Life (and friends) in London

Welcome to Finsbury Park, London - home to:

- the Arsenal Football Club and the Emirates Stadium (where you can find some of the highest payed athletes in the world)
- North London Central Mosque (notorious for it's connections to Sheikh Abu Hamza, the one-eyed, hook-handed cleric allegedly linked to the 9/11 bombings)
- the "crazy CD-lady" who wears old T-shirts, spandex, and stands on the corner with her walkman and headphones, singing (guessing from her wardrobe - you can't tell what she's actually singing) along to what we can only imagine to be mid-'80's favourites

... and us!

From left: Rob, Machiko, Hana, and Stu

It was lucky for us that we found Machiko, who is just as serious and mature as we are - otherwise we wouldn't be able to invite over our friends....

wait... maybe that's why we met

Ben at Portobello Road

Nicola in South Bromley

and Jon (and his new baby!) at Spitalfields Market...

But in all seriousness, it's lovely to be here with such lovely flatmates. Just to give you a taste of what it's like to live in our house, here is the menu from last week:

Monday: Asian Noodle Salad with miso soup
Tuesday: Roasted winter vegetables and rice
Wednesday: Stuffed peppers and squash soup
Thursday: Eggplant Parmigiana (at Rachel and Howie's house!) and to-die-for chocolate cake
Friday: Corn Chowder and wholemeal buns
Saturday: Quesedillas with home-made Pico de Gallo salsa and guacamole
Sunday: Margherita pizza and tomato and fresh mozzarella salad, followed by Ginger cake!

mmmmm.... anyone want to come and visit?

So even though there is random yelling in the courtyard behind our house, our whole kitchen/living room shakes when the people upstairs do their laundry, the neighbours downstairs have a band who rehearses from midnight to 2am on Wednesdays and sometimes we come home to find large piles of poo on the sidewalk in front of our house... we are eating well! And did you know that today, October 28th is National Pudding Day in the UK? A day where the nation eats dessert...

...all I can say to that is

Happy National Pudding Day!

Turning to meat...

Prune juices, prune yoghurts, prune biscuits, prune jam... London loves prunes. And although at first, I thought it a strange flavour to market (North Americans have learned to shun the prune as something only old fogies eat, and even then, only out of necessity) I have learned to love them, too.

But those prunes, in combination with British yoghurt (whose labels read: "aids in digestive transit"...transit!) started to make me run to the loo every other hour, resulting in, let's just say... discomfort.

So I decided that in order to restore regularity in my digestive "transit" system, I'd start to eat meat again. Being a new vegetarian, Rob was not that hyped about it at first, but bless his heart, he ended up being the ultimate in support:

Elementary, my dear Weston

Yes, Yes, so it's been a while. But I have a good excuse! I was solving a mystery!

I don't know if I mentioned in my entry about my new job, but it's on Baker Street - home of the Baker Street Irregulars, and Sherlock Holmes and all things detective. The Baker Street tube station is even decorated with mosaics of Sherlock Holmes' profile (complete with hat and pipe, naturally)!

So here is how the mystery begins, and it begins as all good mysteries do - on a perfectly normal day.

So there I was, it was a perfectly day normal day at my regular job on Baker Street, and I was, as usual, watching the large mechanical screen that the management insist I keep at my desk. I'd been watching it for days, now, and nothing ever happened except that after turning it on and going through the procedure they term "logging-in" with a secret password (this part of my day I enjoy) nothing happens for approximately 5 minutes, after which the screen shows a swirling array of colours. This continutes all day, and would have on this particular "perfectly normal" day if I hadn't suddenly received a letter. And not just any letter - one by "electronic post"! It appeared on my screen and summoned me to the Sherlock Holmes Hotel on Baker Street. It read:

"Dear Ms. Detectivelefsen,

You are cordially invited to spend an evening with us at the Sherlock Holmes Hotel. The evening will be free of charge and includes dinner and a continental breakfast. Please invite a guest if you wish.

Sincerely,

The Management."

"What a mystery!" I thought to myself. Who is this "management" and why is he (or she, as the case may be) offering me an evening in a hotel - for FREE!? I thought of the crime bosses I'd encountered of late. Could it be...

The dancing twins of Tooting Bec:
Leaders of a group of pick-pocketers who
"Fossy" their way into the wallets of trusting patrons of the arts?"'Ug' the Thug" who lives above the pub,
speaks in grunts, and is a gang of one?Or perhaps the pointy-shouldered "Madame Neon"
who runs an intricate ring of thin, robotic slaves
who wear only designer labels?

Straight away I knew that I could eliminate one of the suspects. The electronic letter was clearly written by a literate mastermind, and therefore could not have been written by "Ug the Thug", who only communicates in grunts. Even if he had been able to write a letter, it would have appeared like this:

"Ug Ug,
Ug Ug Ug UG Uggg UgUGggUUUg.
Ug uug."

So there were only two suspects left and I had only begun my sleuthing. The game was already afoot - this was clearly a mystery I was up for solving.

I rushed home at precisely 4:30pm, gathered my detecting materials in a rolling suitcase, and brought along my faithful sidekick, Weston, to help me solve this mystery.

Here I am, on the case.

After entering the hotel, Weston and I were ushered to the second floor, where we were shown into a luxurious "executive suite" and wished a comfortable stay. We looked around:
It looked normal enough - two twin beds for Weston and myself, a writing desk, and windows overlooking Chiltern Street behind. And although the glass door to the toilet was unusual, I didn't find it particularly full of mystery. (In fact, it really took a lot of the mystery out of certain activities.)

And then I noticed another large mechanical screen in the corner. (There were two, actually, but only one was of import.) It read:

Aha! A clue! "Weston!" I exclaimed, "We can deduce from this welcome letter, that our suspect is not only literate, but working in a team. You might have noticed that in the electronic letter I received on the electronic screen at work, my surname - Detectivelefsen - is spelled correctly, and yet in this welcome message, is is misspelled as 'Dethlefsen'. Clearly, the letters were written by two separate people, one who could spell, and one who cannot."

Weston was quiet and thought for a while. "Does that mean that our prime suspects are the dancing Twins of Tooting Bec?"

"Precisely," I replied. "Madame Neon's robotic slaves are too underfed to do any work besides walk up and down a stage - writing a message of welcome would clearly be too strenuous for them. And the twins... well - one is clearly stupider than the other, wouldn't you say?"

Weston stared at me blankly - "which one?".

"Never mind," I sighed, "Let's search the room for other clues. We must find out who 'the management' are, and why they invited us here!"

And so we searched:

First I searched the living room - even inside of the magazines.

Weston took the sitting room and looked for clues in the books.We searched for hours - and came up with nothing else. We were both tired and getting cranky. I decided I would look in one last spot... the writing desk. There, I found a menu and my next brilliant idea. "What if," I proposed to Weston, "we head down to the lounge for a drink and a ponder?" Maybe it will clear our heads and allow us to solve this mystery."

So, still feeling groggy and frustrated from not finding any clues, we took the machine-propelled dumb-waiter to the ground level, and sat down for a drink and a pipe (you can see the pipe on the wall behind my trusty side-kick, Weston).

And that is when Weston said the words which cracked the case - "I say, Detectivelefsen, you were right. I do feel much perkier after a drink."

"Weston, you're brilliant! You've solved the mystery!"

"I have?"

"Yes - you did it just now! Now we can safely eliminate all of our suspects and solve the mystery! Let me explain. First, I have known all three suspects for many years and never have I received any kind of invitation or offer from any of them. In fact, the only letters I have received from them have been death threats! Secondly, I have only been working at this office for a few weeks, which is the only new development in my recent life, which leads me to believe that this invitation has something to do with this new development. Thirdly, I received the electronic message at WORK. So the mystery is solved!"

Weston, my ever-faithful side-kick looked at me and blinked. [blink-blink] "I'm not sure I get it, Detectivelefsen."

"It's elementary, my dear Weston, with my new job, I received this invitation to stay at the Sherlock Holmes hotel as a PERK!"

[I can hear your groans resounding through cyber-space. No need to insert them as comments.]