Jim's blog

If there's one surefire way to spoil a perfectly good bad mood, it's with good news. So allow me to blow a little sunshine up your nether regions for a change, since (a) I temporarily have internet connectivity back (though for how long, I don't know) and (b) I am temporarily able to access my e-mail (ditto).

The main positive development of which I write is Jim Harris's blog, which I gather made its debut recently. Having been out of the country for some weeks now and having been out of the political loop for even longer, I didn't know the esteemed former leader of the Green Party (and respected business writer & guru) had taken to the blogosphere. But there he is: I strongly suggest you check it out. Frequently.

I have a lot of time for Jim. Among other things he's an eminently reasonable and thoroughly sensible man which, considering our current political climate, might seem to disqualify him for public office. But he certainly did a lot to raise the profile of the GPC, to say nothing of a commensurate amount of funding (etc.), and thus he deserves props (as the kids say). I was deeply saddened to see him step down as leader but stuff happens, things change, and on we move. Anyway, whatever he might have to say through the medium of his blog I'm sure will be entertaining, informative, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Next: carrier pigeons, or messages in bottles

Please be advised of the following:

MY E-MAIL IS DOWN. THE NETWORK IN THE HALLS OF RESIDENCE IS DOWN. MOST EVERYTHING IN ALL OF BRITAIN, THIS GODFORSAKEN HELLHOLE OF A PRIMITIVE BACKWATER, IS DOWN. NOTHING WORKS AS IT SHOULD, AND EVERYTHING THAT SHOULD BE WORKING IS PROBABLY CLOSED ANYWAY.

It is only by a stroke of the purest good fortune that I was able to log on to the University's network today (although it failed to recognize my login ID, tried to shut me out and, once it deigned to log me in, exhibited profound limitations).

So, to emphasize: I cannot read your e-mail. I have no idea what matters of utmost urgency you may be desperately trying to communicate to me. My only means of contact with the outside world are this blog (and frankly it's a miracle that I can even log onto the university network and access that) or the telephone (assuming it's actually working, of course). Sadly, it may be wise to assume that this will be the case going forward; it is difficult, at this early juncture, to believe that anything will get any better as time elapses. Therefore if I do not reply to your e-mail in a timely fashion (or ever), or if I never seem to be online, it is not for lack of trying on my part. You and I must simply resign ourselves to the occasional communication and hope that nothing really bad ever happens until I get the hell out of this terribly backward and technologically medieval place.

This entire unfortunate circumstance was foreshadowed earlier in the week, when I was blissfully unaware that life as I knew it would soon come to a crashing halt and was listening to CBC's Ideas podcast featuring pseudonymous guest Theodore Dalrymple. He is a psychiatrist whose latest work takes as its subject the imminent collapse of British (and eventually all of Western) civilization, at least from a cultural perspective. While his thesis was never really made clear in the program, he did indicate that he has perceived a general trend towards violence and "barbarism" in English culture. He was able to describe the phenomenon but could not quite explain it, at least not in the time allotted.

So, "Mr. Dalrymple," allow me:

Britain is going to hell in a handbasket because nothing works properly in this country. And the thin veneer of civility (read: undeserved air of smug superiority) that keeps people from ripping each other's heads off and shitting down their necks out of sheer frustration because nothing works properly, is wearing dangerously thin. It's even more cloying when served up with a snotty British accent.

As Leonard Cohen once famously said, "Everyone is on the verge of throwing in the towel and no one can stand what's going down." This ain't rocket science, trust me. To quote another great poet of our time: "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Anyone who's ever had to struggle with successive layers of incompetence and/or bureaucracy, only to give up because the frustration and further cost mitigate or totaly negate the value of fighting the good fight, knows what I'm talking about.

And there you have it.

* * *

You might have guessed from the tone and timbre of this post that I did not sleep well last night. Quelle surprise! This time the fire alarm went off about an hour into my repose when some knob in the building decided to have a smoke in his or her room. The good news in this incident is that (a) people won't be able to stink up the building by smoking, and (b) there is at least one resident who has been forcibly outed (in more ways than one) as a Category One Nincompoop. Whether that lesson sticks, of course, is another matter entirely. One can only hope.

Then, an hour or two or three later, a very loud party erupted elsewhere in the builing, and a chorus of Neanderthals (with apologies to true Neanderthals everywhere) started singing heavy metal songs at the top of their leathery lungs. The thunderstorm that erupted shortly thereafter was quite tranquil and soothing by comparison.

Today, being Saturday, I have little hope of an improvement in the situation. My only hope is that someone seriously lays down the law during next week's compulsory residence hall induction meetings (notice of which was circulated yesterday), and that the proper authorities make good on their threats to deal promptly and effectively with offenders. Otherwise I'll be investing in a cricket bat and doing a Buford Pusser on their miserable pantywaist undergrad asses.

* * *

On the bright side, there were several highlights to the week. One was the arrival of my Oyster card a mere week and a day after I'd posted my application form. Although this development appears to fly in the face of previous claims about the British way of life, I suggest this is the exception that proves the rule. The card was not properly registered and so it took several more bureaucratic steps to (allegedly) rectify the situation. The Oyster will hopefully help save money on transit costs, and at the very least will eliminate the fumbling around for appropriate cash trying to buy tickets at tube stops or on buses.

Yesterday I almost succeeded in opening a bank account. A small victory, perhaps, but I am one step closer. Still, it is hard to place any trust -- to say nothing of my money -- in a bank whose employees can't work out something as simple as the length of time elapsed between two given dates. You see, my letter of introduction from the school specified that my full-time program began on September 18, 2006 and will end next September 30, 2007. However, at the bank I was told that this information was not sufficient and that my letter "must specify that the program is of a duration of at least one year."

Still think my frustration is exaggerated?

Happily I also learned from one of my flatmates that it's not necessary to call to get an appointment with a local GP to register for the NHS; apparently it's a lot faster if I simply take my forms and information to the office and do a walk-in. This is another minor victory, given the amount of time I have already spent trying to get a human being on the line in order to simply make an appointment. One day I will make a fortune writing a book on the way things are really run: "Never mind what they say in the official guides, here's how to actually get something done in this country," etc.

Earlier this week I obtained a mobile phone. Calls to Canada or the U.S. are a mere 5p per minute, anytime, which is almost as cheap as the most competitive land-line calls from Canada to the U.K. My local calls aren't cheap, of course, but then I don't expect to use it much here. In fact, of the two or three times I've used it thus far it's mostly been to "text" London-based friends. Texting is generally much cheaper than voice calling, which is why it's so popular here. Annoying as hell, but popular. If I start calling a lot in the next little while you'll know why. I just hope my cellular connection, which is spotty at best here on campus, holds out.

But the biggest win of all this week was a visit from Helen, who very kindly brought a care package lovingly prepared by D. Among other things it contained my slippers, three indescribably delicious Fat Witch brownies (thanks Mickey!), a batch of newspapers, some important books, photos, and some additional winter running gear. It was like Christmas come early. What more could a person want? Aside from consistent Internet access, I mean. And a bank that can tell dates. Or a local doctor who accepts phone calls...

I probably shouldn't have read the aforementioned newspapers although I did spent an hour or more with them over coffee. I thought, naively, that I would be comforted by current events from home. Oh, at first I was amused by the tempest in a teapot that is Belinda Stronach's alleged affair with Tie Domi -- how typically Canadian is that?! -- but I was also appalled (though not at all surprised) that the papers completely ignored the real news. The more I read, the more depressed I became. At least here in Britain you've got the Guardian and a few other outlets to provide a counterpoint to the sensational, hysterical, right-wing drivel. Reading Diane Francis' inane capitalist boosterism nearly made my blood boil; this time she was ranting about selling all our water. In typically short-sighted and simplistic fashion she makes it appear as though this would provide free-flowing money for all our public goods, cautiously circumventing the obvious result that any profit would be diverted to private interests even though the capitalists would likely beg, threaten or cajole the public into paying for the necessary infrastructure. And conveniently, of course, she omits certain salient facts such as the actual amount of remaining potable water in Canada, which really represents a small fraction of the figures she (selectively) cites. She completely sidesteps the issue of price and most other normal considerations, in that typically alogical, greed-driven, Adam-Smith's-invisible-hand-will-sort-it-out kind of way. And so on.

Serves me right for reading the National Post, I guess. Not that the Grope & Flail was much better, or the Vancouver Stun. In retrospect I would have been much better off spending my time by gouging my eyes out with a rusty spoon. (As a sort of amateur social science experiment I have lent the papers to the several International Journalism students on my floor, and I look forward to their analyses -- if they can stop laughing long enough.) I console myself with the knowledge that few sentient beings actually follow the mainstream media anymore, so the ultimate effect is that they are preaching to the converted. To paraphrase my great and good friend Otis: if you're smart enough to read these papers, you're smart enough not to read them.

Anyway, not wanting to look gift horses (gift flight attendants?) in the mouth, I was grateful for Helen's visit, however brief, not only because of the goodies but because it was genuinely wonderful to see her and catch up on all the news of the last few months. We went for coffee at a French style cafe near the hotel, which by the way took me about a half-hour to find even though it was only two blocks in a direct line from the St. John's Wood tube station. Did I mention I'm absolutely useless with a map, and have an even worse innate sense of direction?

Unbeknownst to me poor Helen didn't get much of a chance to sleep before I called in at the hotel, and so once the coffee's effects faded so did she. So around 7:00 I bade her goodnight and headed home on the tube. She's coming back to London on the 11th October, I think, so -- note to D.! -- there's another opportunity to send supplies. Speaking of which, another book I'll need from my library is the Leonhard & Kusek. At least that one is a small, pocketbook-sized tome.

* * *

Last night I ate dinner in the company of another Canadian, Amy, who (I've only just learned) lives on our floor. She's originally from the east coast and is taking a Master's in photography. Her boyfriend, who is also Canadian, is a doctor doing his internship at Cambridge. At least I will now have nearby fellow Canadian(s) with whom to commiserate when and if anything else goes pear-shaped.

But to end on a more positive note, I received more invaluable information about Portugal from my friend Ricardo, who incidentally shares my admittedly dim and bemused view of things here. More on that later.

Day of reckoning (literally)

Yesterday, our second full day of classes for the term, led off with Finance & Economics. It's bad enough I have this completely irrational fear of F&E (read: effin' E) at the best of times, but the hall's Junior Olympic Morons were at it again the previous night, slamming doors and shouting and generally being their usual odious selves rather late into the night/early into the morning. Right now you're probably thinking: oh no, here we go again. But you must understand that my frustration is partially fueled by the fact that most of my flatmates, who happen to be Indian, tell me that life is a (very loud) 24-hour-a-day circus in Mumbai, and it is a matter of the purest Darwinian survival that they have developed effective coping mechanisms. These allow my flatmates to sleep deeply and unperturbed through the most unholy of rackets, such as those committed by the Second Floor Undergraduates' Tragic Waste of Skin and Oxygen Brigade on a nightly basis. In fact, they tell me, the din raised by Harrow Hall Q88's barbarians is positively pastoral by comparison. Therefore it's difficult, if not impossible, to arouse sufficient sympathy for some sort of concerted action, let alone a half-decent lynch mob.

Not that I'm keeping score, of course, but in the nearly three weeks that I have been in the U.K., I believe I have enjoyed no more than a grand total fo three nights of more than 4 hours' consecutive sleep. Small wonder everyone is very quick to tell me how bloody awful I look. This, incidentally, is a perfectly thoughtless and shitty thing to tell someone. I mean, would you walk up to a cancer patient and say, "Wow, you look like you're at death's door"? I hope not. So why on earth would you say something equally inappropriate to someone who is chronically sleep-deprived? Let me spell it out for you all now, once and for all: NO MATTER HOW TIRED OR ILL SOMEONE LOOKS, DO NOT TELL THEM SO. THEY ARE PROBABLY WELL AWARE OF IT AND YOUR ASININE COMMENTS WILL ONLY MAKE THEM MORE DEPRESSED THAN THEY ALREADY ARE. Got that? If you absolutely cannot keep your stupid fat gob shut, the proper thing to do is to ask, in a caring and concerned voice (even if you have to fake it), "Did you get enough sleep last night?" or, "Are you feeling alright?" This will give the unfortunate soul the opportunity to whinge about how tired or ill they are, if they so choose.

Anyway, back to accountancy (which you'd think would be a perfect cure for insomnia): Rather than being completely "in the moment," as they say, and being receptive to what was on offer, I resisted mightily -- for a while. I actively dreaded the class, no disrespect to Cliff, our kind and gentle lecturer, intended. Eventually I relaxed into it and recognized that perhaps opening my mind wide to the valuable lessons of managing money might be a good idea. Who knew?

Welcome them as I did, the concepts simply did not penetrate quite as well as I would have liked. Sleep deprivation aside, I think my comprehension was hampered by the fact that we began with a step backwards into basic double-entry bookkeeping. At one point in my life I thought I'd understood double-entry bookkeeping; apparently this is not the case. As a result of yesterday's lesson, I began to suspect that everything I thought I knew on the subject was completely and utterly wrong. Alas, things make even less sense to me now than they used to.

Sometimes it's just better to let sleeping dogs -- or accountants -- lie.

Eventually we muddled through and it was time to move on to Issues & Challenges in the Creative Industries, which as a subject of study is far more exciting and stimulating to me, even though the foremost challenge in my mind at the time was the F&E shit. Those three hours flew by.

Naturally the session and day closed with everyone moving over to the pub for a pint. (If this trend continues I will either need a liver transplant or another line of credit.) I stayed long enough for just one pint of Guinness, even though the accounting stuff could easily have driven me to more determined purpose-drinking. To my relief and delight that single pint -- no doubt coupled with severe fatigue -- was enough to help me lapse into a comatose unconsciousness quite soon after hitting the bed. This, I should add, is not necessarily a good thing since it suggests that self-medication is a way to overcome my, ah, recurring problem.

I have spent this morning actively seeking additional texts, readings and tutorials on double-entry bookkeeping. The phrase "get a life" comes to mind.

Why are you reading this when you should be working?

The undergrads were at it again last night. Only this time they were in my hallway. I'm dreaming of a delicious, devious revenge; your suggestions are more than welcome. Part of the problem here is that the doors of our residence halls are not equipped with spyholes which means I can't actually visually identify the guilty. Oh, I suppose if I were sufficiently alert at that ungodly hour of the morning I might be able to at least discern a recognizeable accent, were it not for the fact that the loudmouths in question are generally pretty unintelligible to begin with. But normally I can't tell exactly which side of the hall they live on, let alone which room they enter on their return.

When you think about it, spyholes are a pretty obvious omission as safety features go, especially in coed dorms where women might be at particular risk. They seem to have thought of everything else: smoke detectors, fire alarms, the ubiquitous CCTV, fire doors placed at roughly 3-foot intervals down ever corridor... (I imagine that the British obsession with fire doors, which are generally quite heavy and require considerable force beyond that which mere mortals can summon in order to push them open, dates back to the days of the Great London Fire.) But the room doors do not have chains or other impediments to prevent or even delay someone from simply barging into a student's room whether or not they have unlocked the deadbolt from the inside first. I probably shouldn't mention this, since everyone knows the place(s) I'm referring to, but then I trust my readers to be sensible, non-criminal types who wouldn't do anything daft with this information. But I digress.

Back to the problem at hand: one possible way around this is to have (some) drugs legalized. The only current legal favourite, alcohol, completely obliterates any sense of judgment and seriously impairs all faculty of reason. I have yet, however, to find a single soul who had ever gotten high and subsequently thought that driving on the wrong side of the road at speeds well in excess of the legal limit (for example) was a good idea. If anything, they tend to slow down and drive verrrrry sedately so as not to attract undue attention. Similarly, stoned people don't smell nearly as offensive as a thoroughly liquored-up pissant; they just have a faint, sweet musky odour. Nor do potheads tend to make as much noise, if only because -- as perhaps in the case of driving -- the paranoia factor kicks in. They very rarely engage in aggressive or threatening behaviour, whereas drunks do so as a matter of routine.

* * *

Headed back to Tottenham Hale this afternoon to help Ian again and having been there once already I didn't get lost. This time, god help us, we went to Ikea ("Swedish for disposable furniture") to help furnish his new abode. Like I say, you should always have a buddy system when shopping at places like Ikea, i.e., someone to save you from yourself when you start picking up useless little trinkets beause they're "cute," or they're cheap, or worse yet, both. Places like that are least dangerous when you are "purpose shopping," the kind at which we men excel. This involves first making a limited list of absolute must-haves, precisely identifying the aisles/areas in which the item is located, making a beeline for those locations and items, then making a quick getaway.

And we both more or less stayed on course; I got my little desk/bedside lamp and my french coffee press and got out relatively unscathed, less than $20 poorer for our efforts. (Of course the reduced-rate travelcard to Tottenham and back cost me $12, but that's another story best left for another day.)

A quick health check for anyone who cares: running program on target. Mental health OK, a little sleep-deprived but otherwise good. Dental health: still flossing regularly -- I'm happy to report (and you can tell Dr. Tobias) the habit has now stuck. Stress level: manageable. Finances: ditto.

Right, that's enough for one day. Hoping to catch up on what I missed yesterday. Good night.

Visit London to see your friends from home

Slept OK again today. In fact I overslept. By several hours. Guess I must have needed it. Today Kate from down the hall asked me if I was kept awake by last night's racket, but I was blissfully ignorant as I hewed a large tract of arboreal forest. (I hope she wasn't referring to my snoring.)

Just got back from dinner at my new friend Stephanie's place. Like most of the western hemisphere, she is a single Degree of Leonard away from me. She has now been living in London for the last year and a half. I did actually meet her (sort of) in Vancouver, but never really had the opportunity to chat and of course it's only natural that I move several thousand kilometres away in order to finally get to do so.

Similarly, I will get a rare chance to see my friend Helen when she visits from Vancouver this week. I have not seen her in several months, so it's only natural that I should move several thousand kilometres away in order to see her for the first time in a long while.

And just yesterday I received an e-mail from Sue, whom I have known since high school, and who lives with Ali and their daughter (whom I have not had the pleasure of meeting) in North Van. So it is only natural that I come several thousand kilometres away so that I can see them for the first time since their wedding a few years ago.

* * *

Spent yesterday helping my good friend Ian -- who has never even been to Vancouver, as far as I know -- move into his new house in Tottenham Hale, east London. I was shocked at how large his house really is, partly because it looks so small and unassuming from the outside, and partly because "large" is not an adjective I tend to use in the same sentence with British real estate, except perhaps in reference to price tags or the city of London itself. Needless to say it was great to see Ian again, and I'm looking forward to spending more time with him in the coming months.

As supremo of Cemental Health Records, Ian told me a very interesting This "Blue Piano" story, or rather, news of a fan from central Canada who has recently been seeking to buy TBP recordings. In and of itself this is perhaps not entirely unusual, except that I do not know the individual in question.

Spent Saturday -- another mostly sunny & hot one again -- largely without food. This did not help my mood in the least when I started to get lost around Tottenham Hale which, if you know anything about London, is not the kind of place you want to get lost in, hungry or not. Eventally I did manage to locate his house, though, and finally at around 3:00 and in dire need, I set out to find some snackage in the vicinity of Ian's new house and found a few odds and sods to munch on, all of which I promptly forgot at Ian's place.

Needless to say I was not in the best of shape, then, when we hit the Shaftesbury Theatre to see a production of "Daddy Cool," a musical based on the music of... wait for it... Boney M. (a/k/a Frank Farian). You see, in addition to the many other cool things Ian does, he is a theatre critic for the Financial Times, so he gets to attend all sorts of plays -- some good, some bad, some indifferent -- and last night he offered to bring me along as his guest.

Given that I was already going all hypoglycemic on his ass, and I was still lugging around a backpack full of personal effects and a plastic bag containing assorted (non-food) purchases which I couldn't park in the coat check/cloakroom because the damn theatre doesn't have one, I wasn't exactly brimming with confidence regarding the rest of the evening's entertainment, to be honest. Then when Ian's chair broke I felt sure that was an omen. But as it turns out the play was quite fun, that if you don't mind being plagued by mindless kraut-pop ditties for hours afterward when they become inextricably and infuriatingly lodged in your brain.

Perhaps it was a classic case of expectation management, i.e., if I had any expectations at all about the play they were so low as to be subterranean, and thus anything above that was guaranteed to please. So even though I was starving and it was stiflingly hot in the theatre, I still managed to have a good time, albeit with a couple of minor qualifications. Spoiler alert: I thought the giant parrot was an odd touch, and I thought the gigantic snake was a fun but pointless diversion. The pyrotechnics (!) were somewhat unexpected, too.

Can't wait to read Ian's review.

Happy, happy, joy, joy

Awoke to find Harrow blanketed in a good old-fashioned London fog. Just thought I'd mention that because up until yesterday, the weather has been consistently fine: only partly cloudy most days, quite sunny the rest of the time, and hardly any rain. When it did rain once or twice, as it did yesterday while we were ensconced in our windowless lecture room, it ended by the time I had to emerge to trundle home or wherever. This is a happy precedent and I would not be upset to see it continued.

Being one of the few Canadians on campus (that I'm aware of), I'm still walking around in T-shirts while most others -- especially those from warmer climes -- are already bundling up against what they perceive to be the autumn cool. I quite like the cooler air; it helps me sleep, among other things, and it makes travelling on the otherwise stifling tube more pleasant. And having lived in Vancouver for a good part of the last 20 years or so, the imminent rainy season poses no undue hardship that I am unprepared to face. Bring it on, I say.

Twice yesterday I was asked how long I've been here, meaning in London. Both times the question stopped me in my tracks, because it forced me to conclude it's now been twelve days (including today). Only 20 times more and I'll be going home! That may sound like a lot, but if the next 240 or so days fly by as quickly as the last dozen -- and I suspect they will, given the sheer volume and variety of activities to be covered in that span -- then I should be homeward bound very soon indeed.

If I sound a good deal more upbeat than in previous posts, it's probably a result of the fact that I've had a very good and deep night's sleep for that last three (count 'em, 3) consecutive nights. Which means one or more of the following:

1. The freshers (and by these I specifically mean the undergrads) are burning themselves out, as hoped, and are unable sustain a consistent level of revelry;
2. I am simply too exhausted from the first few days of the "freshers fortnight" (fortnight?!?!?!) to let a few minor atomic explosions interrupt my sleep; and/or
   
3. I am becoming accustomed to the din.
   

It had been suggested by more than one wag that a surefire way to cease being disturbed is to become a cause of the disturbance. In other words, if I stayed out late enough and got drunk enough and was loud and obnoxious enough, I wouldn't care because I'd be passed out in my bed once the noise had well and truly abated for the night. I may keep this strategy in mind for the future, should my current somnolent success not continue. What these callow youth fail to realize is that age and treachery trump youth & skill every time, and besides, after a lifetime of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle there is not much that they can do that I can't do longer, harder, louder or more obnoxiously. And still wake up early the next day to write about it.

In the event anyone thinks my complaints are merely the cranky rantings of a boring old curmudgeon, I'm not the only one. Not one but two separate warning letters have now been circulated to all the residence halls, so clearly others agree with my assessments. (Though I admit they may be fellow members of the Cranky, Boring Old Curmudgeon Society.)

And lest you think this post will devolve into diatribe, I would like to clear up a misconception. I have recently been accused of appearing "not very happy" in previous posts, particularly those dealing with the externally induced insomnia thing. First, let me say that I am quite happy here. But an overall state of happiness, it must be noted, does not preclude other occasional feelings of discomfort, loneliness, confusion, homesickness, and other things. I really must insist that those who fear I might be losing it read my previous post on the "W-curve" adjustment cycle, which explains why my seeming hate-on for all things British is really part of the natural order of things.

Besides, some people simply don't appreciate all the nuances of my subtle and sophisticated sense of humour.

* * *

Cool! I believe I've just had my first ever Comment from someone who is neither a member of my immedate family, nor married to me, or both. Danke schoen, Ms. Postmodern Sass. Needless to say, I understand what you're going through. I hear you.

As mentioned previously the British national sport is not "soccer," as we heathen foreigners call it, nor football (as it is properly called), but rather qeueing -- which is far easier to do than to spell. It means lining up for hours on end and I am already quite good at it, but perhaps this comes from being of British/Irish lineage. In hindsight, we (collectively) are no longer quite so good at this back home in Vancouver; in my opinion we are losing the art. This is perhaps one of the uglier aspects of our otherwise glorious multicultural makeup: apparently other folk from around the world ain't so accustomed to this quaint passtime, and my guess is that certain countries that shall remain nameless are a long way from finding enough members to field an Olympic Queuing Team anytime soon.

Had our opening workshop at the Marylebone Campus over the last two days. It certainly put the frights into us. We have been told in no uncertain terms to enjoy our current relative freedom, because we may not see any more daylight at least until our Christmas holidays. Consider ourselves warned.

Fittingly, we closed our two-day introductory workshop with a pub night at the Angel in the Field in the Marylebone High Street. Tonight we party; tomorrow, we work like mad.

(Actually, I lie. Our classes begin "officially" on Monday. But this morning I have to run off to help Ian move into his new abode in Tottenham. Plus, it just sounded better to end on that dramatic note.)

I'll have an MA-MBM with a side PhD for the TfL

I fucking hate students. (Even though I is one.)

Screaming drunken bastards woke me up again at 3:00 AM, and because that clearly wasn't enough, did it again at 4:00 AM. Strangely, no one else on my floor seems to have noticed. Lucky buggers all slept through it. Maybe I'm just a little more sensitive these days, what with being in strange new surroundings and all. I mean, normally I've been known to sleep through earthquakes (literally), lightning storms, and all manner of loud noise. But not these yobbos.

When I finally fell back asleep, shortly before the alarm went off, I had a weird dream regarding... well, I've forgotten what about exactly, but in it my arms were being torn by the jagged metal edges of a fence or something, and I awoke with very real pains in my arms. They were all tingly and full of pins and needles, presumably because my circulation was being cut off by something, somehow. How odd. And disconcerting.

Did some much-needed laundry at the, ah, laundrette. Can you believe there's only 9 washer-dryer combos for something like 600 hall residents?! But, being the only creature stirring at the pickled bozo-resistant hour of 7:00 AM, there was nary another soul there. As someone (D.?) recently reminded me, "Students don't do laundry anyway." Too true, they don't. They simply throw it out the window with their beer bottles and cigarette butts, like they did en masse on their first night in residence halls... what an unholy mess. The requisite warning letters from campus administration made the rounds today, and rightly so in my opinion. Undergrads, ha. What a senseless waste of skin and oxygen.

These are the future leaders of our world? Global warming's too good for 'em. I say flay the buggers alive, bake them under the hot sun until they are fried, THEN drown them in rising sea waters.

(Oh crap, there goes another gaggle of them under my window. Why, oh why, do I not have an M16? More to the point, why am I such a pacifist especially under these circumstances? My window offers such a lovely vantage point of the main walkway, perfect for picking them off -- one yowling, slobbering, pimple-faced buffoon at a time...)

I can only hope they burn themselves out, sooner rather than later. I am not encouraged by one of my flatmates who said to me at dinner, "Don't worry, by the end of the first semester they'll get tired of it and settle in." The end of the first semester!? But I'm only here for two.

Yikes. I've just re-read today's entry and it doesn't come across as being terribly happy, does it? Okay, time to change the subject. While in the laundry room I made fast friends with the hall's resident cat, perhaps not surprisingly called Tom. He's no Albert, but he'll have to do for now. We bonded well.

Went bank shopping today. NatWest, about which I'd heard good things, kept me queuing for the better part of 20 minutes or more, only to be told they don't "do" international students. As if they couldn't have told me outright? I mean, it's not like I didn't announce my intention clearly from the outset. They had to make me wait to hear that? Lloyds, on the other hand, were far more receptive to say the least. So they get a free link and a cautious endorsement, while NatWest earns a big, loud, and supremely wet FART.

Okay, I can't resist, one more gripe then I'm off to bed. Half the reason for my curent grumpy state is that I've tried for days, WEEKS even (long before I left Canada), to make sense of the ticketing and pricing structure of the London transit system, and I'm convinced it just can't be done. It makes about as much sense as their roads, and their town/borough system. If you can explain it to me in less than 500 pages (12-point Times New Roman font, standard 500 word pages, plain English) then you're a better man than I.

Tomorrow: more practice at the British national sport of queuing. In other words, enrollment and induction.

Catching Up XVII: The Smackdown (Sunday, September 17, 2006)

Woke up early after a good, long, deep and comfortable sleep in my new bedding. It ain't exactly 400-thread count Egyptian cotton, in fact it's pretty raw and scratchy in the absence of a good pre-washing, and I have no idea what colour the sheets are. It's probably something horribly mismatched to the rest of the decor, but I don't care. They worked a treat, and that's what matters.

Outside it’s surprisingly bright and sunny already for so early in the AM, and warm. The hall laundrette is closed, which is unfortunate because having been here a week I am now out of clean clothes, and starting to smell like it. Under the circumstances I do not want to start wearing my warmer fall attire and/or my “good” business-casual clothes. No problem, I decide; after all, “an adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered,” as my good friend G.K. Chesteron wrote. So I shrug it off and decide to get an early start on my e-mail and catch up on the blogosmog. Off I trot to the Kenton road, laptop slung over my shoulder.

Except there’s no web café today. It too is shuttered.

Bugger.

It's then that I realize this country’s national anthem is not God Save the Queen, as I originally believed. Nor is it Rule Britannia. Apparently it is Sorry, we are closed, for this is the song on most everyone's lips seemingly since my arrival. As catchy as it might be I can't say as I like the tune.

So I did the next best thing: I joined the university gym, which is about 20 feet outside my window. The fresher’s special saves me a considerable sum for the 9-month term, and I am determined to get (and remain!) in shape while I’m here. Hopefully the physical fitness will support the mental and emotional fitness, and vice versa. The young, buff men of intimidating physique and indeterminate European accent have promised (threatened actually) to provide me with an ab program that will "make me feel like a saw is cutting my stomach in half," or some such.

Done. So then Plan C takes effect: off to buy more T-shirts because I failed spectacularly to bring enough of them. At Primax I get 3 for 5 pounds. I will not stink Britain up, at least not for a few more days yet.

On a complete unrelated note, my left hand is all but useless. Having badly injured it (apparently) playing basketball several weeks ago, I now need to learn to do things with my right hand because otherwise everything I do just re-injures it. If anybody can tell me how to immobilize a thumb, I’m listening.

The afternoon is beautifully and warm, not quite as humid as it’s been lately, and a light breeze is blowing which helps take any residual edge off. I go for a run around the extensive grounds of Northwick Park, happy as a clam. A 43-year-old bipedal clam on dry land, to be sure, but a happy one indeed.

Dinner is yet more cheap-and-cheerful comfort food (Baby-and-Baby stye), ie., our old reliable standby: curried rice and lentils. Yum. Feels good to be in a fully stocked kitchen, making healthy meals again. Mentally and physically I feel like I'm coming back to form.

Now that most everyone has moved in – the last couple of days around the halls of residence have been a beehive of activity – there will be a kitchen meeting tonight for our floor, or at least our side of it. (There are 8 flats per side, and each side has its own kitchen). At issue: the fridge is way too small. We, postgraduates* all (except for the two French undergrads, whose incessant chatter and vodka drinking during our meeting fills me with a certain foreboding), have been underestimated by the university. We all cook, and we all value good food. And there are 11 of us, at least for another few weeks until Neeraj leaves. Then there will "only" be 10 of us... sharing the same small fridge and freezer.

Collectively we decide to agitate for another fridge. We also spontaneously decide to call our kitchen Café Gauche, or at least I do, if only because it’s on the left hand side as you enter the hall. No one else is amused by this, least of all the French kids.

(*This is neither a typo nor a delusion of grandeur. Don’t blame me. Apparently a Bachelor’s degree here is called an undergraduate degree, and anything above that – be it doctorate or Master’s – is called a postgraduate degree. There’s a bunch of other bizarre quirks of the U.K. university scene, some of which I can’t decide if they’re really cool or kind of frightening, so I’ll explore them further and report back later.)

I am surrounded by journalists on all sides. Seems everyone on this floor is doing their MA in journalism. Except the French kids. I have no idea what they’re up to.

Neeraj, who is finishing up his degree here, is a veritable wellspring of information: cheap eats, best tube ticket-buying strategies, how to travel abroad on mere coinage, and generally how to live on about 10 pounds per week. I am grateful for his knowledge. Apparently the library lends DVDs, this sends shivers of delight through my spine and wallet. (This assumes I may actually have free time in which to view said materials, of course.)

My new favourite CD is Lily Frost’s, aptly titled Cinemagique. Thanks, Nancy! You rock, as always. Oh, and hey, Sam, the Butch Walker is pretty fookin' ace, too! Thanks!

11:46 and time for bed. Tomorrow’s a big day: we get Internet access in our rooms (theoretically)! Also, banking stuff and laundry. Then the gym.

Good night.

I Still Know What You Did Catching Up: Saturday, September 16, 2006

Damn! I wake up to find that I’ve lost my last 2 genuine Montreal bagels, my cherished organic instant coffee, butter, etc., all of which I had bought while staying at Wigram House. The reason they're gone is that yesterday (Friday) was officially the last day for the outgoing residents, and the cleaning crew (who don’t speak a word of English) are apparently under orders to be merciless with anything they find still lying around. Sadly I had not suspected this and had thrown my stuff in the fridge with theirs. Even a note saying "Please do not throw this out" would have been ineffective. The only alternative would have been to keep my yogurt and butter in my room -- not exactly an appetizing prospect.

But one man’s trash is another’s treasure, and score! Belatedly cluing in to what’s going on, I practically leap into the kitchen across the hall to see what I can salvage, since I am one of the few residents, incoming or outgoing, in the entire campus. So I help myself to lots of free kitchen accoutrements, including knives, cutlery, plates, pots & pans, and several staples like spices. It’s a good haul, and as a result I have saved a good deal of money and, just as importantly, time shopping. I am glad that I didn’t buy that package deal offered in advance, after all. I wander around the Kenton road in search of breakfast.

At this point I will pause to remind myself that if I keep writing about money in the way that I am, I risk turning this blog into a dry, boring accounting ledger not unlike Bill Wyman's Stone Alone. If you've ever read it, you'll know what I mean: the first hundred pages are fairly amusing, until he gets caught up in the pounds and pence. Anyway, if I'm not careful this will turn out identical to his book. Except he was 53, and Mandy was 19 at the time. And I'm only 43. I have no "Mandy." And I'm not a millionaire. Yet.

I’ve now waited too long, and the food deprivation headache is just kicking in when I find a small cafe further down the Kenton road, and I get a hearty (if fatty and meaty) breakfast for a reasonable sum (£2.85, or around $6.00... doh!). Beggars can’t be choosers, and under the circumstances it tastes like one of the most delicious and nutritious meals I have ever had, particularly the coffee.

At the corner there’s a gas station where it suddenly occurs to me that it's a likely place to buy an A to Z Guide of Harrow. I'm already reasonably familiar with the area around the Marylebone campus, and since this will be my base of operations for the next 9 months or so I reckon it's a good investment. Even so I’d also like to buy an A to Z Guide of London itself, with larger print and clearer maps, to replace the small but unreadable Collins book I bought. I think my eyesight is degenerating day by day.

Today I met two of my new flat mates, Shashank & Anu in flat O. They are from India.
Later, I head out from some dinner groceries. With or without passport, it turns out that not even a major chain like Sainsbury’s will accept my American Express travelers’ cheques; they are not worth the paper they are printed on, in England anyway. Perhaps if they were called "Colonial Express"...? (Let this be a warning to you all. Sure, the banks and everyone recommends that you carry them – but that’s only because the banks charge you for getting them, and then the bank that changes them into actual cash gets a slice of the pie too. I'd swear they are in collusion.) Finally, after some 20 minutes of haggling, persuading and generally smooth-talking through successive levels of line manager, someone agrees that they should, indeed, accept travelers’ cheques and I even manage to get some change to add to my (still alarmingly small) reserve of cash.

First thing Monday I’m going to a bank to get rid of the damned things, even if they soak me more cash. This hassle is not worth it. Never again will I use them. Spread the word; they are as practical as teats on a bull.

I just hope that the sum it surrenders will sustain long enough that I can open a bank account (since we Internationals are warned it may take weeks) and wire myself some funds from home. Otherwise it’s credit cards all the way, which is just throwing good money after bad.

Son of catching up: Friday, September 15, 2006

5:00 AM: Am awoken by extremely loud noises, like someone dragging a steamer trunk complete with dead body down several flights of stairs while drunk. What the FUCK!?!?
I hope it’s not going to be like that for the rest of the year. Fucking students.

OK, back to sleep for another 1 ¾ hours… until the alarms go off, one fifteen merciful minutes after the other…

It’s a rainy morning. How fitting. I haven’t spoken to Baby in 2 days now. I am getting very edgy.

And I’m starting to feel very out of place, especially after certain comments last night. I forgot to mention that someone actually told me that I looked lost. I felt it at the time, anyway.

Still, today we’re moving to Harrow via coach. The skies clear so we don’t get wet while loading our baggage and they remain so until we reach Harrow. David Gray’s “Babylon” is the track playing on the bus stereo that sets me in a pensive, maybe wistful, mood.

Better add two beers and a scotch to my expenditures thus far. Fortunately I still have about 30 pounds out of the 200 (cash) that I brought and all the rest of the travelers’ cheques, which amount to a further 250. I keep forgetting, too, that I have my debit card. I definitely don’t want to use my credit card any more than I have to, what with interest rates and everything, but either way later today or over the weekend (depending on how energetic I feel) I’ll need to do a fair bit of shopping for basics, to get the “household” up and running. Yes, a bit of routine will do a body good. And we all know what a creature of habit I am, don't we? (Anyone comments on that and I'll write something nasty about you afterward. -- Ed.)

A random note on London: bike-friendly it’s not. Oh, it’s certainly flat enough, but there’s absolutely no bike parking. There are conspicuous signs posted saying “bikes chained to this fence will be removed,” and they are as ubiquitous as the wrought iron fences here. Anyway, I can't picture being able to take one’s bike on the tube anyway, at any time of day or night, lifts or no lifts (and most stations have no lifts).

It seems like everyone here smokes. I know that’s not true, it just seems like it.

Remember the culture shock “W-curve” I mentioned earlier? I’m going through that cycle again. I sure hope it goes away eventually. It’s not fun.

* * *

Sanity! Almost....

We arrive at Harrow, after a 50-minute bus ride (most of which is spent idling in traffic just outside of Westminster). Typically I am the last one to check in but I am older, wiser, and I certainly have more patience, even though those younger bastards ought to realize that I may well have less time on this planet left than they do and therefore I deserve to go before them. Still, there are no real problems in registration unlike for some of the others, except that I can't figure out how the main door key works -- or find the damn building I’m supposed to be in.

Once inside, though, the room is positively palatial compared to Wigram House. And you can’t beat the convenience... it’s right on the Northwick Park tube station (Metropolitan line), and just a block or two away from the Kenton tube stop (which is on the… oh, who am I kidding? Given my colour-blindness I haven’t a fucking clue which line it’s on. But trust me, it’s pretty handy. The tube line, I mean. Not the colour-blindness, which is a bitch.)

Once I’ve checked in, inhaling that new-building smell and inspecting every last lovely detail of my spacious new digs, I set out to do some one-stop shopping at the nearby Sainsbury's, for all my needs. Turns out that my debit card doesn’t work after all, and I’ve left my passport at home so they won’t take my travelers cheques, so I charge the equivalent $100 for bedding and various supplies. No matter what happens now, at least I will be prepared to sleep comfortably. (The bed is small, but it’s firm – small mercies.) Sainsbury’s is roughly the equivalent of Safeway in that it's big, fairly cheap (for some things) and thus strangely comforting in its own way. We do not yet have internet connectivity in our rooms but…
Right around the corner there is a web cafe... THANK GOD!!!

I bring my laptop, plug in, buy a green tea, and start checking email. Two hours goes by quickly indeed. I decide to let my battery be my timer, so with just minutes to spare I power down without having had time to edit my blog entries and head out to pick up a few more supplies.
This time I venture a little further afield down the Kenton road. In this immediate vicinity there are no less than 3 (!!!) vegetarian Indian restaurants. There is also a Pick 'n' Save, which is not much to look at but is chock-full of cheap, plentiful produce and basics --plus all the Asian spices, sauces, etc. an amateur chef could want! This must be what heaven is like, especially after all the fatty, meaty and/or fast foods surrounding Wigram House. Be still my beating heart! Oh, joy! Oh, bliss!

I note that this part of London is no stranger to gluten-free, organic and/or vegetarian delights of all shapes, sizes and descriptions. There are plenty of soy- and rice based options, and surprisingly enough the prices are not outrageous – in fact I’d say most are right in line with what we pay in Vancouver. Moreover, some items are actually cheaper here than at home – organic butter, for example, is about half price. Must be because the European Union is, thankfully, has a zero-tolerance policy towards cows on drugs. I also stop in to a Pound Plus store, which is roughly the equivalent of the Loonie Store (exchange rate aside), and pick up a few other odds & ends. All in all, it is a tiring but satisfying day.

And so I allow myself to enjoy a modest (£8) splurge after so much belt-tightening, and it’s a special treat for me to relax after doing so much running and/or walking around since arriving. It is truly a delicious meal, although I am the only one in the joint for the vegetarian Indian buffet dinner at Pradip's. It occurs to me that perhaps 6:30 on a Friday is too early for most people, especially if it’s taking them this long to get home on the hellish Tube.

I am running out of cash. I will need to try to use travelers’ cheques, and I am told that it takes an inordinately long time to open a bank account, thanks to the post-July 7 (that's British for "9/11") paranoia that reigns o’er Britannia.

Catching up II: Thursday, 14 September, 2006

In his Handbook to Higher Consciousness, Ken Keyes Jr. writes that one of the twelve recommended pathways to higher consciousness is to always remember the following:

I act freely when I am tuned in, centered, and loving. If possible I avoid acting when I am emotionally upset and depriving myself of the wisdom that flows from love and expanded consciousness.

I wonder if by “acting” he includes “writing.” If so, then I’d better pack it in right now since I am in one foul mood at the moment. (Which is an interesting turn of events, given the way the day has seesawed back and forth between emotions, but I’ll say more about that later.) The thing that has me most pissed off is the fact that I don’t currently have Internet connectivity, which obviously you can’t really tell since you’re reading this, albeit considerably later than I wanted to post it. By two or more days, actually. So I’d better back up a bit and explain.

First, I’m having PC troubles again: more power supply issues. Grrrr! I think I’ve already mentioned this, but it bears repeating after I’ve spent more than $600 to repair a $999 computer (something Hewlett Bastard really should have done gratis considering it was their fuck-up that caused the blown motherboard in the first place, but that’s a rant for another blog). To say the least I have no desire to spend more money on a new PC at this juncture. But thank god I’m a fanatical backer-upper. (Sometimes it pays to be a skeptic.)

The day started out inauspiciously, kicking off my foul mood. The Victoria line was shut down again, although I didn’t arrive late after all. I even airmailed a cheque at the post office along the way. Still, I found something to worry about – namely the poor seal on the envelope – so I didn’t have to waste a perfectly good upset.

Today’s programme included talks regarding the NHS health care system mental health – namely, culture shock. Now, an admitted anglophile like myself might be tempted to feel self-righteously smug and say, “What, me suffer from culture shock?!” But the truth of the matter is, I’m experiencing culture shock big-time. Our speaker explained the so-called adjustment “W curve,” which to say the least was really useful to know – and certainly applicable in my case. Suffice to say I manage to cycle through the first few bends in the W-curve within a single day. It’s good to know that I’m not alone in this.

The five W-curve stages of adjustment are the Honeymoon stage (fairly self-explanatory), the Disintegration stage (wherein you basically find out everything you know is wrong and confusion, isolation and all manner of fun things set in), the Reintegration stage (where you get angry, hostile, frustrated, and generally reject the differences of the new country), the Autonomy stage (where things start to come together again and confidence is at least partially restored) and finally the Independence stage, where you begin to reassert your own cultural values (etc.) even in the midst of the new culture. We are warned that this may happen at varying speeds and at varying times; symptoms can manifest physically.

It is not pretty. It is worrisome. My own honeymoon was quite short, and we never quite consumated the relationship anyway (I mean, I've been here and done that several times before, so it was more like a yawn, a roll over, and a goodnight. Oh yes, just to clarify, I'm talking about the figurative honeymoon phase of the culture shock adjustment here -- not the real thing! That was fabulous, thanks.) Anyway, it does help to know that it happens to the best of us, and it is entirely normal (if unpleasant). Please feel free to remind me of this if you hear me waffling on about how much I hate it here, and how I want to come home.

I managed some shopping on the lunchtime break and finally bought an umbrella – not cheap, but small & portable. Rounding out the afternoon was a talk on personal safety by a genuine London policeman. Without meaning to sound disrespectful, the guy who delivered the talk – to be fair, a stand-in for the regular community affairs officer – was exactly the type on whom I image the common English “PC Plod” caricature was based. Enough said.

Suddenly it was time for the boat cruise. Sharon had recommended I join if it was going to Greenwich; unfortunately when I bought my ticket no one could tell me whether or not this would be the case because it was dependent on the tide. As luck would have it, we did wind up going there and the journey turned out to be worthwhile indeed. To think I almost didn’t go, and in fact had almost turned around and came back to Wigram House, after a substantial delay caused by almost getting on the wrong tube. (Victoria Line, indeed: for one I should have followed my own instincts and got on the District or Circle lines, and not listened to that knob. Silly foreigner.)

Ultimately I caught up with the crowd and followed them to Swan Pier, practically underneath the venerable London Bridge. This was unfortunate since our boat (the Dutch Master) was actually waiting for us further down the river at another pier, but after snaking along the Thames walk – we must have looked quite a sight! – we found the boat and boarded, once we were searched for weapons and god knows what. The times, they are a-changin’.

Once aboard I met fellow exiles from Soviet Canuckistan (© Pat Robertson), namely Ashley (from Toronto) and Max (Montreal) who interestingly is studying entertainment la. I also met a whole bunch of other people from such far-flung places as Tanzania, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, the Seychelles, Vietnam, and Sweden, among others. It’s like a miniature United Nations here, minus the Security Council. And without the dysfunction. Or the indecision.

Up the Thames we sailed, with a beautiful sunset poking through the clouds. Once again we were blessed with no rain despite a constant threat all day. Just as we were passing under the Tower Bridge, which was all lit up in its majestic glory, a man who had apparently just proposed to his girlfriend held up his new fiancée’s ring-bedecked hand in triumph, and we all cheered and applauded like mad. I hope it proves to be a good start to their life together. It certainly looked like a good omen for us students, anyway.

All in all, I had a lot of fun. I say that because I surprised myself. I felt rather awkward, being the old man of the group. In fact one of the participants asked me if I was one of the lecturers, and I didn’t have a fast enough comeback for that. But I danced a lot, anyway. I have to say it still bugs me that while the tunes are sufficiently familiar, I can’t name who the artists are… except for Gnarls Barkley, of course. I was ahead of the curve on that one. As for the rest, clearly I am no longer the maven I once thought I was.

(Warning: this next bit of blog gets a bit traveloggish.) Along the route we passed a mysterious green (?) laser light that seemed to curve around the horizon, and famous landmarks that included a tall wooden ship, some Faberge egg-shaped building, the Millennium Dome, those strange, large shapes in the middle of the river that no one (including search engines) seems to know what they are, the London Eye, a big Vatican-style plaza next to the Cutty Sark, the Greenwich observatory, Cleopatra’s Needle, the gorgeous condos on the river… how much must those cost, I wonder?? We also saw the CitiGroup building (and its equally impressive neighbours) from a several different of angles, which confused the hell out of me because I’m directionally challenged at the best of times. The single-malt scotch and two beers probably didn’t help.

Did I mention that I’m looking forward to my own toilet & shower? After getting home I started packing for the move to Harrow. The good news, via my new Romanian friend Magda, is that the Harrow campus residences are bigger, newer, and better in most every way than the quaint but postage stamp-sized rooms that are Wigram Hall. She’s already seen them, so I am more than happy to take her word for it. I should add that Wigram Hall wasn’t bad, wildlife aside, but it was very small (in that space-challenged European way), to the point where you have to go outside to change your mind. Furthermore my room was on the inside of the hall, facing the “courtyard” (if you can call it that), i.e., a very echoey, noisy place especially since all windows are kept open in this heat. (On the plus side I haven’t seen any more cockroaches since that first day, so that’s a bonus.) And hopefully they’ll have Internet connectivity as soon as we check in. Which I don’t have now, possibly because they’ve already cut it off.

Damn. I’ll try again in the morning.

Catching up: Wednesday, 13 September, 2006

Didn't sleep too well last night due to the heat & humidity – did I mention it’s hot as hell here? And humid, to boot? To add insult to injury there was some strange, persistent beeping noise emanating from somewhere outside my window, which I kept open on account of the aforementioned climate issues. This, in turn, made it rather easy to hear the jets overhead that never really seemed to stop. You see Westminster (not the university but the town, or borough, or whatever they call these microscopic and somewhat meaningless divisions of London) is right in the flight path to Heathrow, the world’s busiest airport. Apparently it never closes. No lie. At about 4:00 AM a 747 sounded like it was preparing to land on my miniature desk, right here in my miniature Victorian room.

Of course the one thing that does close down – with alarming regularity, I might add – is the Victoria underground line. I discovered this to my chagrin when I finally decided to take the morning tube to today’s programme, instead of walking as usual. So I wound up walking… as usual. Oh well, that’s more money saved and more exercise gained.

It must be the British food, or perhaps it’s the genuine Montreal bagels I’ve been scarfing down since leaving my parents’ place, but (warning: graphic medical details ahead) I’m all plugged up. I can't wait to get my own toilet.

Even at 8:30 AM, which is the current time of this entry, the heat and humidity are making me moist around the edges, and I’m just sitting here typing on my keyboard.

By the way, I’m having more computer power woes. I’m afraid. I am very afraid. If you don’t hear from me for another several days, blame Hewlett Bastard.

* * *

Later:

I'm settling in just fine, considering I'm still in temporary accommodations and moving into a more permanent home on Friday morning. Perhaps that’s because I just came home from dinner at an old friend's place in Walthamstow, northeast London. I met Sharon’s husband Bevan and their 6-month-old daughter Charlotte for the first time. They make a wonderful family, they made me feel right at home (and answered my many millions of annoying questions), and it was indescribably good to see them before they head off this week to visit Bevan’s family in New Zealand. Can’t wait to see them again after they’ve returned.
While we dined the skies opened and it poured like mad, accompanied by copious lightning flashes and booming thunderclaps. This can be a bit unsettling if, like me, you live in Vancouver and haven’t experienced such meteorological violence in a long time.

Before I knew it, it was getting on for 10:30 and I didn’t want to overstay my welcome, since they both have lives beyond visiting Canadians. It’s also a fair hike even by tube back into the heart of the city, and without umbrella I wanted to make sure I got home without being soaked to the skin. Plus, my stomach was rumbling and I felt I might need to be near my own (shared) toilet in the event I had to settle in for a long bout of reading.

I'm off to bed now since I didn't sleep so well yesterday, and I think I'll be able to sleep better tonight.

See, I told you so:

Well, It Turns Out That Lonelygirl Really Wasn't By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN and TOM ZELLER Jr. – New York Times. After months of intrigue, the identities of Web video star lonelygirl15 and her producers have been revealed.

The learning begins

Classes haven't even officially begun yet and already I can feel my head expanding to accommodate all this new learning. For example:

• I learned that no matter where I go in the world, I have an appalling sense of direction and am total crap at reading maps. Especially if there are no constant visual reminders of directionality like, say, mountains, oceans, or a CN Tower. Oh, sure, London has a few tallish landmarks, but the streets are so narrow as to make them all but invisible unless you're right on top of them. And yes, there's the Thames -- but it snakes through the city in such a way that you can cross it several times while moving in a straight line.
• I learned that you cannot possibly travel in a straight line in London, except perhaps if you do it for less than 50 metres at a time, or if you can fly. As I walked from Westminster to Marylebone today I began to develop a theory that the British purposefully built the roads to thwart the German obsession with order and systematic organization, until I realized that the city has been around much longer than World War II.
  
• I subsequently learned that the cost of a transit ride in Vancouver is indeed a bargain at $2.25 -- considering that the ticket is valid for a full 90 minutes, enough to get you a return trip should it be required (and feasible) in that time, and considering that a ticket on the Tube here costs 3 quid, or just over $6.00 CDN... one way.
• I learned that the British have no qualms whatsoever about stating the reasons for service disruptions on the tube, now matter how likely they may be to inspire copycats. (This afternoon a voice over the PA drily announced, "Please be advised that service on the Circle line has been halted temporarily due to a man under a train." I kid you not.)
  
• I learned that trying to figure out the tube map is no fun at all if, like me, you are colour-blind. (Yes, they do all look the same to me, ass-face.)
• I learned that even the bog-standard British chain grocers like Sainsbury's are really catching on to Fair Trade, organic and whole foods, and that my colour-blindness contributes significantly to the relative crunchiness of any bananas I buy when shopping solo.
• I learned I should probably never shop alone for produce -- or clothing.
• I learned that colours notwithstanding, it's a damned good thing I bought these reading glasses. If the streets of London are that small, imagine how microscopic they appear in the Collins Pocket Atlas of London.
  
• I learned that the pricing of some British goods looks like an absolute bargain, until you do the conversion to dollars. And I learned you should never attempt the math with a mouthful of hot coffee, having just paid 1 pound 40 for this morning's appallingly watery swill. (I take back what I said the other day about surprisingly good coffee. It must have been the desperation talking.) If I get that desperate again I may be forced to try a local Starbucks.
• Finally, although this is not so much new learning but rather another new half-baked theory: I suspect that whoever invented button-fly jeans must have been a man, andonce upon a time he must have accidentally pinched his wedding tackle in a zipper. Nothing else can justify such a cruel device. (Speaking of fashion disasters: my new favourite blog is fugly! Thanks to the BBC for the tip.)
  

I slept like a proverbial log last night and awoke at 7:00 AM to the sounds of rain. Foolishly thinking the forecast might be accurate, I was ill prepared for the summery heat (26 degrees!) and the humidity when I set out on my two-hour walkabout. Thus the only reason I got wet was from sheer perspiration, although at least I managed to postpone buying an umbrella for yet another day.

As a result of my newly acquired musk scent I wasn't exactly in the most sociable of moods when eventually I stumbled upon the Marylebone campus and attended the Welcome Programme registration session for international students. Still, it wasn't a total loss; there was free food (well, what was left of it by the time I arrived) and wine. Tempting though the latter was, I limited myself to half a glass of red. I should have helped myself to one of the remaining full bottles on the way out, but alas, hindsight is 20/20. All things considered I am demonstrating remarkably restraint so far. Perhaps this is what it means to be a "mature student."

Incidentally my dear friend Sharon -- who reminds me it is now nigh 20 years since we first met (!!!) -- e-mailed me the other day to remind me just how small the world really is: it turns out that her good friend Kirsty is the International Student Advisor, and organizer of said Welcome Week activities for us International newbies. Nevertheless I didn't introduce myself to her tonight due to my malodorous state, and because she clearly had her hands full already.

What else? I'm sure I'm forgetting something... let's see. I'm currently at Wigram House, Ashley Gardens, on Thirleby Road near Victoria. I'm here until Friday morning, at which point I move to my more permanent residence in Harrow. I'll be sending out phone & snail-mail contact details when I arrive and confirm them. Keep those e-mails coming. Care packages welcome.

Meanwhile It was frustrating to call my Sharon and Ian and not be able to leave a call back number, since there are no phones in the rooms and I'm not even sure what the number is at the front desk. I'm debating what to do about the telephone situation, i.e., do I invest in a mobile on a pay-as-you-go basis or not? Another quandary. I would have left my current mobile number, which I brought with me, but it'd cost either of them long distance to Canada and it'd also cost me plenty for the roaming charges. Amazing how they get us both with the charges, isn't it? That's capitalism for you. But let's face it, I'm addicted to my telecommunications. As loyal readers will note, I get rather tetchy without an internet connection. Thank goodness for the (free! and reliable!) wi-fi here in the residence rooms. (Last week, while working out budgets with D., we realized that we spend something like a combined $300 per month if you add up the dual cell phones, long distance, ISP, web host(s), land line, fax line, etc. Good thing I don't have a Crackberry.)

I'm already settling in somewhat, considering the temporary nature of the accommodations which I am sharing with at least one creature of the insectoid variety; it didn't look exactly like a cockroach, more like a cricket actually (and about the same size), although it's hard to tell. It was either awfully quite for a cricket, or awfully noisy for a cockroach. Anyway. As Dr. Baby knows, I am nothing if not a creature of habit so a bit of routine and structure is important -- so I picked up some peanut butter, muesli and soy milk to go with my Montreal bagels (thanks, Mom!). Also been doing a bit of shopping for some of the other necessities I had to leave behind, given baggage size & weight restrictions. More specifically I've picked up the necessary adapters to keep my laptop & other toys powered -- priorities, y'know.

I'm sure there are other issues of vital importance I'm forgetting, but they'll have to wait for now. It's only 9:45 or so GMT, but I want to make an early start tomorrow. If it's nice out I'll be grateful for the additional exercise (if I dare retrace the route I took home from Marylebone), if not I'll have to jostle with the crowds on the morning tube -- and pay another 3 quid for the dubious privilege. I'm nothing if not stubborn.

I'd sign off but I can't write a blog from England without thinking of a particular comedy sketch (I think it might have been on Conan O'Brien) wherein a pseudo-George Bush, visiting his buddy Tony Blair, kept cackling that he was "calling from the future. I'm five hours ahead of Eastern time, eight hours ahead of Pacific time. I'm a President from the future, heh heh heh."

Guess you had to be there. Ta ta for now.

Touchdown: London

I'm still not really finished with yesterday's post because among the other Big(ish) Stuff that needs to be enthused about is the news that broke out of Hudson, regarding Kerry and her dad Bill and our mutual friend Mark, among other things. But I'll have to come back to that later, if I can. Because I'm here. I made it. I'm now in London.

Warning: Due to extenuating circumstances and for reasons I shall explain shortly, chances are very good that I'm going to skip around all over the place today, so I'll excuse myself in advance if I seem somewhat scrambled and all over the map (literally and figuratively). Whew. Where was I? Oh yeah: London.

I came in on an overnight flight from Montreal and we arrived 45 minutes ahead of schedule (!!!) thanks to some mighty fine tail winds, apparently. But of course they weren't anywhere near ready for us, so we spent most of those 45 minutes on the tarmac cooling our collective jets until they could clear a gate for us. I must say that for all the usual pre-flight anxiety and the chaos at the airport, I pretty much sailed through security clearance (the lineups were all for the other gates) and spent most of my time reading and trying not to fall asleep in the lounge. Thank goodness for my iPod and various podcasts which kept things interesting.

So, yes, back to the flight: the good news is that there is not much to report on that front. There was plenty of room and many people had entire rows to themselves; while I didn't get a triple-seat middle bench like I did coming back from Hawaii in July, I did get to stretch across the two seats in my row when my rowmate moved elsewhere. And while we got the yappy baby two rows behind us (again! Why does it always happen to me?), it was soon drowned out by my iPod and/or the movie, which was Mission Impossible III. In other words, eye candy that didn't make me feel bad every time I nodded out in the middle of it. Not much of a plot to miss, in other words.

Air Canada fed us, which was a bit of a surprise. These days I've come to treat it something like a lottery: some days, you wind, and they feed you. But given the quality of the food, somedays you win when they DON'T feed you. And then some days you lose when they don't feed you, and vice versa. I guess it's Air Canada's way of putting some of the fun and guesswork back into flying, since those darned terrorists have taken so much of the joy out of it.

Speaking of western decadence, I should add that Air Canada also provided free red wine with dinner, which also came as something of a shock, albeit a pleasant one. Then again, considering how much I paid for the "economy" ticket, I thought they might want to consider throwing in a shiatsu massage and pedicure while they were at it. So, all things considered -- free food, free wine, a surprisingly smooth flight, and a fast one at that -- I arrived in London remarkably stress-free. I even managed to catnap on the plane. Not exactly several consecutive hours' worth -- I mean, I didn't exactly pass right out at takeoff and wake up right on landing -- but near enough.

In fact I more or less sailed through British customs on the way in, too. I was almost disappointed that they didn't take me aside and demand to see the reams of documents I had copied in safety-redundant triplicates and secreted in various locations within my bags, because boy I was sure ready for 'em. Had all the right answers lined up 'n' everythang. I think the massive lineup was about 40 times the length of my (cursory) customs "interview."

And thank goodness D. forced me to limit myself to two large bags, because they were all I could manage (barely). But somehow I did. I took the Express train from Heathrow into Paddington station and took a cab from there; the total, about 25 GBP with tip(s), was still considerably less than a cab all the way from the airport would have cost, and I probably arrived sooner, too. I was even able to check straight into my (temporary) room; I'm here at Wigram House only for the duration of the orientation activities, then on Friday I move into my full-time residence in Harrow. And on a whim I powered up my laptop to see if there were any local wi-fi hotspots I could surf for free, and lo and behold there's an official network I was able to tap right into.

All in all, the omens are good. The weather here is shockingly hot, sunny and summerlike, far more so than in either Montreal or Vancouver, at least. The transition is indeed going as smoothly as we could possibly have anticipated -- and, it must be said, about as well as we had asked of the universe when Dr. Baby and I did our little visioning session a couple of weeks ago. And so it is. Thank you, o wonderous universe, for all that you provide... whether we like it at the time or not.

But now, as my brain and body try heroically to adjust to Greenwich Mean Time, and I've been powering back the coffee (which I must say is curiously good for English coffee!) from the moment I got off the plane, I'm feeling a little bit... odd. Kinda like I just finished 6 straight hours riding a mechanical bull while on a boat 12 hours at sea on wind-whipped waters. (So much for alliteration.) What I'm trying to say is, my brain and body aren't quite in synch. And I'm trying mighty hard to resist the temptation to go to bed, too, since it's now only 4:00 pm here and I really should stay up for at least another 6 hours in order to help reset my circadian rhythm to local time. But so far, so good. It's working. There's still a little juice in the tank. Maybe I ought to find a pay phone and start calling some of my local friends. Besides, I don't really have to do anything until somewhat later in the day tomorrow when the "welcome week programme" registration officially begins, so that'll give me more time to get myself set up and settle into some sort of groove.

I've already done some local reconnaissance to gather most of my immediate necessities (power adaptors & converters, plugs, toothpaste, bottled water, headphones for the Skype sessions, etc.). Incidentally as I checked in, the Westminster Cathedral -- whose spire rises just above the building in front of us -- chimed noon. And the building directly behind us is called Ashdown Gardens. So, once again the omens are good. Despite my rather questionable mental state (or perhaps because of it?) I feel good. I feel better than James Brown...

My hometown

The drive from Ottawa was surpringly fast; it didn't take long to thread our way through the outbound traffic and the time was passed by my relentless picking of J-P's tireless brain. Thank goodness for good company and good conversation. Merci infiniement et a bientot, J-P. I also keep forgetting that Ottawa is closer to Montreal than, say, Quebec City, which I've visited far more frequently. Thus I arrived just as Mom & Dad were sitting down to dinner -- vegetarian chili, no less. A very pleasant welcome home indeed.

As I write it's a bright, clear Sunday morning in Montreal. The sun has a noticeably autumnal quality to it; it's hard to descibe, but it's the kind of light that if I had just awoken from a Rumplestiltskin-like slumber with no other way of knowing what time it was, at least I could make an educated guess that it was fall. Never mind that the trees are already several shades of red, orange and yellow, and the temperature is a good few degrees cooler already than it was just a few days earlier. Change is definitely in the air, in more ways than one.

Speaking of which, I'm having a hard time deciding if I really believe the old adage that once you've left you can never really go home again. On the one hand, getting together with old friends like Henry, John and Ralf -- as we did last night, dining out in Chinatown just like the old days -- provides a deep sense of continuity, of seamlessness. Oh, sure, the topics of conversation are periodically more mature (mortgages, kids, the 40th anniversary of Star Trek Classic, etc.), and there are the obvious physical manifestations (receding hairlines, eyeglasses, reduced ability to remember all episodes of Star Trek Classic in alphabetical order). But other than those, as I was just saying to Lynne, it's like I never left. We can pick up the pieces after months or sometimes years of not seeing each other or even communicating bar the occasional e-mail, as if nothing's different. Even if we have changed and grown as individuals (Star Trek obsessions notwithstanding), our relationships remain fundamentally unchanged. Local and provincial politics are as goofy as ever. Amen.

On the other hand, some things do underscore a sense of estrangement. The city itself is more built up each time I come, and there is always some new feature to see. (A big story these days is the recent removal of the concrete monstrosity that was the Pine/Parc interchange, near where I used to live in the Plateau Mont-Royal area, and neither of which I was, alas, able to see on this trip). The real estate prices here -- despite being a far cry from Vancouver's hyperinflated bubble -- are increasingly falling more into line with the rest of the world. And so it goes.

* * *

Holy cow, it's nearing noon now and I've got to get ready to go out for brunch with my nephew Erik, whose personal growth (and not merely of the physical kind either) continues to astound. He's definitely one of my favourite people on the planet, and very much his own man. More on him later. I'm also going to be out visiting with a few other friends this afternoon, and I'd hoped to write a bit more on the topic of Montreal. We'll see. According to Air Canada's web site, travellers to Heathrow should allow 3 hours (!!!) to do the business with check-in, security and such, which means leaving even earlier than I'd anticipated. (I had wanted to write my thoughts about the [expletive deleted] 9/11 anniversary hoopla but that'll have to wait 'til later as well.) The next leg of my journey, the one that takes me to London, is about to begin.

It's a Canadian thing. (Apparently.)

Today I'm in Ottawa, our nation's capital. I haven't been here for 20 years, almost exactly. One of the first sights I lay eyes on as I head out for breakfast is Barrymore's, the venerable concert venue where This "Blue Piano" once knocked 'em dead. Brings back some fond, if exceedingly vague, memories.

Anyway.

Our meetings are over, and very productive too. So here J-P. and I are ambling around the city, playing accidental tourist and working off our dinner, with J-P. telling me about his 61-day walking pilgrimage across France and Spain (!). Eventually we find ourselves at the House of Parliament. We stroll practically right up to the front doors, virtually unmolested. And when someone finally does approach us it's not an RCMP officer, or a CSIS agent, or even a pimple-faced rent-a-guard on a rusty bike, but some cigarette-puffing, beer-gutted yokel in a baseball cap and t-shirt who says, "Would you mind walking a little further down there, to the right? The light show is starting in 5 minutes and we'd like to keep this area clear."

Two things strike me about this situation: one, even though Parliament may not be in session right now (or is it? I haven't been near a newspaper or TV for a week!), we're apparently not too concerned with security at the capitol buildings. If this were the U.S., we might have been stopped -- likely by a phalanx of gun-toting types -- and inquisitioned long before we'd managed to get this far.

The second thing that hits me is: did he just say "light show"?

"It's a Canadian thing," Mr. Smoke-and-cap explains. As if he thinks we're from some distant land. Like Vancouver, or Saguenay. (Which we are, but that's beside the point.) And as if this is how we Canucks all typically spend our weekday evenings. Turns out that what he really means is that the show's theme is, well, Canadiana.

Intrigued, we do as requested (like any polite Canadian would, thereby blowing his theory out of the water) and obediently walk back toward the roadway; if you've ever seen pictures of Parliament, you know it's set back a fair ways from the street, separated by a wide lawn. Along the way we're serenaded by a pre-recorded Shania Twain and an assortment of other oh-so-obviously and tragically Canadian artists booming from the sound system. We stop in behind some modest bleacher stands set up for the express purpose. And then the light show begins.

You have to see it to really get the full effect, but essentially this light show consists of a series of projections that are cast onto the face of the Parliament buildings, including the Peace Tower: standard Canadian scenes of majestic mountains, maple leaves, Niagara Falls, towering forests, First Nations masks, you get the idea. It's accompanied by (very loud) sound effects of -- you guessed it! -- loon calls, aboriginal song, roaring fires, steam trains, the lot, along with the requisite (and fully bilingual) melodramatic narration. Some of these colours and images were more abstract than others, and some simulated movement. Did I mention they were projected onto the Parliament buildings?

Now, standing there straight as an arrow without the benefit of so much as a glass of beer or wine with dinner, the whole thing came off as ludicrously... well, I don't know, maybe cheesy is too polite a word. Crass, perhaps. Gimmicky. Touristy. Tacky. Cheap. Even if it was free. Imagine a PowerPoint presentation but with a bigger slides, set to bland Top 40 music (which is apparently all any Canadian artists of renown have ever produced), and used to light up your neighbourhood brothel. You get the idea.

Perhaps under other circumstances -- like, say, if we'd taken a hit off the ceramic Simpsons-head bongs proudly displayed in the head shops further down Wellington Street -- I can imagine that it might have had a somewhat different effect. But as it was, we just shrugged and moved on. For some strange reason it almost gave me a lump in my throat.

But for sheer entertainment value it didn't compare with what greeted us at the very next street corner. A young and not unattractive woman approached us, gesticulated at the metal "telephone" sign attached to the corner of the building and asked if we knew where said apparatus was. We explained that we weren't from the area (apparently we don't look that much like tourists!) and that we didn't know. She then went on to explain that she was visiting a friend who lived in an apartment tower across the street and down a block, and who wondered whether people at our location could look up and see into his/her apartment from that vantage point. So naturally she volunteered to come down and conduct an empirical investigation into the matter, albeit sans cellular. (What else are you gonna do in Ottawa on a Thurday night?) No problem -- no sooner had we revealed our ignorance than she spotted said phone, waved cheerfully, and trotted off to report her findings to her friend.

And they call Ottawa "the city that never wakes up."

Up obscenely early again tomorrow... but at least we're headed back to Montreal, for the final pre-London leg of my trip. Good night.

(Oh bugger. The wireless is now on the fritz, and I can't get connectivity... this post is going to have to be saved until tomorrow. Has Mercury gone retrograde again? Which reminds me, my e-mail issues are still not fully resolved either. Damn.)

Playing catch-up

A second and final post for the day, as I'm off to bed... even though it's barely 7:00 PM PST, though I suppose having been up since 5:30 or so this morning -- eastern time! -- might have something to do with my overtired state.

It’s been a busy few days, what with the web hosting and e-mail snafu sapping an inordinate amount of time & energy, and I’ve omitted quite a few important updates that I should probably address now.

First, I might have inadvertently glossed over our domestic manifestation abilities, "our" meaning those belonging to D. and I. I mentioned a few days ago in another post how our lease had been extended until next spring, round about the time I may be due to return from England. What I neglected to mention was that the very night before, D. and I held a “visioning” session wherein we declared what we wanted out lives to look like in the coming months/year or so. Basically we set our intention then asked the universe for support, and one of the first things I asked for was for the transition to go smoothly for all concerned.

Lo and behold, the very next morning Jane stopped by and broke the wonderful news that we wouldn’t have to move house until the spring after all, taking a huge stress off all our shoulders (and our landlords’ own) in the process. A win-win for everyone. We even found a new housemate into the bargain, someone who looks to be a good fit for Katmandeux when Tod heads back to Seattle. When it come to manifesting, I am almost getting as good as D. (She's good. She's very good. Ask her how she acquired me, f'rinstance.) Now to get to work on building that entertainment empire… I mean, hey, we have so many good works we need to propagate in the world, and we’ve got to finance them somehow…

Then there was the party, which under the circumstances turned out to be “just” a going-away do for yours truly, and not the house-cooling we had first thought. It was great to see everyone, including some rather unexpected (and most welcome) guests from the PolyGram days. Either my eyesight is getting much worse than I thought, or everyone is looking mighty good these days: Nancy, Mairi, Jeanne, Shannon, and all these wonderful people whom I have not seen in donkey’s years are all looking pretty hot. Great to have my men’s team there, too. Words fail to express just how important these men have been in my life for the past five years or so -- a constant source of inspiration, and a good model of how I want to be in the world. If all men had the vision, integrity, commitment, caring and compassion of this team, the planet and its inhabitants would be in much better shape than it is now.

Though we didn’t get to doing a cursory clean-up until sometime after 2:00 AM, I wisely managed to avoid overdoing the libations. I had about two and a half beers or thereabouts (not that I was counting), although given the combined intake over the previous few days I’d had a good skin full (not that I’m complaining). I knew I’d need all my faculties to finish packing and making general preparations on Saturday. A hangover was the last thing I needed.

The transition proper began with a smooth-as-buttah flight to Ottawa on Sunday. I surprised myself with how calm I was. Actually the smoothness began with packing the night before; everything is now put away for the move, whenever it might take place, with the exception of a few boxes that have been left open for easy access in case I need to ask Danika to send particular books or articles of clothing while I’m gone. Of my personal effects, I somehow managed to take only two bags, plus my computer bag, which – for a whole year of living overseas – is not bad at all. Limiting myself to two bags is not something I could have done alone; not easily anyway, and certainly not without overstuffing the damned bags. So, thanks to D. for helping me stay on track and keeping the baggage manageable. And for being an incredible trooper. She’s keeping it together remarkably well. She really is amazing.

I managed to snooze on the plane. The movie was Thank You For Smoking, which I’d already seen, and which is hilarious. I didn’t feel bad that I couldn’t stay awake as might otherwise be the case. The fact that we didn’t get to bed until sometime after midnight – and then got up at 5:00 am – also assuaged my guilt over catnapping through the movie.

Of course we can’t take any liquids on the plane, I’m already dehydrated before we’ve even left the ground, and although I manage to have some breakfast before leaving the house it soon wears off and I find myself paying $5.00 for a veggie wrap (which was either tastier than I expected, or else I was really hungry too). Then there was the $2.00 bag of apple slices… but I suppose I was mostly paying for the accompanying container of caramel sauce (?!), presumably for the calorically challenged. I’m really not fond of this notion of paying for my airline meals. I mean, airline food is still airline food – i.e., the portions are small, and even though I order the veggie options it’s nowhere near as healthy as anything I normally eat. True, it’s hard to screw up an apple, but somehow they managed. Worse still is the fact that I’ve been eating the party leftovers for what feels like days now, so my entire digestive system is in revolt. I need some real, substantial, home-cooked vegetarian fare. Soon!

Ottawa is shrouded in low-lying cloud and drizzle, so low that my first glimpse of the city in about 20 years arrives mere seconds before touchdown. I arrive more or less on time in the late afternoon and promptly note that the airport, modern and pleasant as it is, is surprisingly small for a city of over 1 million population and the seat of national government. Some guy takes my bag off the carousel and claims it; bewildered, I ask if he'd mind if I looked at the name tag. It turns out to be mine, and I sense that it was an honest mistake, and we both share a good laugh. He would have mostly walked away with my underwear and socks, anyway -- not the bag with all the electronics & other goodies.

The weather here is appropriately cool and overcast, helping me acclimatize to the anticipated London fall conditions. I’m tired and fortunately everyone here goes to bed very early anyway, so I had extra incentive to do likewise and thus begin the physical transition. I have forgotten to procure some melatonin and/or herbal jet lag remedies for the trip. Not being able to log online helped me get to bed at a sensible hour, too. Three hours may not be much of a difference, but it’s enough. (I've always said I'm a lightweight when it comes to the jet lag thing. My flight attendant friend Helen, who thinks nothing of jaunting to & fro between Vancouver and Singapore or further, just laughs at me.) On the bright side, Eastern Canada is a useful intermediate step between Pacific Time and Greenwich Mean Time.

I was worried that I’d have a hard time falling asleep, and for a few minutes there my brain was buzzing a tad too much, but before long I’d fallen fast asleep. I awoke Labour Day morning with the previous night’s chamomile tea kicking at my kidneys, begging for merciful release. My alarm, set for 7:15, ensured that I neither overslept nor baptized the bed.

Time to put in a good word for the Mastery of Self-Expression, whose monthly newsletter (Hi Bob!) I have just received and which I will now permalink in the sidebar; check it out. For all my Montreal friends, they’re working on the first-ever Montreal Mastery workshop too. I highly recommend it. Chances are very good that without the kick in the pantaloons provided by the Mastery, I might not be embarking on this adventure, never mind the fact that I might not have taken some or all of the steps that have led to the significant life-affirming changes (career, marriage, business, etc.) of recent years. Cheers, everyone. Good night.