30 minutes until 2006.i am watching CNN at home.RESOLUTIONS?? I have given up smoking already, i haven't been out since July!! RESOLUTION? Lose weight,do what i need to here in UK,get the hell out of here.RESOLUTION for the remainder of my breathing days:NEVER again spend festive season in UK.1st year without Teosdee at midnight even if she is usually asleep,after new years greetings i am able to go to Wanchai,not this year.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Thursday, December 29, 2005
1Interview 1job.
I had my first interview just before xmas,for the civil service.The 3 hours
consisted of an exam,after which those that failed left.That was followed by a group discussion in groups of 4.The final part was an individual role play,oral and written.The interviews were held at Anfield o' haloed ground! I received a call the next day to say that I was successful.
Joseph and I had a quiet xmas, we only went out to church.No drinking,smoking,but a lot of TV.The weather has been bitterly cold, -9c last night , not above zero today.The snow is due any minute.Joseph and I have been together 24 hours a day, for 8 days since he finished school.He follows me around the house. If I go to the shop he has to come.7 days until he goes back to school.New Year's.....looks quiet.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
disco
The only Mercer on the razz is Joseph this year. I just dropped him at school-9am, and he is having a 70's disco! Tomorrow he has his xmas party. It has been 8 days since Teosdee left(she went to a bbq on Lantau Island on Sunday).It is not easy being a lone parent of a 4 year old.Getting him ready for school,cooking breakfast, washing dishes,clothes,shopping,giving him a bath,fighting to get him to bed,fighting to get him to switch off cartoons,cooking dinner, and making him eat it.At the same time as all this I have to plan Christmas, and buy everything associated with it.
I am not complaining, these things need to be done. Everything would be easier if it was warmer here.The weather is shit, it always feels cold in the house, I spend a lot of time closing doors, curtains, blocking draughts to try and keep heat in at least one or two rooms.The water from the tap is painfully cold, it really wakes you up in the morning.Is this really the 21st century? Doesn't feel like it here.
I am presently at the library.I use the computer here, as I don't have a PC here in the UK.They allow me to use the computer for 1 hour a day.That's when I am able to keep up this blog and check my emails.
I think this may be the first year since I was 15 that I will not go to a pub at Christmas.Still not smoking, so I suppose that will make it easier.
The HK government are still holding a handful of Koreans I see from RTHK.
They should throw the book at them.There can be no excuse for going to another country and taking part in/instigating violent protests. Do it in your own country if necessary ,but never elsewhere.Those farmers may or may not have a point , but they could have roamed the streets of Seoul to urge their own government to help them or to withdraw from the WTO. Hong Kong has not seen violence on it's streets since the 1960's and even then it was started by communist militants influenced by China. South Korea is a democracy, Hong Kong is not.This was not a good advertisement for free speech.
I am not complaining, these things need to be done. Everything would be easier if it was warmer here.The weather is shit, it always feels cold in the house, I spend a lot of time closing doors, curtains, blocking draughts to try and keep heat in at least one or two rooms.The water from the tap is painfully cold, it really wakes you up in the morning.Is this really the 21st century? Doesn't feel like it here.
I am presently at the library.I use the computer here, as I don't have a PC here in the UK.They allow me to use the computer for 1 hour a day.That's when I am able to keep up this blog and check my emails.
I think this may be the first year since I was 15 that I will not go to a pub at Christmas.Still not smoking, so I suppose that will make it easier.
The HK government are still holding a handful of Koreans I see from RTHK.
They should throw the book at them.There can be no excuse for going to another country and taking part in/instigating violent protests. Do it in your own country if necessary ,but never elsewhere.Those farmers may or may not have a point , but they could have roamed the streets of Seoul to urge their own government to help them or to withdraw from the WTO. Hong Kong has not seen violence on it's streets since the 1960's and even then it was started by communist militants influenced by China. South Korea is a democracy, Hong Kong is not.This was not a good advertisement for free speech.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
WTO and the Old China Hand
I see those damned Koreans are causing trouble in Wanchai,as I write.They obviously don't have enough football to watch in Korea.Why aren't those farmers working? No, they are on fucking holiday in Wanchai. I just saw the HK chief of police telling everyone to leave Wanchai and go home, that advice sounds familiar to many of us.Who would have thought that the WTO would have a direct effect on my local pub.
Friday, December 16, 2005
Thursday, December 15, 2005
wto
The protests in Hong Kong about the WTO have been aired here, only on the BBC really.Also the democracy demos. I was at the demo on July 1st, and wish I could have been on this one.Not too sure about the WTO though, those Korean farmers go a bit far. In the news here this morning is how Blair is willing to reduce the UK's EU rebate, if the EU stop giving money to French farmers-maybe he read my last entry-see below. A French farmer was on TV defending the subsidies- farming still represents a huge part of the French workforce.So did mining here in the UK, so did manufacturing ..etc. It is time to move on.It is time that we started to grow the world's food in Central Asia,Siberia,Australia, the western plains of the USA, and Africa. I worked in farms in Israel 15 years ago, they had managed to reclaim large areas of desert using complicated irrigation.We should apply similar techniques in Africa.
I watched Joseph's nativity play twice this week.Joseph was hilarious as he kept on touching baby Jesus, and flirting with 'Mary'.They sang and danced a lot, and a merry time was had by all.Next week he has a 70's disco before he breaks up for xmas.
Still not smoking.Chance of snow this weekend.
I watched Joseph's nativity play twice this week.Joseph was hilarious as he kept on touching baby Jesus, and flirting with 'Mary'.They sang and danced a lot, and a merry time was had by all.Next week he has a 70's disco before he breaks up for xmas.
Still not smoking.Chance of snow this weekend.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
This green and pleasant land.
I took Teosdee and Jack down to Heathrow yesterday. We took the coach at Midnight on Sunday and she flew at 9am Monday.I then took the tube to London Euston where I caught the train back to Liverpool. Before I took the train I had a quick walk around the block in Euston. London is so different from up here, I feel at home in London, not so many white people.It feels like a city, an international city. Nobody cares that I have a ponytail, or strange black glasses.I feel at home. It was cloudy and cold, only later did I realize that the cloud was the smoke from the big fire at the oil depot. I saw the fire as the train headed north out of Watford.The sky was actually blue, so the huge cloud of smoke rising from the ground was very easy to see.They say this is the biggest fire in Europe since the second world war. I love taking the inter city train , it gives me a good chance to see England. As I thought about the environmental impact of the fire on the surrounding countryside, I began to look at the British countryside more closely. Yes, it is a green and pleasant land, but that's it really. It is not breathtaking, it is not wild, it is not beautiful.The English countryside(actually it's not fair to include Wales and Scotland in this) has been managed for so many hundreds of years that there is very little of it that is natural.How is it that you can travel the whole length of the country without seeing a wild animal? Fields are neatly separated into nice rectangles, surrounded by fences or hedges interspersed with lines of trees.Rivers have been cut to suit man's needs.Canals cut across the country. The farms are the worst, utterly destroying the land. That doesn't seem fair, to criticize the farmers does it?
Farms in the UK and throughout Europe have been so heavily subsidized for so long that farmers are millionaires.Fresh produce is not cheap in this country, it is bloody expensive.Vegetables are cheaper in Hong Kong, which cannot grow enough vegetables to feed it's people! Food can be grown cheaply elsewhere.We don't need to keep on helping British and French farmers, let them go the way of the coal miners-extinct. If the farms go bust, then maybe we can let the land grow wild, let it return to it's natural state,introduce some wild animals.Screw the farmers.
The cities are not much better.Once outside London, there is no hope.Every town and city is ugly, full of the same dark brown terraced houses with the same gardens- a long rectangle with a lawn and some flowers around the edge, separated by a six foot fence.The monotony is astounding, London is not much better. Somebody wanted to build a 36 floor hotel here in Liverpool, this year but planning was turned down because it was felt that it wouldn't look in place with the present buildings. The present buildings look like they are going to fall down.They have just stopped the planned new tram lines from being built here, because of money. It is time that we accepted that our towns, cities and countryside is/are ugly and boring.
Frosty this morning. Joseph told me that Jesus made the road.That put the funniest image of our lord laying tarmac, sipping mugs of tea, and wolf whistling at the local totty "blessed art thou amongst women, darlin". I will go and see Joseph's nativity this afternoon. Still not smoking.
Farms in the UK and throughout Europe have been so heavily subsidized for so long that farmers are millionaires.Fresh produce is not cheap in this country, it is bloody expensive.Vegetables are cheaper in Hong Kong, which cannot grow enough vegetables to feed it's people! Food can be grown cheaply elsewhere.We don't need to keep on helping British and French farmers, let them go the way of the coal miners-extinct. If the farms go bust, then maybe we can let the land grow wild, let it return to it's natural state,introduce some wild animals.Screw the farmers.
The cities are not much better.Once outside London, there is no hope.Every town and city is ugly, full of the same dark brown terraced houses with the same gardens- a long rectangle with a lawn and some flowers around the edge, separated by a six foot fence.The monotony is astounding, London is not much better. Somebody wanted to build a 36 floor hotel here in Liverpool, this year but planning was turned down because it was felt that it wouldn't look in place with the present buildings. The present buildings look like they are going to fall down.They have just stopped the planned new tram lines from being built here, because of money. It is time that we accepted that our towns, cities and countryside is/are ugly and boring.
Frosty this morning. Joseph told me that Jesus made the road.That put the funniest image of our lord laying tarmac, sipping mugs of tea, and wolf whistling at the local totty "blessed art thou amongst women, darlin". I will go and see Joseph's nativity this afternoon. Still not smoking.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
never surrender-revised
Churchill, said "we will fight them on the ..." blah, blah, blah.The only word in that speech that wasn't 'English' was surrender. I also will not give up, but strangely I am fighting against the UK government, not fighting with it, unlike my grandfather.
The rules to get your wife a visa are made in such a way that you do have to be rich, if you are honest and follow the rules. If you are in a foreign country you need to prove that you have a home and job in the UK,difficult when you are not in the UK.I don't see how the government can still say in 2005 that I must have a lot of money to bring my wife here.I can understand that my wife will have no access to 'public funds', that of course is fair enough. We will get Teosdee a visa. There was a time, a few years ago that it seemed as though neither Teosdee or I would get a Hong Kong visa, but we did. That was the first step in us being able to get a UK visa.Four and a half years ago, Joseph was born in the Philippines because his mother did not have a HK visa.
For me, when Teosdee gets the right to come and go as she wishes, that will be the time that we can choose to live where we wish. Secure in the knowledge that we can go anywhere.Then it will be time to get U.S. visa'a, HA HA!!
One month now without smoking, I think I have reached the point of no return. I have started studying for my BA in International Studies including the Diploma in English Studies.That is where I learnt that surrender is not an English word. English studies is a bit heavier than I thought,although interesting.It deals with linguistics quite a lot and even phonetics.
Heavy frost this morning, dark now at 4pm, around 0c.I did see that it was 11c in HK today, made me feel a better until I saw that it would back in the 20's by the weekend. It is strange that Teosdee will be there next week,I think I'm jealous!
The rules to get your wife a visa are made in such a way that you do have to be rich, if you are honest and follow the rules. If you are in a foreign country you need to prove that you have a home and job in the UK,difficult when you are not in the UK.I don't see how the government can still say in 2005 that I must have a lot of money to bring my wife here.I can understand that my wife will have no access to 'public funds', that of course is fair enough. We will get Teosdee a visa. There was a time, a few years ago that it seemed as though neither Teosdee or I would get a Hong Kong visa, but we did. That was the first step in us being able to get a UK visa.Four and a half years ago, Joseph was born in the Philippines because his mother did not have a HK visa.
For me, when Teosdee gets the right to come and go as she wishes, that will be the time that we can choose to live where we wish. Secure in the knowledge that we can go anywhere.Then it will be time to get U.S. visa'a, HA HA!!
One month now without smoking, I think I have reached the point of no return. I have started studying for my BA in International Studies including the Diploma in English Studies.That is where I learnt that surrender is not an English word. English studies is a bit heavier than I thought,although interesting.It deals with linguistics quite a lot and even phonetics.
Heavy frost this morning, dark now at 4pm, around 0c.I did see that it was 11c in HK today, made me feel a better until I saw that it would back in the 20's by the weekend. It is strange that Teosdee will be there next week,I think I'm jealous!
Monday, December 05, 2005
Joseph is Joseph
Joseph will be Joseph in his school nativity play.It has not been easy explaining to him that his mother and brother will not be here at Christmas. A bottle hit our window on Friday night.The window didn't break(double glazing), we didn't hear it.The area in front of the house was covered in broken glass.The local kids must have been having a bottle fight!!It is not easy being positive at the moment, but Teosdee will only go for a few weeks.She will come back and then leave again in May.Then we will apply for a settlement visa.It can't be done in the UK, it must be done from outside. I do want to finish my OU course, but after that(October) I am not sure that I want to stay here anymore anyway. Teosdee wants the security of a permanent visa here so that she can come and go as she pleases.
Saturday, December 03, 2005
jackwillfly
Teosdee and Jack will fly to Hong Kong on the 12th of December.They will stay for 4-6 weeks and then come back to the UK. Not sure where they will stay yet.Probably stay at one of Teosdee's friends for 1 week and then a week at another.
Friday, December 02, 2005
The dream is over??
We received a letter from the Irish embassy yesterday.They said it would take 10-12 weeks to process Teosdee's visa as she is not a UK resident.We said don't bother.Teosdee has to leave the Uk before December 29th, as she would have been here for 6 months.Her visa is valid until May, but only 6 months at a time.I called immigration to apply to change her visa to something more permanent.They said a visitor's visa cannot be changed under any circumstances. Teosdee and Jack will fly back to Hong Kong sometime this month.Joseph will stay here with me.We will work something out from there.
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