Bug-Man’s Blog

Happy New Year for 2009 to everyone!

My 2008 finished off with a 5-year work permit which I am proud to say will allow me to remain in the UK for pretty-much as long as I want. That’s awesome. I’ve never said this country is the place that I’ll spend the rest of my life but it’s where I want to be right now, so I might as well stay here for a few years yet. There’s so much to see out there!

Lindsay and I are lucky to have a great place that we rent at a good price. Although the financial crisis is hitting people hard, we will be OK. Lindsay has become redundant at his work with many other people but I know him and it won’t take him long to find more work, even in these so called difficult times.

The final 48 hours of my 2008 were quite frustrating, as I went home from work on Tuesday feeling sketchy and ended up waking up on New Years Eve with full-on flu symptoms. Last night I powered on however, and went out to dinner with Nick, Bec and Lindsay, then drove up to Hamstead Heath to see the fireworks display from atop the hill. Cold as it was, we didn’t stay long. I did see some pictures of the London NYE Fireworks display and it was quite spectacular. It would have been fantastic to see it from Southbank but it just gets so, so busy down there. And last night it got to about -3 degrees C, so pretty cold.

As New Years rang in I ended went home and went to bed feeling pretty terrible. I’ve woken up this morning feeling much better and should be over it all in a day or two. Thankfully!

Wishing all my friends and family and any stray readers a prosperous 2009! Happy New Year.

After the coldest summer I’ve experienced in a long time we are heading in to Winter here in the UK and the last couple of days have just been bloody cold! Warm breath is now condensing, daylight saving is officially over and I’m now leaving work when it’s dark, and it will only get darker earlier!

Ahh, Britain. I have been working for many, many months now, and have established myself quite well in my job although I do work very, very hard and long hours. Work has finally got the paperwork in place to sponsor me — let me give you a bit of background here.

Lindsay started working in Mid December 2007 and I started in April 2008. We’re only allowed to work for 12 months maximum so very soon he will be unable to work. Under my work permit he will be allowed to remain with me as a dependent and in order to have the UK Government accept this we will have to prove that we have been in a relationship for at least two years in a marriage-like capacity. This should be easy enough (I hope.)

During November the requirements for work permits change significantly; so much so that I may not even qualify after that date however, because my work permit is now in progress for acceptance I am hoping that it still qualifies under the old scheme and all goes through nicely. It’s really quite disconcerting having one’s own life in the hands of work or the UK Government. I am (well we both are) feeling reasonably stressed at the moment about the whole thing but I do think I’ll feel better once I know the permit has been accepted.

Lindsay and I will be back in Australia in late November and I’m hoping to catch up with whomever I can. Due to the lateness of my application going through I might even have to come back a second time, as during the work permit process we are both required to go back to Australia and present at the UK Home-Office, and we may even need to remain for up to three weeks. We booked our trip back to Australia some months ago and hoped that it’s timing would match up with the permit but I’m starting to seriously doubt that considering it’s now less than three weeks away. But who knows!

As Spring is drawing to a close London is beginning to warm up and I’m starting to see a side of it that I didn’t expect. I suppose having arrived in Winter I have not had a chance to see London so warm, colourful and nice. When Lindsay and I arrived the days were short, wet, dark and cold, and now they are long, warm and getting brighter!

It is amazing how quickly the sunrise and sunset can change and for the past couple of months the days have been getting longer and longer, usually by a few minutes each day. Today the sun rose at 5:16AM, last week it was 5:30, and next week it will be rising at 5 o’clock. Sunset is currently 8:39PM! The longest day of the year last year was sunrise at 4:47AM and sunset at 9:21PM!

With all this nice weather one would think that it would be a great opportunity to go out and see some more of London’s night-life, but alas, everything closes at 11PM! Confused? I am! One of the biggest drawbacks about London is that when you go to a pub, you’re often booted out before midnight. If you travel, you have to contend with the tube, which closes often around 1AM as well. So what are people supposed to do late at night if they want to make a night of it? I’m not sure! Go into the inner city and go to a few late bars and night clubs I suppose, but you’re not always in the mood for that kind of night, and you don’t always want to wait until the first tubes start running again. There are always 24 hour night buses but they are not always as easy as the train.

Boris Johnson, the new Mayor of London has instigated a ban of drinking alcohol on the tube and bus network effective June 1st. I’m glad I’ve had at least one beer on a train, and boy did it feel weird having come from Adelaide where it’s always been disallowed. Oddly enough, the rail staff are complaining that they will have to be the ones to enforce the regulations, and they are not happy!

Any travel plans? Well, Lindsay and I will be going to Berlin in a couple of weeks and that should be great. We know Justine who lives there (Hi Jus!) and she’ll be our guide, which is always awesome because you get to go to all the places you never would have seen before. Now that Lindsay and I have been to Paris once, if we go back we will probably go to different places to see different things, now that we’ve got all that main tourist stuff out of the way!

Here are a few snaps from a recent trip to Brighton:

I’d hardly call it a beach, considering the whole beach front is made up of pebbles!

Don’t forget, there are many more photos here!

Work is keeping me very busy and I have learned so much about the company in the past three weeks. I’ve asserted myself as Team Leader moreso and am settling in now. It’s tiring work and the days are longer than I’m used to (think 50 minute commute, working 9-6 with a one hour lunch break, and then another 50 minute commute) but I’m happy to be working. Lindsay’s got it easy, working 9:30-5:30 means he leaves for work after I do and arrives home before me! Gah! We may look at moving soon, either somewhere closer to each of our workplaces and Lindsay has suggested perhaps even moving to Brighton, which is quite some distance, but the rail system is faster so the commute is not too much longer. Time will tell and we will see what’s around!

What else is there that I should cover before I go? I’m not sure, but if I think of it, I’ll let you know!

Normally I don’t do very much for Australia Day but considering I’m living in London, but this year Lindsay and I went out and celebrated being Aussie London. Not surprisingly, London’s city streets were packed full of Aussies with aussie colours, flag tattoos on arms, cheeks and foreheads, flags draped over them like capes, and they were all hanging around the Aussie bars, of course. Lindsay, Michelle, Adam and myself went down to Covent Garden where we picked up a few necessary Aussie supplies: Chickos, Arnott’s Shapes, Mint Slice, Ice Magic, Vegemite, and a couple of other Aussie things. It’s amazingly strange standing in an Australian shop with just about every Australian food icon on display. It’s almost like being back home and going to a deli. About the only thing we didn’t buy was a carton of Coopers Pale Ale, for two reasons: a) It was sold out and b) It was £36.90/carton (around AU$80.)

Onwards with our supplies we headed to the pub.

No, we avoided the Walkabout because it would have been just far too busy, but went to another pub instead which we knew served Coopers Pale Ale. Downing a couple of those, we were surrounded by Aussies. Trying to explain exactly what a ‘Bush Pig’ is to Adam the Texan was something interesting and there weren’t too many examples of them around; they were probably all at home in Australia. It was getting late and Lindsay and I needed to head off to Justin’s place where there was a late night Australia Day BBQ. Outside the pub I let out one loud “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!” and was glad to hear several people immediately respond “Oi! Oi! Oi!” That made my day!

We headed off to Justin’s house and although he lives only a few miles away it still took 1 hour and 2 buses to get there. I carried my backpack with a carton of beer inside of it, and we arrived. We had a good night meeting a few other Aussies, watching Skippy, singing Australian TV commercial jingles and getting drunk like Aussies should. It was meant to be a late BBQ and it wasn’t until 11:30PM that we actually started eating! Nonetheless it was a good night. Here are some snaps:

But there are more on Flickr.

Sunday was spent in bed.

It’s fun being a tourist but I’ve never like to think of myself as one. I am enjoying moving around the city and taking in the sights, however slowly. With Lindsay working every day it leaves us only the weekends to do anything, because as soon as it hits 4 o’clock in London, it starts getting dark. Really dark.

Lindsay and I have now got to know our own area very well, which I think is a good thing because this is our home for the next 12 months at least. This weekend we went up on the London Eye at night time and travelled out to the Tower Bridge area, albeit rather late in the day and we didn’t have much time to do anything else. I would have liked to have gone up but we are being a bit careful with our finances until things get back in shape after that hefty rent payment! These are some things we’ll come back and re-visit just as soon as I feel more safe

Here are a couple of shots from our ‘flight’ on the Eye and the Tower Bridge! You can check out more over at my Flickr feed. I have been keeping it up-to-date as regularly as possible!

The Tower Bridge	The Tower Bridge
The London Eye	The Palace of Westminster
The IMAX Building in Waterloo	A London Eye Capsule

Don’t forget you can view more at Flickr.

I’ve been Geotagging as many photos using Flickr as I can so that you can see exactly where they were taken from on the surface of the Earth, using Flickr’s maps or Google Earth (but Google Earth only receives the last 20. Grr.) I think my next project will have to be automated geotagging.

PS. I thought this was a great little picture with the caption included

“Welcome home from your holiday!”

PPS.
I won’t mention much about how the job hunting is going at this stage in case I’m being ego-surfed by a prospective employer… (Hi Employer!!) and perhaps I’ll blog about it all later once it’s all over and I’m gainfully employed. Suffice it to say there is plenty of work out there and I’m still applying and at the same time waiting for the whole Christmas/New Years period to pass over so that all the HR departments can return to normal.

So the Queen plays Nintendo Wii! Who’d have thought. The press (The People Newspaper) is apparently reporting that a royal source has said that “When Queen Elizabeth saw William playing a game on the Wii after the family lunch at her Norfolk estate, Sandringham, she thought it looked like tremendous fun and asked if she could join in.

“She played a simple 10-pin bowling game and by all accounts was a natural. It was hilarious. William was in fits of laughter. He was enormously impressed at having such a cool grandmother!

“And although she is 81-years-old, her hand-eye co-ordination was as good as somebody half her age.”

So I guess if anyone wants some tough competition, old Lizzie’s your lady.

“William loves his gadgets and boys’ toys so the Wii was the perfect present for him.

“His only difficulty now is trying to pry it away from the queen’s clutches. She showed all the signs of becoming a Nintendo addict.”

Apparently the Wii was a Christmas Present for Prince William. Well this is an open invitation to the Queen to challenge me to a game of ten pin bowling! Invite me over and we’ll have a few beers, crisps and a bit of a laugh!

Apparently the Queen is a bit of a gadget nut and even owns and iPod. Maybe we could swap some music, too I wonder what she listens to. I think perhaps the Spice Girls.

The Queen on a Nintendo Wii Buzz

I just want to wish everyone a happy new year for 2008! My new year’s resolution is to find that great job I want and make loads of quid so that I can travel around Europe properly!

By the time most of you in Australia read this little note it will already be New Years Day so I hope you enjoyed yourselves

For those friends back here in London, have a great night tonight!!