Diseased and displeased: Warning this blog contains no humour.

For those of you who take everything I say with a pinch of chilli, and thought me to be over exaggerating at the concept of catching deadly diseases on the tubes....I have caught the dreaded influenza and hope that you are now satisfied with the fact that I am living(slowly dying) proof of this fact. It is a fact that cannot be exaggerated enough and I believe that in such a time as this where new viruses are discovered everyday-it should be compulsory for people to wear masks in public. As my unemployed status still lingers, I thought that I might serve a public duty and stand outside the station handing out masks tomorrow morning-masks and coffee. I might also hint at the fact that H1N1 has now mutated to H3N4, to ensure that masks are in fat made use of, all in the hope that I will cure tubes of their disease ridden status. My next service to the tube nation will be standing at the entrance spraying hygiene hand disinfectant on peoples hands as they walk into the station, to rid the population dirty nail syndrome, and hand in mouth disease. The point of this paragraph is merely to point out to you that I have caught the flu, and I caught it from the granny coughing on the train, and I am now displeased.End of story (please refrain from sending flowers to me in this hard time as they merely remind me of how quickly things die, food packages and cheques would be of far more use).

There is one other situation that may have led to my falling ill, it began I believe, on Thursday. It was a beautiful day in London (thank you sun for the Y-back vest tan), I had just left an interview which I felt went reasonably well and was meeting a friend in Wimbledon for a coolie. I waited for her outside the station in the blazing sun and after she arrived needed to strip down to my vest-jerseys are unnecessary in this heat. Wait I take that back.Too late. ....

On our walk up to Wimbledon Village I slung my jersey over my handbag, all the while thinking, Claire Danielle, every time you do this your jersey falls off; at this point my thoughts must have been interrupted because I thought nothing more of it until alas when I went to open my bag to grab some quidage(my new gangster terminology for cash) my jersey was gone. So we had to retrace our steps, I might add that there were alot of steps, all the way back to the station. No jersey....my first experience of Crime in London. Yes South Africans, you are not so hard done by, I was robbed too.

So a drink with Gilly went down smoothly (the jersey became the least of my worries at this stage), I then headed onto Bond street to meet Nicola for an after work drink at All Bar One in this neat little courtyard behind a little dark alley (obviously after HER work drinks, because I don't work) and when I got out of the station on the other side....Gee wilikins, a little breeze that blew in from Alaska had settled-cold it was!All I could think about was my jersey for the duration of our drinks, when Nicola suggested I pop onto Oxford street and buy a cardi quickly (Did someone just suggest that I go shopping?How could I refuse?). So I trotted over to Oxford only to realise that it was 5 past 9, and Thursday night late shopping closes at 9...great timing. Luckily for my, the little I love London wagons were still open and haggling with tourists left right and centre. So I got in there, "Excuse me, hello, Yes I am from South Africa and I love Justin Bieber,so do you have a tracksuit top that says I love Justin Bieber?", Reply "aah I love London?", uuuhhhhh really, do they sound the same or is it just my accent?. Anyway I settled for the subtle, "I didn't go to Oxford University so I bought an Oxford University Tracksuit top so that you would think that I went to Oxford University" tracksuit top. It kept me warm, but the damage had already been done, I reckon the influenza must've gotten me on the way to the London wagon. Uncool.

Friday went by with a few thousand sneezes, but I assumed that it had something to do with the fact that I was basically a rabbit in a burrow however many meters underground in a warren of tube stations covered in miles of dust, is that so unreasonable?Bunnies sneeze an awful lot too.
Put the sneezes on the shelf for a sec, and analyse with me the second possible influenza contact.
I arrived at Bond street station and as I walk past another wagon (God forbid), this Israeli/Egyptian ( as offensive as it may sound, I cannot tell the difference) man, with long black curly locks stops me and says "I know you, you look like my wife to be".....Claire's Brain: "Think quick: does he look like a drug dealer?Yes. Could he be in the sex trade, selling girls off to dodgy places never to be seen again: yes. OK what should my response be?Head down and walk away".....Actual response "Haha, you're so funny, that's the fourth time someones told me that this week!". Fail. So this man, tells me I must throw all my boyfriends away and marry him, and that I have the most incredible accent he's ever come across. I was like, dude-that's just bad English, you're getting them confused. It turned out he was a sales man trying to sell me this hand salt and nail buffer, I washed my hands with this salt and to my amazement my hands felt like a baby's bottom. He made me hug him twice throughout the sales pitch....this is either the point at which I got the influenza or when I got Greasy hair.

Friday night finally arrives and Karene and I head out for Nicola's pre-birthday, birthday drinks. We go to The Explorer,that place was rocking....hip hop all night, they even played our request- Skee lo - I wish "I wish I was a little bit taller, wish I was a baller, wish I had a girl with a kid I would call her....". I was at the bar at one point and had a guy come up to me and say "My Friends fink you're really fi' (fit) and they re a li'l shy bu' (but) they're over there a' (at) the table"(a table of gangsters with flat caps, thick chains and knee jeans-the ones you wear around your knees).....at which point I laughed at him (poor guy-I literally laughed AT him) and said that's ridiculous, you'd only know I was fit if you'd seen me run. Needless to say he walked away. Notice in his spoken sentence, Londoners drop there T's wherever they see fi'(fit), which makes me wonder how they ask for directions to Topshop when they're asking you for 'opshop?
I did some poppin and lockin, and some booty droppin....met another Afrikaans bouncer, they're everywhere. In fact the world just becomes too small at times, we're sitting outside at a table and I hear these two girls speaking die mooiste taal ooit, and ask them if they're from Suid Afrika (dumb question-that accent is unmistakable)? They say Ya but we are, we arrrrrrrre actually from Bloemfonteeeeeeeeyn (Ill let you add the accents)Meet Maria and Karissa. So Nicola pipes up, ah I love Bloem, the men there are soooo hot. Especially this one guy I used to swim with-George Durant...mmmm, you've never seen anything like it, she starts gesturing as to the size of his bum in his speedo just as Karrissa points out that George is in fact Maria's brother.

After 2 great nights out, one always has to push for a third-or if you're in 1st year, 42 in a row. Karene and I headed to Borough Market on Saturday morning, absolutely love that place, but while ambling along symptom number 2 kicks in (number one was the sneezing), scratchy throat. That's when you know its gonna get'cha. So following Borough market, and an amazing roast pork baguette with stuffing and apple sauce, we headed to Nicola's for her birthday drinks, Nics was still up from the night before and wanted some partners in crime, so of course we volunteered our services. An afternoon in the sun, with pyramids of Gaymers (peach cider) did nothing but fast forward the multiplication of the influenza virus in my body. At round about 9pm, my body clocked out and said thanks for coming but I'm going to sleep. Terrible feeling having a healthy mind but an incapacitated body. So I hopped on the tube and prepared for the hour long trip home, harrowing trying to stay awake so as not to miss the next stop, even more harrowing however, is the thought of catching an STD from the couple next to me who were basically horizontal...PDA here is a pandemic that has gotten out od control.

Alas, I arrived home safely and awoke this morning on my death bed, which is why I have spent this post moaning about my fate. I cannot afford to be ill, literally, I cannot afford medication or a doctor.....so be off with you H2N2/tube virus.

Part i: I'm a party starter

Its been a week now since my last update, slack to say the least, but one must take into the account that I am now a Nomad, an unemployed nomad...and internet connections don't come easily to such individuals.

Let me take you back to last Friday....and walk you through my soul-destroying near death experience(I nearly died of coldness and desperation).

Friday May 28 (Yes, now that I am a Londoner I write dates that way)
Happy Birthday Lisa!

Karene and I....who are currently co-habitating (definition: living under the same roof) decide that Friday evening would be a great evening to have a glass of wine in front of the tele and watch a classic Rom-Com or just a com-com. One beverage down and my foot starts tapping to the beat of the background music thats playing, and before I can stop it, my leg joins in. Through no fault of my own I felt complelled to have a little razzle. The idea of walking around Camden at night was hugely appealing, considering what the day life is like there, I can only imagine what crawls out at night. So off we go for wardrobe change numero uno-from sweat pants to boyf jeans...ready for Camden. Karene recieves a msg from a friend of hers telling her that she absolutely MUST come to Clapham South for a party. Wardbrobe change numero....two?..little skirts and boots. Done, off to Clapham we head, tube bar in Evian bottles: check. Mr vain & No Limits on the headphones: check ( I say headphones because it is a touchy subject for me to have to disclose the fact that my music maker is an MP3 player that I got for free as opposed to the Classic i-pod), House keys: pffff who needs to check that?

So we razz and dazz all night long, even get whisked off in a cab to an after party somewhere- Look I know people who know people, and I could probably get you into one of these places too. We razz dazz a little more there... I met a few South Africans, ah in fact for those of you who know him, I bumped into Marc Spitzer on the side of the road-world gets smaller everyday, and they say that climate change is the problem.pfff. Back to the story, I met an Italian-looked and sounded Italian, and everyone else I met was unenglish, there is no other way to describe it, because I have no idea where they originated from, I just heard un-english being spoken. 4am-ish arrives and members of our possi are getting asked to leave the club, they do that here....if you stumble they usher you out like a herdsman. No bouncers here, just shepherds, looking after their sheep. If you have no concept of where in London I am at this point, dont worry, neither did I....but to help you orientate yourself go to http://www.goooglemaps.co.uk/ google magic my friends- and type in Indigo Bar, Clapham South or maybe it was in Wandsworth.

Basically we were down South I think, and had to catch a cab up North to Maida Vale-not a cheap cab, but it had to be done. By the time we arrived at the front door I have never been so ready to love a bed in all my life. I just wanted my PJ's and comfy bed....and munchies.
Arrive.Front door. Get Keys. What, did you say keys? I dont have the keys, you do!No, I don't have any keys. Operation empty pockets, bags, check shoes. Thats a negative on the Keys Kilo Alpha Romeo Echo November Echo.Bummer. So no keys, then?No comfy bed and Pj's?No munchies?

Enter near death experience....I was freezing and dying for bed, sitting on the step outside the house while the sun was rising, really believing that if we emptied the same bag 40 more times, the keys might fall out.Lost cause, plan B came into action. There was no plan B though, so we meandered down the road and caught another cab, all the way back down to Collierswood, now I dont know where that is, but it is extremely far away-40 quid far away.Stayed at some persons house, awoke to pouring rain, and negative one hundred degrees(keep in mind I am wearing a skirt), now had to begin the mission back home to sit on the steps I presume, and empty out the bag again incase we were blinded the previous night.

Long story short, it was the longest most harrowning tube ride home, and a painful walk of shame as I was wearing last nights outfit, with last nights make up which was completely inappropriate for that day's weather. We spent the afternoon at a friends house who lives nearby...again still in inappropriate attire, and still hungry from the night before. These kind soles filled our belly's and gave us a couch to rest our aching heads, bless them. Then operation get someone to climb up to the third floor of the building and squeeze through the window to let us in commenced, and alas it was a success. Ben is a hero, following this rescue, he was photographed for the paper the next day (not actually, but that would've been cool). We were in the house but now couldnt leave as we had no keys to get back in, which at this stage didn't matter, I was just so happy to be able to shower, get into PJ's and sleep.

Again, my fingers are cramping......so take a break while I get going with Saturday Night's American Frat party in the most aweome warehouse apartment I've ever seen, and where I learnt to play flip cup and drank beer. I DRANK BEER!
(Sorry okes, my spell check isn't working, overlook any errors and don't judge).