Life Update- Haven't got a job yet

I don't normally do progress reports on things that have happened in my life. This blog was designed to be mainly about current affairs and things that I have come across, books, plays, films and the like, and then to use those as the substance which my witty cynicism and occasionally misplaced dislike is a foil to. I can't really stand talking about day-to-day stuff, or reading other "personal blogs".

London Jaunt- Metropolitan, dahlings. I'm too important to walk that far.

It was a friend's birthday this week, the friend who showed a mutual friend of ours around London for their first time (with my help/ goofing about) the other week in the first of these London Juants. Therefore, this weekend, there were cocktails to be had at a swanky, "in" bar in the capital. Capital!

It was called Be@One. I'm reliably informed that there are several establishments under this bar's umbrella dotted around London. I can safely say I'd never been in one before, but it's charmingly welcoming in that it is tiny, everyone seems to be happy and friendly in there (happy hour lasts from 4:30, opening, to 7:00) and they serve a killer Vesper that would make anyone think they were Bond, James Bond.

London Jaunt- It's life, but not as we know it

The British Library has two exhibitions on at the moment concerning things that are made up, speculative fiction and typically ancient literary traditions. One is the Out of this World science-fiction exhibition, while the other is the more permanent display of the British Library Treasures, its collection including: great religious texts from around the world such as gospels, bibles and Qu'rans; Chinese scrolls and texts; tomes of early poetry and Chaucer; Jane Austen's writing desk and manuscripts; a whole lot more, including Beatles notes.

They are both well worth looking at. I went the other day, in another London Jaunt to make myself feel better/ drag me out of my room and away from the relentless job application process, and it was immense. The best part- it's free.

Keeping busy, moving along

I wrote a post a few weeks ago now about how people use their time now that the vast majority of us have descended from "student" to "unemployed bum".

I've settled a bit more into the routine of not having much to do other than collect dole, look for work, create things for self to do. I can't say I like it much, but there we are.

Things I am doing to stop myself going mad without an authority figure giving me work are:

And it makes you laugh and it makes you cry, when London falls and you're still alive

So, last week I posted a rather long rant and carefully assembled ribbing of the fact that we're hosting the Olympics in London in a year and haven't got enough transport for the people coming to watch the sports as well as the people who actually live there. The solution that Transport for London suggested was for a set percentage commuters to stop using the Tube for three weeks and work from home. Which, of course, has so far been ridiculed. Now, though, it shouldn't be a problem. There aren't going to be anywhere near as many people wanting to attend the games after all, if any. And that's because of the panic in the streets as hooded youths jump on the back of a protest that went sour on Saturday and decide to do a bit of looting and pillaging instead of having a kick about.

The current state of damage in London looks like this-

with the widespread and untold spats included.

Whoever put this map together deserves credit, especially given the amount of sites not reported by the BBC, Sky or the local police to that borough.

London Jaunt- Sightseeing with a newcomer

It's always nice to show someone who has never been to it around a place you love. It's even better when they seem to genuinely enjoy it and grow to like that place too. I've been the novice before, being showed as a wide-eyed wonderer around Oxford, sitting in The Eagle and Child pub where Tolkein and C.S. Lewis sat, and soaking up the city. Recently, a friend from university, who was staying with a mutual friend of ours as she does "the season" in my favourite city of all time, London, became that novice as the three of us set off around the surprisingly compact network of sights to see in the city.

We met in Covent Garden. I was sat in a nice pub

And the fan-boys are revolting.

Both in the sense that they go ape-shit over the least deviation from their beloved version of a character, and in the sense that many of them look like Comic-book Guy and smell, that is.

But this post isn't about fan-boys being so anal and pedantic about characters who by their very definition as comic-book characters cannot have a definitive version. Not per se. It's more about the crazy things that movie studios do to evoke such backlash, mostly internet-based as they rise up and arm themselves with keyboards, memes and abbreviations which only they understand. It's the antagonism of the studios in releasing a saturation of preview material for their films which I wish to pick a bone with.

Today, for example, the first official picture of Anne Hathaway (smoking hot) as Catwoman (smoking hot and sultry) was released. And the fans went wild.

30,000 heaved from under LC (London City)

Utmost apologies for the pun in the title. Honest, couldn't think of a better one, and I wanted to concentrate on the bulky bit with actual words instead.



Transport for London (TFL) have been bandying about a statement left, right and centre asking ever-so politely if 30,000 commuters wouldn't mind awfully not using the Tube for three weeks next summer. There's a big version of a sports day on, you see, with lots of parents and uncles and aunts coming to see it, and apparently the headteacher-types or governor-types forgot to send a letter around last term, so they haven't had enough time to get the extra ice lollies. Or trains.