London calling

In an effort to alleviate tension and to make sure a murder didn’t occur within the bastions of 58 Grains Road Shaw I took off to London today to see family. Lindsay likewise to Leicester; a similar place, but smaller and replacing the fun parts with racist hellholes. I travelled by National Express and spent much of my time listening to an old, ex army, man talk incessantly at a visiting Chinese woman. She did her best to make it obvious that she couldn’t care less, but he was happily oblivious and spent a good hour explaining cricket to her. I have visions of old Korean women talking to me through the latest episode of Chuncheon Uncovered whilst on the bus to work. Sadly I’m English, so I’ll have to pretend to listen, nodding my head, smiling and dying a little inside with each passing minute.

I left the North in shorts with the sun on my back, and arrived in London with rivers running down the street. Due to the coach moving 10 feet towards our destination in 20 minutes, I jumped off at Oxford Circus and walked the remaining journey to Covent Garden. It took 30 minutes and the flooding of my shoes before I arrived at the apartment. People in London seem to stand under covers and hope that one day the rain will stop. One man had told me he’d once spent 6 days at the same stop, waiting for a break in the downpours before he could walk the remaining journey home.

Despite the long journey and Amazonian conditions the journey was made worthwhile as soon as I started eating the dinner, and drinking the cold beers my cousin Benedict had prepared for me. The rest of the evening was spent catching up and watching a promo for a TV show Benedict is presenter of. He lived for some time with a tribe in Benin, and the footage made for memorable viewing. I saw amongst other things, Ben’s scrotum, a man being circumcised by a man who was very very bad at doing circumcisions, a baby being ‘scarred’ and voodoo dancing. I’m hoping South Korea will be slightly less of a culture shock in comparison. There’s only so much family genitalia I can watch before it all starts getting slightly strange.