And Then He Said

Archive for the ‘London Life’ Category

29 Aug 2005: Pizza slash

Times of stress or empty cupboards in this house (as, I suspect, in most other houses) mean comfort eating and a take-away, or more accurately a delivery. And that, for us, usually means Domino's Pizza. I spent a very odd summer as a pizza chef during my student years, working for Pizzaland. I don't claim [...]

29 Jul 2005: It's nice to be proved right

Earlier this year I gave up work at the Independent, a newspaper I enjoyed working at and was proud to be a part of, and the main reason I gave it up was because of the speed cameras on the route. Sure, the wildly unsociable hours were a pretty big reason too – but I'd [...]

28 Jul 2005: Sound advice

From Guido (although it's apparently been doing the rounds before he picked it up) comes this notice at Notting Hill Tube station: Notice to all passengers:Please do not run on the platforms or concourses. Especially if you are carrying a rucksuck, wearing a big coat, or look a bit foreign. This notice is for your [...]

27 Jul 2005: Go straight to jail

Yesterday I went into the Co-Op Bank branch at the Angel to pay a cheque in. It's a rather splendid building that once upon a time used to be a Lyons Corner House, the oh-so-English cafes that were the Starbucks of their times, where stiff-upper-lipped characters in 1940s black and white movies meet up in [...]

26 Jul 2005: Angelic interlude

So far, so good in my return to office-based work. The transport network seemed pretty quiet to me, although the Standard was claiming that was because it was the first day of the school holidays. Whatever the reason, rail and Tube both seemed to have fewer passengers in general, and in particular fewer older people, [...]

25 Jul 2005: Out and about

Have got two days' work in Islington, today and tomorrow, so I'm back on the Tube for the first time since the bombings began. Will be heading into Waterloo, then to Bank via the drain, then up the Northern to Angel. Right now, taking all things into consideration, my greatest fear is the one that [...]

22 Jul 2005: Another stupid person

The dial-up connection dropped on our PC for a few minutes, and in that short space of time we got an incoming call – one of a sort that have been coming in for years now (see here). Caller: Hello, is that Brent Council? Me: It's not even slightly Brent Council, it's a private house [...]

21 Jul 2005: Here we go again…

The BBC is reporting three Tube stations evacuated after 'incidents' and one bus has also experienced an 'incident', whatever that means. Edit: Police say they're not treating it as a major incident at the moment, and the Tube hasn't been entirely shut down either. Only one report of an injury, at Warren Street. There actually [...]

16 Jul 2005: Midnight at the bookstore

Busy night, I suppose. Kingston was a madhouse – the pubs emptying boozed-up lads and short-skirted slappers out onto the street outside the bookshop, while inside gleaming-eyed parents tried to pretend they were only there for their face-painted offsprings' benefit. Endless trollies stacked with the two different versions of the book, the brightly-coloured children's cover [...]

8 Jul 2005: Upon mature reflection

Having plundered other people's thoughts on the bombings and posted them here, I thought I'd see if I could develop mine beyond my initial 'Blitz Spirit, you can't beat a Londoner with bombs' reaction. And right now I'm thinking: “Is that it?” Since September 11th all the doom-laden experts and the politicians have been telling [...]

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