green station Originally uploaded by kirwilliam . Northern Line trains being refitted with safety equipment at Golders Green. This week everyone has been an expert on trip-cocks and other things that stop trains when tube drivers do a SPAD. The Northern Line resumed a very limited service tonight for the first time since Wednesday evening. But it will be another few days before there is anything like a regular service… A good time to be on holiday…