SNAKE 'N SINGIN

As seen on the streets of London...

Met up with Anita on sunday, in Brixton. While I was waiting an old, half toohless black man came by, with a snake on his head. A living snake. Quite a sight.

Earlier that weekend I was waiting at the bus stop, and four men passed by. Four fully grown men, singing 'Tomorrow' from the musical Annie. They sang loud, full of confidence and in perfect tune. Gotta love London :)

A nice one from my collegue Jamie:

I am slightly sceptical about verbal confirmation.
In this day and age it isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Lunch

So funny when you see a guy coming out of one of the many sexshops in Soho and looking down to check whether he has a hardon, thinking no one has noticed :) As seen while i was walking back to the office after lunch with my collegue Anita.

Nice lunch break indeed. We walked past Prowler, the gay shop in Soho, and there was a really hot guy standing there talking on his phone. From the looks he gave me when he walked into the shop I could tell he was interested so I went into the shop with Anita. He smiled at me, we had an eeeeehm... nice conversation, and that was it :) I didn't get his number or name, but it still was an ego-booster and it made my day, hehe.

Stabbings

Things are heating up in London... Earlier this week a woman got stabbed to death at the end of my street in Vauxhall. No reason, just a random attack. This took place only a couple of hundreds of meters from the spot where some months ago a 15yo boy was stabbed to death by a gang of youngsters, also without any reason.
When I went to work this morning, the street where I work was blocked off by police. Apparently someone had been stabbed to death just outside the door of the building where our office is. About a month ago, someone got stabbed to death in front of the door of our other Soho office.
It seems like these random outbursts of violence are becoming more frequent. Very exciting, but worrying when you think about it too much. In the context of a city like London, these things seem to blend in and are pushed to the dark corners of your memory rather quickly. In a country like Belgium, less eventful, they linger on for a long time and people actively remember them for much longer.

Cornrows

After I put my picture of me with cornrows on the internet I started to get messages from black guys calling me a wigga. Yes, it’s a ‘black’ hairdo, but does that mean only black guys should have it? I don’t understand how on one hand the same guys are saying they are second class citizens and they are not treated in an equal way by society, and at the same time they try to separate themselves by opposing others who take over or flirt with their style or traditions. Put it this way: this is London 2006. It’s a city where so many people from so many different cultures and backgrounds live together. Isn’t it normal there’s going to be some crossover? Isn’t it even desirable that will happen?

one of these days

Got this by e-mail from my collegue Anita this morning, got me in stitches.

And...
Less than four hours til lunch;
Less than three til bathroom break;
Less than two til coffee break;
Less than one til boredom sets in….. ooops, too late - boredom has arrived early this morning :-)

TopTip Nr.1

... don't go to Starbucks for takeaway coffee while wearing a white jumper. G&@"#!!!

Belgium - well, back in London

Here I am, back in sunny London. Came back on the Eurostar yesterday morning and went straight to work. Had to get up at 545am (445 GMT) in order to catch the 7am train, little surprise I was pretty zonked. Fortunately I could stay in Brussels with one of Ola's friends, otherwise I would have had to get up even earlier.
--> Un grand merci à Tcheko et Lika pour leur hospitalité!! Faut qu'on se revoie, c'etait un plaisir de faire connaissance. Venez à Londres :)

The weekend was nice though. Saw my family and friends (Paul, Johan, Aimé, Brad) in Antwerp, saw Ola after about two years of living in the same city and never meeting up,... Nice to catch up.

One more month and I am on a proper holiday again... can't wait.

Bornem

Bqck in Belgium for the Easter Weekend. It's always nice to come back. Get decent food. Go to a pub at 11pm and stay till 130 or later without loud music pumping in your ears. The neighbour calling for his homie pigeons to come in. The fruit trees full of white and pink blossom.

Margaret Cho - after

Margaret Cho was so funny. I really enjoyed her show, and so did Jurgen. She did only one show in London on this tour, and everyone came out to see her. Dawn French, the guys from Little Britain, Amy Lamé,... and half of Soho, hehe.

Margaret Cho

Jurgen managed to get us tickets for Margaret Cho at Her Majesty's Theatre tomorrow. Definitely looking forward to it, she must be one of the most funny women on this planet. We're in the third row, not bad at all ;)

http://www.margaretcho.com/

The first entry. Me, and my mum.

Here we are. Lunch break at work, friday, it's all good. Finally some tme to write about me. There is no need to introduce myself, after all I am only planning to give the link to this blog to my friends and people who are dear to me. It wil be just me. Thoughts, stories, experiences, opinions.

I was thinking this morning what I could write. Could write about my mum having her second session of chemotherapy today. She texted me to say it went all ok, but she knows it takes a couple of hours before the treatment kicks in, and she will probably be sick all weekend. Earlier this week she started loosing her hair, it's coming out by the handfulls when she showers or whenever she touches it. She has orderd a whig to be made and that will be ready on tuesday. Which is ok, cause this weekend she is most unlikely to get out off the house anyway, she will be recovering from the chemo session.

I'm sure she will be fine after the treatments are finished, after all they discovered the cancer before it was even large enough to be seen on a mammogram. She's been a very lucky woman. I dread to think what would have happened if she wouldn't have gone for the MRI scan, but just for the regular mammogram. The cancer would not have been discoverd, so it would have continued to grow until it was large enough for her to feel it. Thank goodness it was discovered and removed way before that.

I'm thinking about it a lot, and about the impact on the family. It is a shock to find out your mum has cancer. My dad is so stressed because of the whole situation, I really feel for him. I am miles away here in London, the distance provides a buffer in a way, but my sister and my dad even more are there every day, they live through it with my mum. It must be tough.

Two sessions done, four more to go. Three weeks between the sessions, so another three months. After that, maybe radiation but that is not sure yet.

FINALLY

and now it's all about me, me, me.... :)