The Office Move, Part 2

The move has taken place. Whilst on Friday I wrote blog from Notting Hill, today I am writing from Paddington.

I must say, the move has gone remarkably smoothly. Not only did I manage to find the building, I also managed to use my little card to get into the building, through the door onto my floor, and then found my desk. My computer was all set up, and the network was even set up. Oh, and my little packed crate was waiting for me as well. However, I feel obliged to add that the network has not hooked up for 2 of the 4 people in my little desk cluster. But overall, I think IT did an admirable job of pulling everything off.

To back track a little, I was quite nervous during my commute this morning. I paid extra mental attention to stay on the train at Notting Hill Gate, and took the exit from the tube straight onto the street, so as not to have to go through the station. After taking about two steps in the wrong direction, I turned around and headed up Eastbourne Terrace. The new building is at the opposite end of the street as the intersection with the station street, so it's a considerably longer walk than I had at Notting Hill Gate. I was rather nervous on the walk over, not really knowing what was going on.

After the initial shock of finding my desk, we were informed that there were pastries and orange juice on the first floor, so we all scuttled downstairs where the 1st floor people sort of gave us weird looks. It was in the 'break out room', which is a bit of a misnomer as it isn't actually a room, there's only a row of plants separating it from the surveys department. And there's no tv or anything. However, there is a tv constantly showing the news in the new reception area. So at least the receptionist will be entertained!

The new office is a bit closed off, considering how open plan it is. The building is shaped like an L, all of development is located in the short side of the L, and my group is somewhat isolated on the inside portion of that side. In the middle of the floors there are offices and printer areas and such. To make things extra exciting, fluorescent green has been used with little restraint as an accent color. There are green walls, green floors, and green chairs. Not sure how well those are going to age!

The bathroom is farther away, being located on the other side of the L, near reception, so really in the bend of the L, but the elevators and stairs are placed so that there's a long walk to get around.

In general, I'm not too sure what I make of the new office set-up. It'll be a little while until everything gets packed up (including the mugs everyone uses for tea, they've been left unpacked at the old office!), and so perhaps after a while it will feel a bit more like home. Well not home, but you know, a place I frequently go without finding it foreign.

The Office Move, Part 1

Today is my last day of working in Notting Hill. Starting Monday morning, I will officially work in Paddington. And while Paddington is associated with a soft cuddly, marmalade-loving bear, it has no romantic comedy associated with it, so therefore I'm afraid it must be a down-grade. That and my commute will be longer.

Anyways, chaos has been mildly building up over the past few weeks, erupting into something of a frenzy today. Believe it or not, a lot of things go into an office move! The aim seems to be to make things as easy as seamless as possible. Everyone has been issues (and by issued, I mean had to hunt down) a rented crate for taking our personal belongings. We have also been issued stickers on which we must write our new floor number, our group, our initials, and our new desk number. We must affix one of these stickers to our crate and each piece of our computers (including the mouse, which I think seems silly), and everything should reappear at our new desks on Monday morning. I'm afraid that the IT guys will be very busy this weekend...

It seems the greatest disaster of the move will be the changing of all of our phone numbers. We're supposed to leave new messages on our phones before leaving saying our new phone numbers but nobody has told us what our new individual phone numbers will be, so in my mind this presents a bit of a problem. Luckily not that many people call me so I'm not too concerned!

So indeed I'm a little sad to be leaving Notting Hill the area, but I'm eager to enjoy the fruits of working in a brand new building with all the modern conveniences. For example, I'm assuming the climate control system will work. And the elevator buttons will work. And I won't be located eerily close to a random gap in the wall. And water won't accumulate on the windowsills when it rains. For the most part we'll have all new desks, new chairs and new phones. We've been issued new security cards (but no instructions on how to use them or what to do when we actually get to the new office on Monday morning). Everyone is slightly displeased that the pictures on these new cards are rather squashed so everyone appears to have a very square head.

At this point I'm predicting that the network will not be working first thing Monday morning. In fact I'll be impressed if all of the computers are at the right desks. I'll be impressed if I'm even able to find my assigned desk...

Tune in Monday to see how this all turns out...

Anglo-versary

Today is my two-year Anglo-versary. I know, it's hard to believe, but it's been two years exactly since I arrived in Southampton, only slightly terrified and completely exhausted. Of the last 24 months, I spent approximately 11 and a half living in Southampton, and 12 and a half living in London. Yesterday marked my one-year work-aversary (sadly my planned blog on the occasion never came to fruition as I was stuck in a meeting), so I suppose that means my time so far has been evenly split between being a student and a worker bee. What I perhaps find most bizarre is that of those 24 months, I've been going out with that Mark character now for a little more than 16 of them. That boy deserves a medal!

This milestone provides a nice opportunity to look back and reflect on what I've learned since my arrival. So here we go, some things I've learned:

1. English people are a lot like Americans. Only they use a slightly different set of funny words and drink lots of tea.
2. People from continental Europe really are a different breed. This point was proved most effectively when I watched a stream of people getting of a plane from Milan. Also reinforced by my daily sighting of people wearing strange pants on the tube, often followed by hearing them speak in Romance languages.
3. Listening to English accents constantly over a two-year period only makes you partially immune to their charm and little sayings. Ask Mark, I tend to laugh when ever he proclaims he'd like some water... Oh, and when I hear someone say 'bloody hell' I can't help but giggle a bit on the inside.
4. English people do not lump Americans into one group, and will often generally judgement of you until they've determined your region of origin. Nobody has any beef with people from Oregon or Washington. They are like the Canadian States of America. Oh, and if anyone asks, you didn't vote for any Bush for president, ever.
5. I've developed two distinct forms of dialogue, one for talking to Americans and one for talking to English people. I don't quite understand all of the distinctions between the two, but I'm pretty sure one involves an increased frequency of the word 'dude'. I imagine the English people dialogue has developed as part of my desire to a) fit in a little and b) not be laughed at for over-using American-isms, even if I would over use them normally, like with the word dude. I don't notice the difference, but it seems to sort of freak Mark out a bit. Likewise, he's gotten some crap from people for using occasional American terms (like trash), so I guess it goes both ways.
6. For pretty much everything you give up, there is something here to replace it. For example, I miss peanut butter m&ms, but the presence of Galaxy caramel makes up for this short-coming. Likewise, the lack of happy hour is balanced out by the social acceptability of sitting at a pub for the better part of a Sunday afternoon.
7. Some things are very deeply ingrained. Although I see it everyday, when I try and visualize traffic on a road (which I have to do on a near daily basis for work) I see people driving on the right, and it takes me much longer than it should to figure out how things would work on those roads if people are driving on the left. Additionally, pants are not underwear. Nor will they ever be. Nor should they be.
8. Living far away makes you kind of a bad American. I keep realizing that I know less and less of what is going on (luckily I can watch the Daily Show to keep me somewhat informed), but things that don't make international news generally don't seep into my conscious. This knowledge hole is becoming kind of alarming to me.

So that is just a small snippit of what I've learned in time in the old UK. Oh, and as an end point, I'm still not entirely clear on what exactly is included in the UK and what is in Great Britain. But nobody else seems to know this either, so I seem to have the popular view!

The Davis Cup

On Saturday, which was a very warm and sunny day, Mark and I went to watch some tennis at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, aka, Wimbledon. As mentioned previously, the tennis club is located nearest Southfields tube station, which is three stations south of Parsons Green, rather convenient for us! The Davis Cup - which I was previously ignorant of - seems to be somewhat similar to the Ryder Cup in golf. It's essentially country's playing against each other in teams. Saturday's match was Great Britain versus Austria in men's doubles.

The 'other' Murray was playing - Jaimie - as well as some other dude that I decided to call 'headband'. Wimbledon consists, of course, of lots of courts, with the main two being Centre Court and Court No. 1. Centre Court, where the really big games get played at Wimbledon, is currently a bit of a no-go zone as it's getting a roof added, so the match was in Court No. 1, which seats about 11,000 people and is relatively new. It was very hot in the sun, so I quickly realized that by crouching down a bit I could hide in Mark's shade, which was a bit of a life saver!

I didn't really know what to expect, not being a person who really watches professional tennis, and I must say it was rather intriguing. For one thing, there's a lot of down time, a lot of botched serves and only so much action. Personally, my favorite component of the match were the Austrian fans, which formed a very small, but vocal and patriotically dressed group immediately behind the non-playing members of the Austrian team. The first time they had reason to cheer - and boy did they cheer - it amused the rest of the crowd to the point that there was a very audible laugh. However, those Austrian fans had the last laugh - winning the match in 3 straight sets. Alas. Not the best day for other Murray and headband - but overall a very interesting experience that I'm happy to have under my belt!

Bond is Back... AGAIN

As much of the world is aware, there is a new James Bond movie due out at the end of next month. In addition to having a discussion-inducing name, this new Bonds episode gives me an excuse to try and figure out why these Anglos love that 007 oh so much.

James Bond is essentially a super hero. Like Batman or Superman. They all, you know, fight against bad people and look cool while doing it, often with some sort of internal struggle (thanks, Mr Welty, for making that so clear). Struggle aside, the general role of the superhero is to embody the unattainable desires of the average joe. So how does Bond differ from his leather and latex clad American cousins? And what do these differences tell us about your average Anglo? Hmm. Let's delve.

1. James Bond has a gun.
Hand guns are illegal in Britain! Like, nobody has them! But apparently they might look cooler if they did...

2. James Bond is good looking.
Interesting, this implies that English men want to be good looking. That's find, I suppose.

3. James Bond goes to black tie parties attended by lots of beautiful women
English men tend to go to the pub, most likely wearing whatever was required for their prior activity, likely either work or sitting around and watching tv. Although I'm pretty sure they don't aspire to attend such parties on a regular basis, so I'm not so sure about this one...

4. James Bond drinks martinis.
Everyone else drinks beer. But it just looks classier when you down a martini in two sips. The ladies in general aren't impressed by men downing a pint in two sips. Things could get messy.

5. James Bond has an Aston Martin.
Even if they make fun of the drivers of such cars, I think it's safe to say that if they just happened to come across one, they would drive it around. Perhaps once or twice at an unsafe speed. But maybe not while wearing the tux...

6. James Bond is named James
As previously established, this allows the 8,000,000 James in England to relate to the guy. Perhaps it was ingrained in the minds of their fathers that James is a name for cool, dapper guys who can still kick some booty.

So what does that tell us about English types that is different from American types? Well, unlike American superheroes, James Bond is from a book and not a comic strip. Implying that his fans are slightly more sophisticated. He's an ordinary person, instead of essentially some mutant. And he doesn't fly.

There you have it. Americans want to be mutants with the ability to fly. Englishmen want to drive around in an Aston while packing heat. Make of that what you will...

Part Buy, Part Rent

Social housing in the UK takes on many forms. In its most basic form, the Government provides free (or low-cost) housing to people who can't afford it. This sort of housing has received a generally bad image for a number of reasons, but we won't go into them here. Additionally, the Government has also introduced part-buy, part-rent schemes for key workers and first-time buyers. While first-time buyers are easy enough to understand, the term key worker could do with some clarification. A key worker is essentially a blue-collar worker doing essential jobs, such as police officers, firemen, nurses, bus drivers, etc.

Then there is the concept of part-buy, part-rent. It's essentially just as it sounds. The local council sells a portion of a property and retains ownership of the remaining portion, charging the tennant/part-owner rent on the remaining, un-owned value of the property. Owners can then by additional portions of the property, up to 100%, or can move at any time, selling the portion they share while the council will most likely retain ownership of their portion. The partial-owner is also free to do as they wish with the property, for example, put in a new kitchen, but it a) must have the council's okay, b) they must foot the entire cost, and c) any resulting increase in property value would benefit bith you and the council, so the extra work may not be worthwhile if doing it strictly to increase the property value. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but in reality the whole concept is quit simple.

There are also restrictions within the categories of key workers and first-time buyers. The two primary concerns are that you only can apply for schemes in the area you are currently living or working, with long term residents getting priority over new arrrivals, and that your income must fall within a specific bracket. If you earn too little, you won't be able to afford the payments and if you earn too much you should be able to buy a property on the open market.

As some people already know, Mark and myself have been attempting to secure such a place in a new development next to Parsons Green tube station. After much delay and worry, we've been assigned a flat and are currently in the process of trying to buy a 30% (or 35%, we're not actually sure) stake. We have just found out that we've been able to secure a mortgage and are currently set to exchange contracts next week. Mind you, we don't move next week, but the deal should be relatively sealed. We can't really leave our current place, which we will surely be sad to leave, until mid-December, so we're hoping the development is well-behind schedule!

Giant Umbrellas

Yes, that's right, another blog about a newly acquired pet peeve!

Now that the weather has turned for the worse, bringing with it plenty of rain, people have been using their umbrellas a lot more frequently. Most people simply use your regular single person umbrella, most often in black, that folds up nicely when not in use. However, some people insist on using giant golf umbrellas capable of harboring the entire Brady Bunch. This is bad for two reasons!

Reason 1: They hog the sidewalk.
In my neighborhood in particular, the sidewalks are not particularly wide and there are lots of sign posts, lamp posts and trees making the sidewalks just a little bit narrower. When everyone is carrying regular sized umbrellas it can be difficult to pass, when someone has an umbrella twice as big as everyone else's, it's near impossible. Around Notting Hill sidewalks get quite busy during lunch times, and then it's even more noticeable when people take up more space with their umbrellas out, and let's just say chaos would ensue if everyone had the giant breed.

The general carrier of the giant umbrella tends to be male. The easiest explanation for this is that women tend to carry umbrellas that fit into their purses when not in use, but men are less likely to have bags, thus increasing the likelihood that they would carry something larger. And the carriers of these umbrellas also tend to be males tending towards the 'dandy' side of things - think pin-striped suits and slightly longer hair with a bit of a wave, carefully gelled in place who perhaps see their umbrella as an important fashion accessory and therefore think bigger ones must be better. With this particular breed comes that self-important strut. People with self-important struts do not tend to get out of the way of others when walking down the sidewalk, instead others must get out of their way, which is even more annoying when they are ten times their normal dandy size thanks to their ego-sized umbrellas.

Reason 2: They are dangerous weapons
As if things weren't bad enough when people chose to unleash their giant umbrellas in the face of a downpour, things seem to me to be even more treacherous when no rain is involved. You see, instead of carrying their giant umbrellas by the carefully provided curved wooden handle, perhaps for fear of looking as if they are walking with a cane, people seem to prefer to hold on to the middle of their giant umbrella so it rests in the horizontal position. This is how many people carry their umbrellas, but then their umbrellas aren't over two feet long with an elongated, sharpened metal point at one end, swinging slightly from side to side with each self-important saunter. The possibility of impalement leaps even higher at the tube station, while people show some rational thought in placing the impaling tip on the floor while inside the train, they are still quite likely to hold it horizontally on the platform, then constantly twisting about to check how long until the next train and to perhaps have a chat with their friends. It's beyond me how people don't end up pushed onto the tracks by one of these flailing instruments of destruction, or at least just with one impaled into their thigh. Quite frankly I want some news-worthy umbrella incident to occur as to bring to light the dangers of these umbrellas.

I say unless you are indeed the Brady Brunch traveling down the sidewalk in a happy little cluster, there is absolutely no reason for people to use these obscenely sized umbrellas. Their use by individuals, in my mind, is like people using the carpool lane when by themselves but just figure it's their right to use them as their time is more important than others and they have somewhere else to be. And you know, their windows are all blacked out so you can't see what's going on inside anyways.

Okay, I'm done ranting now.

Mew

After admittedly never having thought about it before, I learned what a mew is last night. In addition to being a noise often made by kittens and some adult cats, the word mews refers to an old stable block. Like with horses. Of course, Anglos flock to conversion properties like Southerners flock to fried chicken, so today mews serve as very desirable urban streets.

Those of you that have been to London may have come across a mew or two. They are generally named - like the Margo Mews or Fulham Mews - but are also recognizable as being narrow cobbled streets, generally dead ends, lined with two story flat-fronted buildings. In the movie Love Actually, Keira Knightley's character lived in a mew house. As they were built to house the horses for the nearby stately manors, there should be larger terraced houses within the same block fronting the main street.

Converted mews are, as mentioned above, quite desirably addresses. A show on property prices in London showed a newly converted mews property in Kensington that was expected to go for £6 million. It apparently had a lot of 'bespoke' features.... Anyways, I think some of this attraction (aside from the pure and utter joy of living in a converted property) comes from the layout of mews, which are essentially the much cuter, quainter, cobbled cousin of 'home zones', with no definition between space for pedestrians and space for vehicles.

The relevation of the original intent of the mews shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, as the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace serve as a year-round tourist attraction. Items on view include fancy outfits worn by coaches (those who drive carriages, not those who lead sports teams) and royal carriages. Personally I think perhaps it's time the Queen upgrade to motor vehicles, not only are they faster, but it would also then open the royal mew for residential conversion...

And finally, let's discuss the other sorts of properties that the Anglos like to convert (as seen on UK property shows): barns (including dairies), churches, windmills, and lighthouses. In the future people will live in converted Tescos.

The Cyclone of Notting Hill Gate

An atmospheric anomaly occurs outside the front of my workplace on a constant basis. The architecture of my building being tall and set back slightly from the sidewalk, next to lower buildings closer to the sidewalk, and I'm sure an endless number of special angles and such, creates a mini-tornado at the bottom of the stairs.

The mini-tornado remains within a few feet of the ground and whirls in a clockwise direction. It would just be an annoying little windy area, as much of the front of the building is (which again you don't' fully realize unless you're wearing a fluffy skirt or dress), except the little whirling dervish manages to regularly acquire an array of dried leaves and wrappers to whip around, making the shape and continual swirling quite clear to see. Mind you, I don't know where the wind manages to find so many dead leaves this time of year, especially considering that the sidewalk sweeper seems in constant action and there aren't really many trees in the area, but it seems to manage just fine.

Today it's raining and so the cyclone is currently absent due to lack of dry leaves to whip about, but when I was leaving yesterday the whirl was such that passers by were slowing to gawk and laugh. While I suppose I see this particular oddity on a regular basis, it really is quite a bizarre situation. So much so that I can't think of another example. I'll therefore have to enjoy my daily tornado as much as I can before the big office move at the end of the month, as the chances of another cyclone seem low.

Garage Sale

You just dont' seem to find garage sales in these parts. From what I can decipher, there are many reasons for this. In London, for example, nobody has a garage. This is in face true for a much larger proportion of UK households than US households. Perhaps one would refer to them by the grassier term 'yard sale'? Again, while terraced houses do have front yards, they a) tend not to be that large and b) are called gardens.

In areas such as mine, people still have options for getting rid of items (some of which are also popular in areas such as the U-District). You can put something out on the sidewalk in front of your residence and hope it disappears, or give stuff to charity. But instead of you finding your nearest Salvation Army truck, you are perhaps more likely to donate your items (of small size) to a local charity shop, conveniently located EVERYWHERE. You can pick the charity you deem the worthiest and walk away with more space at home and a nice warm fuzzy feeling in your heart. Aaaahhhh. Charities with shops include the standard Oxfam, charities for taking care of old people (Age Concern), blind people, people with cancer, children, animals, and the Notting Hill Housing Trust (I don't know about that one either...).

But what about those who like to come face to face with the source of their bargains? My inside source, who I shall call 'Kram', has alerted me to the concept of the car boot sale. This allegedly involves the gathering of the people in a flea market like fashion, selling things out of their 'boots' (being trunks, I wouldn't buy anything that I had to pick out of someone's footwear). These are the places I'm assuming you would flock to if you were going for that whole shabby chic thing as glamorized on the E! channel on the weekends. I'm not sure if these sorts of these extend to serve as church fund-raisers.

Change of Season

It seems it's officially fall now. Aside from a gorgeous, hot sunny Saturday, the weather has definitely turned for the worse, with the rain coming in torrential downpours and a chill in the air. It's no deal. Some of my work skirts are really only appropriate in the summer so my wardrobe is going to effectively shrink!

That aside, I must say that one of the things that I still find kind of odd and unexpected about these parts is the ability to not just rain, as I expect it to rain, but rain vigorously. And to rain vigorously whilst accompanied by massive thunderstorms. Let's take the last three days. On Sunday morning I awoke to a very loud downpour that was soon accompanied by flashes of lightening and the distant roar of thunder. The rain continued most of the day, taking a nice break in the afternoon while I was thankfully out and about. Our house was so muggy that day that you could barely pick up a cold glass as they all got so slipper from condensation (the fact that we were doing lots of laundry did not help...). Yesterday was a dry day, but then for some reason the Circle Line was suspended during the evening commute because one of the stations was flooded (it was Baker Street, don't worry, they called in Sherlock Holmes to solve the case). And then this morning I again awoke to some very, very angry rain. As per usual, this translated into extra crowded, wet, muggy slightly delayed morning train times and a muggy office.

This lovely weather has been accompanied by news of the August weather (it seems strange to have news on past weather, but what are you gonna do, these are a weather obsessed people). It seems August had less sunshine than any other August since records began in 1929. This is really just a fancy way of saying that the weather was crap. To be honest, I thought May, June and July were so nice that would just be a bit greedy to want a nice August and September as well!