My first month: what I've learnt
A month ago yesterday I touched down at Heathrow, in the relatively halcyon days of carry-on baggage, and started my new life in the UK. What have I learnt thus far from my travels (or rather, travails, as I haven't really been anywhere yet)?
1. Just because you pay your council tax (i.e. rates), doesn't mean your rubbish will be collected. My local government authority (Haringey Council) did pretty much stuff all whilst its - significantly - outsourced rubbish collection came to a standstill for three weeks in the middle of summer. It didn't make much sense to me - after all, at the end of the strike, the poor sods still had to collect all the accumulated rubbish.
2. IKEA is horrible everywhere. Let me clarify that point: I'm not proud - I love IKEA's combination of cheap, well designed and reasonable quality furniture. What I don't love are the miserable masses who drag their entire family to the store as some kind of FUN. It may be fun for them but it ruins it for everyone else. Or the fact I have to journey to the outer, outer suburbs in order to reach the store. Bring on mail order and online purchasing, IKEA, I beg you.
3. London is a city of 7 million people crammed into an area of 64 square miles (don't ask me to convert that to metric). That's a lot of people. It's a nice change from almost-deserted Perth to always have people around. That said, why do so many people in London smell bad? And why do they all seem to catch the same bus as me?
4. The standard of customer service in Australia pisses all over that in England. This may be the land of monarchy and titles but the work ethic in shops here is terrible. Yes, your job may suck - but do it properly and at least then you have the pride of a job well done. It doesn't help that certain members of the population do their best to make their contempt for what they consider the 'lower orders' in customer service provision apparent in every interaction they have with them.
OK, having whinged a bit, perhaps I should mention some of the positive features of this place, which I wish Australia would emulate:
1. Post offices are open, and post is delivered, on Saturdays - how cool is that?
2. London public transport, however cramped and smelly it might be, is fantastic - I need never look at a timetable again.
3. Free-to-air digital television provides who-knows-how-many extra channels, some of which are actually good.
4. London's population is so large and diverse, there are a zillion different subcultures and their associated styles in evidence; this means that although there are the usual sad posers sinking all their disposable income (not to mention their credit cards) into this season's look, there are enough other things going on fashion-wise that you can get away with pretty much anything. Which is great because my clothes budget is very sadly non-existent.
5. British supermarkets have refined the pre-prepared food (and pre-washed veg) sector of the food market to a fine art. And it's all got very detailed nutritional information on the front of the packet (it's even colour coded for dummies). And it's not all hawaiian pizzas and cheese-&-onion crisps - think fresh pasta sauces and soups, pre-prepared salads, etc., in non-family portions. Yum. And on that note, I need to go home and heat up (note, not cook) dinner. Cheerio all!
