London bullets

• After nothing but good journeys this year - even at the height of the blizzards - suffered epic train fail this weekend. On the way down, signal chaos at Finsbury Park meant that we all got booted off at Stevenage, and had to take a long looping diversion via Alexandra Palace/Wood Green. Am used to a magical mystery tour at some point during a London visit but not usually before I've even arrived.
  
  
• Rounded off by a mini mystery tour of all the platforms at Victoria, where they have helpfully decided to switch off all the escalators for a year.
  
  
• And all rounded off by unplanned massive delays caused by planned engineering works (how does that work?) on the way back. Mostly consisted of train sitting in a field in the middle of nowhere for several hours. In-flight entertainment was provided by the police, who showed up to arrest a group of drunken Notts Forrest fans. (We know they were Notts Forrest fans because they told us all, really loudly, in 'song'. Repeatedly.)
  
  
• Managed to do a proper catch up with all the family, which is an epic task in itself. They've only just realised that I'm definitely set on moving to London - either the family underground is extremely slow, or it's a sign that Mum has finally come to accept the idea and pass it on.
  
  
• Apparently babies discover their feet after they discover their hands, and both come as quite a surprise to them. (Ties in with something I've been interested in forever, which is whether we perceive our 'Me' as being in our heads because the brain is there, or purely because that's where the eyes, ears, nose and mouth feed in. Was intrigued as to whether deaf & blind people still perceive the location of self in the same way. May be worth investigating the developmental patterns of deaf/blind babies.)
  
  
• Frankenstein was wonderful, even with standing tickets, even the bits I had to sit down for (felt dizzy - standing watching a play is very unlike standing watching a gig). Can completely see why they're doing the switchover between the two male leads, ties in wonderfully with the whole dark twin/love story thing. Part of me now really wants to go see the echoing performance, part of me doesn't as this one was so powerful and it would be a let down if the other way round wasn't as good.
  
  
• Never knew you were meant to dunk biscotti in dessert wine. They work so much better that way!
  
  
• Stayed in a hostel for the first time in years (due to the usual suspects being out of town/otherwise engaged/inconsiderately having moved to Guildford.) Random encounters including two spanish girls who were fascinated by the whole goth make-up thing, and a Japanese guy who appologised for his bad 'Engrish' before explaining that he hadn't spoken it for 6 years since he was last in London! Way better than my French after all that time. Ended up discussing Barcelona, where he'd just visited. Love random cross-global conversations. (Need new hosteling trip soon. Maybe Berlin?)
  
  
• Walked from Kings Cross down to the river on Saturday. Taking roads completely at random, was amazed at how many bits of My London I came across completely at random. Carving my own desire lines across the face of the city.
  
  
• Still resisting the temptation to actually buy a map. I internalise maps too quickly, and once that happens everything becomes fixed and immutable. I want to keep London in flux as long as possible.
  
  
• (I tell people that I still get lost in Leeds as a way of explaining/excusing my terrible sense of direction. I'm secretly quite fond of it. In any city, there should always be a few mysterious corners where anything could happen. Sometimes wonder if I'm leaving Leeds before they're all gone.)
  
  
• ((Lost between two cities. Getting on a train at Kings X doesn't feel like going home anymore, more like going away.))
  
  
• Finally got to see the wildlife photographer of the year exhibition, and was just as impressive as least year. Came out with the same aversion to dead stuffed exhibits as well. (Didn't go check on gravity as I didn't want to find out it was working again.)
  
  
• After initial aaaaargh! I don't know anybody panic, Gin and Whores party was quite brilliant. Made new friends and fed them flatliners. Also may have promised to write a guest blog post for Mel (if she remembers asking...) Survived the boots of spikes and love and death-to-feet.
  
  
• Can't understand why people always seem to assume I know a lot more people than I actually do. Maybe I just seem like that sort of person. (Maybe I am that sort of person, now, but I wasn't for several years during the worst of the depression, and I appear to have some gaping holes in my social circle... including half of London.)
  
  
• After some discussions this weekend, I do now have a Plan B that would result in being able to move to London almost straight away. On the other hand it's a lot more risky.
  
  
• (Previous Plan B - get frustrated, burn down current place of work, and so have to rob a bank and flee to somewhere warm with lots of volcanoes has now been relegated to Plan C.)