I received another email from the transcript office:

Dear Sir

As you have not completed your degree we are unable to provide you with transcripts. We have contacted the Transcripts Office at King's College London (0207 848 3410) and they said that they are unable to provide you with transcripts as well. They said that your department can provide you with Confiramtion of Study. Please contact them on 0207 848 2343.

A full refund will be made in due course.

I guess I'll have to scramble again on Monday.

There are some pretty stark differences between London School of Economics and King's. For one thing, LSE has a labrynthine campus, but a campus it has. King's is spread all over London. The med school is at London Bridge, the business school is at Waterloo, the "main" campus is on the Strand. The "campus" on the Strand (which is the name of a street) consists of two purpose built buildings that are built up against each other and then a bunch of former hotels that are linked to these buildings by enclosed walkways. Not for nothing is this architectural mishmash regularly voted one of the ugliest schools in the UK. It does contain a beautiful chapel, which is something of a cross between byzantine and victorian pre-raphaelite in style, but the exterior of this can only be seen from the windows of some of the former hotels (the whole structure encloses significant space).
Everything is kind of thrown together too. In one "hotel", there might be the Byzantine Studies, Portuguese, and Film Studies departments. One of the basements might have the muslim prayer room, a physics lab, and formerly Maurice Wilkins' lab.

Speaking of Mo, when I first got here and was meeting people I was trying to endear myself to a rather attractive biochemistry postgrad. I started trying to dazzle her with my knowledge of variable tertiary structure in proteins, and moving on, I mentioned:

Did you know that Maurice Wilkins still works here and you can still see him now and again walking around the basement? (as in fact, I had when I was here previously)

Maurice Wilkins is dead.

When did he die?

Last year (Sure enough, on the wall of famous people associated with King's, the inscription that read, "Maurice Wilkins 1916 - 200(4)", the 4 being just painted in over the brackets.)

Needless to say, I never heard from her again.

In any event, LSE, actually has a campus. There are several contiguous victorian-ish buildings built along a small windy street, making the institution look far older than its 100 years. King's by comparison looks like new community college with its concrete and glass facade.

The differences don't end there. King's was founded well, by the King... it is associated with the Anglican Church. LSE was founded by the Fabians who were a socialist group intent on transforming the world through propaganda (and their goals met with a large degree of success).

LSE is certainly more pretigious... everyone from JFK to Soros having attended. If you walk into king's today, you see a lot of normal people. Middle class South Asians studying medicine, upper class Middle Easterners and nerdy East Asians taking engineering, homely looking East Asian girls taking computer science, bored Englishmen taking classics. Of course there is an Asian girl in the classics department, and an Englishman in Engineering. I should hope the limitations of generalizations would be abundantly clear to anyone.

LSE on the other hand. Everyone is attractive. They are dressed to the nines in a sort of nerdy-weezer-esque-retro-pretentious cool sort of way. No East Asians speaking broken English there, they all have upper-crust British accents, and you can be sure they all play the violin and speak at least two other Indo-European languages. No unshaven Middle Easterners wearing skullcaps, rather well dressed Arabs reading Chomsky in the bar. All the children of privilege from all over the world being inculcated with the same ideas.

Far from being socialist, these are people who with their considerable economic clout, tossed in their laps, will control the destiny of much of humanity. With the ideas they get in this environment, they will shape societies from Taiwan to Trinidad... we mortals are so lucky.

Bertrand Russell would be very happy indeed.

orz

Tonight is the height of the Leonids. Since obviously I can't see them, those of you at home should do yourself a favor and go look up at the sky tonight.

I've been neglecting my blogging duties, but I HAVE almost finished my paper and caught up with my Greek, as well as finishing an application.

I also found time to go to Rousseau and Munch exhibitions last weekend. I don't have much to say about Rousseau. I like his paintings aesthetically... jungles and tigers and shit. Other than that, pretty typical French stuff.

Munch on the other hand, is fascinating. His self portraits (Holding a cigarette, in Hell, Salome, etc.) depict a sort of isolation and loneliness that I think is all too relevant in our post communal world. At least it's relevant to me...though I try to keep something in Pandora's box. I see now how much he influenced Ingmar Bergman movies such as "Wild Strawberries."

If you have a preference as to which artist you prefer, I may take that into account when sending postcards. (Or send me your address if I haven't yet sent you one!)

Three foxes outside my window!!! I've seen one in the sticks in Indiana (ok, my backyard)... and now I see three of them in Bethnal Green. It's not the sticks of south London where I would see them before; this part of London has been highly urbanized for 200 years.

When I return from the US, I'm bringing Leo and Penny, and a bugle!

Armistice Day.... or as it's now called in Britain, Remembrance Day. Everyone is walking around with paper or plastic poppies in their lapels in tribute to those soldiers who fought for their ideals.

...while at the same time sending more of them to die in a totally counter-productive war. I think that the bombings in Jordan are the strongest repudiation yet of the Iraq war. There were no Iraqi terrorists while Saddam was there... granted he was gassing Kurds... but we certainly could have threatened him with, oh... nuclear annihilation. I can't believe that Moustapha Akkad was blown up in Amman...does that mean there will be no Halloween 9?

Meanwhile, do Americans even recognize that it's Veteran's Day? I have to admit, I'm far more aware of a holiday on this date living here in England than I ever was in America (except perhaps when my yiayia gave me stern lecture regarding the sacrifices of our troops). I read that there are only EIGHT American servicemen from WWI still receiving pensions. Society has changed in ways most of us probably don't even comprehend over the past 100 years, and our links to the past, to the old world of faith, pattern, place, tradition are nearly dead. I shudder to think when we lost the "greatest generation" as well... they are the builders and destroyers, united and the partisan... but most of all, the deprived and the determined. Without their optimism, we surely wouldn't have been granted the civilities or the orderliness of the society in which we live in today.

I'm tired and don't feel like writing much, and so falling back on abstraction. Though really, what is going to happen when no one can remember the Depression? That there were people going door to door for food who WANTED to work? That there might not be tires for the car because the Japanese have Indonesia? That there might not be panty hose because the nylon is needed for parachutes? No one remembers everyone going to church on Sunday? Diners serving vegetarian meals for Lent? Driving across the country on national highways in a car without a heater during the dead of winter? And a million other things I can't even conceive of...

Looks like Arnold isn't the only politician getting his comeuppance. Tony Blair's big terrorism bill was defeated in parliament. The sticking point seemed to be the provision to hold suspected terrorists for 90 days without charging them.

Agree with it or not, the reasons for its defeat are ridiculous. Essentially, the Tories voted against it solely to undermine Blair's authority. Thus, they can undercut the authority of the government, which is the Labour party. Then some of the Labour mp's broke ranks just to spite Blair due to their opposition to the Iraq war in general.

So whether Blair becomes a lame duck like Bush seemingly will... early in their respective terms... remains to be seen.

Certainly the flaws of parliamentary democracy are exposed when the parties betray their goals for the sole purpose of taking political powers.

I think that Konstantin Pobedonostsev most clearly enunciated the flaws in such a political system. Some of it applies to American democracy as well. While he is a bit conservative, even for me, he surely represents the level of intellectualism that should inform modern conservatives to this day. It's hard to argue with such precision and lucidity... and while he perhaps didn't HAVE to living in an autocracy, he represented ideology that was not only internally consistent but unwilling to sacrifice itself upon the altar of power.

It's 5:15 and sunlight is but a memory here. It feel like about 10 pm.

I think there will be a paucity of longer posts for awhile... as much because I lack the time to create funny stories as because I don't have time to write them. If I can get my essays done this semester, along with the LSAT, and a start on my thesis, the new year will be a lot better... I can't believe I'll be going home for Christmas in just over a month!

They are having a pretty crazy "scandal" here. Labour vastly reformed the House of Lords a few years ago. Most of the hereditary peers were sent packing, and now the parties each have the ability to nominate members to the upper house. (Granted this is all rather academic as the Lords were castrated by the WWI era reforms.) In any event, a peerage is essentially now for sale. The list people nominated to the Lords is nearly identical to the list of people who donate more than 250,000 pounds to each party. The Times is making a big deal about it, but no one seems to really care.

It's similar to "Mittalgate," when one of the richest men in the world, Lakshmi Mittal, the spice trader (ok, I read that in an editorial in the Times and didn't realize that papers here are allowed to make false statements in the name of sarcasm... I was duped by my lack of cultural astuteness... he is actually a steel magnate) who rented the palace of Versailles for his daughter's wedding and bought the most expensive house ever ($128,000,000), gave 2,000,000 quid to Labour and then Tony Blair conveniently wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of Romania to let Mittal open a factory on significantly favorable terms.

As for American political issues, it looks as if Bush really fucked over both sides of the Republican party. Both the libertarians and the social conservatives faced a backlash in the election. Honestly, Libby writing porn... launching a war on false pretenses...hiring a literal malaka (gay prostitute) to pose as a reporter... trying to fund a NUCLEAR BOMB (the "bunker buster"... congress at least had the sense to nix that) that can kill ONE person. If someone is THAT far under the earth, I'd say they're pretty well neutralized. I don't care if it's Beezelbub hiding down there... you don't need to nuke him. Is that supposed to somehow scare guys like Quadaffi and Il???? WE'RE SO FUCKING CRAZY WE'LL NUKE YOUR ASS.... PERSONALLY. They could just turn the Hindu-Kush into a gravel pit looking for Bin Laden....

It's not as if ANY leader can escape moral compromises, but are they all this incompetent at it? And aren't there ANY people he can hire who are not as sleazy as Libby, Cheyney, Rumsfeld, et al. Rumsfeld doesn't even seem to realize the cold war is over.

No more shelling here, but yet ANOTHER night of riots in Paris. It seems they are all over France now, as well as in Brussels (sorry Ted, no waffels and chocolate for you), and Berlin! If the shit goes down here, I'll be in the thick of it. I'm just glad that they are Bengalis who live here and not Pakistanis. The Bengalis generally aren't very big people and I think I could hold my own, but a couple of big Punjabis and I'd be in trouble. Hopefully, they'll think I'm Turkish as well.. and being swarthy will finally pay off.

In all seriousness though, everything seems pretty calm here. While there are always kids standing around, probably up to no good, I never really feel endangered (as the only Greek) here. I don't think the situation in London is as bad as in some of the industrial cities in the north of England, where economic hardship has been particularly tough on the immigrant communities.

Today is my giorti.

Thanks to everyone for remembering. Χρονια Πολλα to me!

More fireworks! I guess the seige hasn't been broken yet. Well, I suppose it's better than Paris.


Surely the bane of modern man is filling out forms. Granted, it's better than the alternative, some super database containing all information on every single person, accessible by anyone with permission. Though really, is there a need to fill out paper forms just to be able to buy a quart of milk for ten pence less? Or do I HAVE to fill out a long form for my transcript as opposed to walking into the office of transcripts (they don't have a simple "registrar" here) and having the secretary push a button and print it off? For that matter, why can't they just send it electronically to anyone who needs it.

This has been yet another very frustrating day for me. I got yet ANOTHER letter from the bank, just like the first, that said my standing order could not be completed because there is no standing order and enclosing a copy of my standing order. So I went to a different branch of Lloyd's and the woman took one look at it and said that I wrote the routing number on the wrong line, indicating it was a repeat standing order (it didn't seem to say that though) and took care of it. Hopefully... I'll see if it went through tomorrow.

Then there is the transcript issue.... I need transcripts for applications I'm making right now. Deadlines are approaching. I sent out for all of them three weeks ago. My American transcripts have arrived. I was a bit curious why my King's transcript had not. They have kind of an odd system. They DO have an online application form... but you can elect to have them call you when it's ready and then you come pick it up, which I did. Well 3 weeks and no call. So today I call them, and that lady says she was "just" processing my form, but that I had to get my transcript from the University of London because I am in a federal program.

So I email them and get this:

HIS IS AN AUTOMATED REPLY IT DOES NOT GUARANTEE THAT YOUR
MESSAGE HAS BEEN READ
*********************************************************
This is an automated reply.



Thank you for your understanding during this period.

*********************************************************
Thank you for contacting the University of London Transcripts
Office; your message has been received.

You should be aware that the Transcripts Office is extremely busy at present and it may take some time to respond to your enquiry.

Your patience is appreciated at this very busy time.

We will endeavour to respond to any email within 5 working days.

If you have requested application forms for transcripts/letters confirming your award, please assist us by ensuring that your mailbox will accept attachments up to 95KB in size.

If you are enquiring regarding the whereabouts of requested documents you should note that payment is taken upon receipt of application. There will therefore be a delay between funds being taken and the issue of the documents.

The transcripts office is extremely busy at present and processing may take many weeks from receipt of application.


What the HELL? It takes many weeks when Indiana University with a student body of 50,000 can do it in a day? So I call..and get an automated message to the same end... and so I call again.. and get an answer... and the lady says she can email me the application form for the transcript... there is no way to do it in person. So I get the application. It informs me that I canNOT fax it, only post it... and that it will be 20 quid!?!?!

So fuck me.

The shelling continues. This is almost an entire week of fireworks. Twelve year-old Angelus would be in heaven. If only I were still satisfied by minor explosions.

There is a second funny story I have about the "Call on Me" video (below). When I was in the swanky St. Clerans Manor with the stinky Thai and the 'merican... we decided to take afternoon tea. As instructed we waited in the "library". On the plasma tv, the video came on. While my American companions were suitably shocked, and I pretended to be knowingly amused (as a function of my sophistication), the waitress came in with our tea.... or rather, with a tray loaded with tea, scones, and the other requisite sundries. Perhaps due to the formalism of the room, or perhaps because the waitress was wearing a black maid's outfit (not too far off from the sexy maid costume that cool guy's girlfriends wear during Halloween), Pinsuda and I started squirming in the couches and giggling. THIS rather than the "explicit" nature of the video was the probable cause of what happened next. The waitress/maid spilled the thick jersey cream all over the table.

She had an excessive amount of trouble cleaning it up... each swipe of the towel only seemed to smear a thicker sheet of creamy goo over the table. But she was absolutely non-chalant about the video. We were the only ones nervous about watching soft-porn in a 200 euro a night hotel.

I went to a lecture in the British Museum yesterday about modern urban archaeology in Istanbul.... It is unfathomable that in 2005, there are still people hacking 600 year old crosses to pieces... The Turks really don't deserve it... I know that is the last thing I should EVER say. It is totally counter-productive. After all, Byzantium is THEIR heritage too.

The archaeologist who gave the speech said that he was not allowed into the Byzantine crypt of the Fatih Mosque (ie the Mosque of the Conqueror)... He said this is because the Imam told him that Mehmet II is actually buried THERE.. not in his mausoleum. The irony and hypocrisy is too thick! The Fatih Mosque is built on the ruins of the Church of the Holy Apostles, which was the burial place of the Byzantine Emperors! (and was torn down by the Ottomans for the mosque) It just goes to show the Turks' role as successors to Byzantium....whether they... or the Greeks want to admit it.


All that said, I hope the modern Turkish government allows excavations.... They obviously want (and have a right) to modernize their city...but that doesn't mean the past should be lost with every new subway line. As of now, there are still megalithic Byzantine columns lying around in alleyways and backyards.... record it before it is too late!

London is like Baghdad tonight. Mortar shells have been lighting up the sky for hours, seemingly incessantly. A near constant cadence of explosions increasing from one night to the next for the past week, punctuated only by the brief hours of daylight. It can all only mean one thing, a British display of anti-Catholic fervor.

What else could unite the Brits with all their former colonial subject immigrants? I was in a Turkish convenience store last night and a Bangladeshi bloke in a crumpled linen suit and fedora (I wonder if he was interviewing for IU med school?) said to me:

"Hey boss, how bout you get me the big motherfucker out of the case."

blank stare (wonders.... people in England say "motherfucker"?)

"Oh, you don't work here? You look like them."

That's the last thing I want to hear. Though the store did sell Greek as well as Turkish Cypriot products...

I was mistaken in a previous post. Fireworks are not illegal here. It is quite odd that in an urban environment, people can buy rockets the size of a football and shoot them off anywhere. And people certainly do indulge. Every newstand has a glass case stuffed with 100 shot mortars, rockets, and roman candles, some of them costing upwards of 80 pounds! This isn't the most affluent part of town...so it's a bit suprising to see people spending such vast amounts of money on fireworks. I guess it must be the money they save on dentistry.

There has been quite a bit in the news here lately about the Gunpowder Plot. What if it had succeeded? Most revisionists claim it would have resulted in a fundamentalist and autocratic Protestant monarchy. They don't give the plot any chance of actually fomenting a revolution.

(For those who don't know: The plot was to blow up Parliament w/ the King in it and then kidnap his daughter and put her on the throne as a Catholic, while raising rebellion in the Midlands)

Some even compare Fawkes to Mohammed Atta and the plot to 9/11. I think the argument that King James I and the aristocracy were innocent civilians is a bit thin. After all, it had been the upper classes of England who had suppressed the Catholic Church and turned Catholics into second class citizens over the previous 60 years. The country had been forcibly converted at the whim of the King. One could just as easily argue that the comparison is more favorable to the American revolutionaries (remember that little terrorist incident in Boston?), or the Free French during WWII.

If we are going to compare them to al-Quaeda then we should also remember what happened to the plotters. Fawkes himself was taken to the Tower of London and tortured for 3 days on the rack (at the King's personal orders) then executed...the rest were hunted down by Protestant militias and executed. I guess things don't really change all that much.

I've read there is a pretty cool celebration in Lewes where they have bonfire societies. Each one dresses up in a particular costume (Tudor, Mongol, etc.) and makes a specific effigy. Most are topical (bin Laden seems to be a favorite) but one is always Guy Fawkes and one is always the pope. They are then burned in huge fires to a huge fireworks display.

I didn't get to see any effigy burning myself. I'm not even sure where it's done. I didn't go to any official fireworks displays (this is the main day of fireworks in the UK), but the show out my window wasn't too bad.

I'll leave with the FULL text of the rhyme:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
'twas his intent
to blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!


A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!

Yeah, so the British and their infernal rule. It's hard to bust out the Brits, because it really IS difficult to overstate their influence and role in the development of the modern world. But that doesn't mean the country isn't fuckall unorganized.

Continuing on... The school sent me an invoice for accommodation. That is interesting because I'm not staying in university accommodation and have no desire to pay 3000 pound for it. In fact, when I wanted it, they told me it was full and would by no means be available this semester. Then they called me the day I signed my Faustian contract and told me they had space (I get so frustrated about the flat/landlord, I don't want to go into all the details here for fear I'll have a stroke in my chair). On top of this they charged me about double for tuition. And to think I want to get a law degree here.

How is it possible that my schools in the US can get transcripts to me faster than King's? You have to sign up for it online and then they call you to come pick it up when its ready.

I think for the most part people are lazy here and the culture that prevents complaints or challenges to authority also prevents any oversight or accountability.

Then there is the student travel card. Well, I got it today... so perhaps I should just leave it at that.. only a month late this time. And after all, I DID have the first one sent to a girl's house just so I could see her again... so I guess I got what I deserved. It seems to be what I always deserve when it comes to those.


I'm
NOT going to Barcelona. Better to grow up late than never. I mean I will go to Barcelona, just not on Monday. If I really had any friends, they'd send me some pizza 'spress cheeseticks.

Yesterday, I went to see the Patriarch of Constantinople speak at the London School of Economics. There is no way I could but be excited about this. The patriarchate is, after all, an institution going back into antiquity (the 4th century at least). This man holds an office that stretches back person to person through such great men as George Scholarius, St. Photios, and St. John Chrysostom. Though, I think even the patriarch has given up on the mythology that the first bishop of Byzantium was St. Andrew the Apostle.

Regardless, he is the Archbishop of Nova Roma, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, and in a very real way, the last official of the Roman Empire (in a way that even the pope isn't). Though many would roll their eyes at a statement like that, I make no apologies.

Needless to say my expectations were pretty high. In a way, there is no way he could live up to them, while at the same time, there is no way I could be disappointed because of WHAT he is, as opposed to WHO he is.

So I think I can say that his speech was a disappointment, but his presence was not. That sounds like the rambling of a superstitious fool. So be it. Just because I expected something like the Easter Sermon of John Chrysostom doesn't mean he was going to produce it. That, by the way, is in my opinion one of the most powerful pieces of rhetoric ever written. We listen to it every Easter when the priest reads it. The priest also reads an encyclical from the local bishop and the Patriarch, at which point I am usually more focused on eating lamb and magieritsa. So why I thought he would be a brilliant speaker in person...

I was pretty impressed by the number of people who wanted to see him. The LSE theater was packed and I barely got in because I didn't have a ticket and was on standby. There were of course many Greeks there. But there were also lots of English, Indians, Chinese... I was surprised at how little Russian, Serbian, and Romanian I heard. I noticed some of the Indians had a cross tattooed between their index finger and thumb (which Indian and Egyptian Orthodox seem to frequently have), but most of them seemed non-Orthodox.

The Greeks there were, unfortunately, being quite haughty. They apparently don't know what the Oikoumene (ecumenical) of Christianity is. He isn't the "Greek" patriarch after all. And I don't think that English converts really want to be lectured about the importance of Greeks to Christianity or to be patronized as being totally ignorant of their chosen religion. I happened to overhear this sort of conversation while standing in line. More than once... Just the type of thing that lets other people know that we are not an ethnocentric religion of superstitious nationalists.

The Patriarch himself is not of this line of thinking. In fact, he is not particularly well liked by more conservative elements of Greek society. I was expecting a pan-Orthodox speech.

But that is not what I got. The speech he gave was more the speech of a European diplomat than a religious prelate... I realize that he was speaking at the £$€, but he is still supposed to be the spiritual father of 300,000,000 people... the representative of their spiritual truth.

But it wasn't a speech of divine truth. He spoke in general terms of how religion is beneficial to the EU, how EU citizens are more religious than the media portrays them (52% believe in God he said..not too comforting), how the EU is great and "religion" can and will thrive and not oppose anything Brussels does, how he has personally taken part in many interfaith dialogues (what exactly does he talk about or accomplish with the Grand Mufti of Damascus or the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem... "Hey, we totally disgree about the metaphysical nature of reality, but we both wear silly hats! Let's drink some tea.) and environmental initiatives (ok, this really is laudable, most Orthodox countries are experiencing vast economic development and could try to be more than a bit more environmentally conscious), and finally, how Turkey should be part of the EU.

I'm not sure I agree with Turkey's accession. For one thing, their historical revisionism is a bit much to stomach. If Germany will forever be tainted with their role in WWII.. Turkey should at least have to ADMIT its role in the massacres of Greeks and Bulgarians at the turn of the century and of course its genocide of Armenians during WWI. An admission of ethnic cleansing of Greeks in Constantinople and Thrace during state organized pogroms (complete with secret laws to disenfranchise them) in 1955 would be nice too.

Historical factors aside, the Turks need to deal with their oppression of the Kurds and of religious minorities. There is no reason for the Turks to legally compel the Patriarch to be elected from native born Turkish citizens while also not allowing a seminary to function in the country. Nor should they refuse to recognize him as Ecumenical (in the government's eyes, he is only a local bishop). Furthermore, they should discourage the constant harassment he faces.


I'm sure he knows more about this than I do. I'm also sure he has to say certain things to appease the Sublime Porte (er.. the government of Turkey). And to be certain, he is embodying Christ's own words to love one's enemies. So I can accept his political positions even though I may not agree with them.

On the other hand, he didn't even start his speech with a prayer... and he spoke in generalities so as not to offend the sensibilities of the Europeans. I guess, I just wanted more... something to re-invigorate my own sense of purpose and inspire me. And that, I didn't get. I still think he's a good and holy person, but not necessarily one that can bridge Orthodoxy and the modern world.

It is rather nice too, that he spoke at the London School of Economics, founded by the atheistic Fabians (who favoured destroying religion) such as George Bernanrd Shaw and Bertrand Russell. Not that I would scoff at getting a degree there...

SO maybe I shouldn't look at the experience as an intellectual triumph of EU bureaucracy over Byzantine spirituality...but just the opposite. If something is Truth, it doesn't really need anyONE.

This has been a much belabored theme for me, but how did these people EVER rule a quarter of the globe????????????

Today my roommate gets a vexed call from Mark, the landlord's handyman/manager/enforcer/toadie claiming that not all of the rent is payed. It turns out that the shortage comes on my end. This is inconceivable to me, as I was the second of us to set up a standing order with the bank to ensure my rent is payed. In fact, I received a letter from them yesterday which I didn't bother to read until today. When I read this letter today it said:


"Thank you for your standing order request. Unfortunately we have been unable to act upon your request. This is because there is no standing order to amend. We are enclosing a copy of the following:

A copy of your standing order

Please send us the information required, to enable us to help you."

What the fuck is this??? Some sort of lesson in existentialist banking? Am I supposed to ponder the mysteries of moving money that only exists conceptually as numbers in a computer? I still can't make head nor tail of it.

Actually, I can. Here is my translation:

"The teller who took your standing order was too fucking lazy to process it. After all, it was tea time. This is the UK, and companies do not take complaints here. Ergo, fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Enjoy this great inconvenience."

So I had to trundle through the rain to the bank to straighten this out. Of course, this was a great time for the zipper on my backpack to totally come apart and spew my papers all over the street. (and I really wanted to buy a new one to replace the one I just bought 2 weeks ago) In any event, I give the letter and the copy of the standing order to the teller at Lloyd's. The conversation goes a bit like this:

Teller: I don't understand this.
Me: That makes two of us.
Teller: But this IS the standing order.
Me: And yet, it apparently isn't.
Teller: This is my signature on the bottom... did I help you before?
Me: Well I don't think "helped" would be an appropriate word to use. (ok I didn't really say that... I did make a wiseass comment about existentialism though that went over her head)
Teller: What do you want me to do?
Me: Well, I still need this order filled.
Manager: Do you have internet banking.
Me: Yes, but I've nev....
Manager: WELLTHATWOULDJUSTBEEASIER
Me: Can't YOU just do it here?
Teller: You want me to re-fax it.
Me: Yes, I would like that.



So whether or not the landlord will actually get the money from my account, I don't know. To be honest, I dont' really give a fuck. He has been a bastard... left us without a shower for WEEKS, lied to us (well his shifty agent did) about which appliances we would have, and left the place filthy. Furthermore, he won't even condescend to speak to any of us.. though I've written him a letter of complaint. If he really wanted his money on time, he should have given me his bank details more than 3 days before rent was due. I missed class today as it was (that motherfucker).

I'm certainly not setting up a joint account with my roomates... The landlord certainly hasn't made MY life any easier. The thing that really pisses me off about this is it knocks down my clout with my flatmates. Now *I* am the guy who was late with rent.. and when I try to bitch about them cleaning, paying bills, buying necessities, not making their German girlfriend moan all to holy hell... they're going to tell me I didn't pay the rent!


I also went to see the Patriach of Constantinople give a speech tonight... more on that tomorrow.

For now, here is something for my favorite Thai with smelly feet and favorite girl who is dating a Thai:



Memories of Europe


This one is even better.

And to think these weren't hits stateside!

Next week is reading week. That is when students are supposed to catch up on their schoolwork... I have a 3,500 word essay due the following week. I've only done preliminary reading and the professor wrote a book about it....

So I'm going to Barcelona for three days.

Ok, it is 4:20 and the sun is almost down. Stupid daylight savings. Ok, stupid that it ENDS now. By December, it will be dark at 3:30 and I will be in the Valley of Despond.

All Saints Day in good ole' Britannia. It's sunny, the church bells are peeling and the streets are filled with well dressed worshippers heading from service to dinner...contemplating the glorious deeds and martyrdoms of their righteous forebears. Maybe in 19...er 1804...

Perhaps I should try to absorb a bit more of the religious culture here. Between the main campus building and the library, I walk by two exquisite Georgian churches, neither of which have I ever entered. The campus itself is home to a very fine Byzantine style chapel (which is probably a century old) which I have also never entered. There is a service tonight for All Saints Day, but I won't go because I'm not dressed for it and want to go to the gym with enough time to read 10 hagiographies (the irony), translate a page of Plato, and take a practice LSAT, before class tomorrow.

With so much distraction in a big city, it is easy to fixate on the Valley of Despond without so much as glancing at the House Beautiful. I really should find some time for a bit less self-indulgent introspection.

And yes, I've been reading "The Pilgrim's Progress". Not quite as good as"The Way of a Pilgrim, thus far. I was hoping it would give me some sort of insight into English people, but I think that Bunyan's Calvinism is long dead here. It can only bee seen in the Korean and African immigrants who come back here to teach their former teachers.

Still, it is a compelling (if in my opinion somewhat flawed) ideology and has certain profitable points.

I have never read it before because as a child, I was forced to watch a movie version of it at the Baptist school I attended. The movie scared the piss out of me... all the people Christian meets along the way at first appear kindly and comforting and suddenly morph into low budget horror. Ahhhh.. Mr. Worldly-wise isn't a nice old grandpa, he's a red eyed demon trying to steal my soul!

This is a similar effect.
















I don't know how I fall for that shit again and again. Its like the "there's something on your shirt" trick... if it's been long enough since someone's done it I nearly always fall for it.

I really hate Halloween. Not because it's pagan, or the priest says we shouldn't celebrate it, but because I never get to go to a costume party with a girl in the sexy nurse outfit. Not that I even get invited to swanky costume parties, but if I did, they would still suck because I'd be going alone... as Pagliacci. Maybe it's payback for all the tee-peeing I did as a youngster. Or maybe if I wanted sexy nurses, I should have stayed at the IU med center, and worked hard, and gotten a surgery or dermatology residency. Another check that will never be made on the life-list. I'll have to settle for the 43 things Amazon.com can sell me.

Tonight I heard explosions and chanting of "Allahu Akbar" outside off my window. I'm not going to lie, I thought the worst. But it was actually a weird coincidence. The fireworks were early Guy Fawkes revelers (fireworks are supposedly illegal here.. but people light bigger stuff on the street here than I ever see in good old Indiana) and when I went to my window to check, young children streaming out of the nearby elementary school. (Yes, I have the misfortune of also living next to an elementary school; as if anyone was coming to visit anyway) They must have been having some sort of early Eid celebration?

I was a bit embarrassed at my reaction, but I will preface it with what happened last week. I was in Chinatown and all of a sudden the waiter tells me to get away from the window. I see colored light bouncing off the ceiling and tell him I want to get out of there. He leads me out a back stairway into an alley. Out in the open I see that the Leicester Square tube stop is surrounded by police tape in a radius of about 200 yards. As I briskly walk away, I hear a sound reminiscent of dropping a firecracker in a garbage can. False alarm, but disconcerting nonetheless.

A few more observations about Ireland:

Flying from Chicago with a layover in Boston and then driving across the island in a manual Fiat on the wrong side of the road for the first time is a pretty Herculean task. Pretty impressive.

Ireland is the first country I've ever been to where people don't look at me like I'm a Martian when I tell them my name. EVERYONE recognized it and could pronounce it. Luckily I have a good Catholic name.. and the public tv station stops at 12 pm and 6 pm everyday for the Angelus prayer. If only other countries were so well organized.


Some of the people were difficult to understand, but the bilingualism is a sham. Most public signs of any consequence are in English only. I have to agree with my roommate that the signs of various locations are only in Gaelic to appease tourists and maybe nationalists (Brussels will make short work of that sentiment). Despite taking it for 14 years in school... no one can seem to speak the language. If they were serious about it, they could do it. The Jews resurrected Hebrew after all.