youtubin: let's get hyphy

you know what? When I grow up, I want to be a hip-hop dancing professional sports mascot.

faster, faster

with my work schedule still in full madness-mode (one week to go!), I did manage to find myself a new flatshare last week. My lease was due to end on the 24th (today), and though I barely had time to look at places, I felt it was time for me to find accomodations a little bigger and possibly closer to my workplace. Thanks to the magic that is gumtree, I found such a place pretty easily: went to see it on Wednesday afternoon, said I liked it, and when I called back Thursday morning, the room was mine. The rest was straightforward as well: 2-3 tube return trips to move my stuff, a transfer of the deposit+1 month's rent via internet banking and presto, I'd changed flats.
One of the greatest things about the new place so far is that I can walk to work. Or at least will be able to when there isn't a mini-typhoon lashing out at London like this morning. Walked just 3 minutes to the bus stop and my feet were still wet 6 hours later. And that's after changing socks, and letting my shoes dry with newspaper stuffed in them (grandma-tip style).

One thing for sure is that, compared to Paris, looking for a place to live here is very very easy. No need to give landlords a file with ridiculous amounts of information, not to mention guarantees from your parents. Here you pay a deposit (generally 4 weeks' rent), the first month of rent and you're good. Now this situation is linked to the fact you can get expelled pretty fast if you fail to pay rent, compared to France where multiple laws protect renters, which leads many landlords to stay away from anyone who doesn't have the ideal profile. And with so many people (including more and more foreigners) wanting to live in Paris, it isn't hard for them to cherry-pick. Not to say London is heaven when it comes to renting an apartment, far from it, but at least when it comes to moving in/out, it doesn't feel like you're going through an adoption process.

droning on

warning: this post is about as rock n'roll as an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond

these days my schedule has started to get a bit blurry: weekdays turn into weekends which are workdays, after which I go out like it's the weekend. Things are busy at the office (which will only increase as the month goes along), yet there are still things I want to do after spending 12 hours staring at three computer screens, so evenings chilling at home have not been part of the agenda recently. I'm not partying like an art school student or anything, but I keep finding things that keep me out of la casa, even if it's just a run in Hyde Park after work. I think tomorrow I will go home straight from the office, but I can't be certain seeing how things have gone.

This has me thinking that out of the many concepts branded about in the modern corporate environment, that of work-life balance rings particularly hollow. Early in one's career, spending long hours at the office is almost a pre-requisite to move up the proverbial ladder. In that sense, the notion of balance does not really exist. Work takes up most of your time, energy, and motivation. Of course in return you get plenty back, from increased self-confidence, financial willpower, and if you're lucky a decent social environment. But in order not to feel too drained, it's essential to be able to maximize one's rest/leisure time. In my case I've found concerts to be one of the better ways to forget about everything for an hour or so, without staying out too late. Two weeks ago I had an absolute blast at the Justice gig, with a tremendous Rex club-like atmosphere, yet I was home by 12:30. The previous night I had seen an amazing concert by Broken Social Scene, one of my all-time favorite bands, and was safely home by eleven.

The trick in those busy times is to keep things bordering on predictibability without feeling like you're living a real-life Groundhog Day. Although who knows, being able to punch that guy Ned every once in a while might turn out to be a good stress-reliever.

emergency office weekend survival kit

one big holiday

Q: what's better than a 3-day weekend?
A: a 4-day weekend!

Tomorrow is the first of my 3 August mini-trips, with a 4 day jaunt to the -mostly- sunny shores of Brittany. Eating, sleeping, reading, swimming, laughing, sleeping: sounds like a decent agenda to me.

lead me to your door

as one of the most diverse cities in the world, it is hard not to feel at home very quickly in London. But feeling like a Londoner can take more time, if only because when moving here (or anywhere else) you still carry over the instincts and behaviorism you've picked up in previous homes.

For me the first time feeling like one happened not too long ago while, quite fittingly, riding the bus. A couple of French 20-somethings here for the weekend were talking with their friend who apparently lived here or something, and they got to discussing the weather, remarking how horrid it was. The bus passed the James Smith store and the guy make an innocuous joke about how that store would never go out of business considering said crappy weather. And even though it is probably exactly the sort of remark I would make, my first thought when I heard this was how so not better Paris (which is where they were from) weather was and that their miffed criticism was a bit annoying. So in effect I got sort of defensive, which is a common reaction when you feel a sense of belonging somewhere. It's not very rational, after all talking about the weather for 5 minutes is something you'd do with perfect strangers here, so for friends to do so seems totally normal. But in that context this small moment kind of served as a personal realization that I do consider London to be more than just where I live - it's also my home now.

the night starts here

Tuesday morning I'm feeling good, it's quite sunny out, for once not too chilly, and I decide to go for a run during lunch. Though not yet a runaholic like some people at the J.O., I've managed a decent time last week and it's got me wanting to get back into regular running. I even start thinking about the London marathon while on the tube (NB: i have never run a marathon, or even an official race since my glorious participation in the Hong Kong French middle-school olympics) and start scheming about how to deal with the hordes of groupies that will soon pave the way of my training runs.
Typically busy morning, I really should stay at the office during my lunch break but it's too nice out to resist, so I go for a run with a friend from work. We start kinda slow then I push a little bit, manage to beat my time from last week, and also push my buddy to beat his, although 2 minutes behind (hey I never said I wasn't competitive). Back to the gym to change, I'm barely out of the shower when I get a message asking if I'd go for a run that evening. Can't refuse, so I text back to accept, even adding an exclamation point to my answer to show my eagerness, which is a technique I believe I learned from Shakespeare. I know that getting pasta salad for lunch isn't an option at this point, so I oblige.
After an even busier afternoon, run number 2 does not sound like the most inviting of activities. But actually it goes fine, my running partner is in a similar state of mind to mine, so we shuffle along. Hyde Park can be really gorgeous in these conditions, I even forget I'm tired by this point.
I am due at a work social for a friend who's leaving the company, and manage to get there at 9:15pm, also known as 3 hours after everyone else. By this point a few people are hunched around a table waiting for food, the rest near the bar just having drinks. Of course I make the sensible choice and opt for staying with the stand-up crowd (zing!), despite my belly's protestations. Some drinks are had, conversations partaken, a general enjoyable night out, prolonged with the inevitable last mojito at a hotel bar (why do bars close so early in this city again?). At 1:30am I stumble somewhat into bed, a bit dizzy but my pillow seems like the softest pillow in the world and I promptly pass out.
1:32am: bzzzzzz. I get a text, then a call from the friend we were feting that night. She thinks someone has been in her apartment (door was open, lights on, etc...). I somehow dress up normally, get a cab to her place, and make my best to reassure her. Considering my state of tiredness, I am pretty sure I would've dozed through any break-in during the night. In fact I am pretty sure I ask her where I can sleep within 40 seconds of my arrival. Who says chivalry's dead?
Work today feels kinda bad, to say the least. Unshaven, with mostly the same clothes as the previous day (which is where the extra tie in my desk comes in handy), with mental reflexes far from sharp, I slowly realize that this is going to be the busiest day of the month, as first days generally are. Hooray for red bull!
All this to say: I am going to bed now. Attention would-be burglars: if you could leave my friend's flat alone (and mine while you're at it) it'd be much appreciated. And to all other, as a great man used to say: good night, and good luck

sugar kid

they say the secret to living well is learning at least one thing per day. Today I learned a fun fact about strawberries: a portion of 100g of the stuff only contains only about 25 calories. Thus a carton of 400g like those they sell at Marks & Spencer only comes out to about 100 cal, barely a third of what chomping down on a Snickers bar would provide. Pigging out while eating healthy, now that's the way of the future.

rollin' and tumblin'

if you think about it, rock is mostly about dirtiness, uncomfort and frustration. But during last week's Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show at Somerset House those sentiments were conveyed just through the music and for once not in the overall concert-going experience. With some of the best conditions I have ever witnessed at a gig in terms of personal space (enough people (it was sold-out) to make you feel you were part of something, but also enough room to let you breathe and move at ease) or organization, this was one concert that really was all about the music. So kudos to the organizers, these people are often mentioned in a negative light even though I'm sure it must not be an easy job.
To be fair the perfect conditions don't mean a thing if the performances aren't there, and on that aspect the boys in black from BRMC did not disappoint. Whether it was when unleashing their thumpier tunes (Whatever Happened To My Rock n Roll, Took Out A Loan) and thereby eliciting an awe-inspiring number of beer-showers, or taking things back with the slower but soulful numbers from their acoustic blues-influenced third LP Howl, the show was a solid 2 hours of the many facets of good old-fashioned rock music. They might have played a few too many of their unhurried songs in the second half of the gig, but all was very quickly forgotten when they gave the audience a rousing rendition of Spread Your Love which launched a modest but spirited moshpit session at the front, which my friend and I briskly joined. The following picture should give you an idea of that experience:

The band then played one more song before leaving the stage to raucous applause, though it isn't always easy to gauge the mood in such an open space, especially when you're near the front. But the discussions overheard on our way out seemed to confirm my personal feeling of great satisfaction. Rock is a pretty simple thing, and as such a good rock concert just is, no highfalutin explanation necessary.

BONUS:

• more pictures in my flickr set
• video from Whatever Happened To My Rock n Roll:

vagrant weekend

kelly watch the stars

watching a movie is an activity generally better enjoyed with minimum disruption. Noisy teenagers, chirping cell-phones and pop-corn munching are some of the reasons why more and more people are turning away from cinemas, opting instead to stay home and make it a DVD night. But watching a movie outdoors overrides all these claims, and is one setting where the magic of film resounds most clearly. London might not have as many options as Paris in this department, but there are still a few events held in the summer for outdoor screening enthusiasts. New venue The Scoop has free screenings throughout the season, and various festivals throughout the London area offer such showings. Then there is the Film4 Summer Screen, held in the prestigious Somerset House location near The Strand from Aug 2-11. Boasting a mostly mainstream yet eclectic program, the series of screenings is sort of the posh cousin of these events, what with tickets costing £12.5 and the afore-mentioned venue. But it should be good fun, with the always-intriguing possibility to drink up some champy (or Pim's for a truly ritzy experience) while catching an old -or new- favorite. Tickets are mostly sold out, but a small allotment will apparently be available on the day of the showing at the Somerset House box office.
The lineup consists of the following:

• Thursday 2 August: Knocked Up
  
• Friday 3 August : The Descent / The Thing
  
• Saturday 4 August: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
  
• Sunday 5 August: Rushmore
  
• Monday 6 August: Rear Window
  
• Tuesday 7 August: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
  
• Wednesday 8 August: Walk the Line
  
• Thursday 9 August: Chak de India
  
• Friday 10 August: Hot Fuzz / Point Break
  
• Saturday 11 August: 2001: A Space Odyssey
  

Personnally I would've loved to go see either Point Break ("that's Johnny Utah, man"), or my favorite movie I can't explain, 2001. But since I won't be in London that weekend, I will be attending the showing of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly with a friend, which isn't too shabby a pick either. I had a terrific time watching Charade at the Trocadero in Paris two years ago, I'm glad I can do the same sort of thing here too, even if it does come with a London-sized price tag.

sonic moods - 16/07/07

nkotb: Los Campesinos

where have I been: DJ Zebra's mashups

still going strong: The Strokes-Zeitgeist

one and done: Smashing Pumpkins

blast from the past: Manic Street Preachers

next concert: BRMC, Wednesday @ Somerset House


find out more on my last.fm page

from now on

for "all" those interested, I am changing switching the RSS feed of this blog to Feedburner, so anyone keen to keep up with the various going-ons of my existence should update their subscription to the following address:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/fakeexpat

Do it and you can expect many more posts with as much intellectual substances as those three lines you just read. Don't do it and I won't know anyway. Everybody wins!

tourist at home: the British Museum

with nary a thing planned today after a busy Saturday, I managed to kick myself off my bed after realizing that spending an entire day listening to Neil Young and half-heartedly reading a book might not be the most ambitious of schedules, even for a lazy Sunday-aficionado such as myself. Thus did I find myself heading to the British Museum under a typically undecisive sky, with a firm commitment to finally seeing the fabled mummies. Not that this project could be considered a sign of self-motivation, considering I live a short 15 minute (if that) walk away and that I've already been countless times. But at least it would get me to stop listening to laments about heartbreak and southern men, and in that sense the decision to go seemed like a small moral victory over my shiftlessness.
One thing that is nice about visiting a museum several times is being able to able a personal relationship with it, establishing your own preferences, shortcuts and itineraries. I was lucky enough to frequent the Met in NYC enough to kind of feel a measure of ownership over it, and I see it as a good thing. Trying out new places is great and the definition of curiosity, a quality I always try to strive for, but for situations like today, familiarity is more than acceptable.

Once inside I quickly made my way to the Egypt wing, which for some reason I cannot recall ever having been, despite having visited the British 4 or 5 times. Unfortunately most of the rooms were thronged like all superstar museum can be on a summer day, rendering difficult any prolonged observation. Pestering about tourists is a bit easy considering we all are one at some point in our lives, so I'll simply state that if people understood how pointless it is to pose in front of a glass-encased mummy to have your picture taken with the flash on, I think the world might be a slightly better place. I did find some respite in the other Middle-East rooms, where I spent some time learning about ancient Mesopotamia and Phoenicians.
Most of the exhibits in this wing are well done, but the explanations given are a bit dry. It seems to me that the notecards in the fantastic Asia room, which I never fail to call on during my visits to the museum, contain a more personal description of the artefacts and thus give one a sense of how people lived in these times. Or perhaps it's that I feel personally more engaged by that region than the Middle-East, that's a definite possibility. Either way I was glad to finally have stepped into the realm of mummies and scrolls, and have no doubt in my mind that future visits will include these rooms in my customized walk through the museum.

a few more pictures:

jinx

my sentiment about the weather in July so far can be best summed up by this fantastic quote from Indian tennis legend Vijay Armitraj:

"I love Wimbledon, I just wish they'd hold it in the summer"

So maybe that posting about summer finally starting a couple of weeks ago might not have been a great idea on my part, but let's just hope that today's half-radiance was a harbinger of better things to come. Although I've got a nagging feeling I'll have to keep my Boots close to me, Inspector Gadget-style.

And just because, here's a pic of Vijay in his Octopussy-days. Pure vintage classiness.

La Vie En Rose

a true biopic in the grand Hollywood tradition of the genre, La Vie En Rose tells the story of legendary French singer Edith Piaf, and gives the younger generations an opportunity to learn more about the amazing fate of this true French icon. Edith Piaf is considered by many to be a larger than life, not only because of her persona and accomplishments, but also because of the many tragedies that littered her life. From her impoverished childhood and abandonment by her mother, to her famous love-affair with (married) world champion-boxer Marcel Cerdan, the film manages to give a good overview of the many chapters of her life, without feeling too scholarly. Through it all, Marion Cotillard plays the role with touching honesty and an incredible depth of emotion. There is no show-offness on her part, and the evolution of Piaf as she gets sicker and sicker toward the end of her life is made totally believable (although the makeup was amazingly done as well) by her bravura performance. The emotional weight of the music scenes increases as the movie progresses and we learn about her life, which culminates in an exceptional scene of Piaf singing her most famous song Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien at the Olympia.
As often in this genre, the movie is far from perfect, at times felt longish, and some parts of her life are forgotten entirely (for example her role in the resistance during WWII) while others get a passing mention. Then again the point of a biopic isn't to cram everything about a person's life in 2h+, but to give the audience an idea of what that person stood for. And in that sense this movie is a success, with a particularly thrilling last 20 minutes.

sidetracked

with already agreed-upon plans to visit a museum with a friend on Sunday, all that was left to do was decide which one we'd go to. Having done most of the classics in the past few months, I decided yesterday to text her a meetup time and let her decide which establishment we would call on. Her pick was the Science Museum, which was great news as I hadn't been to one of those in a while, probably not since I've stopped playing with Lego (just to be clear: a long time ago). And I had great memories of the one in Hong-Kong, where the space section in particular was always one of my favorites.

Sunny skies, 21° weather. Winter in Sydney? Nope, July in London

nice use of the question mark. This is why I could never be a graphic designer. Stuff like this is probably kiddie stuff to them, brilliance to me

a revolutionnary new exhibit on families' eating habits, or museum cafeteria, I forget

first up, space. Since being a kid I've always loved stuff about space and the exploration of it, and this section contained a few interesting exhibits

like this replica of an Appolo lunar module

or this huge one of a satellite-launching rocket

speaking of satellites, this animation showed how many orbit the earth, including quite a few "dead" ones. Each little speck represents a satellite, and that's the earth in the middle (no really, it is, I swear)

one cool thing about science museums is they've always got random things lying around. Cars, planes, shampoo bottles...

"YAY!" Um, I mean, "sure, let's go to the 'Plastics and other polymers exhibit' "

then there was the Launchpad, a room filled with fun contraptions designed to teach kids about basic scientific phenomena. We thought that one can never know enough about science and decided to try out most of them

MY HAND, IT CONTROLS THE ELECTRICITY, MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

honestly, apart from the space room (and the Launchpad) most of the museum was pretty underwhelming, with exhibits that looked like they hadn't been updated since John Major was in power, so we chose to head to a slightly-less brainy place, the temple of consumerism: Harrod's

because the walk from the Science Museum to Harrod's is such a long one, we stopped on the way for a well-deserved snack break, where I was lucky enough to watch a few games of the insanely good Wimbledon final between Federer and Nadal. Seriously, some of those shots were out of this world

and what says Wimbledon more than strawberries and cream?

finally at Harrod's, in the food hall

there is no such thing as too much mustard, and you can quote me on that

feeling slightly out of place in the handbag section

yes, that is indeed a £400 fanny pack, or, as I like to call it, the answer to the age-old question "will the wonders never cease?" I hovered in the area for a few minutes to see if anyone would buy it, but amazingly no one did

H&M after Harrod's, guess at which store I spent money?

making our way back through Hyde Park, checking out the lake

the duck-equivalent of a golddigger. This little guy would only come over to you if you held some food out in your hand. I swear, ducks are so cynical about human nature

the remnants of yesterday's Tour de France first stage. Still doesn't make anymore sense why they held it in London, but I guess Hyde Park can always use some more heavily-marketed events, it's really too peaceful as it is

the usual crowds and weird rants in Speaker's Corner

I guess a full day of sunshine would be too much to ask. Oh well, at least it didn't rain