Shit

The Bayswater pigeons have been busy.

The Agony of Defeat

An area woman, distraught by Team GB's inability to pass North Korea in the Olympic medal count, went on a minor rampage on Westbourne Grove, kicking signs and hurling grade school level expletives before passing out under a table outside Arancina. A true British patriot.

Champions League

I'm surprised that my neighbourhood is celebrating Chelsea's win in the Champion's League. Yeah, it is a London club, but I didn't think anyone here actually supported them. It must be the tourists making all the noise.

Update: 30 seconds later...people don't care.

Wine shop + Gambling

Bayswater is allowing me to fulfill a lifelong desire to live directly above a liquor store. For my mom's sake--as it is Mother's Day in some countries--I haven't always harboured this desire. For some time I wanted to live directly above a shop on a busy street, and when I was in college I further refined that goal to live above a liquor store. I suppose that I was getting tired trying to find ways to return a keg the morning after hosting a party, finding transport via my bike and the bus rather difficult--though possible. Simply living above a liquor store would be much more convenient.

Now, I live above a liquor store called Nicolas. This wasn't what I had envisioned a decade ago. Nicolas specialises in French wines and offers no kegs, or even 6-packs for that matter. Though I can't regularly afford to shop at Nicolas, I feel compelled to occasionally browse the shop and ultimately purchase the cheapest bottle available, that is when I'm not too freaked out of being the only customer.

This is not the place where alcoholics come to find a cheap drunk. Instead, they just use the sidewalk outside. Directly next to Nicolas stands a branch of one of the bigger chains of sports betting shops, Coral. I have never entered, but I can get depressed by passing the always ajar door, held open by the "punter" taking a break from spending his non-existent money to have a smoke and to drink a ridiculously cheap, high-alcohol cider. While neither smoking nor drinking is permitted inside Coral, both are highly encouraged...Coral loves inebriated patrons.

Back in the States, I was very bothered by--and still make it a single issue vote--by some of the antiquated liquor laws enacted in some states, including Minnesota. I abhor laws created with religious undertones, yet I understand the state's desire to keep people at least semi-sober. While everything is more expensive on London, getting drunk can be done extremely cheaply...assuming you don't go to the W. Here, cider is not consumed by teenage girls looking for an easy drunk. Instead, it is downed by the biggest drunks as it serves as a loss leader at the local grocery chains which stand on every corner. Cheap cider is ubiquitous in Bayswater, except in Nicolas.

As part of my desire to learn my neighbourhood, I will continue making the occasional purchase from my French neighbours below. However, I will not be frequenting Coral.

Photo: taken from the street of me having some whiskey in my window above Nicolas, courtesy of Christine Ding Huang.

Bayswater Mansions

By moving into Bayswater, I accepted that I have switched classes. While I always envisioned that I would greet this change as an achievement, as something to be proud of, I now realise that this transition actually serves as the single largest conflict of my time in England and perhaps the eventual driver of my departure from this country.

Growing up, I labeled the upper class as the few doctors who could afford to live in the aptly name community--built atop a pile of low-grade iron ore--called Pill Hill. At the time I could not comprehend that a class of people existed somewhere that could make the Pill Hill doctors appear as Wellfare bums. Even harder to believe would be that I, myself, would live amongst this class.

Then I moved to Bayswater. I used to think Bentleys were a relic and that Lamborghinis only existed in movies. Now I see at least one pass by my window into Bayswater each minute. I, regrettably, have switched classes by moving here. I used to aspire to make more money and to move to a nice neighborhood, but now I have guilt. As I watch my neighbours walk by below with their Gucci bags and Jimmy Choos, I am reminded of the Temporary Like Achilles lyric "as helpless as a rich man's child."

In order to feel a member of this community, I will either have to embrace this ostentatious, wasteful lifestyle or will have to find another side to it. I feel pretentious discussing class in a blog, but this dominates my thoughts when walking and observing my street. I am not preoccupied with people having money but with how they treat it. I perceive that many of my neighbours have no clue how the rest of the world lives and that many of them really have no concept of the value of money...they have always had so much it doesn't matter and they know no other alternative.

Why do I state this? What is the relevance aside from it being a constant conflict for me? I suppose I want to be honest and straight forward. In London, each building has a name which is used in the first line of the address, before the street name and number. My building is Bayswater Mansions. I live in Flat 1 Bayswater Mansions.

There. Now I won't feel that I'm misleading anyone.

Jesus spotted in Bayswater

I hope this doesn't cause a spike in property prices.

Arancina

My old flat mate Peter held the distinction of being the only person to wear out his Collector Edition's DVD boxset of the failed US sitcom Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place (later referred to simply as Two Guys and a Girl, probably renamed with the intention of deceiving people into thinking it was a different series). I can't admit that I ever watched a whole episode but based off the overly verbose title, I gather that Two Guys.. is a highly mundane, fictional portrayal of the everyday, real happenings at Arancina, the Sicilian restaurant directly across the street from my Bayswater window.

Arancina employs a cadre of young, presumably recently immigrated, Italians who serve pizzas, pastas, and arancinas--fried balls of risotto and other stuffings such as mushroom and ham. To these Italians, Arancina serves not just as their place of employment but also as their social sphere. At any time off-duty employees represent a solid percentage of the restaurant's customers. These employees mill around all day, taking frequent smoke breaks and occasional trips to the corner pub, the Redan, waiting for their friends to finish work for the evening.

I have tried to become friendly with these young Italians, but despite having completed multiple loyalty stamp cards, I have yet to be invited into their circle. I predict that my inability to speak Italian impairs my chances but probably not nearly as much as my ability to speak Midwestern American English. For example, the other night I requested three arancinas of any variety ("Surprise me.") for "take-away". After much confusion and clarification, I left with two, very cold arancinas of the same flavour.

Each night, shortly after closing time, a mini, comical looking car parks in front of the restaurant. I assume this is the boss coming to pick up the receipts for the day. Normally he parks right on the sidewalk, and after he leaves, a party ensues on the street with the workforce celebrating the end of their working day (or waiting day), occasionally handing out leftover food and always smoking a healthy portion of cigarettes. I have met people who were able to infiltrate the Arancina crowd and, after this post-work smoke, be invited into the restaurant for an after hours party, an enviable invitation for any true community member.

I imagine Arancina will make a number of appearances in this blog so I will not comment any more at this time.