I was thinking this morning on one of my daily journeys on the tube how insane it is. Here’s my take on the ‘types’ of people you will meet every day on the tube (guaranteed).

My psychoanalysis of the tube…

* Morning: smell of fresh perfume, everyone feeling perky, in a rush, got somewhere to be. Everybody on the tube is ‘doing something’ - listening to their ipod, reading the newspaper, reading their neighbour’s newspaper over their shoulder (I am guilty of this occasionally…). Cut to the post-work evening tube home: smell of body odour, people struggling to stay awake or often actually fallen asleep (I am waiting for the day I do this). The contrast in a matter of hours is hilarious.

* There is the guy who takes full advantage of the fact that the tube is so full, and blames the motion of the tube for standing so close behind a good looking female on the tube (imagine a sausage against your back).

* There are those people who are so full of their own self importance, that even if there are spare seats to sit on, they will not lower themselves to the level of sitting next to minions/peasants/lower class peeps. They would rather stand with one hand above them on the rails reading highly intellectual literature in the form of a book rather than the rest of us who read the free gossip-ridden Metro london paper. Possible ‘too posh to sit’ syndrome.

* There are the ‘risk takers’ - those people who think they can squeeze on at the very last minute on the tube when the doors are beeping (a warning the doors are about to close shut any second now). I am the queen of laughing at things I shouldn’t and am terrible at laughing when people get limbs or body parts caught in the door. Apparently I am the only one on the tube who sees the funny side when people think they can squeeze on but they can’t. It’s their own fault.

* There are what I like to call ‘tube sharks’, those who watch incessantly, watching everyone in the carriage like prey, waiting for someone to get up from their seat for the opportunity to worm their way into a seat before anyone else.

* And last of all: the ‘compulsive starer’. The guy who sits directly across from you in the tube and seems to have eyes for christmas. But with litrle choice of where to look except at the seats across from you, you find yourself catching his eye more than once. Which then encourages him to keep staring more since he thinks you might be a keen bean. Oh dear.

I will not miss taking the peak hour tube every morning.

And I thought I would share this awesomely awesome video made out of over 3000 photographs which really wraps London up into a little bundle of 2 minute goodness.

London (harder, better, faster, stronger) from David Hubert

This Sunday afternoon, a group of Zombies made their way from Marble Arch along the streets of London as part of World Zombie Day. The day that zombies all over the globe are going to wrench themselves onto the streets for fun, but also for charity. I took a few photos of the zombies as they groaned their way down the street.

a note to his wife

zombies eating each other

If you are ever in London around this time, have a look or get zombie-fied yourself.

Now that I am settled into London (kind of), with a job (phew!), and a house (living with italiano’s), I thought it was time for an update.

I have been catching up with kiwi friends in London from back home, started an evening french course for 10 weeks (trop bien!), had a girls weekend away in Cardiff (Wales), popped over to funky Brighton for a weekend to check out the lanes/boutiquey shops and the beach (well, stoney beach, not sandy beach but close enough) and settling into our flat, my new job and life in Londontown.

I never thought I would live in London. But now that I’ve made the decision to move to London for a few months with the French boy for his job, I’ve had to have a mind re-shift.

this squirrel in hynd park decided to have a look in my handbag

I am not really getting into the “antipodean culture” here (living with 15 aussies or kiwi’s in Shepherd’s Bush or drinking at the Walkabout…). I can see why kiwi’s and aussies live it - it’s about comfort I guess, people you know who understand the same humour and jokes, lingo, lifestyle, etc.  I guess I try to stay clear of it (and tend to avoid Ozzie pubs such as the Walkabout like the plague). I really loved being friends with a range of foreigners while living in Scotland and learning about different cultures.

I really do agree that variety is the spice of life.

I walk down the street and around the corner of my neighbourhood and this is what I see. A group of young chavs with attitudes sitting on a staircase waiting for trouble. I can’t help but wonder if they have knives in their pockets. And if they do have knives in their pockets, whether they intend to use them.

Knife is the weapon of choice here in the UK. The worst thing about it is that people here prefer to turn a blind eye. Ignorance is bliss. There is a major knife epidemic here in the UK.

Knife violence. The motive? Race? Gang related? Or just looking at someone “the wrong way”?

I think the media is making it worse and sometimes even glamourises it by making the murderers somewhat heroes by slapping their photos on the front of newspapers. Broadcasting day after day about new stabbings makes people feel more unsafe and which therefore encourages kids to carry knives because they feel they have to.

People defend it by saying they carry weapons such as knives because it makes them feel safe - for protection.

But I would never stab someone, so I wouldn’t even think of carrying a weapon because it is completely pointless to me.

And how is this for irony in its crappest form:

Maybe we should ban kitchen cutlery and certain members of British society can rely on the government to cut their food for them because knives are obviously too dangerous to be left in civilian hands.

Well… I am now sitting back in my seat at work, with the weekend of craziness all over.

3 days of dance/electro music in Banbury, camping with no showers, trooping through the mud in wellingtons (gumboots) and dancing up a storm in the different music tents!

The first day’s weather was great but the second was a downpour. Lots of people reluctantly packed up their flooded flattened tents and left for home. This was our first proper UK festival and we were going to experience the festival in the wet and rainy weather, a stark contrast to festivals at home in blaring sunshine.

One thing I don’t understand about these types of festivals is why everyone needs to get so wasted out of their heads on drugs to enjoy themselves at a music event. Is the music that shit, that you can only listen to it whilst so whacked you can’t even remember your name? We’re indulgent beings I know. But one guy (who we later found out had two children) died in the same music tent as us this weekend. Anyone can take a dodgy pill and drop dead.

So now the drugs are in the media. The BBC are having a field day. So tragic for the family.

The French boy got invited into the tent next to us and went in to chat with them. There was every drug imaginable in their tent. One of the guys got them shipped in from Morocco and did the full on “lock stock and two smoking barrels” business. I heard a chick at 6am in the morning (in the same tent) speaking desperately and slowly… ”oh come on, just one more pill. no coke. nothing else i promise. just one more pill…”

me and alley grooving to music

these girls knew what they were doing

us grooving at the party bus

I won’t forget seeing Alley laughing/crying because she spilt wine in her eye. Funny moment.

I love the Camden Markets in London. Funk. Punk. Anything goes.

We went to the beach today, yes - the beach in winter - in the UK. Crazy? Yes. Dumb? No. It was much fun despite the icky weather. We jumped on the train to Brighton, which is located on the south coast of London (very popular with the Brits). As we got to the pier, my £3 umbrella couldnt withstand the wind/rain and turned inside out instantly and broke within a few seconds. It was rather hilarious in a strange way, the three of us being blown around like ragdolls.

After checking out the beach, we walked up through the many small lanes in Brighton filled with cute boutiquey stores (very different to the big department stores in London). Much better shopping in places like these, you can find stuff that’s unique. It’s so true what everyone warned me about before I moved to the UK about not converting the British pound back to what I would be spending in NZ dollars - it can be soul destroying. $15 for a pint of beer, no freakin way.

funky shops in brighton

We are staying with friends at the moment in Surrey and we are feeling very spoilt. They are a couple who live in a gorgeous yet quaint English home which is just a lovely place to be at around Xmas time when so far away from home. Inside is a christmas tree with charming decorations and beautiful lights and candles. Walking down the streets here appear almost picturesque. Our hosts tell us that a lot of the homes around this area are in the multi million dollar mark.

I love the xmas spirit in London, with the streets lit up with dazzling lights and intricate santa/elf displays. It gets dark here about 4pm but the gorgeous streets at night make up for it.

Nearly Xmas time, our first xmas away from home. We are hoping for a white one.

Well we are living it up here in Londontown. We’ve been here a few days now and have visited Big Benjamin, had a cuppa tea with the Queen and visited Westminster Abbey thanks to our friend and tour guide Kylie. Gotta love Kylie’s informative tour guide style - “well guys, this is Big Ben - it’s a really big clock” was about the extent of it.

Running in the rain was great fun and we went for our first pub grub meal and had jacket potato and cider mmmm. I can see why the UK have the pub lifestyle here - when it is cold outside and you see a warm and inviting pub, possibly even with its very own log fire and pub grub, how can one resist? It’s no wonder the Brits love em.

London is a beautiful old city, with an abundance of character. A lot less tacky than the streets of Hollywood. But hecticly busy.

We also officially hit our lowest point thus far. After landing in London, we went straight to a backpackers bar (one of those great ideas to have one drink that goes downhill quite quickly), drunk til all crazy hours of the morning, then jetlag suddenly kicked in, which was then followed by homelessness. With nowhere to sleep (and too early to check in to a hostel), our only choice seemed to be sleeping in the local library… in the kids section… which resulted in us getting kicked out. Slightly embarrassing.

Here is a photo of Alley “reading a book” with her eyes closed (we had 20 minute sessions each to keep watch for any scary librarians while the other was catching some Z’s)… we managed to get a bit of sleep to recover from our self-inflicted jetlag/hungoverness before being asked to leave. We are all class.

Hoping to catch up with my cousin from Iceland in the next few days.

Well its time to put our snuggly coats on and brave the cold. Wish me luck!

Sitting in an internet cafe on Hollywood Boulevard right now, before our flight to London today. I just gave the rest of my left over coins (which was quite a lot, but he needed it more than I did) to an old black homeless man in a wheelchair who opens the door for everyone who enters Starbucks for their coffee fix. He thanked me and whispered, “let the angels be with you always”…

It’s time for us to leave sunny crazy California and brave the streets of London for the next part of our adventure - and we are excited.