Brilliant Disk Appears in London Sky

Well, after the umpteenth day of rain, the sun has decided to finally show it's face.  But it's only here to tease us, because the rain is due back this evening. Then it's another four days of rain.

Yesterday, it would piss down for an hour.  The sun would come out for few minutes and then the next wave would come in.

We went to Walton-on-Thames late yesterday afternoon for the ANZAC Day ceremony there.  When we got off the train we were in one of those sunny spells.  So, we decided to walk the mile or so to the church - big mistake.  We were half way there and the heavens opened.  We made it to a bus shelter and waited there for a time, but it just kept coming down. We had time, but decided to see if we could find a pub to wait it out.  Just around the corner we found The Wellington on the corner of New Zealand Ave.  So, of course, we went to the door.

[Walton-on-Thames had a NZ military hospital that cared for New Zealand soldiers injured during WWI.  I learned later The Wellington used to be called the Kiwi]

Now we were dressed in suits, shiny shoes, and overcoats with red poppies on our lapels.  Looking through the door window, I saw the pub was filled with working men - jeans, pullovers, sneakers and work boots - drinking beer and watching football.  I said to Rob, "Do we want to go in here?"  Silence.  So, I opened the door and in we went.  All the tables were full, but Rob, always hopeful, went for a walk around the pub to find a seat.

I went to the one open spot left at the bar.  The bartender asked what we would like.  I figured wine was probably a no go given our surroundings.  So, I ordered two Fosters.  Now, you might think that was in the ANZAC spirit, but it wasn't.  It was just that that was the only beer I recognised.

Rob finished his tour of the pub and came over and started looking around the bar like he was deciding what he wanted to drink.  I informed him he was having a Fosters.  The game was playing.  The music was thumping and a voice from behind said, "I see you must like this song."

I realised I was dancing on my barstool to the music.  I wondered if this was going to be a "Pricilla Queen of the Desert" moment.  I turned and said with a laugh, "How'd ya guess?"  A bit more good natured banter followed and then he looked at Rob and asked if we worked for the HMRC?

Now, this guy had one of those accents I mentioned previously.  So, Rob had zero idea of what had been said and he went into his accent induced stunned mullet mode.  Once again, it was left to me.  I'm telling you he's going to get me killed someday, if he doesn't tune his ear.

Anyway, I turned and said to the guy, "No. I don't even know what that is."  The guy seemed happy with that and off he went.  I really did have no idea what HMRC was.  So, out came the iPhone and I googled it.  Turns out it stands for Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs.  Clearly they thought we were taxmen!  Our lives had been in greater danger than we had known.

There was no more interaction, not even to ask if we wanted another beer.  By the time we finished our pints the rain had cleared.  The ceremony was due to begin in half an hour, so off we went.  The next wave of rain held off until just toward the end of the wreath laying.  We went to the supper and then it was back to the train station to head back to London.

As we were leaving Wimbledon, across a puddle the size of Lake Taupo, I noticed a large billboard reminding us that The UK was in drought and we all had to conserve water and a hose ban was in place.  I was wearing soaked shoes, we've had weeks of rain, flood warnings are in place across England and Wales and some rivers have already burst their banks.  In drought?  Really?

Apparently the rain is falling in the wrong month. Go figure.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, after these April 'showers' there damn well better be May flowers bursting forth from the pavement!

Was that Greek or what?

Silence.  Then a flash of confusion with a hint of panic passes across his face.

Seconds earlier, the sales woman at Peter Jones had asked Rob if he wanted his receipt put in the bag.  Once again a Brit had asked Rob a question and he had absolutely no idea what was asked.  Sometimes he looks at me and sometimes he just stares eyes forward as if nothing was asked.  This time it was the latter.  The silence can be painful.  So, I jump in to save him.  "Yes, that''ll be fine," I replied on his behalf.

I'm sure this woman like all the others think I'm just a pushy partner, but I'm just saving them time.

It took a few days in London for me to recognise the look, but then I remembered it.  It was the same look he used to get when some native Spanish speakers would speak English to him in LA.  Of course, the difference this time is these people are native English speakers.

Most English accents don't cause this communication breakdown and I have yet to figure out where the troublesome accents come from - Essex or London's East End, perhaps - but I do know how he feels.

The other day, the building owners sent some guys to do routine maintenance on the heating system in our apartment.  It was a 7 am appointment and unfortunately on this day they were prompt.  I let them in and they went about their business and we ours.

Rob and I were in the kitchen when one of the guys came in and said something.  At first I felt like I was in an episode of the vintage British TV series 'Allo 'Allo, where the French & German characters who 'don't speak English' hear it in a special way.  All I heard was, "Fa fafafa, fa fafafa, fa..."

After a couple of seconds, though, the translation part of my brain kicked in and I realised the guy had said he needed to take one of the units down to the garage and run some water through it with a hose.  So, just a little too slowly for him not to have noticed the translation pause, I replied, "Yep, no problem."

Rob and I had been thinking about resuming our German classes, but now I'm thinking maybe we need to investigate some classes in British Accents for Colonial English Speakers.

And, Today's London Weather Forecast...

It's getting to be pretty easy to forecast the weather these days.  If you say, it's going to rain, well you wouldn't be wrong.  No need for a fancy meteorological degree here.

I can't say we weren't warned.  Everyone said London was wet and gloomy, but our first 10 days were nothing like that.  It was cold, but the sun was shining and the birds were singing and the little squirrels were playing and well it was nice.  I started to believe the rain was one of those myths like the one about Wellington being windy everyday. But I was wrong.

It has now rained for the past five days and five more days of rain are forecast.  I guess there could be even more days of rain to come since I've only seen a five day forecast.

I've already lost one umbrella.  The wind, that people said was rare in London, got it.  I knew I should have paid more than £4.50 for an umbrella!  But I needed one fast and the Tesco Metro was close by.  It was that umbrella or no umbrella for blocks, but I immediately regretted my purchase.

The little plastic thingy at the top that holds it together popped in the first hour and during hour two the fabric came off one of the spokes and well I guess I'm lucky it's made it to day five.  Time for a new one.

London Broadband Blues

I’m old enough (just) to remember a time when there was only one telephone company.  Then some bright spark decided we needed competition.  Competition was going to bring us choice, cheaper rates and better service.  Well, frankly, it’s not working for me.

BT Home Hub bringing BT Total Broadband

 My last post was over a week ago.  Why?  Well, getting a phone and broadband set up is not a simple matter in Great Britain.  

First there is that supposed benefit of choice.  There are a dozen companies or more offering phone and broadband services and most offer combo deals with digital TV and mobile services.  Each of these have five, ten or twenty plans “designed just for you”.  So, ‘choice’ quickly becomes confusion.  Do I want mobile with by broadband and Sky TV thrown in or do I want Orange to set up my phone line from BT so Orange can then provide me broadband.  Do I want 10 gigs a month, 40 gigs or unlimited?  Do I need unlimited?  Would I like fries with that?  God, I don’t know.

By the time I checked out five or so providers and their packages (that’s their telecoms packages), I was no closer to a decision.  I was just confused.  The ‘benefit’ of choice had become a nightmare.  So, I reverted to the dinosaur.

Duck! It's a Pigeon

Lone Pigeon on Collision Course with Camera

Walking around London it has become quite clear that pigeons here either failed flying school, are too fat from overfeeding or are always set on attack mode.

I have never in my life been involved in so many near misses with flying pigeons.  They always just miss, which suggests they're not attacking, but they're close enough for the thump of air from their flapping wings to whack me on the head as they pull up to avoid a collision.

I've tried to stand my ground as they fly for me, but they always win.  The monkey always ducks.

I wondered if it was just me.  So, I watched how others interact.  And, yesterday I was very happy to note others having the same problem.  One young couple actually took a swing that the flying vermin as they barreled down on them.  I have to admit, I'd thought of that, but how would it look if I successfully landed a punch - the feathers, the crash, the stares as the little bugger flapped around on the round, the fact that I actually touched one!

No, I'll just have to keep trying to avoid the little buggers.  You don't think I'm being bullied, do you?

Some Monkeys Can't Read

Here's what the sign says as you enter the Flower Walk in Hyde Park.

And here's what many naughty monkeys do:

London Spring

Day Six in London was a beautiful day.  The rain from yesterday cleared and while it's clouding over again right now, the morning was brilliant.  Rob had to start work today.  I continued to explore.

I spent a few hours strolling around Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park.  Spectacular!

Gardens with Kensington Palace behind

Hyde Park

The Flower Walk in Hyde Park

Do I Really Want an iPhone?

You would think that if you walked into a shop with the intention of paying out hundreds of pounds you'd be welcomed with open arms.  Right?  Well, that's not the case when you are newly landed in the UK and trying to set up a mobile phone.

I've spent the last few days stopping into mobile shops and studying the internet to decide which of the many providers I wanted to sign up with.  I already decided on the phone.  I was getting an iPhone 4S, but did I want Vodafone, Orange, T Mobile, 3, O2 or what.  And, after some discussion we figured we get Rob one too.

We collected all the booklets on Thursday.  We used the Net to compare and contrast and today was the day.  I'd decided Orange was going to get our business.  It was a toss up between them and O2, but Orange offered access to BT's WiFi network.  O2 may have too I guess, but their site didn't say so.

So, off we went to the Orange Shop in Sloane Square.  While the door was locked when we arrived, it was soon opened after we pushed then pulled with no luck - it was 11am after all.  We were asked what we were looking for.  Having it all worked out, I said two iPhone 4S with two of the £36 monthly plans.  This got you the iPhone for about £50 each. We were also planning to add the £5 a month to make cheaper international calls.

And, then the questions started.  Do you have ID?  Do you have two bills with your address on it?  Do you have a bank account?  Can I see a UK credit card?  We explained having just arrived we can show you a passport and provide a letter from Rob's employer showing our address, but we had no bills to show yet.  Bank account was opened, but no cards yet.  We have the number.  Same story with the UK credit card, but we do have NZ cards that work.

Well, none of that wasn't going to do it.  No, all the gentleman could offer was for us to buy the phones at full price, £499 each, and get a pay as you go SIMs.  Then once we had the cards and the bills we could sign up for a monthly plan.  I pointed out that that would be pretty stupid since we'd be paying full price for the phones and then they's still get our £82 a month for the two plans.

He explained that they couldn't just hand over an expensive phone with no proof of address unless it was fully paid for.  I thought I could explain several ways to fake the address on a letter and get around it, but thought better of it.  I could see his point, but we had a letter from a government agency.  He could have looked the number up in the directory, called it and verified the information.

I started to push on the issue and asked for the manager, but you just knew that in a shop like that even the manager wouldn't get it.  It came down to if we couldn't tick all the boxes we got a phone, if we couldn't there wasn't going to be any thinking outside the box to make the sale.

So, we left in not such a good mood.

As we walked back, I started calculating.  Maybe the stupidity of Orange (and to be fair probably all the other providers) saved us some money.  Considering we don't know enough people in London yet to use 300 or 600 or unlimited minutes or 500 or 600 or unlimited texts.  And, the cost of overseas texts and calls would be extra anyway.  So, why did we need a monthly plan.

So, it was back to the hotel to reassess.  After a couple of hours on the Net it was back out.  The plan now - buy the damn phone out right for £499 and go pay as you go.  With WiFi connections and £10 top ups it was going to cheaper in the long term.

So, it was off to O2 in Kensington High Street.  I was annoyed at Orange and O2 was better for the pay as you go.  So, this was going to be easy.  Right?

No way.  They guy behind the desk this time told us if we buy the phone from them and go pay as you go, then the phone would be locked for a year and you could only use an O2 SIM card.  This meant you couldn't use a different SIM even when travelling abroad.  Funny that the Orange guy didn't mention any of this.

The O2 guy said the best way around this was to buy the phone at the Apple Store and then get a SIM from any provider.  Unlike, the Orange guy, this guy was providing good information even though it was not good for O2's business.

Next question where's the nearest Apple Store?  Answer:  Shepherd's Bush.

How do we get there?  He wasn't sure, but his colleague said it was 3 train stations a way.   So, off we went to the tube station.  We popped up in Shepherd's Bush and headed for the largest mall in the country.  Next task finding the Apple Store.  It wasn't as easy as you'd think because the Westfield Mall there is huge and there isn't mall directory that is easy to find.  Eventually, we found an information booth and after waiting in the queue for 5 minutes we were off to the Apple Store.

It was packed!  Like unbelievably so, there were easily well over 150 people there.  But half an hour later I had my unlocked iPhone 4S.  The Apple guy said all the service providers were located on the lower level, so off we went in search of the O2 store.  While the Kensington High St shop wasn't getting the business, they were most helpful so we stuck with the company.

Five minutes later I had a pay as you go with the text and internet deal for £10 and it was back to the tube station.

Apple had another £499. We'll see how things go before we get Rob's.  O2 had a new customer and Orange was out the £2000 they would have got for the two 24 month contracts we would have signed without a thought had we not been turned away.