Misadventures on a Small Island

Here are two reasons:

Do I need any more reason? No. No, I don’t.

I’ve been here for 9 months. That is, I’ve been living in the UK for the same amount of time it takes to make a baby, give or take.

That’s a long time.

What are my thoughts so far considering I don’t post on this blog anywhere near enough, I hear you ask dear reader? Well, I shall tell you (even of you didn’t ask)

Here’s the first in my list of wants that I’ve compiled over the last 9 months:

I want to not live in perpetual winter.

Before moving to England I was under the foolish presumption that because I am adverse to heat and seem to suffer third degree burns from anything stronger than a 40 watt light globe that I wanted to travel the world chasing winter. That is, spend 6 months in Australia enjoying the mild temperatures and the odd cold snap, perhaps visiting the snow fields, and then spend the other 6 months in England frolicking in the snow and taking long, thoughtful walks along England’s pebbly seaside. In an ideal world, it is the perfect plan for someone with skin so white it’s almost translucent.

I was told that after a true British winter I would be depressed, wanting light and muttering about my precious. I scoffed. Oh, how I scoffed. To begin with, I would get to wear lots of clothes, which, in effect, would mean that I would need to buy lots of clothes. If there’s something I like more than wearing clothes, it’s buying clothes. It’s like a male version of Clueless in my head, but, you know, not gay. Furthermore, in the UK it snows in winter. The UK even has a place called Snowdonia (can I get an amen?). It even snows so much that you have to wear wellies sometimes. To work. How awesome is that, I hear you say.

Pretty awesome, I tell you. Pretty. Awesome.

Christmas came and went and it was the coldest winter since 1344 (or something like that). I learnt that if a single flake of snow falls on London, all public transport falls apart like Lego. Some days it took 6 hours to travel a total of about 30 kilometres.

It also gets dark very quickly in the UK during winter. In fact, some days the sun starts retreating at 3:30 in the afternoon. While at first this has a rather cool quasi-vampire feel to it, the novelty wears off after about 2 days. Then you start praying for sun. Even if you won’t get to enjoy it because it’s about minus twenty three degrees outside.

By the end of the winter I was depressed. I was wanting light so much that I would use Em’s Lightpod as a normal light around the house. I also started asking people to refer to me as Smeagol (wow… nerdy…).

Then Spring started. With a vengeance.

It started with the days getting longer, with pubs turning themselves inside out (people on the outside, empty on the inside) and the sun coming out. A lot. So much that at one point I managed to get sunburnt. In the UK. I know, it’s a strange concept.

Since then days have been filled with bright colours, happy music and sunshine. I have to remind myself that I’m in the UK, because it feels a lot like that sweet spot during Spring in Australia where it’s warm, sunny and humidity doesn’t really exist.

There are few bugs that annoy or attempt to destroy you here, the solution to every problem at the end of the day seems to either be a pint or a bbq, and TV is really bad during the summer so you don’t feel you actually need to be inside.

Summer in the UK is now possibly my favourite season.

Aside from severe bouts of hayfever caused by an assortment of plants, it may actually stay that way too.

And now I’m talking about the weather… I’m settling in better than I thought.

I know what you’re thinking. ‘Oh no, not another post about ghosts. This blog is nonsense’. That is what I assume you’re thinking, anyway.

This isn’t so much a blog post about ghosts, as it is me deciding how I’m going to spend my afternoon tomorrow. I have some time to kill before going to see a show tomorrow night and decided to go ghost hunting. On a weekday. At 5pm. In the middle of the city.

This all came about, in part, because of the Dover Castle ‘episode’. Both I and my partner in crime were holding court at her parent’s place describing how we came face to face with death and narrowly missed being seized upon by a wraith of some description. That is, we showed them our blurry photo that could well be a smudge on the lens. They were suitably impressed, as one would be, and the next time we saw them they produced this book:

They, in short, wanted to subject us to more terror.

Now, a little bit of back story here that I didn’t add to the previous ghost related post…

I am a little courage challenged when it comes to this area. Sure, these days I put on the face of male bravado in the face of supernatural. However, as we speak I am currently sitting in an empty house and because it is night I am constantly checking over my shoulder, in mirrors and windows convinced I’m about to see something that will terrify the bejeesus out of me. When I was 10 I distinctly remember hiding under the covers because I could hear the theme song to the X Files. There are episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark that scared the hell out of me.

At 18.

I put this down to having an older sister who liked the scare the hell out of me by telling me stories about local ghosts, including that of one of her friends who tragically died when she was 16. What did my sister do a year later? Attempt contact using a ouiji board. Not cool, I tell you. Not cool.

I have been on one ghost tour, which was more of a history lesson about the Rocks in Sydney. The man who was leading us looked like Bill Bryson, but with a cape. In summary, it wasn’t very scary at all.

So to cure myself of boredom and scare myself a little, I am going to start doing my own self guided ghost tours around London. You can follow them on twitter if you want by following me, or searching for #ldnghoststories. Alternatively I shall be posting wrapups of each one on here.

To begin with, I am doing half a tour. I can’t fit in a full tour before I go to the theatre, so I shall be walking around bits of Clerkenwell visiting the local paranormal attractions. Yes, I shall be seeing them all! The Clerkenwell House of Detention, famous for being one of the most haunted places in London, Bleeding Heart Yard, where a socialite was found torn limb from limb with her heart still pumping blood on to the cobblestones, and my favourite, Scratching Fanny of Cock Lane.

Yes, you heard right.

If you’re interested in coming along with me then let me know via twitter. It should be most informative. I shall be reading aloud from my book whether people are there or not.

I shall report in full soon…

Hopefully…

Moving to London brings many good things: being close to certain loved ones, having so much history around, the proximity to exciting countries.

The West End.

Ok, so I wasn’t fooling anyone. The West End is a *huge* drawing card to London. Aside from New York, it is the place I would want to be in the world theatre wise. However, in saying that, the last 3 and a bit months haven’t contained enough theatre to satisfy my cravings. This is mostly because London is expensive.

I have, however, managed to see a few really good shows, so I thought I’d give a run down of what I’ve seen so far. If you want a more indepth / reviewy look at the shows, then a lot of them are (or will shortly be) on my other, more theatre oriented, site.

Talent – Menier Chocolate Factory

The first show I saw in London. Was more excited about the fact that I was seeing a show in London than I was about the show itself. I knew nothing about it, aside from the director’s name, and had no preconceptions about London theatre. I was jetlagged and it was an ample introduction to London theatre.

That is, it set the bar pretty low for what I was to see later.

The show itself wasn’t bad, just incredibly low budget. I kind of expected anything produced West End style (or off West End as the Chocolate Factory is) to be big and glitzy. I was surprised that a venue like the Chocolate Factory be so critically acclaimed, with many productions going on to full West End and Broadway runs.

Hairspray – Shaftesbury Theatre

Next show I managed to afford tickets to was Hairspray. On a whim, I decided that theatre was in order, as celebration for the recent employment acquisition. Hairspray has been a show that I’ve kind of liked for a while. It’s never been a favourite, apart from the brief period in my final year of uni when it got me an HD* (yes, I wrote a paper on Hairspray. That’s how useful my degree is).

If Hairspray was gold, Talent would be tin. The difference was ridiculous. The overall talent and production values on Hairspray were what I would expect from Broadway. At this moment, I realised that I was seeing a *West End* show. The difference in ticket price was that Hairspray was £10 cheaper, which didn’t make sense.

The only thing that I didn’t like about Hairspray was Belinda Carlisle. The vocal talent she has is in direct contrast to the acting ability she possesses. It was the best example of ‘just because you’ve topped the charts, doesn’t mean you should be allowed to act’ I have ever seen.

And I’ve seen Glitter.

*for the Brits, an HD is High Distinction. In fact, the paper secured me first in the unit [/pompous gloating].

The Nutcracker – Royal Opera House

For a treat, Em treated me to a night at the ballet around Christmas time. I have never been a big fan of ballet (aside from my indulgence in bad cinema), but The Nutcracker was something I genuinely wanted to see. Em was more excited than a 5 year old in their first tutu. I didn’t know what to expect.

What resulted was some of the best theatre I’ve ever seen. I was captivated from start to finish and my bottom didn’t fall asleep once. It was a strange feeling, especially considering I knew nothing about ballet (aside from what the aforementioned movie taught me), but I felt like I was being injected with culture AND enjoying myself!

Random Drag Show – Cellar Door

Cellar Door is a cool venue. It’s a converted public toilet.

Sounds appealing doesn’t it?

I decided on Cellar Door as the venue to take some friends from Sydney out on the town on a Monday night. I believe Cellar Door was my first mistake.

I believe Monday night was my second.

What ensued was hours of drinking cheap wine and watching a drag show in possibly the smallest venue ever conceived. The performer herself was quite entertaining. Unfortunately, we had the table directly next to where she was singing. This meant that four drunk, Australian musical theatre lovers were providing backup and banter for the 50 strong crowd.

On the night, we were certain we made the show that much better by not only having what was ostensibly an international act, but a bloody good one at that. Our dulcet (read: loud) tones were perfect for the harmonies and I think she really appreciated the backup dancing. A rapport was great and the awkward silences after every joke were merely a cultural misunderstanding. However, it was she who ended up getting paid at the end of the night. We were robbed.

The next morning, i wasn’t as confident that our onstage presence was welcome.

However, I do believe that our rendition of Wicked in Covent Garden Markets at 1am was welcome. It was just a shame that there weren’t many people about at 1 in the morning on a Monday night/Tuesday morning.

Silence! The Musical – Above the Stag

The following night I took Emily along to see the preview of Silence! The Musical. Extremely hungover, I managed to get lost on the way to the venue. I ended up finding the venue, after mistaking it for a dodgy pub.

Above the Stag isn’t a dodgy pub

It’s a dodgy gay bar.

A dodgy gay bar that I fell in love with. It is the perfect venue for anything I have ever wanted to produce/direct/star in. It’s a cabaret joint plus a theatre. I didn’t even need to see Silence, I had fallen in love.

Silence! The Musical didn’t bring my high down. This is, in fact, a musical adaptation of Silence of the Lambs. Written by some guys (Musical Theatre Nerds: including Title of Show’s Hunter Bell) in New York, it was a cult hit off Broadway in 2005. It then went into hiding for 4 years before resurfacing in London with new material.

I am so glad I saw Silence.

It is offensive, lo-fi, tongue-so-firmly-planted-in-cheek-that-said-cheek-is-bleeding theatre at it’s best. The cast were great considering it was the first time they had performed the material in front of an audience. Surprisingly, Emily enjoyed the evening as much as I did! Her favourite number being ‘I’d F**k Me’ by Buffalo Bill. I do wonder sometimes.

In addition they gave me a glow in the dark button. Yes, a button. That glows in the dark. Win.

Nation – The National Theatre

I picked up £5 tickets to Nation last night. It was worth it, even if the story was painfully bad at times. It was a theatrical experience I hadn’t had before.  was so utterly blown away by the performances and the production as whole that it saved the fact the script is a turd. a steaming one at that.

Also, I love that I got £5 tickets and was sitting in the stalls, 7 rows back, practically dead centre. In addition, the programmes were £3. Most amateur productions in Sydney charge more for their programs. For that £3 I received a book. A book full of… things. Not particularly useful things, but things nonetheless. There was also a little booklet on how to build my own Nation. Now that is quality.

You could learn something, ridiculous over charging Sydney theatres who expect $20-30 for a program. You hear me? Learn. something.

£3

Yes, three pounds.

Next up, I’m booking tickets to a few shows. Going to see Avenue Q, possibly Waiting for Godot with Ian McKellin and want to see Tom Stoppard’s new one at the National Theatre (and purchase another £3 programme).

Any suggestions?

Ok, so first off I’ve abandoned the tumblr blog. One, I like WordPress better. Two, I gots a new URL. I’m hoping you’ve noticed this, considering you are on a completely different site.

Secondly, I’ve also abandoned hope of catching everyone up to where I am now. Therefore, posts will be far more recent, which means I can stop making up the things I’ve been doing. I will cover the things I have done, but shall do so over time.

This is because I have seen a ghost.*

A real ghost.

Well… kind of.

Between Christmas and New Year, Emily and I wanted to test out the new English Heritage membership (of which I am now also a proud owner). We packed up our thermals and headed on a day trip to Dover Castle. However, the day we chose was a rather unimpressive day. That is, very cold and very very wet.

Determined not to let the bad weather phase me, I cheerily sang my new song all the way to Dover Castle. My new song consists  of the lyrics ‘Dover Castle’, repeated, to the tune of Beethoven’s ‘Hallelujah’. Emily thoroughly enjoyed the car ride and I’m almost certain that the ten or so car accidents we saw along the way weren’t a result of my new song.

Dover Castle is situated on a cliff in Dover. This seems simple enough, but as nothing else is named after its location, I thought it needed pointing out (Buckingham Palace is not in Buckingham. Leeds Castle is not in Leeds. Ham House is not made of Ham.). Dover Castle is, in fact, situated on the famous White Cliffs of Dover. What the tourist pamphlets don’t tell you is that Dover is actually a rather miserable town. It is full of cheap hotels, seedy looking drinking establishments and all sorts of unsavoury people.

Dover Castle, on the other hand, is quite nice. It’s big. It’s old. It’s a castle. There is also a network of tunnels beneath the castle that have been used for various wars, including the secret wartime tunnels of World War II. Unfortunately, we were informed at the gate that these tunnels were closed today. Also, there was no train to take us to the castle. Also, there was no hot food. Also, they had just had an outbreak of the plague.**

We meandered around the keep for a while, marveling at the IKEA children’s furniture (apparently Henry II liked flat-pack). We watched people reenact things and saw some holograms talking. Your typical castle, really. After having a look around the keep, we settled in the cafe (with no hot food) and discussed what else there was to see. On the map we noticed that whilst the Wartime Tunnels were closed, the Medieval Tunnels at the back of the castle were still open to visitors.

This is where I start to show you pictures…

These are the tunnels. This was at midday. These tunnels were dark. Also, considering it was pelting down with rain and a few days after Christmas, not many tourists were actually around. In summation, these tunnels were creepy.

Also, a lot of the tunnels weren’t lit. At all. We ended up using the camera flash to see if there actually was a tunnel ahead. This produced some interesting results…

Something mighty creepy

The same picture taken a few seconds later

Now, I thought the effect was quite cool and it was only when I looked at it days later that I realised it looks mighty creepy. However, thanks to google I found this picture:

That is, a picture taken from around the same place with a similar figure in it.

I shall let you decide what you will, but it promptly made my mind up as to whether I would be going back to Dover for one of their nighttime Ghost Tours. I just don’t particularly like being spooked.

Stupidly, we continued on deeper into the tunnels. Em was feeling more and more uneasy. We decided to turn around and leave after we came to a completely unlit tunnel that Em didn’t like at all. I took a photo with the flash and here is the result:

orbs and all

We seemed to cut our tour of the castle there.

We will go back and I’ll make sure I bring Bill Murray with me this time. He ain’t afraid of no ghosts.

*not the actual reason, but works for dramatic effect.

** slight exaggeration, but when you have been driving for two and a half hours this all seems a bit dire.

A very common question I keep getting asked is what Christmas is like in Australia. This means that my creative streak has been given a run. Stories can range from ‘Oh no, we do actually get snow. It’s 40 degrees in the day and then goes down to -10 at night and we usually get a blizzard on Christmas Eve. The Kangaroos hate it!’ to ‘Who’s this guy in red? At Christmas we sacrifice a platypus to appease the sun gods and then give each other a different platypus innard depending on how close the person is to you.’

It’s been fun.

What people seem to not realise is that in Australia, everything about Christmas is practically the same… just hotter. What’s struck me is how similar Christmas is here. Growing up in a country where the temperature regularly gets up to 40 on Christmas Day, yet the pervading imagery around the place is of furs and snow. It has always felt a little wrong.

Being in the cold feels right at Christmas. Especially because this year mother nature put on a show and made it snow a week ago. I’m currently sitting in a room with a real tree, surrounded by traditional Christmas decorations and when I look out the back window there’s a blanket of white across the garden. It’s slightly magical. And the fact that I’ve been accepted into Em’s family like I’m one of them is something that makes it even better (I was just given my first chore. Emptying the bin on to the compost heap. I think that means I’m one of them now.).

One thing is missing, though. The fact that my family and friends from the past 24 odd years are approximately 9000 miles from here. It’s funny though, because I don’t get homesick. Everyone tells me it will hit me soon, but it never has. I think it’s mostly because I’m still slightly in denial that I’m so far away and thanks to technology I am never that far away from family and friends. In fact, Facebook is a great way to say hello to someone, which I’m sure is not what it’s meant for. Since I’ve been in the UK, I’ve rarely used it to stalk and have actually used it to communicate with people! It’s especially fun when I’m sitting at my desk at 9 in the morning talking to my inebriated friends at 8 at night.

I’ve gone off on a tangent. Back to what I was talking about.

The first time I’ve been here and felt slightly homesick (or maybe just nostalgic) was this morning. I was standing on the platform at Twickenham Station, freezing my hands off (we’re polite here. Plus I was wearing thermals so we weren’t worried about that) listening to my ipod. I’d just downloaded Tim Minchin’s ‘White Wine in the Sun’ and it damn near made me tear up. Mostly because it’s true. (cue cheese) I know that wherever I am in the world at Christmas, my dad, my brother, my sisters, my aunts and my uncles, my cousins, my gran(s) and my mum will be waiting for me in the sun.

So here I am, writing a sappy Christmas post to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and to let the people in Australia know that I miss them. All of them. Except for the ones in Doonside. And most of Western Australia. And Tasmania. Nobody misses Tasmania.

Merry Christmas.

Well, I’m assuming it was a rather boring week. Upon skimming over my diary I had, apart from a London outing on Monday, two exciting entries. Sofa being delivered. Interview. Now that’s excitement. That being said, I think I had enough excitement on the Monday to last an entire month.*

I started the week with a rather full London outing. I, very ambitiously, decided that I would visit the “museums” near the London Eye, The Tate Modern, Soho and possibly squeeze in some time at a cafe to finish off a blog post, all by 6 o’clock. Well, I almost succeeded. I visited the “museums” near the London Eye and visited the Tate Modern, and did it all by approximately 6 o’clock. What I hadn’t expected was that the Tate Modern would take up so much of my time. So much, in fact, that I declared that I would be visiting again very soon (to nobody in particular) as soon as I hurried out of the building.

So, first the “museums” near the London Eye. Why do I keep putting quotation marks around “museums,” I hear you ask? Because I strongly believe that if you need to pay to get into a so-called museum in London, then chances are it’s not actually a museum, but a cleverly disguised rouse that will result in you walking through the door and being beaten by two large Albanians. Whilst this wasn’t entirely accurate, it wasn’t far off.

I decided to walk down past the Dali museum, the Movie Museum (affectionately [sic: stupidly] called ‘The Movieum’), the aquarium and a few other tourist traps mostly because it was next to the London Eye. I’m sure that everyone knows what the London Eye is, but for those who don’t, it’s a rather large Ferris Wheel that takes about an hour to go the full way round, and robs you of about three thousand quid when you try and buy a ticket.** I wanted to see what the fuss was about, and I probably will fork out exorbitant amounts of money to stand on an observation deck for an hour seeing the parts of London I already have seen, but not today. Instead, I wandered down towards Westminster to see what I could find before heading up to the Tate Modern. When a rather cheery young lady handed me a flyer and promised me cheaper tickets to the Movie Museum, I couldn’t really resist. What could be better than a museum about movies? Not much.

After forking over a tenner for entry (thanks to another stroke of charity from the lady at the door), I entered into what was promising to be an extremely exciting experience. I was even allowed to photograph the exhibitions! In a nutshell, The Movieum is a collection of props and costumes that nobody particularly wants (or wants to see) anymore. I may be being a little too harsh, but the only thing that mildly interested me was some Harry Potter costumes, along with some original wands from the film, and that was only because I am a very very sad person (pathetic, not depressed). What irked me about the entire exhibition was not that these things were on display, but that they actually charged people to see them. And a lot of the time you weren’t even looking at artefacts from the main characters. Prime example: ‘a head from a zombie from Shaun of the Dead’. Thanks.

I decided to forgo the other prize museums (Dali Experience, London Aquarium, some haunted horror thing) and head off towards the Tate Modern. Along the way I stumbled across the previously mentioned National Theatre Shop. I’ve already commented on the shop, so let me comment on the National Theatre itself. While the National Theatre seems to produce quality show after quality show, the building in which it is contained is a bloody eyesore. It reminds of Macquarie University with all of it’s cement and bad 70s architecture. However, I do have to say that at night the time-honoured stage tradition of making something awful look much better through effective lighting comes into play. It’s kind of like an art installation where the artist is vomiting blue paint: it’s repulsive, but boy, the colours are pretty.

I headed onwards towards the Tate Modern, another slightly unattractive building that at least has history. I had decided to make a trip to the Tate Modern to see the PopLife exhibition, as I fancy myself a pop art liker (it’s not quite love). When glancing over the other exhibition I decided to part with even more money and make a day of the Tate Modern. I’m glad I did at least. The other exhibition is John Baldessari’s ‘Pure Beauty’, and having never heard of the artist, I ventured in unknowingly.

John Baldessari is a cheeky, cheeky man. I felt that he is an absurdist at heart, and has gone through so many changes that to look at three pieces from the 60s, the 80s and now, you wouldn’t recognise it as the same artist. I absolutely love his early work.

Here are some examples of his early work:

Basically, he was taking the piss. I like that.

His later work is a bit meh, and I found myself not really appreciating it. I sped up, out, fed and drank then continued on to PopLife.

PopLife is a celebration of late Pop Art (post late 80s). it includes Jeff Koons, late Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami and Keith Haring, amongst others. There was some absolute gems throughout the exhibition, as well as absolute bollocks. Personally, my favourite of the bollocks variety was a rather tasteful film of a lady artist and a male art dealer having sex for 60 minutes. It was her comment on how art dealers screw the artists. Apparently she paid the art dealer US$10,000 to partake.

After PopLife i stumbled through the rest of the galleries not really noticing anything. The two exhibitions that I had seen made me think and made me want to create something. I promptly emptied my wallet in the shop, buying things that would ‘inspire me’. They have yet to do so, but are doing a grand job of cluttering the study desk.

To end the day I took a stroll across Millennium Bridge. Yes, the Millennium Bridge that is destroyed in Harry Potter 6. I felt like I was walking across a celebrity. Not only were my feet touching someone(thing) famous, but I was treated to the beautiful sight of St Paul’s at night. Unfortunately photos just don’t do it justice, so after about 15 minutes of attempting to take a photo, I aimlessly wandered towards (where I thought there was) a tube station. I think I ended up near Brighton.

The rest of the week was fairly uninteresting. Sofa got delivered, Sofa got assembled. Job interview had, third job interview secured (give or take a week or two).

It’s Christmas in two days. I’ve got a week off so hopefully I can write and (almost) get this blog up to date. Either that or I’ll drink far too much mulled wine, eat too many mince pies and end up passed out on Em’s parents couch. Either way sounds pretty good to me.

*slight exaggeration

**another slight exaggeration

There has been a lack of updating, I’ve noticed. My getting a job is partly to blame. The other part is probably laziness and a desire to go places and see the UK. Mostly laziness, though. Yes, I am now the proud owner of a great job. I shall get to that at another time (once I’ve waded through the previous month’s goings on). This post is set between the 31st of October and the 9th of November. I’m getting there, I swear.

Thus the story continues. We headed back up to Letchworth on the Saturday for a birthday party. This meant remeeting most of Boo. Once again, this proved to be unproblematic and I didn’t seem to offend anyone at either dinner or drinks afterwards. This seems to be something I do of late. Not offend people. It’s becoming a habit. I must reassess my behaviours.

After a lovely night at home, Emily ventured off to her first day of work. I decided that this was the day to discover the leafy suburb of Twickenham. First thing I noticed was the distinct lack of leaves. there are a few, but not as many as other leafy suburbs like, say, Roseville. Thus, my labelling had failed me. Twickenham, however, is a lovely little place. There is a pub every 50 feet or so, and if you wander down the wrong street, you’ll end up at the Thames. Not a particularly picturesque view of the Thames, but the Thames nonetheless (That picture makes it look a lot better than it is. It’s mostly mud). There’s a lovely little street just off the high street with some nice shops, a few pubs and some restaurants. I imagine it would be even more lovely with people actually on it. However, I have yet to see any. There’s a rugby stadium down the road, Richmond down another and Windsor down yet another (although a bit further away). Twickenham is nice. Challenging it is not. As mentioned before, we live directly behind the police station. However, I’m fairly sure that if we left our front door open, lined up our valuable goods in the foyer and left a sign saying ‘don’t steal our stuff’, we’d be right, regardless of the police station.

I had a job interview the following day. This job interview, after a few weeks, led to a job. Not the job I actually interviewed for, but one that I kind of, sort of, expressed interest in about six months ago. The world works in very mysterious ways. In summary, I am very happy on the job front. More on that later.

After the interview I had a few hours to kill before meeting someone for drinks. I decided that instead of actually planning something to do, I would aimlessly wander around Covent Garden (Theatreland!) and try and find the elusive ‘Dress Circle’ theatre shop. Whilst it took me a mere four hours to actually find it (after giving up and asking someone), I think I managed to pass every single theatre in London. This served two purposes. First, I could see what was currently playing with my own eyes, and two I can now give you directions to anywhere in Central London, as long as I know which theatre it’s closest to. Bugger street names. Say you want to get from Waterloo Bridge to Leicester Square. Simple. Walk towards The Duchess and turn left when you see the Lyceum. Pass the Vaudeville and turn right at the Adelphi. When you see the Arts Theatre turn left. If you’ve hit Leicester Square Theatre, you’ve probably gone too far. Simple, right?

Anyway, I finally found the Dress Circle and fell in love. I also made frantic calls so that people would keep me away from this evil store until I had enough money to support my dirty, filthy habit. To summarise, the Dress Circle has everything to do with theatre. ever. If you can’t find it here, head to the National Theatre shop. If you can’t find it there, give up. It doesn’t really exist.

I made my way to Southwark for drinks late in the afternoon. I foolishly thought that London was a rather small place. I attempted to walk from Covent Garden to Southwark via Waterloo (for some reason). My feet were not happy. However, I did arrive earlier than I needed to and wasn’t going to partake in solo drinking, as I didn’t have any misery to drown. Instead, I decided to have a very quick look in the Tate Modern. Suffice it to say, I was impressed. I was definitely coming back to this rather large and ugly modern art gallery. I did, and therefore will tell you about that in another post. Drinking, food and merriment was had that night. A bit too much of the first, not enough of the second and from what I’m told, enough of the third.

After having the bed delivered (the highlight of the week, really. Not a dull week, just that I’m a bit sad), I decided to finish the week off with some of the more traditional museums. The Natural History Museum was my first call, and so I departed bright and early at midday and head off to see me some dinosaurs.

In a word, the Natural History Museum is… dull. However, in saying that, I couldn’t shut up about everything I learnt for the next week. In a nutshell, seeing stuffed animals and casts of skeletons doesn’t excite me terribly. There were a few interesting tidbits. The giant tree that they have dissected and placed on a wall and a ceiling is quite cool. Some of the precious stones they have in their collection are sparkly and nice. Apart from that, the only thing worth seeing is the building. The building itself is quite amazing. This purpose made building looks more like a giant cathedral than a museum. It is a beautiful building and a pleasure to walk through. However, this was achieved fairly quickly with nothing much else keeping me interested.

I ventured to the Science Museum the following day with a little hesitation. Basically, I was expecting a less cool version of Canberra’s Questacon. I was correct. It’s not that the Science Museum wasn’t interesting, it was the fact that it was entirely aimed towards people about a third of my age. At least I wasn’t too disappointed. I was expecting this, remember? What I wasn’t expecting was The Listening Post.

The Listening Post is an art installation based on real time, uncensored snippets of text from social networking sites, forums and discussion boards across the internet. It doesn’t sound like much, yet this piece had me captivated for almost an hour. It was interesting, yet also quite poignant and a little sad (in a depressing way. Not a pathetic way). It provides a bit of an insight into society and our behaviours by picking on phrases like ‘i want’ and ‘i like’. It’s very hard to explain, but it is, quite simple, brilliant. It’s toured around the place and I urge you to see it if you’re ever near where it’s playing. It’s running in London till February 21st if you’re interested. I’m sure your not. Fine, I’ll keep it all for myself then.

After having my life suitably enriched, I proceeded to watch tv. For an entire weekend (minus a lovely pub lunch). It was bliss. UK TV is, for lack of another word, brilliant (now we have Virgin TV, which is better. Than anything. Ever.). I couldn’t be arsed to actually expand on that point, but I will link to as many examples as possible.

Next Post: Tate Modern and The Movieum!

The following Monday brought the promise of a proper look around the nation’s capital. Em needed to meet her new boss near Trafalgar Square in the morning and we had plans to meet some friends in the evening in Angel. Therefore, that meant a full day of London, some accompanied by a guide, some on my lonesome. The train in wasn’t too bad at all. However, something I failed to mention in my last post is the ridiculous cost of public transport in the UK. Let’s do a comparison, shall we? In Sydney, a rail ticket from Penrith to the city (approx 33 miles) will cost you $14.40 return. A ticket from Letchworth to London (approx 36 miles) will cost you £28 (approx $56). That’s over $50 for a half hour train ride. And locals were wondering why I was shocked…

Anyway, on to the real point of the post. Walking to Trafalgar Square from Leicester Square station gave me my first glimpse of some West End Theatres, something that I was very excited to do ASAP. However, the standard touristing had to get done first. Once Emily was on her way I took a small walk done the Mall (something that English seem to mispronounce every time… they say Mal where the correct pronunciation is somewhere closer to Maul). This short 10 minute walk provided me with a few English firsts: My first London squirrel sighting, my first (of many) losing all sense of direction, my first mistaking a road for a public walkway and similarly my first almost getting run down by a London cabbie. What I was rewarded with at the end of this walk was a lot of tourists. Oh, and a rather large palace. I didn’t stick around long. I thought it was nice to tick Buckingham Palace off the list, but it just wasn’t too exciting standing outside a gate looking at a rather boring building. Sure, the guards wore funny hats, but nothing else that interesting. I took some photos, feeling as if I’d be scalded if I didn’t, and went on my merry way.

Emily’s instructions were to either go toward Westminster or to go toward Buckingham Palace. Seeing as I still had an hour to spare I decided to rock the boat and tick Westminster off at the same time. Westminster Hall, unlike Buckingham Palace, is an extremely impressive building. Not only does it provide one of London’s most recognizable tourist attractions (The Westminster Clock Tower, also known as Big Ben, which coincidentally doesn’t actually refer to the Tower but the Bells inside the tower), it also stands across the road from the equally stunning Westminster Abbey. Both buildings are architecturally beautiful and the ornamentation is stunning. In addition, Westminster Hall is guarded by heavily armed police. Being from Australia, I have never seen this and it took me slightly aback. It’s probably why one particularly friendly policeman nodded at me and said ‘mornin’, after I stopped mid stride and stood transfixed by the large assault rifle he was holding. It just seemed slightly… surreal. Anyway, the buildings were pretty.

After this I made my way back up to meet Emily. I seemed to pass every single parliamentary or government building on the way back, including Downing St. I was very disappointed. It looked nothing like Little Britain.

We then made our way through Covent Garden (or ‘Theatreland’ as the street signs say) and jumped on a tube to head to the V&A. The V&A is Emily’s favourite museum, and upon visiting most other museums and galleries throughout London, I have to agree.  The Victoria and Albert Museum exists to showcase culture. Therefore, the galleries consist of fashion, jewellery, furniture, paintings and drawings, architecture and performance, amongst many more. The first gallery we visited was the fashion (not my choice) and I was quite surprised to see period dress standing next to a 2005 Dior outfit. Basically, the museum collects pieces of culture and then displays it. The result is a fantastically eclectic collection. Also, they have a theatre and performance section, which completely sold me. Filled with costumes, set designs, props and memorabilia, I almost wet myself walking through here. Also, they have a dress up section, which amused the inner 5 year olds for about 20 minutes. In the end, the greatest things I got out of the V&A visit were a kick ass monogram, a lesson on how to tie a cravat (step one: fail, step two: ask Emily to do it for you) and a stomach ache from the giant meringue I devoured.

Then we met Emily’s friends and drank. The lesson I learnt that night was that 5 pints is not the same as 5 schooners.

After acquiring phones on Tuesday and getting stung by bees and watching Fantastic Mr. Fox on Wednesday (I love the fact that some movies are released here MONTHS before Australia), we made our way to Birmingham on Thursday with Em’s parents for an antiques fair. I would like to say that shenanigans followed, but unfortunately it was an extremely tame day. We walked around, Em spent some money, I decided that I wanted to buy a Mini and a grandfather clock, we learnt about suffragette pieces and then jumped back into the car and went home. A rather pleasant day out.

On Friday it was raining. Surprisingly, this hadn’t actually happened since I had arrived. So therefore, Murphy’s Law states that the day where we move our belongings from Letchworth to Twickenham it rains. Actually, it only really rained during the portion of the activity that required us to be outside: packing the car and driving there. Also, the UK does a different kind of rain to everywhere else…

In Australia it rains. Water falls from the sky and it falls on you and you get a bit wet. Sounds simple. The UK has this kind of rain. However, it has another kind of rain. This is the kind of rain where you look outside and think ‘that’s not too heavy, I can handle that!’ However, when you walk outside you realise you have made an awful mistake. Within 10 seconds this so called ‘rain’ has covered you from head to toe in water, managing to get inside your clothes, shoes and possibly underwear. It’s kind of like the napalm of rain.

Suffice it to say that I got wet. That day we managed to travel a road called the North Circular (also known to some as the 7^th circle of hell) a total of three times that day. However, as Em wasn’t convinced that my license was valid in the UK, I did all of it from the passenger seat. Some would think that this would make the trip slightly better. Those people would be wrong. I, who had been in the country for a week was the ‘navigator’. As a result, we managed to stay on the North Circular a little longer than planned, missing our turn off… twice. Anyway, after getting IKEAd up, we managed to head home to our new house in Twickenham. A bottle (or two) of champagne later we called moving in quits and retired to a lovely blow up mattress. Clearly, our trip to IKEA wasn’t actually that successful.

Next Post: A birthday in Letchworth, My first interview and some wandering around London.

It’s almost been a month since I departed my plane at Heathrow airport and I have been slack in keeping up correspondence with… well… anyone, really. It has been a fairly busy month, and a recount of this will understandably be quite long. Therefore, I’m splitting these posts up into a few parts. I will be having a fairly uninteresting week this week so it should give me an opportunity to bring this blog up to date.

I’m currently making my way through Bill Bryson’s Notes on a Small Island to bring me up to speed with the remarkably small island that is the UK. It is one of the funniest books I’ve read for a while and has thus inspired the title of this blog.

To start I could entertain you with the long and amusing story involving our baggage dilemmas and some hilarious mixups with the airline companies. However, this could take days and I will sum it up in two sentences. The night before we flew, we had to repack 5 suitcases and attempt to fit the important stuff in 2 suitcases. As a result, we now both officially hate British Airways and Qantas, and their stupid One World Alliance.

Once we were on the plane, our anger subsided to be replaced with joy at the fact that the plane was practically empty. This meant a much more comfortable 24 hour flight than I was expecting, even if the food and movies were terrible. I did, however, manage to confirm my love of top gear over the period of about 12 hours (something that has continued considering there’s a TV channel here that pretty much does Top Gear 24 hours a day. Thank you Dave).

Sydney was a nice and chilly 40 degrees when we left. However, due to lack of space in suitcases, we both managed to pile on most of the clothes we own and looked something like Michelen men. However, upon landing at Heathrow this seemed to be a rather intelligent idea. It was cold.

Thanks to Em’s parents, we then jumped in a car and headed north. As this is my first foray overseas, I was expecting something a little more… dramatic. Being on the other side of the world I expected it to look somehow different. I’m not really sure how, but I expected something to look not Australian. Aside from the signs

After a 32 or so hour drive, we arrived in Em’s hometown. Letchworth (full name Letchworth Garden City) is a beautiful little town in Hertfordshire (Pride and Prejudice country) that lays claim to having the first roundabout in the UK. Apart from that there’s not much else there. That’s not to say that it isn’t a lovely place. In fact, they do have a cracking cinema (cheap as chips. Slightly small though) and also lay claim to being the only place in the UK where you can find black squirrels. True story.

We didn’t last long that day. I believe I may have met some family and I’m sure that I made a great impression as a zombie but we hit bed fairly early. On that note, I love jet lag. You can blame anything on it. Feeling particularly cranky? Sorry, jet lag. Don’t want to go anywhere? Sorry, jet lag. There’s a ridiculous amount of housework? Sorry, jet lag. Unfortunately, Em stopped counting it as an excuse fairly early.

The few days that followed were interesting. On Friday night I was introduced to a crime against humanity. For this, I blame Em 100%. She decided that the best way to introduce me to the London Underground was during peak hour on Friday night at Kings Cross Station. Now, the train down was nice enough. The train was fairly full and had a lovely odour of stale sweat, but this was nothing, I repeat nothing, compared to the Tube. Firstly, they had closed the gates at Kings Cross tube station because the platforms were too congested. Once we eventually pushed our way in, Em made the comment that we would have to take the Northern Line. The deepest line that, in Em’s words, “is so dirty it turns your bogies black”. Charming. However, to get there we were herded like sheep through a series of long, low, small tunnels to a platform where I’m fairly sure if you put your arms out, three people would end up on the tracks. It was lovely. However, the night did end well as we saw a fairly good Victoria Wood musical, Talent (the review of which you can read at my other blog).

Saturday brought a baptism of fire. Em’s dad turned 60 the day we flew in and had his celebrations on the Saturday night in a way that any normal man would: A barn dance. Cue Luke being terrified at meeting almost the entire family and friends network… and then dosey doeing with them. However, it was actually a fun night. I met everyone, they all seemed lovely, I was dragged up to dance by one of Em’s mum and dad’s friends, etc etc. Fish and chips were consumed, along with a fair amount of alcohol. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Then again, I do have a fairly active imagination.

Saturday also saw Em and I frantically searching for a house in Twickenham. Out of the possible three it came down to two. Unfortunately, I desperately wanted one, and she desperately wanted another. Mine was a cute little cottage and hers was a cesspool that backed on to a factory (bias?). Of course, I won. We spent Sunday in a lovely lazy manner. First off we had a family pub lunch in a nearby town (the Brits do pub lunch well, I must say), then we headed to another pub to meet Em’s book club. In mentioning that, I must say that all of Em’s friends and family I’ve met have been rather lovely (A good thing considering some might by reading this… uh… hi…). They have all been welcoming and nice and haven’t mentioned the Ashes. I’m looking forward to spending more time with a lot of them, which is a good thing, I suppose.

I think that’s probably a nice place to end this post. That covers three four days in Britain, so by this rate I should be up to date in about a year. Luckily I have had an unexciting week or two since then.

Next Post: First day in London, antiques in Birmingham and moving our belongings to Twickenham amongst other things…