A Colonial Ritual February 7, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : New Zealand , trackbackFebruary 6th is New Zealand’s national day, Waitangi Day. It commemorates the signing of the treaty of Waitangi between the British Crown and the combined tribes of Aotearoa / New Zealand, and the founding of our country. The treaty has been more honoured in the breach, though there have been serious attempts to rectify that wrong in the last 20 years or so, and the day remains one of controversy.
For Kiwi’s in London though, there is time-honoured ritual to unite those who are so very far from home. I’d completely forgotten about this until, waiting for a friend at High St Kensington station on Saturday afternoon, I saw, and heard, thousands of Kiwis leaving and coming into the station. The circle line was clogged full of them, as the great annual Circle Line Pub Crawl was underway. This tradition is a simple one, where you go around the circle line, and drink a pint at every station. Mostly harmless, though I’m not sure how many people manage the whole 25 stations. Maybe it’s just as well half of it was closed for engineering works.
All together now “We’re all drunk on the yellow circle line, the yellow circle line, the yellow circle line…”
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