The Two Crabs have been so busy of late that we have not had the time to seriously blog. So here's my random thoughts of what's on:

The Crunchy Nut Crab Stays in the Picture:
About three weeks ago, we're sitting home watching some stupid British TV show when a stranger buzzes our intercom. He claims to be a film & TV location scout and is offering us 500 pounds (about $900 USD) to use our flat for four hours to film a television commercial. The crabs are skeptical but we let him in, and he proceeds to show us his ID and several storyboards (drawings) of scenes his company wants to film. The product: Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. One scene involves an overhead shot of a businessman walking up a busy London street as he rushes home for his bowl of cereal (weird, I know).  Anyway, the guy was thrilled because our flat overlooks the posh Upper Streetl, and there is a small park just across the street to provide some greenery. He takes several photos and our contact details. We're thrilled at the prospect of the extra cash. But sadly at the end of the day, they decided not to use our flat. But the good news is we're now in a database of London film locations, so who knows!

Self-Employment
Mr. Crab is happy to announce he's picked up a lucrative new client this week...a major U.S. magazine. So his days of sitting home doing nothing but eating bon-bons and watching "Battlestar Galactica" are now over.

Nemo, the runaway crab
Two weekends ago, we took advantage of England's Indian Summer to take a daytrip to Eastbourne, a beautiful beach resort town about 90 minutes southeast of London by train. We hiked about 8 miles along the chalk cliffs, down to the beach and collected dozens of shells. The next day I open my backpack to clean the shells and I see somethign moving. A tiny fiddler crab with one claw was inside one of the shells. Naturally, the Two Crabs are lovers of all crabs. Mrs. Crab named our stowaway "Nemo". He's currently living in a tupperware bin but he's getting too big for his aquarium. We plan to release him today on London's "beach," a spit of sand on the Thames River where crabs congregate.  Crabs rule!

Tube Tunes
Time Out magazine has named the 50 top songs ever written about London. It's amazing that London Town has inspired that many song lyrics, making it second only to New York City in town tunes.  The #1 song? "Streets of London" by Ralph McTell.  I've never heard of most of the songs on the list.  My personal favorite, which appeared at #18 on the list, is Ella Fitzgerald's version of "A Foggy Day in London Town.  Somehow this magazine completely daftly ignored some of my favorites. "London Calling" by The Clash and "Werewolf of London" by Warren Zevon are nowhere to be found. At least Lily Allen's "LDN" made the list at #35 but how can you ignore The Clash!?!? Idiots!

Time Out's Top 10 songs of London:

1. Streets of London - Ralph McTell
2. Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks.
3. God Save the Queen - The Sex Pistols
4. Sheila - Jamie T
5. Peter the Painter - Ian Dury
6. I Was There (At the Coronation) - Young Tiger
7. Has it Come to This? - The Streets
8. Down in the Tube Station at Midnight - The Jam
9. Kidz - Plan B
10. Itchycoo Park - The Small Faces