Notes on London
January 16, 2008 | 6:05 pmI don’t really have much to report on London, since the few days i spent there were more about family then vacationing. A few observations though, as someone who left 7 years ago after having lived there 22 years. When i left, the labor government had just started making changes and nothing significant had yet happened. Now, 12 years into their “reign”, London is a very different city. Customer service actually exists now, things are automated and functioning, and the world no longer stops outside business hours. All consumer services such as banks and movie theaters now have automated answering machines (you know, the press 1 for this option, and press 2 for that option), yes surprisingly, it wasn’t universal until recently. But one of the drawbacks of this (and we’re obviously on phase 2 of automation in North America), is that they haven’t gotten the timing quite right. So messages and recordings are sooooo long, the bland British automated voice goes on and on and on and on… Take the Heathrow Express for example. Awesome concept, a train that comes every 15 minutes, and takes you into downtown London in 15 minutes. But, oh my goodness, the voice that speaks to you as the train approaches the platform… “Your Heathrow Express train is now approaching. Remember to wait until the train has come to a complete stop before boarding. Please watch out for the gap. Please keep your bags with you at all times. Once you enter the train, first take care of putting the large bags on the lower shelves, and small bags on top. Then only find yourself a seat”, she went on for so longer, i was wondering if she was going to give me instructions on how to go to the bathroom next.
Same thing for when i called to find out the movie times at the local theater. Before you can get to select your options, they have so much information to tell you about, who owns the theater, the fact that they’re an equal opportunity employer, general theater info, what cards you can pay with, security measures… Never realized British people liked to talk so much (i guess I’m really British then), wasn’t planning on this post being so long 
Ok, final observation. When i lived here, i used to hate everything about London, i found it noisy, dirty and ugly. I used to think that they would never move on the a modern city. But today, strange thing happened on the way to the airport. Along the main motorway, there are those typical little British row houses, usually council houses (state-given housing), they look a little rundown, they all have the typical British style doily-looking white lacy curtains in the windows… I used to hate the look of them, simply because they represented something typically British. And today, we’re driving down, and i find myself looking at them nostalgically, finding them cute and quaint and worth preserving…
Funny how perspective changes things…
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