Wee art tags

I was invited to a dinner party the other night, so I bought a bottle of wine and then dug around in my desk drawer for a wee tag to put on the bottle neck. 

The below selection of 'art tags' are from my days working at a cooker shop that, to be honest, didn't have much custom. 

During my super slow shifts, I'd taken to scrawling on sales tags (shhh! -don't tell my old boss!) the likenesses of birds, blooms, and animals both real and imagined.  Some turned out poorly, and some turned out nicely. 

I drew a wee robin for the wine bottle tag. -didn't photograph it, however.


 These I like:

Cockerel

Fuchsia

Sow

Welsh Dragon

Visiting with H.

H. comes into the shop where I work every couple of months, or so.  She doesn't buy much and that's okay.  What she does do is converse quite a bit.  I listen and respond, as needed.  H. is 83 and lives alone over by the park.  She's also still recovering from a debilitating stroke that rendered her mostly without speech and forced her to walk with either a cane, or walker with wheels, when she's out shopping.  Although I understand pretty much all of what H. says, sometimes she's at a loss for words, literally.  The word won't be in her head, so another one, less suitable, will pop out, or she'll spend some time searching around for the correct thing to say before she can move on.  Her walker also doubles as a chair.  H. will wheel in, usually a bit out of breath, and then sit down.  The shop is so narrow that all spaces not taking up product displays are aisles.  So, she has a seat in one of the aisles and folk just need to go another way, or squeeze around her to get to the end of the shop.

It had been about three weeks since I last saw H. in the shop.  Today, as I was walking home from the market, I saw H. huffing and puffing her way up a small incline, walker laden heavily with shopping bags.  I stopped and asked if I could help her carry anything and she wound up insisting that I let her carry my shopping on the arms of her walker.  I later helped her carry her belongings up through two sets of front doors and a flight of stairs.  Mind you, her bags could have been weighted with bricks.  She had done a huge shop.

She invited me in for a chat.  We sat in comfy chairs in her cramped one-room flat.  She offered me raspberry sorbet, and, even though I declined wanting any, wound up holding an icy-cold pint in one hand with a silver spoon in the other for the first twenty minutes of my stay.  Eventually, I put it back in the freezer along with a tub of ice-cream H. had bought that day.

Born in 1929 to parents who weren't 'cuddly', H. remembers her mother refusing physical affection as it would have 'disheveled' her clothes.  Her father was a military man and H. remembers that she was never, ever allowed to refer to him as 'daddy'.  She and her siblings had to call their father 'sir'.  H. had been raised by a nanny to whom she felt close.  A cook prepared the family meals.   'My mother never wanted us,' H. told me.  In a few short years, she and her two siblings had been shipped off to what H. referred to as 'home school'.  I had naively assumed that the siblings had remained together.  She told me that they had been sent to three different institutions.  The 'home school', she said, was neither 'home', nor 'school.'  Her parents left for India shortly thereafter.  When the war broke out some years later, her parents sent for them.  "You're home now."  That's what her mother had said to her.  She thought, is this what home feels like?  H. had her doubts.

Years later, when H. had a husband and four children of her own, her mother would insist on staying with her for a couple of weeks at a time during the year.  H. and her husband had little money and took in lodgers to make ends meet.  With her mother in the house, H. had one more mouth to feed.  As her mother had never changed a nappy and couldn't cook, she was little help around the house.  However, that didn't prevent H's mother from telling her how to run her household.  That stopped the one time H. sent her mum upstairs with one of the babies and a nappy with the request that she change the baby.  H. said that her mum was upstairs for ages, not a sound could be heard.  Eventually, H. went to check on her and found that the baby had indeed been changed, but, instead of nappy pins, the cloth had been fastened around the baby's pelvis with two large knots, one on each hip.  'She hadn't known about nappy pins, you see', said H.  After that, H's mum never told her what to do in her own home again.

We sat in her high-ceiling front room overlooking neighbours' gardens.  Blue skies were overhead; it was a lovely view.  'Oh, that's not the park, you know.  If you want a view of the park,' she told me, 'then you'll have to go to the other side of the house'.  I went to the kitchen, looked out the window and saw the barriers and fencing erected to contain this year's Olympic equestrian events.  As I sat and, mostly, listened to her talk, I became aware of not one, but three dolls' houses set about the room.  One was a large-scale affair that I mistakenly thought was a replica of H's own building.  It was actually an 18th century re-production of a stately home from Bath.  The insides of which were filled with amazing rooms.  The butlers' quarters, the 'bachelors' room', the laundry room, the nursery, etc.  Viewing the wee bachelors' room intrigued me most.  I hadn't known that there was such a thing as a room for young, single men in which to play billiards, drink spirits, and smoke tobacco.  I guess the 'spinsters' didn't really have a room of their own, and, if they did, it certainly wouldn't have contained a billiard table.  Bummer.

People who don't live here

Apparently, the UK postal service is just as inept as the US variety.  Below is a list of people who don't live at my address.  Not only do they not live here, they haven't lived here for at least a year given that one year ago my partner and I moved to this address.  If these other folk did live here, then we'd be running a boarding house, and that would be no bueno.  It's enough to collect their mail.  Beh.

Mr. T.S. Walters
Miss Emma West
Mr. M. Juergins


There are some other 'randoms' who show up periodically, so I haven't yet committed their names to memory.

Things I know about Miss West: she's a size 8 and she has children.
Things I know about Miss West and Mr. Juergins: they both must not be very close to certain friends and family members as Xmas cards addressed to them arrived here.

Once I intercepted a postal dude to ask what to do with all the unwanted mail.  He told me to either 'bin it' or mark it 'RTS' and put it in a post box/leave it for the postal worker to retrieve.  Neither of those options stops the unwanted mail from being delivered, btw.  Lame.

My pal, Music.

This morning I've already listened to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On?; the self-titled Crosby, Stills and Nash album; The Beatles' Let It Be, and Morrissey's Vauxhall and I.  This is the most music I've listened to in one shot in FOREVER.  When I was younger, single, and sans TV I spent most of my time when at home listening to music.  Now I seem to be lucky if I know where the CDs and records are kept.  Last night, funnily enough, while watching TV I was reminded of how much I love listening to music.  Elvis Costello, a man whose music has certainly punctuated the 'soundtrack of my life', hosts a show on which he features and plays with guests of his choosing.  The first episode I caught showcased the talents of his wife, Diana Krall.  I was blown away.  This is a show for music lovers put on by a music lover.

Last night's show was a group effort featuring Fiona Apple, Deathcab for Cutie, and Billy Joe Armstrong from Green Day.  Elvis collaborated with each act performing both his songs and their songs.  It was an amazing meld of inter-generational talent.  After seeing last night's performance I have a new-found respect for Green Day's Armstrong.  I've never been a fan of Green Day and that's partially because I have always felt that there was so much other music coming out of the Bay Area at that time that was equally good, if not better, so I just never bothered with them, really.  That and the drummer is a douche bag that we 86'ed from a bar I used to work in back in Oakland.  Seriously, though, Billy Joe and Elvis together were pure gold.  It tickled me to hear them sing each other's music.  As for Fiona Apple, man, I didn't remember how deep and powerful her voice was until hearing her again last night after so many years.  She's a potent force.  Deathcab was good, too, although I can't say I really know their music.  I've just never gotten into them.  So much music, so little time!  That and I tend to revisit the 'oldies, but goodies' quite a bit which doesn't always leave time for discovering new music.

Speaking of 'oldies', I'm listening to Carole King's Tapestry right now.  Brilliant.  I read somewhere somewhat recently that she'd picked a doozy of a partner who was an abusive a-hole that derailed her music career and broke her bones.  It's hard to imagine that the woman who wrote 'It's Too Late', among other gems, found herself in such a difficult and debilitating relationship.  I guess it just goes to show that no one is immune to toxic situations.

Before I leave London, I'd like to see one good rocking show.  The last time I saw a live music here was probably in 2006.  I can't even remember--no, wait--I think it was Dirty Pretty Things up somewhere around Finsbury Park.  -not sure if there's one, concentrated area in which folk play music (Camden Town?), or if venues, like most stuff I do here, are spread over the many miles that make up this town.  Brixton Academy, a mid-sized venue down in South London, seems to have a lot of good talent from around the globe play its stage.  (Although I just checked and Limp Bizkit is scheduled to play there, so maybe I should revise my last statement.)

'A gift from the Amish'

Well, I would have maybe preferred a faceless doll, or hand-wrought, heavy-wood furniture, but I'll take what (gifts) I can get. :)

This recipe is what I found when I typed 'pickled beets and eggs' into the search engine.  Well, I had stumbled over a few other recipes that were relatively the same, but sans the good stuff: clove and bay leaf.  Go with what you like, right?

After reading a short, 'eggsellent' piece in the NY Times about the prevalence of keeping chickens across the US, I felt compelled to follow up on a bit mentioned about pickling eggs.  Apparently, chickens usually lay one egg daily during season, and, say, if one kept 10 chickens each laying on schedule, then by the end of a week, there would be 70 eggs on hand to figure out what to do with!  So some folk with a tremendous egg output eat eggs not just for breakfast, but for dinner, too.  Some add egg to a dish that wouldn't seem to need it like soup or casserole.  And, of course, some people pickle their excess eggs.

Beets, onion, and eggs awaiting the pickling agent.

Fortunately, I had an empty Kilner jar just waiting to be used, so all that was needed were the primary ingredients in the above-mentioned 'Amish' recipe: beets and eggs.  I did, too, feel the need to add one more thing to an already great-sounding recipe and that was garlic.  We'll see in 48 hours how well things turned out!

72 hours later!

Autumn Pudding

After watching an episode of the those fat dudes who call themselves bikers, I was inspired to make a pudding.  They, of course, made things look deceptively easy, so I (sort of) knew that I'd not really be able to create such a wondrous pud', but I was certainly willing to give it a go!

The dudes used fruit of the season: bramley apples, plums, blackberries, and pears.  I, on the other hand, used the fruit found at my local supermarket: bramley apples, plums, raspberries, and blueberries.

Cooperative supermarket bounty.

Instead of following a recipe, I watched their show, absorbed (somewhat) what they'd said to do, and just frickin' went for it!  This slap-dash method is probably why the fruit didn't yield as much juice as it should have thus leaving me with a pud' not quite coated in red goodness.  Note the bits of too-much-white in the below image.  Boo.

-unwrapping the pudding after 15 hours in the 'fridge.

Not only was I not able to coat all pieces of bread evenly with berry-fruit juice, but I, being an American, did not have a pudding basin in which to put this mess.  Instead, I used a small, pyrex casserole dish.

Why does this pud' remind me of Stonehenge?

What this Autumn pudding lacked in charm it made up for in flavour.  This was especially true when doused in double cream.

Come to mama!

Even the hubs who hates stuffing and claimed that he would most assuredly hate this pudding seemed to enjoy his slice.

I, of course, really enjoyed mine.

[Insert sounds of weasel slurping here.]

Here's the link to the actual recipe for those of you interested in doing things correctly: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/autumn_pudding_30736

Lost earring

An English woman of post-retirement age wearing a slightly shabby, full-length suede coat with fuzzy collar came in to the shop tonight looking for silver polish.  As I approached I could see that pinned to her lapel was a rather large, gold brooch of some indeterminate design.  Her middle and ring fingers bore brightly-colored gem stone rings of blue sapphire and aquamarine.  In her left earlobe she wore a dangle-y earring that appeared to be made up of a cluster of small pearls.  In her right ear hung nothing.

We got to talking about silver polish versus silver cloth and about how no one seemed to possess silverware anymore (and wasn't that a shame).  Her make-up, probably finely applied earlier in the day, now appeared unfocused and smudged around her eyes.  She smelled vaguely of wine.  As we spoke, I put my right hand to my right ear and said, "you're missing an earring."  She stopped talking, immediately brought her fingers to her ear and said very loudly, "oh, shit!"

"These are Sandra's earrings!  They were given to me by her husband...ex-husband.  I wore them today as it's her birthday.  We were just down at the pub.  Oh, no.  Well, let me buy this silver cloth and then I'll go back to the pub.  The earring must have come out as I was putting on my coat.  It started to rain as I left, so I put my coat on."

As she she paid, she told me that Sandra, her best friend, had died only 18 months ago, and she had decided to wear the earrings today as a tribute to Sandra.  Before leaving the shop, I had asked her to take the coat off just to make sure that the earring wasn't caught somewhere in the collar, or had fallen down the back and gotten stuck in the lining.  The earring wasn't in the coat.  I took a quick glance around the store's floor and directly out front along the pavement in the off-chance that she'd managed to lose the earring only as she made her way into the shop.  It wasn't there.  Before retracing her steps back to the pub, I'd asked her if she wouldn't want to take off the remaining earring and pop it into her handbag for safe keeping.  She did as I asked and left.

Not ten minutes later as I was tidying up the back stock area, I heard a voice coming from the front of the store.  "It's only me," she said.  I came out from the kitchen to see the woman with the suede coat.  She was smiling.  "I found it.  I just wanted to tell you that I found the earring."  She smiled and came up to the counter.  Her eyes were wet, yet she looked happy.

"Sandra was my best friend, you know.  -diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  She was gone in six weeks."  The woman started to cry.  I stood at the counter and watched her.  She dabbed her eyes with her fingers.  "Thank you," she said.  I took her outstretched hand in mine and held it a minute.  She cried a bit more and I fetched her a tissue from the bathroom.  She continued, "Sandra was so elegant.  She was always so put together, you know."  I asked how old Sandra would have been today.  "Oh, seventy-something.  A lady never tells her age," she said with a slight smile.  "We traveled together.  Oh, it was lovely!  We traveled down the Nile!"  She cried a fresh burst of tears.  I offered her a cup of tea, but she refused.  The presence of another customer entering the store seemed to cause her to leave.  She bade me farewell and moved on.

The woman who'd come in, holding a Christmas tree wrapped in mesh and standing by the entrance asked, "Is she crying about her dog?"  This was the neighborhood dog walker and the woman who had just left lost her dog the week before.

Fanny pack? Bum bag?

Let's call the whole thing off!

I've been living in LDN now for eight months and I'm no closer to thoroughly understanding what the English say to me than when I landed.  I think it all comes down to word choice.  We say 'wrench', they say 'spanner', and that really puts a spanner into the mix, as some might say.  I feel like I've filled up my Brit Vocab Bag reasonably well and I now say with confidence things like, 'you could do...' as a response to many questions directed at me, and 'go on then' when offered another biscuit/pour of wine/most things edible.

I'm fairly sure that I haven't fucked it all up and said, 'thanks for the ride' when stepping out of someone's car, and, if I did, you know I didn't mean it that way.  Speaking of all things sexual, I may have inadvertently referred to the big, refillable jug at Whole Foods as a 'growler'.  Yes, I did actually know that that word is slang for vagina here in the UK, but, in the moment of my sampling good beer (which may or may not be synonymous with 'real ale'), forgot and said it.  The beer dude at Whole Foods kept a straight face.  As well he should have cuz if he's such an authority on beer that he gets to wear the badge and pour the brews, then, well, he should just know that a big-ass jug with a thumb-hold is a growler in No. America.

Most challenges I usually deal with well even if they do take more time to figure out than normal.  Just the other day, some woman of indeterminate middle-age came into the shop where I work and asked if I had an 'egg lifter'.  Mind you, I visualised some tong-like device one might use to pull a boiled egg out of a pot, so I asked her if she were needing something for boiled eggs.  She looked at me as if I were speaking Martian, yet I wasn't the one who'd just asked for an 'egg lifter'.  She tried again while I asked her pointed questions as to how the eggs in question where to be prepared.  'I'm looking for something for fried eggs, you know.'  Oh, I thought, you need a spatula!  I ventured forth with something not terribly crushing that highlighted my being from somewhere else, so that she shouldn't think that asking for a 'lifter' was completely lame even though it was.

Eight months have gone in a second and I'm about to celebrate my first Christmas in England.  What I need to get straight is understanding the differences between Christmas Cake and Christmas Pudding, and why, in general, pudding here isn't like this:

I've eaten (see link above) already more than anyone's reasonable share of Xmas Cake and won't need to refill until 2014.  And, to use the British expression, if I'm honest, if the pudding here is anything like the cake, then I'll pass, thanks very much.

Kugelhopf and other delights

I'm a huge fan of Alsace.  What intrigues me about E. France is its linked history with Germany.  The Fachwerkhaeuser, the blending of cuisine, and the allemanic dialect spoken by (mostly older) native Alsatians make this part of Europe an intriguing hodgepodge of culture.  Strasbourg, just over the river from Kehl, Germany, is one of my favorite places to visit in Alsace.  While there, I usually engage in the same few 'tried and true' activities.  They can be broken down, quite neatly, as follows:
*Strassburger Muenster
*Christian Patisserie
*tourist shops near the river that sell traditional pottery.

Instead of the usual oh-this-looks-nice-but-I-don't-think-I'll-buy-it trip, I decided to purchase a lovely and large bit of ceramic bake ware while doing the usual trek around town.  As fortune would have it, the Kugelhopf form made it through security and requisite flight back to London without much of a hitch, so that I was able to bake the below treat sans raisins with the recipe that came with the form.

Kugelhopf d'Alsace

Not content with just baking one Kugelhopf this week, the hubs and I fiddled with another recipe found online, and made this lil' beaut of a marble Kugelhopf.

Marmor Kugelhopf

Next time I'm in Strasbourg, and buoyed by my Kugelhopf baking successes, I might be tempted to schlepp back a Baeckeoffe pot and make this:

Baeckoffe, baby!

Now, if I could only get my hands on some lye, then I'd be in business to bake Brezeln! 

Little America

Hey, all you ex-pats from the US!  Are ya homesick?  If so, then come on down to Greenwich and be among your own kind.

On most days at the shop where I work at least one American comes in looking for a mixing bowl, cake tin, spatula, or what have you.  Maybe they seem to be frequenting the shop because they're all missing home and stuffing those feelings with some nice, home-baked cake!  Well, whatever the reason for their pronounced presence, it's fair to say that many-an American lives in Greenwich.

Yesterday, I met a lovely woman from my home state of California.  Not only was she from CA., but she was from a part of CA. that I know fairly well as it was the vacation spot of my youth.  Grass Valley, in the NE part of Gold Rush Country, was where the family would go on its annual camping trip for two weeks each Summer.  We'd actually camp just outside town at a place called Scots Flat Lake, but come into town for sundries, a night out which usually meant going to the local bowling alley, and, maybe, just a walk around downtown.  It was like a vacation from the vacation, really.

Scots Flat Lake, Nevada County

Of the Americans coming in to buy cupcake cases and silicone spatulas I'd say all but one has introduced themselves to me.  "What's your name?  I'm Nina-Anne-Patty-Joy.  Nice to meet you!"  And then they leave with a "see you later!" hanging in the air.

The Brits never introduce themselves.  Although I have had the odd Welshman sing me a Welsh ditty (read: not in English) before buying a Nicholas Mosse milk jug for his mother-in-law.  

"Barnyard" Motif

Missing food from back home?  There are some third-rate Mexican and Tex Mex places in the village center for one's eating, ahem, pleasure.  English village=beans and rice and fajitas, I guess.  Who knew?  Who wanted it?  Where's my baked beans on toast?

Ye Olde Tex-Mexican King's Head

Although I'm able to have chips and salsa washed down by a margarita whenever I want, I do feel like I'm far from California here in Greenwich, and, aside from missing home a bit, it's a good thing.  When I am feeling homesick I can count on other Americans living locally to come into the shop where I work, buy a pan, and, inadvertently, cheer me up.

Ownership

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how people live as citizens/subjects/permanent residents/short-term visa holders in a given place.

Barring any unforeseen changes, I will be living in London for the next four-and-a-half years.  I want to feel as if this is my home.  With feeling comes action.  I should act like this is my home. 

As I was running through the local park yesterday I saw a child being let through some fencing by its mother.  The fencing had been erected to prevent folk from trampling on a bit of patchy earth that had been recently re-seeded.  I said under my breath, "there's a reason for that fencing," as I jogged along.  Would I have said anything ALOUD if I were a subject of this country?  No, probably I wouldn't have.  And, neither would most British people.

I remember once when I was visiting SW Germany during a break from college with a friend an elderly woman berated me for having thrown away a bit food.  Never mind that the food in question was a soggy bit of bread with herring that had fallen apart in my hand and was now neither appealing nor easy to eat.  This was in 1994; she looked to be in her mid-to-late 80s.  I think now of what she must have lived through: two world wars, massive inflation and deprivation, and, ultimately, the division of her country.  How thoughtless must I have appeared to her for throwing decent food in the garbage?

I see things that don't gibe with me here all the time.  Would I really ever say anything to the people who litter in the park, bottles and food waste left on the grass after they get up to leave?  Would I tell that guy who, crowded bus or no, puts his shoe up on the seat next to him as he rides into town to keep his feet planted firmly on the floor?  Did I "police" where I lived back home?  I didn't really, no.  Well, if you count continually making my presence known to the marginally aggressive, homeless woman who camped in our back garden from time to time, then yes.  She couldn't take my nosing around her territory, and, thankfully, she eventually moved a few blocks away.  However, that wasn't fixing the problem so much as displacing it.  I think of the man who died during the recent attacks here in London.  He was attempting to put out a fire set in a bin by some youths, and, while doing so, gave those brats a piece of his mind.  It was his neighborhood they were messing with and he didn't like it.  They responded by beating him into a coma.  He died shortly thereafter.

This horrible tragedy reminds me of the story a friend of mine here has recounted to me on numerous occasions.  I've heard it enough times to wonder if it's not an Urban Legend.   It's a cautionary tale of how another man stood up for what was right, and, for his trouble, was knifed in the process.  This man and his girlfriend were riding a bus somewhere in London when some young men began throwing bits of either candy or crisps at the girlfriend.  Valiantly, the man attempted to get the youths to stop, and was rewarded with a knife wound.  I can't help but wonder how things would have gone down on the bus that day had everyone (assuming there were lots of riders) had, in unison, chanted those effers into submission with something like, "Put the crisps down!" or "Leave her alone!"  I know that that sounds cheeky, but I'm being serious.  Maybe the bullies would have been bullied into stopping?

There is certainly something to be said for standing by one's beliefs.  However, if voicing them can have potentially devastating results, then, sadly, it may just be best to keep one's mouth shut, or to merely voice discontent under one's breath.

An Idiot in a Strange Land

Lately, I've been feeling like most things I say are totally ridiculous, bordering on the stupid.  I think that my problem might simply be constantly worrying about how I'm being interpreted, culturally speaking.  Am I too "American"?  Am I, like Goldilock's porridge, "just right"?

Speaking of porridge, I found out the hard way that the English seem to get by in the kitchen without the help of a double boiler, or porridger.  Or, as they also say here, bain marie.  Oui mais non.  Why have the term--in two effin languages--yet not the product?  Comment dit-on "confusing"?  I gave up almost all of my rather inexpensive cooking gear before packing up for parts unknown thinking that I could easily replenish my kitchen stock here in London.  I've succeeded in finding most pots and pans, but, for the life of me, not a double boiler. 

Last week, or so, I popped into a neighborhood cookery shop, as they say here, to inquire after a sales position advertised in the shop window.  (And, no, they don't carry porridgers.)  I've been working, and, therefore, applying for jobs for the past twenty years.  I have, actually, figured out what potential employers want to hear.  However, in the cookery shop that day I said something totally foolish.

It was this: is one allowed to bring a book in?

What the fuck was that?  The genie was already out of the bottle, so I let it hang in the air knowing that I'd probably just fucked it all up.  The owner was quick to go on at length about how there's much to do what with dusting products, unpacking deliveries, and the like.  Ugh.  I had failed this very mini test.

The next day, resolved to reversing my fortune, I went into the shop to apologize for saying such a daft thing.  I said something to the effect of this: I just want to apologize for a comment I made yesterday about book reading.  I want you to know that I'm not a laze-about book reader.  I'm here to work!


My apology went over well and I got the job.  Today, I went in to train with the other woman who works at the shop.  As I entered the store, she looked up from her book and gave me a warm greeting.

Shuttered and, a bit, shattered.

August 8th

It's well before dark here (sun sets at 8.30-9.00) and the grocery stores have shut exactly at 6 o'clock.  It's nothing to do with a religious holiday, or a royal function.  No, that might actually be fun.  It's to do with looters.  Looters, for the past three days, have damaged already disadvantaged areas across London, and, now, sadly, other cities in England.  -their goal?  Well, it's to grab as much loot as possible and destroy property in the process.

Until yesterday, both PM Cameron and London Mayor Johnson were on holiday.  It took them a day, or so, to figure out that they should probably get the fuck back the capital and sort shit out.  Johnson, for what it is worth, gave an informal speech to residents in Clapham Junction.  He was met with both derision and brooms:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/aug/09/boris-johnson-clapham-junction-london-riots

Brooms not Bombs!

The complaint is that there has not been enough police support in areas most affected by the looters.  People whom I've spoken with have said that they'd like to see more drastic tactics like water cannons and rubber bullets being used.  I mean, heck, the cops engage in nasty tactics like kettling on student protestors.  Why don't they use such means on folk intent to do real harm?

In Kingsland Road, Dalston, up to the Stoke Newington High Street, Kurdish-Turkish shopkeepers, their friends and family members stood along the pavement and in the streets in front of their businesses in order to ward off potential looters. 

It's a family affair.

In Croydon, a city south of here, a 144-year-old furniture business, House of Reeves, was burnt to the ground by arsonists.  The 80-year-old owner, Maurice Reeves, had this to say:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2011/aug/09/london-riots-croydon-reeves-video

This man has more dignity and composure than I'm sure I'll ever have, never mind that I'll not be standing in front of almost 150 years of my family history burnt to a crisp to be interviewed for the Guardian on how I feel about such things ever in my life.

August 9th

Looting has spread to the cities of Birmingham and Manchester, to name a couple.  Last night, in Birmingham, three young men, NOT looters, were mowed down by a vehicle purposely targeting them.  Their crime was trying to protect the neighborhood in which they lived from being damaged by punk-thugs.  Today on the news, the father of one of the young men called for peace, but is it enough?  The men happened to be Muslim.  This whole mess of trouble began with the shooting death of Mark Duggan, a known drug dealer, who was Black.  Will violence begin to fall along racial lines?  Will it shift from nicking flat-screen TVs and trainers to mobbing those who don't share one's skin color?

Today, the local supermarkets resumed normal business hours.  I went down to the Cooperative Supermarket where I shop in order to fill the empty fridge at home.  While waiting to pay for groceries, I asked the clerk how late they'd be open tonight.  "10 o'clock", she said.  Then I asked at what time they'd closed the prior day.  "We had to stay open until five," she told me none to happily.  "The other Cooperative was robbed down the road.  And we didn't want to come in at all, but they just don't care about us."

"They just don't care about us" could be the general refrain of people living in hard hit areas.  Where were the police on the first night of violence?  Why were shopkeepers having to defend the their own property, vigilante-style, or risk being attacked and robbed? 

August 10th

Everything seems to be back to "normal".  Which means that those who feel it's their right to steal from shops still feel that way, they've now no chance to be a part of a coordinated effort to act on said feelings.  There's no chance, that is, until something else happens to trigger unrest, aggression, and wanton looting.

Therapy

P., the therapist, seemed like a decent enough person during our initial session together.  She listened, made some notes, and responded well to whatever it was I'd blathered on about.

"So far, so good," I'd thought to myself as I left the heavily secured building where P's office is located.

Our next session was less reassuring.  After the initial greetings and what-not, we got down to business.  I can't remember exactly what I'd said, it may have been about my lack of work and social life at present.  That triggered her to ask, "What's going on with the not wanting to come out and drink wine with the neighbors?"  This question was posed as if I should want to drink some vino with the neighbors, but can't bring myself to do so.  My face twisted into a small knot of confusion.  In our intake session I'd a) never mentioned drinking wine with neighbors, and b) never mentioned drinking wine with neighbors.  What was she on about?


I'd seen her write some notes on what I was saying during the intake session.  They totaled, in all, about a half a page.  Not much, really, for the (short) story of my life as it's unfolded here so far since April.  Not once did I mention neighbors, or, for that matter, wine.  I did, however, mention having worked as a bartender here in some shit resto for three weeks before running away screaming at that horror of it all.  Even then I had only ever talked about cocktail-making.  Hmmm.

"I've never drank wine with my neighbors.  In fact, I'm not sure what you're referring to."  (I've sat in the back garden and drank wine alone, but I didn't tell P. that.)  I was trying to be polite.  I should have just told her that she was, unfortunately, mistaken.  And, that I'd never said anything about neighbors, or wine.  She responded by saying, "You might have a head for faces, but I have a head for what people tell me."  I should hope so, given her job.  However, this time she was off-base.  I felt I had to defend my position by saying, "Look.  I've never really met the neighbors.  I sort of know what they look like, but that's about it."  (Meanwhile she's still looking somewhat unconvinced.)  So, then I said, "There are no front gardens on the block where I live, so there's no physical space to hang out with folk at the front of the house and drink wine, or, for that matter, do anything."  Now, it was her turn to look confused.  She then asked, "Don't you live in blah-blah-blah Street?"  I responded that I did.  She looked over at the half page of notes that is my London life, and then said, "Ah, sorry.  I'm having a senior moment.  Sorry."  Why she couldn't have looked a bit sooner at her "cheat sheet" I don't know.  It would have spared us that awkward moment.

So, there must be someone else who's in therapy with P. that lives on my street.  I'm a bit jealous as her neighbors seem to want to hang out and drink with her!  I've got two women on one side who I've never really seen except through the front window when they're on their way in or out, and a small family on the other that never seem to be home.  The kid of that family, a ten year old, made sure to tell us when we moved in that our house isn't a Victorian, if we didn't already know, but a Georgian.  Thanks, boy wonder!  Where's the wine?

We'll see what next week brings.  Maybe I'll get to hear, by virtue of another senior moment of P's, another interesting escapade her other client is on the fence about participating in.  Heck, I'll trade ya!

Word to the Foreign

1.  Window cleaners in the UK often wear non-descript clothes and drive unadorned vehicles.  This does not mean that they are casing your block for a future break-in.  It just means that they're working CLEANING WINDOWS.

2.  Most plumbers, electricians, and the like will already have a key to your flat (given to them by the landlord), and, on the appointed day, will simply let themselves in in order to start doing work.  If you'd prefer that they don't just come in while you're in the shower, or otherwise indisposed, then put your key in the bolt lock and lock it from the inside, so that no one may enter first before you've had a chance to put your trousers on.

3.  Always offer those who are checking your boiler, smoke alarms, etc... a cup of tea for their troubles.  It's the polite thing to do.  And, he/she will both accept and drink it (even if you live in an area where the water needs to be strained for its heavy mineral content). :S

4. Questions regarding trash collection and recycling are to be directed to your local council.  Collection may vary not only from block to block, but from house to house.  If you've moved into a flat/house with no actual front space, then you're to put out sacks (recycling and compost sacks are council provided) weekly on the front pavement.  Your neighbor with the front garden need only drop his trash into the bins provided him while you must drag your sacks from the back garden through the house to the front on a weekly basis.  -can't wait for the rain!

A Sikh in Yuba City.

If I didn't know any better, then I'd say that Greenwich is, indeed, the "Mayberry" of London.

For those of you under 30, "Mayberry" is the fictitious town in which all the wonderfully friendly characters of  "The Andy Griffith Show" resided in.  There was Opie (Richie Cunningham/director of "Cocoon"and so on...), Aunt Bee, the dopey Don Knotts character,  Barney Fife, and, of course, Andy himself in the title role as the sheriff.  When on the job, Andy always seemed to have time to stop for a chat at the barber's place, visit with the gas station attendants*, and shoot the breeze with deputy Fife.  Like Andy, most people in Mayberry always seemed game for a friendly tete-a-tete where ever they went.  Amazing.  -not so in NYC.  And, one would have thought, not so in London.  

*aka "Gomer Pyle"

Perhaps things really are different here south of the river.  I had always heard from folk living in No. London that So. London was really "not where it's at".  "You know, it's so 'South London'", they'd tell me. That last bit is always said as if it were actually enough to clue me in to what was meant and what was really going on down here.  Apparently, nothing is supposed to be going on down here, so, if you like that sort of thing, then fine.

Well, I like being chatted to by Bill the plumber about his almost taking a motorbike ride through Arizona,  and where one could go in town for a good draught beer as he's checking that the boiler in our new home works correctly.  I also like David the framer chatting about the local history of Greenwich, and his trip over to Manhattan with his wife years ago as he helps me choose an appropriate frame for my painting.  These transactions really should have taken less time, but with the lovely added bits of small talk my interactions took on more of a hue of friendly banter.

My last unexpectedly friendly and chatty interaction happened yesterday at the local post office/sundry store.  This joint is run by a Sikh family and watched over by a tired yet, I'm sure, still feisty shar-pei called, "Molly".  I'd gone in to the shop intending to finally buy postcards to send folk back home in California.  What I got, in addition to postcards of the Cutty Sark and the Royal Observatory, was very nice small talk from the man at the front of the store minding the sundries till, and, really interestingly, inquisitive yet nice chit-chat from another man at the back postal counter.  I mean, come on now, when was the last time you had a really nice interaction with someone at your local post office? 

Postal Sikh made sure to give me choices with regard to what sort of stamps I'd like there to be on my postcards.  He offered me the most "attractive" ones instead, he said, "boring" ones.  Nice job.  He also asked where in the states I was from, then proceeded to tell me that he'd been to San Jose, San Francisco, and, get this, Yuba City.  Now the first two cities mentioned, well, not really SJ, but, anyway, the first two cities I could see his having visited.  San Jose, with 1 million inhabitants, does have an international airport and people from all over the globe living there, so it's conceivable that he has relatives there as well.  San Fran, for fairly obvious reasons,  I could certainly see his having been to.  Yuba City, on the other hand, most people in No. Cal have probably never even heard of let alone visited.  In grade school, Californian pupils are taught our states history, and, with that, we learn about the Gold Rush.  Coupled with that and the fact that my family annually vacationed in this area when I was a child, I know about Yuba City, Ca.  But how, I wondered, had the postal clerk saw fit to make his way there, too?  So, I asked him.

Yuba City Victorian ca. 1899

Factoids about Yuba City and its environs:

Yuba City is approx. 40 miles north of Sacramento, California's capital.

The area in and around Yuba City is part of former "Gold Rush" country, and, as such, began experiencing waves of int'l settlers beginning in the mid-1850s.

Sikhs have been living in NE California for over one hundred years, and Yuba City, in particular, is home to a sizable Sikh community.

The friendly postal clerk's grandfather lives in Yuba City.

Flats to let...

or, as we say back home, "apartments for rent."  However you slice it, it's still a tough piece of cake to get your fork into.  Letting agents are plentiful and flats slip through one's grasp fairly quickly.  I've recorded numerous places from various websites, and called on them only to find that they've been let.  The letting agent then makes sure to "register" you, so that he or she may then contact you when other like properties become available.  Given the high demand for flats in the capital, it would seem a challenge to get anyone to phone back.  Especially if one's initial contact with an estate agent is simply over the phone.  I can't imagine that my having an American accent would endear them to me.  Perhaps it would be quite the opposite.  An American friend of mine living in London for the past 15 years said to me recently, "Everyone thinks that Americans living here are rich."  So, I suppose that these commissioned-based estate agents see piles of cash when we walk into their places of business.

The only bit that I do like about the whole estate agent-handled-letting is that the agents themselves will chauffeur you, the potential renter, around town to various properties you're to see in their company car.  It's a great way to see the city, but not have to pay a cab driver's fee.

One of the, ahem, "cabbies" called James took the bf and I around Shoreditch in a scruffy-looking VW Polo.  You'd have thought he was Steve McQueen in "Bullitt" what with all the speeding around sharp corners and zooming inches away from parked cars and pedestrians as he took us to different rental properties.  The best was when his phone rang--as it did numerous times throughout our car ride--and he said, "Oh, it's the office, I've got to take this..." and answered the call.  From my vantage point in the back seat, I could see the face of his iPhone.  The caller ID from "work" came up as "Super Spurm".  Um, yeah, charming workmates, bro.

After seeing flats in Clapton, Shoreditch, Greenwich, and Highbury, we've put in an offer (you'd think we were attempting to buy a house!!) and, had it accepted, on a place in Greenwich, a lovely area just south of the Thames.   What with all the Bank Holidays and Royal Wedding shenanigans we've hardly had a decent work week to work within in this country since we've landed, so, hopefully, today we'll find out if our vetting has yielded positive results.  Can you believe that one needs both a solid reference from former landlords and friends alike?  Finding a friend to say that I'm a decent sort with no obvious problems would be a easy.  Our NYC landlord, to whom we'd given a month's notice, and who charged us for the entire month of April although we had flown to LN on the 20th of that month, whose apartment we then did not clean in its entirety, might not be the go-to person for a good reference.   

Anyway, fingers crossed that all goes according to plan, and we'll be ensconced down in the Village of Green soon!

Update as of May 6th: the letting jackass, um, agent, who, BTW, is like the "Dougie Howser" of letting agents, has been jerking our chain for the past week, and we didn't even know it.  I feel a bit of a fool, really, but I just couldn't believe that some little, rosy-cheeked, pip squeak in an ill-fitting suit would be so deceitful.

At the end of April, we saw the Greenwich flat and quickly put in an offer.  We were told by the letting agent that the landlord would prefer a long-term lease.  THREE years long was the story.  Balking, but feeling like we didn't want this place to slip through our fingers, we said, 'yes, but with a get-out clause at 24 mos.'  Then we heard nothing for a few days.  Jonathan, our young man at the agency, came back with the 'green light' and the bf and I began filling out paperwork.  This was two days back.  The next day, yesterday, we were informed that the landlord wanted only a one-year contract, that he'd 'changed his mind'.  That he thought that that 'was best for him'.  Fully perplexed at this point, we could only assume that the landlord was inexperienced at his post, and we weren't sure that we wanted to deal with him any more.  Then the letting agent told us that "the landlord just doesn't want to do it anymore.  -maybe he has another offer..."  The deal was off.  The bf, thoroughly fed up at this point, then asked for our very hefty deposit back.  Supposedly, the transfer of money took place yesterday, but the funds have yet to show up in bf's account.

To all who think they'll be renting in the UK:  estate agents are a, somewhat, necessary evil.  Don't trust 'em as far as you can throw 'em.  If you're keen on trying the non-agent route, then might I suggest this site: http://www.gumtree.com/