Honk Honk....The Curse of the Tooting Trains
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: John Gaunt Radio show....
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
You can now rest assured that Stephen has not done me in...I am alive and living in this noisy hell called England. There is no peace! There is too much transportation in this country...always a plane overhead, always a train rumbling in the distance (or mostly on the other side of our apartment wall), and so many cars (esp. here in "Greater London") that they travel in a never-ending stream down every road, always the same distance apart, like zombies. Of course, that is until there are too many cars trying to fit into the street so that they aren't able to move forward at all. Bah! And the trains are such a noisy, overpriced waste of time...it took me 1 hour and 45 min. to get to work, which is only 7 miles away. I was in tears, cursing openly on the platform as train after train was delayed, cancelled etc... I am so irritated with spending 5 pounds to travel 2 stops on the train (equivilent of spending $12.00 CAN to travel from Dorval to NDG return-for those of our Montreal readers) and on top of that, to not provide a train for an hour, when there are at least 6 trains normally scheduled in that time frame!). RANT-OVER.

Thankfully, I have a bicycle, and it has stopped being icy, and all the broken spokes are fixed, so I have been gleefully escaping the trains and cars, and instead zipping down the tow-path of the Basingstoke Canal. Just this week I decided to start bringing the camera, and here are some pictures:

I am now off of work for the next 5 days, and will post more blogs...hopefully without any whinging!

Sods Law
Topic: Stephen Says
Or at least that's what Elisabeth calls it. I call it What the...? On Monday I got hired for this job that will start in 4 to 6 weeks and I've just been re-hired over at the book store starting in 2 weeks until I start my other job because they're short staffed.

Also in the What the...? category, does anyone else have alot of trouble sending out e-mails through Hotmail? I receive them just fine but can't seem to send anything until after about 12 million tries.

This link comes from my wife and addresses the White Hell (sort of) that has rocked this country. Sort of. We're close enough to London to experience the "London Effect." This basically means that all bets are off when it comes to forecasting the weather in and around London because, uh, erm, uh... it's London?

They Said it Couldn't be Done pt.2
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Stephen Says
Ok; first things first. If you're having a hard time accessing this blog, you're not the only one. I've been pestering Angelfire and have gotten assurances that everything's fixed. They gave me a lillipop, patted me on the bum and have sent me on my way. That said, I won't be changing servers util I start reaching my upload limit.

And, yes, I got a job. Here's a link to the organization's web site and suffice to say, it was my 1st choice for jobs. With luck, our income has just doubled and that barrier called debt that's keeping out of Canada will be knocked down soon enough. The only downside to all this is that the job won't start for 4 to 6 weeks (Please refer to past gripes about how long it takes to find a freaking job in this country) but at least it's a job that requires casual dress, will streamline my carreer path (In a good way - not one that leads to chains & shackles in Telemarketing Hell), and be a worthwhile use of my time that will also result in a livable wage.

Nothing's really new, otherwise. Elisabeth has found that it's more useful to get to work earlier than work late (Hence why I'm typing this at a quarter to eight). She says that she'll (yeah, right) blog sometime soon and she wants to know why the only time that I don't refer to her by name on this thing is when I write about her while she's cooking and, in that circumstance, call her 'my wife.'

Anyway, it's a busy day today - 2 days of slacking off = lots of laundry & chores & shopping & cooking to do. But before I go, hearty congratulations to Mrs. Dr. JC and the joy she's going to have over the next few years, getting paid to do her PHd! Wowza Mowza!

Blurgh!
Mood:  cool
Now Playing: The News
Topic: Stephen Says
{Edit: Elisabeth has pointed out that, most likely, no one will have any idea what I'm writing about in this blog entry. So, since it's Sunday morning, my wife's cooking pancakes and I'm ripping an Oscar Peterson CD; I've decided to annotate this entry. Annotations are, duh, in bold.}

Okay, so here I am on a Friday evening {First off, I'm imitating the 'rap' style of the guy in The Streets; the rap group that I mention later. In fact, this whole blog is sort of modelled after his whiny, pointless style.}, waiting for my wife to come home but she's working late on the day that they announce that the average Londoner works an average of 8 hours of unpaid overtime a week and there's opposition to raising the minimum wage to slightly over 5 pounds an hour {This is fact, as confirmed by the BBC.}because, of course, if you happen to make more than 5 pounds an hour, you'll become a multi-millionaire inside of 2 years and be able to marry your transvestite lover and become Queen-I-mean-King {This is my own snarky supposition that also contains reference to past blog entries where I inferred that Charles & Bowels are both men. I know, I know, Charles? A man?!? For someone who spends so much of his time in a skirt, it's probably hard to beleive that he's a man, bt he is. How else can you explain the attraction that Bowels has towards him?} of this Sceptered Isle. {This Sceptered Isle is a reference to an audio book that I sold while working at the book store. I don't even know what it's in reference to, but seems, to me, to be a funny name to call England.}

Oops. Or maybe it's the 5 cans of cider speaking and that there could be good Job News on the horizon but I don't want to say anything to jinx it except I just did so Whoops! {This is foreshadowing for a future blog entry.}

The album to listen to right now is A Grand Don't Come For Free by The Streets. It's fuckin' terrible but has some good beats and is supposed to be ironic except that it tells the life story of the average Yob/Chav/Youth in this Sceptered Isle so it's actually kind of depressing and sad. But it has some good beats. Don't buy it, download it. But get all the tracks because it's a concept album so, unless you subject yourself to 45 minutes of the worst white-boy rap ever, you won't 'get it.' Or whatever. Did I mention the good beats?

It used to be soooo eeeeeaaaaassssssyyyyyy..... {This is a reference to the ultra-lame refrain from the Street's first track.}

I really want to say something more interesting but nothing's coming to mind. I'm wasting away because there's no one here to make my curry. {i.e., Elisabeth - it was her turn to cook dinner.} It used to be soooooo eeeeaaaaasssssyyyyyyy..... {This is a reference to the ultra-lame refrain from the Street's first track.}


I must go. I'm going to chop some vegetables in the hope that the smell of chopped pepper,onion, garlic, potato and whatever else will bring my wife home earlier.

And maybe convince her to post a blog.

It used to be sooooo eeeeaaaaaassssyyyy..... {Ibid.}

HOLY FREAKING MOLEY IT'S SNOWING RIGHT NOW!
Ok, it's ended now.
And they were only flurries, really.

Yikes!
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Stephen Says
Holy crap, no blogging for a couple of days and Hunter S. Thompson goes and kills himself! Okay, 1st things 1st and a belated happy birthday to Catherine. I hope that Clyde's was a ton of fun.

Not much blogging for the next little while, I suspect - We're getting back to life in the UK & Elisabeth doesn't have much interest in writing anything about the Paris trip, claiming that I sad it all. Consider this a call to start nagging her to post something.

So what did we do over the weekend you ask? Well, Friday night we had a very nice dinner with one of Elisabeth's co-workers & Saturday found us grotty from a late night out so we went to the mall and ate mall bagels and fake-shopped except that I ended up buying a tie so it wasn't fake at all.

On Sunday I woke and realized that Elisabeth had been quite crafty the night before & took advantage of my weakness for cider by getting me to agree, while I was enjoying the sweet, sweet apple nectar, to go out for a traditional English breakfast. 10 pounds later, having consumed one oily egg & some runny beans in tomato sauce, she learned why I tend to avoid this branch of European cuisine. Good coffee, though. We'll go back for that.

Other than that, Elisabeth caught up on her correspondances this weekend & I filled out job applications that are so obscenely obtuse, most people probably wouldn't beleive, for example, that to apply for a job that's really just a combination of date entry & schlepping boxes around, I've got to write a paragraph on examples of my skills & experience in: (1)Teamworking, (2)Leadership, (3)Building relationships, (4)Communicating, (5)Delivering a quality service, (6) Developing and applying expertise, (7) Thinking and decision making, plus (8)Additional information and 4(!!!) references; 2 character related and 2 work related. The only god thing about the application is that it came in an envelope stamped "On Her Majesty's Service."

...Must find work...

Bonus Monday morning filo recipe:
1 fried onion, 1 big package of spinache(blanched), ricotta cheese, feta cheese, grated jarlsberg cheese all wrapped in 5 layers of filo, each brushed with melted butter & cooked at 375 for 30 minutes.

Marmalades may get sent out this week.

Bureaucratic Buffoonery
Mood:  mischievious
Now Playing: Neurosis - Times of Grace
Topic: Stephen Says
We've been back to England only 3 days and the nonsense is already piling up.

1) Due to the fact that I went to Paris instead of staying in the UK and signing on for the dole, I got in a bunch of trouble at the Job Center and was told that because of my actions I would be taken off the list and would have to re-apply. When I pointed out that I wasn't getting any money anyway and didn't see what the point was, I was told that it was about maintaing the levels of my pension. I pointed out that I would only be in England for a few more years and wouldn't be eligible for a pension and was told that, yes, signing in every two weeks was a big, fat waste of time. Especially since I can make payments into my pension retroactively once I've started working. The dole officer agreed to tear up my application so long as I promised not to come after him should I decide to stay in England and, in a few years time, discover my pension isn't as high as I'd thought it would be. I promised not to and we called it even.

2) Dell has now sent me two invoices for over 380 pounds for their non-existent repairs on the computer. I've had to get in touch with them and point out that they've never actually done any repairs on poor old She-Bop and they've promised to credit my Visa in a few days. I'll see it when I beleive it.

3) There will be some mad tidying going on tomorrow as the landlord & estate agents will be coming by for their 1/2-yearly inspection. They'll be bringing some building assessor-somethings to appraise the value of the flat as well. While housing prices in England are stagnating or dropping; Wokings market is booming and, according to last week's real estate news; we're paying 50-75 pounds a month less on our flat than we should be. I suspect this will be an attempt to twist our arms to pay more when our lease comes up for renewal. I suspect, though, that when our flat is assessed, it won't deliver our landlord the god news he's hoping for.

4)I've got to go and check our electricity meter. We got our bill the other day and thay've doubled how much we're expected to pay. Elisabeth called them up to find out how they'd come to their conclusion that we'd doubled or eletricity usage and they told her it was only an 'estimate' based on 'projected energy usage' for this time of year. Seeing as we haven't turned our heat on all winter, I seriously doubt that we're using more. Hopefully the people below us will get around to using more heat, though. It's been bloody cold in here the last few days and we need to steal their warmth!

5) And finally the good news... We got out phone bill and this 1p a minute deal is frigging fantastic! Over 6 hours of calls to Canada and we were charged less than 4 pounds. If anyone in the UK wants the number, drop me a line...

Paris in Pictures pt.2
Topic: Paris trip 2005
After a tough schlep, it's nice to be able to lounge in the foyer of our hotel room with a glass of wine.

Elisabeth consults the map, wondering where the heck Stephen's taken her now. The Ecole Militaire is in the background.

Like I wrote before, the sun only came out when it mattered. One of those times was when we were at Sainte Chapelle:

Sacre Coeur:

And click HERE for a panorama of Paris from Sacre Coeur that's too big to fit on the blog. [For some reason the linking mechanism isn't working right now so if you can't click on "HERE'" copy and paste this address into your browser to go to the panorama: https://www.angelfire.com/oz/rexcats/uk214.html ]

31 kilometers in 60 hours
Topic: Paris trip 2005
[Apologies in advance; I can?t find the button to put accents on all the appropriate vowels.]

Day 1
Note to self (1): When buying e-tickets, remember that Elisabeth?s maiden name is still on her passport. This will prevent an awkward situation while you?re trying to board the plane when you?re told that you can?t because the ticket name doesn?t match up with the passport name. Luckily the dunce behind the check-in counter should have been the one to catch the discrepancy and so there?s not much that they can do about it.

Note to self (2): The Parisian check-in lady will be more alert and catch the problem and be kind enough to bend to rules for you and tear up your old ticket and print out a new, ?corrected? one. The moral of the story: Always travel with your marriage certificate.

At the airport we discovered that the French have a knack of turning Elisabeth beet red. The first occurrence is during her passport check and the officer, upon seeing her Canadian passport says ?Ah, une cousine.? At which point, Elisabeth blurts out in true Quebecois fashion ?Ouai!? Much to the officers amusement.

So we arrived in Paris and were bowled over by so many things. Mostly the pace ? No one running around being busy-bodies like in the UK. Everything?s at a much more relaxed pace, Canadian style. We were even able to stop on a street corner and look around without having anyone bump into us.

I?m not even going to touch upon the insane architecture and city planning. Consider me suitably impressed.

We checked in, walked through the Champs Elysees and pretty much got our bearings; saw the opera house, wandered about. I ate the best baguette I?d ever had and realized that my vegetarianism would be severely challenged seeing as most Parisians were under the impression that fish grew from trees. Luckily there were lots of pizza joints.

We hit the main drag that night and soaked up Parisian tourist culture and had a late supper. My accent, as usual, sucked but once I got over the embarrassment of it, people were happy to talk back to me in French.

At least 5 kilometers walked.

Day 2
Got up, ate, walked along the Seine to the Eiffel Tower and then along the Left Bank, passed by the Musee D?Orsay and ate lunch. Walked to Notre Dame cathedral, Sainte Chapelle, and then wandered around the area until we found a marche, fromagerie & a boulangerie. Walked back to the hotel and crashed.

At least 16 kilometers walked.

That night we became acquainted with European culture: German MTV, French games & variety shows, and of course, CNN.

Day 3
Checked out of the hotel, ate, decided to take it easy so we walked up to Sacre Cour & then toured Montmartre. It started to hail so we hid in a cafe. Then we walked back to the Champs Elysees to see it in daylight and realized that exhaustion and grumpiness was setting in & we still had 4 hours ?till we were picked up to go to the airport. So we loitered in Cafe before setting out and walking for the 100th time through the Jardin des Tuileries, did some window shopping & checked out the insane antique shops outside the Louvre.

At the very, very least, another 16 kilometers walked.

I?m still to pissed off to go into what happened at Charles de Gaulle airport; suffice to say that it involved, in a microcosm, a reenactment of the current state of American/French relations post-9/11 and climaxed with a bottle of Orangina exploding all over my crotch.

And that?s it; back to England. If you have any questions, post them below and I?ll fill in the blanks. Elisabeth will be posting her own version of events soon enough.

Paris in Pictures
Topic: Paris trip 2005
Our trip was pretty grey with occasional bursts of sunlight at the best possible times. Here, Elisabeth poses with the Eiffel Tower in the background; it's top shrouded in mist. We're in France, not England, I swear!

A very sexy shot of the Champs Elysees at night; the obelisk is all lit up, the Eiffel Tower in the background doing it's best impression of Place Ville Marie.

Elisabeth & the Arc de Triomphe

The next day wasn't as grey and Stephen gets his chance to pose infront of the Eiffel Tower...

...and then pose beneath it...

...and then the tower got a chance to pose all by itself.

Outside Notre Dame Cathedral(Almost as impressive as the one in Montreal):

Stephen wonders 'what's it all about' inside Sainte Chapelle.

The answer comes later that evening with a dinner of vin rouge, une baguette frais & some tres smelly cheese.

More to come later...