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I was going to save this for last but you may as well know right away. Kathryn and I have both found employment - with Foster and Partners and HMV, respectively. This is a good thing as the credit card was maxxed out we were down to our last $50 - which will almost buy you lunch in this town. Kathryn has been doing temp work this week at the UKCC. They wanted her to come back next week but since she has permanent employment they are going to have to find someone else.

Rewind to Monday

After my first interview with HMV I strolled down Bond St looking in stupidly expensive shops and wondering what to do with my day. I decided to take in a concert at St James’s - supposedly Christopher Wren’s favourite church - which was quite good. Well, for a £2 donation anyway.

Paintings

As I have mentioned, I had previously been to the National Gallery to see the Rembrandt exhibition. I decided to see the rest of it now. It was free after all. What an amazing place! I spent two hours in the Sainsbury Wing (1260-1510) alone. I had never seen so many beautiful paintings before. I saw the Leonardo Cartoon (I can’t see what’s so funny) and Boticelli’s Venus and Mars. The portable CD guide is very good and was well worth the donation (I have found that all these ‘free’ attractions manage to swindle me out of as much money as the fee-charging ones). After the Sainsbury Wing there were a couple of other paintings I wanted to see before leaving: Pope Julius II by Raphael, Constable’s painting of Salisbury Cathedral from the meadow (not as good as the real thing) and Bronzino’s An Allegory with Venus and Cupid. This is my favourite painting. No print can do it justice. The colours are so bright and vivid. Closing my mouth with my hand I walked with sore feet to meet Kathryn.

It’s BooKAY

After a $45 pizza (NEVER convert to AUD) we walked to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket to see the Importance of Being Earnest. It was a brilliant production and Patricia Routledge was perfect.

Autumn

After days of hot weather and stinky tube rides, the weather suddenly turned cold and wet. Much better.

In search of coffee

There is a dearth of good coffee shops in London. In fact of all the cities I’ve been to (admittedly none in France or Italy) Adelaide is by far the best for coffee. I found a decent place in Soho one morning called Patisserie Valerie where I spent a pleasant half hour reading the Guardian and having a coffee and danish. Of course this cost me £5. Trust me, you’ve got it good in Rundle Street. PS. never go to Starbucks. They suck.

Waterstones

The biggest bookstore in Europe has just opened on Piccadilly. It is six stories high and has a lot of books duh). You could conceivable spend a whole day there. In fact if they didn’t shut you wouldn’t have to leave. You could have breakfast on the third floor, check your e-mail on the second floor, have lunch and dinner in the restaurant on floor 5, check your stocks via the internet (2nd floor) have a cocktail on the sixth floor at the bar before retiring to one of the many couches with a good book. It’s big.

Toys

Hamley’s is the biggest toy store in the world and is a place I could spend lots of money in on such things as radio controlled, petrol driven Subaru WRXs, model trains and Darth Maul costumes. It’s like Santa’s workshop, only warmer and without all the crappy wooden toys.

St James’s Park

Past St James’s Palace is his park. It is quite lovely. I imagine the Queen likes the view. On this day a light rain was falling and there weren’t many people about (can’t stand ‘em). I don’t think I shall ever get bored of squirrels. They are so cute, the way they bound along, bushy tail twitching, then stop and sit up to have a look. As I was standing outside the cafe wondering if I wanted a coffe (no doubt bad) a squirrel scurried up to me and sat on my shoe. For a moment I thought he was going to climb up my inside leg, but then he scurried off again. So cute.

Papa bear this is Goldie Locks, come in please…

The Cabinet War Rooms are and amazing place. They are preserved the way they were left in 1945 and it is very atmospheric. I walked around with my mouth open as I saw the very maps Churchill used and such signatures in the guest book as Elizabeth R and George RI. There was the hotline to America that had encoding equipment so large and complex it had to be housed in Selfridges basement. It was a very enjoyable couple of hours. I was surprised and impressed to note the airconditioning puffing out cool air.

Nice hats

I made my way back to Oxford Circus by way of the Horse Guards Parade. The Queens Life Guard were always my favourite as a boy and I was pleased to see them patrolling with tall helmets and drawn swords gleaming. I tried not to look suspicious as I walked quickly by.

Old stagers confound stately home researchers

There was an article in the Guardian this week about Wilton House, a nice place I went to near Salisbury. Only in England could you have a bit of a spring clean and find a play by Ben Johnson and Inigo Jones written 370 years ago!

The Wallace Collection

I spent a couple of hours at the Wallace Collection, another ‘free’ attraction. Mr Wallace was certainly very fond of clocks and barometers, not to mention the paintings that covered every spare inch, although they were a bit romantic for my liking. The most interesting rooms were the arms and armoury collection. There is an astounding number and variety of deadly weapons and armour from around the world. Most impressive is the armoured knight on his fully armoured war horse. With his sword raised above his head he towers over you and is quite terrifying.

I decided to take a shortcut from the Wallace Collection and I ended up on Queen Anne St walking past the house Hector Berlioz stayed in in 1851, and JMW Turner’s old house. There were a number of other little blue plaques on houses and I suppose if I had the money I’d live on Queen St too.

Setbacks

Ok. I have got a job at HMV on Oxford Street selling CDs in the classical dept. Now to get paid I need two things: a National Insurance number and a bank account. Kathryn has both of these. She is lucky.

1) The DSS at Tavistock Square in the West End is a much friendlier place than the one at WHitechapel we went to for Kathryn, although the entrance still smelt like urine. Once there I discovered I needed an appointment and I was very lucky to get one for three days hence.

2,3,4,…)The rest of the day was one rejection after another. I tried every high street bank and none would give me an account. Citibank wouldn’t speak to me unless I earned over £20,000, Abbey National wouldn’t give me an account unless I had lived in the UK for 3 years, but most just wanted a utility bill in my name for my address - something I will never have. I think the motto of the London banks is “Trust no-one”.

More film work

While on my quest to find someone to take my money I was accosted in the street bny a man in a pin-stripe suit and a camera crew. He thrust a little award into my hand and told me to say thankyou. I mumbled thanks, at which he stopped the camera and told me to be more excited. Being the fool I am, I obliged. He then took the award away and went in search of new idiots to harrass. I have no idea what it was about.

What about Kathryn?

Ok. Kathryn has a job at Foster and Partners working as the Project Secretary for the McLaren Team. Yup F1. I’m hoping for some tickets to Silverstone. Foster and Partners is a major architectural firm. Headed by Sir Norman Foster they designed the new Hong Kong airport. Impressive, hey? She works in a huge modern building right on the river and right next to lovely Battersea Park. We are hoping to get a flat in the Battersea area.

Nutbags

On our way to Waterloo station to go to Salisbury we were entertained on the tube by a busker and a religious fanatic. They both got on at the same station and for a while I thought they might be a team, although I couldn’t see the funny side. It was only after the religious nut got off at the next stop that I realized he was for real. It was actually a little scary. He got on (the nutbag) and proceeded to shout at the top of his voice passages from the bible which he read from notes. He was of middle-eastern descent and had a crazed look in his bloodshot eyes. He looked like one of those men you see on CNN, riding a tank and firing an AK-47 in the air. The busker was quite good (once I could hear him) so I gave him some money. When they both got on and Saddam started his ranting, the busker shouted something like “Shut the F*** up, I’m trying to work here”.

Life is never dull in London.

London

We caught the train to London and were greeted on our arrival by Malcolm’s secretary Gill. After somehow managing to stuff the suitcases into the back of a little Renault Clio we made our way from Waterloo Station to New Cross.

And we have been here ever since. In the last couple of weeks we have seen St Paul’s cathedral, climbed the Monument, and walked a long way. We also spent one memorable afternoon at the DSS applying for a National Insurance number (I shall take a book next time). We have seen an exhibition of Rembrandt’s self portraits at the National Gallery and been to a performance of Look Back in Anger at the National Theatre. On Monday night we are seeing The Importance of Being Earnest at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.

Kathryn has registered with several employment agencies and a high-paying job is just days away. She is doing a week of temp work next week.

London Life

Unfortunately the Goodies and Monty Python are not on TV every night as I had hoped. In fact they aren’t on at all. Still, Not the Nine O’Clock News is very funny and the Simpsons are on BBC2 (no ads).

The Italian Job has just been re-released in the cinemas here and I hope to see those Mini Coopers driving up and down stairs on the big screen. If you have never seen it, go and rent it now. The car chase is better than the Blues Brothers.

£££

Yes, London is incredibly expensive, especially travel. Petrol costs 70p/L, not that that affects me but if you start converting all the prices into AUD then you won’t buy anything. It is almost true that what you can buy with a £ and a $ roughly equate. An all day travel card costs £3.80, a sandwich from Pret a Manger (very nice and our staple lunchtime diet) costs about £2.80 and a coke is about 75p. It must be the climate because bottles are 500ml and cans are 330ml.

How’s the weather

You know how when it has been a really hot day in Adelaide, say 35 - 40 degrees, there is usually a story in the Advertiser with a picture of some pretty girl frolicking in the surf at Glenelg? Well there was one of those in the Evening Standard last week. The caption told how the temperature soared to 29 degrees in some places.

It has been unusually warm in London since we arrived with temperatures hovering around 30. The city is obviously not prepared for such heatwaves. Even many large stores have no airconditioning and the tube is unbearable. The ventilation in a tube really must be not felt to be believed. Not only are the tubes not airconditioned, on some of them the only ventilation is a tiny sliding grille. Stoopid.

2000

I don’t know if you have seen anything on TV but the Millenium Wheel - the biggest ferris wheel in the world, 100ft taller than Big Ben - spectacularly failed to rise yesterday. Hundreds of people lined Westminster Bridge and the Thames bank to watch three of the biggest cranes in the world lift the wheel upright at a staggeringly boring speed of 14 inches every 5 minutes. It was meant to start going up at 7am and finish at about 11pm. I hoped they had brought a packed lunch. I passed them on the train at about 9am. It still looked flat to me. On the way home that night it was still level. I guess they’ll try again in a couple of days.

The Solar Eclipse

How could I forget? On the day we first arrived in London (11/8/99) we went into town to have a look around. As we walked around Picadilly Circus we wondered why people were looking upwards. I figured it was merely a human fly scaling a building and so paid them little attention. Then as were eating our lunch (a shared ciabatta and water: £6.25) I commented that it seemed dark for 11am and wasn’t the weather funny in the UK. As we left the cafe it suddenly dawned on us that we were right in the path of one of the most astounding coincidences of our solar system. Something that people pay thousands of pounds chasing around the world. We looked up. There was a thin layer of cloud but we could clearly see the sun with a huge bite taken out of it. Cool. We stared dumbly for a moment, permanently damaging our retinas and continued on our way.

Today

And that brings us up to date. As I sit here Concorde has just thundered overhead on its way to Heathrow and the sun is setting over the rooftops of New Cross. I think it’s time for dinner. “Kathryn?…”

Fast-forward

Ok. I am about a month behind schedule here, so there is a bit of catching up to do.

We arrived at Heathrow ahead of schedule at about 5:45am. After the stress of the custom officials questions, waiting for our baggage to arrive and fresh in the knowledge that $100 buys about £30 we were ready to experience the wonder of London’s public transport.

It was hard enough for me to drag Kathryn’s suitcase from the house to the car, but after much effort, a change of tube and many steps and escalators later, we stepped out of the black cab at Mark and Nicole’s front gate.

TV Stars

We stayed with Mark and Nicole for a few days during which time we did a TV commercial for The Sun newspaper. Our day consisted of sitting in a bus for 8 hours (being fed copious ammounts of very good, very free food) wondering when someone would shout “action!”, then a couple of hours of actual TV work. It turned out to be a lot of fun. I saw the commercial on TV the other night and I think I caught a glimpse of my left hand, but it happened so fast I can’t be sure.

A week(end) in the country

We spent the next week (or was it two?) at Lodge Farm, Downton. It is a beautiful old farmhouse just outside a lovely little village, just down the road from a city with the most beautiful cathedral in England. Sigh…

We were joined at Lodge Farm by: Kathryn’s Uncle John and Aunt Fay, Kathryn’s cousin Jonathon and his little daughter with the big accent Catherine.

A country wedding

Mark and Nicole got married the following Saturday at a tiny little church nearby. Afterwards the guests returned to Lodge Farm where Kathryn and I played our violins while they nibbled and drank before the reception in the granary. It was a most enjoyable occasion and to top it off there were fireworks at the end of the night. Not sparklers, mind you, the real thing. Rockets that looked like the Death Star exploding above our heads (well before the Special Editions anyway).

Stonehenge and Old Sarum

Old Sarum is quite impressive and I urge you all to go there but I feel it would be a lot better from about 600ft up. Others must have thought so too as we were constantly getting buzzed by low flying aircraft. The thing about Old Sarum is that there isn’t much there. Just a hill with some very old foundations. Now, I like that stuff as much (probably more) than the next guy but it cost something like £6 to get in.

We were intending to catch just a normal red bus up to Stonehenge. After waiting at the bus stop for a while past its due time we thought we had missed it. It was then that the guide bus that leaves every couple of hours from Salisbury arrived. Some fast talking from the bus driver convinced us we had missed the bus and we would be better off with him. While we were standing in the bus discussing fares the bus we had been waiting for arrived, noticed there were no passengers waiting for it and proceeded merrily on to Stonehenge without us. So we had no choice.

We paid our fares and went upstairs where the guide and the other tourist was. Yes, that’s right, there were three of us on this tour. This made it much more personal and I felt compelled to nod acknowledgement of every second historical point the guide made. It was interesting though. Especially when we were standing in front of the huge stones and she proceeded to demonstrate the “lines of energy” running beneath the monument with a pair of metal rods. Ooooookay.

There are plans to remove the ‘A’ road running past the circle just about knocking over the stones in its path. This is an excellent idea which could be improved further by demolishing the terrible souvineer shack filled with a huge assortment of tourist tack.

We experienced many more delights of Wiltshire during our stay at Lodge Farm: Wilton House, WInchester Cathedral, Romsey Abbey, Yvonne’s cooking but a place I must tell you about was quite a distance from Salisbury.

Give me the Sally Lunn

One day we went to Bath. It rained. This hardly dampened our enthusiasm for this city though. Bath is famous for its Roman baths but, for me, this was my least favourite part. The central pool was very impressive, its opaque greenness giving off steam as a light rain fell. I desperately wanted to take a dip. But the rest of the site was hot, filled with tourists (can’t stand the devils) and not that exciting really.

What I was really taken with was the Abbey. It has some beautiful carvings on the west front of angels climbing a ladder to heaven. Go inside and there is a man sitting there who very politely asks for any donation you might like to give, if you can afford it. This immediately made me want to give him some money. So I did. The interior is beautiful. It is not ostentatious or showy and there is a lot of glass to let in the light. It is my second favourite church after Salisbury Cathedral.

We had morning tea / lunch at a place called Sally Lunn’s. Apparently Sally invented these buns in the very same house a few hundred years ago, and they have been served ever since. It is the only place you can get them and they are worth the trip. Go there now.

Sorry about the delay, but this really is the first chance I’ve had to update the site since we left. So here goes…

Take Off

Kath and I were most impressed with the job Boeing has done with their 777 series aircraft. They really are top of the line and I heartily recommend anyone thinking of starting an airline that they go out and buy a few of them. Not only are there cool LCD screens in the seat in front of you (bigger in first class but I doubt worth the extra $2000) on which you can watch TV, movies (Jackie Chan - it just gets better doesn’t it) and play crappy little Nintendo games, but the control paddle has a credit card reader and a phone built in (I’m serious) so you can make calls to all your friends telling them how great it is. I considered doing this for about a microsecond; calls made from 35,000 ft seem to be charged at the international roaming tariff (approx. $25 per second or part therof). Oh, I almost forgot the best bit. There is a channel called Airshow, or something, and it gives you a little map of the world (with sunny and night-time bits) and a teensy little plane creeping along a white line that leads directly to Kuala Lumpur or, if you are not so lucky, London. It may only look like 3 inches on the TV screen but that translates roughly into 3 hours flight time. Still, when you are confined to 200 cubic inches of personal space for 6 hours (or more) the littlest things become very interesting.

Of course some fat-cat in row AA 01 decided to recline his seat 2 minutes after takeoff. This caused what is known as a domino-effect and I soon found my little screen 3 inches from my nose. As I am a stupid and considerate person I refused to give in to peer presure and so remained in that position for the remainder of the flight, apart from the odd meal break. And they were odd. Oddly tasty:) I think I had satay and it was very nice thank-you.

Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur International Airport is one of the biggest and unfriendliest airports I have been to (which, admittedly, is not that many). The terminal we landed at was actually called the Satelite Terminal and we had to catch a driverless train to the airport proper. Passing through the deserted airport like the living dead we searched for our connecting flight. I managed to walk through some big glass doors which opened politely to let me through. Of course it was only when I tried to exit by the way I had come that I noticed the big NO EXIT sign. I felt like an eel in a trap. I was obviously the first idiot ever to have done this and it took some time to convince the airport staff to let me through. I had left my boarding pass with Kathryn and when the Malaysian staff said “ah, this is a problem”, I admit I had visions of Bankok Hilton. The signs everywhere that said cheerfully “Mandatory Death Sentence for Drugs” did not help.

The 45 minute flight to Penang was everything the 777 wasn’t. It was a 737; old, hot, crowded and worst of all no Legend of Zelda and three dimensional maps of the flight plan. The bored-looking cabin crew just had time to serve us some warm fruit drink before we touched down in beautiful Penang airport.

Take Me to the Parkroyal, Muhammed

We were met, to my delight, by a man holding a sign with my name on it. He was our driver. His companion was a large woman who looked liked she could break a swan’s wing with the blow of her nose. She was the baggage handler. Our suitcases weighed a total of about 3 tonnes but she hurled them into the minibus (hmm, where’s the limo?) with abandon. We took our seats and were treated to our first views of the real Malaysia and, more excitingly, the real terror of the Malaysian roads. Not even the presence of a police car seemed to make any of the drivers want to stay in the appropriate lane. Vespas and little motorcycles were everywhere. They must outnumber cars, and people, 100 to 1. There seemed to be an invisible motorbike lane somewhere on the left side of the road. They would speed up, slow down and change lanes irrespective of what the other traffic was doing and at great risk of dying spectacularly. It made me laugh.

Room 212

The hotel was nice. It was on the beach. The little hotel guide warned against swimming in the sea because of the stingers. To compensate it had a lovely blue pool with a - wait for it - swim up bar. I desperately wanted to swim up and order something with an umbrella but couldn’t figure out where to keep my money.

Breakfast was included so naturally we tried to get our money’s worth. The buffet had the usual assortment of fruit, pastries, bacon, eggs although the curry was a new one for me.

Penang - Isle of Wonder

We asked the Concierge what we should do. He proceeded to list the islands main attractions, which included a number of temples and a fruit farm. We decided to check out the temple. The tour didn’t leave till the afternoon so we spent the morning walking up and down the main road of Ferringu Beach. As soon as you step out of the hotel you are offered a taxi by up to 12 different people at once. We walked. We bought some stuff.

We joined the tour bus and were entertained by our Budhist guide along the way. The temple was called Kek Lok Si and is the biggest in Malaysia (or something). It sits at the top of 500 steps up the side of a mountain. Apparently the Budhists built it there to test your faith. The whole way up is lined on either side with stalls selling crap. Unbelievable. Here, supposedly on the path pilgrims take to pray, were hundreds of people selling fake everything. From dog shit to Rolex watches.

Stopping to feed the 400 turtles half way (thereby ensuring we live to 103), dodging beggers at our feet and paying the silent nun at a turnstile, we found ourselves in a fairly impressive temple that was worth the climb. It was fairly impressive, but looked like it had once been magnificent and had subsequently been done up in the 1970s with all that implies.

The bus then took us to Penang Hill, the highest point on the island. The summit is reached by a half hour ride up a 100 year old funicular (look it up) railway. The carriages were tiny and carried about 50 people each. It was hot. When we reached the top, I could see why it felt like I had been breathing underwater. I could see almost nothing. Georgetown was lost in the mist. Gee, that was worth one of the worst train rides of my life.

That night we strolled along the market outside our hotel, trying to decide on a Tag Heuer or Rolex. We had a fantastic meal at an outdoor cafe that cost about $10 for both of us (including a Tiger beer). The night air was clear and cool, we were at our leisure and there were hundreds of stalls selling crap we could afford. It was one of the best nights of my life.

Georgetown - City of Crap

We took the shuttle bus into Georgetown and almost immediately wished we hadn’t. It was noisy, dirty, smelly and the Komtar Centre, supposedly a shopping experience didn’t seem to open for another hour. We were beginning to wish we hadn’t booked the return trip for 5 hours away.

Komtar eventually woke up and it sucked. The ground floor was reached by a flight of stairs and inside was a hive of little stalls. The Malaysians seemed to have no concept of what shopping malls should be. It was like they just took a street market, folded it in on itself and stuck it in a building. It was a maze of pirate computer software stores, pirate watch stores and things like hairdressers and bootmakers. The second floor was slightly better and more open. This had McDonalds and quite a number of jewellers, one of which was guarded by a fat guard sitting on a stool cradling a pump-action shotgun. I tried to take a photo of him without getting blown away. After Kathryn had paid an old guy some money to use the ladies and discovered a scene too horrible to mention we decided to leave.

Whereas the beach had taxis, Georgetown had trishaws. They would ring their handlebar bells at us as we approached to attract attention. Since we had a couple of hours to kill in an ugly asian city we found the oldest guy we could and got in his trishaw. It was great. He was about 103 (must’ve fed the turtles) but he pushed us around his city with vigour. He showed us a number of temples, an old British fort and all the different ethnic regions of Geortown.

It was a better than the bus tour the day before and a lot cheaper. Georgetown is strange. All the places we went could have been so impressive. But they were either surrounded by piles of trash or had whole families of beggars living on the steps. And all the temples have the same look about them. As if someone has had a go at doing them up a few years ago but got sick of it before they had finished. It was a bit sad really. Nevertheless it was a highlight of the trip and I gave the nice old man a huge 10 ringitt tip.

13 hrs to London

We were very happy to discover our 747-400 had been fitted with the same in-flight entertainment as the 777 (Fly Malaysian). Unfortunately, while the jumbo is about twice the size it carries about 3 times the number of passengers. Still, I did get a blanket and a pillow, and quite happily watched the little white plane chug towards England. Incidently, every 3 minutes or so an arrow appears telling you which way to Mecca. I didn’t make use of the little prayer room.