Anyone who's ever lived in London, or any other big city, will understand when I say at times I succumbed to "London rage".
It's inevitable in a city with 8 million people, with hot, packed Tube trains that regularly break down, with a work hard/play hard lifestyle where sleep is an afterthought, where visiting a friend on the other side of town can end up as a two-hour plus journey. Where supermarket shopping meant lugging your groceries home on public transport - with the plastic bags cutting into your fingers as you struggled up the stairs - before emerging into a dark winter's afternoon.
It's hardly surprising that, as much as I loved the city, there were times of pure exhaustion, exasperation and yes, sometimes, I got my grizzly bear suit on. People standing on the left on escalators, tourists wearing backpacks on a crowded train, strangers (God forbid) talking to you on the Tube, and "chuggers" (street fundraisers or "charity muggers") were most likely to bring out the rage.
So what a relief when I returned to Rotorua. After eight years in London town, Rotorua was a much-needed breath of fresh air. It took a while to take for granted being able to jump in a car and be at the supermarket, a friend's or wherever you needed to go, in five minutes. Where you could wander down the city's busiest street at lunchtime without getting bundled along by shoulder to shoulder suits barking into their cellphones, although some might say a few more handsome men and women in suits on Rotorua's streets wouldn't be a bad thing.
Yet I was surprised to discover that even in laid-back Rotorua I couldn't escape the chuggers, those smiley folk with their jackets and clipboards fundraising on the streets. In the UK, there were scores of them on every high street. They were aggressive and intimidating at worst, plain annoying at best, and there was a lot of public hostility towards them.
