London, Day 2: In which our hero rocks down to Electric Avenue, but elects not to take it higher

Test your trivia!

Q: When you go on vacation to a scenic, picturesque place, what's the one thing you don't want to forget?

Come on, now...

It's not hard...

Oh, come on!

Give up? Alright, it's....

A: Your camera!

Now, as a follow-up question:

Q: What's the one thing that Reid forgot on his trip to London?

A: Oh, dear God, I'm an idiot.

If it wasn't for my need to pack with one hand and answer work emails with the other last Thursday, you'd be looking at a grand parade of snapshots from London. But as it is, I'll just have to describe them.

Here's a shot of my sister Mary, my friend Irene and me walking down Electric Avenue in Brixton. I'd only ever been to Brixton once before, 14 years ago to see the Lemonheads, but I'd never seen the markets, filled with Jamaican accents, halal butchers and reggae CD sellers.

Here's one of Mary and me enjoying some sort of supposedly-Sicilian fried mushroom pie-type thing from a outdoor vendor in a charming neighborhood called Angel, another part of London I'd never seen. As you can see from the picture, it's pretty messy, with cheese going all over the place. Look at the expression on Mary's face! Anyway, it was delicious.

This is a picture of us at some sports pub watching the FA Cup match between Chelsea and Manchester United. We were there with Mary's school friends Oren (Canadian) and Jelena (Londoner). Jelena is hilarious and hates Chelsea with a seething passion. Unfortunately, Chelsea wins and, as you can see on her face, she's pretty dejected, almost as though Chelsea had beaten her beloved Arsenal.

Here's Mary, Oren, Jelena and me sitting outdoors at a leafy pub in Angel, enjoying a(nother) pint. It was a pretty day, but you can probably tell that we're shivering a little in this shot. Time to head inside to...

...a nice dinner at a delicious semi-fancy restaurant in Angel. That's polenta in blue cheese sauce on Mary's and my plates, and Oren's enjoying some sort of steak sandwich. We're laughing at the fact that British people use all of the French names for food: arugula is called rocket, eggplant is called aubergine, and zucchini is called courgette. Crazy Brits! That's not right at all!

Oh, here's one from the night before. It's Mary, her hilarious and charming friends Morgan and Jelena and me walking across Waterloo Bridge after closing down a pub (not hard to do, since they close at 11). It didn't come out very well, and it doesn't do the scene justice, but those are the lights of London: the blue lights in the trees on the South Bank, the lights on the big "gherkin" building, the neon of the old OXO factory. It's gorgeous. I wish you could see it a little better.

Note: Please do not Photoshop or otherwise manipulate any of the above images. © 2007 Are Seven