I have always wanted to participate in the great blogging tradition of Friday Cat Blogging, so I was thrilled to find this photo of our dear ex-neighbour Cush, waiting patiently at our living room door in Lysias Road. Until I found Cush's photo, I was constantly on the lookout for the tabby cat on the next door roof terrace but I have only seen it on one occasion, crouched on the very edge of the roof looking out at the rest of the world, so tantalising close and yet completely out of reach...
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Death of a tailor-made trouser
An expensive first day at work. The big J had set iron to linen, but I didn't notice. In less than a second my Vietnamese tailor-made trousers had melted spectacularly. There is now a gaping hole in one leg and a thick layer of black sticky stuff on the iron. Anyone fancy some black tailor-made shorts?
My team at work seem very nice and not above scurrying out of the office at 10 to 5. We went out to lunch at Hamburger Union in Covent Garden in honour of my first day.
In the toilets there are big signs in every cubicle that say: "Please show respect and consideration for others by leaving the toilet clean. There is NO excuse for a dirty bowl." You have been warned. Then there is another grumpy little one on the sanitary bin, but I will have to check the precise wording and get back to you.
My team at work seem very nice and not above scurrying out of the office at 10 to 5. We went out to lunch at Hamburger Union in Covent Garden in honour of my first day.
In the toilets there are big signs in every cubicle that say: "Please show respect and consideration for others by leaving the toilet clean. There is NO excuse for a dirty bowl." You have been warned. Then there is another grumpy little one on the sanitary bin, but I will have to check the precise wording and get back to you.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
In breaking news...
We have a new rug for our living room. Yes, that's right - we DO lead very full and exciting lives.
The photo is poor quality because it was taken on Jules's batphone, which only has a VGA camera.
The photo is poor quality because it was taken on Jules's batphone, which only has a VGA camera.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
The New Arrival
The Nipoori Tandoori arrived today. And there was much excitement.
Jules wanted to know how long the skewers were, so we agreed I would take a picture of one (including Wom as a guide to scale) and email it to him. But then I couldn't find the camera so I just measured the skewer in woms, much to Wom's consternation. You can see his point - why would we need to know how many Woms could fit on a skewer? But I digress - a skewer is approximately 3 Woms, or the length of my arm.
We assembled it when we got back from our separate missions to find charcoal, tools and meat. Around 9pm we were eating our first tandoori barbeque. The chicken was wonderfully moist but sadly let down by the three chilli barbeque sauce I grabbed at Somerfield. Next time we'll try a proper tandoori marinade.
Finished HP6 last night but have noone to talk to about it. Poot.
Jules wanted to know how long the skewers were, so we agreed I would take a picture of one (including Wom as a guide to scale) and email it to him. But then I couldn't find the camera so I just measured the skewer in woms, much to Wom's consternation. You can see his point - why would we need to know how many Woms could fit on a skewer? But I digress - a skewer is approximately 3 Woms, or the length of my arm.
We assembled it when we got back from our separate missions to find charcoal, tools and meat. Around 9pm we were eating our first tandoori barbeque. The chicken was wonderfully moist but sadly let down by the three chilli barbeque sauce I grabbed at Somerfield. Next time we'll try a proper tandoori marinade.
Finished HP6 last night but have noone to talk to about it. Poot.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Harry Potter and other controlled medications
I lasted all of 3 days before succumbing to the new Harry Potter. I decided to support my local independent bookshop, West End Lane Books, even though it was a couple of pounds cheaper at the big chains. Having a proper bookshop in West Hampstead is a good thing, after all.
However, they didn't exactly make it easy for me - all their copies were behind the counter in a special display case so you had to make a special point of asking for one. For some reason (maybe it was the other customer at the counter, who was talking loudly about his desire to burn all the copies) I felt all flustered, like a teenager trying to buy condoms from a drugstore in the 1950s. And then the man in the shop put it in a special edition bag with "HARRY POTTER" emblazoned on the side in big letters, so there was no point pretending it was something terribly literary instead. But I'm enjoying it so far - it already seems better than No. 5.
I have now accepted the government job, to start next Tuesday. I was offered a second interview at Cancer Research, but it wasn't going to be until the day after I was due to start the govt job and you had to prepare a presentation with visual aids and present it as part of the interview. It all seemed like too much hassle (when I could be reclining in the sunlounger with HP) so I said no. The agent thought it would be perfectly reasonable to start a job one day and take time off for an interview the next but I disagreed!
We had a nice weekend - went for a 40-minute run on Saturday morning down to the Paddington Recreation Ground and then went into town to the World's Most Photographed exhibition. The world's most photographed people are (apparently): Queen Victoria, Adolf Hitler, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Mahatma Gandhi, Greta Garbo, James Dean, Elvis Presley and Muhammad Ali. Mind you, that's not necessarily true in terms of sheer number of images - the subjects of the exhibition were chosen partly because they used their own image to achieve particular ends. Anyway, it was well worth seeing - lots of stylish black and white photos and good stories to go with them.
On Sunday I went to Homebase and bought two tomato plants and some tubs and canes for them - they are now thriving on the roof terrace. Apparently they are heavy croppers with bitesize, flavoursome fruit so that should be good. Donald came around late afternoon and we sat outside for a bit and then went to the Czech pub. Definitely an authentic experience - the decor in the dining room was ugly and old-fashioned in an ornate sort of way - bits of gold lacquer and red velvet and a lurid patterned carpet. Also, everyone except us spoke Czech. I had a potato pancake with streaky pork as a starter - and I could just feel my arteries constricting as I looked at it. As that was only 2.50 (and supposedly a starter) I had already ordered roast wild boar in a creamy sauce with onion rings, another deeply healthy dish. Both were delish, but one or the other would have been ample.
After all that effort on Friday, Data Connection found me unsuitable in some undefined way. How rude - I thought my solution to Archimedes' and Pythagoras's stone tablet problem was ingenious!
However, they didn't exactly make it easy for me - all their copies were behind the counter in a special display case so you had to make a special point of asking for one. For some reason (maybe it was the other customer at the counter, who was talking loudly about his desire to burn all the copies) I felt all flustered, like a teenager trying to buy condoms from a drugstore in the 1950s. And then the man in the shop put it in a special edition bag with "HARRY POTTER" emblazoned on the side in big letters, so there was no point pretending it was something terribly literary instead. But I'm enjoying it so far - it already seems better than No. 5.
I have now accepted the government job, to start next Tuesday. I was offered a second interview at Cancer Research, but it wasn't going to be until the day after I was due to start the govt job and you had to prepare a presentation with visual aids and present it as part of the interview. It all seemed like too much hassle (when I could be reclining in the sunlounger with HP) so I said no. The agent thought it would be perfectly reasonable to start a job one day and take time off for an interview the next but I disagreed!
We had a nice weekend - went for a 40-minute run on Saturday morning down to the Paddington Recreation Ground and then went into town to the World's Most Photographed exhibition. The world's most photographed people are (apparently): Queen Victoria, Adolf Hitler, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Mahatma Gandhi, Greta Garbo, James Dean, Elvis Presley and Muhammad Ali. Mind you, that's not necessarily true in terms of sheer number of images - the subjects of the exhibition were chosen partly because they used their own image to achieve particular ends. Anyway, it was well worth seeing - lots of stylish black and white photos and good stories to go with them.
On Sunday I went to Homebase and bought two tomato plants and some tubs and canes for them - they are now thriving on the roof terrace. Apparently they are heavy croppers with bitesize, flavoursome fruit so that should be good. Donald came around late afternoon and we sat outside for a bit and then went to the Czech pub. Definitely an authentic experience - the decor in the dining room was ugly and old-fashioned in an ornate sort of way - bits of gold lacquer and red velvet and a lurid patterned carpet. Also, everyone except us spoke Czech. I had a potato pancake with streaky pork as a starter - and I could just feel my arteries constricting as I looked at it. As that was only 2.50 (and supposedly a starter) I had already ordered roast wild boar in a creamy sauce with onion rings, another deeply healthy dish. Both were delish, but one or the other would have been ample.
After all that effort on Friday, Data Connection found me unsuitable in some undefined way. How rude - I thought my solution to Archimedes' and Pythagoras's stone tablet problem was ingenious!
Friday, July 15, 2005
Post-interrogation exhaustion
After the utterly draining day I've had, I feel it is only fair that I should be offered a post as Head of MI5. The tests at DataConnection would certainly not have been out of place in a Secret Service recruitment operation - all 3.5 hours' worth of them.
However, as a reward for all this effort, I have at least been offered a 3-month contract (with the possibility of extension) at the aforementioned government department. Oh, the glamour of it all! Still, the people I met there seemed very nice, especially the editor who is a rather scruffy bloke with a definite sense of humour. (I was going to put the name of the department there but then thought it is probably best not to underestimate the power of Google: what if he searched for the department name and 'editor' and this post came up? I know it's unlikely, but you never know.)
Yesterday's interview (2 hours 15) at Cancer Research went OK, although I suspect I may not have enough content strategy experience for them. Anyway, as it is through the same agency as the other govt job, the agency is trying to wangle a deal whereby I can attend the second interview if I get offered one without jeopardising the other job. Not sure how that will work but I'll leave that up to them.
When I came out of Cancer Research it was 11.55 am. People were already milling about in Lincoln's Inn Fields waiting for the two minutes' silence in memory of the bombing victims but I thought I would rather not recognise it right outside Cancer Research so I walked through to Kingsway, which was also full of people.
I expected that there would be little clusters of people gathered in silence but I never expected that everything would stop. When the bells rang at 12, buses and taxis stopped dead in the middle of the road and turned their engines off. There was no traffic noise and noone spoke or even took a step. You could hear birds in the trees. The experience was eerie and moving in a way the usual ANZAC-day-at-school silence just isn't, with everyone shuffling and fidgeting. And then a loudspeaker on the buses announced "The time is 12.02" and the city roared back to life.
Tomorrow we are hoping to go to the 'World's Most Photographed' exhibition at the National Gallery.
However, as a reward for all this effort, I have at least been offered a 3-month contract (with the possibility of extension) at the aforementioned government department. Oh, the glamour of it all! Still, the people I met there seemed very nice, especially the editor who is a rather scruffy bloke with a definite sense of humour. (I was going to put the name of the department there but then thought it is probably best not to underestimate the power of Google: what if he searched for the department name and 'editor' and this post came up? I know it's unlikely, but you never know.)
Yesterday's interview (2 hours 15) at Cancer Research went OK, although I suspect I may not have enough content strategy experience for them. Anyway, as it is through the same agency as the other govt job, the agency is trying to wangle a deal whereby I can attend the second interview if I get offered one without jeopardising the other job. Not sure how that will work but I'll leave that up to them.
When I came out of Cancer Research it was 11.55 am. People were already milling about in Lincoln's Inn Fields waiting for the two minutes' silence in memory of the bombing victims but I thought I would rather not recognise it right outside Cancer Research so I walked through to Kingsway, which was also full of people.
I expected that there would be little clusters of people gathered in silence but I never expected that everything would stop. When the bells rang at 12, buses and taxis stopped dead in the middle of the road and turned their engines off. There was no traffic noise and noone spoke or even took a step. You could hear birds in the trees. The experience was eerie and moving in a way the usual ANZAC-day-at-school silence just isn't, with everyone shuffling and fidgeting. And then a loudspeaker on the buses announced "The time is 12.02" and the city roared back to life.
Tomorrow we are hoping to go to the 'World's Most Photographed' exhibition at the National Gallery.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Never rains but it pours
All of a sudden, there is a flood of job interviews, coinciding with another bout of very hot weather, which is totally unsuitable for wearing a jacket.
Do I want to be:
a) Web Editorial Manager for Cancer Research UK, based in Lincoln's Inn Fields and managing 3 web editors;
b) a Marketing Services Copywriter for Thomson Scientific at Holborn;
c) a Technical Writer for Dataconnection at Enfield;
d) a Web Writer for the Department of Work & Pensions (3 months). Yes, the afternoon I spent writing about the Blue Badge parking scheme and other riveting matters has resulted in an interview; or
e) none of the above?
A & C are indisputably the best jobs but both are a bit of a long shot. The interview for C is four hours long and involves a series of tests. One of them is called 'Tablets of Stone', but Louise, the very nice agent, said: 'Don 't worry - it doesn't involve heavy lifting.'
Me: 'Oh, so it's just an obstacle course then.'
Louise: 'Yes, and then you have to eat a bucket of worms.'
Me: 'Before catching your own pig and roasting it on a spit.'
Louise: 'Now, now, Rachel, you're getting ahead of yourself here - that's the second interview.'
So that is Friday morning (9.30-1.30) and then I have to charge down to Embankment for DWP at 3.30. Thursday is Cancer Research (2 hours 15) and the Thomson crowd are next week.Wish me luck.
In other news, we are booked to fly to Napoli and stay in Sorrento for the bank holiday. And it was of course Stephen Fry who I spotted in West End Lane.
I'm 11,901 words into rewriting the book - only another 82,000 or so to go...
Do I want to be:
a) Web Editorial Manager for Cancer Research UK, based in Lincoln's Inn Fields and managing 3 web editors;
b) a Marketing Services Copywriter for Thomson Scientific at Holborn;
c) a Technical Writer for Dataconnection at Enfield;
d) a Web Writer for the Department of Work & Pensions (3 months). Yes, the afternoon I spent writing about the Blue Badge parking scheme and other riveting matters has resulted in an interview; or
e) none of the above?
A & C are indisputably the best jobs but both are a bit of a long shot. The interview for C is four hours long and involves a series of tests. One of them is called 'Tablets of Stone', but Louise, the very nice agent, said: 'Don 't worry - it doesn't involve heavy lifting.'
Me: 'Oh, so it's just an obstacle course then.'
Louise: 'Yes, and then you have to eat a bucket of worms.'
Me: 'Before catching your own pig and roasting it on a spit.'
Louise: 'Now, now, Rachel, you're getting ahead of yourself here - that's the second interview.'
So that is Friday morning (9.30-1.30) and then I have to charge down to Embankment for DWP at 3.30. Thursday is Cancer Research (2 hours 15) and the Thomson crowd are next week.Wish me luck.
In other news, we are booked to fly to Napoli and stay in Sorrento for the bank holiday. And it was of course Stephen Fry who I spotted in West End Lane.
I'm 11,901 words into rewriting the book - only another 82,000 or so to go...
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Celebrity spotting in West End Lane
Guess who I ran past this morning as he strolled down West End Lane in a rather spiffy lemon jacket and large brown sunglasses?
Friday, July 08, 2005
Philanthropic Porsche drivers and the great bank holiday dilemma
A bright spot amid the gloom of yesterday - walking through the city, Jules passed a Porsche Carrera carrying probably its first ever backseat passenger, an average-sized woman with her knees around her ears. Nice to know that the city traders were doing their bit to help get stranded people home.
Jules got home a bit after 8, having left work at 4.30. Credit Suisse put on buses, but the traffic was gridlocked, so after an hour or so he got off the bus and walked to the nearest DLR station and caught the DLR then the North London line to West Hampstead.
And then, to round off the evening nicely, we discovered that the oven had blown up. No power to it whatsoever. So the steamed pudding was off the menu and I had to go round the corner to Spicy Basil for a green chicken curry.
The electricians came this evening to fix it. Like the landlord, the builders and the furniture deliverers, they are Polish. You see adverts up in corner shops "Wanted: Polish Builder/Cleaner/Plumber". Is this just patriotism - Polish people wanting to support Polish tradespeople - or have we stumbled into a Polish mafia underworld? Maybe we have watched too many episodes of the Sopranos - just the other day Jules was saying it was a shame we didn't have an Uncle Tony to go and lean on the letting agents for us!
Starting to think about the August Bank Holiday mini break. Current thoughts are Naples (to visit Pompeii and Mt Vesuvius but stay in Sorrento as Naples is apparently not very nice), or Budapest or Reykjavik. Any thoughts on the above would be welcome.
I ordered some brochures on Iceland, Greenland etc - one called Midnight Sun and one called something like Winter Wonderland or, as Annie said, No Sun At All. They are fantastic and have great photos, e.g. one of a man in a woolly hat lying on a rock talking to an arctic fox. Since then I have been fantasising about an Icelandic holiday - possibly in winter to see the Northern Lights. You can stay in any number of ice hotels in Northern Scandinavia and go for sled rides complete with huskies. Jules has not shown a great deal of interest in the brochures, saying snappily: 'Yes, I've got the message: Iceland good, Lapland even better!'
For anyone interested in an Icelandic oddyssey, the brochures can be viewed at www.discover-the-world.co.uk. Unfortunately they don't send them out of the EU and I can't give mine up.
Getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to go to the Old Black Lion for the game. Go blacks go!
Jules got home a bit after 8, having left work at 4.30. Credit Suisse put on buses, but the traffic was gridlocked, so after an hour or so he got off the bus and walked to the nearest DLR station and caught the DLR then the North London line to West Hampstead.
And then, to round off the evening nicely, we discovered that the oven had blown up. No power to it whatsoever. So the steamed pudding was off the menu and I had to go round the corner to Spicy Basil for a green chicken curry.
The electricians came this evening to fix it. Like the landlord, the builders and the furniture deliverers, they are Polish. You see adverts up in corner shops "Wanted: Polish Builder/Cleaner/Plumber". Is this just patriotism - Polish people wanting to support Polish tradespeople - or have we stumbled into a Polish mafia underworld? Maybe we have watched too many episodes of the Sopranos - just the other day Jules was saying it was a shame we didn't have an Uncle Tony to go and lean on the letting agents for us!
Starting to think about the August Bank Holiday mini break. Current thoughts are Naples (to visit Pompeii and Mt Vesuvius but stay in Sorrento as Naples is apparently not very nice), or Budapest or Reykjavik. Any thoughts on the above would be welcome.
I ordered some brochures on Iceland, Greenland etc - one called Midnight Sun and one called something like Winter Wonderland or, as Annie said, No Sun At All. They are fantastic and have great photos, e.g. one of a man in a woolly hat lying on a rock talking to an arctic fox. Since then I have been fantasising about an Icelandic holiday - possibly in winter to see the Northern Lights. You can stay in any number of ice hotels in Northern Scandinavia and go for sled rides complete with huskies. Jules has not shown a great deal of interest in the brochures, saying snappily: 'Yes, I've got the message: Iceland good, Lapland even better!'
For anyone interested in an Icelandic oddyssey, the brochures can be viewed at www.discover-the-world.co.uk. Unfortunately they don't send them out of the EU and I can't give mine up.
Getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to go to the Old Black Lion for the game. Go blacks go!
Thursday, July 07, 2005
What to say?
Trying hard not to think about the fact that this morning while I was running around West Hampstead, lost and sure I would never get home, other people were being blown up and really never will get home.
The tube is suspended until tomorrow. Jules's work is putting on a bus to Paddington and he will just have to walk the 3 miles from there. I'm going out now to get him a pudding.
And then we shall eat it and be thankful for our continued existence.
The tube is suspended until tomorrow. Jules's work is putting on a bus to Paddington and he will just have to walk the 3 miles from there. I'm going out now to get him a pudding.
And then we shall eat it and be thankful for our continued existence.
Monday, July 04, 2005
The gas man cometh (not)
Turns out Jules and I are both thinking fondly of home. Maybe it has something to do with the fun-filled Weekend of the Tradesman we've just lived through.
On Wednesday, after a 4-hour wait to get the keys from the letting agents (they thought the landlord had the keys, he thought they had them - it turned out they were in the door of the flat!) we went to look at our new abode, noted the lack of a queensize bed, a couch and a decent chest of drawers and then decided we were too tired to move in that day. So we went back to Kirst's and rang up about the phone, electricity and gas. The electricity and gas were both on pre-pay meters so they agreed to send a card for the gas meter and booked a slot for an engineer to come and change it for a conventional meter. (The electricity meter was already booked to be changed today.)
So Thursday we moved in and bought a pile of essentials at Argos. Noticed the gas meter was saying it had a credit of 5 pounds but couldn't get the boiler to go. So no showers on Friday morning - at least, Jules leapt in and yelped a bit although I couldn't face it - but then, hurrah! the gas card arrived. Stuck it in the meter...no result. Rang the letting agents (who were all apologetic) and the gas company, who promised to send an engineer within the next four hours. So we waited at home from 3 pm till 8 pm... no engineer. Rang the gas company again and they said "Oh, they're very busy in that area today but they're definitely coming tonight." At 9.30 I sent Jules out to forage for food (which is not difficult with Kilburn High Road just there) but there was no sign of the gas man by 11.30 so we gave up and went to bed. Rang them again the next day and they had no record of the call-out but "re-raised" it so there we were, stuck in the house on Saturday as well.
Eventually, the gas man arrived at the same time as the Telewest guy who was setting up the broadband and phone-line. Naturally, the gas meter was in the same cupboard as the cable points!
Anyway, the gas man stuck a special card in the meter and five seconds later there was a wooshing noise and we had gas! He said he'd done six jobs like that already that day - apparently the meter switches off if you don't use it for a while.
Damn, that first hot shower was good!
The Telewest guy discovered that the builders hadn't actually done the phone cabling at all - they'd obviously run out of time and just stuck the plastic box on the wall with a loose loop of phone cable in behind it, not attached to anything. So he was here for a while!
We went to Gourmet Burger Kitchen on Saturday night as we'd wanted to go the night before when we couldn't cook but then we were stuck at home waiting for the gas man. Very nice it was too, even better than Burger Wisconsin if that's not hugely disloyal to like the knock-off better than the original.
This morning, Jules went off to work with a brand-new goatee. I can just imagine the HR person's reaction: He's even hairier than he was at the interview!
I waited at home for the electricity man, who did come, then took one look at the meter, sucked in his breath and said: "This has been tampered with." No kidding - it was hanging loose, attached to the wall by only one cable! Still he managed to fix it which left me waiting for the couch - another no-show.
Interestingly, around lunchtime I was sure I heard a horse clopping down the street, so I went to the front window and yes, one large brown horse complete with policewoman. Sometimes England is just so cool.
On Wednesday, after a 4-hour wait to get the keys from the letting agents (they thought the landlord had the keys, he thought they had them - it turned out they were in the door of the flat!) we went to look at our new abode, noted the lack of a queensize bed, a couch and a decent chest of drawers and then decided we were too tired to move in that day. So we went back to Kirst's and rang up about the phone, electricity and gas. The electricity and gas were both on pre-pay meters so they agreed to send a card for the gas meter and booked a slot for an engineer to come and change it for a conventional meter. (The electricity meter was already booked to be changed today.)
So Thursday we moved in and bought a pile of essentials at Argos. Noticed the gas meter was saying it had a credit of 5 pounds but couldn't get the boiler to go. So no showers on Friday morning - at least, Jules leapt in and yelped a bit although I couldn't face it - but then, hurrah! the gas card arrived. Stuck it in the meter...no result. Rang the letting agents (who were all apologetic) and the gas company, who promised to send an engineer within the next four hours. So we waited at home from 3 pm till 8 pm... no engineer. Rang the gas company again and they said "Oh, they're very busy in that area today but they're definitely coming tonight." At 9.30 I sent Jules out to forage for food (which is not difficult with Kilburn High Road just there) but there was no sign of the gas man by 11.30 so we gave up and went to bed. Rang them again the next day and they had no record of the call-out but "re-raised" it so there we were, stuck in the house on Saturday as well.
Eventually, the gas man arrived at the same time as the Telewest guy who was setting up the broadband and phone-line. Naturally, the gas meter was in the same cupboard as the cable points!
Anyway, the gas man stuck a special card in the meter and five seconds later there was a wooshing noise and we had gas! He said he'd done six jobs like that already that day - apparently the meter switches off if you don't use it for a while.
Damn, that first hot shower was good!
The Telewest guy discovered that the builders hadn't actually done the phone cabling at all - they'd obviously run out of time and just stuck the plastic box on the wall with a loose loop of phone cable in behind it, not attached to anything. So he was here for a while!
We went to Gourmet Burger Kitchen on Saturday night as we'd wanted to go the night before when we couldn't cook but then we were stuck at home waiting for the gas man. Very nice it was too, even better than Burger Wisconsin if that's not hugely disloyal to like the knock-off better than the original.
This morning, Jules went off to work with a brand-new goatee. I can just imagine the HR person's reaction: He's even hairier than he was at the interview!
I waited at home for the electricity man, who did come, then took one look at the meter, sucked in his breath and said: "This has been tampered with." No kidding - it was hanging loose, attached to the wall by only one cable! Still he managed to fix it which left me waiting for the couch - another no-show.
Interestingly, around lunchtime I was sure I heard a horse clopping down the street, so I went to the front window and yes, one large brown horse complete with policewoman. Sometimes England is just so cool.
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Cyber-terrorism starts at home
Wireless is a funny thing, isn't it? We have the broadband supplier coming round on Saturday to sort out our Internet, phone and TV (not that we have one yet!) package but tonight I just randomly clicked "Refresh network list" out of curiosity, and discovered that if you sit on the coffee table, you can connect to one of our neighbours' wireless networks, which they foollishly haven't secured. So I figure as long as I'm not accessing my bank accounts (or theirs!) it's not costing either of us anything. Makes you wonder why anyone ever pays for their own Internet when every flat we've stayed in here has had free stuff being broadcast by the neighbours.
Anyway, so we're moved in and we have furniture, apart from the couch (no sign of that yet).
In other news, apparently I have been shortlisted for a 3-month job at the Department of Work and Pensions, which entitles me to the privilege of writing 600 words on the key issues facing disabled people in London by next Friday. As Jules said, "Live on the Jubilee line, or don't go out." (The new part of the Jubilee Line has disabled access to all stations, which is pretty much unique in London.
Anyway, so we're moved in and we have furniture, apart from the couch (no sign of that yet).
In other news, apparently I have been shortlisted for a 3-month job at the Department of Work and Pensions, which entitles me to the privilege of writing 600 words on the key issues facing disabled people in London by next Friday. As Jules said, "Live on the Jubilee line, or don't go out." (The new part of the Jubilee Line has disabled access to all stations, which is pretty much unique in London.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Observations on West Hampstead
According to the web and the company at brunch, our new neighbours include:
1. Stephen Fry, and
2. Chain-smoking middle-aged women who refer to the All Blacks as "bahstahds". (The UK is in a state of collective outrage over the result of yesterday's test match or more specifically the first two minutes.)
The Indian restaurant that is 0.02 miles from our house (i.e. on the corner) has an "Outstanding Achievement" award in its window :-)
From West Hampstead Thameslink station you can get trains to East London, Luton Airport, Kings Cross, the city, Elephant & Castle, Richmond and Kew.
Kilburn High Road is just not all that nice, when it comes down to it.
1. Stephen Fry, and
2. Chain-smoking middle-aged women who refer to the All Blacks as "bahstahds". (The UK is in a state of collective outrage over the result of yesterday's test match or more specifically the first two minutes.)
The Indian restaurant that is 0.02 miles from our house (i.e. on the corner) has an "Outstanding Achievement" award in its window :-)
From West Hampstead Thameslink station you can get trains to East London, Luton Airport, Kings Cross, the city, Elephant & Castle, Richmond and Kew.
Kilburn High Road is just not all that nice, when it comes down to it.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Just to prove we did get on to Centre Court...
Here is the rear view of Philippoussis at the Stella Artois.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
A home! A home! (ahem - I mean a bijou residence with roof terrace)
Hurrah! The flat hunt is at an end. But before I begin, can I just point anyone who has been complaining about infrequency of updates to the comments feature? We're easily disheartened by silence at the other end.
We are the proud tenants of a top floor flat in Gascony Avenue, West Hampstead. Well, West Hampstead is the closest tube station but the flat is almost in Kilburn really. My theory is that you can always tell when a London suburb is a bit desirable by the way it stretches across half the city. Hence you have Clapham North, Common, Old Town, South and Junction and you see flats overlooking Tooting Common advertised as Clapham South when actually they're on the other side of Balham. Likewise you have Hampstead Heath, Hampstead Village, Hampstead Garden Suburb, South Hampstead and West Hampstead. But as I said to Jules, we'd need to be training for a half-marathon before we'd be running around the heath - you'd have to run up an entire page of the A to Z to get there.
What happened was that I rang an agent about a flat in Maida Vale and he said that it was already let but he had two others similar and one in West Hampstead. So I went to have a look, thinking it's always good to be driven around by the agent.
I met Jules at Maida Vale tube at 2 and we went to see a 1-bedroom garden flat in Maida Vale for 260 a week, which was OK but turned out to be a basement flat and the garden was very small. Then we walked across to St Johns Wood and caught the tube to West Hampstead to meet the agent.
The Gascony Avenue place was a whole house that had just been entirely redecorated inside, new kitchens, bathrooms, carpet, etc. Our new residence is the top two floors. You walk in on the first floor, go up some stairs and then there's a living room, bathroom, kitchen and the smaller double bedroom plus the door to the roof terrace, which has new decking. It's probably only about 8 or 9 feet wide but quite long, easily big enough for a table and chairs and a bbq. Then you go up more stairs and the whole top floor is the master bedroom. It's all very nice and light - white walls, beige carpet in the hallways and stairs and the rooms themselves have that pale laminate flooring that looks like floorboards but isn't. Anyway it was advertised at 300 a week but we offered them 280 and they accepted so that is good. Now we are in negotiations about furnishings - basically you have to ask for what you want so we have submitted a long list - we'll see how we get on. The only thing is that they don't provide kitchen stuff but that seems to be standard these days from what we have heard.
The shower fitting in the bathroom is a bit weird and multi-directional. Jules turned on the tap over the bath and soaked the three of us - luckily it was a hot day and the agent was a fairly laid-back aussie bloke who didn't seem to mind getting drenched if it meant he met his sales targets for the week!
We move in on Monday - at least that's the theory, I'll be impressed if they get all the furniture in and put up the curtain rails and curtains by then.
And in breaking news, Jules has just been offered the job at Credit Suisse to start on 4 July. I think it is a 6-month contract. Which is exactly what would happen once you have chosen a flat for proximity to British Land! Still at least all he has to do is get on the Jubilee Line and stay on. And fourteen stops later, there he will be!
We are the proud tenants of a top floor flat in Gascony Avenue, West Hampstead. Well, West Hampstead is the closest tube station but the flat is almost in Kilburn really. My theory is that you can always tell when a London suburb is a bit desirable by the way it stretches across half the city. Hence you have Clapham North, Common, Old Town, South and Junction and you see flats overlooking Tooting Common advertised as Clapham South when actually they're on the other side of Balham. Likewise you have Hampstead Heath, Hampstead Village, Hampstead Garden Suburb, South Hampstead and West Hampstead. But as I said to Jules, we'd need to be training for a half-marathon before we'd be running around the heath - you'd have to run up an entire page of the A to Z to get there.
What happened was that I rang an agent about a flat in Maida Vale and he said that it was already let but he had two others similar and one in West Hampstead. So I went to have a look, thinking it's always good to be driven around by the agent.
I met Jules at Maida Vale tube at 2 and we went to see a 1-bedroom garden flat in Maida Vale for 260 a week, which was OK but turned out to be a basement flat and the garden was very small. Then we walked across to St Johns Wood and caught the tube to West Hampstead to meet the agent.
The Gascony Avenue place was a whole house that had just been entirely redecorated inside, new kitchens, bathrooms, carpet, etc. Our new residence is the top two floors. You walk in on the first floor, go up some stairs and then there's a living room, bathroom, kitchen and the smaller double bedroom plus the door to the roof terrace, which has new decking. It's probably only about 8 or 9 feet wide but quite long, easily big enough for a table and chairs and a bbq. Then you go up more stairs and the whole top floor is the master bedroom. It's all very nice and light - white walls, beige carpet in the hallways and stairs and the rooms themselves have that pale laminate flooring that looks like floorboards but isn't. Anyway it was advertised at 300 a week but we offered them 280 and they accepted so that is good. Now we are in negotiations about furnishings - basically you have to ask for what you want so we have submitted a long list - we'll see how we get on. The only thing is that they don't provide kitchen stuff but that seems to be standard these days from what we have heard.
The shower fitting in the bathroom is a bit weird and multi-directional. Jules turned on the tap over the bath and soaked the three of us - luckily it was a hot day and the agent was a fairly laid-back aussie bloke who didn't seem to mind getting drenched if it meant he met his sales targets for the week!
We move in on Monday - at least that's the theory, I'll be impressed if they get all the furniture in and put up the curtain rails and curtains by then.
And in breaking news, Jules has just been offered the job at Credit Suisse to start on 4 July. I think it is a 6-month contract. Which is exactly what would happen once you have chosen a flat for proximity to British Land! Still at least all he has to do is get on the Jubilee Line and stay on. And fourteen stops later, there he will be!
Monday, June 20, 2005
Homeless in a heatwave
It was 33 degrees here yesterday, the kind of weather that has London's elderly residents dropping like flies. (If only they could be persuaded to go out without their overcoats, so many lives could be spared...)
We got a day travel pass and went exploring to see if we could find somewhere other than Clapham where we'd like to live. First stop was Ladbroke Grove, on the basis that it's close to Paddington and Baker St, if Jules gets the job at British Land (which he is having a second interview for tomorrow). But we didn't take to it - it was like a concrete jungle, treeless and without charm. So we walked up the canal to Warwick Avenue (much nicer, but possibly out of our price range) and got the tube to Maida Vale. Now, Maida Vale I liked - lovely old red-brick houses and quiet tree-lined streets and there's a proper park to include in your run, the Paddington Recreation Ground, complete with tennis courts. After a brief rehydration (aka icecream) stop, we continued down to London Bridge and wandered around Shad Thames and further back towards Bermondsey. Some potential there, but pricey. And finally, Canary Wharf, where we sat outside at a pub alongside the canal and had dinner - all very pleasant.
It was too hot to sleep much in the boxroom last night. The boxroom is just bigger than the airbed - you have to squeeze around the edge of the door to get in.
Jules had an interview with Credit Suisse at Canary Wharf this morning (hence the visit to Docklands yesterday). Not a riproaring success by the sound of things - he had forgotten to turn off his mobile and it rang about 2 minutes into the interview - not the best start! But the British Land one looks quite promising - there are 3 positions and 3 people being interviewed for the second time.
I had an interview with an IT consultancy in the West End on Friday. An agent found my CV on one of the jobsites and rang me about the job, which was essentially a Bid Writer or Proposal Writer job (although the agent made it sound much more varied and interesting than that). Anyway, I went along but it sounded boring AND stressful (not a good combo) and I don't think they were convinced I was committed to a career in an IT consultancy (strangely enough). So they are thinking about it and wondering whether to risk a trial contract for no money at all (all right, I may be exaggerating) and I am hoping they decide not to.
Meanwhile, this week I have been put forward to Visa and Google, which would both be excellent being large and international and having good holidays and benefits. The job interview process at Google is a bit like joining the secret service - you get interviewed by a total of 8 people, on 3 separate occasions. Then they have to send off to the US for approval to hire you. I was gutted to discover that Google wouldn't consider me for a "creative maximiser" role (don't ask because I don't know) because my degree was not from one of the UK's top five universities. So I looked up Otago online to see where it ranked worldwide but unfortunately it is between 200 and 300 so not particularly stellar. Hmf.
Ah well, time to trot off to the bottle store as it is just the sort of evening on which a pink pinot grigio would go down a treat with the tennis.
We got a day travel pass and went exploring to see if we could find somewhere other than Clapham where we'd like to live. First stop was Ladbroke Grove, on the basis that it's close to Paddington and Baker St, if Jules gets the job at British Land (which he is having a second interview for tomorrow). But we didn't take to it - it was like a concrete jungle, treeless and without charm. So we walked up the canal to Warwick Avenue (much nicer, but possibly out of our price range) and got the tube to Maida Vale. Now, Maida Vale I liked - lovely old red-brick houses and quiet tree-lined streets and there's a proper park to include in your run, the Paddington Recreation Ground, complete with tennis courts. After a brief rehydration (aka icecream) stop, we continued down to London Bridge and wandered around Shad Thames and further back towards Bermondsey. Some potential there, but pricey. And finally, Canary Wharf, where we sat outside at a pub alongside the canal and had dinner - all very pleasant.
It was too hot to sleep much in the boxroom last night. The boxroom is just bigger than the airbed - you have to squeeze around the edge of the door to get in.
Jules had an interview with Credit Suisse at Canary Wharf this morning (hence the visit to Docklands yesterday). Not a riproaring success by the sound of things - he had forgotten to turn off his mobile and it rang about 2 minutes into the interview - not the best start! But the British Land one looks quite promising - there are 3 positions and 3 people being interviewed for the second time.
I had an interview with an IT consultancy in the West End on Friday. An agent found my CV on one of the jobsites and rang me about the job, which was essentially a Bid Writer or Proposal Writer job (although the agent made it sound much more varied and interesting than that). Anyway, I went along but it sounded boring AND stressful (not a good combo) and I don't think they were convinced I was committed to a career in an IT consultancy (strangely enough). So they are thinking about it and wondering whether to risk a trial contract for no money at all (all right, I may be exaggerating) and I am hoping they decide not to.
Meanwhile, this week I have been put forward to Visa and Google, which would both be excellent being large and international and having good holidays and benefits. The job interview process at Google is a bit like joining the secret service - you get interviewed by a total of 8 people, on 3 separate occasions. Then they have to send off to the US for approval to hire you. I was gutted to discover that Google wouldn't consider me for a "creative maximiser" role (don't ask because I don't know) because my degree was not from one of the UK's top five universities. So I looked up Otago online to see where it ranked worldwide but unfortunately it is between 200 and 300 so not particularly stellar. Hmf.
Ah well, time to trot off to the bottle store as it is just the sort of evening on which a pink pinot grigio would go down a treat with the tennis.
Friday, June 10, 2005
Pong…pong - how the unemployed spend their days
Five gruelling days of jobhunting later, Jules has a telephone interview on Thursday for an actual job (albeit a permanent one) and I have two interviews lined up with agencies. And somehow we dragged ourselves away from the phone and internet connection to go to the tennis at Queen’s Club on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon so it hasn’t been all gloom and doom.
The tennis at Queen’s was a great experience – we only had to queue for about half an hour and we got to see some great matches. On Wednesday we got charity returns (i.e. 5-quid resold tickets) for Centre Court and watched Lleyton Hewitt and Mark Phillipoussis lose at speed to Bjorkman and Mrinyi. Since then we have been watching on TV and even Wom is getting quite into it.
We have been to see two flats. The first was through an agency, in a mews complex. It was a nice modern two bedroom flat which would have been fine, except that it was (gulp) 300 pounds a week and because we don’t have jobs the agency would require 6 months rent in advance. Which, in case you were wondering, is about 9000 pounds once you include 6 weeks bond! So we thought we wouldn’t do that, on reflection.
The second one was a raised ground floor flat on Grafton Square, which as the owner said repeatedly, is the street in Clapham. It was a very small one-bedroom flat for 265 per week. The kitchen and bathroom and bedroom were all fine but the living room was small and somewhat grotty – ancient grubby carpet and only one non-fold-out couch. However, it did have an amazing garden. You went down some steps from the kitchen onto a decent-sized lawn, a paved area with six-seater outdoor table, and behind that a moat with goldfish, a little bridge and a fountain at one end, then behind that a raised brick area with two sunloungers. There was also a beautiful resident cat – the people who own the flat own the whole house and have recently moved out of the raised ground floor flat into the upper stories after having a baby but the cat still seems to live downstairs.
So we dithered about it, decided that we could cover up the grotty carpet with a rug and get a few potplants, and finally texted the guy to say we liked it but we would need a table and he texted back to say fine – dining or coffee? Then this morning Jules got a call from an agent about an ‘excellent contract in Cambridge’ and I started to have fantasies about an actual house, where I could lie in the garden all summer waiting for my husband to come home with a sack of cash. So in the end Jules has been put forward for the job in Cambridge and we turned the flat in Grafton Square down. To be fair, it wouldn’t have been any good for visiting relatives.
Tomorrow we are off to Potters Bar to see Geoff and Heike, who have rented a 4-bedroom house. Hopefully that will be good positive reinforcement of the decision not to move into a shoebox! But if anyone else has anything helpful to say at this point we’d like to hear it!
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