London bus held up by dancing man riding camel down the street

'If I had a penny for the amount of times a camel has gone down a high street.'

In today’s edition of ‘Only in London, but maybe New York too’, a man was spotted riding a camel in the middle of the road as part of a ‘music video’.

Pictures and videos shared on social media showed two of the desert animals strolling down Newham High Street flanked by a dozen mostly masked people.

Music plays from a speaker held by a member of the dancing entourage while another rides one of the camels. (Cheaper than a taxi, we guess.)

Giving the passengers a pretty reasonable excuse for being late, one of the camels was led in front of a 147 bus to Ilford during the stunt last Friday.

Usually found strolling through the deserts of China and Magnolia, being surrounded by wet and miserable Londoners outside a Lidl may have been a slight culture shock for the camels.

Fortunately for the camels, one was draped in a red blanket and saddle with red, yellow and green reins. The other wore a grey blanket.

One social media user said: ‘There was a pupil at school today telling me about a camel in Newham all day and I genuinely thought I might need to do a referral because nothing they said made sense.

‘Now seen this and recognise it as my local high street… in Newham.’

Another added on X: ‘If I had a penny for the amount of times a camel has gone down a high street in Newham for a music video, I’d have two pennies – which isn’t much, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.’

Monega Primary School also posted: ‘What’s the most unexpected and interesting moment you’ve had in the area around your school?

‘Camels on the high street definitely goes at the top of the list for us!’

This isn’t the first time a camel has been spotted wandering the streets of London.

Drivers slowed to gawk at a woman walking a camel clad in saddle and pink towel down a street in Chingford, east London in December last year.

Hair stylist Asia Brown was in disbelief when she saw the beast passing her window after initially dismissing it as a creation of her daughter’s imagination.

In a video, she said: ‘Listen, this little girl told me there’s a camel outside. I thought she was lying, I actually thought she was capping. What?’

‘Na I’m seeing too much weird stuff today, what is going on?’ she added.

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