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Howdy everyone, The last week or so I’ve been quite busy again being a tourist and making up for lost time when I first arrived in London and wasted all that time looking for jobs. Actually I’m quite pleased that I’ve seen everything I wanted to see and done everything I wanted to do in London, which will save me from coming back again. I’ll be able to go to what are, in my opinion, more worthy destinations.  My friend Sharon that I met on the Antarctic cruise and stayed with in Seattle has just been trekking in Nepal and is now in Thailand, and I read her travel diaries with fond memories (even though I’ve never been to Thailand), but I can visualise what it’s like and it all sounds wonderful. I forgot to write that about a month ago now, a baby lama was born in Mudchute Park and Farm which is a few minutes walk from our place. I saw the lama a couple of days after it was born, it’s really beautiful with its snowy white fleece and little brown tail and the spindly little skinny legs that were still learning to support the wait of their owner. It’s name is Lizzy. I hope they somehow groom Lizzy, ‘cause both her parents, the only two lamas in the farm, look like a long neck and four legs coming out of a massive dread-lock. Also there are about 7 cows in the neighbouring paddock, and the one named Robyn is going to give birth on the 20th December. I wish I could be here to see it, or at least the baby cow. The other day I walked around the entire farm to see if there were more animals that I didn’t know about. The park and farm cover an area of 30 acres and it’s called Mudchute because that’s what it used to be. It used to be the area where all the mud and stuff from the construction sites was dumped when they were building the docks. We live on the Isle of Dogs, not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, with the Thames bordering 3 sides and a man made lock cutting us off from the main land. It’s called the Isle of Dogs ‘cause it’s where the kennels of King Henry VIII were, where he kept his hunting dogs. Anyway, I didn’t find any more farm animals that I didn’t already know about, but I did go into an area I hadn’t seen before where they have many birds and rabbits and a couple of ferrets and a guinea pig. People who don’t want them as pets anymore bring them in, and the Mudchute Park and Farm workers try and re-home the animals. One of the rabbits had given birth to five babies the night before and the carer let me look at the little pinkies. They’re a lot bigger than mice pinkies, the baby rabbits were about the size of kiwi fruits. Something I want to mention about the English is their use of the word “awright”. That one word has the following meanings depending on the inflections and deflections used… “How are you?”, “Well thank you”, “How about yourself”, “Not so good”. You can probably get at what I’m trying to get across. I’m going to put together the conversation of two English people meeting in the street or on the tube. Let’s call them Lisa and Bob, It goes like this… Lisa: “Hiya Bob, awright?” Bob: “Hiya Lisa. Yeah awright. Got today off work din’ I. You awright?” Lisa: “Ohhh awright. S’posed to meet someone for lunch and they didn’t bloody show did they!” As for what I’ve been doing in the last week or so, I thought I’d better go and see Westminster Abby. I spent a couple of hours there, mainly because it was warm inside and because I paid £6 pounds to get inside. It is a beautiful cathedral, but very overcrowded, not only with lots of tourists, but with lots of burial sites. There are over 3,000 bodies buried in and below Westminster Abby, and many are in fancy sarcophaguses above ground, but many that are buried below, or even in different locations but have memorial stones built into the false floor of the Abby. So it’s very difficult to walk without stepping on someone’s tombstone, which I don’t think is very respectful. There is a tomb there, in which an unknown soldier from WWI is buried. The body was chosen from a selection of 6 exhumed from different war sites and it was brought from France and buried in the Abby in 1920 as a memorial and an honour to all those who fought and lost there lives but can’t be traced or identified. The black marble tombstone is surrounded by paper poppies and is the only part of the Abby floor that you can’t walk on. Many of the other tombstones on the ground are worn almost smooth and are unreadable.  The Abby has different areas set aside for the burial of different types of people. Probably the most well known area is Poet’s Corner, where, among others, Charles Dickens is buried. There’s an area for musicians, where Handle is buried. Of course throughout the Abby there are heaps of Kings, Queens, and other famous people buried, most of whom I hadn’t heard of. The Abby was officially consecrated in 1065, so there’s a lot of history behind it. The Abby is the place where all monarchs get crowned, and has been since 1066, only two kings, both Edwards, the V and VIII I think, didn’t have their coronation in the Abby. Edward V was just a kid and was murdered before his coronation could take place, and Edward VIII abdicated the thrown before his coronation. Don’t know all the details. There is a section in the Abby where services still take place. I lit a candle in memory of my Nana, and Uncle Ray and Claudie, as I did in York Minster, but Westminster was more appropriate because the day I visited just happened to be the day of the 2nd anniversary of my Nana’s death. I didn’t put a donation in the box next to the bag of unlit candles… I figured the £6 entry fee would cover it, so I hope no one removed my candle. I didn’t go into Westminster Palace, which is the Houses of Parliament, because it only opens to the public at 2:30pm and it was too cold and unpleasant for my liking to warrant the effort of waiting. Also I just wanted to have a sticky-beak, rather than actually watch the House of Commons in debate. The House of Lords is not visible, and access is also restricted to Big Ben. Big Ben is the name of the bell inside the infamous big clock tower, not the tower itself. The bell weighs 13 tonnes, and on the clock, it’s hard to imagine, but each number is a couple of feet high, and the minute hand is 14 feet long! No wonder I found it so difficult to get the whole tower in a single photo frame. Granting my Mum’s request, I went on a Jewish walking tour but unfortunately I found it quite boring. Our guide was some arty-farty type guy who tried to make his every comment funny, and didn’t succeed. We went to the oldest Synagogue in London, opened in 1701. I thought it was pretty funny that when I walked in and was looking at the old seats, I saw in one of the rows where none of our group was standing, a KFC takeaway paper bag. As it happened it did belong to someone in our group who took it out to be discarded at the end. But still, I think given that KFC isn’t kosher and all, the bag should not have been allowed in at all. But obviously the security guy, our tour guide and the guy giving the talk to us in the Shule didn’t pick up on it. The only thing of any interest to me in the Shule was a single seat that had been roped off so no one can sit in it. Occasionally they let special guests such as Prince Charles or Prince Phillip sit there, but otherwise it is just an empty seat. It previously belonged to Moses Montefiore who was a successful businessman who decided to retire at age 40, in 1824, to dedicate his life to charitable causes, mainly, but not entirely, for the Jewish community. For example, he has some retirement homes set up in Sydney and Melbourne, and around the world. We learned on the walk that Jews were not allowed to live in London for certain periods of history, and then they were invited back to live in London, and so on. They were mainly moneylenders and were very successful, to the extent that King Edward I, who couldn’t repay his debts decided to get rid of his debts by getting rid of the Jews, and thus he exiled them from London in 1290. I also learned that the fairly common Jewish name of “Freeman” comes from a concept that originated in 1237. It was an honorary title that gives the right to the beholder to herd sheep over London Bridge. They were people who were free to trade in the city of London. It’s a bit confusing for me to understand, because apparently Jews were not permitted to trade, and that is why they became moneylenders. But the thing is, the history of London is so long and there were so many changes that came in and went out with the different Monarchs that contradictory things all quite possibly occurred, just at different times. The funny thing is, that in 1999, some guy who had been titled a freeman decided to actually walk some of his sheep across the bridge and caused a huge uproar because the title, which anyone over the age of 21 can apply for, doesn’t mean anything anymore. But according to the law, he was allowed to perform this strange right. I think the laws might have been changed since then. And talking of Freeman, the other day had just come out from having a sticky beak in Tiffany’s jewellery store and who should be walking past but Damien Freeman, who lives around the corner from me in Sydney. So we went and had a coffee and caught up. And talking of Tiffany’s, there was a necklace in there with a matching bracelet made of what is called Tiffany’s Lace. Hundred’s of tiny little sparkling diamonds. The necklace was priced at £101,000 and the bracelet at £50,000. Wow! Last week I spent a few hours in the London Transport Museum. This was very interesting, especially the exhibits on the more recent means of transportation. Unfortunately, now that I’ve come to write about it, I can’t remember very much. I know that I saw somewhere that by 2025 they expect London’s traffic congestion to increase by 98%, which is something to look forward to. Early next year they’re introducing a Congestion Charge, which means you have to pay £5 to drive into zone 1 - the city. Fine’s seem to be very strangely set in London. For example, I pay £ 4.10 for a day card in zones 1 and 2. I live in zone 2, and virtually all the touristy things are in zone 1. A day card lets me take as many trains, tubes and buses as I want in that area. If I wanted a zone 1 & 2 return, which only allows me to go to one zone 1 station and then return to a station in zone 2, that costs £3.80, so if it’s usually worth the investing the extra 30 pence just in case. But then, on the DLR, where there are no barriers or anything at the station, just a ticket inspector on the train, who may or may not ask to see your ticket, there is only a £5 fine for not having a valid ticket. So, although I’ve never done it, you can see that there’s not much of an incentive to buy a ticket. On the other hand, I saw a sign the other day in some underground tunnel saying the fine for busking is £200. I might be wrong, but I wouldn’t have thought that someone who had access to £200 would be busking for a few coins each day. And then a couple of nights ago I was killing some time in a pub, and the guy sitting opposite me goes to get another drink. Out of his bag he pulls a plastic bag, heavy with coins. The size of the bag filled with coins was about the size of a soccer ball. Imagine carting that around all day. He’s probably one of the people that take shifts sitting outside somewhere with a blanket and a dog asking for money for some food. Anyway, I digress, but I can’t remember anything else to put in about the transport museum, but I did think it was good at the time. I also went to Trafalgar Square, famous for it’s hundreds of pigeons. I wasn’t disappointed. Unfortunately, my camera was on its last legs, again, so I don’t know if my photos will turn out. I actually went back yesterday with Nick’s camera, but there were hardly any pigeons there! I couldn’t believe it, I would have been really disappointed if that was the only time I went. Anyway, the day when there were hundreds, if not thousands, of the birds, this council worker guy came out with a large Hawk on his arm. As he walked through the birds they all took off in flight. Once I saw him shake his arm vigorously so the Hawk flew off, and then the sky almost turned black with pigeons fleeing. Well they don’t flee, they just fly a couple of laps around the square and land again. It was a really awesome sight to see. Also, when the pigeons take off, they fly right at you and only swoop upwards or sideways at the last second. It’s like seeing one of those 3D Imax movies where, if you look at the people around you rather than at the screen, you see quite a number of heads ducking and dodging around. I loved it, but I didn’t pay much attention to the fountains and the Nelson’s Column and other famous things in the Square, because I wasn’t interested in them. There was heaps of construction going on around the Square as well, so it wasn’t a beautiful setting or anything. I’m happy to say I didn’t get shat on once. Although when I was there yesterday, just near the eye of one of the huge bronze lions on the corners of the base of Nelson’s Column was a big, wet, white poo, dripping down for about a foot and a half. It really devalued the look of pride of the majestic sculpture. Fancy the king of the jungle being made a mockery of by a vermin of the sky. Last weekend Nick and I walked down the Thames to the Thames Barrier. We had to go about a kilometre in the opposite way to the barrier to get to the Greenwich Tunnel that goes under the Thames to the other side. Whilst there we stopped off and wandered through the Greenwich markets and had some breakfast there. Ruairidh told us ages ago that the sausages at the market were really great, so we had a look, and indeed they had some unusual flavours. We bought a selection including Venison and herbs, Thai curry, Wild Boar and apple, and some others. We had a very tasty dinner that night. The barrier was finished in 1984 and took nearly ten years to build. It’s purpose is to block extra huge tides from coming into the river and flooding London, which is actually situated in a huge valley. For the most part the barrier remains open and ships and barges float freely through it, but there’s a schedule, which at this time of year, shows that the barriers close about once a month. There are I think 10 gates across the river’s width, and they protrude out of the water like silver sails, very similar to that of the Sydney Opera House. When the gates are to be closed, a hydraulically operated system moves a huge wheel on either side of the gates which in turn rotates a huge steel re-enforced concrete structure from it’s resting place on the bottom of the river into an upright position. The concrete barriers are hollow, and a grate at the base allows the water to flow in, and a grate on the top allows the air to be pushed out, I assume to equalise the pressure inside the barrier to that of the surrounding water. The flood of 1953 consumed 300 human lives, but the main instigator to developing a protective barrier against the tides is the atrocity that would occur should the London Underground get flooded. The underground runs on many levels below much of London and the surrounding ground below London is quite moist and muddy and could therefore become unstable. On our walk we saw many cormorants, gulls and even white swans. From our lounge room and kitchen we haven’t seen any swans but we see cormorants diving into the water to find something to eat. They’re funny to watch, in the blink of an eye they just disappear without a trace, no bubbles or anything, and then a minute or so later they re-emerge close by. We often have scores of seagulls that sit on the river outside our place. They’re also funny to watch. The tide is very strong on the Thames, we have a private little wharf outside, it’s just for decoration, or to sit outside in the sun and read, boats don’t actually stop there. Anyway, at different times of the day, the water can be a foot or so below the wharf platform, which is about 7 metres high. At other times, the water will just be lapping up around the base of the wooden pillars holding the platform up. The gulls sit on the river and float down to some arbitrary spot where they turn around and fly to the back of the flock and sit down to take the ride again. I’m not sure what constitutes the spot where they decide that they should start again is, but when they get there, they just have to move. This can go on for hours. I decided that I’d like to see an auction or two at the old auction houses, Sotheby’s, founded in 1744, and Christies, founded in 1766. I think I first heard of Sotheby’s in a Jeffery Archer novel. Also, virtually the only time Dad doesn’t channel surf is when the Antique Road Show is on. He watches it almost religiously, and when I was back home, I’d occasionally watch it with him. The majority of antiques are not to my taste, but I thought it would be interesting to see how an auction takes place and what type of people bid and how much things go for. The lots go on display for several days before the actual auction takes place, and they are all labelled with a lot number, a short description, perhaps a paragraph about it’s history, and an estimated selling price. There is also a catalogue produced with all the information and colour photographs of each item. After looking on the Sotheby’s and Christies’ web sites I chose an auction at each that I would attend, and on Tuesday I went to both locations to view the lots. At Sotheby’s in the New Bond Street location, I chose “The British Sale: Paintings and Watercolours“ and at Christies, in it’s King Street premises, “Important English Furniture”. On Thursday I attended the two auctions. Both were held in largish rooms, with a panel down one side where a number of dealers sat on the telephone to clients. The auctioneer stands in the centre at the front of the room and there is someone next to him but I didn’t quite catch what his job was. Above the auctioneer is a computerised board stating the lot number, the starting price in pounds and then what the price is in several other currencies including the Euro, Yen, USD. As the auction continued, the current bidding price was reflected on the board in all the currencies. There was also a large TV screen that showed the item for sale, and in the case of the paintings, there was a team of about 6 Sotheby workers, wearing navy Sotheby aprons, and they’d carefully place each lot on an easel for the duration of its sale, and then carefully remove it and replace it with the next. I was warned by several people to sit on my hands whilst in the room, but thankfully bidders obtain a brightly coloured paddle or card with a number on it that they need to show to register their interest in bidding. After the auctioneer has noted their initial bid, they can continue showing their interest by a slight hand signal or the raising of an eyebrow, or a subtle nod or shake of the head. But if I scratched my nose or made any movement I’d be in no danger of having to walk out with a £300 painting because I didn’t have a paddle to initially attract the attention of the auctioneer. It’s amazing to watch the auctioneer, because the bids can go up 3 or 4 increments in fast succession, and yet I couldn’t see any movements to determine who was bidding. The room was noisier than I expected, just with chatter and people analysing their catalogues. Many people were writing down the results in their catalogues for each piece sold or passed in. The most expensive thing I saw sold was a set of 2 coffee tables made in 1725 that were estimated to sell for between £200,000 - £300,000 and fetched a price of £358,000. To give an idea of what the tables looked like, I’ll just cut and paste the description out of the Christies’ online catalogue. “A PAIR OF GEORGE I GILT-GESSO PIER TABLES WITH ITALIAN SCAGLIOLA TOPS The tops circa 1725 by Petrus Antonius de Paulinus, one signed Each with a rectangular black marble top inlaid with polychrome scagliola, the central oval white scene with engraved decoration, one depicting a landscape with a castle and figures, the other with David giving thanks to God having beheaded Goliath, in a foliate border, with strapwork bordered oval cartouches on each short side, one with a Roman port scene, one depicting ships, one depicting crusaders and another depicting soldiers, the medallion of David and Goliath signed: 'Petrus Antonius de Paulinus fecit.', on a bolection-moulded frieze carved with acanthus on a pounced ground, above a shaped apron with conforming decoration, on square-tapering cabriole legs headed by flowerhead ears, on scrolled acanthus feet, losses to three feet, the gilding and gesso distressed 29 in. (73.5 cm.) high; one top 42¾ in. (108.5 cm.) wide; 25¼ in. (64 cm.) deep; the other top 41¾ in. (106 cm.) wide; 24¾ in. (63 cm.) deep (2)” Last week Luka, his flatmates Rennie and Simon, Chook and I went to see a British musical called Our House and considering I only booked the tickets the day before from lastminute.co.uk, and they only cost £15, we had really great seats. Rennie and I sat slap bang in the middle of the front row on the balcony, and the three boys were situated separately a bit further to one side. The story was told a bit like Sliding Doors (with Gwynth Paltrow), where it’s the same story told twice at the same time, the first thread being if the kid turned himself in after being caught breaking the law, and the second thread if he chose to run from the police after being caught. Of course it centred around the kid being besotted with a girl, and also the kid’s late father, who visits him in his conscience, trying to get the kid not to follow in his footsteps, but to be a good citizen. It’s a totally made up story, but all set to a selection of songs by the band Madness, a popular British band from the ‘80s. It was so much fun, we all loved it, and the music was so catchy.  There were only three songs I already knew and they were “Our House” (… in the middle of our street), “Welcome to the House of Fun” (… welcome to the lion’s den), and “It must be love, love, love” (… nothing more, nothing less, love is the best). That night Nick and I went home and downloaded a whole bunch of their songs and have been playing them and singing them and whistling them ever since. Madness is actually playing in the London Arena, which is about 10 minutes walk from our house, in late December, but I’ll be home by then. I’m going to put the rest of what I’ve been doing in another diary, ‘cause otherwise this one will be even longer. See ya, Nique