Like It Is

Now, I realize that perhaps if you aren’t a Brit, or more specifically, a Londoner, The Ten London Transport Commandments may not resonate with you in quite the same way they do with me. On the other hand, it was Kathy of A Likely Story who sent me this, and said it reminded her of me, so I could be underestimating my substantial North American Audience appreciation for the humour underlining these great (and long overdue in my opinion) suggestions. If so, forgive me .

After all, if you travel by transit/public transport in most parts of the world, many of these will be quite familiar to you. I am both a Brit and a Londoner – with a love/hate relationship with the Tube – and I have to say I hugely appreciated this. And I had such a good laugh.

Thank you Kath – this SO made my day. I’m in total agreement with practically all the Commandments – no surprise there - and the additional suggestions are even funnier. We’ll be in London later this year, and I’ll eagerly hope to see these on my Oyster card so hopefully it’ll get plenty of support.

And I’ve passed on the link to all my friends back home…I got great satisfaction saying that a fellow blogger from Denver Colorado sent me the link. Oh, isn’t blogging just great! Heh!

If you happen to be a Londoner reading this, do pass on the link as well – and check out the very neat Friday Cities blog.

Kathy, cheers mate – you rock!

The Ten London Transport Commandments

Technorati Tags: Londoner, the Tube, London, Friday Cities

A 67-year-old woman who is believed to be the world’s oldest new mother told a British Sunday newspaper she lied to a U.S. fertility clinic — saying she was 55 — to get treatment.

“Often circumstances put you between a rock and a hard place and maybe things shouldn’t have been done in the way they were done but that was the only way to achieve the thing I had always dreamed of and I did it,” she said. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, the Great Christmas Getaway has begun in earnest in England. But I feel a bit for those whose travel plans have been abruptly put on hold by none other than Nature.

Britain has been hit by a veritable blanket of dense fog, causing travel chaos at both Heathrow and Gatwick Airports. How well I remember the fog in England. It is very hard to describe it unless you have experienced it, but describing it as pea soup is not a misnomer. I remember once driving home from work through dense fog and being terrified, because literally it was almost impossible to see more than a couple of feet in front of you.It was like being wrapped in a blanket. And it was at night. The fog had fallen quite suddenly in the late afternoon and got thicker and thicker. My 20 min drive home took an hour, felt like 3, and I was gripping the steering wheel all every inch of the way home. Not only can you not see anything, you probably can’t be seen by other drivers either. Never have I been so relieved to pull into my driveway.

But today, I am happily not sitting at Heathrow Airport because my flight’s been grounded nor travelling up the M25 to visit my parents, but writing about it in Toronto. Big difference.

About 100 flights have already been cancelled and the disruption is due to continue into Friday. It probably couldn’t have happened at a worse time as this week has to be the busiest travel time of the year as millions travel home or abroad for Christmas. Now people either have to sleep at the airport, queue (for hours) or make alternative arrangements (if they can) to travel by rail. And of course, let’s not even imagine the travelling in this fog on Britain’s roads. Still, Brits will find something to laugh about in all this despite the disruption. It’s the good old British weather after all. As long as we don’t hear that it’s the “wrong kind of fog”

You can read the full story on BBC News UK here and you can see some readers wonderful photos here . And because they are so wonderful, I’ve posted a couple here. It’s humbling to know that every so often, no matter what our plans might be Nature couldn’t give a fig. Nature’s in the driving seat right now, and all we can do is wait.

Enjoy these amazing photos of my foggy Britain, courtesy of the BBC

Warwick Castle in fog

Breathtaking!

Beautiful!

Who said cocaine is bad for your career? Not, it appears, if you are Teflon girl Kate Moss.

Less than 12 months after revealing pictures of Kate Moss allegedly snorting cocaine were sensationally reported in the press in September 2005, resulting in the loss of several major modelling contracts – Kate is back. Along with billionaire Sir Peter Phillips, Kate, known to be a style icon, is now creating a new fashion range for Topshop, one of the UK’s biggest and most successful fashion retailers.

Not only is she back, her profile has reached even dizzier heights than before, with her annual income estimated to have risen to about 30 Million uk pounds. More than enough for several lines. Fashion lines. What else?

Now, you might ask, how is this possible? Where are all those bleating, sorry, hypocritical, sorry big fashion names that hastily dropped Kate on the cocaine allegations protesting (albeit reluctantly) that having a coke-head modelling for them was bad for business because it might send the wrong message? Well, I’d guess that they are all in line with blank cheque books waiting patiently to sign her up (again) for, oh, probably around double her usual asking price. But if, perchance I am wrong, plenty of others are lined up. Ms Moss isn’t going to run out of work anytime soon.

By the way Chanel and Burberry were two fashion houses who said, according to reports, that they would no longer be working with Kate Moss. Burberry, according to reports in 2005 said that it was to end its association with the model following the cocaine allegations. Considering Burberry was one of the first to say “how high?” when Ms Moss said “jump” hypocritical doesn’t really come close.

According to the Business section on BBC News Ms Moss is currently featured in at least 15 major campaigns for clients, including Rimmel, Agent Provocateur, Virgin Mobile, Dior, Luis Vuitton, Roberto Cavalli, Stella McCartney, Bulgari, Chanel, Nikon, Versace, Calvin Klein Jeans and Burberry.

Now that’s a coup that must make even Madonna shake her head and wonder where she went wrong. Probably just by being Madonna, but that’s a whole other story and we won’t go there.

As a recovery stage from drug use allegations the Topshop deal certainly takes some beating. Far more serious for some, however, might be the the fact that Kate Moss is credited with sparking the return of the skinny jean, mini dresses and hot pants. If this particular allegation is true, resign yourself to them being around for a long, long time.

Since the day when the world saw passenger planes deliberately flown into the Twin Towers in Downtown New York, with the death of almost 3,000 people I wonder if, years later, there is anyone who hasn’t asked and answered that question.If there is anyone who cannot remember exactly where they were and what they were doing at the precise time they found out that planes had been crashed into one of the most famous and recognizable landmarks in the world.

It’s five years today, and I remember it as if it were yesterday. I was still living in England and was at home preparing to pack all my stuff for shipping because I was emigrating to Canada. It was just after 2 in the afternoon. I had turned off the tv and was upstairs when the phone rang. It was my husband (he wasn’t my husband at that point). I picked up the phone upstairs, surprised he was calling at that time, because we usually timed our calls around the 5-hour time difference between Toronto and London.

“…Have you got the tv on?” he asked.

“No, I’m upstairs packing.”

“Go downstairs and turn on the telly.”

“Why, what’s up?,” I ask.

“Just go downstairs and turn it on.”

“O.K..heading downstairs… are you o.k?”

When I turned on the t.v. I saw the now familiar film of the second plane hitting the World trade centre. It was surreal, and at first I thought it was a Tom Clancy or other blockbuster film. I had been at the top of the Twin Towers just three years before, now I was seeing planes flying into them? This couldn’t be real. I said a lot more, but I remember one other thing I said, apart from “Oh, my God, oh my God,” over and over again.

Still on the phone to Toronto, I said: “But…but aren’t there people in there?”

See how you do.

Q1. Why is the US even in Iraq and the Mid-East anyway?

a) To set the people free

b) For the historical Bush family cronyism (ask yourself who built the infrastructure)

c) For the current Bush family cronyism (ask yourself who stands to lose if the Iraqis nationalise the infrastructure)

d) It’s the oil, stupid

e) None of the above, it’s what Jesus would do

Q2. Why is the UK even in Iraq and the Mid-East anyway?

a) To set the people free

b) New love is strong love, and bestest friends always stick together no matter what don’t they?

c) It’s the oil, stupid

d) Because Brits feel bad if Americans don’t have unlimited, inexpensive fuel for their millions of Humvees

e) Because Tony Blair always wanted to be T.E. Lawrence (that’s Lawrence of Arabia for those of you who failed your “O” levels)

Muslim leaders are blaming the UK government foreign policy for the acts of extremists. Never mind that 9/11was planned and took place well before the US was ever involved in Iraq. They have written a letter to the government stating, in effect that the attacks will continue until and unless the government changes its foreign policy.

I may not agree with some aspects of UK policy. But the United Kingdom is a democracy as is the United States, as is Canada, and if I live in a democracy then I accept that the only way to influence policy, foreign or otherwise is by democratic means. If Muslims or anyone else cannot accept this, then they are welcome to leave and go and live elsewhere.

And the UK government needs to come out of its collective funk of handwringing appeasement within which they are transfixed and get back to standing up for its people – and our collective freedoms.

After an unprecedented terror alert, all UK airports were blanketed today with the tightest security we have ever seen or even heard of. Flights to the UK, and to the US from the UK were either delayed or cancelled, after UK anti-terrorist police foiled a plot to blow up aeroplanes by way of devices smuggled on to plane in hand luggage. All but essential items are banned as hand luggage, with people having to check it in, and take the bare minimum in clear plastic bags to board the plane. O.K. so this is not what travellers are used to or even expect. The ban even applies to crew! And the terror alert level in the UK is at “critical” meaning an attack is expected.

Given the chaos that ensued, most travellers were just relieved they are alive and in one piece even though their travel plans, along with their flights, have been severely disrupted or even ruined. People co-operated, understanding that this is a far from ordinary situation. Considering my husband and I had been talking of travelling to England to visit family in the next few weeks, we are only too happy to put that idea on hold for the meantime. And I was there a month ago if we have to wait we will. It seems, however, that there are always some who simply have to whinge about a situation no matter how relatively unimportant it is. It is usually all about them and how their plans have been ruined.

Reading through some of the travellers’ comments on the BBC web site today I shook my head. They are by no means the majority of the comments people made, but just the fact that we have them in a situation like this is pretty telling. At least I’m not the only one who thought so. Some people really do need to get a grip.

Here’s a light sample of the comments:

“My holiday is ruined!”

“There won’t be in-flight entertainment for my 3 year old”

“Aren’t the authorities over-reacting?”

“I can’t take my walkman on board”

“I was meant to go on holiday today”

“I was meant to fly to (name of place) today, now it’s ruined!”

“I had to queue for ages in the airport”

“I’m a chauffeur and I’m losing business. I hope someone is going to re-imburse me…”

“I couldn’t get through to my airline… they could have given us more info…”

“My flight’s delayed…”

“Who’s making money from this?”

“I can’t take my lap-top on board.”

“I’ve been so inconvenienced”

WHO CARES? You’re ALIVE aren’t you??