Circus Smithfield

Last week was spent in entertaining London. Been there several times, both business and/or pleasure, this time was an "and" but with a twist. Ms. T and I went over there (with tormenting Ryanair) to find a site, well Ms.T was looking for a site, I was looking for a system/singularity. Found Smithfield Meat Market, close to Farringdon Station. This establishment is more than 800 years old, and has always functioned as a meat market. In the early days, the meat was alive. Transported on hoof from surrounding farms. Some gentlemen actually sold their wives as well, since the concept of "divorce" was not yet invented. Etiquette. Anyway, later when London grew bigger, the meat arrived with railway in underground tunnels. Today, they use trucks. The trucks arrive 00.00 in the night, transforming the area into a world of men in bloody white clothes, precisely choreographed truck and forklift dances, look-a-like cafè activity and smelly boxes patterns. This continues throughout to the morning hours. The first costumers are the restaurant owners, buying huge amonts of meat, sheep and/or chicken. Later, private people show their sleepy faces in "the halls of meat". The clock is now 02.30, at least. The business continues to 07.00, then the bloody white men walk down to the basement of the Poultry section, where you`ll find "The Cock Tavern". Here they order a Guiness and a portion of "The Butcher`s Breakfast": Black pudding, rump steak, cumberland sausage, bacon, pan fried liver and Carmen`s famous recipe kidneys. And relax after work with work on plates. I can inform the people that the tables are sticky in this tavern. Ms. T and I couldn`t cope with the idea of the butcher`s breaky and went for an old English one and a pint, at 09.00...tipsy before lunch on a weekday was a new experience for me.

PS: By the way, in the end Ms. T and I managed to smuggle 3 kg overweight through the Ryanair system. We had to perform some "property-juggling" no less than 3 times, but we made it. Eat that, Ryan-suckers-air!

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