Real Londoners?

Are we real Londoners now/ On Saturday night, the end of Diwali, there were fireworks going off all over the city, especially here in Brent where there is a large Hindu temple. Holly and I were planning on going to a library event at the beginning of Diwali. We forgot about it. Then last night, when the fireworks were exploding continuously for hours, I thought about walking in the direction of the most intense concussions to see what there was to see. But we were both nursing colds. Holly has a chapter she's writing, and I'm behind on writing and sending chapters for my novel, so in the end we stayed home and worked.

That's right. Even though we heard the fireworks going off steadily from about six until nearly midnight, even though there was an colorful religious celebration going on nearby, we didn't change our routine. Diwali was just part of the normal background activity of the city. We stayed home. Real Londoners.

Or perhaps, since we were staying home and keeping our noses to the grindstone on a Saturday night, what we really demonstrated is that we are work-obsessed Americans.

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I ran into a neighbor at the corner store. I told him that I was finally getting Internet at home, so he wouldn't be seeing me on the street so much. “The weather's driving you to it at last, is it?” I explained that we'd been trying for weeks to get Internet, but were having a hard time with BT. “What, they won't take your money?” No, I earnestly explained, at first we couldn't get a phone line at all. Then it didn't work. Then...

After we parted, I realized that perhaps he was gently teasing me, and I --- self-conscious about my role as Bruce Bluetooth, Internet pirate --- was taking him all to seriously and sounding far too defensive. At one point, he had re-directed his remarks to Samee (at the cash register) instead of me, and Samee, apparently quicker on the uptake, smiled as if to acknowledge a joke.

British culture is just different enough from my own American culture that I sometimes feel socially stunted here. It's a bit like being a socially awkward teenager again. I miss cues and signals. I understand the words, but I'm still not getting the message. I am the only man on the cricket pitch with a baseball mitt.

It is a Big City, After All

I've been quiet here lately, in large part because I am blogging elsewhere about my experiences at the recent Frankfurt Book Fair. ( http://bruce-h-r.livejournal.com ) Also, my online access is more restricted now, and in a way, it's all BT's fault.

I've been posting here about our various difficulties in getting first a phone connection, then DSL Internet. British Telecom had us on record as getting Internet from them, which we weren't, so they were blocking the efforts of another provider from turning on our line. BT also started sending us bills for this service that they weren't providing us. The provider that we do want to work with had to go to some extraordinary lengths to get BT to allow their connection. Six weeks after beginning to order broadband for our flat, we may actually have it in a few more days. Maybe.

Meanwhile, the most convenient way for me to teach through the Whidbey Writers MFA website and to receive and send e-mail has been to walk to where I can access the wireless connections of some of my neighbors from the street.

A few nights ago, I was out at 11:30 sending some follow-up messages from the Frankfurt Book Fair. In order to be minimally intrusive to my neighbors, I was across the street next to the park fence rather than on the sidewalk directly outside of their homes. Generally, I feel reasonably comfortable and safe in our area, so I hadn't really thought much about questions of, say, having an escape route.

A car containing four young men pulled to the curb right in front of me. I think they must have driven past once, seen the laptop, and circled back. Now they were very clearly sizing me up and looking over the laptop. If a neighbor hadn't pulled up at that moment and started to parallel park a few feet away, I think I'd have been separated from my laptop, forcibly if necessary.

So I no longer work outside after sunset.

Upcoming: Holly and I begin to navigate the bureaucratic waters of the National Health Service.

Fuse Wire...and More Kindness of Londoners

Holly and I always plan to start our packing earlier for our next trip, and we always wind up packing at the last minute because there are so many other things that need doing before we go away. Our recent trip to Germany was no different. We found ourselves hurrying at ten at night to fill up our suitcases and catch a few hours of sleep before our early departure. And the lights failed. The fuse had gone.

But we had been through this before. I had that supply of fuse wire that I had bought in Petersfield. All we had to do was light a candle, find the fuse wire, and...

Where was the fuse wire? I had left it on the shelf right next to the fuse box where it would be easy to find. Holly had straightened up those shelves and organized their contents. Did she remember seeing the wire? It wouldn't look like much, just a piece of printed cardboard. In fact, if it were folded shut, you might not see that it contained wire at all. You might mistake it for a stray piece of cardboard. You might put it in the recycling bin...

There we were, half packed, eager to go to bed for a little rest, and we had only candlelight to work by. Would our corner convenience store, Runners, sell fuse wire? I went to see.

Since we moved in, we had enjoyed the friendly staff at Runner's, particularly Samee, who seemed to work most nights. We were recognized as regulars, and Samee found it amusing that these Americans had a taste for the Polish products he stocks for the many immigrant Poles in the neighborhood. Runner's is open until three in the morning, and was our only hope for fuse wire.

Which they didn't have on sale.

I explained my distress. By the time the D.I.Y. shop across the street opened in the morning, Holly and I would be in Germany. “Come with me,” Samee said, inviting me to follow him downstairs into the stockroom. I went down the wooden steps to bare concrete walls of the basement. Samee looked in boxes of odds and ends, places where some tools were kept. No fuse wire. We went back up to the store and consulted with Ali, who was manning the cash register. Samee and Ali consulted in a Pakistani language --- not Punjabi, I think. Then Samee went back downstairs while Ali chatted with me about London, Pakistan, and the state of the world. Ten minutes later, Samee appeared with a length of insulated copper wire, the kind that is a bundle of fine wires twisted together. He stripped off the insulation with a knife, and then we discussed how I might us just one or two of the fine wires in place of the aluminum fuse wire.

The solution worked. Holly and I finished packing with electric light and left for Germany knowing that we had left in place a fuse that perhaps wasn't precisely set at the proper five amps, but was still a length of fine wire that would melt if there were an electrical fault. So not an ideal fuse, but much better than nothing.

In Germany, I bought some Mozart Kugelen for our heroes. Samee and Ali have plenty of chocolate in their store, including Polish brands, but not German chocolate filled with pistachio cream and marzipan. I don't know if the candy was actually to their taste, but Holly and I wanted them to know how much we appreciated their efforts to rescue us from the late-night darkness and that we were still thinking of them in Frankfurt.

On our first morning back, I went to the D.I.Y. shop to buy fuse wire. The Hindu proprietor seemed a little bored as he took my money. “Now,” I said, “let me see if this time my wife won't throw this away before I need it.”

He smiled, no longer bored. Now we were two men with a problem in common. “What I do,” he said, “is put a few lengths of it behind the fuse box, up where they won't see it. Because that is how it is. Once they get cleaning, everything goes!”

Odds and Ends

Still no Internet connection for our house, although BT is billing us for broadband that we aren't getting, and the company that we asked to provide service tells us that BT is blocking their attempt to hook us up. But the phone has been working all week, which is exciting and unexpected.