London Observations
In 2001 I went to London to work on a project for KPMG. I was lucky enough to be traveling with another person from my office, Sharon, who was a real sanity saver. After a somewhat crazed roam around London over the Easter weekend Sharon and I came up with the following observations on London.
1. Don't believe all you read in tourist brochures; London Wall is not a wall - it is a road; 'The Tube' is not a tube - it is a train; a weather forecast that says 'fine weather' still means freakin' cold!!!
2. Fluorescent vegetables in supermarkets have far less flavour than their colour would otherwise suggest.
3. Non-fluorescent vegetables do not exist.
4. You pay extra for the privilege of having fluorescent elements in a vegetable.
5. Salt is not a flavour. Neither is butter. No matter how much you put on things.
6. You can never have too many TV documentaries about the royal family on any given night.
7. You can never see too many editions of the news in between TV documentaries on the royal family in any given night.
8. A waste disposal unit (oooh, don't have one of these at home!) is a one-way blender, and if the documentary on the royal family is a repeat, almost passes for entertainment. Especially if you have nice leftovers with fluro vegetable chunks that blend to produce white light as they spin round on the way down.
9. When you accidentally catch the train to Cockfoster in the Northern Hemisphere, it's surprisingly funny. (It's not at all funny when you're in the Southern Hemisphere - but then, Australians would never name a place 'Cockfoster'.)
10. When you are on the train to Cockfoster and get the giggles, you sometimes feel like you're in a Benny Hill episode and have to do a silly run and hum the 'Dah-dah da-da-da' Benny Hill theme song as you do your silly run.
11. This is unavoidable if you are traveling with a fellow Australian.
12. Locals do not seem to understand the Australian sense of humour.
13. Which is odd: Benny Hill laughs at Cockfoster; Locals laugh at Benny Hill; but not, it seems, at good humoured Australians on the Tube (which is really a train) appreciating Benny Hill and doing a silly run, maybe humming, and obviously simply enjoying 'The London Atmosphere'.
14. A Black Cab is like the Tardis, but built by someone who forgot to include the time-travel buttons. Anything that big on the inside should not fit down a one-chariot-wide alley. Ever.
15. When you witness a Black Cab doing a U-turn down a one-chariot-wide alley, you are tempted to slap one of those stickers on it that says, 'Magic happens' and write 'here' in it - just to clarify for other passers-by who my not immediately recognize the miracle.
16. You are also reminded that a huge percentage of London cab drivers are unlicensed.
17. And possibly blind.
18. When you travel through 4 countries in 40 hours, and you go through many, many duty-free shops and you are traveling with $600 of excess luggage, you may decide that cheap yet heavy-to-carry alcohol, while attractive, is not a priority purchase right now.
19. When you travel through 40 suburbs in 4 hours in sleet and don't find a single supermarket, you will live to regret that decision.
20. When you eventually give up, you will find a 24 hour quickie mart with tinned tuna in thousand island dressing, tinned soup, bruised fluro vegies. . . and alcohol.
21. Advanced stages of starvation can cause you to reassess the five food groups, and it is quite likely that vodka will be recategorised into at least one of the five.
