I don't want to save the rainforest, I just want to keep my shirts dry.

It is been raining here for the past week or so, with varying degrees of strength. Last night we had a bit of a mini downpour. In the middle of the night, I heard a strange "thup, thup, thup" coming from the closet. I got up to investigate and found my clothes were soaking wet; the ceiling was leaking quite heavily. Now, this would not be that unusual of occurrence in Scotland during a rainstorm except for one salient fact; my flat is on the ground floor of a two-storey building. What makes it worse is that the closet has a small cupboard above it, which in effect creates another ceiling, and this arrangement is repeated in the flat above. So, for water to enter my closet and soak my shirts, it must first bypass the roof, enter the cupboard in the upstairs flat, drip into the closet below that, flow in to my cupboard, and finally drain into my closet and onto my clothes. Realising this, I went upstairs to investigate the flat, which was surprisingly unlocked, and unsurprisingly unoccupied. I really don't have words to describe it, save to say that it reminded me of the waterpark in San Dimas, California. I emailed my landlord about this, more for the benefit of him and his building than my waterlogged wearables, and I received his reply this morning, which was to the effect that he had been upstairs to view the flat, and amazingly enough, there was a small leak that needed seeing to. My landlord, while nice enough, definitely has a gift for understatement. My first thoughts on viewing the upstairs flat was I had discovered a new rainforest ecosystem and that there might be predators, possibly jaguars or pumas, lurking about.

No matter, I'm not taking any chances; I am building an ark.

Interesting Things

They are everywhere, but always outside.

Sent from my HTC PURE™, a Stares out the Windows® phone from AT&T

Why is it...

...when I'm trying to go to bed / fall asleep the cats always think that is a cue for putting on a floor show, complete with a kitty can-can? Right now they are flipping a cat toy at each other as if they were defending a football (soccer for my US friends) goal. While cute, it's annoying.

Little nocturnal jerks.

A secret message for a friend in Finland

Sent from my HTC PURE™, a Windows® phone from AT&T

Waiting at the window.

Hobbes

"There is a whole world out there...  and it's fascinating and beautiful!"

Sent from my HTC PURE™, a Windows® phone from AT&T that is really glad to be with his cats in Scotland

The Law of Unintended Diner Consequences

I was emailing a friend of mine back in New York who is a waiter at the diner I used to frequent. And I was bemoaning the lack of diners in Scotland, in fact the whole UK. Really, the closest you get to an American-style diner here in the UK is a transport cafe, the kind that you used to see on the roads/motorways. These however, are exceedingly rare these days, having been killed off by motorway services, which are invariably a Burger King, KFC, and or a rather crap self-service cafe. Even the original transport cafes were nowhere near as good, cheap and cool as an upper East coast American diner. When I used to play in rockabilly bands my UK friends in the scene were particularly obsessed with American diner culture (which is somewhat ironic since I was always obsessed with European, particularly French, cafe culture; plus ca change...) and wishing it could be found in Blighty. I think the closest the UK ever came to having an American style diner was the Ace Cafe in North London, but even then that was mostly about atmosphere and not food. Anyway, I was thinking about why that was the case, other than Brits traditionally having no taste for decent food and not caring about not having any taste for food (it should be noted that this has greatly changed over the last 20 years; I blame TV chefs and cheap holidays to Florida – it only takes a trip to one all you can eat buffet to open up your eyes).

Anyway, I was thinking about why this was the case. I think that there are two main reasons; real estate and taxes. Both of these reasons are intertwined with the fact the basic nature of the diner is to sit down to eat. Although Americans have always been very big on eating on the go, they also been very big on quick meals in places where you can sit down – lunch counters and diners. And while shop space in American cities has always been expensive, it is been much more so in towns and cities in the UK. Shops here are small because rent is expensive. A shopkeeper has to make every square foot of his shop pay for itself. That is why you do not tend to see shops in the UK that are laid out with beautiful minimalist designs like an Apple Store in the US. It just doesn't make financial sense. By the same token, restaurants tend to take up lots of space. In a sitdown restaurant the kitchen is actually only a small percentage of the total floor space. In the UK the thinking tends to be on how to minimise business costs – since those costs tend to be so high – rather than how to increase business to cover those costs. So for the would-be UK restauranteur, If you are aiming at the lower end of the market, it makes much more sense to open a takeaway (no dining room which means no waitresses, no dishes and cutlery, and much less washing, etc) than a traditional sitdown restaurant. The other big detriment for a restaurant owner here is VAT, which is the sales tax in the UK. The government does not charge VAT on food, unless it is served in a sitdown restaurant. Oh, and did I mention that the VAT is 17.5%? So for the privilege of sitting down to eat your meal, it will cost you 17.5% more. And most people in the UK do not feel that is good value for money. Most people here wanting a cheap meal would be happy to take it home, or more likely just eat it in the street rather than pay for the privilege of sitting down. Britain is one of the few European countries were eating in the street (other than something like an ice cream cone) is not frowned upon (in fact it is very common). While I'm sure there are other forces at work, I think it's likely that these two economic factors are the main reasons why an American-style diner culture has never taken hold in the UK.

Mushroom, mushoom.

Reunited with two old friends; my antique shaving mug and my snakewood/silver badger hair shaving brush. The type of bristles on a shaving brush makes a huge difference to how well the soap lathers, and hence how close a shave you get. Foam in a can is crap by comparison. Once you've had badger, you can't go back.

Sent from my HTC PURE™, a Windows® phone from AT&T that knows how to properly shave old school.

PS Only a very select few will get the meaning of the title. But who cares...