The weather in England is a bigger joke than I expected. I have quietly put up with the lousy winter and spring but even summer is crap. I can barely hear the music coming out of the speakers in front of me over the rain beating down on the roof. Here’s what it looks like outside right now(ish).
Admittedly the rain on the window makes it look a bit worse than it is but I cant convey in a photo how cold it is so that kinda evens things out.
I can't believe that in just over a month I'll be heading for France. I have no idea where the time has gone. It seems as though all my time has been occupied with making preparations, fixing up the van and generally worrying about finances.
Since I wrote my last entry Euro 2004 has kicked off in a big way. From what I gather there has not been much talk about it in Australia. Over here it has drowned out just about everything and if England were still in the running I’m sure that people would have just about forgotten about Wimbledon. It seems like so long ago that I was at work as England were playing France. It was England’s first game and the cinema was all but deserted. Some clever dick had stuck a coat hanger into one of TVs in the cinema which normally play movie trailers all day long and managed to tune it to the soccer. Just about everyone on site including the managers spent most of the evening skiving off to watch the game. For France to score twice in extra time and steal the game was truly amazing. Despite being in an empty cinema watching the game, the atmosphere was great. After the game, shell-shocked, drunk and angry fans could be seen leaving pubs and driving noisily down the A10 (main road which passes the cinema). This leads me to start ranting about the English so if you can’t be bothered reading it scroll down a couple of paragraphs. Hooliganism is a real problem here. It is difficult to make sense of it and I think that you can only blame alcohol to a certain degree. After the loss to France people were stopping cars in the middle of the road, trashing pubs and fighting with each other. All this without a French person in sight.
I watched the England v Switzerland match at the pub across the road from the cinema called the Southbury with a bunch of people from work and while it was fun and exciting to watch I just could not understand the passion and anger with which the English fans were shouting at the screen and calling the Swiss f’in c’s every time they stole the ball. Even though England won the game the crowd still got rowdy and proceeded to spill out onto the street and jump on passing cars. The only way for drivers to avoid being mobbed was to run a red light or honk wildly and wave a St George flag to show just how patriotic they were. Though bewildered by the mob mentality I was tickled enough to take a few photos and even a little video clip. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view) the car that I videoed being set upon got off relatively lightly. In the end, two van-loads of policemen showed up to disperse the crowd. The scary thing was that this was the experience of just one pub and without doubt the scene would have been repeated at just about every pub around the country. Straight up, there are way too many pubs around. The fact that they all survive shows how big a part they play in English culture. I can’t even think of one pub within walking distance of our house in Mount Waverley (the Notting Hill is probably the closest and that’s too far to walk) but I can name about seven around here and can see one out of the window right now. As an aside, one of the pubs nearby is called the Jolly Butchers and I think you’ll agree that the sign out front is a bit disturbing.
Anyway so we were back at the Southbury for the England v Portugal match and even though we knew that win or lose there was going to be mayhem after the game, the atmosphere was still pretty good. Chants of ‘who the f… are Portugal’ and ‘Eng-ger-land, eng-ger-land, eng-ger-land’ (to the tune of ‘Here we go, here we go, here we go) were repeated ad nauseum until most people were red in the face. For those that didn’t watch the game (which is probably just about everyone reading this) England had a goal disallowed in extra time and ended up losing on penalties. There was much cursing of the Swiss referee for some time afterwards but when Darius Vassel missed the last penalty and lost the game for England the entire pub fell silent as everyone looked around in bewilderment, waiting for their boozed up brains to process what their eyes had just seen. It was like being in the eye storm; between the game time excitement and the inevitable post-match mayhem. Most people with half a brain, including us, quickly got out of the pub just in time to look through the windows and see those left inside turn on each other and generally break anything they could get their hands on. Of course there were no Portuguese fans in the pub, it was just English laying into English. The next morning the tabloid headlines reflected the mood of the stupid English heartland, insisting that the referee had cheated. Admittedly, it was a bad decision but the ref was a pretty boy, nothing more. (Had to be there)
With only two weeks to go before I head for Scotland I am vainly attempting to get around to all the tourist attractions I shoulda/coulda/didn’t. Went to the Natural History Museum last week mainly to look at dinosaurs. I didn't quite get to see everything but what I did see was very good. I would have enjoyed it more if I were younger though. Take your kids there before they’re 15 and they’ll remember it for the rest of their lives. The Natural History Museum is a proper museum unlike the joke that is the Melbourne Museum. Let me tell you, it’s all about fossils and taxidermy. The Natural History Museum has oodles of both. Though the fossils on display are only casts of the originals, there are heaps and some of them are pretty big. They also have a stuffed version of just about every animal you could think of including all the big cats. And admission is free! Can't beat that. Most of the photos I took were lousy so I wont bother putting any up.
The van is coming along relatively nicely. My neighbour Stefan has been unbelievably helpful. I cannot begin to tell you how up the proverbial creek I’d be without him. If he wasn’t around, I like a fool, would have wasted hundreds of pounds on mechanic bills for simple things. The van now has an electric coolbox, 240v power, two new tyres and new carpet (which I laid all by myself). Just a bit more tinkering and a bit more cleaning and it will be ready to go. I think that driving the van will teach me how to control a car better and drive gently as you have to constantly be mindful of all the stuff in the back that jumps around every time you take a corner too fast or brake too hard.
I went to Wimbledon on Wednesday! Never been to the Australian Open but I’ve been to Wimbledon. I ended up going by myself but it was still a good experience. There was a tube strike that day so I had to rely on the slower overland trains. I planned to get there at about 9:30 but only got there after the gates opened at 10:30. I joined the very long queue right before it was closed. Only one other person got in after me. The queue moved fairly quickly but it still took an hour to get in. A ground pass cost £13 which was reasonable enough. I walked around for a bit then headed for court 18 to watch a men’s doubles match which featured three Aussies including Wayne Arthurs. There were quite a few Aussie fans watching as Arthurs and Hanley won is straight sets. Tim Henman was up next on Centre Court and the hill named after him was jam packed with people watching the game on the big screen. (see pic at top). I didn't bother trying to find a seat and instead walked around the outside courts where most of the matches were contested by kids or oldies. It was, after all, day 10 and most of the men’s and women’s singles games had been played. I had serving of the obligatory strawberries and cream but at £5.50 a glass passed on the Pimm’s and lemonade. At the end of the Henman match, which only lasted three sets, the weather wasn’t looking too good so I decided to head home and catch the Hewitt v Federer match on TV. Just as well I left when I did because as soon as I stepped onto the bus for Wimbledon station the heavens opened. When I got back to Kings Cross station I had to catch a train for one stop and change and Finsbury Park. I swear I got on the right train as there was more than one that I could have caught but as it turned out I was quite mistaken. After about 10 minutes on the train it finally clicked that something might be wrong. At about the 20 minute mark the scenery changed from drab inner-city to rolling plains and fields. At the 30 minute mark the train still hadn’t stopped since leaving Kings Cross so I finally decided to find a conductor and ask when the train would finally stop. One of the incompetent chaps had checked my ticket soon after leaving Kings Cross and even put a little stamp on it. However he failed to notice that my ticket was only valid within the London area. Let me tell you, it’s pretty hard to miss that. Anyway, another conductor apologised profusely and even offered the use of his phone in case I needed to let someone know that I’d be home late. He told me that the next stop was St Neots, a further 10 minutes away. This statement received a blank expression from me and only later consultation of a map revealed that St Neots is near Cambridge. So basically, because of the stupidity of two people (me and the conductor who checked my ticket but more him because he should have been doing his job and I am just a tourist), I went from London to Cambridge and back again when all I wanted to do was get home and go to bed.
So that was Wednesday. Tuesday night was my last shift at UGC Cinemas. I cannot tell you what a relief it was although it is scary to think that I will not be earning a penny (or a cent) for the next seven months. I’m having a little leaving party on Tuesday so I’ll probably post something after that. I’ll try put some more pictures up too. Here is one of my cousin Rachel and me in Enfield town.
This photo is more or less the view looking in the opposite direction… with ducks!
Does anyone else find this amusing?
