A local house is identified by this sign outside. I never had
the urge until now. I can hardly wait for my rock climbing shoes
to arrive.

Fork Up

In Britain, by law, you must pay more to eat in some place
nice.

A patron at a local Grease & Chips shop had to fork out
more dough between mouthfuls. He apparently sat in the “nice”
seats, where he had access to amenities like cutlery, padded
seats and a table at the right height. If he were clever, he
would have perched against the wall on the stools up front with
the rest of the lepers and common scum. I know I would have. Not
good enough for us lepers, hmm?

Small Cars Get Smaller

We saw a local contraption that was more motor than car. It
was literally an engine with a seat behind it and three wheels
thrown on for good measure. The entire contraption was about the
height and weight of my cat and went like snot. (What an odd
expression. I better buy some more man-sized Kleenex.)

Surge Tide Warning

Our friends in London phoned us up to bring news of extreme
tides scheduled for our area. “DANGER! DANGER!” said the news. We
live but half a block from the sea in a property that is mostly
sunken compared to our neighbors. “Oh boy!” I thought, picturing
mounting rental discounts as we perch in our upstairs room.
Actually, our six-page tenancy agreement makes us responsible for
most things including floods, pestilence, and famine.

I was rather disappointed when the sea didn’t even touch the
hundred-foot wall guarding the roadway.

The winds did come up quite spectacularly, whisking away
garbage and unanchored locals. That night a clatter arose from
the roof

<CREEK!>

<THUMP!>

<BUMP!>… <Bump>… <bump> … < b i n g
>

I hope that wasn’t Santa Claus.

More likely it was the expensive-looking satellite dish on the
roof going for a wee walkabout. Now we’ll be in trouble for not
huddling on the roof through the storm, bracing the dish. (Or
more likely clinging to the dish with feet flying.)

Movies

We saw
End of Days
in London for $22.50 a person. Good thing we picked the cheap
seats. Got popcorn and a drink too for considerably less than a
down payment on a Volkswagen.
End of Days
is fine if you shift your brain into neutral and learn to enjoy
Arnie’s acting.

They gave us our money’s worth by treating us to an extra 25
minutes of pre-movie commercials. Most of it bizarre enough to my
proper Canadian mind as too quickly slip through the tender net
of memory. One commercial did stand out though:

Audio: Man and a woman in bed giggling and laughing.

Visual: Bedroom, side of bed barely in camera.

The man grunts with effort and a pair of men’s socks in tossed
into view.

Shirt… <giggle> belt… <giggle, giggle>
trousers… and finally with a grunt and sigh his briefs drop
into view.

He sounds pleased and expectant.

“And THAT too!” she chides

<Sigh> <Grumble>… and on the dresser is placed a
large Australian beer.

Voiceover: “Beer too good to put down.”

Advertising

Being loosely affiliated with the advertising industry (or is
that afflicted), I find it disconcerting to be, um, disconcerted
by British ads.

Figure 1

Today’s paper features a full-colour, double half-page
spread for Marlboro. A forest is burning in front of a black,
swampy river filled with brutish crocodiles. “Welcome to
Marlboro country.” I guess we know what happened to the
Marlboro man. He didn’t die of lung cancer. He was an amateur
rural pyromaniac before succumbing to guilt and stumbling into
the turgid river to become crocodile-smoked beef jerky.

Figure 2

A series of huge bus shelter adverts designed apparently to
humanize the perception of the disabled:

2a – Picture: man in wheelchair. Caption: “I spent my
paycheque at the pub.” Oh, I feel so much better about him now.
He’s a drunken git like me.

2b – Picture: Woman in wheelchair with friend. Head: “She’s
such an embarrassment”. Subcaption: “Her laugh is so dirty.”
Ah, another person like me. An embarrassment.

I must be getting old. Subtle reverse meta-humour is offending
my political correctness.

More Financial Fun

We had lunch at the Smuggler’s Pub. (Formerly headquarters for
a successful cross-channel smuggling gang until their leader was
taken away on trumped up sheep stealing charges. I suspect it has
undergone a name change.) Michelle had a nice little sandwich
with fries and a pop. I had some french bread with cheese, raw
onion salad, and a Coke. Being a Stilton cheese virgin, I had to
take it on faith, when my plate arrived, that visible pustules of
mold were in fact intentional and not a result of cost-cutting.
It tasted like extra, extra sharp Mozzarella, vintage 1987. The
pustules were not a result of cost-cutting. Total cost $28.75

The Euro just fell to 1.004 against the U.S. dollar, down 15%
since inception. Hmm.

PS – We’re having fun. Really we are. All these files should
be taken with a smile and a smirk. Tomorrow we get to party like
it’s 1999. And eight hours ahead of all you Millennium laggard
Canadians. Happy New Year!

PPS – It would be interesting should the millions that head
into London by rail to party discover that Y2K has stopped the
trains at midnight. At least the party hats will keep their heads
warm.

What a cute notion to fly a kite next to the crashing surf.
But these were not ordinary kites. The kites themselves were
little parachutes, and their masters were decked out in extreme
kite wear. The huge contraptions seemed to take great joy in
launching their captors high into the air and then dragging them
across the beach. As I recall, sandpaper is made from sand.

Fortunately, Brighton does not have sand.

Brighton has pebbles.

Imagine sandpaper made out of pebbles. Imagine this very
quickly passing over your face. Hence, the extreme wear.

Apparently, I was witnessing para-boarding, or sailing, or
some such thing. Put yourself on a surfboard (tricky), fly an
overgrown kite (trickier), and let it pull you across huge waves
without falling off (trickiest). Here we have a sport that
combines the best traits of frustration and humiliation with
random Pavlovian reinforcement of pain. I was surprised I wasn’t
instantly hooked.

This is a buddy sport. You steady your kite. Your buddy jumps
on you. You bound down the beach out of control with your buddy
affixed to your ankle. He’s not just holding you down but trying
to affix a surfboard to your flying feet. Just when you think you
have it, a huge wave crashes over you, buddy and surfboard. Do
not let go. Repeat, do not let go of the kite, despite pebbles
cramming deeper into your nasal cavity.

Eventually, our hero did get into the water. He sailed at the
speed of sound, hit a sea turd, and did a salty face plant.
Instantly he was yanked full out the water to do the face plant
again.

Yank!

Splash!

Oof!

Yank!

PLOOSH!

Ugh!

Yank!

Do not let go. Remember the mantra.

When he was far, far out, I begin to wonder about the kite
dunking itself. Maybe a 1/2 mile swim through raging surf
attached to leaden kite is good exercise.

Extreme Hazards

Our intrepid surfer would have a much easier time if it were
not for wild Brighton sea turds. Apparently the pipe from my
little commode (and every one else’s) leads directly to the sea.
Yes, folks, raw sewage, toilet paper and all, from a major
population center dumped directly into the sea. But it’s ok, the
pipe goes out beyond the swimming area so your chance of coming
face to face with this morning’s deposit are slim. Thanks to the
tourism board, they process it in the summer into a more
consistent paste to reduce chunkiness. Did I mention the
popularity of curry?

Extremely Commercial Weather

“And now the Barbados Tourism Authority weather: London -
Rain. South East – Windy and rain. Forecast – Dull, wet and
windy.”

It seems English weather is sponsored by Barbados Tourism.
It’s sort of the opposite of trying to sell fridges to the
Inuit.

I wonder if they take plastic? I’d like to order some wicked
sunshine for Brighton.

Extreme Behaviour

This morning greeted us with an exceptionally windy seaside
day. My morning tour to the sea was interrupted as I watched a
familiar face chase his hat down the block. I flapped my arms
lightly against the gale in sympathy. He retrieved his hat, waved
his hands in the air, let out a whooping yell, and marched up to
plant himself but inches from my face. I could see quite clearly
his two front teeth were mostly gold, which worked nicely with
whole rasta-man gig he had going.

My small demonstration of solidarity was all he needed. He
clapped his large black hand on my back and grinned even wider.
We were brothers against the storm.

“Oh what a crazy world it is, mon, ” he exclaimed loudly into
my face. It was genuine Jamaican-rasta with a British accent.
“Why can’t we all a just be happy, my friend? Why just a last
night night I was a singing and a laughing and a yelling MERRY
CHRISTMAS! And you know what?”

I stared into his face. I didn’t know what.

“Well, I tell you what,” he continued with another thunderous
pat on my back. “They came and tried to take me away. Oh, yes,
they did. They wanted to puts a me in an institution just for
being happy now. An institution!” Except he said
INSTA-TOOOoo-SHUN
.

I patted him on the backm and he was satisfied that I
understood. I’m now an unofficial rasta-storm-brother. I get my
secret handshake next week.

Extreme Conspiracy

I was greeted by an unusual sight when I finally continued
down to the ocean. A large section of the beach was sectioned off
with high fences and patrolled by plainclothed guards in bright
yellow pants. (On the beach plain clothes include bright yellow
pants.) Far beyond the fences on the beach were more men from the
yellow pants unit scurrying around several large, carefully
tarped objects. I had obviously stumbled across the covert yellow
alien space craft retrieval unit.

I approached the guard. I knew it! He was a dead ringer for
Mulder. Now where was that sexy Sculley?

He ran an unconvincing story about fireworks tonight.
Celebrate the shortest day of the year he said. (He really did
look like Mulder.) Even the English aren’t silly enough to
celebrate the lack of sun, are they?

That night we dashed out of the house into gale force winds in
response to several terrific bangs. The crowds were gathered
thick and sure enough… there were no fireworks. Instead, one of
the large towers, now untarped, was on fire.

Instead of launching fireworks into the sky, it simply fell
over slowly and burst into multicolored flames. <Fzzzz>
<Crackle> <Crackle>

The yellow pants unit scurried like…well, not like
ants…like British. They casually walked around the burning
carcass, as if nothing was wrong, and lit up the ground displays.
These were supposed to spin and sparkle like Chinese wheels. They
flapped madly in the gale, letting off streams of glowing
fireflies.

The second tower did a bit better. Instead of falling over and
catching fire it stood firm and caught fire. <fzzz>
<Crackle> <Crackle>

The yellow unit let the crowds watch the burning towers a
while longer, thanked everyone, thanked the corporate sponsors,
and bid us goodnight. As we walked home, I secretly admired the
cunning of the yellow unit as the alien crafts burned in full
public view.

Food must either go bad faster here, or we North Americans are
used to rancid. The roast chicken is labelled EAT WITHIN 24
HOURS. It’s good for up to an hour unrefrigerated. My grapes
almost expired by the time I got home.

On the plus side, food seems to be less Americanized here.
That is, the ingredient list does not take up two panels of the
cookie box. There is also a lot more organic and vegetarian food
readily available. Well, readily if you are readily rich. Grapes
are $6 a pound. It’s cheaper to fly to Spain for $125 and pick
your own.

Our fridge is small. You might know this, but you do not
understand this. It is SMALL. We have two (2) shelves. Neither is
big enough to fit a 2- litre carton of milk at any angle. The
crisper is the size of a very large hamster. I would kill for the
bar fridge at the office.

In a way, it’s very much like camping out. You carefully pack
and unpack your food each time you need some, taking care not to
create empty pockets. You light your stove with a match. You wear
multiple layers of clothing. It’s the West Coast Trail X 2.5.

Our Beautiful Mews

We live in a mews. It’s much better than living above a fish
and chips shop. It has heat (mostly).

A mews is a converted stable. Our house is a little cottage
(room upstairs, room downstairs) connected to a mews down some
steps. The mews has a very high ceiling but little light because
the only windows face northwest onto a sunken, walled garden.

The obvious solution to this is to put the most outlandish
wallpaper you can imagine up your one-and-a-half-storey walls.
Say, solid metallic silver with deep blue vines and giant yellow
tulips the size of your head. The agent had listed it as
“unusually decorated.”

Actually, the end effect works surprisingly well. It’s like
being a cat crouched in deep grass.

The mews itself contains a kitchen, dining nook and reading
nook plus glass french doors leading out onto a garden. The
kitchen is wide enough for two people stand if they intend to get
very intimate. The garden is big enough to stand with your arms
out and spin if it were not full of shrubberies. It is full of
shrubberies.

Each room is heated by a little wall heater that is
reminiscent of a fireplace. We’ve taken to heating just one room
of the house at a time. At the fish and chips shop, our favourite
saying to anyone who got uppity about the lack of heat was “Put
on another jumper!” To which the standard reply was “I’m already
wearing all my jumpers!”

The English don’t actually believe in insulation. Their
concept of insulation is to build your house smack against your
neighbours’ to steal their heat, those rich coal-hogging
bastards! Hence, our house is surrounded on three sides by our
neighbours sucking our hard-won heat, you coal-hogging bastards!

I think part of our ceiling is someone else’s floor. It’s hard
to tell in urban jungles like this.

The entrance to the house is past a very tall gate and into a
little courtyard, a couple of feet wide and the length of the
“cottage”, filled with plants, stone and shrubberies. At the end
of this, there is a drop into the tiny mews’ garden and a look
into the french doors. When we first arrived, Michelle looked
ahead at the mews and then to the “cottage” on our left and said
“Who lives there?” To which I replied, “You will, Love.”

We live on a dead end back alley lane just a half block from
the main road that runs along the sea wall. Heading few hundred
feet down the sea wall and across another road and an acre of
small stones brings you to the crashing surf! I bounce in my head
every time I think of this.

The whole house is pre-furnished. This is good, because
unfurnished houses are often missing things like carpets, fridges
and stoves.

Cozy is an apt description. Everywhere, there are rugs and
carpets. Rugs on the walls, sofas with cushions, pictures of old
time scenes. Little notes are scattered throughout making the
whole experience seem very much like playing a game of Myst –
exploring someone else’s world.

Despite having minimal light, the place is very lovely and
charming. This is exactly the character-rich kind of house that
one needs in order to know where they truly are.

Indian Pizza. Not surprisingly, and more to my delight than
Michelle’s, Indian cuisine is prevalent here. The local Safeway
has a complete Indian dinner for two next to the frozen pizzas.
I’m curious to discover what lies in the “ethnic” foods
section.

Fish and Chips. Still waiting for decent fish and chips. The
local shop downstairs seems to believe in a long soak in grease
followed by a gentle warming.

Beefy Drink. “Relax and enjoy a comforting Beefy Drink. Just
mix one tablespoon with a cup of water”. Say no more!

Given our new budget I’ve adopted a new diet. I call it
“Anything on Sale.” We’ve had prime cuts of Happy Cow (formerly
Mad Cow) discounted beef.

We’ve been making a study of the locals; well mostly Simon
here at the flat though most people call him Psi. (It’s like
living in a Dr. Who episode.) The preferred diet seems to consist
of grease. Fish and grease. Burgers and grease. Grease and
grease. Every evening we ask Psi what he’s going to have. “Oh, ”
he says getting his coat on, “I think I’ll go out and get me some
grease.” This morning I noted a change in feeding behaviour as
Specimen A dashed out the door with breakfast in hand: Mars bar
and Coke.

Real Estate

I’ve given up explaining what we paid in rent in Canada. It’s
the equivalent to a Canadian being told that we come from a land
where we lived in full sized house with jacuzzi and sauna on a
few acres of green for $200 / month. Be thankful oh you young
Canucks.

Michelle just informed me that we are paying $50 / day in rent
+ utilities on top of that. About the same as a hotel in
Edmonton.

Commercial real estate on the other hand does not seem too far
overpriced. It appears Class B space can be had for £6 / sq
ft or less making it cheaper than our Class A Edmonton office;
well cheaper if we were paying rates than normal mortals pay.

Pssst, Used Railway Tunnel, Sir? For rent. Prime SouthEastern
abandoned railway tunnel. Great for storage, shooting ranges,
bondage and specialty service establishments, clubs. Requires
some cleaning.

Shops and a Jolly Gay Neighborhood

It’s really like living in a giant Old Strathcona. The shops
are just crammed in. Across the street I can see a drugstore,
clothing store, Radio and TV shop, convenience store, bar,
picture shop, knickknack shop and a hardware and ironmonger. The
last one sounds like a crime.

“What are you in for?”

“Ay, mate, they got me for a bit of Hardware and
Ironmongering.”

The pattern repeats on every street across the city.

“Butcher, baker, chemist. Grocer, convenience, pub.”

*Sing it!*

“Butcher, baker, chemist. Grocer, convenience, pub.”

Oh! “Butcher, baker, chemist. Grocer, convenience, pub.”

Yeah! “Butcher, baker, chemist. Grocer, convenience, pub.”

Kindy catchy!

Just down the street is apparently Brighton’s only gay bar and
coffee house. We’re living in gay central which is good because
apparently it adds character and creativity to the neighborhood
and makes us Uber designers.

Everything is within walking distance. A local Jeweler
advertises “Last Jeweler for 25 yards!”.

Weather

Had some variety today. Big storm clouds instead of grey. I’ve
yet to see a soul wearing sunglasses. Bright sun does not seem to
be a predominant concern. Brighton <> Brightsun.

News Flash: Bright sun for several hours. Sat on the roof
above the fish and chips shop watching the sea and reading the
Inland Revenue guide to taxation. Was inspected carefully by
neighborhood patrol seagull who made his opinion known in a brief
and effective ceremony involving a small rooftop deposit. He
didn’t approve of my sunglasses.

Fall. It’s like perpetual early autumn here. All the leaves
are caught in terrible indecision over the trendy colour du jour.
Some, fearing heavy snow, have given it up for the Ally McBeal
twig look. Most sport fashionable green, yellow and auburn.
Weather remains mild with only occasional call for mittens and
flying umbrellas.

Technology

Have been spending our days researching mobiles. This
apparently is a full time occupation that only anal-retentive
North American’s undertake. The local Carphone Warehouse seems
appalled every time we show up with some obscure question. The
manager’s eyes recede and go all beady . Most people apparently
just sign up to Whatever and when quizzed don’t even know what
network they are on. The Warehouse’s first recommendation to us
would have more than doubled our costs.

When people first recommended the Carphone Warehouse, I
pictured in my mind a smaller Futureshop kinda store. Actually
it’s about the size of a decent bathroom with just enough room to
wind up before you sprint for the door. We’ll likely be back
because they are apparently the best in town. A competing store
would take our tough questions, smile and then quickly phone the
Carphone warehouse and thus still end up with the wrong
information.

Would you believe there’s no way to plug your Mac laptop into
a mobile. The best solution involves having a modem in your
laptop, one in your mobile phone and another (expensive) one on a
card in your laptop. I have a potential solution that involves
four different connected cables and gender changers and will of
God. Maybe.

We’re now experts on the subject having stumped even the 1-800
specialists and will be opening our own shop next week.

High Speed Internet

Whenever we ask for this, we get names of Internet Cafes which
are in abundance here. Nobody quite understands this concept of
fast access from home.

Apparently BT’s (UK’s AT&T) ADSL trials were poor because
their routers/hubs couldn’t handle the load. It’s also going to
be expensive. The cable company is coming out with cable modems
but won’t admit to it. Rumour is around March or April. Unlimited
high speed access if you sign a 1 year plan. Limited access for
month-to-month.

Actually the cable company offers all kinds of phone packages
that blow the lid of phone company. If they can expand their
coverage, BT literally will not be able to compete. It is a
crying shame that the Mews won’t be supported until around
April.

Interestingly the Cable company won’t install ISDN in December
because it’s just too laid back a month for the British and they
don’t want to work their technicians too hard.

Currently, it costs about $30,000 / year to get high speed, 24
hour Internet access. (It costs the office under $3000 for speeds
that are better than double.)

BT is going to be selling ADSL to resellers for $120 / month
soon.

Stay Tuned

More funky adventures from the S&M channel coming live to
you from across the ocean. Next weeks episode: How to live in a
converted stable and not freeze to death; a story of hope,
romance and heat.

Now that I’ve been in England more than one week, intending on
being a permanent resident, I feel I have the right to make
cryptic, cynical pronouncements about life in England. Enjoy this
humorous and somewhat barbed rebuttal to Stephen’s earlier
comments.

We were fortunate that Stephen’s cousin Julian offered to
put us up for the first two weeks after our arrival here in
Brighton. Of course, if one is to believe Stephen’s account of
Julian’s apartment, perhaps the offer wasn’t all that fortunate
after all. Myself, however, being made of far sterner stuff than
Stephen, I found Julian’s apartment to be perfectly fine for a
cheap place to live. Now, you might not think that a £600/month
place is a “cheap” place to live but, given the housing situation
here in Brighton at the moment, and the fact that Julian has a
3-bedroom, 3-storey house, £600/month is almost reasonable. Cheap is
what enables us (and Julian!) to save so splendidly on heating.
After all, if the heating doesn’t actually function, then you can’t
spend a fortune on electricity attempting to use it, right? Cheap
is also what enables us to almost never have to vacuum. When the
carpet throughout the house is the colour of dirty sand, you just
don’t easily notice the dirt on it. Ahhhh! The luxuries of
the bachelor apartment!

For a cheap place, though, it has large windows everywhere,
single-paned to be sure, but large windows nonetheless. The walls
and ceiling even bear evidence of recent painting too. What more could a
bachelor ask for? Cable, mobile phones, PlayStations, VCRs,
stereo equipment, and sound editing equipment apparently. The
sandy floor in the living room (or lounge, as the locals
refer to it) is festooned with high-tech music equipment, two
televisions, a PlayStation, and a digital equipment cordless
telephone (DECT phone). This is very amusing when you consider
that the actual inhabitants of this flat spend far less time
here than we do. Maybe they’ve figured out how to use this
stuff remotely?

I hope that the picture I paint of Julian’s flat is neither too
contemptuous nor unflattering. I rather like it except for the heating and
the carpet. I had secret plans to sell all of Julian’s stuff and just take
over the place in order to solve our housing problem. I figure that any
place that is not home to more than 20 species of bugs (unlike some other
places in which I lived) is a fine place to stay. Any place where the roof
doesn’t leak into the walls is also a fine place to stay. Any place where
turning on the microwave doesn’t interfere with television reception
because of ‘noisy power’ is a fine place to stay. If you manage to not
have all these problems in one place then you’ve found a fantastic place to
stay, even if it doesn’t back onto a ravine!

For some reason, completely unfathomable to me, Stephen decided that
finding a place of our own in which to live wasn’t that high of a
priority. After all, what can you do with your own personal place:
open a bank account, have proof of address to get cell phones, have a
place to forward your business calls to, have a place to put all
of your stuff coming by container from Canada, have a place to
sleep after your relatives boot you out on the street? Those don’t
sound all that important, right? Well, apparently they weren’t
to Stephen but luckily I convinced him that we absolutely needed to
find our own place to stay as we could only stay with Julian for
two weeks and then with Anna, a friend from Sussex University, for
the month of December.

Finding a place to stay in Brighton lately necessitates a lot of
visiting estate agencies. Apparently, since the last time I was
in Brighton two years ago, lots of people in the London area hit
upon the clever idea to move to Brighton because they could commute
faster from here via train into London than they could navigate
about London. The result of their cleverness is that the demand
for housing in southeast England, especially Brighton, has skyrocketed,
pushing prices for housing up and seriously impacting the amount of
housing available. For us this meant that we could visit an estate
agency in the afternoon, peruse their daily list of available
properties, and discover that 2/3rds of them were already gone by
the time we’d arrived at the agency. The turnover of rental properties
is really high.

One of the first places we examined was a 1-bedroom apartment that
had sea views from its windows. I think the 1-bedroom part of the
apartment description was being overly generous. When the agent
showed us the bedroom, I couldn’t resist commenting that I’d seen
walk-in closets that were larger. The “bedroom” was just wide
enough to fit a single bed into and then be able to walk in the
narrow aisle created between the bed and the wall to the window.
The rest of the apartment was likewise small, even if it did feature
an “electric shower.” This device, not intended, I’m sure, for
auto-erotic stimulation, heats up your shower water to the desired
temperature using electricity, thus eliminating the need for a
hot water tank which never has enough water anyway.

On another day, we were able to view two potential places.
The first was a relatively modern apartment with two bedrooms,
partially furnished. There wasn’t anything much exciting about it
except that it may have had cable and it cost £700/month! It was
neat, cheerful and bright, but BORING and expensive. Definitely not
EinMaterial.

The other place we were to scope out the agent was reluctant to show us.
Apparently they’d had trouble renting out the place and it had stood empty
since the end of August. The property in question was a converted mews.
For those of us not in the know (like me!), a mews was a place where horses
and carriages were stored and often featured a space for the grooms and
horseboys to live above the horses and carriages. The original building
was constructed in 1860 and featured “unusual decor”. This sounded more
like it. We were far more enthused than the hesitant agent. I loved
it from the moment we stepped in, even if it did smell somewhat musty.
Lots of brick. Lots of wood. Lots of windows. Lots of stairs. Every
single room was on a different level than the others. There was a bedroom
upstairs with two beds, a lounge at the front of the house, a small
sitting room with french doors out to a sunken garden, a small, efficient
modern kitchen, a bathroom with a nice deep tub, and the dining room.

It was the dining room that featured the odd decor. The two walls of the
dining room had been papered from floor to ceiling in a gold wallpaper that
had yellow flowers and vines crawling up it. It sounds rather odd but
given the light in the house and how what little light there was reflected
off the gold paper, it worked wonders to lighten up an otherwise quite
dark area of the house, despite the number of windows. The house did
have windows but they all face west and most of the house was down from
street level. It was, however, a mere block from the sea. If we looked
around the corner from the mews, we could see the sea. We could definitely
hear the gulls.

I loved it. I had to have it, even if the place was furnished was already
well furnished with antiques and rugs and wall hangings and we had a big
whack of stuff arriving from Canada. The agents had recently reduced the
price from £650/month to £600/month in an attempt to get
the place rented out. We had to have it. We pestered the agents
daily. We would have pestered them hourly if I had thought it would
have helped. They provided us with a set of three two-page forms. One set
for each of us and the third set for somebody who would act as a guarantor
in case we decided to skip town. Having only just arrived from Canada, we
of course didn’t have any UK credit history which is what they wanted to
check. We had to provide details of our jobs, our places where we lived,
personal references, and get all this stuff from our guarantor, too.
Again, Stephen’s relatives came to our rescue, with Maggie providing the
needed guarantor reference. Indeed, she turned out to be a Class A
guarantor, just in case anybody else needs one in the future. Even
with her all checked out pure as the driven snow, they still gave us
grief. Stephen’s personal reference turned out to be out of the country
and they were going to hold us up just on that even though everything
else had worked out. After several anxious days, we were finally given
the keys after we gave them £1450 (or more than $3600 CDN)! That’s
almost enough to have a down payment on a house in Edmonton. This was only
the deposit and the first month’s rent and we only have the house until
August. I guess we’ll do the whole thing over or maybe consider buying.
It’s almost as cheap if we could come up with the 15% deposit. <sigh>

Well, at least we’re housed now. Stephen can concentrate on his
number one priority: making us rich so we can afford to shell out
$1500/month in rent. (:

Some time back, bemoaning the lack of trees in our neighborhood, we adopted a couple of stray Christmas trees and lured them back to the flat. (They were lost on the street and it was either that or take them to a shelter or, well, firewood.) Luckily they came with their own pots full of dirt.

These Christmas trees relate to toilets in a way you just don’t want to know. Hang in there.

One of the trees blossomed under our loving care but the other sadly was losing its lust for life. We thought perhaps it had been affected by salty ocean spray. You see, when I found it, it was taking a not-so-thoughtful sojourn to the sea-side.

The Ein had a cunning plan. We would wash the tree. Not only would we wash the needles, but we’d, um, wash the dirt and rocks in the pot. And to make the poor distressed tree even happier, we’d kick his brother out of his nice pot where he was happily thriving and trade pots.

“You’ll kill both trees and plug up our septic system,” I pointed out. I had my doubts about the ‘cunning’ in the cunning plan.

“Maybe everything will be OK, ” she beamed, “and we’ll have lovely, lush trees!”

Maybe.

Well, we washed the tree, the pot, the roots. Despite our best intentions most of the dirt and crap seemed to disappear out of the tub. And now the toilet makes funny noises every time we flush.
You see, our toilet, being a late installation doesn’t flush down. It flushes up. A little pump valiantly lifts all the water and stuff over the wall. Normally it goes “whirrr whirrr whirrrr” combined with a satisfying “grump grump grump” of stuff being pushed up and over.
Recently it started going “whirrr whirrr whirrr” with not so satisfying addition of more “whirrr whirrr whirrr” followed usually by “whirrr whirrr whirrr”

Flush!
Whirrr
Whirrr Whirrr
Whirrr
Whirrr
Whirrr Whirrr Whirrr
Whirrr
Whirrr
Whirrr Whirrr Whirrr Whirrr
Whirrr Whirr
Whirrr Whirrr Whirrr
Whirrr Whirr Whirrr Whirrr Whirrr Whirrr
Whirrr Whirr Whirrr Whirr
Whirrr Whirrr
Whirrr Whirrr Whirrr Whirr Whirr Whirr Whirr Whirr
(wheeeze)

“Perhaps we could suggest to the landlord that the pump isn’t working so well anymore”, Michelle suggested last night.

The last tenants who did this had the pump taken apart and it was found to be clogged with several hundred condoms! We’re not quite certain how he explained this. “Condoms? I have no idea how all those condoms got there! What kind of guy would flush a condom?”

I have visions of the pump being opened up and us having to explain how it came to be covered in pine needles.

“Maybe it wouldn’t be covered in pine needles,” Michelle suggested optimistically, “Maybe it’s covered in rocks!”

“Pine needles and rocks?, ” we would say, “in our pump? No we haven’t been flushing dirt and rocks down our toilet. Of course not. What kind of idiot puts dirt and rocks in the toilet. And we, of course, haven’t been washing Christmas trees or anything like that in the toilet. That’s just silly. They would go round and around when you flushed.”

Of course, if they asked us if we were dumping rocks and needles down our bathtub we’d have to ‘fess up and it would be the end for the adventuring S&M.

The dream? Oh, of course. After a conversation about this right before bed I proceeded to spend the night dreaming about an airplane flight where each window seat had its own toilet conveniently placed at about elbow height into the wall. The toilets were used as a kind of messaging and transportation system. You shoved an object into the back of the toilet next to your seat (at convenient elbow height) and it would be magically transported to one of the other toilets for retrieval. A very classy airline.

I was debugging Michelle’s toilet and was having trouble getting the Hot Wheels car suitably in the back of the toilet. It was clogged with thick mud, rocks and shit. So to speak. As I was up to my elbow into the muck, trying to place my Hot Wheels car, it occurred to me this transportation system may not be too popular with the ladies. Just another crappy airline.

[tweetthis]

Hearing price shock from me is not surprising. What is surprising is how it continually sneaks up and waps me upside the head.

Mini Doughnuts: Remember those little doughnuts that float about the deep fryer on little conveyer belts and pop out fresh and hot at $2 bag or 3 / $5. Well, surprise! The Toonie-sized wonders are here for a reasonable pound note ($2.60). Oh wait, that’s £1 for 3 donuts. Count them: 1-2-3. Ha! Ha! Three little donuts. For those that can’t afford that kind of extravagance they can be purchased *singly* for a mere 35p (86¢).

Coke: Needing my fix, I hit the local Safeway and found cans of Coke on sale. Say, that’s pretty reasonable: a pack for about $4.50. Safeway normally discounted a 12 pack to $4.00 back home. It wasn’t until I tried to pick it up that I found out it was a 6-pack.

Long Distance Savings

5 ¢ a minute to Canada. With the help of the local Tandori and Bangers shop, we acquired a dubious looking card offering 5¢ a minute to Canada through some wierd invisible Internet routing. My first call home was a bit noisy and it clipped a bit if both people talked at once but soon, I believe, the volume of porn traffic on the net decreased. Lo and behold: Clear conversation!

Maybe it’s not actually real. Maybe the conversations I have at this rate are not *true* conversations. It’s like the Matrix movie. I only think it’s a low-cost conversation. It’s just an illusion or lesser reality. Or maybe I’ve been eating too much fish and chips.

Actually it turns out it’s not real. Two calls on the card have almost wiped it out. Must call technical support, get my questions answered and offer proper design.

Found a cell package that gives me cheaper daytime calls than [missing text here. -ed]

Visiting The Brighton Pavillion

For those that havn’t seen this pseudo-palace, it’s sort of the Graceland of 19th century. Indian on the outside – Chinese on the inside. Well, not actually Chinese. The Prince received a gift of some Chinese wallpaper one morning and was so inspired he created a Chinese fantasy palace. The fantasy part is his; this is what Chinese looks like to a proper Englishman. Except the classical British architecture keeps seeping through. Think English stiff chairs on a backdrop of red dragons.

Actually the whole thing is pulled off rather well and certainly says more for good taste than some modern wonders that come to mind. (Atchoo WEM atchoo! <cough> pardon me)

Garbage Collection

We have a backyard. Really, we do. I can see it out the window. We’ve never been there. It is not for us. We are denied. The house just does not go to it. Apparently the fish and chips shop does.

We asked them where to take our garbage. “Oh,” they said, “just put it on the street by the bin like everybody else.” She pointed happily out the window to a wastebasket the size of a small chair. She suspected this was in fact legal because the waste did get taken away. “How often?” we asked. “Oh, I don’t think there’s a schedule. They just sort of come by.” Apparently, this is true but they do just sort of come by three to four times a day, most commonly at about 2 AM when they take great care to crush the glass on the spot and scrape the pavement clean with large iron bars wielded by drunken stampeding elephants.

More Tourist Fun

The Pier: I normally picture piers as places to dock small boats rather than a place to house large, heavy amusement rides and a rollercoaster. Apparently, the Brighton Pier also contains amusement machines that are exceptionally gifted at removing 10p pieces from your pockets.

London

Visited the center of the financial universe but was barred entry. Apparently to leave the train station, one must feed one’s ticket into a machine which determines if you are worthy of passing. I wasn’t. I watched the throngs of worthy gifted people pass through but had to throw myself on the mercy of London security.

You know you’re in England when the local Macs-like convenience store offers magazines, candy and fresh bread.

On the way back discovered an opportunity for a scenic tour of Sussex and area in the dead of night by boarding the right track and wrong train.

Well, apart from being terrified of choosing between rent and food, having a great time!

Cheers lads!

England is well… England. The stereotypes are all true.

Little lanes
Wet weather
Tiny shops
Small cars
Outrageous prices
Little red chimneys
British countryside
All those silly Monty Pythoners everywhere. Two on the corner. One
serving me at the store. Two figuring out how to hire a shopping cart.
Help! I’m stuck in a skit.

It’s like an overdone Hollywood set brought to life.

Flew in from bright sunshine and fluffy into a slow descent into wet and
drizzling. Welcome to London, Stephen Dodd.

Our beautiful [temporary] home.

We have no heat. This is not a mistake. This is a feature.

Our three-storey flat is not heated. We stepped out yesterday to discover it
was warmer outside. It’s like walking into a room and discovering all the
windows have been left open all day. But they’re not. They’re just single
paned with no insulation. And no heating.

Well, that’s no entirely true. When they fire up the deep fryers from the
Fish and Chips shop downstairs, we get leftover Fish and Chip heat. Mmmmm.
Fish and Chip on the brain all day, everyday. Tune into your 24 hour deep
fried fish and chips channel.

Ok, the living room has two wall units that must be plugged in to work
sporadically. You have to keep the living room door closed or the heaters
just laugh at you. I wear thermal long underwear even in the living room.

The bathroom definitely does not have heating. It is very reminiscent of
using an outhouse on a brisk Jasper morning. Actually the “bathroom” on
the top floor is just that – no toilet even though there is a definite spot
for one. In the middle of the night the bathtub almost looks tempting.
(Note to Michelles and mums – note the *almost*. We are civilized. Yes,
yes.)

It’s a relatively large three bedroom flat complete with washer/dryer in
the kitchen for a modest $2000 cdn (or less) a month. It could charitably
be described as run down. The carpets are the color of dirty cement.
Flipping a switch requires a pause while the lights consider. I’m just
now realizing how immaculate our old “adventure” house was.

On the plus side, out the back between buildings, alleys and sorry looking
brick gardens is – barely- a view of the sea! Out the front are double
decker buses that look right into the living room as they go by. If I had
a pole I could poke the bus as it goes by the window. Poke! Aiiieee!

Down the street are dozens of tiny shops including a Safeway with almost
seven or eight aisles. We tried our Safeway Club Card. It didn’t go no
matter how many attempts the clerk made.

Downtown Brighton

Pretend you had a law that said all shops must be built on a back alley.

Now imagine careening down the alley, dodging cars, lorries and
pedestrians, thinking all the time that you were about to exit onto a main
street. But you don’t. The alley’s just lead to lanes. The lanes lead to
more lanes. It’s a good thing the curbs are low because the sidewalk is
often needed as vehicle navigation. It’s like being in a maze, minus the
minotaur plus a car.

I’m glad I wasn’t driving. I kept wanting to pull over to the right which
would have been terrible inconvenient for my insurance record.

There are main streets. It takes two lights to cross them with a wee bit
of tea break in the middle. The roads have “LOOK LEFT” AND “LOOK RIGHT”
painted on them which is very handy as it seems even the locals can’t quite
figure out the traffic.

They love traffic circles here. Big ones, little ones. Odd ones. Whoosh.
Imagine your local residential street corner with a traffic circle.

Land of Culture

Stopped at a convenience store for cell phone magazine. In one corner was
the hardcore porn (can you say 144 pt “SHAG”), in the other family
magazines with pictures of the Queen Mum. In between was this nebulous
area of uncertain content. Blazing headlines and flesh prevailed. I had
no idea if the inside would turn out to be Letters and Lovers of Better
Gardening.

I would expect Pubs to be called the Crow amp; Dog or Iron Keep but the local
pub bears “Spread Eagle.”

Letting a House

We went to two estate agents. They both smiled and looked slightly amused
when we explained we wanted to rent a flat.

One said, “oh, well it’s really quite slow and what we do have is really
quite expensive”. You’ve got to be worried when a sales agent uses the
word expensive.

This is Brighton. The major city south of London. 2 Bedroom flats for
rent: Agent #1 – Two. Agent #2 – One.

Here it seems quite common to purchase a floor of a house with other people
owning other bits and pieces. I can’t quite figure out who then repairs
the roof or fixed the foundation. I suspect the answer is “not”.

We did find a listing for a nice detached house (an uncommon thing) for
rent for only �3400 / month ($8500 cdn).

The market’s going crazy. My relatives insist we should buy instead for
the same price. I’m tempted.

Shopping Carts

Sometimes it’s the little things.

The shopping carts have independent back wheels. This makes it very easy
for parallel parking. Very difficult for turning to avoid little old
ladies or navigating heavy groceries up a steep inclines – like where we
live. Yikes!

The Phone Company

BT Telecom at great expense put out an elaborate booklet and CD-ROM with a
free phone number to call for questions about signing up with them. So I
call the phone company and get “bzzt…This service is temporarily
unavailable. <click>” Somehow it just seem appropriate.

Having Fun

No don’t get me wrong. I’m not bitter. It’s all rather amusing. Quite crazy
actually but that’s alright; you have to be to live here. I’m starting on
it now.

Tomorrow, I see the sea. From here you can hear the Gauls.

Miss you all.

Cheers!