The City of Love is Paris Anyways, London is the City of Fog

(New look! Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?)

We had the most beautiful weekend in London. The constant gloom and chill that pervades London evaporated under blue sky, sun and sixty degree temperatures. It was glorious and we celebrated Saturday afternoon on the Circle Line Waitangi day pub crawl. Waitangi day is the national holiday of New Zealand. Thousands of Kiwi's, some in costumes, converged at every tube stop on the central line for day long drinking, chanting and merriment. It was quite impressive to see. Here is me and my three roommates at Notting Hill Gate tube stop, around 11 am (yes they are Australian not Kiwi- they just like any excuse for a good time).

This Monday morning though the chill has returned, along with a heavy fog, which was pressing particularly heavily on the river this morning as I walked to work. The fog is quite fitting actually, I've decided I'm going to use this week to re-read The Wasteland and other TS Eliot poems. I was reminded of him this morning because TS had some great descriptions of London fog in his poetry. I refer you again to the couplet from which this blog was christened:

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn

So perfectly stated. I wish I'd had my camera to capture the Thames and Wesminster across the bridge this morning. You literally could not see the north bank of the river, it was like staring into a cloud or a vacuum. It was surreal and ghostly beautiful.

In other news, it's that silly holiday again, the cellophane candy red, bloated hallmark day we call Valentines. I've never been much of a fan but completely ignoring it makes me feel like a cynical grump. The person I would really like to spend V-Day with is on a business trip to Portugal this week (yeah, I want his job too). I did have plans with a girlfriend, but she's been sent on a last minute business trip to Russia!

Curses, I need a more glamorous job. And something to do on Thursday besides eat Ben and Jerry's and watch American Gangster with the Australians for the 8 trillionth time. Not that that isn't romantic...

Any suggestions?