Back in the Saddle: London Loves

The ReckenRoll is now 90% more free of stuff. All that remain are the UK appliances (including TV and hair dryer) and the wine opener.

You know, the essentials.

So after wallowing in my beautiful melancholy for the last 48 hours I decided to take all 4 of your advice (and one phone call - thank you Jess) and pull my head out of it and enjoy myself.

So today, in honour of my telly and the remaining days on my TV license, I give you London love #3: the London "Celebrity. "

In the US we only have Paris Hilton who is famous for no real reason. In the UK, there are HUNDREDS of people that are famous for no clear reason. From the Big Brother bozos like Jade Goody and Chantelle (still famous and notorious), to Peaches Geldoff (daughter of Bob, founder of Live Aid), to Lisa Snowden (she dated George Clooney I think?) to god only knows who...

When they announced the participants in Celebrity Big Brother I knew ONE GUY. The dude who played Face on the A Team. As far as I was concerned the rest could have been any old bloke off the street.

This is a London Love because London is the centre of these characters fame universe. Much like LA, you can often encounter famous people in real life and it has happened on more than one occasion that a friend will get all excited about some random person nearby and I have no idea why. The conversation always goes like this:

UK friend: (pointing and smiling) "Oh my god it's XXXYYYYXX!"
Me: (looking around puzzled) "Who?"
Them: "What do you mean who? It's XXXYYYYXX!!!"
Me: (still trying to figure out who they are pointing at) "Who?"
Them: "Seriously? They were (insert some random Brit music group I don't listen to or some tv show that I've never seen)"
Me: "What's that?" (50% of the time) OR "Oh, yeah, we didn't have that in America" (the other 50% of the time)
Them: (eye roll) "Seriously? It was the best show/group/movie! I can't believe you never had that in America! Ask anyone. It's REALLY FAMOUS."

To which I always secretly draw on my American superiority complex and internally think, "well, clearly not THAT famous."

I shall miss the random Friday afternoon office discussions of XXXYYYYXX that I can't follow or contribute to yet am always fascinated by. I shall miss the London Paper, the London Lite and the Metro (all free newspapers) that kept me up to speed on what club/outfit/boyfriend XXXYYYYXX is making famous. I shall miss the trashing of XXXYYYYXX that is bound to occur because we are all annoyed they are famous and we are not.

At least I'll always have Paris.