I get no esteem...no regard either

Jim and Michelle came into London this week, much to my happiness. Both are in fine fettle, and ready to live the tourist high life in this wonderful city. Still, I can't help but think I put a bit of a damper on their first day or so out in London, when we ventured out for some dinner a bit of sight-seeing around the central city area. The problem is that I often forget just how much I walk out here to do things, so everything seems really close together for me when, of course, it is actually a pretty good stretch apart. Case in point: after dinner I took Michelle and Jim down Oxford street, and told them that Picadilly Circus was just around the corner, which it was.

Sort of.

I think the problem hadn't reached epic proportions yet, but it soon did, thanks to my insistence that the next famous sight in London was just down the road a piece. Of course it was; this is London, something famous is always just going to be around the next building or corner. By the end of the night we were quite far away from their hotel, and so they ended up getting treated to a magnificent walk down a busy roadway, inhaling all manner of fumes, before I finally got them back. I can only imagine that they soaked their feat in epsom salt for a good while and cursed my lamentable name to the high heavens.

After leaving them to nurse their barking dogs, I saw two friends, Felix and Max, of mine getting money from the cash point down the block from our dorms. Because the weather was touch foul, I was wearing my rain jacket, and sensing an opportunity to rob my German friends of their Deutschemarks, I slid the hood low over my face to conceal my identity and grabbed Felix just as he was waiting for his cash, jabbing him in the ribs with one knuckle while demanding his money.

His respose was revealing. Rather than evincing even a moment of fear or doubt, he just said, "Ah, hello Andy." I find it sort of off-putting that people think so little of me that when they are getting mugged, their natural inclination is to assume that it is me. I guess I'm suspect numero uno for all muggings in central London these days.