This is the first pinkwookie post to be brought to you live from Manchester…well the server that is, not myself. Onto January 2008 finally. Before the usual moaning that people mention of how far back in the past I am writing about, here’s a pic of how much trying and giving up this post has endured from myself.
Tries
Yes, that’s right. This post has been over 7 months in the making.
Back where my last post left off, I mentioned that there was indeed a light at the end of the Peckham, which indeed did result in me moving out of the aforementioned South East London town. After a couple of meet-ups withGeffy, and a decision on a suitable digs we decided on a place in Bow in East London. Even after enduring the joys of moving just over a month before, I was doing it all over again. Now that I think of it, I have moved house every year of my life since 2002. Yes that’s moving house every year, for 8 years straight. You could argue that it makes me incredibly good at it I guess.
I believe it was the weekend that I moved in that my Director informed me that my testing services were needed in Birmingham on the Monday. I was to work with two of the guys, whose homes were in Ireland, that I met during the induction for the job. Initially I was supposed to be there for two weeks, but it ended up being about 6 months. Looking back retrospectively, apart from Friday evenings, from moving into our flat in London in February, the first time I saw it during a weekday was in July.
Anyway back to Brum, as the guys who were already there, had been there a while, they had managed to book a 2 bedroom apartment there. Luckily however, they were on hand to suggest a decent hotel nearby to where we would work and also suggested the ones to steer clear of. I must confess really looking forward to some of the perks of being in Birmingham, mainly the £25 per day that I would have to spend on food, I was living the dream there!
After arriving in Brum rather late and having minor difficulties with finding the hotel, I went to visit the guys’ apartment which was a pretty cool pad. As I’m sure you’re wondering, me visiting a new place wouldn’t be complete without a strange event from happening, such as being mugged, or losing my wallet and Birmingham was no exception. You know the little location interludes you get in films? I mean where the location is new and it shows a preview of the locale like sandy beaches, people buying fruit from the local market, etc. etc. and then the name comes up at the bottom. Well, for me and Birmingham, it would be utterly dark at night time and the camera would hover over a bunch of chavs kicking a guy in the street within an inch of his life…[cue text]
Birmingham, February 2008
On my third day in Brum after work, we all decided to go to the cinema to see Cloverfield. A most excellent plan, which was only hampered by the then freezing cold. On the way we noticed a poor chap lying on the floor in the middle of the street with a few people kicking at him. Possibly because of my optimism about people, I thought it was just people goofing around until I saw the copious amounts of red fluid that is normally supposed to be under your skin. It was quite a harrowing experience because the guy was out cold.
The events that followed as most witnesses will say happened very quickly. I rang up an ambulance for the poor bloke, whilst Jonathan and Sean tried to fend off the other attackers who left rather promptly. Probably my first time ringing up emergency services (and hopefully my final), I was in a bit of disbelief that my and everyone else’s experiences to call centres replicated themselves here; after asking for an ambulance, I was actually passed through to the wrong person-unbelievable! Although the woman could help me, she said “Umm I don’t know how you got through to this number” Which isn’t exactly what you want to hear when you’re next to a person that needs urgent medical attention. Still, she was probably some supervisor that wasn’t supposed to be operational and helped me by passing me through to the correct person who promptly helped me. As you can imagine, my directions for the ambulance weren’t exactly specific, what with there being no roadsigns nearby and it being only my third day there. I told them a name of a theatre which we were next to which seemed to be enough and I was later told that they were verifying the incident on the CCTV camera above us. Since fighting was flaring up again which my friends were trying to dissipate, I requested the assistance of the old bill too.
Whilst trying to keep the guy warm and talking to him (even though he wasn’t talking back as he was still out) one of the girls that was already there when we got there (possibly co-operating with the kicking) said that it was her brother and then went into his wallet and took money out…that’s a new low in my opinion. Jonathan acted swiftly by taking it off her and putting it back, to which he received a punch in return. Unbelievably another guy came out of nowhere and took the whole bloomin’ wallet and rushed off (he was caught nearby by police). So anyway, after what seemed like ages, the police turned up and detained the girl in their car. She was obviously up to no good, what after trying to nick money, claiming that the guy was her brother, then her father and later on her cousin something didn’t quite add up.
By the time the ambulance got here, the guy was just coming to and after the paramedics checked him out, he actually managed to climb into the stretcher himself which was a bit of a relief because I thought it may be more serious. It turns out that he had some kind of fit after the stress and injuries of being attacked which is why he was unconscious. We all had to wait for ages in the freezing cold so we could each give a statement to the police too. Jonathan also had to go the police station to make a formal statement, rather him than me because I was busy trying to help the guy whilst speaking to the ambulance people whilst not paying much attention to what was happening around me. Our night, perhaps chivalrous was pretty much ruined; by that time we had missed Cloverfield by miles and went back to the guys apartment to wait for Jonathan who took ages in making the statement.
Looking back on it us 3 guys took on rather Battlefield-esque roles. I took on the role of Medic, Jonathan was assault and Sean was support. Granted I’m not sure where sniper or demolitions would fit into this picture but I digress with my dubiously accurate analogies. Anyway we decided to see the Cloverfield the next day rushing through the freezing cold ignoring everyone. Yes, I think that film is good.
We do have a section now on how it all turned out. Jonathan, as he was marked down as a witness was contacted by Birmingham police about a month after and was told that the victim did not want to press charges (probably because he knew the attackers). We were all suitably enraged about this all, partly because of the horrible things that happened to him, but also because a lot of our efforts to help the guy were sort of in vain if he didn’t do anything about it. Still there was nothing we could do about that.
I’ve realised that I usually only update this blog now when Wordpress wants an update, so that I’ll upgrade and then continue on a draft that I started about a month ago and then finally post it. I’m also including pictures in this one after a few requests. It’ll go some way to prove that at least some of my random musings really happened and perhaps it’ll go a bit of a way to drown out the boring writing. OK probably not.
You could be confused into thinking it was in fact August September as I fall further into not keeping up to date, but anyway, cast ye minds back to December 2007 and I shall continue. -cue wavy flashback-
After spending the first few months at my new job and living with my dad, both of which were a new experience for me I was trying to find a flat in London. I went to a few viewings, some of them which were worryingly small, one notable example was where the bedroom, lounge and kitchen in one room, the sofa being the bed. The thought occurred to me that it may not be so nice to go to bed and still being able to smell my lovely stir fry which I’d cooked right next to me a few hours earlier.
Upon settling on a flat in Forest Hill, I put a holding deposit on it, waiting to move in during December. However, after being in an interim period where my tax threshold on my wages were worked out, Alistair Darling thought that I get too much money and that I should therefore give a vast quantity of my wages to him as opposed to keeping it. Therefore with regret I had to concede that I could not budget very well on the wages that I would actually get and cancel the deposit on the flat. After that, it became somewhat of a panic to find somewhere else rushing as my Dad informed me that I could not live in his when he whilst he was away on holiday. I unfortunately did not get a good range of viewings; they were almost all in South East London and whilst I didn’t know the city at all, I did at least want to see flats in different areas.
Therefore I had to settle with one of the first places I saw due to time constraints. It was a one bedroom flat in Peckham Rye in a semi detached house. My flat was on the first floor, above a couple downstairs and needed…work. You know, the usual, mould in the kitchen and cracked floorboards everywhere (which later resulted in unavoidable crumbs dropping between them which I assume was making the makers of the scuttling noise very fat) There was also a criminal way of operating the shower; having no mount, the shower head had to be held whilst holding the trigger to let the water out. The bulb in the bathroom was so powerful it had melted itself to the bulb holder, rendering it irremovable, but had the side effect of giving off a lovely toxic plastic smell whilst on. The fire exit was a joke too, being a sort of enlarged cat flap to a metallic platform on the outside. No ladder, just a 15 foot drop down. How could we forget the fantastic microwave, complete with large crack in the front which is a bit of a health hazard so I left that one be.
I moved in during the winter month of December, with some appreciated help from my father who helped in the essentials that this mind could not comprehend, such as setting up curtain rails, extending power cables long enough to reach computers. Also the provision of a TV and suitable furniture was most welcome, especially as I did not have broadband (a concept that I had been familiar with the past 3 months at my dad’s house and a month at mum’s, although I made do with the company laptop avec 3g card).
The electricity, gas and water companies that the estate agent suggested on their were of course the most expensive, so the aforementioned 3g card was worth it when checking out price comparison sites for utility companies and getting the best deal. However, my first night there was greeted by an argument of epic proportions. The couple downstairs were not wasting any time screaming and I was torn between trying to get to sleep and ringing the police. After considering that my idea of an argument that is bordering on murder may be different to others, I let it be. I later realised that this was indeed a regular occurrence for them, regular and violent to the point that stuff was breaking and this was kicking off almost always without fail at ungodly hours. I actually met up with them and they invited me in as they had a computer problem and as it turns out they were pretty nice people, nothing like the disembodied voices had suggested (the man in particular). They had cheese, crackers and Wallace and Gromit on TV-a very appropriate foodstuff to be enjoying considering the entertainment.
Other things I learned were that my landlord (who I hadn’t met as I went through an estate agent) was almost certainly a raving psychopath…and certainly a criminal and this guy had the keys to my door. There was a certain story involving him, a hammer, and the couple’s broken door. Other cheerful tales of this delightful landlord included the classic “Girl that used to live in my flat had a broken water pipe, refused to pay the rent until it was fixed. Landlord changed the lock, forcing the girl to sleep in her car for a few nights, after which her cat died of hunger. How he is still a landlord is beyond me, you can probably guess, I just wanted to give this guy a big hug…
Arguing wasn’t the neighbour’s favourite past time oh no. They also loved to play music rather loudly with the bass turned right up. Go on, guess what genre of music…I bet you’re wrong. Yep it was Disney Theme Tunes. I could think of much worse music to be listening to at loud, or indeed any volume but that’s not the point. The point is, it’s a bit strange as they didn’t have any children and I now know the lyrics to “Magic Carpet Ride”, “Circle of Life” and so on off by heart. OK, so for some of them I probably did anyway. There was also an instance when I was awoken at 2am by a knocking at the front door. It turned out to be the woman downstairs who was locked outside of the main house and had been out there for hour, trying to get her boyfriend to let her in, who was obviously ignoring her. As it was winter and she didn’t have a coat I thought this was pretty bad and so offered my humble flat, but she thought she’d try her luck with the inside door of her and her boyfriends flat, cue more arguing as she was let in. I don’t know how I made it into work for 9am every day during December, but people clearly noticed that I was tired.
On top of all the bad points of this place, a mere 2 days after I moved in, a Mr. Garside asked me if I was still looking for places and if I would want to look for a place together. Doubting that the estate agents and especially the crazy hammer-wielding landlord would appreciate me breaking a 12 month contract after 1 month, I agreed to meet up with the Geoffster in the new year to discuss a possible light at the end of the Peckham.
Normally the way that my Christmases work are that I spend Christmas and Boxing Day at my mum’s and then travel to my dad’s to see him and repeat the process over again. This time as I was so close to my dad’s, I thought I’d do it the other way round. It did however have the rather lonely side effect of being on my own for the first time ever on Christmas Eve, spending it in my flat (or whatever other descriptive that can be inserted to replace ‘flat’). Anyway as per usual the entertainment and food were of top quality on Christmas Day and I proceeded to wish that this food didn’t make you put on weight and slowly forgetting as the day went on. I then returned, slightly fatter to my humble abode. This pattern continued on Boxing Day and then after that, I left for Kettering to repeat it at my mum’s house.
New Years Eve was a particular low point, which consisted of playing the most excellent Tomb Raider Anniversary, pausing it at 11:45 to watch the TV until after midnight, and then resuming play. Even my dad in his nearby house was out celebrating with his wife and some of her family, but nonetheless I tend to think this day is an excuse to drink large quantities of alcohol, not that many people need that excuse.
OK so only 9 months behind present day, I can relax now.
Before I start this, I know my theme keeps changing. It seems that the kick ass themes that I choose are almost always guaranteed to throw a wobbly as soon as a new version of the fantastic Wordpress is released. Also following feedback from my review group (well I think it was Matt H and Andrew) it has been a bit confusing about which time frame I am referring to in my posts. So to clarify this it following off where the last post ended (yes we’re still roughly in September 2007, where I went into work on Monday in London as opposed to Birmingham.
Ok so I did slightly miss out of the last post the fact that I did go out after work on the Friday for drinks. It was a weird and surreal experience for me, having a small birthday celebration in London which I wasn’t used to at all. By no means am I a country bumpkin with webbed feet or anything, but for someone that isn’t really used to living in the city, it was strange being in the middle of a bunch of tall buildings and a lot of people and thinking to myself “I now live here”. I sort of purposefully don’t tell people about birthdays because I don’t like a big deal made anyway.
On Monday I met up with the 2 guys who I would be working with for the next few weeks and we walked to our new home from 9-6 weekdays, which happened to be in Monument, just north of London Bridge. As I was still quite wide eyed and new to the city (I still am really) having been only there for a week, I spent a lot of the time getting used to thinking in the morning, on the train and tube, how lucky sardines are being dead and packed in a steel can. It was also novel for me to look out over the Thames as I walked across London Bridge every morning and evening, which as I looked around me, I was the only one doing it as the robotic suits were staring forward determinedly hurrying to work. I was quite pleased at being slightly compensated by the incredibly high living costs in comparison to what I was used to by the free stuff that I was getting. Free papers, free tissues, soup, curry sauce, coffee, tea etc. they all came in handy at some point.
Work was work and in the months to come I saw a bit more of London, even though I am now living here I still manage to feel like a tourist. I was slightly puzzled at why there was a different camera in similar positions on London Bridge filming people walking to work. I think there may well be more than enough stock footage of sped up people walking across bridges for news reports or whatever, but I could be wrong. I managed to see a few things that I’d not seen before such as Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square. I even watched 3:10 to Yuma in the Premiere Odeon place although the £15 or so for a single ticket only went a very short way to compensate me that my bum cheeks could be occupying the same seat that has been graced with the likes of Tom Hanks or John Travolta. The film itself was rather good, albeit absolutely no different to seeing it at any other cinema. Actually I’ll rephrase that, it was no different to seeing it at any other cinema apart from the Futurist.
In the months to come I was also able to increase my exposure to London a bit more. The irony of being shown round London by Jonathan from Cork, Ireland was not lost on me. We went to the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum which are now free. I guess a lot of things may change in the space of about 18 years which is the last time I visited these. We spent most of the time in the History variant and didn’t have much time for the Science one which did seem a lot more interesting in my opinion but we have since revisited it to give it a fair chance.
After word got out about my enthusiasm for Lord of the Rings with my work colleagues (or perhaps come to think of it, it was the random Rings quotes in normal conversation…) me and a couple of the inductees went to see the Lord of the Rings musical down Drury Lane. It was great being able to feed my obsession a bit more; the sets and costumes were fantastic and I’m still trying to work out how they made Frodo disappear in front of my eyes (and no, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a trapdoor).
Other than the above, I don’t have much to say about the months September-November 2007 or rather I’m betting there is loads but I can’t remember. Oh yes that does mean that you can hear the faint jingle of bells, see the green of holly and hear “Holidays are coming, holidays are coming…” for the next post.
