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My friends often ask me how I find out about a lot of the cool events that I either go to or tickets to go to see.

Mainly it’s all through just reading the papers and local magazines (like the TNT) regularly and looking out for small (or big) sections talking about upcoming events.

Sometimes for ticketed events it’s more me knowing that they are coming up and then booking as soon as the tickets go on sale.  Often over here for concerts/festivals/big events the tickets will go on sale up to a year before the actual event.   When they do go on sale as well sometimes (like with the big festivals – V/Reading, etc.) the tickets then sell out within an hour or so.   Other events like Wimbledon or a Cricket match at Lords require you to apply in advance and then get put into a lottery draw to see if you get anything (though with Wimbledon there’s only a 10% chance of actually lucking out with a ticket option!)

Of course then there are the random things that you just happen to walk past and see.   Was walking through Trafalgar Square the other day when there was a big tv screen getting setup and a few cameras and random people around.   Picked up the following brochure

Went along later on to try and go in, but even though I turned up 15 minutes before the start time they had already clsoed off the square due to “health and safety issues”.  When there were more people outside the square than in it!  England is a funny place sometimes.

Still walking around London you can sometimes come across lots of cool events that are happening, you just have to keep your eyes open and your ears listening, who knows what you might find!

Or check out some upcoming events on my Google Calendar

Well it’s that time of the year when everyone gets a bit sick/ill/flu-ey..  Whatever you want to call it.   Of course if you travel via tube or train it is also pretty hard to avoid anyone else who might have it as they cough or sneeze over you, or if you avoid it on the transport you will probably have some workmate who comes into work and says they are fine..  even though they look Death’s close cousin.

The main way I’ve found to help ward away the bugs is to regular exercise and have lots of fruit.  I’ve  got my own smoothie machine and normally have one with some ginger even couple of days.

What happens over here if you do get sick is you obviously need to go see a doctor..  Hopefully your registered already, if not this in the important bit

Before you get sick you need to find who/where you local doctor is and go and register with them!  This is important, otherwise they won’t want to see when you do try and go there when you are sick

Of course I found out the hard way a number of times that your local doctor might not be that helpful.  If you are sick and need to go see them ring up as soon as possible on the morning.

When I rang my doctors once on a Monday when I was sick I was told that all the “available” appointments for the day were already gone.  (Obviously there are a number of pre booked appointments with different people).  They asked if I was quite sick.. I said yes.. They said if I was really really sick, then to go the A+E of a hospital.   Otherwise I could get an appointment for the Thursday.   Yes four days later.   I didn’t bother, I was either going to be dead or ok by that stage.

What I did however do is the in between option.   If you can’t get any help from your doctor, there is both an NHS Direct phone line you can call for advice.  It is actually staffed by nurses so it’s not like someone in India is just going to take a message.

Or there are a number of NHS Walk-In Centres available around the country.   The closest and easiest one for me to get to was in Soho Square.  (Which meant that I had to take the tube to get there, now you can see why you can get sick on the tube!)   Sometimes you might have to wait quite a while to get help, it depends what time you go, how many people are working there, and how many other people are generally sick.  I was quite quick when I went there, took about 20 minutes after filling in a few forms and then a doctor/nurse saw me, checked me over and gave me some medication to get well.

Hopefully it won’t happen to you, but there’s the basic options available when you do get sick (apart from 999 obviously!)

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Well London isn’t a cheap place to get a haircut.   Looking around at a number of hairdressers you’ll see that even a guy’s haircut is at least about 25 pounds (or a lot more depending on where you go).   I know that in New Zealand the haircut’s are about the same dollar amount, yet the exchange rate between NZ and England is 2.5 to 1! Also it’s a lot cheaper to get a haircut in somewhere like Bangor, Wales than it is in London.

Of course just because your paying this kind of money doesn’t mean your getting a better haircut than elsewhere.  I remember watching some hair dressing award show, or something random like that and a guy there made the comment about how many other businesses can you work in where when you go out to a nightclub party and the company buy’s bottles of vodka at 150 pounds each!

However there are a few options available.

1.  Go somewhere else apart from London! Overseas country trip, or even a visit to somewhere else in England.

2. For guys (and I think girls), there’s a chain with a few branches around London called Mr Toppers.  They charge 6 pounds for a cut.  Though saying that they pretty much only use cutters and you’ll could end up looking a bit like you just enlisted in the US Army.  Well that’s what happened to me.

3. There are a number of salons that have training schools and constantly need models (This normally work’s better for girls rather than guys though, as they don’t need to cut men’s hair as often).  If you pick up the free daily paper (The Metro), then often in the back page’s of that there will be ad where it says hair models required.  Toni and Guy regularly advertise and with a coupon it’s normally 5 pounds.   You can also just try them direct, though you then have to pay around 15 pounds. (Look for the Academy).   Vidal Sasson also have a training school.  But wary though, the haircut’s might not be exactly what you are after as they will be done by students.  Because they are students they have to check regularly with their tutor which means that your haircut will take several hours, prepare for at least a whole afternoon!

4. The final option is to just go to somewhere that’s not so cool and trendy, at least suburb wise if not shop wise as well.  I’ve found a number of hairdressers that do a decent men’s haircut for around 10 pounds in places like Kilburn and Clapham Junction.   Most of the expensive hairdressers are of course in the expensive areas.  Have a look around the more normal/cheaper areas and a give them someone new a try, who knows you might get a great deal and a great haircut!