A friend of mine just sent me a link to a story about a “ghost town” in Cypress. (ok, ok.. so this isn’t exactly straight from the horses mouth!)

Apparently it has been claimed and sealed off by the Turkish military since the 70’s. There are a lot of these weird scenarios around the world…

I won’t regurgitate what I read.. I think it’s worth a squiz. Well done Micahael Totten for your investigative reporting :)

So yesterday I went to the British Museum. There is some amazing stuff there… as i walked around, ipod plugged in (.. i think it was ebtg) I was pretty gob smacked by some of the things they have on display. For instance, I was looking at various axe heads.. some of them were dated as hundreds of thousands of years old!!

I also came across what was labelled “mummy of cleopatra”.. and her sarcophagus and things. I found this very hard to believe.. but there it was for all to see! Anyway, it occurred to me: “what the hell is it doing here?” .. surely this is a national treasure of Egypt? I’m sure there are many good reasons why rich western countries should pilfer and “safe keep” antiquities from around the world, I have seen Indiana Jones, but it still seems a little sad some how.

On another note, the water tastes funny here in London. It is supposedly very hard. Which accounts for the limestone residue you see on kettle elements and on the statues in fountains. I have been attributing the bad coffee to the bad water. There is a plague of various coffee chains here. I have actually turned to the evil Starbucks and started buying brewed, filter coffee. At leasts it seems to taste the same as any other filter coffee I am used to. At 1.6 GBP it as actually less expensive than most of the other stuff too. …Fortunately, I actually quite like filter coffee - with a small dash of milk please!

Well I have stayed in my small studio flat in Bayswater today. Just applying for jobs and looking for alternate, less expensive accomodation.

I have been watching a lot of television and I am now watching my third tv show that deals with appraising and sometimes selling people’s collectables. I have to say, a lot of this stuff really does look like junk - albeit, some of it seems to be valuable junk! There is furniture, toys, china, trinkets… everything. It’s amazing… loads of junk. I am amazed at people actually buying this stuff. It kind of remind me of my mother who seems to love all these dust collectors. Maybe it’s just a reflection of how old this place (UK) is. There is a lot of history here… and people are interested.