Police horse shit all over the road...

Police vehicles all over the road...

And police themselves all over the road.

On Friday I checked out the protest and hunger-strike going on in Parliament Square. Well, it's ballooned a little bit since then. Here's what happened this morning.

Once I heard about that I thought I'd go check it out hehe. The chick on the left was going pretty hard on the megaphone there...

And this guy was dancing around while holding up gruesome photos of the supposed goings on in Sri Lanka at the moment, and appearing to be having far too much of a good time.

Just another day in Britain's glorious capital.

After all that I came home, happened to look out my window, and saw a large group of kids with a year-round tan running in all directions.

Next minute the cops turned up, grabbed a handful and started searching them hehe. Apparently there'd been a big teenage punch-up that I'd just missed. There's no "Meet you at the flagpole" in this country, it's "Meet you on the side of the Road, and you'd better tell your mama to get the police ready".

This good-looking guy with his fly undone is our neighbour across the street. He and many others were having a good look at the action.

Over four million CCTV cameras in the United Kingdom (one for every 14 citizens), but evidently that's not enough. I found this while biking to work this morning. When I saw the cameras on the roof I initially thought it was Google continuing its rounds taking shots for Street View on Google Maps, but nope. Big Brother is watching me, always.

Hooray for Fridays, and hooray for after-work drinkies on a Friday! We wandered into this pub in Knightsbridge - Paxton's Head (they have some weird names over here!).

With no empty seats on the ground floor we went downstairs. Empty tables, and an empty bar - sweet.

After the first beer had gone down we couldn't be arsed walking upstairs to get more, so we just poured our own from the empty bar, for the next two hours hahaha!

On the way back home I found this. I'm not sure what had happened exactly, but the cop car had obviously jammed the silver car to a halt. So as I do, and as I have done for the last four years of this website's existence, I stopped and took some photos. I was immediately approached by three cops, told I was not allowed to be taking photos, to which I pointed out that I am in a very public place (i.e. the side of the road), and have every right to take photos. I was then told that not everything is in the "public domain" (which begs the question of why they hadn't cordoned off the road if it was that serious), and was told to move along (while they were each standing in my way). A month ago while I was in New Zealand, the 2009 G20 Summit was held in London, which was greeted by massive protests in central London. During those protests, Ian Tomlinson, a newspaper seller, was struck at least twice by a police officer and then shoved hard to the ground while walking home from work (as seen in the photo above-right, and video footage of that can be seen here). Five minutes later, Tomlinson died of internal bleeding in his abdomen (the cop involved is now facing charges). As far as anyone can ascertain, this was a completely unprovoked attack. About a week later, the cops were in the news again for not wearing and/or obscuring their shoulder ID badges (which in theory means they could act in any manner without repercussion). Then tonight, I myself get bullied by three of them, for doing nothing more than taking photos from the side of the road. As I mentioned yesterday, there is one CCTV camera in Britain for every 14 people, so they can take all this footage of you and me and Tom and Dick and Harry, but we can't take any of them (while they're bashing innocent civilians and shoving them to the ground, and in doing so killing them - according to this news article the cops attempted to put a ban on any further footage of the G20 fiasco being broadcast). I don't doubt this isn't isolated to just Britain, but regardless the cops here are just blatant power-tripping pricks. They have been forever in the news since I got here almost three years ago (the above are but two recent examples), and this is about the umpteenth time I've had such an encounter with them both here and in Scotland.

Every morning since Monday last week - bright warm sunshine...

...and Saturday morning - dark and wet.

The annual London Marathon took place today - not a bad day for it! This is Green Park, right next door to Buckingham Palace and near the marathon finish line.

The spectators were out in droves - partly to watch the action, but mostly to work on their non-existent tans.

And of course there's always the token Jesus freak at these events. People have come to run, watch people run, or work on their non-existent tans - not to be preached at.

Along the River Thames at the 25-mile mark (one to go).

I checked on the Sri Lankans as well since I was in the area - they've been a bit quiet since Monday. Still protesting strong and still not eating, but at least they cleared a path for today hehe.

Feel the burn, feel the burn, and don't fall over now! Flora (who have sponsored this event since 1996) is a brand of margarine - bit of an odd sponsor for a marathon considering margarine isn't exactly healthy, but better than Marlboro ciggies or something though I guess hehe.

Past the finish line the runners all scored themselves a goody-bag, probably full of margarine.

I went for a ride back down the course, where all the slow and less serious runners were having a go.

Among them we had the Rhino...

The camel...

Woody...

Paul the apple...

Rob the, girl...

A very lost leprechaun who looks like he just wants a Guinness...

Darren the Swedish cheerleader who looks like he's checking out Helena's arse...

And this fruit with the Mickey Mouse hat, the face mask, and the pink tutu, checking to see how he's doing against his personal best ;)

In their wake they all left a shit load of empty water bottles and orange peels hehe.

After I'd seen enough I noticed this off in the distance - wicked! I had the GPS take me in the direction of where I thought it was, and in doing so it happened to take me past where Ian Tomlinson got beat up by the police last month (I wrote about it here). However, as always, smoke is always a lot further away than it looks, and by the time I got close it was well gone and I found nothing. By the time I got home I'd biked a marathon and a half myself (60kms) - bugger running it!

Back to the usual shit weather-wise today so I left the bike at home and caught the bus to work. A group of young school kids near where I was sitting were discussing what they imagine Heaven to look like (for whatever reason). Long story short, the general consensus was cloudy - very cloudy, and I thought to myself if you live in Britain you probably would think that hahaha :)

First we were told this...

A couple months later we were then told this...

And now we're being told this hahaha! Goddamn I'm confused ;)

As I left work to grab some lunch this afternoon, my workmate asked why I was taking my camera. "Because I never know what I might find", and today turned out be another classic example. Paddy wagons all over the roads, two choppers in the sky - something was going on.

Couple minutes later I heard some commotion and saw this coming down the road - ahhh another lunchtime march/protest/piss-and-moan - this country loves those!

It turns out I was only half right. Today (May 1st) is International Workers' Day - "a celebration of the social and economic achievements of the international labour movement". Fair enough.

I hung around to watch for a bit, and it all started out pleasant enough with the occasional trumpet and so forth.

Then it got a bit confusing (for me). Flag after flag started appearing with people's faces I've never seen before.

Even the kids were getting into it.

Then I figured out this had just become an excuse for a bloody protest about whatever the Poms are unhappy about at the moment hehe. The government are pricks and down with fascism etc; I even got given an Afghanistan flyer advertising another protest at the end of the month!

Even the bloody Sri Lankans turned up hahaha! I first wrote about these guys two weeks ago; I thought things had calmed down over there but obviously not. I wonder if they've started eating again?

My route on the bike today took me past Heathrow, so I whipped around to get some shots (and wished I had just been on these things myself).

Yay Air New Zealand!

I didn't have to wait too long between planes if I messed up a photo - they just keep coming and coming!

Looking down the runway (one of two, with a third to be built amid the usual round of public uproar and protesting).

They land every 2-3 minutes, and they take off just as often.

As I left the airport I noticed I had a companion hehe. He hung on there for about 15 minutes before he fell off when I went over a pothole.

Some ways further down the road I hit a massive queue of traffic some 2kms long, and this was the cause of it - lights flashing and barriers down but no trains hahaha! The guy on the left there said "Why are these things going if there's no train? Look at everyone just sitting here waiting; that's so typical of the fucking English!" - and he was definitely English himself hehe (hence he stood there for a further five minutes, and was still there after I gave up waiting).

Anyway this was where I was headed - Windsor! This little town is home to 30,000 and is about 35kms west of central London. Windsor and the surrounding areas supposedly contain some of the most expensive and desirable housing in the UK. Windsor has a bloody long history, and if anyone gives a shit, see Wikipedia :)

Windor is probably best known for being the home of Windsor Castle. Along with Buckingham Palace in London, and Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, Windsor castle is one of the pricipal official residences of the Queen (apparently she spends most weekends here). Windsor Castle is friggin' huge - the largest inhabited castle in the world, and the oldest in continuous occupation (at over 900 years old).

Nowadays the castle is a popular tourist attraction, but at £15 just to get inside I really wasn't interested (no matter how nice the front lawn is). Maybe next time. Speaking of that lawn, last Sunday afternoon two people in their 30s got arrested after they left a near-by restaurant drunk and began having sex on the lawn in full view of everybody hahaha! They were apparently going at it for good 15 minutes before the police finally arrived - that's awesome! They were later released with nothing more than a caution for 'outraging public decency' - no fines or anything! How the hell can you get away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist for having a romp on the Queen's front lawn?! She was apparently there at the time as well hehe. News article here.

Immediately south of the castle is the aptly named Long Walk. 75metres wide and 5kms long, running between the castle and a big statue of King George III having a good old time on his horse in Windsor Great Park.

As you can see the powers that be don't like bikes, and I really couldn't be arsed walking all the way down there just to see some statue. So again, maybe next time.

So yes, Windsor: big river (the Thames), big wheel, big castle, not in London - nice place!

Having just spent a nice day out of London, this is what I found while biking back through it hehe. This fella was in cuffs when I arrived, and was abusing the bejesus out of the two mufti cops who had arrested him (for public disorder). He really wasn't holding back - the cops were told they're wankers, c#nts, arseholes, and every other choice word you can think of; it was pretty funny (well you know, in a bad kind of way - that guy on the right thought so too ;) Although I don't entirely disagree with his sentiments regarding London police (as per my rant last Friday night), I don't make it quite this obvious hehe.