The Game Is Aloof!!

THURS 26/4 - WEDS 3/5

London here I come

London probably always greets a first time visitor with soggy rain and I am not spared. It poured down the minute I peeked outside the tube station at Heathrow and I just chuckled. Something will probably always go wrong on your first day of traveling and I am not spared there either. I did not just leave my finger prints and soul with United States Homeland Security in the land of the free. American Airways has left my luggage, my entire possessions for the next six months, in sodding LA. So I have (fingers crossed that they’ll own up) NZ$1500 to burn on shampoo and conditioner. Or a Burberry trench coat.

Riding around the tube I feel incredibly comfortable here. My experience of being in a country/city for a first time is that people just stare at you and look you up and down as if to just make sure that you know you’re fresh off the boat. People just leave you alone here and get on with their lives – which is quite refreshing for me. Every time I turn around there is a different language being spoken (except for ‘Straalian) ; there’s no one dominant group or whatever. No one’s too weird or too normal, no one’s really more important or less important than anyone else. I am already questioning two well known notions: 1) Britain is a classed society 2) London is full of Kiwis and Aussies

I love watching the industrial-era brick buildings go by in the window. The worned and weathered look of these petite and clustered dwellings always brings me to think of Sherlock Holmes’s late night outings to investigate scenes of crime and mystery amongst the alley ways and dark corners of this opportunist city.

Wendy greets me at Moorgate – she looked so happy and glowing, with that head full of red locks. I think it’s the beer. There’s literally a pub every ten meters here, but they seem to be able to get lots done despite. Must resist. Mmm a Burberry trench coat….

Hackney and the Likes

Wendy and Deno lives in an apartment in Hackney. It’s an extremely multicultural suburb – mostly Turkish and Carribean, but really it is a town of the world. There’s a big mosque just 20 meters from here, the restaurant actually have REAL Turkish food in bainmaries and not roast duck kebabs, and a daily fresh market that’s pretty much like the ones in South East Asia. It is slightly rough and the shops are slightly dodgy. Its almost like living in 6 developing countries at one time, I absolutely love it.

Wendy and Deno are doing really well for themselves. Wendy is a librarian at a law firm, and she is my new mum. . Feeds me, clothes me (re lost luggage), and works me hard on the tourist trail and introduces me to really interesting Londoners where possible. Deno summarises media articles by night and writes his novel by day. He’s still working on the Harriet novel that he was just starting when I met him seven years ago, but it is finishing, I can see it!!

A Ponder

Could it be that I am lost in the Bastion of the Anglo-Saxon Civilisation? I already know so much about Britain through pop culture and literature, but when one actually gets telegraphically transmitted straight in the middle of it, it can be an incredibly strange experience. It is almost surreal to be able to read the HARDCOPY version of the Guardian (now in Berliner size, for ease on the Tube) and the Observer on the breakfast table. Before this I get a “Cut Out” or “quote” in the SMH. And hearing British rock and pop being blasted out of the radio, and thinking, yeah, its made right here, here in London on the ground I stand on, and that it was immortalized before I even heard it on the other side of the world. I look at the map of central London and I see the Monopoly board game I first saw when I was five or six. Piccadilly Circuit, Pall Mall, Waterloo Station, Mayfair Street (where I did-in Christian and Lunako in last June and Aunty Gina in 1989, Mum in 1988), Trafalgar Square, Oxford Street. And so the realisation that Sydney’s is in fact a complete rip-off of London.

Touristy Stuff


- Wendy took me on the Jack the Ripper Tour with a historian/author on the subjects that has a corse sense of black humour. I highly recommend it.
- The Monument (big spiral tower to commemorate the Great Fire of London)
- Borough food markets
- Camden Markets
- Sherlock Holmes Museum @ 221b Baker Street - so much fun!!
- Big Ben; Westminster Abby;
- Parl House (some one got run over infront of it the day I was there, utter chaos so can't watch the Lords in full swing... next time...)
- 10 Downing Street - what's a political junky without visiting here. Except I only made it to the gate.

Clubbing in Soho

Wendy does work me hard. After a full on day of sight seeing I was done up and rushed to Soho for her colleague’s birthday. Every body is happy and mellow here in Soho, despite the arrays of public signage all over train stations and buses saying “aggression won’t be tolerated” and “assaults on staff will be dealt with accordingly”. What are they talking about? Two wines, a beer, a pink cum like shot and a mojito later I am half dead with three toes missing, and Wendy and I managed to avoid being followed home by these Algerians, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!!

Beaching in Brighton

We went to Brighton on Sunday but I am not going to be able to write much because I was on a really bad hang over. It is a really pretty beach, despite not having any sand and the water being freezing, people sunbathing in jeans – I think it’s the stripy deck chairs at 1.50 pounds a pop and the ice cream vendors. They did call this the hottest April in 300 years tho. Highlights: Pimms, the gorgeous little lanes and grand Edwardian buildings lining the coast. Lowlights: stale pub meal and the tacky pier.

Turning Englishnese

If I was English I would say that real English food is all you can eat vegetarian curry for 3 quid, then followed by a beer at the pub cheering on Chelsea. (Deno selected my club for me, no choice there.) And then the next day I joined Wendy's social football (NOT SOCCER U EEEJIOT!!) team & score the first goal for my side. Never woulda thought I was a team kinda person.

I think I’m slowly but surely turning English – I say words like “loads” and “roorrrnchy”, genuinely upset about Prince William and Kate Middleton’s tragic breakup, and can spot a Chav in a mile. Yes I really think so.

p.s. There's a pub every ten meters.

pic 1 - me at Big Ben

pic 2 - Me, Deno and Wendy fooling around at the pub - Chelsea vs Liverpool game so Deno was a bit absorbed. Just don't mention the score!!

pic 3 - me and one of the inspectors at Sherlock's place

pic 4 - Hari Krishna parade at Picadilly Circus

pic 5 - My soccer team