As Kermit the Frog used to say when reporting live from wherever on Sesame Street, hi ho. Yep, the sun's shining again on London's Indian Summer, people are out and about in shorts and t-shirts all over the place on the weekends and you'd think they'd be happy about it. But nope, everyone's Chicken-Littling about an impending Sleet Age for the next 6 months or so. Hmmm. At least they're still happy about their sporting prowess. As they keep reminding me. The mongrels.

Things I've Done Since Last Time

- Ground through first 2 weeks of work at Croydon Borough Council. Ropes being learnt. Local information management systems being mentally ridiculed. Lunch with most of team last Friday at the Green Dragon Pub (voted Croydon's Best Pub of 2007 - I do have standards, you realise). Many, many challenges in my role and for the other Australian working under me on Section 106 Agreements, not many of them planning-related, but a lot of opportunity for leaving an impressive legacy as well. To be continued...

- Stumbled across another Bansky mural just off the tourist-drenched Disneyland of bargain consumerism, Tottenham Court Road (see new pics on my Facebook page if you feel like a shoofty). Stencil-licious.

- Had a unique late-night Tube experience on the Jubilee line. Boarded a near-empty train carriage, looked up to find three old men dressed in full British Armed Forces World War Two outfits, complete with heavy woolen tunics, hessian backpacks and pie-plate helmets, puttees, the works, standing there giving each other stick in broad cockney accents. Got chatting - they'd apparently been to their infrantry regiment's last ever reunion that night. Surreal. Walking out of the station into the night following that I half-expected to see searchlight beams sweeping the dark skies above and to hear the rattle-and-drone sounds of Spitfire squadrons giving Jerry's Dorniers a jolly good seeing-to, by jove.

- Had a large-ish night out sampling London's nightlife Saturday night, beginning with dinner at the Chop House of Ye Olde Cheddar Cheese (a gloriously slanty, dark, wood-panels-and-fireplaces 17th century pub that used to be the favourite boozer of Charles Dickens and Dr Samuel Johnson - again, see Facebook pics), going through Soho's bars and ending at Fabric nightclub, one of the world's top dance music venues. Much sweating occurred.

- Finally moved all my 45 kilos-worth of gear to my other friend's place at London Bridge, with views to the Gherkin and Tate Modern from balcony. Still living out of a suitcase but get to move into new flat on Bermondsey Street 800 metres away from here in just over 1 week, and without having to do another hernia carting the gear on public transport.

- Got sconed with a conker dropped from the top of a tree out front of work by introduced grey squirrel, who then came down to eye level and proceeded to berate me for having the audacity to walk under his larder. Have declared jihad on grey squirrels.

More Observations and Absurdities

- Teenage gals here apply makeup as if they're painting a house - primer, undercoat, four or five layers of colour. I believe trowels and paint rollers may be involved.

- The things the Caribbean girls here can do with their hair are nothing short of amazing and, I suspect, worthy of an exhibition in the Tate Modern in some cases. Awe-inspiring.

- Despite the stonking weather numerous locals insist on apologising for it when I tell them where I'm from, as if they've personally been up there tinkering away as if trying to tune a VCR in or something. And they're seriously apologising!

- Marmite. By the beard of Zeus, let it never be compared to Vegemite ever again. You could degrease a coal-truck's engine with the goop.

- Some of the younger teenagers (or "Generation F***ed" as they're referred to by a lot of people here) speak a language that I honestly cannot penetrate. It's got an English flavour, with the occasional "nuffink" and "Wha' yew on abou'?" thrown in, but the chav accent and slang is so thick, and the consonants so smothered in drawling laziness and sucked-in bottom lip that they may as well be Dogon tribesmen for all the sense I can make of it. Tends to really play well with the older, stiff-upper-lip set on the trains as they talk to each other and on their phones at volumes illegal outside airports and construction sites.

- The Borough Markets are my new favourite place on this planet outside Antarctica. Foodie's Nirvana. For those who haven't been - You want pickled wild boar's trotters? Perhaps some sangria for breakfast? Maybe a few goose eggs and a Lithuainian sausage selection? It's all here, and I do mean all, from basic fruit and veg to the high end luxury deli items. Never seen a market like it. Delish.

Newsy Bits

Downing Street's Week of the Long Knives:

After a week under enough pressure from within his own party to turn coal into diamonds, PM Gordon Brown came out at the huge nationally-televised Labour Party Conference and delivered a spine-tingling speech to reaffirm his leadership, evoking the occasional Churchill comparison from the media pundits and giving the dastardly Tories and their free market policies what for. And then. At 3am his Transport Minister was apparently forced to hold a bizarre press conference in a hotel lobby announcing her resignation (apparently she was another rebel) and the Downing Street Gestapo went into gear, tracking down ministers and demanding they affirm their loyalty. Anyone out of contact was immediately considered suss. One Minister was up a mountain in the Andes at a climate change conference and had to borrow a sat phone from a park ranger just to keep his job. And the hits just keep on coming. I find it fascinating anyway. Ahem.

Boris' Fantasy Island

Bozo The Mayor of London floated an idea for a new airport on an island up the river from London. And was immediately pilloried for it by anyone who knows anything about airports. Doo doo doodoodoodoodoodoo doo doo....

Lads for Sheilas

Newspapers here the last few days have been carrying the story about Australia trying to attract English men to solve the Aussie man drought. Much smug guffawing and incredulity from English commentators about why their lads would even consider it. Obviously they don't get out much. Otherwise they would've seen the women around here. Did I just say that?? I'm still waiting to see what the wraps are all about, Factor. And V.

More Nukes

French energy goliath EBN wrapped up a £1.2 billion deal to build 4 more nuclear power plants here in the UK. Am calculating the cost of having all shirts and coats altered to accomodate the extra arm I'm expecting to grow if I decide, for some unforseeable reason, to stay long enough to see these monoliths to clean, green, good-for-the-environment-in-every way nuclear waste producing factories..... I mean power plants, built. Hooray for the free market and for politicians who wouldn't know how to read an EIS if it had pretty pictures and colouring-in sections. Morons.

Westfield Descends On the UK

Yes, friends and neighbours, the Death Star of Australian commercial blandness has begun their Northern Hemisphere Domination campaign in fine style, getting approval to build a £1 billion pound-plus shopping centre right here in London. Apparently the Westfield rep got off at the nearest Tube station on a tour of the surrounding area and asked why it hadn't been renamed the Westfield station yet. No mention yet if his name was Darth. Or Palpatine.

That's about all I've got to report - has mostly been all work and 1-and-a-half hour commutes each way, every day. Have got nebulous, half-formed plans for perhaps Christmas and New Years in Bristol or Newcastle with friends, ANZAC Day at Fromelles in France, a trip to Sri Lanka and perhaps a jaunt over to Ireland. Have 6 weeks of annual leave per year so I'd best figure out what to do with it all, right? Once I get settled in my own place I'll get out into the countryside and drown you all in photos of quaint little villages and little stone bridges and fields dotted with cows. And such. I can feel your anticipation from here.

Hope you're all well - let me know what's happening with the Land of Oz in your part of it.