To London to see the Queen

Hand me the lipstick – Now!

Indeed, my blog has been deafeningly silent, I have been in London and this is my last day before I leave for Amsterdam en route Brussels – by train.

Well, now, they have really banned cosmetic through Heathrow, many who got away with rouge and mascara would have to consider something permanent – Botox, face lift, whatever keeps that look young, sexy and less affected by the strain of negotiating airport security.

The war on terror is now terrifyingly real amongst us and the terrorists only have to think up the next ploy to get us into a tizzy. Now, 11 of the suspects have been charged, it is shame that their attack being so imminent, the evidence is still far from being gathered enough to expect a trial for another 12 to 18 months.

Six nights of 60 hours and still not done

My Oyster card has been screaming at me for the last 2 days that it is about to expire; fine, but really, I do not intend to spend another day in London, I have spent 6 nights and if I may say, tourists do end up spending 6 nights in London.

However, coming from a continental European country where standard of living is higher and the cost of living is considerably lower, I do wonder how they get people to pay the prices I see about the place – it is atrocious to say the least – even with the doubling of prices after the introduction of the Euro, we have a cheaper existence than what Londoners have to put up with.

My 6 night sojourn has been an eye-opener if not experience, I only informed 8 people I was visiting and managed to meet just 6, even in those cases I was pressed for time and opportunity – if I had informed a handful more I would have been stressed beyond the limit in trying to satisfy the needs of meeting, visiting, seeing and staying.

This is only with 6 years away from London, imagine 16 years away from Nigeria and that would be a logistic nightmare requiring an updated version of management software from NASA expeditions – I am definitely not yet looking forward to that prospect.

Left driving for the right side

Many times I get into the argument about whether driving on the left is right or driving on the right in Europe is wrong or less popular around the world.

A good few countries drive on the left, including India, Australia, Canada and Indonesia. Some have switched sides as you will see from the link.

Imagine my consternation to the subconscious predilection to the right-side driving ideal when I find that I am on the wrong side of the road waiting for a bus or I notice that the driver is to my right when I get into a car.

Worse still, sitting in front, my eyes and head are in conflict as I expect to see cars going in one direction and they are not, this especially at turnings.

Then we got on the bus and I can claim priority seating on public transport because I do use a cane; I must note that London is a bit more tolerant compared to our Amsterdam when people with assisted mobility embark.

Do sit in my seat

Twice, at least, I was offered a seat on the tube, but when we got on a bus, a “lady” with more plastic bags than a Sainsbury’s counter got on and simply barked my friend off his seat beside me demanding to sit down.

At first we thought he had occupied reserved seats, but that was not the case, as the woman murmured without respite letting ladies have seats on buses, but she was no lady, not even if I stretched my imagination.

When we got to the last stop, she got off and started rummaging through the rubbish bins – that was our brush with the Mental Health – Care in the Community programme – if the medication does help bring good manners to the fore, she must have skipped her required dosage, where I could have had compassion, I had anger, disdain and disgust – I am only human.

Some have even suffered worse fates from those encounters, we only suffered a rude situation, and we can live with that.

Exciting Kitchen rage

On the Friday, we went up to a Nigerian Restaurant on Kinsland Road near Dalston in East London and we had the pepper soup and suya for entrées then as they had no okra soup we plumbed for the spinach and red stew.

This was the second time I felt like asking for an apron to invade the kitchen and teach a few ideas about cooking Nigerian stew – not only was it greasy and unpalatable, it completely put us off we could hardly try the beef in the stew.

The waitress then suggested a doggie-bag and in an unguarded response I rebuffed with the comment that my dogs would refuse the meal. Well, that was the truth, only it was not expressed in the finesse of tone, context and delivery.

I apologised, but I do hope that the message was clear that if another visit to that place records a failing of the sort we have once endured; my review of the place would be less appreciative than this one.

A changing London

All the area around London Bridge has changed considerably in 6 years from the City Hall and interesting performances in the bowl beside the building and those anti-skateboard knobs on the concrete platforms all down to Tate Modern, the Millennium Bridge and the London Eye.

I cried off the London Eye, the queues were as long as burger-gluttons lining up for a fat expensive burger at Hard Rock cafe or was it Planet Hollywood. The VIP express – jump-the-queue tickets were not only twice as expensive, the queue did not seem to be moving any faster either.

The view from the London Eye is not exactly a view to die for, having looked from the 7^th floor of Tate Modern did not show an amazing skyline rivaling New York, I can safely give that a miss for now.

London again?

Would it be another 6 years before I return? Probably … I cannot say I am that enamoured about London per se.

However, catching up with friends and family and seeing how so grown up those little kids have become is testament to the fact that time does fly and the accumulation of passing time adds up to what makes everyone exclaim – Has it really been that long ago since you were here? Well, yes, it has.

Is this London?

I’m leaving on the slow train

With the new developments in the mind games that have been the real war on terror, travelling by air to London is completely out of the question. If you have to arrive at the airport a day before you depart and might only be able to have your hair shirt as hand luggage, why bother?

The other alternatives are road, sea and train – I took the latter which involves travel through Brussels and then the Eurostar from Brussels to London, at least you can carry whatever you want before some nut thinks that is another little scare in the making.

All signs lead nowhere

So, I arrived in London this afternoon and missed something I usually see in stations in Berlin and Paris, good signs for locations above ground and local maps on advertisement type billboards. Nothing of the sort, I need to get my A-to-Z out to find my bearings, hopefully, the street names appear where they should.

Before I surfaced, I had to get a London Underground travelcard (it used to be mainly paper-based with a magnetic strip – shows how long I’ve been away from London), it is now known as the Oyster card – a nondescript credit card sized plastic thingy that does not show any obvious sign that it is a 7-day travelcard for all zones.

Then to the hotel where I should had a deal that extended my entire stay, but with two days left, the cost is too outrageous to contemplate – this city is not paved in gold but they pay diamond prices for things that glitter like dark wood.

The spectre of crimes recent

So, I had a rather long walk to one of my old haunts and could not help but notice two crime scene notices seeking information for events that happened in the last few weeks. One victim was shot and another looked like a racial attack by a mob, all within a 5-minute stroll. Makes me weary of what is happening in London.

Then, somehow I ended up at Elephant and Castle; I remember my cousin once saying important landmarks in London are named after places in the biggest city in Nigeria – Ibadan. He gave a few examples like – Ìtá aperin (translates as the Elephant Square or Elephant and castle in this case), then Eléyelé (translates as the pigeon’s keeper or Trafalgar Square, if you like).

The maze of castle with no elephants

Anyway, I had to get a bus to my hotel, the signs indicated I need to look for bus stop C which was on the other end of that area, I got there and found that the maps did not correlate with the realities I could see, having traversed tunnels till my orientation is as bad as compass doing 10 revolutions per second, I threw up my hands in absolute despair and incredulity that anyone could make sense of those location maps.

A lady who seemed to know what my frustration was and the nonsense that masquerades as help for tourists and non-locals alike then gave directions which had me walking off in another direction, then finally I found the stop, only to see the that location map at the stop should have been the same all through.

It is strange because the map of the London Underground is considered a work of art, a masterpiece of engineering drawing and it is the standard by which other city maps are drawn; that these ideas have not converted to locations maps for bus stops is unfortunate.

London after six years of absence – not too sure – I give my views in a week.