England's Immigration Office

There was an article in this week's local-yocal paper the Hampshire Chronicle that made us "go hmmm". The immigration department in the US is fairly on top of things and border patrols are fairly strident. If a truck-load of illegal immigrants are discovered on US soil, they are rounded up by law enforcement officials and taken to the closest immigration office for investigation. They take it seriously. Whether or not that's a good thing can be debated until the end of time, but that's not what I'm trying to communicate right now.

I'd like to give another example of the English/American cultural differences. Now, I suppose it's not fair to assume that this is how the English immigration authorities always handle this type of situation, but you really have to wonder when you read about something like this: "Five illegal African immigrants found in the back of a lorry [truck], spent the night at North Walls police station, before being packed off to London by train the next day." When the Winchester police initially contacted the immigration office they were told to "release them with directions to the Immigration headquarters in Croydon [south London]". Hmmm... do you think they'd actually go? One would have to be very naive to answer "yes" to this question. Anyway, the Winchester police department wasn't satisfied with this arrangement. Instead, they put them on a train to Croydon the next day. "They travelled on the next train, free of charge, unescorted. The Home Office said it does not comment on individual cases, and therefore could not confirm or deny whether they arrived. Insp Baxman added: 'Once immigration had made the decision, we couldn't lawfully hold them.' Fingerprints were taken in a bid to identify them, but there were no records. 'It's not the first time it has happened,' added Insp Baxman, 'Those people are in this country, but no one has any idea where they are.' Winchester police detained the Spanish lorry driver, but immigration officers told him there was not enough evidence that he had done anything wrong, so he, too, was released."

Well, that's one way of dealing with illegal immigration. Anything worth doing is worth doing right!

Hee hee

Heard a funny instance of the "insidious 'R'" today on the radio:

Pamela Anderson pronounced "PammeluhrAnderson". Pammeluhr!

Sweden goes home

The Swedish team did not fare very well yesterday. Germany scored two goals in the first ten minutes and then kept the pressure on for the rest of the match. Sweden was so busy on the defensive so they rarely had any opportunities to catch up. The match ended 2-0. Germany goes through to the quarter-finals.

The US is out, Sweden is out, Denmark and Belgium were never in it, so I guess we're just going to have to root for England for the rest of the World Cup.

World Mug Knock-out round

Sweden v. England was a tense game. Twice it looked like England was going to win but then Sweden scored another goal to set it back to a tie. The most tense moment was the last five minutes. It had been 1-1 for a while, then England scored another goal and I thought it was over, but in the last couple of minutes Sweden nicked the ball into the goal one last time. The game ended with a 2-2 draw which meant that both teams went through to the knock-out stage as 1st place (England) and runner-up (Sweden).

Today at 3pm Sweden faces Germany. We have high hopes, but we're bracing ourselves for a less-than-favourable outcome because the German team is pretty good. I suppose we should have swedish meatballs for lunch today.

Then tomorrow it's England v. Ecuador.

Rah Rah Ree, Kick'em in the Knee! Rah Rah Rass, Kick'em in the Other Knee!

Those of you living in the US might not realize that the World Cup football (soccer) championships are currently going on. It's a big deal over here. Even the US is playing! But they're not doing so well.

We've been watching a few of the games, mainly so we can keep up with workplace conversations. It's actually somewhat enthralling.

Of the teams that have been playing, we've been rooting for England, US, and Sweden depending on who was playing. Personally, I'm rooting for Sweden first and foremost. Denmark is not in it for some reason. Tonight, Sweden plays England. We're having Swedish meatballs for dinner to show our support. Should be a good game. Both teams are pretty good and the English coach is a Swede!

Go Sweden! Show those silly little Brits how the game is played!

Lympstone

On Friday afternoon, K and I drove down to Lympstone (near Exeter) with two of her colleagues, L and M. One of the the head researchers at K's university had invited everyone down for a Friday evening barbeque followed by a Saturday morning trip down to the seaside to paddle around in kayaks and a row-boat. Fourteen of us converged on her house on Friday evening. After relaxing in her back garden, we went for a walk and then some of them went to a pub.

Being the service-minded Virgos that we are, K and I skipped the pub in favor of helping with the barbeque preparations. I took up the task of starting her two small grills, but just as I got one of them started, a disabled guy in a wheelchair was seen in the distance trying to wheel himself up a hill. I ran off to help him. It turned out to be quite a long trip up three fairly steep hills. By the time he got to where he needed to go, I was drenched in sweat and panting like a workhorse. It took a very long time to stop sweating after that and standing over two glowing grills did not really help the situation. Anyway, I grilled turkey and veggie kebabs, sausages, pork chops, and veggie burgers. When it got a bit hectic to tend both grills, one of the vegetarians took over one of them (the veggie grill). It was a tasty barbeque and everyone was filled to bursting by the time we were done. Then we all went for another walk before coming back for dessert and more merriment.

The next day we all gathered around 10am to drag the row boat and three kayaks down through the town to the estuary. Since there were more of us than there were boats, we took turns going out. Everyone pretty much tried both types of boat with varying degrees of success. Only one person flipped the kayak and got soaked. It was a beautiful day with a clear blue sky and not too hot.

After the boating excursion, we went back to the house to have a lunch of barbeque leftovers in the garden. We all drove out of Lympstone around 2 in the afternoon. K and I dropped L and M off in Bournemouth and headed up to Winchester. Home by 6pm because we had to stop at Tesco to do our weekly grocery shopping on the way.

A great little seaside excursion and even better, we had another weekend day left to enjoy!

My first week, done and dusted

So, that's one week at the arts institute. It passed fairly uneventfully. A few meetings, lot's of introductions to various students and faculty, and a big dose of thumb-twiddling. It's a pretty laid back work environment, which is very nice for a change. Going home early on Friday's is quite a perk (the uni closes at 4:30 on Fridays)!

Next week will probably be a little more active because the director of the department comes back from holiday so I'll have to do a few more "induction" activities and he's the person that has to OK the expenditure of getting a computer for me. Other than that, we'll see what happens.

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In other news, we have been officially approved for the apartment in Bournemouth. There was a delay in processing the paperwork, but it's done now. We gave 33 days notice to our lettings agent here. Unfortunately, we got a bit of an unwelcome acceptance from them. They said that we should have given notice in May and that we would then have had to move out at the end of June, so basically, we have to pay July's rent. We're moving out on the 9th, so if they get someone in here after that, we'll get a refund for the remainder of July. Naturally, we weren't very happy with this. K went to the Accomodations office at her university to have them look over our contract to see if we are being cheated. Unfortunately, the lettings agent is within their rights to do this. Not a great way to start a move. They did say they were going to do their best to get the apartment rented to someone as soon as possible.

Today is cleaning day. Need to get this place looking as inviting as possible so someone takes the bait.

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And in other other news, exactly two years ago today, K and I did THIS, so tonight we are going for a nice dinner at the Wykeham Arms to celebrate.

My first day

Just a quick few words about my first day at AIB...

K and I drove down to Bournemouth around 8:15 (about an hour and a half later than my usual train into London), I even had time to cook some oatmeal for breakfast. I was due at the university at 9:30. It only took us about 50 minutes to drive down there. Traffic wasn't too bad.

As usual, when starting a new job, there's a bit of thumb-twiddling. I got brought in on a morning meeting with some of the first year students wherein the course leader introduced me. Then I had a bit of a tour around with one of the other Technician Demonstrators, seeing how things work, meeting students and other faculty, etc. Then I met up with the course leader and we had a bit of a "chat". He just wanted to get to know me and try to get a feel for how my skills can be used. He's really happy to get a Tech. Dem. that has film production experience so I can better help the students with issues related to location shooting, etc. However, it's going to be rather quiet at the uni until October, when the fall semester starts. So, during the summer, I'll likely be working on creating an internal website to disseminate information to the film production students. After our "chat", we had lunch with the cinematography instructor to talk about how I might be able to take some of the burden off of his shoulders. The course leader's idea is to have him teach me all of the technical details of the camera equipment, especially how it should be handled, so that I can specialize in that aspect. Then he can focus more on teaching the students about cinematography. This all sounds pretty good to me!

The rest of the day was pretty much all thumb-twiddling. The Technician Demonstrator room is quite small and cramped right now, so I don't have anywhere to be at the moment. They are enlarging the room this summer and then revamping the layout inside. Until that is done, they have a desk for me in the staff room, though no computer, so there's not much I can do there. It'll get going soon enough. We have plenty of time. I just have trouble if I feel idle, so I hope I get some legitimate tasks sooner rather than later.

I'm excited about the job though. It's going to be very fascinating work.

Fuerza Bruta

The picnic was fantastic. We brought a loaf of sundried tomato bread, homemade veggie wraps, marinated olives, basil and black olive bread twists, San Pellegrino sparkling water, "vintage" English cider, sea salt and pepper potato chips, and some mixed nuts. They brought various cured meats, a couple of cheeses, tomatoes and basil, a small carrot cake, mixed berries with mint leaves, sparkling wine, and a small bottle of muscat. We spread ourselves out on a big blanket underneath a laurel tree in Regent's Park and stayed there for about 3 hours.
















Then we headed up to Chalk Farm (a suburb of London) to see Fuerza Bruta. Very unique. Very filmic and kinetic. We're still trying to decide what it meant. We came to the conclusion that parts of it symbolize the fast pace of modern life and that you have to break out of the drudgery to just enjoy yourself from time to time. And I think there's an allusion to our video game culture in there somewhere (having three lives so you can try the game over again
if you die). It was a good show, but we both agreed that Blue Man Group is a much better show overall and more value for money (Fuerza Bruta was a little over an hour, while Blue Man is an hour and a half or more). Though these are two completely different shows, they share a common grounding in audience involvement, primal music, and filmic action.

It was a perfect day in London. Just what I needed to help me forget about the old job and get ready for the new one!

A Vibrant Social Calendar

Tonight we're heading to London to see Fuerza Bruta. C and R (the people we spent New Year's with) called us a couple of weeks ago and invited us to go with them to see this show. We're going to meet up at Regents Park for an afternoon picnic and then head over to Chalk Farm for the show. The weather is absolutely gorgeous today, should be a nice day and a fitting farewell to London. Not that we'll never go back there again, it'll just be a rare occurrence to head to the Big Smoke now that neither of us have a season ticket.

A few images from my last day on the newsfilm project

Last Day

Well, this is my last day on the newsfilm project. Been tidying up some remaining projects and getting things ready to be taken up by whomever will replace me. They're hiring four more cataloguers. I'm a hard worker, but I didn't think it would take that many to replace me. Sheesh!

It will be sad to leave behind all the people I have come to know during my time here and one can feel sort of proud to be working in London and be able to walk by all kinds of sites that people come from far away to see (Big Ben, etc.). I'm not going to miss the long commute and the crowds of people though. The bad part is that I'll lose some valuable reading time! Churned through quite a few books over these past 9 months.

Excited about the prospects of the new job, though I'm starting to get a bit nervous about my first day. Only because I'll be meeting a bunch of new people and I'll be out of my comfort zone again. Until I get used to things at the university, I'm going to feel a bit unsure of myself.

K and I are going to be car commuters for the duration of this month until we move into our new place in Bournemouth. Will be interesting to see how that goes, driving every day. But it should save us some money instead of both of us buying train tickets.

I fear change. Change is good.