Wastage, and the great British eccentric

I was in our local Sainsbury's at 7am the other day. We needed milk and a loaf of bread, and although I could have probably picked up both at the local newsagent's, it was chucking it down outside and I needed a lightweight raincoat as well.

As I reached the bread counter, the staff were throwing away the loaves and rolls from the previous day: great big bags of them, dozens of loaves of bread baked a few hours earlier and now thrown into a bag marked "NOT FIT FOR SALE". I don't suppose those loaves were even donated to homeless people as there's probably an EEC rule which bans such benevolence just in case a vagrant happens to choke on a sunflower seed. It always made me smile in India when we'd go along to the laacaal shop to get bread and then ask if it was fresh.

"Aaah, aah, fresh saar, yes; fresh yesterday."

Which links, not at all well, to the great British eccentric. One of the joys of commuting is that you get to see all manner of nutcases, listen to all manner of banal and tedious conversations, and witness bizarre behaviour. Years ago, I used to carry a notebook with me and jot down these eccentricities, even trying to transcribe particularly dull conversations word for word. Once all my stuff arrives from India, I might dig out some of those old notebooks and post some of the conversations here. But anyway, back to the present.

Last week I sat next to a courting couple who obviously hadn't seen each other for three or four hours or more and were consequently overcome by the urge to eat each other's lips in between each sentence. After ten minutes of slurping, I gave up trying to read my book and shut my eyes. Yesterday evening, I sat next to a Chinaman who, five minutes into the journey, stuffed several pages of The Sun newspaper down the back of his shirt. Well actually, he stuffed the pages up the back of his shirt. I suppose it gave him more satisfaction than actually reading the thing.

Image from The Eccentric Club blog.

Use it again, Sam

I have to keep telling myself, "It's for the children." And I find myself repeating it more and more as a mantra these days, as I bang my head in the cubbyhole under the stairs, or knock my temples against the cupboard in the kitchen. "It's for the... ouch! Children."

I wouldn't mind if it were just paper, or just tins, or just bottles, but these days it seems, it's just about everything. Great Britain has gone recycling crazy and it's only going to get worse.

I was looking at our recycling leaflet this morning, trying to work out whether we should be putting out household refuse with paper, or cardboard, or charity appeals. Actually, I needn't have bothered because we missed the binmen altogether and therefore they'll have our marinated refuse to greet them next week. But I did see that the council was gleefully announcing a new "plastics collection" in the same way that GAP, for instance, would announce its new "Autumn Collection". So now, instead of chucking away your empty milk containers or your fast food packs, you can stick them in another bag and then try and find space in your house for the blasted thing until it's time for you to miss the refuse collection operatives on their weekly round.

At this point in time I have a cardboard collection in the living room. Outside the back door I have a box for tins and bottles. In the kitchen cupboard I have sacks for plastics and newspaper. Polythene and plastic bags go in a separate bag, so too would batteries, tin foil, engine oil and uranium (that goes into the lead-filled container under the stairs). Currently, polystyrene, bubble wrap and naval fluff are not recycled and may be thrown into a waste bin. The point is that we don't live in a mansion and I tell you, it's a nuisance trying to find space for all this blasted rubbish. I really do feel half inclined at times to dump it all into our brown (garden waste) bin and cover it over with six inches of grass cuttings and just hope that the bin men are looking the other way when it's tipped noisily into the dust cart.

I recall, a few years ago when I was clearing my house in England, that I took a load of stuff to the local tip and then had to fanny around in the rain putting this junk in one skip, and that junk in another one. Chastened, I returned home, booked a skip to turn up on my drive and then emptied absolutely everything into it: cardboard, paper, plastics, bottles, iron, an old sofa set... You name it, the skip ate it; and it was a curious quirk of fate that it was completely legal - if a little expensive - to do that.

And if you think I sound like an irresponsible old whinger, well just try unpacking a shirt and then disposing of anything that isn't a shirt. The plastic cover goes into the plastic bags' bag, whilst the plastic clips and that clear plastic bit under the collar go into the "new plastics' collection" bag. The cardboard backing goes into the cardboard collection box in my living room, and the tissue paper goes into the paper sack - by way of a bumped head - in the kitchen cupboard. As for the pins, I'm saving those to jab into the eyeballs of Chelmsford Borough Council's Recycling Manager when he calls round to complain about household refuse being dumped into his garden refuse bin.

"It's for the children...
Breathe...
It's for the children...
And, relax."

The years in between

At times I have to pinch myself to confirm that I am where I am. I last commuted to London in, I think, 1994. Then, the company I was with re-located to St Albans, and the following two companies I joined were both based in Essex. That takes us up to September 2003 and my decision to move to India. Fast forward seven years and I'm back in England and back on the train. I'm even commuting to and from the same stations. It's a bit like something from the X-Files; as if the Indian experience and my fundraising career never happened.

The trains are the same, the route is the same, but the people are more casual. In 1994 there was far more evidence of suits and ties. Now, every day seems to be a dress-down-Friday. I'm not so sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I had seven years of pretty much dressing down in India. My normal work dress was, for several years, jeans and a t-shirt. I upgraded slightly to jeans and a collared shirt when FLOvate became WNS and we traded our lovely spacious and secluded office for a few square yards in a call centre, but that was as far as it went. To be honest, I was looking forward to getting back into a suited routine in the City of London, but the company I'm now working with also has a relaxed and informal attitude to dress. Yesterday I arrived in a suit. Today I've dispensed with the tie; tomorrow it may be the jacket. I'll retain the trousers at least.

And, as with life in 1994 London, I'm eating sandwiches and rolls at my desk again. In due course too, a few weeks from now, I'll also be upending my keyboard and emptying old breadcrumbs over my desk.

Fun with flatpacks

I'd forgotten how much fun it was assembling flat-packed furniture. I'd ordered a cabin bed and wardrobe for Niharika and then spent the best part of Thursday, and a couple of hours yesterday, putting the things together. I roped in my dad for the last part of the cabin bed, and the two of us then pored over the wardrobe instructions, even then somehow contriving to get it wrong which necessitated taking bits of it apart again. The cabin bed instructions told me that it should have taken two hours to put together, but I'm pretty sure that they'd based that time on the world record set by Scandanavian craftsman Jorg Jorgen Jorgensen. In any event it took more like four or five hours.

"Don't tell Health and Safety about this" said one of the delivery men as he was lugging the thing upstairs, "we're not meant to do this." I suppose that was his way of saying, "that's got to be worth a few quid for taking the trouble" but as I only had a tenner on me at the time I replied, "it's OK, your secret's safe with me." In India I would have probably given a hundred or so rupees as a tip but in India they'd have put the thing together for me as well, not to mention torn the wallpaper, knocked off a wall tile and probably chipped a bed panel or two. The grubby fingerprints are always thrown in free.

But it's been a bit of a whirlwind two weeks for me. From arriving in the UK with nothing, I now have a family-sized car and a solid suburban house which is pretty much ready to go - or at least will be once I've assembled our new bed tomorrow. I have all the essentials: an iron, an ironing board, a microwave, a fridge, a washing machine and dishwasher and a 42" television to keep the kids amused. I have a DVD player, an old video recorder bought for twenty pounds, and a growing video library courtesy of a local charity shop (one pound each). I have warm clothes for myself and the children and I've even paid for my season ticket in preparation for re-joining the rat race on Monday.

Meanwhile, back in India, the packers have been in and all my books are in boxes. The fridge, the microwave, the washing machine, my desk, and various other bits and pieces have all been sold. The packing will complete tomorrow and then, all being well, a couple of months from now I'll be re-united with my chattels. India already seems another world away.

Trappings

For what seems like the umpteenth time, I'm setting up a new home. I took possession of house keys yesterday, and later today I'll be getting car keys. The last week has seen household trappings slowly coming together.

Most of our stuff is being shipped across from India but that's going to take six to eight weeks and there are some things that you just can't do without for that length of time. And so yesterday I was at an electrical showroom booking our TV and microwave, a vacuum cleaner and other bits and pieces.

My seven years in India has probably made me a better shopper, and a better bargainer. So far I've probably saved around a hundred and twenty pounds just by asking various salesman to do me a deal. I like to think my wife would be proud of me but I know that had she been sitting in my shoes she'd not only have secured significantly higher discounts, she'd also have persuaded the salesmen to donate one of their kidneys - and maybe a lung - to the local hospital.

But I do like this 'starting afresh' approach, and in the UK it's so much easier than in India. My tenancy agreement was executed without the need for stamp paper - an essential anachronism in India - a financial guarantor, or black-jacketed lawyers. Neither did I need to pay the exorbitant ten months' rental deposit that is demanded in Bangalore. An estate agent handled my particular transaction but I didn't have to pay him the equivalent of one month's deposit; just an admin fee. I took gas and electricity readings at the property and I also booked my Virgin broadband, landline and satellite TV connection via a call-centre in the Philippines. I set up a direct debit with the water authorities without the need of proof of address, photos, passport copies and goodness knows what else. No form that I have filled in so far has asked for my father's name, and on all occasions that I've booked appointments so far, both parties have been punctual; none of this, "sorry saar, traffic saar; fie minutes; gie me fie minutes."

So all in all, it's rather exciting and I reckon I'm on track to having a partially furnished house -or at least somewhere to sleep and something to sleep on - for when my wife and boys arrive in the country next week.

On the road

After three years of driving in India, it's time to get back to the comparative sanity of English roads. I signed up for a Vauxhall Zafira this morning and will collect it next week. In the meantime, I have been searching for car insurance. Having been out of the UK for seven years, I've lost any No Claims Bonus that I had - and I had the maximum - and so it's back to scratch for me.

I went to Go Compare to search for insurance and was staggered at the different trades and professions that appear on the drop-down list for "business type". Here's a selection:

Animal breeding
Baby Food Manufacturer
Blast Cleaning
Candle Dealer
Childrens [sic] Panel
Clock & Watch Manufacturer
Contact Lens Manufacturer
Egg Merchants

and so on...

Which is all well and good if the list is extensive and comprehensive; but it isn't. I couldn't find "surveyor" or "chartered surveyor" for instance, and I would have thought that there are probably more people employed in that industry than there are "Roller shutter manufacturers". Similarly, "civil engineering" is noticeable by its absence, whilst "Ice Merchant" is noticeable by its presence. At one stage, frustrated by my inability to find anything close to the new line of work that I'll be taking up in a week or so's time, I selected "calibration manager" as my occupation and "falconry" as the business type. I got a damn good quote for motor insurance too, which presumably means that calibrating birds of prey is seen as a soft risk - unless you happen to be a water vole of course.

But I do wonder what the call centre staff in India think that the people in Britain do for a living. "A nation of shopkeepers?" they must be thinking, "more like a nation of bee-keepers". They must be quite surprised when UK claimants are re-routed through to Bangalore and are revealed not as "sand blasters" or "pipe cleaners" or working in the "log and firewood" industry, but rather dull secretaries employed by county councils, and pen-pushers working not for G M Smeggins and Co (Cordwainers) Ltd, but rather G M Smeggins and Co (Chartered Accountants).


The image of Turkmenistan falconers at the Reading Birds of Prey festival comes from Ab's blog.

Britain's got nutters

I've just returned to England after seven years in India - and it feels great! I enjoyed India, worked with brilliant people and made some fantastic friends, but now the country is pretty much a closed chapter for me and I'm looking forward to the next episode in calmer, cleaner and more organised surroundings. I still have a few things left to say about India though, and in due course, I'll post again on India-aaagh.

But in the same way that the India blogs were my responses to the quirkiness, the injustices, the absurdity, the fun and the frustrations of India, England, this England will tread a similar path in Albion. And what better place to start than with Laika, the guitar-playing dog.

I was in town today with my five year-old daughter and as we approached a busker on a bridge, I pulled out a few coins from my pocket and told Niharika to go and drop them in the woman's empty guitar case.

"Have you come to see Laika the famous guitar playing dog from Britain's Got Talent?" the busker asked.

Actually, I hadn't even see the dog, but when I looked a little closer, there it was, sprawled out next to the railings and wearing a comedy bonnet. The woman called to Laika.

"Come along Laika, come and play the guitar." Judging by the amount of grey around its muzzle Laika should probably have been in a canine retirement home rather than still treading the boards, and yet it managed to drag itself up and stagger over to where the three of us were standing. The woman produced a tiny pink guitar from somewhere, held it out to the dog and pleaded, "Laika, play guitar; Laika, play guitar." The dog just looked at her.

"Laika, play guitar; Laika, play guitar." Again the same blank look from the senile dog-guitarist. "My dog can do that" I said. "Maybe you should try a violin?"

By now a crowd of one had gathered, and the woman continued with her pleading. I bent down to the dog. "Come on Laika," I said, "play the guitar for us please." And finally Laika lifted her paw up and touched the guitar. Classic melody it was not, but I suppose it was just about worth the 22 pence that Niharika had tipped into the woman's guitar case.

"Go to You Tube - Britain's Got Talent - Laika the guitar-playing dog" the woman shouted as we were departing. And so here's the link: Britain's got nutters - not to a mention a dog that seemed to perform even worse under camera lights than it did on an Essex bridge at lunchtime today. I look forward to more of the same.