"People wearing coats makes it look cold"

On a May morning I was walking to the train station, girlfriend in hand, and it was a cold, windy day. Remember it was over 20 degrees a few weeks ago? Well, this was the following week when our thermometer was hitting an impressive 8 degrees in London. There was a bitter wind, and I had salvaged my thick shirts from the other end of the wardrobe; it was that cold. I ventured outside on a daring mission to hand my University coursework in. Living just yards away from the Thames means that our little area of Woolwich gets hit by even stronger, unprovoked winds. And in the bitter wind, I at one point even had to do the zip up on my coat; not an easy task in the wind.

In our walk to the train station, we walked towards two female teenagers; the sort that often get branded as 'yobs' and 'chavs' in the media. They were quietly gossiping amongst themselves. I had stopped to do my coat up in view of the pair, with my bag banging against my leg. We continued on, and just as we began to pass them, one of the two women erupted, and with added profanities, stated that:

"People wearing coats makes it looked cold!"

Like British people do, me and the other half carried on walking past, quietly bemused. Her sentence then began to properly sink in. "People wearing coats makes it look cold". That is what she said. I looked back. I looked forward. Again I turn backwards. SHE was wearing a thick coat with fur bursting out of it. And Ugg boots. She looked like a bear who had stumbled  onto a make-up counter in a department store. I was wearing a thin blue coat and Converses. I was dressed correctly for the weather, whereas she was dressed for freezing temperatures, and SHE has the cheek to moan about me wearing a coat.

The Woolwich Murder

I was in Woolwich on that day. 22 May 2013. I live there. Fortunately, I was safely in our flat at 2:20pm. I was oblivious anything had happened. Then, helicopters kept circling around and around, and the sounds of distant sirens could be heard. However, after nearly a year of living there, I've become immune to that. Then I read a strange Tweet that stated that something had happened in Woolwich. No more than that. I went to Google. Two men had been shot after brandishing swords, barely a ten minutes walk away.

Telling it from my point of view is not interesting in the slightest. However, I haven't stopped thinking about it. Especially since I found out, many hours later, that it was being classified as an act of terrorism, and that they had beheaded a serving soilder. Those pictures on the television that evening will forever be imprinted in my brain. There has been much discussion as to whether that picture of Michael Adebolajo, the man with bloodied hands holding the meat cleaver, speaking to the camera, should have ever been used. They were distressing for me, let alone a young child walking past a newsagents on the way to school the next morning.

Henning Wehn: That German Comedian

Henning Wehn brought his latest stand-up comedy show, Henning Knows Bestest, to Canterbury's The Gulbenkian Theatre on Saturday, May 11th. I travelled from London to see him, and it was definitely worth the journey, and missing Doctor Who; after all, you can't iPlayer theatre.

Regardless, beforehand I had only really seen him on comedy panel shows, on Dave's One Night Stand and occasionally on Radio 4, so it was a slight gamble. However, it was one of the best comedy nights I have had. It started off with him being his own warm-up act. Unfortunately, the material he used in this section of the show seemed to be his go-to jokes he uses on TV; witty, satirical observations. For example, in the week following this show, he was on 10 O'Clock Live, providing a few jokes about Europe, all of which I had heard just days earlier.