Ingerlund

So, there was an influx of those dirty kiwis and aussies into our fair city.  Typical hooligans, they just fly in, get all boozed up, and then head onto Europe.  There should be a law against it.

Yes – last weekend was marked by a sudden rise in people to socialise with.  Won’t go into naming them all, because if I forget somebody, there’ll be tears and what-not.  But, there were drinks involved.  Barbeque at Caro’n’Dom’s place on Sunday.  Which was more drinking than eating, and had a rather good turn-out.  Reminded me of parties of old.  Including a bit of aggro.  Some chap was being a little silly about things, and when I was trying to calm him down, and prevent any nastiness – he said something remarkable to me.  I didn’t really listen to him at the time, as I was just ignoring all the offensive things he was saying, and concentrating on keeping him calm.  But the guy who he was originally arguing with, once this chap had left – turned to me and asked “Do you guys know each other?”  I replied – “No, not really.”   “Because I assumed that you must have some kind of nasty history, with what he said to you.  And I was amazed you didn’t hit him.”  And then I thought about it, and realised he was right.  What this guy had said to me was the kind of thing that you use to wind somebody up so much that there has to be a fight.  But it was from a guy that I don’t think I’ve ever met before.  But, he obviously knows me, or knows of me in any case – for him to have come up with what he did.  (And NO – it wasn’t anything to do with the size of any part of me.  He doesn’t know me THAT well.)

So then I starting thinking more and more about it, and as I did – I started to get pretty angry.  But – seeing as I’m a nice guy, I went outside and drank some more and refused to tell anybody what was actually said.  It kind of sounds like it’s something embarassing to me – but it wasn’t that sort of thing.  I just figure that people should judge this guy from their own experiences of him.  Which is also why I’m not mentioning names.  And, I’ve done/said some pretty silly things while under the influence.  Nothing that purposely and pointedly offensive (yeah – THAT bad) – but still.

So – that actually turns out to be a pretty boring story without any of the juicy details, doesn’t it?  Ha – suffer fools.  I certainly did the next day.  Eventually got a taxi back to Chook’s at about 3 or 4am, and slept on the couch.  Then – went back to Caro’n’Dom’s the next day – figuring I’d be just in time to miss the clean-up, but maybe in time for some delicious left-overs.  And as I’d taken some awesome stuff from the Farmer’s Market near my place – I was looking forward to some cheese, marinated garlic, etc.  But – by the time I got there, I was very much regretting my decision.  Certainly wasn’t up to eating much.  So instead watched a ‘quirky’ movie, and then slunk off home.

And then work for a week.  Drinks on Tuesday evening with some more visitors to these shores.  And then another weekend – this time with no invitations for fun OR merriment.  Until Sunday, when yum cha was proposed.  And accepted.  So – yum cha in Chinatown with Mel’n’Nicky-O, Mel’s cousin, a Canadian, & Caro’n’Dom.  Far too much delicious yum cha.  Followed by beers.  At which peking duck was mentioned – so back to Chinatown for far too much Beijing Kaoyo and hotpot.  And then home.  But, I wasn’t finished yet – dropped off at the local seedy pub.  And had the barmaid loudly state that her horoscope had said she’d meet the love of her life today.  It seemed that the timing and volume was specifically targetted at myself – so I hurriedly had a couple of pints and then ran off home to hide.

And that’s about it.  Except I have been told I made a mistake when I did that job down in Portsmouth – which has left egg on the face of me, my boss, my company, and the company I was pretending to work for.  So – I’ll wait until I know the consequences of that before telling the world whether or not I’m responsible.

Hi all,

I’ve got a new house.  I moved in over the last two weekends – but didn’t want to tell anyone in case it turned out to be another scam.  But, now I live there – and can proudly announce that I am a permanent resident of Clapham Road.

Some vague details:  I now dwell in Oval – of The Oval fame.  Yep – I live within 5 minutes walk of London’s second most famous cricket ground.  If my precedent of living 5 minutes from the MCG in Melbourne holds true – I will never actually step foot in The Oval.  I live with one other guy – a polish chap who’s been living in London for 8 years.  My highly-refined gay-dar sets off whenever he’s around – but I haven’t asked him if he actually is gay or not… I guess I’ll find out one day, one way or the other.  I’ve got a rather good sized room – big enough for bed, couch, entire wall of closet-space (insert your own gay joke – because I ain’t doing it for you), and a desk which also stretches for an entire wall.  Bored yet?  I also have a jacuzzi.  And a massive kitchen – bigger than most London flats in their entirety.

Anybody who’s interested in more details, such as the actual address – send me an email.  I have too many enemies (and creepy admirers) to post my actual address in the open.  (You know who you are).

Not much other news.  I’m slowly taking steps towards getting a motorcycle licence.  I’ve got so far as getting the form for swapping my NZ licence for a UK one thus far.

I don’t have a proper landline available at my new place, so international phone calls might become even more of a rarity.  Hopefully I’ll be getting a microphone for my laptop soon – and will be able to talk to the technologically-equipped of you via Skype or MSN.

The nice virus which infected this here webpage returned, it seems.  Or another, using the same loophole to get in.  I’ve deleted this one again – and will try to remember to check once a day.  Again – if you don’t have a decent anti-virus program installed, you’ve probably got several dozen viruses already, so what’s one more?  There’s no excuse to not having anti-virus in these days of free stuff.  Legal free stuff, even.  And – if your antivirus came up with a warning when you got to this page, let me know – and I’ll remove it as soon as possible.

Still looking for a place to live.  And have re-discovered the old saying – if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.  Finally got excited about an advertised apartment, and sent an email to the guy.  Replied “blah blah, had lots of people stuff me around, I have to come from Liverpool to show it to you, blah blah, can you prove you have enough money, blah blah”.  Kind of odd seeing as it was pretty cheap, but it sort of made sense.  So, I was clever, and thought “Ha – screenshot of my internet banking balance page”, and even more clever, with “Ha – I’ll open up a blank notepad window – and position it over my bank account number, seeing as this sounds a little sus.”  Sent that off, and didn’t hear back for a while.  I figured that yes, it was a con, trying to get my bank a/c details – or – he’s happy, and is waiting to arrange for when he can come down to let me know.  Next day, I get another email from Terry.  I liked Terry because of his name.  As you’ve probably already guessed, it’s very unlikely that Terry is his name.  This time, Terry wrote me an email which re-iterated “I have to come down from Liverpool, I’ve been stuffed around before, I need proof of funds” etc.  Did say that what I’d done didn’t prove to him that I had the money.  Odd.  Quite a few grammatical errors, even for an accountant.  And a random comment at the end about contacting his lawyer.  Alarm bells are certainly going off now.  So, a little bit of searching on the internet (Google is NOT a verb, by the way).  Sure enough, my search for “Gumtree scam flat” returns some results.  I read a story by some chap who found a flat on Gumtree (UK’s most popular classifieds type website thing) with his mates.  Talked (on phone) to landlord – who wanted proof they could afford it.  Had been mucked around by people not turning up for viewings, you see.  Lives in Belgium, or Scotland, or somewhere, you see.  So – suggests that they put enough money for the deposit and a months rent into a Western Union transfer.  Not to the landlord, but to a friend, or relative.  Just so the landlord (nice old lady) knows it is available.  Take a photo of the Western Union receipt – and email her that.  Nobody can get the money except the person who put it in (with the receipt), or the person it’s made out to – and even them, only with a certain secret number.  And they need to have proof of identity, etc.  Now, I can’t exactly remember the details, but I believe the ‘landlord’ tricked them into giving ‘her’ the ‘secret number’.  Possibly it’s printed on the receipt?  And within one day, somebody turned up at a Western Union office with some forged ID documents, the appropriate number – and bang, 1800 pounds has gone.  A fool and his money.

 Anyway – I’m not a fool, well at least not in this kind of thing, and my money is intact.  And over the next couple of days, sure enough – I spot several more flats/apartments, all much cheaper than they should be.  Send a request for more info, and fairly quick responses.  “i have recently moved to a government job in france – and have to rent out my apartment but ive wasted lots of money flying over to show people the apartment – so would need proof that you can pay the cash”  from roonie.  “I own several apartments in the UK, and have had my time and money wasted by people who can’t afford them but want viewings, so give me all your cash…” etc etc. I briefly considered sending some e-vitriol, but decided against it.  Although – maybe I’ll save the email addresses for a rainy day.

Other than the scams, I’ve looked at two places.  Both very small – but do-able.  I’m currently re-considering the option of living with other people, and have made an appointment to look at a room in a house owned by a friend of Dom’s on Saturday.  A long way away from where I was looking, and with only the hated tube as a link to the rest of the world.  So – pretty much exactly the opposite of what I was looking for.  Walkable to work, or at a stretch – can catch an overground train, but definitely no tube.  Fail.  One bedroom flat.  Fail.  Central as possible.  Fail.  But – sounds like it’s got a garden, which is nice.  No swimming pool though, but we’ll see about that.  I was starting to look at slightly more expensive places in a big complex, which included a gym, sauna, and swimming pool.  So I’ve started to get used to the idea of having a swimming pool – and anybody who lets me into their house can expect some excavations soon after.

Drinking news.  last weekend was busy.  I had drinks with workmates on Thursday.  Highlight of that was the barman at the latino-themed bar noticing my Colombia wallet (No – I wasn’t deliberately flashing it around.  Really, I wasn’t.)  I gather he, and maybe his pretty latina colleague were Colombiano.  So, a conversation about that – them speaking in English, and me speaking Espanol, like a jerk.

Friday night – Laura’s 30th.  Chook’s flatmate Laura.  Bottles of champagne, and many beers.  Ended up with Laura hanging onto my arm, in order that she didn’t fall over.  Put her on a tube with Chook – and trusted that he’d be able to support her the rest of the way.  Maybe not a good thing, as he seemed keen on at least one more beer.  Still – can be fairly difficult to find a beer after 12 in this ridiculous town.

Saturday night – Alex’s 30th.  Nick’s (Little Nick) girlfriend Alex.  Beers, then cocktails, then goldfish bowls of cocktails.  Eventually managed to leave there, several hours after I intended.  Was tired when I got there, and waves of tiredness rolled throughout the night.  Seemed to coincide with the bowls of cocktails, actually.

And that’s it.

I’m well and truly back into the daily grind of working life.  Therefore, nothing much to report.  Not that anybody will be reading this anyway, as it seems that anybody looking at this website recently will have been quite pleased to notice it tried to give them a virus.  And those who didn’t notice that, well – you’ve probably actually got the virus.  But if that’s the case – it serves you right.  Who doesn’t have a virus checker nowadays?

Yes – seems somebody deemed my website worthy of hacking – and put a nasty little piece of code in one of my updates, directing people to another page which attempted to install a virus.  I’ve deleted the code – but I believe there may still be the page somewhere on my web server.  Haven’t found it yet – but should be harmless without the link to it.  Fun and games.

Other than that, like I said, ho-hum working life.  Get up earlier that I’d like, shower/dress, walk to the station, get in a giant metal snake with all the other sheep, get out at another cattle yard, walk to work, then sit at desk daydreaming about the days when I’d get up earlier than I’d like, dress, walk to the station, get in an antique bus driven by a lunatic, get out at a dirt road, walk around trying to find somewhere to sleep, then sit at a dingy bar surrounded by people speaking a foreign language.  And then the same process in reverse.  Every day.

Of course, once one thinks about this, one runs the danger of becoming one of those lunatics who fantasise about winning a lottery.  To circumvent the chance of me being a “when I win lotto/bingo/at-the-gee-gees” chump, I instead put my mind to thinking about crime.  A good solid well-planned white-collar heist is far more likely to get me rich enough to quit this working crap than some lottery.

But, enough of that.  Don’t want to give away too much.  Instead, we’ll talk about sheep – to keep the people who delight in telling boring trite “so-last-millenium” sheep jokes about New Zealanders.  Specifically – lamb.  Warning to vegetarians – I’m about to describe the delightful sensation of biting off, chewing, and swallowing the warm flesh of little fluffy lambs.  Because it is delightful.  Imagine eating brocolli – but if instead of being horrible, it was good.  Very very good.  I’ve eaten lamb about a dozen times in the last two weeks, in one guise or another.  Two weekends based around lamb roasts.  After the first – I made the comment that I wanted to go and kill every lamb in the world, so I could eat them all up.  But leave some breeders, I guess.  It was unanimously agreed as “The worst thing you’ve ever said that everybody agrees with”.  Lamb is yum.

And that’s about all from me.  Yes, it’s been a month – and yes, it’ll probably be another month before I write anything more.  But – working life is boring.  I could tell you about all the little things that happen during each working week – but frankly, I find them boring and trivial beyond belief – so even if I thought you might be interested for some reason, it doesn’t matter.  I flush them from my mind as soon as possible.  Which is why anytime somebody asks me “How was your day?”, or “How was work?”, or “How is your job going?” – I really don’t know.  So, next time you ask that – and I reply “Fine” – I actually mean “Haven’t got a clue.  Forgotten already.  Cleared my mind of that crap as soon as I hit open air.”

Although – I should find somewhere to live in the next month – so that might be noteworthy.  Then you can ask me how my place is, and I’ll respond “Fine”.

I hate the tube.

My third day at work – I’m sent out to Stanmore for the day.  Well – supposed to be 2 days, but only took one.  Stanmore happens to be on the opposite side of London from where I live.  Awesome – a very long tube ride.  Luckily – I didn’t have to change trains.  Just got on the Jubilee – which starts at Stratford – and stayed on it right until the other end.  No chance of sleeping through my stop.  Still – had to catch the very first train of the day to make it on time.

And then, on Friday – I get told I’m to cover for a guy who’s going on holiday.  Starting after the weekend.  And the guy works on a client site based at Heathrow.  Just as far away as Stanmore.  And no direct line this time – awesome.  So all last week was spent working mostly alone in a windowless room, with a pair of nearly two-hour commutes bookending the day.  And this week starts with the same.  Only one more day of that though.  And then I’ve been sent even further afield.  Portsmouth for two days.  Portsmouth is on the seaside, which would be good.  Except it’s the English seaside – which doesn’t really count, apparently.

And in the boozin’ news…  met up with Randle on Thursday evening.  Which led to the wee hours of Friday morning – and just managing to catch the last tube home.  In time for a couple of hours sleep, and then the commute to Heathrow.  Yep – managed to sleep through my train-switch.  And the weekend – Sports Saturday.  Helped entertain Chook’s little ginga cousin with a sports day on Clapham Common.  Played some futbol, mini-cricket, frisbee, etc.  And then built a barbeque, and ate some burnt food.  Followed by a late-night game of Pictionary – which involved lots of anger, and accusations of cheating.  To be fair, I was cheating continuously.  But – I was cheating to help every team equally, not just my own.  Eventually Chooks little ginga went to bed about 2am – which beat his previous record of bedtime, 11pm.  He was pretty pleased with himself, I gathered.

The tube is hot, sweaty, crowded, smelly, and full of the english.  I hate the tube.  And it looks like a snake.  I hate snakes.  I really really hate snakes.  Not happy about the results of my research into which snakes live in this country.