Living in London

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

Why do you say a hostel is a bad idea?

 

My plan was to stay in one until I find somewhere to rent, having familiarised myself with the area somewhat. I quite like the idea of working in a hostel, as long as it's a decent one. I have learned some basic conversational rudiments in a few languages when I've been travelling, I think that'd be a good opportunity to help me work on my language skills, as well as acquiring free rent in the process. Having said that, the only two hostels I've stayed in in the UK, which were in Edinburgh, were of a poor standard, and staffed mostly by Australian hippy types. Not a patch on the ones I've visited abroad. Maybe that'll be the case in London too.

[The Fish 9240]

Why do you say a hostel is a bad idea?

 

My plan was to stay in one until I find somewhere to rent, having familiarised myself with the area somewhat. I quite like the idea of working in a hostel, as long as it's a decent one. I have learned some basic conversational rudiments in a few languages when I've been travelling, I think that'd be a good opportunity to help me work on my language skills, as well as acquiring free rent in the process. Having said that, the only two hostels I've stayed in in the UK, which were in Edinburgh, were of a poor standard, and staffed mostly by Australian hippy types. Not a patch on the ones I've visited abroad. Maybe that'll be the case in London too.

 

Didn't realise you meant your "shit job" was working in a hostel.

 

Sure, while you'd be saving a little bit of cash, the standard of accommodation isn't going to be great. I might be wrong, but I doubt it. You also won't be mixing with long term londoners, it'll be tourists and they're the worst people to be around in London. Fair enough if you've got that job it makes sense to live rent free, but I'd honestly expect someone like you to be able to get a better paid job very quickly, and once you do I'd seriously recommend you getting out of a hostel asap. You can have a decent life on £22k I reckon, most of that will be rent, but once you break £30k you can have a really good social life and really eke as much as you like from London.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

Didn't realise you meant your "shit job" was working in a hostel.

 

Sure, while you'd be saving a little bit of cash, the standard of accommodation isn't going to be great. I might be wrong, but I doubt it. You also won't be mixing with long term londoners, it'll be tourists and they're the worst people to be around in London. Fair enough if you've got that job it makes sense to live rent free, but I'd honestly expect someone like you to be able to get a better paid job very quickly, and once you do I'd seriously recommend you getting out of a hostel asap. You can have a decent life on £22k I reckon, most of that will be rent, but once you break £30k you can have a really good social life and really eke as much as you like from London.

 

No no, that would be on top of my shit job, my shit job is as a delivery driver, I'm switching down to London sometime in June. I'm not sure exactly what my wage will be yet.

 

In a sense, I'll be a tourist when I first move down, and I'll definitely spend a few days walking round and taking in the Houses of Parliament etc, maybe throw a condom full of flour at Dave and Gideon during PMQs.

 

I plan to look for better employment as soon as I get there, and as soon as I get a better wage I'll move into a houseshare probably. I've had a quick browse of Gumtree and saw a room advertised for £55 pw, Muslim females only. A small investment in a nihab will see me get that cheap deal, will have to work on the accent though.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Kevin S. Assilleekunt

[The Fish 9240]

No no, that would be on top of my shit job, my shit job is as a delivery driver, I'm switching down to London sometime in June. I'm not sure exactly what my wage will be yet.

 

In a sense, I'll be a tourist when I first move down, and I'll definitely spend a few days walking round and taking in the Houses of Parliament etc, maybe throw a condom full of flour at Dave and Gideon during PMQs.

 

I plan to look for better employment as soon as I get there, and as soon as I get a better wage I'll move into a houseshare probably. I've had a quick browse of Gumtree and saw a room advertised for £55 pw, Muslim females only. A small investment in a nihab will see me get that cheap deal, will have to work on the accent though.

Driving in London is fucking awful mate.

 

Best time to see the sites is when there aren't tourists around. make a bomb threat hoax call about 12 hours before you want to visit and you should be ok.

 

Alternatively, have a wander round the sites at night, pretty impressive and quiet and as long as you're not a delicate flower you shouldn't get bothered by hobos and twats.

[Park Life 71]

Seriously AS you'll be better off in the emigre, arty - writer community in Paris. Get a job in a restaurant and you won't have to worry about food costs. You can develop your French and the ambience and chicks during a Paris spring is to die for. Driving a van around London is a recipie for disaster.

 

Prague is also good as you could double as a travel writer and pitch London mags with various articles and photo mongtage of the lovely city. You've probably saved 5-8k and this will be enough for a year in Prague where it is still possible to live cheap. Local beers 1.30e

Edited April 25, 2012 by Park Life

[Meenzer 14136]

Or you could go and live on the moon. They speak American there.

[angrysteve 0]

Can only mirror what most have said, Dr Gloom has it well summed up on the previous page.

 

Keep your wits about you and you shouldn't get too much bother, although as has been mentioned, I wouldn't recommend the top deck of the bus at night in dodgier areas, although having said that I've only been mugged once in 10 years and I was so drunk I didn't even realise it was happening till my wallet was gone.

 

Apart from that, come and enjoy everything that's on offer and if it turns out not to be for you, at least you give it a go rather than sitting up there doing the same shit everyday and moaning about it like all my mates who are still up there.

[Park Life 71]

Yeah think Gloom's ramblings on the subject are fair. Fish just keeps going on about 'how many mates he's got'...

[The Fish 9240]

Yeah think Gloom's ramblings on the subject are fair. Fish just keeps going on about 'how many mates he's got'...

 

He could take your advice and live in a Irkutsk hippy commune

[Park Life 71]

 

He could take your advice and live in a Irkutsk hippy commune

 

You play Risk?

[Meenzer 14136]

Yeah think Gloom's ramblings on the subject are fair.

 

Wait, what?

[The Fish 9240]

You play Risk?

 

Yup, and I got a postcode from my dad from there once.

[Park Life 71]

Yup, and I got a postcode from my dad from there once.

 

Used to love Risk. All night sessions and Jedi like dice rolling.

[Park Life 71]

Wait, what?

 

Skimmed em.

[The Fish 9240]

Used to love Risk. All night sessions and Jedi like dice rolling.

 

My mate's (yes, them again) husband apparently gets his friends round for over-nighters and goes online for tactics...

[Billy Whitehurst 795]

I tell you what though. I don't care how much of a generalisation this is, people are farrrrrrrrrrrrrr more racially prejudiced in London than they are here. On my first day working in London I was told there was a "monkey" working on our team but he was off sick. Sure enough the next day big bloke walks in looking the spit of Gary Mason. I was like ffs. The old MD of my company, a total cunt, but of Indian origin was routinely called "a paki caant" when he wasn't there. People can say what the fuck they like, London has a massive racism problem, from all angles. I can't remember the last time I heard a genuinely racist comment in Newcastle outside of old timers in clubs.

 

That's not my experience at all. I've been here 12 years and haven't experienced that at all. In fact, I've only been conscious of racism when I go to places like Leeds, Liverpool and Scotland (I don't come across it on trips back to Newcastle).

 

I suppose it depends on who you mix with.

 

As for London having a "massive racism problem", that is just utter bollocks, I reckon I might have picked up on it in the last 12 years if that was the case.

 

[Dr Gloom 20166]

That's not my experience at all. I've been here 12 years and haven't experienced that at all. In fact, I've only been conscious of racism when I go to places like Leeds, Liverpool and Scotland (I don't come across it on trips back to Newcastle).

 

I suppose it depends on who you mix with.

 

As for London having a "massive racism problem", that is just utter bollocks, I reckon I might have picked up on it in the last 12 years if that was the case.

 

got to agree. i'm often quite shocked by the casual racism dropped into conversation i hear back home. it's all harmless stuff, nothing hateful, but not the kind of thing you'd get away with saying in polite conversation down here. london's a lot more pc. i agree it's not as friendly though. that goes without saying.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

Seriously AS you'll be better off in the emigre, arty - writer community in Paris. Get a job in a restaurant and you won't have to worry about food costs. You can develop your French and the ambience and chicks during a Paris spring is to die for. Driving a van around London is a recipie for disaster.

 

Prague is also good as you could double as a travel writer and pitch London mags with various articles and photo mongtage of the lovely city. You've probably saved 5-8k and this will be enough for a year in Prague where it is still possible to live cheap. Local beers 1.30e

 

You've read far too much into a comment I made in the thread about LM where I said, "I enjoy the act of writing." I enjoy it, and while I could make a better fist of writing for a living than the likes of Lee Ryder, I'd be far better suited to a job in the sex industry. I had a look round Pigalle when I was in Paris, and the area has noticably declined and is going through something of a recession. The women in paris are very nice, but they are too intelligent and sophisticated to be interested in me, and I'm a stickler for pubic grooming.

I understand driving is going to utterly shite, but I'll get to know the area, and it'll be a good motivator for me to look for other work. I will also be delivering to a good cross-section of the area, from lower middle-class suburbs where I'll get to experience the disdain of the yuppies, to the desolate ghetto, which will help me learn to deal with being shot at and gang-raped. Basically it's my only option other than quitting and moving down without a job.

[The Fish 9240]

You've read far too much into a comment I made in the thread about LM where I said, "I enjoy the act of writing." I enjoy it, and while I could make a better fist of writing for a living than the likes of Lee Ryder, I'd be far better suited to a job in the sex industry. I had a look round Pigalle when I was in Paris, and the area has noticably declined and is going through something of a recession. The women in paris are very nice, but they are too intelligent and sophisticated to be interested in me, and I'm a stickler for pubic grooming.

I understand driving is going to utterly shite, but I'll get to know the area, and it'll be a good motivator for me to look for other work. I will also be delivering to a good cross-section of the area, from lower middle-class suburbs where I'll get to experience the disdain of the yuppies, to the desolate ghetto, which will help me learn to deal with being shot at and gang-raped. Basically it's my only option other than quitting and moving down without a job.

 

fwiw, that's what I did. Crashed in a spare room for a couple of weeks before I found an admin job, then a couple of weeks after that I'd moved into a houseshare in East London for £450 a month all in. I was only on £18k or so at the time but was still enjoying myself, moved from that to a better paid job within a year and so on and so forth.

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

That's all very well and good Fish, but Parky glided in from Vienna riding the winds with his umbrella like a dishevelled Mary Poppins high on dimetheltryptamine. Got a job as a pot-washer in a Turkish brothel and then set up his own business erxporting scented toilet paper to his contacts in the Middle East. Got fed up after 6 months and moved to Prague.

[The Fish 9240]

That's all very well and good Fish, but Parky glided in from Vienna riding the winds with his umbrella like a dishevelled Mary Poppins high on dimetheltryptamine. Got a job as a pot-washer in a Turkish brothel and then set up his own business erxporting scented toilet paper to his contacts in the Middle East. Got fed up after 6 months and moved to Prague.

I was saying it'd be easy for you, not that I'm amazing.

 

I am though.

Edited April 25, 2012 by The Fish

[Kevin S. Assilleekunt 1]

I don't think I'm as employable as you. The po-po/5-0 certainly wouldn't give me a job. Too black. TOO GANGSTA

Edited April 25, 2012 by Kevin S. Assilleekunt

[The Fish 9240]

I don't think I'm as employable as you. The po-po/5-0 certainly wouldn't give me a job. Too black. TOO GANGSTA

 

Not being funny but you've an adequate grasp of the English language to put you streets ahead of any number of local applicants. You'll be grand

[Park Life 71]

You've read far too much into a comment I made in the thread about LM where I said, "I enjoy the act of writing." I enjoy it, and while I could make a better fist of writing for a living than the likes of Lee Ryder, I'd be far better suited to a job in the sex industry. I had a look round Pigalle when I was in Paris, and the area has noticably declined and is going through something of a recession. The women in paris are very nice, but they are too intelligent and sophisticated to be interested in me, and I'm a stickler for pubic grooming.

I understand driving is going to utterly shite, but I'll get to know the area, and it'll be a good motivator for me to look for other work. I will also be delivering to a good cross-section of the area, from lower middle-class suburbs where I'll get to experience the disdain of the yuppies, to the desolate ghetto, which will help me learn to deal with being shot at and gang-raped. Basically it's my only option other than quitting and moving down without a job.

 

You should do standup. Drive van in day (collect material) do standup at night.

[Park Life 71]

Or perhaps butter..Make butter, a veritable conrnucopia of a cottage industry. Some folks in Notting Hill are making honey - bee hives on the roof and all that shit..Selling it at extortonate rates to vapid media-crossed locals with vast collections of Apple hardware that has driven hundreds of chinese to suicide.

The thing with butter is you can work with your hands and all that churning is very theraputic. A butter boutique, levelling a gleaming sword of independance and kraft and cocking a snoop at the 9 to 5 and shouting a lot late at night into a radio tuned into the shipping reports. God bless you.