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Monthly Archive for July, 2004
Watching the news, it’s hard to avoid the US political conventions. Ignoring politics, Clinton is an amazing speaker.
I remember years ago, on my graduate training scheme, we had a day of learning presentation skills. That evening, we had to prepare a presentation to give to everyone the next day. I was up, er, a little bit late, writing and practising my stunningly exciting presentation on the modulation of neutrophil function by anti-proteinases and caught one of Clinton’s State of the Union addresses. One of the things we were told on the course was to try to reduce the number of pausing words in a presentation. You know, the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’. I counted them in his speech. Zero. Reeto.
On the other hand, HKMacs has some Bush quotes.
My flight over was paid for by me, as I was coming home for a wedding, but then my company asked me to go into the London office for a week. So, I travelled economy, not being able to upgrade with air miles as I booked waaaaaaaay too late, and the flight was full …. except the two seats next to me! Result. Some people were eyeing it up, so I got my head down!
Flying over southern England at 6am ish, seeing mist and fog clinging to the ground from above was a strange sight. I saw this huuuuge white metal contruction thing. No idea what it was. I saw it again in the distance while watching the cricket of the telly. Still no idea, but then driving up to the wedding in Welwyn from Wimbledon (late as usual) we passed it and my mate told me what it was. The Venue of Legends. The Church of Fooball. The new Wembley Stadium. It’s bloody huge!
I’ve been in England for almost a week now. I’ve met up with old mates from University for the wedding and old work colleagues. They are all interested in how life is going in HK, but the question they all ask is: “When are you coming home?”
Being back here is great. The weather is remarkably good with lots of lovely ladies in summer dresses. Everything feels both familiar and strange. Being surrounded by the English language is good, but the latest things on the radio and TV are obviously unfamiliar, except Dirty Den is still on Eastenders and Harold Bishop is still on Neighbours!
The office is great. Office banter is one of the things I miss most, seeing as in HK, I work in a primarily local team, and pretty much I have no banter at all. Partly my fault, I don’t speak Cantonese, but I do work for an international company. Leaving the office at 6pm is not deemed way too early. Anyway.
Seems more expensive than it was. 50p for a can of Coke? Is that right? Books are cheap. £3 for Truecrime.
I don’t think I’ve been served in a shop or restaurant by an English person yet. They are all Europeans: French, Spanish, Swedish. What’s that all about then? And the service is pretty shit.
Anyway, I was starting to feel a little homesick, well not homesick, just missing a lot of things. Sports coverage is just great. The cricket on Channel Four. Oooof, Hawkeye.
But then there’s the news.
It’s full of murder, murder, murder, murder, murder, murder, shootings, theft, animal cruelty and police in the playground. What the fuck is going on?!
My mate told me about the run-ins he’s had over the last few months, just walking home. A bloke having a go at him and his girlfriend for their interracial relationship, and a gang of kids giving him abuse, having a go, and actually coming into his apartment complex.
So when am I coming ‘home’?
Not soon.
Here is a little flash thingy to show the “86,800 most frequently used English words, ranked in order of commonality.” The good news? Blog isn’t there.
The – 1
Shaky – 11742
Kaiser – 22231
The – 1
Snoop – 62340
I win! But not at Googlewar.
“the shakykaiser” is almost a Googlewhack. The rules say both words have to be in the dictionary. Strangely, shakykaiser isn’t.
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