fear & loathing from a remote city: September 2004

Wednesday, September 29

election time...

the australian elections are but a week and a half off. being in london, we get to vote a little early, so tomorrow i'm heading down to australia house to cast my vote against mr sheen, and hopefully restore some sanity into australian politics.

not going into this too much, except to say, if you ever need a reason to vote howard out, here it is:

John Howard Lie #9

"There'll be no more than a 1.9% rise in ordinary beer."
John Howard, John Laws Program, 23 September 1998

The Truth:

The price of beer rose 4.8 per cent in the September quarter
following the introduction of the GST on 1 July 2000, and was 8.5 per
cent higher than the same time the previous year.

Australian Bureau of Statistics, ABS@, Time Series Spreadsheets, Consumer Price Index 6401.0

Tuesday, September 28

a thank you

for the first time, i got a very nice thank you from two german girls i helped. they needed info about getting to stansted airport in the early hours, and up until a little while ago, one of the only ways (after 11pm) was to catch the national express coach.

but they already had tickets for the stansted express, not cheap either, but the last/first train times were no good. then i remembered the express now has a coach starting at 2:30am till 4:30am, only takes 45 minutes, and their tickets are valid on it.

anyway - after finding connecting buses from kings cross to liverpool st, and printing all the info, they said danke and walked off...

then one of them came back for change, which for once i had, and after taking the 50p coin gave me a pack of cookies, smiled, said thanks again, and walked off. and it made my day! it really did, i mean, i like to help people when they want to be helped/are at least somewhat poliet to me, but rarely do backpackers appreciate the help. which is why i appreciated it so much.

so, to the two german girls who made my day with a pack of cookies - thank you! i won't soon forget it!

roster time

the roster is something that has to be done every month, and i sort of gave myself the task of doing it due to a few mix-ups about 2 months ago. so, for the first small part of tonites shift i've written the new roster for the next, oh, month and a half. why that time frame? eh, why not!?

after yesterday's shift queensley was meant to come by so we could run around covent garden, but forgot. so i watched hellboy in the bar (um...yeah, not the best film, i didn't hate it, but...if there were any more cinematic cliches in there i would have walked out), had a beer or two, played some pool, then proceeded to watch half of the first season of futurama in bed. oh, and i bought a pizza for the movie...a damn good pizza, you know one of those pizzas that just melts in your mouth? anyway -- it was really good!

before bed i headed to the roof top terrace for a bit, just sitting there watching the low level cloud wizz past the BT tower. the image here is from a week or two ago, but you get the idea. it's a nice little spot to sit...and sing "chim-chimney" from mary poppins...the rooftops remind me so much of this! i'll get a photo of that too...hmmm maybe i can send steve upstairs now...

not much more to say. changed shifts, i'm working tomorrow nite and off wednesday. voting time for me on wednesday (more on this tomorrow), next week is my first official staff party, plus sees my anniversary of arriving in london! 12 months - ahh the times i've had.

Sunday, September 26

travel desk products

here at the backpackers travel centre, we sell all kinds of things for your travelling needs. condoms to tampons, adapters to cigarettes, we've got you covered. so why not come down to the backpackers travel centre in russell square, and stock up today?

bus tours

we sell bus tours around london. they're actually pretty good vaule; you get a 24 ticket, it's jump-on jump-off, so you can stop and see things if you want (museums etc), there's 5 different routes (and you can change to any of them) and you get a boat cruise up the thames thrown in too. all for the cost of a cheapish meal (£15).

i think i tend to explain things pretty clearly, and when i say "you can jump on and off any of the routes as you wish", that seems pretty straight forward. why, i ask you, would you then say "so, is it just for the red line?"...um, NO, hello, listen. so i repeat, "no, you can go on any of the routes, it's for all of them"...."so it's for the yellow line?"....NOOO! "like i said, it's for all the lines..."

"what, even the green line?"

...when is this free weekend???

bobby has left the building

former traveldesk employee (fill in for christel), james 'bobby' yates, is out. gone, off around europe. taking his slayer face, facial peircings and paeodophile shirts and leaving! and i can't help but wonder why? i mean, LEAVE the gen? sure, i'm leaving for the US in 79 days (who's counting) but...bobby can't go.

who's going to redwings salute the ladies with me? who's going give me the slayer face whenever they walk past? who am i going to annoy, drink with, and wander around the bar with now that bobby's gone?...everyone else, but, i still can't believe he's left.

last nite saw bobby's leaving drinks - i rocked up at about 7pm to start, james finally rocked in about 9, by which time i was getting nicely pissed. about 3 hours, 8 drinks and 188 photos later i figured it was about time to crash, went up to my penthouse suite (also known as dorm 601) and proceeded to promptly pass out after a quick sit on the roof.

anyway - have fun boyo! see you when you make it back to the sunny gen.

Saturday, September 25

get to know your travel desk

over the next few weeks, i'll be uploading a bunch of images to help you get to know your desk! look out also for get to you know desk quizes, as well as a generator staff gallery.

to get started, visit backpackerstravel.org - the official site of the desk. oh, scroll to the bottom and check out the image for oktoberfest...priceless!

Thursday, September 23

that's me...traveldeskguy

what is it about phonecards

maybe i'm just bitching, but i swear, if one more idiot comes up here complaining that their phonecard isn't working, i'm going to snap! it's a simple concept - there's instructions printed ON the card...it's not that hard!

in other news, still working this whole blog setup thing out. anyone want to help me with formatting stuff, drop me a note. i need to get some pics up here, so you can all see the wonderful world that is, the travel desk!

traveldeskguy launched

well here it is. the very first post on fear & loathing from the traveldesk. so, what is this 'traveldesk' and why would someone want to make a blog detailing everything about the desk? good question!

the traveldesk is in london, in the generator hostel. i'm mike, and run the travel desk at nights and weekends, which basically means i get free broadband when i'm 'working' - selling the odd pack of cigarettes or condoms, padlocks and laundry soap.

basically, i've been working here for about 3 months, and decided it was finally time to write something down while i'm working. hell, at the very least it'll give me something to do when i'm bored.

this thing should hopefully have some interesting shit here once and a while - it won't all be desk related. i'll probably go on some random self-indulged binge every other post, but hey, isn't that what blogs are for?

well that's enough of an introduction from me. with any luck i'll be getting a webcam set up at some point so you can all see me work as hard as i do!

but until next time...