[The Life of Shaun #62] Lovely & Brilliant

Five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand six-hundred minutes, five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand pints of beer!  Oh, wait, that's not how it goes, is it?  This is how you can tell it's a show about life in New York and not in London.  You can't survive Manhattan without at least a pint of vodka flowing through your veins at all times.  In London, unless you fancy $18 cosmos as standard, you drink beer.  Lots and lots of beer.  Fortunately they embrace white beer here.  Try it immediately.

 

Here I sit, on the afternoon of the eve of my one-year anniversary in London; Todd from New York is in town, I've had two pints at lunch, carefully selected friends have been invited to Thai tomorrow, and an even more select few are coming; the weekend holds promise, and the searing heat has given over to grey, cool, sweater weather.

 

So what do I think of my circumstance?  Of London, the year that's past, Natasha, all those and what I've left behind?  Well, lately, quite a lot.  I suppose the coming of this anniversary has naturally bent me towards introspection, and I've come to decisively cloudy indecision.

 

Natasha has been amazing.  I expected a roommate, but I got a partner in the truest sense.  Not just the friend she's become, but the person who's lived this experience with me and understands.  I remember how hard it was moving to New York, not knowing anyone in the flesh, and what a different move this was.  London feels diminished when she's not here.

 

I miss my New York friends immensely.  I have friends here, some of whom I've grown closer to than I'd expected, others I've rarely, or never, seen.  But the depth within the breadth I'd grown to have in New York is lacking, and it can feel emotionally naked.  Of course I can't have the type of friends I built up over seven years in just one, but that doesn't make me miss them any less.

 

I love writing sterling cheques.  I love when the phone is engaged, looking right then left to cross a street, snogging & pulling, taking the rough with the smooth, taking the piss, putting asides in brackets and brilliant or lovely things.  I love living and working abroad, amongst people who've grown up in a different culture than I.  It's so much fun learning the little ways their lives are different from mine: the different perspectives, the different collective memories & experiences.  I love living "so close to" Europe. 

 

"London's prohibitively expensive" someone told me just before I moved here.  As a Manhattanite, I shrugged her words off and laughed inside.  Wow, a slap in the face can hurt sometimes.  I was out Wednesday not having drinks with someone, and he got a vanilla milk shake.  For $7.50.  On top of this I've had some lingering financial worries hanging over me from New York that've made most every week a nervous, wrenching uncertainty.  It's been hard.  But it's also given me the momentum to take the plunge into school full-time, move forward and get on top of this situation.

 

With enough planning I can get anywhere in Western Europe, and much of the East, for $100 or less.  But it's costing me $1,200 to see friends and family this December.

 

Every morning and evening when I walk over the Blackfriars Bridge and can look from the Houses of Parliament and London Eye on one side, to St. Paul's, the Gherkin, Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf on the other, I often feel stunned, but always feel lucky.  This city is amazing; amazing in a way you can never grow tired of.  And I live here.

 

I find London's Los Angeles-like sprawl frustrating.  I know some of you made fun of me for it, but I loved living in my tiny bubble in New York.  Everything and most everyone I wanted was near - what's so bad about that?

 

I relish getting to be a kid in a candy store again.  London's still so new; there's still so much to see and find.  I have areas I love, but there are so many I haven't even seen yet, and ones I like but rarely get to.  This fades after enough time in any city, but London will allow this to go on much longer than most.  What's that saying about a man who grows tired of London...?

 

So what do I think?  Did I make the right choice?  Am I still glad to be here?  Absolutely.  Am I ready to leave?  Definitely not.  But in the same breath, I feel more like a New Yorker than ever.

 

I miss you all.  Come visit soon.

 

Cheers,

Shaun

--
Shaun Coley
scoley@gmail.com
http://www.friendster.com/shaunism
London, UK

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[The Life of Shaun #61] Saving Citibank, La Familia (less Pappi) and topping

As I am sure all you financially savvy people know, Citibank's assets haven't been growing as fast as its competitors and has been surpassed by HSBC as the world's largest bank and is nearly losings its market capitalization rank to (gag!) Bank of America.  Well, I'm stepping up to the plate and doing my part!  I've taken out a silly amount of fresh debt in student loans from Citibank so I can take a year off work and go to grad school for my MBA full time.  Citibank obviously needs the money more than I do, so I am doing what I can to help.

 

Now, in truth, I do have some secondary less altruistic motives behind my actions.  One, I've learned that the system works differently here than in America, and not having the right letters after your name can be a hindrance, so I want to get some more letters ASAP, PDQ; the potential jobs I've been coming up for just aren't what I want to do for two years while doing the program part time.  Another is the desire to, hopefully, move on to more interesting and rewarding work more quickly.  And yet another is the freedom I'll have from not being tied to the school for two years; as we all know, I have serious commitment issues with schools.

 

So very good about that.  It feels right and I am excited about both going back to school full time and seeing what it's like over here.  Wish me luck!  And wish the hand of Bush to be kind over the next 13 months; should he crash the economy I may be in a prickly situation.

 

Also, as such, my vacations will be curtailed; other than the ones I've already bought tickets for, the only new additions will be America; the West Coast in December/January, the East Coast in April.  Stay tuned for dates.

 

In other news...

 

My mom, sisters Lara & Lisa and Lara's kid Emilio came to London to visit me over this past weekend.  I haven't seen them since I went back to America in March, so it was really good to see them.  I played tour guide, as best as one can with a 23-month old child, and showed my city off well, I believe.  Mostly it was just good to show them my life, where I am, what I do.  My good friend Sean even joined us for dinner one night and survived to tell about it.  Bless.  Attached is a picture of Lisa (blonde), Lara (brunette) and Emilio (baby).

 

Last for this installment...

 

Does anyone else distinguish between 'top up' and 'top off' or is that my own applied nuance?  I think topping up just means increasing/adding, but topping off means increasing/adding to the maximum amount.  My English coworker disagrees*.  Is this another Americanism or simply a Shaunism?

 

Cheers,

Shaun

 

*She also doesn't accept gotten as the past participle of got, but that's one of my favorite idiosyncrasies of American English and I refuse to drop it.

--
Shaun Coley
scoley@gmail.com
http://www.friendster.com/profiles/shaunism
London, UK

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Words of Wisdom

An e-pal of mine has just moved to Manhattan (Chelsea, no less!) recently.  He's finding it a tough town.  So I gave him the following advice:

 

(A preamble to my lady friends in New York: no, you are NOT fag hags; you do not hold our hands every weekend at the gay bars and clubs.  You, and we, have evolved beyond that, so the words below do not apply to you.)

 

"New York is a tough town; not for pussies, as I said.  The lonely-guy-in-the-big-city feeling is normal for new arrivals.  New Yorkers definitely aren't flaky, not in the LA sense at least.  What I think you're coming up against right now is the fact no one is taking you seriously.  You can't imagine home many new arrivals I met over my years there, so fresh and excited to be in New York, all the things they were going to do.  Then they either can't find work; can't cope with what it takes to live day-to-day in New York; or get caught up in The City and The Scene, overspend, overparty, run out of credit; and are back home within months promising to "return soon!  SOON!" and, of course, they never do.  No one will take you seriously until you've been there a year.  You have to prove yourself.

 

In tandem to that, you will find once you've been there a year, you'd rather gouge your eyes out than move back to where you came from.  Trust me on this.  You have to get through it.  It's worth it.  But you can't be a pussy.

 

You will find, eventually, though, that no one is your friend like a New Yorker is.  When they're your friends, they are your friends.  Someone told me this when I lived in San Francisco and I never understood it until I lived there.

 

As for the hag - NO!  Bad Manhattan homosexual!  Hags are only for guys under 22 or who live West of the Hudson.  You shed your hag by then in New York.  You will find they are nothing but a cock block. 

 

(Similarly, you cannot wear A&F if you live in Manhattan.  If you do, everyone will assume you're either a) from New Jersey, or b) just moved to New York and are about to fall off the proverbial edge and move back to Nebraska.  I don't think I have to warn a man of your ilk & calibre away from A&F, but you're from Chicago, so it's better to be safe than sorry.)"

 

I miss my gritty, hard city right now!

 

Cheers,

Shaun

--
Shaun Coley
scoley@gmail.com
http://www.friendster.com/profiles/shaunism
London, UK

[The Life of Shaun #58] Inte blå hunde, Rosebery Court and The Simpsons

I just spent a lovely weekend in the ancestral country of both Ikea and my mother, Sweden, in beautiful Stockholm. It is, of course, the capital of Sweden, very old and the largest city in Scandinavia. It's got lovely colourful buildings and is built over a series of 14 islands, so there are water and bridges everywhere; quite aesthetically pleasing. I was visiting my friend Stefan, whom I know from my Paris days - we were in the same French class (as well as my sister, Lisa) with Madame Cho at La Sorbonne.

The agenda was usual - discussion, food, drink, repeat. I've been to Stockholm once before, with Russ in 2000. I liked it well enough then, but enjoyed it a lot more this time. One, there were no expectations, and two, it was all on its own, rather than one of ten cities squished into four weeks. Also we chose better gay bars/clubs, which can make or break a visit to a city.

I noticed one thing though between my visits - there seemed to be a lot more ethnic people than I remembered. This is good; Sweden needs immigration and it realizes that, so they're opening their arms. It's great, as elsewhere it's adding colour (literally & metaphorically) to Swedish life and helping out their economy and very generous social system.

So it was a great weekend, I met nice people and am looking forward to going again. Oh, "Inte blå hunde" was all the Swedish I can piece together from the words I remember from my trip; it means "No blue dogs." Not very useful, but fortunately everyone in Sweden speaks English, so I was free to tell them a variety of blue things I didn't want, or even no dogs of any colour that didn't suit my fancy.

In other news:

We signed our lease for another year today! So we'll be here in Clerkenwell, where we're so happy, for at least one more year. Nice, since we just got the key! We also managed to secure a commitment for new carpet for Natasha, and there was no rent increase; we're very pleased, obviously.

And as a sign-off, they took a little dig on E4 tonight... they were introducing The Simpsons episode where they legalize gay marriage in Springfield and the tagline intro was "Next, Springfield comes out of the closet and enters the 21st century." Brilliant.

Proud to be half Swedish,
Shaun

--
Shaun Coley
scoley@gmail.com
http://www.friendster.com/profiles/shaunism
London, UK

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[The Life of Shaun #56] L'Italia Bella

Well, it's over -- Italy has won the world cup (for my American friends and family, they have this little soccer match here every four years and all the Europeans get very swept up in it). I was rooting for France before, mainly because I have amazing respect for Zinedine Zidane, the French captain. He's an amazing player; does incredible things with the ball (even me, a complete amateur can recognize it), one of the most respected players in football history, and, above all, he's a gentleman.

This was Zidane's last game before retirement, and the media has been full of lyrical waxings about him and his history, and telling Cristiano Ronaldo to look to him as an example. But then - shockingly - in the second overtime Zidane was sent off with a red card for head-butting an Italian player! What the hell?! How can you be about to retire, in your last and most important game, with two billion sets of eyes one you, and you head-butt another player in the chest?! It's so... dirty. My (limited) world view of soccer was shattered in that moment, and I was then behind Italy to win.

The hotter, and tonight, more sportsmanlike, team won, bringing much joy to our heavily Italian neighborhood - the horns are-a-honkin' and the people are-a-cheerin'.

Very disappointed in Zidane, happy for a deserved win to Italy, and very surprised to be a football fan,
Shaun

--
Shaun Coley
scoley@gmail.com
http://www.friendster.com/profiles/shaunism
London, UK
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[The Life of Shaun #54] England is crying

I now know the pain of being English.  As all my friends outside of America, and none of them in, know, England lost to Portugal and was eliminated from the World Cup.  The game took place in the middle of Europride, held in London this year, and I took my leave from the festivities along with my friend Alister and watched amongst my compatriots and lived the national experience.

 

I have to say, I've gotten swept up in the World Cup - it really has been fun.  There's no equivalent in America; there, some people love baseball, some (American) football, some hockey...  there's no overwhelmingly obvious consensus about one game, and one game only, that really matters - The Beautiful Game - and, nearly universally, everyone cares about it (though not all to the same extent).  So the whole mood of the nation swings with the pendulum of England's success and failure on the pitch, and it really was fantastic, as a new immigrant, to be part of that.

 

An interesting observation for an American: the English are so pessimistic about their team.  England won most games (it just takes one loss to be eliminated past round one), but all along the way the fans were deriding the team's performance, technique and chances.  In America, we back our teams 100%; even when they, frankly, suck, we're shouting "Go team, go!  USA!  USA!"  And, admittedly, as someone who never embraced American patriotism fully, that never sat well with me.  But seeing this opposite approach, I am for the American way for once.  I don't see how England could win with this rather rampant lack of enthusiasm and support.

 

All that aside, it's time to move on.  Tonight is Germany vs. Italy, I am supporting Germany.  A group of us are meeting at Santoré on Exmouth Market to watch.  Then to the next match where, for once, all of England will unite in support of France to cheer them on to victory over those dirty, swarthy, cheating Portuguese.

 

GO TEAM GO!

 

Cheers,

Shaun

--
Shaun Coley
scoley@gmail.com
http://www.friendster.com/profiles/shaunism
London, UK

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The Unfolding of Language

I am 100 pages into a marvelous book I thought you might be interested in:

 

The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher

 

Synopsis
'Language is mankind's greatest invention - except of course, that it was never invented.' So begins Guy Deutscher's enthralling investigation into the evolution of language. No one believes that the Roman Senate sat down one day to design the complex system that is Latin grammar, and few believe, these days, in the literal truth of the story of the Tower of Babel. But then how did there come to be so many languages, and of such elaborate design? If we started off with rudimentary utterances on the level of 'man throw spear', how did we end up with sophisticated grammars, enormous vocabularies, and intricately nuanced shades of meaning? Drawing on recent, groundbreaking discoveries in modern linguistics, Deutscher exposes the elusive forces of creation at work in human communication. Along the way, we learn why German maidens are neuter while German turnips are female, why we have feet not foots, and how great changes of pronunciation may result from simple laziness...

 

 

I've learned such fabulous things as the Semitic languages' noun stems and the fact that 'not' is equivalent to the 'pas' in French's 'ne...pas' and originally wasn't a negater at all!

 

I am absolutely loving it and am actually excited when I get a chance to take time and read more.  It's right up there with three of my other favourite books I can't recommend enough:

 

 

The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language by John H. McWhorter

 

Amazon.co.uk Review
In his enormously ambitious book The Power of Babel, John McWhorter offers an account of the first common language ever spoken by human beings, and proceeds to explore why it then fragmented into the 6,000 languages that are spoken today across the globe. As Professor of Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, McWhorter is perfectly qualified to provide a witty and accessible guide to his subject. As he puts it, "the process by which one original language has developed into six thousand is a rich and fascinating one, incorporating not only findings from linguistic theory but also geography, history, sociology. It is this fascinating story that I will share with you in this book."

 

 

Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson (Quite possibly my favourite book ever.)

 

Amazon.co.uk Review
Who would have thought that a book about the English language would be so entertaining? Certainly not this grammar-allergic reviewer, but The Mother Tongue pulls it off admirably. Bill Bryson--a zealot--is the right man for the job. Who else could rhapsodise about "the colourless murmur of the schwa" with a straight face? It is his unflagging enthusiasm, seeping from between every sentence, that carries the book.

Bryson displays an encyclopedic knowledge of his topic, and this inevitably encourages a light tone; the more you know about a subject, the more absurd it becomes. No jokes are necessary, the facts do well enough by themselves, and Bryson supplies tens per page. As well as tossing off gems of fractured English (from a Japanese eraser: "This product will self- destruct in Mother Earth."), Bryson frequently takes time to compare the idiosyncratic tongue with other languages. Not only does this give a laugh (one word: Welsh), and always shed considerable light, it also makes the reader feel fortunate to speak English.

Synopsis
A witty, irreverent but very useful account of the peculiarities of the English language. This book is designed to appeal to all lovers of language and history. The author also wrote "The Lost Continent", "Book of Blunders" and "Dictionary of Troublesome Words". "Mother Tongue" should appeal to all lovers of language and history and also those with a sense of humour.

and its American expansion:

 

Made in America by Bill Bryson

 

Amazon.co.uk Review
Bill Bryson's "Informal History of the English Language in the United States" is, in a word, fascinating. After reading this tour de force, it's clear that a nation's language speaks volumes about its true character: you are what you speak. Bryson traces America's history through the language of the time, then goes on to discuss words culled from everyday activities: immigration, eating, shopping, advertising, going to the movies, and others.

Made in America will supply you with interesting facts and cocktail chatter for a year or more. Did you know, for example, that Teddy Roosevelt's "speak softly and carry a big stick" credo has its roots in a West African proverb? Or that actor Walter Matthau's given name is Walter Mattaschanskayasky? Or that the supposedly frigid Puritans--who called themselves "Saints," by the way--had something called a pre-contract, which was a license for premarital sex? Made in America is an excellent discussion of American English, but what makes the book such a treasure is that it offers much, much more.

Synopsis
An entertaining, anecdotal look at the origins of language and ideas in the USA. Bryson explains why two bicycle repairmen from Ohio succeeded in mastering manned flight, why the assassination of President Garfield led to the invention of air conditioning, and many other improbable but true facts.

So buy them and read so we can discuss ad nauseum.

 

Cheers,

Shaun

--
Shaun Coley
scoley@gmail.com
http://www.friendster.com/profiles/shaunism
London, UK

Um...

Wow.

--
Shaun Coley
scoley@gmail.com
http://www.friendster.com/profiles/shaunism
London, UK

[The Life of Shaun #53] Shaun's a Mary, quite contrary, how does his garden grow?

This past Thursday, Natasha and I planned and successfully carried out a coup.  As you may remember, our complex has that most English of amenities, a private garden.  But we weren't given keys because, also very English, we're not the right class; we're renters, not owners.  As the Summer has sprang upon us with a vengeance we decided we must get a key.

So we invited the neighbor we're friendliest with, Alister, for wine.  And boy was wine had!  Six bottles split amongst three.  A nice follow-up to Natasha's and my anniversary celebration the Monday before where we had four split amongst two.  But I digress.

Anyway, expertly laid out in the middle of all this., Natasha made an off-handed comment about us not being given keys and Alister offered to get us a copy, no prodding needed!  She's a brilliant lady, my Natasha.

So we're off now to celebrate with a bottle of cold prosecco in the hot sun.  In our private garden.  Bless.

Cheers,
Shaun

--
Shaun Coley
scoley@gmail.com
http://www.friendster.com/profiles/shaunism
London, UK
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[The Life of Shaun #52] Italia

Here are pics from Sean's and my trip to Italy, if you're interested:

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/shaunec1/album?.dir=/a9b3re2&.src=ph&.tok=phNBp_EBWiZAB2dD

Cheers,
Shaun

--
Shaun Coley
scoley@gmail.com
http://www.friendster.com/profiles/shaunism
London, UK

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