So, I’ve been kind of busy and haven’t have much of a chance to post anything, but, I am making time over lunch from home….

First of all, I have to say, Ben Folds rocks! We went to see him at the Hammersmith Apollo last night, and he was great! It was a lot of fun. He’s a good entertainer and there was just something kind of cool about seeing a North Carolina boy in London. One of the things that is really cool about him is the way he makes everyone there feel like he is just performing in front of a bunch of friends, having fun, telling stories, etc. None of the pictures I attempted really came out very well, but here is the best I could do.

Anyway, after the show, Ray and I made our way to a bus stop (not the closest one, but, hey, it was for the 220 and went in the right direction) and we observed a youngish lady squatting in a corner in an odd way. It took a moment to realize that 1) she was relieving herself there and 2) she was doing so there because she was quite drunk. At that point, I looked around and saw two guys in proximity to her, watching her, and, I assumed, looking after her. This next part happened over the course of the next five minutes or so while we were waiting for the bus. She eventually stood up and pulled up her pants and attempted to leave. She stumbled a bit, fell against a wall and stood there. She attempted to walk again and literally spun in circles several times, unable to walk in a straight line, and almost fell into the road. Luckily, she fell flat on her back, onto the side walk. She sat up and sat there for a while holding one of her shoes and staring at it. By this point we realized that she didn’t have anyone with her – she was all alone and absolutely wasted. I would think that she started drinking with a group of people. Most folks don’t usually just go into a pub and get that drunk by themselves. And yet, whomever it was let her leave the pub that way. The whole time I am trying to convince Ray that we have to do something. His rule is simple: “Don’t get involved.” I absolutely agree that we should not get personally involved. However, in my view, if somebody didn’t do something, she was in danger of being robbed, raped or murdered, or all of the above. The good thing was that she was stumbling around about 50m from a police station. But Ray didn’t want to get the cops involved because he didn’t want her to be in trouble, etc. Again, my thought was that it was better for her to spend the night in jail than to be killed. So, we had just agreed that we should go get a cop to help out when one fellow stops to help her up. When he started to let go of her arm, she fell into another pair of guys. They helped her up, put all her stuff back in her purse and the three of them walked her to the police station. She started trying to argue and struggle on the way, but they got her in there. I just don’t understand it. This is apparenly not an isolated incident because I remember hearing, on one of these crappy radio stations here, a female DJ recounting a story where she’d gotten so smashed she couldn’t find her way home and some random male stranger tried to help her out and get her home, but she couldn’t remember where she lived. What is the deal with this, people? I don’t get it. I mean, it’s one thing to drink socially. It’s even one thing to get drunk when you have friends and people around you to look after you. But to be that inebriated in public, alone, with no one to make sure you get home? What are you thinking? Why would you put yourself in a situation like that to make you that vulnerable? How crappy is your life that you would potentially throw it away like that? Maybe I am missing something? I don’t see how being in that condition could be a happy thing. Oh, well. Everyone has to choose for themselves what they want to do with their life.

Other interesting things… So, I moved from one place that never gets snow to another place that never gets snow. The net result being that it snowed this morning and Southern Railway is reporting: “Train services on all routes are being disrupted due to snow. Short notice alterations, cancellations and delays of up to (some random number between 20 and 95) minutes can be expected. Snow reported across the Southern Network. Various reports of weather related issues.” Therefore, I am working from home. I am pretty sure I could get in to work, but I have no desire to be stranded again like last week with the wind. I can’t trust Southern to get me home.

Well ,that’s it for now. Got bunches of work to do.