IKEA

I've had some of the worst experiences of my life in IKEA stores. It's the only store I've ever lost Miller in. On another occasion I nearly burst into tears and fled the marketplace.  I've sworn I would never go back. 

I've gone back.  Most recently we've been to an IKEA here in London. For those fortunate enough to have never gone to an IKEA, allow me to explain the experience...

For starters, IKEA merchandise is extremely mediocre. It's inexpensive and just a shade above crap, quality-wise. The design aesthetic is modern but rarely interesting. I have never sought out something from an IKEA store as a must have. It is, instead, a place I go to fill in the gaps or buy an inexpensive and serviceable piece of furniture that I only need for a short time while living abroad. For example.

Next, the layout of the store is designed for two purposes: 1.)To make you look at every speck of available merchandise and 2.) To make you hate every other person in the store. 

The typical massive IKEA store is divided into five rings of hell: 

the showroom, 

the marketplace, 

the meatballery, 

the warehouse and 

the checkout. 

The 2^nd floor showroom places you on a yellow brick road of misery - a path you must follow that takes you through every section and past every piece of flat-pack furniture available. And the store is massive. The ground floor marketplace is an area where you push a cart (or carriage as they say here) through an endless selection of mediocre white goods and small household items. The meatballery is their cafeteria. The food is horrible and you have to stand in long lines to get it. If you needed just that one more reason to become a vegetarian, IKEA meatballs could put you over the edge. Recently they were found to contain horse meat. 

Once you have selected your furniture, you get to go into the warehouse and load it onto your carriage. Make sure that you get all the right boxes and a double hernia on your way to the checkout and get ready to wait. When it's finally your turn to pay, get ready to buy a bag to put your purchases in. Even when you've made your purchases and left the store, IKEA will continue to haunt you for hours or even days as you now have to assemble the furniture you purchased. 

For all of that, IKEA wouldn't be too bad were it not that during the only time you really have to go to IKEA (evenings or weekends), everyone else in the free world is already there with three or more generations of their family.

When we arrived in London, I can honestly say that I approached my first trip to the Wembley IKEA with an open heart. I was in my newly adopted country and ready to tackle anything. We had a number of important purchases to make on that trip, including a bed for Kathryn and me and one for Miller as well. We had a list of other items - a small cafe style table, stools, bedding and more. Not a shit ton of IKEA, but plenty. It was a weekend and Miller was with us. London is great city for public transportation and so we do not have a car here. Getting to and from work and school and managing the day-to-day is pretty easy. Getting to the IKEA on public transport is less so. 

Still, things were going OK and everyone was holding up pretty well but by the time we got to the mattresses, we were starting to flag slightly.

Kathryn and I have a long and checkered past when it comes to mattress shopping. The problem starts with our starkly different tastes in mattresses. I prefer a medium and Kathryn likes a firm. She refers to the mattresses that I like as "soft". I call the mattresses that she likes "asphalt". However, I try my best to accomodate her because I am pretty low-maintenance about this kind of stuff, and can deal with a mattress that isn't just right. I prefer something less plank-like, but I can make do. The other difference in our approaches to mattresses is that I believe that you get what you pay for sometimes, and I don't like to over-economize on something that I'm going to use every day. Kathryn likes to keep her money mostly in the bank.

So there we are, bushed, in the crowded mattress area. Miller is starting to act up and the selection is a bit confusing - there are UK sizes and Euro sizes, spring, pocket spring, foam, memory foam and some spring/foam combos. In the face of these many options Kathryn gravitates toward the cheapest and hardest bag of cement in the store. I manage to talk her up one level - still hard as a rock. We opted for the "Euro" double bed since we are going to buy bedding here as well, and I had a sneaky feeling that there were no UK sheets in the store. While true enough, we also bought a Euro sized frame which locked us into the Euro option pretty soundly. 

We took delivery the following day (window of time to expect the goods - 8AM to 8PM). For the first week I woke up repeatedly during the night. The new mattress was causing my fake hips to act up. By the end of the week I'd adapted. Despite the discovery that if we slept for more than seven hours we were pretty stiff, all in all it was manageable. The status was status quo for a few weeks when Kathryn started suffering back and leg pain. Apparently we were sleeping aboard the sciatica express. 

The killer mattress had a 90-day exchange policy. Since Kathryn chose the mattress firmness and was also the person who was having the most trouble, she took the lead in getting a less firm version of the mattress. I won't bore you with the details of the next four weeks of back and forth (out-of-stock, back in-stock, lather, rinse, repeat) but eventually I became involved as Kathryn had reached the end of her customer service rope. My first IKEA call was to ascertain whether after all this runaround they would just take the mattress back and give a refund. They offered a store credit. 

We went to a big mattress store. I should have called ahead because I was informed that this large national chain only carries UK sizes. They referred us to IKEA or “the internet” for Euro-sized models. My second IKEA call was to order a completely different mattress. It took me more than two hours on the phone to accomplish this. I wish I could tell you why. I was placed on hold repeatedly for long periods of time. Apparently our case amassed a lengthy series of notes. 

This vocal dislike for IKEA is somewhat out of character for me. I’ve always been a boycotter but usually in a quiet way. Perhaps it’s that the scars of my first IKEA nightmare have never healed. You see, it wasn’t always like this for me. I used to go to IKEA semi-enthusiastically when I first encountered it in Chicago. And even in the Bay Area, while always a mild ordeal, it never inspired the dread that it eventually would. It was when my first marriage finally ended that IKEA and I took a turn for the worse.

I moved into my new apartment in Berkeley from Mill Valley with only five pieces of furniture: two bookshelves, a dresser, an “entertainment armoire”, and a dining room table and chairs. I offered my soon-to-be-ex-wife to take everything she wanted. This poorly thought out suggestion was motivated by guilt, a desire to mollify, and a new-found (and temporary) distain for unnecessary possessions. I decided that I would only buy household items that I really needed. I would sit on the floor rather than buy a chair; a cushion and a small rug could do for that. The futon I borrowed from a friend would be fine for sleeping. I wasn’t planning on entertaining, so why have more than one plate? I took my minimalism to the Emeryville IKEA on the first weekend in my new apartment to get the barest of necessities.

Most of my needs where confined to the marketplace section of the store. As I pushed laboriously through the throng, the reality of my situation began to descend upon me like a suffocating polyester and desperation filled winter-weight duvet. Each item I placed in my cart – a single medium-sized saucepan, a non-stick skillet, cheap cutlery, scratchy sheets and towels, throw pillows, an area rug that would constantly shed fuzzy red fibers for the next year no matter how many times I vacuumed it, a reading lamp, a chef’s knife of dubious quality, salt and pepper shakers, a reading lamp, a battery powered alarm clock – became a symbol of my failure to remain married. This feeling was amplified by the shiny couples who surrounded me in throws of ecstatic consumerism, joyfully equipping their new connubial abodes. Ditto the young families loaded up with brightly colored mobiles and storage solutions for their darling children who darted around the store like squirrels in a springtime park. 

I began to imagine that anyone who took notice of me would be able to instinctively deduce my circumstances: almost thirty-nine, lonely, sad and trying to acquire an entire household in a single throw. I was sweating. My heart began to race. I felt tears begin to well up in my eyes.

I don’t know how I made it to the cashier - I have no clear recollection of paying or bringing my purchases to Berkeley. Once my new crappy stuff was placed in the empty rooms and cabinets of my apartment I began to feel a bit better. 

Now for me and IKEA I guess, like a failed relationship, every attempt at reconciliation and renewal is eventually met with the realization that some things are just not meant to be.     

Jim Janisch Totally Arbitrary and Highly Subjective City to City Comparison

San Francisco/London Shootout

I recently returned from a trip to San Francisco for work and I couldn't help but notice a lot of differences - not only between SF and my new city but also between how I looked at it before moving to now. I've been thinking about how to write about it and have decided to try a point by point comparison of the two.

Before I begin, let me say that I LOVE San Francisco. So even when I am pointing out shortcomings, it's with tremendous respect and affection for SF. Caveat number two: I have only lived in London for a few months so much remains to be explored. I have a much broader perspective on San Francisco, warts and all. The point is that my views of London might be a bit on the rosy side of things. Also, this little exercise is only about San Francisco as a city, not the Bay Area in general.

Here goes...

Food: Winner - San Francisco

This one seems obvious, but I am not trashing London's food scene. There is a lot more here than bangers and mash. However, there is a lot of bangers and mash along with other sausage-based meals. Plenty of meat pies too. Since I eat a vegetarian/vegan diet, menus are limited for me here. What's missing from the London that I've seen that exists in abundance in SF is the good-to-great food that you can get in almost every neighborhood at a reasonable price. Consolation Prize: London kills in the sub-category of Indian food. Even the so-so places are pretty great.

Bars: Winner - San Francisco

Better beer, better cocktails, more diverse vibe - all wins for SF. On the London side, there is quantity. There are many more places to drink here than I've ever seen. Also, drinking occurs at more hours per day - lunchtime beers seem much more common here. If you like to imbibe, living here will make you feel better about your own levels of consumption since everyone else seems far more wasted than you are. (Look forward to an entire post on this topic.)

Weather: Winner - London

What? Are you insane? Well, this is a highly subjective appraisal as weather is a matter of taste. For me, I prefer four seasons to two. Also I've been spoiled by the incredible summer weather we've had in London this year so my opinion is surely skewed by that abnormality. If I was comparing Bay Area weather to London, the Bay Area would win, but it's just foggy SF.  This one was close. I may feel differently in a few months.

Shopping: Winner - London

This is a no-brainer. London has it all over San Francisco in this regard. I do miss some SF favorites (REI) but the scale of London and what it has to offer commercially is head and shoulders above. Special mention for London guitar stores. Greek Street is amazing if you like to look at awesome guitars.

Natural Beauty: Winner - Tie

This surprises me. But again, judging only on San Francisco proper, I have to say that I enjoy London's nature more. San Francisco has hills, which makes you think that there is nature, but more of San Francisco is paved over. I have been blown away at the amount of green space in London - especially where I live - it's not what you expect from such a big city. I'm calling it a draw for now.

People: Winner -San Francisco

I have yet to become accustomed to the British reserve. No one will look at you. No one smiles. No one says hello. Once you get to know people they are lovely but its hard to crack the ice. San Franciscans are much warmer right off the bat. I'm hoping to make a British friend sometime soon.

Public Services: Winner - London

I'm basing this solely on the criteria of homeless people and the pervasive smell of urine in San Francisco. I'm sure there are lots of reasons, but the number of batshit crazy homeless people is a lot fewer in London. I have yet to walk by someone in London and wonder if maybe they are dead. Also, they've got single payer National Health which I am a big fan of.

Tourist Attractions: Winner - London

SF has Alcatraz and cable cars. London has a plethora including stuff that is hundreds of years old and steeped in history. I love Alcatraz, but London is in another class altogether.

Public Transportation: Winner - London

Shut out.

Based on these categories, London wins the Jim Janisch Totally Arbitrary and Highly Subjective City to City Comparison. Have a lager, London! What's that? You're already plastered? Figures. 

 

"This is a Piccadilly Line Train for Cockfosters." I kid you not.

The London Underground (a.k.a. “The Tube”), the world’s oldest underground railroad, is celebrating its 150^th birthday, but most of it doesn't look a day over 140.

There are eleven lines traversing six “zones”: Bakerloo, Central, Circle, District, Hammersmith and City, Jubilee, Metropolitan, Northern, Piccadilly, Victoria, Waterloo and City all tied into the London Overground, DLR, Southwest and various other British Rail services. There are 270 stations – many of which have very giggly names. My favorite station names are:

Barking

Elephant and Castle

East Ham

Goodge Street

Tooting Bec

Tooting Broadway

Marlyebone (try saying this and not sounding at least a little bit like a pirate)

Shepard’s Bush

Cockfosters

It moves over one billion passengers per year, although only about half that number were actually on my train ride home today.

I ride on the Underground most every day. My daily commute starts with a fifteen minute walk to the Richmond Station – a little long in terms of time added to my daily commute, but also really pleasant thanks to how fantastic London is.

I cruise down the hill and then take a shortcut through Vineyard Passage which is bounded on one side by an old cemetery.

I find walking among dead bodies strangely calming. I prefer it to walking through the "High Street" which is congested with the living acting for all the world like the undead - lurching along unpredictably thanks to the constant texting. From the station I take the District line train from Richmond to Hammersmith and then switch for the Piccadilly line to Leister Square. This takes me from Zone Four where we live to Zone One where the action is. I then walk through Soho (two sex shops and a ton of music stores on the way in case I need strings or a vibrator) for five minutes to my office. That’s about one hour and ten minutes door-to-door. I usually do the exact reverse on the way home.

This is just one of many routes that I can choose for my work commute depending on whether I want a longer or shorter walk (I choose the slightly longer of two pretty close options), which trains I think will be more or less crowded and how much I feel like trying something different. Exploring a new route can mess you up if you are short on time. For example, it’s impossible to tell by looking at the map how easy transferring between lines may be; in some cases your next train is right across the platform, in others you may have to go all the way up to the street level or even exit the station to transfer. (Curse you Hammersmith!)

Overall, I love the London Underground. The only downside is that it can be really crowded and hot. This summer has been unseasonably warm in London and the carriages are not air conditioned. Everything you've read about European body odor is true. The British seem clean enough, but a flock of old Italian tourists will stink up a District Line train faster than you can say, “Ciao, puzzolente.” Oh, and it’s very expensive. One way from Zone Four to Zone One is about $8.50. I get a monthly pass for $260 that is unlimited rides on all trains and buses in Zones One through Four. (So much for saving a ton of money by not having a car.) The upside is that kids are free.

There are a lot of rules in the Underground, and as is the case with many cultures, many of them are unwritten. I’ve figured a few things out but some remain a mystery…

Queuing and crowd behavior:

 “An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.” George Mikes

The British have a well-documented love of queuing, so lining up is kind of a big deal, except when it isn’t. Mostly, it’s common sense that people should behave civilly and in a spirit of fairness. Even in situations where formal queuing isn’t possible – like when fifty people are all trying to push through three turnstiles while exiting a station – most travelers are fair-minded and polite. Bargers and side-sidlers are glared at un-mercilessly. Once you are getting on a train, some of that politeness is shed. If the train is especially crowded, people trying to get on will cry out at the people already aboard, “Move in!” There is also a fair amount of passive-aggressive ankle kicking and so forth. A friend was telling me that her pregnant friend quit riding the Tube when she got close to her due date. People were constantly telling her to “move in” because, thanks to her large belly, it looked like there was some open space right in front of her. She couldn’t take the pressure.

Walking:

One continual point of confusion in London – not just in tube stations but on the sidewalk as well – is which side to walk on. In America, we generally follow the rules of the road and walk on the right side. In London, thanks to narrow sidewalks and too many people, getting down the street is like navigating a mosh pit where you can choose to either dodge around or engage in a sort of game of chicken. My approach varies based on mood. Maybe in parts of the U.K. where there are fewer tourists they all walk on the left, but it’s a free for all in Zones One through Four as far as I can tell. The exception to this confusing lack of walking protocol is when it is occasionally spelled out on the Underground.

The escalator rules are clearly posted, but routinely ignored by tourists who are then bashed-into by fast-moving locals. 

Some walkways have a stated directional mandate, but no system-wide standard exists.

I once saw a British biker-looking guy growl, “Walk on the left,” to a hapless tourist going the wrong way. Even the bikers here are rule-followers.

Sitting versus standing:

Seats are available on the trains. Sitting is a little better than standing on a crowded train but you still get kicked and jostled a fair amount and you have to look at people’s butts, which is a crap shoot – can be good or bad, depending.

There are seats especially for those “less able to stand”. (The ability-to-stand trials occur each Friday at 13:45 at Paddington Station. Applicants are rated on a "standability scale" of 1-100, where a score of 1 = dead.)  Jockeying for seats can be dicey on a crowded train. I’ve noticed that people sort of expect you to sit if you are closest to an empty seat, whether you feel like it or not. I’ve been asked a few times in a slightly irritated tone, “Are you going to sit there?” Every time I’ve tried to offer a jump-ball seat to another traveler they decline, usually stating that they are only going so far. I just let old people beat me to the seat rather than make a big show of offering it to them. I figure it makes them feel capable. I will, however, dive into a seat to beat out a teenager.

Talking and eye contact:

Don’t do it. Where do you think you are with that smiling and nodding at strangers? Chicago?

My favorite thing about the Underground is that it works. It isn't always pretty or particularly comfortable, but it is dependable and always manageable. Here is a list of reasons that I think make it a winner:

Lots of trains:

During the day, you rarely wait more than two or three minutes for a train. The stomach-dropping feeling of coming onto the platform to see your train pulling away that plagued me in other cities (yes, I’m looking at you BART) just isn't a factor here. Another train is coming; you can get on that one.

Lots of lines and options:

While confusing to the uninitiated, the fact that there are so many transfer points means that if one line is delayed, there is usually another way to get where you’re going. Also it means that if you want to explore a little, you can change things up easily.

Generally well-behaved travelers:

The British are very polite which slathers a lot of grease onto what could be a pretty dicey situation. Trains and platforms can be very crowded, but it usually remains civilized even if someone's face is buried in your armpit or visa versa. Also, there is not a lot of grumbling about things. People just deal; stiff upper lip and all that, I suppose. (The exception is when a train actually stops dead on the tracks. People will get their moan on when this occurs.)s

I also appreciate how quiet people are on the train. Even when it's extremely crowded, it can be uncannily silent.

I should say that the well-behaved traveler business goes right out the window after 7PM, when well-mannered travelers are replaced with foul-mouthed drunkards. They are entertaining in their own right, but a little awkward when traveling with Miller. We came out of a station one Friday night after having dinner in Zone One and Miller recounted the swears he heard: Four f-bombs, seven s-words, etc.

Good support for travelers:

Most stations have ticket agents and other staff close at hand who are actually knowledgeable and helpful if you can understand what they are saying. There are lots of maps to consult and generally good signage. Every train has a recorded message telling you what line you are on and where the train terminates, the next stop, and available transfer options there. These are read by a very upper-class sounding woman’s voice that I find pretty sexy.

Regular announcements.

This provides a sharp contrast to the ad-hoc announcements which are, as on every public transportation system in the world, completely unintelligible.

Out of service announcements.

So come to London and we can take the Tube somewhere. Mind the gap.

Does Size Matter?

*Note: Sorry for the lousy looking formatting and random font changes. Blogger is doing some stuff that I am not asking it to. But I guess you can still read it...

London is a big city. But in another sense it is very small:

No walking on many of the absurdly narrow sidewalks. Especially since they are the day drinking/smoking area, too.

Fun small cars that you never heard of like this Ford Frodo.

On some streets they've given up on cars altogether. Like.

Our house in Amherst was not large by American standards – particularly in usable living space: three smallish bedrooms, three bathrooms that, due to size and untenable fixtures, added up to one and two half baths, a living room/dining room that was comfortable, but not large. We did have a lot of semi-livable space - a weird breezeway that functioned as mud room/three-season hang out, a damp basement family room and a stuffy attic office - as well as tons of storage. When we purchased the house it was our intention to renovate and make those spaces more comfortable and roomy but when we started to look into it, we decided it was too much to spend on too little house. 

Despite its shortcomings I liked the modest size of our house. It was easy to care for, cozy, and it permitted me to indulge in a kind of snobbery of un-pretentiousness. I sometimes even fantasized about smaller spaces - small scale living that required clever solutions to the everyday activities of eating and sleeping. However, as much as I may like the idea of a tiny house, I also like a degree of privacy and solitude - hard to come by in a micro-domicile even with only one wife and one child. Moving into a flat in London posed the perfect challenge: to find a balance between my desire for a smaller space and at the same time the ability to isolate myself on occasion. Plus, there wasn’t much choice – the cost of living (very high) and the general scale of dwellings (hobbitty) in London made a much smaller place a practical necessity.

Without going into a lot of detail about the search (seventeen viewings in two days), I found one. Our new flat is two bedrooms, one bath, but the proportions are nice. It doesn't seem in any way cramped with the exception of the entryway which won't comfortably accommodate more than one person putting on shoes or gathering items for departure. There is sufficient storage space and enough “zones” to permit the three of us to stay out of each other’s way as necessary. And there is plenty of room to host a houseguest or four for a few nights at least. We have two air mattresses - deluxe!

That said there are some things to get used to...

A lot of people told us we would need to adjust to the U.K.’s smaller appliances. Truly, when viewing flats I was stunned at the number of offerings that had dorm-sized refrigerators, and in a few cases no freezer at all. (Insert British ice-cube joke here.) Kitchens were undersized on the whole. To me this raises a classic chicken/egg question: Do Londoners drink rather than eat because their kitchens are so small and poorly equipped, or are their kitchens small and poorly equipped because they drink instead of eat? I suspect the latter. We were lucky in that our kitchen, while not American-sized, is spacious and has adequate refrigeration. Our stove top (or hob as they call it) is small but suitable, as is the oven (cooker). Never mind that these appliances are riddled with indecipherable hieroglyphs:

Pretty sure there is picture of a rabbit and maybe a native American inside our freezer door.

I’m sure when I actually need to bake something I will be able to figure it out. We’ve muddled through roasting veggies just fine.

This leaves us with the laundry situation. Every single American that I have met here has called out the U.K. washer/dryer as problematic. Many flats that I saw did not have a clothes dryer at all. Washers tended to be tiny units located in the already tiny kitchen. Our flat has a washer/dryer "in one". Not a stackable combo that is common in U.S. apartments, but rather one unit that claims to magically wash and dry clothing in one contraption. I was hopeful that this machine would defy all naysayers, and prove to be what it promises - the synthesis of two space-consuming appliances into one compact and elegant solution. Not so. The dryer function is pretty pointless. You can only dry about half of the already small load and then your finished clothes are so wrinkled that they look like they’ve just been removed from the bottom of a full hamper.

However, I am growing to like or at least tolerate some aspects of “The Wrinkler” that at first blush appeared to be shortcomings.

• It is tiny.
  
  This seems like a limitation and I’m sure that for larger families it would be, but a smaller washer means that the chore of dealing with the finished product is less daunting. I was a procrastinator when it came to folding and putting away clean clothes, but I don’t mind it so much if the volume is less. The funny thing about this to me is that it would never have occurred to me to intentionally buy a smaller washer or dryer when I lived in the U.S. But really why did we need such a large one? Bigger is not always better.

• The length of the cycle is long. Again, initially this was a frustration. Why does it take 45 minutes to wash such a small amount of clothing? But I’ve noticed that our clothes are extremely clean and apparently the washer is very energy efficient, so there’s that. And it’s not like I’m going to be putting those clothes on any time very soon anyway, because…
• The clothes are wet. No functioning dryer means that, like most everyone else in London apparently, we hang our laundry on racks to dry. I wasn't wild about this idea, but I have to say that I've come around. The biggest downside is that our dried things are not “fluffy”. In fact they could even be called crunchy. This is also a product of the exceptionally hard water in London. I apologize in advance for the scratchy bath towels you will use if you come to stay with us. However, for most items drying on the rack is perfectly fine and I find that if you give things a little shake-out once or twice while they are drying it helps with the crunch factor. In fact, I now look back at all that mechanical clothes-drying I used to do in America and wonder if I was just being manipulated by “big dryer”. In time, your clothes will dry without any assistance. Don’t buy the hype! Racks, man, racks.

Don't Say Fanny in England Unless You Mean Vagina

It's one of those clever sayings that has become so hackneyed you almost wish it had never been said
at all: "England and America are two countries separated by the same language." Hardy har, George Bernard Shaw. But I do like your beard.

He wrote Pygmalion, so I guess he knows something about the English language. And misogyny.

It's true enough I guess, although I would argue that of the things that constitute differences between the two countries, language is not that big of a deal compared to say, football or hats.

English as it's spoken in Boston no more closely resembles the English of Mississippi than it does of London. And I would imagine the same could be said for the differences between London, Dublin, Glasgow, Wales or even Liverpool.  "The United Kingdom, four countries separated by the same language," seems every bit as accurate.

That said, no one really makes a big deal over an American accent here. One person did tell me my accent was "nice" but I think that was actually meant as an acknowledgment that it could be a lot worse. Like a Texan or something. I have noticed that Londoners for whom English is a second language seem to have a lot of difficulty understanding me. One asked me if I was Australian, which I think indicates that if it's not what you're used to, it all just sounds weird.

One of my biggest fears in moving here is that Miller will develop an affected British accent. And like most of my fears about Miller it's really a reflection of a fear for myself. Namely, that in my Zelig-like desire to fit in, it is I who will adopt some kind of douche-y fake half-British accent - like the one that Madonna picked up while she was married to Guy Ritchie. I've definitely heard some Americans here slipping into some kind of over-articulated hybrid - like actually pronouncing the "t" sound in words like letter or butter. Poseurs.  (Interestingly, the pronunciation of the "t" in those words is variable in England. The upper class accent sounds a "t" while those of the cockney persuasion may omit the consonant altogether.)

I've put Kathryn on accent-supervision duty to monitor for any slip ups.

To help me to resist the urge, I've established some boundaries around vocabulary; words that if I started to incorporate into everyday conversation might put me further at risk. Here are some of them...

Words I will not say:

Chap

Mate

Bloke

Geezer

Innit

Bloody

Bollocks

Shag

Fuck all

Loo

Bum

Blimey

Daft

Quid

Arse

Bespoke

Bugger

Lorry

Telly

Brilliant (excessively - or god forbid "brill")

Cheers (I will say it when toasting but not as random filler or stand-in for "hello", "please", "thank you", "goodbye", and "I agree", to name a few.)

Words I will say grudgingly so as not to be misunderstood:

Lift not elevator

Trainers not sneakers

Trousers not pants

Maths not math

Football not soccer

Cutlery not silverware

Rear-end not fanny (Fanny means lady-parts here. Beware if you find yourself in a conversation about The Match Game.)

Words I am saying more than I used to:

Lovely (Because I've always liked it and it's not considered too prissy here.)

Sorry (Brits say sorry a lot  - sometime in lieu of saying "ouch". BTW, that link goes to a review of an awesome book about English culture. Very funny.)

Words I may not be able to resist:

Cock-up

Cheeky

Wank

Pissed

So that's that. Done and dusted.

Hampton Court Palace and Royalty: I Don't Quite Get It

They have a Queen here. I find it all extremely un-American. They've been at this having-royalty for a long, long time in England and it seems that the locals still aren't tired of it. Lots of European countries had this system back in the day but most of them have either abandoned it completely or have back-burnered their royalty to a status more akin to that of a talent-less celebrity. Not so the case here; the royals are 100% A –list. Americans are a sucker for the royals too. We might not go quite as crazy as the Brits, but based on the news coverage of the most recent royal birth, we have an inordinately healthy appetite for the lives and loves of royalty.

Personally, I've never been too interested in British royalty. My early exposure was limited to the soundtrack recording of the movie Camelot, the Adventures of Robin Hood, which pitted a scrappy outlaw against the monarchical establishment , and then when I was in high school, the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. I guess I can see the fairy tale appeal of Charles and Diana in satisfying a certain kind of vicarious fantasy-fulfillment for girls raised on Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.  But frankly, I found the stand-in for Price Charming to be a letdown.

I was casually sympathetic toward Diana during the whole Camilla Bowles/divorce scandal. It seemed like she was a nice enough person who fell in with a bad crowd and then just wanted out.

That fairy tale came to a happily-never- after end with her tragic death – killed by paparazzi. At the time to me it seemed an awful lot of hue and cry over a car accident. About 100 people are tragically killed in car accidents every day in the US and Elton John doesn't phone-in a lyric rewrite for any of them.

And so my confusion remains: What makes the UK royals so special? These are just really rich people who have done nothing to earn their position besides springing forth from the right loins – not any different than Paris Hilton or any other socialite, trust-funder, professional shopper. And yet when they get married or have a baby it’s considered international news.

We went to Hampton Court Palace over the past weekend – one of England’s premier royalty theme parks. It is a pretty sweet crib, beautiful and majestic.

I was hoping to learn a bit about the history of the monarchy – maybe to help me to better understand what’s so appealing about these kings and queens. Well, in case you didn't know, Hampton Court Palace was most famously inhabited by Henry VIII.

Henry VIII is at the top of Kings and Queens I had ever heard of. I did a little research to bone up on Fatty McKillyourwife and a few other famous royals from history:

Henry VIII:

Despotic douchebag, serial murderer and religious reformer – although arguably his interest in single-handedly converting an entire country of Catholics into Protestants was motivated by a personal agenda to swap the used up old wife for a new one with a more likely uterus. That second wife was the famous Anne Boleyn, who he beheaded a couple of years later. He got married again less than two weeks after the head removal to his third wife who later died in childbirth. He waited two years, then married another gal, but had that marriage annulled, married again, cut her head off, then married a sixth time to a woman who to outlived him, and therefore managed to not get her head cut off. (An interesting side note: on one particularly sympathetic website, it’s stated that he “agreed” to the beheading of two of his wives. I didn't know kings were so suggestible.)

Henry VIII didn't just cut off ladies heads and get divorces. He had many “accomplishments”, although several of them could be interpreted as pretty nasty. For example, he started several wars with France. In his defense I think this was just something that the British did as a matter of course for much of their history, so it could just be chalked up to force of habit.

He also increased the power of parliament and took the holdings of the Catholic Church and returned them to Rome. Oh wait, no. He kept them for England, actually. A little Robin Hood action there – steal from the rich and give to the slightly less rich.

Richard the Lionheart:

I knew him as the “good King” from Robin Hood. He is mostly renowned as the military leader of the Third Crusade. OK, I’d say that’s a somewhat dubious claim to fame: religion-fueled aggression against Muslims. In the whole Muslim vs. Christian meme, it’s safe to say Richard’s popping down from Europe to wage war in the Middle East didn't do much to help prevent the subsequent 800 years of ill-will.
   
Queen Elizabeth I: 

She was the daughter of Henry VIII and his first murder victim, Anne Boleyn. So, that’s bound to make for a stable and well-adjusted attitude toward love and marriage. Perhaps not coincidentally, her nickname was “The Virgin Queen”. She got to be Queen after one rival was murdered and she herself was imprisoned by her own sister for a year. Her claim to fame, besides not getting it on, was ruling for a long time (44 years) during the aptly named Elizabethan period, which is well-known for the aptly named Elizabethan drama.

More examples abound of murdering family members, betrayal, persecution of Jews and Muslims and other atrocities on the parts of British royals and yet they remain a fixture of the British culture and a point of national pride. Go figure.

Of course, Americans are no stranger to this kind of selective blindness. After all, we do have a mass murderer on our $20 bill.

I'm On A Boat

We came to Richmond on a boat - an ocean liner called the Queen Mary 2. Technically you aren't supposed to call it a cruise ship (or a boat) but that's what it most closely resembles to the non-ocean liner snob set.

Since my company paid one-way transportation to London, the expense of the trip was offset by the amount of one-way airfare for the three of us. This worked to our advantage since:

1. One way airfare is a ripoff

2. An extra nine-year old in your cabin on a cruise ship is discounted, but 

3. A nine-year old on a plane is full ripoff fare.

I feel like I owe the world an explanation of how taking the QM2 really wasn't some ridiculous extravagance. I'm from Ohio where we aren't so comfortable with excess, but there is no denying that the QM2 is a bit excessive.

For one thing, it's excessively large.

For some reason it doesn't say in this picture, but the black shape is the Titanic.

When constructed it was the largest passenger ship in the world. It has since been eclipsed by several larger ships but it's a whopper by any standard. An ocean liner snob would point out that these larger ships are cruise ships, not you-know-whats. 

Also, it is largely populated by excessively old people. I saw a greater assortment of motorized conveyance than I ever dreamed existed, and while I like older people fine and am generally pretty patient, a horde of geriatrics on scooters can really jam up the buffet.

Which brings us to the most excessive aspect of the QM2: the dining.  There were many options for eating. There are three dining rooms, although your class of cabin dictates which ones are available to you; we were barred from eating at either The Princess Grill or The Queen's Grill and had to make do with The Britannia. (I find the punctuation of these restaurants' names a little suspect. It seems that they've foregone consistency and clarity to avoid the awkward pronunciation of  "Princess's Grill", but in the process have subtly implied that you may have the option of dining on the royal flesh of an heir to the throne.) These spots required some degree of dressing up, from shirts with sleeves at breakfast and lunch to three nights of "formal" dress, when most folks were dressed in tuxedos and evening gowns.

We enjoyed the dressing up. As you may know, we are not that fancy but it was fun to pretend. 

There were also a variety of other face-stuffing options - 24-hour room service, a pub, several poolside and specialty cafes, as well as a Todd English restaurant (NOT included in the all-inclusive inclusiveness).

Saving the worst for last, there was also the twenty-four hour a day binge-fest at the King's Court Buffet. We lovingly referred to it as "The Trough". Here, passengers who could not be bothered to put on trousers gorged on a variety of mediocre fare. Most of the time it was mobbed. We ate breakfast there a few times. It was also fun for a late night snack after the scooter crowd turned in. 

It rarely looked like this.

In addition to the excessive food, there was also an excess of activities and entertainment - dance classes (waltz, tango, samba, cha-cha and line), live music (including the fabulous Juilliard Jazz Orchestra), a casino, board games, planetarium, pub quiz, karaoke, library, Kid's Zone, shopping, hot tubs, deck chairs, pools, table tennis, paddle ball, live shows (a little bit Lawrence Welk-y), afternoon tea, a disco, Canyon Ranch Spa, two performances by a group from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, shuffleboard, bingo, a knitting group, bridge lessons, a series of lectures by the ship's architect to commemorate its 200th Atlantic crossing...

And finally, thanks to my excellent traveling companions, there was an excess of fun. I really had very low expecations of the experience - I wasn't sure if it would be too fancy or too boring or too whatever - but we all had a pretty fantastic time of it.

And at the end, we arrived in the UK. This is Miller, setting eyes on his new home from our balcony on the ship: the end of the beginning of an adventure that none of us will ever forget.

Sex Shops and Chick Peas

My office, Advent's office, in London is in central London in the city of Westminster. More specifically it's on Charing Cross Road near Oxford Street at the edge of Soho.

In London, Soho isn't short for anything like, for example, South of the Hoes. Rather, it has been historically known for being exactly where the hoes are. 

Soho is on the gritty side and has been for a long, long time. In days past it was notorious for skulduggery, thieves and prostitutes. It is the location that Robert Louis Stevenson chose for Mr. Hyde's hyde-out. Allegedly it still has hookers but I haven't seen any; I don't hang out much after work. There are tons of restaurants and pubs and live music venues including the legendary Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club.

Soho also has "Licensed Sex Shops" a.k.a. Ye Olde Dildoe Shoppes. Our office is right above one. 

I've been wondering what the process of certifying a sex shop for licensing would be exactly...

Inspector: Pardon me madame. I'm from the Ministry of Socially Accepted Perversion. I need to take a look around, if you don't mind terribly.

Shopkeeper: Please do. Always happy to comply with the Ministry.

Inspector: Very nice, very nice. Keeping the batteries fresh I see.. Oh no. This will never do. Look at the matted fur on these handcuffs. I'm going to have to write you up for that one.

Shopkeeper: Oh dear.

(The role of the shopkeeper to be played by Terry Jones in drag, of course.)

My favorite thing about Soho so far is the abundance of vegetarian-friendly dining. My favorites are a place called Beetroot (note how they reward the word "beet" with an extra superfluous syllable). Food for Thought - a very hippy traditional vegetarian vibe - and another spot called Hummus Bros. These "bros" have the best hummus I've ever had. They make the staff wear t-shirts that read "Give Peas a Chance". I sort of want one but I'm pretty sure the request would be frowned upon by the skinny pea-ladling hipsters behind the counter. 

I love the chick pea.

Where I Live

We live in London now. Here is a map of London. It's larger than I ever realized.

London is made up of twenty-one boroughs. We live in the borough called Richmond-Upon-Thames. Oddly, even though we live there, I've never heard anyone actually say “Richmond-Upon-Thames”. I don’t think even British people are comfortable sounding quite that British. Within the borough, we live in the town of Richmond. It’s a bit confusing because all these boroughs, towns and cities exist within London.

Several people I've met have told me that Richmond (the town) is the nicest place to live in London. I don’t have anywhere near enough context to agree or disagree with that assessment, so I just sort of nod my head and say, “Oh, we think it’s lovely.” I do know that it's very affluent. When I tell people where I live, they sort of give me the once-over as if to say, "Well, perhaps I've underestimated you." At least until they look at my shoes. It reminds me of when I lived in Mill Valley in the Bay Area - I'm definitely one of the poorer people on my block.

In the relocation division of labor, I was placed in charge of location scouting, school selection and flat acquisition. I turned for help to my friends Chis and his wife Katie. I've known Chris for a long time as a co-worker at Advent – he and his family relocated to London from the Bay Area a year ago. When I came out to London for a visit, they kindly agreed to take me around to see some different areas.

Unfortunately, I got really sick on that trip. I thought it was just a bad headache that wouldn't go away, but as the week wore on it kept getting worse and worse. Eventually I couldn't eat or drink because I was throwing up from the pain. A normal person would have gone to a doctor, but I kept assuming that it would get better. It was just a headache, after all. By the end of the week, I became so dehydrated and sick that I had to go to the emergency room in an ambulance. I was diagnosed with sinusitis. I've never had sinus problems before – I wasn't even stuffed up. They gave me some steroids and narcotics and I was back on my feet the next day. By the way, this was my first exposure to National Health. It rocked. The emergency room was pretty crowded but it was Friday night in a huge city and I was one of the few people there who had not been stabbed. All in all, it was very efficient and guess what it cost me? $0. Three cheers for civilization. More props for Chris and Katie - Chris actually came to the ER to keep me company and then they allowed me to recuperate at their place for the next two nights.

Thanks to this medical fiasco, I didn't get to scout too many parts of the city, and when I did I was mostly staggering around holding my head. (You don’t really stick out too much for staggering around London. There is a lot of staggering per capita here.) After my visit to the ER, Chris took me to see Richmond the next day. We walked up a hill along the side of a park that rolled down to the Thames. It was absurdly beautiful. 

So you can see, we really have Katie and Chris to thank for landing us in this gorgeous part of London. I must admit, however, that when Kathryn tells me what a great job I did finding a spot I've stopped protesting and just accept the credit. Good job, Jim. 

The guy who ate Tony's cereal

"From: James Janisch

 To #London First Floor

 Subject: London Office Newbie Mortification

Hello Co-Workers,

For the past two weeks I’ve been enjoying the delicious Dorset breakfast cereal that our generous and lovely employer, Advent Software, Inc., provides.

Today I learned that apparently this is not the case and that I’ve been helping myself to the delicious breakfast cereal that one of you brings for your personal consumption.

Apparently Advent adopts a “Beer? Yes; Cereal? No” policy when it comes to in-office freebies.

Firstly, to the person whose cereal I’ve filched, please accept my apologies. Secondly, I will be bringing in a few boxes on Monday by way of remuneration. It’s the least I can do considering that you’ve inadvertently introduced me to a fine product.

Signed, a Dorset Cereal fan,

Jim"

My new office, located here in Soho, provides an astonishingly generous collection of complimentary food: coffee, tea, juice, milk in three varieties, almond milk, soda, beer, sweets, biscuits (AKA cookies), fresh fruit. So when I saw the Dorset Cereals in both the 1st and 2nd floor kitchens, I assumed that they were fair game. As we are still adjusting to our new (higher) cost of living, I took liberal advantage - large bowls, on occasion for lunch as well as breakfast.

Much to my surprise, when I reached for a box this morning I discovered that all three were gone from their usual place in the cupboard. There was only a little tell-tale oat dust to mark their passing. My first reaction was confusion. Had they been removed? Had I overindulged and was the office manager sending me some kind of message? And then slowly the suspicion formed that perhaps I had made an error in my assumption that they were among the freebies. Had I committed one of the cardinal sins of the communal office kitchen? Had I eaten someone else's food?

As luck would have it, our facilities manager walked by as I was just considering IMing her to ask whether the cereal that I'd been eating were, in fact, the oats of another. I explained. And then she explained. No, the cereal is not free and yes, I was a cereal snatcher. A muesli marauder. The shame.

Of course the apology was accepted and the offer for replacement was brushed off. But I am afraid that the damage is done and that I will be known here from now on as the guy who ate Tony's cereal.