Culture Shock

British show how hard-ball politics is done

2008-03-01T11:37:00.003Z

There has been a controversy this week over the comments of Lord Mancroft about nurses he encountered in a recent hospital stay:

“The nurses who looked after me were mostly grubby — we are talking about dirty fingernails and hair — and were slipshod and lazy. Worst of all, they were drunken and promiscuous,” he said.

This post isn't really about Lord Mancroft's comments, but more about how David Cameron reacted to them.

You see, David Cameron is the head of the conservative party the Tories. This is Lord Mancroft's party as well, so you would expect that Mr. Cameron would take steps against Lord Mancroft in a case such as this when a party member makes a very unpopular statement. Well he did, as described by the times:

Mr Cameron was swift to act. Aides said he was furious and has asked Lord Strathclyde to rebuke Lord Mancroft strongly. His views were not shared by the Conservative Party, which knew that nurses did a fantastic job, often in difficult circumstances, a spokesman said.

This is British hard-ball politics at it's finest, but reminds me of passing notes in the third grade. I think the next time I'm upset with someone, I'm going to get someone else to deliver the message for me :-)

Nanny State wants to require license to buy tobacco

2008-02-16T13:45:00.002Z

I came across this article in the times today that says UK health ministers are proposing a plan to require smokers to obtain a license to purchase tobacco products. From the article:

The permit, which could cost as little as £10 a year, will include the smoker’s photograph and would need to be presented to the retailer every time the smoker bought tobacco. Holders of permits could also have to get a declaration signed by their GP that their health was not at “massive risk” from their habit before the licence was issued.

To me this just seems like the height of the "Nanny State". It's one thing to ban smoking in public, it makes sense that people should have the right to breathe clean air, but you have to draw the line somewhere. At some point Government has to trust the people who allow it to govern them.

Big Ben at night

2008-01-12T20:07:00.001Z

Big Ben at night 5, originally uploaded by Allen Hutchison.

Along with the photo of Westminster Abbey, I got a couple of nice night shots of Big Ben with traffic whizzing by in the foreground. I like this shot the best out of the group. I think it's because of the blue streak mid-way up.

One of the great things about shooting traffic at night in London is the double-decker buses. They put light up at a much higher level in the frame than the rest of the traffic does.

Moon over Westminster Abbey

2008-01-12T20:04:00.001Z

Moon over Westminster Abbey 7, originally uploaded by Allen Hutchison.

Tonight was clear and cold, so I thought it would be best to get out and take some pictures of London at night. My favorite shot of the evening was this one of the moon rising over Westminster Abbey.

Ice Skating in London

2007-11-20T13:16:00.000Z

There are several places in London that setup Ice Skating rinks in the winter. Last year, Jenna and I were too busy jetting around during the holidays to try this out. This year, however, we are staying in London for the holidays and I'm really hoping to get a chance to go ice skating.

There is a rink at the Natural History Museum, which is within walking distance from our flat. It looks like there is also an ice rink in the Tower of London Moat.

Time Out has a list of the top Ice Rinks in London, and Gridskipper has put them on a helpful map.

Macbeth

2007-09-26T17:59:00.000+01:00

Monday evening Jenna and I welcomed my parents to town with a night of theatre. We went to the Gielgud Theatre to see the opening night performance of Macbeth starring Patrick Stewart as Macbeth, Kate Fleetwood as Lady Macbeth, and Michael Feast as Macduff. The director, Rupert Goold, who recently directed Stewart in The Tempest did not disappoint.

The show was staged against the backdrop of Stalin's Russia, and included several non-traditional elements.

My favorite, was the portrayal of the witches who were airy, with sing-song voices. They wore field-nurse costumes, and appeared as extras during different parts of the show (in the same costumes). Their famous "bubble bubble" scene was done in a rapid fire percussive fashion that had the audience enthralled.

Overall, a great production. Patrick Stewart played a very convincing Macbeth, and the rest of the cast was fantastic.

Football

2007-09-21T10:01:00.001+01:00

I went with some friends to to see the Tottenham Hotspurs trounce the the Cyprus team Anorthosis Famagusta in a 6 - 1 match. This is only the second football (soccer) match that I've ever watched in person, but I was under the impression that this was supposed to be a low-scoring game.

The match was great fun, and even though I wasn't able to follow the more subtle parts of the game, I really enjoyed it.

Stonehenge

2007-09-19T09:02:00.001+01:00

A few weeks ago, Jenna and I took a trip to Stonehenge with some friends. This was the first time that we've been to Stonehenge since we moved to England.

I was afraid that it wasn't going to be nearly as interesting as I had built it up to be in my mind. It was crowded with tourists, and you aren't allowed to get anywhere near the stones. However, even with those detractions it was a really amazing place to visit.

Jabs not shots

2007-09-13T22:00:00.001+01:00

I just put up a short post on my personal blog about getting shots for our upcoming trip to Tanzania. In the process of getting the shots I learned two new things about the NHS.

First, they use the word "jab" for injection. This is analogous to the American word "shot". It took me a minute to realize this when I sat down with the nurse who was doing the injections. When she looked at me and said, ''I'm going to be giving you two jabs," the first thing I thought of was a jab as in boxing.

Second, the NHS will actually charge you for some things. I was astonished, but I had to pay for my inoculations (£60 for Jenna and me). I didn't have any issue with being asked to pay for immunizations that aren't normally required for adults in this country, but I could tell that many of their patients did by the way the constantly warned us of the fee.

I think the staff at the clinic told me at least five times that there would be a fee for some of the jabs. The funniest part, was when we tried to pay. The girl behind the counter was new, and didn't realize that we would have to pay. She also didn't know how much to charge us.

Tube Strike

2007-09-03T21:00:00.001+01:00

Tube Strike, originally uploaded by Allen Hutchison.

The rumored Tube Strike has taken place, bringing London to a crawl for the rest of this week.

London Tube Strike

2007-09-02T15:35:00.000+01:00

Looks like there is going to be a three day strike on the London Underground this week. Hopefully the weather will hold and I can walk, or ride my bike to work:

The strike is expected to last from 1800 BST Monday, 3 September to 1800 BST on Thursday, 6 September.

The RMT predicts that the Tube network will "grind to a halt" as a result of the industrial action over the strike.

On Sunday, general secretary Bob Crow said: "There has been no contact over the weekend from Metronet or the administrator so as far as we are concerned the strike will definitely go ahead."

Planning to visit us in London

2007-08-21T21:52:00.000+01:00

We have had a lot of visitors this year. We love it when people come to London to visit us. London is a challenging city to fly into though, because there are five major airports that service the city.

Some of these airports are relatively close to our neighborhood, and some are very far away. Generally, your best option when coming to visit us is to fly in to Heathrow or Gatwick.

We live in an area called Kensington, and to get to our flat you would take the tube to the "High Street Kensington" station. Below is a map that shows our neighborhood in relation to all of the London airports:

View Larger Map

Tourists of London

2007-07-26T11:20:00.000+01:00

Tourists are a fact of life in London. They're everywhere (especially in our neighborhood), and for the most part they are ok. A friend of mine just recently collected several suggestions for tourists on her blog:

When you race up to be the first person at the turnstile, don't choose that time to find your transport ticket. If it's not in your hand, you've negated your place at the front of the line. (Excuse you, now move over. )

I have one more suggestion for the many tourists we see near home:

If you buy one of those dumb looking money belts because you are afraid of pick pockets, don't wear it outside your clothing. All you are doing at that point is advertising where you keep your money. These things are supposed to go under your clothing to make it harder for bad people to steal your money.

Wettest summer in more than 240 years

2007-07-26T11:13:00.001+01:00

If you've been watching the news you know that there have been some problems with rain in England this summer. We haven't talked about it much here, but my friend has been on her blog.

Today, the BBC had a comment that I found really amusing. Apparently this is the wettest summer since they started keeping rainfall records in 1766. The former record was for the summer of 1789.

One man Star Wars

2007-07-08T21:10:00.000+01:00

Last night, after a disturbing incident on the tube, Jenna and I went to the Arts Theatre London to see Charles Ross do his One Man Star Wars Trilogy.

The show is exactly what it sounds like. One man, 75 minutes, all three original Star Wars movies. He does voices, sound effects, and some pantomime to pull it all together. It was the funniest show I have ever seen.

Tonight is the last show for this set of dates at The Arts, but if you ever get a chance to see this show, don't hesitate. Unless, of course, you have never seen the Star Wars movies. In that case you will spend the entire time confused. In fact, if you haven't seen the moves at least four or five times, you'll be confused.

Violent weekend

2007-07-08T20:14:00.000+01:00

London is a big city, and has it's share of violence. This weekend, Jenna and I got to see two instances of that violence.

In the first instance, we saw the aftermath of violence. A building near the High Street Kensington tube station was a wreck when we walked by it on Saturday afternoon. This building, Como House, has an all glass entry and foyer. Apparently, a guy got really mad and went at the building with a large brick or cinder block.

He took out almost all of the buildings entry, while a whole crowd of people watched. We didn't see this part, but the aftermath when a crew of guys were cleaning up mountains of broken plate glass. Within hours the guys had built a temporary structure to enclose the building and keep it secure.

The second instance of violence was closer to us. We were on the Piccadilly line on our way to see a show. We got on to the Piccadilly line at Gloucester Road and as we were getting on a dazed looking woman got off of the train.

The woman looked glassy and confused as she got off of the train. Following her was a tall man who started yelling at here. It became obvious that she had gotten off the train at the wrong station, and the man was very upset about this. At one point he grabbed her arm and pushed her hard towards the train. She tripped and went sprawling on the floor of the platform.

The guy just got even angrier, and looked like he was going to hit her for falling on the floor after he shoved her. At this point Jenna and I were already on the packed train and the doors were closing.

I'm ashamed that I didn't do anything, although the guy was big and Jenna tells me that it wouldn't have been safe for me to intervene. No one on the train did anything, and when the doors closed we overheard several people talking about the incident.

The most amzing thing was that several people on the train were apprantly "friends" of the woman who was pushed. They kept saying that she should get a new boyfriend. While I'm ashamed that I didn't act, I'm astonished that this girls friends didn't act. They just sat on the trian as the doors closed and we left the station, watching as the man continued to yell at his girlfriend.

Best delivery pizza we've found

2007-07-08T20:06:00.000+01:00

I have a love for pizza that is certainly unhealthy, and probably unnatural. That said, one of the things that Jenna and I have really missed in London is good delivery pizza. We can go out and get pretty decent pizza down the street at the Pizza Express, but they don't deliver.

We found a Domino's that would deliver, but that really isn't very good pizza. So I was delighted to find a flyer for Firezza, which delivers to our area.

The pizza is sold by the half-meter, and a meter of pizza can serve 2-3 people. I really like the Pollo, while Jenna enjoys the traditional Margherita.

They have several locations for dine-in, carry-out, or delivery.

Smoking ban starts today

2007-07-01T17:35:00.000+01:00

I mentioned this on my personal blog, but should have posted here as well. The smoking ban in England starts today.

Snow!

2007-02-08T15:42:00.000Z

Being a California native, I’m not used to this white, powdery substance that decided to fall from the sky today. It was cold, and made my commute 20 minutes longer than normal. I found it pretty enough to look at once I was settled into my office, but man was it ugly whilst I was getting from home there in the first place.

Apparently, this is the worst snow that London has had in seven years (so says the free newspaper London Lite). All in all, it really wasn’t much snow, I’ve skied in worse blizzards (and that is what has turned me off to skiing). Maybe it’s because the underground keeps the ground warm here, but the snow seemed to melt when it hit the ground, leaving a hazardous sludge behind. Mmm… snow sludge. A few of my brave co-workers didn’t cancel their home visits, most of them did (I didn’t have any scheduled in the first place).

All in all, my thin California blood survived, rather better, I think, than most of the public transportation. Maybe there’s hope for me yet.

January Update

2007-01-28T15:41:00.000Z

Happy New Years!

I hope that January finds you all well, and working hard (or hardly working) on any of those pesky new years resolutions. Besides having spent most of this last week sick, I’ve been doing well. In keeping with my resolutions of traveling more and generally enjoying life in London, here is January’s update.

A few weeks ago, we spent a weekend in Zurich, Switzerland. See Allen’s pictures here. Zurich was a cute town, it was unseasonably warm there - no snow, and I think the Swiss were about to overheat. We wandered around the city centre, went up to Uetliberg, the mountain overlooking Zurich, for some views, and ate Italian food with Allen’s former intern and his girlfriend. All in all, a good weekend getaway. We chose Zurich because Allen was already there for work related things earlier in the week (and the Swiss chocolate is great too)

We were supposed to go to Bath this weekend, but both of us ended up sick, so we’ve postponed that trip for now. The next planned trip is Rome the first weekend of March. We want to make it to Germany and Belgium for sure in the next few months (hopefully coordinate with family and friends in both those places), as well as see places around England and Ireland. Hoping for an African safari in October, a trip to Prague, Austria, Venice, there are simply too many places and too little time.

Speaking of too little time, it seems like we will definitely only be here for 2 years - through April 2008. Allen is apparently being too productive at work. So, any of you who would like to take advantage of free lodging in London, better act fast. We would be happy to reserve our spare room on a first come, first serve basis. Lodging can be the most expensive part of the trip to London (especially if you get a good deal on airfare), so take advantage of it whilst it lasts. (Besides, we like visitors). Did that sound too much like a commercial?

In London this month, we’ve seen Spamalot, the last performance for Tim Curry. Highly entertaining if you like Monty Python. If you don’t, don’t bother. We also explored the Borough Market south of the river (the area where Bridget Jones’ diary was filmed). Allen’s photos are here. Very crowded, but lots of organic foods, cheeses, and breads. We’re looking forward to seeing the Tempest in March, with Patrick Stewart which should be enjoyable as well. Its a production of the Royal Shakespeare Company, but unfortunately won’t be in the new (recreated) Globe Theatre, although I’m still wrestling with how much, if at all, of a tourist trap the new Globe is.

In London this month its been unseasonably warm, but we’ve also had snow! It was neat to wake up and see a coating of white all over the ground and trees. It wreaked havoc with public transit (of course, even the wrong kind of leaves wreak havoc), but I was sick, so I didn’t get to go out and freeze my butt off. Allen took a few photos here and here.

On a brief work-related note (all those who don’t care, you can skip this paragraph), I’m still continuing to enjoy my job, settling into a different pace from the hospital. Home visits aren’t nearly as bad as I expected (although, I’m apparently going to see a smelly guy next week, we’ll have to see after that). In our corporate induction, I got a crash course in local government which was interesting. Amongst other things, I learned that there are 33 boroughs in greater London. I also went to a course on Fair Access to Care Services, where we learnt all about the dilemmas of how to determine how to distribute the money fairly. An interesting exercise, but only raised more questions than it answered. I learned that there are a few universal truths. There always seems to be a struggle between mental health and social workers about who should provide services to those with mental health issues. Also, it is very difficult to get a doctor to declare someone incompetent (apologies to the doctors reading this).

In a Manner of Speaking

2006-11-12T15:40:00.000Z

Much of the difference between the British accent and the American accent (generically speaking in both cases) seems to be inflection and word choice. While there are some different pronunciations, I’m coming to learn that a lot of what Americans hear as an English accent is really much more to do with other factors from pronunciation.

This was highlighted to me on a recent trip on the Eurostar train from London to Paris. Jenna and I were sitting in a carriage that served breakfast. There was a family of four across the aisle from us. The Husband and Wife had two small children a boy, who didn’t say much, and a girl who did. I’m terrible at guessing childrens ages, but I think the little girl was around 6.

The train staff served breakfast (Full English) and we all dug in. A few moments later we hear the little girl say, “Mummy, this breakfast is really quite good, isn’t it?” Now it’s hard to “hear” in type, but this was such a quintessentially British thing to say that Jenna and I had a very hard time controlling our laughter. It wasn’t funny except that it was such a great illustration of how we learn culture at a young age.

That memory has stuck with us since the trip, and now whenever we have breakfast together, one of us ends up quoting the little girl on the train.

Wicked

2006-11-12T15:39:00.000Z

Last night we went to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London. The show was excellent and Idina Menzel’s performance of Elphaba was really spectacular. The other actors were very good, the stage was fantastical, and the lighting was very effective and imaginative. We found the amplification on the actors and the pit orchestra to be a little too loud, but that was a minor complaint in what was a very enjoyable evening.

The musical is about Elphaba, the green girl who becomes the wicked witch of the west in The Wizard of Oz. It is based on the book with the same name by Gregory Maguire. I thought the story, while written in the early 1990’s was particularly germane to the times today. It effectively shows that there are often many sides to the same story. In The Wizard of Oz the witch is demonized. We just think that she is evil, but in this story we realize that she is really trying to do the right thing in most cases, but that her actions don’t always have the outcomes she would like. I think there is a powerful lesson to be learned there in our current political climate.

They Say Music is a Universal Language

2006-11-02T15:36:00.000Z

In efforts to continue my flute playing, which I’ve done for the last 15 or so years, one of the first things I set out to do when we moved was find a local concert band to play with. I first found the nice folks at Southwark Concert Band who came equipped with their very own conductor from San Francisco. During the first rehearsal I attended, I was listening to the conductor talk about needing to play the crochets shorter. I had no idea what a crochet was. During the nightly tea break, I asked one of the other flute players what a crochet was. He pointed at a quarter note. I then pointed at an eighth note and asked what it was called. He replied it was a quaver. I was faced with having to learn a whole new vocabulary to describe note names. I came up with this cheat sheet I found on the web.:

Semi-breve
Whole note
Minim
Half note
Crotchet
Quarter note
Quaver
Eighth note
Semiquaver
Sixteenth note
Demisemiquaver
Thirty-second note
Hemidemisemiquaver
Sixty-fourth note
Quasihemidemisemiquaver
Hundred twenty-eighth note
Semihemidemisemiquaver
Hundred twenty-eighth note
Rests - Where, for example, British say crotchet rest, Americans say quarter rest (not quarter-note rest)
Dots - Dots are dots: a dotted minim, for example, is a dotted half note

I found myself having to say goodbye to these nice people, because, when rehearsals take at least 55 minutes each way to get to (and that’s only if the planets governing public transport are perfectly aligned, otherwise its more like 90 minutes each way), it is hard to stay motivated to go to rehearsals every week. Allen found a band that plays out of Paddington Station every Friday, which I now play in. It’s quite different. There are no rehearsals. Whoever that can, sightreads through new music every Friday. My sightreading is improving, and I’m now having to learn how to transpose (here you don’t raise things up a half-step, but rather a semi-tone). Transposing makes my head hurt. It is giving me the opportunity to continue playing when I can, and I enjoy that very much. The audience (transient though it is) is always appreciative as well.

ntl Hell

2006-10-16T15:34:00.000+01:00

Ah the joys of dealing with British companies. We finally decided that we wanted cable TV rather than freeview to hopefully get better reception and more channels. We’re not allowed to mount a satellite dish outside our flat, so thought that our only option was ntl (they have connections already in every room). The first fishy thing about dealing with ntl, is that we found we couldn’t just order cable television, we had to also order a phone line with them. Finally decided, why not, and made the order. The technician came out to install, said we had to wait a few hours for the cable to start working (why is this always the excuse when something doesn’t work right away?) and left. He left us with a box that kept rebooting itself. Nice, huh? So I called back ntl, explained the problem, and they booked another appointment for a tech to come out and fix the problem. To add insult to injury, they give you a 6 hour window which you have to wait around for the tech to come out. I thought 4 hours was bad! Tech came out, swapped out the box, explained that it would reboot once or twice to download our channels and left. Box number 2 kept rebooting itself every five minutes, and then, to make things interesting would occasionally freeze as well. Called ntl again, another appointment for a tech, more waiting… Tech came out tried a third box, and surprise, it did the same thing. He left us with the second box and promised he would call by noon with a solution. I wasn’t surprised or amused when he didn’t call. Called them back around 2, they promised that someone would call back before 5. They really are a bunch of jokers at ntl. No call, I called at 5:30, spoke with a customer service rep and told him that they had until 10:30 the next morning to fix our problem and give us functional television or we would cancel and demand a full refund. I guess that’s one way to avoid a 6 hour service window. Same tech came out at 9:30 gave us a fourth box, and ran out the door assuring me that this box wouldn’t reboot itself. By the time it took me to walk from the front door back to the living room, guess what. Yup, the box was already rebooting itself. He disappeared really fast. I ran down the stairs after him and he was already gone. Called back ntl and tried to cancel. I was told only Allen could do this since the account was in his name. While I was waiting on hold to be told this, I did find a great website. Turns out, ntl basically just sucks, their technology sucks and their service sucks. At least I knew I wasn’t the only person who had wasted hours of their life to try to get functional television. Allen called them and in only a half an hour cancelled our account and was assured that we would not be billed for the week and a half of broken service they had provided us with.

One would hope that this story would have a happy ending here, but when I checked our bank account today, I found that they had indeed direct debited us for the entire bill. I called them and spoke with billing and the representative their told me our account had been turned back on. I was dumbstruck and informed her that we had not authorised our services to be reconnected. Why would we? We had already given them 4 chances to get it right. She reassured me that we would get a refund noted on our next bill and would then be able to call them and request a check be sent out. Hopefully they’ll get it right this time, although I’m not holding my breath.

Christmas has exploded already

2006-10-16T15:33:00.000+01:00

Now I know that the UK lacks any major holidays in the latter third of the year. There is the August Bank holiday the end of August, and not much else. They only kind of do Halloween here, and it seems that there isn’t much merchandising for Guy Fawkes Day (I guess there’s not a lot of money to be made marketing effigies to burn). Even so, I was amazed that, by at least the end of September, the major department stores (Harrods, Selfridges, etc.) already had their Christmas shops open! I complain about Christmas getting earlier every year, but this is ridiculous. At least I can choose to ignore these Christmas shops, and wait until the traditional day after Thanksgiving to begin the Christmas madness. But then, my local Boots store has thwarted me of even that. Last Monday I walk in, and they’ve hung Christmas wreaths with blinking lights from the ceiling all over the store. This isn’t a store I can avoid going into regularly. Besides making a handy shortcut to get to the local tube station, it’s also the closest drug store to us, and it seems that all the Boots have done this madness already. Every time I go in, I’m forced to roll my eyes and grimace at the forced Christmas craziness that assaults my eyeballs. The bottom line is, it really is too early for Christmas. It’s not even Halloween yet!