Tuesday 16 October 2012

Travels 2012 - Day 5, 6

Day 5 was interesting..we decided to join Anil in London after browsing the markets around Brick Lane, Old Spitalfields market and the big market at Brick Lane itself.
Now there is something distinctive about someone picking you out of a crowd full of people, however it soon turns to degradation if it happens to be a ticket inspector who boards a bus full of people and comes straight to you and asks to show him your ticket. The day improved soon after that.
We were expecting to meet Anil around lunchtime, however a phone conversation revealed that he was not feeling too well. The cause of this malady was a party the night before when the attendees were stamped on their wrists with a warning that went something like 'beautiful debby f***'s you', perhaps referring to the special punch the hostess had prepared for the revellers! Apparantly everyone had a tremendous sickness and hangover the next morning and had to call the hostess to find out how to cure it. Designer Hangover was an apt description.
Anyway, Anil was late, we ate fast food from a market stall ( Morrocan food which was almost like curries) but it was nice to see him, as that was one of the main reasons we had stopped over in London. We hung around the Bethnal Green area shown around by Anil and Hannah, then headed back home to Epsom.
Day 6
Today we packed our hand luggage to spend the next week or so in London, staying at the beautiful home of John and Loli, almost within touching distance of that famous zebra crossing made famous by Beatles' Abbey Road album.
Two things stand out from today, the first being that Mr Saatchi made a big mistake - advertising his 'New Sensations' exhibition as finishing today, so when we arrived at Victoria House at Bloomsbury Square, we found that the show had closed the previous day!! Not possible, this is London!
Never mind, we had just enough time to head for the Tate where we were meeting Luis and Maruja for art, jazz and later dinner when our hosts John and Loli also joined us.
The 2nd thing that stands out today is a small news item that attracted my attention in the free paper you can find everywhere in London. The first public law suit against American and European banks  for the interest rate manipulations  for the subprime mortgages in the USA. That could be collosal, a total estimate of all such cases could be more than 200 billions dollars!

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