Scotland v. England (adventures in home-buying)

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Having complained earlier about the fact that Scotland really wasn’t all that different from England, I am now suffering through one of the major differences: the legal systems. In particular, how they apply to buying houses.

In Scotland, any offer you make to purchase a property is legally binding (except for when it isn’t; sellers, you might want to check with your lawyer that any offers you get are as binding as you think they are). In England, you can change your mind and withdraw your offer, without penalty, right up till the contracts are exchanged and money changes hands, which can be as late as the day that you’re due to move.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems. In Scotland, for instance, we wouldn’t have been able to make an offer on the flat that we’re currently interested in early enough because we didn’t have a mortgage arranged first. Had we made an offer without at least an agreement in principle, we’d have been taking the risk that our offer was accepted and then no one would lend us the money (which was very nearly the case). In England however, there’s nothing to discourage anyone from making an offer without fully considering whether they’re going to be able to follow through on it. This leaves the seller in the position of having to decide which of the offering buyers are most likely to be able to meet their offer as well as having to decide amongst the offers on their own merits. My current concern is that someone else’s offer will be accepted over ours and they will then pull out, the property will end up back on the market and we’ll have to go back through all this stress again if we’re still interested in buying the flat. (We know that there have been at least two other offers submitted.)

And (in England) the saga doesn’t end when your offer is accepted since the seller could also change their mind and pull out at any point up to the moving date. This is why there’s such a problem in the market with ‘chains’ (which I’m not going to get into discussing here). At least in our current situation, the seller is a bank who took the flat as a part exchange for another property so there’s no chain on either side and they hopefully won’t just randomly decide not to proceed with the sale.

Almost finally, a word of advice to estate agents: unless you’re absolutely certain that you’re going to have a decision from the seller on the submitted offers by close of business, don’t tell the prospective buyers that you’ll let them know by the end of the day! And if you still don’t have a decision from the seller two days later, it would be nice to call the prospective buyers and let them know that that’s the case!

Finally, for those of you who are worried that this blog is going to turn into a house-buying/renovating saga of woe, don’t panic! I don’t want that to happen either and will be doing my very best to find something (anything!) else to post about.

Getting back on the ladder (maybe)

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Ah, the property ladder! I was on it once, you know. Had a lovely view from that first rung. Affordable monthly payments (even though I hadn’t been able to put down much of a deposit), falling interest rates and regular trips to B&Q. Good times.

Then I decided to step off it, move to London and change careers. The step off was easy, my estate agent was swamped with offers and the flat was sold for almost twice what I had paid for it. Deciding to get back on two years later is not proving so straightforward.

In theory, it should have been easier this time. We now have two salaries which combined are roughly three times what my single salary was first time around and thanks to the proceeds of the sale of my last flat have a reasonable deposit. Unfortunately, we’re fussy about where we live and the current object of our desires is (according to the market) worth around five times what I paid for my first flat. And it needs a lot of work done. And we’re getting married next year.

Taken altogether, this means that we need to hang on to most of our deposit for renovation work and to pay for the wedding, which means that we have a higher loan-to-value ratio (meaning lenders want to charge higher interest rates). Adding in the fact that two months ago I took a large pay-cut when I changed careers so we need to borrow a larger multiple of our combined salaries (higher interest rates again) things aren’t looking so appealing in terms of available mortgages.

We are carrying on regardless though. An offer has been submitted to the estate agent (which probably merits a post of its own), a lender has agreed in principle to lend us a ridiculous sum of money and now we’re just waiting for the axe to fall.

My name is Guybrush Threepwood and I’m a mighty pirate!

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Thanks to a wonderful project, ScummVM, pirate Steven and I are now reliving the days of our youth by playing the LucasArts Monkey Island games. To quote Wikipedia: “The games follow the misadventures of the hapless Guybrush Threepwood as he struggles to become the most notorious pirate in the Caribbean, defeat the plans of the evil undead pirate LeChuck and win the heart of governor Elaine Marley.”

ScummVM allows (legal) copies of many of the original LucasArts games, among others, to be played on modern technology. For instance, we’re playing the PC CD version of the games on Steven’s iMac. There are also far more exotic ports including the PSP and iPhone. (I’m not entirely sure why we’re playing on the Mac when the games play perfectly well on my PC without the need for an interpreter but that’s beside the point!)

The games have a fantastic sense of humour, cover every pirate cliche I’ve ever come across and, unlike some of the other games of that era, don’t kill the main character just for walking around the wrong corner. (Space Quest, anyone?) The aspect that they’re probably best known for is the trading insults method of sword-fighting. As well as trading blows, you have to select the most cutting insult to deliver to your opponent at key moments. Examples will undoubtedly follow when we reach that section of the game!

And in an example of interesting synchronicity, the writing credit for the insults in the first game was Orson Scott Card, the author of “Ender’s Game” that the iKnit Kniterati were discussing this evening.

An excess of blogging

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In case anyone is wondering about the excessive amount of blogging that I appear to be doing today, I thought I’d explain that it’s serving two very important purposes.

Firstly, it’s helping me catch up on my NaBloPoMo target, which was starting to look a little distant given that there are only four days left in the month and this will be my 22nd post towards a target of 30.

Secondly, it’s helping to stop me from going mad whilst waiting for a very important phone call. A therapist would call it “distraction therapy”. I’m not entirely sure it’s working though. I apologise for being cryptic but I promise I’ll post more details once the call has actually happened.

In the meantime, I’m off to check that I haven’t somehow missed the call and that my ring-tone is set to extra loud so that I’ll hear it if it goes on the train.

Stranger in a strange land

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I may be exaggerating. Being a Scot in London should not count as a stranger in a strange land but a couple of questions from colleagues of mine have started me wondering this week.

“Did you get haggis for school dinners?” was the first. It at least came from an Australian colleague during a conversation about bizarre things that the British eat at school dinners. (For those of you wondering, my answer was No. I did however eat, and enjoy, rice pudding and semolina but not tapioca.)

“Do you like cold weather?” was today’s offering. Followed up with “because other_Scottish_person_in_dept. really loves it.” Which of course means that all Scottish people must love cold weather. (For the record, I do but only as long as I can stay inside and enjoy it from there.)

We’re really not all that different, honest! Just think before you ask the question: “In similar circumstances, would I ask an English person this?” If the answer’s no, then don’t ask me either.

I love Ravelry!

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For those not “in the know” (which is probably most of the world, given that Ravelry currently only has 41,000 members) Ravelry is an internet community site for knitters and crocheters. It’s still in beta testing so you can’t see much yet without signing up as a beta tester, although you will be able to browse the entire site without signing up once it goes live.

It’s difficult to describe Ravelry succinctly. I can list what it has: patterns database, yarn database, individual notebooks and project pages where users can post details of what they’re working on as well as finished items. There are also forums and a private messaging system. The big thing though is the feeling of community. Being able to look at what other people are working on, reading their comments on particular patterns or yarns and having them comment on your items is just great. It’s like having access to a huge knitting circle without having to move away from the computer.

It was actually people’s comments on my projects that sparked this post. One of Ravelry’s features is the ability to mark something as a ‘favourite’. I noticed today that two of my projects have been marked as favourites by people, one of them by two different people, and it made my day!

What’s even better is that those two projects are also favourites of mine. One was Steven’s Avast jumper, which I was really pleased with and which, since he wears it a lot, I guess he was really pleased with too! The other was my beaded napkin rings (a variation on the Venezia pattern from Knitty). These turned out really pretty, even though I omitted the final, fiddly step of turning them into actual rings. The ultimate compliment on these so far though has been a friend who, upon being told that they were hand-made, commented that he had assumed they were shop-bought and spent the rest of the evening peering at them intently. I can only assume he was looking for some method of telling that they were hand-made.

Pictures below, since I don’t often have an excuse to post pictures to my blog.

In other knitting news, Henry is now 57% done but feels like it’s slowing down again. I still believe I can finish it by Christmas though.

Avast napkin ring

La Dolce Vita

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I thought I’d balance my post about Beowulf by mentioning Fellini’s La Dolce Vita that I also saw recently. This film I absolutely loved!

It’s the story of a journalist (played by Marcello Mastroianni) who’s unhappy with his life, in part because he really wants to be a writer and not a journalist and especially not the kind of journalist that he is. (The film is believed to be the origin of the term ‘papparazzi’.) He has a (rightly) jealous fiancée, mad crushes on film stars and a bored, rich mistress. Over the three hours of the film, we watch him gradually succumb to the shallowness of his existence until he’s basically lost everything, including his own self respect.

As is probably obvious, it’s not a terribly happy film. There are some absolutely hilarious scenes however. Two in particular, I loved as demonstrating how much easier his life would be without the women in it. Firstly, when the dumb, blonde Swedish actress (wonderfully played by Anita Ekberg) that he’s accompanying insists that he go find some milk for a stray kitten that she’s picked up, in the early hours of the morning. His reactions all through this sequence are just fantastic.

My other favourite was a scene between him and his fiancée (Yvonne Furneaux). It opens with the two of them in a car at night in the middle of nowhere arguing. It goes through some wonderful cycles with her getting out of the car and refusing to get back in; her getting into the car and refusing to get back out; while all the time he’s yelling at her to do whatever is the opposite of what she’s currently saying she’s going to do. The climax comes when he gives up and drives off, leaving her in the middle of the road. The next scene is a very short, simple one showing the same scene, only now it’s daylight. His fiancée is still standing in the middle of the road; he drives up and without either of them saying anything, she gets in and they drive off. Absolute genius.

One of the only problems I had with the film was the subtitling. It’s a real shame that when they restored the film, they didn’t get the subtitles re-done as well. Not only do they not manage to translate large portions of what is said (reminiscent of the photo-shoot scene with Bill Murray in Lost in Translation) but much of it isn’t even in correct English, i.e. parts of words are transposed. At times, this really distracted me.

Beowulf

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Steven and I saw Beowulf at the weekend and I’m afraid that all I can really say is “Bleh!” They did a good job of trying to recreate the Anglo-Saxon-ness of the original with lots of carousing and swiving but the animation was really distracting. Why did they make Beowulf look like Shrek? Given the level of CGI that was involved in the monsters, I can understand why they didn’t want to have the human actors as live-action but there must have been a better way of doing it. Ray Winstone’s accent was also distracting at times. Again, I liked the idea behind the choice but there were a couple of points, which I’m sure weren’t supposed to be funny, where the entire audience couldn’t help giggling at his delivery.

And don’t get me started on Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s mother.

Overall, a fun movie, if you can put up with the animation, just don’t get your expectations up too high before you go.

I can recommend the excellent Seamus Heaney translation though, which I really need to re-read.

Encyclopedia of Needlework

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One of the books I’ve been most proud of during my time so far with Distributed Proofreaders has been The Encyclopedia of Needlework. It really was a labour of love (and a little hate) over about a two year period.

It’s a 19th century text, which hasn’t been out of print (in English) since then. This is the English translation of the original French and there has been a German translation as well. The German version is planned to go through Distributed Proofreaders as well (if it hasn’t already started). The text covers most forms of needlework including knitting, crochet, macramé, lace, embroidery, tapestry and others. It gives details of tools, techniques and patterns and is heavily illustrated throughout (which is what made it so difficult to process).

I’ve already received comments from various people on how useful it will be and how pleased they are that it’s available but today I got a message from a friend about something completely unrelated that led me to take a look at her blog. I hadn’t been there for a while so had a little wander round and discovered that she’s actually working on a needlepoint lace project from the Encyclopedia! I spent so long working on these illustrations and thinking about how beautiful some of these pieces would look that I’m just unbelievably chuffed to discover that someone is actually using it to make something. I can’t wait to see the finished piece.

If you’re interested in other books like this, the crafts bookshelf on Project Gutenberg is a good place to start looking. There are lots of non-needlework crafts on there too; taxidermy, anyone?

Stating the obvious

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Picture the scene: You’re at the bottom of a set of stairs leading down from London Bridge to the Thames Walk pathway. In front of you is a set of about 12 stairs down to the river with the water of the Thames lapping at the bottom couple of stairs. On either side of the stairway is a blank wall. On the wall just to the right of the stairs is a small metal plaque with the words “Access to river only” engraved on it. You know, I’d never have guessed!

If I remember to bring my camera with me to work one day, I’ll put a picture up. I’ll add it to my collection of pictures of really stupid signs, which already includes this one:

Nairn beach

(the sign says ‘Seafront ->’ in case you’re having trouble making it out) and the one that has a “Cyclists dismount” sign at the top of a flight of stairs.

The signs are really just examples of the triumph of logic over common sense in that there are good reasons for them being there despite them being mostly pointless. In the case of the “cyclists dismount” sign, the stairs are leading up to a footbridge that cyclists aren’t allowed to cycle over. A “cyclists don’t get back on your bike yet” sign would make more sense but I can see why they don’t put up one of those. The seafront sign (from Nairn beach) points the way to a section of the seafront that has benches and other facilities, rather than just a section of open sand. And, finally, the sign by the Thames is there to point out that those stairs aren’t part of the Thames Walk, which can be a rather confusing pathway to follow at times.

All of this doesn’t stop me enjoying the occasional rant about the pointlessness of it all though!