31.10.10

transient

i wake up in another hotel room and struggle to remember which country i am in, although i remember perfectly the project i am working on and what i need to do. i grab a diet coke out of the mini bar and open my computer. some minutes later, i trot down to another hotel breakfast and find myself again picking through the same food you get in every hotel in the western world. i lament that european hotels dont have the nice variety of australian and asian ones at breakfast. i would prefer some rice and vegetables, but in Europe i always end up settling for the eggs (they are always there, waiting for me in a metal trough). i will then pack my stuff, check out, go discuss fossil fuels, return to an airport and fly somewhere, check into another hotel and repeat the process.
i have left england at least once a week since August, and there have been several weeks i have only made it back to london at the weekends. i end up in the oddest of places, ones you would struggle to find on maps in peculiar corners of europe: Leeds, Tampere, Bilbao. it is a rather peculiar existence, but at least not a monotonous one....or is it?

19.10.10

On School Fees

Despite the predictions of many, until now I haven’t felt that the new government in the UK was a total disaster. I didn’t vote for them, casting my ballot instead rather unenthusiastically for Gordan Brown, but I didn’t think it was a huge crisis that the Tories went on to form the (minority) government. Cameroon didn’t strike me as having the harsh evil streak of Thatcher, and as they were forced into a coalition with the libdems, I figured they wouldn’t be able to do too much damage that would hurt the country in the long term. But it seems I was wrong. Of course it was obvious times of austerity were on the way, and the first of the announced cuts I could stomach. Higher taxes have not yet been purposed, but if they were, I would be fine with that. I am not, however, at all happy about the plans to allow universities to charge any fees they like. Having quality state universities accessible to all is, along with the NHS, one of the best features about England (and I say England, not Britain, as these laws do not yet apply in Scotland, thankfully). The universities here are not free, but by coming in under the £4,000 mark, they are just about manageable for all. I know- I took out a bank loan to pay for my own studies in a prestigious UK university. Even as it was, I didn’t bother applying to Oxford or Cambridge (although I was encouraged too) because I knew that the £4,000 fees + the “collage fees” that those two universities are allowed to charge would simply add up to too much for my budget. By the time I approached graduation, I owed so much money that I was essentially unable to look for jobs in academia, which had been my chosen career path. I would not have been able to accept an academic job and still pay back the money I owed to the bank. And that was when fees (+charges) came to about £4,000 a year. If they had been higher, such as some of the ridiculous £12,000 per year figures being floated, I simply wouldn’t have bothered at all, certainly not with a PhD. The price would have just been too high to justify. As it is, I worked two jobs, seven days a week for over two years to help pull down my loans. My family helped as much as they could. I have a job that pays over double the national average wage. Even so, I cannot at the moment, approaching my mid-30s- imagine getting a mortgage, the deposits in the current market are just too restrictive. So if I find myself in this position, I cant imagine how a graduate finishing 3, 4 years in the future will feel. They will be burdened with even more debt than I ever thought possible, stuck with a no-doubt still tight job market, destined to spend years grasping at straws to rise above the miseries of student-style life in the UK. Unless, of course, they happen to come from nice wealthy families, like David Cameron’s or George Osborne’s, who can pay their ridiculously high fees, and help them with that first-time buyer deposit on their house. As it was, I was always acutely aware at UCL of being a bit less well off than my peers: my parents earned less than most of my classmates, and I had been to mediocre state schools, not refined public ones, or even comprehensives. Someone like myself finishing school today would feel no doubt like a total outcast, if they made it to a top university at all. More likely, they will not. the imaginative will go abroad to more hospitable places, like Holland, Canada or Australia, or they will accept a place beneath their capabilities in England, or they might just decide that the supposed benefits of university don’t justify the grotesque costs, and if they did choose that, I certainly would not be able to blame them.

18.10.10

on French strikers and Chilean miners

France is my new Iceland- a country continually wreaking havoc on my travel plans. At least the Icelanders could blame nature, the French are making a mess of everything by themselves. Over the past several weeks, their air traffic controllers have been continually going on strike, causing a massive decrease in the number of planes allowed to fly over French airspace, and thus obviously causing massive delays around Europe. It was due to this that I found myself with a 6 hour delay this past week in Heathrow, as my flight to Madrid got caught up by the French mess. I was well annoyed, as I got to Madrid around 4am, when I had to be up again at 5:30 for an early meeting outside the city. I had dozed off a bit on the plane, once we had been finally allowed to board it, although I had heard the announcement that our flight was a code share with Lan Chile, and that the connecting Lan flight would be held in Madrid, as 40 passengers on our flight were connecting to it. but I was still amazed by what I saw as I disembarked my plane in Barajas: Chilean flags everywhere and people sobbing and shouting CHI CHI CHI, LE LE LE at the top of there lungs. In my tired state, and rather perpetual state of geographic confusion, I wondered for a moment if I might have got off in the wrong country. But no, our plane had parked next to the Lan one, and we disembarked just in time to see Florencio Avalos, the first miner to be rescues, emerge in the rocket like capsule from the bowels of the earth. It was an amazing moment, and as tired as I was, I was glad I could witness Chile’s tremendous accomplishment.

on Helsinki

Helsinki must be one of the most respectable cities on earth. Other than the occasional drunk, it seems nothing ever goes wrong in the place. Everyone appears in control of their destiny, safe in the security that comes with one of the world’s most efficient welfare states. The education system is routinely classed as the world’s finest, and the health care system is in the same league.
That said, many of my earlier comments about Dusseldorf apply here too. I could simply never live in such a civilised place. I am too much of a savage to handle this degree of tranquillity. Yet I will always have a soft spot for Helsinki, certainly more than for other equally civilised places (Dusseldorf, Stockholm). I came here quite a lot as a child and teen, first with my father and then, in my late teens, alone of with mates. In those days it was a pleasant break from some of the chaos in Russia, and it was very close to St. Petersburg where I lived at the time. Things in Russia were very complicated at the time, and Helsinki always represented a welcome combination of calm and material comfort. That said, although I know Helsinki well, I have never been comfortable in it, I don’t understand its rules, or the way the people think and function. A Finnish friend has tried to explain and give suggestions, but her suggestions I found puzzling, and they served mainly to highlight how little in know about this nation. For example, she stressed the fact that my presentations must be impeccable, well- rehearsed and structured, but then even if they are, I should not expect much feedback from the audience. In fact, the most probable reaction is that they all cross their arms and stare at their feet- but supposedly that doesn’t mean they didn’t like it. She also stressed the importance of demonstrating imperfection, especially inn front of other women. This cannot be displayed in any presentation or work- related context, but should take some personal form, such as complaining that the zipper on my purse or jumper has broken! I blinked incredulously as she showed me how to demonstrate this in a “discretely obvious” way which I found totally bizarre. But then I freely acknowledge my techniques don’t work, so I suppose I have nothing to loose by trying out her moves the next time I am there. I wonder if at some point the Finns will get suspicious is suddenly a whole host of foreign people start showing up with zipper trouble?

11.10.10

about a bear


In 1980, the Soviet union held the summer Olympic games. The games have gone down in history for generally all the wrong reasons, such as the US boycotting, but in general they were something of a success for the Soviet Union. Huge stadiums and hotels were built around the country, including the monstrous hotel Rossia, which at the time was the biggest in the world. Interestingly for games set in the heartland of Socialist austerity, the 1980 Olympics was also the first sporting event to launch a mascot that achieved large-scale commercial success as merchandise. Designed by childrens’ book illustrator, Victor Chizhikov, Misha the cuddly bear cub became the hero of the games, presenting a warm fluffy image counter image to that being broadcast in the (boycotting) West. Misha was used extensively during the opening and closing ceremonies, had a TV animated cartoon version of himself and appeared on several merchandise products. Despite his international fame, Misha for me was always personal. My father attended the games, whilst I stayed home with my mother, as I was only about 18 months old and unlikely to appreciate the significance of the event. In Moscow, however, family friends knew of my existence (I am sure my father presented them with all kinds of photos) and the mother of one of my dad’s friends wanted to give me a present, to remember the historic moment by. Inspired by the games, but unable to afford one of the official Misha bears being sold to the tourists, this Soviet babushka made me my very own misha bear. The outside of the bear she knit herself, and then stuffed it with cotton balls. She then knit bit warm eyes and a smiling face, as well as a little red heart over the bear’s chest. The result was a humble looking beast, and one just the perfect size for a small child to slobber on and drag around. And drag misha around I did. The bear made many trips to and from the Soviet Union and later Russia. I took him all over the place for over 30 years, stuffed in a variety of suitcases. His head got a bit wobbly over time, and I chewed off the heart at some early moment in our relationship, but until this past weekend when he was savaged by my kitten, Misha was a reliable companion. Although I realise a stuffed toy is just a bundle of fabric, I was still upset to find him on the floor, his stomach torn open and stuffing spread all over the place. Given the care and attention that went into making him, Misha deserved a more dignified ending. He will be missed.