Urban Wildlife

I have now seen two, yes, TWO foxes in London. Not really attractive people, mind you, but the little animal. The first time I saw a fox was in north London last winter, in a residential area around 11pm. It was crossing the street, heading towards a row of terraced houses. I was near a substantial park, so I just assumed the fox had wandered from there. Mainly, I was just surprised to actually see such an animal. A raccoon, sure, but not a fox!

Last week I saw my second fox. This time on my very own street! It was again quite late, and I was about to turn the corner to go down my street I saw what I thought was a Siamese cat peaking around and then running away at the site of me. When I turned the corner I saw that I was mistaken, as about 15 feet standing in the middle of the sidewalk was a fox with a black-tipped tale. Again upon seeing that I had tracked him down, it jumped up on a fence and over a garage that started my own row of terraced houses.

Having now seen two of these animals in very different parts of London, I have come to terms with the fact that they must be quite widespread! After all, I'm not some sort of night-person regularly returning home in the middle of the night, and this seems to be when they are out and about. They are clearly smarter than say, opossums, as you don't find fox roadkill. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if they have opossums in these parts. Or raccoons, for that matter. But hedgehogs, yes.

Along with their ability to generally steer clear of most forms of natural disasters (save floods!), the English will sometimes add the general ability to avoid being maimed by deadly wildlife as a perk to life on this little island. Foxes, while technically predators, are generally hunted by groups of dogs and men on horses in red jackets, and do not bite back. They are only a threat to farmers attempting to keep chickens. What's missing are bears, coyotes, large cats of any kind, and deadly spiders. While in many ways this seems a bit boring, it's still exciting to think that my next fox sighting could come at any time!

Team GB

I'm sure many of you have noticed that the Olympics are going on. However, I'm not sure how much attention has been paid stateside to which little country is in third place in the medals table. Go on, fathom a guess. That's right, it's the UK! Or as they are commonly referred to 'team GB' (don't get my started on the UK/GB situation, it constantly perplexes me that they don't know the name of their own, um, land).

This little team GB has managed to amass 16 gold medals, the most in apparently a century, and an additional 10 silvers and 10 bronzes or so (the tally is constantly changing mind you). While they haven't pulled a Phelps and the most golds that can be attributed to one person is 3 (I think, maybe 2), they are certainly specialized in a small number of categories. These categories are cycling, sailing, rowing, and a bit of swimming and track & field. The Australians, who are bitter about being behind UK in the medals table, like to point out that team GB only wins when they are sitting down. I say heck, can you blame them? Why stand when you can sit? Now I think the UK also is historically quite strong in equestrian events (sitting!), but don't think they're squeezed a gold out of it this year. Let's blame Zara Phillips, who pulled out after her horsey got a boo-boo.

Speaking of female types, I must say that an overwhelming percentage of team GB golds have been won by women. Becky Addlington won two swimming gold medals (to everyone's surprise), they won the gold in the women's 400m run, plus they managed to pull in some cycling and sailing golds for good measure. Good for you, British women!

The word on the street is that the UK government has been pumping extra money into Olympic sports, to try and ensure they don't make fools of themselves when hosting the games in 2012. For example, a British source tells me they spent £1 million developing a tire that would let the cyclists go just a weeny bit faster. How this is a legitimate use of such a sum is beyond me, but they certainly have been cleaning up in cycling events so apparently it's working.

So things are looking good for 2012! There's been limited speculation about how they're going to try and top Beijing's opening ceremony. My favorite suggestion so far has been to have 2,000 Morris dancers. And after consulting to find out what exactly Morris dancing involves (it involves sticks!!), I must say I'm all for their inclusion.

Bespoke

Bespoke is a new word to me, but like so many new words, it now manages to pop up all over the place.

The concept of bespoke was apparently originally reserved for suits made by Saville Row tailors. More specifically, made to measure suits. Perhaps one might call them bespoke tailors. But apparently people like the ring of the word, over the blah alternatives of 'made-to-order' or 'custom made', and it is now applied to a wide variety of items.

Example 1: Development Site Masterplan
I've received today an updated copy of a masterplan for a site I'm working on. In the notes it advertises that there will be an 'arrangement of bespoke townhouses' at the entrance to the site. This seems a slightly odd application of the term, as I'm pretty sure there's no generic townhouse factory in Lincolnshire pumping out identical homes, but I suppose we'll have to roll with it.

Example 2: Grand Designs
They've used the word bespoke several times on the tv show Grand Designs, which features a guy who really likes houses following around people building ambitiously designed houses (which I'm sure are bespoke in their own right). It's used in relation to things such as kitchens and handrails. But the Grand Design man likes to use a rich vocabulary to describe things, and bespoke just fits in with his narratives.

Example 3: New Guy
We've got a new guy at my work (well, a month now) who is a bit higher up. His first day after lunch he began complaining heavily of the lack of food options at Notting Hill Gate (which is so ridiculous that it's not even debatable) as there was no place featuring bespoke salads. I refrained from suggesting he walk ten minutes down the road to Whole Foods, which features what must be the largest salad bar in London, as I sort of get the impression he would expect someone else to make the salad while he points at things. The lack of choices means he must bring his lunch in to work with him.

Example 4: Me!
I'm going to start using the word bespoke as much as possible. For example, I like to think that I make bespoke dinners, my showers are generally bespoke (I do pick the general order, although I do stick with the general rule of shampoo then conditioner), my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are certainly bespoke (hand-crafted! catered to individual tastes!), and as with many people, my pile of papers all over my desk is certainly bespoke. However, I must admit that I will not be having a bespoke sandwich or salad for lunch today. And I'm sure I will suffer greatly as a result.

BBC Proms

Mark and I went to see the Proms last night. Not prom, mind you, promS. I assure you the difference is considerable. To sum it up, every year BBC sponsors a month of constant concerts, generally classical with a few jazz tossed in for good measure. Each night's concert is different, with different pieces being performed by different people. The performances take place at Royal Albert Hall and the whole series ends in the somewhat famous 'last night of the Proms', where the so called best performers (not sure if its the BBC Philharmonic, some sort of Royal ensemble or national ensemble) play patriotic songs and fireworks go off and such.

Last night's performance did not include any explosions. After leafing through about a gazillion different performance possibilities, we (and I mean me, Mark was getting his haircut at the time) picked a performance of a Rachmaninov symphony and an excerpt from a Puccini opera, to be performed by the BBC Philharmonic (because who doesn't like their harmonies nicely 'phil'ed?). Given the sheer number of concerts in the series, you can get tickets for relatively cheap, ours were carefully chosen in the last row, facing straight down the stairs so Mark could have unlimited leg room. Tickets were £10.

We got there a little over half an hour before the performance started, fresh from dinner at Whole Foods. We climbed up three flights of stairs, took a peak inside, went 'oooh', then spent about ten minutes figuring out if we wanted to get anything to drink as we didn't have any cash and there was a £10 minimum for using card, then we finally ordered drinks for then as well as intermission. It worked out nicely. I must say that while very cool, Royal Albert Hall wasn't quite as big nor as fancy as I was expecting it to be. The center of the main floor area had a fountain in the middle of it and no seats, like the mosh pit at a rock concert. A lot of people seemed to be on board with this idea and the area was relatively full. You could also stand at the very top in the gallery to watch.

I must say I thought the symphony portion quite good. It was a tune I hadn't heard before and while of course not whole-heartedly captivating, enjoyable over all. The opera bit was a little odd. Being of course, not an opera, there was no staging of any kind. The singers came out to the front of the stage, exited and entered the stage as their characters would, and stood and sat down as apparently necessary. However, this is what got me at least, we had no idea what was going on. If you spent extra money on the program you were able to follow along what they were saying word for word. This seems a bit of a cop out to me, like charging extra for subtitles when you go to a foreign film. As a result, I found it a little boring and was a bit relieved when it finally ended! Overall I was quite pleased with my first Proms and Royal Albert Hall experience. As an extra note, I was also pleased with my burrito bar experience at Whole Foods, there were black beans, chipotle chicken and guacamole!

Buckingham Palace

So on Saturday Margo and I went to the palace of Buckingham (another ham!) anyways it was raining so ended up being quite a good thing to do on a wet day. What was annoying was that it had been quite a humid week and outside for lunch weather but then the weekend came and it all changed!

Off track there anyways it was Margo, me and a lot of tourists! now i wasn't quite in tourist mode when i arrived so it took me a while to adjust when i saw the queue! what some of the people didnt quite get though was that the palace is basically not a tourist attraction and is a working home! it was only opened to pay for the reconstruction of Windsor Castle after the fire in the 90s i guess though margo would probably know more about that??? (though basically was designed to mean the British taxpayer wouldn't pay for Windsor and the many tourists that London get would! anyways that basically meant that it didnt have purpose built tourist facilities including toilets etc - this was annoying some of the visitors when we were kept in a holding tent for about 20 minutes before we went through the metal detectors...was quite amusing - made me want to say something but i think margo would of disowned me!

Anyways we got through after Margo's bag was examined in more detail than a airport and then were given a free audio guide. We went in and normally when i walk into these places like that im like ok this is cool but... - but walking into this place was completly different - it was quite something! walking up the grand staircase and through some of the rooms into the banquet hall where the room was fully set up for a state visit banquet. it was quite something - although as margo pointed out the chairs (apart from the queens) were a little small and uncomfortable looking! everything was lined up though (glasses - one long line down both sides of the table). Well worth the $30 entrance in my opinion!

anyways at the end we got to walk through the garden to the exit! where there were toilets and gift shops in the normal marquees you get at these temporary events!

anyways apart from the rain in the garden it was a good time! if you visit london in the august/september time frame i would definately recommend - especially as you dont really know how long the public will be allowed in like that!

Anglo Mango's Guide to Ham Pronunciation

So English people like to pronounce things in strange ways completely unrelated to the way in which they are spelled, and then laugh at you when you then pronounce the word phonetically. Like somehow they've managed to trick you and you've given a clear display of inferior American intelect. But alas I have come to realize that we should just be laughing at them for their clear inability to know exactly what to do with the word ham.

Ham as a meat is basically the same. 'Hello, I'd like a ham sandwich' is a equally understood universal phrase. Then things get tricky. While the big-based lunch meat is the same, I have yet to see anything resembling a honey-baked ham style, um, ham. The Anglos love their pork, so it's clearly consumed, but I've come to the conclusion that they refer to this sort of ham as gammon steak. This may be something else entirely, but let's just roll with that for now.

Ham is also an extremely common inclusion in place names. From my limited understanding, this comes from the shortening of the word 'hamlet'. So perhaps Hamlet of Hurling becomes Hurlingham. And again while the ham in hamlet is fair play to all, if you ask someone how to get to Hurling-ham they'll likely either laugh at you, shake their head in disgust, or slap you (maybe not). After all, it is OBVIOUSLY pronounced Hurling-um. And Fulham is pronounced Ful-um. Fair enough, some consistency there.

So there you, when ham is at the front a word, it's ham ('Hamp-sure'), when it's at the back of a word it's um. In the middle you would generally have ham again, ('South-hamp-tun'). And while we're at it, shire is indeed pretty consistently 'sure'. And let's just cut to the chase - Liecester is lester, Liecestershire is lester-sure. But I think that's just because nobody can think of a better way to pronounce Liecester.

Hurlingham

It's pretty clear that effort has been made into making the Thames riverfront an accessible place to everyone. Throughout London, you've got all these random little signs pointing you towards Thames Walks and Jubilee Walks and there's that whole South Bank situation. In my neck of the woods this plan of attack runs into two big glitches: Craven Cottage and the Hurlingham Club.

Craven Cottage isn't a cottage. It's a football stadium, home of the Fulham Football Club, and it essentially abuts the river. So you don't really blame them. Plus they've been there for over a hundred years.

Hurlingham has also been in its present location for over a hundred years but they're just being snobby. They just don't want to let you walk through their land because a) they're better than you and b) the members have paid good money and waited a long time to get access to that land for themselves. To back track momentarily, the Hurlingham Club is a 'sports' club for people with too much money who are willing to be placed on a waiting list for 15 years before being allowed membership.

To back track even more, the club was founded in the latter half of the 19th century as a place to shoot pigeons. Don't ask me how this can be considered a sport, you just drop some bread crumbs and they come flocking. Or perhaps these were smarter pigeons? One of the early patrons was a Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), which generally means they can charge more money for membership. The club later evolved to include polo, and Hurlingham was apparently the 'home' of polo (meaning they got to make up the rules) up until the second world war. In their effort to provide a home for every soldier, the local council, um, requisitioned the polo ground and put up some ugly council housing. Alas, no more polo at Hurlingham. However, they do still play bowls and have both indoor and outdoor swimming pools on their 42 acre spread. There are rumors of a fancy club house in there somewhere, but you can't see it from the street!

So if you find yourself casually strolling along the river in Fulham, be prepared to come across a giant walled-off hurdle. And thanks to the quick thinking of the council, to get back to the river on the other side you get to walk by some ugly now ex-council houses.