Non-political blog, for a change

Given that this is supposed to be a travel blog, I thought I might make a normal, non-offensive "yeah, this is what I've been up to" type post, rather than posting about things that have irked or intrigued me during my time here.

So, over the past few weeks - well, the constant has been work. We have all been working very hard at the office, but there may be an end in sight to constant overtime just to keep pace with the workload.

A new software program is being put into place that will hopefully speed up a lot of what we have to do at the moment with manual data entry and hard graft. In addition, we're finally hiring an office junior, which will mean a lot of the little things that interfere with my main job of sales and admin are no longer my responsibility.

Answering the phone, doing the mail, the filing, archiving, signing for courier packages, the banking, etc. Now, I don't mind doing these things, but they do take up a lot of time once you add it all up, and they also distract me from my main job. So yeah, it'll be good once this happens.

In other news, I went to see Chelsea play Porto in the Champions League, at Stamford Bridge stadium in Chelsea, with a Germanic friend of mine over here. For those unaware, the Champions League is the competition between the top football teams in Europe - it is the creme de la creme of world football, aside from the World Cup. Mind you, Chelsea cost more than any World Cup team - the Russian billionaire who owns them, Roman Abramovich, has poured over 300 million pounds into the club, so it's not a cheap exercise. It showed though - to use that old chestnut, to see Chelsea in action is truly poetry in motion. Simply sublime. I can see why football appeals to so many people, worldwide - when it is played well, there is no finer team game in terms of skill and tactics.

I'm not about to renounce Wests Tigers, but I am appreciative of football's talent, and genius. For the record, Chelsea won the game 2-1, to progress to the Quarter Finals.

Perhaps the thing I enjoyed most though, even moreso than the game, was the atmosphere. Non-stop singing, chanting and encouragement from all round the ground. It's perhaps not quite the pressure cooker of Lang Park come origin time, but it beats the hell out of anything you'd see in a run of the mill game back home. It's a huge adrenalin rush just to be in the ground.

And finally, some photos of a stroll I took down to the Thames Barrier (explained below.) Had a nice walk last Saturday down this way, walked about 6 miles, had to sprint a hundred metres or so to outpace 3 of Woolwich's finest who thought my camera would look nice in their hands rather than mine, and even managed to catch Ireland beating seven layers of hell out of England in the rugby.

So yeah, that's the past few weeks in a nutshell. Worked too long, watched football, nearly got mugged, and cheered for Ireland.

Am really starting to get homesick now that I have a definite date in my head as to when I'm home for my visit - really looking forward to it!

Ok, photo time.


This is Canary Wharf. Well, technically it's the Canada Tower, and Canary Wharf is the name of the financial district of London as a whole. But given that this is the tallest building in the UK, and one of the first skyscrapers to be built in the district, it tends to dominate the area.


This is the same financial district, taken after I'd slithered under the river via the tube. The Canada Tower is the building with the triangular top. (The fact it's the tallest, and the fact I mentioned it was the tallest building in the UK is also a bit of a giveaway.)


The Millenium Dome. Rather ironic, that it looks like a gigantic white elephant - for no finer term has ever been found to sum up this gigantic loss making monstrosity. It was originally an exhibition centre, and they've never found another use for it in 8 years. They were going to turn it into a super-casino, but Manchester wound up winning the bidding. So, it sits there, quietly rotting.


This rather odd-looking wall is the Thames Barrier. It's intended to prevent channel storms causing king tides, and a tidal surge up the Thames, that could easily flood a large chunk of London. This shot is taken on the downstream side - on the far side, heading upstream, the water level is a good metre and a half lower. You wouldn't want this dam wall breaking - it's not holding back the river, but the ocean itself.



And finally, a nice shot of a rainbow from the window of a Docklands Light Rail train, as I was coming back into Bank station from Canary Wharf, after one of London's frequent afternoon showers.

Bit dull, really. I'll see if I can slag off something else this weekend.