Percentages

Today I became part of the 0.2%. Of Londoners that walk to work, that is. To became part of the rich % I'll still probably need a few more decades. Anyhow, the point is that there were lots of movings to do, little time to write, mini blog post it is.

Beware

"Customers beware, pickpockets operating in this station." You know, it's almost an official trade.

Floods

Trains cancelled due to flooded tracks. Apparently British rails are not very good at handling rain. I mean, it's Britain, who would have thought there would be a lot of rain!?

Harrods

"Have you seen one of these?" "Huh..." "And have you seen two of these?" And on he went, multiplying red balls, making things appear in my hands, one neat magic trick after another. Quite a busy place, Harrods's toy world.
Actually, it's quite a busy place overall. Floor after floor, I believe this is the one place where you can find everything. Victorian furniture? Check. £90k pianos? Check. Big meteorites? Check. Too many chocolate kinds to list them all? Check. The good thing, however, is not that they have everything, in so much as that they actively demonstrate what they are selling. One guy is playing a piano, another is showing the latest generation camera. That guy in the beginning was showing off a box set of magic tricks, and making quite a good job of it, may I add, and making for an excellent atmosphere overall.
For once I think I can say I am thoroughly impressed with a place. Now I just need enough money to buy that £8k dinner table they had there and those £1500 chairs that go with it. Simple enough, right? I'll make an update 40 years from now when I buy those. Meanwhile, and just to keep the tone of the rest of the blog, I'll complain about the lack of maps and guides inside the shop. Except for the stairs on one entrance, they're not anywhere. How are rich people supposed to get around like this!?

Lost tourists

Today I gave directions to a tourist. Can I say I'm a Londoner now?

On bakeries

You know, bakeries? Those places where they bake bread and cakes and stuff? I'm glad you know, because they seem to be rather exotic places around here. Most coffee shops do have one form of cakes or another, but they are of the pre-packaged, plastic-y, variety. In house baking remains an illusive concept. And this regarding cakes; with bread it gets much funnier. Bread here seems to come in sliced form or big loafs. Small (normal?) sized bread isn't available in many places, and when it is it's labeled something like "Italian rolls", as if it were something fancy, and costs £0.40 a piece.

Bakeries seem so hard to find strolling down the streets at random that Time Out actually made a guide of the best bakeries in London; leaving that to chance would be a complete no no. But then again I haven't been to Baker Street. Maybe the bakeries are all clustered there and I just haven't noticed. In which case I would perfectly understand why a character like Sherlock Holmes would want to live there. The guy knew what he was doing.

Heads up, lights out!

This may sound awfully trivial, but crossing streets is an essential activity for anyone living in a big city. Therefore, it was with great surprise that I found, or rather failed to find, traffic lights for pedestrians around here.

No, it's not about small crossings in lost suburbia but rather streets and roundabouts at the very heart of the city. Strangely enough, quite a few (a lot? most of them?) of the pedestrian crossings in London don't have signalling lights for people who walk, which pretty much means it's every man for himself. I suppose this could work if the drivers were all nice and stopped, but they aren't and they don't. Which actually makes sense. Since they do have lights for cars, they are expected to move when it's green. How should you be aware of that from the sidewalks is beyond me.

I haven't quite understood what's the logic behind this, but one theory that was put forward to me was that you don't really need lights because you can take a peek at the lights for the cars and see if you can move forward. That is, assuming the light is somewhere you can see and that there aren't cars coming from other unexpected directions. Simple.

All in all, this makes for some rather awkward situations. I may be guilty of often disregarding pedestrian lights back at home, but the lack of them is going to get me killed one of these days.

The Lion King

You know that big guy, with a broad, hairless chest and lion gear on his head called Simba? Now your do.