Back on the rail

So I found out a piece of hugely empowering news yesterday from someone whom I trust. Apparently, just about any letting agent will accept 6 months in advance on any let regardless of the 'reference' outcome. This is huge news. I just went from wondering if I would find any place to accept us to feeling like I can get anyplace in London… within reason. And it worked! We offered 6 months in advance, and we're in… verbally anyway. Once you get past what they are saying, this place works just like home… money talks. But you have to know the magic words. Past experience say there will be one more derailment about some other thing yet to be mentioned. But maybe now that we have been here long enough, there will just be this one. But even so, this time, I have an ace in the hole… a letting agent who I know outside of this deal. So I am boldly proclaiming that I am NOT holding my breathe. This is great… I am excited again!

Photo Credit: Today in Social Sciences

and so it begins again

So we have been rejected for the Surbiton flat. For the first hour of the conversation I had the listen to things like "well, you pass for your half of the rent, but your wife doesn't". This is said as if this is good news. It is also said based our having a joint account. This is not the first time we have to listen to these justifications. The bank has a similar approach. Even though either of us can physically walk into a branch and withdraw all of the money in our account, the debit cards which are attached to the same joint account have vastly different limits. The conversation with the bank is equally if not more inane.

After an hour, I finally convinced them to just run their numbers on the account as a whole, but we still fail. The formula is all based on employment income. Nothing else is matters. Here's another little tidbit I was told, "it doesn't matter how much money you have in the account because you could spend it tomorrow." Apparently I cannot spend my paycheck tomorrow. Apparently the promise of money not yet earned is better than money in hand. All they know is that I have a job and the salary at the time of the check. I could quit that job the next day, I could get made redundant (fired), the employer could go out of business, it could burn down, … But that promise of potential future earnings is better than money in hand. And before you construct a logical argument of why income is in fact better than savings, which I have done in my head already, no matter what result I come up with, it goes solidly against the brain dead reasoning I have been given the scores of times I have run into it and can only lead me to the conclusion that the purveyors of this system have no idea why they are doing it.

But the good news and bad news is that all of this changes with the wind. You can go into a shop and get the requirements for things like mobile phone plans or purchasing travel cards on national rail, then you can step back into the queue and get an entirely different answer from another employee. Or you can come back the next day and talk to the same employee and get a different set of conditions altogether. The rent at our current flat is twice that of the place we just got rejected for and we made even less at the time we secured it, and here we are.

But it still leaves you holding your breathe every time. And I really hoped that I would not have to go through this again. But now I have to dive again somewhere else.

Photo Credit: Peter Vidani Norman Farrell

Deposit

We just put a deposit on a flat in Surbiton. Now we hold our breathe.

Photo Credits:
Your-Move

My Walk Home from Church

One thing I miss about Providence is the community at Grace Church Well, I found another community that feels a lot like Grace: it's called St Saviours Pimlico. As wonderful as St Saviours is, it seems a shame to waste the opportunity to worship at Westminster Abbey (Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster), which is only a bit further way. So I go there a sometimes.

Today, in anticipation of our upcoming move, I was noticing some interesting things I walk past on the way home. First was St Margaret's, the parish of the House of Commons. Then, I go past Palace of Westminster (where Parliament meets), a statue of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, and a replica of Rodin's Burghers of Calais. Then it's past the the Conservative Offices at Millbank, the Tate Britain (an art museCum featuring British artists), and past the former site of a panopticon prison based on Jeremy Bentham's design. Across the street, a memorial bollard marks the top of the steps where prisoners boarded ships to Australia. Then it's over the Thames by the Vauxhall Bridge, to MI6 (Secret Intelligence Service), and home.

All photos are from Wikipedia:

1 St Saviours Pimlico, 2 Westminster Abbey, 3 St Margarets, 4 Emmeline Pannkhurst, 5 Burghers of Calais, 6 Millbank Tower, 7 Tate Britain, 8 Bollard, 9 MI6

Soon we'll be living high and wide

We almost made it two years with one address in London. But this has been a March of inconvenience. First, my beloved's hard drive failed on the day that two important submissions were due. Second, our landlord is selling our flat. Third, we discovered that the backup of one chapter of my honey's PhD was corrupted. March came in like a lion.

A new hard drive is on order but parts for the first generation MacBookAir are getting harder and harder to come by. So she is using my computer in the meantime, which is an inconvenience all the way around. But the quality of our inconveniences shows how far we've come. Remember when the inconveniences were rats, bedbugs, raining light fixtures, lack of heat, & nightly fire alarms? We do.

So moving is on the cards. Without academic loans to help pay for accommodation, our budget has narrowed the selection. There is an inverse relationship between the price of housing and the cost of commuting based on distance from central London. I work in Putney, a relatively expensive area. Although we may luck out and find a place in Southfields, which is walking distance, but pickings are thin on our budget. We're feeling hopeful at the moment about Surbiton. I visited there yesterday morning and it seems quite nice. The prices seem to be in range and it is close enough to Putney to not put the combination of housing and travel beyond the budget. Now we just have to see what the places actually look like.

Looking at flats unfortunately brings a feeling of impending doom. In the past, we were either in a situation where we had to take the first thing that came along or we went in with high hopes only to have them dashed. Our current place was the first time that didn't happen... well, until they sold it out from under us... but even so, it's been a good run.

But all this is just inconvenient. March, so far, has also brought relative good health and good fortune for us and our loved ones. But the thing about inconvenience is that it's just ... inconvenient.

Photo Credit

Pictures of Surbiton from Wikipedia

What Name Calling Actually Says

I recently read that Rush issued an 'apology'. I didn't hear the apology first hand, nor did I witness the original 'offense'. I am not a regular Rush listener, but I do tune in from time to time. Sometimes, I find myself agreeing with the general position of what he happens to be taking. Most of the time, I find myself disagreeing with him. I am what Rush would call a 'liberal'. Rush's use of this term suggests that he considers it a synonym for 'socialist', 'unAmerican', or 'evil'. I do not appreciate these labels. But if I start calling Rush names in response, will that actually convince anyone that my position has merit? No, of course not.

But based on my experience, it is vintage Rush to boil down some of the issues he discusses on his show down to calling a particular person a name. In the recent case where he called someone a slut, the particular issue at hand was the recent birth control debate. There are many ways to discuss opposition to birth control on merits such as the sanctity of life and the moral dilemma for members of religious instituions. These are very appropriate things to be discussing and are contributing to an important debate in our country. And although, as I said, I did not witness Rush discussing this issue when he devolved into calling this one person a name, I expect that that he did mention those more appropriate discussion points based on my past experience of listening to his show.

I believe that the reason he frequently ends up resorting to name calling is that he wants to be able to paint a one-dimensional label on those who have different views from his. At the end of the day, it is easier to get listeners angry at an opponent by quickly slapping an insulting label on him or her. The label allows Rush to throw away any complexities of an issue and boil it down to a single emotional response. Later, he can pull out that one word: whether it is 'liberal', 'socialist', or 'slut', and he can harness all of that anger he has carefully cultivated in the listener. It is simply emotional manipulation.

And yes, of course, all kinds of people resort to name calling. For example, I heard many liberals insult President Bush during his time in office, but that is not the point. The point is this. When people on the street or callers into the shows do it, that is one thing. But when the host does it, that is quite another. And why is it that this phenomena is so prevalent amongst conservative hosts? For all the liberal bias of the general media, I have never once heard the host of a nationally broadcast or nationally syndicated show openly insult a conservative office holder on ABC, CBS, or even NPR, much less an ordinary citizen. (Perhaps I'm watching the wrong shows.) And in this particular case, Rush chose to attack, not an office holder, but a citizen doing her civic duty of testifying at the government's request. Why? Perhaps Rush and his imitators believe that the conservative position is too weak to withstand open discussion of an opposing point of view. I happen to think that there is more than enough merit on logical and moral grounds for the conservative position to sell it without emotional manipulation. But that is just me I guess. Perhaps there is something about being a conservative show host makes you mean spirited.

What ever the true reason is, I believe that the applying of broad and insulting stereotypes to our own citizens by way of name calling, whether the target is a public official or a person engaging in civic duty, is unbecoming of our nation and of conservative ideals. The presence of conservative view points across country via the various media outlets is vital for our nation, but the name calling is not. The regular engaging of this behavior by hosts suggests that there is an inherent belief in a weakness in their viewpoint that requires emotional manipulation to achieve it's aims. I personally think name calling says much more about the moral weakness of the person do it than it does about the person who is being attacked. I just wish that Rush and his imitators believed in the merits of their positions and beliefs enough to not have to resort to emotional manipulation.

Photo Credits:

Apology Form

Pussy Chicken