Earlier in the week, my flatmate Davydd pulled a sicky off work and went looking for crop circles hahaha! Wiltshire is a county to the west of London, and is one of the most active areas for crop circles in the world. Davydd managed to find a few, and so I thought I'd go for a little look-see myself! I caught the train to the sleepy little village of Great Bedwyn. The only thing I did here was leave.

I headed west out of Bedwyn along a lot of gorgeous little rural lanes, so narrow that I've no idea how two cars can even pass each other along here (not that I saw too many).

A lot of nice cottages and whatnot along here - very pretty!

I eventually got to the slightly larger village of Pewsey. Again, all but completely deserted!

This was sitting outside the Pewsey pub. That explains the distinct lack of people - everybody's at some booze festival hehe.

Indeed.

This area of Wiltshire is just crop field after crop field, but for the life of me I couldn't find a single bloody crop circle - not a fucking one! So I've got no idea exactly where or how Davydd found them, but man I'm pissed off!

I did find this though - a big white horse on the hillside. Not exactly a crop circle but at least it was something. This is the aptly-named Cherhill White Horse, apparently the third oldest (dating back to1892) of several such white horses around Britain. Check it out from Google Maps Satellite here.

I wonder if they had better luck finding circles.

At this point I started heading north. Still crop field after crop field, and still no circles :(

I didn't see any of these either.

By now I'd given up on finding any friggin' circles, but there were a couple of other things in the area I knew about. This is Silbury Hill near the village of Avebury. Silbury Hill is an ancient monument dating back to 2500BC, and is the largest prehistoric man-made structure in Europe and one of the worlds largest. It is 40 metres high and is essentially just a great clump of dirt, but its purpose is still highly debated to this day despite three separate large-scale excavations into the hill over the last 150 years. Again, Google Maps Satellite link here.

Nearby and surrounding Avebury itself is another Neolithic monument - Avebury Ring, the largest known stone ring in the world. In between Silbury Hill, Avebury Ring, Stonehenge just 30kms south of here, and a few other things in the area, Wiltshire was clearly a popular area some four millenia ago for building random shit! Avebury ring encompasses about 28 acres of land, and the link above has plenty of information about it and a good aerial photo.

The kids that were here clearly weren't interested in a bunch of stones in the ground, and found sliding down the hillside much more fun hehe. One of them did a wicked face-plant at the bottom hahaha - too bad I missed a photo of it!

Both here and back at Silbury Hill there were a huge number of hippies checking the place out. All wearing a lot of funky shit and banging hand-drums and waving poi around. The two on the right even thought Avebury Ring was a good place to take a nap hehe, weird.

About 15km north of Avebury I hit Swindon - 130kms west of London and home to about 150,000. As I came into town the skies finally opened up after threatening to do so all day, so I had the GPS take me straight to the train station and I was outta there, still bitter about not seeing one damn crop circle!

Nice day for a cruise down the River Styx (at least that's what it looks like). London put on a real scorcher today, and the forecast is it's set to continue for the rest of the week and crap out for the weekend hahaha - typical! Anyway, I went for a bit of a wander during lunch.

I think this thing ought to increase its appetite a little.

Millennium Bridge (opened in 2000 of course) over the Thames, with the dome of St Paul's Cathedral in the background.

Looking along South Bank from Millennimum Bridge. Shakespeare's Globe Theatre is pointed out on the left.

Good lunchtime retreat in the city!

There's even a little beach on the Thames here hehe, but quite rightly no one's on it ;)

There are always a lot of buskers along here during lunch...

...and a lot of joggers (though not all of them possess the jogger's physique ;)

Two of London's finest taking a mid-afternoon nap. Now that's a gut to be proud of!

It's hardly Brisbane's South Bank, but it's something.

The London Eye, and the in the background Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

Good day for a protest too. This is outside the Royal Courts of Justice.

First we had the Sri Lankans calling for justice and an end to the brutality back home, and now we've got the Kenyans having a go.

This guy's not too sure what's happening.

Few more shots on my way home from work: this is near Marble Arch...

...and this is the massive Serpentine lake in the middle of Hyde Park. Plenty of paddle-boats on the water in the distance.

On the shore of the lake.

Somewhere else in and around Hyde Park.

And another one, this time the Iranians on the side of the road having a crack at their own embassy for something or other, good stuff!

The canal down the road from my flat. Check the same shot taken in winter!

Those of you who know who he is will appreciate this. Note the advertising hoarding in the background hehe!

Whether you loved him, thought he was misunderstood, or just thought he was an utter loony, there is no doubting that the man was absolute legend and a musical genius, the likes of which we'll be lucky to ever see again in our own lifetime. Michael Jackson died suddenly early Thursday afternoon at his home in Los Angeles from cardiac arrest. The images and videos of immense numbers of grief-stricken fans are quite amazing. Such was the pandemonium when word started to spread that the internet suffered a number of slowdowns as people the world over rushed to verify what they had heard. Google crapped out and Twitter crashed hehe; more info on all that here. I personally thought he was very gifted, an amazing talent, and a fantastic entertainer, but like so many of them he totally lost the plot in recent years: the cosmetic surgery, multiple child molestation allegations, financial woes and so forth. Plenty of tasteless jokes have been doing the rounds today - I got one about recycling his face into plastic bags but doing so would continue to make him a risk to children hehe. On top of all that, rumours were rife of addiction to various medications, and he hasn't exactly been the healthiest person on the planet in recent years. In just a few weeks, Jackson was to play the first of 50 concerts in London's O2 Arena (largely so he could get his finances in order and retire I dare say). I, along with many others I think, suspected there was no way he was going to be capable of performing 50 concerts, but as it turns out he never made it to even the first. It's a very, very sad time in the world of music.

The BBC have done a 30-minute video tribute to Jackson here.