electricity bill nov2011-jan2012

london
I have deliberately stopped logging onto the internet at home. Oh not to test me or impose a fasting haha. it is just that I noticed that i have come quite close to my broadband limit of 40GB and it has still 7days to go before the end of january. i had used 33GB .
So i just decided i shall not switch on the wifi.

when simon came back from his mum's, i told him i am near the limit. later he told me it must be because he downloaded something on Utube, and did not realise he has set it to automatically download the series so it has been sending him huge downloads now and then. I noticed there were spikes of 5G downloads frm the graph at the talk talk website.

Well, i keep an eye on my download limit as i dont want to have talktalk force me into their higher tariff.

i have not deprived myself entirely from the internet as i  continue to get my daily emails by getting online at the library.

lately, simon is having trouble with his laptop. it wont start.

I have been reading a book called 23 things that capitalists wont tell you by Ha-joon chang and in it the author said the invention of the washing machine did more to change society than the internet. And i agree with him.

The internet allows us to find a new way to waste a lot more time...

and by shifting our buying patterns online instead of in shops, it has not enlarged the market, simply destroyed the shop keepers.


I got my electricity bill today.

1nov2011- 11.1.2012 324kwh over 72days
First 142kwh x 24.076p = £34.19
next 182 kwh x 11.765p = £21.41
total £55.60
0.17p per kwh


12.1.2012-20.1.2012 38kwh over 9days
first 18kwh x 23.513p = £4.23
next 20kwh x 11.203p = £2.24
total £6.47
0.17p per kwh

grand total £62.07

( 0.766p a day, 4.469kwh a day. I used quite a lot of electricity this quarter. £362kwh over 81days. if taken over the full 3 month period i calculate it will be actually 438 kwh over 93days.

-discounts £3.96



+Vat 5%     £2.85


They have reviewed my annual usage and kept the monthly debit the same at £20 a month.

living in the interstices of society

london
I consider myself as living in this interstitial space in society. and what is this interstitial space?
it is the space hidden inside the ebb and flow of mainstream society , a space which can allow rapid movement against the stream, or contain fall out material fallen out of favour, or unusual stuff from the mainstream of society.

and this interstitial lifestyle that i have is illustrated today by this example.

I lost my gillette contour plus razor holder in the gym. I left it in the shower cubicle and their policy is that anything like that is thrown away by the cleaners.

so now i have all these razor blades and no razor holder. So for a few days now i could not shave.

Gillette has stopped producing that razor holder, i was told, though they still have the blades for sale.

on the way back from the gym today, i decided to go inside a small branch of boots on my way back. it is in pimlico. there i saw this.

The picture shows the boots product, twin blade system and the razor holder . it looked very much like the gillette holder , illustrated in that contour plus pack.


the boots product costs £2.45 with 3 blades. So i bought it, and took a chance that it will fit the gillette blades.


I got back and tried it and it does fit. So at last i got to shave.haha. but what is even better, i now got a razor holder that will take the gillette blades.


That is the joy of my interstitial lifestyle...I realise this razor holder is a common design and there is no need to buy gillette.


the contour gillette blades are v expensive now , costing about £7.90 for 10blades. i still got about 10 of them bought long ago when they were doing a promotion. they were selling 25 blades plus the razor holder which i lost too. it goes to show how slow i use up the blades. they can last for many shaves.
Thank goodness for being chinese with very little body hair. haha.

I am glad i can still use this system as all the new style gillette blades are much too expensive.


its nice to know i can get to buy this holder if i were to lose it again.

Added. i could only find one link to an old post about razors. my search engine for this blog is not v good. that post is in 2009. i recall buying a razor holder and 25blades in my tesco in lambeth in 2010 i think but cannot find the post. either that or i did not write about it.

Added. I really must come up with a foolproof way of safeguarding my razor holder to prevent leaving it in the shower. i have lost 3 holders allready. I might have to shave at the wash basin instead of in the shower, and store it immediately in my locker after shaving, before i go to take my shower.

kong hee fatt choy dragon year

london
Today, is the start of the water dragon chinese new year.
And how appropriate that i wish to talk about money.
not that i have deliberately chosen to do so, it is just that yesterday i blogged about the new £50 note
and it was mentioned that it will come out in november.
added 25.1.12 i assumed it is nov 2012, but i found out after googling today that it allready came out in november2011.what is strange is this... i live here in london and i read the papers everyday, and yet i have not heard of this new note issued in 1stnovember last year.  and yet, searching google, there were all those references to nov 11 reporting on it.  
and in that same search i found jersey is going to produce a £100 note this year to commemorate the jubilee. meant more for the collectors' market.

Last night, I was reading in this book , the wonder box, by roman krznaric in a chapter about work and there was a picture of the £20 note which has adam smiths head looking at the engraving of workers toiling in a pin factory to illustrate their point that the industrial revolution introduced the division of labour, the most deadening legacy, the author said.   it prompted me to take a look at the notes that i have.

i found to my surprise this £50 new note.

sorry that smudge on the left above that crest in the lower left corner should not be there. haha. it is a bit of food from my breakfast. i dont know how it got there, as i was not eating at the time. must be my soul wants it.  i tried to get another photo but i could not find the flash button to turn it on.

so i get the chance to physically feel that note.
i notice that the hologram on the green strip cannot be seen in reflected light but have to hold the note against the light and see it via transmitted light.
also there is a thin metal strip to the left of the queen's head . you would not notice it was there as it is not visible in reflected light. in the old £20 and £50 note u can see that metal strip on one side of the note as an interrupted line.

Added 9.30pm.
in the late afternoon i saw from the rss feed of the evening standard on my blog that there was this event going on in trafalgar square... a sun balloon and it will shine till about 7.30pm today. So i decided i shall take a walk there and see it.

Very nice effect, like a red setting sun. deck chairs in front of it, and some guys giving away tropicana orange drink. i got one and sat in the deckchair and just enjoyed the atmosphere. i ate a snack bar with my tropicana. as usual the orange drink is sweet but it also  has that sharp tang of citrus.  i am still glad i got my bottle of plain water to drink with it. still nice of the tropicana guys to give us free drinks. i am sure it is all a advertising thingy but who cares, right? it is still nice to get something free. though if they hope to entice me to buy it, they will be disappointed. haha.

After a bit, i moved on to the back towards the national gallery and i saw another of the tropicana people giving free bottles away and i got one and headed off to chinatown.

it is chinese new year day and shops in chinatown were all open. no holiday for them. the place was packed. i bought fish balls 400mg for £3.80(though there was a 200mg for £1.80. funny i did not buy two of those as they are cheaper. ah well next time perhaps., noodles and a chinese preserved vegetable which i dont know what it is called.

my mother called the veg she used that looked and smelt likethis as tung choy.

This is the name on the package. it was in the remainder bin.  There was no price and no code. unusual. i smelled it and it smelt exactly like a veg my mum used to use in rice porridge and in steam mince pork in the rice cooker. so i took it to the cashier and asked how much. she tried to get the barcode and discovered there was none, and manually typed in the price, £1.28 . i was rather glad it was that amount if it was a lot more i willhave to tell her to abort it.
I came home and weighed it. 575mg.
but it is a strange veg, it was the only one in the store, i could not see any other packs like it .
anyone can read and  tell me what that veg is called?
Added. I could not search google by image, so i typed in tung choy and found this.aiyah nonya blog
the list she gave of the preserved veg is useful. 6types .
Sweet or salty mui choy ( preserved mustard),



Char choy (Sichuan pickled mustard),


Hum choy (salted mustard),


Sweet or salted choy poh (preserved radish),


Tung choy (preserved cabbage) and


Choy kon (dried Chinese white cabbage).


Added 24.1.12 tuesday read in the dailymail today that we are going to have new 10p and 5p coins in April. it seems it will save the treasury £8million a year. Each 10p old coin costs 4.5p to make. the new ones will be made of steel, costing 1/5 of a penny to make. they will be thicker as steel is lighter and to make the new coins same size and weight of the old they need to be thicker.
first change in coins content since 1947 when the silver was removed.

new £50 note in november (added 2011 not 2012 as i assumed)

london
I was in the gym reading the daily mail and came across this article about a new £50 note.
Correction. i found out that actually this is old news. the new £50 note came out in nov 2011. the article did not mention the year, and i assumed it will be this year 2012.
it said the old notes (issued in 1994) will be replaced by this in 2yrs time. and also tell about the security features in the new note. the online article do not mention the security features nor that it will be replaced in 2yrs time. maybe the daily mail knows that the convention is that the old notes will be replaced 2yrs from the issue of new ones.


also the queen's head water mark has a white £50 on it.
and feel the note, some marks are raised.
under uv light there is a bright 50 , and sprinkles of coloured strips scattered throughout the note. and the 5 green strips appear bright green.

On each note, the green motion thread has five windows along its length, running from the top to the bottom.







The windows contain images of the £ symbol and the number 50. When the note is tilted from side to side, the images move up and down. When the note is tilted up and down, the images move from side to side and the number 50 and the £ symbol switch.






The thread is woven into the paper, not printed on it.


that would make it hard to forge.



The new note will have the new signature of a new cashier of the bank of england, Chris Salmon.


Might be a good idea to use up the old £50 note from now on as it will be replaced.

For people overseas who may have these old £50 notes accumulated during their travels, better start using them as it wont be legal tender in 2yrs time. (though uk banks might still exchange it long after)

see this link to read another post about it.

see the new security features in a picture in this article

london

view from my bedroom window at  4.36pm.

looks rather forbidding, these two silhouettes but actually in real life they are rather pretty with the blue sky with that flush of pink clouds in the distance reflecting the setting sun. pictures do give a false mood but maybe it depands on the veiwers mindset. someone who is troubled and whose life is not going well might interpret it as a dark picture. whilst i view it rather as a nice dramatic scene setting off the red flush in the sky.

Added. 21.1.12saturday.
I have been cycling about, and noticed how nice it is to be able to see so much of the sky as i move about london. there are parks everywhere in london, and they provide open up the vista  giving us a grand view of the sky without buildings obscuring it. I think happiness is being able to see the sky. one feels a sense of freedom when one can see so much of the sky.

i was in new york in the past, and now i think of it, u cannot see much sky because of the skyscrapers that they have. it can be quite claustrophobic. but i made sure i stayed in greenwich village, which still has lowlying buildings and so did not feel so hemmed in.

when people talk about views, they usually mean the river views or country views, but dont forget  just to have sky views is good enough.
and so much of london have lowlying buildings that practically any flat will have lots of sky views.
and in uk we get such interesting skies, with clouds making beautiful play with sun and glimpses of blue sky, or different types of clouds and rain clouds injecting a sombre mood.
I am beginning to appreciate the sky.

there is a hockney exhibition now of his woodlands paintings. he makes them more colourful and cheerful than they really are. in real life, the colours are less vivid, and more dark green, dark brown, rather than red and yellow and bright green and bright blue as he paints them. he makes the woods appear almost californian. and interesting that there is no play of streaming sunlight forming shafts of light beaming in between the trees. that is the most delightful thing about the english woods and yet there is no play of light and shadow in his paintings.
here are two pics i took quite a few years ago to illustrate the play of light and shade in english woods.

here is a link to an article about hockney where there are links to see some of his paintings.

sinking ship

london
I see a big cruise liner toppled on its side in shallow water like a beached whale. What a sight. you never expect to see such a thing, because we all have gotten complacent and dont expect a ship to sink anymore.
but on the 100 anniversary of the titanic sinking, we are reminded that ships, no matter how large, can sink.
such a large hole on its sides from hitting rocks, so much damage from what looked like rather a small rock in relation to the size of that ship.

it does not take a big thing to sink a large ship.

and it seems all of this from human error. the ship should not be there in the first place.

it makes people think there is no public transport  that is safe. though that would not be true, because ships are still very safe.

well, another year of big events. in that sense life is very interesting. That is why i read the news. such alot of strange things happening.

I am glad to be just a spectator, and not be too much affected by these events. my soul dont want it. I dont mind being a spectator and see all these things happening to others.

gone are the days when i want to experience these things.

i got a coupon from the mirror in the library for £1 ticket on national express. valid for travel till march 12. Not sure if i want to use it as it is a toss up whether i want to go to brighton to visit david, or to bournemouth to visit john but its not much fun going there so early in the year when it is cold.
I think it will be more for those who live outside london to travel into london for £1.

so for eg, the guy from nottingham i met at the nudityclub disco will find it cheap. he says that he pays £15 to enter the sauna nearby after the club closes at about 4am. it makes it a long night for him as it is not easy to sleep in the sauna. what he needs to find is a friend to put him up for the night.

I think that is the price u pay for living outside london. all the gay places are in london and there is not that much choice outside london. so u have to travel to london for your fun, but it means wandering around homeless unless you want to pay a lot of money for a hotel room. though i would go for a dormitory bed in a hostel.it would cost about £12 if u book early. winter time the costs are cheaper. and it would be preferable to hanging around a sauna and not getting any sleep. but of course if u are young, u will want to cruise in the sauna and not bother to sleep. haha.
i am certainly very glad that i live so near the nudityclub that friday when i wentthere  because i want my beauty sleep.haha.

Added 18.1.12 I thought the dorm beds are £12, but i just saw the website of the surprise of pimlico pub and it is from £21 a bed in a 12 bunk room. it sure is expensive to find a bed in london.

Its why we gay guys like to live in cities. there are more gay men and more choices of gay places to go in a city than in a town. Cities are also full of people who themselves are more tolerant of other lifestyles in that they mind their own business.

in all the time i have lived here i only know my neighbour downstairs. everyone else i dont chat to very much only greeting them when i see them on the stairs, and that very rarely.

i like it that way.

we keep being told that old people saying they like to talk to the cashiers in the supermarket. if that is true i think it is a sad life if they are so desperate for company that the highlight of their day is to talk to supermarket cashiers.

i avoid the cashiers preferring to use the self help tills. I like the self help tills as there is no long queue to use them, and i can get my payments quickly done and be away.

There was a tv program earlier tonight about richard meldrew , who made a living playing a grumpy old man in a tv series, and he was getting grumpier at dealing with telephone call centres and paying for his parking, and using the self service supermarket tills. i laugh at it, are all old people like him? surely not!!

link to richard meldrew tv

I think he gets upset too easily.

not a clear picture. taken with my webcam

Added 17.1.12 that mirror newspaper also has a coupon for free 80 typhoo tea bags. (250mg) today i cycled to morrisons in walworth road to get it. from the map i found a route through the housing estates so it was a short trip from my place. funny how i always thought it was miles away. i am glad i found this morrisons so close to me.

went clubbing last night

london
its been such a long time since i went clubbing it brings back memories.
walked across the river to the nudityclub night. when i arrived there was no one going in, just two door keepers who confirmed it was the entrance to the club.
the other side of the club was the entrance to their other clubnight, fitlads, and there was a big queue there so that clubnight was more popular than ours.

i was body searched, maybe they were making sure i dont bring in booze or poppers as they sell it inside.

i thought it would be empty as i was early (about 11pm) but there was allready a crowd of guys in there, and the orgy room was packed.

it is quite a small venue, and if it was a normal night where 150 guys go in,  it would be packed. as it is, i think there were about 100 guys there. quite a number of chinese guys, which surprised me because i did not think chinese guys are into nudity;

i recognised one chinese face there.

its been so long since i went to a club, i forgot what an ego boost it is to have guys being attracted to me and saying so. one guy said he noticed me straight away when i came in, another said he was only attracted to 3 guys there and i was one of them. haha.
well even if u take all that with a pinch of salt, it is still nice to hear.

quite many guys there with big cocks, which is nice to look at and many of the guys have nice bodies.

there was fun to be had in the dark room, which was not really very dark at all so u can see . some might prefer it darker.haha. more anonymity.

there was a dance space and the music was not too loud, and there is a mezzanine bar where u can overlook the dancers.

i had not considered joining the membership, thinking of this as a one off , and just pay the £5 entrance for guests, but the cashier ask if i want to join and i guess i must have wanted to, because i said yes. it is quite a good deal, as normal membership is £10.Not sure if i shall go in future, but who knows!? even if i dont go, i can lend it to friends.

normal entry is £8 for members which is rather pricey, but that is the  normal rate nowadays. My favourite sex club, the fort is cheaper(£6 and free to go for the rest of the other 3days in the week) but it closed in august 2011. i think the building it is in is being torn down for a new development.

i like the ambience in the fort and it is on a afternoon, so dont have to wait all day to go there. this one starts at 10pm, and it is rather a long wait for the night to go before u can start. i like to do things in the afternoon nowadays. the plus for this venue is that it is within walking distance from me.
many of these guys come in from outside london, and i wonder what they do to while the time before the club starts. it makes for a very long day and night.  they must be keen.

i got a contact number from one of the guys there so i suppose u could say it is a start to my socialising. he lives in bournemouth, but travels often to london, and to paris, and also to s.e.asia.

he's got a bf in thailand who travels with him. he says that bf is very highstrung and they quarrel quite a lot, but he stills goes out with him.

it takes all sorts.
pictures from boyz website of nudity guys.
warning dont click on it if u dont want to see full frontal nudity.