Send Me Back to the Data Room
Wazzup My Peeps, It's been a while since my last report and the short story sounds like this: work, eat, sleep x 5, tourist stuff on the weekends and repeat process. If you have nothing better to do then you can read the unabridged version, including all drivel I could have easily left out... but I like to ramble. It's your choice. We moved out of the Algerian Marquee that was Finsbury Park towards the end of May, but not before the local area was basking jubilantly in the post-FA Cup triumph of local club Arsenal. It was an amazing scene outside our apartment upon the full time whistle as punters spewed out of the local watering hole, the Twelve Pins, and proceeded to celebrate wildly for a few hours, chanting songs, spraying lager, rollerbladding between traffic half-nude and tempting the on-hand constabulary to pop them in a paddy wagon with gestures to their immediate faces. For the past 3 weeks , though, we have been living in Tulse Hill, which is a 10 minute walk out of Brixton. If you don't work for the local council (erhem, Ken) and are unfamiliar with London socio-economic geography, then let me fill you in. It's comparable to living just outside of Harlem, NYC / Kingstom, Jamaica, with a touch of South London to boot. So I can be excused for feeling a little insecure with my attention-grabbing, pasty-white-skinned, suit-wearing, non-Rastafarian exterior while I cohabitate in a neighbourhood full of Yardie Bad Boyz and their souped up hot rods that bounce along the streets to the latest ballad by 50 Cent or some classic piece of unrecallable regae, with billowing clouds of pungent ganga smoke wafting from their tinted windows. Let's just say it's quiet enough to pass as a normal residential area, but close enough to the housing projects to be labelled "The 'Hood". But we're getting use to it. We're living in a nice, clean house taht has all the creature comforts one could wish from a share house and it is rapidly feeling like home. We live with two lovely Aussie girls: Jude, 28, primary school teacher, Sydney; and Emma, 26-28(?), nurse, South of Perth. The land-lord, Andrew, however, has enough material to be the subject of his own email. I'll summarise. He is middle-aged, unkempt, smelly, and talks like an oaf ("uhhh... yeah, yeah... ok... er... ummm.. yeah, yeah... Hi."). He lives over the road with his mother (or so Norman Bates told his guests) and sister. We don't know what he does for a living but his comment of "I bought dis bike for 20 quid on the net and I reckon I could get �50 for it" leads me to believe its probably got something to do with collecting junk. Our garage is FULL of SHITE!! Apart from all that, he's a lovely guy, will go out of his way to fix/buy/find anything the house might request. I don't know about his experience as a land lord though, as he hasn't requested a bond and there is never a hurry to pay the rent. Strange. The big news of late has been the rather sudden and massive change to my plans when Normo told me that he might be going home if he got a job offer at a law firm from August on Monday, to landing the gig on Wednesday night. So what has felt at times like an eternity but more like a fleeting moment in time, he's hopping the next Qantas outta here not long after Katie also departs, after her brief 6 week sojourn in the UK. And that will leave little ol' me here by myself. :( Tear ): From this obvious disappointment will hopefully come positives. Congrats go to Normo ("No wonder they call him the Freak.") for landing himself Articles and now I must prepare for "Europe-for-1". I'm sure there's a Leggo's ad in there somewhere. Speaking of Aussie ads, people back home may find this recount of a bar story amusing. I was in Dive Bar in Soho a few weeks ago and went to the bar to buy a round of drinks. Normo, the perenial teetotaller, had asked for a glass of water and his wish was requested to the lady serving me behind the bar. Her response has been the cause of many nights awoken in cold sweats of late. "And a slice of lemon?" she asked. I vehemently replied "NO! No, thank you." and the 80 year old bar lady shrugged and proceeded to pour the drink, probably pondering why I was so anti-citrus. It dawns on me that I've already talked about Katie's departure and yet I haven't even mentioned her arrival. Sorry. Yes, well, OK. Katie arrived two weeks ago tomorrow and I have been very lucky to have her in town. Here on a so-called 'rotation' for her med degree at Chelsea-Westminister Hospital, she has managed to spend a sum total of about 5 hours doing doctor stuff after she was told by her resident intern that she could basically piss off and have a holiday. So that's what she's been doing. Systematically taking her London guide book to pieces, she is determined to do it all before she goes home and she just might if not for the exchange rate and the fact that she's not earning those ���s, glorious ���s, unlike her Sugar Daddy, yours truly. Katie has provided the impetus to get us to a few touristy things we hadn't yet been bothered to see, like the Tate Modern (modern art... err, yeah...) and the Tower of London (Henry VIII's armour's exaggerated petruding cod-piece was still in tact to my amusement) amongst others. Katie and I hit the mean Boulevards of Gayest Paris on Saturday for a well-earned weeked break - it will be nice to get out of London. Normo's off to camp/trek around Scotland with his cousin for a week and dismisses my observations that he may find it difficult without a) a sleeping bag, b) hiking boots, or c) a jacket. Wonder if he'll return. The south coast is next on the agenda (Brighton, Canterbury and Hastings Country the targets) before a comprehensive 2 week car tour of the UK in early July. On the work front, we've become entrenched as part of the furniture at Freshfields (well, as much as a temporary paralegal can) and after a few weeks of data room supervision, we have been promoted back to the office to such awe-inspiring tasks as 'Redacting' (blacking out confidential information in documents), 'Bible Cleaning' (whiting out confidential information on said docs) and 'Page Turning' (what it sounds like). Rivetting stuff. I would like to retract every derogatory comment I made in my last email as I make the impassioned plea: SEND ME BACK TO THE DATA ROOM!!! Who would have thought that I could miss the job so much. I didn't know what I had until it was gone. That old cliche. I guess I'll sign off now. No shout outs this time because I'm starving, have been in the office for 11 hours and it's 24 degrees outside and light until 9:30pm. Suckers in Melbourne with your 14 degrees and rain. Who would have thunk London would be like this. Au Reviour, Slammin' Sammy D Honorary Brixton Bad Boy and Member of the Shirt&Tie Crew P.S. I would just like to say a big thank you to all the warm messages of support that have come from home with the tragic circumstances that took a life-long friend of mine from us recently. Thanks to the guys for placing the death notice and respect for attending the funeral in our absence. It has been a very hard time to get through when you're so far away but the support from loved ones definitely helps. Anyone who knew Ant will know how much he will be missed. He will live on in hearts and minds forever... xoxox
