Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

Yes it it was great but by god did some things I seen and heard really make me want to rock back and forth and murmur about taking the bad man away from me.

The Tube
For all the London Undergrounds got going for it they sure know how to piss off people. It’s Christmas time and Covent Garden tube station still isn’t open properly. Once the platforms full they close the gates on you and say it’ll be quicker to walk to Leicester Square and get the tube from there. That would be OK if it wasn’t for the fact that Covent Garden is a huge tourist trap and so no one knows where anything is. The only reason we managed to find it is because we had walked to Covent Garden from there earlier in the after getting the Northern Line down from Camden Market. I lost count of the number of people trying to ask for directions and being completely ignored. And don’t get me started on Camden’s tube station. How can they possibly think its OK to allow prams and wheelchairs to be carried up those 96 steps that are in use because they’ve shut down every other way of accessing the station.

Upper-class goth kids with the social skills of logs

What the hell is that all about? Walking through the pissing rain we managed to make it into one of the markets in Camden that had the walkways covered by umbrellas. I heard a squeel in front of us and two girls blocked our path.

*puts on posh North London accent and inhales some helium*
“Ahhh, I wish I’d worn a belt my jeans are falling down”
“I know what you mean. I’m the same but I just couldn’t find anythi..”

“KNUCKLEDUSTERS! KNUCKLEDUSTERS!”
“Where? Where?”
“And they’re pink! I so have to have them”
“They look so cute.”

“They’ll go with my *insert fashion designers name* zipper top”
“Oh they so will”
“Wheres Daddy’s credit card?”
*fumbles in bag*

ARRRRGGHHHHH!
*Bangs head off desk*

City Hall, Westminster
Who’s bright idea was it to place 4 mannequins brandishing guns on top of the entrance to City Hall just metres from the bridge leading to the Houses of Parliament. It might have been OK if they looked a bit like armed police but they don’t. They have stuck 4 Imperial Stormtroopers from the Star Wars Exhibition on the roof of the entrance and I don’t think anyone that seen them didn’t get a fright until they realised just what they were. It’s just asking for an elderly person to hobble past, look up and then have a heart attack.

Hamleys staff
The amount of nonsense they spout just to get a sale. The Astrojax ‘rep’ was showing off and his spiel was tripping off his tongue until I heard him say, “We sell 6,000 of these every day.” Now I could believe that if it weren’t for two things. They only have two shippers in the whole shop and they hold something like 20-odd boxes each and although the guy refilled them whenever he passed by I spent a good half hour and not one box was lifted during that time. Add to that the fact that they aren’t sold on the website means I’m lead to believe he meant Hamleys as a chain rather than a single store. If thats the case 6,000 Astrojax a day isn’t that much considering. I only found two members of staff that actually made sense and were helpful without sounding as though they were a circus performer or a street market seller. One was Santa surprisingly enough an the other was the deep voiced mad professor guy from the Lego dept.

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