True, there is safety in numbers in the busiest areas of central London, where conditions approach what Americans call "pedlock" (while irate bus drivers honk at them, naughty people stream across roads in packs when the little red man is ordering them to wait), but mostly pedestrians work alone, improvising their own survival strategies.

Within a few blocks, the crowds heading down to the Neva waterfront, site of the night's celebration, reached near-pedlock density.

The form letter went on to say that ever since ''gridlock'' had become a popular way of describing a standstill traffic jam, another new form, ''pedlock,'' had come along to describe a pileup, and immobilization, of pedestrians. Here I balked, beginning to breathe a bit heavily.