Wow. It's been such a gorgeous spring day in London. Even my aggregious (sic) hangover from last night's session at Club 333 was overcome by the wonderfulness of it all. Had a great pub lunch on Kings Road, then cycled from Earls Court to Golders Green and back again to say a brief hello to Chris and the gang up there. Now I'm about to go out and see Ozric Tentacles and Eat Static. Such a cool day.

I also got my arse more in gear about travelling yesterday. I seem to have recovered my travel bug. Even last night's dream about my flight to China crashing didn't phase me. That said I also dreamed about Britney and only woke up to find I'd lost my earring and nothing else... sigh. Rest of the world here I come!

An article today in Yahoo news talks about how London is a city of yobs, as described by the latest Lonely Planet guidebook. Sad, but true. Couldn't see an arguement against any of the statements they made and it's something I've felt a lot since coming back from New York. I've never felt unsafe in New York, but always feel a bit nervous and aware over here.

That said it's great being somewhere with a proper regard for dance music and a good sense of humour (the British defence mechanism against the hassles of living here). I keep thinking of starting up a "smile at people" campaign as I walk around the streets, noone seems to smile that much outside of the pubs with their mates - it's heads down, avoid eye contact. Whenever someone does smile it stands out like a beacon.

Guess it's all something to throw into the mix when I make my final decision as to where I want to live.

Got vaccinations for Typhoid, Polio and Hepititis A and B yesterday and my arms are still aching! Very strange. Never been a great fan of injections, luckily that should stop any serious heroin habit.

Had a great weekend though. Went to see Groove Armada at Brixton Academy on Friday night. This was my first visit to that venue and it was pretty cool - big open space, not unlike Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan. Great crowd and everyone was bouncing around. Saturday caught up with my friends Jenny who I haven't seen in three years since she visited me in New York with her then boyfriend. Good, drunken session, and set me up nicely for Sunday's relaxed, drunken session with Phil, Steve and a special guest star - Pink - who I also haven't seen in about three years!

Then I spent a chilly hour waiting for my train at Clapham Junction having just missed one and forgetting that on Sunday trains only run every hour.... Sigh. British public transport is such a mess at the moment, and an expensive mess at that.

Spent a happy morning today getting all of my boxes of stuff from New York delivered by the shipping company. It all seems to have survived pretty much intact apart from a couple of bowls, but then I had too many of those anyway. I intended to only put up my CD racks so I could organise my CD collection but had to try and find the small pots containing the screws.. These eventually turned up in the scond to last box I unpacked. Sigh. So next time I'm going to make sure I make a note of where I put those type of things.

It's very weird seeing all my New York stuff in my old room though. Doesn't look the same away from my bright, spacious New York loft (which I'm still missing hugely). Someone asked me a while back what I would remember from New York - I think the main thing is a greater sense of what people can achieve when they get on with it. New York is a place that encourages you to go for your dreams, and everyone crowds round to help someone with a strong purpose. It's a great thing to see in action, and means you always get interesting conversations with people down in pubs. I know the same drive does exist in London but I've not really observed it in action yet. Fingers crossed I find out where it is sooner rather than later. Maybe it's something to do with my own perceptions, which are somewhat subdued at the moment in this transitional phase of coming back here.

Of course other things are sorely missed from that great city. The light, the views (simple cityscapes as well as the obvious tourist sights), bars that stay open till 4am and aren't smokey, subways that run all night and cost $17 for a week, great food, friends and just the huge range of things you can do at all hours of the day. I also really miss my yoga sessions in Williamsburg at the moment. I know I'll be back there some day, I just don't know if I want to spend the rest of my life there yet. This was the reason I decided to go travelling - to see the world and make a decision on where I wanted to settle down for a while. Maybe I won't manage that. I found out the other day there is a condition called 'decidophobia', a fear of making decisions - I'm really starting to wonder if I suffer from that. It might just be as simple as taking more responsibility for my own life and actions (thanks to Jo for being honest about that tonight, appreciated it, just wished someone had been that blunt earlier).

Tomorrow is another day, and one in which things will be getting better.

The WTC attack is being commemorated for a month with towers of light, two beams consisting of 88 spotlights where the towers used to be. I spoke to a few people back in New York about them and the general feeling was that it was quite weird and not a comfortable thing. Luckily they turn off at 11pm.

Six months ago today New York was devasted by an unprovoked attack. I was looking back at my entries from around and after that time - it's been a helluva six months.

Here's to the next six months being better, for everyone.

Happy (UK) Mother's Day to all those Brit mums out there! This was one of those days I always used to forget when I was over in New York as it's on a different day in America. Go figure. Just finished off a luverley lunch catching up with a large chunk of my family and now feeling quite bloaty. I've also taken this opportunity to upload a pile of my latest pictures onto dotPhoto.

Also another quick service announcement. I've finally got around to buying a proper URL for this site - it can now be found at ultrahi.net. At the moment this just redirects you to here in simple URL redirect fashion but it's a step in the right direction. I've also added a direct sub-domain to my photos as http://photos.ultrahi.net/. Fingers crossed it all works to plan - I've also added some mail addresses so I can be reached at matt@ultrahi.net (or the more formal 'matthew' if you're annoyed at me). Next step is to get my site revamped ready for my travels. I've identified a few directions to try out and a name - Continental Drift, any thoughts welcome as always.

On the subject of travels... I've been very lax since I got back from New York in sorting things out. I totally under estimated how emotionally distracted I would be leaving everything behind - the city, the lifestyle and the people. Big recommendation here people is to always make sure you're coming into something when you go somewhere, for example a new job, then you have something to keep you motivated and flowing. Having said that I've started to get things moving along now - applying for visas, finalizing routes and so on.

Bleurgh. Think I might have overdone it this weekend... Had a great and drunken time with many different people. Friday night we started out in Ben Crouch's Tavern - a 'theme' pub just off Oxford Street based around the life of a guy who stole corpses. A short (but expensive - £10) taxi ride later we were over near Old Street for the Last Days of Rome night hosted by some friends of Dana's. This was a lot of fun and reminded me of Organic Grooves back in New York for their inclusion of bongos.

Saturday, having woken up quite hungover on Chris' floor, I caught up with Phil and Steve again for increasing drunkeness in Clapham. Phil decided that disgression was the better part of valor on this occaision and stayed home to pass out and play Grand Tourismo on his PS2 while Steve and I wandered over to Brixton. Fond memories of Nuclear Free Zone at Club 414 won out over the extremely busy Dog Star lounge, so we spent the night in a pretty empty club playing some stonking music. Why is that always the way?

Sunday continued in the same drunken form with waking up on Phil and Steve's couch then going into town shopping, eating and drinking. This was a nice appetizer to more of the same over at Aimi's where she cooked everyone a luverley ratatouille. Ah, bless. All in all a good few days to compensate for the quietness of the rest of the week.

On a completely unrelated note I read that Joel Meyerowitz's photos of September 11th are coming over to London to mark the six month anniversary. Can't believe it's already been that long. I really like some of Meyerowitz's street photography so I'll try and get along to this. Assuming of course that my impending medical on Wednesday doesn't show I only have a few days left to live from excess alcohol consumption and lardy Brit-grub!