This little piggy went to market

As I left Les' house this morning, a woman just struck up a conversation with me on the way down to Brixton station. It wasn't about much in particular but she was friendly and it put a smile on my face as I headed into Camden Markets. Crissi warned me that it's incredibly busy there in Summer, but thankfully it wasn't too bad. Most of the stalls seem to be selling t-shirts, clothes, bags, funky crafts, souvenirs and food. It was a pretty happening place, with a few old school punks around, a whole stack of youngsters and even young families with prams.

There was another Music and Video Exchange at Camden so I came out with a whole raft of CDs for just £13. That store is disturbingly excellent, especially at this point in time when the market for CD singles is crashing, and I can get a whole lot of them for really cheap prices. Bear in mind too that these CDs are of particular interest for me because the majority of these singles were never released in Australia because people in Australia tend to have rubbish taste in music. After the market I had a quick walk around the rest of Camden Town and had lunch in Subway, where the old Caribbean guy I ended up sitting next to was coaxing a young guy into buying him a cup of tea. He got his tea eventually, and he was mostly harmless, though sometimes he'd pipe up intoning, "I gots no one, I gots nothing". Despite his lack of meaningful possessions he seemed in pretty good spirits.

Realising that Old Spitalfields Markets had been left off my itinerary on Thursday, I thought I should catch up and find it. Getting off at Old Street (which isn't the closest station, but one that was on my map) I got a little disoriented until a woman at the bus stop was able to show me where we were. Then it was off through the streets of Hackney on the way to the markets. Alas, part of the markets were closed for renovations and I was unable to find the Kinetica Museum which was half the reason I went there. Presumably Kinetica was hidden amongst the redevelopments. The rest of that place was alright but it's obviously been made a bit more posh than it used to be and wasn't really very interesting - it came across as a little sterile.

Now here's something which someone might call sterile, but that I thought was pretty cool. It's a Tesco self-service machine. Basically, you press a button to start and then scan your goods and pop them in a bag, or on the shelf to the left. Once finished, you can pay via card, or do what I did and pay by cash. Thankfully, I only wanted some Tesco's Belgian chocolate milk so that streamlined the process somewhat and I managed to avoid any queues.

I did some more wandering out that end of town, which seemed to be the "business district" of London which was very quiet on account of it being a Saturday. I saw the notorious St. Mary Axe a.k.a. the Gherkin as pictured here (sorry - you'll have to tilt your head to the left to see it). Realising I was a fair way from anything particularly interesting I boarded a train at Aldgate over to Kings Cross, so I could see what it was like. Pet Shop Boys did a song about Kings Cross so I thought it would add to my experience of the song to have a look myself. I've heard it's a pretty dodgy area, but as I was there in the "daylight hours", it wasn't too bad. I had a little giggle there because I realised that after having seen the abominable parts of Glasgow, nothing else would probably ever be "too bad" again. From Kings Cross I could a bus into town, and then caught the Tube back out to Brixton. I had originally planned on going indie clubbing that night but I couldn't be bothered dealing with late night transport so I went indie pubbing instead. The Prince Albert, on Coldharbour Lane, is a nice little pub where I was happy to slowly imbibe a few pints whilst listening to the DJ playing a mix of indie, old school punk, remixes and reggae. Part way through I ducked out for dinner at Speedy Noodle which serves Asian noodle dishes at Australian prices. A good night, and a good night's sleep with.... no coughing! Hurrah! All I've got now is a sore throat and occasional headache, as I couldn't possibly be ailment free on this trip, could I?