A Canadian Student in London

Panos

2009-11-22T00:25:00.002Z

Panos from the years:

These are all put together using Autostitch.

(And yeah, that's right, my first post in months, and I don't write anything.)

Quarterly Roundup: The Return

2009-04-20T22:05:00.003Z

As my few remaining readers (as in, Joie and Daorcey) have pointed out, it's been a while. So here's more words to read, tho I warn ya, it's essentially a repeat of last round... as in, places I've been. What else is there, really?

So when we left off, I was about to head off to Spain for Christmas there with my parents. It's the first time since I moved out to London-land that I haven't gone home for Christmas, so it was good they came out. Otherwise, I probably would have drunken myself near-death out of sheer depression. So yay for that.

We stayed near a town called Estepona on the Costa del Sol. It's all very lovely, but it is dead over the holidays. Our resort was beautiful, and the only other person we saw there was the security guard. On top of that, we had hella shitty weather -- note the name. Costa del Sol. It's supposed to be sunny 330 days of the year. It rained pretty well every day we were there. It's not supposed to do that.

That said, we still got out and saw a lot of stuff and it was wonderful to spend so much time with them, even if it did bring out the grumpy teenager-like side of me. Seville was beautiful, tho we didn't visit the barbers. Rhonda and the pueblo blancos were super cool. The bullfight we saw, not so much. My mom and I actually walked out after the second fight -- my mom felt sick, and I wanted to punch someone. Cheering wankers on for torturing animals to death, not really my kind of thing, you'll not be surprised to learn.

We also took a day trip to Gibraltar, where the highway runs across the airport landing strip, and I nearly got bitten by a monkey. I would say that Gibraltar is like Britain, but warmer; however, it rained.

I also managed to talk my parents into a trip to Morroco. Neither seemed too keen on it, but then we were standing on the Rock (aka Gibraltar) looking out toward Africa, and that seemed to convince my dad. I loved Tangier, and would go back anytime. It's dirty and colourful and lots of fun. We did touristy stuff like ride a camel -- harder than it looks -- and my mom got hassled by a rug salesman. He actually followed her around the market. And I had as much mint tea as I could... I love that stuff.

Back in London, in February, it snowed. I mean, proper snowed. This doesn't happen often here; a light dusting is enough to shut the airports down, and we got several inches. Even better, it was the wet stuff -- perfect for snowballs and snowmen.

I worked from home that day, but managed to sneak out of the house for an hour to go for a walk. So much fun! There were snowmen built everywhere, like they were invading. And in a few places there's be three big snowballs feet high lined up -- people had clearly tried to make massive ones, not realising it's rather hard to stack them when they're that big...

At the end of the month, I had a work trip to Cannes, so stayed up for the weekend to tour around. On a friend's advice, I checked out a chateau a few miles out of Cannes called La Napoule. It sits right on the sea, and was rebuilt by an American artist and his wife. They filled the garden with crazy-ass statues and carved faces and animals into the walls. Everywhere I looked, there was something random to surprise me -- a weird statue, a face above a window, and above the main door, they carved the fairytale phrase "once upon a time...". Very sweet and beautiful.

From there, I wandered down to Nice, which had a cool carnival going on, and was a good base to visit Monaco and Monte Carlo. On the way to that tax haven, I stopped off at a village called Eze, which is set up on top of a cliff overlooking the Med. Again, perfect views. I want a house overlooking the sea...

In March, I managed to travel for FUN not work -- crazy times, I know. Kris is living out in Berlin for a few months this summer, so went to see him. Berlin was pretty cool, and it's always good to have a tour guide. And, a free place to stay. Did all the usual touristy stuff -- saw the Brandenburg Gate, bits of the wall, Checkpoint Charlie -- but also wandered into the Turkish district, where we had some damn fine Shwarmas and mint tea... noticing a trend here?

Berlin's weirdly cheap for a capital city. Kris and Tina have a two bedroom apartment for less than I pay to live in a five-person houseshare, and the beer and food and transport is all well cheaper than London. Time to learn German, then?

And that's it for travel... for ten days at least. (Noticing another trend here?) I'm back home in Calgary for a week -- need to visit my preggers sisters. (Yes, plural, they've synchronised.)

In May, I've got DarNat visiting, and we're heading out to Stockholm -- mostly because it was cheap -- for a weekend, and who knows what else we'll get up to. I predict pubs and beer will feature rather frequently...

Pictures are all up on Facebook and a few random London ones are on Flickr.

Quarterly Roundup

2008-12-14T16:21:00.002Z

This week, I'm going to have to spend a large portion of my Time At Work doing end-of-year roundups -- effectively rehashed stories reminding people what happened over the past 12 months. On one hand, they're a useful review and I don't mind writing them, on the other hand, they're hit-whoring spacefiller (not unlike this blog???).

Anyway, I've been nagged in the comments (Hi Joie!) that I haven't posted in a while, and that is indeed true -- not since the beginning of August, it would seem. As Joie asks, surely something's happened since then??

The past few weeks, not really, as I've been struck down by the cold/flu/-itis to end them all, and have barely left my room this weekend -- or the past few weekends. But I'm starting to feel better, a bit, and as such am OHMYGOD so bored.

Bored enough to blog, it would seem. Bored enough to blog a roundup.

So. Right. August. Went up to Edinburgh in August, for the World's Largest Fringe Festival (tm) -- and damn, it is big. Saw a ton of good comedy, a couple decent plays, and a totally mental and hilariously crap puppet show. And, drank a lot. Didn't see as much of the city as I would have liked, but it looks beautiful, albeit through drunken and bleary eyes. Need to go back when a billion and a half other people aren't there, so I can see the rest of it, and more of Scotland.

A couple weeks after that, flew to Calgary on a hilariously shit airline called Globespan, which never arrives on time. Strangely, Mary -- who came to Scotland with us -- was on the same flight as me, one seat away from me. Weird. The flight was delayed several hours, so we hung out watching the Olympics at a pub in Gatwick Airport, which is exactly as fun as it sounds. Horribly, the delay was not communicated to Calgary, so our families were standing around wondering WTF was going on. (On the upside, unlike Zoom, Globespan remained in business over the next few weeks, so I was able to get back to London... albeit several hours late.)

From Calgary, my family drove to somewhere in Montana, and caught a plane to Vegas for my little sister's wedding, which was a fantastic day, despite me delivering a speech. (DarNat, you know how good I'm not at that...)

Then, back to London. From where I went back to Vegas for work. My life is retarded, and entirely environmentally unfriendly.

When I got back from Vegas (the second time) it was off to a town called Truro, in a southwestern bit of the UK called Cornwall. I've always wanted to go to Cornwall, but Truro is a dump. There is nothing to do there except drink, and they even make that difficult. The hotel we stayed in was like an old folks' home -- the breakfasts included prunes, if you wanted. Still, given the company and the drinking, I had a fantastic time. I didn't, however, have any prunes.

Then, I stayed in the country for a month. It was weird. The Saints and Chargers played at Wembley Stadium in London, so went to see my first NFL came ever... in London.

After that, went to New York for work -- the day after Obama's Historic and Hope-Bringing (tm) election. I'm already planning a trip back -- to New York, not Obama, but if he wants to hang out, that's cool with me.

A couple weeks after that, took a quick weekend break to Shannon, Ireland, with my friend Shannon. She's the master of cheap flights, and found some seriously almost-free ones to the west coast of Ireland, which is one of the prettiest places in the world. Everything is green and cliffy. And have the best pub nights ever. You make friends with everyone in the bar because, why not? They're drinking, you're drinking, you have lots in common...

And that's it for travel... until tenish days from now, when I'm off to Spain to spend Christmas with my parents there. It's my first time not going home for Christmas since I foolishly moved out here, but at least I'm still spending it with family. If I was entirely alone, I'd be entirely drunk -- though how that's different from most Kobie Christmases, I'm not entirely sure...

Now this pretty well reads like a list of places I've travelled to over the past nearly-half year. Between all this, I did lots of stuff, alright. Namely, drinking at parties, drinking at pubs, drinking at people's houses, drinking at shows, and drinking for the sake of drinking, with the odd movie thrown in when I run out of drinking money. My lifestyle, it is retarded.

New year, new leaf, maybe?

The Truth is on the Red Carpet

2008-08-03T10:46:00.004Z

I've gotten to do some pretty cool things while out here in Bizzaro World, but my night out on Wednesday would make the top five. I got to go to the X-Files premiere in Leicester Square.

The actual premiere bit is lame -- read all the details here -- but getting to see Mulder and Scully was awesome, and it was a pretty cool experience to get to do the whole red carpet thing.

The movie itself wasn't great, just a sort of alright episode (would not put it in a top five, that's for sure) but I loved that show so much I'd pay to see a shit episode, just to see it again. But given how poorly it's done -- I'd say more because of TDK competition than anything else -- I doubt there'll be a third...

At the moment, I'm waiting for Mary to show up. We're doing a shitload of theatre-y goodness while she's out here, and heading up to Edinburgh for Fringe Fest on the weekend. This post is boring me, so I'm going to go back to playing Classic Sim City online. Why? I don't really know.

Obama'd

2008-07-27T07:47:00.004Z

I had a ridiculous morning yesterday, mostly because I'm a ridiculous person.

I woke up a bit uh, shall we say thirsty, after a few too many pints the night before. After chugging a glass of water, I went online — y'know, the usual facebooking, emailing, etc — and then saw a news headline that Obama was at Number 10 right now.

Leaping into action, I threw some clothes on, pulled my greasy hair into a pony tail, threw my camera into my bike bag, and hopped on my bike. Pedaling like a lunatic (well, one that needs to get somewhere fast), I was heaving by the time I crossed the river — Saturday was the hottest day of the year so far (hit a whole 29 degrees!) and I was still recovering from a cold and was well, hungover. Sweating like a retard, breathing with difficulty, I hit Trafalgar Square — but where to go? Should I go wait behind the gates of Number 10 by the park, and get a shot of him leaving, or round to the front/side of the Foreign Office on Whitehall?

I figured the doors by the park. He'd go in and out that way for sure. It's more photogenic. Right? He needs the shot of the '10' on the door.

I get there. No one's there. It's still a quarter to 11. He's probably still in there. So I wait. And wait. And wait. A few other people are standing around with cameras, but not many. And they eventually wander off. A Getty photographer goes and asks one family if there's anyone about with, y'know, placards. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be. Is this one more example of media trying to force an angle? Shouldn't the story be that no one turned out? I'm considering this, when I hear chanting.

Obama, O-Ba-Ma! Could it be? It's something else. Maybe it is tho! Maybe I'm in the wrong spot! Of course there must be other people, I'm an idiot! As if the Democratic party would let him have an event without rounding up their expat members! Argh! So stupid!!

So I hope on my bike, and pedal (frantically, again) around the corner to the Whitehall side. Oh, there's hundreds of people. Maybe a thousand! Chanting his name, and something like "We can Change!" or something. That sounds a bit odd to me, but this must be the place. These people have professional Obama signs — with logos and everything — they must know what they're doing.

I lean my bike against the metal rail barrier which is keeping the hordes back from the road our saviour is sure to come out on. A big black guy asks me, 'what's going on' and I tell him, 'Obama's in there.' He looks happily shocked and pulls out his phone to take photos. "Who would you vote for? I'd vote for him," he rambles, clearly very excited.

I decided I should get my camera out too, to be ready. I open my bike bag, jarring my bike against the rail. The handlebars slip through the top bit of the rail, and my helmet goes crashing over to the cement... on the other side of the barrier. Whoops. How do I get it back, without getting shot?

My Obama-loving new-friend Ken laughs, and we both try to get the attention of the police on the far side. They look right at us, and ignore us. A few people around us jokingly(?) suggest I chucked it over there to get closer to the chosen one when he passes, and I say yeah, I've always wanted to get shot in front of Obama...

We keep waving, and eventually one cop slowly... slowly... slowly meanders over. I've never seen anyone walk so slowly in my life. One step. Then another. Pause. Then another. Like dude, what if it were a bomb we were pointing at? (Maybe that's why he walks so slow...?)

He hands it back to me, and rather than chastize me for being a retard, says: "At least you wear one. Not enough people do." Then ambles back to his post.

Ken and I decide to get closer to the action. His camera phone isn't gonna get any good pictures from way back where we are. I leave my bike — unlocked, such is the feeling of comradeship and urgency here — leaning against a short balustrade on which tourists are standing.

People start cheering and chanting again — nope, not him; just some press with cameras. We quiet down. And then again; the door opens... but it's not him. This repeats several times over ten or so minutes. Oh the tension! The excitement! Thank god I left the empty area by 10 Downing Street! Look at what I was missing!

Directing my camera between two women's heads, I've got a clean line for a shot right at the door. It opens... and a series of dark SUVs with tinted windows speed out, make the turn, and jet past us. None slow. No wave of the hand out the window. Not even a honk. Nothing. Nothing.

The deflated crowd disperses quickly.

Still, I rationalise, I was part of something here. I saw how it really is, when the news shows footage of chanting adorers. How they wait for ages for just a glimpse of a shape through a darkened window.

Oh well. What did I expect, anyway? At least I saw something, right?

Cut to this morning. Flip onto Google News, and there's coverage of his London visit, including one headline reading: Passersby get a shock as Brown and Obama take a turn in the park

Wha?! They left from the main Downing Street doors ― where I was ― took a walk through the horse guards parade ― right by where I was ― and then wandered into Green Park ― right by where I was. Obama then gave a short press conference from the steps of Number 10 ― right where I had been waiting.

So, to sum: ARGH!!1!

I gotta stop second guessing myself.

Churnalism

2008-07-21T19:28:00.004Z

Over the weekend, I was at a training course, held at a London university (not the one where I did my MA). The training was for "investigative journalism" -- which the first speaker amusingly pointed out was a bit redundent, as in, isn't all journalism inherently investigative?

That speaker, Nick Davies of Flat Earth News-writing sort-of-fame, started his talk by reciting the three golden rules of journalism:

Be objective
Get both sides of the story
Use quotes

If you're nodding your head thinking: "yeah, sounds right" then smack yourself, 'cause you're wrong. Davies pretty well did a verbal smackdown on these three rules, and if you've ever fancied yourself a proper journalist (I once did...) then buy his book and get learnin'. (I'm only part way through it, but he's blowing my mind. It feels great.)

The first rule is the easiest to debunk -- who the hell is ever objective? The simple act of choosing what to write, and who to call and where to place it in your publication is subjective. By all means strive to objectivity, but realise you're going to fail. It's impossible.

But -- as John Pilger later pointed out -- you can pick what side you're on. I write about IT. No one sides with Microsoft. That's okay. They have enough power, and we should side with the less powerful, and lend them our power. (I don't think Pilger had B2B tech titles in mind while he was speaking, but whatever, we can't all be war reporters.)

The second rule I'd often wondered about at university. To start, there're never just two sides to a story. But leaving that aside, there's this idea that if a person (or group or government) says something is bad, then we must find someone to disagree, to bring balance to the story. Davies had a wonderful example for this style of journalism, which I'll paraphrase:

A journalist walks into a room. There are two men standing at two windows, looking out. The journalist asks both about the state of the weather outside. The first says it's sunny and clear. The second says it's raining and dark. The journalist writes it up and slams on a provocative headline about meterological disagreement. No one reading the story has any clue what the weather was.

Only one man was right of the two (unless the weather was seriously messed, which is a story on its own) and even both could have been lying. Why did the journalist trust the opinions of people, when that journo could have looked out the window and found the facts, the truth, about the weather for himself?

Simplistic example, sure. But why do reporters trust the government that there were WMD in Iraq (or in Iran) -- why didn't they go find out? Coulda been useful information to know, that.

A variation of this is if someone -- say, a government whistleblower -- makes a claim about some wrongdoing. Sure, you could get an offical source to deny it, but why? If it's true, why give them the chance to lie to you (and your readers) and to waterdown the truth with their own denial? There are good uses for right to reply, but why give that right to a major corporation or government? It's not like they need the help getting their views across, y'know?

The problem is that the claim has to be true. Right to reply is used so the time-crunched journo has less fear of getting sued when they run a story they haven't had the chance to truly check: "We don't know if the claim is true, but if we let the opposition speak, they're less likely to sue us for defamation." And staying in business has upsides, I admit.

The third rule sort of blew my mind. I'd had this thought rumbling around in my brain for a while, that the use of quotes was kind of unnecessary for many stories. A (shall we say) sister title of the one I work on has a much stricter editor than me (and by 'me', I do mean me). And they use fewer quotes, kind of only when it's really needed or brings something to the story. They don't have a bunch of crappy, PR, wanky quotes filling up their stories, they have facts -- which is exactly what Davies said.

If something is true, why do you need someone to say it as evidence, if that makes sense. It's either true, or it isn't (obviously some stories aren't so fact driven, but that's different and not really hard news.) If the quotes are for colour, yay. If they're for evidence... well, not yay. We often get releases which run along these lines:

"This [subject] is a massive, growing problem to companies, costing them billions a year, if not more," explained CEO of a firm selling a product which relates to [subject].

Well shit, y'all -- he said it, it must be true. Why bother looking into the costs of [subject] on UK business; why would he lie? It's not like he stands to make money if people buy his bullshit... oh, wait, he does.

Indeed, rewriting press releases (and wire stories) is one thing Davies takes on in his book. Davies calls this "churnalism" -- the churning out of stories, because of tight deadlines, etc.

Back in the day, when we had to fill space quickly, we used to call it "crapping stories out" or "shitting on page." (I admit the former phrase has made it's way to my current office...) And that's exactly what it is. So if lame-ass student journos at a shit university in Canada can figure this out, why can't the industry (and readers) see if for what it is?

Really, I've held three 'proper' journalism jobs (so far). The current one at a B2B, the previous one at a weird off-shoot of a German newspaper, and the Gauntlet, the aforementioned student newspaper I worked at during university.

Of those three, which job gave me the time and freedom to actually follow a beat and get to know who I was writing about? And which one insisted on fact-checking and subediting and having at least two eyes on every story before it went out? And which was fully written by journalists, not by PRs or wire agencies? Which one let me be a 'proper' journalist?

The answer is really no surprise. B2B titles don't care about 'truth' in stories -- accuracy yes, but then how often do we take Reuters and PR at face value, as tho they never get it wrong or never tell lies (respectively)? The 'German' place was no more than glorified re-writes, so don't expect much there. There was no concern if story was correct -- if it was from Reuters or AP or Dow Jones, it must be true! and if not, it's not our fault! don't sue! -- but if I left a gerund hanging around, there was hell to pay.

But the Gauntlet was a different story. I remember having a conversation during those four years, where the idea came up that we were practicing the best journalism we'd ever get the chance to do, that we'd never have such freedom. Sadly, we were right.

Yeah, we wrote a lot of crap. We were learning. But we cared, and took the time to try to get things right. I remember re-printing pages at 4am because someone (Nat, probably) found a single comma out of place. Perfect grammar, original ideas, breaking news -- these were all something we took pride in, often to a fanatical level. We were believers. And holy fuck -- those long, unpaid/poorly paid hours were some of the best, most fun times of my life, even still.

And sure, I could go back and read and re-read stories that go online at work, to make them perfect. I should, it's my job. But there comes a point where I've got to just get stuff up and move on, or work doesn't get done and hits don't get counted and ads don't get served. Don't get me wrong: I like my job. I get to do a lot of what I want, and they even funded my little foray into investigative journalism -- which wasn't cheap -- and I'm not being positive just because my boss probably still reads this and I don't want to get in trouble.

But how much of this 'proper' journalism can I push (and should I push) at a business publication? There's only one way to find out...

I'm not saying I want to try to turn a tech B2B website into a shining beacon of journa-tasticness to take on the Guardian and inspire wanna-be investigators everywhere. That would be crazy talk. But I'm paid to be a journalist, and I want to be a journalist, so that's what I'm gonna do.

Let's see if I still know how.

Docu(ment)drama

2008-07-13T19:20:00.006Z

I need a new passport. Mine is not only full, but it's falling apart.

That it's falling apart isn't me bragging 'oh, I've been so many places that it's worn out,' because I really haven't been that many places, not enough to hurt a passport. No, I spilled apple juice on it about three years ago (back when M/T/M visited). Ever since then, it's looked like it's been thru the wash -- the cover feels strangely soft like fabric and is peeling apart, and the inside pages are ink-stained and all curvy, the way any paper curls when it gets damp.

I'm often asked when going thru customs whether it went thru the wash. This started the very day I had my juicy little accident. After we arrived in Dublin, I was the first to go thru customs. A very Irish looking man -- big and round, with a massive chunky nose and red cheeks -- took my still-damp document, and warmly, kindly asked if I'd accidently left it in a pocket, sending it through the wash cycle. Cheerfully, I said: "No, I spilled apple juice on it."

With a sudden look of utter disgust -- maybe he doesn't like apples? -- he slammed the visa stamp onto it, leaving behind a smeary green mark on the page, all while shaking his head at me.

He's not the only border control personnel my battered passport has offended. I've been told time and time again to get a new one. One lady tried to tell me I was lucky she was letting me in, as my passport was in such poor condition. She was full of shit -- it may look a bit worn, but everything in it is perfectly readable... mostly. On the way to Bangladesh, I got lectured -- again, with a shaking head -- for not taking good enough care of such an important document. Don't I know better?

Since the juicing, however, it has been thru a lot. I have a tendency to just chuck it in my back pocket when I travel, so I really should get a proper cover for it. The back is now covered in security stickers -- a few red and white Virgin Atlantic ones, and some others from the US -- and sticky bits attract dirt where others have fallen off. The covers of the binding are worn and curved and the whole thing is a bit crumpled and crinkly.

I've been avoiding replacing it tho, despite the poor condition. I'm rather fond of it. I got it in Edmonton, just weeks before I moved out to London. In my usual habit of leaving things to the last minute, I had to pay about double the usual cost to get it rushed to me in a few days -- I think Daorcey was one of my references -- in order to rush it off to Ottawa to get my visa (hopefully) rush-approved, stuck in the new passport, and rushed back to me. It arrived the day before I flew out, thereby stressing out me and my parents that I'd need to book a new flight.

And now, it makes for great reading material when standing in line at the airport -- something which happens often. Queued up for checkin/bagdrop/security/moresecurity/boarding/etc, I'll flip thru the pages and try to remember what the various stamps and visas were for and reminisce about trips with DarNat, M/T/M and my family.

I have two UK work permit visas and a student visa which take up a page each, as well as my shiny Russian one and the mostly-handwritten Bangladeshi one, which I love because it took so much trouble to get (never put 'journalist' as your occupation in a visa form -- just means delays).

On the other pages, smeared and smudged black stamps for Heathrow and Gatwick arrivals criss-cross black-and-red visas for Cologne, Prague, Amsterdam and others. Others, some so faint they're hard to read, occupy lonely corners of otherwise empty pages. The Americans are neatest, keeping their blue-and-red oval visas clear of others, in proper rows.

My passport no longer has any blank pages left (which caused me to miss a work trip to Shanghai a few months back), so there's no avoiding replacement now. It's nothing on par with some I've seen -- Mike's is an impressive record of the ridiculous places he's been, while his friend Peter's is just ridiculous (they worked together as tour guides, so there ya go.) Still, I have to admit, when I first got this passport, I never thought I'd fill it up before it expired.

So this time, I think I'm going to get the extra-big 48-page one...

I've had 23 jobs in 26 years

2008-05-12T19:37:00.008Z

I have spent -- don't ask me why, I blame Natalie -- the last hour or so trying to figure out how many jobs I've had in my life. This is no easy task. If the Gauntlet career counts as one, I've held 23. I'm 26. (If it counts as three, well... do the math.) Let's count them down, shall we?

1- Working for my mom My mom had a second-hand children's clothing store (second hand clothes, not children, tho there's clearly more money in the latter) which I worked in from four pm until six pm every day after school, starting in junior high. She paid me like, $4.50 an hour. Child labour, I tells ya.

2- Subway Realising my labour was worth more on the open market, I ditched my mom (I actually felt bad about it at the time, like I was selling out on my mom for $2/hour) and became a sandwich artist. This was back in the day of V-cut bread, which actually held all the shit in. And yes, shit is the right word. Don't ever eat a meatball sandwich. Really.

3- The Lake The summer after I graduated high school, I left my art behind me to work at the food stands at Lake Sicome, aka poo pond, for a couple summers. Okay, I'm not sure anyone ever called it that before I just did right there, but diapers were found in it. And, the second summer I worked there, it was shut down temporarily because there was too much bird shit in it.

But I digress. This was honestly one of the most stressful jobs I've had -- in the second summer, I managed 40-odd teenagers at three locations on my own. I used to find them making out in the freezer. They got more action than I did at that age... or any age. Later that summer, I got accused of theft, freaked out at my evil boss, and told her to never come back while I was there. She didn't. I'm scary when I'm angry.

4 - Esprit The first Christmas break of university, I worked at Esprit in Southcentre mall for one shift. They told me I had to make a certain dollar amount of sales each hour... regardless of whether anyone actually came in the store. I explained math to them and then never came back.
5- The Body Shop I shouldn't do retail. Here, I lined up bottles, so the labels all faced the same way. I wasn't supposed to do sales, just bottle alignment, but ended up helping a very nice lady who was buying skin care stuff for her dying-of-cancer friend -- "oh no, just the small bottles will do, she won't live that long". Then, one of the sales people swiped the sale. I quit shortly after. Fuckers. I still don't shop there, but I eat at Subway -- go figure.

6- Gauntlet May as well chuck this in here. I'm not sure it counts as work, as it was barely paid, and I would have done it for free. Some of the best years of my life, where I met some of my bestest everest friendests. Yeah, it was good times. There -- and it's the student newspaper, for those of you who haven't a clue what I'm on about -- I was the entertainment (Buzz! hahaha) editor, as well as features and web. I'll just count that as one, m'kay?

7- Liquor Barn The local liquor store, down in Deer Valley. I started work there the day after a rather infamous frat party -- the one and only I've ever been to. I was rather hungover, and the first thing that happened when I got to work was some idiot knocked over the vodka stack, sending Smirnoff all over the floor. The smell of alcohol when you're that hungover... I'm amazed I lasted the next ten minutes, let alone the next several weeks over Christmas working there. It was a boring, but okay job. No discounts, sadly. But I did get to turn away make-up coated teenagers for not having proper ID. They'll never learn: blue eyeshadow and four pounds of mascara do not make you look like an adult.

8- City of Calgary Call Centre This was fun, because I was good at it, and got to work with Kris and Nat and Mike and Bailey. We would make calls, trying to get people to agree to do a transportation survey. They would have to write down everywhere (ie, addresses) they and everyone else in their house went on a given day and how long it took them to get there. It was massive. And then, we'd call them, and they'd tell it all back to us over the phone. The highlights of this job were the voice-mail induced giggle fest with Natalie -- I still laugh when I hear that tone -- and a lady who included her husband in the study... even though he was dead. She drove him to the funeral home the day she took part. That was weird. We didn't have a code for that one.

It was a good company to work for tho, and I ended up doing a lot of adhoc stuff for them over the next little while.

9- Some random garbage company I did market research for a garbage company the next summer. I wish I was kidding. I had to go door-to-door to different small companies, and ask about their garbage pickup. I got paid based on how much information I got for each one. I hated that job so much. One day, a guy screamed at me -- little, young, blonde sweet me -- to get the fuck out of his store. I slipped escaping, scraped my knee, and totally gave up. I went to walmart and bought the first two harry potters (I think it was one and two, anyway) and sat reading them in my mom's Saturn in the parking lot, with the AirCon on... which totally drained the car battery.

Thankfully, Saturns are magic, and it regained power (I have no idea why I wasn't driving my mustang, other than it was probably getting a new engine or something.) I freaked and called my dad, crying into the phone about how much I hated my job.

His response was something along these lines: "Then why don't you quit? It's not like you're going to starve or something. You don't need this job. Why would you keep a job that makes you cry?"

That's bloody good advice, that is.

10- Some random adult learning charity I think I went from garbage-picking to this job, but I can't really remember. I can't really remember the name of it, either. But they let me do some cool stuff and paid me alright. And, during the G8 stuff in Kananaskis, the let me skip out to go watch the protests. I went with one of the older ladies who worked there to one of them, and on the way back, a homeless guy made a gesture and some comments suggesting we were lesbians. The older lady had no idea what he was on about. It was awesome.

11- Puralator Courier I worked there one Christmas, trying not to get crushed under falling boxes. I can't remember what Christmas it was though, which is rather frightening. A package came for a guy named Peter Pan. He was a tiny, old chinese man. So cute.

12- Social Sciences Call Centre Like the above call centre, but shitter. Rather than have to convince people to do a useful, interesting survey, I had to get people to do a boring, crap one written by stupid-ass social sciences students. As a social science student myself, these people made me hate my faculty.

13- Call-us-info I worked here with Natalie. It was horrible. Possibly even worse than canvassing about garbage pickup. The call centre we worked at was the only non-prison based one the company ran. Murderers did my job. Fair punishment, now that I think of it. But no, I was paid $8/hour to do marketing surveys. I often skipped questions out of boredom, but even if a supervisor was listening in I never got a performance mark below about 98%.

A dork that worked there asked me out. He started by asking if I'd seen the latest Star Wars film. I said I had, and that I hated it. He then asked -- via a poem on a piece of scrap paper -- if I'd go see it with him. I said no, because I'd seen it, hated it, and he was retarded. He kind of harrassed me a bit after that.

I was working shifts at the Social Sciences call centre, then coming to this one for a shift. I had a few 12 hour days. Natalie also worked at this hell-hole, and she was driving me home once when I flipped. I just lost it. Started yelling out the window at people from the car, sticking post it notes everywhere.

I eventually stole a mug, left and never came back. Three weeks later, after not showing up for any of my shifts, they asked me to come back. I said no.

14- Random un-named educational publisher From there, I ended up at an educational publishing house in Calgary, which I shall not name, as the owner is probably the litigious sort. And, a bitch. I was basically her personal assistant. I booked her hotels, her cars, and her son's classes for university. She started to appreciated me after I got the retard into a full class (I had mad skills dealing with assistant deans). When I quit, they had to hire two people to replace me. Bwahahah.

15- Freelancing for my dad I've done my fair share of freelance stuff on the side, but this one covered about a year, so I'll include it. I helped write and edit e-learning shit for my dad's company. It was a cool project, but a bit awkward when your boss' boss is your dad, y'know? Especially when you're a slacker.

16- CMHA I then got a part-time job at a mental health charity as a communications coordinator. I actually rather liked this job, but we got a new editorial director, who decided my role should be full-time (yay!) and go to someone with a minimum of ten years' experience (doh!) so I started looking for another... At this point, I knew I was going to go away for my MA, so I just needed something for the summer.

17- Northern Horse Review I actually forgot I worked there until I looked at an old CV in my email. I part-timed here while working at CMHA for a bit, writing a bit, but mostly formatting stuff for the magazine.

18- The Track I ended up, on a whim, sending an email to the racetrack secretary at Stampede Park, explaining I'd never worked as a groom but had horsey experience. He replied within the hour, asking if I wanted a job. I got offered one with one of the top trainers (tho ended up working for his lovely brother instead). This was by far one of the best jobs I ever had -- and keep in mind I started at 6am every single day and shoveled poop. I would work there in the mornings, and then change in my car -- spray some perfume -- and go to my office job at CMHA.
I eventually (rather tearfully, actually) made the decision to go to Edmonton when the meet moved up there, and ended up living half at my grandparents' house and half of the time in my room in the barn. I loved every minute of it. I don't think I could have spent my life doing that work, but I loved that summer. And, I ate donuts for breakfast every freaking day, and was about 30 pounds lighter and in awesome shape. Wicked awesome, I tells ya.

19- Greyhound I did some temp work the first year I came back from London at Christmas. I had a month off school. I think I worked about a week. It was for a bus-based parcel delivery company, and I took the complaint calls.

People would actually call me, asking why their parcel hadn't arrived in Calgary from Halifax, even though it was sent overnight the day before. I would then explain to them that it was not possible for a bus to cross Canada in a day. Good times. I worked there a week, and called in sick one day to shop with my sister. So hardworking.

20/21- Internships Maybe these shouldn't count, but I got paid at both (booya! I hate working for free) so I'm gonna count them. First up, a Corporate Social Responsibility magazine, which I wish I still wrote for, but kinda burned that bridge by not handing copy in, and disappearing. Second, New Statesman, where I crapped out blog posts and a hilarious game and even managed to pull. Yay me.

22- Handelsblatt My first job after my MA. I was so desperate for work, that this actually sounded good. I got a good title out of it, and they paid alright, and the people were nice enough, but OH MY GOD it was so boring. For a play-by-play of my last day, click here.

23- IT PRO Hahahah like I'm going to say anything bad about the place I currently work, when they all read this shit. Actually, I like it most days. I don't sleep in late in the mornings the way I used to -- it's hard to get out of bed when you hate your job -- and enjoy most of the work I do, which comes as a bit of a surprise to me, given how often I hate my jobs (see above). I hit the point last year -- about 6 to 8 months -- where I start to get really bored of what I'm doing, and I didn't get bored. It was a weird sensation, to like a job -- well, one that didn't involve horse shit, anyway.

If you think this took effort to read, realise how much brain scraping it took to write. I honestly had to refer to CVs and Natalie to get this right, and I think I missing something from 2002. My brain is gone. Thanks, beer. I thought you were my friend...

Getting nowhere

2008-04-08T01:20:00.002Z

I’ve never boarded a plane, spent six hours on it, and then got off it without going anywhere.

There’s a good reason for this: that would be stupid. It would be a dumb waste of a day, dontcha think?

Well. You can see where this is going. I’ve often moaned that British airports (I’m looking at you BAA – the British Airport Authority) are hell, and damn, I was right.

Day One
So I had to fly to Orlando, to attend a conference (storage and networking, whee!). My flight was at 1040am from Gatwick, connecting in Charlotte to go to Florida. As I inexplicably do before heading to the US, I didn’t sleep much (did that before Miami and Vegas – I don’t learn) as the Blackheath Triumvirate decided to have a flat warming party the night before, and I decided to have a few glasses/bottles of wine and night-bus it home after 2am.

Anyway. To get to Gatwick for 8ish, I had to leave my house by 7ish, which meant I had to be up for 6ish, as I hadn’t finished packing yet. So if you do the very simple math (or “maths” as they call them here in Bizarro world) I got about 3 hours of sleep. As I value sleep above personal hygiene, I didn’t bother to shower.

I tell you all that for context, so you fully understand how painful the next day(s) were.

Got to Gatwick, lined up to check in at Zone J, home to US Airways, who I’ve never heard of before (I don’t book my own flights…) but who clearly exist. I got to the front of the line, and the woman yelled at me for not having the address of my hotel – since when is the name of it ever not enough??? – and sent me off to the internets to look it up. Got back, waited in line behind a disorganized family, and finally got my boarding card.

Wound my way through the gauntlet of poking, prodding and scanning that is security, pushed my way through the WH Smiths to buy a few books – Obama’s Audacity of Hope and Nick Hornby’s Juno-like Slam – and water, and ambled up to Gate 23.

It was about ten minutes to boarding, but we clearly were going to be delayed, as it was snowing. Now, I don’t think a bit of flurries should keep any plane grounded, but the British can’t seem to handle it, despite it happening at least a few times a year. That said, this was a proper snow storm, unlike anything I’d seen here yet.

That in mind, I got a coffee, and a sandwich – my first food of the day, and helpful for my wine-filled, rather acidy feeling stomach – and found a spot to read up on Obama.

The airline then announced that the runway was closed, but would reopen for 11am, and we’d be boarded a bit after that. So we loaded up onto the plane, and got comfy. I happened to be sat next to a teenaged missionary, which sounds like hell on its own - a transatlantic flight next to a jesus freak? - but he was actually pretty cool.

Now, we’d been sat for a little while when our pilot announced that we’d have to wait for de-icing, which might take a while, but that he’d update us as soon as he knew.

Fair enough. We all chilled – hey, bad weather, it’s a delay, no biggie.

Then he comes on again, to tell us that we’re seventh in line for the de-icing services… which should take two hours. Right.

Three hours pass, and we’re still sitting there. We boarded at 11am, it’s past two, and all we’ve had to eat so far is pretzels and whatever we brought on the plane, as they can’t feed us our meals, as that would leave nothing for the flight.

The de-icer guy starts working on the plane next to us. Doing ONE FREAKING WING takes him 45 minutes. Then he moves onto the other. Another half hour passes, before he lowers down his cherry-picker, climbs out, has an argument with ground crew – or so it looked – and then walks off. Right.

That plane leaves. We still sit. My row mate takes a nap on his fold-down tray. I get halfway through Obama’s book, not feeling too hopeful myself. Kids are running up and down the aisles, but being pretty good given they’ve been stuck on a plane four hours. The flight crew are jokey and funny, trying to make the best of things and prevent mutiny. Everyone’s still pretty chilled. I pull out my laptop, do some writing. It’s like being on a flight, just without the pesky movement.

It’s when we pass the five hour mark at 4pm that I start to get pissed off. I’m hungry and out of snacks. I’m too antsy to read or work. It’s late enough in the day now that I call my older sister on my mobile, just to chat and kill some time. After filling her in on my awesome day, and hearing the latest Mae update, and gossiping about the other sister’s wedding (she bought a dress! Etc…) I say to Amanda that I’m pretty sure we’re not going anywhere today, as flight crews are limited to how many hours they can work – and there’s no way they’ll be able to do a seven and a half hour flight after sitting on the tarmac for six hours.

I love it when I’m right. Yeah. The pilot comes on to announce that our flight has been cancelled. Nearly six hours after we boarded, we gather out things and deplane… back into Gatwick, which isn’t anywhere near Orlando.

Now, I’ve got people supposedly meeting me on the ground in Florida, so I call and update them, and then go stand near the desk to hopefully overhear some details about when the flight will be rebooked. Not much is forthcoming from the two yellow-vested airport workers. They’re on their radios a lot, and on phones, clearly trying to work things out. Rumours spread thru the crowd that the flight has been rebooked to 4am, that it’s been rescheduled from Charlotte to Philly… but nothing is confirmed.

After nearly an hour of standing at our gate, with people irritable but amazingly not mutinous, they lay out the plan. The flight will go at 9am the next day, but it will indeed go to Philadelphia, and not Charlotte – no biggy for me, as I’m connecting anyway and can just go home overnight. But everyone else is told there is a hotel booked in Brighton – about half an hour on the train – for people to stay at, and a coach to take them there, and food vouchers.

A lot of people would rather stay at the airport, but are told US Airways won’t reimburse them for other hotels, which is really very far from the right thing to say. Others say they’d rather just sleep at the gate, and are told they can’t. Also, not the right thing to say.

So the yellow-vested ones lead us back through departures, out of security backwards, and to the baggage reclaim to, well, reclaim our baggage. We hit the reclaim hall – which is pretty freaking big – and the yellow-vested woman just stops. We all stop around her. We don’t know what to do. We’re sheep. Tired, hungry sheep.

Someone asks her: “Which reclaim belt?” She replies: “How should I know?”

Not the right answer.

It eventually gets announced, and we truck back to the check-in desks at Zone J, nearly 10 hours after I last saw the place. You can imagine the scene. Couple hundred of the aforementioned tired and hungry sheep, all baaa-ing at the four US Airways employees, who are starting to get snarky. Despite the plan (as above), there is indeed no coach – people must make their own way to Brighton, and write to US Airways’ customer enquiries after the fact to get reimbursed. And, those food vouchers? Not ready yet – not what hungry people want to hear.

I stood in the mess for a bit, texting my boss to sort out if I should bother even catching the flight the next day – it’s not a very long trip, and missing one day is missing a lot – while trying to get someone’s attention to find out if I need to rebook, or if I can get connections to Orlando the next day. I manage to get someone to look at me, and she says “just a sec” before running away behind a door and not coming back.

I took that as a sign to just go, and come back in the morning. As I turned to head to the trains, I heard the ticket desk woman loudly say: “yes, just show up tomorrow morning to catch the flight, but turn up early – it’s going to be a mess tomorrow.”

I got back to Bermondsey nearly 12 hours after leaving the house. I was on three hours sleep. I was hungover. I was unshowered. It took me a little while to decide if I should indeed bother going, and in the end, I decided to try again the next day.

I showered, called my mom, called my boss, and conked out about 1030pm.

Day Two
When I woke up at 5am the next morning, I was confused. Where was I? Why was my phone (which I use as an alarm clock) going off so early? Had I set the time wrong? And then I remembered.

Back on the tube to the train to head back to Gatwick. Missed mine by a second (a train platform staff guy yelled, “time, love” to me, whatever the fuck that means) but I had a feeling there’d be more delays, so wasn’t too stressed.

Arrive at good old Zone J about 645am-ish. It’s packed. We weren’t the only US Airways flight to be cancelled – why did theirs get cancelled, when other planes took off? I don’t know – so it was a shit show. Passengers from that day’s flights, and from our delayed flights, were lined up past the Monarch desks, around the corner, along M&S and down the hall to Boots when I got there. And it just got worse.

Nothing you can do, right? I made sure I was in the right line, by asking people in the line, as US Airways staff were impossible to find (fair enough, they were checking people in.) But we did have line management, in the form of BAA staff in yellow shirts.

Standing in line behind the same people I stood in line when I checked in before, an extended American family, I flipped back into my Obama book, kicking my bags along the floor as I shuffled forward with the line. So far, I was keeping pretty cool. I was pissed off, and writing letters in my head, and thinking of ways to make BAA pay, but was well rested and fed and showered so I felt okay.

But then I guess M&S wanted us to stop blocking their storefront, and BAA is big on retail (don’t get me started) so they decided to clear a gap in our line so people could get thru. Fair enough. The gap was to be between me and the family in front of me who had a lot of luggage, and were annoyed at being told where to go, and the father (grandfather?) grumbled a bit. He wasn’t rude. He just grumbled. And muttered a little, and then did what he was told.

In response to his grumbles, the yellow-shirted airport employee then turns to me and says: “Talking to some people is like talking to a brick wall, I tell ya.”

All of my frustration from the day kind of peaked then. I snapped: “You shouldn’t be expecting much sympathy from people in this line, we’ve been waiting for the past day and a half.”

Okay, not exactly the worst thing I’ve ever snapped at someone. I then flipped open to read a bit more Obama, when she said: “Don’t take it out on me. It’s not my fault. We can’t control the weather. It’s the weather.”

To which I replied: “It’s not the weather. It snows every year. BAA is terminally understaffed. This is a staffing issue.”

Her witty, calming, professional rejoinder: “I don’t work for BAA.”

She is wearing a bright yellow shirt that says BAA across it. I point this out to her. She argues that she’s just a contractor, clearly not understanding that she should either just apologise for the trouble, or walk away. Instead, she stands there complaining to her coworker about what jerks we all are. Rather than risk my place in line by yelling at her and getting accused of “abusing” staff, I stand there, silently fuming, pretending to read my book, but unable to focus for sheer rage.

She leaves. The line doesn’t move, but people start joining it behind the American family. I point the unwitting queue jumpers out to another yellow shirt, who looks at me blankly. I have to explain it again before he understands that people think that’s the end of the line. Silly optimists. It’s actually about 150 people behind me.

At this point, it’s about 830, maybe a bit later. That 9am flight isn’t going to happen. No one comes to tell us the flight has been pushed back to 10am. We here rumours of it, but nothing official. A short while later, while I stand outside of M&S freezing from the chill coming off their fridgeration units – the retards finally decide to separate out the lines, and take us forward a bit. There’s still thirty or so people ahead of me, but it’s starting to look like I might actually get on this flight.

I’m still pissed off from the dumb yellow-shirted woman, but calm enough that I can read my book some more. Standing in the switchback queue next to me is a gorgeous family – a lovely little girl who has been nicknamed “princess” by others in the line, and her total hottie of a dad and beautiful mom.

The little girl is being lovely, not misbehaving at all. She’s standing with a stuffed sheep, poking it the nose and giggling. My mood lightens a bit. Then she looks up at her wavy-haired dad, and lets out this insane noise – at first it sounds like a wail, but then I realise she’s playing, not crying. She runs up to him again, and does it again – this time, it sounds more like a roar. Her parents are trying to make her stop “playing monster” but everyone in the line is giggling – how much did we all want to just let out a roar over the past day? – and she’s so cute. Her mom makes her stop – but then she looks up at me from her vantage point a foot and a half from the floor, sees that I’m giggling hysterically, and does it again.

Yeah, my mood was much helped by her cuteness. We continue curving thru the line, me flipping thru my book, with an actual smile on my face. At this point, the American dad/granddad turns to me and says that I have been so calm thru everything, that I’ve been the calmest person on our flight thru everything. I’m not known for calm, so this comes as some surprise to me, but I take it as flattery, as it’s always nice to be seen as in control.

Finally, boarding card in hand, back thru security, and back onto the plane. It’s weird seeing the same flight crew again, and they remark on it as well. A few delays getting everyone on board, but we’re finally off, to the applause of most of the passengers… While I was happy to finally, finally, finally be in the air… I still had 12 hours of travel in front of me just to get to Orlando, before turning around and doing it again on the way back a few days later… though thankfully, flying Virgin for the return leg.

I realise this is already an opus (hey, I’m bored, I’ve run out of books) but there’s two things that must be addressed before I end.

First: Snow is not enough of an excuse to shut down London’s airports. It snows at least a few times every year. Gatwick (apparently) has just one de-icer. Clearly, that’s not enough. BAA and the airlines are failing to invest in the equipment and staff that they need to deal with this stuff because it’s cheaper for them to just screw us passengers over now and then. It shouldn’t be. If everyone on these delayed flights could claim compensation, it would remove this false economy, but EU rules say such compensation is limited if the delay is due to weather and other unforeseen circumstances. But weather isn’t unforeseen – the BBC told me it would snow on Sunday. Why didn’t they get more staff in? Any good manager would. Much of the delays could have been avoided or at least better managed if the airlines and BAA were better staffed – but they get out of being held responsible because it snowed. Fuck that shit.

Second: After reading The Audacity of Hope, Obama has my vote (not that I have one). I dont' don’t agree on everything he says - not least a vague recollection he's anti-gay-marriage... is this right? has he flipped on this yet? - but if that book is an honest representation of who he is and what he believes, then we line up pretty well on most other things. So yeah: vote Obama, and read his book.

That is all. I'm going to finish drinking my mini-bar vodka and apple juice, and then pass out in my ridiculously plush bed now. And then wake up and work. Business trips are fun...?

Tim Hortons in London

2008-04-05T12:07:00.006Z

I just drank a double-double and ate a Boston Cream from Tim Hortons. Yes, I am still in London. No, not the one in Ontario. The other London.

A former classmate of mine sent me a message on Facebook a short while ago... asking if I was one of those donut-obsessed Canadians -- and if I was, to let me know he'd noticed a Tim Hortons sign in a shop window near Piccadilly.

A bit of googling later, and hot damn, it turns out he was right. So this morning I meandered my way to Haymarket -- a major road which lives between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square.

View Larger Map

But who needs such sights, when there's donuts needin' eatin'... Haymarket being a one-way street, I pushed my bike along the pavement, looking out for the sign for Spar -- that being a chain of corner shops in the UK and Ireland.

Didn't see the Spar sign, but I sure as hell noticed the massive Timmys logo on the window. My heart soaring, I parked and scrambled inside.

It's (obviously) not a proper Tims, more like the ones you find in Esso stations. But beggars can't be choosers, and when it comes to donut options in London, you've got 1) crap and 2) Krispy Creme (ie, Krap).

The coffee comes from a machine, and shamefully, isn't very good. They do sell the tins of take-home coffee, but you could get that from the Australia Shop (which has a corner of canuckistan shiznit -- mmm... Kraft Dinner).

There wasn't much of a donut selection. They had lots of Boston Creams -- my favourites -- as well as chocolate ones with chocolate bits on them, ucky looking white-iced ones with sprinkles, jam-filled naked ones (no sugar? no icing?) and the basic chocolate iced ones.

The icing looks a bit weird, like they're doing something wrong somewhere along the line. And the donuts themselves don't really taste that fresh, though possibly they simply weren't. So not quite on par with walking into a proper Tims, right when they're putting still-warm donuts on the shelves... Still, a sweet, gooey taste of home, washed down with caffeinated awesomeness.

We just need to get slurpees out here, and I'll be happy. Morbidly obese, but happy.

Now for an aside on identity and branding: I realise it might seem stupid to connect a donut brand with nationalism, with "home." It doesn't just seem stupid, it really is. Canadians shouldn't feel patriotic for cracking open a can of Molson's Canadian (if the name wasn't enough, the slogan "I. AM. CANADIAN" and that lovely commercial kinda slammed the idea home).

The idea of Canadian-ness, however it should be defined, shouldn't be defined by marketing departments (even those that created Roll up the Rim to Win). Donuts aren't culture; they're not identity.

That said... I've spent many, many, many hours in Tims, chatting with friends into the wee, wee hours of the morning over an extra-large mocha and apple fritters -- shout out here to Kris, Mary, DarNat and Mel. (I just started salivating at the thought of apple fritters.) To me, Tims is one of those familiar stand-ins, a comforting pill to swallow when you can't have the real comfort of familiar faces and places.

And sometimes, when you're rather far away from home, something as basic as a familiar experience or taste is what you really need to feel a bit grounded and okay again. So it's not so much patriotism as homesickness, I guess.

All that, and donuts too...

Spice up your life

2008-01-21T20:36:00.000Z

So! I haven't posted here in eons! EONS! Anyhoo, rather than finally finish my orkney posts, or write about interesting places like Moscow, I'm just going to write about the Spice Girls.

One of the oddest in the long line of crazy-ass free tickets I've gotten has been an offer to see the reunion tour at the O2 arena (formally the millenium dome) out near Greenwich.

Thing is, I never even liked them (which is a surprise to no-one who reads this thing, if indeed anyone still does.) I remember back in high school, when they were hot shit, having a ridiculous conversation with someone, which went along these lines:

School Friend: "The Spice Girls are even bigger than the Beatles."

Me: "No, they're not. Are you retarded?"

SF: "Yes they are. People will be listening for them forever."

Me: "Yeah, lets have this conversation in ten years, and you'll be wrong."

Now, on one hand, I was so totally right (as I often am). Uh, they're not bigger than the Beatles. Hell, the Beatles probably still outsell them, and they're half dead. On the flip side, ten years later, the Spice Girls are still selling out arena tours.

Okay, it's just a reunion show, it's not like their single took off. But I like the idea of reunion shows -- how they appeal to fans who couldn't afford the tickets back in the day... but who have the money now. What 15-year-old could afford Spice Girl tickets back in 1998? But a 25-year-old, she can. Such an awesome business model, nostalgia.

Right. Now back to the show. Being as this was a PR-special, we had box seats. (I know it's whoreish, but it's fun.) But really: free beer is needed to enjoy the Spice Girls, and the good seats were actually appreciated.

It was a damn hilarious show. Yeah, Sporty is the best singer, but she has no character, no sense of style. She must hate Posh "Mrs. Beckham" Spice, who can't sing at all -- who, indeed, didn't bother doing a solo when the other four each did one -- but who gets the most cheering of all. Hell, David and the kids showing up for their front-and-centre seats got more applause than the sporty one.

No, while the other four performed singles from their solo "careers", she just did a catwalk strut. But hell, that's what she's done for her solo career, so why not? Gotta respect the girl for it, in a twisted sort of way.

The other three were cute and better singers than expected -- though our publisher Barry is convinced they use that auto-tune tech to even out their voices. This isn't a surprise, but Barry having an opinion on the Spice Girls kind of was...

But the best part of the show -- save Scary Spice essentially humping the face of a man pulled from the audience, who was tied to a ladder (yeah, it was awesome and nearly made coworker maggie laugh to death) -- the best part was the male backup dancers... mostly because they were actually, y'know, talented.

(Sorry, no photos. I didn't bring my camera, and the Skype phone camera isn't quite that good... but should really be my next post, actually...).

Artsy

2007-11-11T20:09:00.000Z

The Tate Modern has a new installation in the Turbine hall, which (for those of you who have never seen it) is a massive, open concrete space in the former power building.

Previously, it's been home to thousands of white boxes as well as slides. Based on those two alone, you can imagine why I get the urge to go back whenever they have something new.

So this is what they've done this time... they've cracked the floor. Or more precisely, some artist has. It's supposed to represent something about racism and divided society, but I just think it's cool.

As did the hundreds of visitors there. People were generally using it as one big photo prop, taking shots of themselves straddling it, lying down next to it, or jumping over it. Kids treated it like a toy, dancing around it and sticking their feet in the wider bits.

There's a warning sign near the ticket desk, warning people to watch where they step. Art than can hurt you (or, at least your ankles) -- now that's good times.

In other artastic news, Shannon and I went to go see the Turner Prize Retrospective at Tate Britain. The actual Turner Prize is temporarily in Liverpool this year, so they've gathered up a bunch of pieces from the last 23 years and crammed it in a few rooms.

As a show, it's not great. Some pieces seem to have no explanation whatsoever. And, generally, I'm not all that happy with Turner stuff. But there was a pair of Chris Ofili paintings, which are awesome, and the Damien Hirst cows in formaldehyde, which was cool to see, if a bit gross. I really liked this one video, too, by Gillian Wearing of police arranged in a group portrait and then filmed for an hour while they just stand there. Really cool and surprisingly enjoyable to watch.

Post-Tate, Shannon and I went in search of Starbucks -- mmm... gingerbread latte, I love you -- and happened past Trafalgar Square, where there's a new statue up on the fourth plinth. It doesn't have a permanent statue, so they rotate a new one in every 18 months. The last one was a gorgeous statue of a pregnant woman with no arms or legs... I wasn't sure about it at first, but it def grew on me.

Now, there's this:

It's called Model for a Hotel. It looks a bit like cheap shelving from Ikea, but it certainly is bright and colourful, and London can always use a bit of colour. But it does look rather out of place among all the military statues.

Halloween and Fireworks

2007-11-05T22:13:00.000Z

End of October is always a fun time in London, not so much because they're big on Halloween here (they're not) but because the local neighbourhood children make it sound like a freaking war zone, setting off fireworks constantly.

But while the UK is only just growing in affection for the whole Halloween thing, I'm somewhat of a long-time fan (as those of you who know me know, I put a little too much effort in.) That said, I haven't had a proper Halloween here yet. The first year, we did a Jack the Ripper walking tour. The second year, I was at a party, but I had about three minutes to throw a costume together, so while the party was good, my costume kind of sucked. And then the next year... another walking tour.

This year, though, we had a proper party at the flat. I couldn't decide what to be, not least because we'd originally planned a Mexican-themed party earlier in the month, and I was having some issues combining themes. In the end, I dressed up as a murdered tourist -- I think it worked pretty well. Lots of blood, socks with sandals, and even a fanny pack/bum bag. Good times. (More photos here.)

Party was good -- we had our own fireworks that night, and lets just I learned two things. 1) I shouldn't be trusted with these things. 2) The neighbour's garden is not half as flamable as it looks.

Then, later that week, we had a party for work at some hot-shit club. The theme was Saints and Sinners, so I went dressed as a devil in a blue dress -- not that anyone got the reference. I also dyed my hair red, just temporarily mind you, but liked it so much it's now semipermanent.

Anyway, good times. I'm off to another fancy dress/costume party this Friday -- starting to get kind of sick of them, y'know? Not unlike the fireworks, lighting up the sky outside my window...

Went to a fireworks display over the weekend, all part of the Bonfire Night/Guy Fawkes thing. They didn't burn parliament in effigy, but there was indeed a bonfire (no naked chanting and dancing around it, which would have been fun or something) and fireworks. Some more pictures here.

Malta

2007-10-22T23:01:00.000Z

I went to Malta at the end of September for some work thingamabob. I had to look it up on a map first (thanks, Google!). I knew it was Mediterranian, but exactly where I did not know. Anyway, it's apparently smack in the middle of the Med, south of Sicily.

Because of this, it's hella warm and sunny -- which probably explains why it's so crowded. It's about 7km long, but home to 400,000 people, making it one of the most densely populated places in the EU.

And, because of its handy location -- south of Italy, north of Africa -- it's got a cool mix of Southern Europe and Arabic culture, which shows in the language and the architecture.

Right. So the conference thingamabob was held at a posh hotel on a bay on the north side of the island. For some reason, when I checked in, they decided to give me the ambassador suite: two bathrooms, massive bedroom, sitting area, dining room, two seperate balconies -- and a rooftop patio overlooking the sea. I honestly considered barricading myself in that room and never, ever leaving.

And yes, I did use both bathrooms. I alternated.

Aside from listening to people ramble about ethernets, the group also travelled to the medieaval city of Mdina for dinner one night. Built on top of a hill, this fortress-town is actually still lived in -- but you've got to be descended from royalty to live there... and have a lot of money.

I had the glory of staying in my lovely room for just two nights. On the Friday, however, as the conference was over, I had to leave (or pay more money than I was willing in order to stay).

Me and a few other journos -- one of whom, like me, hadn't bothered to book a room for the weekend -- cabbed it to the capital city of Valetta. I figured that as this place is a pretty big tourist destination, finding a hotel/hostel would be easy. I was wrong. Accomodations in Valetta are few and booked months ahead of time.

After calling all the hotels and guest houses listed by the tourist office, I found one room in a hostel, handily around the corner from the hotel of the journos with better planning skills.

This place was a step down from the resort, however (anything would have been, mind you, but this was of the mind-your-step-b/c-it's-a-big-one variety). It had two twin beds, a shoddy dresser and a toilet in the hall -- but its window opened up into the historical old town. Looking out the window, down the steep street, with laundry hung out of buildings, and cats lounging on the stairs, it was hard to be too concerned about the quality of the bed.

Valetta is the "old town". All the buildings look ancient. We wandered down one side and up another -- it's a whole kilometer in length -- marveling at the steep hills and looking out over the harbour. Then we did what journos and PRs do when they get together -- we drank. Beer.

At one point, walking down the street, we came across a religious procession -- people in pope-like garb, leading a group of guys carrying a huge statue. Chanting and singing. On a Friday night. Down the main street. This place is rather religious.

The next day, my roomie John and I took one of the hilariously old-school Maltese buses south across the island. We stopped off, unintentionally, and saw some ancient ruins. Much older than Egypt's pyramids, our tour guide from the Mdina night had lamented that they weren't as popular. She suggested this was because Egypt is a bigger country. I suggest it's because these ruins are a pile of rocks, and the pyramids are marvels of engineering.

From there, we walked along the road to the sea, which was our actual destination. We were looking to take a boat trip to the Blue Grotto, a seaside cave with ridiculously blue water. Hopping onto our seven-seater motorboat, we bumped along on top of the water, past the little town, along the cliffs -- where Italian teenagers sunbathed, and seriously hardcore fisherman climbed down in order to set out their poles.

The water along the cliffs was a dark inky blue. It looked middle-of-the-ocean deep, despite being just feet from the shore. But once inside the caves, the water turned crystal clear, a blue like you'd see on a stone on a cheap ring. Along the edge of the water, the stone was purple and pink.

All that, while exceptionally pretty, had nothing on the water further down. There's a strange algae in the water, which makes it really insanely blue, and when the light hits in the right way, it's electric looking. Really wicked awesome. (Video here and here.)

After that, we bused it back through the little winding streets that cover Malta, and hooked up with the other two for drinks, dinner and more drinks.

The next day, John took off to catch his early flight, and Matt wrote stories (downsides of freelance), so Hillary and I wandered Valetta. We attempted to shop, but most of the stores were closed Sunday, as this country is very Catholic. We did attempt to wander a market, but it was so crowded -- with people and utter shit -- that we left to wander the town some more.

It was freaking hot out, and our energy waned as the day went on and we trekked up stupidly steep streets. We eventually found the palace, wandered in, and then were kicked out, because it was closed. It was a lazy, aimless day in the sun -- perfect way to spend holiday time, as far as I'm concerned.

I headed back to London that night, catching a RyanAir (it's like a bus, that flies!) flight that arrived at Luton at midnight. The queues for passport control were weirdly long, and then I missed my train, so had to take the coach back into Oxford Street, where it was (of course) raining...

More Malta pics are here.

Vegas, baby!

2007-10-14T20:49:00.000Z

In the continuing saga of random places PR firms and their tech clients send me -- see: Malta, Dresden, Miami, Seattle, Prague, Amsterdam -- I spent a week in luxury at the Mandalay Bay resort on the Strip in Vegas.

What a weird place, Vegas. It’s like Disneyland for adults. Everything is fake and sterile and commercialized… but hey, it's still hella fun.

The first day I arrived, I barely managed to leave my hotel. It was pretty big, okay? I stumbled jet-lagged through some random mall over to the Luxor, which is pyramid-shaped and Egyptian themed. It’s cool looking, no doubt. But I’m not sure I’d want to stay there – the slanting interior feels weird and the echoing chamber a bit cold. Then again, what do you expect when you theme your luxury hotel on a tomb?

Anyway, there were banners up everywhere promoting Nicky Hilton’s birthday bash (the night before, shame I missed it) at the Luxor’s club, LAX. Amusingly, in small(er) print at the bottom of the banner, just underneath the number to call for tickets, the promoters advised that anyone with a Luxor room key had automatic free entry – wow, exclusive, that.

Right. The next day, as the conference hadn’t really started, I took a stroll down the strip, passing all the ridiculous hotels – Luxor’s take on Egypt, Excalibur’s take on mediaeval England, MGM Grand’s take on Green. It’s all very tacky in a luxurious sort of way. It’s like Britney Spears – rich yet cheap.

I eventually made my way most of the way down the Strip – it’s about an hour walk – where I found the Fashion Show Mall, so called because it’s a mall which has fashion shows, which is rather brilliant. The shite dollar meant my pounds went twice as far as normal, so I could actually afford to buy things. Things which cost money. This hasn’t happened in a while, so it was exciting.

Looking to extend my sterling even further, I hopped the amsuinigly named Deuce bus to an outlet mall, which wasn't really worth the $5 travel card, but killed a few extra hours before I headed back to the hotel, where I must have gone out for dinner, but don't remember. I was jetlagged then, and still am now. At some point we ended up at the top-floor bar, with a view out across the strip, which was pretty awesome. But that might have been Sunday. I really am confused.

Monday, the conference started, which kept me busy all day. I didn't even leave the air-conditioned hotel (again) until dinner, when we went to the Harley Davidson Cafe for food. I'd like to think it's just a stereotype, but servings really are bigger in the US than the UK. I got about half way through my burger before calling it quits.

Tuesday -- again, no going outside until post-work, at which point I met up with my aunt, uncle and cousin. I had three sets of aunts/uncles in town, and managed to meet up with one (my phone was being weird.) After that, we (journos, etc) headed to some bar called Pure, where we'd booked their rooftop area. It was pretty cool... until our time ran out, and they made us leave. I guess we weren't cool enough to overstay our paid-for welcome. After that, we hotel-bar hopped from some divey-Irishy-thing to the Venitian, where we drank to much and nearly fell asleep at the table. Getting back to the hotel, one journo named Tony wandered off to the casino, and showing a marked resemblence to Calgary-Tony, won $200 at poker.

Wednesday, more work. (Noticing a trend?) I did get a spare half-hour to go look at the hotel's aquarium... they have sharks (video here). And a turtle. Maybe more. The evening event was intriguing, however. It was the conference's big gala dinner, where they got all 4,000 attendees into a big warehouse room (made me think of grad at the Big Four) to shovel food into our faces, before pushing us off to a ballroom to take in the glorious sounds of none other than grammy-award winners Hootie and the Blowfish (video here and here). This really, really amused me. After actually watching all of Hootie's performance, we went to the casino. I was up $13 on a $1 bet, but lost it all after an american tried to pick up on me. He was cute, but clearly unlucky.

Thursday, after doing some writing, I did something I'd been wanting to do all week: go to the pool. Mandalay Bay's pool area is ridiculous. They have sand! and a wave pool! and a fake river, with a current! And, best of all: sunshine -- sweet, sweet sunshine. After a boozy lunch, a few of us headed off to the airport, where we sat for three hours, waiting for our delayed flight. I love air travel.

After sitting through a ten and a half hour flight next to a very attractive, incredibly stupid couple, we reached Gatwick, where the plane had to land on autopilot because the weather was so shit and foggy that no one could see. Ahhh, England.

More pictures are here.

Amsterdam with Tony and friends

2007-10-03T20:32:00.000Z

Right. So I’m hella behind on my blogging. I owe posts (yes, I feel like I owe you, I care about my readers, all six of you) on the rest of Orkney, Amsterdam, Malta and whatever else I have sitting on my camera/in my brain. So here’s what I remember about Amsterdam, in just over a thousand words…

After staying up all night drinking shit vodka (it shouldn’t freeze!) with Kris, and on just two hours of sleep, I hopped an EasyJet to Amsterdam-Schipol to meet up with Tony, Meru and Kristian (who I’d travelled to Ireland with two years ago). It’s a good thing it’s a nice airport, as I ended up there for a while. My flight was late taking off, so I texted Kristian to say I might be a bit late, but would call as soon as I landed, so they’d know when to come meet me.

Ha. That worked. I waited at an airport bar, drinking Heineken, randomly receiving calls from Kristian that they were late or had missed the bus (with Tony yelling in the background to let him speak.) But you know what? I wasn’t bothered. It was the first time I felt really relaxed in a while. I had no where to go and nothing to do until they showed up, an occurrence which was out of my hands. So I sat, people watching and reading, sipping my pint, feeling pretty good despite my general exhaustion.

Tony finally showed up, and I’m always happy to see him, so that just added to the general feeling of GTs – and we weren’t even in Amsterdam yet.

Once we tracked down Meru (wandering in departures, inexplicably) and called Kristian (jogging around the airport, inexplicably), we caught the train into town, had some shitty KFC before finding some shitty tourist bar out of the rain where we had an overpriced shitty drink. It was awesome.

We wandered about through town, trying to find a coffee shop or pub that was still open. At some point, one of us asked a guy standing in the street for directions. Bart, as he turned out to be called, turned out to be a homeless guy, who gives tours of the red light district for hostel cash. He found our coffeeshop (it was closed), gave us directions to a beer pub (closed, but we returned later), and eventually found an open place – but not before taking us on a tour of the red light district. He took us down one hidden alley, just a few feet wide, with red lights and windows lining the sides. While women catcalled from open doors, British men (overwhelmingly) leered and cut deals, their sweaty skin and bald heads shining red in the light. Exiting that alley, we turned along an old church down a less busy strip, where Bart and I had this exchange:

Bart: The women on this street cost less.
Me: How come?
Bart: Because they’re fat. Do you want to see where the transvestites are?
Me: No… I think I’ll pass.

After running the gauntlet of prostitutes, Bart took us to a pub. After giving him all our change and a couple of five euro notes, he joined us for a pint (offering to buy his own, now he had enough cash, which I thought was rather sweet.) Anyway, if you ever go to Amsterdam, go to the zoo, as it came highly recommended by Bart.

The next day, after moving our gear from tents to a cabin, I rented a wobbly one-speed bike and we all rode into town for pancakes. They do weird things to pancakes in Amsterdam. Mine involved apples and bacon, and damn was it good. Afterwards, we did some beer shopping and aimless cycling – they have proper cycle lanes in this city, and I love it. There’re bikes everywhere. If I were mayor of London, my goal would be to make it like this. Forget cars. Forget trams. Get everyone on bikes.

I don’t really remember what else we did, but it probably involved drinking beer and cycling home and getting lost and possibly hot-boxing the cabin, but probably not.

On the last day, leaving Kristian behind in the cabin (possibly to hot-box it, possibly not), we took the bus and the metro into Amsterdam, stopping to sort out some travel-related stuff for the guys, before heading to the museum district, where we toured the Van Gogh museum. Pretty cool stuff, and I fell madly in love with one painting (as I tend to do). Tony ditched (as he tends to do in museums and Guiness tours) and we all arranged to meet up at the pub later that night. I finished with the museum, did a little shopping and headed to the flower market, which was pretty boring. It used to be a row of barges hawking flowers and bulbs, now it’s just some floating tat shops. From there, I walked back into the centre, shopping and photo-ing sex shops along the way, getting to the pub much too early. Which was fine by me, I gotta say.

So this pub. Tony noticed it the first day, the Old Nickel, because it had a sign up outside advertising 60 (or so) different beer. These are the things that catch Tony’s eye. The first night, it was closed – or so we thought. If you know the right people and what to say, it stays open past 4am… And now we know. The next day, we used it as a meeting place, and had a few pints from their rather impressive selection before moving on.

The last night, however, we parked ourselves at the bar, and Tony and the Bartender became best-friends-forever. Sensing a kindred spirit (maybe), the bartender started pulling out bottles of specialty beers, handing us books about the subject and showing us where it was made on maps. This man knows his stuff. After going thru a few bottles of beer – including a Laphroigh-like smokey beer – we cracked open a big bottle of Chimay, which tastes differently depending on the size of the bottle. The 20 euro one is pretty awesome, let me tell you.

We had dinner there, and Tony and I maybe or maybe not went to a sex show, which maybe or maybe not was hilarious and maybe or maybe not involved bananas. Maybe. Maybe not. Mmmm… potassium.

As I had a flight the next morning, Meru and I hopped a bus (sadly, not the right one) and trekked back – me, incredibly grumpy and tired – to the cabin, somewhat expecting Kristian on his bike to beat us there. Yeah, he didn’t. But he did have the key. I didn’t get much sleep, but enough to hop a flight back to London-Luton… and straight to work. Yeah, I was productive that day…

For a trillion more photos, go here.

Orkney Map

2007-09-05T23:45:00.000Z

Can't be bothered to read my rambly posts? I don't blame you. But this is cool:

View Larger Map

Click the blue tags for pictures and details.

Stromness and the West Mainland

2007-09-05T22:16:00.000Z

Note of warning: As Kris well knows by now, I'm having some difficulty wordsmithing this trip. So this be a bit rambly, yo!

Right. So after arriving in Kirkwall at 11pm, we hopped a bus and went to our hostel, which was in an old army building behind where Emily's dad used to work, before he moved and they tore down his office. I don't think the two events are connected, however.

The next morning, we hopped another bus across the Mainland. Now, Orcadians have a funny way about them. For example, the Mainland to them is not Scotland, but the biggest of their 70 islands, as tho Scotland has nothing to do with them.

Anyway, after wandering aimlessly for a bit, we managed to find our hostel in the town of Stromness. It's very cute -- nearly the entire town is within a block or two of the shore, and it's all grey buildings with stepped roofs. Despite such endearing quaintness, we rented bikes and headed out of town.

First stop was a 5,000 year old tomb called Maes Howe. Time and nature have done their work, and it now looks like a rather perfect small hill, but it once looked more like a small pyramid. The only way to see the interior is on guided tour, so we did just that. No photos allowed inside, sadly, but I'll just use words to paint you a picture (ha ha ha ha.) Or go here for pics.

The front passageway is a short (in height), long (in length) tunnel. You have to duck and shuffle along to get through, and if you raise your head at the wrong time, the stone ceiling doesn't not hurt. I followed a disabled girl in, and she was clearly not quite sure about the whole thing. She was crouched, shuffling along like all of us, but going quite slowly, and I don't blame her, as her mom was at the other end calling out: "Keep going, just come toward the light!" I wonder if that's what dying is like, and I certainly hope not.

The interior houses three burial chambers, all empty. But from the inside, you can see how massive the flat stones are that they used to build it. And, you can see Viking graffiti. Apparently some Vikings found the tomb and broke in through the ceiling way back when, and left behind runes, carved into the white stone with their axes, bragging about treasure and making saucy jokes about local women. They also carved some rather intricate animals, including a dragon and walrus, into one wall. Another wall features a cross -- the tour guide suggested crusade connections.

Like the Chichen Itza pyramid, this one's got solstice significance. Looking out the front passageway, there's a perfect view of the two hills of Hoy, an island to the south. On the solstice, the sun cuts between the hills, past a standing stone, and up the passageway, illumniating the interior of the tomb. Pretty cool.

From the outside of the tomb, you can see the two sets of standing stones. Because of all the super old shit in such a tight concentration, this whole area is a UNESCO world heritage site.

Anyway, we next stopped at the Stones of Stenness, which are older than Maes Howe. There's only four left standing; the rest have dissappeared, probably into local buildings. The cool thing about Orkney (well, one of the many cool things) is that these sites are so low key. Maes Howe had an entrance fee and small interpretive centre, but the standing stones have none. If you want access, you just push open the gate and get as close to the damn things as you want -- very different to the tourist setup down south at Stonehenge.

From the SoS, it's a short cycle on a single lane road between two lovely lochs to the Ring of Brodgar, which makes me think of Tolkien. This ring of stones is more complete, but slightly younger. It's a couple dozen massive rock slabs surrounding a field of purple heather. Very pretty. And again, you can get as close as you want -- hell, lick the damn things if you want. They've been there for millenia, it won't hurt the stones. Might hurt your tongue.

After that, we pedalled over some hills (Over the hills and far away -- I miss Sharpe, Natalie) past a ton of sheep and cows -- with Emily giving me strange looks as I baaa-ed and mooo-ed at them.

A few miles down, we found Skaill Bay, home to a big manor house and an ancient stone village called Skara Brae. It was discovered by the Laird of the manor after a storm washed the top soil off of it. What's cool about it is the furniture was also made out of stone, and much of it remains. So you can walk around where they've excavated it it, and see how their houses would have looked 5,000 years ago. Now, to me, the green grassy bits, white sandy floors and numbered sites made it look like a minigolf course.

We took a walk through the manor as well, but it was a house. Yeah, awesome. Seen enough of those with Mary. We also hung out on the beach, which is perfect white sand with scattered stones. Whether inspired by the standing stone rings further back or the stone houses they'd just seen, people had stacked the stones up in strange shapes all across the beach.

From Skara Brae, we headed north, out of Norse territory and onto a more personal hunt: the town of Twatt. Why? Do you really need to ask? We cycled along a bird observatory -- lots of those in Orkney -- and came to the right spot on my ordnance survey map, but there were no signs designating the town name. Disapointed over the lack of funny picture opportunities, Emily pointed out a church... could it be? Could it be the church of Twatt? Indeed, it was. And we laughed very, very hard.

Then, we turned back for Stromness. And the wind picked up. Gale force, right into our faces. Stop pedaling, and you start rolling backwards. I was having difficulty, and I cycle daily. Emily, in her black dress and gold tights ("there's no reason not to look fabulous") was making an admirable effort, but it did really suck. (Tho, clothed like that, on a bike in a strong wind, she did put me in mind of that scene from Wizard of Oz...)

By the time we got back to Stromness, we were both exhausted and not exactly in good moods. Ditching the bikes, we headed back to the hostel to change, before making our way to the Stromness Hotel, home that night to a local beer fesitval. After several pain-numbing pints of Scapa Special and whatnot, we wandered out into the Stromness night, and on the way back to the hostel, I got into an argument with a cat. Look, he had it coming. No reason to mouth off like that... Bad attitude on that one. Seriously.

More pictures are here.

Ferrying

2007-09-02T15:44:00.000Z

So, as you may or may not be aware, Orkney is a collection of islands -- and archipeligo, if you will -- off the northern coast of Scotland. Because of it's water-logged geography, we had two options to travel there, flying or ferrying. We chose the latter because we're cheap. The least expensive route took us from Aberdeen to Kirkwall, the largest city in Orkney with some 7,000 inhabitants, via ferry in about 6 hours. There are other, shorter ferry routes, but they required us to get further north in Scotland, to Inverness or Thurso or John o Groats -- which cost more.

View Larger Map

Right. We had sleeper seats for both trips, but weren't very tired at 5pm when the boat set off. Instead, we started the trip at the back of the boat, watching Aberdeen pass and eventually disappear as we got further into the North Sea.

It quickly got dark and windy -- which didn't stop us from going top deck to see if we could get blown overboard (sadly, didn't happen).

That all left us with about 5 and a half hours to kill. Right. So we wandered the ferry, checking out the facilities. It had two bars, a fancy restaurant and a cafeteria, as well as rooms of video games and VLTs. There was a shop (or course) and a movie theatre showing three films, as well as little sitting areas with televisions.

Guess where we started? After a quick trip through the shop, it was off to the bar. Because when you feel slightly seasick, the best thing to do is drink beer. After a few bottles of Orkney's finest brew, we had dinner... and at this point, with four or so hours to go, I started to get antsy.

We sat in one of the bars drinking and reading for a bit. I was trudging through the Orkneyinga Saga, a tale of the Earls of Orkney written about 1200. Apropriate reading, but hard to focus on when one's excited and bored at the same time. Eventually, the ferry starts rumbling in a way that suggests we're about to arrive (leading to my stomach rumbling in excitement -- or maybe that was the food?) and we pass Kirkwall, the small city's lights twinkling and reflecting in the water, and finally park at the pier, where we're the only passengers to catch the bus into town -- save one dude, who talked about his post-divorce child custody case with the driver the whole trip... Either way, we were walking up the street to our hostel by 1130pm, rather needing to get some sleep.

. . .

The trip back departed Kirkwall at 11pm. We got on a bit early, so Emily could claim a seat near a socket to recharge her phone. Me, I found my sleeper seat, got as comfy as possible... and woke up at 6:30am the next day as we neared Aberdeen. Not a bad way to travel, I've gotta say...

More pictures of Aberdeen and the ferry are here.

Aberdeen

2007-09-02T14:33:00.000Z

Our Orkney trip started with a night in Aberdeen. The ferry didn't leave until 5pm on the Thursday, but we flew up from London on the Wednesday in order to hang out with Emily's cousin Ian.

We arrived 9ish, and stood outside the airport trying to decide whether to take a cab or the bus. We wandered over to the cab stand, and this lady taxi driver says something. What it was, I have no idea. Gibberish, for all I knew. I look at Emily, wondering if this was some hardcore Scottish accent which she'd understand, but she's as dumbfounded as me. The lady grabs at my bag, and I understand she's trying to take our luggage. So taxi it was, then.

So we drive into Aberdeen in some comfort, passing a sign for the original Banff, listening to Barry White's "Let's Get it On." How's that for a sexy start?

Anyway... Aberdeen's town centre looks a bit like a bigger Banff to me. There are no skyscrapers but a lot of gothic-y looking buildings in stone with touristy storefronts (and the best-ever Primark... ever.) Little sidestreets amble off further out of town or down to the harbour (where we'd be ambling off the next day, to catch our ferry to Kirkwall in Orkney.)

The most notable aspect of Aberdeen architecture is the colour. Every building is grey sandstone. Matched with the concrete streets and cloudy skies, Aberdeen looks like a city with all the colour drained out of it, like the victim of a vampire. Now that's a strange simile to just throw in there, you may or may not be thinking. But it makes perfect sense, given the two pubs we visited.

After ditching out gear at Ian's, we headed to Union Street to hit up a pub of his choosing called Frankenstein's. This rather inexplicably themed monster pub has all sorts of movie and book related paraphernalia, as well as quotes painted on the walls and monster-themed food (we didn't eat there, but the menu was hilarious.) Why this monument to Mary Shelley's monster? Apparently, the author lived in Scotland for a couple years, before writing the book... but that's about as strong a link as I could discern. Very strange. But either way: mmm... beer.

The next day, Ian headed off to go camping somewhere, while Emily and I wandered Aberdeen before our ferry's 5pm departure. While wandering, we passed a rather lovely church -- or what I thought was a church. Upon further inspection, I noticed a sign reading "Slain's Castle." Weird. A castle that looks like a church, in the middle of a city... but no. This was not a church (not any longer, at least) and not a castle, so much as another monster pub. This one was edifying Dracula -- in a former church! -- and had all sorts of random haunted castle paraphenilia. And, cheap sandwiches. And, beer.

Is Aberdeen obsessed with monsters? Or did we by some strange coincidence stumble into the only two in the city? I have no idea.

Anyway, we also did some shopping (at the aforementioned Primark, as I'd not brought much of a sweater) and stopped in at a pharmacy. My tonsils had swelled up the night before, and were red and sore, so I thought I'd get some sort of drug. I went in and found some extra strength lozenges, but thought there might be something stronger behind the pharmacist's desk. So I asked the pharmacist if I'd be better off with the lozenges (which I place on her desk) or with one of the stronger sprays on the shelf behind her. Her response: "Why don't you just buy those?" Indeed. How helpful. So I did.

This is the sort of "customer service" one gets in Scotland. They're not really rude, they just get on with things and don't suck up. As long as you don't expect a smile or a "have a nice day" or, y'know, help, you'll be fine.

Anyway. Emily and I (sucking on a lozenge, which actually quite did the trick) did a short walking tour of the city. Because Em is Scottish and was born in Aberdeenshire (not the city itself) I kept expecting her to know something about the city. Therefore, we had a lot of exchanges which went like this:

Me: Ooh, what's that?

Em: I don't know.

After our non-guided walking tour, we found our way back to Ian's, and after taking about half an hour to figure out how to unlock his door, reclaimed our stuff and headed back to the harbour to catch our ferry. We were a bit early, so had a pint in a dockside pub, before heading to the ferry...

Arsenal!

2007-08-20T00:15:00.000Z

Last weekend, I got a PR invite to go see a premiership football (read: soccer) match between Arsenal and Fulham. While -- as I've mentioned before -- I'm not entirely down with the whole "courtesty" and "relationship building" thing, bloody hell, when else am I going to get to see a game like this?

I'm not a football fan, really. I'm no hater, either, however. It's a cool enough sport, I just don't really follow it. But (as with most things) seeing it live is a whole different thing to watching it on television. And really, with the literary connections (um... if Nick Hornby can be said to be literary) they couldn't have picked a better team...

One of the other journos dropped out, so I was rather graciously allowed to bring a friend. The Patrick-half of Shatrick (which makes no sense to most of you) came along, and his excitement made up for any lack of it I had.
But it was pretty cool -- especially the box seats behind the goal. The stadium is new and super shiny, seats some 80k or so. And the atmosphere was pretty wicked. They divide up the fans, so the stadium was mostly full of red-dressed Arsenal fans, except for one tiny corner, in Fulham's white. They have a lot of silly chants and songs although I couldn't discern most of them over the general roar of the crowds.

Right. So the game. It ended up being 2-1 for Arsenal (always good when the home team wins). The first half was pretty dull, but the second half was cool -- even had a penalty shot (the source of one of the goals.) And there were no obvious dives, which was a bonus.

At one point, after one of the teams scored, the goalie held onto the ball (bad form, ap parently). The team (wanting the ball back, as time was running short) jumped him. All the players started pummelling him. The ball was eventually wrenched free (starting to look a bit more like rugby for a minute there) and one of the players ran to the sidelines clutching it like a six year old who was fed up with the game. Screw you guys, I'm taking my ball and going home. Made me laugh very very much...

So I've been pretty sport lately, eh? The NHL has a game in Greenwich in September... might try and see if I can get tickets... NFL's also going to be here in October, but I'm not likely to get tickets for that. They did a preregistration to buy tickets, and half a million people signed up. I didn't find out about it until after... either way, I'm not getting tickets. Shame, as it'd be hella cool.

Cricket!

2007-08-06T22:26:00.000Z

Continuing my exploration of British sport, a few weeks ago I delved into the mysteries of cricket -- a game so slow and boring, I'm not sure it even is a sport. Why do people watch this, I've often wondered....

But then I had my chance at an answer, as I got invited by a PR -- a flack, if you will, one of Daorcey's kind -- to go watch some cricket at Lords, which is some massively special awesome cricket um, stadium thingy here.

As you can tell/guess, I haven't a clue about about cricket, but it got me out of the office on a day which happened to be a Friday, so no complaints from me.

Anyway, the Friday morning came along, and it rained. Newspapers that afternoon described it as "torrential" and a "hurricane". They exagerated only minutely. The streets flooded and the skies were ugly and dark indeed.

So I stayed at work, figuring it made little sense to go watch an game (a test, as they call them, to be obtuse, I think) which clearly wasn't going to happen. A few hours later, however, the skies cleared to the lovely blue so infrequently seen here, and the sun came out, so off I went.

Trouble was, I was the only one there. The flack -- a rather lovely person, I should say -- had taken her other charge to the pub in lieu of sitting in the rain (which I'm sure he appreciated) and she'd not yet returned to the grounds. So there I am, sitting in the stands in quite good seats, apparently watching India and England play cricket. I can't tell which team is which, as they wear white, and I haven't a clue how the game is played or why those people keep cheering or why that man is jumping around all excited like that.

The PR eventually shows up, and as it turns out, also hasn't a clue how cricket is played. So she goes to buy a pitcher of Pimms and lemonade, and we sit in the sun talking everything but cricket. I got sunburnt and drunk.

At which point I finally understand the draw of the game... it's not about sport, it's about sitting in the sun, getting pissed. Now that's a sport I can get behind, if only they'd get rid of the dudes in the silly white clothes...

Next up, premier league football -- and no, I'm not joking.

Kaboom!

2007-07-26T21:54:00.001Z

Reason number 497 not to live in a van down by the river:

Anyway, I woke up on Monday to a loud bang, followed by another loud bang, and then sirens. This being Bermondsey, I rolled over and went back to bed. Had I gotten out of bed and gone to the front window -- like my new flatmate Steph did, apparently she's less accustomed to the sounds of our neighbourhood -- I would have seen a van on fire and indeed, exploding.

It doesn't really look exploded in this pictures, but the inside is all burnt out, and I think the engine exploded the hood up like that. Basically, gas -- or petrol, as the locals would call it -- doesn't really explode so much as burn nicely, as one learns when camping...

The police came around -- much quicker than last time they were called out -- and told Steph and other flatmate Hannah that the burned catering van was indeed stolen. Suspicion then seemed to float over in our neighbours' direction, as it sure as hell wasn't us that stole it, and it didn't park itself (or blow itself up).

We have theories -- none of which I'll elucidate on here, for fear of insulting anyone by suggesting they may be drug dealers or car thieves or in slightly lame rival gangs. Who knows, maybe they just always wanted to be caterers?

Harry Potter and the Wait for the Postman

2007-07-20T22:14:00.000Z

I've done something foolish, I'm afraid. I ordered HPatDH off Amazon to be delivered first thing tomorrow morning. It seemed a good idea at the time, but now as I write this -- 46 minutes to midnight -- I realise I could be at the 24 hour Tesco down the road, where they'll surely have a billion copies on hand.

Such foolishness means I'll have to wait for the postman(woman) to arrive tomorrow -- meaning I'll start reading about the same time all you Calgary folks are at Diagon Alley/McNallys picking up your copies...

Of course, I could just cut my losses and go buy it... the temptation is rather overwhelming, I admit. But no, I'll calm myself by blogging for now, but with all the theories floating the interwebs, I'd better unplug come midnight lest I be spoiled.

So some thoughts, before I get to read the thing...

1) If Dumbledore isn't dead, or somehow rises, oh, I don't know, Fawkes-like from the ashes, I'm going to be disapointed. Much as I love Albus, his rebirth would ruin HPatHBP as a stand-alone forever...

2) If the photographed ending I read online -- I assumed it was fake, but the NYT says otherwise, but they also claim they bought the real book Wed, which is a lie -- is real, then JKR has ended on one hell of a sappy note. Just saying.

3) That said, I hope for a happy ending simply because they're children's books, which should end in happy ways. And don't go telling me they're adult books, just because adults read them. They're kids books. Just very good ones, that's all.

4) And RAB -- no real theories on that, other than the ones I've heard by accident. (People should learn to speak less loudly in public when discussing spoilers....) It better not be a randomly inserted character tho, as that would annoy me. She's pretty good at putting hints in early on, which leads me to believe the aforementioned overheard spoiler might be true...

Anyway. Can you believe this shit is really coming to an end? I mean, this has to be the biggest event in publishing ever. When has a book ever been more eagerly awaited? People lining up to buy it, staying up til midnight, contemplating purchasing multiple copies because of their impatience to get their (my) hands on it -- it really is extraordinary. Movies inspire this, some music has. But a book?

And can you believe, with the internets and all, people were predicting the death of the novel, the death of reading off of lowly paper? The billions of dollars Ms Rowling is about to earn suggest otherwise...

Tour de France... in London?

2007-07-15T20:30:00.000Z

Inexplicably, the Tour de France started in London last weekend. I say "inexplicably" because it's the Tour de France, after all -- and last I checked, London has not been invaded. (Insert "cheese-eating surrender monkey" joke here.) Apparently the TdF starts 's outside of France from time to time -- this is the 16th time that's happened.

Anyway, I thought the thought of watching people cycle would be overwhelmingly lame, so wasn't going to go watch any of it, but Shannon talked me into it, and it was sunny last Saturday, so I went to go watch the time trials in Hyde Park.

Holy massive thighs Batman, it was hella cool.

The time trials are to decide the order of the race, which set off the next day, on Sunday. The 8km track ran from near Trafalgar Square through the park and then back again, so areas around that were all blocked from traffic. Cycling down the middle of Westminster Bridge, past Big Ben, I thought this was quite cool. But by the time I hit Hyde Park, the crowds were so thick I had to get off and push. Took me an hour to get from Waterloo to the spot where Shatrick waited north of the Serpentine. (There is an event planned for September where the city's going to close a bunch of roads to cars, which should be hella cool. As long as the pedestrians stay out of my way...)

Anyway, once I arrived and drank two canned G&Ts, I relaxed a bit, and started to really enjoy the race. They go bloody fast. I know that sounds like an obvious statement, but photographing them proved nearly impossible, and video wasn't much better. We were sitting in front of a giant tv screen, and according to the commentator dudes, the cadence of the cyclists -- how fast they pedal -- was a hundred times a minute. So they're moving their legs in that little circle more than once a second. I counted it out as they went by, and indeed they were moving that fast.

One dude hit a side barrier and wiped out. I jumped and instinctively covered my face with my hands when it happened. At least I wasn't going that fast when I bit the pavement.

The fastest time came in a few seconds under 9 minutes for the 8km track -- so roughly 54km/hr. On a bike. The winner was ridiculously faster than the rest of the racers, beating the second place dude by some 12 seconds (or something like that). The commentators commented that the escort motorbikes actually slowed him down on a few corners.

After all the racers finished, we hung out and waited for the crowds to thin before heading over to Kensington. I took the opportunity going there and heading back home to cycle down the track -- essentially just roadways around the park, lined with temporary fencing and banners. I wasn't the only cyclist out pretending to be Lance Armstrong, and despite going about as fast as my little commuter can go, was still being passed by show-offs in spandex on road bikes.

The next day, Emily -- despite multiple protestations against sport of any kind -- and I met up near Tower Bridge to see the racers do their warm up ride before the race's rolling start in Greenwich (ending for the day some 213 km away in Canterbury). There was a weird ceremony at the top of the bridge -- for the jersies? -- before all the cyclists rolled past us in about 20 seconds. It then took us 20 minutes to get off the bridge, because of all the crowds.

It surprised me a bit -- given the rather boring nature of watching cycling -- that so many people came out, but the crowds apparently were in the millions both days. Will it spur Londoners to take up cycling? One hopes not, as the roads are crowded enough as it is... As I shall explain in my next post... (don't let the suspense kill you.)

More photos here, more videos here and here, and here are some panos:

Public Art

2007-07-01T00:14:00.000Z

Free museums are by far one of the best aspects of London. All the art and history and whatever sitting in the National Gallery, the Tates, the British Museum, the V&A, the Natural History Museum -- and all for free.

The National Gallery decided to take it one step further, and put paintings -- reproductions, anyway -- out on the street. They've hung 45 clever copies -- not just the art work, but mocked up frames, too -- in various side streets of Soho and the West End.

So there you are, innocently meandering along St Martins Lane, and you think, hey, I'm gonna go look in shop windows around Seven Dials. You turn up Shelton, and this catches your eye:

Rather stunning. Such a brilliant idea. Whoever thought of it deserves kudos and a pay-raise and even a pony, should they want one.

The "art" has been stuck on London's walls for a week at least now, but none of the pieces we saw was graffitied. One looked like it'd been rubbed by a van, and others were showing the effects of the weather, but only one was missing, likely stolen by drunken thieves, I would guess. Tho maybe it was tourists, claiming one hell of a souvenir...

Aside from the aforementioned Whistlejacket, I also really wanted to see the street version of Monet's Water Lily Bridge. I found it on the map and wandered up Neal Street. I found one painting, but couldn't find the Monet. I looked at the map again and was clearly in the right place, but the painting was missing. It's a popular one, so maybe it had been stolen. But no -- some dude selling Bansky knockoffs (ironic?) had put up his stall directly in front of the Monet-fake, completely blocking the view. On purpose? Surely.

More street art here. I haven't found all 45, but I'm getting there...

Alte Meister angels

2007-06-30T19:57:00.000Z

Dresden's Alte Meister museum is like a mini-Louvre – although it would seem small only by comparison to something as ridiculously huge as that.

Located in Dresden’s own palace, amusingly called the Zwinger -- complete with fountain-filled courtyard, a la the Louvre – the museum has a solid collection, featuring Reubens, Rembrandts and of course, it’s most famous courtesy Raphael, the Sixtine Madonna:

I’ve previously thought it a bit of a shame that a detail, a tiny piece of such a large work, could be so popular that the rest of the painting is overlooked – there are tons of tourist tat featuring the engels in the gift shop, but just a poster and a card of the entire image.

But after walking through room after poorly air conditioned room of relgious altars and Dutch landscapes, it’s easy to see why the masses find Raphael’s “saucy” – as they call them here – angels so appealing. Their cuteness is simply refreshing.

And so I sat there, on an oval leather bench, as tour groups and seniors streamed in and out of the room, looking at these two little angels and wondering what they were thinking. They’re at the feet of Mary and Jesus (I forget who the other two figures are, and don’t care) in heaven. The parapet they rest on and the curtains to the side are meant to show the divide between our world and heaven, according to a handy sign.

So you’ve got these angels, right? And they’re in heaven, at the foot of Jesus. And yet they look like they’re daydreaming, looking out over our world. If all your existence has been in heaven, is it still heaven for you? Or do angels daydream and wonder what our lives are like? Would they envy us? And how much would that suck?

So yeah. Their image may have been commercialized (along with the Louvre’s Mona Lisa) into a tourist draw and a gift shop top-seller, but I don’t doubt that hundreds of years ago, when it hung in some church, that those figures won the admiration and the thoughts of people then, too. Some things are popular for a good reason.

Aside from artists beginning with the letter R, there’s also a full room of Canelletos, two large scenes to each long wall, with smaller ones next to each door on the shorter walls. Now a room of perfectly painted Venetian canals is no poor entertainment, but I admit I was even more amused by the plaque under the paintings. If I read it correctly, this museum is contending that Canelleto’s name was Antonio Canal – so really, he was Mr Canal. Did he get that name after painting the canals so much, or did he paint the canals so much because of his name? I’m sure I could solve this little mystery by wiki-ing it, but sometimes a bit of vagueness is preferable...

Dresden

2007-06-27T22:02:00.000Z

As I got back from Dresden today, lugging my bags down the road to my house, a pirate ship was sailing down the Thames. Cool. I mean, Arrgh! Avast!

Anyway, I went to Dresden for some decidedly non-pirate-related work stuff, namely the launch of a high performance computing (HPC) server thingy, and then the start of the International Supercomputing Conference.

As the crazy-ass PR people flew me in too early, I actually got to see a bit of Dresden. Superficially at least -- as I didn't see all that much -- it's a lot like Prague, which isn't really surprising, given they're rather close together.

I didn't know much about Dresden -- and I still don't, to be honest -- other than the bombings in WWII. And all I knew about that was that the British flattened the place, killing 35,000 people. Now obviously the Germans weren't exactly innocents in that war (something about a holocaust, picking a fight which killed a generation of young men, that sort of thing) but turning a city to rubble from the air is such a horrible thought that it's really rather captivating, especially given how proud the British are of surviving the Blitz. I'm not really sure what my point is -- I guess I just find the damage done to the other side rather intriguing after hearing about it from the victors so often. Then again, maybe it's just my Eastern European ancestry speaking up...

Anyway, much of the city has been rebuilt, altho weirdly only in the past few years. I guess the Soviets weren't really up for it?

The Frauenkirche, which I amused myself by calling the Frankenchurch, was almost completely wiped out in the bombings. Rather than reconstruct it postwar, the Soviets left the rubble either a) as a monument to war or b) because they were cheap. So the pile of rocks, bits of statuary and whatnot sat there. No one took anything. Some people started organizing and numbering it, apparently (according to wikipedia). It stayed that way until 1992, when they finally started to put it all back together (not my photo, obviously):

Anyway, I knew none of this when I walked past it. It looks pretty cool from the outside, and I happened past at 6pm, when the bells were ringing. People were streaming into the church, so I thought hey, what's going on and went inside. I'm a follower I guess, but not of the sort that were walking up the stairs. I realised upon entering that a service was starting and wanted to take a better look at the interior, so I plunked myself down into a pew and enjoyed the show.

It's a protestant church, and very different from the gothic cathedrals and anglican spires I've seen so much of. To start -- and maybe this is a function of when it was really built -- but the interior is marble... but it all looks fake. Like someone painted the pillars to look like marble. The decorative bit behind the altar is green and pink and shiny gold while the second and third floors of pews curve in soft colours. Basically, its all fluffy and soft -- is it supposed to make people think of heaven? I don't know. But it's pretty, in a slightly tacky way.

The organ was amazing though and the service started with some music. I've never heard an organ that large played before. The range and depth of the sound is amazing -- easy to see why it's so common in churches. The rest of the service was, obviously, in German -- which probably helped, actually.

I also spent a bit of time wandering the Zwinger Palace, which is home to their Old Masters Art Gallery (more on that in a separate post), and walking through the old town. I won't go into it; just check out the photos.

Of course, the thing with these cities is to try and see more than just the old parts, so I did wander to the north side of the river to look around a bit and walked around my hotel's neighbourhood (much further north).

Dresden, like much of the Eastern part of Germany, has high unemployment. It's obvious this isn't a healthy city from the boarded up, graffitied buildings. The places along the street between my hotel and the tram were half abandoned.

I was walking down the street at one point, and one building had boarded windows, the next was a clean, nice-looking, functioning office, and then the one after that had smashed in windows and spray-painted walls. I saw a rather well-dressed girl walk up to the building after that and open the door with a key -- it was her apartment. Can you imagine that in Calgary, with it's real estate boom? Apartments next to derelict buildings?

Cinder block: for when boards just won't do...

Aside from the perfectly efficient trams, many people seemed to use bicycles to get around. Despite the unemployment rates, a lot of bikes were not locked up and the ones that were had just flimsy cord locks, often not locked to anything but looped through the wheels. Can you imagine that in London, with it's theft rates? Leaving a bike just lying around?

Anyway, I woke up at 6am in a different country. I'm tired. I'm going to bed. Sorry if this post rambled. More pics are here.

Bike!

2007-06-24T21:30:00.000Z

A full two months after getting smacked off my bike (thereby bending the frame and rendering it useless, not to mention smashing my teeth) I have finally procured a new one:

And oh my god, I'm in love.

I've owned two other bikes here in London, the purloined Sally and the now bent Raleigh. Both were bought used -- not from markets, I don' t need more bad karma -- and tho both eventually met unhappy fates, they did the trick at the time.

But this one -- my god. I stroke the seat when I walk past it, parked in the hallway. It is, if you're interested, a Specialized Globe Elite.

This is the nicest thing I've ever owned. Thanks to Luis, my Mexican burglar, I own absolutely nothing of value. Looking around my room, I see nothing worth more than spare change, excepting of course this laptop, which I don't own. My phone is cheap, my mp3 player useless and my own computer was sitting in a closet before it was gifted to me.

Indeed, this bike might actually be the most expensive thing I've ever owned, save automobiles, and even then it's a tight contest. I bought my very first car -- an '84 mustang -- for $1100. I bought this bike for £400 (plus accessories.) If you know that car, it'll be an easy guess to say which runs better...

Indeed, keeping that car and the following Jetta in mind, I've never had anything that runs so nicely, that feels like it might have been engineered. It's clearly had design and thought and skill put into its manufacture (I say this while typing on a Dell, so yeah, it's a rare feeling for me).

The way this bike feels to me is what I imagine (and I can only imagine) it feels like to go from driving beater after beater to a brand new car, or to go from using shit second-hand rebuilt PCs to a shiny new mac -- it's like, oh, this is what it's supposed to be like.

You may think I exaggerate my affection for this new love of mine. But consider this: I cycled my brand-new bronze baby home from London Bridge feeling exhilarated. A smile was on my face the entire trip. Never once did I flinch out of fear of being on the road again. Nor did it ever cross my mind that what I was doing was dangerous, and could potentially, y'know, wipe the smile off my face and straight out of my gums.

It was just too much fun, too easy, that I forgot to be nervous or scared or shaky the first time out after the accident. And that's a feeling that's worth £400... especially given I'm getting the bike about 45% off, thanks to an awesome program at work. Booya! Exhilaration at discount -- now that can't be beat.

That said, with my current run of luck, I've taken out insurance -- on the bike (theft or accident), on myself (accident, injury and death), and the rest of the world (public liability). I'm now covered if my precious is stolen, if I lose a limb, or if I somehow manage to take out a building worth £1.25 million. And no, I'm not taking that as a challenge...

More bike porn here.

Edit/addition: It just occurred to me that prior to the bikes I've owned in London, I've owned just one in Calgary, which I got while still in elementary school, if you can believe it. I rode it all those years too -- I even had the trainer I worked for in Edmonton bring it up to the track so I could use it there, and that was the summer just before I came out to London.

He still has that bike for me, somewhere. Well over a decade on one bike in Calgary, and then three in two years in London. Crazy.

Moving on...

2007-06-22T23:01:00.000Z

I just sneezed, and it sounded very metallic against my laptop. How weird. Anyway, this is the month-between-posts update. It's time I reentered the blogosphere -- is it like entering a pool or a hot tub? Should I go slowly and wait until my body adjusts to the metaphorical temperature? Or should I just dive right in?

Well, I'm a wee bit on the tipsy side -- happy birthday Jerry! -- so I shall dive right in.

I have not posted of late because the things which have coloured my life lately are the type of things one tends not to post about, if one is me and on this medium tends toward the unmeaningful as opposed to the things which matter, at least when it comes to negatives. I could have posted, but that seemed to be tempting fate and my luck has run much too short -- like a creek in a drought, an empty dry bed -- of late, so I've refrained.

This string of painful events started with me getting knocked off my bike and biting the cement. Where it ends I cannot say, but I hope that point has passed. I've spent too much time on the phone to insurance agents and police and upset family, and spent too much time in dentist offices and funerals and hospitals and in bed staring at the ceiling trying very hard not to think before sleep hits and hopefully stays for a good eight hours this time.

It's just a bit too much, some of it clearly a minor irritation compared to other losses, some of it blown out of proportion by me as that's what I do, but just when I think it's about to turn around, that I'm about to have some luck or some compensation, then no, the gods of the universe, the powers that be, frown upon me sternly you shall not have what you want before going to the shop for cigarettes.

Well, there's a smoking ban soon, so fuck that shit. Am I rambling, nonsensically? Shall I post some photos instead? Okay.

So: Whilst in Van, we drove out to White Rock, one of my favourite places in the world. Laidback and pretty, what more could anyone want? More pics here.

And while on the subject of things which are beachfront and pretty, here's some pics from Lyme, which I'm yet to post about. It's like White Rock, but literary. More pics here.

And on the subject of things which make me happy, MaeMae! Sooooooooo cute.

So. After this weekend, I am off to Dresden for work. A city bombed out and rebuilt -- sounds like my kind of town...

Miami

2007-05-17T05:51:00.000Z

So I've spent the last few days in Miami. And by Miami, I mean a suburb-ish place called Doral, at a resort called, appropriately, the Doral Resort.

This was all for a conference -- I was working, a'ight? -- about image capture/digital documents.
I flew in on Sunday and arrived completely exhausted -- not a surprise given a rather violent lack of sleep and a delayed transatlantic flight. After having dinner (fantastic red snapper, so good) with fellow journos/PRs/analysts, I crashed in my room.

The next few days pretty well consisted of going to sessions, sneaking away to the pool, and drinking with random people. Not bad, although I never actually left the resort -- no trip to Art Deco South Beach for me.

Although the weather was a bit shite -- they got the rain they've been needing -- it was natuarlly a billion times better than London. I may actually have gotten a bit of a tan...

Anyway, while I would have been quite happy to spend the next few days bumming around South Beach -- which I never got to see -- I then flew off to Seattle/Bellevue, for a Microsoft thingy...

More photos here.

If only it were true...

2007-05-11T14:46:00.000Z

PM Tony Blair stepped down yesterday, after over a decade in power.

Reading a list of some of his better soundbites, I came across this...

"Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war."

27 May, 1997 - EU Summit in Paris

Oh, if only, if only...

More here: http://www.epolitix.com/EN/News/200511/5ebabcdb-b1be-44ef-b01b-8225a393ed9d.htm

Austentatious

2007-05-07T20:47:00.000Z

This weekend, Mary and I did our Jane Austen pilgrimage, visiting the author's home in Chawton, where she was buried in Winchester, and the setting of one of her novels, Lyme Regis.

Logistically, cramming such travel into a weekend was a nightmare, requiring several planning calls to Network Rail -- a nightmare in of itself.

On Saturday morning, after an hour of tube battles (Northern Line has engineering works, yet again, and I needed to pick up tickets from Kings Cross -- heaven forbid they have ticket pickup machines south of the fucking river), I met Mary at Waterloo station, where we caught a train to Woking where we changed for Alton. From there, we cabbed it to Chawton for Jane's house before returning to Alton station to catch a bus to Winchester. After wandering about that city, we caught a train to Basingstoke, where we changed lines again for the two-hour journey to Axminster, where we caught a bus to Lyme Regis.

It was a long day. But, being completely awesome, we planned it as near to perfect as is possible, and never waited more than about ten minutes for transport, which I think is pretty damned impressive.

Enough about transport. The first destination was Chawton, the town where Austen rewrote/wrote her novels. It's a typically cute and quaint English town, and the local residents (for whatever reason) have recently been battling a new development of a dozen new homes, our cab driver told us. The developers eventually won out (as they tend to do) but either in deference to tourism or in way of apology to the local or just being a bit cheesy, they named this new estate "Pemberley". Hee.

Jane's home there was a cottage on her brother's estate. A big squarish brick building, with a rather lovely garden, it is Janeite mecca. But because it was lived in up until the 1940s, it's not preserved accurately to her era. Still, as Mary and I agreed, visiting the site is more pilgramage and paying homage than educational.

We weren't the only ones feeling that way. After winding ourselves through the various rooms -- the kitchen with the infamous creaky door, Jane and her sister Cassandra's bedroom, the gift shop -- we came to a small alcove where a letter written by Cassandra after the death of her sister had been posted up along a wall. Sent to a relation announcing Jane's passing, it is a moving remebrance of the last days of the author's life -- a beautiful and moving eulogy, even more poignant given Cassandra was not allowed to attend the funeral of her beloved sister. (Stupid ovaries, getting in the way again.)

Two fellow visitors were standing in front of this document. One of the women was reading it, while the other was writing down one section onto a scrap of paper. Both were crying. I do not mean a few tears welling up at the corner of their eyes. I mean bawling. Now, maybe they just lost someone close to them, and Cassandra's heartfelt words struck too close to their own emotions. Who knows. But much as I love Austen -- and think I would have truly liked her -- I can't mourn the loss of someone so long gone. It is very sad she died in pain at a young age, but even if she'd lived to be 103, she'd still be long dead by the time Mary slid her extra copy of Pride and Prejudice into my Gauntlet mailbox back in the day (with the words "Hope you enjoy" scrawled on a post it on the front cover).

After the visit to Austen's creative home, we spent a short time in her everlasting one -- the city of Winchester, where she's buried.

Like so many cities in this country, the focus of Winchester is a grand cathedral. Austen is presumably buried in the crypt, as there's a memorial stone laid in the church. I'm assuming she didn't gain such an honour from her literature -- she published anonymously; stupid ovaries -- but maybe because her father was a rector or her family gave enough money (it's discussed briefly here). This is reflected in the message on the memorial stone -- there's no mention of her being an author at all.

Many years later, the church rectified this apparent error by placing a rather ostentatious (and decidedly not Austentatious) shiny bronze memorial nearby. I can understand why, but it suggests fans wouldn't realise this was Jane's grave without being smacked shinely over the head with it. And really, how important is one's profession in death? Her body of work, her novels, are a grand memorial (despite not being shiny). Will my tombstone read: Nicole, Staff Writer? Will Mary's be carved with the words "English Professor"? Doubtful.

To her family, who wrote the inscription on the original stone marker, she was a loving daughter, sister and aunt. And to me, a memorial showing that side of her life is much more touching. Besides, if I want to remember her as an author, all I need do is pull one of her novels from my shelf...

This is what it says, if you're curious:

In Memory of JANE AUSTEN, youngest daughter of the late Revd GEORGE AUSTEN, formerly Rector of Steventon in this County. She departed this Life on the 18th of July1817, aged 41, after a long illness supported with the patience and hopes of a Christian.
The benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper, and the extraordinary endowments of her mind obtained the regard of all who knew her and the warmest love of her intimate connections.
Their grief is in proportion to their affection they know their loss to be irreparable, but in their deepest affliction they are consoled by a firm though humble hope that her charity, devotion, faith and purity have rendered her soul acceptable in the
sight of her REDEEMER.

After spending £5 and about ten minutes visiting the cathedral, we headed to Lyme Regis, which features in Persuasion. I've previously been to Bath, which also features in Persuasion, and it is actually pretty cool to see what the hell Austen's going on about.

In the book, during a visit to Lyme, one of the characters takes a fall (a jump, really) off stairs on the Cobb -- a stone man-made breaker which protects the town's harbour. I never really understood that scene. Why would someone get a head injury after landing badly? But after walking along the Cobb, well, it makes more sense... It's not big, slanty, rough pile of stone stuck out into a rather violently-wavy ocean. Take a dive off that, yeah, you might be in a coma. Or you might be dead.

But I'll get into the rest of Lyme in another post, as this one's rambly enough already... and more pictures to follow... we took a lot.

Two out of three...

2007-05-04T18:10:00.000Z

So yeah. In the continuing saga of Nicole’s shit life, my house was broken into last weekend.

My flatmates arrived home about 11pm to find the house ransacked, and promptly (and intelligently) went back outside to call and wait (and wait and wait and wait and wait) for the police.

It took some 12 hours before we managed to get a cop on-scene, so we spent the night sitting up in the living room, watching DVDs to distract us. Our rooms were off-limits to “preserve evidence.” And given every drawer in my room was pulled out and turned over, and all the clothing and whatnot flung from my wardrobe shelves, there wasn’t much that wasn’t potentially fingerprint splattered.

The first cops that showed up on scene weren’t even responding to our emergency call. They came to our house because some dude got pulled over for not having a properly registered car (no tax disc, for you Brits) and clearly had a big pile of stolen property in his back seat – so yes, they managed to arrest the mofo before we even managed to file a report. That’s simultaneously pathetic and fantastic.

Anyway, we need to wait for the trial date to get our stuff back, as it’s evidence. They didn’t manage to find any fingerprints, so the fucker’ll likely just get put away for possession of stolen property – worth a few months – before getting deported back to his native… Mexico. Go figure.

So, not unlike the cycling accident, though it does suck, it could have been much worse. But between the break-in, and multiple root canals, and mary visiting (and having her purse stolen), it's been an eventful week. It's a long weekend here, so we (Mary and I) are heading to Lyme on the south coast for the weekend, with a few Jane-Austen-related stops (not a surprise) along the way.

If the bad trend does continue -- it always travels in threes, right? -- and I get swept off the Cobb out to sea, or am attacked by Jane's zombie, or get lost in some old house with fake doors and die of starvation, well... blame Mary.

Smashed.

2007-04-19T22:06:00.000Z

So I've been thinking about this post for a while now -- what to say, whether I should write it, etc -- for a few reasons. I do tend to avoid writing on this thing about really personal things, because I think it's dull to read and rather intrusive, and why would I intrude upon my own privacy? But this is a good story, so I'll write it, but I don't promise it'll be well written, m'kay?

Last weekend, while cycling home from hanging out with friends in Regent's Park and Camden, I got hit by a car. I'm not going to write exactly what happened, not just for potential legal fallout, but because I'm not even entirely sure. "It all happened so fast," may be a cliche, but it's true.

I do distinctly remember two things. Just before the collision, I recall thinking "Oh shit" before flying thru the air. And then, a second or maybe two later, I distinctly recall the feeling of my teeth shattering against the pavement. If you cringed when you read that, imagine how I cringe when I write it...

Anyway, I was on the ground for only a moment. Despite the protestations of those around me -- one of whom turned out to be a doctor, so I should have listened to her -- I got back up as quickly as I could. I don't know why, but that's my first reaction to a big fall. I do it after falling off horses, and apparently post-car accident as well. Maybe it's my way of convincing myself I'm okay, which in this case I basically was.

Other than the teeth, I have a road-burned elbow (the scabs of which are starting to flake off already -- I'm so, so sexy right now) and some massive bruises on my knees (which I hope don't foreshadow knee issues in the future). I also have, on my stomach, a weird cut/bruise which looks like it game from the zipper of the sweater I was wearing. My face is -- given my teeth, especially -- in decent shape. No cuts, just some bruising on my chin and under my lip. My lips were big and purple for a few days, but are starting to calm down. I also discovered a couple days later a bit of a -- and yes, I'm going to call it this, after years of ER -- contusion on the end of my nose, which makes sense. I was wondering how I managed to smack my face without hitting my nose, given it's not a small nose.

But the teeth... I seemed to have hurt just four, again all on the right sight of my face. My two front teeth both have been broken -- the one on the left lost a big chip out of the corner, while the one on the right is broken in half pretty neatly across the middle. The next tooth over was fractured at the base, and the crown was removed at the hospital; they're hoping to reattach the original tooth, otherwise I'm gonna need a fake one. And the last one, the canine, has had the top sheared off so neatly I didn't notice it at first. It was also twisted around, so the dentist had to shove it back into position.

I'm going to need a lot of dental work, which -- and it's early days still, so yeah -- looks like it will be covered by the driver's insurance, so at least I don't need to worry about that. I hate dentists -- not the people, but getting treated by them. I don't like people fussing around my face (hair stylists and spa folk included, actually) and the noises and the equipment make me very nervous.

But on the upside, I didn't shatter my skull. I say this for two reasons (aside from the obvious, which is that it is indeed amazing I didn't hurt myself worse). First: My mom has consistently nagged me to wear a helmet while cycling. At random, even. It's a mom thing, and she does it well. On Saturday, however, it was hella hot out -- like 26 degrees or something. So I thought about not wearing a helmet, to avoid sweatiness on the ride up to Regent's. I almost didn't, but then I thought: If I get in an accident, and I'm not wearing a helmet, Mom will never let me forget it. So I wore it. And that's the story of how nagging saved my life. Thanks Mom!

The second reason I say it's amazing I didn't shatter my skull is because some crazy drunk chick in the emergency ward did -- by getting drunk and falling over. It was a Saturday night, not late, but late enough for the drunks to be out (I'll point out here I was not drunk, nor was the driver, as far as I know) and so late enough for them to be in the emergency ward.

There was also a "drunken fool" incident at the side of the road, post-accident. I was leaning up against the wall, bent over at the waist with my hand over my bloody mouth. Inexplicably, I was refusing to sit down. I was surrounded by people; in a circle around me there were witnesses, passers-by, probably the driver, tho I don't even know who the driver was. Sitting next to me was the doctor; she was trying very hard to comfort me and being incredibly, incredibly nice and awesome, but I was really angry. Not at the driver; it was an accident, and I didn't really blame him. Just angry generally. I was pissed off that I'd shattered my teeth, and took it out on those around me, as I tend to do when angry. So I was being a bit snappy, even to the nice doctor lady (let me here shout apologies and thank-yous to her into the ether that is the internet; I'd thank her in person for her amazing patience and kindness, but don't even know her name).

As we're standing around, waiting for the ambulance to arrive, this guy stumbles up to our little gathering. I'm still leaning against the wall, bent over toward the ground, with my hand covering my mouth. He looks at us, and then loud and slurring, asks directions to a particular pub. No one answers, or indeed, acknowledges him. So he asks again, looking around the group for some response. Angry and in a rather cruel mood, I stand up, pull my hand away from my very bloody, broken mouth, and say: "I was just hit by a fucking car. Fuck off."

He takes a look at my mouth and utterly horrified-looking, says: "Oh shit. I thought you were vomiting."

At the time, not so funny. But I think it's hilarious now.

A couple pictures are here. Any votes on which should be my new facebook profile photo?

Sporting fun

2007-04-11T22:08:00.000Z

I don't know what it is about sports events in England -- they're just not very sport. My first summer out here, I went to go see the Royal Ascot horse race (held in York owing to renos). I expected it to be like any big race day at the tracks I worked at -- bigger purses, but still the same shit.

I was wrong. I was so under-dressed I need to borrow clothes from Emily just to get in. And I'm not sure I saw a horse running at any point during the day. Tho I did some some horsey-looking British women in stupid hats...

see... boats!

Anyway, over the weekend I went to watch the annual Cambridge-Oxford boat race. And by "watch the race" I mean "sit in the sun, drinking beer, and never see any damn boats." I can't remember who won.

On the upside, Shannon likes hockey too...

Maybe I need to stop watching such posh sports (Go Flames Go! Thank god for the Maple Leaf pub) and get tickets to football or, I don't know, bear-baiting. Is that still legal here?

Public drinking with crazy locals -- Welcome to England.

Either way, I bet everyone's drunk. I think drinking might be England's national sport... And no, that's no complaint.

Photos from Shatrick!

Paris avec la DarNat

2007-04-09T10:20:00.000Z

So here's what we actually did in Paris, in more detail than is strictly necessary... But really, this blog is more for me than it is for you.

DarNat were travelling with Daorcey's parents (Colin and Jannose) who were chaperoning a school trip around war sites in France and Belgium. As they had three days in Paris at the end of the tour, I figured I may as well hop the Eurostar and go for a visit.

As noted previously, we met at the Eiffel Tower, where we ditched the 20 teenagers (leaving them with their teachers and the tour guide) and headed to the Arc de Triomphe where we watched the mayhem that is the massive traffic circle (video).

We then trudged/metroed back to Bastille, where Daorcey got us lost looking for their hotel before heading to a supremely shit dinner (green beans!). Such a shame to have a bad dining experience in Paris... So we got a bottle of wine, and headed back to DarNat's hotel, where Daorcey and I got drunk and talked about media while Nat fell asleep -- but not before the return of Private Obvious. I returned to my hostel and crawled into bed in my darkened room, trying not to disturb my dutch roommates unnecessarily...

The next day, we again ditched the tour group, opting to walk to the Louvre along the river rather than go on a bus tour with the teenagers. The Louvre (video) is as it always is: frustratingly crowded and not worth the fuss. Amazing collection, horribly presented. Such a shame. But we did get to see Napoleon coronating himself this time... (which really deserves a post of it's own) and we did get to see the flying spaghetti monster (video).

We then rejoined the kids for an hour in Montmartre (video1, video2). If you've been there recently, you'll know all about the annoying dudes with the bracelet scam. If you haven't, and you plan to go, don't let anyone make you a bracelet. Anyway, some dude tried to get me to go along with his scam, and this exchange occurred:

Me, loudly: No, no, no.
Him, abrasively: You should go to Iraq and get your throat slit.

Excellent. After that, we were off to dinner at a crazy Greek restaurant in the Latin Quarter, where the waiters tried to get their hands all over the cuter girl teenagers, and where natalie confused one kid by telling him: "Love between two men is the purest form of love there is." This was prompted by a decorative plate illustrated by two men engaged in uh, love. Then we took the boat tour (video).

The next/last day, we were off to Versailles. Annoyingly, the employees of the palace had decided -- being French -- not to work for the first hour. Some sort of work to rule campaign. By the time they stopped striking, the lineups were massive -- but they were less lineups and more scrums. Scrums of European teenagers with mullets and skinny jeans. As you can imagine, it didn't take long for me to lose my temper.

We eventually got into the building, speedwalked through some very fancy rooms (video) to the other Coronation of Napoleon painting and then ditched out to the gardens... After opting to not go back to Paris with the group, we rented bikes and cycled around Marie Antoinette's crazy town, got yelled at by French police (apparently, being English isn't an excuse) and then trained it back to Paris, where we walked around the Latin Quarter -- andI finally got to look around Shakespeare and Co, the most amazing bookstore ever; none of the books on the top floor are for sale, but you can hang out and read them -- before going for dinner near Republique.

And then we tried to go to bed, while the teenagers tried to get drunk. We both eventually succeeded.

More pics live here and videos live here.

Paris by Night

2007-04-01T03:09:00.000Z

One night, we took a trip up and down the Seine on a boat -- a bateaux mouche, it's called. Apparently.

Like many cities, the nicest buildings and prettiest sites in Paris are along the river. The dramatic night time lighting didn't hurt either. So here're a few crappy clips mashed together for your viewing pleasure...

And yes, I am having fun with video tonight, altho I think it's time for bed now... This video lives here.

Screechy Paris

2007-04-01T02:56:00.000Z

The catchphrase -- if you can call it that -- of this trip to Paris seemed to be, well, screeching.

These videos are probably only funny to myself and DarNat, but hey, that's good enough for me.

To me, that's damn funny. Go here for video one, video two or video three.

Sunny Paris

2007-03-31T23:27:00.000Z

The first draft of this post was originally written in my deteriorating (and soon to be replaced) moleskin notebook as I lounged in the grass beneath the square trees on the south side of the eiffel tower, waiting for DarNat to arrive.

This is what happens when you leave me waiting...

They're late, but despite my impatience to see them, it's impossible to be anything but serene in such a setting (tho it would be the French that could manage it). It's a perfect sunny afternoon, with a gentle breeze keeping the heat comfortable. The hordes of tourists are far enough away that their din is a pleasant sea-like murmur. It is a perfect spring day in Paris -- and that is a wonderful thing indeed.

It's so lovely -- the weather and the city -- that despite a day of delays and frustrations, I've stayed happy and calm -- and this is me we're talking about here.

The Eurostar was, as is the norm with British public transport, delayed due to a broken train. It was fine when it rolled in, but they somehow managed to break it as it sat in the station. But the half-hour delay was as close as it gets to punctuality for this service, so I wasn't too bothered.

After finally arriving at Gare de Nord -- my direct service for some reason had stops in Ashford and Lille -- I buy a carnet of tickets and catch the metro to Bastille to find my pre-booked hostel. They tell me they have no reservation in my name and no beds for the night. I start to feel the anger rising, but it subsides when I think: hell, I'm in Paris in the spring -- c'est la vie, right?

Knowing how the French can be, I've come prepared with a back up list of other hostels in the area. The first is closed. The second is not yet open. The last is full. But it's sunny, and it's Paris, and I'm still happy.

At the last hostel, the receptionist tells me she knows a hostel near Republique which definitely has beds for the night. So I hope back on the metro, but despite her detailed directions can not find the place. I pop into an expensive internet cafe -- three euros for a half hour -- and get a new list of hostels to try. List in hand (in the moleskin, in fact) I head back to Bastille via the metro.

I've spent, at this point, the first three hours of my time in Paris hunting for hostels. Despite this, I'm not frustrated, angry or upset. I keep feeling like I'm about to head that way but then the sunshine and the city change my mind.

Eventually, I find a bed in a hostel near Gare de Lyon. I've twenty minutes before I'm due to meet DarNat at the south east side of the south leg of the tower at 3pm (feels like a spy novel, but then we'd be at Pont Neuf, wouldn't we?) so I cross the Seine and hop on the RER train, arriving right on time.

Looking around the gardens, waiting for DarNat...

I find my spot on the grass under the looming tower, scrawl this entry into my notebook and then lounge in the sunshine, reading a book on civilisation -- feeling very French and very, very happy.

A while later, I hear the sound of someone running up behind me, and Nat nearly tackles me, as she tends to do. And if there's anything better than warm sunny Paris, it's warm sunny Paris with DarNat... and a group of teenagers from Stony Plain? Yeah, we'll see how long the happy feelings continue with a bus full of high schoolers...

Go here for video one and video two, because yes, the digicam is still busted. Time for a new one, I'm afraid...

Shakira, Shakira

2007-03-24T21:55:00.000Z

I haven't posted in ages because I've done nothing since returning from Prague, owing to a very violent and angry illness, which my boss refers to as an Eastern European Lurgi.

Anyway, Emily, in her awesome ticket-getting goodness, managed to get a pair of freebie tickets to see Shakira last Sunday. I'm not really into pop divas, but damn, who would pass that up?

To sum up the show in three words: Bitch can dance. I mean, maybe that seems obvious, but really, it's phenomenal. She can even move her breasts around without moving the rest of her body -- a bit creepy, but she must have awesome pecs. Sadly, didn't get video of that. But really, her crazy hips make Britney's porn star act look school-girlish and Christina's platform-shoed prancing look silly.

Throw in the cat-like screeching and ESL lyrics, and it's all good. Add in the coked-up (maybe I stereotype?) Colombian girls falling down the stairs and nearly taking out the beer girl, and it's even better.

What I really liked about the concert was how laid-back and sweet Shakira seemed. The entire show she did barefoot, and while she did prance around in a sparkly bikini top for a large part of the show, she wore these baggy black trousers the entire time -- even under skirts. That's the sort of thing I'd do for a costume party when I was an insecure teenager.

For a few songs, her clothes were flashbacks to the early nineties: the aforementioned big, wide-legged trousers and a tiny baby-tee (also things I used to wear, way back when).

There were no red pleather body-suits a la Britney a few years back (when she was still hot). She did come on stage in a crazy-ass dress with massive flowing sleeves for one song, and dressed in Indian costume for another, but even with sparkle-encased boobs she never came off as slutty. Maybe I'm getting old, but I kind of like that. The not-sluttiness, not the sparkly boobs. Actually, hell, I'll admit to both.

Videos live here; crappy photos live here.

Prague

2007-03-04T22:16:00.000Z

So last week, I spent three days in Prague -- not instead of work, but as work. Yeah, sucks, eh? Unlike with Amsterdam, I actually got to see quite a bit of the city, which is very pretty.

Not unlike most European cities, it has an old town, lots o'churches and a castle. It also features cheap beer (no wonder Bailey liked it) and a crazy-ass bridge with massive religious statues (the view seen in the panoramic above -- thanks autostich! -- is that bridge on the left and the castle/church on the right).

The first day I wandered along the river, crossed the Charles Bridge and then climbed up to the castle, which is more a bunch of palace-type buildings set around a massive gothic cathedral -- like Notre Dame wrapped in Versailles.

The next day, I was trapped in the hotel listening to the wonders of virtual networks -- which I've got to say actually is a business model which rather makes a lot of sense, but I won't bore you with the details. We then had the usual dinner and drinks, which is exactly how you'd imagine it: tasty and drunk. I won't bore you with the details on that, either.

The third day, after peeling myself out of bed and my contacts off my eyes -- gotta stop falling asleep with them in, cause it really doesn't feel great -- I set off in the general direction of the Old Town Square, got lost (as I tend to do), went shopping (as I tend to do), and then found the Old Town Square:

I then realized I'd lost my bank card and frantically used another journalist's mobile to sort that out -- I'm sure he thinks I'm an idiot, as I couldn't figure out how to use his phone, and I'm a technology journalist, so yeah. Not impressive on my part.

No more work travel planned for the moment, so next up is Paris with DarNat... again. Daorcey better let me eat this time or I'm going to send his office photos of Captain Obvious...

More pictures here and some random video of a clock tower going off here. Oh -- and the Czechs drink Kubik juice. Nasty.

BT Tower

2007-03-03T14:40:00.000Z

I had lunch 158 meters above London yesterday -- try not to think too hard about it, Natalie. I attended a BT-sponsored report launch in the BT Tower, which is rather handily just down the block from my office, and had lunch in their 34th-floor rotating restaurant.

Not my picture.

The cool thing about the invite is that's the only way to get into the tower, as it's been closed since the seventies after a bomb attack. The tower itself is, according to Wikipedia, 188 meters/620 feet tall, if you include all the aerial shiznit at the top.

Also not my photo.

Anyway, it was a nice sunny day, so we could see pretty much all of London. I made the "I can see my office from here" joke a few times -- which is funny only because my office is about half a block away.

I've had some nice views of London lately. Flew in from Prague (that post to come, um, tomorrowish) on Thursday night (very, very tired) and for some reason or another, the pilot took us on a loop over London. Wish I'd had my camera handy, but really, I couldn't have captured it properly -- the whole city, laid out like that, all sparkly and glittery. Very pretty.

More Maella pics!

2007-02-25T20:56:00.000Z

Just in case you were wondering, Maella's still cute:

(Yet) more pictures here.

small world

2007-02-22T23:11:00.000Z

The thing with Calgary is, despite the million people and the boom and all that, it's a small town. Having lived in the epitome of a big city for 2.5 years, I can attest to this. Calgary, for all it's world-class city aspirations, is a small town.

Still, it's a small town with reach.

Tonight, I was drinking on the budget of the University of Calgary. Believe it or not, they had an alumni event here. I'm not -- or wasn't, prior to this -- on the alumni list, not least because I'm not overly impressed with the school and because I hated what President Dr. Weingarten said at my convocation -- that grads owe their school, and should repay by donating via the alumni association. Yeah, well, suck it, Harvey -- I've paid enough to subsidize grad students, thanks. Not that he doesn't know my thoughts on um, him.

Still, when I was emailed (out of the blue, really) with details on the event, and realized it was being held down the street from my house, I couldn't pass it up.

Glad I didn't. Good times, and all that. Met some interesting people, too. One, is the cousin of a friend from junior high (Katie Wallace, for those of you from back then). The other -- damn, I nearly choked. Seriously. He gave me a weird look. The other is this dude named Adrian, who planned the event... and used to date the one and only Mary Chan back in high school. Mary, did I just meet your ex? Really? Is this true? Can it be?

Cause damn, that's funny. Upon realizing this rather striking coincidence, I started laughing, which prompted me to say: "This is only funny to anyone who knows Mary." At which point Adrian said: "I'm laughing too." I'm not sure we were laughing at the same thing, tho. Hell, I'm not even sure why the concept of Mary's ex is funny. But it is. God damn it, it is.

And he said: Let there be... interweb!

2007-02-15T21:40:00.000Z

I'm writing this from my kitchen. That's right kids, the powers that be have FINALLY!1!! allowed the interwebs to be switched on at the flat.

It's only been four and a half months since I moved in here -- granted I was away mentally in November and physically in December. But even then: two and a half months of effort, just to get webbed up? Crazy shit these British people put up with, them and their stiff upper lips.

I suppose I should thank the good people at Orange -- um, thanks Will? -- my new favourite colour for internet provisions, as they're the only ones who could sort out our line (the internets still travel thru phone lines here -- how quaint!) and make it all happen.

Now, I need never spend another pence in internet cafes -- I can look up all the porn and Stephen Colbert clips (porn for the thinking woman) I want in the privacy of my own kitchen, which I'm sure my flatmates will love...

Amsterdam

2007-02-11T17:36:00.000Z

I flew out early Thursday morning from snowed-in Heathrow for a press conference thingy in Amsterdam. Our flight was delayed -- amazing what a few inches of the white stuff does to people here -- but at least we eventually took off.

Because I was inside listening to executives yammer on and on about how awesome their company is, I didn't get to see too much of the city.

From what I did see, it's pretty freakin' awesome. I didn't realize how many canals there actually are -- every other street is water. Houseboats sit along the canals, which are lined with little cobbled streets and lovely three storey houses.

And there's bikes everywhere. The roads are ridiculously tiny and seem to close at random, so I can see why people choose to cycle. But it's the way they do it that's amazing. In London, I cycle to work on a mountain bike, armoured with helmet and rain gear. My bike has mudguards and front and rear lights. I bring a change of clothes to work, as I pedal as hard as I can.

In Amsterdam, cyclists aren't rushing -- they just kind of drift along, acting more like pedestrians than vehicles. Their bikes are funky, but clearly not built for speed. Women in dresses and men in suits roll along, without helmets or reflectors.

It's a nice reflection of how relaxed the city is, but these people would die cycling like that in London.

Anyway, after the press stuff, we were taken on a boat tour through some of the canals and then dumped off for dinner (and a hell of a lot of drinks) before wandering to some bar. I did not manage to find the red light district (or the illicit pleasures contained there) so I think I need to plan a trip back...

There's a post worth writing about my thoughts on junkets and PR expense accounts and the ethics of this, but let me defend myself generally with two points:

I write IT stuff, which is inherently commericalized and not exactly (generally) conentious;
Even if I wrote something negative -- or nothing at all, which I've done -- about the companies involved, no one seems to care.

So I haven't yet felt particularily influenced by PR pressures, but I'm sure it's more subtle and insidious than I'm expecting. Either way, I fully intend to enjoy my (fully paid for) travels and get some experience writing without feeling too guilty about the evil PR angle -- or the environmental one at that. Is this a sign of degrading ethics? Possibly. If I start going all cheerleader for Sky or Microsoft or, hell, even Apple this time next year, somebody smack me, alright?

Anyway, an aside on the camera issue: it seems to work fine if I zoom in hella close, but is still wonky otherwise. Why? Who knows. Time for a new one, I guess.

A few more photos live here.

Journeys

2007-02-10T19:41:00.000Z

In celebration of my 25th birthday -- damn, I'm gettin' old! -- had a pub night (yeah, big surprise, I know) at the Maple Leaf, a Canadian-themed pub near Covent Garden.

Typical drunken night, tho there were some rather interesting journeys home post-bar.

Feeling tired and sick, Emma left early. She started walking to the tube but then, revived by the fresh(ish) air, decided to just walk to Waterloo and catch the Jubilee line there. Upon arriving at Waterloo, she decided to walk the rest of the way home. Not exactly a short walk, and at midnight in the rain, a rather strange choice.

Emily stumbled out shortly after Emma. Preth walked her to Charing Cross station, a good place for her to catch a direct tube up to Camden. Rather then do that, Emily irrationally/drunkenly/confusedly walked to Blackfriars (no short walk, that) where she caught a pair of buses back across town and up home. Why? No one knows, least of all her.

After a post-drinking curry (korma, of course) in Soho with Lauren and her Lincoln-based friend, I cycled home -- nothing strange about that. Tipsy and rather soaked from the rain, I didn't have my waterproofs --instead, I was wearing my long nice coat and work shoes, as I'd gone straight to work after Amsterdam. It wasn't raining hard, more misty, as I slid around corners, back down thru Covent Garden and over the Thames at Charing Cross bridge (normally I'd cross at Waterloo, but took a wrong street) before rolling home along the riverbank, admiring the reflecting lights in the wet cement.

Rainy night on the South Bank

I got soaked (as I'm sure Emma and Emily did), but it's nice to know there're options other than just taking the vomitoriums that are the Night Buses -- damp but refreshed and happy seems a better start to my second quarter century of life than huddled on a bus choking on the stench of puke...

Zoom, Zoom

2007-02-06T20:04:00.000Z

I get to go on some pretty crazy press junkets (your people are getting to me, Daorcey!) which is how I ended up at the launch for a Formula One race car on Friday (and why I'll be in Amsterdam on Thursday! Woot!).

It was a bit strange, being herded around by PR people, looking at cars, doodling during the q-and-a sessions...

But, I did get to touch an F1 race car -- if only I'd gotten to touch the drivers. But they wouldn't let me. And by "they", I mean "security."

Photos courtesy Jim -- who not only works on our sister publication and lives down the block from me. Coincidence? Yes.

More Maella!

2007-02-06T20:00:00.000Z

Yes, this blog is now entirely about the baby. No, no -- she'd hate me when she was older if I did that. But can't resist a few more pictures...

More here.

Meet Maella!

2007-02-03T11:34:00.000Z

My sister Amanda gave birth to her lovely daughter (my niece! I'm an aunt!) yesterday at 5:08pm (Calgary-time).

Her and proud new daddy Brandon named their addition to the Kobie-Best household (Best-Kobie sounds funny, like there's a not-as-good-Kobie household out there) Maella Lauryn Elizabeth.

It sounds like it was an easier birth than it was a pregnancy -- which should suggest how difficult a pregnancy it was, given how not fun birthing must be.

But well worth the effort, I'm sure you'll agree:

More photos are here -- thanks to Michelle, who has taken all these, there shall soon be more. This child will be more photographed than Kate Moss, I tells ya.

The downside, of course, to me being so very far away is the things/people/events I miss. I've felt homesick before (and with good reason, I think -- last year was not an easy one for me) but none of the difficult times I've been through have made me feel as homesick as Maella. How can you love and miss someone you've never met yet?

Tagged.

2007-01-30T19:37:00.000Z

Here, finally, is my response to Mary's book tag:

1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag 5 people

Okay, I've been meaning to grab whatever book I stepped on first (there's a few on my floor at the moment) but kept forgetting. I just bought two (from an awesome discount bookstore near Waterloo station) so I'll do the one I started reading first (while eating noodles... with chopsticks! I am very proud of myself. Very.)

So, from Peter Carey's My Life as a Fake:

I could not see how one might answer him. He seemed a soul in hell, like a prisoner turning the capstan in the drowning room, forever indentured to something to which he himself had given birth.

Then, the chapter ends. So here's sentence three:

One minute I would be filled with pity and the next with such intense dislike that I could only shudder.

The other book I bought was Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman, which I've always wanted to read, but is playing second-fiddle because I just read Carey's Bliss, which was so totally wicked-awesome. Surprisingly so, to me, because I started reading True History of the Kelly Gang and couldn't get more than a few pages in.

I hereby tag... uh, who ever reads this blog who hasn't yet done this thing. Yes, that means you!

Risk Addiction!

2007-01-29T10:42:00.000Z

Last week, went to a comedians vs shitty movies night. Basically, they show a Bad film – in this case, Basic Instinct 2 – but also supply comedians who do running commentary, often using laser pointers to highlight amusing things, such as how little Sharon Stone’s face moves.

The film’s subtitle is Risk Addiction, presumably because the nonsensical, mostly-nonexistent plot involves Sharon Stone doing risky things. For example – and this exemplifies the “risky” theme as well as the brutal shitiness -- the film begins with her in a car with a doped up footballer. She’s racing all over the streets of London, while he does nasty things to her. At one point, however, he slumps against the passenger side window and starts drooling. This fine, fine piece of cinematic dialogue ensues:

Doped-up-footballer: “I can’t move.”
Sharon Stone: “You’re in a car. You don’t have to.”

Anyway, they then – accidently? Or not? Oooh! Suspense! – plunge the car and themselves into a body of water much too clean to be the Thames.

This started a sort-of joke where one of the comedians would say, sarcastically: “They’re addicted to risk!”

So one of the comedians, continuing the joke much later on in the film, in admittedly not very funny fashion, says:

“Maybe it’s like the board game… they’re addicted to playing Risk!”

I laughed. No one else laughed. But I did. But then again, who else knows someone (Tony!) who actually battled with Risk – Lord of the Rings Risk, anyway -- addiction?

Don’t you hate when something funny happens, and no one around you knows why it’s funny? Such a waste.

Snowed under.

2007-01-24T22:00:00.000Z

London got a wee bit of snow last night and it took out the Tube. While changing lines from Jubilee to Northern at Waterloo, there was an annoucement listing the delays -- the good folks of TFL would have saved time to name where there wasn't delays, because there were no such places. "Everywhere is delayed. Suck it up." This was great for me, as I was running late for work anyway, and therefore got a weather-made get-out-of-jail-free card.

All very amusing, like watching Vancouver weather reports. An inch of snow shut the city down? Ha ha ha! We don't flinch until it's measured in feet! I mock you with my climatological superiority!

It's hard to resist. Everyone comes into work shivering and remarking on the wild and crazy weather, which to a born-and-raised Calgarian, is nothing, just a slight dusting and fresh temperatures. In fact, I like days like today, where the air is sharp and refreshing. It doesn't happen often here -- it's usually muggy and weighs you down -- so it's a nice change, tube delays and all.

Of course, it's not like Canada is so bad. I have a widget on my google homepage which shows temperatures for both Calgary and London. At the moment, guess which is nine degrees warmer?

Video is

Long-winded.

2007-01-21T19:00:00.000Z

It was windy in London last week. Took out some trees in the park by my house:

Or click here. And yes, my camera is still busted.

In other news, started the new job last week. I've written a couple stories so far, but have noticed two annoying Gauntlet throwbacks.

First -- and I blame this on my time as features editor at the G -- I'm not capable of writing short, 300-word news stories. My articles (and blog post) have so far all turned out twice as long as my editor asked them to be. Whoops. Gotta work on that.

And second, they needed a photo of me and my security pic hasn't been uploaded yet, so my editor just did a google image search of me. Only one photo comes up on that, and I HATE it. It's from a long time ago in my early years at the Gauntlet, and has followed me ever since... stupid internet.

Ottawa, again

2007-01-16T16:37:00.000Z

A new job means a new work permit, which means I needed to make another stopover in Canada's mushy-and-slushy capital, Ottawa, to obtain another visa.

Like last year, I arrived at midnight. Unlike last year, I stayed over at Ryan's apartment (last year, it was South who was nice enough to put me up/put up with me).

Ryan wasn't home, but his two kittens were. Socks and Whiskey are very cute, but violently hyper. They frequently -- several times an hour, throughout the night -- disrupted my sleep by launching themselves onto the bed, fighting under the covers, biting at my toes, or sneaking up to my head and staring at my face until I woke up. It's rather disconcerting to awake in the middle of the night to two sets of black little eyes peering at you (and then thinking of this).

(The next day, at lunch, Ryan asked: "Why didn't you just close the bedroom door?" Um, yes. Good question indeed.)

The next morning, tired from my interrupted sleep, I attempted to take the bus downtown to Elgin Street for my visa-gettin' appointment. I must have missed the bus or the internet lied. I stood there, feet already soaked from walking just a block in the slush, waiting and starting to get worried. If I missed the appointment, I'd wouldn't get my visa and would have to change my flight. I flagged the next cab, and it cost a whole tenner to save my ass. Money well spent.

Arrived at the high comission, where the super-nice security guy proceeded (while searching my bags, he's rather efficient) to warn me against returning hotel keycards back to the hotel; apparently they encode your credit card details on them until the next person uses them, and anyone with a $14 card reader could get said details.

Good advice. Funny, because I swear the security guy last year told me the same thing. Same dude? Who knows.

The getting-of-the-visa was simple. Show them the paperwork, pay the fee, listen to lecture about the shitty state of my passport -- "They might not accept it, after you've put it thru the wash like this." Okay. It wasn't washed, it was apple juiced. And every single border control person has looked at it, lectured me, and then let me pass thru without any trouble.

With a few hours to kill before catching my flight, and having already seen the stirring sights of Ottawa, I proceeded to the local tourist authority to enquire as to the whereabouts of the nearest internet cafe. I was there informed that the local library will let you use their internety computers, even without a library card. Such kindness!

After a few minutes online, I left to get a coffee (Tims, mocha no topping, and a Boston Cream) and to wander around parliament. I tried taking photos, but my camera is having light meter problems, and thinks everything should look like this:

So instead, I took video. I also narrated my video. I hope you can hear it, as it's really rather insightful. I at no point say "Uhhhhh" or "Ummm" or "Anywaysssss...".

As you can probably see, there's not much snow in Ottawa. Normally there is several feet piled at the side of every road. I'm not joking. It's ridiculous. (See: last year's photos.) There is just enough snow, however, to melt into thick slushy, which soaked my socks thru. Amazingly, I saw some retard walking around in those rubber, hole-punched Crocs clogs. Not only are they ugly, but holed shoes are not a smart (or dry) idea for the slush capital of Canada. Then again, I was wearing solid shoes and my socks were soaked anyway.

Post-parliament, I missed my bus (out of stupidity, not poor timing) so cabbed it back to Ryan's for lunch. Post-lunch, I cabbed it back to the downtown area for coffee with South. Post-coffee, I finally figured out the bus system and caught one to the airport...

Edit: In case those videos didn't work for you, try these Google Video links: kittens, ottawa 1, ottawa 2.

Shout out to my Parkland homies!

2007-01-12T21:46:00.000Z

I like posting to this thing from airports, as you may have noticed. Am at the shiny Ottawa International at the moment, awaiting a flight to Montreal's Trudeau where I transfer to my last flight to Heathrow.

(They've given me a whole hour to make the transfer; so if I'm not back in London by Saturday morning, blame Air Canada... and you know what song just popped into my head? The South Park "Blame Canada" thing. Urge to make a spoof "Blame Air Canada" jingle is suddenly overwhelming... It's got to be better than the Celine Dion theme song. /End random aside.)

So I've spent the past day (tired, because of kittens -- details and pictures to follow) gettin' my visa and visitin' Parkland expats. I know two people who also once lived in the neighbourhood I grew up in (um, called Parkland) and both now live in Ottawa. That's fascinating to me, but probably not to you. But really, this post isn't about you. It's about me, killing boredom. If it happens to cause you boredom, that's not really my concern. So suck it.

Anyway, I like the idea of a Parkland coup. South can take over Parliament (he got us in after hours, so I guess he can get past security) and Ryan can run the Army. Me, I'll be in Tim Hortons, drying out my socks. (Ottawa may be lacking snow, but it's still magically wet and slushy.

Freaks!

2007-01-09T19:34:00.000Z

So I head back to London (via Ottawa, again) on Thursday. Yesterday, we (M/T/M, DarNat, EvilAnna plus extra bonus Ben!) went to the Hop for my last pint of Fog and my last Canadian (mushroom and bacon) pizza for the next year or so.

Depressing. I mean, how could I leave such people behind:

More pictures (courtesy Anna) are here. Some of them are actually nice.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-03T23:16:00.000Z

Happy New Year, and all that. Celebrated in the usual fashion, by throwing a party at Tony's house. Despite my attempt at a theme (buckets -- don't ask), it ended up pretty well being a sit-on-couches-and-drink party, which is about the best kind there is. (Banning board games was an awesome idea, thank you very much.)

Natalie (demonic), Tony (stoic), Anna (thoughtful)

Living up to her YouTube name, Anna photographed and videoed (sp?) large portions of the night, without warning. Not fair, I say, but that's mostly because I look horrible in the photos and drunk in the video, which I suppose is my fault and not hers... But moving pictures are not for me, not after shots of Apfel Korn and handfuls of Rummy Bears. But damn funny: the full video list is available here and more old-fashioned still photos are here.

Pointy!

But we didn't just sit on the couches watching a Fireplace dvd (so lame, yet so captivating), dodging champagne corks ("You just need to warm it up in your crotch" - Tony) and trying to convince Christine to dump Kris (Sorry Kris!). No, we also learned to juggle. With oranges. Two years ago, it was balloon animals; now, it's juggling. What will Tony teach us next year? Will Meru truly learn the meaning of a UFIA?

Forget blue balls, Tony's are orange.
He should get that looked at.

After everyone cleared out, Peter showed up. And then Tony went to the casino. The end.

All photos and video by the super amazing Anna (and the mostly amazing Mary). Because I was too drunk to operate my camera. Or find it.

Baby showered.

2006-12-31T06:29:00.000Z

To mark the impending birth of the current occupant of my sister's womb, we had a baby shower down here in De Winton today -- the purpose of which seemed to be to literally shower her (or possibly drown her) in gifts.

Based on today's results, I predict one very spoiled child. Aside from the large piles of tiny clothes, stuffed animals and assorted other pastel-coloured presents, Amanda-and-the-baby (hyphenated as they, at the moment, remain one entity) were gifted a blanket with built-in simulated heartbeat, a tiny spa bath complete with "Victorian-styled" clawed feet, and a "Diaper Genie" which shrink-wraps dirty diapers for smell-less disposal. We really do live in a marvellous age.

Although the bulk of the shower was spent eating and watching my heavily-pregnant sister rip wrapping paper, we also played a few games. Natalie dominated, winning all three contests. She's either on a lucky streak or just genuinely good at counting q-tips, naming baby animals and guessing belly circumference -- useful skills, each of them...

More photos are here.

Christmas in Calgary, photographically

2006-12-29T00:16:00.001Z

A few pictures -- hey, it's better than me rambling, right?

Looking out the back door

The view from the back windows of my parent's De Winton house.
They've seen deer and moose back there; I've heard coyotes.
Not bad for a golf course.

Christmas morning
Is my dad rather too excited to be getting a box of socks?
~

Michelle and her Bunny
My Grandfather bought her a frighteningly life-like stuffed rabbit.
Made with real rabbit? Who knows...
~

High Roller!
Brandon and one of two poker sets he was gifted with that day.
~

Lap dog
Can't even put the puppy down to unwrap gifts...
~

Preggers and me and Calgary
View of downtown -- and the mountains, if you squint --
from the parking lot of the Max Bell arena
~

Hockey!
Brandon's brother's team at the midget tournament.
No, that doesn't mean he's short.
~

Zamboni
My British friends, this is a zamboni,
in case it ever comes up in conversation again.
~

Action shot
Richard (little brother of Brandon) on the ice.
~

Action shot #2
Daorcey in action, with a perogy, after more beer
and vodka than he can usually take.
~

That's a lot of pictures. Sorry if you've got dialup -- but damn, get with the now, man!

Edit: Blogger did weird things to the photos. They've been reposted...

Christmas in Calgary

2006-12-22T14:29:00.000Z

So yet another Christmas break in Calgary. This is my third December since I moved out to London and I've yet to spend a single one in the UK. Go figure.

Thankfully, it's relatively warm and snow-free here. (Snow is piled me-high in Edmonton, just a few hours to the north, so that's saying something.)

From a cell phone,
so tiny picture!

As is usual for my month-long winter vacations, I've spend most of my time visiting friends and family... and drinking. When in Calgary, I'm a creature of habit and tend to hit up the same two pubs: Bottlescrew Bill's and the Hop in Brew -- they still remember me at the latter, amusingly and amazingly. (I'm not sure that's a good thing; I must have made an impression previously.) But damn, they do have the best pizza in the entire world. Pizza in London -- and elsewhere, I'm sure -- is limp and lame compared to this shit.

Aside from those pubs (and other favourites the Ship and Anchor -- when they let me in -- and Ming, home to wicked-awesome martinis named after dictators and peace advocates alike) I also spend a lot of time at Tim Horton's, home to good-and-cheap coffee and donuts, and named after a one-time hockey player who died in a winter driving accident. So Canadian it almost hurts...

Baking up a storm...
of cupcakes and nanaimo bars...

If all that wasn't healthy enough, my sisters and I spent a good portion of yesterday baking. Yeah, I'm gonna be fat by the time my holidays are over. (And if you just thought: "But you're already fat..." then fuck you. Yeah, that's right. Tho I must admit that I really, really miss my bike.)

But now it's time for a nap. I was up late last night -- not partying, but shopping... at a 24-hour Wal-Mart. Yeah, I rock out pretty hard in Calgary, eh?

Last Day!

2006-12-08T14:58:00.000Z

In honor of my last day of work (here – I’m not retiring) I thought it’d be amusing to keep track of what I actually do (a la the classic Tony post).

9:15am – Arrive at work, say good morning to the building manager, admire the new Christmas tree in the foyer and then haul my bike up to the first floor. My “official” start time is 7am.

9:17am – Turn on computer, check email. Hotmail, not my work email. I forget to open Outlook most days. There's just no point.

9:20am – Change out of sweaty cycling clothes. Return to office and reply to emails, read some Fark, check blogs.

9:43am – Part-time guy Tom arrives. "Good Morning, Tom." His proper start time is 9am. Continue farting about on the internet. Read the BBC news site.

10:01am – Fire Drill. Go outside, stand awkwardly with people I sort of know, debate telling them it’s my last day.

10:02am – Go to shop instead. Buy lunch, painkillers.

10:10am - Return from shop. Make cup of tea. Have breakfast (rice krispies).

10:36am - Start working on my first of three pages (One, Two and Six). Pick a story from Reuters (use one about how much Baghdad sucks right now). Copy and paste it into word, spell check it, copy and paste it into layout program, cut it to fit, write headline/kicker, pick and drop in photo. Finish page.

10:52am - Start writing this. Check email again. Read more online news. Look up squash lessons in Calgary.

11:08am - Check Reuters, to see if anything new has happened. Pick stories to use as leads.

11:10am - Fiddle with Blogger some more. Switch over to their new Beta, which hopefully sucks less than their last version.

11:24am - Start working on other two pages. Change Page One layout. Drop in lead story (Oracle is buying something) and second story (German economy doesn't suck). Decide to flip their spots. Copy and paste German story into word; spellcheck and use find and replace for all formatting changes, so I don't actually have to read the story. Something about a trade surplus, according to the headline. Do same for Oracle story.

11:35am - Tell Tom which stories I took. This is the bulk of the conversation we'll have today: "Uh, probably just taking Oracle."

11:36am - Start working on the other blog.

11:47am - Go to toilet.

11:49am - Start working on Page Two. This is the news/politics page, so I like it. Running a story about Annan's comments on Sudan as the lead and an EU/Turkey story underneath.

12:12pm - Main stories are done. Trying to pick a front page photo, and then need to fill up the news briefs on both pages. Look at pictures of the damage the London tornado did yesterday.

12:24pm - Have snack.

12:37pm - Page Two is now done, and I've decided to run a photo of Australian fires on Page One. Two more spots to fill on Page One, and I'm done.

12:44pm - And... done. Now just need to proof Tom's stuff. Our deadline is in half an hour, so I think I'll get it in by then...

12:50pm - Done proofing and now exporting pages. Tom is almost finished too. Which means he gets to leave. Given it's my last day, I hope it's not awkward. I hope he doesn't try to shake my hand or something lame.

12:54pm - Just a quick "See ya Nicole," from Tom and he's out the door. Thank god. He may be quiet, but I give him credit for not being false. Time for lunch.

1:03pm - British sandwiches suck.

1:17pm - Buddy from Germany calls to tell me I can export the PDF. I now have nothing work-related left to do.

1:48pm - Finish my post for my other blog. Fax something to the new place of employment.

1:57pm - Clean out desk.

2:08pm - Go shopping. Not much else to do.

2:42pm - Back from shopping. Bought nothing other than a Starbucks Gingerbread latte (grande, skinny, no whipped cream).

2:52pm - Write leaving note to boss and coworker.

2:58pm - Check email. Change clothes. Get the hell out of here.

Yeah, that wasn't that interesting, was it?

Baker Street

2006-12-06T09:57:00.000Z

While cycling to and from my house the past few days, I've gone past a movie set. I live right near an area called Shad Thames, and on the edge of it there's a bunch of warehouses -- really, Shad Thames is mostly old warehouses converted into seriously expensive housing.

Anyway, there's a mechanics shop on Chambers Street a couple blocks from where I live, and the past few days its been full of 1970s cars and made to look like a car dealership. There's a ton of trucks outside and film crew and lights and stuff.

A ton of movies and crap TV shows get filmed in London, so film crews aren't really that rare, so I didn't take much interest in it. I did ask one guy what movie it was, and he didn't tell me the name -- didn't know? wasn't allowed to say? -- but told me it was about a really crazy 1971 bank robbery in London.

Based on that, I think it's for a movie called Baker Street... starring the dead-sexy (for a bald man) Jason Statham. So yeah... I'll be taking a wee bit more of an interest now.

I'll get pictures (of the site, not the star) if I manage to remember my camera before they finish filming.

More pony pics

2006-12-04T14:57:00.001Z

Got some photos developed, so here's a pile of pony pics from the trip to the New Forest...

A big pile of unsorted pictures is also up here.

Meet the Flatmates

2006-11-28T14:22:00.000Z

We had an early Christmas party at the new flat. There was lots of food... lots of booze... and lots of shitty crackers (the "exploding" kind, not the nice-with-cheese kind). But more importantly, I took photos, so now you can meet the flatmates.

I apologize to them in advance for the not-at-all-flattering nature of these pictures. My crazy flash makes people ugly.

Emma and Marton: Emma has lived in the house for a few years and is a physical therapist-type person from Australia. Marton is a PhD student in law from Hungary. He moved into the room next to mine that the noise-hating German used to live in.

Hannah (on the left, acting crazy, and her non-flatmate friend Ciara): Hannah is from Manchester and lives in the garage. Seriously. It's been converted in a fairly large bedroom, however. She's a structural engineer, which means she goes around to trade shows and makes sure nothing falls over.

Preth (and boyfriend Nick): Preth also just moved in, and lives upstairs with Marton and I. She works in an anti-racism government group, while Nick studies greenhouse gas shiznit for some thinktank. I hope their good karma rubs off on me...

More pictures here.

Oxford

2006-11-19T17:07:00.000Z

In part two of the surely-to-be-multipart Distracting Day-trip Diversions series, Emily and I went to Oxford.

Emily went there for university -- which is surprising if you meet her, as she's very indie and not pompous at all -- so she gave me the guided tour. There're lots of old buildings, cool museums and students in scarves.

It's a strange place. Kind of has an air of entitlement and "ooh, aren't I special" about it, but maybe I'm just a bitter, angry person, made more so after a day surrounded by young, successful, rich and/or smart people who got to go to a real school, not the lame-ass U of Calgary.

JRR Tolkein used to sit out here
and think of hobbits... how dirty...

Anyway, we saw where Emily went to school -- her college, Merton, is a lovely set of old buildings with courtyards and gardens and all that britishness. It's also where JRR Tolkein studied and taught. It's also where Kris Kristofferson and TS Eliot studied. Ahh, such history.

I had great fun comparing Merton to the good ol' U of C. Emily noted -- unpretentiously, I assure you -- that the school dates from the 1200s. I noted that the U of C dates from the 1960s. Her college, including grad students, is made up of about 130 students. I've had classes with three times that number. She pointed out the grand old exams building, and the amazing hall they graduate in, and the beautiful courtyard where they got their gowns prior to the ceremony. Me, I pointed out where all these things happened while at the U of C: the gym, another gym, and the running track around the oval.

And okay, I admit: pretty architechture and ridiculous tradition are not the cornerstones of a good education. But then, neither is cramming students into lecture halls the size of movie theatres and hoping against all hope that they maybe learn something, as long as it's cheap. /end rant

Even dead ponies are cute.

Then we went to a museum of natural history (full of hella awesome Victorian-era dead-and-stuffed things) and an art museum. Good times had in both. Then we got drunk and openly mocked 18-year-old girls for wearing heels they couldn't walk in. Then we felt old, so we went home.

This is so Tim Burton. The Victorians
were so awesomely crazy.

While waiting at the station for the train to speed us (ha! it took three times as long as the train that took us out there!) back to London, a man walked by wearing no trousers -- he was dressed normally on top, but just sheerish brown underwear on the bottom.

He walked right past us, spoke to a station attendent like nothing was weird, and then (thankfully) got on a train going the other direction.

It's especially strange because I kept thinking: That man has no pants. It's like the no-pants dance floor. But here in Bizarro World, pants=underwear, so in fact he was wearing pants, just not much else. So a no-pants dance floor here would be a scary, scary thing indeed. Just a warning should anyone (looks -- um, virtually -- in Kris' direction) decide to shout out "No Pants Dance Floor!" in a London club. Just saying.

Wow, that last paragraph probably makes so little sense to anyone who isn't me. Well. Sucks to be you, then.

More pictures here.

New Forest

2006-11-12T16:09:00.000Z

So I really needed to get out of London this weekend, even just for the day, to get some air and chill out and be alone. It's decidedly hard to be alone in this city -- lonely is easy, but being actually physically alone is very difficult.

I couldn't decide where to go. I thought about the ocean, but the only seaside cities I still want to see are hours and hours away. I decided I'd go on Saturday morning to Waterloo station and take the first train going somewhere interesting.

When I arrived at the station, there was a train going to Portsmouth. On the ocean, so that's good. Then, it was cancelled. Okay, fine. A few minutes after, there was a train going to Alton, from which I could get to Chawton House, where Jane Austen lived. But there was a fault on the line, and I'd have to take the bus part of the way. Forget that. Look back at the screens... there's one going to Southampton -- it's near the ocean, good enough. So hopped on the train and off I went.

Part way thru the trip, the conductor-lady announced that at 11am the train would stop for two minutes, in honour of remembrance day. Two guys -- European, with not very good English -- talked thru the whole thing. I'm sure they had no idea what was going on, why the train was stopped, or why everyone was suddenly dead quiet.

Anyway, arrive at Southampton. I have my bike with me, so I pedal down to the waterfront. It's pretty dire. Maybe I was in a bad mood. Or maybe it really is that much of a dump. But Southampton was not offering me what I needed, ie: cheering up. I stopped in a cafe for a sandwich and a coffee, and it was full -- packed completely -- with senior citizens. On a Tuesday morning, sure. But on a Saturday, in the city centre? Lame.

So I biked back to the train station, and went a few stops further down the line to the New Forest, a massive park full of ponies. Why I didn't go there straight off is beyond me. I've been there before (with Dan then, and this time, decidedly without) and wanted to go somewhere different, I guess.

Anyway, right off the train, there were ponies. I wandered into a town called Ashurst, bought a shitty map, then cycled for half an hour in the wrong direction. Oh well, not like I was in a rush. I was trying to head to an area called the Woodlands, but only because it was close-ish on my map. I randomly turned into a closed-for-the-season campground, because I saw some ponies. Bigger ones, like horses. I took several dozen photos, and then walked further in and found more ponies.

It's a beautiful area. Massive old trees, all gold and yellow, with leaves and acorns and horse poop all over the ground. My kind of place.

I was mostly wandering around, petting ponies, taking photos and admiring the view and breathing the lovely air -- you start to appreciate air quality living in a place like London.

I wandered over to one bigger pony -- more of a horse, really -- hoping to get a good photo, as the light was reflecting off the trees around it in a very ethereal way. I got closer, lost the nice lighting, and was standing in a clearing when I heard rustling from behind me.

I turned, and a herd of tiny ponies trotted out of the bushes and trees toward me. It's hard to explain the sensation, of just being somewhere, and having wildlife wander into view. It's one thing to see them from the road and go in for a closer look, it's another to be standing alone in the wilderness (or the closest to it this ridiculous country has) and see animals come out of nowhere, on their daily business, doing what they'd do if you were there or not.

They trotted right up to me, and past me. Much more aggressive than the bigger ponies, pushed their little faces right up me, looking for treats I guess, or just curious.

One walked right up to the nicely-lit bigger pony, and they stuck their noses towards each other. Shamefully, I didn't have my camera ready, and missed the shot of this horse, several times bigger than its new friend, stretching it's neck down to meet the nose of this tiny little pony-creature. Adorable.

After going thru all my film (thank god I had the digital, too), I left the ponies and went for a ride down a trail thru the forest. I had no idea where it was going, so eventually backtracked to Ashurst and a shitty pub, with food that tasted of nothing; it was just warm and solid. Amazing. Almost an accomplishment. And then, with my runners and bike tires caked in mud, I got back on the train to Waterloo and stinky old London...

More pictures here, and video is here and here.

Spooky London

2006-11-01T14:50:00.000Z

Damn, can you believe it's November? I can't. It's starting to get cold -- almost feels like fall in Calgary. (Ha ha ha. Suckers! Enjoying the snow?!)

Anyway, to celebrate Halloween -- the best holiday ever -- went on another guided walking tour. I've already done the Jack the Ripper one a few October 31sts back, so we did a more general one this time. (My god, I've been out here a while; this is my third London Halloween!)

The meeting point was Monument tube station; I've never really been around the Monument and have only seen it from a distance. It memorializes the Great Fire of 1666 -- which doesn't need much help, as it was mentioned over and over again on this tour -- and is a big tower with a shiny flame on top. According to our caped, pale tour guide -- ah, I miss dressing up -- only five people (which I scoffed at) died in the fire (despite it wiping out 4/5 of the city?) but 17 have thrown themselves off the Monument. Mmm, spooky irony.

We then walked around to various sites in the City, most of which I could never find again and can't remember the stories to anyway. Gotta say, not the spookiest ghost stories I've heard -- the Ghouls, Gaslight and Guinness tour I did with my parents was better, but then again, there wasn't 150 people attending then, either.

The two highlights were definitely easy to pick. We were standing behind a church -- which is along the alley where Scrooge's offices are set in A Christmas Carol -- and the guide dude was telling us a very-not-scary experience another tour guide had, involving hearing mysterious organ music. Right as we all turn away to see waddle to the next site, organ music blares, and a dude dressed like a ghoul starts running about, cackling at teenagers... before he suddenly starts breakdancing. So awesome.

The other highlight also involves an out-of-work actor. The last stop was in Charterhouse Square, which is where thousands of plague victims were buried. Guide-dude was storyficating about a young orphaned boy who worked for his uncle, who ran a company of dead-collecters; the guide actually said, "Bring out your dead," which resulted in me giggling and doing Monty Python imitations. Anyway, the uncle killed the little boy by throwing him in the pit of plague victims -- yucky stuff. At this point, a guy covered in fake blood with a fake hand in his mouth starts screaming and running into our group. Managed to get a few good screams from this one group of teens, but then he kept doing it -- laps back and forth, with this hand in his mouth, making gutteral screamy noises, before dropping the hand and oddly yelling: "Do you want it?!!?!"

Ahh, good times. But not very scary.

Borough Market

2006-10-22T20:45:00.000Z

I was hungry on Friday. It happens from time to time. I happened to be near London Bridge, which also happens from time to time, and therefore near Borough Market, which is the biggest (apparently) and best (so they say) food market in Europe.

Yes, that is a man in a bowler hat, selling pies,
below a boar's head.

I apologize to everyone who has visited, because I didn't take you here. Even if you're not much of a foodie -- as I am not -- it's a ridiculous mixture of dead animals, tasty food and cliche traditional British Icons.

Didn't see anyone buy any of these,
but a lot of tourists took pics.

Whatever you want to eat, it's available -- from rabbits and pheasants to every kind of fish, including shark. A hundred types of cheese, bread varieties I've never heard of, vegetables and fruit that actually looked fresh. And more pies and tarts and fancy desserts than even I could imagine eating. But me, I had a burger. Because I'm creative that way.

Monkfish, apparently. Mmm, ugly.

One stall had a bunch of different types of fish. The lobsters were still alive, sitting on the ice. A clerk was explaining god knows what to two older ladies, and every few moments he would reach over and pick up an escaping lobster and put it back in its place, only to have it start crawling away again. One of the ladies looked absolutely horrified.

Those are some damn
big/expensive truffles.

During the week they sell to stores and restaurants apparently, but the weekend is set aside for the gourmet items for posh people. And, of course, tourists. I would like to know who walks into a market and walks out with truffles at a price of 1900 pounds a kilo, though.

Whee!

2006-10-19T13:53:00.000Z

So the Tate Modern has this big massive hall -- the Turbine Hall, as the building used to be a power station -- which they fill with random pieces of art.

It's all random and exciting and crazy and makes me like modern art. They've now filled that room with SLIDES. Slides that go from the fifth floor! Slides! Slides you can slide on! For free! Bloody hell that's cool.

According to their website:

"For Carsten Höller [the artist], the experience of sliding is best summed up in a phrase by the French writer Roger Caillois as a ‘voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind’. The slides are impressive sculptures in their own right, and you don’t have to hurtle down them to appreciate this artwork. What interests Höller, however, is both the visual spectacle of watching people sliding and the ‘inner spectacle’ experienced by the sliders themselves, the state of simultaneous delight and anxiety that you enter as you descend."

We only made it down the two smaller slides, as we were on lunch breaks and you have to get tickets -- free, but with a line up -- for the higher up ones.

And yes, I will be going back. One must keep up with art...

Very exciting. On the downside, all the tour groups and school groups are ignoring the rest of the museum and just hanging out at the slides.

So cool. I really want to go on this last one... how fast do you think that drop would get you going??

Ponified!

2006-10-13T13:54:00.000Z

At the farm I volunteer at, they have three new horses. One is owned by an instructor, and the other two are ponies for the kids to ride.

Billy

The two ponies are called Billy and Dan -- who names a horse Dan! -- and were bought off of gypsies. My mental image of that is surely no where near the reality.

Dan!

Lately I've been actually getting to ride a bit myself -- and no, not Dan, b/c that would be too funny. There's a law against such things.

It's nice tho, even when I don't get to ride, seeing how completely happy the horses make the disabled kids. The kids aren't simply missing a leg or something, they have both mental and physical issues, especially with learning and communicating.

But they do really well with the horses. One little girl giggles hysterically every time she gets to trot while another little boy is so attached to one pony -- DJ, of all of them -- that when his (not disabled) sister got on to ride last night, he threw a fit of jealousy. That sounds bad, but the kid is like two feet tall and can barely speak, so he just kept shaking his tiny little fist at her. So funny.

Sharpe's Bath

2006-10-12T14:11:00.000Z

Bernard Cornwell , the author of the Sharpe series, is doing a mini book tour (mini tour, not small books) of England to promote his newest, Sharpe’s Fury.

While he did come to London on Monday, it was only for a signing. I wanted to hear him speak, so last night, I skipped out on work early to travel to Bath.

I arrived with a few hours to kill, and having already done what touristy shiznit interested me on last year’s Jane Austen pilgrimage, I just walked around, taking pics, as usual (more here ).

When I got to the bookstore for the talk, I was surprised it wasn’t packed. The one in Southampton the night before was sold out.

Rather than read from the book, as was advertised, Cornwell rambled on in amusing fashion, describing his hobby of touring historical battlefields, and making jokes about how we should all buy all of his several dozen books.

Because the series was not written in chronological order, parts don’t always make sense, which seems to really amuse him. He finds himself having to kill off any new characters he creates, as they obviously don’t show up in the “next” book. And why does Sharpe never mention he fought at Trafalgar? Oh, because he was traumatized he just can’t speak of it. Um, yes.

Cornwell spoke a lot about Sean Bean – who plays Sharpe in the TV series – and told some amusing stories about how grumpy Bean is in rehearsal. Apparently, he rehearses like shit. Comes in grumbling, grumbles through his lines, but when it’s time to shoot, he’s spot on.

Also rather amusing… Bean was not the first actor cast, but rather a last minute replacement. Lucky them. But the first actor was much smaller than Bean, and they didn’t have time to get new costumes for the first few weeks. So all those shots of Sharpe with his shirt unbuttoned in the first episode, those were because he actually couldn’t do the shirt up.

Cornwell said that when he’s writing, the characters sometimes “speak to him”, in his head. But with Sharpe, that voice has since turned into that of Sean Bean’s, so now Cornwell sometimes wakes up to Bean’s voice. Some guy in the front row took the cue: “My wife would like that!"

The TV series was the focus of much of the discussion; for many people, they’d have been much happier if Sean Bean had been there and not Cornwell.

While that would have depressed the hell out of me, Cornwell didn’t seem to mind. He told us his least favourite episode – and this is no surprise – is Sharpe’s Gold, which is insane and features Aztecs… in France. “What were the writers smoking? Aztecs? It must have been good stuff.”

And when asked if there’d be another show (not if he would write another Sharpe book…) he told the early-20s girl that even if they don’t make another film, she’ll always have Sean-Bean-as-Sharpe in her dreams.

Ahh, won’t we all. Well, maybe just me. And Nat.

. . .

On the walk from Waterstones bookstore to the train, I happened to pass a landmark from another book-to-film: the columned walkway next to the Pump Rooms where Captain Wentworth and Anne finally kiss in Persuasion (they're making a new TV version ...with Anthony Stewart Head as Sir Walter!).

Such a romantic scene, in a lovely adaptation. But in real life, the spot was full of hoodied teenagers, smoking cigarettes and yelling and flirting with each other.

No wonder I like books so much.

Pummmpkin!

2006-10-09T09:35:00.000Z

Happy Thanksgiving! In celebration of turkey day, I made a pumpkin pie. After much searching of local shops, a friend of a friend suggested I try the Canada Shop in Covent Garden. They had some, for the low, low cost of ₤3.25.

It's amazing how much you'll (and by "you", I mean "me") pay to recreate a little bit of home when you're far away -- especially when that little bit of home is so damn tasty.

I could try to force a segue into the following pictures by saying I'm thankful for how happy they make me, but instead I'll just post them...

Daorcey has mastered the playground! After an embarrasing fall in London last year from a toy designed for small children, Daorcey has finally figured out how to balance the damn things.

Before:

and now:

Okay, Natalie and I may be the only people in the world who find this funny. But damn, it makes me laugh.

Moved

2006-10-06T23:12:00.000Z

So I've finally got a place of my own -- if you can call sharing with four other girls "one's own".

It's in a cool house though, right by river and only a few minutes walk from the tube station (Bermondsey, if you're interested).

I seem uncapable of moving north of the river. A few years ago, I played fifth wheel to DarNat and Rob/Sareena in a week-long trip to Cuba. While standing at one of several bars in the hotel, waiting for a cup of their amazing coffee, I struck up a conversation with a Londoner.

He was maybe in his late forties and he was definitely drunk. He told me that in London, one should live in the north, as south of the river is just "dirty, criminal ghettos". He claimed to never go south of the river if he could help it; indeed, he hadn't crossed the river in years.

At this point, I told him my school was somewhere in the southeast, somewhere called "New Cross". He just shook his head, wished me luck, and walked (stumbled) off.

New Cross was my first view of London; I took the tube straight from Heathrow. Dirty, graffitied and full of Jamaicans, it wasn't exactly what I envisioned London to be. I admit to being scared when I first arrived -- but then again, the police had left a sandwich board in front of my dorm building, looking for witnesses to a recent shooting... in front of my dorm building.

I quickly got used to the area, however. It was always so full of people that I never worried being out at night. It might be a bit graffitied, but at least there's something going on.

Then last year, I moved in with Emily and Peter in what's called an estate -- basically former council-subsidized housing blocks. The area, well, I never really knew what to call it. The closest station was Stockwell, but some called it Battersea (not really -- it's a twenty minute walk to the park) or Vauxhall.

While not exactly bleak, there just wasn't much to do. Dan and I explored the local Portugese restaurants and I frequented the park, but it's strongest selling point is probably the ease with which one can go elsewhere. Amazingly, despite the high-population density, the area has no sense of community.

And while I actually never felt unsafe on our estate, I did feel annoyed -- our upstairs neighbour tended to vacuum frequently at midnight, just before her son would come home with car stereo blaring.

So then, after the next flatmate-to-be wigged out on me, I stayed in Brockley with Dan (and his flatmate Tom) for a few weeks. Brockely is just south of New Cross, so I knew the area a little. But where New Cross Road is noisy and congested, the street Dan lives on is very quiet. The house itself dates to Victorian times and their area is what's called a conservation zone, meaning you must keep the original features of the house and not do anything too funny with it, so it's all very pretty, if a bit far out.

And now Bermondsey. As you may have realized, I love the South Bank of the river. However, I normally only went as far east as London Bridge. Now, I've started exploring the rest of the riverside, which is cool, as it's close to where I live.

Anyways, enough rambling. There's some pictures of the house -- but not my bedroom, as it's a mess -- here, and some random photos from a visit to the Clink Prison Museum with Emily here and some random south bank photos here.

A big spider -- really, quite large -- just crawled into this computer monitor's vents, so I'm wigged out and about ready to leave this room. How totally gross. As if I'm going to be able to sleep tonight.

Hotel Nicole, pt 6

2006-09-29T17:40:00.000Z

Can I claim hotel-ness while staying at someone else's house? Maybe that should read Hotel Dan...

So yeah, my hostel-ity has continued, despite me being homeless. Mike Leung traveled thru London, and after missing a flight to Hamburg needed a place to stay for a night before heading off to Bangladesh. Well-traveled, that he is.

With such a quick stopover, all we had time for was pints in the evening and a good hearty english breakfast the following morning, before getting Leung back to Heathrow -- wouldn't want to miss the flight to Bangladesh, after all...

Horniman Museum

2006-09-26T16:18:00.000Z

With a day off and no plans, I decided to go to a south London museum that had caught my eye, and not just because there's a lot of ads for it on the rear of buses, which I tend to get stuck behind while cycling.

No, it has a damn funny name. Horniman! Okay, I'm immature. But childishness is good for this museum.

That's not a comment on the exhibits -- they were, for the most part, pretty high quality. No, the whole place was full of moms (and grandparents) with toddlers and noisy preteen school groups. So immaturity fits right in. As does running around. And screaming. And throwing temper tantrums.

Despite the attendees, the Horniman is a decent museum. The new aquarium is amazing. The music room is really cool, especially this one interactive feature, which lets you listen to hundreds of different instruments.

The natural history bit is a bit weak, especially compared to the Natural History Museum (which is so hella cool, nature pales in comparison). The Horniman's exhibit had some old-school stuff things -- including dogs, yes, domestic ones -- but their growning glory is a full-sized walrus. Compare that to the NHM, which aside from a moving t-rex, has a real stuffed blue whale... a wee bit more impressive than a walrus.

More pictures here.

Foetus!

2006-09-23T18:52:00.000Z

The internet is really rather amazing. This may seem a stupid, obvious comment, but when you actually use it for communicating -- rather than killing time, looking up porn, planning frak parties -- it's really rather stunning what you can do.

My sister Amanda is pregnant. Last week, she went for an ultrasound, which was recorded. After some fiddling, my other sister Michelle uploaded two clips to Google Video and sent me the links. So while I'm thousands of miles away, missing out on one of the most important events in my sister's life, I can still see footage of the alien-looking thing growing inside her.

Which I happen to think is pretty freakin' cool. This would have been damn near impossible to do even ten years ago.

So here's the footage of the little alien...

And:

That's four-months of baby right there, that is. The silly thing refused to move into a position where they could tell its gender, hence the non-gender specific pronoun.

We'll have to wait until February to find out if I have a niece or a nephew...

And despite the wonders of the interweb, I'm not sure even hightech communications technology is enough to keep me from feeling like I'm missing out when the little alien is finally born...

Joust!

2006-09-21T09:37:00.000Z

Of all the things I could have done last Saturday in London -- galleries! music! alcohol! -- I chose to go see some weird "family friendly" war-themed exhibition in Chelsea.

Why? It was called Horses in War. (My brain: ponyponyponyponypony, ect.)

Pretty well, it consisted of:

a few horses, looking bored;
some stalls we didn't look at;
a camel and a mule -- neither of which are horses;
a tank -- also not a horse;
a beer stall -- thank god;
jousting.

Tho the last bullet point there only lasted about 7 minutes, it was by far the most entertaining... aside from the beer. Video goodness:

More photos -- of the still variety -- are here.

Lloyds, but drunk(er)

2006-09-10T13:04:00.000Z

For all you Calgary folk, remember Lloyds rollerskating? Ah, the teenaged romance and the pimps -- such fond memories. Fond, fond memories.

Anyway, they have such a place -- but for grown ups! with alcohol! -- near Kings Cross. A so-called Roller Disco, it's like any other club... Line up and pay a huge cover charge to get in and see weirdly dressed, uh, I mean fashionably dressed, people drunkenly making asses of themselves. Except this time, on wheels.

While there were a few talented rollerskaters, most of the people there just attempted to roll around in circles on one of the three "dance floors" without falling over. One guy couldn't even manage that; he spent the whole night flailing around and falling on his ass, often taking others with him. Also amusing were the thuggin young guys -- black, with hoodies and low riding pants, they'd look tough if not for the rollerskates they brought with them.

Good times, tho. My deformed feet hurt like a bitch after -- thanks mom, dad, for the poor genetics -- but the alcohol dulled the pain.

Anyway, I think we should all pool our money, buy Lloyds in Calgary and rebrand it as a roller disco club. We'd make a killing -- and the way I skate, possibly not figuratively...

Front Page

2006-09-03T11:56:00.000Z

I had a few hours to kill on Friday before heading back to Dan's -- as I don't have a key yet -- so I wandered over to the British Library to see an exhibition on newspapers.

I've previously gone to the Library (and yes, it deserves a capital letter) to do research. It has every possible book you could imagine and then some. Previously located in the British Museum, the collection needed more space and was moved to this new building a few years ago. And keep in mind how massive the BM building is... so yeah, the collection is ridiculous.

It's the kind of library where you look up your selection, write it on a card and then hand it to staff, who will fetch it for you while you wait at a numbered desk. Rifle thru the shelves yourself? Ha, don't be silly! Take the book home with you? Don't be absurd.

So much fun. When I die, if there is indeed a heaven, and I'm somehow allowed in it, I would not be disappointed if it looked something like this library.

Anyway, that's a major digression. I had time to kill, and the Library had a cool and free exhibition called Front Page, which chronicles the past hundred-plus years of British newspapers.

Well-curated, the pages are not done chronologically, but by subject area, so you can compare how a paper in 1895 and 1914 and 1962 and 1989 and 2003 dealt with disasters, politics, sports and -- of course -- royalty. It's all very well explained, and it's cool -- for a news geek, anyhow -- to see classic covers and ones from major events. And, intriguing to see all the different design and layout looks from over the years.

Moreover, it's a celebration of how totally awesome the newspaper is. As the British Library people write in their program -- wonderfully produced in newspaper format in newsprint -- for the price of less than a cup of coffee, you get comment, opinion, fact and entertainment which will make you think. Can't argue with that.

Also in that publication is a note on subeditors, and how they are often derided (by editors and writers alike) at work and ignored/unknown by everyone else. In honor of subs, the exhibition picked a headline they think sums up how creative the best subs are... A Scot on a sports desk wrote this gem after Inverness Caledonian trounced Glasgow Celtic: "Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious". Worthy of a pulitzer, that is.

flattened.

2006-09-01T14:07:00.000Z

This is the short version.

Exhaustion. Frustration. Rage. These were emotions I was feeling last night.

After several weeks of flathunting, I finally found a gorgeous room in this woman's two-bedroom apartment. Along the river, with amazing views, and yet somehow still in my price range, I was ecstatic when she called me and said I could live with her.

Yay.

Yesterday was move-out day. After a monster-day-from-hell packing and cleaning, the van company who were to move my stuff called to tell me their vehicle broke down. They had another, but not for hours -- more hours than they even realized. Over four hours later, the guy called me to say he'd be there soonish.

But this was just too much for my to-be-flatmate to take. Having to wait, a few hours for me, no, that was asking too much. She had wanted to go the gym, don't you know?

So after a phone conversation that included her saying "You're not being attentive enough to my feelings," well that was it. No flat for me.

And then, finally, the van showed up.

So now I'm staying at Dan's place, until I find a flat (I shudder at the thought of doing more flathunting) or he gets sick of me and dumps me. Feel free to start a pool on which happens first... I won't be anger. I used it alllllllll up yesterday.

Hotel Nicole, pt 5

2006-08-23T13:11:00.000Z

Kris and his cousin Maciek have been here the past few days. Kris is on his way back to Calgary -- but for how long?!?! -- after a summer slumming it in Geneva and Germany and Poland and Spain and Rome and Paris and yes I realize I'm mixing cities and countries. Maciek is finishing up a stint working in a Fish and Chips shop in a touristy town in South England, and is heading back to Poland to finish his degree.

Obviously, we've spent much of the evenings here in various pubs, which have sadly proved disapointing. The guys arrived from Poland Sunday night, and we couldn't find an open pub despite being in Waterloo at 1030pm.

And last night, we met up in Soho at a Slug and Lettuce pub for a few drinks with Mike Bowerman (just arrived to do is MA in some finance shiznit) and two Canadian girls Kris knows, Kat and Lauren. (How Kris knows more people in this city is beyond me.)

We were booted from that pub promptly and rudely at 11pm. We found another with a closing time of midnight... and got rather rudely herded from that one, too, as soon as the hour struck, leaving Kris and Mike to chug their Guinness. Terrible.

Thankfully, they have had one nice pub experience, at our local, which has the sweetest, most perfect English lady bartender in the world -- not to mention a very impressive selection of beer.

Not only does this lady -- whose name I shamefully have never asked -- know her beer, she's eager to let you sample them before you buy. Pair that with a sweet but sharp sense of humour, and a willingness to ignore the clock when 11pm approaches, and yeah, I think she wins my bartender of the year award. In the very least, she managed to salvage some of the UK's pub reputation...

Good Works.

2006-08-21T10:03:00.000Z

Two to speak of...

First: If you find yourself in Edmonton right now, go to the Fringe fest. Specifically, go see the production of Finer Noble Gases -- not just because the Edmonton Journal gave it five stars, but because Daorcey's little brother Arone directed and stars in it. And then when he's a hella famous, critically-acclaimed theatre superstar -- which should be sometime next year -- you can say you saw him back in the day...

Second: Photographer/wanderer/tour guide/do-gooder/long-haired-freak Mike Leung is raising money for a VSO volunteering stint. You can (and should) support him and his do-gooder ambitions by buying a print or a pack of postcards from his collection of gorgeous travel photos for $25 Canadian (11ish pounds) from his website.

Shakespearienced!

2006-08-20T18:48:00.000Z

Let me just say this: Reading Shakespeare sucks -- well, it does when compared to seeing it peformed the way it should be. Forced high school readings and local community productions should be banned on pain of death for making Shakespeare difficult and boring, when it should be bloody (actually and figuratively) hilarious good fun.

Some context? Okay. On Friday, Peter, Garth and I trained it up to Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of the bard. It's a bit disneyfied, yes, but who gives a crap when it's also home to one of the finest theatre companies in the world who happen to be doing a complete works festival with some of the best actors in the world.

There's not much else to do in S-U-A aside from theatre, so we wandered aimlessly for a bit after checking into our B&B, having a pint (or I did, anyway) at the Black Swan/Dirty Duck pub.

And then, to the theatre, where we saw The Tempest starring Patrick Stewart. Not surprisingly, it was very good, as was Patrick Stewart. I thought of Natalie during his shirtless scenes... mmm... hot. And weird.

Set on a cold, ice-covered island instead of the usual tropical one, it looked amazing -- blockbuster films don't look this good -- especially the first bit where the boat sinks and the part where Ariel pops out of a dead whale's body all bloody and gooey with spikey wings ... tho I'm not sure that last bit was exactly how Shakespeare imagined it. (Amusingly, The Observer via google tells me that they were once and maybe still are planning a Tempest video game.)

The next day, after returning to London, we went to the recreation of the Globe theatre on the South Bank to see Titus Andronicus. Our (very cheap) tickets were for the standing room around the stage -- all very authentic. The play itself was surprisingly well done and very very funny. The story (read the summary on Wikipedia, it's hilarious) is very melodramatic and tragic, but the Globe production played it for black humour -- quite likely how it would have been played in Shakespeares day.

So the scenes of gore -- with blood spurting into the standing audience -- were very often played for laughs. Especially the bit where Titus' hand is chopped off. And in the final scenes, Titus is running around with a Chef's hat, laughing manically. Though nearly everyone dies in the finale, I couldn't stop laughing. It was all very funny, in a very black way -- but had I read play, rather than see it here, I'm not sure I would have laughed once.

Photos of S-U-A are here. Oh -- and regarding the title of this blog: There is a touristy thing in town called Shakesperience! And no, we didn't go.

Hotel Nicole, pt 4

2006-08-18T10:27:00.000Z

Peter and Garth are here (I just heard the recurring sound of one of them knocking my ridiculously-impossible-to-make-work shower curtain rod to the ground again).

On the first night, I took them to Brick Lane -- favourite of all my visitors -- and yesterday night had dinner in the Crypt near Trafalgar Square before heading out to Hoxton for some live music.

Today we're heading off to Stratford-Upon-Avon for some hot Shakespeare action (or is that hot Patrick Stewart action, Natalie?) and coming back to London tomorrow for some more hot Shakespeare action at the reconstructed Globe on the Southbank.

Then they leave, and later that evening, Kris arrives, in Hotel Nicole, pt 5: the Return of Kotarski!

Flat hunter

2006-08-15T11:45:00.000Z

I've spent my spare moments over the last few weeks looking for a new flat, scanning online ads and cycling around to strange people's homes to see if I want to live with them.

Last week, I saw three places. One had no living room, a kitchen as large as my current bathroom, and a tiny bedroom. I think not. The second was in a kick-ass location (down the road from London Bridge), but the girls living there a) were late due to shopping b) hadn't cleaned the room up nor fixed the falling-down curtains, ripped up carpet or slowly-dying wardrobe c) were unemployed and may have to move soon. Uh, no thanks. The third was in an awesome physical space -- the room is huge with tall arched windows -- but the place was like a hippy commune...

But that's hardly the worst. I've been collecting the best randomly weird comments from online adverts... London is not only expensive, it's full of nutters:

"You will have to share it with a young male, he sleeps in the kitchen during the night, you sleep in the bedroom. "

"Strictly no poofters."

"Rock on each room." -- this from a Korean girl. Sorry, but it's true.
"I use my two bed flat overlooking the thames just at odd times to romance my secretary. You may want to romance someone at your office. Available lunchtimes or early evenings, odd days through the week."
"The top bunk is yours. My 10 year old daughter sleeps in the bottom bunk."

I've managed to sift thru the crazies and the crap to find two very nice sounding places, both in the same area, which I'm going to see tonight... after Peter and Garth get to my place, in Hotel Nicole, pt 4...

Big Green Gathering

2006-08-11T14:05:00.000Z

I've now been inaugerated into the ways of the British Festival -- well, sort of. We were only there two nights over the last weekend (as opposed to five) and it was a pretty fluffy festival (so I'm told), but good times were had nonetheless.

Summer is festival-time in England. The famous one is Glastonbury, but there are tons of others, too. We went to something called the Big Green Gathering, which was more focused on eco-friendly-ness than music -- tho there was a lot of that, too.

Aside from fields and fields of thousands of tents and camper vans, the festival was full of all sorts of crazy, flakey, hippy-shiznit, including booths for massage and gong baths and zero balancing -- whatever that is -- and rock circles and tea tents and lots of shops of clothes and accessories for the modern hippy (who, judging by this festival, is as commerical as the rest of us).

The best bits -- for me, anyway -- were the horse drawn carts (because: pony pony pony pony) and the music everywhere. It was just nice and relaxed no matter what you were doing.

But how -- some of you may ask -- can a festival of music, ect, be eco friendly? Think of all the energy going power amps and lights and speakers and stuff? Oh, but they thought of that. All the power used was generated by sun, wind, and in some cases, legs:

Safest way to cycle when drunk! In order to power the speakers and lights at this music tent at night, people had to cycle. If too many people got lazy and stepped off this contraption, the music faltered and died, and everyone groaned. But then someone (including myself at one point) would hop on, and it'd be good happy party times again.

I want -- really very much -- to start a club powered in this way. Imagine the bikes, up on platforms above the crowd, sort of like dancers in cages the way some dance bars have. And then just hire some hotties of both gender, put them in skimpy outfits, and make them cycle for the night. Maybe have a few cycling contraptions for the public to use, too -- and they will, 'cause it's actually quite fun. Anyone care to fund this?

Amusingly, on the way out, the bus from the train station broke down. Not so amusingly -- as we were filthy and sunburnt and exhausted and had to work the next day -- Amir's car broke down on the way home, just down the hill from Stonehenge. I blame the druids.

More pictures (of the fest, not druids) are here.

. . .

Also some photos of the weekend before, when we escaped London to go celebrate Pier and Leila's birthday's at their new house, which is just outside a small town, which is just outside Salisbury -- ie, the middle of nowhere. But, it should be noted, the middle of nowhere is often a very pretty place and very nice place to be.

Critical

2006-08-10T08:41:00.000Z

The Home Office Terror Alert system swang into action today, upgrading the current threat level to CRITICAL, to let us know that 20 British people trying to blow up UK-to-US flights midair is a bad thing.

And holy crap, it is. I might stick to Air Canada direct flights from now on...

But good for Mi5 for actually stopping something that sounds -- at first news -- to have been a real "plot", as opposed to five guys in a warehouse in Florida, or two guys with beards in Forest Gate.

Heathrow is obviously a mess. Hand luggage is no longer being allowed on flights; the Home Office has the list of things currently being allowed onto planes, and it makes for an interesting read... That book you bought in the airport mall? Yeah, not allowed. Contact lense solution? Nope. Bottle of milk for your baby? Only if you're willing to taste it first. Anything electronic? Not a chance.

Hopefully the inflight movies are working, otherwise the only thing to do all flight is sit there and pray nothing explodes... which is what I'll be doing next time I fly home.

Great British Beer Festival

2006-08-04T10:47:00.000Z

Imagine a great big open space, filled with purveyors of specialty beer and cider... Taps stretching as far as the (slightly inebrieated) eye can see, pouring the spectrum from ale to porter.

Sounds like heaven, but it's actually Earl's Court. It's the Great British Beer Festival -- and great is no exageration.

Okay, it's actually a big ugly exposition hall, full of beer, and the type of people who like to drink beer. I'm pretty sure CAMRA's membership is largely made up of That Old Guy Who's Always Drunk Down at the Local. It was weird to see legions of That Drunk Guy, up and walking around in orange Staff tshirts, like badly-dressed zombies raised from the dead to do charity work.

At first I started keeping track of what I drank. We began with the Badger Brewery, where we shared a Hare Ale and a Fursty Ferret, before moving onto the NorthEast row, where I had a brown ale that tasted like chocolate and toffee. Next was another ale, which had that skunky smell a lot of good beer has, but unfortunately also tasted skunky. After that, I no longer remember what I was drinking. Funny, that.

Aside from the beer, the highlight of the day (we were there about 7 hours) was these two guys who tried to pick up on Emily and I. Turns out they were cops, there with a bunch of coworkers... It's always interesting trying to tactfully drop the already-taken, got-a-boyfriend-thanks piece of info, but I managed to do it quite well, I thought. Cop-guy was explaining how he was on the drug squad, and did busts, and had to wear the full riot gear. I asked if they were supposed to identify themselves by shouting "Police!" when they kicked down the door -- he said they were. I said: "Funny, 'cause they didn't when they kicked down my boyfriend's door..."

Quite the look he gave me for that one. Didn't bother explaining that it was a case of mistaken address... Good times.

I'll take "Undecided" at 200, Alex

2006-08-02T13:55:00.000Z

This is my 200th post. No, really... it is. Go count them. I dare ya.

It seems about time for an update -- not so much because of the post count, but 'cause it's August, and my lease is up soon and I'm nearing the "what the hell am I going to do next" stage, which for me tends to occur every September.

In the meantime, I'm going to try and keep my brain busy. After work today, I'm headed to the British Beer Festival, where I shall imbibe a selection of the finest, award-winning ales, thereby getting smashed off my face. After which, Emily and I are crossing London (Earl's Court to Old Street) to go see some gig.

The next day, I'm sleeping in (I look forward to it already, nothing like a hungover lie-in) and then going shopping in preperation for the Big Green Gathering, or as I like to call it: hippy fest.

Then it's back to London, where I'll have a week to find a flat before Peter and Garth arrive and we do some serious Shakespeare theatre-going -- first, The Tempest in Stratford, starring Patrick Stewart, my second such experience; second, Titus Andronicus at the Globe recreation on the south bank, in the pit, old-school authentic style. The day they leave, Kris shows up on the last leg of his Farewell Europe tour.

All good times, and thankfully distracting from the big life decisions. Of course, come September, when I'm still undecided, still flatless and still in a job which I said I'd quit by now, we'll see how I am then.

Severe, man. Severe.

2006-08-01T11:48:00.000Z

Following (several years after) the lead of the US (as they do too often), the UK today introduced one of these thoroughly useless Terror Threat Level Indicators:

Today, the level is SEVERE, meaning: "an attack is highly likely." Or, possibly meaning: "we don't know shit; please don't yell at us if bad things happen."

Should it ever be moved up one, to the top level of CRITICAL, what should I do? If "an attack is expected imminently" I feel as tho there is something I should be doing, something other than peeing my pants.

This is what they say in their "How the Public should respond" section:

Public vigilance is always important regardless of the current national threat level, but it is especially important given the current national threat. Sharing national threat levels with the general public keeps everyone informed and explains the context for the various security measures (for example airport security or bag searches) we may encounter as we go about our daily lives.

Wait, so this is just an excuse to search my bag? Shit. Better come out from under the bed, then.

Ponies

2006-07-28T12:39:00.000Z

I've been volunteering at this farm in Vauxhall (very central London, in zone 1), where they teach local and disabled kids to ride. (They also have a bunch of other animals, including a room full of ferrets, which sounds like hell to me.)

We're pretty well done for the summer, as the ponies go on vacation in a little over the week. They get away to the countryside twice a year, which is more than most people can say.

So... um... here're some pictures, which make me happy, and will likely make you bored. More here.

More politics...

2006-07-26T07:53:00.000Z

On the anniversary theme, today is the 50th anniversary of the nationalization of the Suez Canal, which Europe used as an excuse to start a war -- backing Israel, of course.

Canada's foreign minister, Lester Pearson, came up with a clever idea -- peacekeeping -- which prevented a war and has saved many lives since. When receiving his Nobel Peace Prize, Pearson was told by the committee that he had pretty well saved the world.

So with war in that region again, where's Canada? Would anyone listen to Harper, or whoever the hell the foreign minister is these days?

In fifty years, Canada's gone from a country which had some power -- enough to prevent wars, save the world, ect -- and now, we're not a consideration.

It's a question of leadership. We settle(d) for Harper (by choice or otherwise) because he was seen as the lesser of two evils (or the least corrupt, anyway). But compare what he or his predecessors have done to what Pearson did as PM (this is after saving the world, and according to wikipedia): introduced universal health care, the Canadian Pension Plan and student loans, as well as the Maple Leaf flag; resisted pressure to enter Vietnam; made French an official language; and instituted the world's first race-free immigration system (ie, the points system).

This, in just four years, with a minority government, albeit one supported by Tommy Douglas' NDP, who obviously had a very big impact. Imagine that, two amazing leaders, at one time. It boggles the mind.

So what would Pearson (or hell, Douglas) do with the situation in Lebanon? Who knows, but I bet he'd do something.

And so can you. Following Kris' lead, here's the link to the Lebanese Red Cross.

Aside to Daorcey: That Wanker Gretzky is even on the CBC's list of greatest Canadians alongside Pearson is one of several reasons that I can't stand him. I know that's not really his fault, but honestly -- peacekeeping vs hockey? His "legend" status is so pushed on us, that I can't help but react against it. But at least he is/was the best hockey player; what Don Cherry did to deserve making that list blows my mind...

A year on...

2006-07-21T08:10:00.000Z

Alright. It might seem strange that I'm acknowledging the anniversary of the failed bombings, rather than the decidedly more deadly ones known (annoyingly) as "7/7".

But (as Will noted), it's a bit futile. What more could I have said that hasn't been said, better, by people who know more? It's not like I was really in any way directly affected by it, any more than I was by 9/11.

I wasn't even in the city when the 7/7 shiznit happened. I was above it, if you remember, returning from a week-long trip back to Calgary for DarNat's wedding. So I wasn't hurt, nor traumatized by the events. I don't know anyone directly -- or even indirectly, to be honest -- who was in anyway physically hurt.

The first set of bombings scared me, of course they did. But it's the second ones -- the failed attack two weeks later -- that really freaked me out. I remember that day very clearly. Unlike with the first attacks, I was not cluelessly wandering the remaining working bits of London transport. I was interning at New Statesman at the time, and watched the coverage unfold online and on the TV in the office.

It reminded me of being in the Gauntlet on September 11 and during the Iraq invasion. Almost too much information pouring in -- as usual, refreshing the BBC website every 30 seconds -- with highs and lows attached to every rumour, every shred of speculation.

And I remember that evening, I was supposed to go see some artsy thing at Somerset House with Dan -- it would have been our first date. His desk was maybe a few feet from mine, and toward the end of the day, I walked over and cancelled (he looked honestly dissapointed and very cute). Why did I cancel? Honestly, I wanted to go back to my flat and call my mom. I really needed to do that.

The reason the second set were so much more frightening -- even tho they failed -- is it proved it could happen again. And it will, in some form or another. Hell, they've even found terrorists in Canada. Canada -- who the hell wants to blow up Canada?

But what really bothers me is the reaction here. Not from the average person on the street, but from the governement. Those bombings are being used as an excuse for crap like ID cards and immigration crack-downs -- things planned well before the attacks. Clearly the police and the government -- as seen with the Stockwell shooting and Forest Gate -- haven't learned a damn thing or just don't care. (And if you doubt that, read this list of what has happened since in the way of preventative measures, and tell me one thing that would have stopped this from happening.)

And to be honest, ID cards -- my opinion of them being similar to the not exactly positive one held by this guardian writer -- will make me quit this country much sooner than bombs.

Ouch.

2006-07-20T16:35:00.000Z

On the way into work, I stopped at my usual bench, just before Waterloo Bridge, to eat an orange. And this is what I saw:

That bike is not leaning against the rail, by the way, it's sticking nearly straight out off of it. Why -- reckless vandalism? art? Who knows. But I'll make sure not to ever leave my bike along the Southbank overnight...

Buff in Battersea

2006-07-19T10:12:00.000Z

So I went to the park yesterday, to Battersea Park. I stretched out on the grass, with some snacks and a book (re-reading The Rum Diary, in honour of Thompson's birthday). It was a hot -- they're calling it a heat wave, but I think it might just be "summer" -- and sunny and a perfect lazy afternoon.

But there was something wrong. Something wasn't right with the scene...

A few feet ahead of me, a couple were being taught Tai Chi by a private instructor. Further down, a personal trainer was yelling numbers and encouragement to a sweaty man doing curl-ups.

Old guys with marathon numbers and tiny running shorts (*shudder*) shuffled by, occasionally overtaken by this weird army-training/exercise group -- picture doughy, pale urbanites in numbered jerseys being yelled at by a muscular guy in fatigue trousers.

The place was full of people... working out. It was like reading in a very well-lit gym.

Good god people! It's hot out! It's a park! Let me be fat and lazy without shame!

Weirdness followup

2006-07-16T14:34:00.000Z

I've been telling this story -- about the dreadlocked dude on horseback -- to uh, everyone, so it seemed fitting to tell it to the horsey folks at Vauxhall farm, where I volunteer.

I got about six, maybe seven, words into the story when Linda -- the riding instructor/manager -- said: "Big guy, blonde dreadlocks? Yeah, see him doing that all the time."

Then Linda when off to do something, and another volunteer sat down. So, of course, I launched into the story again: "So I was cycling through Vauxhall, and saw this guy on horseback--" Bam! Interrupted again: "Black guy, on brown and white horse?" Uh, yeah.

So it's apparently not so weird after all. Turns out the guy borrows the horse -- named Mutly, or something to that effect, who is the daddy of our pony DJ -- from a farm at Clapham Common, which does trick riding and funerals. (Hopefully not at the same time? Tho, hey, could make for a interesting send-off.)

And, it turns out horseback riding in the city is legal, so I'll be trading in the bike for a pony any day now... As soon as I can figure out where to park it.

Weirdness

2006-07-12T07:26:00.000Z

I had a weird day yesterday.

First, at work, the power went out -- just before deadline, of course. And on our floor, just in our office. (So coworker Tom came up with the brilliant idea of running an extension cord to the lawyers office next door, as they had power, but oddly, no phones.)

Strange, but not unheard of, in these old buildings.

On the way home, I stopped at the used book fair along the Southbank, locking my bike up against the rails along the Thames. Twenty minutes later, I returned to find people crouched low, crowded around my bike. As I got closer, I realized they weren't thieves -- no, they were parents. And they were changing their kid's diaper up against my bike. The diaper bag was perched against my wheel, their kit was on my back carrier thing, and the kid itself was clutching onto my chain. Why? I don't know. But they gave me a dirty look when I came to claim my poor bike... Me, I managed a bewildered look, but was too confused to be mad.

Weird, but parents are like that.

So I reclaim my bike, and head home. I'm riding towards the Vauxhall mess -- a train and tube station, oodles of buses, busy roads crisscrossing, a bridge... it really is a mess -- and see something that makes me wonder if I'm going nuts. There's a big black man, with dreadlocks past his shoulders, riding a white horse down the road. I speed up, to get a better look, and yeah, there's a dude riding a horse down a busy road -- even stopping at red lights, surrounded by cars. Forget cycling, I'm getting a horse and riding to work.

Thankfully, considering the weirdness about, I manage to get home.

Later that night, while trading emails with Nat, there's was a horrible noise out my window -- which I should say is not strange at all... it's a noisy area. But it sounded like a huge engine or something. So I pull aside the layers of my window coverings, and peer outside. There two motorcycles, speeding back and forth in front of my building, popping wheelies and skidding around corners a la Fast and the Furious. Except my street is essentially a parking lot and by motorcycles, I mean Vespas. As in, scooters. Yeah, hardcore man. Hardcore.

I was glad to get to bed without being abducted by aliens or spontaneously combusting or something. It was a weird day.