Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Leaving New York's never easy


Thank you Africa...
Originally uploaded by gardawind
I leave for Namibia tomorrow. Of course I won't get to Namibia until Saturday as I chose two overnight flights. The first takes me into 'terrir stricken' London where I have a 13 hr layover and the chance to dash into Knightsbridge for a quick lunch with my old boss and a mooch around Harrod's before heading back for Gatwick (of all places) for another overnight flight to Namibia.

London is responding to recent attempted car bombings and suicide attacks on airports as only the British can. The newspapers are printing Union Jacks to "Fly in the face of terror" and there's a lot of grumbling about "the damned inconvenience of it all"... nobody really seems scared.

Then of course there's the speed at which the British police arrest 'terror suspects' the advantage of having enough CCTV to photograph your average citizen a couple of thousand times a day. Start from the site, work backwards and hey presto "You're nicked"

Have someone from work coming in to look after the cats and Velcro is off to Doggy Daycare (I'm trying to think of it as Camp rather than Prison) so that end is sorted. Also writing an 'instruction manual' for the house and all of those little quirks that living here you take for granted but as a stranger you'd find baffling.

Well cleaning stuff to buy, inflatable neck pillows to be found and July 4th to be celebrated today so I shall sign off here. Another post tomorrow and then I think it will get a little patchy as I scramble for coverage and spend more and more of my time outdoors and out of range of your average cell-phone (whatever happened to Inmarsat?)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i must of missed the whole going to Namibia thing what's it all about? And would love to see what you did with our photos. quokkaboy@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

You're right, and the inconvience thing has alredy worn off. For the benefit of your worldwide readership... living as i do only a mile and a tad away from Picadilly Circus where the car bombs were sitting... (indeed my dozy flatmate walked past them on his way home that night, i was half sorry they didn't go off)... I can vouch for the fact that the Sun's Union Jack frontpage is hilariously misjudged.

Truth is, no-one gives a shit. It's a big city, you know? You're far more likely to be blinded by some idiot's umbrella on Oxford Street than blown up. Seriously, who cares? It's not like it's the IRA and they're good at what they do.

And these little bomb-scares had one brilliant consequence. The first ever shag on British Big Brother came and went at the same time, and nobody (but the insignificant Daily Star) mentioned it. Joy! They'll come out the house thinking how special they are, and everyone will say, you did what? Sorry we were watching old tennis reruns and laughing about bombs...

Enjoy Namibia Stevo... sorry i just called you Stevo...