Notes to Myself

One Beer

The other night I was out with a couple of Japanese friends after tennis. We went to a Chinese restaurant in Bayswater, apparently famous for its duck and sizzling aubergine dishes. The food was tasty but as with most Chinese restaurants it was very salty and over-seasoned.

Before we ordered, one of the guys I was with asked if I wanted to drink beer. 'Ok, just the one,' I said. There were only three of us so I was taken aback when he ordered five beers to start with!

At first I didn't get it but soon realised that it wasn't one can each plus a couple of spares, but five cans to share. I'd almost forgotten that crucial piece of Japanese drinking culture - sharing and pouring each other drinks.

The thing is, before you've even finished half your glass, somebody will have topped you up. It's extremely difficult to stick to 'just one'. In the end you have absolutely no idea how much you've drunk. It was until I got home that I realised I was quite drunk!

Lack of Trains?!

I always check the Underground status before leaving for work. I can't get over this:

HAMMERSMITH & CITY LINE: Suspended due to lack of available trains.

Language Cafe

It often amazes me how many people study in cafes, particularly the number of people who study languages in West End cafes.

I frequent a few different West End cafes and find there are fewer distractions than at home (this blog etc!), so I'm able to concentrate on my Japanese study. Today I popped into a cafe on Piccadilly for a spot of kanji study and I was surrounded by language study.

To my right there was a French lady teaching somebody the finer points of French. Her student was already pretty fluent and had a fantastic accent. To my left there was a Japanese girl with her electronic dictionary, presumably studying English. On my way out I noticed yet more language students.

I need to devote more time to brushing up my Japanese before it becomes too rusty. With only a couple of months left until the JLPT it's going to be impossible tricky to prepare properly. This year my study is focusing on kanji and later on vocabularly vocabulary rather than grammar or even exam technique.

Racket Rage

People get so upset when they lose to me...

Freewheel

Did any of you Londoners take part in today's London Freewheel event? Many people joined in the ride around London's most famous sites, a nine mile route open only to cyclists!

Apparently, half the fun was getting to Central London. Even in my area, which is a good 45 minute ride into the City, there were streams of people on their bikes. After checking the website, I'd say most had come from Ravenscourt Park, one of the starting hubs.

Marshalls at key points pointed cyclists in the right direction, just in case anyone could miss the big yellow arrows stuck all over the place!

Though I pretty much did most of the main route on my bike adventure during the Tube strike I would have liked to join in. Maybe next time!

Farewell Henman

Fittingly, Tim Henman's final professional match ended in victory as he won in doubles alongside Jamie Murray in the Davis Cup this afternoon. I felt very privileged to witness his last match live, held at Wimbledon, Court One.

Although I'd prepared myself for sitting out and feeling cold the clouds cleared and the sun beamed down all afternoon. The weather was great and the atmosphere was electric.

I felt sorry for the Croat pair, Marin Cilic and Lovro Zovko, as unsuprisingly the crowd was 95% in favour of Great Britain. Whenever the Henman Murray pair scored a point the crowd roared almost like they'd just won a Grand Slam! Mind you, there was a group of red and white clad Croatian fans roaring football chants, banging drums and cheering their players on with gusto.

The match itself was a real nail biter, especially when the Croatian pair broke Jamie Murray's serve to take the first set. There were some great points with some truly elegant top-spin lobs from Henman and some incredible serve and volleying by Jamie Murray. The Croats played well and at many points I felt they had the upper hand but in the end Henman and Murray came through.

With Henman's final cross court winner the match was won (4-6 6-4 7-6 7-5), as was the Davis Cup tie. The crowd erupted and gave Tim Henman a standing ovation which only died down once Sue Barker had appeared and started to interview the players.

The whole Davis Cup team, including Andy Murray who had watched the match from the second row behind the umpire's chair, took to the court to acknowledge the audience and give Tim Henman a good send off. Finally, Henman lifted his daughter out of the stands and carried her around the court, both of them waving goodbye until they'd left the court.

> Davis Cup Photo Album
> NotesToMyself Photo Galleries

> Davis Cup highlights: GB v Croatia doubles
> Henman thanks crowd after final match
> www.timhenman.org

Tip Jar

I popped into to Costa for a coffee which is normal enough, but this time strange things happened.

Firstly, a man blatantly skipped the queue. I thought he was going to ask for a tissue or something as he clearly saw me waiting but he didn't join the queue. I hesistated when it was my turn to let him request his tussue or cup of water only for him to start ordering drinks! I was too shocked and tired to say anything.

Then there was the lady at the counter. When giving change to the idiot (who was now) front of me she stared blankly at the till for a second before reaching into the tip jar and gaving him a few coppers! Sloppy but amusing.

She rushed off for help when I ordered a cuppucino - I guess she was new? When she returned and started making my coffee I reminded her, 'That was just with one shot.' The coffee had already started pouring into the cup but she moved it half way through the process so that only one of the two streams of coffee poured into it. It was hardly an accurate measure of coffee.

I know I'm being fussy but I couldn't help but remember a Japanese friend telling me how in coffee shops in Japan they time their espresso making to the second - if it's not right they do it again. It's probably a bad idea to compare service in Japan to England, though.

PSP Lady

Surprisingly, PSP players are quite rare on the Tube. In an average month I see perhaps a handful of people at most. Imagine my shock when a middle-aged smartly dressed office lady got her PSP out on the Central Line! That's the first woman I've ever seen playing a PSP. I think she was playing Puyo Puyo Fever.

Changing Jobs

Good news! I've been offered a new job!

While I'll be at the same company, some time in November I'll be moving from the sofware support department to one of the development teams.

My current role involves reading code on a daily basis and in some cases bug fixes. I've found this part of the job most satisfying and I've always wanted to try my hand at programming professionally, so I decided to apply for the internal vacancy.

We do work with legacy systems so the technology I'll be using won't be cutting-edge, but still, development is development. Plus, there will be some areas based on C. In the long term I see this transfer as being a good move.

I hadn't known for that long that I'd got the job before it was announced to the rest of my team. It feels a little awkward, but it's not the first time somebody's moved departments.

Besides, it's not like I'll be leaving support altogether. I'll still be on the weekly night-shift rota. On top of that, our developers come down to support on a rota basis, so I'll be periodically returning to support for some more adrenaline-inducing multi-tasking problem solving action!

Priority Seat

For a while now I've come to think that the end seats on trains aren't so great. Why? Because you may have to give it up if somebody 'less able' gets on.

Today my fears were realised when I sat down on such a prized seat. A lady appeared out of nowhere, stood in front of me and said, 'Excuse me.' in an agressive voice.

At first I was puzzled. Ok, so I was in a priority seat, but there were a number of other untaken seats including another priority seat diagonally opposite from me. I was shocked and simply pointed at the other seats.

'Excuse me' she continued, this time more forcefully. Then she started nagging, 'A young man like you... these bags are heavy.' Call me harsh but if you can carry a bag along the platform then you can walk another two metres to an empty seat. She didn't even look that old!

I thought about arguing but then backed down. You'll never come out of that type of situation smelling of roses. Even when I moved she kept on talking, voicing her disgust. She finished by kissing her teeth, though I think I was also talking under my breath.

She got off at the next stop! Ok, maybe she had a point, but it was her aggressive attitude that got my back up. She was one of those people who likes to proove a point.

Turbo Tennis

Turbo Tennis is a super charged high speed version of tennis. Matches last for thirty minutes allowing a mini-tournament to take place within just one afternoon. The aim of Turbo Tennis appears to be to make tennis more exciting and accessible.

The Turbo Tennis rules are quite different to traditional tennis. For example, there are strict time limits between points, sudden death points (no deuce), net cords are fair play even when serving (no lets) and there is only one change of ends during each match.

Yesterday the London event was to be held with James Blake, Andy Murray, Jamie Murray, Goran Ivanisevic, Tim Henman and Pat Cash. Not a bad line-up!

O2 Arena

Yesterday's Turbo Tennis was held at the re-badged Millenium Dome, the 'O2 Arena.' It was my first time there so I was quite excited to see inside.

The O2 Arena is actually a matter of minutes from North Greenwich station on the Jubilee Line. A curved path leads you to the main entrance. Half way along the path a group of breakdances were showing off their skills.

Inside was massive! I had the impression it would be a lot more 'temporary' but the middle was nothing of the short: metal, concrete, escalators, shops... Around the other side though, there are huge spaces with nothing but the signs that further construction is going to take place.

After showing my ticket and presenting my bag at the security station the security gaurd told me that I couldn't bring my camera inside the Arena. He claimed that cameras over a certian size weren't permitted. My camera isn't that big and it's certainly not professional - the Sony H1.

In the end I had to hand over my camera with nothing but a tiny slip of paper with a number on it as security that I'd get it back later. The small print about cameras and recording devices can be found on the back of your ticket. Still, considering that other people were carrying around much bigger cameras and got away with it I was pretty outraged.

Atmosphere

The actual event was a strange experience. The crowd was encouraged to voice their opinions, whether good or bad, make lots of noise and get into the action. People banged together air filled baloons and blew horns continuously. There were annoying children everywhere shouting out the same things over and over between points and some idiots even shouted 'physche' just before the players hit the ball. Double faults were booed!

Tennis

The tennis itself was face-paced and entertaining. The only niggles I had were that the bright orange ball was very difficult to see and the court so fast that some matches became serving shootouts.

Due to the birth his 3rd child, Tim Henman pulled out and was replaced by Greg Rusedski. The first match pitted Greg against fellow left-handed Goran Ivanesivic, which to be honest was a boring match with only a handful of points lasting longer than a second. Goran won by the slimmest of margins.

Jamie Murray, a doubles specialist by trade, took on Pat Cash and they had a great match. Jamie's serve and volley game is incredible. When he got to the net and hit volleys he always won the point. After seeing his game, which I consider more elegant than his brother Andy's, I'm thinking of going back to a pinpoint serving style, myself.

James Blake was knocked out by Goran who was in fine serving form. The match itself was pretty good with a great deal of heavy hitting, particularly on the forehand side. In the end it came down to a sudden death point to decide the entire match! Goran was understandably pleased with beating the number 6 player in the world.

Next up was a battle of the Murrays as Andy Murray played against Jamie Murray. For me, this was easily the best match of the day. Andy plays a careful game largely from the baseline while Jamie plays by chipping and charging in order to put away his perfected volleys.

In the final Goran ran out of steam and Andy Murray returned well to break serve a couple of times and win the match. It was unfair really as Andy Murray got a bye into the second round (semi-final) and is far the younger player.

Prize Money

Andy Murray received $100,000, his highest ever payout for winning a tournament. In order to win that amount of money he played for exactly one hour. That's £50,000/hour while I earn something in the region of £10/hour!!!

Final Thoughts

At first I wasn't convinced about Turbo Tennis, particularly with the 'low class' audience, excess noise and overly exagerrated 'let's make this fun unlike normal tennis' attitude. It's all well and good promoting tennis and getting more people involved, but what type of people do you want to attract?

On the other hand, you do get to see a number of different players in one afternoon and it's much easier to follow half an hour of high speed tennis than a five-set match at Wimbledon. In that respect, Turbo Tennis is pretty well though out and very entertaining.

Window Cleaner

JLPT Applied

As my collegue pointed out, if you don't consider the price of the test in Japan, compared to other exams the JLPT isn't all that expensive. Plus, the more I have to pay the harder I'm bound to study!

I sent off my application today and immediately felt an urge to study. Maybe it's true that money makes the world go around ;)

Studying kanji needs to be my priority but on the train (where I suspect most of my study will take place) it's quite boring to stare at a list of kanji, look them up and try to remember all their readings. I could use my Nintendo DS to practice writing kanji but for the JLPT you don't need to write kanji at all.

I wish there was an interview test which counted for 25%. Though I doubt that will ever happen, somebody did mention that the test format might change after 2008. Intriguing.

Football

It'd been at least 10 years since I last played football properly at school but I joined a group of colleagues this evening for a game on a 7-a-side football pitch in Mile End.

Despite my claims of being pretty fit I found it a real lung buster. The movement involved is obviously very different from tennis with greater distances, longer bursts of speed and less lateral movement.

My brief attempt at being a goal keeper was pretty abismal. Obviously I was born to play further up field. Before you ask, no I didn't score!

Football is good fun and a real work out!

JLPT now £55!

Yes, that's right, the JLPT now costs £55. How can it go up £5 a year? It should be half that price in any case! Ok, perhaps operating costs are higher due to fewer participants in the UK compared to Japan, but can double the Japanese application fee really be justified?

Update: 10/09/07 JLPT application complete

Crocs

What do you make of Crocs? Even though I see them being worn all over London and have done for some time, I didn't even know what they were called until today.

Crocs puzzle me. They look garish, a little cheap and quite sweaty. To be fair I've never seen them close up or held them and there must be a reason for the popularity besides bing vibrantly coloured. The variety you seem to see everywhere (I had no idea there were other models) are Crocs Work Shoes.

What's all the fuss about?

Strike Update

London Underground (LU) has been working to restore services across the Tube network after a three-day strike was called off. [BBC]

Even though the strike was called off last night, it made little different to the journey in to work. Thankfully, the Piccadilly Line was running further West than Hyde Park Corner today so I changed at Green Park for the Jubilee Line and got off at London Bridge.

The walk from London Bridge towards Tower Hill and Aldgate is very scenic, with a good view of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge as you approach from South of the River Thames. I took a few snaps to mark the occasion, a strange tourist dressed in business attire.

Being totally knackered I didn't really feel the need for pretty scenery and a peaceful walk. I'd rather take a Tube train down a dark tunnel if it means I end up closer to work. It's strange, I can jog, play tennis, ride a bike for two hours, consider myself to be in decent shape and yet I just don't do walking (as always ignore my grammar). I just get all hot and bothered, no matter how slowly I go.

By the time I set off to come home thankfully things were returning to normal.

Union leaders have warned they could strike again next week. This raises the question, 'Should strikes like this be possible?' I know little about unions and its not that I don't sympathyse with their requests but should they be able to cause such a massive impact to a city like this?

London Ride

I'd always wondered how long it would take to ride a bike to work. I need wonder no more.

There...

With the Piccadilly Line largely out of use and the inevitable squeeze onto the buses, I decided it would be fun to ride to work.

I printed off a google map and tried in vein to retrieve my bike which was buried deep within my front garden (actually it's a tiny garden but there is a stack of bikes, mine being the one right at the back!). In the end I had discard my highly prized street-cred and make do with my Dad's 'old man' bike. After pumping some air into the tyres I set off on my mini London adventure.

At a local station people had abandoned hope of getting on trains and in some cases even buses. There were many people queueing up for taxis. I wonder how much they paid given the heavy traffic?

My journey was like a sight seeing tour through London. I passed the Natural History Museum, Harrods, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, saw the London Eye, rode alongside the River Thames and eventually made my way up to Temple, Monument, Tower Hill and the Tower of London. You really appreciate it all when your stuck underground.

The journey took me exactly one hour and thirty minutes, somewhat more than the 40 minutes estimated by the TFL Journey Planner! Still, the traffic was horrendous and I didn't know the way. Even if I'm blowing my own horn, I was pleased that I didn't get lost on the way.

...And Back Again

Before coming home it seemed prudent not to rush off into the heavy traffic so I went to a pub close to work with a colleague for a while. We left at 7:30 and I suddenly realised that it was getting darker and that I had no lights! I started to worry about the police stopping me.

I rode carefully and tried not to abuse the pavement too much. In the end this prooved impossible so I simply walked in particularly busy pedestrian areas while riding in quieter ones. As a result my journey home took an 1 hour 45 minutes.

A Londoner's Tale

My legs aren't that tired but I have a sore bum from the bike saddle and frankly, I'm already fed up with the strike. Tomorrow I'm getting a bus!

Suspended Lines

Tube Strike

I didn't think the Tube strike would go ahead as planned but I was wrong.

Due to industrial action by Metronet services are not expected to return to normal until Friday morning. The Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines are scheduled to run as normal, except on the Piccadilly Line between Hyde Park Corner and Northfields/Uxbridge.

By about 4:30 the number of trains already seemed to be severly limited. Luckily I was on an early shift and got on one the last Circle line trains at Aldgate. Strangely it changed into a Hammersmith and City Line to Hammersmith, then we were told that it would terminate at Edgware Road.

It was about 5:00 when I got to Edgware Road station. The platforms were already packed. I probably could've got home by Tube but I was foolishly off to play tennis!

I got on a bus towards Maida Vale which quickly became so packed that the driver wouldn't let any more people on at the following stops. I was squashed up against the front windscreen, though that was probably the best place to be.

Getting home was a nightmare. It must have taken me at least 1.5 hours, maybe 2. I had planned to get off and change buses at Hyde Park but missed my stop. There were no stops for a while and I asked the guy next to me where we were. 'Victoria,' he replied. Victoria..? I realised that I didn't even know exactly where Victoria was above ground, even though I go through the station on the Tube every day!

Eventually I got the right bus on which again was crammed bus. It was strictly standing room after a matter of a couple of stops.

I am not looking forward to trying to get to work tomorrow. A few of us at work thought we might be allowed to work from home, but alas, none of the managers mentioned the idea.

I have a feeling this story is to be continued...

Applications

Those people taking this year's Japanese Proficieny Test (JLPT) in Japan have been able to apply since the beginning of July. At the time I wondered what the state of play was in England regarding applications but the official site said to come back in a month or so.

All of a sudden it's September and there are only three months left until the test. If I decide to take it this year, preparing will be a big challenge. That's not a bad thing, though. Lately I've felt like my brain hasn't been stretched enough. This might get my brain into a higher gear!

> JLPT in London 2007

Update: 10/09/07 JLPT application complete