What's the only thing worse than a lawyer?

Could it be a politician?

Walk home (Part 2)

So tonight I walked home over London Bridge after meeting a few friends for a drink. This building/home (pictured), which is right on the Thames on the NW corner of London Bridge itself, always looks fantastic at night (because of the massive ballroom - you can catch a glimpse of the chandeliers through the top right window). Snapped this photo with my phone. Although I suspect this is actually a guild hall, or even a proper business of some sort, I can't work out what it is using the internet.

Testate

Ok, I'm putting up this picture for no particular reason. I like my local shops - the grocer, butcher and baker (no - there isn't a candlestick maker, but the florist and funeral director seem to have a highly symbiotic relationship going on). I stopped in to buy some vegetables at the end of my run. Voila.

So, yesterday I made my will. I'm testate, for the first time (or I might be: hard to say, because I drafted the will myself and I don't know much about probate or trusts...). Although there's not a lot to leave behind, it's now accounted for, at least in theory. And Brad, put that bloody axe down - I know times are tough, but they're not that tough.

Finally, for anyone who doesn't have a chance to check out my (our) cousin Rebecca's blog (link on the right), the picture and description below are taken from her most recent post. It was so good that I just stole it.



"***This is absolutely amazing and must be shared! THE ARNOLD APPLE: This is a Styrian Power Apple. From "the homeland of Arnold Schwarzenegger", this apple offers incomparable strength and taste..."Lovingly tended by skilled and dedicated fruit growers in their small and medium-sized orchards it is a rich natural source of health, strenth and flavor"!! At the ridiculous price of €1 per apple, it was totally worth it!!"

£1 = $2.079

Unbelievable. Let's say a person took out an $80k student loan over the course of a few years about 10 years ago, when the dollar was, on average, about $1.46 to the pound. Let's say that same person is now paying the student loans back in pounds sterling.

The exchange rate at the close of play yesterday was £1 = $2.079. If that person paid back all of his student loans overnight, not factoring in interest (which is ridiculously low anyway), that person would make a PROFIT on his student loans of roughly $16,333. In other words, after paying back the borrowings, that person would have a theoretical $16k in the bank (if he hadn't spent it already).

Walk to work

Last night as I walked home from work, I walked past the NY Giants and Miami Dolphins tour coach (they played at Wembley Stadium on Sunday, in a bid to generate interest in “American Football” over here). There weren’t any football players hanging out on the bridge, so my guess is that they were down at the river, catching a Shakespearean play at the new replica Globe. There’s a thought.

Seeing the coach got me thinking about the strange things I’ve seen on Southwark Bridge. It’s a far more eventful bridge than, say, Blackfriars, which is the bridge I used to walk across to get to my old job.

Last week there was a massive raft stuck against one of the piles of the bridge (and I mean massive – you could probably have parked about 40 cars on it). At first, I thought it was just stuck. There was a full-sized shovel (the kind Uncle Rick uses) on the raft. The next day it was still there, and the shovel was depositing boulders at the foot of the piles in the river. ??

In the morning, I regularly see police motorcades escorting massive armoured vehicles to the Old Bailey, London’s central criminal court (pictured). One evening as I was walking home, I saw a flotilla of police boats on the river, and police cars on the bridge, where a police chase had led to a woman trying to jump into the river to get away. Unfortunately, she missed the river, and landed on the concrete steps of a building fronting the river.

This morning I saw the usual police motorcade escorting prisoners North to the Old Bailey. (I looked up the trial listing when I got into work, and then found a newspaper article: “A troublesome tenant was stabbed and battered to death in his bedsit after police ignored his landlord's threat to kill him, a court heard”. Six Sikh men, including the landlord, are on trial.) And then immediately after that – so close in time that I thought they’d just turned around and come back – another police motorcade came by, going South. But instead of armoured vehicles, the motorcade was escorting Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, in his Jag. I would not have been certain of this (although I thought I saw Gordon) if I hadn’t seen the news 15 minutes later as I walked into the office. The BBC was broadcasting live from down the road from my flat, where Gordon Brown was getting out to make a speech....

I have to confess that I had a brief Calvin and Hobbes moment where I fantasised about what would have happened if the motorcades, which were going over the same bridge in opposite directions, had collided. I tell you what, Gordon Brown would have made short work of those prisoners.

Domestic comfort

It's cold out, and since Friday I've been feeling strangely sick to my stomach whenever I go out. So I'm staying at home today.

Home is a very good place to be. My kitchen is immaculate (yes, I know - I don't have children). I'm armed with coffee and food. Very nice Columbian coffee, which I'm drinking as I write (intermittently - not literally taking a sip every time I start typing). I just finished my breakfast - a lamb chop and eggs on toast. I've got everything I need for a comforting winter beef stew for supper. I'm listening to the second movement of Beethoven's seventh symphony (which, for anyone out there who doesn't follow Beethoven, is comfort food for the soul). I've turned the heating on. I'm wearing big woolly socks which either Jennie or Anne Marie gave me for Christmas about 10 years ago. And I'm settling in to work on my little novel project, interspersed with a bit of viola when I need to think my way through a difficult passage.

November is just around the corner, and with it Thanksgiving, probably the most perfect holiday. This will be my third in a row with family, and this year I'll be in Connecticut with Mom, Papasan, Ben, Jennie, Megan and Annie - the first time we've all been together since Ben's wedding. There will be lots of kids, too. The only thing that could make it even better would be to get Brad, Ben, Anne Marie and Mandy on board, and have a giant mega-Thanksgiving.

The day before I leave for the US, I have another family event. Barry and Anne Niblock, my quasi-family in Northern Ireland, will be in London for my citizenship ceremony, followed by a gathering of my friends in London for celebratory drinks. At the ceremony, I will have to make a pledge to the UK, and more controversially (for all you iconoclasts out there) I will have to swear by Almighty God to be faithful to the Queen and her successors. I had a long conversation with someone on this point last night. My friend was saying that she thought that it was ludicrous that the government should single out the monarchy for an oath of loyalty when the UK is, in effect, a modern republic. I asked her what she would replace the oath with, and she suggested an oath to Parliament. As I said at the time, Parliament is only the legislature. What of loyalty to the executive and the judiciary? It seems to me that, as a starting point, the only oath that would make any sense would be an oath which captures the entire government of the UK. For better or worse, the government here is run in the name of the monarch. That is to say, the government is 'Her Majesty's Government', and all of the powers exercised by the government are powers delegated by the Queen. As a necessary mechnic within this constitutional framework, the Queen must make any decision which is reserved to her alone - generally these are decisions which cannot be delegated (e.g., dissolving Parliament, confirming the appointment of her Prime Minister, etc.). However, these powers are, for the most part, exercised in form, and not in substance, or with any real discretion. I'm sure that, because I am defending the monarchy, some people will think me a witless romantic, nostalgic for the 'good old days' (particularly as I'm an outsider to the whole system, at least for a couple more weeks). But whatever you may persuade yourselves are my reasons, I think that the current constitutional set-up works admirably well in this country (although I wouldn't dream of trying to impose it elsewhere).

I'm feeling more connected to all of you out there, now that my internet teething troubles have ended and I've finally been granted a reprieve from applications and tax filings. As Brad said, we played a bit of Halo 3 last week, and it was just like old times. Yesterday was Ben K's birthday, and to mark the occasion we had a Halo session. As we were playing, some of my friends began to arrive - a couple of friends from Merton, and Matt, my old roommate from Freshfields. After about an hour of playing there were five of us, fighting as a team against prepubescent boys in the Far East. Needless to say, we lost. But as Ben so cogently observed, "playing with you guys makes me look good". Happy birthday, Ben.

Time to get some more coffee.

Ben asked for a picture of my setup. Well, here's a start, at least.