Hello everyone...unfortunately I have been laptopless this last month as my old faithful blew up a week before xmas. And because I am a hopeless shopper, I cannot make up my mind as to which laptop to purchase. So I haven't been writing much...which is driving me nuts. Find below my xmas email to friends all over the place. Am currently sitting in the coldest internet cafe in Britain attempting to type with my iceblock fingers. Never again am I doing winter in the UK! NEVA!
.......Seasons Greetings from the land of transport chaos. Yes one flake of snow and this whole nation falls apart. Airports are turned into refugee camps, train stations into soup kitchens and roads into spaghetti. It's Armageddon The Musical!!!!! Come and bring a bucket of panic!!!!
Ok there has been slightly more than one flake of snow but everyone seems to react with an absolute aghast that this may happen.....that it may snow .....like lots...in this country! As if it has never happened before. The mother country is certainly one hell of an old woman. Ques for instance. This country invented the que when the ration was invented in World War 1 and they literally have not looked back since; never. They will que for anything without protest....for hours. Never question; never investigate; simply stand there turn on their facial screensavers and wait. The number of ques I have seen with people waiting for either something that is broken down or not even in existance is quite harrowing. Any wonder they lost the Empire, they were too busy queing.
Enuff moaning........ update as to life of mwa.
Well I arrived on the 14th of September.
For the first 7 weeks, I stayed with my friend Matt in the town of Reading which is about an hour's north of London. Reading is kinder like the Blue Mountains minus the Mountains and the Blue. A town of quaint cottages, third rate universities and pregnant 13 year olds. Matt's place was right on the river and had a terraced garden leading down to it. Twas lovely although as much as it was Jane Austen out the back, it was more like Trainspotting in the front. There was a pub on the corner formerly run by the IRA and now run as a drug front by the local Nigerian Mafia. Navigating one's way to the train station was often spent negotiating with wired bogans (or chavs as they like to call them here) or Nigerian godfathers dressed like Liberace. Needless to say I spent alot of time in the terraced garden or in London.
The first couple of months was spent doing countless interviews with recruitment officers who promise you everything from sets of steak knives to walking on water and then never call you again. In London they all speak so quickly and jump and down so much, you begin to think you're being interviewed by a human breed of chiwawa. To cope with that, I spent most of my time in one of the five thousand pubs in London and then a few more thousand in Berlin and Paris. I also managed to sit four interviews with the FSA (equivalent of my work in Oz); they managed to reject me four times as well which was awfully generous of them; every time I came into an interview I felt like that nerd who continually comes back to Australian or American Idol and re-auditions and re-auditions and they eventually get him to release a single to make him go away; so am hoping the FSA will offer me a recording contract soon.
Since November I have been working at Camden Borough Council as a lawyer in their child protection team; not ideally what I wanted to do but for the time being, it's a job and it allows me to continue to look around for something better. I always said after my time at DOCS, that I would never do child protection again and I now remember why....I used to always think it was because of the subject matter but it's actually dealing with the nutty social workers which drive you to the edge. Having said that, the group of lawyers I work with are very nice; out of ten lawyers, I'm the only male lawyer....so not much different to MBR!
I am living a ten minute walk away from work having become the Demi Moore of flatmates moving in with a 23 yr old guy in Kings Cross...... mind you I still can't get into work before 9.30. I had my first sitting at my desk "oh my it's snowing" experience last week. Snow is only good for one thing.....sitting in ur office looking at it; nothing else. Suddenly roads turn to slush, footpaths turn into surprise skating rinks and ur boots turn into clogs. Not a great look. And it has a tendancy to shut down airports which can be a bit of a pain when you have booked a weekend escape to Barcelona and can't leave because the airport is iced over. Was not happy last Friday Jan! Still London does xmas really well with Oxford and Regent streets amassed with Xmas lights and decorations. Strangely having grown up with summer xmas's, it seems a bit strange not to be sweating this time of year and looking forward to that storm coming over the horizon.
I was in Berlin the weekend before last and it was seriously "call the f'ing police' cold. -8 with -20 wind chill factor and all these crazy Berlinas out at the xmas markets drinking mald wine and eating their bratwursts. At one stage I thought it was hailing, then I realised it was snow and consequently ordered more bratwurts to put in my shoes to revive my blackened frost bitten tootsies. Berlinas are such lovely people.....almost too lovely.....anywhere we went someone would always talk to us ....it was almost like they were constantly trying to say "Hey...we're not Hitler!...Have a drink!". Which I guess is understandable.
We went to the world's best nightclub called Berghanhauff (am actually making that name up...I can't remember the name...it was huge) located in an abandoned factory in East Berlin. It was so underground, I thought perhaps we were being put in jail. We qued for two hours (yes Berlinas que as well) to get in and the door bitches were trully terrifying throwing people out who didn't have "the look". I wasn't quite sure what "the" look was as it varied from mad max to Julie Andrews on crack. Considering my friend and i were dressed as two yetties wearing our wearing parker dounas, I was concerned we would be cast out into the anti Berhanhauff abyss. But thankfully we were not. We must have been two hot looking yetties. And i must say what an amzing club. 7 different levels; arena after arena with varying music and electic group of people. It was fantastic. Not to mention am crossing the dancefloor and bump into two people from Brisbance. You can take the guy out of Brisbane.....
Anyway peeps, I've babbled enough. Am off to Switzerland for xmas and then driving to the Black Forest....fingers crossed....it's not snowed in so we can fly. Miss you all more than bricks. Have a merry xmas and a super new years. Please keep in touch.
Much Love
Jbxx
PS: laptop blew up on the weekend. have crazy indian dude try to perform some sort of mircale on fried mother board.....I've got to remember not keep the laptop on the bed under a quilt....it kinder stuff things. So am facebookless for the forseeable future. I may die.
