West Hendon

Keeping up my local theme as I cycled to West Hendon today, I discovered a conspiracy for the simplest bloody thing on earth being unavailable in three computer shops over 100 yards. I only wanted a usb hub doubler for the digicam, and two sods gave me the old 'Asian double switch' strategy, by spending as long as possible grubbing through the display, shouting to his assistant, and finally announcing 'I'm sure I had one yesterday, I must have sold it...'. The words piss up and brewery come to mind. But not as rough as the newer English place opposite, which looks like the equivalent of a Dickensian counting house, and needs the useless female lackey to unlock the door before a customer can enter. Not only that they had a sign 'pre opening sale'. Now in this universe if you haven't opened yet, you can't sell fuck all. Wankers. Anyway, I asked 'Have you got a USB hub?', the sort of question this guy must hear at least three times a week and he looked at me like I said I wanted to roger his mother, dead or alive.

Apparently that was one of the items that is received with contempt by this strange arrival to West Hendon, and if I hadn't left as soon as he said 'No', with the assitance of his useless woman apparently only there to let customers in as as soon as I mentioned any stock items she looked like Lady Di (when alive), giggled and melted away in embarrassment as if I'd asked to see her knickers, he may have cut me up in pieces and fed me to his children. Why the bloody hell do one man businesses employ their wives and girlfriends to populate technical shops if they can't serve customers? This has been a British tradition in all the radio and mobile phone shops I used to frequent, the one man who knows and the hopeless family members who they don't realise must be able to do more than simply take a message when left to face the public.

So I ripped out my webcam and uploaded the 20 photos I'd managed to take since Sunday in what must be not global warming but a shift towards the polar regions, as it gets too dark to take pictures after 3pm. I've listed all the locations nearby to take, basically following my video walkabout a few years ago but shareable on the computer. These Americans need to see the combined beauty and banality that's London NW for themselves.
I also delivered two more pictures to the gallery, which revealed they were stored in a box rather than the limited wall space, but hopefully the new material may spark some interest now, and I'm working on the larger picture for a new place. Many projects, fame can only be just around the corner, then a couple of people will be able to say 'I insulted that David from Kingsbury on his blog before he was famous'. I believe, that's a start.

Oh, and the basil seed drink was fairly average but interesting. Here are the details in case anyone wants to try it.