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.