purplecthulhu

Odd things are happening on LiveJournal...

I may only have made two entries so far, but one of those has gone missing.

Also, several journal entries from one of my Friends purpletigron have also disappeared.

I hope this isn't normal service!

Odd things are happening on LiveJournal...

I may only have made two entries so far, but one of those has gone missing.

Also, several journal entries from one of my Friends purpletigron have also disappeared.

I hope this isn't normal service!

It was drizzling a bit as I got to the tube on the way home.

When I finally got to my destination, it was coming down full tilt. So much for our house guests first impression that English rain was a lie to keep tourists away.

But while London isn't really as wet as legend has it (London and Paris actually have the same number of sunny days each year), I think rain is deeply embedded in the culture here. It certainly has been in my experience at least!

Case 1: I was taking my finals exams for my undergraduate degree. My last exam finished at lunchtime. I'd promised myself a walk into central London to go to all those bookshops and other things I'd been avoiding while working for the exams. So I started off, and it started to rain. This wasn't just the traditional drizzle. It was hard, pelting rain. Definitely cats and dogs, but maybe not hard enough to flake bits off old bricks.

So I sheltered a bit in the doorway of the Brompton Oratory. And then it occurred to me, that I didn't really have any reason to worry about getting wet. It wasn't especially cold. I wasn't going to melt, and I had plenty of places to go to get dry if I wanted. So I carried on walking.

I got soaked, and enjoyed every minute of it.

I guess the weather was a bit like that today, and it's about the same time of year too.

Case 2: Its about 10 years later. I've been living outside the UK for 3 years, and haven't even stayed overnight in central London in that time, but now I'm back for a few days for a collaboration meeting. Its actually the week after Princess Di died, but thats both beside the point and another story. We're staying in a grotty little hotel in Victoria, and its raining. Not too hard, but hard enough. And then a London Taxi pauses outside, and I know I'm home.

The sound of a London Taxi in the rain is unmistakable. There's the white noise of the falling rain, the regular low frequency thrum of the diesel engine, and also the high frequency hiss of other cars driving past, or of the taxi's own wheels on the wet road surface. I don't know why this is such a unique and uniquely friendly sound for me, but there it is.

Nothing falls like London Rain

It was drizzling a bit as I got to the tube on the way home.

When I finally got to my destination, it was coming down full tilt. So much for our house guests first impression that English rain was a lie to keep tourists away.

But while London isn't really as wet as legend has it (London and Paris actually have the same number of sunny days each year), I think rain is deeply embedded in the culture here. It certainly has been in my experience at least!

Case 1: I was taking my finals exams for my undergraduate degree. My last exam finished at lunchtime. I'd promised myself a walk into central London to go to all those bookshops and other things I'd been avoiding while working for the exams. So I started off, and it started to rain. This wasn't just the traditional drizzle. It was hard, pelting rain. Definitely cats and dogs, but maybe not hard enough to flake bits off old bricks.

So I sheltered a bit in the doorway of the Brompton Oratory. And then it occurred to me, that I didn't really have any reason to worry about getting wet. It wasn't especially cold. I wasn't going to melt, and I had plenty of places to go to get dry if I wanted. So I carried on walking.

I got soaked, and enjoyed every minute of it.

I guess the weather was a bit like that today, and it's about the same time of year too.

Case 2: Its about 10 years later. I've been living outside the UK for 3 years, and haven't even stayed overnight in central London in that time, but now I'm back for a few days for a collaboration meeting. Its actually the week after Princess Di died, but thats both beside the point and another story. We're staying in a grotty little hotel in Victoria, and its raining. Not too hard, but hard enough. And then a London Taxi pauses outside, and I know I'm home.

The sound of a London Taxi in the rain is unmistakable. There's the white noise of the falling rain, the regular low frequency thrum of the diesel engine, and also the high frequency hiss of other cars driving past, or of the taxi's own wheels on the wet road surface. I don't know why this is such a unique and uniquely friendly sound for me, but there it is.

Nothing falls like London Rain