Interregnum

An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of discontinuity of a government, organization, or social order.

Which is to say, my life right now. In London and otherwise. Which accounts for the absolute lack of posts on this blog in more than two months. So if you're still out there, I apologize profusely.

Things have been happening. We went to Greece. The photographic evidence is all over my Flickr stream, and if the code worked correctly I embedded it below. I'm not going to post about it because apart from Athens (which was great) and the beach (which was great and relaxing) there wasn't much to our trip to Greece. It was designed to relax, and relax it did.



My parents came for a visit. That's a massive blog post in and of itself, which I'll try to write up over the next week.

I saw Alan Moore and Michael Moorcock speak about the mythology of London at the British Library, a conversation which sparked my creative juices like nothing else has done since moving here. That's also another post I'll get around to in a bit.

The post title refers to the current reign of not-knowing in my life. Similar to how I felt before moving to London and not having a definite job, I'm now faced with an uncertain future on many fronts. There are a lot of giant question marks in my life right now. There are future goals but the road towards them is an uncertain and for me untravelled one.

I can't give details right now, but I will as I'm permitted. Nothing sinister mind you apart from the unknown. Although to bastardize Lovecraft - sometimes the fear of that is all the more sinister you need.

The London Trilogy

Once upon a time when I lived in New York, I had the distinct pleasure of reading Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy, a series of detective novels set in the City and exploring the various kinds of identity and existential issues that might strike a person living there. It is unfortunate that I can point to no book or series of books and say 'this! This is The London Trilogy. I am tempted to point to Peter Ackroyd, cite novels such as Hawksmoor and say 'this is the British Paul Auster!' but that would be unfair to Ackroyd's own immense prowess as a writer - he is simply Peter Ackroyd, no comparison necessary.

The themes within Hawksmoor are eerily similar to those in The New York Trilogy, and walk hand-in-hand with themes in other books I've read recently: The Master and Margarita, which is likely the second-best novel I've ever read after 100 Years of Solitude, and The Satanic Verses, which I've not yet finished but is majestic and glorious in its portrayal of the placeless place that is the expatriate's Ell Oh En Dee Oh En.

But there is no London Trilogy per se just as there is no version of Woody Allen here to assign the city a theme tune (Rhapsody in Blue for New York, of course) and film us all in glorious black-and-white. The startling thing is that we don't need an Allen or a Trilogy. We're doing quite well on our own thank you, as Mr. Ackroyd and Mr. Rushdie and how many countless other writers have proven.

It is the very essence of unnaturalness that so many people are shoved into such a small space and I suspect it is this unnatural state of affairs that lead us to examine our identifies when confronted with so many other individuals at the same time. The millions of years of evolution that lead us here did nothing to prepare us for our Londons and our New Yorks, and for the question-answer hunt that we embrace when we move here and become aware of the glorious and lush tapestry of these lives around us.

I offer a new metaphor: London is a loom upon which we can weave our own patterns into the massive and unknowable cloth of life around us.

On Magic

I don’t take much stock in ley lines, the supposed alignments between ancient sites (and in some modern mythology, where the planet’s energy, magnetic or otherwise, is stronger.) I can say with some authority that certain parts of London hold a kind of energy, of which I make no claim that it is spiritual or magnetic or otherwise.

But consider the layers of history and emotion here, and that twenty million people are packed inside the M25, and it’s not difficult to imagine that a person could feel this energy in some regard. Certain streets that are dark even in summer’s broad daylight, or areas that constantly feel like a party – whatever that might mean.

It’s easy to imagine London as a giant network or jigsaw puzzle of areas like this, little regions held together by sinew-streets that bind the city and its inhabitants like a spiderweb. Even underground just passing through certain stations allows you to pick up a brief but tangible piece of what lies Above.

When people say London is magic, I will agree for this reason alone.

Finally: A Group I Want To Join

Avast mateys. It not be a secret that I enjoy all things pirate-y, so it be with great pleasure that I discovered the London Pirate Festival today. The London Pirate Festival 'tis a three-day celebration of the pirate life, coinciding with Talk Like A Pirate day, the one day it be acceptable to let me pirate nature roam free.

The event schedule be sketchy for this year, but last year's events included a rum tasting and monkeyn' about on the Golden Hind, which that scurvy dog Drake was kind enough to lend.

Who knows where we be settin' sail this year? But strike me down and call me a one-eyed parrot if I not be attendin!

Neighborhood Love

The other day while driving to St. Pancras station I passed a building on North Road I've never seen before: a white clock tower set far back from the road. So on my way to another destination today (which I never reached) I decided to check it out. Here's the tower:

The tower stands in the middle of Caledonian Park, surrounded by council estates and a few ageing buildings. Turns out this was the site of the Caledonian Market, opened by Prince Albert in 1855 and built on the site of Copenhagen House, a tea room and 'pleasure garden' (no, not like that) [update: actually, it may have been exactly like that - thanks MiddleWay!] that was on the site since the 1600s. The market is long gone, having departed after World War 2. It was originally a livestock market as it was on the terminus of the Great Northern Railway, and there were several pubs in the area named after livestock. I passed by one, The Lamb hotel, which has been (recently, it appears) boarded up for refurbishment.

The park is a nice and fairly hidden slice of forest and grass, for Islington anyway. The clocks still seemed to be keeping perfect time. The tower was nifty and these little mysteries are part of the reason I love London so much: how else can you find out that a park by your house was a 17th-century tea room that became a cattle market?

London Twestival

It was the original, it spawned a worldwide Twestival movement and tonight it's back. I'm heading out to Shoreditch with other bloggers, social media people, social media bloggers, online miscreants and a while list of people I've never met in person to meet up and talk all things Internet - and for charity!

I love these kinds of events: the London Bloggers Meetup is something I look forward to every month, even when I can't make it for whatever reason. Twestival's going to be like a massive version of that and if last time is any kind of comparison it will be a hell of a party.

I'll be the tall Yank in a Hellboy t-shirt. Hope to see you all there!

Little Green Street

We're kind of museumed out (we hit the Natural History Museum last weekend, which I meant to write about but never did) so were looking for something a little different to do this weekend. Along came Diamond Geezer's post about Little Green Street, one of those little hidden London gems you hear about and say 'hey, I should go see that sometime' and never get to. It is, in DG's words:

a rather special Georgian terrace called Little Green Street. It's a very short road, only about ten families live here. It's very old, dating back more than 250 years to the early 18th century. It's pretty much intact, untouched by the Blitz and modern development. It's rather photogenic, indeed you can imagine the BBC shooting a costume drama here (so long as they painted over the yellow lines and covered the bollards). It's Grade II listed, as you might hope and expect. It's cobbled, and you don't get a lot of cobbles in Camden. It's also very narrow, less than three metres wide.

Cool, but worth a weekend trip? Well yes. I first heard of Little Green Street a few months ago when its story hit another blog (although I can't recall which one, and my Google Reader is being persnickety.) Little Green Street is facing what so many other slices of historic London face - progress. Little Green Street is the only access to an old slice of road that also has an old slice of undeveloped property, where a developer would like to put in some houses.

The problem is that Little Green Street is so narrow that the construction equipment wouldn't leave room for people to walk as it drove down the street, or it would require that the houses be knocked down (they're Grade II listed so I doubt that would happen.) The residents have their own website and blog explaining their ongoing struggle with the Camden council to save Little Green Street, and there is a massive banner with their website facing Highgate Road.

The street itself is one of those blink-and-you-miss-it little alleyways London has so many of, and there is definitely a different and quiet vibe there despite the massive council estates right next door and the busy street on the other side. I wish the residents all the best luck in fighting the development; the PR does seem to be on their side, which is good.

For us, it was close enough to make a Saturday jaunt - between our flat and Hampstead Heath, so only about 20 minutes away. It also offered a good excuse to check out nearby Kentish Town, which turned out to be a really hip and vibrant community - surprising, since it was known just a few years ago as being rife with gang warfare and drugs. It's practically a model of urban renewal in London and we both had neighborhood envy just from walking around. We found a nice pub, had a pint and just talked away the afternoon. Then walked back to Camden Town to catch the bus home.

I <3 The National Portrait Gallery

It's not exactly the most glam museum in London, but the National Portrait Gallery is still one of my favorite places to kill a couple of hours in an afternoon, especially when it's bitter cold outside and you're looking for something to do on the cheap. It's a slog through the tourist crowds to get there (the NPG is the National Gallery's caboose, right between Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square) and the gallery is smallish - you can do the whole thing in the aforementioned couple of hours if you want - but what a gallery.

It's like walking through the Head Museum in Futurama, except that the heads are paintings and they don't talk. OK, it's only remotely similar to the head museum. But for people who enjoy a good romp through history's halls, it's like being with the characters from your favorite book. Richard III? Henry VIII? Charles II? All there. The symbolism in some of the earlier paintings is like a Where's Waldo for history buffs.

The NPG is one of the little unsung heroes of my city. And I do love it.

Home to Go Home

It's amazing how business-efficient you can be when you're seeing friends and family, and that's how I'd describe my first trip back to America since moving over here: efficient. The Beautiful Competition and I were gone thirteen days, the longest we've left our cats alone since we moved, and certainly the longest trip we've taken since coming here.

Almost immediately after arriving in Tulsa I turned around and flew to Denver for a day to see my grandparents, who seem to be hanging in there. It was great just to spend some time with them (especially without any other family members), play cards, tell stories, and so forth; I even heard a couple from my grandfather I hadn't heard before. Then it was on a plane to Kansas City for Angela and John's wedding. They normally hang in Seattle but KC is where Angela's family lives and John's family isn't far, so it made a good central meeting point. Crabby, Roger and Roger's girlfriend were there as well so it was an excellent opportunity to hang out with at least some of the old crew and get to know new crew members. The wedding was perfect; not overwhelming like some weddings can be, and about intimacy and love, as weddings should be.

Then it was a frazzling late-night and early-morning drive back to Tulsa for the holiday fun. We did our usual two Christmases, one on Christmas eve with my family, the other on Christmas day with the Beautiful Competition's much-larger family. I also met my brother's new fiancée and quickly learned she's going to make a great member of the family.

The stay was just about the perfect length; family vacations, especially ones where you have to see everyone with business-efficiency, are never relaxing but this one was exceptionally low-key and almost 100% stress-free.

I expected that this trip home would solidify for me the tentative plan to come back in a year's time, and I did in fact feel like I should be heading 'home' to Seattle rather than 'home' to London. But the strangest thing happened on the cab ride from Paddington to our flat - I realized that London itself was very much becoming like home, where things no longer seem strange and unfamiliar here but are instead very much recognizable for me on many levels. Which is to say that London, oddly enough, feels like a new home.

This is my city as much as it is anyone else's now, I reckon. And if there's anything that 2009 will bring, and any kind of London-related resolution for me, it is this: so far I've had a relationship with London first as a tourist, then as a working resident. Now, the Beautiful Competition and I both agreed that it's time to treat London more as a lover, something we do in fact like and even adore from time to time, temperamental as it can be. As with anything, we'll get out of London what we put into her, and we've put quite a bit in this last year in the way of time and energy - so it's time we started taking a little more out.

Here's to a great 2009 in our home.

On Umbrellas

London is an umbrella city. Compared to say Seattle, where it also rains a prodigious amount but no one carried an umbrella. In fact, the easiest way to pick out a new Seattleite or a visitor is by their umbrella when it's raining. London has no such pretensions about its foul weather; when things get wet, the umbrellas come out and if you don't have one, you might as well resign yourself to the fact that you're going to look like a drowned rat if you're outside.

In fact, if you have the opportunity to be caught in a sudden rainstorm in London, watch how quickly Londoners can produce their umbrellas - many of them the size of old satellite TV dishes - from their coats, pockets, shoes, or wherever else they might keep them. It's almost like a flash-mob, the sound of dozens or hundreds of umbrellas "shoosh"-ing open around you. And don't you feel dumb for not having one!

Before I moved here, I bought a really nice expensive umbrella. The very first time it was exposed to London rain and wind, the damn thing imploded as though the weight of the rain here was simply too much and it decided suicide was preferable to a lifetime of repelling London wet. I then bought a cheaper but much nicer umbrella from a place in a back street by my office, which I absolutely loved. It was big, automatic, cost me 15 quid and best of all had a hook on the end.

A hook on the end of your umbrella is possibly one of the coolest things you can have. It is infinitely useful. It's clearly a handle so you can adjust your umbrella without moving uncomfortably bending your wrist. Moreover you can use a closed hook-handled umbrella just as if you were carrying your own hook: to open doors, to grab onto railings on the Tube, to reach hard-to-reach objects and pick them up, to slide down clotheslines and to scratch your back. There aren't many ways you wouldn't use the hook!

Alas, I left my awesome hooked umbrella at my office and someone else must have recognized how awesome it was because it is gone. So this morning I ran to Boots and purchased an inexpensive substitute umbrella.

Oops.

The thing is barely bigger than a dinner platter. It's so small that it looks like I mugged a small child and took his umbrella. The aluminium (that's pronounced Al-Lou-Minn-Ee-Umm here) is so thin and sharp that folding it up is like grabbing a bag of razor blades. As I discovered on my way back to my flat, It will either keep my face, my shoulders, or my back dry, or any combination of the two, but not all three at the same time.

And no hook. That should have been my clue.

On Monday I'll spring for another hook-handled umbrella. Until then, I hope it stops raining.

Photo: Shelter by unrelaxeddad on Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

One Year Later...

Apparently it was yesterday according to this post but I had it in my mind it was today. Oh well.

One year (and one day) ago I was stumbling around Heathrow and then Holborn, shaking off the sleep and adjusting my internal clock to my new home.

And what I said in the linked post still holds true: it's good to be back. Wouldn't have traded this last year for the world, and the coming year will be even better!

ARE YOU A-READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?

No, not that European 'football' where the guys run all over the field kicking at a round white-and-black round ball before someone yells GOALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!! GOALGOALGOALGOAL!!!! I'm talking good old-fashioned beer-swilling, cheerleader-high-kicking, helmet-smashing, butt slapping (hey, I don't make this up), marching-band-playing, Friday night lights shining AMERICAN FOOTBALL. HOO-RAH!

Which really means absolutely nothing to me except that on the way back from Whitstable today (post forthcoming) I saw a gaggle of lads on the train wearing 49ers and Bills jerseys and hats, and there were similarly-clad lads all over London, in train stations, on the buses and on the streets. I saw the Pats, the Jets, the Seahawks (!) and the Bears (WTF?) but no one was sporting a Chargers or a Saints jersey that I could see - which is funny since those are the teams playing at Wembley in about an hour and 50 minutes in the second NFL UK game.

Honestly, A for effort all around: it seems that NFL fever has firmly swept London regardless of the various team jerseys. In fact, I'm not sure it matters which teams are playing (the 'Aint's? Do they even count as a team?) but there is a bit of excitement in the air as Wembley Stadium is turned into a gridiron.

It's funny that the NFL UK notw has a website and logo, because I have a feeling this is here to stay. What's next - London's own NFL team?

Hey, that might be kind of cool...

10 Things You'll Never Hear On The Street In London

1. "I need to find a more stylish track suit."
2. "That English girl has a really nice ass!"
3. "Caffe Nero brews a killer Americano."
4. "Isn't this weather great?"
5. "Who wants to go to Ladbrokes?!"
6. "Can I get you anything else?" (specifically from waitstaff)
7. "We can fit 50 more people on this bus no problem."
8. "I sure miss the days of drinking on the Tube."
9. "No, that dress isn't too short."
10. "Hey, don't puke there!"

More of the Minotaur

Last weekend I was making my way home. I'd had a couple of pints but nothing too serious and wasn't really paying attention to where I was going. Soon enough, I found the buildings closing in behind me, herding me forward, walling off my escape. And then I heard him.

He came around a corner tall and terrible, a bestial behemoth of pure hate. I nearly retched at the wet dog smell of London after a rain, the unwashed aroma of human bodies and decaying feces and urine. He growled, his voice the sum total of every muttering homeless person, act of defiance and oppression against and by authority, screeching sirens and blasting jackhammers.

"I knew I'd find you eventually," he says. Without warning, his massive fist connects to my mouth and I fall against the ground spitting out the pieces of my front teeth. Every nightmare of losing my teeth comes back, and more as his hoof lands on my shoulder. I hear bones cracking and try futilely to raise my arm.

"Stand and fight me," he says, this living symbol. His legs are made of pound coins mortared by blood and tears, his hands are the muddy Thames sludge built up over thousands of years. A Roman statue and even a piece of my own hair make up his right arm. His rippling body is covered with a vagrant's rags.

"No need to make it worse," the minotaur growls. I nod assent, stand, and his fist flies at me again. I catch it in my hand, and realize I've formed a fist of my own. A token show of self-defense.

It connects with the mirror, glass shatters and I'm left cradling my jaw in the darkness.

Unexpected Pleasures

Here's a list of some things I love about London that I didn't know about, didn't expect to like or took me by surprise:

• Not having a car. I enjoy driving (well, most of the time) and I absolutely loved my Prius. It was painful to give it up. But I've adjusted well to not having a car, and all that implies: you can't pick up Ikea furniture without getting a cab or home delivery, you have to limit yourself to small runs at the grocery store, and sometimes you get lost walking around. But you see so much more from the street than you do from a car. I love it.
  
• Fresh food. Fresh ingredients just taste better. Not so many preservatives means better tasting food, believe it or not.
  
• Living in the big city and being around so many diverse groups has not actually confirmed my stereotypes and prejudices. In many cases it has challenged them. Seeing people of different races, creeds and nationalities struggling every day for the same things I struggle for humanizes them. I take back things I said before about living in the city: this experience is not something you can get in strip-mall suburban America.
  
• I've mentioned it before: there are some women who think an American accent is sexy. Who'da thunk it?
  
• Things like this.
  
• I kind of enjoy carrying an umbrella around with me almost all the time now.
  
• Reading on mass transit. I've read more since I arrived here, mostly on the tube and on the bus on the way to and from work, than I have in the last two or three years combined.
  
• Great acts of kindness. This is probably a blog post in and of itself, but I've seen complete strangers being extraordinarily kind to each other. So many people living on top of each other requires some sort of unwritten social contract, and it's amazing what I've seen - people helping women with strollers onto busses, people helping elderly people who have fallen down. Clerks just generally being friendly and helpful. Returning someone's wallet or Oyster card after they left it in the store, or it fell out of their pocket. I've seen people being complete assholes of course, but I'm always floored by how kind people here are, often to complete strangers. Even if a drunk stumbles into you, you don't yell, you just say 'steady on mate' and help him on his way. After all - someday that very well could be you.
  
• Monmouth Coffee Company. Who knew some of the best coffee in the world is roasted in London?
  
• I'm playing less games, but doing more social sorts of things. This can only be a good thing.
  
• Photography. Who knew I'd take so many pictures here?
  
• My muse. I'm writing more than I have in years. Since college. Since ever, really.
  
• Contrary to what Republicans would have you believe, socialized health care does not suck. In fact, it fucking rocks.

This has been a great experience and I really do love it here.

He's At It Again

On the way to the bank, a tourist stopped me and asked me where Westminster Abbey was. I helpfully pointed to it (the big, white Gothic building just down the street) and she thanked me, then asked if the streets here 'move around' because it seemed very easy to get lost.

I laughed and said it sure seems like it, but I know better.

He's out there, moving streets around.

You hear me, minotaur? I'm on to you!

Roman London: The Walk

I picked up a copy of historian Stephen Inwood's Historic London: An Explorer's Companion not long after arriving here and have used it sporadically for recommendations on historic pubs and other one-off things to do. The first section is a walk through Roman-era London, which I finally managed to pull off last weekend based on a combination of favorable weather and a desire to get out of the flat and do something.

The walk covers The City, the oldest parts of London that used to be encircled by the city's wall. Originally the Romans built London (Londinium) as a strategic center because the Thames is a natural harbor. It was essentially a supply point for their efforts further inland; it wasn't the capital of the province and was only important as a waypoint. But like many waypoints (say, Chicago) it eventually became important in its own right.

We started at the Tower of London, not a tower at all but the fortress where the King used to reside when he wasn't traipsing around somewhere else. We didn't pony up to go in – it's stupid expensive and we did it the last time we were here – but it's always interesting to see because it's one of the few examples of a completely intact medieval building in the city. Not completely completely intact as various changes have been made throughout the ages, but it's close.

The object of my interest is just north of the Tower, literally right outside the Tower Hill Tube station. There's a massive section of the old city wall there, although only the bottom three meters or so are Roman; the rest were added in the middle ages. It makes a good basis to start the walk. From there, we wound north, taking in various sections of wall. One is in the courtyard of a five-star hotel; another is in the basement of an office complex, visible through the windows.

This represents London the city in ways that nothing else could: ancient architecture, as old as the settlement itself, that has been completely subsumed by the new around it. Built around, knocked down when it wasn't needed anymore, and developed upon. That is London, and it's amazing to think of all the layers of history one on top of the other.

We headed north to the appropriately-named London Wall (a street), and jogged west, following bits of the wall as we went. We passed the not-so-PC streets Jewry Street and Saracen's Head Court (!) along the way, enjoying the City on a quiet Saturday afternoon.

Unlike many other European cities I've visited, London follows its American counterparts in that its business and financial areas close down on evenings and the weekends. In some parts of the City, you can walk several blocks without finding an open pub or coffee place, or without seeing another person. It can actually get a little creepy because the city just seems so empty, moreso when you compare it to areas like Camden where things are hopping all the time.

We ended our trip at the Guildhall, another fine example of surviving medieval architecture, although one that was rebuilt extensively after the Blitz and the Great Fire. Again, this is London: a city that has been razed both naturally and unnaturally throughout the ages. It's almost Biblical the way some disaster or another occasionally comes along to cleanse the city of some of its old floatsam, burying ancient buildings in piles of rubble. But at the same time it was this destruction that lead to the discovery of much of what is known about Roman London: the Blitz uncovered many of the sections of wall that were previously lost, and revealed other things like the postern gate outside of the Tower and the amphitheatre now housed in the Guildhall Gallery.

These are the times when I love London the most, when I feel the most connected to the city itself. Being here is like living in history, breathing the dust and pieces of so many people who walked here before and left their mark on the town. It's easy to lose sight of this because I go to work every day, but it's important to get out every once in a while and not take for granted that I live in one of the greatest cities on the planet.

Check out the Flickr photos.

The Minotaur

Last Wednesday I stopped at Great Portland Street Tube Station, on the Circle Line, and waited for it to clear out. It was late and the trains were running with big gaps between them, so I had the station to myself for a while. I sat on the bench at the far end of the platform and stared into the black dusty void of the tunnel.

After several minutes I heard a growl from the darkness. I knew who it was, of course: the minotaur. You catch glimpses of him every now and then, but more often than not you can hear him growling from the darkness, or occasionally snorting and charging. This is his city after all, the manmade contraption meant to contain him and those sacrificed to him.

He emerged from the tunnel slowly, his horns slightly sooty from the filth in the air. He sat on the bench next to me, causing it to creak slightly under his immense weight. For a few moments neither of us said anything. Then he asked:

'You seem unhappy lately. Are you alright?'

'Of course,' I said. 'Although I certainly appreciate your concern.'

'It's easy to lose perspective here,' the minotaur sighed, leaning back, resting his head on the brick. 'It happens to me from time to time. But I need to be concerned. This is my city, and the people in it are under my care.'

'Is that why you’re trying to kill me?'

'That's just my day job. Night job. Well, job. I mean, do you think I want to? No. But the sacrifices, they’re always willing. It's not like anyone forces them to be here.'

'You don’t have to do kill them, do you? They just kind of... grind themselves down.'

'Yeah. It's just a job though. Pays the bills. Allows me to travel.'

I look over at him. His bovine snout snorts slightly each time he exhales, his coal-black eyes stare straight forward, ignoring me. His muscled and bare chest, human if not for the light coat of black fur and leathery skin, is crisscrossed with tiny scars from millions of battles. I remind myself that he’s older than time and will be around long after I'm gone.

After a few moments I ask: 'Is it time to fight now?'

'Might as well get to it,' he says.

We stand, and square off. The first blow is mine. The rest are his. In the end, it doesn't matter; this is his city, after all.

Photo credit: Minotaur a by Stephen Rees on Flickr.

Islington's Finest

I debated whether to post this but I will want a record of it later, so here goes.

Last night I roll back to the flat about 7:15. We're on the third floor of our complex, and the stairs are outside although covered by a roof. I'm taking the steps two at a time, glad to be home and eager to play some Lego Indiana Jones.

Sitting on the top step of the final flight of stairs is a homeless guy. This isn't a terribly uncommon sight, there are a couple of them who hang out in our stairwell from time to time although it's very intermittant and they always seem to leave afer a few minutes. But this isn't one of those guys, and he's just kind of sitting there with a hood pulled over his face, kind of leaning forward and sleeping. I say 'excuse me' as I step around him, no response. I ask him if he's alright. No response.

I go inside, lock the door, and call the police. It's a non-emergency - more than anything I'd just rather have the cops come and let this guy know that our stairwell is not a good place to crash - so they say they'll send someone as soon as they can. That was about 7:20.

At 10:30, Liz comes home. The guy hasn't moved. In fact, he looks pretty much exactly like he did before. The cops call and apologize for not showing up yet. They tell me they'll be on their way. Our security gate is locked, and our door is double-locked, just in case.

Around 11, I hear our two female neighbors come home. I assume they are OK because their security gate closes; it's a distinctive sound. I check and he's still out there, hasn't moved.

I've got yet another cold (go London air quality) so I wake up at around 4:00 AM and can't get back to sleep. I check and our friend is still outside. I give the police another call, and tell the operator that he hasn't moved a bit and I'm a little worried he might not be OK.

The operator asks if he's still breathing.

I tell her I guess so, I didn't go out and check.

She asks me to go out and check.

Now think about that for a moment. The police are asking me to go at the very minimum wake someone up who doesn't have any other place to stay. Add to that he may have a mental illness, be on some kind of illegal substance, or both. And they want me to check his vitals.

Isn't that why the police exist? So I don't actually have to check the vitals on some guy who's camped out on my porch?

I go back to bed and by the time I'm up at 7 AM, he's gone. When I'm in the shower the cops show up 12 hours after they were initially called, and say that they'll let the night patrol know to check the complex. Fair enough.

Obviously the guy was OK (he got out of there somehow), but the whole experience was a little surreal. I know the cops have better things to do than chase homeless people out of stairwells, but 12 hours is a little ludicrous. As was, I feel, the request that I go outside and check to see if the guy's OK.

Welcome to the big city I guess.

Blah

It's a Bank Holiday weekend, which means no work. Normally I'd be outside basking in something fun, but it has been raining like nobody's business the last couple of days. And Saturday, the day when it was nice? I spent most of that indoors, cleaning and straightening up and catching up with Liz since she just came back from a week in the US.

We did manage to get out for a little bit yesterday to hit a couple of historic pubs (my historic Roman London walking tour was put on hiatus because of the weather) and today I'm thinking a museum might be in order. Anything that doesn't involve a lot of walking in this dreary wetness.