Journal implying 'daily' means that really I should write every day, and I have enough honour left in me to not count this mornings remark about my bread, which indeed I had left hanging in a plastic bag on my bike, which for want of a key was parked outside the shed. It remained unstolen the morning after. I guess that this is a very respectable neighbourhood where no-one is needy. Hmm. Or maybe the other fence around this compound helped?

Anyway, here is my second entry. tada!

I am pretending that this is my field diary, and London is my Anthropological field. I am just a fly on the wall listening and observing, but how am I ever going to do that safely when my mind and instincts are firmly set to cycling on the right (as in: correct) side of the road, and also being full of Dutch Customary Law notions of the Supremacy of the Cyclist? Yes, I mentioned it twice now: I have a bike. My trusty old Utrecht bike arrived last monday, with my parents who are now Out and About to return this Friday to come and see the play I am in, and maybe some bits and pieces of this Capital City as well. As an aside: anyone else who is interested and who happens to be around tomorrow (yes that is a wednesday) is more than welcome to come and see Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Earnest'; Friday, I fear, will be quite overbooked...

Indeed my transformation into a fly on the wall observing native Londoners is also quite hampered by living in a university environment: Halls, Graduate Common Rooms (a great invention to be discussed later, no doubt), Libraries (UCL, SOAS, British Library, British Museum, library over-dose!) are not the places to observe the Common Cockney. Plus I don't live in East End. So, I shall re-formulate my research as follows (did I ever formulate it in the first place? No) : to observe in the London setting a particular subset of the ethnically extremely diverse International Student population, who can be defined and identified by their having bumped into me once or twice, or who are constantly bumping into me due to their habitat location (known as 'flatmates') or study environment (Post-graduate Anthropology students in all disciplines and levels of study, though probably mostly from UCL). You will object, naturally, that as a member of this particular social group I will be unable to take proper distance, but as I am tired and I don't want to fall ill like everybody else did around me, I shrug my shoulder at you and I have an early night.

Goodnight, (or -day if you read at this some random other time)