Flickering flame, or dodgy downlighter?

As I was heading to bed tonight (late, as usual) I looked out my window to see what looked like the glow of a fire flickering against a wall nearby. Whatever was causing the flicker was just out of my line of sight, but I came to the conclusion it was either a fire ravaging someone's living room, or a street lamp that was blinking beyond control.

I found myself left in a dilemma. I couldn't smell smoke, but I also couldn't be sure it wasn't a fire. So should I get dressed and investigate, hoping not to walk into any unsavoury situations or should I hope for the best and let someone else - who can actually see what's going on - deal with it if it was indeed something more serious than an ill-maintained lamp post?

I went with the latter for a few minutes, climbing into bed, but then, drawn to the window, and convincing myself (through my blocked up nose) that I was getting a whiff of smoke, I decided I had to get dressed and go outside to investigate.

Walking around the corner, I realised it was just a crappy light bulb after all, but I'm glad I did go out to check.

Pointless story for tonight, but a reminder that it's always best safe than sorry.

A shot in the dark

On Tuesday night I was woken from a dozing state by a loud crashing noise. Not sure what it was, I wondered if it was perhaps a gunshot, or a palette of some sort falling down onto the ground. I went to my window but couldn't see anything, so went back to bed. Then not long after, a helicopter came and hovered almost overhead for about five minutes or so. I could see it in the sky, so I presumed that whatever happened, it was a little distance away.

I woke up the next morning to see a text message from my flatmate telling me that someone had been shot in the night, so I phoned him up to find out a little more information. Turned out that someone had been shot just around the corner from our flat, and police were out there investigating. Yikes. That's the closest I've been to gun crime in London... the next closest being the times I visited a friend of mine who at the time was living in Peckham, and the many stories she had of gunshots in the night.

I was feeling a little shocked yesterday that it could happen so close, and it really didn't help that I didn't know any details. Later in the day I got the Crime Stoppers flyer through the door that said a man was injured in a shooting (so I was relieved that he hadn't been killed) and that it was Operation Trident that were heading the investigation (meaning that it's black gun crime).

I'm feeling a little more comfortable again, but I've noticed that I'm more conscious of who's around me on the streets. I'm quite astonished that the incident hasn't even made it into the news though...

Pillow fight in London

I got an invite from a friend the other day to join in with a pillow fighting flash mob in London on Saturday (which I later found out was just one part of an International Pillow Fight Day. We met up just off Trafalgar Square and headed down there to be ready for the hoards of other pillow fighters expected to unveil their pillows and start hitting each other with them. The time came and went and there was no signal to start, so we just headed down the steps and joined in with the others who had turned up.

After a few minutes we were a little disappointed, wondering where everyone else was, and thankfully discovered that most of the action was going on up in Leicester Square. I chickened out of the fighting there - there were just far too many people, and I wanted to take photos instead, some of which will end up on Flickr once I go through the 1Gb of photos I shot.

The event saw feathers flying all over the northern half of Leicester Square, confusing passers by, and even encouraging others to join in the fun. Not even hail stopped the fighting which must have lasted for about an hour in the end.

Pam Ann goes viral with BA

Pam Ann went 'viral' today with a BA recruitment video.



It's good to see some new material, though I have to say it's not as good as the clips I've seen recently on YouTube. One of my favourites, per chance, just happens to be the clip showing different air hostess characters... the BA one being fantastic

"I'm Mona, your [something?] to Europe. I'm Mona, fack awf. Go on, fack awf. Fack awf. I said fack awf."

Hopefully I'll get to see Pam Ann live again when I am back in London... it's even better in real life!

How time flies...

It's two months since my last post on here, and over four since my last post with more than 20 or so words in it. Ironic too that the last proper post was written whilst at home, taking a break, much like this one is.

So what have I been up to in the past 4 months that's kept me away from the blogging (on here at least)?

Well, to summarise... I had a boyfriend for a little while (which didn't last too long unfortunately, as I'll come onto later); I went to the spring beer festival and came out to most of my friends from the local pub; I went on holiday with friends from home and came back in pain after a drunken night in Magaluf in which I slipped on the steps of BCM; I had a little op (unrelated to the fall) in which the anaesthetic really wasn't helping towards the end and I could have sworn I was going to faint; I had some time off work and was cared for by my boyfriend at the time; I finished the treatment I was having (unrelated to the op); I got a little addicted to Facebook; I came out to senior colleagues whilst drunk and told one of them I was wanting to move back to London (oops); I've been blogging about maps and stuff elsewhere; I travelled to the US and visited their capital and a couple of my friends there; I visited Manchester on the way back to catch up with a few friends; I talked to my supervisors about the possibility of moving back to London (I had the same pre-emptive stress as when I came out to my parents!); I tried out a German sauna for the first time since being there (I managed to get over my prudishness when convinced by a new swimming buddy); I told my co-workers about my plans to move back; ...and then travelled home for my birthday the next day. I think that's about it.

Ever since moving to Germany I've had a sort of desire to move back to London, but as I'm nearing two years over in the land of sausages, that feeling is growing ever stronger. Knowing that I wanted to move back so badly really wasn't helping me commit when I actually met a guy I liked, and was the main reason for me breaking it off (compounded by some other issues like my op and different - although admittedly more sensible - ideas about drinking).

That horrible feeling of breaking up with someone because I didn't know what was going to happen in the near future then gave me the kick in the ass I needed to put a little more effort into actually organising a move back, and sorting out the work side of things. Luckily the work side of things sound like they should work quite well, with me effectively becoming a freelancing remote worker doing effectively the same thing... but from London.

So, London Dan is moving back to London later in the year.

Little Britain - Daffyd Thomas an der Bar

Fantastich. Little Britain auf Deutsch. It's not "Provincial Queen" but "Province Prinzessin" hehe.

When dreams know better

The other night I'd gone to a friend's house to watch DVDs and came home early (i.e. not the last train) in the hope that I could have a good night's sleep and be bright-eyed for work the next day.

The night previous to that I had gone to bed at 9.30 in the same vain, and still didn't feel happy about getting up in the morning. But this time was weird, mostly because I remember the dream sequence that I was going through while in the process of waking up.

I remember queueing to pay for lunch in a restaurant - sort of like one we have at work, and with the same people serving - before going over to collect it. (For some reason, paying and collecting food were switched around.) As I was queueing for the food, I decided to leave the place for some reason, but as I got through the door, I came running back in to get the food that I'd paid for, not knowing why I'd run out.

That's the point that I woke up and realised that my alarm had been going off beside me for a minute or so, without waking me. I suspect it had alerted my subconscious brain (the running out of the door) but not enough to wake my body enough to be able to press snooze on my phone. Or at least not until my subconscious had collected the food.

Needless to say, I was grumpy when I finally got past the snoozing stage and had to crawl out of my bed.

I don't think I've ever had that in dreams before, when I can link events in the dream to things that actually happened at the same time in the real world. People talk of dreaming about alarms going off in their dreams instead of actually being woken by them, but I don't recall that ever happening to me.

I guess my body is telling me it wants rest. It's a good job then that I'm home for 5 days, and can give it all the rest it needs without worrying about work or anything. Yay!

Another one to add to the list...

Some of my friends at home were strangely impressed when I told them years ago that I had a syndrome, and it was something to add to a certain strange reflex I have too.

This morning I was coming back from a doctor's appointment and was waiting in the s-bahn station to get the next train home when I noticed that someone was being stretchered off to an ambulance. Curious, I watched as she passed me on the stretcher. She didn't look injured so I thought to myself perhaps she had fainted or fallen over or something. And that is exactly when I started to feel faint myself, vision deteriorating into whiteness (I think the worst it has ever happened to me), a cold sweat coming on and feeling a little dizzy and disoriented.

"Uh-oh", I thought to myself, "I'm going to faint if I can't get some water/chocolate/somewhere to sit." Thankfully I've never actually fainted when this light-headedness (or presyncope as I learned in my research this evening) but today I think is the closest I've felt to it. Luckily the train came in just in time so I could get a seat. I found it interesting that I instinctively held one of my arms above my head and raised my feet up onto the seats opposite. The feelings started to fade and I noticed, as my vision started to come back a little more, that a guy was looking over at me, probably wondering why I looked as white as a ghost (or at least I presume that I did).

It seems perhaps I have a blood/injection/injury phobia. I'm not a fan of injections, and they do cause me occasional problems with lightheadedness afterwards, though I have successfully watched the whole process a few times without problem. I think it's the injury phobia that is worst for me, as I noted the other week.

Fat lot of good I'm going to be if ever I have to put my first aid training to use.

Something I've not done for a while

I did something today that I've not done for a while... I started tidying my room.

Anyone who has seen my room here, or pretty much anywhere I've lived (some have been much worse than others) will know that I like to keep my room in a state of (sort of organised) chaos. I usually know where things are to be found, and can find them if necessary, but today I came across something I'd lost. That was the token I bought when I first moved here that gave me ten sessions of swimming.

I had used a few of the sessions before giving up, but now that I'm starting to get back into the swing of it, I wonder if it will still be valid? It had been well over a year that the token had been in my wallet, and then on my floor with a pile of coins. Keine ahnung ob es expired ist oder nicht.

Tidying is not the only thing I did today that I haven't done for quite some time. In fact I think the tidying was inspired by the other. I went on the first coffee date I've been on in ages, ending up in the cinema watching Meet the Robinsons after what was quite a refreshing day (including the shower that threatened to soak us as we were sitting outside a cafe enjoying the lovely weather).

Porpoise Spit / Muriel's Wedding on Water

Swimming tonight there was a guy that reminded me of David Van Arkle (Daniel LaPaine), the swimmer from Muriel's Wedding. I didn't think too much more about it until towards the end of my swim (1.125km), when the closing tune for the aquarobics was Abba's I do, I do, I do, I do, the song used at the wedding in the movie. How random.

ps, I wonder when I'll write a post that doesn't get put into the Cute Lads category? Hmm.