London randomness

Not a 'this is London, my friend' type thread, but one about the random things, good or bad, that seem to happen in London. Now, I know that shop signs can fall off houses in other places, too, and there's nothing specifically 'London' about just about anything that can happen, but it just seems to happen here with greater frequency than anywhere else, and the chance of someone walking under that falling shop sign is so much higher.

London randomness can sometimes be so tragic:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/passerby-is-killed-when-30ft-betting-shop-sign-crashes-on-to-pavement-of-camden-street-8470814.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/our-wonderful-person-family-tributes-to-lawyer-jacob-marx-killed-in-camden-by-falling-sign-8474234.html

A falling sign missed me by an inch at best on Old Street once. If I remember rightly it was one of those advertising the scaffolding firm tarting up a building who hadn't secured it tightly enough. I calmly smoked my fag and didn't miss a step.

I've been mugged on the early morning of my birthday walking to meet my then girlfriend. Took a kicking and lost all my birthday cash from my family, and my phone. Plus the bastards made me spill most of my giant bottle of San Miguel.

I've spoken to Dustin Hoffman at the cheese aisle of Whole Foods. I wish these people would stop pestering me.

And I threw a sicky from the crappy sales job I had on the day of the bombings. There's no telling I'd have been caught up in it but you never know.

After a good honest lie-in I trudged over to Asda to use their internet to seek better work and caught what had happened on yahoo. I asked the lad sat next to me if it was real as I couldn't make sense of this huge tragedy on a day like any other when I'd been obliviously sleeping. Cue phone call to frantic parents to assure them I was fine, other than being fortunately workshy.

I met my wife in London. We had a one-night-stand (at her place). It transpired I was house-sharing with her first ever boyfriend. In addition to that coincidence, she'd been in the audience of a gig I played the weekend before, supporting a band form whom she'd done the flyers. She hadn't recognized me from that as I'd been wearing make-up, tights, and a dress on stage. These things occurred over quite a large geographical area (but all within London).

if it was a one night stand, how come she ended up as your wife?

^^Nice. Even though Yas and I have broken up we'd both been at the same outdoor squat party up Cockfosters a month or so before properly meeting. Not that amazing really and I'd have been in no fit state to 'chat her up' had my rolling eyes met hers, but little touches like that are the promise of what wasn't to be.

^^It was most definitely a drugged up one nighter. I thought I was going to be fucking her mum as well.

The following 19.5 years have been sort of tagged on.

I remember seeing the aftemath of this in 2011.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/04/man-killed-masonry-restaurant-inquest

My own 'it fell from a blue sky' incident was some years ago on Seymor St when I was thwacked on the shoulder by a falling package which turned out to be a pigeon now laying upside-down with claws groping as though for a foothold, yet motionless; its milky-eye staring recriminatingly at me.

I decided it must have died in its roost earlier and just toppled as I walked by.

Slighty hungover once, walking down Clapham high street, my then mate decided to try and kick a pigeon as hard as he could for some unknown reason.

The pigeon was wise to his ill crafted technique and promptly took of vertically just as he swung his foot through. His shoe flew off, as he toppled over backwards having swung with such violence and connected with nothing, and arched upwards and in front of us.

His shoe landed on his brothers shoulder, from a considerable height (who was wandering along in a hungover stupor in front of us and had missed the attempted pidgeon kick)

His poor brother thought the world had ended/he was being attacked when the shoe hit him and promptly jumped through the open door of Greggs trying to fight off the invisible man whilst swearing and shouting loudly.

The look on the stunned Greggs staff and customers faces will stay with me for ever and still makes me chuckle when i think about it.

1. on way to job interview in a cab
   
2. cab due to tube chaos
   
3. chaos due to it being the day after london bombings - city was in chaos and sirens going off everywhere
   
4. in moorgate, ring of steel
   
5. i get hit by a city of london police car
   
6. coming the wrong way down a one way road
   
7. wake up in some hospital somewhere, still dunno where
   
8. i sue, i win
   
   

I think each has a kinda London element in there...

Weeks later, I speak to interviewer and she said she viewed the accident from her office window and she says to her colleagues "I think that is my candidate."

I saw a woman running while wearing a cycle helmet today. It didn't look as if she had a bike nearby, but perhaps she got off it and either forgot to take off her helmet or didn't want to lock it to her bike.

Also two of those bar octacycles, one near and one on Tower Bridge. Didn't half slow down the traffic.

I posted these earlier:

There isn't really a thread on this, I think, so it'll go in here--I don't really get surprised much in traffic but tonight was a new one on me. Heading south from Dalston Junction along the A10 Kingsland Road, I was going at about 88mph (as usual) when a white upright stripe at the side of the carriageway, partly hidden behind a tree, suddenly swung out into the carriageway to become a large double-bed mattress (or probably kingsize) with two fairly clueless mattress-carriers attached to it. I and two drivers had to brake sharply to avoid the sudden obstacle and we all had to laugh. The carriers did a pretty good impression of an elephants' ballet as they somehow tried to decide if they should continue crossing or try again later.

#csb

An A-board being blown across Stoke Newington High Street into the lane I was in. No harm done, I saw it coming across the footway and watched amused as it took primary position. I returned it to the shop.

Neither very spectacular, just mildly amusing.

Fresh off the sleeper train into Victoria Street station (I think) in the early hours of a weekday morning I decided I should begin my inaugural visit to London by taking a whizz before leaving the station.

The facilities I visited comprised of a large room with cubicles down one side, basins in the middle and urinals on t'other wall.

Upon entering the bathrooms I noticed that amongst a few other males there was one gent at the far end of the room seemingly naked but holding a towel.

Bleary eyed and a bit disorientated I presumed that some of the cubicles contained showers and that this guy had just made use of one so I went about my urination.

I'd hardly started my bizzness when I became aware of a moaning coming from the end of the room where the naked guy was. My immediate thought was that he was having some sort of seizure but no, upon casting a glance down that way I realized he was infact, masturbating.

There were several others at the urinals and there's really no way of describing the level of discomfort which comes from making eye contact with a guy standing next to you at the urinals, both of you cock-in-hand and both of you part of a pervert's audience.

The fullness of my bladder (due to the afore mentioned sleeper train journey) only served to extend the ordeal and while it might have been possible to concentrate on the job at hand and block out one's surroundings, it was a hard decision to make between staring at the tiles and pissing like you've never pissed before and keeping an eye on naked bog wanker to ensure he wasn't leaving his fettid corner and getting any closer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W7z1bMp_XY

London Pavement Explosion - YouTube

Oh my. What hilarious randomness is this?

Is anything really random though, or have we invented the concept due to our own ignorance? Or is everything a consequence of something else? Or are we all part of a universal pattern over which we have little, if any, control?

I've experienced loads of surreal moments, serendipity, and chance encounters in London, particularly with meeting my friends/boyfriends, mostly whilst doing some cycling related activity.

Tries to think of a shareable story

Does this look as if no-one thought of stopping the driver from walking away?

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/security-alert-after-driver-parks-car-and-walks-off-at-junction-near-the-bank-of-england-9375845.html

I was on a train from Ladywell to Charing Cross one Saturday morning when a Japanese fella in pajamas got on and sat next to me and put a rucksack on his lap. I was reading a magazine when I could see something moving out of the corner of my eye. I looked down and he was having a cheeky tug! I shouted at him and he ran off the train as we were at Waterloo.

A hub cap came off a car once and whizzed past me narrowly missing my neck, thought I was going to be decapitated.

A pigeon flew into my head in trafalgar square closely followed by Harry the Harris Hawk who just brushed me with his wings.

There was always something mental going on on Seven Sisters Road when I lived in Finny P. I saw a drunk pour a litre of milk on a PCSO. A very angry man was throwing empty becks bottles from out of a first floor window onto Saturday shoppers below and also saw a massive rat waiting patiently outside a kebab shop refusing to move for anyone. Had to step over the bloody thing.

I was on a bus on Camberwell Rd when it stopped in the middle of the road as trampy looking fella was wandering round trying to stuff a pigeon in his inside jacket pocket. A guy from the nearest chicken shop ran out and they had a tussle on the floor. The pigeon got away...

http://www.itv.com/news/london/story/2014-05-16/shoppers-attacked-by-huge-swarm-of-bees-in-victoria/

^^^ Seven sisters rd hasn't really changed much.

https://twitter.com/TfLTrafficNews/status/473738545744863232

Wow.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/piccadilly-explosion-fire-lorry-west-end-london-manhole-emergency-fortnum-and-masons-9580607.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/cable-firm-boss-blames-the-rain-for-increase-in-pavement-blasts-in-london-9734894.html

Sixty four of the explosions in the capital have been reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) already in 2014, an average of nearly two a week, surpassing the 51 recorded in the entire of 2013.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-dentist-faces-being-struck-off-for-trying-to-fix-womans-teeth-in-mcdonalds-10079754.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/shoreditch-man-urinated-from-balcony-on-paramedic-as-she-treated-attacked-patient-10081153.html