Hello 
I'm Siobhan Curran/Kisa Naumova, and this is my weblog. I tend to write about stuff like crossdressing, Macs, code, cats, wine and Second Life, but in general it's just an ongoing conversation about all sorts of stuff. If you'd like to know a little bit more about what this all is, I recommend starting on this page which has a little bit of info on who I am, and what I'm trying to do — or you could dive into my five years worth of archives if you like.
Otherwise, feel free to close this box and explore...
Currantly
Well, yesterday actually. And God my head hurts today.
Siobhan's Top Driving Tips
Number 4294: Do not drive through London at 5pm.
I would imagine London at 5pm is a bit like Atlanta at 5pm. Only worse. Yeah, worse.
Natalie
Top Driving Tips
Do not drive through London ever!
(Unless you happen to be my mate, who drives a black-cab there.)
Actually I find that the Square Mile is quite nice to drive around... if you stick to weekends.
The trick with London is to have a car that you wouldn't feel sorry to just park in the middle of the road and leave there. Then drive it like a dodgem. 
Can Someone Let Me In On The Secret?
Just to continue this 'driving in London' theme for a second...
Don't get me wrong BTW — I'm not completely green when it comes to driving through That London. I used to go out with a girl who lived in Battersea, and I'd drive down every weekend, carving my own little unique route down the Edgeware Road and around Hyde Park Corner.
Also, my brother has a house in Islington (and New York, the rich git), so I'm more than acquainted with the Holloway Road.
But, you see, I'm well aware that people who wash your windows at traffic lights then demand money exist ... I just want to know why they always seem to pick me out.
Twice it happened to me this weekend — once on the South Circular on my way to Ian 
and Kim , and once on the North Circular on the way home this evening. The lights turned red, and suddenly all the cars were swarmed by women weilding sponges and squeegees.
Two of them sprung on me, and despite me waving of hands, shouting "No!", and yelling "I haven't any money on me", they sudsed-up me windscreen, wiped it clean, then wrote "5" in the dirt on my driver's window with their finger.
When I kept shaking my head, she started blowing kisses at me — or at leat that's what I thought. She was putting her fingers to her mouth and pointing at my dashboard ... and it was only as the lights were changing to green that I realised she wanted the cigarettes I'd handily stashed just behind the steering wheel.
I gave her two, then her 'colleague' demanded two as well, and wasn't too pleased when I fumbled the two rollies I'd had ready from the night before out of the window into her hand and sped off.
...
Two things though ... One: I was really annoyed by the whole thing — not because of the cheekiness of it, or because of some "How dare they?" kinda thing. Annoyed because of whatever situation must exist that forces yound women to stand all day at a set of traffic lights and put themselves in the path of traffic, just to hand over (and I'm guessing here, but I figure there must be some kind of turf-war-type gangmaster thing going on) the few quid they raise to someone else. Annoyed because I spent the next few miles feeling decidedly uncharitable, and I'm not uncharitable — had all my change not been inaccesibly stowed in my pocket, and had we not had the impending time-limit of a few seconds before the green light, then I might have been quite happy for them to wash my windscreen. And as long as I knew that they were getting the money, I'd have cheerfully given them a couple of quid.
(Not a fiver though — that's just daft)
Two: This must happen all the time, to hundreds (if not thousands) of people each day. What's the knack? How do you stop them from splashing soapy water all over your car in the first place?
I figure there must be some secret London trick¹ to it — can someone tell me?
¹ It occured to me at one point — yesterday on the South Circular to be exact, when a young man was trying to squeeze a bottle of suds on me — to flip my windscreen wipers on and hope that they'd get in his way. In that instance though, there wasn't many other cars around and I wasn't stressed out in five billion lanes of traffic, so I wound down the window and gave him a pound to not wash the windscreen²
² I get taken advantage of a lot I think. At least my Karma is good.
Aha, but that's where you're wrong. There's a whole economy built around window washing. and James Bond had to sort it out once
Sculpted Prims
Typical. I go away for a couple of days, and the entire world changes.
New York City made a point of eradicating the "squeegee men". They were starting to get a little too obnoxious, and the money was (not just allegedly) ending up in the pockets of drug dealers. So Rudy made it an early triumph, and the cops made it a goal, and now there's no squeegee men.
The trick I found was to say [loudly & aggressively] "Fuck off!", and turn the wipers on. It worked — no one grabbed the wipers, and while I (more than adequately) had the insult returned, I didn't have to continually fork out dollars while waiting at the tunnel(s). At one point I even made to get out of the car.
Yeah, they have to make a buck, but I don't have to fund drug dealers. Besides, when they start without permission, they're really asking for a bit of verbal abuse.
Now, I'm glad when a Gas Station Attendant does wash the windshield... Except when I'm on the bike. 
Carolyn Ann
PS We get out gas pumped, by law, in New Jersey.
I was in a coach on the westway recently, and watched two teenage girls doing that — kind of generic eastern-european-economic-migrant looking.
A bloke cycled up to them, picked one girl off her feet and started screaming in her face whilst knocking her about. The other girl ran through 5 lanes of traffic to get away from him.
I don't think their lives can be that happy.
The windscreen washers is the trick. Wow, being a Londoner gave me the answers for once. £5 is definitely too much though, normally it's more like £2. And I agree, it's a very sad state of affairs that these people are reduced to these measures. Similarly to the people selling roses at the side of the road.
and yet you were the one Ian had to persuade to leave the bar. Will you ever learn?
I hope not