The second gallery is some photos taken around the BBC Worldwide’s building at White City called the Media Centre. It is essentially a Google style office of open plan, hot desking, plasma screen tvs everywhere, themed meeting rooms, and relaxation areas. This is likely to be the nicest building I will ever have the pleasure to work in. Unfortunately when we moved from the old premises in July, we lost a lot of the staff facilities which helped in creating a camaraderie in the office. The difference between having good facilities for workers and not has proven to be quite stark. Still, one cannot really complain with offices like these!

With the whole world going to hell in a handbasket over energy I have decided to do my bit and buy a ridiculously expensive bike from the hallowed Condor Cycles. Upon entering England a veritable wide-eyed cycling virgin, the vultures circled and descended, harrassing and hounding me. First it was talk of bikes. Then it was “here ride my racing cycle”. Then it was an induction and subsequent sweep up into my inaugural Tour de France. Then it was “hey I’ve got this really good cycle from this great store, you should go have a look” to oops I’m in the store and putting down my 200 squids deposit.

But what a cycle! Big ups to Maruska for lending me her mountain bike for the past three months, but unfortunately if you build it (or ride it) the mountains do not come. Instead I had three intensive months of resistance training in preparation for my custom sized and hand built in Italy rocket ship. The acceleration is so fast, the cornering non-existent, every shock is not absorbed. It is pure titanium and Camagnolo componentry wrapped up in a bold red, white and black. My motto has been ‘I am going to kill myself on this’ – I am in love with an inanimate being and waxing lyrical like I was a high schooler trying to lose his virginity.

Right before I get much further carried away…

Woof!

Yet since I have been absolutely lousy at staying in touch since Christmas I should at least write something. Anything. One word:

isolation.

This city is doing my head in, distances in London are very misleading. My former flatmate Justin the first time I spoke to him upon arriving here mentioned that it is not like New Zealand, in that you have to make plans weeks or months in advance if you want to do ‘anything’. A weekend out should be planned two weeks in advance, a trip to somewhere at least a month. Dinner during the week should be planned for the following week. Maybe I haven’t quite grown up and got responsible yet, but my go with the flow attitude means that I am really struggling to make this city work in my favour. It is nearly impossible to drop in on someone or go out for an impromptu coffee.

On Saturday I had arranged to go to a play with a friend Olly 7.3opm in the evening. I stayed the night at his and Sean’s (my cousin’s) house in Highgate, (North London). I left the house at 2pm to travel to town to buy some sports gear (Central London), head to Maruska’s (my other cousin) in Isleworth (South London) to get changed and back to London Bridge by 7pm from where we would walk to the play that started at 7.30pm. Plenty of time I thought. 6 and a 1/2 hours later I arrived late at the play where the doors were locked. Aside from mishaps such as the Jubilee underground line not running causing me to take a bus, and the sports store being the largest yet most disorganised store I have been too, the resulting mess was all my fault. Every evening or weekend I need to know where I am going to be at a given time, have a clue on when the trains leave, how to make the connections, leave places with plenty of time both at the start and at the end. THIS DOES NOT SUIT MY PERSONALITY!

I spent tonight looking at 3 flats from 6.30 pm to when I got home at 10.40pm. It takes about 45 minutes to travel between each flat to view, and 1 hour and a 1/2 to get home. I have to do this night after night because the rental situation in London is dire. I am tired :( I want a home!  I don’t want that home to be shit, cost me a fortune or leave me at the wrong end of the Bakerloo line.

In any city in New Zealand it would be easy to travel from one side to another and make one stop on the way in 5 hours. Geographically London is even similar in size to Auckland. I have started riding a bike here which is good for the exercise. It has also highlighted to me how much a mess this city is transport wise, and it has really good public transport. I can catch the bus to work in the morning and it takes an hour and a quarter. If I bike it takes thirty minutes. I can catch the tube from Highgate it takes an hour door to door. I can ride and it takes 45 minutes. This doesn’t even count journeys that don’t have decent public transport links. It is not that big, it is just a jammed up, convoluted mess. There may be a congestion charge, but it is still wall to wall traffic. There may be an underground, but it isn’t New York.

So I have ranted a bit. It is not all bad, but I will save a more positive report for tomorrow evening!

Seriously, I am enjoying being here. I am out of my comfort zone in that I cannot speak Dutch and I don’t know a single person, yet Belgians are very friendly and Boondoggle (yes Boondoggle) is very good to work for. The company is very forward thinking and its staff are quite young. Everything is new and shiny as they have just moved into new offices. The view overtop of Leuven is fantastic, being on the top floor of an old industrial building that has been refurbished. So far I am working on a project which is enjoyable although a bit of a turkey. I am trying to build a site that hasn’t had the design finalised yet, which is a nightmare for continuous chnages. None the less I have free reign how to build it much as I had at Click Suite, which is very nice.

The first week I had started two staff members left, and the whole office dressed up in 80s gear to celebrate(!). I did Billy Idol with a receding hairline and an absence of eye liner. There is a subsidised lunch each day, and IT systems to manage everything, which does my head in but I’m glad that there is versioning as I have made several mistakes already.

Leuven is quiet at the moment because of university holidays. Apparently in two or three weeks the whole city is going to go spastic with students vomiting in the streets, or something like that. I cannot wait. Mind you I vomited in the street after the 80s evening, so I didn’t really learn anything from not drinking alcohol for 6 months. I am beginning to wonder how much I am a slave to my own behaviour. Two things I have noticed in Leuven, not having anything to do gives one a lot of time for introspection, and travelling really brings to a fore what type of a person one is. Needless to say I have had good days and bad days, but the support everyone from around the world has been giving, both through comments, emails, text messages (check the contact page for my number if you are bored and want to text) and phone calls has been great.

Not much else to say at this stage, if I keep writing I’ll probably write one of those stream of conscious pieces that drives me nuts. Upacking myself on the internet could be psychologically interesting but for the moment I will pass.

This is my second post, I just had to write my rant about Microsoft first, seeing as I spent all day making and fixing emails to work in something which I shouldn’t have needed to do.

It will take me a while to populate things from my old blog (if anyone remembers that). If you don’t good ole wayback machine has everything in it’s un-styled glory. Hopefully – no wait… THIS WON’T turn into one of those posts that everyone writes at the start of their blog, only to never have it go anywhere ;) I will delete it as soon as I have more content :) Ah I feel better!

army of lovers gods of earth and heaven download mp3

I am also currently getting a lump on my neck checked out. I had a biopsy last Friday. The doctors stuck a needle in my neck, poked around and took a tissue sample. The appointment with the specialist is this Wednesday and this may mean that I have to delay my trip by a week to get it removed. I hate growing lumps – it is annoying.

Lauren and I went and visited her parents up at Coopers Beach, Northland. This is above the Bay of Islands and is basically a little slice of Australia in New Zealand (gold sand beaches, heat and warm water). If you can find a cheap bach here it is not as busy  as the Bay of Islands but with enough amenities to get by.