London Marathon

Nearing the final bend at Buckingham Palace.

The crowds are carefully manoeuvred around the races.
Strategically blocking views to avoid clogging of vital pathways.

Oh yeah it's spring time!

Final stretch before the finish line!

Exhausted runners wander through a series of check points after the race.
Here they distribute the medals

The medals...

Runners belongings all numbered are transported from the starting line in a series of trucks.

Then they join up with the crowd near the Horse Guards building.

BBC Article about the marathon

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We decided to go out and see this 26.2 mile marathon that happens in down town London every year. The weather was great and you can't waste these precious few days of sun!   London Marathon is a cancer charity with 35,000 runners this year, you get a range of top athletes from around the world to some of the most unexpected.   There's plenty out there trying to break new world records like running backwards or dressing like a super heros. 

Costume record breakers

It's unusual but fun and I've never seen a marathon before so it was interesting to check out.

In Cambridge visiting distant relatives

I received this photo via Royal mail this morning! (Apr 30th)

From Left: Trevor, Janet and Susan 

"Structure of DNA" Discovery at The Eagle Pub

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Back in September when Susan and I were in Canada we received from my Grandmother some interesting contact info.  Apparently she still sends Christmas cards to family here in England and with that she also had their email address.   A couple months after we returned to England we sent out an email to these new relatives Trevor and Janet to try and satisfy our curiosity since they live only a short train ride away from us.   Eventually after a few messages back and forth they kindly invited us down to Cambridge to visit them and get a brief tour of the city.   So last weekend Suz and I spent a wonderful afternoon wandering around Cambridge catching up with all missing gaps between our lives.   Later they took us over to their quiet little home on the outskirts of town for some tea and cakes.   They showed us the collection of pictures they are holding of the different relatives in our family tree while trying to explain how it all pieces together.   It turns out Trevor is my Grandmother's cousin which means his Grandparents are my Great Great Grandparents! 

Combined with the fantastic weather it ended up being an unforgettable Sunday. I really hope we'll get another chance to meet up with Trevor and Janet, its great to know there's such welcoming family near by. :)

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Bottom Right: Taken just before the family set off to Canada by Boat. (This picture was also in the local paper)
Bottom Left: Christmas Card mailed out to Trevor and Janet  (Only 3 Pictures could be found)
Top Left: Camping trip to New York State

Team Jolly at Cafe De Paris

Dinner tables in front of the stage.

Really impressive magic tricks!

Hilarious host.  He actually knew all about Arkham Asylum and ended up hanging out with us later in the night.

Check'n out our private lounge area...

3/5 ladies from our team of 95 at Rocksteady!

Late night crowd.  They even had some fire breathing acts later in the night.

Cafe De Paris
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This is a great place to check out if your looking for a tasteful cabaret show, we ate our dinners while they did quite a wide variety of performances.  They were really entertaining and apparently they change it up for every Friday's show so I'll have to take Suz someday!   A good 10-20 of us Rocksteady crew were still dancing around when they kicked us out at 3:30 or so, clearly a successful Team Jolly! 

Sucker Punch Premiere!

Crowds in front of the theatre at Leicester Square

Our group heading down the red carpet

Side stage where they were interviewing the actresses

Free popcorn!!

Zack Snyder introducing some of the cast before the film.

After party!!

With burlesque dancers!!

And a photo booth!!...?

Sweet!!

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Since Rocksteady is affiliated with Warner we had 10 seats to the UK premier of Sucker Punch which I managed to be lucky enough to be picked for!   I'm still pretty innocent to city life so being part of Hollywood glamour was pretty thrilling for me. :)    The actual film itself was pretty mediocre but really it was all about walking down the red carpet and getting to be part of an exclusive group.   I had a lot of fun and bizarrely the after party is in the same venue as our Team Jolly tomorrow.. so expect some more pictures soon!   

Protests in London!

BBC New article about the situation

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Britain's government shows it's new budget which includes significant corporate tax cuts combined with VAT tax increases and literally 100's of thousands of jobs from the public sector being removed to patch up the mistakes the banks made.   I felt it was important to represent at the very least in the anti cuts protest through down town London today.   As I write it's still going on with estimates ranging up to half a million on the streets.  Although the government has not really shown any signs they are changing their intentions this is intended as the beginning to long term plans to protest the current government in power.  It was empowering to be part of the rally but you can really sense the overall frustration with such a wide variety of the working force being influenced.   It's hard to say how this may resolve but dedicating my Saturday to the cause was finally something that we can do to help future of Britain.

**Update:**

Riot police in rows pushing protesters out of the area.

Protesters sitting on the street with the media watching...

Many riot police inside Trafalgar Square with choppers monitoring the area.

News article relating to Trafalgar Square

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So Suz and I went back downtown to see how the night was progressing and ended up becoming part of the scene as police began flushing out Trafalgar Square.  It got pretty intense a couple times and we managed to find ourselves getting pinned in by riot police from both sides.  (However they were just flushing us out from the area through a side street)

Nothing too dangerous happened aside from the odd bottle being tossed near us but it was pretty exciting to witness people chanting and helicopters buzzing all around with large numbers of riot police rushing around in formation.