The Aldgate pedestrian subway system in Tower Hamlets is a forboding place at the best of times.

It’s a series of complicated underground tunnels to get around all the busy roads near Aldgate Station.

I walk through them every day on the way to work.  I’m guaranteed to find at least 2 or 3 homeless people down there each time.  But today, in amongst all the trash they leave down there, I had to smile when I saw this:

Next to a place set up for sleeping was a “How to use Durex condoms” booklet.

It’s reassuring to know that even the homeless are getting more action than me. (I hope my Mum is not reading this!)

But it’s okay. Because I get to go to work! Woohoo!

In case you can’t tell… I’m being sarcastic.

Okay, I realise updation is not a word, but people at my work use it all the time!

My friend Dave pointed out that I haven’t been updating my blog, but I was happy to realise that people are actually reading it!  It’s been close to a month since I wrote anything, but let’s see if I can keep it up to date from now on.

Suddenly, on the 6th of September (the last day of the Velocity Diet) I got sick with a cold, then two weeks after that I got a headache, then two weeks after that I got a week-long stomach ache – I haven’t been well.  I’ll write about that in another post.

Although in theory, being sick means that I’ve been staying in more which means I should have had more reason to update my blog!

One of my friends on facebook is doing “Project 365″, where he takes a photo of something in his life every day for a year.  I thought about doing that, then I thought I don’t think my life isn’t interesting enough to have an interesting photo every day!  Which made me think I really need to get out more.

The construction of the Olympic Village has closed all but two of East London’s many canals.

Grrr.  Olympic Site – you owe me a picturesque canal-side walkway.  A month ago I set out on a big walk to check out all the canals, and they were almost all closed.

On the 11th of July I went to Trafalgar Square about 3.30pm because I had heard of the Fourth Plinth “art” project by Antony Gormley.  Basically, one person stands on the Fourth Plinth (these are usually reserved for statues of Kings) for an hour, and they have a different person there every hour for 3 months.  People can do whatever they like when they’re up there.  Because Trafalgar Square and The National Gallery are such massive tourist attractions, there’s no shortage of people to see them.  Here’s the official link: http://www.oneandother.co.uk/

When I went along, there was a lady with red and white balloons, but because she was so high up I couldn’t see what charity or whatever she was supporting.  But she was friendly and waved to everyone and I felt important when she waved to me.

Right on the hour she had to get down and an old guy got up, he took a deckchair and sat there reading the paper until it started to rain, when he pulled out a small brolly and hid under it.

See the link above – there’s even a webcam where you can watch them (it’s high resolution and the sound is very clear).  Right now there’s a guy dressed up as something out of Toy Story rambling about something.  Interesting.  I wonder what I’d do or talk about if I went up there.

I’m an avid reader of the MoneySavingExpert.com forums.  Today I came across this one:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1829957

I’ll copy and paste the main bit from it here:

My brother was on holiday in Jersey and on the last day he went to an ATM to withdraw some cash. Just as he was about to insert his card the machine shoved out a large wodge of notes. There was no-one around and he had not noticed anyone walking away from the ATM when he arrived, so he grabbed the money and shot off. He met his wife and friends and they counted the cash – it was £300!!

Now I (and I’m not the only one) posted that I would probably keep the money.  First, I would check and make sure that the previous user of the cashpoint wasn’t still around.  If efforts to locate them failed, then yes I’d keep it.  Does that make me a bad person?  What do you think?

I was in Shepherd’s Bush a couple of months back and I had unknowingly dropped my debit card on the ground.  A guy came running up to me and handed it back to me.  I was very grateful for it.  So I would definitely try and find who it belonged to first.  But If I couldn’t find the person, then yes I’d probably keep it. 

Of course that situation is slightly different - the debit card has no real value to the finder.  If I had’ve dropped £300 on the ground, I would of course be happy if the person returned to me… but would I expect them to do it?  No I would not.  Perhaps I’ve been living in London too long, and my faith in mankind has diminished somewhat.

When I was 23 (in 2003), I was walking to The Hilly (Hillcrest Tavern – a popular student hangout near Waikato Uni) from my house in Albert St (about a 20 minute walk) and I found NZ$75 on the ground on Wellington St.  Was I going to hand it into the police?  No way!

Welcome one and all to my blog.  I’m really hoping to update this regularly.  It will be super exciting, I promise.