scotty2hatty's London Adventure

[scotty2hatty]

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.

[tikay]

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.

[scotty2hatty]

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!



I love films, on the way down on the train I watched Chernobyl Diaries which wasn't fantastic, probably a 5/10. I also started watching Alex Cross 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.

[scotty2hatty]

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.

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.

[edgascoigne]

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.

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.

[scotty2hatty]

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.

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.

[edgascoigne]

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.

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!

[scotty2hatty]

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.

[scotty2hatty]

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!

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.

[edgascoigne]

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!

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.

[scotty2hatty]

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!

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.

[Graham C]

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

[scotty2hatty]

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:

Click to see full-size image.

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.

Click to see full-size image.

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.

[scotty2hatty]

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

[celtic]

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