ANZAC Day Weekend Photos

Photos from top row, left to right: Adelaide Cemetery; ANZAC Memorial Dawn Service outside Villers Brettoneux; Same; ANZAC Memorial upon arrival at 5am; Me after the Dawn Service (freezing); Me at Villers Brettoneux City Hall (note the kangaroo cutouts); Villers Bretoneux restaurant where we had breakfast after Dawn Service; Example of Villers Brettoneux streetsign; Villers Brettoneux Community Service; French Honour Gaurd; Me and "Bluey"; Villers Brettoneux main street; Entering into the Community Hall for the concert after the service; Inside the town's Community Hall; Windmills Memorial; Thiepval British Memorial Arch; Amien with Cathedral in background

ANZAC Day Weekend In France

I don't have the verbal cutlery to adequately dissect for you the five-course banquet that is my stupidity as a traveller. I used to bristle at such a notion, but I've finally accepted this as a sad but immutable facet of my being. By all known laws of logic and probability I should've been run over, arrested, mugged, raped, swindled out of everything bar my underpants, frozen to a man-shaped popsicle or been eaten by something large and toothy many times by now. Why? Simply put, I'm about as observant as a sloth on Qualudes and my mind operates at roughly the same pace (which would also partly explain why I'm so teeth-clenchingly bad at verbal communication compared to my written vents).

As it is, I've so far managed to survive numerous travel episodes afflicted by things nothing more life-threatening than frigid Zodiac rides through mountainous Antarctic seas, hitching late-night rides home through the deserted French countryside with a garbage truck driver, missing an important (*insert transport mode here*) and having to adjust all further plans accordingly, or walking past the place I'm looking for three times before my turgid brain slowly realises what my eyes are telling it - like a caveman slowly realising the noise that's making his head hurt is coming from the rock wall constantly colliding with his forehead as he tries to walk through it.

This doesn't, however, mean that all my travel mishaps are self-inflicted. Far from it. Take the start of this weekend, for example. After waking at 6:00am and going out into the streets of Paris to ask at info kiosks where my ANZAC Day tour group's meeting place (Rue Tronchet was located), I was still asking mystified, map-scanning officials at 8:00am. Seeing as we were supposed to be picked up at Rue Tronchet at 8:45am, I decided to go for option 2 on the itinerary sheet - the Hotel Magellan, where the upper crust tour attendees had toughed it out for a night with their silk sheets and foot-washing coolies.

Ok, maybe the Magellan wasn't that luxurious, but it's five stars was a world away from my feculent hostel lodgings near Gare du Nord. The Friends Hostel (alarm bells should've been ringing when I saw the name, but no, this is Sloth Boy here) was located near Gare du Nord, would've fallen down if someone ran up the stairs and was one of those places surrounded by streets full of loitering, ever-present, leather-jacket-sporting Algerian and Moroccan males standing in clumps, apparently existing on conversation and Camels alone and calling out to the Prada-wearing honeys pulling up at the traffic lights on their gourmet Vespas.

But I digress. After reaching the Magellan at 9am following the usual Paris Metro Fun-For-The-Non-French-Speaking-Tourist hijinks (with 15 minutes to spare according to the itinerary) the lobby staff informed me in impeccable Englais that the tour company had changed the itinerary 48 hours earlier and informed only those staying at the Magellan. And that they'd all been picked up half an hour ago.

Ahhh Paris. My nemesis. A city that lives solely on bread and pastries, with other bits of food inserted as an afterthought (I challenge anyone to find a breakfast in Paris that doesn't contain gluten). A city of stupendous architecture and even more stupendous hairstyles. A city that's picked me off before (City of Love my *ss), and which now, like the evil sniper it really is, had zeroed in on me trying to slink out before it noticed I was even there. The evil b*tch.

Numerous phone calls from the Magenta lobby saw me scrambling back towards my starting point to the tour company's offices like a half-*ssed contestant in The Amazing Race. The tour company staff were, of course, unapologetic, but made up for it by paying for a train to Amiens for me to meet up with the tour group by 11am. Oh, and for sending me to the station with an uber-friendly, half-French, half-Cuban stunner named Yvette to ensure I got on the right trains and to smooth the way with the ticket-vendors, the security staff and basically any male within a 2-block radius of us.

In all seriousness (I can accurately recount this because I'm a taken man and was trying not to think about losing over $1700-worth of weekend tour), male drivers would slow down and drift all over the road, craning their necks back at Yvette nattering away to me as we walked, looking like Ekka ping-pong-ball clowns as they passed us. Gangster-chic Algerian youths would walk past, all swagger and bluster momentarily forgotten, muttering wide-eyed exclamations under their breath as if the Virgin Mary had just descended from heaven in front of them to catch the Number 3 line to Gare du Nord.

She even batted her eyelashes at a mountainous security guard (I'm sure I saw him in Lord of the Rings) who wasn't going to let me onto the TGV platform because I didn't have my Metro ticket. Which Yvette had also paid for and which I'd turfed as soon as we'd brought the TGV ticket to Amiens, thinking I didn't need it. Sensing a pattern with me here? Needless to say, the security cave-troll was reduced to gormless grinning and fawning under the megawatt glare of Yvette's smile, and I was allowed on the train, finally en route to meeting my tour group with a big hug and good luck wishes from Yvette (prompting a conductor to nearly fall onto the tracks and lose his clipboard). What a start to the weekend.

The rest went fairly smoothly. After I met the group in Villers Brettoneux and clambered on the bus we went to Adelaide Cemetery and to the WW1 Museum just outside town (excellent), had lunch there, then checked into the hotel up the road in Abbeville. Being around so many Australian accents again made my head swim a little bit, but I met a nice trio of mid-40's Australian couples at dinner that night. Of course it was our little group who outlasted everyone and stayed up til midnight drinking the local plonk when we had a 3am wakeup call for the Dawn Service the next day. Smart.

The Dawn Service itself was good, 4000+ people, nice setting, got a bit cold towards the end but was bearable. I checked every name on the walls to see if any ancestors were listed, but nothing. Apparently I was shown live on Australian tv as the cameras panned the crowd, so now that I've made the Big Time I will be getting a lackey named Spotswood to write future entries for me.

Following the Dawn Service we went back into little Villers Brettoneux and waited around for the town's own service in honour of the ANZACs saving their town in an epic night attack (look up the story if you don't know it, it's a corker). I wandered across the little park to where I thought the ceremony might be happening and ended up being front-and-centre behind the speaker's lectern just outside the fence and within spitting distance of the monument - right in the midst of the action. Could see myself in the reflection on the boots of the RAAF commander. Beautiful little ceremony, short, attended by all the higher-ups who did the Dawn Service, wonderfully green and lush surroundings. Just a nice, heartfelt little ceremony. And finishing any ceremony with the French national anthem is bound to put a spring in everyone's step.

From there we went to the Le Grand Mine, or Lochnagan, which is the hole left by the biggest mine exploded in the entire war (100m across, 30m deep, heard in London) out near La Boiselle, which was kind of eerie. Then off to a number of other memorials to the Aussies near Pozieres - the "Gibraltar" blockhouse, the First Division Memorial etc. Also the Second Division Memorial at "Windmills", where the ANZACs got the utter tripe shelled out of them (to this day still the heaviest shelling any Australian military force has ever been subjected to) and suffered our heaviest losses ever.

We also visited Thiepval, which has a mammoth arch by the British commemorating their lost situated in a wonderful planted thicket of trees that turn the light green. Thiepval also had an outstanding museum with a free searchable online database where I found a Bartholomaeus buried in Courcelle and a Bunt (my mother's family name) in Ypres cemetery.

It was here in this museum at Thiepval where it all "hit" for the first time. I'm pretty up-to-date with most every detail about the two World Wars, being a bit of a history fanatic of sorts, so sometimes it's hard for me to get myself into the "what it was like to be there", transcendental mindset. But one of the black-and-white movies showing grinning, skylarking ANZAC troops marching to the front lines for the first day of the Somme offensive made my hair stand on end. Because one of the men on the outside line closest to the cameraman, walking past in slow-motion with a fag in his mouth and his sleeves rolled up, looked almost exactly like my father when he was young (g'day Dad) - I mean it really looked like I was watching Dad walk past on the screen. And immediately following him was a younger bloke, blonde, also smiling, cheekily tipping his helmet to the camera, who looked almost exactly like a guy I went to school with in Longreach, Vance Baker. Again, I couldn't see any differences. My jaw hit the floor and the lady sitting beside me cast a wary glance my way.

The next few scenes showing the utter insanity of the Somme offensive and the entire sorry fiasco that was the war made the impression stick even more, somehow. Young guys in those same uniforms clambering up crumbling, sliding trench walls, staggering forward one or two paces, getting their balance, then jerking and falling out of sight. Others gaining the top, turning around towards the camera, reaching with one hand to help a guy below them and suddenly becoming not even human anymore, just a limp store dummy dropping like a bag of meat with their heads smacking into the dirt at the top of the trench with that horrible speed that tells you there's no muscle control there at all, because there's no-one inside anymore. No big Hollywood arms-out, face-contorted, back-arched theatrics, just instant limpness like their bones have suddenly dissolved, and that sickening drop to the ground. The unbelievable contrast between those scenes and the ones immediately before, of the happy marching shots of "Dad" and "Vance", provided all the contrast and the reality check I needed.

Sunday we spent in Amiens, at the huge Cathedral and wandering the even-huger Sunday markets (no I didn't buy anything - an antique chair won't fit in my backpack and a Russian Red Army tank-driver's helmet isn't much use where I'm going). Lunch was had at a nifty little French bar and then we made our way back to Paris in the bus and went our separate ways. I eventually made my way back here to London for one last night via the now-obligatory British "About-As-Enjoyable-As-A-Red-Hot-Poker-Up-The-Rectum" Airways debacle (delayed, surly service, oldest plane I've ever flown in shaking like a reggae band at a Klan rally) and I've since started packing and washing for the next leg of my journeys, starting tomorrow afternoon.

I've got not idea when I'll next be able to write another entry on here, but rest assured I'll be taking snaps and attempting to write down the highlights of each day as they happen, so I'll have something for you all next time, at least. Unless I lose my camera and notebook. Or wallet. Or my way. Should be right :p

FAREWELL TO YE OLDE LONDINIUM

(Left to Right, top to bottom) - Keith, our resident eccentric Planner who's been everywhere in the world; Farewell drinks with friends at The Woolpack; My office in Croydon; Farewell lunch with workmates at The Green Dragon, Croydon; Luke, the other Aussie recruited direct from Oz; Wendy, our Kiwi Enviro Planner; Tom, our Chelsea-worshipping, Slayer-loving team Admin officer; Farewell drinks with workmates at The Green Dragon

FAREWELL TO YE OLDE LONDINIUM

Time, ladies and gentlemen. The Grey Havens Experiment is almost finito. It's turned out to be somewhat shorter than first expected, but I got what I came for. After nearly 15 years of wanting to live and work in London, I've tried it (in a very unusual, historic time, too), got some international experience in my field and learnt something of what it's like to be a Londoner. That's all I needed, in the end.

So, how would I sum up the experience? Well, London's far from my perfect conurbation by a long way. The things that make London less than an ideal place for me to live wouldn't change a bit with a few more sunny days, a few more people in the parks and a few more festivals, so I'm really not too fussed about missing "summer" here, for example. But it hasn't been all bad food and teeth-gnashingly-miserable weather. Hows abouts I summarise the highs and lows of Londinium after 8 months "on the ground" - I'll start with the rubbish aspects of it all so I can finish on a high:

THINGS I WON'T MISS

- Croydon Payroll and HR departments - I can confidently say that I have never, in my entire 34 years, been f*cked around by any institution as completely and effectively as by these two departments. Ever. Full-stop. I was but a small wave of reason and indignation breaking futilely against their vast cliffs of indifference, ineptitude and hostility. I'm almost 100% sure they were all trained by Soviet bureaucrats from the 1950's. Thanks for nothing. Literally - their incompetence left me with a final pay cheque of zero pounds, zero pence. Nothing like working for free for a whole month. Happy days.

- London's Pedestrians - Maybe it's because they're such a polite, well-mannered society that they walk like angry-yet-coordinated drunks. All that repressed aggression has to be expressed somehow. And what better way than to make like a front-rower hitting it up on the first tackle when you're walking to and from work? They walk faster than New Yorkers and sidestep as often as a rhinoceros. Do not play Chicken with a London pedestrian. You will lose.

- Inefficiency - Nothing, and I do mean nothing, works as well as it should. I've had it lucky in Brisbane. Utilities, public transport, banks, phone companies, the Internet - in London they're all hamstrung by more rules, regulations, guidelines and laws than you or I could read in a year, by staff who think initiative means shaking off after they're finished at the trough / who act like the rest of their organisation is an enemy state, and by assets that suffer from the "efficiency maximisation" ethic (ie. getting half-*ssed contractors to do things as cheaply, and therefore as shoddily, as possible). All of this in a rich Western country with a huge GDP, access to the pinnacles of modern technology and equipment and (most importantly) some of the slickest and best advertising in the world that sets you up with sky-high expectations that everything should, and will, work smoothly for you at all times. Which is, of course, an utter load of sh*t.

- Lifestyle - I've mentioned this before. Words like "sedentary", "drinking every day", "entertain me" and "jaded" sum it all up. Oh, and the fact that Londoners eat more cr*p than a German porn star also gives me the irrits as well.

- Ugly Contemporary Architecture - Slowly encroaching on London's surviving architectural triumphs like a horrible grey species of fungus are swathes of buildings that look like they were designed either during an epileptic fit or after three too many Valiums. Sweet jesus, but there's some horrifyingly ugly new stuff here. Croydon seems to have more than it's fair share. Let's see, in a grey, overcast city we're aiming to brighten things up a bit and show the world how forward-thinking and creative we are, so lets build ..... a rectangular apartment tower out of grey concrete with no balconies or other colours!! Eureka!! Capital idea, old chap!

- Sports "Coverage" - Soccer. Rugby. Cricket. Tennis. Formula 1 Racing if Lewis Hamilton/Jensen Button are winning. That's it. No other sports are played anywhere on the planet according to the UK media.

- Hate to be sound like I've become a stereotype, but yes, the weather sucks. Cue shocked gasps. Not really a big deal, but I can't stand how much it impacts on the populace here. I'm solar-powered myself, but Jesus H Christ, get over it people. There's only so much whining I can listen to before it starts bringing me down as well. Tip: If your news outlets consistently lead with the weather as their top story over, say, thousands of job layoffs or the war in Afghanistan, you know there's a problem with your national psyche.

THINGS I WILL MISS

- Manners - Errr, having blasted London's pedestrians above I will say this - if you actually do collide with one of them while they hurtle about their ambulatory business, they'll apologise, even if it was their fault, without fail. Even if it's sometimes said with a withering look that would incinerate an Eastern European coffee-shop worker's icy demeanour. This politeness seems to extend across the social strata here - old, young, male, female, gang member, businessman, it doesn't matter, they all automatically apologise. Sometimes it's almost as if the apology is out of their mouth before their brain has registered that I was the one who wasn't looking where I was going, like a verbalised burp. I've been barged by a vicious-angry-looking 6'8" Afro-Carib guy bedecked in gold jewellery and an eye-watering polyester tracksuit and turned around expecting to be dodging a blade or a fist the size of a Christmas ham. Instead I was gently asked if I was alright and showered with lashings of apologies - the guy was almost salaaming me. Ahhh yes, it's going to be tough coming back to Australia and putting up with the aggressiveness of all those call-centre operators and female Hyundai drivers and the gladiatorial competitive humour Aussie males seem to so desperately need to make themselves feel like real men. Did I just say that? Ooo. You all know it's true.

- The History - I've already gotten all moony-eyed over this aspect of London in a previous entry here, so I'll refrain from going on about it again and inspiring you to click back to that side-splittingly-amusing YouTube video of the dog pulling it's owner's pants down while your boss is at a meeting. Suffice it to say that, if you're a history buff (tick) and have more than a passing interest in urban areas (tick), London's ability to wear all its eras on its sleeve simultaneously can be fascinating.

- Unexpected opportunities and places - aye, there's a few of 'em in London. Guess you get that in a city that's been occupied and growing higgledy-piggledy for over two thousand consecutive years and has 7.4 million people living here hailing from all over the world.

- Public transport - Yes, it takes a minimum of 45 minutes to get as far as a 45-minute walk would take you, and sometimes the delays are so bad you start contemplating taking a change of clothes, a cut lunch, a toiletry bag and a pillow with you on your next trip to Waterloo or Oxford Street, but at least the public transport network actually goes pretty much everywhere. Unlike Brisbane, where you also have a choice between rush-hour trains that look like they're on their way to Auschwitz or the Tokyo CBD, buses driven like either electric wheelchairs or Paris-to-Dakar vehicles by hot-tempered new immigrants that arrive 25 minutes later than scheduled and 5 minutes after you've missed the start of your interview, and ferries that can take you anywhere you want - as long as it's along the river. I won't even deign to lower myself to mention Sydney's system. Drug deal with a side order of graffiti, anyone? I'll take London's transport network over either Brisbane's or Sydney's any day.

- The view from the front door of my gym every morning - Sounds a little strange, to be sure, but seeing the Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, the Egg building, the Gherkin, HMAS Belfast and the Thames all in front of me as I emerge in the pre-dawn light every morning before the tourists sullied the view was a pretty damn fine way to start the day.

- The Jamaican "Big Issue" seller/ storyteller on the London Bridge Station overpass - this tall, rangy Rasta dude sat on the overpass every second morning with his pile of magazines for sale, loudly telling a stream-of-consciousness story to the passers-by in his rich, slow Jamaican voice. Thing was, he was incorporating the passers-by into his story, telling our stories as he saw them in our faces, clothes, walk, etc. He was always cheeky and made me grin like a gimp for far too long afterwards, so that as I rounded the corner to enter the station the wave of commuters coming out would just see me, alone, no phone to my ear, with a foolish smile all over my mug for no apparent reason. Example: A woman walking towards me as I approached Big Issue dude would pass him first, and the story would change to something like "...and de woman in de red jacket, she be late for work al-ready, she look stressed, mebbe she has a co-worker she likes dat she don't want to disappoint, we ALLLLL been dere, but" (as I pass her and near him) "de tall guy here, he see her every day on dis bridge, he in a hurry too, but I t'ink mebbe it be a hurry to see de red jacket lady, 'coz she fine, and he only human".... and on it would go with the next person, and the next, and the next. Funny stuff some mornings.

So there you go. Overall grade for my time in London - D+. On Thursday I'm off to France on the Eurostar for the ANZAC Day weekend, back here for one night on Monday, then I'm off travelling for a bit. Will attempt to write another blog entry or three about my experiences from the road in the coming months. Hope this finds you all well, wherever you are :)

PHOTOS FROM THE BRIXTON BBQ & THE HOUSE OF LORDS EVENT

Scott, Caroline from Positive TV and I

Solicitor who was one of the Top 100 Thinkers in the world, me and the banker (no, I can't remember their names now - you all know how rubbish I am with names)

Mid-activity in the Thames Terrace

In the Chelmondeley Room

Lord Laird MC'ing

The Thames Terrace (our table in foreground, Will Travers CEO of Born Free Foundation on extreme right of shot)

Edward de Bono (with one of the House of Lords staff in the background)

One of our activities - every second person round the table got a tiny cup of rice for lunch, while everyone else got the full three courses. The activity was to see how each table dealt with the inequalities. Here's me divvying up my dessert stockpile with the banker so that he didn't invade my territory in a war over resources.

DJ on the roof of the commune house, Brixton

Brixton commune house, bbq in full swing

Scotty discussing photography and hat-wearing

More rooftop relaxation

EASTER BLOG: HIPPIES, THE HOUSE OF LORDS, BOUNCERS AND BODY PARTS

Happy Easter, all. From what I've been hearing from everyone, just about the entire human race went camping somewhere / travelled somewhere / did something interesting and out of the ordinary with their mates. I expect nothing less, of course.

I know that saying this will inspire a chorus of "Screw you, you're in London, whingerboy"-type reactions, but I'm genuinely envious. I did nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nul. Sweet FA. I sort of had plans, but, to my complete and utter lack of surprise, they fell through on me. This is London, after all. Of course getting out of town wasn't going to happen. Cash - soaked up by my imminent journey. Friends - busy or gone or piked. Weather - raining. (**Cue World's Smallest Violin playing just for Matt**)

In all seriousness though, I was aching to escape for the weekend because the place has lost the ability to make me feel anything at all. I'm no longer frustrated to within an inch of slamming my nose in the door deliberately by all London's false promises and pedantry and Second-World failings like I have been. And the fun times have been far, far too sporadic to make a dent in the overall "whatever"-ness of the place either. Instead, day-to-day life in the Twilight Kingdom makes me feel like a character out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald story. I struggle to even write entries in this blog at the moment because of the general feeling of "blehhh" this place inspires in me.

So, after a weekend of involuntary solitude and consequent musings, I've concluded that, to enjoy living in London, you'd need four basic things:

(a) Extremely low expectations
(b) A job you enjoy and/or that involves working with people around your own age or who at least share an interest with you
(c) A decent amount of disposable income, and
(d) The ability to make friends quickly and easily.

Funnily enough, I strike out on all four counts, particularly (d). I've always had a mild disdain for people who can scamper over to a stranger mentally squealing "Ooo they look interesting!" to themselves, strike up a conversation about god-knows-what fluff and walk away with a new friend. I used to tell myself such people were mildly desperate and flighty and couldn't possibly build meaningful relationships with these new people they ensnared, but then I realised I was probably hating on them because I'm completely incapable of connecting with anyone new myself unless they make a monumental effort or there's a mutual friend involved, and even then I struggle badly. Substandard social and conversation skills, y'know? Hence the writing. And London without friends, as everyone knows, is about as much fun as going to a party at the Playboy Mansion and getting stuck washing the dishes all night.

But, to get to the tag-line of this entry, it hasn't all been mind-numbing dullness. The week leading up to Easter had some thoroughly-unexpected points of interest.

I got a late invitation from Matt to meet him at the free "Late at Tate" event at the Tate Britain art gallery last Friday night. Apparently this is a monthly event, and this month it was hosted by a music label called FUTUREPROOF.

Picture, if you will, sweeping high-ceilinged halls of gilt-framed portraits and landscapes, mammoth paintings of Classical scenes and great moments in history. Then picture those stuffy, refined halls darkened and filled to the brim with hordes of trendy, beer-sipping young artistic types clad in funky casual attire, watching live performances of leftfield/down-tempo electronica, "warm electronica", "performative sound collages", "ambient slip-licious beats" and even a giant three-meter high accordian played by three fetching lasses in rockabilly get-ups.

Add to the mix some bizarrely-interesting art installations (like a 20-metre high atomic bomb mushroom cloud made entirely of silver pots and pans delicately welded together that was just begging to be climbed) and you can probably picture how it all made for a truly unexpected and strangely enjoyable night. Yes, it was yet another course in the never-ending feast of booze-laced art-tainment that Londoners gorge themselves on like pigs at a trough, but in terms of breaking up my week it did the trick.

After a short night out in Soho the next night, Scott invited me to a barbeque in Brixton on Sunday afternoon that he'd been randomly invited to by a couch-surfer acquaintance he'd not yet met. Turned out to be at a commune house full of musicians and festival organisers and casually-avante-garde creative types. It had a high-walled back yard that felt like it could've been anywhere in the world, with a fire pit dug into the earth in the middle, and the sun actually shining in a clear blue sky (thereby guaranteeing everyone would be in a good mood). The obligatory Neolithic-era couch against the back garden wall, dreadlocks and piercings everywhere, djembes and beads, wicked tunes, you know the scene.

To cut a long story short, we both met a television producer who was fascinated by what we both do and individually have planned for the next few months. She subsequently organised invitations to a lunch and seminar event at the House of Lords. Random but flattering. Photos from the barbeque to come.

On Thursday I fronted up at the Black Rod Garden entrance of the Houses of Parliament, met Scott at the security check, then got ushered inside. There, we mingled with the high-flyers in the Cholmondeley Room, had lunch in the Thames-level marquee terrace, and engaged in some seriously interesting activities. On our table of ten we had the CEO of Born Free Foundation, a high-flying banker and a solicitor considered one of the top 100 thinkers in the world, amongst others. It was a fundraiser for the Craig Bellamy Foundation in Sierra Leone, working with the Right To Dream charity and the Edward de Bono Foundation, with Dr de Bono himself there presenting (got to meet the man afterwards too).

The whole thing was filmed by Positive TV (the online tv channel that Caroline, the producer who arranged our invitations, works for - http://www.positivetv.tv/) and will be on their website. I think I did a horribly earnest-yet-sombre piece-to-camera halfway through that I'm hoping won't make it past the editing stage. Very inspiring event otherwise though. Scott took some photos as well , so they'll be posted here after this too.

Following the seminar, we somehow got talking to the Lord who hosted the event, Lord Laird. He had nothing better to do and ended up giving us and a few other seminar attendees a free tour of the entire Houses of Parliament building. The House of Lords, the House of Commons, the spectacular Lobby, the cloaking room, the whole shebang.

We saw THE English throne, close enough to reach out and touch (which would have resulted in swift removal of limbs by the watchful security staff), saw the bar from which the word "barrister" derives its name from, the line from which the phrase "to toe the line" comes from, the bag from which the phrase "it's in the bag" comes from, as well as gorgeous architecture, statues and busts of every English Prime Minsister, the Magna Carta, a box containing sands from all of the D-Day landing beaches, blast damage from Nazi bombs in WW2 and heard just about every interesting historical anecdote about the building there is (Lord Laird is a historian par excellence). Nice surprise. And all of it unplanned and free. Did I mention we were shown around by a Lord?

No photos from that part of the day, unfortunately - Scotty can't run that fast.

NEWS FROM THE UK I CAN BE BOTHERED REPORTING:

- For the past two weeks people have been finding body parts all over the south of England. Some parts have been verified as being from the same person through DNA testing, others are spares, so to speak. They just found another arm today. Make your own jokes there.

- The G20 Summit here in London last week was sphincter-clenchingly disappointing. Not the summit itself, which seemed to produce some semi-positive direction (depending on your viewpoint), but the protests. There were about 8 different protests happening during the two or three days of the summit - climate change, war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, anti-capitalism, etc etc etc. Each protest's route and final destination was helpfully mapped out for the apathetic public with brightly-coloured diagrams in the free newspapers the day before the start of the summit..... in case any of the jaded w*nkers who live here wanted to go and stare at the crazy people, I suppose. My god, how unbelievably London.

Only one person died, and even he was just some poor old hostel-living underemployed gent who was on his way home from work and had a heart attack after being roughed up by 'roid-rage police officers for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tv news crews were beside themselves with the need for footage of something even moderately incendiary, so of course, when a handful of smugly-guffawing Nelson-like teenagers smashed their way in through a door and a window and got into the RBS building, that footage played every 2 minutes on every single channel and was regurgitated by every news crew in the world as representative of the "protests". Look closely at that footage and you'll realise the "crowd of protesters" around these punks consists almost entirely of news camerament and snappers, to a man, egging the gormless lumps on. What an utter crock of sh*t being fed to us yet again by the world media. Here's what really sums up the G20 protests - a massive 2-storey-high banner reading "Smash Capitalism" was still hanging across the top floors of a building that faces my gym across the river, next to the Tower of London, a week later. No-one in that building noticed. No-one bothered to call it to their attention. The message I'm getting loud and clear from all of this: No-one in Western society really cares any more, despite the lip-service.

- Also in the news today was the revelation that bouncers and ex-soldiers are being hired as security guards at primary and secondary schools around London. Naturally a number of groups have spoken out against the fact that the feral, knife-weilding, classmate-torturing kiddies at said schools may feel intimidated. Poor little dears. Someone get the tissues and legal forms ready. Wonder what all those teachers who've been beaten up, stabbed or even attacked outside their own homes by their students have to say about finally getting some protection? Must be furious, I'm sure. Yep, absolutely ropeable.

Hope you're all well. May write one last blog entry next week before I depart the UK and end The London Experiment.