APPLE CIDER & ECONOMIC MELTDOWNS

Top o' the mornin' to ye. Hope the blog's working for you all, and here's to brave new adventures in cyberspace (for yours truly the tech-Britney, anyway).

THE WEEK IN BRIEF
For all of those with attention spans as short as Paris Hilton's IQ number, this past week I:

- Went to a farewell 'do in a gorgeous 3-storey terrace house (with a backyard AND a bbq - see pics on Facebook for now) and then caught my first nightbus home. "Home" being somewhere near Westminster, where I gave up, jumped out and caught a cab.

- Had my first 2-hour run with the Rocco's basketball boys. First run of any kind in nearly 2 years, actually. Legs have only today decided to let me walk normally, as opposed to walking like I've just had a Close Encounter of The Brown Kind. If you know what I mean.

- Worked. Rivetting for you all, I'm sure.

- Lashed out and got some wild boar hamburgers, wild boar pate and pheasant sausages at the Borough Markets, then had breakfast from a stall in the sunlit courtyard of Southwark Cathedral surrounded by rich Londoners. Felt ultra-urbane and sophisticado until the mustard seeped through the bag onto my trousers.

- Sampled my new gym at The Scoop, on the Thames south bank, with its gigantic interior, Australian techno and Tower Bridge looming in the foreground as you walk out the front door. Nothing embarassing happened. That I know of.

THIS WEEKEND I AM:

(a) hitting a music festival Friday night with a uni mate,
(b) moving into my new flat Saturday morning, then
(c) midday Saturday I've agreed to go to.......... The Church. Sweet lord protect and preserve me. If you don't know what I mean look the place up on the net. You wonder where Australians get their bad reputation from on the international stage? You could do worse that to start here. Every type of Aussie-flag-waving, wifebeater-wearing, projectile-vomiting, inflatable-sheep-humping Bazza or Shazza currently gracing this fair city with their timeless elegance and subtle wit is usually on display in all their finery at this place. "No mate, I don't want to scull the yardie out of your mate's cow costume's udders - been there, done it all before". Have only ever walked past outside before, but I guess to be able to hang sh*t on the place you've technically got to have gone inside and actually walked with the animals, talked with the animals..... can't wait to write next week's update.

MORE LONDON OBSERVATIONS & ABSURDITIES:

- London handbags: suitcase-like. Large enough to stash a hairdryer, a makeup box, 3 different smaller handbags and a weekend's worth of clothes in. Or the entire works of Shakespeare. Am guessing the former is far more likely judging by the looks of most of the owners of these cavernous accessories. Especially handy for clearing a path through the teeming masses at London Bridge Station.

- Discovered a nifty method for getting through the London Bridge Human Tide myself. As you enter through the St Thomas Street entrance you accelerate rapidly so that your suit jacket flares out like a pair of woolen wings and you plaster a look on your dial that suggests you're going to eat anyone stepping into your path. Loudly. Have attempted this wondrous feat of theatre and body language three times to date (while in a good mood each time, mind) and, yea verily, the seas parted on each glorious occasion. Am considering teaching a Timid Commuter Empowerment class at nearest College.

- Brightly-coloured velour tracksuits. In public. During the day. Ladies, words fail me. Seriously, seek help.

- London pedestrians can be the rudest organisms this side of Kyle Sandilands. They'll see someone walking towards them, hemmed in by a crowd and a gutter and carrying, ohh, lets say, 45 kilos worth of boxes, suitcases and backpacks, and not alter their course an inch until said victim is forced to actually stop dead in their tracks and stare incredulously at the *ssho.... other pedestrian. At which point this skidmark on the underpants of society gives their victim a disbelieving look like they've just sh*t in their handbag, snorts and actually rams their shoulder into them to get past, thereby dislodging the victim's grip on their precariously-balanced goods and chattels and sending them careening into the next insult-waiting-to-happen Londoner coming up on their blind side. Thereby starting the whole merry-go-round again. Have declared a jihad on rude London pedestri......... hmmmmm, on second thoughts I don't want the Jackboots 'n' Kevlar All-Stars crashing through the window and hog-tying me, so I'll retract that. And a big hello to all my new ASIO, CIA and MI6 readers! (How 'bout them Western ideals!?! Love 'em).

- Famous scrubbers get an annoying amount of play in the media here, even more so than in Oz. Kate Moss, Posh Spice, Jordan, Amy Winecask, you name a classless minger, they're making daily appearances in The Sun, The Metro, Lite, etc. Even the Guardian and The Evening Standard prop up their hollow careers, thereby proving that everyone's got their price.

- Fixed-pedal bicycles are insanely fashionable here at the moment. Everywhere you go you'll see suit-and-tie-wearing men or leather-and-brushed-cotton-sporting ladies gliding past on contraptions your grandparents would've once yearned for as pre-pubescent teenagers, all the while sniffing at those riding anything with more than one gear (SO yesterday's news, apparently). Am secretly hoping to see one such trendsetter forget to keep pedalling while slowing down and get thrown bodily into a dumpster by the still-churning pedals. Not a very charitable thought, I know, but honestly, how does riding an old treadly with your work clothes on gain you chic-status?

- Brits and fake tans: The occasional oversized Oompa-Loompa exploding into your line-of-sight when a commuter crowd momentarily parts can be pretty damn disconcerting on a cold overcast morning, let me tell you.

- At the risk of sounding far too Sex In The City, I've gotta say that men's shoes are ridiculously cheap if you decide to go bargain-scouting. Picked up a pair of new-ish Nike Air Flights for £30 (compared to $90+AUD at home at the mo'), but could've gotten a pair of And 1's that were going for $100AUD when I left home for £10 in the same store. And there was a whole wall, stretching as far as the wallet could see, jammed full of shoe-y bargains. If I'd lived here in my late teens, when my kicks addiction was still ridiculously inflamed, I may well have gotten myself into the kind of debt that involves large men in ill-fitting suits and trips to abandoned warehouses.

- New favourite tipple (this week, anyway) - Olde English Medium Dry Cider. Like other ciders you've tried but so much better. Top marks. Cannot believe the ciders haven't taken off in Oz when we're still necking Fourex or VB's with the old "Its-my-State-beer-and-I'm-loyal" grimace. I can smell an export niche........ comin' on.

NEWS FROM OL' BLIGHTY

- It got colder. And started raining. What an absolute shock. Yet the BBC continues to predict woe and misery coming our way in the form of Jack Frost and his homies Nigel Wind, Percival Precipitation and Montgomery C. Cloudcover. In case, you know, everyone here forgot what the weather's usually like in winter.

- The word "recession" stopped being used in the past tense and the economy continued to wobble like an American housewife, yet foodprices here dropped and the FTSE rose in value. Mainly because the Brits can't possibly be seen to do anything the same way as the Yanks. They're an ex-colony, don't you know. Just wouldn't be proper.

- Manchester United's Wayne Rooney was criticised for failing to score a goal in the last two years or something. Always knew the fat fool was overrated.

- A group of Ghurkas won a long court battle for the right to settle permanently in Britain after fighting for Queeny-poo and alongside British Troops anywhere in the world someone needed a good bollocking. If I was the judge on that case I wouldn't have ruled against a group of disgruntled Ghurkas either. Those knives of theirs look like they'd tickle a tad.

- Seasick Steve, a on old whiteboy US solo blues musician who wears overalls and a beard and looks like someone from Deliverance, has sold out the Royal Albert Hall for his first show tonight apparently. Am thoroughly intrigued as to how this happened. Must see if he's got a website, never heard of the dude before but no doubt the musos among you will be shaking their heads at me.

- Australia's least-favourite rugby opponent, Johnny "I'm a Buddhist now so my mind will heal all wounds" Wilkinson, has gone out injured again, this time with a knee that apparently gave way under the weight of his new long locks.

- Finally, the cause of the devestating fire that obliterated the Cutty Sark has been revealed as..... an industrial strength vacuum cleaner that was left on accidentally. For two days. Yes, two days. Not just overnight. Two. Days. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but industrial strength vacuum cleaners pump out a few decibels, no?

More to come next week.