Stuff!
I've been quiet, yes, but I've been sort of tired and bleh, too, so that's my excuse. Deal with it! :)
It's been a busy week, though. Monday saw the first London Metblog blogger meetup. One of the bloggers from the LA Metblog was in town, and that sort of sparked us all into action (or should that be sparkled us into motion?). We have tried to do a meetup before, but it's just not worked out.
Tuesday saw my doctor's appointment post blood tests. She confirmed that everything was fine - the liver one is a test they often see high and mine wasn't even that high. Anyway, it didn't signify anything. The ESR test (inflammation) was high, but that's completely to be expected in me because I have psoriasis and arthritis and all that jazz. Woo. She told me that I don't have anything nasty like lymphoma or leukaemia which is definitely positive and that it didn't seem to be much of anything. She predicted it would get small in a few weeks and said if it was still big in three months, I should come back. My fears have been allayed.
Then, in the afternoon, I got to meet Max, Steffen & Tina's new baby. He's just adorable. Only 10 weeks old with huge amounts of black hair and (I think) Steffen's nose. He was really sweet... I even got two smiles out of him. It was great.
Wednesday I did coffee with Evan and then hiked on up to Leighton Buzzard to spend the night with Sandi & David and partake of their fabulous company and a really yummy stir-fry. It was nice to get out of the city into a place more green, especially with all the stuff that's been going on lately.
Tonight, Matt's going to come over and we're going to install our identical 1GB of memory into our identical 12" PowerBooks. It's going to be a Mac geekfest. But we're nerdy that way, so that's okay.
Completely unrelated, the vocals in the acoustic version of The Killers' "All These Things That I've Done" are very slightly flat. It's a good version otherwise and that is driving me absolutely mad. Absolutely. Mad.
Heathrow
I've just posted to the London Metblog about our journey in to Heathrow this morning, and the increased security measures taken when we arrived. You should read that.
Wireless Festival
So on the London Metblog, they're saying there's this Wireless Festival going on, like, today and this weekend.
Cheap tickets are available.
Tonight's lineup includes New Order and Moby. But the concert's in Hyde Park (read: outside) and it's supposed to be thunderstorming.
To go or not to go?
Edit: I didn't go. :) James offered to join me but it was going to rain and I figured he didn't want to spend his precious little time in the rain getting wet. Also (and more the reason I didn't go) I didn't want to spend time in the rain getting wet. I wussed out. No New Order for me!
Broken Water Main
A water main broke right near our house. I couldn't help but take a few pictures.
Visitors!
As many of you doubtless already know, we have very cool visitors for the week: Erin & Wil. They arrived on Monday morning and we've been out and about doing all manner of touristy things with them. Also, we've dined. At Gordon Ramsay's, even. Oooooo.
I'm going to put on oodles of weight while they're here, but whatever! Just waiting around right now for our new rowing machine to arrive before going out for the day. I'm still sort of full from last night's meal. Tasty.
Mmmmmmm.
I've blogged in way more detail about the visit (and meal) thus far on the London Metblog because it's pretty Londony stuff so you should go read that here. Working on getting a few pictures uploaded of the trip so far.
Regent Street Apple Store
Woo!
I got there at 5:20, was about person 360 in line, and had a roaring time with the guys who were standing near me. (From left to right, Mike, Andrew, Dave & Giuseppe - who had come from Palermo for this)
They had run out of Lucky Bags by the time I got to the front of the queue, but that's okay - I didn't really want much of what was in them anyway. The store itself kicked ass. Looking forward to going back very much when there aren't so many people. As it was, there were still people queued up to go in when I was in there, and I didn't want to keep them waiting too long.
I have a great Apple London tee-shirt, though, and really cool JBL on stage iPod speakers for the lounge/traveling/whatever.
Total queuing time: 6 hours. My feet got really cold, but whatever. It was worth it.
[19:38] Edit: The BBC has now reported the opening. They reckon 5,000 turned up!
[19:47] Edit: So has Apple.
I posted more about this on the London Metblog
There are more pictures on my Flickr page
Caffeine and graffiti
Do you ever get to that point where you're exhausted, but you're so hopped up on caffeine that sleep is completely elusive?
*grumble*
Don't look for a lucid post here, I reached my lucidity limit when I posted to the London Metblog earlier.
London Metblog
As many of you know, I am a contributor to the London Metblog. I'm not a very good contributor, if I'm honest. As much as I enjoy blogging on my personal blog, being interesting to more than just my small group of friends is not my biggest strength. But I contribute nonetheless, if not as regularly as I should.
Apparently there's a new London blog out there, and at least one blogger has taken notice.
Much to my surprise, I was actually mentioned in his brief post, when he drew attention to the fact that I am, indeed, American:
However, at least one of the contributors is an American, which seems to fly in the face of what they are attempting.
While it's always nifty to get a mention in someone else's blog, I'm not sure I agree with what's being said. In the spirit of 'Not all Americans live in America' (a source of recent frustration for me), you can obviously follow that up with 'Not all Londoners were born in the UK'. (Or even 'Not all Londoners were born in London', but we're not going to go there because I don't have the patience to look up the statistics.)
So, I've done a little research (in that anal way of mine), and poked around National Statistics Online. I found data about London from the 2001 census there, and after a bit of aggregation, came up with some figures.
| UK born | EU born | Non-EU born | |
|---|---|---|---|
| City of London | 5,217 | 560 | 1,408 |
| Inner London | 1,833,663 | 190,272 | 742,179 |
| Outer London | 3,395,524 | 186,776 | 823,677 |
| Total | 5,234,404 | 377,608 | 1,567,264 |
If you add all of this up, the total population of London represented by these statistics is 7,179,276. This means that 5% of the population of London is EU born and a whopping 22% is non-EU born.
Which further means that over ¼ of the population of London was born outside of the UK!
I guess I'm trying to say that I don't think having an American blogger on a London blog is so bad. At least, I don't think it should be a mark against the blog. In fact, it might even be misrepresenting London to not have a couple non-British bloggers.
Just a thought.
Edit 12 Nov 04: For the record, I was a bit pissed off when I wrote this and subsequently commented on it. It was a bad day. I mentioned that the London Metblog wasn't particularly well-run, but that didn't really come out right. In the past, I've felt that the hands-off approach of the management has been a bit too hands-off, but that's all been sorted and I haven't had a beef about anything since then. I shouldn't blog when I'm grumpy.
Where does the time go?
Thursday. Friday. Saturday. We leave on Sunday.
Where does the time go? Last weekend I was all chilled because we had a week before we were leaving for our holiday. Now, only three days later, I'm panicking because it's almost time. And I do have a ton to do before we go... not least because my in-laws are coming to see the new place, like, the day we get back. (Did I think that was a good idea at some point? What was I on?)
For Momalo, who worries about Islamic fundamentalists in the Seychelles, and for other people, who have no idea where or what they are, a few facts. Information is courtesy of the CIA World Factbook - Seychelles entry.
Background: A lengthy struggle between France and Great Britain for the islands ended in 1814, when they were ceded to the latter. Independence came in 1976. Socialist rule was brought to a close with a new constitution and free elections in 1993. The most recent presidential elections were held 31 August-2 September 2001. President RENE, who has served since 1977, was re-elected. On 14 April 2004 RENE stepped down and Vice President James MICHEL was sworn in as president.
Location: Eastern Africa, group of islands in the Indian Ocean, northeast of Madagascar
Population: 80,832 (July 2004 est.)
Religions: Roman Catholic 86.6%, Anglican 6.8%, other Christian 2.5%, other 4.1%
Languages: English (official), French (official), Creole
Industries: fishing; tourism; processing of coconuts and vanilla, coir (coconut fiber) rope, boat building, printing, furniture; beverages
There's also a map of the Seychelles on the page, though it doesn't do much to illustrate where they are in relation to the rest of Africa. This map (courtesy of SIBA) does a much better job of that.
Oh yes, blogged in the London Metblog today, as well.
Keys! Keeeeys!
I have the keys! I have the keys!
We're checked in and can officially move in. Movers are booked for Tuesday. We have a phone line, now, but I haven't really dealt with anything else. There was a ton of mail waiting for us in the mailbox, but I had to reach in and ease it out as I don't yet have a key for it. We actually only have one set of keys for the flat - must remedy this ASAP.
Sandi has come up with a fabulous idea for the housewarming: fancy dress! I won't tell you what costume I plan on wearing, but I do promise pictures will go up at some undetermined point in the future.
James and I had a good long walk around the apartment when he got out of work today. We discussed all manner of things including the placement of furniture and use of rooms. I am very very excited. It's going to be fabulous. Oh yes.
Oh, and I also blogged on the London Metblog today.
