Indian Pizza. Not surprisingly, and more to my delight than
\nMichelle’s, Indian cuisine is prevalent here. The local Safeway
\nhas a complete Indian dinner for two next to the frozen pizzas.
\nI’m curious to discover what lies in the “ethnic” foods
\nsection.<\/p>\n
Fish and Chips. Still waiting for decent fish and chips. The
\nlocal shop downstairs seems to believe in a long soak in grease
\nfollowed by a gentle warming.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Beefy Drink. “Relax and enjoy a comforting Beefy Drink. Just
\nmix one tablespoon with a cup of water”. Say no more!<\/p>\n
Given our new budget I’ve adopted a new diet. I call it
\n“Anything on Sale.” We’ve had prime cuts of Happy Cow (formerly
\nMad Cow) discounted beef.<\/p>\n
We’ve been making a study of the locals; well mostly Simon
\nhere at the flat though most people call him Psi. (It’s like
\nliving in a Dr. Who episode.) The preferred diet seems to consist
\nof grease. Fish and grease. Burgers and grease. Grease and
\ngrease. Every evening we ask Psi what he’s going to have. “Oh, ”
\nhe says getting his coat on, “I think I’ll go out and get me some
\ngrease.” This morning I noted a change in feeding behaviour as
\nSpecimen A dashed out the door with breakfast in hand: Mars bar
\nand Coke.<\/p>\n
Real Estate<\/h4>\n
I’ve given up explaining what we paid in rent in Canada. It’s
\nthe equivalent to a Canadian being told that we come from a land
\nwhere we lived in full sized house with jacuzzi and sauna on a
\nfew acres of green for $200 \/ month. Be thankful oh you young
\nCanucks.<\/p>\n
Michelle just informed me that we are paying $50 \/ day in rent
\n+ utilities on top of that. About the same as a hotel in
\nEdmonton.<\/p>\n
Commercial real estate on the other hand does not seem too far
\noverpriced. It appears Class B space can be had for £6 \/ sq
\nft or less making it cheaper than our Class A Edmonton office;
\nwell cheaper if we were paying rates than normal mortals pay.<\/p>\n
Pssst, Used Railway Tunnel, Sir? For rent. Prime SouthEastern
\nabandoned railway tunnel. Great for storage, shooting ranges,
\nbondage and specialty service establishments, clubs. Requires
\nsome cleaning.<\/p>\n
It’s really like living in a giant Old Strathcona. The shops
\nare just crammed in. Across the street I can see a drugstore,
\nclothing store, Radio and TV shop, convenience store, bar,
\npicture shop, knickknack shop and a hardware and ironmonger. The
\nlast one sounds like a crime.<\/p>\n
“What are you in for?”<\/p>\n
“Ay, mate, they got me for a bit of Hardware and
\nIronmongering.”<\/p>\n
The pattern repeats on every street across the city.<\/p>\n
“Butcher, baker, chemist. Grocer, convenience, pub.”<\/p>\n
*Sing it!*<\/p>\n
“Butcher, baker, chemist. Grocer, convenience, pub.”<\/p>\n
Oh! “Butcher, baker, chemist. Grocer, convenience, pub.”<\/p>\n
Yeah! “Butcher, baker, chemist. Grocer, convenience, pub.”<\/p>\n
Kindy catchy!<\/p>\n
Just down the street is apparently Brighton’s only gay bar and
\ncoffee house. We’re living in gay central which is good because
\napparently it adds character and creativity to the neighborhood
\nand makes us Uber designers.<\/p>\n
Everything is within walking distance. A local Jeweler
\nadvertises “Last Jeweler for 25 yards!”.<\/p>\n
Had some variety today. Big storm clouds instead of grey. I’ve
\nyet to see a soul wearing sunglasses. Bright sun does not seem to
\nbe a predominant concern. Brighton <> Brightsun.<\/p>\n
News Flash: Bright sun for several hours. Sat on the roof
\nabove the fish and chips shop watching the sea and reading the
\nInland Revenue guide to taxation. Was inspected carefully by
\nneighborhood patrol seagull who made his opinion known in a brief
\nand effective ceremony involving a small rooftop deposit. He
\ndidn’t approve of my sunglasses.<\/p>\n
Fall. It’s like perpetual early autumn here. All the leaves
\nare caught in terrible indecision over the trendy colour du jour.
\nSome, fearing heavy snow, have given it up for the Ally McBeal
\ntwig look. Most sport fashionable green, yellow and auburn.
\nWeather remains mild with only occasional call for mittens and
\nflying umbrellas.<\/p>\n
Have been spending our days researching mobiles. This
\napparently is a full time occupation that only anal-retentive
\nNorth American’s undertake. The local Carphone Warehouse seems
\nappalled every time we show up with some obscure question. The
\nmanager’s eyes recede and go all beady . Most people apparently
\njust sign up to Whatever and when quizzed don’t even know what
\nnetwork they are on. The Warehouse’s first recommendation to us
\nwould have more than doubled our costs.<\/p>\n
When people first recommended the Carphone Warehouse, I
\npictured in my mind a smaller Futureshop kinda store. Actually
\nit’s about the size of a decent bathroom with just enough room to
\nwind up before you sprint for the door. We’ll likely be back
\nbecause they are apparently the best in town. A competing store
\nwould take our tough questions, smile and then quickly phone the
\nCarphone warehouse and thus still end up with the wrong
\ninformation.<\/p>\n
Would you believe there’s no way to plug your Mac laptop into
\na mobile. The best solution involves having a modem in your
\nlaptop, one in your mobile phone and another (expensive) one on a
\ncard in your laptop. I have a potential solution that involves
\nfour different connected cables and gender changers and will of
\nGod. Maybe.<\/p>\n
We’re now experts on the subject having stumped even the 1-800
\nspecialists and will be opening our own shop next week.<\/p>\n
Whenever we ask for this, we get names of Internet Cafes which
\nare in abundance here. Nobody quite understands this concept of
\nfast access from home.<\/p>\n
Apparently BT’s (UK’s AT&T) ADSL trials were poor because
\ntheir routers\/hubs couldn’t handle the load. It’s also going to
\nbe expensive. The cable company is coming out with cable modems
\nbut won’t admit to it. Rumour is around March or April. Unlimited
\nhigh speed access if you sign a 1 year plan. Limited access for
\nmonth-to-month.<\/p>\n
Actually the cable company offers all kinds of phone packages
\nthat blow the lid of phone company. If they can expand their
\ncoverage, BT literally will not be able to compete. It is a
\ncrying shame that the Mews won’t be supported until around
\nApril.<\/p>\n
Interestingly the Cable company won’t install ISDN in December
\nbecause it’s just too laid back a month for the British and they
\ndon’t want to work their technicians too hard.<\/p>\n
Currently, it costs about $30,000 \/ year to get high speed, 24
\nhour Internet access. (It costs the office under $3000 for speeds
\nthat are better than double.)<\/p>\n
BT is going to be selling ADSL to resellers for $120 \/ month
\nsoon.<\/p>\n
More funky adventures from the S&M channel coming live to
\nyou from across the ocean. Next weeks episode: How to live in a
\nconverted stable and not freeze to death; a story of hope,
\nromance and heat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Local food, the gay neighbourhoods of Brighton, and real estate. A Stephen special.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[184,193,221,227],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sm-adventur3s","tag-adsl","tag-brighton","tag-food","tag-heat"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/einiverse.eingang.org\/ein2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}