Today I got a council tax reminder notice saying that if I didn’t pay my late council tax within the next seven days I would be taken to court and incur an additional £95 court cost. It’s dire straights these days: I had to choose between paying the council tax or buying food this week. I chose food.

And speaking of food, has anyone else noticed it’s gone up? I dropped £12 today at Tescos for:

Toilet Paper
Coffee
Milk
Honey
2 Fishes (where you have to skin, bone and chop off the head yourself ’cause it’s cheaper)
Honey (which PJ has in tea instead of sugar, which is bad for him)
2 apples
2 bagles

Anyway, called the Council to see if they could give me a reprieve. It’s an 0845 number, by the way, which I don’t understand ’cause it’s the government, right? At first the very nice lady said that she couldn’t help me because I’m not on income assistance. I told her that I couldn’t get on income assistance because I’m a foreigner and it’s illegal because of the visa and all. Eventually, she did help me. Gave me a 7 day extension before they take me to court.

The thing is that they didn’t have to help me at all because I’m not a voting citizen…I’m a foreigner, or did I say that already? I’m reminded that “no taxation without representation” was one of the reasons why American broke from this country to begin with. (All of you complaining about Boris…at least you got to vote.)

Then there’s the bank charges, but I don’t want to get into that yet. It’s too depressing.

You’re probably saying, “if you don’t like it then just go the hell home.” Well, honestly, at this point, I probably would. At least I can go on welfare and get food stamps back in the States. But because fuel prices are so high, I can’t afford the airfare.

We have entered that springtime phenomenon known (by me) as crazy fucked-up bug mania in London time. It’s when there seem to suddenly be a million bugs everywhere. Each new year, a new range of bugs going procreation mental.

It’s a great thing we can all bond over. “What is with all the frickin’ wasps this year, man?” “No kidding! It’s like killer wasp attack central!”

This year it seems to be moths and some medium-sized flightless black beetle that I’ve never seen before. I’ve literally never experienced moth damage, and now they are eating my shiznit. And the beetles are, for some unknown reason, obsessed with my bathroom and will break in by any means necessary. (I swear my house is clean.)

Usually I am all Ghandi about bugs and gently relocate them, but this time of year it wears me down and I start killing them in some fruitless attempt at persuasion. “For every one of you that comes into my bathroom, I will kill ten beetles in your village!”

Photo courtesy wurzeltod via Flickr

Just got back from L.A. and have been bitching and moaning about the weather since I stepped off the plane. I was actually wearing a spaghetti strapped dress three days ago…without a jumper on top. But, Spring is springing in London as well. “Spring Renaissance” will begin in Covent Garden on the 23rd of April. Horticultural events and celebrations will abound. Look out for the two giant 25 foot peacocks (I think maybe they are made of flowers and now real), return of the flower market, weekend workshops, hanging baskets and fun for the kiddies. Men were at work today planting stuff, so check it out! As a resident of Covent Garden, might I remind you to take your rubbish with you and don’t drink too much and vomit in the Piazza. It’s not a good look for anyone.

I’m convinced that London life moves in cycles, with the streets and pubs feeling deserted on some weekends, and everyone out on the pavements on others.

This holiday season seems to have fallen into a trough of this wave. Halloween sometime starts a month-long endless fireworks show, with Diwali and Bonfire night. This year was almost quiet in comparison with some.

Plans for New Year among my friends are all pretty lax–everyone is taking this year off. This afternoon people were out shopping, but the pub that would usually be thronged for Sunday lunch was half-empty.

Am I the only one who’s finding that this New Year is a quiet one? Let me know in the comments if you have some amazing plans for a New Year night out.

Empty Victoria Line Tube Train
Originally uploaded by Calistobreeze

Was doing a gig up near Oxford Circus today, and I couldn’t help but notice how rude people were being to each other. Really, is a bit of tat for your brat worth it? I’m so sick of all the commercials telling me to buy this and buy that for Christmas. Can we just have a moratorium on the buying this Christmas? Actually, I think I’m gonna do that. No new purchases. I got a butt load of wooly hats left over from goodie bags I got from the LFS Grad Show. That’s my family sorted. If they don’t like it, they can send the hats to the freezing starving kids in Russia. Bah Humbug to all you naughty Oxford Street shoppers!

Dear smokers, and smoking dilettantes: welcome to the street. I hope you are liking the outside? I like the outside too, and it’s getting disgusting out here.

Seriously, are you five years old? Learn to use a ashtray or even, god forbid, a bin. Geez.

(I’m not even starting with people who pee in doorways. Like, did they not potty train you at preschool?)

And yes, the view is good from up on my high horse, thanks.

Highway Code cracked: more than 40 rules changed for cyclists.

Quote:

Following our high-profile campaign, the Government has agreed to amend the Highway Code to improve cyclists’ safety and to encourage drivers to take more care around vulnerable road users.

In total over 40 rules in the Highway Code have been changed to the benefit of cyclists and will come into effect this summer. Read the announcement issued this morning by the Department for Transport’s here. On hearing the news, CTC Director, Kevin Mayne, said: “I am also delighted for CTC as an organisation, for our staff, members and supporters. This has been nearly two years work and a huge investment of our resources. We thought at several stages during the process we had achieved the outcomes we sought, but now we have an agreement we can work with. I am convinced that at the final stage of the process only CTC could have achieved this outcome with our focus, our knowledge, our ability to bring together the whole cycling movement and the respect we are given by government. Read more about the campaign and show your support for the change by signing our petition

So I think that means you can now sign this to signal your “chapeau” approval.

Sean

To all cyclists

If you cycle or are sympathetic the cycling world, please take two
minutes to read this and sign the e-gov petition - which CTC thinks is well worth doing

Your right to ride on the road is in jeopardy. The revised Highway Code says cyclists should “use cycle facilities where possible”. If this Code is approved, cyclists will effectively lose the right to ride on the road where there are alternative routes or adjacent facilities.

The implications of this are too bad to contemplate. First we will
suffer more abuse and intimidating driving, as recently suffered by
a CTC member. Second, if a cyclist is involved in an accident and
tries to claim damages, the insurance companies are likely to argue
that the rider contributed to the accident by not using the cycle
facility.

The Highway Code has been laid before parliament. It will
automatically be approved unless it is referred to a House of
Commons Committee which cannot amend it and can only recommend the whole document be rejected.

It will take an unprecedented amount of adverse publicity to persuade the government to reject the Highway Code in its entirety.

The CTC HQ Campaign team are working hard to find some way of
achieving this and will obviously require national support.Meanwhile
HQ says it will do no harm to support the petition which is at

Roads4Bikes petitions

It is interesting to note that 35 MP’s objected to the original
revised wording. Unfortunately, the replacement wording is no better.

Only 11,000 objections were received to the previous wording. There
are over 50, 000 in the CTC alone who should now be objecting.

If this Highway Code is approved by government cyclists will
effectively lose the right to ride on the road where there are
alternative routes or adjacent facilities.

Please register your name on the petition and persuade others to do
the same.

Sean

Everybody seems to be totally chuffed about the Lord of the Rings musical opening sometime in June. It’s been all over the papers, and especially the Guardian seems to be wetting themselves over it. But, I tell you, I hate the sons and daughters of dogs. They are loud and obnoxious and they prance around naked. In fact, PJ wants to start a blog consisting entirely of naked photos of the Lord of the Rings cast. Our bedroom window faces the dressing rooms of the theater. It’s so close that, if you get a good wind, you can lob a spitball from our window to their’s. It’s not the nakedness that bothers me as that’s quiet. It’s the happy opera-like singing that they burst into at all hours of the day and night. And the drunken late night parties that happen in their courtyard, the sound of which carries up to our window so loudly that it wakes me up at night. Do us all a favor and save it for the stage. For heaven’s sake: we live here, and you are only visiting.

Battersea Power Station’s future remains in doubt as the fantastic hulk of the art-deco building itself remains in sorry dereliction.
Yesterday, the Guardian reported that the new owners of the £400m prime 36+ acre riverside site, Treasury Holdings, had scrapped development plans approved by Wandsworth Council in November last year and speculated whether London might be about to lose the four iconic chimneys altogether to yet another bland, luxury, residential development if the Power Station is allowed to further deteriorate beyond the realms of renovation.

Wandsworth Council and previous owners, Parkview, refused to even consider an alternative report by a team of three companies of concrete experts brought together by the World Monuments Fund & Twentieth Century Society, who have revealed that the chimneys can be repaired for half the cost of demolition and rebuilding.

The independent report also revealed there is no sign of structural distress in the chimneys. When Parkview bought the site thirteen years ago, they promised to restore it, but instead sat on it and did nothing, merely hanging onto it as property speculators. They pushed through planning permission to demolish the chimneys, full of promises to restore the building, but instead immediately flogged it for a £240m profit, since the value of the site had increased hugely as a result of planning permission to demolish the chimneys. Profit not renovation was evidently their aim.

Sign the government petition here.

The Guardian article can be read here.

Thanks to hedgiecc