So I have returned, and now sit in old England once more. I wish I had a seat for my kingdom here from which to rule, but frankly I'm glad of a seat to my trousers, a bed (with real springs! wow!!) to sleep in and supplies in the pantry for raiding 24hrs a day. It is, in so many ways, good to be back 
I have plenty of unfinished bits and pieces, not least of which a handful of entries that are maybe approaching real journalism, I think, all about Auckland, Wellington, Napier and, I suppose, New Zealand as a whole. Better left cold this time, I think. It'll be interesting to see how things balance out when I'm writing in the past tense for real as if from a deep red leather chair amidst an oak bookcase-lined study, rather than making it sound like that even though I'm in a cheap hotel room, on the same day, in the same town.
I came back, and got my job back, because I am a hugely jammy bastard I suppose, also some luck with the timing of various people leaving helped me out, also because Summer is the busiest season, after all. There are as well plenty of things I can do at the old yard there that no-one else can; it's not their fault they're ancient and decrepit, and still think email gets delivered into the back of the computer by hand every morning, by little imps and demons or something.
I realise that one day I will be that new breed of technophobic antiquarian, the ones who think they know it all but only remember up to Pentium II days, helpless in the face of progress and staircases and unable to get to grips with the psychic memory implants or telekinetic international transport grid or something, in which case I shall have to do then as they do now, and give the young 'uns a galactic-sized dose of bullshit, ribbing and mockery on a daily basis 
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I've also started my slightly-cunning, mildly glorious mission to travel places without need of a passport, and with a bit of luck, no need to pay out too many hostel, hotel or even breakfast monies as I spend weekends touring England (and other connected territories) seeing people who need a good visiting from an ex-hippy. (Speaking of which I must change my name, the hair is gone and I no longer feel all that evil)
London sees me this weekend, in fact. Poor London. I've really no idea where to go or what to do, I have a whole afternoon and probably another whole morning to see very English things in our mightiest city and am pretty clueless, really.
London is extremely huge, you see. Biggest city I suppose I've ever been too - actually no, Mumbai is bigger, but I tended to hang around in Colaba like a chickenshit and buggered off after seeing The Gateway (and a few too many leprous beggars) so really this is gonna be quite unlike anywhere I have seen that recently.
And of course I need to learn a new language (" 'ere, 'ee ain't 'alf frog-'n'-paint around the spamckles, is 'ee! Me ol' china-me-lad-me-cock-me-octogenarian-gay-plutonium-rabbit" or whatever Cockneyese the've come up with lately. And of course an entirely new currency is needed, the `pound` being obsolete and the colloquial `Tenner` being in use, as in "Portion of chips - that'll be a tenner", so really, it should be a bit of an adventure.
Last time I went to London I caught the night bus back and was treated to a guerrila hip-hop outfit giving a covert performance of beatbox and MC all the way from Soho to Shortlands. It can be right proper interesting on that bus.
