I am having the full London experience. I have a terrible cold. It’s kind of funny how terrible I feel and look. Boss was shocked that I came in today. Damn my perverse sense of responsibility! (I am fine mom. I am taking my vitamins. I am feeling much better today. No I am not lying)

Last night I bought a Potato Leek and Cheese pie with mash and gravy at Square Pie in Selfridges and a vat of orange juice and sat on the sofa cuddled up in a blanket sneezing and sniffling.

I have to say when you are sick and need comfort food, the English do know what they are doing. Can’t eat too much of it because you will get enormous.

Work is finally coming together as I now have all the systems available to me to do my job and I am starting to call my book of clients and already have positive action going there. One thing that you don’t think about when coming to work in a UK office is small changes on the keyboard. Some things are in a different place like quotation marks and the @. I’ve always been a hunt and peck typist anyway so it isn’t that big of a deal, but it catches me up every so often.

Went to The National Gallery after work Wednesday with Stuart, a new work friend who helped get my computer sorted. When we were looking at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers he said, “I recognize that painting. I think I saw it on a Friends episode.” Love the English sense of humor.

We are having a pool in the office for The Grand National For every quid you put in, you get a horse. Mine is “It Takes Time”. Haven’t looked up the odds yet. Maybe I should stop at a Betting Agent on the way home. (Gambling is legal here).

This weekend, (and I hear it now the way they pronounce it here which is “week end” two words not the American one word. This week end, depending on how I am feeling, I may go to Highgate Cemetery to visit Karl Marx and George Eliot. I also want to go to Camden which is a funky neighborhood near Primrose Hill that I have been told I will dig. My boss Bill lives up on Hampstead and he was showing me places I need to go. . . Yes, if I am feeling well enough I think that will be my next field trip.

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It is always a bit fun to discover the stereotypes of other cultures. My favourite in London so far is the group called “chav.”

A quick definition according to Chav World is:

‘chav’ (slang) - a young person, often without a high level of education, who follows a particular fashion; Chavs usually wear designer labels including the chav favourite ‘Burberry’, and if they’re girls, very short skirts, large hoop earrings and stilettos.

Chavs see branded baseball caps as a status symbol and wear them at every opportunity. Normally found hanging around shopping centres.
Also known as Townies, Kevs, Hood Rats, Charvers, Steeks, Stigs, Bazzas, Yarcos, Ratboys, Chorer, Skangers, Scutters, Janners, Kappa Slappers, Scallies, and Spides. Also known as Neds in Scotland, knackers & skangers in Ireland, and Guidos in the USA

I have also always loved the way the British cuss. It is so much more fun. Fuckwit, twat (not the American pronunciation. It rhymes with bat), tosser, and wanker are so much more fun than cocksucker or asswipe.

This all was actually a topic of conversation at two dinners with different people: The British and their cursing vocabulary.

A new one that I never heard before last night which is “minger”. Some variations on that theme are minger, minge-box and for those who wish to add ancient racial hatred of the Irish to their cursing, ginger minger.

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I’ve decided that the City of London has painted “Look Right” and “Look Left” on the sidewalk in the maze of one way streets, have done so not to assist tourists from becoming road kill, but to protect drunk Londoners stumbling to the tube.

Friday I had a couple of pints after work with my colleagues here and the sidewalk was teaming with people drinking. I left about seven and every pub on the way home it was the same story.

Saturday I had lunch at a crepe place with Janelle on Primrose Hill. On the way to her flat, I noticed a sign saying that William Butler Yeats lived there. I felt a bit silly for feeling so thrilled. There are these lovely round blue signs on the signs of buildings if someone important had lived there. This was the first sign of someone that I am familiar with and not Earl Whoozit famous for Whatsit.

For those of you in LA, Primrose Hill reminds me of Larchmont. Small restaurants and shops, everyone out with their dogs and kids. Really great spot.

After helping Janelle pack up her kitchen we met her new flat mate Suzy at a pub in Battersea and then we were off to a birthday dinner for her friend Lawrence at a fabulous restaurant called Little Bay. It was like a Moroccan bordello. We were up in a little alcove where the ceiling was inches above my head and it was covered in silk veils. The bathrooms had rather pornographic yet sort of tasteful scenes painted all over the walls, but the best part, aside from the fabulous food was they had opera singers singing while you ate.

Fabulous.

We caught a cab to Soho and met up with some other friends (or should I say mates) of Janelle and Suzy’s and we did a bit of club hopping and then a cab back to Suzy’s flat in Battersea where we drank more wine.

I spent all of Sunday recovering from a massive hangover. Which is sad because it was a lovely spring day and it is gloom and rain today.

Janelle and I are meeting our friend Ron who is here on holiday for drinks after work and then I am home to try and do a bit of reading.

I apologize to all that have been clamoring for photos that I haven’t posted any yet. I don’t have Internet access in my flat and I had intended to sneak into the office and plug my powerbook into the network Sunday, but it wasn’t scientifically possible for me to leave my apartment.

Will try and manage it tomorrow. . .

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I got some money out at the ATM and it asked me if I wanted an “advice slip”. I think it would be great if they really were advice slips rather than just a receipt detailing how many pounds you took out.

-Hello. Do you really think you should be taking out so much money? Cheers!
-Hello. Are you aware those jeans make your ass look enormous? Cheers!
-Hello. When was the last time you flossed? Cheers!

It would be like a fortune cookie, except. . . you know. Different.

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