ethical!

Really liked the idea of Scarlet Mist, an ethical website where you can exchange concert tickets or sell them for face value - hope it catches on and also hope that some Belle & Sebastian tickets for September come up!

hungry!

Amongst all the depressing and frankly scary news there is at the moment, I loved this article about the Hungry Caterpillar, and how the book helps children to count as well as think about time.

Congratulations!

The Finish
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Many congratulations to Julia, Craig, Finbarr and Megan who completed the 100 Km Trailwalker event at the weekend - we're still marvelling at the blisters, but more than that, we've admired the strength and fortitude they showed! They've raised about £5000 for Oxfam which is brilliant!

moving

We all stood silent for two minutes in the sunshine at noon yesterday to remember the victims of the bombing last week. Hundreds of people standing in front of City Hall where we were, and then we could see people standing outside on top of buildings on the other side of the river. The huge building site behind our offices fell silent for two minutes as well as the roads around the city.

Two recent articles in the Guardian have resonated with me recently, along with all the coverage of who the bombers were and the aftermath of the attack. The first, an article about the moving speech made by Marie Fatayi-Williams, the mother of one of the victims, shows the anguish and loss of a bereaved and confused mother. And the second is a letter to the terrorists from a young Muslim from Yorkshire, emphasising that the bombers are not representative of their religion or community.

I've also been following this diary on the BBC site written by a survivor of the Piccadilly Line train.

The Writer

The Writer
Originally uploaded by MhairiT.

The Writer is a new sculpture by Giancarlo Neri that has just been installed on Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath. It's huge! Hopefully you'll be able to see from the photo the scale of the table and chair.

Fabienne and I went up to Hampstead for a swim in the Ladies Pond. After such a warm day, it was lovely and cool and relaxing.

Afterwards, we caught the bus down to Kentish Town and bought fish and chips from the Five Star Fish and Chip Bar (this was Fabienne's first fish and chips experience) and went and sat in Charlotte and Annie's garden to eat them. We dodged all the grey haired stetson wearers at the Dwight Yoakam concert at the Forum!

groovy!

Went along to the very groovy Jazz Cafe Picnic at Kenwood House, Hampstead, last night. It was a gorgeously sunny day, and we sat in the sun and had our picnic, before retiring to the deck chairs for Lemon Jelly.

Unafraid!

unafraid
Originally uploaded by dario.agosta.

Thanks very much for your messages last week – it was so lovely and reassuring to know that you were thinking of me and everyone here.

I normally travel into work (from Caledonian Road tube to London Bridge tube) by bus and it’s only occasionally that I’ll catch the tube to work as it’s normally so crowded and hot! So thankfully I stayed with my normal plan yesterday. Thankfully also Kt, who works in Fulham went to work at her normal time, rather than 20 minutes later when she would potentially have been on one of the tubes that was bombed.

Didn’t really notice anything on the way to work, even though I was travelling above ground at the same time that everything was happening other than quite a few more people walking around, and a few ambulances. My bus takes me past Kings Cross and about 500 meters from where the bus bomb went off. When I got to the office, I noticed that the TV screens in reception were showing a newsflash of ‘Walking Wounded’ and so we checked the internet at our desks.

Realised what was happening and managed to get a text message to family before the phone system overloaded. E-mail was still working so I managed to check that everyone in London was ok. A friend of a friend was on one of the tubes but thankfully managed to get out with only glass scratches and smoke inhalation – she’s very lucky though and the scenes down there must have been horrific. I think people were down there for 30 minutes or more.

Our systems at work are pretty good with coping with an emergency, including cascading communications and contacting everyone. One of my team members, Charles, was AWOL and we had an anxious couple of hours trying to get hold of him. Finally he managed to call in from a phone box.

The transportation system was totally shut down and we were told at work to stay put. Our office building which is right next to Tower Bridge is brand new and pretty bombproof so it was a lot safer to stay inside. By about 4pm though, we were told that we could go home and so I met up with Charlotte and we walked to Angel together (took about an hour) then caught a bus home from there. Many people were walking as there weren’t many buses at that stage, but everyone was quite cheerful and there was none of the anger and annoyance when there’s a tube strike etc.

Unfortunately our section of the Piccadilly line is likely to be out of service for the next few weeks as there is probably quite severe damage to the tracks and tunnel so that’s going to make transport a bit harder than normal. There’s also a sense that we knew this was going to happen at some stage, London’s always going to be a target for this type of thing and has been in the past. So thankfully the emergency services were extremely well prepared and were able to cope with the situation.

I think everything should return to normal pretty quickly but people will be pretty shaky for a wee while which is understandable.

rockin'!

Went to see fab band Rilo Kiley last night at Koko in Camden. Band were good but I think I overdosed a bit on their CDs a few months ago! Good sound though with small extra horn section. They finished with a cover of Pete Townshend's 'Let My Love Open the Door' which is a bit of a favourite of mine.

Koko is a lovely refurbished old theatre with chandeliers, mirrors and lots of burgundy walls. Very confusing layout - I got lost in the toilet maze! Nice and convenient for us though - I'd in fact got the date of the concert wrong and had to do a dash down there at 9pm.

selected!

Big cheer in the building today when it was announced that London had been selected to hold the 2012 Olympic Games. Don't know if I'll still be living here then, but it's a great opportunity to revive part of East London and also an impetus to make the transportation system much better.

Why does it always rain on us?

Wimbledon rain
Originally uploaded by MhairiT.

I went with Kt, Fabienne, and Fabienne's classmate Paul to Wimbledon last week. It rained, but it was quite an experience! We saw about ten minutes of tennis. Probably I'm looking merry because of the prosecco we'd just drunk... Not long after this photo, the heavens truly opened again and we went home for a shower and pizza.

Rattly!

Maltese bus Valletta
Originally uploaded by MhairiT.

Some more photos of Malta have just come in. These are mostly of Gozo.

dangerous?

Having been at numerous events where friends have had items confiscated due to a security risk, I thought this article about the decline of the Swiss Army Knife after September 11 interesting.

B - A - N - A - N - A - S

So Dad wants to find out what a Hollaback girl is - don't have any idea from looking at the lyrics. Any suggestions?

marathon!

Well I spent 14 hours watching Live 8 at the weekend! Bit of a marathon effort but I had Charlotte, Kt, some wine and pizzas for company. I really enjoyed it - this review in the Guardian today summarises pretty much what I thought!

Didn't end up buying a white rubber band but I liked PopJustice's suggestions of what to do with the redundant fashion accessories.