I spent the day getting thoroughly lost in London. I might have known that would be what happened when I got to Paddington Station and realised I didn't have the map I picked up when I exited the aeroplane...
Heather asked me to get her some "Fan di Fendi" perfume while I was away, and oddly they don't sell this stuff in "Fendi" outlets. Or perfume shops. Or airport duty free stores. Or pretty much anywhere (although maybe there are lots of shops in Australia where you can buy it).
Anyway, a mission like this is really just an excuse to spend a 12 hour stopover walking around London. Not having a map just makes it more fun. So after briefly heading in exactly the right direction to be able to buy the perfume (from Harrods - officially the only shop in the UK where it is for sale, though possibly there are unguessable other places that might sell it) I turned myself through 180 degrees and wandered for roughly an hour until asking some woman whether I was going the right way. I was clearly going so much in the wrong direction that she had difficulty expressing it, and pointed me approximately 90 degrees off, possibly in the hope that someone further down the track would supply the necessary second course correction. And she was correct! After wandering down Maida Vale Road, Edgeware Road and then Oxford Street, just when I was thinking I must be getting close, a young man informed me that Harrods was in Knightsbridge. Waving usefully in that direction while politely suggesting "you'll want to catch the tube", which I didn't, of course.
After all, it's lost journeys like this that let you see peaceful things like these canal boats, so as a future landmark to lunatics who want to take on London on foot: if you see these you're quite probably going in the wrong direction.