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A diary of sorts. Might not be fantastically long running, basically I have moved down to London for work and thought it would be good to document some early stuff and get advice from all the English folk on blonde regarding the way of life, things to do etc.

I've worked in retail all of my adult life, and for Topshop/Topman the entire time. Part-time throughout university and then full-time thereafter. In late November, I accepted a new management position within the Brent Cross, London, store as I wished to experience something a little different with having lived in Dundee my whole life. The next step was finding a job for my girlfriend so she could move too, luckily we scored at the first time of asking as she is a skilled merchandiser (basically makes shops look nice: mannequins, displays etc). She successfully applied for a role in the Knightsbridge branch of Topshop. Snob.

I'd came down in early December to look for somewhere we could live. That was a real eye opener. The first place I viewed was barely bigger than my bedroom back home and they were trying to sting me for £1000pcm. I knew I'd need to pay roughly that but expected a little more for my buck. My girlfriend, who couldn't make the trip, had asked for a separate bedroom - most seemed to be studios so this was a battle in itself.

I quickly found that most agencies were at the capers, with the flats I called up about being no longer available but they did have "this amazing other flat". I was later informed that this was a common ploy in that they left their better looking flats on the website to entice people to call. I left Dundee thinking I had about ten viewings over the two days, but ended up with 4 or 5, as most were trying to show me other random flats that I had no interest in.

As we left the hotel on the last day to look at some morning viewings I had booked, I looked in my bag for my train tickets and couldn't find them. I'd lost them. I couldn't afford the £200+ for a train back so had to book the £24 ten-hour Megabus trip. Instead of leaving at 2pm, my bus was at midnight. An hour or so later I received a text message from I guy I had mailed through Gumtree saying he could show me the place but not until 8pm that night. Why not? The viewings throughout the day turned out to be dreadful and this 8pm viewing was my last chance so I made my way to the flat. The ad said it was close to Arsenal Underground Station, it wasn't really, and I should have got off at Finsbury Park instead.

The flat wasn't amazing by any means but it had a spearate bedroom and looked decent in size, and I was desperate. A quick look around and I left, basically knowing I'd have to take the flat as it was the best of what could only be described as a bad bunch. I went back to Dundee, showed the pictures to my girlfriend, explained it was far from great but showed her the comparisons. We decided to take it. The lost train tickets had found me a flat.

Welcome to London, in every sense!

Not many greyhound tracks here now, though......

By strange chance, if you will be working at Brent Cross, that was the site of the very first dog track I ever visited - Hendon. It would have sat sort of half under the A406 Flyover, & towards Brent Cross.

Good luck with your London adventure.

Wednesday 2nd of January

We were meant to be getting the keys on the 2nd but a phone call on the 30th of December had informed me of a change of plan as the flat wasn't ready until the 3rd. Fortunately, my girlfriend, lets call her Carly, for no reason than that is her actual name, had asked her mother to come down and help clean the flat etc and she is a manager within the Apex chain of hotels so was able to get us some cheap rooms. We were staying in the Apex Temple Court, just off Fleet Street, which had only opened in mid-2012 and is without doubt the best hotel I have stayed in. We were top floor with a big balcony and superb views. The room had a 3D TV, Sky HD and was a massive - bigger than my new flat actually!

(http://www.businesstraveller.com/files/News-images/Apex-Hotels/Apex-Temple-Court-2.jpg)

I love films, on the way down on the train I watched Chernobyl Diaries (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1991245) which wasn't fantastic, probably a 5/10. I also started watching Alex Cross (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1712170) which I, despite scoring lower on IMDB, thought was a little better, 5.5/10. I'm tending to prefer action films at present.

Hotel was fantastic, as I said, and got a great sleep.

Thanks tikay.

Well, there is only the one track in Scotland, Shawfield, which by all accounts is terrible and I've actually never been. I guess I should have made an effort for the Scottish Derby which seemed to be the only time there was decent, non-handicapped racing.

I've been to Wimbledon already since I've moved, which I'll document later.

Keep an eye out there for a dog called Bedandbreakfast. Not because he's any good, but because I own him with a couple of mates ;)

Enjoy it down here. There is simply so much going on, all the time. It's great.

It ran when I was there on Saturday, think it got nowhere, but one of the girls I was with backed it based on the name. That's something.

Haha, the name is pretty niche.

His whelp date is the 01/10/10, or 011010 which in binary is the number 26. If you score 26 in darts it used to be (is?) called "2 and 6, Bed & Breakfast".

As I say. Pretty niche!

Thursday 3rd of January

The day from hell.

Well, actually, it started off well. Got a tremendous breakfast in the hotel, lovely fried breakfast of real high quality. Then I left Carly and her mother in the hotel and I set off to pick up the keys from the Letting Agency. Carly had became properly unwell overnight and the hotel had kindly agreed to extend our checkout time by two hours to allow her to rest.

The collecting the keys part was easy enough. The problems arose when we got to the flat.

We had arranged for some of our own furniture to be brought down the following week and instantly realised this would be an issue to the severe lack of space in the flat entrance. That was the least of our issues. As we went up the stairs and reached the flat we spotted a card stuck in the door that had the slogan "Smell Gas?" - instantly thought it was a generic card but then opened the door of the flat to the strongest smell of gas. This was a huge issue. The flat next door had complained of a strong gas smell and had called out the National Grid who had came and gave their flat the all-clear earlier in the day. I snap called them and spoke to a nice gentleman on the phone who was very helpful, an engineer was on his way. As the phone call ended, the guy asked me to open all the windows. Once the phone call was over I tried to open the window in the living area, it simply fell out at one side - the hinges were goosed. Disaster. We looked at each other in disbelief - the other window wasn't much better. Seconds later, it seemed, Carly's mother opened the door to the washing machine and it fell off.

The engineer swiftly arrived and instantly declared the flat 'immediately dangerous' and all gas was turned off. I managed to get hold of the landlord who arrived a little later but was ridiculously nonchalant about the whole thing.

We had been promised a number of things upon our arrival, such as the old furniture removed and a new toilet installed. None of it had been done and now he was refusing to remove the furniture, stating that the letting agency had never asked him. We had to cancel the delivery of our furniture and clothing which was a pain as we only had one suitcase of clothing each.

Was just a terrible start to our move to London. The ladnlord's own gas engineer would be out in the morning but in the meantime we had to sdtay ion a flat with no heating, hot water and a window that we had just put back into place. The Landlord actually became very apologetic about the situation when he relaised the severity of the work needing done to the place and made all sorts of promises and offered a discount on the first month's rent.

Carly was really upset and I felt like I had badly let her down. The windows etc were things I should have checked when I came down but was my first time viewing flats and I was super desperate. The gas was just the cherry on top in reality.

In Dundee we have our own name for scoring 26: "Bus to Douglas" which was the number of that bus. It often just got called Buster Douglas, a bit catchier.

:)

I hope your London luck improves Scotty. Pop me a PM on here next time you are headed to the dogs and I'll come say hi.

Will do sir, thank you.

Sigh, what a massive pain, hope things get better.

Friday 4th of January

The landlord, knowing the terrible situation, offered us a full refund on the deposit and rent. But it wasn't really as easy as that as that was my net worth really and not only would it take a few days for the cash to go into my account, I'd need to find another place to stay.

I left Carly in the flat, still upset, and headed on the bus to Brent Cross to speak to my manager and call HR. As a side note, a flat £1.40 fare on the buses seems very fair. When I got to the store there was actually a HR rep there dealing with another issue. I explained my situation and hoped they could sort me out with some temporary accomodation. They couldn't. They said I had adequate time to sort out accomodation and there was nothing they could do. A little insensitive I though but so be it. The store manager said they could maybe help me out with a small loan for a B&B for a few nights. That wasn't really going to help.

I left there a little depressed and upset myself but when I got back the gas situation had been sorted and we were back in business with heating and hot water. The flat was no longer 'immediately dangerous'. In fact, there was no danger. Danger free.

A call to the landlord and I had set him some deadlines for the works to be completed or we'd be taking up the option of the refund. He was nice enough and made me the adequate promises.

Highlight of the day was seeing these two characters at the Finsbury Park Station with a dog:

(http://lh3.ggpht.com/-B2ob70o6AT4/Rg8glJyLcII/AAAAAAAAAEc/OfinIriw9HA/s640/a%252520031.jpg)

They still making a living out of the game? Barny wasn't looking too fresh.

Later that day, Carly's mother left and we went back to the flat to get ready for a night at Wimbledon Dogs as organised by my mates from Uni as a Welcome to London thing. None of them knew the slightest thing about greyhound racing and I was tasked with getting the winners.

(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/62096000/jpg/_62096027_wimbledongreyhounddayempics.jpg)

Every race had a short-priced jolly it seems so I tried to find things at prices for everyone to take them on with. This wasn't successful. The jollies mostly won and in the races they never, I couldn't find the winner. Great night, 0/11 for me as 8/11 favourites obliged. Had a great time though and was good to meet up with some good mates.

This was my first ever time at a dog track, despite being a huge enthusiast, and loved it, although the atmosphere was quite muted. I look forward to Derby nights there.

Saturday onwards to come tomorrow, I promise some good news. Sat in this cafe most of the afternoon and promised I'd meet my girlfriend from her work at 4. First day of work tomorrow.

Thanks to all that take the time to read and comment.

Also need internet help: http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=59998.0

Welcome to London Scotty. Look forward to reading the diary.

Good luck in London

Id encourage anyone to spend time living in London just for the experience, especially in the early part of a career.

I did 6 years personally, but very much feel like Id done my stint when  I left, and not much chance of me ever returning (to the South generally).

But GLGL, will def read this

Vinny is Boris Johnson.

Sigh, I have that red t-shirt!

I moved to London for 5 years, so looking forward to reading another view of the big move!

There are only 10 types of people in this world,
those that understand binary, and those that don't

Good read so far and looking forward to following, glad that things seem to be working out and best of luck m8!

No but he is defo thinking of all the branches of Nando's in London that he has not visited for free!!

GL with the Diary though Scotty and count me in when you fancy a visit to Romford Dogs.

Fuck sale boys. I was waiting til page 3 to get the 'buy me dinner please' post in. :(

Hotel looked good!  BoL in the Old Smoke.

Good Luck Scotty, all the best. 

Fwiw you already have a diary http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=58833.msg1696996;boardseen#new   :P

Haha, I'll get the quiz restarted asap.

Good luck in your new job & settling in London town. Have fun.

Good luck in london i plan to make this trip i think i will be around 23-25 when i do and plan to move back up north before 30 with my millions!

Enjoyable so far, will keep a keen eye on :)

As for the Boatmans, both regularly seen punting about in London.

In for the group outing at Romford as well

No internet in flat until February so updates are rather sporadic.

Saturday 5th of January

Carly finished work at 4pm so I decided to meet her from work so we could go do a few things in the hope of cheering her up somewhat. I'd decided to take her for a walk around Winter Wonderland (http://www.hydeparkwinterwonderland.com) in Hyde Park as I'd heard good things and to be honest it just sounded a fun thing to do.

(http://www.qualitycrown.com/images/winter-wonderland.jpg)

It's finished for the year now but if it there next year I would definitely recommend it. Perhaps before Xmas, it'll definitely get you in the mood. Is this a yearly thing?

I think most city centres throughout the UK have a tiny version of WW most years, they certainly did in Birmingham when I was there in December with a few wooden huts offering foods from around the world etc. They are nothing compared to this. Took us a good couple of hours just to walk around the park. We stopped a couple of times to try out some fun rides. The rides were a bigger than your standard fairground rides and it certainly made us both feel a little happier.

All of the food and drink outlets looked amazing with all sorts of different foods from around the World. No Scottish options though, wtf??? I settled on some paella and Spanish stew and whilst tasty enough wasn't the best I had and I was wishing I had went for some sort of exotic kangaroo burger or the like. Carly wasn't too hungry but grabbed some waffles with chocolate sauce which seem to be on offer all over the place in London. The only time I'd had waffles previously was as part of an evening meal when I was about 12!

We had a great time at Winter Wonderland and decided that a trip to the cinema would be a nice way to top off the evening. I expected the cinema to be expensive but knew that O2 were offering half price tickets on their Priority Moments app - except you couldn't use them on a Saturday. Sucks. £26 later we were settled into our seats in the Marble Arch branch of the Odeon to see Jack Reacher. We'd nipped into the Sainsbury's around the corner in preparation for some juice and snacks. Sainsbury's seems to be the supermarket of choice in London, they are super rare back home. Plus they are a little pricey I feel.

Jack Reacher (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790724) was much better than expected. It scores 7.2 on IMDB and I'd agree with that, maybe pushing as far as 7.5. Tom Cruise isn't everyone's cup of tea but he was good in this and I enjoyed the comedy that his character brought.

So we headed home a little happier than we had been in the morning. To be honest, I was fine anyway but Carly was upset and I was hoping that the landlord would come good on his promise to come up with his tradesman to fix the important parts of the flat tomorrow (the Sunday).

Fav Nandos order?

Do you like black pudding suppers?

Double chicken breast on pitta, extra hot. Chips and one other side, sometimes double chips. And some extra hot wings.

Love black pudding, but not as a supper, prefer white pudding. Brings up something interesting though, nipped to a nearby chipper last week and all you can order is fish, chicken, jumbo sausage or pie - WTF?

whats white pudding??

never tried battered black pudding maybe i should try and source one

What a great diarrhoea you are Mr S2H. Looking forward to more.

Polite request -  More pics please, and include of of yourself and the GF.

Nawwww, they gave me white pudding in scaberdeen last week by mistake :( chippys in England, well, def London are the worst. I average one black pudding supper per day whenever I go to Scotland. Totally addicted. Thank fk I don't live there or I'd be fat :)

Not sure where about in London you're going to be living Scotty, but there's a chippy called Kennedy's on Goswell Road. It's a 5-10 minute walk from both Angel and Barbican stations. I'm not a huge fan of fish and chips, but whenever I've gone there with someone, they've absolutely loved it. There's also a lot of black cab taxi drivers that eat there, and I'm guessing they know the score. I think it's slightly more expensive than your average chippy, but probably worth it.

Enjoying the thread btw.

Good read Scotty, must be pretty daunting moving down if you lived in Dundee your whole life... Bit of a culture shock! Hope it works out for you and the gf...

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read the thread to date and apologies for the lack of updates but as you will have previously read I don't have the internet in my flat yet. I've since organised that but who knew that it takes over 3 weeks for someone to come round to sort everything out.

I'm going to reply to all of the responses right now and then give an update as to where I am at present with the whole flat thing etc.

White pudding supper > black pudding supper ainec.

Slice of black pudding > slice of white pudding ainec.

A whole black pudding is far too dry and it doesn't tend to go well with a sauce (brown or tomato). Brown is best btw, but I guess that is another debate.

I've since had a visit to a different chippy and ordered a battered sausage supper which is just ok and definitely not as good as back home. Although chips have been of a high standard in both establishments thus far.

From Wiki Paul.....

White pudding or oatmeal pudding is a meat dish popular in Scotland, Ireland,[1] Northumberland, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. White pudding is very similar to black pudding, but does not include blood. Consequently, it consists of pork meat and fat, suet, bread, and oatmeal formed into the shape of a large sausage.

It's delicious.

Staying in Finsbury Park, North London. I'll attempt to give this one a shot when I get a chance if it isn't too far of a trek.

I met a stripper in Kavos who was from Finsbury park. Assured her that I would marry her one day.. sure ever went there.. Look out for an incred blondie called Danielle and say Big Dave says hi and sorry for not marrying you. Not that you ever go to strip clubs ldo.

Hey T Mar.

If I'm being honest, I wasn't daunted at all. I think I had prepared myself for the move.

Now the culture shock part is definitely true. The area I live in is amazingly multi-cultural and I love walking past all the little takeaways and restaurants, each of a different culture. There must be about 10-15 on my street alone, and have seen Ethiopian, Jamacian, Indian and Greek - amongst others.

My store has about 150 staff and I indirectly manage all of those, whilst directly managing around 20 and, without being racist, the names are a disaster to remember. I'm calling everyone by the wrong name. Not many Jethadul's or Dabees' back home.

Pics or GTFO

When I got married I destroyed all pictorial/video evidence of past flings/relationships. Obv this wasn't voluntary. #1OfMyBiggestRegrets :(

Which part of Finsbury Park are you in - this shitty bit or the really shitty bit?

I think just the shitty bit, although I'm unsure. It is pretty shitty but not really shitty so I'm a little unsure. I've not been assaulted yet if that helps?

Thanks Red, glad you are enjoying. Will get some photos up when I get a chance.

The last update was dated Saturday the 5th of January and I am pleased to report that since then everything has went extremely well. Everything in the flat has been sorted and we've made a bunch of purchases/adjustments and it is feeling more like a home now.

I started my job as Back of House Manager in Topshop/Topman Brent Cross on Wednesday the 9th and have enjoyed every minute of it so far. It is a huge challenge with a massive team but something I relish. Lots of positive changes I can make to the store. We had a stocktake count last week and had a terrible result, something I aim to change drastically when we get our next count in 3 months time. Slighting daunting visit from the Loss Prevention Department coming up this week however, due to the poor result.

Brent Cross Shopping Centre is a nice centre with a bunch of decent shops. Before Xmas there was a wild robbery of a jewellers in there that people from London may have heard about. The robbers burst in on bikes and had axes and guns I believe. Below is the footage on Youtube....

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izw1lnm2yyU

I don't have many exciting tales to tell at present as my time has been mostly occupied by work and sleep as I have little to no cash at present. I paid for the move down myself after the promise of money from HR but I am yet to receive the monies, despite a number of calls - I'm hoping this can be sorted asap.

Pay day on Friday so basically I am looking for some exciting things to do in London? Anyone done anything decent recently? Or is there any decent websites that you can use that let you know what is going on?

I love Indian food so hoping someone can recommend a proper quality restaurant for me to try?

Just as an aside, when I see your alias, I hear it in my head as Scotty Twatty.   ;marks;

Blackstock Road = really shitty
Up towards Crouch End = not so shitty


Londonist for things to do, or pick up a copy of Time Out (which is now free)


Was recently in a very good Nepalese restaurant (Great Nepalese) on Eversholt Street across from Euston station. Like Indian food but not as fierce.

Oh, I'm in the really shitty bit then. Nvm.

I like the fierceness of Indian cooking. Restaurant must do decent Tikka Masala as that is all Carly likes.

TBF,you have come from Dundee so it probs doesnt feel shitty at all.   ;hide;

PS ,really enjoying the thread so far.
Hope you settle in without too many hiccups.

Enjoying it too Scotty. Not too sure about decent restaurants where you live, I knoe there is a Nandos in wood green tho! And plenty of choice.in central London.

Do you play.poker?

Oh, the Indian restaurant can be anywhere. Preferably central actually.

And there's a Nando's in Finsbury. 5 min walk from me. Haven't been yet though.

Yup, I play poker. Not anything big though, more of a social player now. Any decent c.£50 tournaments about then please let me know.

Loads of blondes gonna be in Luton on Friday for apat weekend. You normally find a few there every night. Also, there is a poker club in palmers green, about 15 mins from you, maybe 20.

How far is Luton?

About an hour from finsbury park. Easier if you just get on the m1 at Brent cross I would say.

And you get the bonus of Vinny playing so £60 dead money; it's a £40+£20 add on Friday, good fun - shocking standard.

Hard to express how much I love this post

How is London?