Thursday 20 May 2010

An ode to the crazies of Camden…


To make my much needed lunchtime escape from the dreary office corner I inhabit, I must run the gauntlet of the Camden streets. No mean feat I assure you!!! People bemoan the vast quantities of tourists (primarily German and Italian students with their bad denim and oddly coloured backpacks) who wander aimlessly (always in the complete opposite direction of the infamous/rubbish market where they actually want to be!?!) but they are quite frankly the least of my worries! This particular corner of North London is the haven for lunatics, mentalists and crackpots of every stripe. It is quite literally ‘Care in the Community’– as in they have a thriving community of crazies living it up in NW1!!!

Now before I get accused of being some delicate home-counties type, I went to school in this area and spent most of my formative years wandering these scummy streets in a drunken haze, so I’m not averse to slumming it. However I am daily confronted with a deluge of the demented and the disturbed (not to mention the hordes of crack addicts and winos!).

Looking like the more prominent cast members of ‘28 Days Later’ (i.e. the zombies that actually get close enough to eat you!) I must confess I often fear that I will not make it back to the office with all of my limbs and/or brain intact, but then when you consider how dull my job is, that may be no bad thing…

Boat Drinks Bedlam!

Thursday 13 May 2010

Fuming yet fashionable...

I just experienced the most horrendous customer service in H&M Camden Town and am now really feeling the need to vent my spleen!

I had the audacity to (very!) politely ask the sullen lump on the changing room who I should speak to about an alternative size. A simple question I would of thought, but he greeted it with a sneer and the dead eyes of an overfed mako shark.


His response basically amounted to telling me not to bother as everything was out on the shop floor already. Having worked in retail I totally appreciate that this could quite possibly be true, but that wasn’t actually the question I put to him. Why couldn’t he just answer with “Oh I can help you with that” or “you need to go to the till and they can check for you” or even “we usually have everything out on the shopfloor but I’ll just have a look for you”, rather than the non verbal equivalent of “stop testing me with your foolish queries, can’t you see I am contemplating how to coax my hair into yet more innovative shapes”…

And do they literally not have a stock room?!? I’m sure by the time I visited this PM, they may have sold at least one or two garments since opening their doors that morning. Why oh why work in a job that makes you so utterly jaded and bitter?!? Or feel that same job empowers you to be amazingly rude to complete strangers. Retail can be total hell (I am a seasoned veteran), but I used to welcome the rare occasion when I actually got to converse with a vaguely polite customer. Most members of the public don’t even deign to acknowledge your existence!

This little exchange ended with my thanking him for his wonderful customer service (with a healthy side order of sarcasm) and him (equally tartly) telling me to have a good day (which he actually shouted at my retreating back). Wish I hadn’t then headed to the tills and made a purchase!?! I should have stuck to my principles and given them zero pennies of my hard won cash. But I oh so wanted those jeans…I am truly weak.
Although I did take some comfort from the fact that the guy at the till was totally pleasant to me...

Boat Drinks to the Till Guy!

Tuesday 11 May 2010

Elephants invade London...

A somewhat stationary parade of elephants has descended upon the capital.


All in aid of a good cause naturally (do we ever do things just for fun anymore?!?), these slightly lurid pachyderms have been organised by the Elephant Family charity, who believe people will look beyond the photo opportunity and be far more mindful of the plight of elephants in the wild…


Boat Drinks Dumbo!

A glum start...


I came across these ‘Reward’ posters on my journey to work and what a very depressing start to the day it was too. My heart simultaneously sank and was gripped with fear. Did I double lock my door??? Then I remembered that the homestead hadn’t been left vacant and that my husband was there to fight off the thieving hordes - phew! Although naturally I would prefer that he not have to do battle with a band of rampaging robbers unless strictly necessary…



I admire the bravery and the hopeful honesty of their plea. They have lost irreplaceable treasures (even if they are of the technological variety). They won’t mean squat to the person that pillaged them, so why shouldn’t the victim call them out (under the auspicious of offering a reward)!

I know it is highly unlikely, but if by some slim chance the culprits see these signs and would permit themselves a bit of a Frank Capra-esque softening, I just know this city would be a (somewhat) nicer place to live in.

Boat Drinks for the Optimists!

Bile for the Thieves!!

Spring has sprung...

So I’m wondering if these photos could be any more generic?!?


And yet I find them resolutely beautiful and inspiring... Spring has sprung and I’m as giddy as a gambolling lamb (more clichés – please don’t hate me!!!).


The patches of blue overhead seem to be growing daily and I can’t help but be totally charmed by the cherry blossom! I literally stop dead in the street and gaze up into the bountiful branches overhead. I’m sure I must appear to be some total lunatic to the not so nature loving inhabitants of Brixton (snapping young trees in two seems to be some sort or rite of passage in my post-code), but I am transfixed by the blooms…


Speaking/writing of blue skies, my mother-in-law told me a delightful family phrase for predicting whether you are going to have a sustained sunny spell. Not sure of the exact German translation but it basically amounted to “good weather for a good while if you can make a shirt out of the blue”. Charming or what?!?

Boat Drinks Blossom!