we were due for some good news. waking up this afternoon, hung over from a night out in Shoreditch which ended in a walk home from Waterloo and a fight that ended in tears, Lou checked her email to find out that she won the job she interviewed for last monday, and waited all week for word on. it's something i applied for on her behalf a week and a half ago now. a Tester for an IT project running out of one of the universities. at £90/day, it's better paid than almost any of the admin work she's been looking at for the last month or so, and if she's lucky it might lead to a better career than being a recptionist. it's only a 2 week trial to start with, but i have every confidence that she'll make it through that just fine. it's great news, especially because it will ease the financial situation. Lou was always going to run out of cash before i was, and this means that it'll just be me bleeding cash onto the pavement.
speaking of bleeding cash, i finally bit the bullet yesterday and dropped a stack of cash on Regent St. i'd gone on a wander on friday evening after leaving Leicester Square. it was 4PM, getting dark, and i was in no mood to head home just yet so i wandered up there. it's barely even a 5 minute walk fromee Leicester Square - you cut across the north end, cross a couple of roads and you find yourself in Piccadilly Circus. Regent St heads off there directly to Oxford Circus. i'm still trying to work out the local meaning of the word, but there are a few of them around. anyway, i meandered up and down the street for a while trying stuff on, came up with a couple of candidates and decided to come back again later. when i spoke to Lou she was entirely up for the idea of spending someone else's money so on Saturday afternoon we headed in.
after dismissing the candidates i'd come up with the day before we wound up back in Tom Baker which i've been led to believe is something of a boutique. 20% off everything, you say? the niciest jacket i've seen so far, you say? give me that, and that and i'll pay Richard Branson off shortly. it's warm, comfortable and very very nice, as is the shirt i picked up (since the discount covered the cost of a really nice shirt i figured that i might as well consider it to be a package deal). i didn't want to be spending the money just yet but i'm past caring right now. it was a nice little pick-me-up and now i'll be warmer when we go out in the evening.
tomorrow i'm meeting with another pimp about a job out near Earling Broadway - at the far west-end of the Central Line. it'd mean around a 45 minute commute, but there are far worse commutes to be had in this town and right now, it'd be worth it to be able to get into work. get me though the next 3 months, get some cash into me so that i don't feel guilty every time i order a beer and hopefully get me past the current economic insanity. there are a couple of others i have to chase up about other roles, and another meeting on wednesday.
right now i'm sitting on the floor of our room with my Eee on my lap while i watch Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. i upgraded the OS on this thing from Hardy Heron (8.04) to Intrepid Ibex (8.10) a couple of days ago, partly in the hope that it'd fix some of the problems i was having, but mostly because i was kinda hoping that it'd break a few things that i could put some time and effort into fixing. i think it's all back up and running again now - i spent 3 or 4 hours earlier testing the speakers, microphone, camera, Skype, networking, all the functions i use. now it works i've started reading up on schematics with vague thoughts of pulling it to pieces and messing with the hardware. i'm liking the idea of installing a couple of LED's in the screen frame which are powered off the backlight (or something like that) so that i can see the keys when i use this thing in the dark. it's a silly project, but it'd keep me occupied, and my mind switched on for quite a while. not that i have the tools i need here - drill, files, multimeter, soldering iron, none of these things. perhaps if i'd been a little less preoccupied before i left i'd have done it before i left, but what the hell.
but hey - at least we met some interesting people last night.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
every once in a while...
since i got here i've been cruising the markets and high streets looking around for a new jacket. my beloved Safety Trench (think Linus' Safety Blanket in Peanuts) sits packed into a suitcase under my old bed in Canberra - a last-minute executive decision leaving it behind as too old, ratty, threadbare and more importantly; thin to cope with the cold here - and so i've been trying to find something nice to take its place.
we've shopped high, we've shopped low, from Brixton to Beckenham, Camden to Croydon, the haute couture of Knightsbridge to the bright lights and crowds of Mayfair. yesterday i was in a shit of a mood and went for another wander up Regent St in the evening. evening here, now, starts at about 4PM - it's well and truly night by 5 and i can see this getting even more extreme. walking outside at midday will see the sun low, low in the sky to the south, not to rise higher until deep into the new year. i had a nice time walking the streets on my own, ducking and darting trough the throngs of friday-evening shoppers. today i dragged Lou back in because, godsdammit i'm getting cold! singlet, long-sleaved tshirt, hoodie, leather jacket and i'm still feeling it.
the candidates i picked out last night were met with disinterest from my fashion consultant. eventually we wound up back at the store i'd lingered in a few weeks ago. 20% off everything in store, you say? the nicest jacket i've seen since i got here, you say? and it's gorgeous - the sort of style that i like. it's showy, but conservative, a magenta-purple lining flashing out as you move. mached up with a violet/silver/black shirt (with cuff links) and my credit card took a £244 hit today.
still, walking off towards the bus (my regular buses go up Regent Street, past Trafalgar square, then straight on towards my house) i was looking a million dollars, and i was warm.
i needed this. it's stupid - i can handle deprivation if i've got something to distract me from it all. greasy food, staying in a backpackers, in an exotic location? no worries? sitting on my hands for weeks on end while the pimps whinge to me about the job market and how hard it is and how great my CV is but right now they specifically need a Server Engineer with experience in a Bank, cleaning out the bonobo cage at the zoo and jizz-mopping at ClubX who'll take £100/day to do a demeaning job headfirst in a bucket of shit? you know, not so much
fuckit. at least i'm going to be wandering the streets in a beautiful jacket i could never have found back home, in the land of the surfies, "pre-stressed" denim and the "doesn't come in black" fucking blandness. fuck it and fuck them all - for a while i'm going to feel like i look good.
i'll get dressed up in it all and get some photos taken soon, i swear. right after i have a shave...
we've shopped high, we've shopped low, from Brixton to Beckenham, Camden to Croydon, the haute couture of Knightsbridge to the bright lights and crowds of Mayfair. yesterday i was in a shit of a mood and went for another wander up Regent St in the evening. evening here, now, starts at about 4PM - it's well and truly night by 5 and i can see this getting even more extreme. walking outside at midday will see the sun low, low in the sky to the south, not to rise higher until deep into the new year. i had a nice time walking the streets on my own, ducking and darting trough the throngs of friday-evening shoppers. today i dragged Lou back in because, godsdammit i'm getting cold! singlet, long-sleaved tshirt, hoodie, leather jacket and i'm still feeling it.
the candidates i picked out last night were met with disinterest from my fashion consultant. eventually we wound up back at the store i'd lingered in a few weeks ago. 20% off everything in store, you say? the nicest jacket i've seen since i got here, you say? and it's gorgeous - the sort of style that i like. it's showy, but conservative, a magenta-purple lining flashing out as you move. mached up with a violet/silver/black shirt (with cuff links) and my credit card took a £244 hit today.
still, walking off towards the bus (my regular buses go up Regent Street, past Trafalgar square, then straight on towards my house) i was looking a million dollars, and i was warm.
i needed this. it's stupid - i can handle deprivation if i've got something to distract me from it all. greasy food, staying in a backpackers, in an exotic location? no worries? sitting on my hands for weeks on end while the pimps whinge to me about the job market and how hard it is and how great my CV is but right now they specifically need a Server Engineer with experience in a Bank, cleaning out the bonobo cage at the zoo and jizz-mopping at ClubX who'll take £100/day to do a demeaning job headfirst in a bucket of shit? you know, not so much
fuckit. at least i'm going to be wandering the streets in a beautiful jacket i could never have found back home, in the land of the surfies, "pre-stressed" denim and the "doesn't come in black" fucking blandness. fuck it and fuck them all - for a while i'm going to feel like i look good.
i'll get dressed up in it all and get some photos taken soon, i swear. right after i have a shave...
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
savouring the fruits of failure...
it's been nearly 2 weeks since i've really felt the need to say anything. it'd be nice to say that this was because i'd been so busy enjoying myself, running around the place that i've not had the time. realistically it's because i've not really done a whole lot. as the costs of living start to bite, and the job hunt proves fruitless, i've been lying low a lot of the time. last week Lou and i headed off to see the local fireworks display for Guy Fawkes Day (me with my V For Vendetta Guy Fawkes mask and all) on the wednesday, then another on the Thames for the Lord Mayor's Show. we wandered Oxford St for a couple of hours on the Monday, and Camden Town a couple of days later. the rest of my time was spent applying for jobs, calling agents, doing interviews (with mixed success) and then chilling out for the evening with the help of Fallout 3.
my job hunting has been a little different to usual. because i'm going through a consulting and umbrella company i've been making use of their office space on many of the days. they have coffee and phones i can use and with the cost of making calls it more than cancels out the bus fare for getting there. that said, this is the hardest i've had to fight to find work in over 5 years. i'll admit that i've had it pretty easy for the last few years in Canberra, but the timing of the fall of the local stock market was cripping and i was wholly unprepared. as it is i've interview for 3 roles. one of them i got, but in a risky move i turned it down because i had 2 more interviews coming up which were more the sort of work i want to do. perhaps i should have taken it, but there was no way to be sure of any outcome and i felt it was worth the risk.
i can say that Camden Town was a funky little area - an entire market of hippie-clothes and accessories, a couple of goth shops which i can see the Canberra Chrome and Perth Sin crowds pecking clean in an orgy of gleeful commerce if but they had the chance, and a generally good vibe. i've found some niceish clothes in and around the place, although most of them outside my current budget. 280 Pounds for a nice coat isn't HORRIBLE when you're earning (and the purple lining was as sexy as chocolate-dipped lesbians), but i wasn't going to spend it right there and then. oddly, Knightsbridge (which is where you can find the buitique stores for Prada, Versache and so forth) was oddly disappointing. Harrods was an exhibition of oppulance and wealth - coats i'd have been happy enough to pay a couple of hundred for basking in the glow of their P999.99 price tags. the Dodi & Dianna memorials (there are two) are... gaudy? i'm not sure if that word addequately describes the lack of taste displayed, but you should never underestimate the love of an extremely rich man for his son. that said, the food court was insane (and amazingly reasonably priced), the Egyptian Escalators incredible (if tacky) and the live singer performing Ave Maria walked to the edge of her balcony so that she could smile and wave at me which put a flattered smile on my face for the following hour.
i vaguely enjoyed Harvey Nichols, although there was nothing much in there that i could see myself wanting to wear. the rest of it was... boring and overpriced, really. Petticoat Lane, i've been told, is something i should go and check out.
we've been getting out here and there when we can in an attempt to keep our spirits up. i'm getting ground down by the constant energy-expenditure of cold- and warm-calling pimps day in and day out. Lou's been having the same problems but with even less motivation, and she's been pining for Paully pretty heavily. we've been here a month now, and the cracks are starting to show in the both of us. another week, i think, and we're going to be looking to change track. maybe make that trip to Amsterdam we'd talked about, or something like that. i don't know, but sooner rather later we're going to have to think of something before someone goes Postal...
my job hunting has been a little different to usual. because i'm going through a consulting and umbrella company i've been making use of their office space on many of the days. they have coffee and phones i can use and with the cost of making calls it more than cancels out the bus fare for getting there. that said, this is the hardest i've had to fight to find work in over 5 years. i'll admit that i've had it pretty easy for the last few years in Canberra, but the timing of the fall of the local stock market was cripping and i was wholly unprepared. as it is i've interview for 3 roles. one of them i got, but in a risky move i turned it down because i had 2 more interviews coming up which were more the sort of work i want to do. perhaps i should have taken it, but there was no way to be sure of any outcome and i felt it was worth the risk.
i can say that Camden Town was a funky little area - an entire market of hippie-clothes and accessories, a couple of goth shops which i can see the Canberra Chrome and Perth Sin crowds pecking clean in an orgy of gleeful commerce if but they had the chance, and a generally good vibe. i've found some niceish clothes in and around the place, although most of them outside my current budget. 280 Pounds for a nice coat isn't HORRIBLE when you're earning (and the purple lining was as sexy as chocolate-dipped lesbians), but i wasn't going to spend it right there and then. oddly, Knightsbridge (which is where you can find the buitique stores for Prada, Versache and so forth) was oddly disappointing. Harrods was an exhibition of oppulance and wealth - coats i'd have been happy enough to pay a couple of hundred for basking in the glow of their P999.99 price tags. the Dodi & Dianna memorials (there are two) are... gaudy? i'm not sure if that word addequately describes the lack of taste displayed, but you should never underestimate the love of an extremely rich man for his son. that said, the food court was insane (and amazingly reasonably priced), the Egyptian Escalators incredible (if tacky) and the live singer performing Ave Maria walked to the edge of her balcony so that she could smile and wave at me which put a flattered smile on my face for the following hour.
i vaguely enjoyed Harvey Nichols, although there was nothing much in there that i could see myself wanting to wear. the rest of it was... boring and overpriced, really. Petticoat Lane, i've been told, is something i should go and check out.
we've been getting out here and there when we can in an attempt to keep our spirits up. i'm getting ground down by the constant energy-expenditure of cold- and warm-calling pimps day in and day out. Lou's been having the same problems but with even less motivation, and she's been pining for Paully pretty heavily. we've been here a month now, and the cracks are starting to show in the both of us. another week, i think, and we're going to be looking to change track. maybe make that trip to Amsterdam we'd talked about, or something like that. i don't know, but sooner rather later we're going to have to think of something before someone goes Postal...
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