Picture of the week

First I have to say thanks for the warm welcome back to Xanga, glad to see familiar faces still around which is always of some relief. Getting back into the swing of things I thought I would bring back a popular entry and continue picture of the week. This week I've chosen the setting of a bus-stop, which surprisingly is the site of some found memories. Let me explain, when I first came to London I lived with my relatives in a place called North Cheam, which was this pretty quite unassuming area filled with mostly old people or teenage kids (Often falling under the category of chavs). Now outside the house I lived in was a bus-stop, pretty much beside the front entrance which I could see pretty clearly from my room on the 2nd floor.

Over the next few months I would be the witness of events that ranged from the wacky to down right bizarre courtesy of that bus-stop. I often felt like James Stewart’s character from Rear Window and seeing fights or arguments break out wasn't such a surprise, nor was seeing intoxicated louts trying to head-butt the steel pole. One of the funnier stories I remember was one evening there was a group of quite young teenagers staggering home and clearly one of them did not handle his drinks and was being dragged along by his friends. They reached the bus-stop and were trying to sit him up straight with no luck, and then the group had the wise idea of boosting and putting their friend on top of the stand itself. With a little encouragement and effort they finally hauled him on top of the stand, and unbelievably left him there. I do recall waking up the next morning and seeing him still bundled on top of the stand (In fetus position no less) before going down there and waking him up. The look of confusion on his face upon realizing where he was, certainly was a Kodak moment

Unrelated to bus-stops is a video of one of the more under-rated programs out there I used to watch a lot of a few years ago. Just watch

Remember me?

I feel quite embarrassed as I write, since it's been more than 2 months since I last updated this page. Put it down to a mixture between being somewhat busy, feeling extremely lazy and a desire to keep some of my thoughts private. None the less I'm back and feeling the sudden urge to share my stories, adventures, pictures and everything in between over the last few months. The only question remains, where to start?

A good place I suppose was a milestone I recently achieved. I've now been in London for a touch over a year now, and what an interesting time it's been. It's been an experience, one in which I've learned a lot and in the process I think I've also grown up a fair bit too. I would stop short of saying I've changed a great deal, I guess those type of statements are best judged by others. What I will say however is, I've really enjoyed my time here and as months fly by I'm reminded my stay here will soon expire.

With that in mind my plan for this year is continue with my traveling which I finally begun at the end of last year. After strong recommendations I'm thinking of doing a Contiki tour, before some of the summer festivals roll around. As you can see from the shot above, I'm still actively involved with photography and been out shooting an awful lot. I spent Christmas over in Paris, and decided to brave the weather in Scotland over New Years. All of which I will update in due course.

I'll leave you with a pretty cool page I stumbled to the other day. Either these people are very creative or they have a lot of times on their hands (No pun intended). Click here for the details.

Intermission

Sorry for the lack of updates folks, but your humble narrator's laptop has been sitting in the labyrinth that is the Hewlett Packard’s workshop awaiting a brand new motherboard. Just recently at the end of last week it was finally returned along with a pretty hefty bill. Just my luck

It's been a pretty crazy month for me, one in which I've had a grueling time at work and had my emotions really tested. I've come away feeling just drained and with Christmas and New Year looming it's a welcome distraction. Look for plenty of future updates in the near future.

On a different subject most of you I'm sure have heard one way or another about Michael Richard's public outburst at the Laugh Factory, where he attacked two patrons heckling him during his act. Here's the Kramer rap of the famous incident, which can be heard here

Picture of the week

With a winter chill in the air, and with people pulling out coats and scarfs it should come as no surprise we're at a new month. With people already hinting and discussing Christmas, it's sometimes hard not to wonder where the time has gone.

This brings me to the picture of the week. Recently I've had a lot of fun playing and experimenting with long shutter speeds. So here I was stuck waiting at the tube station at Canary Wharf, bored out of mind. Perfect time for a little bit of impromptu photography, right?

So the other day in my office one of my colleagues mentioned how one of the painters doing some renovation work around our building looked strikingly familiar with the black comedian from the film; See no evil, hear no evil (Whom I would latter learn was Richard Pryor). I could only laugh, when I saw this video forwarded on latter that afternoon. Click here to see the connection.

The national

With it's bizarre architecture and plain exterior the National Theatre takes many people by surprise, standing out as something of a sore thumb between high rise apartments and restaurants on South Bank. Yet as I was wondering around there the other evening I realized I hadn't seen any stage productions or exhibitions there yet. Wanting to set the record straight I promptly had a look through their website, hoping something would catch my eye. A work colleague came to my aid and suggested I take a look at an exhibit by Reuters looking at key events and photographs that shaped the new centaury. For any other prospective Londoner's interested or even those overseas (The exhibit is being shown in a few other countries) you can find the full details here

Unrelated to exhibitions, some of you may have caught 'Weird Al's' latest song from his new album which is making its way through popular web sharing sites. For those that's haven't seen it yet, I present to you White and nerdy