Uh-Oh...OFSTED!

Just a quick one to say don't expect any blogs from me for a few days. Or emails. Or anything.

School got a phone call on Friday to say that Ofsted are coming this week. For those who don't know, Ofsted are the school inspectors, the little Hitlers who have the power basically to sack the school leadership team and put the school into "special measures" (aka big pain in the proverbial) based on a 2 day inspection. If they don't like what they see, then its thank you very much and goodbye.

So I got a bit of work to do, basically.

Hm.

Underneath the Lintel

I’ve lived in London long enough now to take for granted the many cultural opportunities afforded to me here (and therefore not take advantage of them).

This fact has been brought home to me recently because of my need to make several trips into town (the Jessops photo saga). I think I’ve been in the West End more times in the past 2 weeks than I had in the whole of last year.

So, I decided recently that its time to take advantage of the cultural life that London has to offer, and my first step towards that was a trip to the National Gallery the other day (whilst waiting for my photos to be developed). My second step was a trip to the West End tonight to see “Underneath the Lintel”, a one-man play by Glen Berger starring Richard Schiff (“Toby Ziegler” from “The West Wing”). I managed to get good priced tickets from lastminute.com for my mate Jane and myself.

I hadn’t realised that it was a one-man play when I booked it. I have to admit, the reason I wanted to go was (1) because Toby Ziegler was in it – why not take the chance to see someone ‘sort of famous’ live, and (2) because the story of a library book returned 113 years overdue sounded just a little bit intriguing.

The play itself really was excellent in terms of the writing and the storyline. Its one of those philosophical sort of plays about our 'purpose' in life. Basically, the plot centres around a Dutch librarian, who has never been outside of his own town, who comes across a library book that has been returned 113 years after it was borrowed. He embarks upon an adventure to discover who borrowed the book as there is now a rather hefty overdue fine on it. This leads him on a discovery not only about the person who borrowed the book, but about the librarian himself.

I have to say that I thought Richard Schiff’s performance was absolutely amazing. You would think, being a one-act, one-man play about a librarian (who is presenting a lecture), that your attention might tend to wander in spots, but there’s just no way that happens because you are glued to Schiff. His little quirks, mannerisms, many accents, and the ability to make his eyes glisten at JUST the right moment – I was well impressed.

If you ever get the chance to see this play (and particularly this actor) - take advantage. Its well worth it. Read a review about it here.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda - but didn't...

I should have checked it before I left.

I know I should have checked it before I left, a little voice niggled at me as I walked out, but you see, it had been a long day, we had Concert Band rehearsal after school (with big performance on Friday) and then I had to hoof it into town before the shop shut, and I only just made it, plus the fact that I was due to meet Jane (housemate) for dinner before we went to the theatre. So I thought, she’ll be right, the package looks right and feels right – it’ll all be ok. There's no way they can stuff it up twice.

You know I was wrong, don’t you. You can feel it coming, it's Murphy's law. So, despite my earlier attempt at decorum (and avoidance of a lawsuit), I find I have no choice now but to name and shame. Jessops on the Strand, you really suck. I am now an avid enemy, and will stop at nothing to ensure that none of my friends ever fall into your trap. You are a poor excuse for a photo developer, and in the words of Derryn Hinch - shame!

Basically, the story is this: I went into town on Monday to pick up the reprints from the London Camera Exchange so that I could take them down to Jessops to complain about the poor quality of my Iceland photos. I presented my case to the little man at the front desk, who promptly told me that the reprints had obviously been enhanced by LCE, and were not a true representation of what was on the negative. Excuse me? Not a true representation? Compared to what – their pic, or your washed out one? Just by holding the negative up to the light you can see that there is infinitely more contrast in the picture than the poor excuse for a print that Jessops dished up.

Then he tells me that it is company policy not to correct the prints in developing (what, not even re-calibrate your machine?), and that if customers want this, they have to specifically ask for it and pay an extral 99p per roll. Beg pardon? And where is this information displayed in the shop for new customers who don’t know about this “company policy”? And for that matter, where is any information displayed in the shop about the cost of developing rolls of film, reprints from film – anything related to film? Exactly. Nowhere.

So he tries to fob me off with camera psycho-babble, but we shall not be moved. I told him I was incredibly unhappy with their work and either they reprinted my pictures correctly (and fix the CD problems), or they refund my money. So they said they would reprint them.

You know, I should’ve just taken the money. Shoulda, woulda, coulda – but didn’t. No, I wanted the prints. So I gave him my negatives, all the dud prints (and the dud CD) and he tells me that “just this once” he’ll waive the 99p per roll for the hand adjustment – how big of him. Like I’m ever going to get photos developed there again.

Anyway, I go back today to collect my photos. I should have checked them before I left, because the blighters have only reprinted 5 of the 6 rolls, and in fact have only returned 5 of the 6 negatives (although they have returned all 6 rolls of dud prints) – they’ve lost my negatives. And the pics are still upside down on the CD! You wouldn't read about it...

So, this Saturday, I'll be back on the 159 bus (hopefully the wacko won't be), back to Jessops – and I’ll tell you now, they sure won’t like it if they can’t produce my precious negatives…

The Joys of the 159

I have lived in Streatham now for almost a year.

There is nothing really very special about Streatham, it has an ice-skating rink, the usual high street shops, and an Odeon cinema, but the best thing about it I guess is the transport links. There are 3 train stations, Streatham, Streatham Common and Streatham Hill, and I have used all them at some point when I was living in Wallington and in Hackbridge. Oh, and there's a bus garage at the end of my street.

I never fully appreciated the joys of the bus garage until this past weekend, when I discovered - the 159 bus!!!

This bus, and its sister the 59, is the gateway to London. Fancy seeing a West End show? Take the 159. A concert (classical or modern?) Don't forget the 159. Art gallery? Yeah, there's the 159 (for both modern and traditional Art...). Shopping? Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, London Eye? Fancy restaurants? 159.

The old 159 Routemaster on its last journey

And its also the bus route which has the honour of having made the last general service Routemaster journey (Major Ken Livingstone had the Routemasters canned after saying that he wouldn't - typical politician - because they were not accessible for disabled passengers) on 9 December 2005. They still have Routemasters (the buses like from "On the Buses" - hop on / hop off, with a conductor as well as a driver) but they run on Heritage routes.

Actually, I could tell you a funny story about me and a Routemaster bus. When I lived in Bromley, I used to have to catch a train and 2 buses to get to work. So one morning, there I am, crack of dawn, in smelly old Peckham Rye (they have these incredibly foul-smelling butchers and fishmongers on the high street that start hosing out the floors - and the terrible smells - just as you walk past - what a pong!). Anyway, I was walking past the pongers, towards the bus stop - and I see the bus coming around the corner - so I start to run. The bus gets to the stop, takes on passengers, but the driver was a vindictive Nazi and despite seeing me running for the bus, takes off just as I reach the back platform. I lunge for the pole, fling myself on the platform and look like I'm going to make it, but he gives it a bit more revs (why, I don't know - we were going around a corner), and I full on lose grip of the pole and fully fall off the bus! Face down in the street... very embarrassing... lucky the only injury I sustained was to my pride...

But I digress. Back to Saturday, and the 159. So after I run all my errands in town I get the bus home. I'm sitting on the bus (up top and at the front, good view), minding my own business, happily listening to my 'pod (well, Zen), when a dude gets on and sits next to me. Nothing out of the ordinary there, until he suddenly starts gesturing to nobody in particular and mouthing words into space. I think that he can hear my music - I was listening to "Sweet Caroline"- and every time it gets to the 'ba ba ba' bit, he starts doing his thing. And then, when "Downtown" came on, he was almostly perfectly in time with the 'Downtown' bit. So I take my headphones off and check the volume - no, you can't hear it, its soft enough - there's nothing else for it, the dude is a wacko. Why me?

When I was in Vilnius I ended up catching the wrong bus to the city centre from the hostel, which detoured out into the sticks. On the bus gets the toothless family, mother, father and son, all smelling VERY badly of decomposing fish, and, as lucky would have it, they sat next to me. Oy! Talk about wanting to vom... Then the father starts talking to himself - well I'm not that sure it was to himself, he could have been speaking to the wife, but it was in Lithuanian and she wasn't answering - or giving any indication that she had heard him or that what he was saying was of any relevance to her... I can tell you I sure was glad to get off that bus...

Anyone else have interesting bus stories to tell?

The Tale of the YDD and the Post Office

Today I went into the big post office at Trafalgar Square to post a parcel. I like this post office because it has longer and more obscure opening hours than many local post offices, so if you find its Saturday afternoon, and you need to post something, you can. Because they are in town, not far from Trafalgar Square, Leceister Square and several London sites, you often get a lot of foreigners in there sending stuff home. They also have a little shop of postpaks, stationery items, weird stuff like a small selection of DVDs, minispeakers for ipods (go figure? - yep, I'm just going to go to the post office to buy a speaker for my pod) and things like that, plus seasonal cards.

Mother's Day in England is like the 3rd Sunday in March or something (this year its March 18th) and so the post office had a selection of Mother's Day cards. I'm happily minding my own business in the queue, thinking about how much I need to insure my parcel for (its my camcorder which I am sending off for repair), when suddenly my quiet deliberations are broken by an American woman with her loud, shrill, nasal "Honey, I cain't buy any of these cards because they all spell 'Mom' wrong". Seriously love, you're in England. They ain't gonna spell 'M-O-M' on their cards now, are they? And you'd think if anyone's gonna spell words correctly, the Poms would, it is England after all and the language is called 'English', not 'American'...

Although that being said I have been stunned as to the large number of English people who can not pronounce "th" correctly. People, its "THREE", not "FREE".... and where on earth does "innit" come from? Or, my personal fave - "l" - which gets pronounced as like a cross between a "w" and an "el" - so "Will Young" becomes "Wiwl Young". Maybe this is just a "Sowf Larndin" fing...

Anyway, this YDD in the post office thing got me thinking about our perceptions of different nationalities. For example, when I was growing up, we would always go on about the "loud Americans" and how whenever there was an American around, you always knew their business because you couldn't but help overhear their conversation - it was in your face.

But now its the Aussies who are developing a poor reputation. You know the types, the young bucks straight off the boat, who think that no Australian has been here before, and that you aren't patriotic unless you punctuate every word with several diphthongs and tripthongs, with mouth wide like a cheshire cat so you get that 'just so' drawl, chucking in a few "G'day mates" and "She'll be right, mates", and that you have to go hang out at the Walkabout or the Redback til chuck out time, then be loud, drunken and obnoxious on the streets - this is a right of passage for young Aussies travelling abroad. People, stop it. You are giving us a bad name.

This really hit home to me when I was in Vilnius, Lithuania. I was reading the guest book in the youth hostel when I came across a comment from someone asking if there was anywhere to go where there are no Australians. The answer? Kiev, because Aussies need a visa for the Ukraine...

Oh, and the meaning behind the title "YDDs"? Well this is a term that Judy, Leisa and I coined when we went to see "The Mousetrap" in London. It stands for "Yankee Doodle Dandy's" and we would use it as a code for any time we encountered loud Americans, particularly those commenting on how much bigger and better everything is "back home"...

Finally, just to set the record straight - I have nothing against the Americans, English, Italians or any other nationality whatsoever, in fact, I have many dear friends of those nationalities (who I've probably lost now thanks to my comments)...

Snappy Snaps to the rescue!

Ok, well here is part 2 in the saga of the film developing.

I spoke with my good friend Steve, who is the Bandmaster at our Church, on Sunday about my disappointment in the development of my Iceland pics. Steve is a very good photographer so I trust his opinions.

He gave me some very good advice, which was to get some key pictures re-printed by a different developer and then compare them with the unnamed store's developing. Then I could take the reprints back to that store with proof that their development was, to put it nicely, VERY ORDINARY.
So I have put some key pictures in at London Camera Exchange (as there were some Egypt / Jordan pics still on one of the films and the LCE developed my other Egypt / Jordan ones so I know they were good).

In the meantime, the unnamed store reckoned they couldn't print some of my Northern Lights pics because their scanner couldn't pick up that there was anything on the negative - so I went to Snappy Snaps (as unfortunately LCE didn't think they could do it either) across the road to see if they could.

[Insert fanfare here] ta da! They could, and they did - you know, my impression of Snappy Snaps has gone way up. When they reprinted them, they had dust on their machines (reminds me of the store in Wallington - now that was a story) - they pointed it out to me when I came to pick up the photos and because it was the end of the day and they couldn't clean the machine and reprint it, they asked if they could keep it overnight and do it again (in fact they were unhappy to release the dodgy prints to me as in their eyes, they were unacceptable). Thank you very much, finally a company which takes pride in their work. And in customer satisfaction.

Either way, I'll let you be the judge. Here are the prints they got for me (which no-one else could). They're still quite grainy but that is because I didn't use the right speed film - live and learn, right?

The other funny thing about this photography lark, is that seriously, and I'm sorry to destroy the illusion, but the lights didn't look as green as that. Bit more of just a greenish tinge. Just goes to show what a difference a 30 second exposure makes.

By the way, this last photo is the Snappy Snaps reprint of the grainy, 3-pronged one in a previous blog - big difference, hey?

A word of warning re: developing photos (if you are still using film)

Aaaaahhhhh!

So I eagerly put my photos in to be developed of the Iceland trip. Until now, most of the pictures you've seen in the blog have been taken by Agnieszka on her little digital camera (the Northern lights one though is definitely mine). I was expecting my photos to be just as good as hers, and hopefully better, because they were taken on my Canon SLR.

Alas, that was not to be. You see, I have had several bad experiences of photo developing in London (the developers on the Wallington High St for one, and then the camera company which lost my photos, which used to be in the forecourt at Charing Cross), so I now only take my film to the London Camera Exchange on the Strand.

So I dutifully go into town today to put the photos in - it would take a few days but I'm not so bothered about that. However, I had some errands to run that put me down the opposite end of the Strand to the LCE, so as I headed up there, I happened upon another photographic shop (who shall remain nameless) on the Strand. Seeing that they develop films (and had a special deal on getting 7x5 for the same price as 6x4), and feeling a bit too lazy to walk the rest of the way up the road, I put my precious films in there. Alas, I now wish I hadn't.

First of all, they didn't print some of my Northern lights prints, because they were underexposed and therefore their scanner did not pick up that there was anything on them. Trust me, there is - you can see it on the negative. Secondly, the photos are SERIOUSLY washed out and grainy (you can see how bad it is from my Northern lights pics in previous blogs). The colour quality is shocking. Thirdly, they put the photos on the CD like I asked - only they're very badly pixilated (sp?). It took me some time to figure out that the pics they have in the "HIRES" folder are actually the lo-res ones, and the ones in "LORES" are actually the hi-res ones. And if that isn't bad enough, when you load the photoviewer from the CD - it defaults to the rubbishy "HIRES" ones (which are lo-res) and displays them upside-down.

I'm going to go back and complain - I could do with having my sister Melissa here for that as she helped me when I had big problems with the developers in Wallington. Or, my mate Leisa - who helped me with Vision Express (I ended up with something like 3 free sets of glasses from them because of their incompetence).

The moral of this story? Better the devil you know...

Anyway, will keep you posted on how I get on.

Blue Lagoon... You saw me standing alone...

Ok, so I know it doesn't really go with the tune "Blue Moon", but hey, I like that song, and also, I'm pretty ordinary at this title thingy... Last day in Iceland - Sunday. Phew, I hear some of you say, this blog is too long anyway. Actually, if you think that, please let me know, I'm new to all of this and if its too long and boring, I'll just do some sort of online travel diary that I won't publish to the world but just keep for me. Anyway, for the last day, we had booked to do a tour to the Blue Lagoon on the way to the airport. This was actually really nice, although a bit pongy. The water is really warm, and whilst you're there you can give yourself a facial with the silica mud (they have it in troughs dispersed about the lagoon). The only gross thing is, obviously you wash it off in the lagoon, and as the lagoon isn't all that deep, you can walk around in it - feeling all the gross silica mud that has been washed off and settled to the bottom. Don't take a handful of that stuff. There's hair in there... gross!

But the steam baths are really good, and it was a lovely, relaxing way to end the trip.

What wasn't all that relaxing was our landing back in Stansted. As we were coming in, the weather was bad (wind again! this seems to be the theme of the trip...) and we couldn't actually see ANYTHING out the windows - kind of like when we were driving through the sandstorm - the aircraft does a bunny hop on landing and then skids across the runway, veering to the left. When we finally stopped half the left wing was off the runway and over the grass... and the breaks were soooo squealy...

Did you know that Polish people don't cross their fingers for luck, but make a fist and squeeze their thumbs? I found that out during the landing...

Anyway, back safe and sound now, it was a brilliant trip and if you are thinking of going to Iceland, I highly recommend it. Just mind the wind.

Bye bye Snaefellsnes, hello Reykjavik

Saturday. We leave Snaefellsnes and head back towards Reykjavik. Today's the day we have to return the car (we have to be back by 5.00pm) so we basically hoof it (after making a snow man and having a bit of a snow fight! hehehe) . One of the locals lent us his sunglasses (although in this pic the ones we used were mine)

The drive was pretty good, again some very beautiful scenery - and the weather was fine so we thought we would detour via Reykholt, a quaint little town. There was heaps of snow there, so I couldn't resist making snow angels!

The day was getting on a bit, time was getting away, so we didn't spend too long there (although it was a very beautiful town) and make our way back to Reykjavik. We get back to the car hire place at 4.30pm - but there's no-one there. So, we head back to Floki with the intention of phoning the after hours number (as for some reason its not working on my phone).

When we get to Floki we discover that they are overbooked and have booked us (for the same price) into the 3 star hotel Baron Hotel. Woo hoo!

The Baron chick phones up the car hire people - they want to charge us an extra 1500 IKR (AUD $40) for them to come to Baron tomorrow to pick it up - I don't think so! If you advertise opening hours until 5pm and decide to go home early, tough luck matey! So we managed to get that waived.

The rest of the evening was uneventful (except for the rubber band Agnieszka found around her asparagus at the same restaurant I suffered the glass in my food) until about midnight - we looked out the windows of the hotel and saw this:

I could never get tired of looking at that!

Lights, Camera, Action!

Isnt' this just a gorgeous photo of my niece Marcella? This was sent to me on Friday for my birthday, how cute. Check out Beck's blog for more cute Marcella pics...

So when I left you in my previous comment it was Thursday night, we´d braved the icy roads and snow (and wind!) and arrived in Grundarfjördur at the hostel. By this time it was dark, and the skies looked clear (and cold), so we decided to go and try to look for Northern lights. Packing up our trusty "go look at Northern lights" kit, which consisted this time of pot noodles (with the boiling water already in), thermos, sandwiches and chips, plus our "equipment" (as Agnieszka likes to call it - camcorder and camera), we set off in the car. But its dark, the roads are very icy, and there´s still a bit of a snowstorm (well the wind is blowing snow viciously sideways across our path making it difficult to see when driving). To see the Northern lights (scientific name: aurora borealis) you really need to be away from the artificial lights of the cities, you need a clear sky, cold night... Anyway we sat out in the car for about 3 hours and I wasn´t convinced we had actually seen anything. The pictures you see in the postcards are always so dramatic (see my first comment on Iceland), with deep green or red colours booming across the night sky dramatically - all we saw was a curved greenish tinged line over what appeared to a huge mountain, and a plume of whitish (with a green tinge) light faintly streaming up from the horizon. I didn´t think that was it, but when we got back to the hostel it seems everyone else had seen it too and was convinced that it was the Northern lights. Me, I felt a bit deflated actually.

So, Friday - my birthday. We wake up and there´s streaming daylight (well after 9.30am anyway once the sun gets up), there is, get this, no wind, HALLELUJAH! (I´ve renamed Iceland to Windland), so we set off driving around the peninsula. We get to the next major town, Olafsvik, and Agnieszka suggests a coffee in the bakery, what the hey, its my birthday, lets have a pastry too. Turns out that the owner of the bakery is Polish, and her sister comes in for a chat, so Agnieszka starts to find out about sightseeing etc. I´m happily writing a postcard, I don´t pay attention - next thing the sister starts to talk to me, then the brother comes and starts chatting. I thought this was all a bit wierd. We were there forever it seemed.

After this we head off around the peninsula, the countryside really is very beautiful. We wanted to go snowmobiling but the weather is, get this, too cold, too much snow etc for it, so we keep driving and we find this black beach (black because of the lava fields - you have to remember this area is volcanic too). This was very interesting, had a bit of a walk around etc, then more driving, and more photographing, and that basically was the day.

Because its so expensive here we decide to go to the supermarket and cook up something for dinner. I was feeling a little disappointed as hey, its my birthday, and I´m having spaghetti bolognaise in a youth hostel, when suddenly in comes Agnieszka singing "happy birthday" and holding a chocolate cake with (get this) 35 candles on it.

Turns out that whilst we were in the bakery she took the opportunity to buy the cake by speaking in Polish to the woman (as I wouldn´t understand it) and that´s why the sister and brother came over and chatted to me, to distract me. How cool is that? The cake was very yummy too.

After this we decide to head off in search of more Northern lights, having discovered that the place where we thought we saw some last night (and then decided it was snow blowing off a mountain) actually didn´t have a mountain there at all, which meant we probably saw some. We´re driving along, and then suddenly we see streams of greenish tinged light across the sky, not as dramatic as the postcards, but most definitely northern lights. I was sooo thrilled, fancy seeing them properly on my birthday. So I got out, set up the tripod, and took a lot of pictures. The bummer with not having a digital SLR is that I couldn't tell if they worked. But here's one that I took anyway...

Not bad, eh?

Not a bad first attempt, eh?