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Dreadful Nonsense

"I've read your blog. it's really funny. you should write a column." - Jon Ronson

I have been living in London Town for a whole year - that's 365 full days, ladies and gentlemen - and to celebrate, here are some photographs of wildlife that I've seen in the last couple of days. We were walking through Clissold Park today when we noticed there was quite a big group of people staring at one of the lakes where the geese and ducks live. Although you don't see many animals in London, other than pigeons (rats with wings), squirrels (rats with long tails) and rats (rats), I thought that ducks shouldn't really be that much of a novelty. You can see them all round China Town, for a start. So we went over the investigate.


THERE ARE TURTLES IN THE WATER. Turtles. Living with the geese and ducks. TURTLES, PEOPLE. Lovely turtles were swimming about, holding their necks above the water and giving the impression that they're being dragged under the water by their back legs. More turtles were sunbathing on a branch further up the lake.



I can't stess it enough. TURTLES. That made my day.

The other brilliant thing we saw on the way to seeing Derren Brown's live show in Hammersmith. We were on the District Line, the brilliant one that goes overground for much of the journey and has wooden floors, like in the old fashioned days before the Great Fire Of London (you'd think they'd learn). When the train stopped in Earls Court, a new passenger got on to our carriage. A pigeon.


I love seeing birds on the tube, because they're so calm and collected. I commented to He Who Only... that the pigeon seemed to know what he was doing. He Who Only... assured me that he did. This is a well known London phenomenon, apparently, and a quick scan of the net confirms this. I was so freaking thrilled though, I kept saying to He Who Only... "there's a pigeon on the tube, there's a pigeon on the tube!" I was leaning over trying to get a good shot while the pigeon (who only had one toe on one foot) wandered up and down pecking at the wooden floor and everyone else on the carriage was having a good look too, apart from one women who was sitting brushing her hair over and over, wearing BRIGHT RED lipstick (a colour which can only be written in capital letters), who suddenly noticed the pigeon almost at her feets, screetched like someone had just told her she had lipstick on her teeth (which to her credit, she didn't). She lifted her feet off the floor, looked over at us as if we should have warned her and got off at the next stop.

The pigeon, however did not. He carried on up and down the carriage as happy as larry. When we got off at Hammersmith, I was slightly concerned he would be staying on for too long, and right behind us a lady on the carriage "helped" the pigeon off the carriage by flapping a newspaper at him. The pigeon took flight right out the door behind us and, as we watched, flew back on to the tube into the next carriage, to the delight of everyone sitting inside. He obviously wasn't at his stop yet.

Happy Anniversary, London!

Coming on Tuesday: a long post about how rubbish Derren Brown's live show is, complete with explanations on how he does every single one of his tricks. I'm not kidding, y'all. It was incredibly disappointing. Mind you, I still would.

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