cat bagpipes
inspired by an engineer’s guide to cats,
jonno has taken to performing the “cat bagpipes” several times a day
(not the best example, as zeke is shy about performing on camera…)
exciting, informative, snarky, and very likely fabricated tales of life as an american expat in london
Like this postwhat’s the damage?
so when we moved into this flat a year and a half ago, we decided to finally get cable – mostly because it came as part of a cheap internet and phone bundle. it was billed as “3 services for £30″.
then, we decided to add on the north american sport network – at that point in time, it was an extra £5/month.
at some point, ntl got bought out by virgin media, but our bill remained the same.
then they changed it so it n.a.s.n. was part of the “setanta sports package”, for £15/mo… but our bill stayed the same.
then in november, i requested an upgrade of our internet service… but our bill remained the same. i assumed the upgrade was never processed.
cut to the other day, when our virgin media bill arrives. imagine my surprise when i see a total of £80.
so i ring up to find out what’s going on, irate at this unexpected bill. the customer service rep says, “oh, we’ve changed our billing, so where before your internet was billed separately, now it’s all on one bill. and in the switchover, we didn’t charge a full month last month, so that’s the additional £20.”
huh? i’ve never paid a separate internet bill.
“oh, it’s been sent to your email account.”
huh? i don’t have a virgin media email, and i’ve only ever paid *one* bill.
“oh it’s been direct debited from the same account as your other bill.”
huh? i check my account and direct debits religiously, and we’ve only ever paid one bill.
“well, it shows here it’s been direct debited separately.”
so… okay, setting that aside for now. why is my internet suddenly £25?
“when your 3-for-£30 package ended after a year, your internet bill was £18. then when you upgraded it, it went up to £25.”
um, okay, but i’ve had this service for 18 months, and never paid a separate internet bill. and i don’t want to pay £25 month for internet.
“oh, let’s see what kind of packages we have available that might suit your needs. we have a package now for £42, which gives you the same 10mb speed internet, the same setanta sports package, more free call minutes, and 100 extra channels. or you could downgrade your current package elements and still pay £50 a month instead of £58.”
i do some mental arithmetic, realise that through some miracle of modern billing systems, we’ve essentially had free internet and sports channels for 6 months, and this package still puts us ahead savings-wise.
sold. damn, that customer service rep is good. not only has she got me paying an extra £12/month, but being happy about it too.
and you know, even with 100 extra channels, there’s *still* nothing on television.
the weakerthans – relative surplus value
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like a lick of ice cream
i finally, officially, have a new job!
this makes me so incredibly happy, i can’t even tell you.
and to celebrate, i’m treating you all to two of my latest poppy, boppy, happy songs.
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as predictable as the weather
bank holiday? check.
pouring rain? check.
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how i know i’m getting old, part 2 (or: how you know when it’s time to go home)
went out drinking with the girls. had a fun night, flirting and chatting with attractive, single guys. drank many, many 2-for-1 cocktails early in the evening. the conversation with the cute (but intellectually challenged) guys is lubricated through vast quantities of fruit-flavoured alcohol.
but 6 hours later, it starts getting kinda late. at a certain point, you start thinking, “i’m tired of drinking… yet if i sober up any more, this will be really boring.”
then someone mentions a foam party.
your mate (age 27) says “yeah!! let’s go!”.
you (age 35) think, “eh, it’ll ruin my new suede shoes.”
home, james.
profiling
of course, it’s “for our own good”. no reasonable suspicion necessary.
and as always with this kind of logic, those who have nothing to hide, have nothing to fear… right?
Sir Al Aynsley-Green called for more research into the effects of increased police powers.
New measures are being used by police to search for knives using hand-held and walk-through metal detectors.
…“The work we are doing in London in particular is working alongside communities to do robust stop-and-search operations using knife arches and search wands where intelligence tells us that there is the most likelihood that people are carrying knives and weapons,” she said.
“That is not aimed at victimising young people; it’s aimed at keeping them safe.”
Under the Metropolitan Police’s plans announced this month, officers can search people without reasonable suspicion under Section 60 of the Public Order Act.
…
“I know that’s a problem – but until we make them all realise they have to get rid of all their guns and knives we wont find a solution to this problem.”
…
Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder of children’s support charity Kids Company, told the BBC that stop-and-search did not address the “core problems”.
“Violence is a bit like a virus,” she said. “It’s spreading amongst children and children are feeling really unsafe, and the reason is the failure of adults to create structures that protect children.
“So what’s the point of just searching the children and not solving the core problems? The kids are carrying knives because they don’t feel safe.”
if the police honestly think they can get knives and guns off the streets through random stop-and-search, they’re even more deluded then i first thought.
and we all know “random” is never really random, now, is it? 
it’s got boris’s seal of approval – therefore it must be good.
thugs and scum and punks and freaks
we live in a large block of ex-council owned flats. people round these parts seem to think this means it’s public property, and take it upon themselves to sit out front under the trees, drinking beer and strewing rubbish about. this irks me to no end, and no one else in the building seems to have a spine, so i find myself challenging people who seem to be “loitering”. this confrontation is a practiced but tiresome routine by now.
so when i popped home to check the post at lunchtime today and found a group of three 20-somethings having a picnic lunch in front of the building, i momentarily thought about letting it pass. but… i just couldn’t.
me: (wandering across the lawn) hi! do any of you live here?
girl1: um, um, er… actually, we just work around the corner.
me: okay, well, i’m not sure if you’re aware, but this is private property, not a public park. if you like, there’s a park just down there (points in direction of wandsworth common 5 min. down the road), or another park just down there (points in direction of tooting bec common, 5 min. in the opposite direction).
guy: oh, okay.
they continue eating. clearly waiting for me to leave so they can ignore the interruption and finish their sandwiches.
me: so, you know, feel free to move along.
they slowly start gathering their food together, flashing me dirty looks. girl2 mutters something under her breath.
guy: you know, that’s really pedantic of you. (rolls eyes)
me: actually, it’s not. people hang out here and throw rubbish around, and i *live here*.
guy: (heavy sarcasm) you don’t have to make up excuses, you know.
me: dude, i don’t have to justify myself to *you*. i pay rent here, you don’t. i don’t go to *your* house, plop myself in *your* front garden, and eat my lunch!
the cheek!! the sense of entitlement!! does nobody here have any sense of respect for people’s property?? what the fuck is wrong with people!?!
you know, people give new yorkers a lot of shit for being rude… but actually there is a finely honed set of social rules about what is and is not acceptable behaviour. you break the rules or show disrespect, and someone *will* confront you about it. here people seem to get away with murder because everyone is too fucking passive (or afraid) to challenge anyone.
london may be more outwardly civilised… but that doesn’t mean people are any more respectful or polite. i’m sick of it.
archers of loaf – harnessed in slums
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fingers crossed
not the church,
not the state,
women must decide their fate!
our bodies,
our lives,
our right to decide!
edited to add: hurrah!!
stumbling towards happiness
what makes us happy?
i’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. there have been a spate of books out recently on this topic, none of which i’ve read. i suppose i prefer to think that one of the beauties of the universe is that the answer to the question is unique to each of us, and can’t be captured in a self-help book. and as we are ever-changing creatures, our answer also changes – happiness is not a state of being which can be captured and frozen.
still for me, one of the things i’ve learned about myself and my own search for that elusive goal, is that i far more often regret those things which i did not do, than those things which i have done. yes, i’ve often made mistakes… but those things which cause me to lie awake wrestling with a knot of doubt in the middle of the night, those things i most wish i had the chance to do over, are the paths i didn’t take and the opportunities i let pass me by because of indecision or fear.
i rarely say, “i wish i hadn’t…” and instead find myself thinking, “i wish i had…”
for the past few months, my current employment status has caused me no small amount of misery and drama. i’ve been so desperately *unhappy* for so long. and so i’ve been searching for a way to change my circumstances and create my own opportunities. i’ve done so with a heavy heart – because really, if not for the ineptitude of my manager, i would really enjoy my work.
but life is far too short to spend 8 hours a day being unhappy.
and as fate would have it, two improbable situations have presented themselves to me this week: one, a lateral job opportunity where i could leave my current employer and start something new (allowing me to get back into management, with a boss who really seems to want to hire me badly, but not a strategic role); and two, a strong indication from my current employer that if i can be patient through the summer, that there may be the opportunity for a new role for me (a strategic role and a promotion, but no guarantees).
one is my current escape route – the bird in the hand. the other could potentially be my ideal job, but isn’t a certainty – the two in the bush.
so how does one decide? i’ve been going back and forth over this, agonising over it really, for more than two weeks now. with my happiness at stake, it seems like such an important crossroads. do i take the sure thing, or hold out for something which may never materialise? do i take the job that has made it clear they want me, or the one where my value has so often gone unnoticed, but may soon be rewarded? change now, or sit tight? which would make me happier, in the long run? can you put a monetary value on happiness? can security make you happy?
i have to figure it all out, very soon.
and while i haven’t decided for sure, i can only wonder if i wouldn’t more regret *not* taking on the new challenge – if it would become one of those opportunities i find myself reflecting back on later, thinking, “i wish i had…”
so what makes us happy? what makes me happy? i’m still not sure. i only know that when i find something that does, it’s well worth whatever hard decisions it took to get there.
in an entirely different vein, this made me pretty happy this evening: i managed to achieve (if only for a brief second or two) this pose
and for jonno: the arrival (finally!!) of his new electric guitar seems to have made him pretty happy.
the acorn – do you not yearn, at all?
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aunt muriel
today was the quarterly pilgrimage to see dear aunt muriel.
aunt muriel is my grandfather’s cousin – a garrulous old bird in her late 70s/early 80s, and my only relative here in england. i never actually knew anything about muriel growing up, and only really met her for the first time at my grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary celebration, back in… 1996 maybe? though i have no recollection of being introduced.
instead, i only came to meet muriel properly courtesy of my grandfather’s alzheimer’s.
you see, muriel is a bit of a social butterfly and frequent traveller, and she’d spoken to my grandfather about coming over to visit him. apparently she’d arranged to fly into boston, and he’d planned to drive up from west virginia to meet her. my grandfather’s memory had, however, become increasingly clouded and muddled – a fact muriel would not have been aware of, considering how adept he’d become at hiding it.
a few days before muriel’s scheduled visit, my grandfather happened to mention in passing to my mother that she was due to arrive, but he wasn’t sure of when or where. he also had no telephone number for her or further details about her flight or arrangements. in a panic, my mother rang me, and managed to dig up a postal address from years ago, and i was charged with writing to her to try to explain the situation and hope she got word before getting on a plane to arrive in boston with no one to greet her.
thankfully, this being a rather small country, most post arrives the next day, and muriel rang me to discuss what had happened. luckily she took it all in stride.
after rehashing the situation, she invited us up to piddington-upon-oxford for a sunday lunch. we felt obliged to go. and thus began a quarterly tradition, which we now seem rather unable to escape from.
every 8 weeks or so, muriel rings. we fix a sunday a few weeks hence. we trek up there by train (or drive, back when we owned a car) to arrive at noon. we then spend four hours drinking sherry, listening to repeats of the same stories over and over (recited by muriel at a non-stop 90 m.p.h.), posing for photos and perusing old ones, and choking down the most godawful food i’ve ever had the misfortune to ingest.
muriel, by her own admission, is a bad cook. in fact, muriel gives herself a little too much credit – she is a truly terrible cook. jonno likes to joke that she begins boiling her waterlogged vegetables the night before – but he’s probably not far off. meat and potatoes are an incinerated, gristly mess. shrimp cocktail is floating in a puddle of watery mayonnaise. desserts are store-bought, then baked into a hefty brick. it’s really stomach churning.
yet, every few months, we voluntarily go, listen to her rapidfire chatter for hours on end, paste smiles on at the appropriate point in the familiar story, drink cheap wine, eat horrible food and make our escape around 4 hours later. part of it is because she’s so darn persistent – we’ve tried not answering the phone – and part of it is an inability to gracefully decline. part of it is obligation, and part of it is pity.
but more and more, part of it is a strange sense of affection. she’s become more important to us, because we are clearly important to her – i don’t know why we are, but we are.
maybe that’s part of the mystery of family.
all i know is, i must like her enough to suffer the inevitable stomach ache that follows.
feist – it’s cool to love your family
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i was taught when i was young, to share myself, to show my love
another heartwarming victory was won today in the fight for equality.
love is a force which cannot be stopped. you can hide behind religion, and you can prop up archaic tradition.
but in the end, no laws will ever decide whom people can spend their happily ever after with. no laws will ever legislate away the heart and blood bonds of lovers, families and friends… who just happen to be gay. no laws can erase the lives they build, the children they raise, the communities they sustain.
the laws may not yet recognise it – but they cannot deny it. not for long.
In a monumental victory for the gay rights movement, the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage Thursday in a ruling that would allow same-sex couples in the nation’s biggest state to tie the knot.
Domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage, the justices ruled 4-3 in an opinion written by Chief Justice Ron George.
Outside the courthouse, gay marriage supporters cried and cheered as news spread of the decision.
“Our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation,” the court wrote.
The city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples and gay rights groups sued in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco’s monthlong same-sex wedding march.
“Today the California Supreme Court took a giant leap to ensure that everybody — not just in the state of California, but throughout the country — will have equal treatment under the law,” said City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who argued the case for San Francisco.
nil lara – fighting for my love
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every day i look at the world from my window
i love this time of year, and in particular, i love our flat at this time of year. our flat is full of big wide windows, and with both southeast and northwest exposure, i find myself becoming attuned to the different qualities of the light with the different seasons. and so i love this brief late spring/early summer dalliance, when i naturally awaken with the hazy morning sun, and the bedroom is just slightly cooled from the night air which crept in through the open window while i slept, yet i’m still warm under crisp sheets and a light duvet. and waking up that few minutes early in the morning, being *awake* rather than hitting the snooze button another time, means i have enough time to enjoy my cup of coffee, step out onto the balcony and watch the light change as it comes up over the far hill.
and when i get home, i can open the windows to let the and do some yoga in the afternoon glow, take a shower flooded in natural light, then cook dinner while looking out over the reddening rooftops. i can eat supper watching the sunset from one window, and the moonrise from the other.
it’s really the best part of living here, and even if the rest of the summer turns out to be another sodden, grey mess… i’ve had this week of glorious light.
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languid and lazy
i keep sitting down to write this week, starting a sentence… and then finding it trailing off. my writing mojo seems to be wandering the proverbial desert at the moment.
lethargy verging on inertia. i blame the sun – such an unusual sight around these parts that the dazzling rays seem to have addled my brain. a whole glorious week’s worth of stunning.
another holding pattern going on behind the scenes as well – waiting. maybe news soon, maybe not.
in the meantime, i leave you with this song… which has nothing to do with anything except that it’s pretty much just a thing of beauty to listen to while lying on the couch with the windows open, light flooding in, and sweet breezes tickling your bare feet.
go on. i dare ya.
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happy mother’s day
for all the wonderful mothers i know, but most especially the ones i’m lucky enough to have in my family. happy mother’s day.
the sun is arisin’, most definitely
there’s been both a lot, and yet nothing happening this week. i’m in a bit of limbo at the moment, so i’ve felt the need for some quietude.
but i woke up today to the first truly warm sunrise of the coming summer, and this breathtaking show of early morning jewels, balanced perfectly to dance in the light.
it felt like a sign. of what, i’m not yet sure – but i’ll let you know as soon as i do.
From dewy dreams, my soul, arise,
From love’s deep slumber and from death,
For lo! the trees are full of sighs
Whose leaves the morn admonisheth.
Eastward the gradual dawn prevails
Where softly-burning fires appear,
Making to tremble all those veils
Of grey and golden gossamer.
While sweetly, gently, secretly,
The flowery bells of morn are stirred
And the wise choirs of faery
Begin (innumerous!) to be heard.
“from dewy dreams” – james joyce
tommy james & the shondells – crystal blue persuasion
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more election
someone asked me the other day why we were planning to leave london.
this is a huge part of it. the bnp has managed to win a seat on the london general assembly, meaning that they won over 5% of the vote.
i don’t care that people voted for a conservative mayor. i care that people voted for a representative of the british equivalent to the neo-nazi party, or the ku klux klan. they’re sickening, and they make my skin crawl and they’re now part of my elected government.
can you imagine a member of the kkk being elected in new york, or l.a.?**
i’ve mentioned here many times the increasing backlash against immigrants in the u.k. it’s been steadily and dramatically rising since both the 7/7 bombings, and the expansion of the e.u. to include several eastern european countries. people are scared of muslims, and resentful of the influx of eastern europeans they see as stealing “their” jobs (for the benefit of my american readers, it’s very similar to the anti-mexican sentiment in the u.s., except that in this instance, the immigrants are legal). none of this has been helped by the fact that the government has not handled either situation terribly well.
this 5% is just the tip of the iceberg. the economic and religious fear only serve to foment hatred and intolerance, and there’s much more below the surface. the bnp is only saying what a lot of people are thinking.
which means it’s time to go.
**this election also points out the larger demographic disparity between the “two londons”. inner london, which is much more economically and racially mixed, and outer london, which comprises the more populous, whiter and wealthier suburbs.
how i know i’m getting old
came home from work.
did some yoga.
took a hot shower.
changed into sweats.
ate a baked potato the size of my head.
oooh yeah, baby! that’s my blissfully relaxing friday night, at the beginning of a long weekend.
and i don’t even care how lame it makes me.
election
so i voted. i was tired and annoyed, and jonno complained, but i dragged him with me down the street anyway. in the end, i voted for the (hopeless) green party as my first choice, and labour as my second choice. i have no illusions that either will win, and i’m not thrilled with either choice… but just the act of voting still gives me a little rush, each and every time.
it’s funny – my mum used to take us with her into the voting booth when she went to her polling station, and i remember being impressed at the awesome privileges of adulthood. it seemed like such a solemn, important, *potent* responsibility. i guess i still see it that way.
i’m fond of saying that if you don’t exercise your choice, you let everyone else make the choice for you – and effectively abdicate your right to complain. you had a chance to try to do something about it, and decided you couldn’t be bothered… too late now to whinge.
and no matter how crummy the candidates are, or how lost in the sea my vote is, i can’t help but be eternally grateful that my vote will be *counted*. someone will mark my choices, and add them to the chorus of voices. individually we cannot effect change, but as a collection of individuals, we can change our piece of the world.
and as tired as i was, and disillusioned as i felt, i couldn’t help but think about the people in zimbabwe tonight. wondering what they might give to have their voice heard, their vote counted. to be able to effect change in their piece of the world.
in the end, i didn’t vote because my one ballot matters so much – i voted because theirs has mattered so little. for years they’ve lived under a military dictatorship that has run their country into the ground – poverty, hunger and unemployment are rampant. yet election after election, in the face of violence, massive corruption, and overwhelming disillusionment, they still turn out and vote.
and if the people of zimbabwe can continue to vote, in the face of all that adversity… how can i possibly not?
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