entropy reversed

The London transport system is a glorious thing, the one-hour wait on Tuesday morning notwithstanding. The rules are a little different, however. Firstly, you're allowed to eat and drink on the bus. I've come to the conclusion they have to allow this. Some journeys across London are long enough there would be a full meal if it was a plane flight. Actually, I'm assuming you are allowed to eat as there are no signs to say otherwise. Every Tuesday I eat my lunch on the bus between my two hospitals. It could be I'm committing a terrible social faux pas and just don't realise it. In any case... One thing about which there are signs is dogs. They say, "Guide and companion dogs are allowed. Other dogs are at a driver's discretion." In the past I've seen the odd person get on with a toy dog or a rug rat. Yesterday I saw a somewhat larger and fairly energetic dog (a Staffy?) at the bus stop with its owner. "Surely this won't be allowed on," I thought. The driver didn't bat an eyelid. I had Nick and Hayley's digital camera with me and recorded the moment. The dog was well behaved, but I'd have hated to be stuck on a crowded bus with it, had it taken a dislike to me.

At 5pm on my way home on that bus we slunk past the poor, deranged fools who were queuing to get into Wimbledon for the evening. I heard from a colleague that on Monday evening she had queued for an hour to get in and on Wednesday it had been an hour and a half. She did see some good tennis, but it's a heavy price to pay. I snapped this shot through the doors of the bus of just a handful of the thousands of people waiting. Living as we do in Wimbledon, we had thought we might shell out the £8 each to attend for one of the evening sessions. It hasn't happened. This has partly been a lack of planning, but also I've been put off by the queues. Bronwyn pointed out it is only going to get worse next week, as they move towards the finals. I believe they only let people in as others come out. No doubt next week an all day pass will probably mean just that for most ticket holders. I can foresee some disappointed queuers (queuees?).

Finally, I'd like to announce the inaugural dblog award! Congratulations to Geoff Troughton, Esq. He sent an email after seeing the hidden competition information in the html code of this web site... [There is no point going and looking for it now, I've removed it!] An odd way to run a competition I admit, but hey! I really just wondered whether anybody ever looks at the code... Ironically, while Geoff won on purpose (by emailing) he saw the code by accident! Geoff's prize is the incidental glory of being mentioned in this blog. Not much, I admit, but delivered with a smile.   : )

As planned, Bronwyn assisted with leading the worship at church on Sunday, playing her guitar. I believe she enjoyed it; it certainly looked like it in the nice photo I discretely took with Nick and Hayley's digital camera. While there are many wonderful things about digital photography, it turns out a downside is the ease with which one can erase a photo too. Apple make a nice piece of software called iPhoto for keeping track of digital photos. The problem is, (supposedly) safe in the knowledge I'd imported all the photos into the iPhoto collection, I deleted the originals. Turns out I'd never put that one in.

It's church Jim, but not as we know it. On Sunday afternoon we went into the city and met New Zealand friends Hayden and Tania. After grabbing a coffee (actually an OJ and an apple juice) we went with them to their church. This church is called Hillsong Church London and is an offshoot of the original Hillsong church in Baulkham Hills, Sydney. (Their other offshoot church is in Kiev.) It's clear that Hayden and Tania have found a home that they are comfortable in there, which is excellent. There are 35 people down on that stage, and there is no question that the place went off! However, I've never been one for the mosh pit-type experience (I think it's partly the height; I just feel silly) and I ended up feeling like an old man. Bronwyn and I both found it too loud for our ringing ears! Despite that, I enjoyed what the woman preaching had to say, and we'll visit again. There is tremendous diversity in Jesus' family, and that is the way it should be.

Wimbledon has started, or rather it has stopped. That is because the tennis began yesterday. I have the misfortune on Tuesdays and Thursdays of travelling by bus to a neighbouring suburb 4 miles away to work in another hospital. The part that warrants the "misfortune" is that my bus route stops right outside the Wimbledon Tennis Stadium. I anticipated there could be some problems and so attempted to leave for work a few minutes earlier today, hoping to catch an earlier bus. Instead, I found myself waiting for a hour at a bus stop for a bus that supposedly runs every 14 minutes. In all, once the bus had finally detoured around the stadium and travelled through heavy traffic, I did not arrive at work until 9:45am. Worse still, on Tuesdays I then travel at lunchtime (again by bus) back to my main workplace for the afternoons. With an important 1pm appointment I had no choice but to leave the first hospital at 11:30am. As it was, I only just arrived in time. I've never been in close proximity to a major sporting event. At midday there were people queuing two to four wide for a couple of kilometres back from the gate. These were people without tickets, hoping to obtain one on the day. As the tennis is here for two weeks, no doubt you will hear more on this topic. I think they are all mad.

Today we mark three months since our arrival in the United Kingdom. In one of life's little paradoxes I can't believe it's almost July, but it also seems like we've been here much longer than three months. We're settling down into our routines, after a period of feeling less settled a few weeks ago. At Worple Road Evangelical Church we're finding a comfortable home. We feel blessed to have moved from the other end of the planet and to have walked into such warmth. It has been a wonderful example of koinonia for me. (A New Testament Greek word which I understand to mean genuine Christian community).

Some of the people from Worple Road were getting together last Sunday afternoon to play football at Wimbledon Park (remember that is soccer here not rugby!) Nick and I went and played, not expecting to be particularly good but figuring it was a nice day to get some exercise. As it turned out, I played with surprising dexterity for me. Nick did too, somewhat unfortunately considering he was on the opposition team. We had a great time. One untoward ball caught me unawares though, and snapped the frames on my glasses. (20/20 hindsight reminds me you don't wear glasses playing football...) So, after a week without any glasses I settled on a pair of frames this morning at a local optometrist. Even better, despite just being a local shop they had the required lenses on site. I was thus able to go from eye test at 11am to completed glasses by 5pm today! The differences may not be entirely apparent from these small photos. However, you can compare the new glasses here to the photo on the sidebar that was taken last Saturday. The new frames are smaller and more rectangular, and definitely more current with fashion. It is a good change. A nice bonus was a free additional pair of prescription sunglasses - something I've never had before. The glasses brand is "Kangol", and I now carry around with me two little reminders of my earliest origins, imprinted on the inside of the frames...

Bronwyn did not come to the football last Sunday but she has been getting involved at Worple Road in other ways. On any Sunday at Worple Road they... I mean, we... : ) usually have a reasonably substantial group of musicians. However, they are drawn from quite a small pool. As a result the music organiser was pleased to hear Bronwyn was a musician, and doubly so that she had music team leading experience. Tomorrow morning Bronwyn will be assisting for the first time with the worship leading there. She'll be playing her guitar too, which has hardly come out of its case since we brought it over. Bronwyn is looking forward to it.

We rose early today, especially for a Saturday, and made our way via foot, bus and underground to the neighbouring suburb of Balham. There we met with friends Sonja and Steve, and Pip at the Puzzle Bar. We got there about 7:45am, though they'd arrived at about 7:20am and had thus got us good seats. Seats, that is, for the England vs. All Blacks game. Almost as good as being there, with free toast with vegemite, wheetbix, and a pub full of screaming kiwi and English supporters. If you didn't see the game, suffice it to say that though Steve was the only English supporter in the group, he did not feel outnumbered once the final whistle had blown.

We wandered down to Clapham Junction for brunch and then headed back to Wimbledon, where we've had a relaxed day at home. Right now we're sitting in our garden, enjoying the late afternoon sun... ahh... the long summer evenings. Bronwyn is sitting beside me, looking through (Ness') Lonely Planet England as we think about where we will go for our anniversary weekend in early July. We're now thinking about Eastbourne, infamous for octogenarians but apparently very scenic. We're looking forward to doing some day hikes along the coastline.

I noticed how dark it was in Wellington when the All Blacks' game kicked off at "7.30pm" (this morning). It'll still be light here tonight till well after nine. We're heading out to enjoy some of that. This weekend they are screening a free movie, Oceans 11, outdoors at Clapham Common. Nick and Hayley, Bronwyn and I are heading down there in a few minutes time for a picnic dinner. The movie is screened from nine... This is part of a big push from the city to encourage tourism in London. As well as looking further afield, they are doing a lot of advertising encouraging Londoners to use the entertainments on tap here. "Why should tourists have all the fun?", read the ads. Why indeed?

June is just whizzing by. The weekends seem awfully short here but fortunately so do the working weeks. Tonight's small task was to determine whether Carolyn, Bronwyn and I would require visas on our upcoming trip to Tuscany. This will be the first time any of us have been into continental Europe, and I'm really starting to look forward to it. We're not travelling in the way I would have chosen - we're taking a coach all the way from London to Tuscany. I think all the travel is happening in one day too. I really don't like travelling on buses as the leg room is usually terrible. Bronwyn has put in a request that I have a seat facing a table, but there are no guarantees. The coach travels from England through France and Switzerland on the way to Italy. I was pleased to discover that holders of New Zealand passports do not need a visa for any of these countries. Cool. One less thing to worry about.

It is just under a month till Carolyn comes now, though two weeks after that before we head to Tuscany. Before then though we'll have our sixth wedding anniversary. We've always gone away for the weekend for our anniversary. (Can you tell we don't have kids?) This year is the second time we'll be having our anniversary in summer. (For our fourth anniversary we were in Brazil.) It seems obligatory therefore that we consider a seaside location for the weekend. At this stage we're leaning towards Brighton, for accessibility and overall Englishness. I'm told that Brighton recently came number 100 of the 100 best beaches in the world - not a great ranking but it was the only UK beach to make it onto the list!

I'm engaged in an ongoing mopping up exercise at the moment, attempting to finish a number of things. I recently sent six separate envelopes to the New Zealand Inland Revenue Department with tax returns to our date of departure, and other paperwork they required. I learnt some time ago from both personal experience and talking to others that you can't send more than one thing in an envelope when you're dealing with a large organisation, especially the tax department. So it is six documents, six envelopes. Also recently I've emailed off to my supervisors a late draft of the article based on my dissertation. The draft is late in two respects: it is late in the process, nearing final draft status; and it is waaay overdue. I'll be relieved to finally have it published. All this has prompted me to think more about a number of projects and commitments I have that have dragged on for some time. I enjoy finishing things and believe it is important. Recently I have been considering whether there could be a new way of doing things in my life so that I prioritise finishing one thing before I take on others. I suspect it would be a wonderful gift to future-Duncan if I could learn this lesson.

Today is the 50th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. Let us leave aside for a moment any possible ideological debates some will want to have on republicanism. Regardless of whether the monarchy is the best constitutional design, if we were starting afresh, I feel the Queen has done a good job of serving the Commonwealth over the last half century. I think the personal values that she has brought to the position are largely responsible for this. It seems less clear how the role might be developed in the future under others. Long live the Queen.

It was on this day 50 years ago that news reached London of Tensing Norgay and (Sir) Edmond Hillary's successful ascent to the peak of Mt Everest. Many seem to feel that this event was a milestone in the New Zealand psyche, particularly for Sir Edmond's generation I presume. As many will no doubt be aware, the summit was reached 50 years ago last Thursday. I was surprised to notice that in the Christian calendar, last week's anniversary of Norgay and Hillary's climb fell on the Day of Ascension. The aptly-named Day of Ascension marks when Jesus, 40 days after his resurrection, rose up in the air and ascended into heaven in front of his disciples. I do not draw any weird cosmic implications from this, although it is an intriguing juxtaposition.

On the bus today, an overheard snippet of conversation made me think. Have you noticed how "Hi, where are you?" has replaced "Hi, how are you?" as the standard introduction to many telephone conversations? The technology that prompted this change is obvious of course. I've often found myself saying this too, and it seems like the natural and most pressing question. However, I do have a sense of unease that I've skipped some important verbal handshaking that should have occurred. Guarding an invisible line of etiquette, I'm yet to give up saying the "Hello" part when I answer a call. I guess that's the next logical step?

I wonder if the Queen has a cell phone?