Day #4:
Ok, London people are definitely not as friendly as Australians (they don’t smile at each, and they don't smile at you - that is until you strike up a friendly conversation and then they are as friendly as). I think the cold weather doesn’t help but the big thing I saw was the number of people verballing people behind counters. When I went to the post office someone was absolutely ripping into a postal worker at the top of their lungs and at the Internet Café someone was shouting "My Civil rights are being violated! Everybody look!". Why was she being violated? Because when it came to pay the bill she didn’t have any money (sad). The protagonist wanted to take the young lady at the counter down to a teller machine where she could get money out for her but the counter lady refused to go. Things got heated and you can imagine the rest.
Being in London is like a cross between the Bill, East Enders and Minder. BBC does a pretty good job of representing London, I think. I have caught a cold today, damn! My head is killing me, Oh well, I suppose that this is almost a certainty when travelling overseas. At least it gave me a chance to visit the chemist (called "Boots Pharmacy" - it looked identical to Aussie Chemists). I bump into a lot of people here (they stand a lot closer together than in Australia) but I am slowly getting the hang of it.
After breakfast Amy & I decide to walk around Earl's Court. London is a very gloomy and wet place (I love it!!!), and this makes certain things stand out. For example, we passed a private garden (imagine a street tightly packed with buildings, then take a random one out and pack it with trees & shrubs). You had to be a local resident to get in there (you had to go and get the key from the groundskeeper down the street. It looked very pretty with benches and gardens, and looked like a great escape for the residents here (given that there a are no lawns anywhere). A corner store had some poster (on the outside) of a scantily-clad woman reclining at the beach. It is funny looking at that here, given that she would probably last about 10 seconds in this weather and it makes me wonder if it only serves to depress the locals with all the gloomy skies.
Brompton Cemetery
As if to further reinforce the gloom we came upon a place called Brompton Cemetery. It is large (and with the combination of crows and trees with no leaves) looks inspiring, The things about monuments is that they were built by dead people (mostly). Museums are stories about dead people, but cemeteries really are dead people! Walking through really gave me a sense of history of the place (and I was surprised by the number of people who died in their 20s too),
I starting to realise why Londoners rug up so much. The week before we got there it was a nice 15 deg C. As soon as we get there it is 2 deg C. HA HA! My positive thinking for cold has paid off (I think people are learning to hate me for this).
Cabinet Office
Back on the tube again. This time we head to the Cabinet Office so that Amy can meet with Joe (A bigwig with their Shared Services Policy team [I think]). He explained to us that UK public service is overseen by the Cabinet Office (sort of like the premiers dept I think) and has departments like HMRC (Her Majesties Revenues & Commissions - our equivalent of tax office), DWP (something about workers), Home Office (headed by the home secretary) and others (I love the names of British govt agencies - they sound much cooler than ours). Surprise, surprise they are having all the same issues that we have here.
The government is seen as 3oo disparate agencies (totalling over a million staff), and suffers from all the same cultural aversions to cross-dept rationalisation. In addition the government is seen by the public as slow and inefficient (but I would say no more than our public sees our government). He used all the same govspeak as we use, and during the PowerPoint demonstration (yes … death by PowerPoint) I even managed to see the word "Silo" used (/sigh .,. We are all the same).
He did talk about a concept that got my interest up … pensions for ex public servants. This gave me real urges to go work for the UK govt (although upon reflection I think it might just be the same as Employer Funded Superannuation here).
Like all good public service meetings, a lot was talked about, there was a high-level of communication, ideas were progressed, but nothing really happened. So we happily bid farewell and continued on.
Churchill Museum
As we left HM Treasury (this is where the meeting was) we noticed that we were right next to the Churchill Museum so we went in (10 pounds each). The most interesting thing about the Churchill Museum is that it is in the actual bunker that Churchill used during WWII. It is a rabbit warren with map rooms, war rooms, little bedrooms (Churchill's was the biggest but it was mostly taken up by a desk - the bed was tiny). Amy thought it was funny that Churchill's wife's room was right next to the war room. She said "typical - the wife sleeps in the next room while the husband's playing war games all night".
The whole place was covered with a 10 feet thick concrete slab that was designed to withstand a 250kg bomb direct hit (although some people were dubious about this and luckily it never took a direct hit - in fact this area [the public service sector] did not get much bombing at all. Another reason to be a public servant ;)
There were a lot of Americans in this place (in fact the whole of London is a mixture of accents) and it kind of ruined the atmosphere a bit. The other Churchill exhibits reminded me that (I hope I don’t get killed for saying this) he was just a politician and suffered from all the usual ramblings of them (I think maybe politicians such as John Howard model their talk on these people).
Blackbird Pie & Ale Pub
After Churchill's museum (5pm) we checked the sky to see if it was worth going on the London Eye (we bought tickets before we left Australia - but the more we talk to people the less impressive it is sounding) but it is too overcast. It would not be worth going on just to see clouds (seen plenty of that on planes ;). So we decide to head back to Earl's court. Once back there Amy & I go down to the local pub. Looks like a typical London pub (I guess) and I have Blackbird house pie (venison in red wine) with mashed potato. I also have a pint of "London Pride" beer, but it was cold - I thought Londoners drank warm beer? The sign on the wall even said "Where our beers are cold". Again a bunch of Americans were sitting near us and this kind of ruined the mood (of course the American is probably righting in his journal that "a couple of Australians were sitting next to us and that ruined the mood"). Amy had an apple pie and drank some of my beer (the Ales here aren't as bitter as Aussie ales).
After this Sarah came over and we unloaded a suitcase onto her (Amy has realized my wisdom of having 1 suitcase + 1 backpack - we are going out tomorrow to look for one)
I am starting to wonder if we are looking at the London monuments fast enough. There is tonnes more to see (London Bridge, St Paul's Cathedral, Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square, British Museum, British Library, Royal Albert Hall, Tower of London, etc) and we are 50% through our stay here. The problem is that I think if I go any faster I will only get a "shallow" view of the city, Oh well, I guess there is always next time. You could easily spend 2 weeks in London and still not see the whole place (not to mention that we haven't even begun to explore the areas south of the Thames).
Oh well time for bed (10pm) … tired again.
(3am [this is technically day #5] - Amy & I woke up and we couldn’t get back to sleep. There is still a fair bit of traffic on the streets [a car drives past about once every few seconds]. I wonder if we are jet-lagged? Oh well, this is a good time to write this journal,)
