On London

First of all, I've just added my blog email address to my phone so I can blog on the move, because it has occurred to me that I have lots of thoughts on London. Like how it's way colder than Bangor, and how the tube is noticeably busier when it's cold so lots of other people must be chickening out of cycling too.


But also how I spend most of my day in London feeling guilty. I blame Mum, it's a very Protestant sort of guilt. I feel guilty because I haven't cycled in for a week, I feel guilty because I don't buy the Big Issue every week even though it's very cold out, I feel guilty because the homeless guy at Pimlico had his sleeping bag stolen and I never manage to bring him any soup or tea or blankets or anything, I feel guilty because there are so many newspapers left on the train and I don't collect them all up and recycle them. And let's not even start thinking about the moral minefield of who you should give up your seat to on the tube. I don't know what to do about all this guilt: I do cycle in when it's warmer than 5 degrees, I do buy the Big Issue (just not every week because it is not very interesting), I do recycle, I do give money to charity collectors (just not all of them -- I tell them I'm a tourist and as I don't have a bank account in this country I can't set up a direct debit) and I do have very low electricity consumption (Andy and I got a £20 bill for two months of electricity). I can't cope with all this guilt, it's such a guilt overload.

 

1 comments:

Knocknagow said...

I've obviously brought you up well about the reasons for guilt, just not how to cope with the guilt. Let me know when you learn how, and then teach me.