flying nine and a half hours yesterday to get to london is never fun. i cannot decide if i like the length or not. it is far more palatable than then short overnight hop from the east coast, but it is still not long enough to really get a good nights sleep. perhaps that is where my assumption fall flat...a good nights sleep. in any case, my method is simple. get to the office and work like crazy till dinner. eat a nice dinner with a good bottle of wine and then go to sleep. inevitably, i will wake at 0400, toss and turn until 0500 and then get out of bed. the beauty of this is that i get to see london as it emerges from its overnight stupor.

some people pop up in the morning to the great dismay of those who need three expressos before they can grunt an acknowledgment that the sun has arisen. london seems to be more the latter than the former. my hotel is a good twenty minutes stroll form the office. close, but just far enough. along the way this morning i nodded at the street sweepers, the milk delivery guy, the painters on the way to work with their tools slung over their shoulders, the local garbage collector flipping bags into the yawning maw, lycra clad bicyclists tearing thru the lights despite their colour [red], an ancient lady being walked by a yapping 8 inch long doggy thing which had its hair tied in light blue bows, a bread delivery truck that really smelled great....all the things that you see when the other 12 million are not out and about. all the things you see when you can stroll with your head up. all the things that make a day a good thing to start.