Tourists of London

Tourists are a fact of life in London. They're everywhere (especially in our neighborhood), and for the most part they are ok. A friend of mine just recently collected several suggestions for tourists on her blog:

When you race up to be the first person at the turnstile, don't choose that time to find your transport ticket. If it's not in your hand, you've negated your place at the front of the line. (Excuse you, now move over. )

I have one more suggestion for the many tourists we see near home:

If you buy one of those dumb looking money belts because you are afraid of pick pockets, don't wear it outside your clothing. All you are doing at that point is advertising where you keep your money. These things are supposed to go under your clothing to make it harder for bad people to steal your money.

Wettest summer in more than 240 years

If you've been watching the news you know that there have been some problems with rain in England this summer. We haven't talked about it much here, but my friend has been on her blog.

Today, the BBC had a comment that I found really amusing. Apparently this is the wettest summer since they started keeping rainfall records in 1766. The former record was for the summer of 1789.

One man Star Wars

Last night, after a disturbing incident on the tube, Jenna and I went to the Arts Theatre London to see Charles Ross do his One Man Star Wars Trilogy.

The show is exactly what it sounds like. One man, 75 minutes, all three original Star Wars movies. He does voices, sound effects, and some pantomime to pull it all together. It was the funniest show I have ever seen.

Tonight is the last show for this set of dates at The Arts, but if you ever get a chance to see this show, don't hesitate. Unless, of course, you have never seen the Star Wars movies. In that case you will spend the entire time confused. In fact, if you haven't seen the moves at least four or five times, you'll be confused.

Violent weekend

London is a big city, and has it's share of violence. This weekend, Jenna and I got to see two instances of that violence.

In the first instance, we saw the aftermath of violence. A building near the High Street Kensington tube station was a wreck when we walked by it on Saturday afternoon. This building, Como House, has an all glass entry and foyer. Apparently, a guy got really mad and went at the building with a large brick or cinder block.

He took out almost all of the buildings entry, while a whole crowd of people watched. We didn't see this part, but the aftermath when a crew of guys were cleaning up mountains of broken plate glass. Within hours the guys had built a temporary structure to enclose the building and keep it secure.

The second instance of violence was closer to us. We were on the Piccadilly line on our way to see a show. We got on to the Piccadilly line at Gloucester Road and as we were getting on a dazed looking woman got off of the train.

The woman looked glassy and confused as she got off of the train. Following her was a tall man who started yelling at here. It became obvious that she had gotten off the train at the wrong station, and the man was very upset about this. At one point he grabbed her arm and pushed her hard towards the train. She tripped and went sprawling on the floor of the platform.

The guy just got even angrier, and looked like he was going to hit her for falling on the floor after he shoved her. At this point Jenna and I were already on the packed train and the doors were closing.

I'm ashamed that I didn't do anything, although the guy was big and Jenna tells me that it wouldn't have been safe for me to intervene. No one on the train did anything, and when the doors closed we overheard several people talking about the incident.

The most amzing thing was that several people on the train were apprantly "friends" of the woman who was pushed. They kept saying that she should get a new boyfriend. While I'm ashamed that I didn't act, I'm astonished that this girls friends didn't act. They just sat on the trian as the doors closed and we left the station, watching as the man continued to yell at his girlfriend.

Best delivery pizza we've found

I have a love for pizza that is certainly unhealthy, and probably unnatural. That said, one of the things that Jenna and I have really missed in London is good delivery pizza. We can go out and get pretty decent pizza down the street at the Pizza Express, but they don't deliver.

We found a Domino's that would deliver, but that really isn't very good pizza. So I was delighted to find a flyer for Firezza, which delivers to our area.

The pizza is sold by the half-meter, and a meter of pizza can serve 2-3 people. I really like the Pollo, while Jenna enjoys the traditional Margherita.

They have several locations for dine-in, carry-out, or delivery.

Smoking ban starts today

I mentioned this on my personal blog, but should have posted here as well. The smoking ban in England starts today.