its the first time i have been to chinatown, since the lockdown in march.
all the eating shops are closed , and even also the coffee shops. only the grocery stores, like the tesco, and the chinatown ones are open.
the chinese stores are depleted of stock, it looks like they are not reordering whilst the lockdown continues, and so let the stock run down, quite sensible i think, as there is no point buying more, and having to pay for it before it is sold as who knows when things will get back to normal , if it does.
i got what i went to buy, which was frozen fish balls, (still the same price £2.69 for 400mg. actually it has decreased , old price was £2.79). black soya sauce, which has gone up £1.65, from £1.55 for 500ml. and thin vermicelli noodles, gone up too to £1.40 for 500mg from £1.20. (correction, i looked up the old price in my online account, and found that the price hasnot gone up. it remains £1.40. glad i have that finance account , it makes me remember the price of things, that i so easily can forget. ) surprisingly their flat noodles remain the same price. it was very quiet around that area leicester square, piccadilly circus. perhaps the area will get busier once july 4 comes round and the lockdown is eased up.
this situation makes me realise how much the business activity can make a place livelier, and nicer to be in. there is a nice atmosphere about a place that has lots of businesses opened and people eating and shopping. it gives a place a reason for being there and a reason for people to congregate there. if not for it, the place would be dead, not only in appearance, it will look dead, but in economical terms as well. a busy business place means lots of people making a living. truly this crisis must make it very obvious how important buying and selling is to us humans and our society. it might well be the bedrock of our society and our civilisation. it is the secret of what makes our civilisation function and continue.
i was thinking, our lives are quite routine, really. most times nothing much out of the ordinary happens. each day runs its course as usual. we fall into habits and go through the motions and think nothing of it, and the days go by. and most of us live out our lives grow old and die. on this background, punctuated with memorable events that move our lives in a different direction, and so a series of such changes of direction which if we dont die first, end us in old age looking back on it and wondering at the luck, or otherwise, that brought us to this present.
that is what happens to me, and i dont think i am unique, so assume it must happen to the majority of people.
i consider my life a very good one, no thanks to me, because i have not an inkling of how to direct it, nor have any ambitions or goals to aim for. i wonder did some one or thing have a hand in directing it? or is it just chance. or did i direct it unconsciously, not being aware i am doing it at all. but it turned out to be a very nice life.
i dont normally celebrate my birthday, but today i see that nectar is giving me 100points if i buy a 1.5kg whole fresh chicken, so i decided to do that, and whilst there i bought a 1kg bag of wonky carrots, 50p. to roast with it. they dont look wonky at all (when i opened them at home), but they are 5p cheaper than the loose carrots. i was thinking by rights they should make the loose carrots cheaper, seeing there is no plastic bags to get rid of. but i know they cannot sell it too cheap otherwise there is no profit in it. i have to bear in mind, that cheapness is not the end all of it. things must be sold at a price that makes enough profit for the people who grow it to bother to grow it.
but anyway i roasted the chicken and had it for lunch, and quite delicious too. its been some time since i ate a roast chicken, so it is doubly delicious for that, as i have forgotten how nice it is. one of the things i learnt as i go older, is this… dont eat a thing all the time, if you eat it once in a while, you find it is doubly delicious and exciting to eat it when you do.
i got an email from ian, who remembers my birthday. he knows i dont bother with birthday greetings, but he still sends me one every time. it is rather nice to get it esp as he always personalise the picture he sents. i dont know how he does it, i suppose it must be using photoshop or something.
oh the sun has just come out and brightening everything up. rather nice that.
i read a blog which says life is complicated. and i remember thinking it is not really, and only if u make it complicated.
added. in another post of that blog, he was talking of his wife’s starbuck order, that she asked him to get for her. the order goes like this…
talk about making things complicated. haha. people who go to starbucks belong to those who think life is complicated and long may it be so.
but how many other people thinks like me? maybe very few people because it is exciting to make life complicated , people might feel they are living their life fully, instead of making it simple and they think, stripping it of all excitement. perhaps that is the only thing that mankind can be grouped… those who think life is simple and easy, and those who think life is complicated and difficult. come to think of it, we might well make it even more apt, by dividing people into those who think life is difficult, and those who think life is easy.
think of it for a moment. maybe what u are really thinking of is this…is life easy, or difficult. most would just say of course life is difficult… but hang on, it is so easy to get born and to live for most of us. if we are alive now, it just means how easy it is to be able to live. so the basic fact of being alive is very easy to attain. so life, being alive now, in itself for those of us still living now is easy. then people start adding bits and pieces to complicate it.
i doubt that people who think life is simple thinks it is difficult, and those who think life is complicated thinks it is easy… are there?
added. maybe i got it wrong, and that everyone thinks life is difficult, and only differ in deciding whether life is simple or complicated. now i look back on my life, i can see my life is really quite easy. even though when i was living it i am prone to go along with what everyone seem to say, that life is difficult.
so which one is you?
some people feel that if they are not worrying about something, there is something wrong with their life.
its quite bright , even though it is supposed to be raining. no dark rain clouds above , just cloudy with the sun still able to come through.
my life is really very nice, in that i dont have anything to worry about. i am very appreciative of it, because often we forget it and not really appreciate it until bad things happen then we begin to look back on those days when we dont have any troubles and wish those days to come back.
i read in other people’s blogs that they are not so good. some have health worries, others financial ones, for themselves and/or for their loved ones. and the news are full of bad things that happen. it saddens me even though i am quite stoic about things, and i know that it should not sadden me because there will always be others having bad things happen.
it is not often i read of nice things happening to others, so that when i do read of it , i am very glad that they have written about it and published it. so many just dont write when good things happen to them, they think it is not worth mentioning, or rather they focus a lot on the bad things.
most people do that i think. so that bad news always get written about, and good news is overlooked. but also i think a lot of us get a bit of relief, just by talking of our bad fortune. so perhaps that is another reason why people write about it. it is like therapy, talking about it , even if it is only to our readers, can make us feel a little bit better, as the saying goes, a problem shared is a problem halved. (or something like that, or have i made that up?)
anyway i do know that talking of it does help, and blogs are very good for that, as it allows us to talk about it without wearing the patience of our friends, or family who may hear it from us too often. so i say to us bloggers, do let it out and talk of what troubles you. we will understand and sympathise and hope that just talking of it in your blog makes it more bearable.
and i think there are some troubles you just have to wait it out, and endure as there is no cure. time sometimes cures it, as some things will pass with time. if it helps we are all sending good healing thoughts to you.
it is a very nice day, even if it is raining now. the storm dennis , if this is it, seems rather nondescript in london. but it seems elsewhere in uk it is creating havoc. but i am of the philosophy that if it does not affect me, it is unimportant. so there!! not worth bothering myself about it. haha.
and so that is my view also of the coronavirus. it is not affecting anything in london and seemingly all the world except china, so i shall not be bothered with worrying about it. so there!! you will get any number of dire predictions, and forecast of doom and gloom, by so called experts about the storm dennis, and the coronovirus, and i read somewhere about the earth being on a colliding course with an asteroid or two… it was some time ago, i wonder what happened to it. so by now i hope most people, if not all, would learn to discount what these so called experts say.
nowadays there is no one who have the authority of knowing anything, so no one can be believed anymore in whatever they have to say about anything. so just put your mind at ease and forget that the world is going to end soon, or life as we know it to end.
there is nothing of excitement in london now, in my life or in the life of the capital city. so maybe that is why the newspapers are just reporting on speculations and what may be and future hysterical outcomes.
nothing much happening now. and i am glad of it. haha. for me, it is so quiet, even the library has no books that i want to borrow. it really is that bad. the only book i could find is in the online library, and it is a georgette heyer book , the grand sophy, which is rather good. i like her books but have not read this one, so it is a nice treat. it is a real old book, written in 1950. its a pity we dont get any books written like this anymore. everything now is so politically correct, i cannot think of any book now that dares to write about any controversial subjects anymore.
london 11.38am 20C sunny saturday 2019 victoria library
yesterday i was at a free food pre christmas buffet, at a pub in camden to publicise their christmas fare, for office parties. one of us booked a table, so we get to meet up with a lot of the regular freebies goers. it was a popular pub, very crowded with regulars, as it was a friday evening, and you should know by now that office workers in london seem to like gathering in pubs after work esp on fridays, which means the start of their weekend off work. this buffet ordinarily costs about £20 each. it is meant to let people taste what is on offer so that they can decide to hold their office christmas parties here. it’s a fun way to spend an evening.
i went there by tube, because the bus system is completely disrupted due to a global climate change demonstration in the centre of london. fortunately the tube was not affected, though later i heard that the central line was not working because of a body on the line. this is the euphemism for someone who had committed suicide by jumping in front of the train. it was in lancaster gate tube station. and one of us said that might explain why her sister did not make it to the dinner. she had to rely on the central line to get from her house.
on the way back, i found there is a bus stop just outside the pub where the 88 passes on the way back to london. so that was what i used because by the time i finished at the pub it was about 7pm, long after the demonstration in parliament square was over. so one bus to take me right back to my flat. very pleasant that. and very enjoyable to watch people on the pavement from the top deck of the bus.
so you could say yesterday we got everything… a personal tragedy with a person who is so driven as to end their life , a global tragedy, if u believe it, of doom to come with climate change, and ordinary life where things go on normally with us having fun.
i think if u are a sensitive soul you will be quite depressed really. but i am glad in a way that i am not. i thank goodness for that.
added. the news in the papers is about thomas cook asking the govt to lend it £200million for its cash flow problem. or it will go bankrupt. i find it amazing that a big company and founded 175yrs ago can be so cash strapped, and in trouble and can go under for a relatively small sum of money. though i gather it has allready got huge debts on top of it. their holidays are not cheap and yet they cannot make money. i wonder why ? i see in 2011 they had the same problem. so it looks like the company is in trouble long before this.
added. i found this article about its demise, terrorist attacks and arab spring seem to have destroyed demand for its holidays. but perhaps underlying it , but not mentioned, is the fact that it is real easy for everyone to book their own holiday these days, (air bnb must take a lot of credit for that i think)without need for a package holiday provider anymore. but what do i know, it may well be a large proportion of holiday makers stillprefer to book a package for the convenience. but it got competition in another company tui.
added 11.25pm 17C dry . highest temp today was 26C at 2.20-.50pm. after today it is forecast to rain all week and beyond.
this weekend is very quiet for me. even though lots of things are going on in london, the naked bike ride , eid festival in trafalgar square, the queens official birthday , all this on saturday. its nice to hear of them, but thank goodness i dont feel i am missing out if i dont go to them. i only went for a short time to the eid festival in trafalgar square, but did not stay long, preferring to go on to the virgin lounge. i did toy with the idea of staying longer at the virgin lounge so that i can see the naked bikers as they pass it, later in the day, but i decided to get the bus back, and was pleasantly surprised to find the roads clear, earlier on the bus going there there was a diversion and quite a jam as the road from parliament square to trafalgar was closed. i think they were closed for the tail end of the d-day celebrations, there are a lot of war memorials along that road.
every year these things come round and are observed and i include the naked bike ride , and all the festivals. people get off their routine to attend these celebrations and make a bit of fuss about it. but for those of us who live here, in the middle of it, it might be we get a bit bored with it…
hmm, makes me think of that adage, about london, if u get bored with london, you are dead. or something like that… well, i should clarify myself, and say we might be bored with these official celebrations, but not with life in london , the ordinary day to day living that still have lots of things to interest us , the small things, the details.
being a john lewis member you get offers from them every 3months. last quarter, i got a gift voucher of £5 to use in waitrose, and that was real useful, as i was able to buy a croissant and get the free coffee each time. i still have another two free croissant and coffee treats to go before the £5 voucher is used up. this time i got in the post their offer of a free coffee and cake in their cafe in the oxford st store. so this one is a one off treat. there was another coupon that gives me a free coffee but only if i buy a cake so i wont be using that. well, these treats are quite nice to have.
in the meantime there is life to enjoy. it is sunny out there, and i might go out and sit in the sun. the forecast is for lots of sun and high temperatures over the easter weekend. and tomorrow there is the free burito for breakfast at tortilla, the cafe in victoria.
it is also the start of the easter holidays which must please a lot of commuters, as they wont have to suffer the disruption by the climate activists.
it has affected the westend businesses who are complaining that people are not coming to the westend and they have suffered a drop in earnings. and they are criticising the mayor of london for supporting the activists. the holidays will be a reprieve for commuters, but businesses will still suffer from the disruption that the activists are forecasting for the westend with their continued action. certainly i myself have not gone to the westend because of this disruption. it is possible that local shops have gained from this… as more people shop locally than go far afield.
london 2.36pm 4C light rain and thunder sunday 2019
its so cosy in my flat that i am reluctant to go out, even though if i had woken up earlier, instead of at 11.30am, i would be out there , in the paddington library which is where i normally go to read the sunday papers.
it says 4C according to the weather website, so it must be rather chilly outside. but inside my flat now i dont feel it at all.
well, now, i had thought of going to the supermarket, not so much to get the late bargains, but more like going to aldi, in tooting broadway, involving a tube journey, to get their 39p celery, and 45p tomatoes. it is the cheapest in town. but with this rain i am having second thoughts about going out. i mean i dont even want to go to the pimlico library , which is near me, to read the papers nevermind going on a long tube journey to south london.
i wonder if others too may not go out just because of the weather. i think if there is something i have to do, i would go out irregardless of what the weather is, but going to the grocers to buy vegetables is not urgent is it? nowadays we have the freezer, and we can get frozen veg , so fresh veg is not urgent at all. no wonder the grocery stores, and butchers, are suffering, when we dont feel the need to get supplies in daily. and we have so much in the flat to keep us occupied, the tv for eg. lots of programs to watch. and films.
i know how to cook, so i dont have to go out to eat. but nowadays, with all those online food delivery services, someone who dont know how to cook would not even have to go out either, and still be well fed.
hmm, it makes me see that someone who wants to can just cut themselves off from ever socialising and going out and just stay in , and live an online life and never have to meet a real person ever. maybe that is why i read of those japanese men who just lock themselves inside and never go out and live a life of a recluse.
london 2.53pm 10.5C sunny (sunrise 7.53am sunset 3.51pm) sunday 2018
there is a brexit demo today in central london, so the buses are disrupted. luckily they told us about it on the notice board display at the bus stop, so i decided to take the tube instead to go to paddington library (which is not near paddington station at all, but nearer royal oak station) . but in the tube they were announcing the metropolitan line is experiencing delays, so i got off at paddington tube station and took a bus.
there are always demonstrations in london at the weekend. i get irked by them, but maybe i should be glad they are not out and out riots, like paris is having, and spreading to other big towns in europe too.
france in particular seem to indulge in violent demonstrations rather than peaceful ones. i wonder why is that? it seems to me very bad to take your anger against govt actions on the ordinary citizens by destroying their town and businesses. maybe the reason violent demos are so prevalent is because it works, their actions have forced the govt to stop the taxes that are supposedly to combat climate change. time and again it has been effective in stopping whatever they object to being implemented so it is no wonder they resort to violence and disruption.
maybe they should implement a policy whereby if there is violent demonstrations, than whatever the policy that the demonstrators object to will be implemented immediately. if the demonstrations are peaceful than there will be a rethink but no guarantees that it will be canceled. but it will be widely known that any violent demonstrations means an immediate implementation of that tax or whatever.
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