100 things to do in London on a Saturday night.

Go to the theatre.   Go to The Walkabout.  Decide not to go into The Walkabout because it's too crowded.  Catch the last Tube home. Reach Kennington.  Wait for ages at Kennington for a train. Get told that there are no more southbound trains because of signal failure. Try to get a bus.  Watch 25 police arrest a suspected gunman across the road from the bus stop.  Watch police pin down the gunman on the pavement.  Watch a policeman put his knee on the gunman's head.  Watch onlookers try to pull the police off the gunman.  Notice how the onlookers are trying their best to start an incident.  Notice how restrained the police are. Notice how nervous the police are. Try to get a taxi. Realise that taxis don't come into this area.  Force yourself onto an already overcrowded nightbus.  Acknowledge the drivers' pragmatism in not checking tickets.  Watch drunk people stumbling in front of the moving bus.  Notice the driver's skill in avoiding them.  Watch a man doing press-ups out of his living room window.  Watch a woman vomiting over a car bonnet.  Get off the bus.  Go into the 24 hour Tesco. Buy pork pies, chocolate and pickle.  Get home.  Eat pork pies. Eat chocolate.  Eat pickle.  Go to sleep.  

Just another Saturday night out. 

Bad Lines being drawn

The twentieth teenager has died in a fatal stabbing in London this year and the media continues to whip itself up into a moral panic, blaming everything from 'hopelessness' to 'a lack of good role models'.

Maybe popular culture should stop celebrating violence and under - achievement. You can't tell kids that it's cool to be a thug then recoil in horror when they actually become one.  

Well, it is tricky...

Overhead in the checkout queue in Sainsburys.

Depressed housewife #1 (surveying shopping basket full of fruit and veg); ' I'm trying to get my son to eat more vegetables'.

Depressed housewife #2;  'Ooo, I've given up trying to get my son to eat healthy.  I can't even make him stop fighting at school and getting suspended.'

  

Everyday heroes

I've decided to occasionally award people with ... well, an award, when I think that they've done a little extra something to make my day just a tiny bit easier.   

The first award is gonna go to the bus driver who waited for me at the bus stop while I thundered the 100 or so metres down the road, in the rain, to the bus stop.  He didn't even laugh when I stumbled, sodden, on to the bus, mascara running and caught my umbrella in the door.

So, Mr Arriva Bus Driver, thank you!  I salute you.