The Big Smoke

I really can't decide how I feel about London. I was sitting in a pub on the banks of the river Thames on Friday afternoon, having a drink with my mum after looking round the Tate Modern and wondering whether there is something slightly inadequate about me that makes me not want to live in London. Sometimes it feels like everyone seems to go and live there for at least some part of their youth (if I'm still allowed to use that word about myself) and it's probably on my mind recently since four friends are upping sticks simultaneously. Even as a teenager I never really fancied it. In those days, disgusted with the provincial village I lived in, and dreaming of being a film director, I had more of a hankering for New York which seemed so much more exciting. I had probably over-dosed on Woody Allen, but it seemed easier to imagine myself nursing my Oscars in an apartment over looking Central Park than it did feeling at home in London. Perhaps because I felt that, in London, I'd be a Northerner driven there by economics whereas in New York I imagined I'd be oh, you know, just another kid chasing a dream, ahem. So here I am, living twelve miles away from where I started out! Nee oscar either. It's slow work.

At first I enjoyed walking around London and having a good spy around (and above in the case of the Anthony Gormley statues which I found very pleasingly melancholic) but the speed at which others walk seems to detract from walking's enjoyment. I'm more of a stroller or a saunterer than a strider and I felt like I was holding up 600 people behind me by strolling and peering skywards. Not to mention that, at least from where John lives, there seems to be a phenomenal amount of functional walking. It's lovely to walk to and from work and have a muse on the day's activities... but half an hour to the bus and then half an hour after the bus, just to get to the pub?! It takes him longer to get into central London by public transport than it did to get into Newcastle from home on the 684! The 684! the slowest mode of transport in the world! We did loads of fun things (including seeing the Hound of the Baskervilles and eating frogs' legs - though not at the same time) but I think I'd be wrecked if I tried combining doing fun things there with actually living there and going to work. John evidently loves living there and when I marvel at that fact I feel like the same kind of boring tool as when I want to know what the toilet facilities will be like at music festivals.

I must take after my mother. I sensed she was not a metropolitan type when, five minutes after stepping off the train, she started shrieking at the top of the tube escalator. 'Helen! Help!' I hadn't noticed that the tube escalators went so much faster than they do in other places. Apologies to anyone at Kings Cross tube station last Friday. We did not mean to cause alarm.

I am fully induced

Or is it inducted? Anyway, I have spent quite a few days in recent weeks attending induction days for a community bank job. I applied for the bank job (the nurse bank is like a nursing agency but run by an NHS trust, just in case anyone was wondering if I had moved into the financial sector) in the hope of it eventually leading to a permanent community job. This strategy proved successful as last week I was offered a permanent job with the same trust who are still inducting me for the bank job. I will soon be wearing a cape and cycling from house to house.

I hope I get to do the induction process again. I am perhaps the only person in the world who finds it quite enjoyable to watch clip art strewn powerpoint presentations. I also like having chats with strangers acknowledging that we are all work-shy skivers. 'Do you know what time it finishes?' 'Half three apparently, I'm hoping we'll get away early' 'you normally do at these things', cue official person entering: 'a little bit of housekeeping to start the day... does anyone mind if we miss a session, skip lunch and finish at two?' I don't mind staying til three actually, we're doing nothing more straining than sitting there breathing a bit after all. I just enjoy the camaraderie of everyone wanting to get off early.

The induction process in Gateshead has involved lots of presentations with some particularly inappropriate clipart. Is there really any need to have a slide with a picture of a sinking cartoon ship with the words 'HERALD OF FREE ENTERPRISE' underneath it in a health and safety lecture for community nurses? Bearing in mind that none of the people in the room will be working on or near passenger ferries. I guess the ferry disaster which killed lots of people acts as a good metaphor for forgetting to wipe up a spillage or incorrectly disposing of sharps. I also enjoyed a man saying 'Now, you'll all know about the triangle of fire...' Bum, now I've looked it up on wikipedia I realise I could have made myself the least popular person in the room by interjecting and wondering whether the tetrahedron of fire mightn't be a more useful model to employ?

One low point was an ice-breaking exercise where we had to get up and stand around the room in alphabetical order and then tell the person standing next to us what the first record we ever bought was. My partner, along with fifty percent of the rest of the room, had no recollection of this historic detail, much to my disgust (how could anyone not remember? have they not been being nostalgic about it since a year after they bought it?!). Anyway, since her part of the conversation was rather brief: 'I can't remember, dunno' I tried to make polite chat by wondering how many people in the room would have novelty records like The Wombles or Star Trekkin'. Or perhaps, I suggested, there would be lots of people who were embarrassed at having bought Shakin' Stevens records. Imagine my embarrassment, then, when this first-record-forgetting fool announced to the whole room that my first record purchase was by Shakin' Stevens! Perhaps the dignified thing to do would have been to simply leave it and walk away knowing inside that I was the better(non Shakin' Stevens buying) person. Sadly, my instincts took over and I shouted 'WHHHATT???!!!! It was NOT Shakin' Stevens!' The person leading the session chuckled and politely asked me who it was. Sadly my mind seemed suddenly empty and everyone was shuffling away in a slightly embarrassed fashion before I shouted 'It was Stevie Wonder!' at their backs.