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...