sw’as

Well, we’re just over one week into the adventure and so far things are going well. This is a relatively unorganised and illogically grouped list of observations and other stuff.

• Very few critical items were forgotten in the big move.
• We haven’t run out of money yet.
• I’m still unemployed (and working on changing that).
• Laura is employed (and would like to change that).
• We have a great little (by Australian standards, but not tiny by UK standards) house.
• The weather has been…good…I think^[1].
• This list could go on, but I’m bored with it.

We’re still about a week away from getting the internet on at home, so I’ve just paid £9.99 to get internet access at the pub for the next month. Today I’m already on to my second pint and will be here until the laptop battery runs out. Our local is called the Red Lion (there were a few to choose from, but so far this one seems to fit the bill nicely).

Things don’t seem to be as expensive as I’d expected, but the big ticket items are a killer. Rent (or property if you’re rich) and transport if anything are what will send us broke. Luckily we have a pretty good deal on rent. When you compare what we have for the money to what some of our friends have for their (much greater sums of) money we’re doing pretty well. Having said that a trip to London for the day (32 minutes on the train, on a good day^[2]) costs more than two meals and two pints at the Red Lion.

Alcohol is cheap^[3].

If a BT call centre operator tells you it will cost £129 to get your phone connected, tell them no thanks and call back and speak to someone else who will connect it for free. Large telcos everywhere are totally shit at customer service.

UK Transport ‘Customer Assistance’ staff are, exactly the opposite. I’m not kidding. Before we left our (quite lovely) hotel to move out to our new abode in Billericay I checked the source of all information using the free wi-fi and found that trains from Liverpool St. were not running due to scheduled maintenance over the Christmas break. Fair enough, it’s probably a time of lower passenger numbers. Pity it affects us, but I’ll live. I printed off the instructions to catch the two trains and one bus to our destination. Unfortunately, being new to the city, I didn’t quite understand all the directions and decided to ask at the train station, just to be sure.

That was a mistake. After a week’s experience, we estimate that the ratio ’surly staff’ to ‘willing to help staff’ is about 4:1 and the ratio of ‘actually helpful staff’ to ‘totally useless staff’ is approximately a big fat zero. Anyway, the rest of this story is way too long to be put into print, but just so you have some kind of picture of just how unhelpful these staff are, hear the following. We rocked up to Liverpool St. station one day only to find more ‘Customer Assistance’ staff, police and closed platforms than actual travellers. It became clear very quickly that there were no trains (when there really should have been). We approached a pair of the many loitering staff and asked what we should do to reach our destination one of them pursed her lips and looked decidedly disgusted that we had even dared talk to her and said, curtly, and obviously oblivious to the big, bright green ‘Information’ label on her shirt, ‘Go and ask at information’. The other, maybe taking pity on a couple of foreigners decided he would try and be helpful. To his credit he did try very hard. Unfortunately the information was useless at best.

Stay tuned. Photos are coming. I promise.

1. Somewhere between 2C and 9C. Blue sky has been spotted on a majority of days so far, and it’s rained (properly) only once. [↩]
2. Yeah, more about this later in the post. [↩]
3. Especially outside of London, like where we live. [↩]

I’m currently reading a book^[1] called Mastering Modern World History. It’s a little bit arguable exactly how “modern” the history involved is, since the book was published in 1982, before I was born. In fact, the chapter I’ve just finished reading states “Germany remains divided and it’s difficult to imagine the circumstances in which she could become united again.” Aside from this, and aside from the fact that it’s incredibly geeky^[2], it’s actually a really, really interesting book which is teaching me many things I didn’t know.

One of the most interesting things I’ve learned so far is the derivation of the term Third World countries. It turns out that the term didn’t originally have anything to do with the wealth of the nations. The term derives from a conference held by leaders of many newly emerging, mostly Middle Eastern and African nations that came about due to the declining imperialism after the Second World War. They wanted to make it clear that they wished to remain neutral in the struggle involving the other two worlds - communism and capitalism, and so they announced that they considered themselves as a Third World. Because most of these nations were very poor, the meaning of the term changed over time simply to describe poor nations, or nations with high poverty levels^[3]. I would assume the term First World Countries came about later to describe the opposite, that is, countries that are very wealthy^[4].

I’m not in the habit of posting any of the many forwarded emails I get each day^[5], but I thought this one was pretty cleaver (especially so given my new knowledge about world events prior to my birth).

Hmm, perhaps the following may be British propaganda ? As many are aware, the French government recently announced a raise in its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide”. The normal level is “General Arrogance”, and the only two higher levels in France are “Surrender” and Collaborate”. The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country’s military capability. It’s not only the French that are on a heightened level of alert: Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout loudly and excitedly” to “Elaborate military posturing”. Two more levels remain, “Ineffective combat operations” and “Change sides”. The Germans also increased their alert state from “Disdain” to “Dress in uniform and sing marching songs”. They have two higher levels: “Invade a neighbour” and “Lose”. Seeing this reaction in continental Europe the Americans have gone from Isolationism” to “Find another oil-rich nation for regime change”. Their remaining higher alert states are “Attack random countries (ideally those without any credible military)” and “Beg the British for help”. The British are also feeling the pinch in relation to recent bombings and have raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved”. Soon though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross”. Londoners have not been “A Bit Cross” since the Blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorised from “Tiresome” to “Bloody Nuisance”. The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was during the Great Fire of 1666.

The forwarder of said email also added the following:

I am sure there is another paragraph there somewhere about Australia raising its Terror alert status from Alert but not Alarmed and issuing Fridge Magnets, to Alarmed but not Effeminate and issuing Souvenir terrorist teaspoons. Only two categories remain higher than this 1. Effeminate but not Hysterical and issuing Bumper Stickers and 2. Hysterical but not a Kiwi and issuing Snow Flake Domes Maintain your Ridicule

Where do I get my souvenir terrorist teaspoon?

1. And it’s taking a while, I have to admit. I got distracted by How to Get Things Done. [↩]
2. It’s actually a text book, which I didn’t realise until questions appeared at the end of the first chapter (and every chapter since). No, I’m not doing the questions. [↩]
3. I’m aware that these are the kinds of things that people only a few years older than me may consider general knowledge, but I’m pretty sure most people my age and younger don’t really know this kind of stuff. [↩]
4. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong on that. [↩]
5. Because I hate them. If you send me a forwarded email expect abuse. Especially if you put me in the to or cc boxes because that gives my address to everyone else you forward it to and every one they forward it to and everyone they forward it to, and before long my email address is in the hands of yet more spammers! If you must send me a forward, first please put me in the bcc box, and second, expect abuse in return. [↩]

I hereby resurrect the “something I learnt this week” posts. Although they are still unlikely to be weekly.

I have just been enlightened (mostly via Wikipedia) on what a transposon is. In short a transposon is a small part of DNA that can move around within the genome of a single cell. They can cause mutations and increase or decrease the amount of DNA within a cell.

The amount of DNA within a cell can be changed because some of the transposons (types I and III) copy a section of the DNA and transpose it to another location. Type II transposons don’t “copy and paste” but rather “cut and paste” so the actual amount of DNA should remain unchanged^[1].

The fact that transposons cause mutations is one of the reasons they are exceedingly interesting. In some cases, like in corn, the mutations are interesting for reasons of simple curiosity; one effect they can have is to change the colour of the kernels. In other cases there is a much more pertinent reason why they are interesting. For example transposons are the reason why bacteria can very quickly become multi-drug resistant and diminish the effectiveness of antibiotics.

Retrotransposons (type I) are in the spotlight in finding a cure for AIDS because the HIV-1 virus behaves like a retrotransposon. Other diseases that transposons of various types are implicated in include leukaemia, haemophilia A, haemophilia B, immunodeficiency diseases, predispositions to certain types of cancer and muscular dystrophy.

1. This post is the result of around 30 minutes of research on a topic I previously knew nothing about. I have almost certainly got something wildly incorrect and left out the great majority of interesting and important information. I’m clearly open to any corrections or additions you care to make. I got the majority of my information from Wikipedia and from here. [↩]

I just realised that I missed the ‘Something I learnt this week’ post last week. So there’s something I learnt this week straight away.

This afternoon my mouse battery light came on and the computer kept flashing at me and telling me the battery was low. I had been waiting for this event for a while and I’m impressed at how long it took to eventuate. You might remember that I bought this new keyboard and mouse a while back (see previous post).

If you check out the date on that previous post you will notice the thing took 26 days to run the batteries down. Now I recon that’s not bad considering the number of hours of use that would account for. I’ve been nothing but impressed with this keyboard and mouse. And I love not having wires all over my desk too.

I’m sure I learnt more than that this week but it’s all lost it seems, as I can’t think of anything note worthy.