hi all,
well, i'm slowly getting used to london still,i went to camden, lots of it seems to be getting refurbished and nocked down, it looks like its a little more commercial now,a gap appeared there a while ago, but with the refurbishment the rents are going up apparently, so a few stalls that have been there for years are going.People tend to go there for cheap tshirts and clothes, but i was told lots of those cheap stalls cant afford the rent anymore...so itll become even more mainstream. Perhaps the main trade for camden is tourism, which will continue the same as ever..to be honest its full of cheesey cybergoth punk and retro clothes..i dont buy much from there, its just somewhere i get my dreads sorted out every few months..
centre of london has lots of places shutting down. around totenham court road seems to be getting more run down all the time. One thing london does have more of than tokyo (that i noticed anyway) is live theatre,comedy shows and lots of cinemas..I prefer the smaller independant cinemas around london, the big ones in leicester square are quite expensive.
i managed to catch up with lots of friends i used to work with..nothing much seems to have changed, though the games industry is getting a little more difficult..many more people on projects now,and less risk taking on the types of games being made...the games industry is becoming safer as project cost more and more....the last game i worked on was pretty good, but there seem to be more and more good games that dont sell, the average gamer apparently wants grandtheft auto, and most titles being planned seem to be heading this way, though if they dont have something new and unique (which is the difficult bit), theyll all just be "like grandtheftauto" instead of innovative.."dark and edgey" was last years marketing buzz words, i dont know what this years are yet.....
if the games industry has parallels with the movie industry, then ther'll be someone,somewhere doing lo budget games that pop out of nowhere and suprise the industry..for me though its ussually the japanese companies that do this, but that market is increasingly having to work on a global scale..
the uk still seems obsessed with david beckham,apparently the public are interested and want to know the details...its a good way of selling newspapers,getting ratings for shows etc...i should turn the tv off more often...pres bush seems to be showing himself as the idiot he is..
and paypal seem to be quite helpful at the moment...ive got lots of money in an account i cant get because of visa regulations and expanded use program stuff...but i think they may actually help..
so,a normal blog,not much going on..not in tokyo anymore...
wayne.
well, back in britain..and its suprising the stuff i notice after being away for a short while.
just how dirty and littered the streets are...everywhere is quite filthy and dirty, i'm sure i'll get used to it again within a few days...there are soooo many more homeless in london too, i came out from watching shaun of the dead (a zombie film) and looking around there seemed to be extras walking around that hadnt taken off the film cloths/makeup etc...they didnt try and eat my flesh, just hassled me for money as if i owed it to them..
i walked around carnaby street and covent garden, the main areas in london for "street" fashion,trainers etc.., and after half an hour i'd seen it all....it takes hours just to wonder around harajuku, then theres loads of other places too..everything seems so much less now i'm back...it makes me wonder why people dont just avoid london and goto tokyo....but maybe its because tokyo is such a huge place..which loads of huge shopping/interesting areas each the size of central london, its just not the same travelling to watford,or ealing ...theyre all pretty much the same kind of places..
so i'm feeling a bit depressed coming back to the uk..i'll get through it,i was hoping to catch up on lots of tv i'd missed, but looking through the channels, its though i havent been away..same old crap on mtv,bbc etc....its better than the japanese tv i had, but when most of the good programs could be downloaded from newsgroups in under ten minutes, it wasnt too bad....with this internet connection (which is quite quick for uk standards)..its feels sooo painfully slow just to get email and look on a simple website....it would probably cost about 300quid a month to get the connection i had, if it is available in the uk yet, and in japan it was just part of the package with the apartment..which didnt cost any more than a small apartment in central london.
and the heating in my flat dont work....i thought my flat mate wouldve noticed, but i guess not..(or he just waited for me to come back to sort it)..though we're moving out soon.
and i'm still going through hell because of paypal ....i went to barclays yesterday and it looked like it needs a lot of renovation and modernisation..the people workin there just seemed to chat amongst themselves and then, if they could be arsed, serve and help some people..i'm sure theyll be out of work soon, as lots of work turns into telephone calls to call centres in india...at least you get polite service instead of feeling like youve inconvenienced them just by being a customer..the bank that cant be arsed..
in japan (i'll be using this a lot i think)...i went to a shop to buy something and they didnt have the amount i wanted...instead of saying "we dont have any more" and not getting anymore cos theyre too lazy , the person in the shop went out of their way to fetch a few more items for me from the other branch nearby..and i got a discount because i bought lots of stuff...in the uk theyd just not bother, and i'd go somewhere else and buy em..eventually this sort of thing will lead them to closing down...and they deserve to...if they dont value the customers coming in then why should the customer return to buy more items..
aaarrrgggg.....i used to like london.....
