Ingerlund

Once again, I’ve neglected to write anything for some time – meaning I’m in danger of writing another lengthy boring blow-by-blow – rather than one of the rants I’ve got simmering.

But – I’ll try to keep it short.

Got back to London on the Sunday, and back to work on Monday.  Struggled to deal with the crazy fact that it is a different time here than in NZ – and turned up to work early every day that week.  But then I had a weekend of work to do.  And belatedly invited to a barbecue at Caro’n’Dom’s place.  Annoyed everbody by turning up with my laptop and spending most of my time doing work.  But – got myself so tired one way or the other that I was back to normal sleeping habits.  ie: late to work on Monday.  And with a noticable limp.

Next day – didn’t turn up at all.  My feet had turned all nasty.  Too painful to put shoes on, so I worked from home for the week.  Stayed home all weekend.  Finally went to the doctor the next Monday – and the nice lady had one look, and called for help.  The doctor had a look, diagnosed a bacterial infection, and quizzed me on whether I’d been to any tropical countries recently.  I’ve just checked – and Brisbane isn’t tropical, though it’s pretty close.  The doctor got pretty excited when I mentioned India, but admitted it was too long ago to be responsible.  Anyway – I blame Arsetralia. But – the doctor prescribed some antibiotics (an extremely heavy course, as somebody later pointed out) – and sent me down to a nurse to clean/bandage up my feet.  Or to just get the disgusting things out of his sight, probably.  The nurse did a lovely job, and I got myself a taxi to my local pub – so that I could eat a decent meal for the first time in quite some time.  And drink a beer.  Then – pick up my drugs on the way home, and spent the rest of the week working from home with my feet up – as told to by a medical professional.  Antibiotics worked wonders – and I went back in for a re-bandaging on Wednesday, and then self-diagnosed myself as cured, and didn’t show up to further appointments like I was supposed to.  I did, however, complete the course of antibiotics right through to the end, which I think is a first for me.

So – back to work the next week, albeit with sneakers on – tied very loosely, as I still couldn’t put on proper shiny pointy shoes.  Nobody seemed to mind too much, and I think it was helpful in showing people I hadn’t just been lazing around for the sake of it.

Ben turned up at some point also.  And some drunk was got on.  There has been walking through pouring rain, going into nice expensive restaurants dripping wet (me in suit, Ben in shorts/jandals), drinking champagne.  And then as we try to leave, the slovakian waitress asks if I’m leaving.  “Oh, really?  You’re really leaving?  You’re not going to have just one or two more drinks?  Oh.  That’s a shame.”  Ben walks up and asks me “What just happened?”  I couldn’t answer immediately.  I think, for the first time, I can use the word flabbergasted.  We just looked at each other, and then admitted “Ohhh… she’s good.”  Then I think I called her a nasty word (out of earshot) – and we went and asked to be seated, so that we may have some more drinks.  And therefore more champagne was drunk.

I think that was a Thursday.  On the Friday – I had lots of work to do.  But – there is a bar right next to my building.  So – 3 Osbornes & a Chook came to this bar, and we sat and drank and chatted for a while, with me popping back into the office every once in a while.  Caitlin headed off to wear glowsticks and ‘rave’ it up.  Ben, John, Chook & I stayed around, continued drinking – went to another bar, bought some champagne.  And then – back to Chooks, to continue with this theme.  1 billion beers, bottle of champagne, and a couple of bottles of cidar as back-up.

Saturday – barbecue at Caitlin’s.  Long time since I spent time around lots and lots of 23-year olds.  But – I was working, so had an excuse to not drink much.  Ben & I did, however, buy quite a lot of champagne.  And some food.  Anyway – spend the next 24 hours or so alternately drinking champagne, sneaking old-man naps, and working.  Finally got home on Sunday night – realising I was still wearing the same clothes I’d put on Friday morning.

And then – another week of work.  This time, I could put on my shiny pointy shoes – and look all professional, and what-not.  Except for the unkempt tired facet.  And what a week of work it was.  Absolutely nothing went right.  The first couple of days were spent doing things which I later found out were completely useless, and had to be redone.  And then somebody goes and tells somebody fairly high up that something is going to take 2 hours.  Now – I know I’m going to be the person doing this thing, and that it is certainly not going to take 2 hours.  More like 10.  So – 2 hours later, people start asking me about the progress.  And, of course, blaming me for the fact that it’s taking much much longer than they were told.  Not important – except several high-level managers had been actually told that their jobs depended on this.  When I think about it, I could have done it wrong on purpose, and emptied the company of about 3 or 4 managers.  Doing the company a favour, really.

But – enough of work.  Also had a couple of quiet drinks on Wednesday night with a few people.  Ben was also there, but he wasn’t doing quiet drinks.  He already had his big grin on when I arrived.  Got forced into staying around for dinner too.  Thursday night – drinks with my project manager/boss and workmate.  Got talking champagne.  And once one starts talking about champagne, one knows it’s only a matter of time until actions speak louder than words.  Also – boss was trying to get me to go along to U2 with him the following night.  No deal.

And now it’s Saturday.  And maybe a barbecue at Chooks.  Hopefully – only a barbecue.  None of this binge-drinking nonsense.  I am really hoping for a relaxing weekend.  And then – off to India on Monday.  Yep – back to India.  I’m scheduled to go there for four weeks this time.  Which might be just a little bit too long for me to cope with.  But – I was given the option of coming back to London for an extended weekend halfway through.  So – I’ve taken them up on that offer – except flying to Paris instead of London.  Will meet Ben in Paris, and then probably drive to Champagne.  And then fly back to India – nice and refreshed, of course.

lots of Sport recently.

Last weekend – went out and played some myself, in fact.  A bit of the old lawn bowls.  Not very good at first, but I’ve got a fair bit of lawn bowls in the blood – and eventually Justin & I ran out clear winners.  After this – a few drinks in some park, on what I believe is expected to be the best summer day in London thus far, if not for the entire summer.  And – to be fair – it was rather good.  After this – off to Clapham, and a party at Chook’s place.  Some more sport there – in the form of bouncing young girls on the knee.  So – not sure which was the culprit, but woke up on Monday morning with very sore legs.  To be honest, I haven’t done much extreme sport such as lawn bowls for a while, nor bouncing of young girls on the knee – so realistically either could be at fault.  (And no – I can’t say who the young girl was, as she has a very protective big brother.)

Tuesday – went to see the Twenty20 warm-up match between New Zealand and Australia.  I turned up when New Zealand were 7 for 3, and soon we were 21 for 5.  Starting to look like a waste of money – but it ended up being a relatively close game.  Much like the first actual game of the tournament.  Watched England vs the Netherlands at my local pub.  That was rather entertaining – especially when the entire pub erupted with cheers when Netherlands got the final runs.  Well – not quite the entire pub.  A group of 3 young chaps had walked in about 5 minutes earlier.  They left about 10 seconds later.

And yesterday – was meaning to go see NZ vs Scotland – as it’s at the Oval, and the local pub manager thought he might get free tickets for me – but I ended up working throughout the morning.  Didn’t remember there was a game on until after 12.  Checked the score on the internet – and got a little worried.  Went to the pub for some lunch, and managed to watch our brave Black Caps chase down the total with ease.  And then, was cheered up even more watching the West Indies beat Australia.

And then – there’s the rugby.  The big talk here, of course, is the British amp; Irish Lions tour.  As is the way with the newspapers in this country – they slammed the Lions after the near-loss to some make-shift team last Saturday.  And then – after a big win – everything was roses.  The bit I especially enjoyed was reading a column where somebody said something along the lines of Yes – putting 70-odd points against a Super 14 team is something special.  The same newspapers which previously claimed that the Super 14 and all rugby Southern Hemisphere is rubbish.  And, completely forgetting that this particular Super 14 team is the one which regularly ends in the bottom 3.  Anyway – it looks like it’s going to be amusing when the Lions eventually play the Springboks.  Unfortunately, I won’t be here to read the newspapers, and tease the locals.

Because… I’m going to be in Australia & New Zealand.  Getting sick of this weather which is nearly like summer – so going to visit a good old New Zealand winter.  So, for those who didn’t already know – I’ll be flying to Melbourne – getting in on 21st June, or similar.  Up to Brisbane on Wednesday or so.  Then – to New Zealand on Monday (29th?) or so – for nearly two weeks.  Have to get back to Melbourne somehow, to fly out 10th or 11th.  So – bidding starts now for a visit from Kruse.

Firstly – “Yes – India”.  The project I’m working on will eventually be supported by a team in India.  And from what I’ve seen so far, I am far from confident in their abilities to keep it running for more than a month after they get given the reins.  (Yes, I know that using metaphors such as being ‘given the reins’ is not the best, but it’s better than using horrible amorphous ‘business-speak’).  So – the plan is that I go over there for a week, and try to train some people how to do the job they’ve been hired to do.  It’s not looking like it’s going to be easy, or fun.  But – at least I might be able to spend the weekend leading into, or leading out of – in order to go see the Taj Mahal.  The Taj Mahal, which in a game of Trivial Pursuit only about 10 years ago – failed to answer where it was.  So – probably sometime in March – India.

Which, along with other circumstances, means I’m going to miss my stepsister’s wedding.  The amount of work, the fact that everybody seems to think we’re ‘going live’ (I’ll think of a horrible metaphor to replace that one day), and the fact that the guy who’s been brought in to take some load off me will be on holiday – means there is zero chance of me getting time off.  So – it looks like I’ll leave it until later in the year – and be able to visit when there’s two newly-wed couples, one new-born – and whatever else has happened by then.

And that pretty much sums up what’s been happening over here as well.  Work.  So, so much work.  And when not working – too tired too cook dinner, so eating at the pub instead.  Which is alright, because it’s decent proper food, not takeaways.  But does – of course – entail being at the pub.  And all that that involves.

Which reminds me – there was one more thing over the last fortnight.  Last weekend maybe?  Or the weekend before?  Another fundraising event.  Cue Kruse with red suit, giving away money, happy, and drinking too much.  I don’t know the full story, but I believe a local chap – fairly young – had a couple of brain aneurysms, or some such.  He’s got a wife and family, so his friends decided to do something to try and help him out a bit.  This pub, MY pub, was chosen as the venue – along with a few others selling raffle tickets.  So – Saturday, Pete – the old guy who is a regular, works as a chef at a nunnery along with working at a fruit stall and somewhere else – cooked “London style pie’n’mash with liqeur”.  Liqeur turns out to be some weird parsley sauce – which they absolutely drown the plate with.  So – I came down, donated a few bottles of Kiwi wine to the raffle, bought rather a lot of raffle tickets – and ate some pie’n’mash.  With some beers to wash it down.  Later – another pie’n’mash to keep me going.  And then, it was turning out to be a big enough event, and a good-enough-natured event, that I considered the red suit making an appearance.  Usually – it comes out maybe twice a year.  But – I figured that bringing it out so soon after last time was worthwhile for such a cause.  So I did.  And it caused joy.

And this week – I think I’ve seen my first genuine London junkie, and bought my first London “fallen-off-the-back-off-a-truck” goods.  Girl was in the other night, looking terrible, trying to sell a ‘personal CD player’ – carrying a plastic bag of god-knows-what.  I suspect stolen goods, or her life.  Wearing tracksuit pants, and nothing underneath – unless her underwear was as low as her pants.  Which were far too low.  Asking everybody for cigarettes, trying to sell long outdated technology.  And nuts.  My unproven suspicion – junkie.

And then aforementioned Pete (who I had an argument with last Friday – due to his disagreeing with me taking a drink off a guy who’d just fallen over, then later fell unconscious, and eventually was taken away in an ambulance.  Pete reckons I shouldn’t have taken his drink off of him.  I’ll leave you to decide) – anyway, Pete – after we made up and what-not, noticed that I happened to be drinking wine that night.  Told me he doesn’t drink wine, and never drinks “indoors” anyway.  Which I assume means he never drinks at home.  But – then he went on to tell me that he had a dozen bottles of wine at home – and he’d sell them to me for <mumble mumble>.  I initially heard the <mumble mumble> as 5 pounds per bottle.  I agreed, thinking to reassure him there were no hard feelings.  The next night he came in with them, as arranged.  Turned out to be 35 quid for the lot.  And they are pretty good bottles.  Looks to me like a mixture of the type that people get in wine clubs.  And as I happen to know a lot of the people in this area work at a post office sorting place, am starting to wonder if one shipment went ‘missing’.

But – with both the junkie and the wine – I don’t know, and probably prefer not to.  However, I think I might be seeing a bit of the London life that most people don’t – especially as I suspect that the family of the chap who the fundraiser was for is border-line gangster.  So – not too sure if my generosity was well-placed after all.  And I know damned well that guy who bought my local (not the guv’nor – but the actual owner) – is certainly far from above board in certain respects.  So I like the fact I’m seeing something different, but I’m definitely hoping I don’t get to experience the “knife crime” the newspapers love to shout about.

Fish’n’Chips.  My original impression was “not as bad as I’d heard”.  But recently – I’ve had fish’n’chips from a store near work.  Taken them back to work – initiating a rush of my workmates to do the same.  And as I sit there thinking how awful the chips are, my workmates are raving about how these are the best chips in town.  The fish – fine.  Chips – horrible.  And I tried the curry sauce they have with them.  Horrible.

Yes, yes – I know these updates are getting few and far between.  So much so that I doubt anybody is still reading them.  But – well, I’ll think of an excuse later.

What’s happened over the last 6 weeks?  Nothing too noteworthy, according to my memory.  But then – I suspect my memory is actually the enemy.

There was one weekend which was noteworthy.  Partly because I didn’t do any work.  But mostly – because I was a shambles from beginning to end.  Friday night – I think I just had a few beers at the local.  Maybe more than a few, I can’t be sure.  All I know is that it was enough that when I turned up at this little fundraising event the next night, I was still in that state between still-drunk & hungover.  The one or two pints at the local on the way probably didn’t help that.  But – this fundraising thing – organised by humanitarian Justin.  Apparently he and some others went to Uganda for New Years – without inviting me.  Met some people, and decided to help them out when they got back by raising funds for them.  Funds which go directly to the people – not through some agency which takes a cut to pay for ‘administration’ – ie advertising, payrolls, big office blocks, and pushing religion.  So – I consider myself a generous man – and have always wanted to help charity – but refuse to give money to an agency such as that listed.  I read some awful statistic once – something about less than 10% actually making it through to the other end.  Although I believe that one stat was largely due to the bribery which has to be paid in the destination country to get aid through.  In this instance – money direct into a bank account – withdrawn by people in Uganda to distribute.  No agency, no government, no paperwork, no bribes.  So – I spent some money.

And got back to my local at I-don’t-know what time, in quite the state, from all accounts.  A drunken happy Kruse giving away money in a bright red suit.  Quite the sight.

And so, it came to Sunday.  I had eventually managed to make it home – and into bed, after overcoming certain obstacles.  So – I woke up, very hungry.  Decided the easiest solution was to go to the local for a Sunday roast.  For some reason, Ash – the guv’nor – wasn’t doing a roast that day.  But he WAS selling wine.   So I drank wine.  And stood at the bar all day with Steve, one of the locals – who normally works night shift, therefore (there is logic there somewhere) on his days off – spends all day in the pub. And we talked, drank, and spent a fairbit of money in the jukebox.  And then it snowed.  It turns out, that when it snows – the drinker in me comes out.  Although – that may be due to shock from frostbite, or some other physiological reaction to wearing jandals in the snow.  Or standing in the snow in barefeet for 15 minutes while wishing my sister a happy birthday.

So – Monday.  Monday, London was closed.  Couldn’t go to work, apparently.  So – I put my jandals on, and popped down the pub.

And since then – it’s been constant work.  Except Monday – which my boss told me to take off, in return for the previous few weekends.  So – I decide to go to get my UK licence.  I reread the requirements several times – because my passport is at work (in preparation for getting an Indian visa) – and I want to make sure I don’t need it.  Nope – I don’t, it’s listed as a form of ID, but there are other forms I can provide instead.  I check this many times, as there is only one place in London I can apply for this licence – and it’s a fair distance away in Wimbledon, only open during business hours.  So – I go there.  And take my queue ticket – behind 50 other people.  And get to the front of the queue – a roving girl asks to check my application and documents.  Says I need a passport.  I ask her if she’s 100% sure.  She says yes.  I say “I must have read the booklet incorrectly” through clenched teeth.  I go home (well, stopped off to say hello to the guv’nor) – and watch terrible movies.  Day off – wasted.