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Summer is ycomen in
Monday, June 3rd, 2013 10:47 amA new day, a new week, a new month and a new season.
I always thought that summer officially started on 21 June (although the fact that it’s Midsummer Day, too, was always confusing), but it seems that there are numerous schools of thought. Meteorologically however, summer comes in with June, so I have decided that if it’s good enough for the Met Office, it’s good enough for me.
The number of tourists in London has been creeping up, despite the cool weather and delayed spring, for some time now. To be fair, the periods that are tourist-free are few and far between, but they do tend to accumulate during the warmer months. With the arrival of summer, there seems to have been an immediate inrush of tourists, particularly – or at least most visibly – from the Land of the Rising Sun.
These worthy people are the Nikon Army and I believe that they are radio controlled. This is a good thing, generally speaking, as once they descend in seasonal numbers, they become a navigation hazard, so keeping them under strict remote control is always advisable. You will see them in well-behaved swarms of polite click-click-clicking being led by their controller, who has an antenna, sometimes with a flag, sometimes not, or an umbrella held aloft at their head. This signals that they are under control and the group will move around in a dignified procession of follow-my-leader, all the while click-click-clicking at anything and everything around them.
Sometimes they will all point at a local landmark, but as long as the antenna remains aloft they will keep moving in a disciplined if slow-moving slick of humanity.
The difficulty comes when the controller drops the antenna for five or six minutes while he or she has a cigarette or water break. These times are relatively perilous, as the Nikons break into smaller groups of two or three and wander aimlessly, often stopping and backtracking without warning, pointing their digital eyes at some indefinable point in the air. These are the times of maximum chaos, when as natives, we drones who habituate the tourist migration paths have to keep our wits about us.
Keep your eyes open and be prepared to be nimble on your toes. The Nikons are here, they are here in force.
Today, their migration path places them in swarms around Westmonster Abbey and the Houses of Prurience. Forewarned is fore armed. You are forewarned.
I always thought that summer officially started on 21 June (although the fact that it’s Midsummer Day, too, was always confusing), but it seems that there are numerous schools of thought. Meteorologically however, summer comes in with June, so I have decided that if it’s good enough for the Met Office, it’s good enough for me.
The number of tourists in London has been creeping up, despite the cool weather and delayed spring, for some time now. To be fair, the periods that are tourist-free are few and far between, but they do tend to accumulate during the warmer months. With the arrival of summer, there seems to have been an immediate inrush of tourists, particularly – or at least most visibly – from the Land of the Rising Sun.
These worthy people are the Nikon Army and I believe that they are radio controlled. This is a good thing, generally speaking, as once they descend in seasonal numbers, they become a navigation hazard, so keeping them under strict remote control is always advisable. You will see them in well-behaved swarms of polite click-click-clicking being led by their controller, who has an antenna, sometimes with a flag, sometimes not, or an umbrella held aloft at their head. This signals that they are under control and the group will move around in a dignified procession of follow-my-leader, all the while click-click-clicking at anything and everything around them.
Sometimes they will all point at a local landmark, but as long as the antenna remains aloft they will keep moving in a disciplined if slow-moving slick of humanity.
The difficulty comes when the controller drops the antenna for five or six minutes while he or she has a cigarette or water break. These times are relatively perilous, as the Nikons break into smaller groups of two or three and wander aimlessly, often stopping and backtracking without warning, pointing their digital eyes at some indefinable point in the air. These are the times of maximum chaos, when as natives, we drones who habituate the tourist migration paths have to keep our wits about us.
Keep your eyes open and be prepared to be nimble on your toes. The Nikons are here, they are here in force.
Today, their migration path places them in swarms around Westmonster Abbey and the Houses of Prurience. Forewarned is fore armed. You are forewarned.