Pablo V John

I hate stereotypes. I really do. Believe me, I have a posh accent and it feels like after I say three words, people have already decided who I am and what my life aims are.

However, today I discovered that a voxpop highlights social differences between
Argentina and England.

A voxpop comes from vox populi, the voice of the people. In journalistic terms, a reporter takes to the street to stop the public and ask them what they think about an issue. I asked: 'Do you think the government should increase fuel tax?'

When I tried to stop people in the street in the South East, I was met with complete and utter rudeness and negativity. Mainly the public didn’t stop and looked at me as if I had just asked them how much they weighed. They were in a hurry...to go to Greggs, the sunbed, a cafe, facebook, the pub - anything but engaging in conversation with a stranger about a politically based question.

And the ones who did stop, some thought the government didn't need to 'squander' any more money. As the whole point was that the government may be raising fuel tax, they are not squandering money, they are finding ways to make more public money.

Others claimed they didn’t know enough about cars to respond…I say no more.

When I took to the northern streets last year asking about people’s opinions regarding the AV reform, I was met with "They’re all a load of tossers”, this didn’t exactly answer my question.

‘they’…’they’..’they’….the government may as well just be replaced by this word, usually spat out complimentary.

When I did exactly the same voxpop in Argentina, almost everyone I asked would stop and they would chat about the issue.

Also the average ‘Pablo’ would know a lot more about pertinent issues than the average ‘John’ of England.

Perhaps the main difference is in recent history? Argentina has had a military dictatorship, an econnomic crisis and corrupt governments. England has not.

Regardless of political opinion, the public should turn apathy into passion and do rather than complain.

Travelling Tales

When you travel, it is easy to strike up conversation with anyone with that golden ‘travel’ chat. There is a real mix of people; I have played a game of pool with a political major Harvard student and an unemployed crane driver from Brittany. This travel conversation is fine for the first few weeks but fairly tiresome after that. – Where are you going? Where have you come from? How long are you travelling for? etc. I feel like everyone should have a t-shirt with this information on, but then what would we talk about!?
Some interesting travelling types I have stumbled across:
1. ‘ I have been working in the party hostel for four months, got put on a drip twice and haven’t managed to see the city yet.’ These hostels ensure that you need not experience any culture whatsoever of the country, they come equipped with restaurants selling shepherds pie and bars selling Guinness.
2. Conversations which follow; ‘When I was hiking in Peru…, when I was living in Mongolia…, I ate fried dog in Ljiblistan.’ Tip: if you feel less travelled against such people; Lie about your adventures. Just make up foreign sounding names and add –stan to the end.
3. Travellers (I have been frequently informed that I fall under this category), who believe, re-gurgetate and probably twist all travelling tales, no matter how sublime – ‘did you hear 10 Brits were killed by a llama yesterday!?’
4. The guy who is travelling for a year and is taking photos of each meal, this equates to over 1000 photos (not including snacks).
5. The guy who whilst on a 3 hour bus ride, videos the view constantly. Sure his family are going to be thrilled with 180 minutes footage of mountains.
6. Speaking with people who have English as their second language, your standard of English rapidly decreases, I have caught myself saying: ‘I have been in Cusco yesterday and the shower was having cold water’, people may be impressed at your standard of English but much less so when they realise English is indeed your first language. You could take the plunge and pretend you speak Quechua as your first language; this could bring on complicated consequences.
7. The American guy walks into the bar, talks about himself for an hour, leaves a card with a topless photo of himself on and his contact details. Can’t knock the confidence.
8. The travellers who have taken the travelling clothing to the extreme and after 3 weeks away from their London office job are equipped with rasta dreadlocks, ankle and wrist bands, Guatemalan colourful trousers and fake alpaca jumpers!
Buen viaje!

Wimbledon Stereotypes

Gordon and Shirley
Gordon and Shirley go to Wimbledon every year, they drive from the country to London at the crack of dawn just to ensure that they definitely, under no circumstances, will possibly be late.
They are, what we might call, the 'what if' couple. They really have thought about every last detail for their big day out, in fact Shirley even keeps a list.
Wimbledon checklist:
Sunhat -
Sun lotion -
Rain coat -
Umbrella -
Snacks -
Tea flask -
Rug -
They are the king and queen of practicality, Gordon also has a copy of the financial times, the economist and a 100 sudoko puzzles (rainbreak entertainment you see!). Why should Shirley wear normal sandals when she can wear her robust, well padded, multi-terrain, velcro sandals?
Gordon's friends joke that he is stingy, he sees it as sensible. Why go to a café and spend £15.00 on sandwiches and drinks if you can sit under the brolly on court having a pre-prepared snack? However, in 1999, Shirley did pop out and spend a fiver on ice cold water - in her defence it was 35 degrees. They leave court at exactly 7pm, after the rush hour yet before the Wimbledon rush.


The Businessman

Paul is at Wimbledon on business, he eats lunch at an upmarket restaurant where one would struggle to leave without spending £100 + on minimilistic fine dining. Obviously this is on business expenses.
Lunch is followed by a brief encounter with centre court, however he isn't entirely disappointed that after 45 minutes of play there is a rainbreak. He heads back to the bar with his clients for beers and pimms. The truth is Paul hates tennis. Luckily for him when the 'tennis chats' commence, he simply glances at his 'comprehensive guide to Wimbledon' iphone application to appear informed on the matter.


The American

Twitter: 'OMG, I am totally at centre court at Wimbledon, it's like sooo cute and British here'. - uploads photo imminently.

The debenture holder

These people wear a badge just so their message is completely clear:
'Unlike the rest of you plebs, we can buy seats for the whole of Wimbledon, for years'.
They dress in expensive outfits, hang out in the VIP restaurant (even Paul can't go here) and generally have a jolly good time!

The Ladies who Lunch

Wendy and Anne talk about anything and everything from gossip to well, more gossip whether it is break-point, match-point or the final. No matter how many evil glances Gordon sends their way, they are not perturbed.

student's guide to 2010 festive season

The week before christmas..


So this Christmas week will be full of those awkward family friend Christmas parties (well there might be a few, would hate to exaggerate my popularity). People will ask me of my plans for next year; I will look at them blankly before admitting I do not have any. They will inform me their son has just got a graduate job with some bank I have never heard of, I will chug back my mulled wine in a rather quick manner.


Presents
I ring up my mother telling her what I want and she tells me what she wants, several urgent texts are sent to assure that there is absolutely no mix up. Why on earth do we not just buy our own presents!? This would save the phone bill, save all this hassle and worry. As my friend put it: ‘why do we spend a fortune on shit presents that nobody wants!?’

Money

’Dad, my student loan appears to have run out, any chance you could put some more money in so I can get home for Christmas this year?
Kind regards Laura

Empathy should win them over. I have one friend who told her dad she had been mugged as she was so desperate for money and another who sold her mums ring. There is something slightly harsh about this and making your mother believe she is going senile.


Round robin letters are the ridiculous of the ridiculous..

’whilst it is sub zero temperatures in Britain, in Greece it is 22 degrees and I manage to play golf without a jumper on’.
Why us this completely necessary?
Then they arrogantly say ‘so I hear you asking what the children are doing?’
‘no no just because we shared an office once doesn’t mean that 20 years later i give a flying toss about how great your children are’ (just to clarify these are usually the parent’s friends).. People don’t write round robin letters when something bad happens...Sue died of cancer.....Chris failed his A levels. No they are just excuses for a bit of pomposity.

You want a job?!

Sitting in the library besides two first years chatting and discussing the latest facebook revelations, I have to hold my breath not to shout at these harmless yet irritating ‘little people’.
I am in fourth year now you see, a fact made more obvious by the fact I have even invested in a rucksack to cart my ever increasing personal library in and out of university each day. According to my 13 year old sister, rucksacks are the antithesis to cool.

A trip to the careers service to alleviate the situation threw me deeper into fourth year depression turmoil,greeted by: .

''no, no there are no jobs out there..many redundancies in that field''

And when I filled out a quiz to find out what my personality traits should lead me to do, the answer revealed I should work in the careers service. I tried to explain I didn’t want a career trying to help other people find out their careers.

Everyone has their story of a ‘friend’ who has graduated from Oxford with a first, a rucksack of experience and are still unemployed. I feel about as motivated as David Miliband serving under Ed Miliband. Meanwhile we are slaving away to get a degree which is probably going to leave us unemployed regardless.
The new hot question;

So what are you doing next year?

brings everyone out in pimples except for the smug few who have it all sorted. I might start to ignore such people.
Luckily for me I am learning Quechua this year, a language spoken by a million tribal people in Bolivia and Peru, who let’s face it I will never meet and when I do I will have completely forgotten that ‘imaynalla kashanki’ means how are you. This is obviously going to be the key in getting a job in London.
The other day I went to a jobs fair and ended up talking to the prison service...(don’t ask, desperate measures and all that..)
1. You have an online test and IF YOU GET THROUGH THAT.
2. You have an assessment day and IF YOU GET THROUGH THAT
3. You have a joint interview and IF YOU GET THROUGH THAT
4. You have a single interview and IF YOU GET THROUGH THAT
5. You have a job trial and IF YOU GET THROUGH THAT
6. You get to work in a PRISON.

In case you think you’re sorted remember that nowadays, you need a postgraduate diploma to become a librarian. Oh dear.

Surf that couch.

Couchsurfing is the new craze in the travelling community. Effectively a volunteer network which offers a free couch for travellers and a way to submerge oneself and get to know some locals from the place. I had done the parties in Buenos Aires but never 'stayed the stay...' and as I explained to my work colleagues what I was about to embark on ( essentially staying in a stranger's house for free), they thought I would at least have to do the housework.

As we rocked up in La Rochelle, we were rather excited to meet our new friends, clearly of the male variety. It resembled an interview in a strangers house when we met the first boy. As we are English and overtly polite, we dared not ask the course of the events which resulted in us missing dinner to be 'party girls'. I think our main problem here was that we manged to say in our email that we were three 'easy' girls rather than 'easygoing' girls. Error. Complete and utter error. For the second night, we made our excuses and stumbled along to the nearest youth hostel or 'safe house'.

For our second couchsurfing experience, towards the north of France in Rennes, we stayed with lots of seemingly hippies. This was a very sociable, laid back atmosphere with a cool buzz and two boys cooked for all 20 of us, fresh crepes and all. We brought in gifts a 2 euro cake from the local newsagents which looked rather feeble in comparison to the fresh bread which the housemate who worked in the boulangerie had brought along. Luckily they were polite about it unlike elsewhere where upon the donation of the wine we brought, our friend said 'my wine is much better'. Very un-english really, where perpetual politeness is simply a given.

All in all,a positive experience, not to be recommended if you really are just looking for somewhere to crash but only if you are looking for somewhere to 'party', chat in foreign languages and meet people!!!

French Greetings

Bonne Journée..Bon Courage...Re-Bonjour...But the most fruitless and irksome must be 'ça va?'

Three months 'at the office' and nothing has ever come out of this question. No one has ever replied negatively to it, I am quite sure not even the frenchman lying on his deathbed would do. Quite frankly, the question just irritates me;'ça va et toi?'. It is an automatic response, hence no-one is consulting themselves whether they are okay or not, hence the question is simply superfluous. Also people tend to hae walked out of sight before I can reel off my extensive list of problems - 'ça va PAS'.

Its like 'Bonne Journée', I couldn't really give a damn whether Mr and Mrs Jean Luc have a nice day or not, yet if i want them to leave reception, I crack this one out. One of the hardest parts of being a french receptionist is knowing which greeting to use at the end of the conversation:
Bonjour.....Bonne matinée....Bon Appétit (if lunch/dinner is approaching)...Bon après-midi.....Bon fin d'après midi....Bonne soirée.. Bon soir.... Bonne nuit. phew!

I often get 'Bon Courage spat at me. There is no real translation for this in english other than 'keep going..be brave! Quite ironic, I am sitting at the reception, I am not climbing Mt Everest. Or 'Bonne Chance' when I am attempting to find the latest lost item. In fact, in my CV top of my extra curriculum activites should be losing/looking for items. The question which grates me the most is: where did you last have them? These six words make no logical sense, if I knew that, I would not be in this situation. Keys should come with tracking devices, then again, maybe I would be found drinking vodka in street corners if this were to be true.



BONNE JOURNÉE!