It's been a good weekend, got a bit of work done today and had some good workouts at the ol' LSE gym while Beth's been up in Scotland for a hen party. At the mo' I'm working on my second pint of Old Speckled Hen, a bloody good beer. I bought the new Radiohead album at the grocery store on Thursday, it's pretty good. Like the last three of their albums, you have to listen to it a few times before your start really enjoying it. I think it also helps to be slightly under the influence. Interestingly, as I get older, I find that chemicals really aren't necessary to produce altered states. Reality is far more bizarre than the constructed world presented to the inebriated mind. At least, it is in London. I love riding the tube, it is always a trip (excuse the pun). Especially on Friday and Saturday nights, I need to start bringing a diary to record the things I see on the tube. Last night when I got on around 11 to come home from a friend's house, there was a group of girls that looked like hookers making a lot of noise, then a really strange pair stepped on. The first woman was quite androgenous looking, was wearing a a cap with furry earflaps buttoned down, had coke bottle glasses, and a bright yellow vest with reflector patches on it, like the kind worn by road works crews. To top the outfit off she had two enormous yellow teeth sticking out, and a baby doll. Her companion was an enormous dragon of a woman with a sloping forehead and close set eyes that gave the appearance of a cave woman. Her ankles were so fat that her feet looked like elephant feet. The hookers went into raptures over the baby doll carried by the road-works lady. This had a knock-on effect on all the other drunks (the train was full of drunks), who all started yelling, laughing, falling about, etc. I had my ipod on as a soundtrack and really enjoyed the whole scene.

When I've got enough money to feed myself and keep a roof over my head, I really love London. It's got so much stuff going on. People everywhere of every language, breed, and class. Imposing Victorian architecture mixed with awful functionalist towers. Crazy traffic always buzzing. It's like white noise. So many significant events heaped on top of each other that its almost hard to disentangle the hodge-podge. It has too much history, it's almost like it all cancels itself out. A real post-modern atmosphere.

I've really gotten into Star Trek lately, of any variety. Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, whatever. Science fiction always ends up being utopian or dystopian or more often a mix of the two. The world of the Federation sounds great. No money, everybody wears the same thing, and the Prime Directive protects a pluralism of cultures that keeps life interesting. I'm really starting to appreciate the multi-cultural environment of Canada. I don't care what the scare-mongering Islamaphobes say. Multi-culturalism is great. No truly free country can help being multi-cultural. And it makes life more exciting, just like living in the United Federation of Planets. Richmond BC and the surrounding area is a lot like Deep Space Nine, people speaking funny languages, wearing funny clothes, and doing funny things. Right now everybody everywhere is all up in arms about tighter immigration. Whatever. I can't imagine anything more hellish than a country full of white Anglo-Saxon protestants. I'd be on the first plane to Abu-Dhabi, seriously.

With the rise of China and India (however exaggerated) the world will soon be returning to its usual multi-polar state, much like antiquity. This promises to be much more interesting and is a very exciting development, a sort of return to reality maybe (and hopefully even more like Star Trek).