Olympics

It's been very strange to watch the Olympics here. It so much lower key than in Australia, without anything like the hype. There is an expectation that none of the British athletes are going to win medals, which takes a lot of the fun out of it, I suppose. There's not even much about it in the papers, except a bit of speculation about Ian Thorpe's sexuality... and he's Australian! The British have strange heroes as well: their female marathon runner, who, despite the rest of the country's gloomy certainty of defeat, thought she had a chance, collapsed as soon as it became clear she wasn't going to get a medal and didn't even finish the course. She was hailed as a great champion who had run in impossible conditions and the Americans were blamed for insisting the race be run at a certain time. The Americans might be responsible for a hell of a lot of what's wrong with the world, but I don't think they can take the blame for that, when it didn't stop the other athletes finishing!

Lido

Oooooh, it's too damn hot in London at the moment. How shocking to find that the few pools, even the rare outdoor ones, are heated to around 30 degrees! Then this morning, I discovered the Tooting Lido, the largest outdoor pool in Europe and blissfully as cold as nature intended. Green grass to lie on, huge trees spreading out above, right on the edge of a common and early enough to miss the crowds. Home away from home!

Scaffolders

These dudes are at the top of the tradesmans' ladder of toughness. They drive round like cowboys in filthy trucks, all clanking with poles and dangling with red rags, swearing and laughing and ignoring every road rule in the book. Their lean brown bodies are covered in tattoos, sort of Gollum after a few years in trade school, they hawk and spit and leap down from third floors. About one a year dies on the job. Their equivalent in Melbourne would have to be the junkies washing windows at the traffic lights... they have a similar hungry look.

Birth

Having a baby over here is very different. You don't see an obstetrician during pregnancy unless you have a problem... you just front up at the hospital and a midwife you've never met will deliver the baby. The hospitals are dirty, with big trickly stains running down the walls, stairwells like prisons and nasty lino everywhere, from the middle of last century. It's tough, British, stiff upper lip, don't you know there's a war on type of stuff. You even have to take your own food into hospital. The solution? Try a home birth. At least you'll get enough to eat.