This week: London!

[After leaving the United States only once in the previous twenty-six years (a thirty minute visit to Canada in 1998 entailed no more than the purchase of some prescription drugs and a few back issues of prescription Juggs), our xenophobic correspondent embarked on a month-long 'whirlwind' tour of Europe's seats of power - London, Paris, Denmark - decimating each with irresistible cyclonic winds. Watch this space for his weekly dispatches from ravaged 'Old World' capitals. -Ed.]

Cheerio, Bangers! In Londonese, that means 'hello,' 'goodbye,' and 'that's your pleghm.' Now this might seem like the frightening talk of primitive savages, but Americans can take heart knowing that most of the bastardized pidgin dialect spoken here, descended from our own English, is perfectly comprehensible. Just be careful not to get caught with your 'knickers' in the 'lift bin,' if you get my meaning. If you're going to have a good time in London, you'll first need to familiarize yourself with the local currency. The British eschew our dollar in favor of the 'pound' system. If you see an item in a store that you wish to buy, you must find the shopkeeper and pound him until he can't stop you from taking it. And just because more pounds equals more cash, that doesn't mean that fat people are rich; here the obese are weighed with stones, a shameful mark of destitution. So cash in your blubbery Yank ass at the Embassy, Fatstuff, or I'll pound it for you!

Londoners are too stupid to walk or drive themselves any meaningful distance, so for transit they depend on quaint double-decker buses known as 'tubes.' Thankfully, tube maps are everywhere, and young hipster tourists are especially fond of wearing t-shirts printed with the more popular routes. So whenever you need to get from 'Elephant
and Chips' to 'Caution: Busker,' hop up to the top deck of the next tube and let it whisk you off to your destination while you leisurely admire Britain's famously beautiful females from a discreet vantage.

If you're like me, you're too 'wicked cool' for that lame old tourist crap, but you're not. Naturally you'll want to see Picadilly Circus, the Tower of London, Big Ben, Scotland and Buckingham Palace, from whence Her Royal Highness the Queen rules her magnificent Empire, which these days consists of Ireland, a patch of sand in the Bahamas and most of an old 'Risk' set. Say, if you ask me, the ham isn't the only thing they're bucking. Where's a guy supposed to get a decent pastrami sandwich around here?

Answer: New York. This fact notwithstanding, London actually does not deserve its notorious reputation for serving the world's most odious food. Natives are savvy to exclusive local eateries that produce some of the most indescribably delectable cuisine ever savored. However, due to the persistent rumor begun by the envious Flemish, tourists demand to eat the flavorless gruel which has made London erroneously infamous, if only to confirm their assumptions of culinary superiority. They are dispensed the usual canned fish, coagulated blood and other ludicrously named putrescence with knowing smirks. If you must eat in public, remember to pack the toothpaste! The custom
here is to brush and floss immediately after coffee, for Britons cannot tolerate persons demonstrating lax dental hygiene.

Disappointingly, London's fame belies its standing as modern Europe's most insignificant backwater, so don't budget more than 3 or 4 hoursor you'll start to see the same people and sights again and again. So mardy off, paggas! I'm boffed off for The Hague. See you next week!