London - Big Brother is watching YOU!
Big Brother is watching YOU!
Completely off our usual tourist like blogs, we feel we need to comment about a few things around here! Big Brother of course is still on TV in Australia and until we left we thought that the people in the Big Brother house in Aus, were a bunch of un-intelligent and bored individuals. However, Big Brother has started here in the UK and they filled the house entirely with women! I thought to myself particularly "Oh, that should make for interesting viewing"..and it has in some way. It started out alright, the girl's were really polite to each other and they had meetings to organise chores and so forth. Then, after a couple of days they put in ONE red hot heterosexual male inside with them and all hell broke loose! It brought the claws out and there was some good ol' fashioned cat fighting. It all kind of fell apart after that! I am shocked that women could behave this way, but then again NOT surprised. The UK version makes the Australian version look fabulous! Thus ends our 2 cents worth... or is it 2 pence? *chuckles*
Just some observations about London and its inhabitants.... In Melbourne, even on Swanston St during the busiest time of the day when there are swarms of people trying to get to Flinder's Street station to catch their trains etc there is some sort of etiquette when walking, you just allow people to get through and move aside, keep to the left if you are dawdling that sort of thing. Not here, they just tend to plough through you and then go "Oh sorry" when they bump you or they sometimes don't say anything, they just give you a dirty look as if it is entirely YOUR fault.
On a positive note, we send some postcards from here to people in Melbourne and so on and we got word that they had arrived in 3 working days! Wow.. talk about post express.. *chuckles* Interestingly, they have two types of post here - First class post and Second class post. We did ask someone and some point what that means, but the gentleman replied and said "I have no idea, but just shove it in the 1st class chute and cross your fingers!" Orrrrrrrighty then! The post office is interestingly different here. They are very simple, not like ours that are a shop on their own. I went to send a few more postcards for Steve and I as well as a package containing a few things for Mum. Getting a sufficiently sized envelope proved to be a challenge. In Aus, you bring your stuff in, size it up because there are numerous shelves containing envelopes/boxes for sending of items, pick the right one for you, pay for it, address it, slap stamps on it and hand it back to the nice post office attendant and he/she will make sure it gets posted.
Here, it doesn't quite work the same way. The envelopes are behind the counter, the attendant is hidden behind a large see-through barrier and a tiny hole for you to pass your money and to tell them what you need through. You have to guess what size you might need, I guess they expect you to have good spacial abilities here! They don't weigh the package behind the counter, they ask you to put it on the scale on your side of the barrier, they won't handle it and they will just pass what you need through the teeny tiny hole and then tell you to fix it yourself and put it in the bag!
Shopping for groceries in a number of the main shopping venues is an experience also. There is no such thing as an environmentally friendly shopping bags like they do back home, you know those material ones? It shocks me to see so many people leave with a bucket load of shopping with a million plastic bags. Sainsbury's actually do encourage you to bring their bags back and put them in a recycling bin. So why not introduce material bags? The ones with the flat bottoms are much easier to pack and carry. That is the other thing, they don't assist you in packing your shopping either. They scan it and throw it down a slope (including your fruit, eggs and anything generally bruisable) and get you to do it yourself. Still, good on them for providing comfortable seating for the checkout guys/girls for a positive outlook.
For a busy city, things tend to run slow here too (except for the tube!), customer service is often very slow wherever you may be, a post office, a Macca's, a KFC, or even SUBWAY.. ... *frustrating*...
We have noticed a few oddities. I need some stationary such a writing paper, pens, liquid paper to get my letter writing started. YES! I do still send old fashioned snail mail, its the personal touch ;o) Being a tourist in this country I took myself down to the grocery supermarket , because I assumed that I could get something there. Well I was wrong, they didn't have any of my favourite stationary items. *pouts* Turns out they have speciality stores for this stuff. I don't actually know whether liquid paper exists here, but if it does I will find it!
So, another thing.. Steve and I decided we need a) an extension cord and b) a little lamp to put on the table here at night (for the laptop) if one or the other of us wanted to sleep. We were told a store chain called "ARGOS" was the place to do that. We thought Okay, something like a Big W, K-Mart, Target, turns out this place was more than we bargained for or expected. Argos is a whole new concept, there are actually NO ITEMS on display, rather they work on a catalogue and number process. You flick through the catalogue, pick out what you want, you check whether the stock is available by putting the catalogue number into a little computer thing, if it is in stock you write down the number on this little peice of paper. The next step is to pay for the items (they put what you have ordered into their computer system) and you get a number. You wait for it to be displayed on a T.V (like waiting for a counter meal at a pub) and when it is, you go to the counter and your product magically appears on a conveyer belt from out the back somewhere! Tah-dah!
Anyway, stay tuned for the next rivetting chapter on our trip to the British Museum!
