New Year Blues

The post-Christmas period is traditionally a time of depression and gloom caused by accumulated debts racked up from Christmas presents, accumulated kilos from too many mince pies, already-broken resolutions and a distinct lack of sunlight. I was on my way into town after work to meet up with an old friend of mine (Kate's the only person from primary school that I'm still in contact with) when an individual with a particularly acute case of the blues decided to end it all and jumped in front of a tube train. Personally I thought it was very inconsiderate of them to do it during the weekday rush hour, which meant I had to sit in a crowded train - and I didn't even have a paper to read!

I was a bit ill last week, although it did get me a chance to intimately acquaint myself with the u-bend of our lavatory. I have also just found out that, quite aptly perhaps, given the name of my blog, I am a kipper - or a KIPPER to be more precise. Apparently it stands for Kids In Parents' Pockets Eroding Retirement savings. That's me staying at my mum's and getting fed and generally pampered. It has, however, given me a bit more time and space to sort things out (although I'm far from finished). I have finally found not only all my pictures from the trip, but also all my clothes that had been packed away in various boxes and suitcases and squirrelled away in the attic and the garage (I have thereby found out that I have enough T-shirts to last the rest of my life, so please, if anyone is thinking of getting me a gift: no T-shirts please, I have nowhere to put them!). I'm also into month 21 in the sorting of my pictures (just 15 more to go) and I have so far filled 12 albums (if I had known it would be so much work I might not have taken all those photos!).

CapEx

CapEx, for those of you not in the know, is the abbreviated term for capital expenditure. These are costs incurred by a business "to buy fixed assets or to add to the value of an existing fixed asset" (source Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge!). Of the many new terms and ideas I'm coming across at work this is one of the commonest and, luckily, easiest to understand. Having been away for so long I've needed to invest in some CapEx for myself as my own personal infrastructure has suffered from 3 years of underinvestment. This weekend went a long way to rectifying the situation when I finally bought myself a bike for the commute into work so that I can return Mark's (although theoretically he owes me one as my old one was stolen whilst he was using it). I was disappointed to find that I couldn't find the exact type of bike I wanted - an old-school road bike with drop-down handlebars and mudguards (as it does rain on occasion here in London) - as mudguards aren't fashionable these days. So I'll have to resign myself to getting wet legs from time to time. I also had to invest in a half-way presentable pair of shoes now that I've got a real job with an office and everything (talking of which, below is a picture of me in my aforementioned office).

Another expense undergone this week was the purchase of flight tickets to Munich at the end of the month. For three years now my dad has been saying that I should go skiing with him (well, he skis and I snowboard) thinking each year that I would be home for Winter. Now that I am finally home I acquiesced - I just hope I still remember how to stay upright as it has been 7 years since I last hit the pistes. I was rather disappointed when buying the tickets as I really wanted to live up to my green principles and take the train, unfortunately the price was almost twice that of the plane. Now I wouldn't mind paying a little bit more but that was just too much. The problem is that jet fuel isn't at all taxed, which is a ridiculous state of affairs as, in effect, that means that air travel is subsidised and gets an unfair economic advantage over other means of transport, and that's despite the fact that it's the most polluting means of transport out there. That's the problem with politics (as the decision to tax fuel rests firmly with politicians) in the West - the right things are said, be it with regards to an ethical foreign policy, fighting global warming or respecting human rights, but as soon as it gets slightly uncomfortable then all principles are thrown out the window. It's the sheer hypocrisy of politics that disgusts me to the core. I wish we had a leader who would have the balls and the honesty to plainly say that air travel is too cheap for the damage that it is causing the environment and that it ought to be dearer. Maybe I'm also being hypocritical by not putting my money where my mouth is and taking the flight. It's probably also that I'm too weak to spend £260 when there's a £140 option available, although I would be willing to spend the £260 if there wasn't a cheaper option.

Thoughts On Oil

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope everyone had a merry and relaxing Christmas, spent with friends and loved ones. Although I had a lot of pent up Christmas spirit in me, this being my first one in 4 years to be spent with my family, I have found that it has lost some of the magic for me. Whether this is due to my trip having put things into a different perspective, or whether it's just a case of getting older and increasing my humbug quotient I'm not sure, but some things, like putting up the tree and going Christmas shopping have become more of a chore for me. That said, there are still things that I appreciate: the laziness of being able to stay in and do nothing, seeing friends and gorging on mince pies and mulled wine (the latter being the true embodiment of the festivities for me).

Before the revelries began I had my first week at work. To be honest it was rather slow; partly due to the various administrative tasks that took a fair bit of toing and froing with the head office which is inconveniently located in the States, and also partly because it is a completely new position, both for me and the company, so I have to feel my way into what is required and do a lot of learning on the job, not least about the oil and gas industry. At least it has been very educational so far, as it has helped dispel some of the commonly held myths that circulate about oil.

Despite the price of a barrel of crude being at record highs and people everywhere complaining about how expensive it is, the black stuff is in fact pretty cheap. A litre of unrefined crude costs about 30p, about the same as the price of a Kit-Kat. Even at the pump, after having been refined, transported and taxed it costs about the same as bottled water. It is therefore ridiculous for people to complain about the price of petrol when they're prepared to pay the same amount for water which, and it is important to remember this, is available for free and contains no nutritional content (apart from a few trace elements). If one were to think logically petrol ought to be a good deal more expensive if one were to properly consider what you get for your money (not a popular point of view perhaps, but probably necessary for the future).

Similarly it is generally accepted that we are soon going to run out of oil. Now the veracity of that statement depends on your interpretation of the word soon, but there is certainly a good deal more of it than some scaremongers would have us believe. 20 years ago there were 875 billion barrels of obtainable oil reserves and today there are over 1200. That doesn't mean that they have miraculously appeared out of thin air, but that, due to improvements in technology, people have been able to find more sources of oil and extract greater percentages of it once they have found it. In a way it's unfortunate because, as far as the people who make the decisions are concerned, there's plenty of the black stuff about and so there's no urgency in doing anything to address the eventual demise of oil.

Another point of attack, especially for the anti-globalisation crowd, are the big oil companies. They are demonised for being incredibly rich and powerful and using their power and dominant position to ride roughshod over the interests of local people and even governments of developing countries. Now there is a certain ruth to this, and like all companies they are out to make a profit and stay ahead of their competitors, but one must also look at the facts of the business. The five biggest oil companies (known as IOCs, or International Oil Companies) have, together, less than 25% of world production and 15% of the world's oil reserves. Compare this then to NOCs (National Oil Companies, which are owned by state governments, such as NIOC in Iran, Aramco in Saudi Arabia and PdVSA in Venezuela) who produce more than 60% of the world's oil and own 80% of its reserves. When one thinks that these NOCs are often run by suspect governments that are accountable to no-one and endemically corrupt, the IOCs begin to look like paragons of justice with their shareholders and regulatory bodies keeping them in check and economic necessity ensuring that they aren't wasteful. And with regards to their wealth it is true that of the five richest companies in the world are IOCs, but that's not surprising when one realises that just to develop a single oilfield often requires investments in excess of a billion dollars. Small companies just don't have the capital, and very often the IOCs have to work together on the same field out of financial necessity. This isn't to say that they are without sin, far from it, but the alternatives are probably worse.

Anyway, that's enough about the macroeconomics of oil; since I haven't posted a picture in quite some time I thought I'd give you one that I took on my morning cycle to work as the sun was rising on Richmond Park.

Global Warming And Expanding Waistlines

I remember, as a child, the optimism and enthusiasm that even made its way to my juvenile consciousness during the first Earth Summit in Rio 15 years ago. The Cold War was over, the Berlin Wall had fallen and all the nations would go forward together, hand in hand, towards a brighter future. Even back then there was a consensus amongst scientists that global warming was being influenced by human activity and that if nothing was done soon then it would have catastrophic consequences on the global climate. Fast forward to the present day and things have advanced painfully slowly since then, with the present Bali summit producing a watered down agreement, which, as it stands, is far too little far too late to be able to stem the climate change flood. It's particularly galling to me that the stumbling block should be the United States. here's a country that calls itself, with some pride, the Leader of the Free World. Every year its government trumpets reports of human rights abuses throughout the world and bemoans the lack of democracy, going so far as to wage a war for the spread of it (amongst many other reasons, depending on the time of day they are talking). Yet when the moment arrives for true leadership, for difficult, painful choices being made, for sacrifice the bravado turns to selfishness, intransigence and sheer bloody-mindedness.

It had become ever harder to deny either the scientific or the democratic arguments (the latter being the fact that the majority of countries of the world wanted and were willing to make sacrifices to fight climate change) and so the barrel was well and truly scraped to find less and less convincing arguments. The economic: we won't be able to have things as cheaply as before and some people might lose a few jobs. True as it might be, the costs of allowing climate change to go on unchecked would be far greater still, and most likely in ways that we cannot foresee. Also, if America's direct competitors (other developed countries) were to sign up to the same commitments then the trade playing field would still be level. But, counter the Americans, what about China and India and other devloping countries who are also polluting. Those sneeky Chinese are now polluting as much as we are! Blithely ignoring the fact that there are four times as many Chinese and that they haven't been polluting nearly as much much nearly as long as them. Apparently the aspiration of having a better quality of life and all the comforts of modern living is only for the West and developing countries are only to have a role as factories for our cheap goods.

Luckily even their bare-faced conceit couldn't stop a final agreement being reached, however toothless it may be. It's a shame that it has turned out like this as this was a golden opportunity for the Americans to restore their damaged international reputation and regain the moral high ground. Unfortunately, as far as I can see, I am very pessimistic about our long-term ability to maintain the planet as it is. That's not to say that all life will die, because Mother Nature has a boundless ability to adapt to new circumstances, but we will lose the beauty and diversity that is there now. Forever.

What, however, is perhaps more worrying for the world, is that I have now unearthed a good number of my old clothes and I am finding that I no longer fit into my old trousers. For years I had a constant 30" waist and weighed around 62kg, and now I've suddenly realised that I've eaten my way up to a 32" paunch and I tip the scales at the wrong end of 68kg. I'm afraid of not only becoming a sedentary slob like my brother (a good way of testing to see whether he's actually reading this), but that I might also have to buy new clothes - an idea which fills me with dread, not just because it's another expense, but because I seriously dislike the whole shopping experience (clothes in particular) and am suddenly realising that I still need to get my Christmas shopping done. Aaarrggghhh!

Last Taste Of Freedom

This weekend I celebrated my birthday in Britain once again. After spending three birthdays and Christmases on the road their importance has paled for me and I don't see them as being any different from other days. In fact I was going out with some friends from the south America days of my trip on my birthday and didn't realise that it was my birthday until halfway through the evening. Personally I think the best present one can have is to spend time with friends (copious quantities of mulled wine, beer and cocktails just make it that bit better). Apropos of friends I got to see an old friend from school in France last week. Marina and Guillaume were flying off to New Zealand for a belated honeymoon and had a three hour stopover at Heathrow. Seeing as I hadn't seen them since 2002 I took some time off to go and snatch a few hours with them for some quick reminiscences and updates before they jetted off to to escape the European Winter for a few weeks.

I am trying to take advantage of my final week of freedom before my job starts next week to sort out my life a bit while I still have some free time. My main task (and it's one I won't be finishing for some time) is to get my pictures sorted. I've managed to get my photos that I developed from film annotated and put into albums (six of them). That covers my first year of travelling before I switched to digital. I've gone through all my other pictures on my computer and touched them up where it has been necessary and now I'm sifting through them to pick out which ones to actually develop. I took my first six months' worth in to be processed today and gave the girl behind the counter a bit of a fright when she saw I was developing 1162 photos (that's all that would fit on my memory stick). I thought it would be funny to get them done in 1 hour, but then decided against it to give the poor girl some time.

My other main task is to try and get on top of my finances (or lack thereof). I have come to realise that I now have 4 current accounts, 3 savings accounts, 2 debit cards and 3 credit cards. Maybe I ought to keep my cards apart in my wallet to keep them from reproducing! I mean just trying to keep track of all the different PIN codes and online passwords is a major effort in itself, not to mention trying to understand all the various accounts, taxes, pensions contributions, national insurance and other financial oddities. What strikes me as particularly shameful is that as students at school (both here in Britain and in France, and probably many other countries as well) we are not taught even the most rudimentary aspects of finance and so people are left blindly feeling their way alone through the financial maze.

No Longer Looking

Since I went to school in France I have many French friends, and as they graduated from university I would tell them to come over to Britain where employment opportunities are greater than over there (young people find it notoriously difficult to find jobs in France, which is one of the reasons for the numerous riots and strikes that paralyse the country with increasing frequency). Today I have proved how true that is. Without actively seeking it out I have been offered a research analyst position at the consultancy I'm temping at. It might not have been what I was aiming for (although I'm not exactly sure what I was aiming for) but after talking to the various partners, managers and consultants it sounds like quite an exciting job with plenty of scope to learn new skills and broaden my knowledge about the energy industry, not to mention the fact that the pay is very reasonable and well in excess of the positions I was looking at. I will let you know more about the details of the job once I actually start as the job description is rather vague and leaves a lot of room for improvisation. The one drawback of this stroke of good luck may be that it reinforces my rather laissez faire attitude towards life in general as things in general really have seemed to work out fortuitously for me with very little input on my behalf. But then again I am quite easily pleased so it doesn't take much to make me content.

Other news has been my recent return to the roads behind the wheel of a car. Despite having got my driving licence at the age of 18, 5 years of urban living followed by 3 years of travelling have meant that I hadn't driven in over 5 years and my total number of hours driving ever barely exceeds a dozen. It was no wonder therefore that I viewed a return to clutches, gearsticks, indicators and windscreen wipers with more than a little trepidation. To say that I don't hold much confidence in my driving skills would be a sizeable understatement. As it turns out I have driven the 8 or so miles to and from my brother's flat on three occasions now and not only am I still alive but I have neither crashed nor even damaged the paintwork. Nevertheless I still feel more at ease on my bike (despite the idiot drivers who haven't the slightest inkling what a cycle lane is) where I feel more in control.

Christmas fever has also reached it apogee some 4 weeks before the actual event with high streets jam-packed on weekends and television adverts extolling Christmas offers for the past month already. Some people even have their decorations up already. Not that I particularly mind though, what with the short days and the grim weather I am finding it hard not to just stay in and veg, which is of course what Christmas is all about (some misguided people think it may be about the giving of gifts, or even to celebrate the birth of some guy a long time ago, but in fact it is a celebration of weather-induced laziness and indolence).

Life In The Bus Lane

So I have been temping a couple of weeks now and the life of an office manager is actually quite interesting, although in this office midweek is rather slow as most of the consultants are away on assignment and so I was often alone stalking the corridors and talking to myself (so at least no change there then). I won't bore you with the details of the job, instead it has been the getting to and from work which will be the topic of my discussion. It seems that getting from A to B plays a far greater role in our daily lives than I had previously supposed, and isn't solely the preserve of travellers.

As I mentioned before I had decided to go green and use the bike, although my reasons for switching were more prosaic and centred around money and an increase in sleep time. There are, of course, other advantages to cycling. Personally I derive great pleasure in speeding past single-occupancy motorists who are stuck in jams and inching along nose to tail at a walking pace - it gives me a great amount of satisfaction and makes me feel not a little smug, especially as I weave in between the gridlock maze. I am lucky in that my route takes me through Richmond Park, London's largest urban park, complete with its own herd of royal deer. You don't really see them in the morning when the park is also open to traffic, but as the road gates are closed at dusk the park becomes a surreal cycling experience. As you enter, the lights that are omnipresent in the city abruptly stop and you enter into a surprisingly heavy darkness. And although you don't have to worry about getting run over by a car, you have to be extra vigilant for the deer that wander across the road and seemingly jump out at you in the darkness. And off in the distance lies London with a red haze from the city lights hanging above it as if it were on fire, obscuring the stars which are replaced by the planes coming in to land at Heathrow. The darkness is so deep that on my first foray homewards through the park I mistakenly took a wrong turning and ended up in Roehampton, thereby adding some 10km to my trip (suffice to say that it is not a mistake I am likely to make in the future!).

There are drawbacks too, of course, as there are to everything, the most notable being the delayed action saddle soreness (which I am feeling as I'm typing these very words) and stressed muscles that are unused to the exertion. The weather is also getting noticeably colder, which I feel particularly keenly as I set off in the morning when my body still isn't warmed up. The cold wind in my face also causes my nose to run so that I am always cycling with a permanent drop of watery phlegm dangling like some liquid bungee jumper, on the tip of my nose. Still, a small price to pay for trying to be carbon neutral.

Fire Works

I'm particularly fond of Autumn in the UK. Although it's not particularly warm (there's frost on the pavements in the morning already) I love the blue skies, the crisp morning air, the changing colours of the leaves and the eerie morning mist (though I'm rarely ever up to catch that) that adds a touch of magic to otherwise humdrum surroundings. It's also the season for explosions and fireworks, what with Guy Fawkes' night on the 5th closely followed by Diwali there was a steadily increasing nightly cacophony of bangs, whizzes and explosions culminating with Bonfire Night itself, when walking home in the darkness due to a local power cut I felt like I was in the Blitz.

The past couple of weeks have been rather busy for me. The most important thing to have happened to me has been my recent change of work status - I am now employed. Before we get out the champagne though it is only a temporary job to tide me over whilst I look for something more substantial. Just as it is the world over, it's not what you know but who you know, managing to get a job standing in for the office manager at my brother's office. It's not the most glamourous of jobs and neither am I earning big bucks, but it's better than nothing and the work itself is rather varied and so I'm not getting bored. The worst part of the job is the commute. Although I don't live that far, due to rush hour traffic it takes over 90mins for a journey that ordinarily takes less than 30mins by car. The trains aren't much quicker either as I have to go half way into London before getting a connecting train. So instead I have decided to requisition my brother's bike and cycle into work, thereby saving money, getting some much-needed exercise and allowing me to sleep for 30mins more in the morning (priceless!).

So that has been taking up all of this week, but the week before I got a surprise message from one of my ex-pupils who was going out not far from me and so we met up for a few beers. Although Rishi was by no means a star pupil and annoyed me occasionally with his sometime slack attitude to his studies he was always a genuinely likeable and cheery guy. So it was with great curiosity that I arranged to meet up with him to see how much three years of university had changed him, if at all. I was glad to find that he had lost none of his fun-loving charm but that he had gained in maturity and responsibility. It was particularly heartwarming for me when Rishi reminded me of advice I had given him back then, which he promptly disregarded, and that he has now come to see as pertinent and useful.

Also, following on from my Persian rap experience a few weeks back I went to see the animated film Persepolis, about young girl's memories of the Iranian Revolution and her time growing up under the Islamic regime, at the London film festival. Now it seems to me that animated features are viewed with a certain condescension in the English-speaking world, which is a shame as it can be an unbelievably rich and evocative medium with as much emotion and pathos as films with live actors (the works of Hayao Miyazaki and the animated sequences of Alan Parker's The Wall spring immediately to mind) and also allows a film to exceed the physical limits of reality. Be that as it may I can only recommend the film which not only gives a short, yet insightful, view of the political situation that led up to the Revolution but also the absurdity of the current regime, all the while maintaining a personal perspective and allowing odd moments of humour to pop in.

London Is My Marmite

I have a love hate relationship with London. Having spent my university years here I greatly appreciate all that it has to offer: entertainment, culture, whatever - if you want something you are sure to be able to find it here. But it'll cost you. A lot. London life certainly isn't cheap, even if you live in the forgotten depths of zone 4 south of the river, and especially when you aren't earning any money (my unemployment benefit still hasn't come through yet and I'm just grateful that I'm staying with my mum and getting fed and horribly spoilt). And so even when you don't want to money, and how to get it, keep it and not lose it too quickly, never seems to be far away from your thoughts. Getting away from this cycle isn't easy either, as once you are in London it has a huge gravitational pull in terms of employment: looking for a job outside of the capital isn't easy, although conversely, you can always find a job here no matter where you are in the country (or at least an advert for a job - getting it is another matter completely). So once you are here it's hard to leave. Then there's the sheer size of the city. No matter where you want to go it'll take you an hour to get there, regardless of the actual, physical distance. So I just try and stick to my local area which has pretty much all I need anyway. In the three weeks I have been back this weekend was the first time I had ventured into the world of debauchery and hedonism that is zone 1 - to see a concert of contemporary Persian rap with my mum (a bit more on that later).

But even without going into the centre of town and staying in the suburbs I continually encounter what I love most about the place. Whether I happen to be strolling through Sutton High Street, or just sitting on the 213 to Kingston, I can always hear people talking, and as often as not it won't be in English. Chinese, Polish, Vietnamese, German, Russian, Hindi, Spanish and many more that I can't even begin to recognise. London is a true melting pot, in the best form of the term. People come from all over the world to London to make a (better) life for themselves, and so they are all in the same boat and seem to get along well together, accepting each other with no difficulty. That's not to say that there are no race problems, there always are, especially with the British resenting the large number of Poles that have come over with the expansion of the EU (the vast majority of waiting staff in the capital are eastern European). Part of this multiculturalism is found in the diverse number of cultural events to cater for every taste and ethnicity. And so there I was, at the plush Southbank centre watching a concert of Persian rap to celebrate the 800th anniversary of one of Persia's greatest poets Rumi (not much publicised within Iran itself as he was more of a Sufi mystic, and Sufism, despite being a Muslim sect, is very much disapproved of under the current regime). The acts themselves ranged for cringeworthy to very good, with rap switching between between Farsi (which is a surprisingly good language for the medium) and English with frequent criticism of the regime. Though there were a few jabs at the British government aswell due to the fact that several acts were not allowed to attend the concert due to draconian visa resttrictions (despite the fact that they were allowed into other European countries).

Generally travelling has been greatly enriching for me, but there has been one aspect of my life here that has taken a turn for the worse as a direct result of it: I am taking far less pleasure in eating out. Not only can I no longer get a meal for half a dollar, but I find foreign cuisine less tasty than I used to. This is because I know what it tastes like abroad, and the stuff here just doesn't cut it anymore. Plus things taste much better when you eat them from a grubby little street stall on the dusty streets of a third-world backwater.

Showers And Dictators

So I'm trying to get back into things over here. I've started getting onto the whole job-search malarkey, though I suspect it may be a while before my efforts start paying off in interviews and offers.. Otherwise it has been somewhat hard to slip back into polite society, for several reasons I suppose. Renewing contacts with friends isn't always that easy because whilst I've been away they have carried on with their lives (which is self-evident) and so have their routines and it is difficult to slip seamlessly into their already well-arranged lives. Plus what do you talk about? I don't want to sound like a broken record talking about my trip all the time, but then it was the last three years of my life, so what else have I to talk about? Then there's the physical sorting of my belongings and accumulated junk. Unfortunately our house here in London is rather small and I share my room with a lot of my brother's stuff and so am unable to properly spread out and organise my flotsam and jetsam, much of which is squirreled away either in our attic or garage in piles of boxes. I therefore feel as if I'm still living out of my backpack somewhat. And finally over the course of my trip personal hygiene wasn't really much of a priority when camping and staying in tatty hostels (although people who know me would probably say that hygiene has never been a priority for me), but I'm having to make the effort to remember to shower more than twice a week. To help me somewhat I've gone ahead and shaved my hair very short, which makes it more manageable and easier to maintain (I hadn't cut my hair in over a year and it was beginning to show).

On a completely separate note, and somewhat belatedly, I was thinking about Burma/Myanmar the other day. It seems as if there are no problems there anymore judging by the number of column inches the newspapers and airtime the TV news channels are devoting to the situation there nowadays. I was mulling over the political situation there and how it compares to Iraq under Saddam, and honestly I can't for the life of me find any great difference. The repression of ordinary Burmese, their general quality of life (or lack thereof), the extrajudicial killings are quite possibly worse under Than Shwe and his clique of generals than what the Iraqis experienced with Saddam. So what justifies the very different ways in which the two regimes are handled by the international community. Could it possibly have something to do with the huge reserves of oil in Iraq? Well, that would be a far too cynical world-view, wouldn't it...