The moral of the story is...

I was asked last week, by an American friend and colleague, whether London had any bad parts of town. I was a little surprised by the question, she has been visiting us here fairly regularly over the last 9 months, and I assumed she would have realised that, like all big cities, London has it's parts that you shouldn't wonder into. Still, I told her about my first flat near Finsbury Park, how Abu Hamza used to live and work near by, and how my flatmate would always finish his run a couple of minutes faster if he did it after dark. I even mentioned that one of the big delivery companies (DHL, I think) would deliver parcels all over Iraq, but would still avoid parts of E16, my current post code. At no point however, did I think to mention the dangers of Oxford Circus...

As most people know, last Saturday was St Patrick's Day and being an avid fan of the black stuff, I decided I wanted another St Patrick's Day Guinness hat. I got one in 2005, but it never really fitted, so I hoped that by 2007 this design flaw would be sorted. So I meet up with some old friends from my undergrad days, and we go to a nice pub called the Marlborough Head, near Bond Street station. We have a leisurely lunch, during which time I drink 2 pints (half way to my hat) and then we go off to do a little shopping (or get a hair cut in my case). About 3 hours later, we go back to the same pub, have a few more pints, watch Wales beating England at rugby (shame!) and some light pub food to tide us over till dinner.

At just gone seven, we leave the pub, Niall and I proudly wearing are hats, and decide to go to the Apple shop, on Regent Street before heading home. So we march of down Oxford Street, getting funny looks from some, amused glances from others and, unfortunately, undue attention from a rather inebriated Polish guy with a bottle of wine. It's something that seems to happen any time that one goes out in public wearing a silly hat, people come up to you, shout some appropriate phrase in you face and wonder off, all harmless and part of life. This guy, didn't wander off however, he wandered down Oxford Street with us, still yelling and the like, until we reached Oxford Circus. As we turned South, down Regent Street, I kind of hoped that we would part and it would just become another funny story, but alas he decided to keep following us, keep bumping into us and keep being a nuisance. So I asked him to leave us alone. He was 'disinclined to acquiesce to my request' and after being asked a second time decided to take a swing at me.

This is where things get a little hazy, I remember being hit (didn't really hurt), I remember swinging him into a wall (broke the bottle of wine) and I remember him deciding the neck of the bottle wasn't much use without the rest of it and he may as well throw it at my head. In all honesty, that didn't hurt much either, but seeing as we were both bleeding it seemed a fairly good time to stop fighting (personally, I don't think it was ever a good time to start...) and my friends led me off to find medical attention. One short taxi ride (and about 2 packs of tissues) later and I'm in University College London Hospital waiting for an X-ray and some patching up.

During my stay there, I find out that the wound is free of glass fragments (yay), my assailant has been brought to the same hospital and is now talking to my friends, not realising who they are (ahh), hospital security go past wearing stab proof vests (double ahh), the police arrive (better), ask me if I want to press charges (yep), I get patched up/flirted at by a cute nurse (yay, wait, I mean... 'I'm in a serious relationship') and give a description of what happened to a cute young police lady (not a statement, because I'd been drinking).

Three days later, the bandage that you can see in the photo has been removed, and more glue has been added, so that my ear now looks like this (little warning, not a particularly pleasant photo).

So, the moral of the story? I don't know really. It's not to avoid Oxford Street, that's for certain. Don't wear silly hats in public is a maybe, but many others seemed to enjoy that night. Don't drink sounds good, but I was far from drunk and little would have change if I was completely sober. I'm not even sure if there is one, but if you can think of a good one, feel free to comment...