London is all in chaos! The magic tubes that hold it together have failed and inflicted disorder and confusion upon us all. Strangely, eerie packets of order exist within the chaos - streets full of people all walking the same way with the same purpose. It's amusing to watch everyone zoom around like this, their normal pattern disrupted, and everyone is trying to weave a new pattern.

Getting to work took two hours, but was actually fun in a way. Got to Leytonstone tube station, found it shut as expected. Bus stop queue of doom. Meh. Walked to Maryland station faster than the not-moving traffic. First train at Maryland too full to board, next two trains didn't bother to stop there, but 4th train stopped and even got me a seat! Yay. Trained it all the way to Liverpool Street. Walked the labyrinthine streets of the City until I reached the river at the Tower. Then got the free Riverboat, just about to leave! Yay! Got seat right at the front, so lots of fab views. Got off at Westminster, crossed Westminster bridge on foot and walked to Waterloo station for the fast trains to Wimbledon.

Now I need coffee ... I had to get up much earlier than usual. Wah! *stifles yawn*

Tell me tales of YOUR exciting adventures across London today. How long did it take YOU to get to work? Tell tell tell! :)

Am in Portugal on one of my little adventures. They want to feed me Portonic. As in, Port and Tonic. I am not yet convinced this is right. Explain why this exists to me, please.

Looks like Google streetmap has finally reached London.

And so the internet is STALKING ME. Go to Google Maps, search for Fillebrook Road in London, press the streetmap button, and go to number 37 Fillebrook Road. Find the white van, and zoom in on the person walking past it. That's ME.

EDIT: Direct link to stalking me here

So, to hide, I'm off out of here for a few days on a little adventure. First to the land of chocolate and beer and art nouveau pretties, and then onwards to the land of fairy-tale castles.

Behave yourselves while I'm away. ;)

So where was I - oh yes, just about to escape rainy Tokyo on a Bullet Train ...

( Part the second - Bullet trains, Temple lodgings with real Buddhist monks, Spooky graveyards, Bamboo groves, Geishas, the Cat Bus and Totoro, Shark-fin soup Ice-cream, the Tokyo Tower and not enough sleep! )

There’s so much I still want to see and do in Japan, and someday I’ll go back there again for a much longer stay. Until then, I’ll miss Japan horribly.

Not dead. Still reading this, you know, just been a little busy to actually post anything.

So I’m now eating Strawberry and balsamic vinegar ice-cream, and it’s totally delicious, and thought you should all know.

What’s everyone’s favourite strangest ice-cream flavour? *wonders*

I'm standing on a street corner opposite Angel station. It's late Saturday evening, the place is buzzing with people. The night sky is clear and dark. A full moon hangs in the sky, except it's coloured blood red. For several minutes I gaze on the moon, whilst all around me the party-people are having their normal night out, moving from bar to bar, oblivious to the night sky. Nobody looks up any more. It's sad. I move on and drown my sorrows at a place called Feeling Gloomy.

I'm holding a very fancy and pretentious glass, suitable for a special occasion, but it's not a special occasion. A green drink flows from a bottle, soaking the sugarcube resting on the spoon above the glass. A lighter sparks, and the sugarcube ignites. The sugarcube falls into the glass, igniting the green drink. Pretty blue flames dance around the glass. I sip this concoction with care.

I'm at a obscenely hip venue in Shoreditch, a place I'd not normally even consider going, where somehow we blagged our way in for free. The place is swarming with trendy people perched on stools and flopped on sofas, drinking outrageously expensive drinks. I'm feeling a little out of place. A secret gig by LCD Soundsystem is in progress. I don't know the music but move up near the front anyway, where I'm apparently surrounded by gay girls. The electronic sound pulses away and people around me slowly lose themselves in the music. I find myself being absorbed into the sound, and lose myself in the music too. It is fun.

I'm upset as I've had a bad day. I grab a bottle and turn up on a friend's doorstep in the evening. We put on 80s music and drink the bottle, and suddenly my problems don't seem so bad anymore. I feel understood. We grab another bottle later, and drink and make merry into the small hours. A good friend like this is priceless.

I'm in a small theatre in Twickenham, surrounded by a few friends. We're watching a performance of Hamlet, and it's strange to see someone I know well on the stage. I'm impressed by the performance, and it makes me happy. We giggle at inappropiate moments, even though it's supposed to be a tragedy.

I'm at a party in Lewisham, and we're sitting around a table. We're all holding cards, and have a pile of counters in front of us. Strange coloured drinks are floating around the table. I hold nothing in the way of cards, but put counters in anyway, and so do others. I put in more counters, until they give up and I collect lots of counters. Nobody sees my bad cards. Later I get caught out, and lose all my counters. Maybe my poker face isn't what it used to be.

I'm in a greasy spoon cafe with friends and a little bit hungover. It's very full, and it slowly dawns on us why. It's an irish greasy spoon cafe, and today is St Patricks Day. There is Free Whiskey, and I indulge, despite the hangover. The food arrives and the plates are full of everything, and more baked beans than is humanely possible to eat. I stuff myself silly, but still get nowhere near finishing. The food comes to less than a fiver. I must go back to Lewisham more often.

I'm in the kitchen, and it smells good. Very good indeed, in fact! A goddess is a frenzy of activity, baking chocolate brownies. It takes longer than expected, and we turned into pumpkins before the brownies were ready, but the resulting yummies are well worth the wait. My stomach loves me afterwards.

I'm in bed, it's the middle of the night, and I'm in agony. My tooth hurts, and has been causing me pain for three days now. It's only getting worse. I'm scared that the days of bad teeth have returned, after many years of good teeth. I don't want bad teeth days again, and I eventually cry myself to sleep. When I wake, the pain has somehow gone. I'm very thankful, but I look up dentists anyway, as I'm currently unregistered. I think I've had a warning.

I'm returning home from shopping in Leytonstone. Walking down the hill I've a view across London to the City in the distance. The sun has just set behind the towers, and the whole horizon is a warming shade of red and orange, creating a pretty silhouette of the buildings. In the sky above hang the new moon and Venus together. Nature is showing off. The next day it's sunrise, I'm awake, dancing clockwise and burning candles.

I'm in a club below London Bridge station, someone is buying me drinks on the condition I take her little sister home with me. For some reason the absurdity of this amuses me, but I go along with it as it more than pleases me to do so. A game of Dangerous Liaisons is set up, but I deliberately aim to lose. I admire my handiwork, and it is pleasing.

I'm at a party in Archway. We're all sitting on the sofas, wearing wigs, and mine is pink. We're bouncing along to outrageously camp and cheesy songs, drinking something that smells strongly of roses. A game of chess is in progress, except all the pieces are from Midsummer Night's Dream. Later we dance around the room to Rocky Horror. I have this feeling we had a different party to everyone else there.

I'm at home and we're making diaquiris, except none of us know how to. We make them anyway, and emerge with something that tastes like mulched strawberries. We watch that film with Pirates in it. Where has all the rum gone? I think we just drank it all.

It's 8 in the morning and they're using pneumatic drills on the road just outside my bedroom. This is the worst alarm clock ever. I can't get back to sleep at all, my whole head is ringing with the noise. They're building speed ramps, which is absurd, as our road is a cul-de-sac and gets almost no traffic at all.

I'm back in Archway, and I've found rum again, except this is gay rum, which seems appropiate. The room is full of lovely people, all of whom I love, many dressed up, with two pairs of identical costumes. We read the lines of iambic pentameter to each other and play our parts, silly as they all are. Despite me hating that play, it ends up being lots of fun. Later there is a hula-hoop and a game of Oware. When people start leaving I head onwards to another party.

I'm in Finsbury Park, and it's way too early in the morning. I'm getting agitated prodding at a computer that refuses to connect to a website. Connection refused. Refresh. Connection refused. Refresh. This goes on for at least an hour. It's not a lot of fun. My phone beeps to tell me the good news. Everything is sorted, and we have magic passes to enter Fortress Glastonbury. I smile and then go back to sleep.

I'm in a hobbit-like pub near London Bridge, sitting in a pokey little corner. The room is full of fiddles and hurdy-gurdies, plus the odd bodhran, guitar and even a cello. They're belting out a furious mix of english and french music, most of which sounds familiar, and all is very pleasing. Occasionally there is a singalong, but I'm too sober to want to sing, and many there don't know the words anyway, except for the chorus. My friend is a storm of enthusiasm as she plays the fiddle, she's the center of attention, if she bounced any more she'd be Eliza. I'm happily impressed by this, and also happy to find this sort of thing happens in London.

I'm sitting here at the computer and it's RIGHT NOW and I'm still wondering what's happening this weekend, as I have no plans at all. Perhaps I'll defrost the fridge. Joy! So who wants to see me? My email has not been working since Saturday, and I don't know why, and this isn't helping. But I have other more pressing issues, I need to buy more rum for tonight, as there will be more Pirates, and this time the drinks will taste of bananas.

It seems really obvious now I've thought of it. Of course there's a huge positive correlation between being a social butterfly and getting ill frequently. It makes perfect sense that it works that way. For at least the last month I've been flitting around in a very un-hermitlike way. I can't even recall the last evening I wasn't doing something with someone, and inevitably earlier this week I fell ill again with some really strange illness and had to stay at home for a few days. Actually it seems that I was probably ill the whole of last weekend but just failed to notice! ooops! I'm such a ditz! I thought my body was just complaining of overindulgence and general decadence, but no, I was ill! Anyway, I'm fine again now, but I have been wondering how it came to be that such a bad hermit. I'm trying very hard to be antisocial and stay in, but failing horribly. What am I doing wrong? *handonforehead*

Still, I had lots of wonderful visitors while being ill, to stop me going stir crazy watching Sailor Stars (eek nasty monster ... sparkly magical girl transformation sequence ... magical girl attack sequence ... yay we win!) all day long, and there has been fun things involving absinthe rituals and the like. That's a point - I've got FAR TOO MUCH alcohol in the house at the moment and anyone who wants to visit and help me indulge is more than welcome. *sparklysmile*

Tomorrow I'll be FINALLY getting to the London - Life in Maps exhibition, and later in the evening doseybat, antipodienne and myself will drowning our melancholy at Feeling Gloomy. Anyone else want to join us being gloomy? Even the moon will be all dark and gloomy! And you know, theres the usual sparkly Games at the Pembury from 4pm on Sunday where we will all take over the world. Or take over the words, depending on which game you play.

Plus, looking ahead, there's a fab Ceilidh next Friday (March 9th) which should be lots of fun. mirabehn, mostly_a_cat, taimatsu are you still interested? Anyone else?

Um ooops, I'm being a bad hermit again, aren't I? I JUST WANT TO STAY IN AND WATCH ANIME! MWAH! IS THAT SO HARD? *sulks*

SNOW! Here in London! *screams* A little bit, about an inch, but it's made everything so *pretty*!

[Poll #912995]

*goes out to play in the snow*

Edit: Don't believe all those tales of transport woe. No delays at all from Leytonstone to Wimbledon. I've just done the journey in 45 minutes, which I think is a record for me, as it normally takes an hour. *shocked*

Meeeeeeeh! Just what god have I offended??? I’m ill. AGAIN. I could so do without this. Not happy. Not at all happy here. *sniffles* *coughs*

Of course, I was a fool. Yesterday I woke up with a sore throat, and thought little of it. This morning it had reached nasty cough and spinning head stage, but I still thought myself well enough to work. So I went outside. And then the rain came down. Just what sort of crazy storm was that this morning? I was soaked in seconds. By the time I got to work I all my clothes were damp all the way through and I was COLD and WET and most thoroughly ILL. I’d no way of getting warm or dry. How stupid is that? So now I feel absolutely awful, not to mention foolish.

Don’t worry I don’t think I’m about to die, although the brightest comet since 1975 (Comet McNaught) should be blazing in the heavens tomorrow, which would be nice to see, but apparently it’s a bit of a bugger to actually see it, despite it being brighter than Venus (which means VERY BRIGHT indeed).

On the good side I’ve had a doseybat and a casby visiting this evening, and there was comfort pizza and comfort chocolate, and we watched My Neighbour Totoro and that helped make the world seem a nice snuggly place again. More evenings like that, please! *nods*

Hoping to still make it to Feeling Gloomy on Saturday and the evil-boardgames-at-the-Pembury on Sunday, but that obviously depends on me wanting to get out of a warm bed and venture outside. Which at the moment, looks unlikely, so I’m hoping to get better soon. Michael mentioned something about a scary recurring evil bug going around that needs antibiotics to fully cure. Antibiotics scare me. I don’t know why. They just do. Am feeling way too panicy! *eeeep*

Oh yes, yesterday I finally got to the infamous FOUNDRY. Which I’d heard all sorts of things about, it being some sort of bohemian anarchist art-gallery bar thing. And it’s all that, with crazy decor, graffiti, random art pieces everywhere, dolls hanging from the ceiling and so it’s truly a place of wonder to explore. Best of all, and the reason I finally got an excuse to go there, stompyfairy‘s art is currently being displayed there (Well done to you Emily, you’ve finally made it!) so get along there before Saturday to go see her art.

So how are you all? Still mocking me for being so amusingly awful at the anonymous limericks guessing game? Well I’m still guessing, and I’ll get you all in the end. One way or another I will! :P

So we waved farewell to 2006. So MUCH has happened since a year ago I can't even begin to describe it all. What was 2006? For me it started with hugs and fireworks in a snowy suburb in Sweden, and ended with exciting drinks, a mellow jazz band and FAR TOO MANY countdowns in the Pembury in London. Somewhere along the way a lot has happened; I have deepened many existing friendships, in particular the_alchemist, taimatsu, mirabehn and doseybat, and re-established a connection with the prodigal yvesilena. I met several exciting new people in my life, with special mentions going to the charmingly extroverted roz_mcclure, the stylish and fashionable blanche_carte, the will-be-famous-one-day elethe, the awesome antipodienne and even that charming bastard verlaine (who I do enjoy spending time with hugely, even when I feel like poking him with SHARP POINTY STICKS). I went on faboulous holidays to Ardgour in Scotland with lots of lovely friends, and also to Finland/Scandinavia on my own (but meeting friends) where I drove on the WRONG side of the road, and enjoyed lots of midnight sun. I was horribly horribly ill on my birthday, but still happy as the cooker and heating were finally installed that day and all was right again with the house. I was left very single and heartbroken when my sweetheart moved back to Sweden (meh!). I did proper Karaoke for the first time and loved it. I took up bridge again for the first time in years, playing socially with friends. I found the best club ever in the form of Feeling Gloomy. I've been to many weddings of pretty people. I've rediscovered my love of theatre. I remain unbeaten playing Oware. I finished reading War and Peace. And finally, I destroyed a planet. I WIN AT LIFE!

So looking to 2007, what will that be like? I've heard this theory that how you start the new year goes on to determine how the year will be. I spent the first few hours of 2007 making strange alien lifeforms out of play-doh with antipodienne. What does it mean? TELL ME. Also I totally WON and trampled all over the opposition at bar billiards, and I'd love to say it was through skill and perfection, but I'll have to admit it was sheer BLIND LUCK. This looks more promising as an omen! I'm wishing for a lucky year then.

Happy new year, everyone! Hope it goes well for you all! :)