So long to the headstrong
It’s terrifying – and incredible – that the world is holding its collective breath for about 130 million people to decide on the fate of the free world in the next few hours.
Perhaps The Sunday Times’ Andrew Sullivan put it best in his closing paragraph of his feature on the potential of the world’s most powerful country:
We are indeed on the verge of something that seems even more incredible the closer it gets, something more than a mere election. This is America, after all. It is a place that has seen great cruelty and hardship in its time. But it is also a place that yearns to believe naively in mornings rather than evenings, that cherishes dawns over dusks, that is not embarrassed by its own sense of destiny. In this unlikely mixed-race figure of Barack Obama, we will for a brief moment perhaps see a nation re-imagined and a world of possibilities open up. For a brief moment at least.
It’s 3AM now. I’m staying up to see if the world is about to change.
Say it all
Overheard at the smoking shed:
Middle-aged blonde #1: Oh bugger. Bugger, bugger, bugger.
Middle-aged blonde #2: What?
Middle-aged blonde #1: I just sent off an important letter, marked it CONFIDENTIAL and left out the recipient’s name.
Middle-aged blonde #2: Ha, ha! Not very confidential is it?
Middle-aged blonde #1: Silly cow.
*both giggle and take another drag from their cigarettes*
These Ordinary Days
One week into my new place, and several epiphanies about going solo. Each time I’ve lived away from home, I’d always lived with other people. We shared everything: bedrooms, bathrooms, toothpaste, toothbrushes, stolen internet connections, food, dinner duties, the blame for mysteriously clogged toilet bowls.
For everyone who’s ever had housemates, you know it’s joy and misery in (un)equal parts.
Things are a bit different this time round. Comfortably funded expat-type arrangements have landed me a one-bedroom flat in a big city. Living by myself has revealed a whole new type of existence; sometimes liberating, but not always perfect. I’ve discovered – through seven days of careful observation – the pros and cons of living alone:
Pros
- peace and quiet when you need it
- uncontested tastes in TV and music
- the underrated pleasure of a bathroom all to yourself (have you lived with three girls before? have you brushed your teeth while someone sat next to you on the toilet, and another took a shower two feet behind you?)
- near-absolute autonomy over choice and existence of company
- the unbridled freedom to fart, burp, and generally display God’s gifts for bodily emissions
Cons
- cooking for yourself most days, with glaringly absent dinnertime conversations
- the unavailability of in-house wake up calls (and added service such as flatmates jumping on your bed and pulling you from under the sheets by your ankles)
- cleaning duties are yours, allllllll yours
- no one to sit in pajamas and drink beers with at the end of a long day
- no one to compliment, contest, or complain about your farts and burps
I guess the jury is still out on this one.
Running home, running home
I’m back in London, this time for six months. Week-long work trips have previously been a breeze: flit in and out of nice hotels, make wishlists of must-eats (then actually go), laugh and sit through meetings where I rub my chin and nod intelligently.
But living here is a different bag of tricks.
Refusing to stay at a hotel through all of autumn and winter means that I’ve taken the smartass route down real estate hell. I decided to get a place of my own. Which has meant talking to 20 different agents, trawling through websites that look like someone shat HTML and yellow serif fonts all over them, and most harrowing of all: de-jargonising real estate talk.
For the benefit of all those who come after me, I present thee my two-minute guide to understanding property in central London:
Excellent views
This is London, not the hills of Nepal. If excellent views are a side note, then fine. But if they are a selling point then you should have your doubts. I drew the curtains of a fancy studio in a fancy serviced apartment building to get a breathtaking view of the construction outside. Plus, isn’t it a strange concept to begin with? Saying ‘excellent view’ is like saying ’sweet candy’.
Within walking distance of _______ Underground Station
Sure. The same way Beijing is within walking distance of Calcutta. I mean, this walking business is all relative innit? My advice: Googlemap the damn thing, and you might feel that 37 minutes is a bit of a trek to get to public transportation.
Quiet, private settings in the heart of the city
Harley Street: posh neighbourhood and playground for the city’s most famous surgeons. I’d been quoted a ridiculously sane amount for a flat with two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. What they forgot to mention though, was that I had the basement unit and the only scenery I’d have was the five-inch slither at the top of my window that offered a great view of the pavement.
Newly-refurbished Victorian building
This could mean a renovated property, restored interiors, new fittings. But it could also mean that they gave the walls a new coat of paint and replaced the rotting carpets. And that pesky old lift? No one’s gotten stuck in it lately!
Fully-anything / fashionable
Ah. The mother(s) of all real estate terminology. Furnishing and equipment, as with distance, are relative. Sometimes a microwave and some cutlery constitute a fully-equipped kitchen. Which wouldn’t be completely untrue – you do need a fork to stab holes in those microwave dinners before you heat them up. Fashionable could be Mayfair, but it could also mean Bayswater or Shoreditch. All a matter of opinion.
All that bitched and done, I did find a place I’ll probably move into by next week. It’s a newly-refurbished building in the West End with great views, just a stone’s throw from the nearest Tube station. I also get cutlery.
