So after my big bout of travelling last year, I went back to my old job at UBS for three months, but I’d given up my flat to go travelling, so I had to move somewhere else, and since I’m now a contractor I can’t commit to living in a rented place for longer than 6 months.

So I moved south of the river, gasp!!!! To the borough of Southwark. People say there’s a big divide between North and South London and now I think I see what they mean.

But this month I moved back to the north side of the river, back into Tower Hamlets! And it feels like home again. I can walk to work again, which is great, and all the roads and pathways are familiar again. And people aren’t as loud north of the river. Everyone in South London is very loud.

Today I got to Bermondsey station to catch the Jubilee line to work, and could hear the tube was pulling in while I was at the top of the escalator, which is a common occurrence. Sure enough I missed the train by seconds, due to slow people on the escalator (also a common occurrence).

This time though, they suspended the entire line after that train departed, because the train behind it was faulty, meaning I had to walk to work instead. The walk from Bermondsey Station requires a walk through the 1.6km long and very dirty Rotherhithe Tunnel. So missing the train by a few seconds ended up costing me about 45 minutes. I won’t dwell on the fact that it was also pouring with rain.

And then to top it all off, the people around me at work are being especially loud today but because my iPod ran out of batteries after an hour, I have no way to drown them out.

If you go down to the platforms of a tube station, and then leave via that same station (for example the line is suspended), you are still charged £1.40 despite not having travelled anywhere. Tomorrow I have the unenviable task of having to ring Transport for London and demanding that £1.40 back. Because they, like almost every other company in Britain, only have a premium rate number for you to call them on, it will probably cost me at least £1.40 just sitting on hold. Fun times.

I’m really hoping that this day isn’t indicative of how the rest of the week is going to play out.

And right now Pablo is probably an hour or so away on the plane heading to a sunnier climate – Ecuador. I’m very jealous.

As I write this, people in New Zealand have already celebrated the New Year. I’m still at work (but have been given permission by my boss to go home so don’t feel too bad writing this!) but will be going soon.

I said that this year wasn’t going to be like 2007-2009, where I’ve stayed in the same job all year and not really done anything exciting, and I said I would actually go travelling and learn Spanish, something I always meant to do. And I would get out of full time work and go self-employed.

In that respect I feel like this year was a complete success. I went to Costa Rica, Peru, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, as well as New Zealand twice in one year.

And, after three months travelling, I went back into my old job as a contractor, and then not long after that found a new job. I feel like i should have done this years ago. But I was very lucky because an old colleague got me my new job and so it might not have been so easy for me if I’d done it any sooner.

So, what’s on the cards for 2011? I’ll be staying in my current contract as long as they let me, but after that who knows. I’d like to make the “travelling overseas for months at a time” a yearly thing, but of course that requires lots of saving and a flexible job. Finally though, I feel I’m a bit closer to that than I have been in previous years.

It’s when I think about this sort of thing that I feel very fortunate I have the opportunity to do all this wonderful stuff. But I miss my family and friends in New Zealand immensely! It sounds a bit soppy but I feel those people who spend lots of happy time with their families are the luckiest people of them all.

Yesterday I realised that the British Pound Sterling is worth less than 2 New Zealand Dollars for the first time in the history of the New Zealand Dollar.

Considering I’m saving very hard here in the UK and hoping to send the money back to NZ one day, this left me feeling a bit sick. The worst bit is that it reached record lows some months back, has been falling since then and is showing no signs of stopping.

Given the amount I save each month, every time the rate drops 0.05 (say, from 2.05 to 2.00), I have to save for an extra 2 months just to get back to where I was (in $NZ terms). Considering that the rate was 2.85 just over eighteen months ago, it feels a bit like all my saving over the last two years has been for nothing, and it’s only going to get worse.

I’m hoping that it’s largely due to the fact that the Bank of England base rate (bank lending rate that mortgages are based on) is also at its lowest point in the history of the Bank of England (300+ years). It’s currently at 0.5%, and it’s widely known that there’s only one way interest rates can go from here, and that’s up. Hopefully when that happens, the GBP/NZD rate will go up with it. Yes, working in a bank you learn boring stuff like that!

For those of you in NZ that look at the rate the other way, the NZD/GBP rate has gone above 0.50 for the first time ever.

So, the “Boris Bikes”… thumbs up or thumbs down?

I give them a thumbs up… just.

To sum up, London’s cycle hire is great for tourists and casual users who want to get from A to B and who aren’t in a hurry. But I believe they’re too unreliable to use as a serious long-term method of transportation. Allow me to elaborate, if you will.

I was invited to a friend’s Christmas dinner on Christmas Day, and in London there is no public transport at all on Christmas Day, or so I thought. So I had walked 45 minutes across Central London to get to my friend’s house, and just before I got there I saw the blue Barclay’s bikes sitting there gleaming, and thought “what a great idea”!

I knew that starting this month, you were able to hire the bikes using just a credit card (before this month you had to pre-register and purchase a key). And I also knew that the minimum hire period was 24 hours and also that the next day there was to be a tube strike. So, I thought, this was the best time to try them out.

Ride 1: Clerkenwell to Bermondsey

By the end of dinner I had had three glasses of wine but was still able to walk in a straight line so I went to the hire bikes which were conveniently located almost right outside my friend’s place in Clerkenwell. After selecting that I wanted a 24-hour hire period, I was prompted to put my credit card into the machine so it could take off £1. I did that, and put in my PIN number.

But then, the machine just went back to the main menu. No “here’s what you do next”, no bike got released, not even a “have a lovely day”. So, after 30 seconds of standing there with a dumb look on my face, I decided to go through the process again. I put in my credit card again and my PIN number again.

I always laugh at people who do that when they are on the tube. They swipe their Oyster Card to get into the tube, but “computer says no”. Or more accurately, “computer says Seek Assistance”. So they try their card again, and again, and again, thinking that despite trying their Oyster Card thirty-seven times, perhaps on the thirty-eighth time it might work.

But I digress. This time, after entering my credit card and PIN for the second time, it worked! Out came a piece of paper with a code on it, and I had to enter this code onto one of the bike stands and it would release the bike. This I did, and took off with the bike and made my merry way down Aldersgate Street, Cannon Street and the hill by London Bridge. It was fun, because I hadn’t been on a bike for so long, and easy because there was absolutely no traffic in the City on Christmas night. It was also easy because it was almost entirely downhill.

It took me 5 minutes to work out how to change gears, and only a small amount less time to work out how to adjust the seat.

At Bermondsey, I put my bike into the one available spot – they were all taken except one. Written on the bike were instructions saying that you need to expect a green light when you put your bike away to confirm that your journey is registered as having finished. This is exactly what happened, so I wandered off.

If there are no spaces to put your bike, you’re supposed to (as I understand) register this on the terminal and it will give you 15 minutes more free time to find another one. As I’d just taken the last spot, I decided to try this out. The option was there, but it was unavailable (greyed out). Oh well, I thought, luckily I didn’t need it this time.

When I got inside I went straight onto the cycle hire map to see if I had in fact picked the closest docking station to my house. I had, but when I clicked it, it said “2 spaces available”, meaning there were two empty spots to put your bike into. “Lies, all LIES!” I thought. True, it’s possible that between the time I dropped off the bike and the time I got home two bikes had been rented, but in the three minutes it took to get home from the docking station, I thought it unlikely at that time of night on Christmas Day.

Rating on this occasion: 8 / 10 because I had to go through the registration procedure twice before it gave me a bike.

Ride 2: Bermondsey to Oxford Circus

I wanted to catch the bus north west and the particular bus I needed left from Oxford Circus, so my plan was to hire a bike from my place in Bermondsey and ride it to Oxford Circus, leave it there and get the bus. You’re allowed the bike for 30 minutes each time before they charge you extra, and then you have to leave the bike alone for 5 minutes before you take another. “No problem, I can do that in 30 minutes”, I thought.

So I swiped my credit card, and it knew I was registered from yesterday, and printed me another code for a bike. Simple!

I decided to go via St Pauls Cathedral and Holborn Station. Silly me – St Pauls Cathedral is on top of a MASSIVE HILL. Well, it’s not massive really… but when you haven’t been on a bike in years, all of London’s hills suddenly turn into mountains.

After 25 minutes I had only made it as far as Holborn (boy, I’m more unfit that I thought), and I dropped off the bike there just in case I couldn’t find a place to drop it at Oxford Circus within the 30 minute time limit. No problems there… except I could barely walk once I got off the bike because my legs were so sore.

As a side note, can I just say that on this person’s review of the cycle hire scheme, the reviewer says:

“To be honest, I can hardly imagine a trip within the boundaries of the Scheme that could last longer than 30 minutes”

I would like to say to that reviewer… bite me.

Rating on this occasion: 10 / 10 – no problems.

Ride 3: Tottenham Court Road to Oxford Circus

After walking for 5 minutes I was eligible to take another bike. So at Tottenham Court Road I thought I’d get another bike, despite Oxford Circus being no more than 5 minutes’ walk away. “Why not”, I thought, “since it’s free”.

There were three bikes left at this particular docking station. I picked one, and this time tried to adjust the seat before taking the bike, that way it doesn’t count towards my 30 minutes. But no dice – the seat was stuck on the lowest setting, so unsuitable.

I got my release code by inserting my credit card, however, when I tried to enter it and take a bike, I got no response from the machine – nothing, no red light (you were supposed to get a red light if something was wrong), no green light, no light at all, and the bike was still locked.

I wasn’t sure why it wasn’t working – I thought maybe I’d typed the code wrong. The actual buttons you have to press to enter your code are awful – they’re not raised, it’s almost like they’re just painted on, and when it’s minus 1 degrees and your hands are frozen, it’s really hard to type a five digit number on tiny buttons that don’t register when they’re pressed.

So I tried the third and last bike, and when I entered my code, I got a flashing red light. As a first time user I had no idea of what this meant (still don’t). But, what I did know is that if you take a bike out and don’t return it, it’s a fine of between £150 and £300. Because the system had clearly malfunctioned, for all I knew it thought I had a bike out.

Therefore I didn’t have much choice except to phone the helpline right there and then. They wanted 20p a minute to phone their premium rate number. Not bloody likely! Luckily I found an alternative number to call that was 020 (free) and talked to a really nice and polite lady who assured me that I was not registered as having a bike out, but couldn’t tell me why it wasn’t working for me at this docking station. She directed me to another one nearby, but I told her I would just walk as it would be less hassle.

Rating on this occasion: 0 / 10 – it just didn’t work, and I had to call up their customer services on a potentially very expensive phone number.

Ride 4: Edgware Road to Angel

The traffic in West London was so bad on Boxing Day that I got off the bus I was on and walked. By this time, my phone had run out of batteries so I wasn’t able to look online and see where the nearest cycles were. The first ones I stumbled across were at Edgware Road Station.

There was only one left. I thought “this one’s clearly faulty” (by virtue of it being the last bike there). I put my credit card in, tried to release the bike, and got a big fat red light. Grrrr. So I walked five minutes up the road to Marylebone, and tried to get a bike there. My release code didn’t work, but I put my credit card in again and got a new release code and it worked just fine this time. Off I went to Angel Islington.

After being stuck in traffic on a bus for what felt like ever, suddenly having the freedom of a bike was really liberating. And I’m sure that if I did it more than once every few years and therefore actually got fit, it would make getting across Zone 1 quick and easy.

Even though I was going along Marylebone Road and Euston Road, two of the busiest roads in Central London, it felt okay. There was a big bus lane so I had to avoid buses stopped in that lane (not hard) and the only cars that would get close to you were taxis (I assume they’re better trained to deal with cyclists than normal cars).

But boy the hill by King’s Cross station (Pentonville Road) is a killer. I tried to get a big run-up at the bottom, but there were so many potholes and those bikes are heavy. So I didn’t get much of a run up, and I admit, only made it two-thirds of the way up the hill before I got off and pushed it the rest of the way up.

Rating on this occasion: 7.5 / 10 – it was a pain because there was a bike at Edgware Road, but I couldn’t hire it. But the fun of riding a bike after being stuck in traffic for an hour was great.

Ride 5: Angel to Bermondsey

My whole reason for going to Angel was to go to Shakeaway. According to their website, they are open on Boxing Day, but I got there and they were shut. Sad!

Because you have to wait 5 minutes between cycle hires, I had 5 minutes to wait out before taking another one. After 3 minutes I got bored, and put my credit card again. I was a bit nervous, but I thought “well the worst that can happen is it will say no, or I will get charged an extra £1″. It gave me a bike just fine and off I went. The route was almost the same as Ride number 1 from yesterday and it was all downhill.

But there were lots of people out on the street this time, and everybody would stare as you rode past. Not that I mind, I like a bit of attention. The bikes are bright blue and have the Barclays Bank logo plastered over them in large letters since they are the sponsor. One kid yelled out “Barclays!!!!” but because I was going fast I didn’t have the necessary 90 seconds required to formulate a hilarious comeback.

Rating on this occasion: 10 / 10 – no problems at all, and I didn’t even have to wait 5 minutes between hires.

So there you have it. Averaging out the five ratings that I gave each of my five experiences means that I give the scheme as a whole a “slightly better than I expected” 7.1 / 10.

I’ll definitely use it again if I feel like I need exercise, or if there’s a tube strike, or it’s a warm day. But I’ll never use it as a means of commuting to work or if I’m in a hurry – it’s just too unreliable currently.

The bikes themselves were quite comfortable, but as I said they were really heavy which meant that you noticed every single pothole and bump in the road. I also found that I kept slipping forward on the seat and so the crown jewels kept getting hurt. But they were not cheaply made bikes.

I intentionally waited a few days to post this review to see if I was ever charged extra for entering my PIN number twice, or for taking a second bike within 5 minutes. Nope, for 24 hours’ bike use and four actual cycle hires, I was charged the princely sum of £1. Really great.

So I just checked the news, and according to stuff.co.nz, England are hosting the football world cup in 2018! That will come as quite a shock to football fans, considering that it’s actually Russia that was officially announced.

Good on you stuff.co.nz – it’s been clear for a long time from reading their website that they don’t employ proofreaders, and this just proves it. Although in saying that, five minutes later this embarrassing mistake was off their website. But not before I captured a screenshot!!!

CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE…

The text says “The ‘home of football’ England will host the 2018 football World Cup and middle-eastern nation Qatar will host the 2022 tournament, Fifa president Sepp Blatter announced”. Heh what a cool name, Sepp Blatter.

Anyway, it was clear that England weren’t going to host it, after reporters here ran stories about FIFA officials accepting bribes!

Well there’s been a lot of tube strikes recently. But this time it’s different for me because I actually take the tube two stops each day now since I’ve moved out of Tower Hamlets and also changed jobs.

It said on the TFL website when I woke up that my local station (Bermondsey) was closed, so instead I walked all the way over to Tower Gateway and caught the DLR (light rail) instead, which wasn’t on strike. That means my journey took an extra 20 minutes and cost an extra £1. And then, when I got to work, it seemed that Bermondsey had actually reopened.

But I didn’t mind too much – if these people are going to strike, then I’d rather not give them my money. And, because Tower Gateway is the first station on the DLR, it meant I actually got a seat this morning, rather than the usual daily grind of being shoved up against the side of the tube, having to curve my body to match the contours of the door each day.

Walkers Crisps have an interesting promotion on…

Win £10 every day it rains.

You go to www.walkers.co.uk, choose where in the UK you think it will rain (on whatever day it is two days from today), and enter a code off a pack of crisps.

Well, having just bought a Cheese & Onion pack of crisps, I thought I’d give it a go! Come on, it rains so much here, it’s easy money!

I liked the entry because there was no ridiculously long entry form. I just entered my email address, created a password, didn’t click the “you can send me spam” box, and boom! If it rains between 8am and midday on Saturday just east of Stirling in Scotland, I win £10!

I chose Stirling because according to BBC Weather, that’s the only place on Saturday where they’re expecting rain. Although you can see where everybody else has guessed, and it seems that people are guessing around major cities – perhaps they’re picking squares based on where they live, or where they have attachments… suckers!

Ok, so you had to choose a 4hr window as well as a place, and you’re only allowed one entry per day, so you’re not going to get rich off it. But it was a bit of fun for this afternoon.

That £10 is not going to seem like much after I win £112,000,000 on the Euromillions on Friday. But it all adds up. Especially considering the crisps only cost me 40p.

EDIT 5 November: It didn’t win on the particular day I chose here, but I entered the competition three more times after this post and won £10 on two of those days.

Haven’t updated the blog for a while, and so I thought I’d have a good old whinge… after all, that’s why I created the blog in the first place, isn’t it? Well that, and to post photos of my travels!

Went out for a run last night, the first in a while. I thought I’d go around along the south side of the river, through the Greenwich foot tunnel and back around through Canary Wharf. But I got to the Greenwich foot tunnel, and it was all boarded up with a sign saying that it now closes at 9pm nightly. Rude.

So I thought I’d run downstream (or is it upstream?) to the Woolwich foot tunnel, some 35 minutes further away from my house. “Surely,” I thought, “Greenwich can’t be so contemptible as to close both foot tunnels at the same time”. But when I got there… it was boarded up as well!

There was a sign saying “due to health and safety concerns, this tunnel is closed until further notice”. Yup – nice one – health and safety is a good excuse to do pretty much whatever you want. Maybe someone slipped on a banana peel.

The sign went on to say “please use the nearby free ferry in the meantime”. Surprise surprise… the ferry was also closed.

So, I’d just like to say… London Borough of Greenwich, you’re an embarrassment to London. And as a not entirely unrelated side-note, your borough has far too many slugs. You should do something about that.

I’ve emailed Greenwich Council about this, let’s see if they reply.

EDIT 5 November: I got a reply shortly after saying “we’ve forwarded your message to the appropriate department”, but nothing more after that.

I thought after my last post on T-Mobile I should write something nice today! It’s Friday so it’s not hard to be in a good mood!

I was super bored last night, and after looking on the net for something to occupy myself I found Sketch Swap… basically you draw on a (virtual) whiteboard, and once you’ve finished, it draws on that whiteboard a picture that someone else drew.

So… I drew this:

and I got this drawn for me on the screen:

I drew this:

and got this:

I drew this:

and got this:

I drew this:

and got this:

Apparently they’re approved behind the scenes so you know you won’t get shown something horrible. Although who knows if that’s still happening, this site’s been around a few years it seems and maybe the authors are no longer approving pictures. It’s a bit of a shame to think that my masterpieces (come on, they are, aren’t they?) are going nowhere and will be seen by nobody.

Go on, give it a go!

PS. apparently K.L.B. in Connecticut loves pies, or at least she did on Feb 11 2006. Who doesn’t
PPS. it’s cooler on the site because it actually draws it the way the person originally drew it… which you can’t see here on my blog.