So, the woman sat next to me, who was going shopping with a couple of friends, went to try and persuade him to turn it down. Unsuccessfully, as it turned out. When it was my turn about ten minutes later, I approached the front of the bus, and ventured, "Excuse me, but could you turn the heating down a bit please." The miserable git sort of grunted a bit and muttered something about having already turned it down (despite the fact I could see the dial was still well into the red), but turned the dial towards the blue.
As I made my way back to me seat, the fans suddenly kicked in and a pleasant breeze engulfed me, and the other passengers cheered. Yes, that's right, THE WHOLE BUS CHEERED FOR ME. Well, alright, not quite the whole bus, but it was at least four people: the woman sat next to me, her two friends, and someone else. I was understandably very pleased with myself.
The other notable event on the bus was my first communication of the weekend from Mystery Complimenter, who wrote at 9.26 am:
"My halogen lights are jealous of your smile's ability to light up the room ... and never blow a fuse."
Excellent. Unfortunately I can't remember my reply now, but it was probably something to do with frozen peas, or in fact any supermarket product.
Oh, there was one more incident on the bus, involving my accidentally pushing a big red button marked "EMERGENCY STOP" whilst sat on the toilet, but you don't want to hear about that.
When I got to London I immediately headed off to the luxurious Hyde Park Inn, just thirty seconds' walk from Bayswater tube station, and a snip at £13 a night. Well, let's face it, I only needed somewhere to put my head down; I wasn't planning on spending any time in there.
I nearly didn't spend any time at all there, in fact, as I didn't have any photo ID on me, and they said all guests must have a passport or driving licence on them. Never mind that they never actually told me this in advance. It obviously wasn't that important, though, as apparently my debit card turned out to be enough.
Then for the rest of the day I wandered aimlessly around London taking photos of things. It was pretty overcast, though, so the light was shit and everything came out too dark. Hence I have played around with the brightness and contrast on half of these photos and created some interesting effects.
St Paul's Cathedral, the Tate Modern and
the view from the wobbly Millenium Bridge
Photos taken from the South Bank
I never really knew very much about the South Bank, and had no idea it was such a rundown area in the past. Then the residents of Coin St got together and made a big fuss about all the ugly developments that were being built there and basically took over, creating open and green spaces as well as nice looking buildings. There's an exhibition you can go and look at under the OXO Tower.
The OXO is a great building. In the 1920s the company that made OXO wanted to stick neon lights up advertising their product. The advertising laws, however, wouldn't allow them, so they found a cunning way around it. They scrapped the neon lights and designed a "geometrical pattern" for the windows, which just happened to look like it spelt "OXO". Ingenious.
These last two are, unsurprisingly, the same thing. It's a big colourful ampersand, basically, in a courtyard under the OXO Tower, and reminded me of the old 1980s Channel 4 logo. Below left is a wall of that courtyard which had some writing on it. I just thought it looked quite interesting. Next to that, though, is the best and most childish graffiti I have ever seen.
The compulsory Millenium Wheel photo
and St Martin's Theatre
As you can see, The Mousetrap, the Agatha Christie play, is still bloody going after 53 years, being as it is the longest running production in the world. When will it ever end?
International Falun Gong Day and Trafalgar Square
I saw a couple of people earlier in the day protesting against China's persecution of Falun Gong opposite the Chinese Embassy, and thought it was a person. I had thought to go and ask them what it was about, but chickened out. Later, though, I saw a colourful gathering near Trafalgar Square and picked up one of the newspapers they were giving out.
In fact, Falun Gong is a type of Qigong, which are meditation exercises. I still haven't read about it properly, but Google it, and I'm sure you can learn more about why China persecutes its practitioners.
Morris dancers and balloon poodles
Wandering up to the Strand I encountered some morris dancers who were having a bit of a competition, with teams invited from all over the country. Oh yes, and someone with a big horse's head on a stick.
The other three pictures here are of a street performer in Covent Garden, who basically spent the whole time playing tricks on passers by. Here you see him about to trick a young girl into kissing him on the lips, and stamping on a balloon poodle he had made and offered to an even younger girl.
The third one is of the three people he dragged out of the audience, who he had perform a ridiculous play involving a damsel in distress and lots of imaginary mindless violence. Brilliant.
Sahara Nights
And here are the pictures of the Sahara Trek reunion. The first picture only is in the bar Sahara Nights - after that we moved onto somewhere else. So, Chrissie, Hannah and Teresa sitting upstairs and leaning against a glass wall that moved everytime you touched it, and Teresa again acting her shoe size.
Dancing in the place we moved onto, the name of which I can't remember.
Gareth on the left, Geoff on the right.
Stephen and Gareth, and Michelle and her sister.
And finally, Stephen looking rather dashing, if I might say so.
All in all, a rather typical drunken night out, with the exception of the person who shall remain nameless, who asked me if I was gay. As I said to said person, it didn't really bother me, and it wasn't the first time someone had asked, but the answer's no.
Sunday morning I went for a run in Hyde Park, or at least what I thought was Hyde Park. Turns out it was Kensington Gardens. A very interesting run, and an experience that everyone should undergo once, and only once. Everybody does laps of the park, and there is a track worn through the grass verge alongside each path. Bizarre exercise on an industrial scale, albeit a cottage industrial scale.
Breakfast in Hyde Park Inn was another such "only do it once" experience. It was basically a free-for-all in the smallest kitchen in the world. I somehow managed to get hold of a plastic bowl for my corn flakes, but most were making do with polystyrene cups.
Then the cleaner came down and started shouting at everyone in the kitchen to get on with it and clear out of the kitchen and clear out of their rooms as she had a job to do. This was when there was still at least half an hour of breakfast remaining and a good hour before the deadline for checking out of rooms.
I had arranged to meet some joinees in the park (that's Hyde Park) for a spot of poi and juggling, and was meeting them at Hyde Park Corner tube station. Hyde Park, I thought. Hyde Park Inn. Hyde Park Corner. Walking distance, surely.
No. Particularly not with a heavy rucksack and an unfamiliar labyrinth of a park to get through. And particularly not when that labyrinth of a park unexpectedly turns out to be two parks. At one point I left Kensington Gardens, realised from the big maps they have that I was only just entering Hyde Park, and headed off in what seemed like the correct direction. A few minutes later I passed another map advertising the fact that I had somehow doubled back and re-entered Kensington Gardens.
So, an hour and a half later I arrived, exhausted, at Hyde Park Corner tube station. I was still a bit eary, so I went off looking for some food for lunch (and some for breakfast, as that had not exactly been filling after a 45 minute run). I wandered down the road, and opposite Harrod's I discovered...
...THE WORST SAINSBURY'S IN THE UNIVERSE!
Yes, that's right, a Sainsbury's Local. And not just any Sainsbury's Local. This was a Sainsbury's Local For Posh People. Everything was pre-washed, packaged and chopped, because we wouldn't want any of the posh people to have to do anything like rinse their salad before eating it, would we? Anyway, within The Worst Sainsbury's In The Universe, I discovered...
...THE WORST BANANAS IN THE UNIVERSE!
They somehow managed to be soggy, slimy, unripened, hard and tasteless, all at the same time. Of course, I only bought these bananas and a big bottle of water because there was nothing worth having for lunch, and I didn't actually try and eat any of them until I got back to the park. Well, that's my moan about The Worst Sainsbury's In The Universe over with.
Joinee Kate JJM (Joinee Jessie's Mum) was also an early turner, so she shall go down in the annals of history as the first Joinee whom Joinee Hatchard ever met. Must be nice for her. And she was nice too. We sat near the gate for a little while, and then tried the tube station to see who else was there. Joinee Sweeney had already arrived, a very tall joinee who likes to quote sketch shows even more than I. With him was Joinee Itch It To Scratch It, a delightful chap.
So, we got some lunch from the station shop, and headed off to find somewhere to sit in the park. Soon we were joined by Joinee Phillips, manager of Devizes Town on the marvellous, yet slightly sad, itsagoal.com. After a little while I received the second text of the weekend from Mystery Complimenter, and it went thus:
"When your nose hair catches the light, it makes your face sparkle like a thousand FA Cups... Erm, whereabouts in the park are you lot?"
[ENGAGING SMUG MODE]
Oh yes. I was right. Mystery Complimenter had revealed herself to be Joinee Bing. How the smegging hell had I guessed that?
Soon we were joined by Joinees Bing, Westy and Hinton, and eventually Joinee Rufous and a non-joinee who had decided to just join in with anyone in the park doing poi. He ended up playing card games with us as well, so that must have been a bonus for him.
It was a beautiful and sunny day, so we never got to go to The Cock (official Join Me pub) before I left in the late afternoon, which was a slight disappointment. I come across it on Saturday morning whilst wandering aimlessly through some back streets near Oxford Street. I started to think to myself, "I wonder if The Cock is around here somewhere," and then I turned the corner and lo, there it was. Didn't go in though, expecting as I was to manage a cheeky pint in there on Sunday before leaving.
Very odd experience, though, all in all. I knew many of these people by name from the forum on t'Internet, and I hadn't really expected to ever make the effort to meet them, so it was all a bit bizarre. Here's some pictures, anyway, of lots of poi, a bit of playing with some wayward children, and tree climbing.
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