Mrs. Dalllaire would be proud

I have decided that when I buy a house, I will dedicate one room to being a library. It will come equipped with a spiral staircas and an upper level of books just like this picture. Oh, and you will be required to smoke a pipe upon entering.


This library would have been great for a scavenger hunt. There were so many hidden nooks and crannies. It would also be good for making out.

The other cool thing about this library is that the 6 floors of books were separated by metal grate floors which allows you to look through and see all 6 floors at a time. This picture is kinda bad at capturing that, so I guess you'll just have to come to London and see for yourself.

Tiny kitten lips

Here’s a sure way of making new friends at work. Get into an elevator with 5 other people. When the doors open at your floor, immediately press Door Close thinking it’s Door Open and you’re being chivalrous. That’ll be a real hoot.

The 60-something man in front of me in line at the library checked out two books – The Devil Wears Prada and a Guide to Birdwatching. It’s gonna be a big weekend for him.

Right. So about that library. No, the other one…The London Library. I went on a tour on Saturday and, call me a nerd, but it was really interesting! Here are some facts you can use at your next party that are guaranteed to make you cooler:
- It’s the world’s largest independent lending library due to the fact that it retains every book it’s ever received.
- Its president is Tom Stoppard and its patron (whatever that means) is the Queen.
- The dates of the books go all the way back to the 1500’s (I’m guessing these are books such as The Pro’s and Cons of Wearing Poofy Skirts, Christopher Columbus Explored My Body (And other short stories), and Places That Haven’t Yet Been Made British Colonies).
- They don’t use the Dewey Decimal System; all their books are shelved alphabetically. They, and I, think this is cool because it really lets you see the depth of their collection; while browsing for Death (because who hasn’t done that before?), you also might come across Demons or Dentistry.
- Because it is not funded by the government you must pay a membership fee to use the library. This I can understand. What I can’t understand are the exorbitant fees. To use the library for a day it will cost you $20; for a week, $60. But here’s the kicker. You can buy a lifetime membership which will obviously vary in cost depending on how old you are when you purchase one. If you are between the ages of 18 and 25, it will cost you….$32,000 to become a member of the London Library!! I’m pretty sure you could buy all the books you’ll ever want for less than this; and if you’re using the library for research purposes, I’ll bet throwing in the cost of buying someone else’s research papers would also cover it. Yikes!
- Past members have included Charles Darwin, Arthur Conan Doyle, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Agatha Christie, and William Makepeace (I don’t actually know who this is, but I like his name)

I swear, if they claim that the Austrian incest guy is insane and cannot be held responsible for his actions, I will fly there myself and shoot him in the face. This is a promise. (And not that I agree with Perez Hilton on everything, but he hit the nail right on the head when he said the guy looks like Donald Sutherland. Creepy.)

*music – Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes, And passing them used lots of skills But when worlds collide said George Pal to his bride, I’m gonna give you some terrible thrills

Card carrying member

Damn that library was hard to find! It’s like they don’t want you to actually go to the library. I had my little printed-out map with me and it should have been right there off Beech Street. And yet, I somehow managed to walk around in circles for 10 minutes before I found the hidden entrance. But all is well because I now know where it is. And what’s more, they gave me a map that shows me where I had passed by another library branch that was about 20 minutes closer to work than the one I had just trekked to. I guess people don’t use libraries all that much in London; fine by me, more books for me to read (right, because I would ever run out). And while I would also take out dvd’s and cd’s, well, you have to pay to rent those and I’m saving up for heaps of sticky toffee pudding. (Plus, I think I’m going to sign up for London’s version of Netflix as soon as I figure out where I’m permanently staying in the city.)

Anyway, so yeah, the library. It was a decent size and had a great selection of books. The skinny, stereotypical man-librarian (or aide perhaps) was quite overeager to help me sign up for a library card (despite this, I couldn’t help but stare at his rotting-around-the-edges teeth). As I was surfing the net and jotting down all the Tube stops for my upcoming museum adventures, the man next to me kept humming/grunting. I let the first one go by because maybe he didn’t mean for it to be so loud. But when the second one happened and it was clearly just “something he does,” I gave him a little-more-than-subtle glance as if to say, “Really? You’re gonna just go to a public place and make that noise and not expect someone to look at you and make the face I’m making?” Needless to say, his face had no response to my face.

I’m at work no more than 5 minutes today and G saunters back to his desk with a plate full of bacon. THE MAN MADE BACON AT WORK! I don’t know whether to shake his hand or kick the greasy meat strips right out of his mouth. (I did neither.) I cannot wait to see what he brings tomorrow.

Oh, and another funny story about G is that I was talking to GB (boss/friend from Sydney) over instant messenger at one point today and I said, “G is getting up to go to the kitchen to get more water.” GB replies with, “Yeah, and he’ll come back with a packet of crisps.” I told GB that if he was right, I’d eat my shirt. 15 seconds later I send him a message saying “I’M EATING MY SHIRT!”

I don’t know whose idea it was, but every Tuesday at 9:30 am, the company building has a fire alarm test. You don’t actually have to leave and go outside; they just sound the (very loud) alarm to check to make sure it still works. What?! Every week? Good lord, why?!

When you get off the elevators at Angel Court, my building, you have to swipe your ID card and go through a set of doors to get to the work area. The handles on both sides of the door are identical. They look more like the pull ones than the push ones [ ]. I am not kidding you when I tell you that every time I have gone to open those doors, I have pushed or pulled the wrong way. I don’t know why I can’t just remember which way they go. And I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who has this problem because I sit right next to them and I never see anyone else struggle with it. It’s quite pathetic.

I love the double-decker buses. I rode them a lot this past weekend so that I could get a feel for the city a bit more. I always make sure to ride up top because a) it’s more fun b) it makes me feel taller and c) it’s a better view. I think it’s so cool that the buses aren’t double-deckers just to please tourists; they’re the actual city transportation buses. Obviously they’re there because the city is ridiculously crowded and instead of having two separate buses clogging up the streets, why not just put one on top of another? I think it’s definitely a strategy Boston should adopt. I’ll pitch it to Menino when I get home.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I watched the Patriots game at Cheers in Piccadilly Circus. Yes, THAT Cheers. At one point I overheard the hoochie next to me say “Why is this bar named Cheers? Isn’t that in Boston?” Anyway, it was the only bar I could find that was showing the game and not a soccer match. To my horror, there were almost as many Charger fans present as Patriots fans…although I counted at least three Brady jerseys. My feet started to get tired during the third quarter since it was standing room only, and I had to leave when Brady threw the interception in the endzone. I figured I needed to go to sleep anyway (you know, what with my first day of work the next morning) and when I woke up they would have either won or lost and my being there wouldn’t have changed anything. Of course, after we won it would have been nice to see the look on that tool’s face at the bar who kept clapping obnoxiously every time the Chargers did something good.

Forecast: Clear and cool with a slight chance of a world recession.