The South Africans got me back.

You see the District Line splits, and you’ve got to get the right train.  And, at Embankment, the CIRCLE Line runs on the same track.  So it was confusing.  And I asked for help.

The first guy had to take off his iPod headphones.  That’s one thing the mobile companies will never realize, the iPod is COOL!  We’re selling cool in the music business, don’t ever forget it.

And this hipster said this was a Circle Line train, just as I was about to get on, so I backed off.

And that’s when I quizzed the South Africans.  Not that I knew they were South African, they ultimately told me.  Brothers actually, one staying with a THIRD brother in East Putney, planning to reside for five years to get a U.K. passport, the other living in BERLIN!  You see with a South African passport you can’t go many places, you need a visa, it’s a hassle.  But the Berlin brother didn’t care.  He LOVES Germany.  There’s a festival every weekend.  There are parties.  He doesn’t want to leave, even though eventually his IT job for a U.K. company will end.

It’s just that…everybody outside the U.S. is so WORLDLY!  Will went on vacation to Sri Lanka.  Harry’s leaving for Tobago on Saturday.  In the U.S. a trip is to Palm Springs.  As for investigation, most Americans go to New York and don’t even SEE most of the country!

And the text messaging.  We’re still living in the world of e-mail in the U.S.  People text instead of call here.  There’s a service called AQA, Any Question Answered, that will text you back the answer to like…  Well Will asked them who I was, and they came up with, as they say here, a proper answer.

And on the tube on the way to Camden Town, I was a bit freaked by the gap between the platform and the train.  But, when the voice came over the speakers when the car arrived, saying MIND THE GAP, I suddenly knew what inspired that great Soundtrack Of Our Lives song.

In Camden Town I met Kumi.  Who took me to the Camden Market.  Ever wonder where they get all those clothes in the videos?  Want to look like you emerged from the cover of "Ziggy Stardust"?  Well, here you can buy the boots and the outfits, it’s Halloween 24/7.  And they’re selling vinyl, and posters.  What can I tell you, in Camden Market it’s still the sixties.

And then off to a pub with Kumi and Mao for lunch.

It was like watching one of those films, of the forties.  On one side of the street there was the factory and on the other the living quarters.  You could just PICTURE it, even though now the living quarters were offices and the factory space had been converted into a generalized commercial space and contained a pub.

I mean we’re sitting there on couches, eating our sandwiches, having an intellectual conversation the likes of which I haven’t experienced in the 21st century.  Kumi has an MBA, and works at Getty Images.  Mao has a master in physics, but chucked it all to play the bass.  Kumi spoke of how in the U.S. it’s all about accumulation, and in the rest of the world it’s not that way.  In the U.K. REPUTATION is important.  And in Japan, the company treats you like a family, and the disparity between rich and poor is microscopic compared to my homeland.

It was mind-bending.  We think we know everything until we travel, until we’re confronted with something different.

So now I’m rushing off to the Chat Room thing.  Someone sent me the definition of Chatham House Rules, and it said you just can’t quote with attribution.  But after my piece last night, as it was put to me, everybody had their knickers in a twist, fearful I’d reveal their truth, so there will be no report.  In the parlance of surfers, in the words of great rock and rollers everywhere, like me, seeing the original Ziggy Stardust tour at the Music Hall in Boston, you had to be there.  At least that’s the way it’ll be after it’s all done!