With the working part of my two year UK visa up, the time has come to leave London. I’d dearly love to stay, as I am fiercely attached to this city now, but if you’re unable to work it isn’t the most friendly of places. Hopefully a return will be possible in the future, but the plan in the meantime is to travel until my hard-earned pounds run out! I want to see England, as I really haven’t done any travelling since arriving in the UK - but I always have had eyes bigger than my stomach, (or in this case [View Full Entry]

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Glastonbury. The granddaddy of all music festivals. The iconic one that everyone’s heard about, the festival where it doesn’t matter if it’s sunny or muddy, you’re guaranteed a good time. The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts began in 1970, as a two day festival with a £1 entrance fee, on the farm owned by the organiser, Michael Eavis. Now the largest green field festival in the world, there is a year’s hiatus after every four consecutive festival years, to give the land - [View Full Entry]

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The British Academy of Film and Television Arts holds its Film Awards annually. Known as the BAFTAs, they are the British version of the Oscars, and the nominees and winners often foreshadow the winners of the larger American event. I decided 2007 was the year to mark my first attendance, albeit from the sidelines instead of the middle of the carpet. I had been warned by some veterans that if I didn't turn up at seven in the morning, I would miss out on the wristband which would guarantee me entry into the public stands to watch the red carpet event. [View Full Entry]

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New Year's Eve! Being in London for New Year's Eve was something pretty special. I saw the first hours of 2006 in from a camp chair in Taranaki, New Zealand, and seeing the year out in a huge city on the opposite side of the world was a remarkable contrast. I was determined to make the most of it. Most of the day was spent in the mundane business of tying up loose ends, so as to enter the New Year with a clean slate. (In theory, if not quite in practice!) In the evening Jenny, Tim, Becky and I met [View Full Entry]

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In the UK, the 'silly season' comes upon everyone with such a vengeance you have no choice but to capitulate, and celebrate all month long. (Argh - it is September as I publish this entry - it will soon be happening again!) The first signs were of course put up well in advance - Harrods famously opens its Christmas Store with one hundred days to go, and thus begins the countdown. The big stores on Oxford Street are all lit up by the end of October at the very latest, and by mid November the Christmas Lights tourists pop up at [View Full Entry]

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I've been sadly neglecting this blog for a while now: a combination of being extremely busy and having no internet signal at home. But never fret! This past week I suddenly picked up signal, and immediately set about uploading as many photographs as I could before it disappeared: this entry is the result of my industry. The last few months have seen the British summer come and go, winter start and then kind of tail off (still waiting for that one to reverse itself) several birthday celebrations, me finding work, trips to the theatre and cinema, walks in the park, galleries, [View Full Entry]

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It is not every year that one can truly claim a birthday longer than a single day, so I decided to take full advantage of the world's time zones, starting the celebrations midnight New Zealand time and finishing midnight GMT. The 37 Hour Birthday Part One: the New Zealand edition When the clock struck eleven am London time on the 27th November, I sat up with excitement and kicked off my birthday with a ceremonial opening of two boxes of chocolates. Shouting out to my colleagues to "come and have chocolate, because it's midnight in New Zealand!" brought willing participants to [View Full Entry]

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Saturday 7th October Becky hosted a night of shenanigans at her place in Shoreditch, to celebrate Katy's time in London and farewell her in the style to which she has become accustomed. Not to mention to impress her with our wonderful selves, in an attempt to make her stay! We had an amazing night and thinking back, it was quite incredible that Becky's two scottish flatmates tolerated the crazy kiwis (and one english bloke) kicking up a ruckus all night - the discussions, photo shoots and dancing ended only with the 5am migration of half the remaining party to the 24 [View Full Entry]

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With Katy’s time among us here in London Town almost spent, it was deemed time indeed for an Oktobor reunion. When counting up, the incredible number of us here in the UK is quite suprising, and the timing seemed auspicious, so a group of us met up in Soho for an evening of food, reminicenses and general misbehaving, as evinced below… Ten of us started off in true London style: at the pub. After the catch ups and "Wow, I didn't even know you were here's" were over, we moved to a local Indian place for dinner, where some of us [View Full Entry]

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The Proms, or to give them their full title, the summer Promenade Concerts, are a two month long series of concerts held each year at the Royal Albert Hall in London, with various other satelite locations. This hundred year old tradition is the biggest classical music festival in the world, and the concerts are broadcast live on BBC radio and televsion. The recordings reach millions around the globe. So it was ridiculous that having picked up a programme in July, I allowed nearly the full two months to pass by before I managed to get to one of them! My roommate [View Full Entry]

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