Day 4 - Still London

Beer drunk: 500+ml, Distance walked: quite a bit

They almost managed to do summer today.  The rain had stopped and we actually had sunshine all afternoon.  Unfortunately, it was still blowing a gale.  However, if you found a sheltered spot in the sun it was almost pleasant.

Spent the morning doing yet another of the London Walks.  This time of south London.  Our guide today was Stephanie, a south Londoner born and bred, complete with appropriate accent.  She took up work as a tour guide after putting her back out after spending too many years mucking out elephant enclosures at the zoo.  She thinks the average tourist is almost as smart as an elephant.

We spent a good part of the walk going around the back streets of Lambeth which have featured in many a movie or TV show as they have been largely unchanged for almost 200 years.  Originally, this was because they were slums.  Now they are fiendishly expensive places to live but have been slapped with heritage protection orders.

On my way back to the proper, i.e. north, side of the river I stumbled across a food festival, featuring foods from around the world - including arancini just as good as your Aussie mother makes, if you are to believe the sign.  I had a half of the Londoner Pale Ale by Meantime Brewing more because the man on the stall was pleasantly flirtatious than because it was particularly good.  For food I had a chorizo shish kebab (from happy acorn fed free range Spanish pigs) - tasty, a spinach and ricotta muffin - interesting and a piece of coffee and walnut cake - good.  That meant I had 4 of the 5 main food groups covered - beer, salt, grease and caffeine.  The only one missing was chocolate.

Afterwards I popped into Harrods to check out their food hall.  It was also disappointingly full of both "home brand" goods and gawking tourists.  Shopping there must be quite unpleasant what with all the hoi polloi infesting the place.  The food hall building itself is fabulous but the food at Simon Johnson is more interesting.

I dined, if you can call it that, at one of a chain of "posh" burger joints - the Gourmet Burger Kitchen, set up by an enterprising Kiwi.  I had a buffalo burger (full of flavour and quite tasty) with chips and a bottle of Kiwi lager whose name was as forgettable as its taste.  They were playing Crowded House in the restaurant which I thought was taking the whole Kiwi theme a little too far.

I was entertained listening (ok eavesdropping) on the conversation of a couple at a neighbouring table.  I thought I had trouble with credit cards but the woman's saga leaves mine for dead.  She was trying to buy plane tickets online but her bank decided this was dodgy and blocked her card.  When she phoned to get it unblocked they asked her a series of security questions, including what was her age.  Unfortunately, she has been in the habit of lying about her age for years to everyone, but not consistently, so she couldn't remember how old she had told her bank she was.  Not knowing her own age raised all sorts of red flags so they blocked every one of her accounts.  When she went down to her local branch to sort things out they demanded photo ID even though she has banked there for years and they know her.  However, her only photo ID was her passport which was at some embassy where see was seeking a visa.  They wouldn't give the visa and return her passport without seeing evidence of (return) plane tickets and she couldn't buy the tickets without her credit card which she couldn't get unlocked without her passport.  The moral of the story seems to be make sure you lie consistently.