Two Weeks, Three Bombs, and a Murder -- Welcome to London

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Living in London has a more dangerous feel than visiting it. For those of you who haven't heard, there have been a rash of bombings in London lately. The latest was in a pub in Soho Friday evening. Seventy people were injured and two killed. The bombings are believed to be the work of a white-supremacist wacko. In other news, a popular TV presenter for the BBC, Jill Dando, was shot and killed outside her home last week. There are rumours that it was the work of an underground Serbian faction.

My BBC identity card, which I used to think of as a badge of acceptance to a cool club, has taken on a more ominous aura. Security has been increased and the gauntlet of uniformed security I have to pass through to and from work is a recurring reminder that the all is not well in the Land of Windsor.

I've been here for two weeks now. I've spent most of my time at work. Goodness me, but there is much to learn in this world of ours. My brain is in danger of overfilling and spewing vital techno-factoids all over my keyboard.

It may be too soon to tell, but I believe I will grow to love my job. My co-workers are intelligent, creative, dedicated and fun. Many of the sites are excellent. The objectives behind them are laudable and most aspects of the site are well-organised. It's fun being part of something big. So far, I haven't done much. My time has been spent filling my brain, quality-checking sites, posting files, and writing javascript functions and perl cgis. I suspect I will not have much creative input. Ultimately, I suspect that I am there to hold the site together and to manage some of the more technical aspects of the site.

There is a site going quasi-live this Saturday, May 1, at 5pm which I had some small effect on. It is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/knowledge/ The reason I say it is going quasi-live is that it has not been publicised at all yet. It may not, in fact, go live at all, as we just finished setting everything up at 9pm Friday night and there is a magical little program which will shuffle some files around and make it go live at the scheduled time (hopefully). If it doesn't, it will be entirely my fault and I will be using the last remnants of my shattered VISA card to flee the country and scrounge up a treeplanting job under an assumed name.

On the knowledge site, my bits are the countdown timer at the top of the home page and the program that generates the responses by the character completely unofficially known as 'Spike', whom you can ask questions of. Both of these were someone else's ideas. I don't think anything up. I just write code when they ask for it.

On the domestic living-in-a-flat in London front, there has been much to learn as well. To pay for my gas and electricity I have to take two separate electronic keys to two separate locations (both busy corner stores) and have a credit applied to the key. I then have to take these keys and stick them in two separate meters in my building so that I won't run out of electricity or gas. The electric meter isn't in too bad a location. It is in the basement of the building. The gas meter, however, is on the outside of the building in the foyer of one of the basement apartments. The entrance is barred by a nipple-high, padlocked, wrought iron gate. So, to charge my gas meter, I have to climb over this gate, down into some stranger's foyer, and stick my electronic key in a slot. This irritates me.

My flat, itself, is pleasant. It's on the first (or second in North American terms) floor. It's a one bedroom so when Vicki is here, we can hide from each other if need be. It has twelve foot ceilings, a small kitchen and a bay window in the front room which looks obliquely down a quiet residential street. Much of the view is obscured by the leaves of an enormous chestnut tree. Most of the walls in the apartment are whitish, some are R Angus orange, and some ochre. The carpet is shrewdly dirt-coloured. The location is perfect (at least for me). It is just South of Shepherd's Bush Green on a quiet residential street. I can walk to BBC - White City in less than 20 minutes, the nearest tube station (Shepherd's Bush on the Central line) in less than five) and there are many shops etc. nearby. And, being London, there are many things to do. The other day, I almost popped in to see Tom Petty who was playing at a theatre I walk by on my way to and from work. But, after spirited negotiations with a ticket tout, I realised that he still wanted the equivalent of more than fifty dollars for a ticket so I started to bark like a dog and hump his leg until he ran off.

One negative aspect of my new living arrangements is that the beautiful and vivacious Vicki Thoms is living in Lancaster. However, she is in London this bank holiday weekend and is now done her bath. Tomorrow we are off to the Kandinsky exhibit at the Royal Academy. Tonight, we're considering a movie, a dance show, or the opera 'Carmen'. But right now, we must shop. I need a shower curtain and Vicki needs some shoes.