I love London

By now, you will have heard about (or experienced first-hand) the senseless violence of the UK Riots. You will probably also have heard about the thousands of people who rallied to clean up our communities. We've seen both the worst and the best in people over the last few days.

Here's some more of the best...


I live very close to Peckham. If you heard about the Peckham bus fire, that was within spitting distance of my home. It's a neighbourhood that often gets a bad rap because it's full of folks who are unemployed and--I hate to say it but--black. And yet when I went out for a walk the morning after the riot, the streets had already been cleaned, the vandalised shops were open for business, and there was a good feeling in the air. There was definitely a sense of "keep calm and carry on," but more than that there was a sense of community.

It wasn't long before the "I love Peckham" project sprang up. A couple of girls have taken it upon themselves to spend their days handing out post-it notes and marker pens to the locals and sticking up the community's thoughts for the world to see. When I stopped by yesterday, I saw a man I remembered from photos someone else had taken. He was there to give the girls a bouquet of flowers.

It just goes to show that even when this city is at its lowest point, it's still full of heart. In a city this big, where it's easy to go through each day without any meaningful interaction with those around us, sometimes it takes a tragedy to remind us of that. I love Peckham and I love London. I feel so very lucky to live here.

Waiting, standing, cheering, winning!

I'm long overdue for an update from my Israel trip, and I'll get to that, I promise. But first, I have to talk about yesterday's big adventure.

It's no secret that I love dance. And as a big fan of dance, I've been following the television programme So You Think You Can Dance ever since it first came out in America 8 years ago. When it came out in Canada, I followed that too. And now that I'm here, I'm following it in the UK.

By the time I realised last season that I could have requested to be part of the studio audience, it was too late. And so, with great anticipation, I waited and waited for this year's series to be announced and for tickets to go up for grabs. I checked the site every day for months on end, hoping to get my request in first. But when they were finally released, I found out that it didn't make one bit of difference because it was a lottery system. I was only allowed to apply for two shows. I applied for the first and the last, knowing they would be both the most interesting and the most popular, and resigned myself to not getting tickets this year.

Then something amazing happened... I checked my email on Thursday and found an update on my SYTYCD tickets for the 11th of June (the final!). What tickets?! I searched my inbox, nothing. I called their ticket hotline, they confirmed they'd sent them to me but couldn't resend and I'd just have to bring photo ID. I finally found them in my deleted folder, on the brink of being permanently deleted. I obviously need to be more careful with what I'm deleting. (250 000 people applied for tickets to the final. I'd say about 300 of us actually made it in. I've never felt so lucky.)

I recruited someone who was equally excited about this adventure and off we went. To ensure a full audience, they give out more tickets than they actually have, so we wanted to get there early to be sure we'd get in/get a good spot. Since gate time was 2:45, we aimed for 10 and I arrived at 9:24. Nobody was there. We went for coffee and came back. Nobody was there. We went shopping and came back. People were there. We plunked ourselves down in line and began the long wait.

I can't even tell you how worth it it was. Getting there early meant we got to go in first and were in the front row (standing room only... the seats go to friends/family and those who are unable to stand). When we finally got in the studio around 4:30, there was a bunch of pre-recording to be done. Including--wait for it--a performance by J.Lo. I've never had strong feelings one way or the other about J.Lo, but I have to admit it was awesome seeing her up close. She has so much star quality, it's ridiculous. And baby not only got back, she got THIGHS! It's a good thing to see amongst such a skin-and-bones-obsessed celebrity culture.

The show finally went live at 7:15. By this time, we were more than a little tired of standing (and screaming -- "We need you to go bananas in 5, 4, 3, 2...!") but the excitement of what was about to happen kept us going. All 4 finalists were superb. Their skill, professionalism, versatility, strength, and endurance astound me. They had to perform a group number, a solo, and a partner routine with each of the other contestants (for a total of 5 routines, not to mention the top 20 group number in the results show). And then there was nothing else that they could do but wait.

After a short pee break, we were called back into the studio for some more pre-recording. The top 20 did their big group number (floating Ascot hats, yay!). Funnily enough, any time we had to do pre-recording, there were always technical glitches that meant having to do it more than once... and yet somehow they seem to manage during the live show. After 5 hours of it, standing and screaming were excruciating.

Finally, the live results show. There's no other way to describe it than emotionally intense. More than one of the contestants' recaps made me cry. And of course, there were the tense moments of revealing who was next to be cut from the race. The final moment came. "Britain's favourite dancer and the winner of £50,000 and the chance to dance in Hollywood is..." I clenched every muscle in my body. I heard a voice from behind me say the name I'd been thinking and hoping for, and then Cat Deeley repeated the same name several moments later. Elation! I won't reveal the winner in case you're still planning to watch it (and if you do, look out for me... I'm on there!). But this person totally deserved it.

I've always said that a little bit of pain makes everything else feel more worthwhile. And it's true. The long wait and the excessive standing and cheering were all part of the experience, and part of what made it one of the most exciting days of my life. But the next time I go, I'm faking an injury and scoring one of those plush-looking chairs!

When I said I wanted an adventure...

... I didn't mean for it to involve 8 days of food poisoning and a volcano.

For those of you not following on Facebook, I fell ill almost immediately upon my arrival in Shimla. I know that it was beautiful there, mostly from Nathan's pictures (poor thing was only there a day before he got sick too) and the view from our hotel room, but most of it has been left up to my imagination. I recovered just enough to make it down the mountain, only for the bug to kick in again full force. 2 doctors and a hospital trip later, I am happy to report that I am almost completely back to normal.

Then this volcano thing happened. I was grateful for it at first, since I really wasn't fit to fly out on Friday. But then I found out that the earliest I could rebook my flight was the 30th of April, and even then there are no guarantees that the volcano will have stopped by then. Clearly, a Plan B was needed.

Plan B (which is now Plan A) involves flying to Madrid on Friday. I get to stop in Jordan, which would be exciting if I could actually leave the airport. But anyhow, yay, Madrid. The plan from there was to take the train to London (via Paris)... problem being that European rail is stupid and backwards and does not do e-ticketing. I need a paper ticket, and it's kind of difficult to get my grubby little hands on one of those all the way from Delhi.

So where does that leave me? I'm not sure yet. I'm sure somehow I'll make it back to London, and in the meantime I get a bonus holiday in Spain. And an extra week in India to hang out with my man and do some of the things I couldn't do while I was sick. And I lost 12 pounds. So I suppose life could be worse.

Editorial note: I do not endorse the food poisoning diet.

Forget London Bridge... the whole of Greater London is falling down!

I thought I was being clever by opting to stay at Nathan's the night before taking off to Barcelona. In retrospect, we really should have crashed at my place (in Central London rather than Zone 3). Apparently, London totally freaks out at the slightest hint of snow. In the course of our journey, the trains stopped running, traffic halted to 0.5 mph, and buses pulled over to the side of the road. All for absolutely no reason that we could see... the roads weren't at all covered in ice or snow. In the end, we trudged 5 miles on foot (with luggage in tow). In a weird way, it was actually kind of fun. But I hope I never have to do that ever again.

Enjoy this annotated map of our crazy adventure, courtesy of ze boy:


View Crazy Night of Travel in a larger map

PS - Nathan's version of the story involves a little bit of actual snow on the roads. I will swear all the way to my grave that this never happened. There was a bit of slush on the sidewalk, but only water on the roads.