Eating breakfast, watching Sunday morning infotainment, which is basically the world cup post mortem. "What do you call an Englishman in the World Cup? Referee." The intro to the piece was similar to last night's with Johnny Cash's Hurt. It showed all the scoring by opponents, all the disappointed players and fans. The soundtrack was a melancholy aria.
I read part of Nick Hornby's book about being a football fan. At the first game he attended he was much more interested in the crowd than in the game. They seemed to show up not to cheer and celebrate but to be miserable. It was the first time he'd heard adults swear and loudly call the players "wankers". Nick became an obsessed fan and was inconsolable for days or weeks after his team lost, which seemed to be nearly every game.
I wonder then, if what I'm seeing now is simply typical pre-programmed fan behaviour or an honest reaction to their team's efforts and the game's results. I hope it's the latter. I love the apparent truth in their expression of their feelings and analysis. So refreshing compared to the typical focus on our team's good plays and the bad referee calls, ignoring loss or blaming it on someone else.
In fact, there seems to be a general honesty here that we work so hard to avoid in the US. The "Elderly Crossing" signs showing stooped over silhouettes using canes would never be allowed in the US. I had never before realized that political correctness is really lying, or at least putting blinders on to the truth. "You lying bloody cows! Bugger off!" Ok, end of my Sunday morning sermon.
We finally figured out why no one could call our cingular cell phone - we have the same number as Gail, a woman in Texas who is very tired of getting our calls, especially at 2:30 in the morning, which is when the cingular rep called her. Ten hours later they still haven't figured out what to do about it.
 | We finally got moving about 11:00. Our plan was to pay the big money for a hop-on hop-off tour bus so we didn't have to walk everywhere. The Westminster Bridge and the main road along the Thames were closed for a race and fundraiser walk, so we walked for miles looking for a place to get on the bus. We managed to find the bus and the Tower of London, which we did not tour. We'd walked past a massive traffic jam, due to the road closures, so the bus took us back through them. We hopped off in Trafalgar Square, had another pitcher of Ice Tea, I hit the internet and barbara went back to the museum. A couple of hours later we hopped on again and came back to the Thames and found an Indian restaurant. We were the only ones there so we were seated in the window to attract other eaters. It was a great viewpoint. So many odd tourists thronged past. Food was good - Barbara had tandoori chicken and saag (spinach). I got their special that had eight tiny dishes of curries, tikkas, raita, etc. I didn't get my gulab jamun, but I got full. |
We walked back across the jubilee bridge and tried to get interested in going somewhere, but it was so hot and my feet hurt so bad, we just came back to shower and swelter in our cubicles. It's 22:30 and still hot as hell. The news threatened a heat wave. It won't be hot at 30,000 feet.
