New York or Lewisham?

Once in New York, all I could think about was how we would get back there again. It's an incredible place - but when I say that, I feel about as original as the person who commissioned this park bench plaque in Central Park:

Imbeciles!(!!) Surely there must be some kind of municipal fine for people who engrave such things in aluminium. Either a municipal fine, or some kind of punishment in the afterlife.

Anyway, we got talking to one of the front desk attendants at the YMCA, and found that he wasn't as happy with New York as we were. He was originally from Gabon, but had moved to New York from London. When we told him that we were from London he exclaimed, "Oh, London is lovely!" and went on to say that he had lived in Lewisham for a number of years.

Now, we used to live in Greenwich, which is right next to Lewisham, and Lewisham, without being too nasty, is one of the most depressing places you could choose to live in London. In what is now one of my favourite quotes, Edith Nesbit in The Wouldbegoods (1899) sums it up:

In London, or at any rate Lewisham, nothing happens unless you make it happen; or if it happens it doesn't happen to you, and you don't know the people it does happen to.

It made me wonder what kind of horrible experience Mr. Front Desk Attendant had had living in New York.

Maybe it's not as fun to work at the YMCA as it is to stay there.

Strings and Burritos

On Friday night I met up with Kristy at South Bank to see a string quartet play in Elizabeth Hall. The quartet was American, the composer was Czech (Dvořák), and the inspiration for the piece came after a trip to America. Oh, the circle of life.

(The Emerson String Quartet. This picture commemorates the time they bumped into each other beneath an old rail bridge in London. They were all wearing suits.)

I sat beside an old man who appeared to share genetic code with a herringbone jacket, which he wore (or perhaps it wore him?). He made affirming wheezes in between sections, and rested an elaborate baton on his knee. Or was it a walking stick? It was too thick to be a baton, and too short to be a walking stick. (Regardless, you can never win with one of those things - use it to conduct an orchestra, people will say it's a walking stick; use it to walk, people will say it's a baton.)

We enjoyed the music very much; however, when we made to leave at the end, we noticed an alarming number of jackets left on seats. Intermission - foiled! We left anyway.

Before the show, Gerrod joined us for dinner at Tortilla (his London home-away-from-Chipotle-in-New York) for some delicious burritos and bottomless soft drinks. I don't use the word 'delicious' lightly here (though I've been known to in the past) - that sucker was the best burrito I've ever eaten, and it may have weighed close to a kilogram. And bottomless soft drinks, well, what can be said about them that hasn't already been said?

Green Shoots ...

It may not look like much, but at least it's a start.

This winter has been particularly grueling, even for the most stoic of Britons. Five months of sub-zero temperatures, little to no direct sunlight (no, I'm not talking about nighttime) and condensation issues capable of solving a small country's fresh-water shortages - these things can really grind a person down.

But it won't be long now until London is ready to support life again.

Four For the Price of One

When I suggested to Mum and Dad that we go and see the exhibition inside Tower Bridge, they didn't suspect any ulterior motive on my part.

Gerrod and Kristy had told us about this one a while back, but neither Shelley nor I could justify paying the admission price just to pose in the face-in-hole board at the end of the tour. Sadly, Shelley had to work this day, but I soldiered on and took one for the team.

The exhibition itself was also excellent, so that was a bit of a bonus.

The Gloom

It's hard to capture gloom in a photo. I wonder if it needs a wide-angle lens, or some equivalent technology capable of capturing the full spectrum of gloom.

This winter has certainly been the gloomiest on record. It's hard to explain what a lack of light does to you; you have to experience it for yourself (and for six months at time as well) before you can fully come to grips with this Pit of Despair.

The other day I was watching a show about the making of Skippy, when footage of Australia popped up on the screen. For a second, all I could see was blazing light, then endless brown tree-tops, and then dirt, dirt, everywhere precious dirt (no mud in sight). I leaned closer to our 13-inch TV screen, as if it wasn't big enough to see. Light. Natural warmth. Dryness ...

Yes, the summer here is very, very nice, and sensibly mild (no sitting in car seats hot enough to cook fried-rice), but the winter is a slow-moving abomination. It makes me wonder how long I can live in a place where light is considered a luxury, and something you must fly south to retrieve.

Manifest Destiny

Shelley and I hopped on a tube the other night, and although one end of the carriage was quite deserted, for some reason we decided to go for two seats down the crowded end.

Even before I sat down I had an uneasy feeling about the size (which was large) of the woman to my right; something told me that by sitting here I would be exhibiting a careless disregard for the rules of The Universe. And yes, The Universe was right (I'm sure I heard some celestial body slap its forehead as I sat down).

No sooner had I sat down than I realised I was sitting on the woman's thigh, and not just a bit of her thigh, but a lot of her thigh, which had laid claim to nigh-on a third of my seat. An involuntary, "Oh" escaped me as I computed my predicament. I couldn't just jump up and say, Let's move to another seat, because that would be tantamount to saying, My goodness you are big, aren't you! I just didn't realise how big before I sat down, which The Universe (and by this stage I was listening) told me would never do.

So I sat. And I sat some more. And I pretended to be interested in the advertising placard on the wall, which advocated vitamins for middle-aged people. All the while, these words sped though my head to the tune of that baseball organ theme: thigh, thigh, thigh, thigh; thigh, thigh, thigh, thigh; thigh, thigh, thigh, thigh; thigh, thigh, thigh, thigh - I'm sitting on a thigh!

Enough! If it was this thigh's manifest destiny to have my seat, then so be it, I would happily be pushed to the margins.

"Oh, there are some other seats," I said, and we left.

I guess the answer was don't sit there in the first place.

The Legend Grows

We found these beauties on Carnaby St - with no line-up!


Thus we take one step closer to the creation of a worldwide database of face-in-hole scenes. If anyone can illuminate us with the whereabouts of more scenes, we would be very grateful.

The Pyramid From Pinner

A couple of Christmases ago now, Shelley and I saw this man (the one in the background) riding the tube from Baker St station.

We snapped a covert picture of him and posted a story, Power of the Pyramid. Since then, the story has attracted somewhat of a groundswell of attention. Six random readers (yes, six!) have spotted Pyramid Man across London, and have documented his whereabouts in their comments. Here they are:

Anonymous said...
I saw this bloke yesterday at Baker St! He got on the southbound Jubilee Line at about 4pm. I snapped a photo of him too, but it's nowhere near as good as yours. Well done!

9/08/2008 7:11 AM

Steve Higgins said...
I saw this guy on the tube yesterday too, he got off the Bakerloo line at Baker Street.... I had to Google him, was sure other would be talking about him on the net.

9/09/2008 12:20 AM

Anonymous said...
This chap lives in Pinner, he is quite often sitting in the window of Cafe Nero scribbling with a mystical looking pen...

11/10/2008 6:17 AM

Priya said...
Ha ha. My sister and I saw this guy going up the escalator at the Picadilly station. We had a bit of a laugh riot and decided to Google up pyramid-wearing people in the UK and found your page. :D

3/10/2009 6:21 AM

Mark said...
Spotted pyramid man in Pret, Covent Garden, drawing satanic images in his notepad..

I thought the Pyramid was a lampshade.

Anybody ask him if he has got a light ?

4/14/2009 9:34 AM

Anonymous said...

Although it's been a couple of years since you so subtly yet clearly documented the existence of the individual we like to call 'triangle man' as you can see, this chap just keeps on giving the gift of mystery. As I don't commute from Pinner, I've been puzzled by two friends and their strange descriptions and reported sightings until this evening. We've been delighted to discover there is a suitably eccentric explanation - Many Thanks! Katy, Claire and Naureen Pinner

10/23/2009 6:17 AM

So, I think it is fair to say that Pyramid Man probably commutes to London from Pinner. But where does he go when he gets to London? Baker St, Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden. Let's look at those points on a map, shall we?

That's right; an ominous triangulation has descended upon the West End.

There Was No Free Cake

(Warning: this post contains grossly elitist sentiment. Just so you know ... that I know.)

As I was saying in an earlier post, Shelley and I scored two free tickets to the England vs. Slovenia (football) match on Saturday, so we went.

As you can see, the train ride in was was jam-packed with a million other foosball fans; however, they weren't the kind of fans I had come to expect of 'soccer' games in Australia. They weren't poofs, they were boofs. They were thirty-year-old men with the hair-styles of thirteen-year-olds (shaved into a 'V' on the back). There wore generic tattoos, expensive polo shirts, and toothless grins. And they shouted 'England' with a mysterious lack of consonants.

I thought these guys had all but disappeared on the front lines of two world wars, but it seems the UK enjoys a limitless supply. Hence no invasion in a thousand years I suppose.

Anyway, lucky for us, our free tickets allowed us to enter through the 'gifted' peoples' entry. There we were greeted with air conditioning, escalators, and, best of all, a string trio playing Britney's 'Toxic' (in a very polite way). Yes! It was elitism drenched in irony, meaning I could accept it with a sense of irony and not feel bad. It was just like watching 'Neighbours'.

As for the game itself, I could tell it wasn't one that would go down in the annals as an all-time great, or even one that was all that good, but it was still very entertaining. I will say football is an excellent game to watch, and I would definitely see another match, providing I could be flown in and out by helicopter or a hot-air balloon.

And this is how we exited the building. Yes, we entered like Grand Poobahs and left like dogs.

Nobody Owns the Moon

Last Christmas my sister Kath gave me a book called 'Nobody Owns the Moon'. It's a kids' book, and I like it a lot. Kath said she chose it because the two main characters (a fox and a donkey) reminded her of me and Shelley.

Clive the fox (Shelley) and Humphrey the donkey (Julian) are good friends who live in the same city. Clive leads a successful life of cunning from his urban dwelling, whereas Humphrey (not for lack of trying) struggles to maintain a fixed address.

When Humphrey finds a mysterious blue envelope, Clive convinces him not to eat it, but to instead use the tickets inside to attend a new play called 'Nobody Owns the Moon'. The tickets also entitle Clive and Humphrey to a free beverage and slice of cake. Humphrey weeps tears of joy.

So today, when Shelley (pouncing on a client's cancellation) scored really good tickets to the England vs. Slovenia match at Wembley, I was reminded of the book. I just hope hope we're also entitled to a free beverage and slice of cake.

Brush With the Law

This morning I took the bus to Kingston Magistrates' Court to get a Statutory Declaration signed. The inter-web informed me that this could be done quite easily; all you have to do is arrive at 9.00AM, and the magistrate signs it for you before court goes into session at 10.00AM. Easy.

I sat in the waiting room for what seemed like an age before I was finally called, just a few minutes before 10, by a white-haired, black-robed gentleman who beckoned me into his office. Or so it seemed.

The man, whom I thought was a magistrate, turned out to be an over-dressed usher. The room he led me into, which I assumed was his office, turned out to be a courtroom; a horrible, orange wood-panelled, Judge Judy-esque courtroom. This was not what I had envisaged.

My usher friend asked me to sit in the witness box. OK, I said. No sooner had I done this than he asked me to stand up. Three magistrates had entered the room and seated themselves at the top of a three-tiered platform in front of me. Oddly intimidating.

I was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that I was yet to shower that day, and was dressed somewhat like a teenage stoner. They discussed the matter that I brought before the court. I soon got the sense that everyone in the room, myself included, was wondering what on earth I was doing there.

I just wanted a Justice of the Peace to sign a Stat Dec. for me. A simple, one-page Stat Dec. And this? Perhaps I should have gone to a small-time solicitor. Maybe this was an overkill. In any case, it spelled death for my implicit trust in Yahoo! Answers.

They got me to read my declaration aloud to the court. I think they were trying to teach me a lesson by going through all the motions. To them I was like somebody who had brought a bazooka on their first pheasant-hunt. "Go on, shoot the pheasant with your bazooka. Do it ... do, it".

So I did it. I read that declaration in the loudest, most articulate voice I had. I could feel they were expecting me to stumble on words like "conscientiously" and "incidental", positioned, as they were, so closely together, but I just powered on through like I ate those words for breakfast. Stoner indeed! Take that magistrates! I could see they were impressed. One of them even said thank you at the end, but that was because I had stayed standing in the box too long, and they wanted me to leave.

Lesson learned.

This is Definitely the Hardest I've Ever Hit My Head

One day, when I was in year 8, I came home from school and told Mum that I had been knocked unconscious - albeit only briefly - after falling backwards from an undisclosed height.

This was a lie.

It was true that I had hit my head (and hit it quite hard) after falling backwards, but unconscious? No. It just felt like a much snappier lead sentence for the story. Mum did what all good mothers should - she didn't ask probing questions, but only expressed the deepest concern. And life went on very nicely for some time.

16 years later, the Universe saw fit to pay me back for this dishonesty. Unfortunately for me, the punishment came in the form of yet another blow to the head. (Why so many blows to the head?)

See, I was walking up the stairs in the Subway at Greenwich, after having just purchased a delicious Jamaican-themed sub from a Polish sandwich artist. For some reason I was feeling a strong sense goodwill toward all men, so when I saw a group of people descending the narrow stairway I stood to one side and let them pass; they obliged with a smile and a thank you.

Now, armed with that springy step which often accompanies such self-congratulatory courtesies, I bounded up the stairs. If I could, in retrospect, choose a different verb with which to climb the stairs, I would probably choose 'meander', or 'float'. But I did neither - I bounded. And I hit my so hard on something I don't even know the name of. It was definitely a piece of building, and it was definitely jutting out above the stairs in a dangerous way. It just adds insult to injury that I can't even name the perpetrator.

Needless to say, I bled for some time, and felt quite shook up - and then drowsy for some time after that. Almost as if I had been mildly concussed.

Touché Universe, touché.

Caption this...

When I was clearing out my downloads folder, I spotted this gem of a picture, that Gerrod took in January. We were on our way to meet some friends for Yum Char at Baker Street, and surprisingly enough, both Kristy and I were oblivious that the photo was being taken. Any suggestions about what we were thinking/ talking about?

Found Wally!

All those years searching, and it has finally paid off! Not only did we find Wally in Google Street View, we stood next to him in the photo.

Yes, about six months ago, Shelley and I were walking down Putney High Street when we spotted a man who looked strangely familiar: thick-rimmed glasses; a red and white striped sweater and beanie; he leaned on a walking stick as he waved. When we saw he was waving at the Google Maps car, we got in the shot as quick as we could, then looked as cool as we could.

Now, in the first frame you can see us walking nonchalantly down the street, chillin' out, maxin', relaxin'.



And in the next frame you can see us standing not-so-nonchalantly behind Wally, looking in a store window that nobone in the world could possibly be interested in.

Snow Day!

I hereby declare Snow Day to be the greatest of all days! Better than Heat Wave Day, better than Hurricane Day, and much, much better than Steady Rain Day.


It's been snowing pretty solidly here since Sunday evening, after the Russians threw some Arctic snow winds in the UK's direction. Hooray for the Russians! They're always doing nice things for other people.

Buses were out, trains were out, tubes were mostly out; roads were reduced to mushy, icy slosh pits; even riding a bike wasn't as easy as you would think.

So, like many other people, getting to work was pretty much out of the question for us. Sadly, we had to stay home and play in the snow all day. It was a very depressing day.

And here's me skiing!


For more photos you can visit our Flicker account here.

Coffee Evolution

Look at these quantum leaps in the quality of my lattes!

1. Disappointing.

2. Promising.

3. Shades of brilliance.

4. Transcendent!

I'd like to thank my Sensei, Gerrod, who makes coffees that look a lot better than this.

I guess you could call this snow

To those of you who are familiar with snow, this may not be so impressive. It was worth a little snow dance outside for me though, when I woke up on a Sunday to find snow outside. Okay, so maybe Julian had to tell me there was snow outside. I was so cozy with the curtains closed.

The weather here has (unsurprisingly) been getting colder and colder over the past few weeks, and we have had two 'snows' already with sleet expected this week.


BRRRRRRRR.

There's a Package Waiting For Me...

This morning, we went to collect a 'mystery package' that had been sent to the mail depot. As it is a Saturday, the depot was only open until 12.30, so we rushed over there with 20 minutes to spare, only to find this queue. After waiting for just under 10 minutes without progressing even one step further, in temperatures that were hovering around the 0 degree mark, we decided that the package would have to remain a mystery for a little bit longer.

Who doesn't want to be like Hugh?

My brother-in-law Steve has spent a considerable amount of his adult life being teased by my family for trying to look like Hugh Grant. Although he adamantly denies that the middle-part curly hair look was intentional, it is plain what he was trying to achieve. After all, what male wouldn't want to come across as a bumbling, overly sensitive male.

It seems that Steve is not the only extended member of the Hyndman family to share resemblances to Britain's favourite romantic comedy actor. Julian couldn't wait to compare hand prints. A perfect match.


"This hand is my hand, this hand is your hand. No wait... it's my hand. No wait, that's your hand."

Animal From Abroad

Aaron and Sue have been with us for the past week or so as part of their world tour. They arrived in London from India last Saturday, and the first stop on our itinerary was the doctor's to get a rabies shot for Aaron. He and an angry Indian monkey did not see eye to eye on some key issues.

See, Aaron was handing out peanuts in a monkey temple (yes, a religious monkey no less), and all these temple monkeys were grateful, except for one. Yes, some monkeys aren't interested in peanuts, or bananas, or blueberry muffins; some monkeys just want to watch the world burn.

Anyway, it's lucky Aaron got this particular shot in time, otherwise he wouldn't have been let past the dock at Greenwich (above).