Rashers of Bacon

Greetings my good droogs,

Today I thought I’d start off with some London slang so that you will know what I’m talking about if it ever creeps into my vocabulary. The main exclamation used when something is good: ‘‘Wicked’. For example’‘that’s a wicked shirt, Dave’. If someone is good-looking, they are’‘fit’. As in, ‘‘you’re really fit, Dave’. If something is the best in it’s category, it’s'‘the bollocks’.'‘That stir-fry was the bollocks, Dave’. Chewing gum is known as’‘chuddy’ and women as’‘totty’, but that might be straying into vulgar territory.

Spring has finally sprung this Saturday. It feels like the high teens and the contrast with the cold, cloudy days makes it all the more remarkable. The sunny weather prompted a spurt of activity in me which saw me cross another landmark off the diminishing landmark list. I went down to London Bridge, which is conveniently on the Jubilee line, so I can just get on at Kilburn and daydream all the way down. London bridge wasn’t what I expected. I was looking for Tower bridge, as I discovered when I saw how flat London bridge is. Geography’s not my strong point, OK? I ended up walking five minutes up the river to get to the more famed attraction. What greeted me was the usual throng of German and American tourists, which put me off going inside the Tower of London. It made me think that tourists could be used as a war deterrent. Rather than sending the UN in to try and quell local disputes you could just set up a Disneyland and let the tourists drive the opposing forces apart with their natural repulsiveness. I did take a walk across Tower bridge and was impressed by its size and architecture.

After this little excursion I went back home to enjoy a few beers and joined the late rising Adam in a fry-up. Adam just had his final recital at the college of music so he is understandably celebrating hard after four years of work. I went along to see his recital at the main hall, located in South Kensington, on Wednesday afternoon. It was a great spectacle to hear him fill the room with that big tuba sound while the afternoon sunlight intermittently came through the window, sparkling off the brass.

I’ve arrived at a point where my life in England feels very similar to how I was living back home. England feels like home and I feel like I’m going to have a good time over the summer. Once work is humming along I’ll have more energy to spend exploring what a summer in London can involve.

Keep writing interesting messages. I always enjoy looking at my emails and out of the 20 spam messages seeing 3 or 4 that tell me people care about me.

Dave out.

Hey there happy campers,

I’m in a decent mood at the moment as I’ve just enjoyed a very nice bottle of Wolf Blass Shiraz Grenache with Adam. The British wine market has been completely dominated by Aussie wines, which is probably a good thing. Apparently Australian wines are among the best available and are certainly the best value.

I can’t say that I’ve got a great deal of news but I was reading my past emails and I enjoyed them so much that they motivated me to add to the collection. Being a little drunk and sick of reading about Internet technology probably nudged me in this direction as well but I’m at my most communicative when I’m drunk anyway.

This past week has seen me sniffing the ground in a hound-like fashion in search of a job. The first week was taken up by sending a massive number of applications out and being rebuffed by job agencies. It seems that people want graduates with 12 months commercial experience although how you go about working for a company full-time while studying full-time is a little beyond my simplistic thinking. I was told that I was after junior and trainee roles rather than graduate ones, so with this adjustment in thinking I once again flung myself headlong into the whirling maelstrom of the London job market.

It took a while for it to get around, but once the word was out that a keen young Aussie was looking for any work available some of the smarter agencies had me in for an interview. I’m waiting on a couple of job interviews but have one definite for Friday. The company is called gameplay.com (just type it into your browser), and they specialize in selling computer games over the Net. Apparently the company is very casual, young, and exciting. That remains to be seen, but I am a bit pissed off that they’ve got an informal dress code. I just bought a bloody suit, and now it’s going to be stuck in the cupboard until the next wedding.

I’ve been spending the majority of my free time bonding with my new housemates. Adam is a very friendly and outgoing guy. He’s at the Royal College of Music, and has his final Tuba exam is in a couple of weeks. His girlfriend, Jem, is also a musician at RCM. She plays the harp, and it’s certainly a nice touch to have it plucked in the next room while you make tea. You can close your eyes and imagine you’ve gone to heaven. Mat’s the skateboarder and he’s been working most of the time. He works long hours at a skate-park, buffered with lots of visits to pubs. Unfortunately for him he broke his little toe by accidentally kicking a chai, so he’s more of a walker at the moment.

It’s hard to compose a good letter, as I’ve been too busy looking for a job, brushing up on my old IT skills, and playing board games to actually do anything. Think of this more as a drunken outburst than a serious letter. Now that I’ve got some housemates to talk to the anonymous confessional of a group email isn’t quite as necessary. Not that I don’t love talking to you guys … more that I’m purging all my shit on those who don’t require a 12 hour turn around for a response.

‘Yay! Another share house’ (deadpan enthusiasm)

I found a place to live the day after my cold struck, which is just as well, because looking for houses and colds don’t mix. I’ve ended up in Kilburn. It’s south-east of Cricklewood, north of Chelsea, and northwest of the city. My future housemates seem like a harmless enough bunch of dope heads. I just hope they don’t go psychotic on me. The room is small but it matches the rent of 70 quid a week – please don’t convert that to AUS$.

Now that looking for a house is over my next assignment is to get back on the campaign trail and look for a job. I’d feel a lot more comfortable with some pounds coming in, but before I do that I think the time is ripe for some laidback sightseeing. I’m praying that tomorrow is sunny. I’d like to go up the Millennium Wheel and check out Hyde Park. Jobs can wait for a couple of days.

It’s currently 10 pm, so I’d better send this off and catch all you 9 to 5ivers.

Me Dave – Me sleepy

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Tempers fray; constitutions weaken; ‘I just want a room you bastards’

I’ve been nailed by my first cold. I went to bed feeling a little bit lurgy but got knocked down by the news that I didn’t get any houses I wanted and will have to raise myself from the infirmary/nursery to once again walk up and down the cold streets of London. I can’t express to you how much I hate looking for a place to live. First of all, you have to scan the newspaper ads, picking out the low-cost, suitable areas. Next up, you have to ring all the people, most of whom are not at home, or have already filled the room. If by some divine intervention you manage to get hold of someone and arrange a time to see the place you then have to get there, go through the charade of an interview, and wait for them to tell you the place has been filled. I think the next time I go, I just won’t leave the room I’m being shown.

SCENE
Dude (played by ‘Bill and Teds’ Keanu Reeves but with an English accent)
Me (played by Johnny Depp as in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but taller)
Dude – And this is the room … um.
Me – Does the bed come with the room?
Dude – Ah … yeah the bed’s staying.
(Sounds of scuffling and muffled shouts before a door slams)
Dude – Hey! Come out of there. I’ve got other people coming to look at the place.
Me – Fuck you! If you want to get me out, you have to throw me out, you rat bastards.

As tempting as this strategy is, my physical state is too weakened to contemplate any violence. My approach will have to mirror a McDonalds ad, after they had contributed to Nixon’s first election victory: ‘There are lots of talented losers and broke geniuses, but it takes persistence to succeed.’

This is certainly true in politics, and in looking for a room as well. In both you have to try and satisfy different peoples’ needs, pretend you’re someone else, and spend an awful amount of time trying to do it. I think I’m going to have to develop an 80′s capitalistic approach to finding a house. Namely, fuck anyone over that gets in my way, and screw people before they screw me. Sounds a little extreme but you’re not here listening to these polite assholes. I’m slowly being turned into a snarling, twisted beast, not dissimilar to Nixon or John Howard. My only thoughts are of London suburbs and rent prices. I pray that I can find enough of a human being left inside myself to force a smile on my future housemate.

DISCLAIMER – The preceding notes were made under a cloud of medication and emotional suffering. The author does not accept any responsibility for the twisted nature of his subconscious, but blames a misspent youth in front of computers, TV and books.

‘Some of the buildings are a bit old though.’

The week began with my ass wanting a divorce and now my feet are threatening to walk out on me. I’ve hit the pavement in search of a house. I’ve walked so far that little bald patches have appeared high up on my upper inner thigh. On legs as hairy as mine that’s a lot of pant swooshing. I might have to resort to some vaseline to ease my way through the day. My jetlag cleared by Wednesday (leaving alcohol as the only excuse for these incoherent ramblings) and I set of in search of a home.

My efforts were somewhat intensified by my current living arrangements. My one and three year old cousins insist on waking up very early and very grumpily. This is then followed by getting dressed and eating breakfast, all done noisily and reluctantly, with many cries of ‘Where’s David?’. I, of course, am in bed. I generally try and let this well-tuned team power through their morning ritual before following my own morning practice of doing everything slowly and carefully. The other problem with living in Bracknell is that I don’t have a car. As far as I can tell I’m the only person who walks in this town. The nearest shops are 15-20 minutes away, with the station being another 10. Add a ten pound ticket and a one hour journey into London to the mix and you have an unhappy chappy.

With this mounting incentive to get the fuck out of Bracknell I’ve been looking at some other houses. The first place I went to look at didn’t sound too promising. It was cheap, but located in a main street, above the chemist. Only my growing desperation compelled me to agree to look at it. The room was in Kennington, which is just south of the river, near the Houses of Parliament. I got off at Waterloo and proceeded to walk in the completely wrong direction. The trouble with trying to navigate around London on foot is that there are lots of underground passages where you can completely lose your bearings. Whatever the reason, I never made my appointment. This is probably a good thing, because I had a much better time checking out the Millennium Wheel, South Bank, and various other impressive looking buildings, of which I knew the names of about one.

My next appointment took me to Clapham. This is heading a bit further south, near Brixton and Wandsworth. The south has a larger black population and reputedly more crime but Clapham seemed like a particularly nice area to me. The house I looked at was just off a street filled with little bars and boutique shops. The fact that there was a bottle shop about 10 metres from the front door made me fall in love with it immediately. My description probably makes it sound a bit seedy but it looks a bit like Paddington or Glebe in Sydney. I am under consideration. Another place I’ve seen was in completely the other direction. Holloway is north of the city, above Camden and Islington. It’s up in the air at the moment, but should come crashing down around Monday.

I haven’t had a strict sightseeing schedule but I think I’ve stumbled across more touristy things than most tourists do. I guess they’re hard to avoid in London. After leaving Holloway, I headed to the King’s Cross/St Pancras station. This is a huge building right next to the British Library. It didn’t hold my attention for very long, so I headed of to Piccadilly. This was the first place in London that really hustled. It’s absolutely packed with loud Americans, Euro-Trash, and Japanese tourists. It’s also the home of hustlers, pimps and con-men. I saw one guy get robbed in HMV, but I seem to rebuff attackers by my mere physical presence and lack of touristy attire and behaviour. In fact, people are constantly stopping me and asking for directions. I try and let them down gently by mentioning that I’m from Australia and not well versed in the streets of London either. The professional hustlers in Piccadilly are the mega-stores. There’s a Virgin, HMV, Sega World, Planet Hollywood, and dozens of smaller imitations, designed to take the tourists by the busload and strip them bare. It’s the commerce equivalent of strip mining.

The nice thing about big cities, maybe London in particular, is that if you don’t like an area you can walk 200 metres in the other direction and have a completely different experience. This is how I found myself in St. James Park in the quickening sunset. Early spring in London feels like a late Autumn Canberra day. Very crisp and clear, with the bare branches of the trees standing starkly out against the blue sky. It was a great moment to finally see the city in all its glory. I took a final saunter past Downing Street before making my way back to Waterloo, and Bracknell.

As a quick aside, the food has been pretty good. The British don’t have a wide range but they’re experts in what they can do. So far, all my fish and chip experiences have been top notch, the apple juice is tops as, and the jam donuts are the best I’ve tasted.

Saturday night sees me kicking back with this email, reading some Hunter S Thompson, and drinking some surprisingly good Sainsbury’s whisky. The cold and my aching feet have forced a premature end to the night. I was thinking about joining ‘the lads’ in Twickenham for some rugby chants but I think I’ll stick to what I’m best at for now.

Hugs and kisses (in a manly way),
Dave.

Pretty similar to Melbourne weather really

The second half of my flight started badly. I’d had about two hours of partial sleep on the way in, and was feeling a little tired, it being about 4 am Australian time. As the flight was reboarding my spare seat was cruelly taken from me. I don’t know who took it because I didn’t talk to her for 14 hours. For those who know me, take a bad morning, combine it with a trip by car to Melbourne, add my’‘Leave Me Alone’ T-shirt, and you’re getting close to the kind of mood I was in. Let’s just say I wasn’t feeling bubbly. This mood was worsened by the French family of four that took up the row in front of me. It was bad enough that they were French but they proceeded to lean their seats back as far as possible and slip into a sweet slumber. I now had the Australian family behind me, practicing their soccer skills, and the French family rubbing my nose in it by getting the sleep that I wanted. They were stealing my sleep!

For the next 14 hellish hours I tossed and turned, or whatever it’s called when you roll from side-to-side with your ankles around your ears. I’m sure there’s the making of a blond joke in that. To cut the story as short as I wanted the flight to be, I was damn uncomfortable and didn’t sleep at all. Thankfully my Uncle was at the airport to pick me up and after phoning home I proceeded to sleep for around 15 hours. You may think this is a lot, and it is, but I felt much better for it. I woke up at midnight and have been up for around 12 hours. I’m hoping to make it to the night but Bracknell isn’t very entertaining. Bracknell is where my Uncle lives. For those who don’t know where it is, get an atlas, because I don’t either. I know it’s about an hour outside London, which is my next port of call. You might think it will be tougher to find a place to live and a job than sitting on a plane for 22 hours, but try telling my ass that. With my ass behind me I can achieve anything.

My impression of England so far is a little clouded. I haven’t really seen the sun since my flight took off. The leg from Bangkok to London was all in darkness, it was cloudy at Heathrow when I arrived, I slept all day Monday, and it’s cloudy and goddam wet today. At last! I’ve found a place where I won’t get sunburnt.

There aren’t that many differences between England and Australia. Sure the weather’s different and people don’t talk proper, like, but it’s a very similar culture. The one major difference I’ve found is the supermarket. The checkout chicks are about ninety and they all had to sit down. This means that you have to bag your own groceries. If it weren’t such a long flight back I’d be tempted to leave the country on protest.

My visit to the local Bracknell park yielded some unimpressive results. I saw lots of ducks (two) and lots of squirrels (two). Squirrels are just like possums but sized like rats and with permed tails. I can hear you all clamouring for me to come back but you’re all going to have to come and see me. I’m not flying back to Australia until they get sub-orbital planes off the ground and cut the trip to three hours. I love you all but don’t miss any of you yet. If you don’t receive a personal message from me don’t be offended. It’s not that I don’t like you, just that I don’t have anything to say.

Dave out.

‘If man go through gate sideways, he going to Bangkok’

(Disclaimer – If any of the following should cause offence, or any plagiarism issues arise, please contact my legal counsel. Any obscure references are the result of this being a mass mail out. My apologies to the confused.)

This week began for me with the kind hospitality of my sister Rachel, and her partner Tony, in Sydney. I spent the week faffing around as usual but actually managed to get everything done. My tale started when I bid farewell to my family and managed to choke back my tears on the way to boarding my flight.

My first reaction was ‘the seats at Hoyt’s are bigger than this, and I can’t sit in THEM for longer than two hours.’ Putting this kind of negative thinking aside I slumped in my seat in front of a nuclear family with eight – ten year old kids. I received a bit of turbulence from their legs a little later on. I’m sure that if sheep were flown economy class to Iran the RSPCA would be up in arms about the conditions.

As the rest of the poor economy class sods filed past me I noticed that the seat next to me was empty. I began to dream the unthinkable; room to stretch my legs. With each approaching passenger I willed them not to sit next to me. At least make them short, I was hoping. When the order came to lock the doors I had stretching room galore. The flight was off to a good start. It was to get even better when the food arrived. My chicken curry with bok choy was tops as. They even give you a bit of cake.

As I browsed the in-flight entertainment, I noticed Aphex Twin on the play list. I think this subversive element in Qantas was responsible for the last accident in Bangkok. Having said that, the first half of the flight was very smooth. The only two bits of turbulence came from areas of political unrest. For some reason there was a mass of hot air over Darwin which caused a few bumps. Next came Indonesia. I think the military saw a Qantas jet flying overhead, and let us have it with the Ack-Ack. I had visions of the pilot being ex-RAF, and taking the plane in close to ‘hammer those muthafuckers’. I was feeling a little tired at this stage. My mind was appreciating the trip but my ass wanted a divorce.

Finally the movie came on. Sadly it was a Merryl Streep extravaganza. I was drifting in and out, but a movie about a violin teacher (i.e. lots of kids playing badly), perhaps wasn’t the best choice for an in-flight movie. I can’t remember the name of the movie, but the director was Wes Craven, the same as the ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ series. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

The only amusing aeronautical blunder came when we were about to land in Bangkok. The pilot said ‘Would the flight attendants please get in position for landing … er…takeoff.’ It caused a few titters, but I was a little worried that in the only place where Qantas has had an accident the pilot wasn’t sure whether he was in the air or not. That’s all from the first leg.