- 2 and a half hour commute in and out of the city from a lovely town outside of London.
- Hall of residence twice as shit as my budget one in Sheffield...and twice as shit.
- Using the underground... every... bloody day.
And to sum it all up, its pretty shit, but hey, the jobs good and it pays, and the colleagues are nice.
I spent my first week commuting in from Banbury to London Marylebone. Marylebone is an odd station, its looks small, but that walk...which turns in a run, to your train seems to last forever. I did see Denis Wise there on a Thursday, he was on the phone. I know, fascinating. I should write for 'The Sun'. Commuter trains are odd as well, the people there are really friendly, but none of them talk very much. At first this struck me as odd as most of them see each other every day. But as the week went on your understand why. At 6am in the morning, everyone is knackered and cannot be arsed to speak and would rather sleep. By 5-6pm in the evening, everyone is knackered and cannot be arsed to speak and would rather sleep. Your day is that hectic, with tube travel, work and the daily stresses it brings, you just don't want to speak to anyone. But oddly, you're happy when you do. Its very odd. Commuting therefore, isn't a great idea, hats off to those who do it, to go to work that early (which is was okay with as I'm an early riser anyway), and come back so late, and to do this every week is no mean feat. Mentally its a mind raper. I'd rather work closer to home for less pay and spend more time with my family, but hey, that's me.
Next up, its been a month in student halls, still looking for somewhere new to live permanently all the while, but not really finding anywhere, and when I do, it falls through at the last moment, or sounds too dodgy to be true, and it usually was. The halls in in currently are not that bad, for what they are, but they are really for the money you pay. I was lucky to find them and be recommended them so I'm not going to complain too much. They basically are student halls for the local university which are open up to foreign students and corporate events throughout the summer, while the students are away. A good idea indeed, and one which earns them a lot of money i suspect, its already got £600 big ones out of me. The bastards. You get all your bills paid for (which Ive abused no end to get my monnies worth).
The down side however is that its a hall of residence, which are shit if you're a professional. Its also shit if you want to cook a decent meal as you cant. Everyone around me is foreign, which is fair enough, I couldn't give a toss where they are from. However, I want someone who speaks English who understands English humour and doesn't make me say things ten times before they laugh for no reason at a phrase like "dinner time". It does amaze me why so many foreigners come to London, there is a whole country outside of the damn place, go see it. Its way better.
Another issue with the halls is a major one. You're required to move out of your room by 10am...and the booking in time is 2pm. A common feature of the halls is that you have to move regularly, usually once a week, to a different room. Usually when a large party comes in and wants to rent out an entire floor. Which is fair enough yeah, i can tolerate that. However the problems come in that 4 hour "dead" period. You move out by 10...and can move to your new room at 2pm. What happens between? You cant store your baggage in the halls as they wont let you. If you work on the 22nd floor of an office building over 10 tube stops away. What the feck do you do? If i take 6 bags somehow onto the Jubilee line, I would get shot by a bastard commuter.
Living 'down south' so to speak is not what it is cracked up to be. People say "oooh working in London? That'll be exciting". No, no it wont. Its exciting if you're visiting it for a day or so, because its something different that the usual day to day activities of your life (assuming you live outside of London). The truth is somewhat bleaker:
You start your day woken by the heat and an alarm of some sort. You then struggle to the tube station, and then go for your oyster card, but no, the scanner isn't working, so you enter anyway. You the get crammed like sardines into a tin can that's noisy, sweaty and full of armpits equipped with homing devices that make a beeline for peoples faces. Other than that's its rather pleasurable...if you're into kinky shit like that, which I'm not. Your train then stops in the tunnel for 5 minutes, you're melting in the heat and some arsehole is getting impatient and ranting about the tubes and how shit they are (probably shouldn't mention that I'm now working as part of the team that's upgrading and maintaining them eh?). You then get to work, you do your 9 to 5...assuming you get there on time. Then its the same journey home, and its rinse and repeat until done.
What I really don't get about the capitol, is the rushing about, running everywhere, moaning if something is delayed by a nanosecond. People moaning about the tube...you should be fucking grateful, i get a bus every hour or two in the countryside, which costs a fortune. Yet on the tube, depending on where you're going you can can span the city in an hour or so for 4 quid. You also get free newspapers and magazines every bloody day...okay they re full of shit news about celebrities I couldn't give a shit about. Mark Ronson for example, what is so good about him? Here is what Mark Ronson does...He takes a song, adds brass (trumpets etc) to said song. Then flogs it to thick bastards who lap it up like a dog that's been given a bowl of water after been strapped to a log in a desert for a day. However as I was saying, on busses, you would be lucky to get a free used condom, never mind news rags.
Still I supposed you get a 'cosmopolitan' lifestyle down here,...Whoop dee doo, whatever the feck a cosmopolitan life is. If someone tells me it once more, I'll throttle them. Anywhere branded as 'cool to live' is going to be shit. The word 'Cosmopolitan' has become a word I now fear, as it means I'm going to hate something. Therefore as a rule of thumb, fuck London, fuck New York. They will both be shit. I'd rather be in New Zealand or Barcelona, Spain.And besides that, who the fuck is Agyness Dean?
