The hordes are at the gates! London is burning! Get out while you still can!
Well today ended with a bang. Last Saturday I moved to Chalk Farm and this Saturday just 10 minutes down the road Camden burnt down. Okay so I am exaggerating but the fire was the largest that I have ever seen.
The day began at 11 am with a marathon drinking effort in celebration of Waitangi day. Every New Zealander within a 100 mile (and more) radius of London converge on the Circle Line and drink their way from Paddington Station through to Westminster. At 4pm a terrible impromptu haka was performed outside Westminster and Big Ben to a crowd of around 10,000 disinterested Kiwis. What was of greater interest and hilarity were the pathetic attempts to climb every lamp post in the square. It was quite pathetic to see a man in his underpants scrabbling over-top a fellow pissed kiwi only to get a third of the way up. Go New Zealand go!
To recover from the alcohol Justin and I went for a quiet beer at the Lock Tavern in Camden. Then chaos began outside. We went out on the street to see a small fire burning behind the Hawley Arms. A small crowd gathered, fire engines started appearing, police cordoned of streets, and the blaze got bigger and bigger and BIGGER! As flames started enveloping all of the buildings on the block the crowd of onlookers we were with got pushed further and further away across a nearby park. As I had my camera on me from the pub crawl I was unable to resist taking pictures of the flames, or uploading them to news outlets and here (click to see the group of five firefighters with the hose) Having watched said news reports I am glad to hear that no one was hurt - considering the size of the blaze I am very amazed.