3 amusing/entertaining tales

1. Near Canary Wharf, in the middle of a roundabout (that's a traffic circle) there is a Christmas tree made from traffic lights. There is one main post with all these arms sticking out from it with traffic lights on them. It is shaped to look like a Christmas tree and the lights change colours - green/amber/red and walk/don't walk. Very cool in a wacky way.
   
2. Janine, her friend Cheryl-Anne, and I went to see the show "The King and I" last night in Southend which was performed by a local theater group. It was closing night so the chairman (or whatever his title was) came out and spoke after the show. He kept going on and on thanking everyone. The three of us were sitting there, all thinking pretty much the same thing - shut up so we can get out of here, when all of a sudden we realized that everybody had stood up and were singing "God Save the Queen". It was one of those weird moments when you realized that everybody else knew what they were supposed to do, but you didn't. We quickly stood up, looking at each other and wondering why on earth the audience would sing the national anthem after watching theater. Ahh.. the quirky English.
   
3. Speaking of strange and English. The three of us went to a pub after the theater. Well actually 3 different ones, but who's counting. Anyway, we met a rather entertaining guy at one of them. He was clearly trying to pick us up - I think any of us would do as he was extremely drunk - using the line that he was "100% British beef". He wanted us to feel his 100% British beef in fact. He flexed his arms, he showed us his abs. He was a decently fit bloke as the English would say, but he sort of had a nerdiness about him - his dress and his glasses. Not nerdy in a bad way, just not the type of guy you would expect to say such a terrible pick up line. He had us in hysterics. Interestingly, the fact that we were laughing at him did not deter him in the slightest.