January 2007 Archives

I get 21 days for vacation. I know that's quite generous, but it's really not enough. Not when you have a new boyfriend in another part of the world. Arrh!! That said, I am so tempted to go back to Montserrat for the week long celebration surrounding St. Patrick's Day.

St Patrick's Day... Caribbean-style
Thursday, January 25, 2007

BRADES, Montserrat: The mention of St Patrick’s Day conjures up images of shamrocks, leprechauns and everything green. With a backdrop of secluded dark sand beaches, world-class diving, and a volcano starved for attention, the St Patrick’s Day celebration on the island of Montserrat is unlike any other.

With an annual festival that runs from March 12-19, 2007 and a rich Irish heritage, Montserrat is the only country in the world outside of Ireland to recognize St Patrick’s Day as a national holiday.

Residents and visitors alike take part in a week of feasts, parades, concerts, cultural exhibitions and outdoor theater productions to commemorate the slave uprising that occurred on the island during St Patrick’s Day of 1768.

Activities include national exhibitions showcasing history, art and literature, a kite festival, Junior Calypso Monarch Competition, Freedom Walk and Run, Heritage Day & Feast and annual St Patrick’s Day church service and dinner.

There will even be a slave village constructed in Little Bay that will include individually decorated slave huts and a slave feast offering samples of local foods, such as goat water, stewed yard fowl and bush tea. Local bars and restaurants also celebrate in a more traditional way by serving Guinness and decorating with shamrocks and plenty of green.

Of all the Caribbean islands, Montserrat is the only one to boast a noticeable Irish heritage. The island was a haven for Irish Catholics who had once served as indentured servants in the British West Indies and the influence of their culture is still felt today. The harp and female figure on the flag and official seal of Montserrat are derived from the Irish heraldry.

Goat water, the national dish made of kid or mutton and spiced with cloves and rum, hails from the original Emerald Isle. The Irish legacy is present in the folklore, surnames and even the local speech, which is laced with Irish brogue.

This British overseas territory boasts the spectacular Soufrière Hills Volcano, a modern day Pompeii in the form of its buried former capital city Plymouth, alongside lush, green mountains, world-class nature trails, secluded dark sand beaches, untouched reefs and a quiet friendly charm reminiscent of the way the Caribbean used to be.

The dark days, cold weather, and crowded trains have me suffering a bit from the January blues. How else to explain the anger that rises within me each week day morning as I make my way from Wimbledon to Central London. The main problem is that I hardly ever get a seat for my 20 minute journey as the trains are really crowded. So crowded in fact that we are often packed in like sardines. This is most frustrating because it cost me £34 each week for the privilege. Arrh! I can’t wait for Spring. Actually I can't wait for mid February when Airport Guy comes for a visit.

I am all for reality TV stars getting their 15 minutes of fame, but after that is over, they need to go away until they acquire some serious talent. Case in point is Jade Goody whose claim to fame was being in the 2002 UK version of Big Brother. She then goes on to earn millions of pounds exploiting the fact that she is an airhead.

Now 2007 comes around and she foolishly joins the cast of Celebrity Big Brother where she proceeds to bully and make prejudicial remarks against an Indian actress Shilpa Shetty. Wisely, the British public voted her out last week and her career is in free fall. Now we must suffer through countless TV interviews and newspaper articles where she begs for forgiveness. Oh please! Enough is enough. Just go away quietly. Take some time off and deal with your anger and insecurities. Until that happens, most of us out here are not interested in hearing anything you have to say.

Yet more painful confirmation that despite my good job and savings, upwardly mobile young professionals like myself shouldn't even consider getting on the London property ladder. The prices for even the smallest of places is just outrageous. Thus its better to just rent and wait for the property market correction. Or better yet, start looking for a city banker because they seems to be the only ones buying property in London's more desirable neighborhoods.

'Table-sized flat' for £170,000

BBC News, Monday, 22 January 2007


Look what £170,000 can buy you
A flat roughly the size of a snooker table has gone on sale for £170,000 in London's upmarket Chelsea.

The former janitor's storeroom measures 11ft by 7ft and has a cupboard place for a shower and kitchenette area.

Potential buyers can expect to fork out an extra £30,000 to make the room habitable as there is no lighting and it is full of rubble.

Even the estate agent selling the property admitted the flat was "incredibly depressing".

"We have to go in with a torch because the lights do not work and it is full of rubble," Jason North, associate director at Lane Fox.

Nevertheless, the flat is expected to attract buyers due to its close proximity to the fashionable bars, shops and leisure facilities of Kensington and Chelsea.

In fact, the £170,000 price tag may make it one of the few affordable properties in what is London's and the UK's costliest borough.

According to research from property website Rightmove, released on Monday, the average asking price for a house in Kensington & Chelsea in January was £1,145,791.

I am currently experiencing my second winter in London and both have been rather mild. But it's been so cold over the last two days that they are talking about snow. Now that would be kind of fun as I really haven't seen snow in London. And if the cold snap continues, I might just pull out and wear the fur coat given to me by a former manager. That is of course if I can get past the embarrassment of owning one. Sort of sad really as they are so warm!

I hinted at it before, but here is further confirmation that New York is loosing it's competitive edge when it comes to financial markets.

New York may lose 'finance capital' status
James Doran in New York, London Times, January 23 2007

New York’s status as the world’s financial capital is under threat from a surge in red tape that could starve America of as much as $30 billion in revenue within four years and relegate the city to a regional marketplace.
The bleak outlook was outlined in a doom-laden report written by McKinsey & Company, the management consultancy, and commissioned by New York’s City and State governments.

The findings were revealed by Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, Senator Charles Schumer of New York, and Eliot Spitzer, the recently elected Governor of New York State and the former New York attorney-general.

The report, written after McKinsey spoke to more than 50 chief executives from the financial services industry and 350 other experts, found that the cost of implementing regulations contained in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was driving foreign investors away from the United States.

The report also claimed that immigration policy, which has been tightened significantly in the five years since the terrorist attacks of September 2001, was stifling innovation in financial services, as companies are unable to bring in the best talent from overseas because of visa restrictions.

It is also claimed that the high risk of litigation in the United States was driving business to less litigious marketplaces, such as London.

Furthermore, New York is not the only marketplace in the US that will suffer. The report found that six other states rely on financial services for more than 10 per cent of their income, a lot of which could be lost if policy and regulation are not drastically changed to improve competitiveness.

I began the year with the best of intentions. In addition to the annual, must loose weight resolution, I set a goal for myself to blog almost every day. However, as is painfully obvious, I haven’t even come close. Mainly because I am choosing not to blog about the two things currently dominating my life. The first being work for obvious reasons. The second is my budding relationship with Airport Guy. He is extremely private and is not yet aware that I have a blog. In time, I’ll tell him but for now there really is no rush. As for the weight loss resolution, well I joined Weight Watchers again! Hopefully, I’ll have the will power to see things through this time -- particularly since there is a vacation on a beach in the not too distant future.

Sarah Brown over at Que Sera Sera is compiling a list of cringeworthy journal entries for a book. I thought I'd post my journal entry 20 years ago today which sort of fits into this category.

January 8th 1987:

Trying to deal with reality really stinks. Tryone2 and I are finished. I couldn't sleep at all last night. All I did was lay awake and think of the phone call yesterday from one of his friends who told me he had another girlfriend. It's hard to accept but in time I'll adjust.

What is cringeworthy about this entry is that weeks before and weeks after I obsess about this person. Yet after racking my brain, I have no memory of this Tyrone person. Granted it was 20 years ago, but still. I should at least remember something. Then again, we weren't together in the biblical sense so I suppose that's why I have no memory of him. Either way, this entry along with the others are just rather pathetic and sad.

In all my years of purchasing items via Amazon, I had no idea that they had a 30-day price guarantee.

Amazon's Secret Price Guarantee
The online retailer's Zen customer benefit.
Slate, By Timothy Noah, Posted Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2007, at 6:25 PM ET

Of the many responsibilities shouldered by this column, none is more solemn than its mandate to compel Web-based retailers to take phone calls from the public. But suppose you finally get one of these reclusive customer-service reps on the horn and become so flustered that you forget what it is you wanted to say? If the retailer is Amazon.com—customer-service number: 1-800-201-7575; to get a human right away, dial extension 7—ask him about that 30-day price guarantee.

Perhaps you are wondering: What 30-day price guarantee? Like Amazon's customer-service number itself, the 30-day price guarantee is not something Amazon publicizes. For instance, it isn't mentioned on the "Refunds" page. If you click here you'll learn all about Amazon's 30-day returns policy, which provides a full refund for most unopened items returned within 30 days. But that's different from the 30-day price guarantee, which requires only that you pay attention to whether Amazon lowers its price within 30 days after you purchase your item. If it does, Amazon will refund you the difference. No need to box up your purchase or fret about receiving only a partial refund because you removed the plastic wrap.

While in Montserrat, I had dreams about living there again. However, with continued volcanic erruption, I'm not sure that dream will ever be realized.

Jan. 4, 2007, 3:28AM
Volcano forces evacuations in Montserrat
By BENNETTE ROACH Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

OLVESTON, Montserrat — Hundreds of people living at the base of Montserrat's Soufriere Hills volcano evacuated as a lava dome grew to dangerous levels in the British Caribbean island.

Scientists say that the dome could crumble and send blistering gas and volcanic debris down the slopes of the volcano, potentially destroying homes in the low-lying Belham Valley.

"Residents in these areas are advised not to panic and to start preparations for moving to safe area," Chief Minister Lowell Lewis said after the first siren sounded Wednesday.

The volcanic dome had been building rapidly and has topped the highest part of the 3,000-foot volcano, which coughs up ash and bursts its lava cap every few months.

Scientists at the Montserrat Volcano Observatory said some pyroclastic flows already have been observed but that they are at a safe distance. However, the observatory warned that the pyroclastic flows could escalate significantly.

The Soufriere Hills volcano sprang to life in 1995, and more than half the territory's 12,000 inhabitants moved away. An eruption in 1997 buried much of the south, including the capital of Plymouth, and killed 19 people.

Southern Montserrat is now an "exclusion zone," and the island's 5,000 residents now live in the north.

___

On the Net:

Montserrat Volcano Observatory: http://www.mvo.ms.

Much better....my head is starting to fit my body!

I have very few pictures of me when I was a little. Here is one I found in my aunt Nenen's photo album.

With my big head and short hair, it's almost too embarassing for words! But I don't care. I'm posting it anyway.

I should have stayed in Monserrat for a few more days. Mainly because since I've been back, I haven't really don't much of anything. Partly because I'm fighting off another cold but also because I'm thinking about a certain person who is still in Montserrat. He leaves tomorrow. In any event, I have now loaded the pictures from Monserrat on flickr. Somewhere in the set is a picture of you know you that I might actually remove since he is a very private person and probably wouldn't approve of me posting here. Oh well -- enjoy for now!

After Christmas Day, the rest of my vacation went by really quickly. I spent time with other visiting family members as well as Airport Guy. In fact on the last evening, Airport Guy hung out with me and one of my Aunt's family who were visiting from Virginia. And as the hours to my departure came close, part of me wanted to change my flight until after the New Year. In the end, I decided not to, as the more time I spent there, the harder it would be to say good-bye to everyone, especially my aunt Nenen and Airport Guy. Now back in London, I'm glad I made the decision to go -- even if only for a short while. Had I not gone, I never would have met Airport Guy and that my friends would have been a real travesty -- particularly as knowing him will make 2007 and hopefully years to come a lot more interesting.