Maneesh's Moving Service? (3/1: Cambridge, England)

Today, I have to do laundry. While no one has dryers in London -- and the ones at the laundromat are expensive -- here in Cambridge, they have them, and they're cheap. So, laundry.

While my laundry is running, a guy stops by with a bunch of (flattened) boxes and wrapping paper for Vikram & Swati's upcoming move to the US. Some of these boxes need to find their way over to Vikram's office. Since I've already helped one friend move, I figure what the heck, and end up carrying a bunch of them over. What were the chances I'd be even tangentially involved in helping two people, in the UK, move?

Around 1ish, laundry done, Swati and I head over to the Engineering building to meet up with Vikram, and then we all head over to a pub called "The Eagle" for lunch. They get the fish and chips, I get the bangers and mash. In the US, the fish part of fish and chips is usually 3 or 4 smaller pieces, over here it's just one big piece, so it's not even really finger food. After lunch, Swati and I wander around downtown... stop in at the Borders, she checks out a clothing store, and eventually we get to "The Copper Kettle". It used to be a proper tea house, but now it's really just a cafe. What it is sort of famous for, is that Watson & Crick (they of the discovery of DNA) used to come here a lot. The tea is good, but it lacks any of the ambiance or character that Auntie's had. Apparently it used to, but the space was so large that they couldn't get by as a tea house alone, so they remodeled and made it a full service cafe.

I understand that they did what they had to do to survive, but it seems like such a waste when places with real character or forced to modernize. This is one of the things that really gets to me whenever I have one of my internal "east coast vs. west coast" debates. On the west coast, since nothing is really that old to begin with, there's no real compulsion to hold on to anything. As soon as something out lives its usefulness, it's torn down to make way for whatever is coming next. Sure, they might keep one wall for permitting purposes (renovation vs. new construction), but for all intents and purposes, the old is very readily discarded for the new. I think only in the last couple years has there been more of an interest in preserving the character of older buildings, but even that is only because it's trendy (eg. "historic" warehouses converted into lofts, etc.). On the east coast, whether it's by design or bureaucracy, there is a much stronger connection to the past. Buildings and houses from the 1800's are fairly common, and it is far more likely for such buildings to be gutted and remodeled on the inside, than for them to be just torn down.

Anyway, after tea we headed over to the "Porter's Post" (reception) at Pembroke to pick up the wines Vikram had ordered for me: 4 Burgundies (ie. Pinot Noir), 2 from 1996, 2 from 1995. Not bad. Headed back to their place, packed up, hugs and good-byes, and got back on the train to London.

Couple points I wanted to clear up from previous posts based on some emails I've gotten:

1. When I say "Christie is dying", I don't mean that literally -- she's just sick.

2. I understand that a lot of the taxes/fees they have in London are what pay for so many other services. I wasn't complaining about them. In fact, if were able to get anything at the level of quality of the BBC, I would *happily* pay a TV licensing fee. If SF built up a truly effective public transport system, I'd happily pay/support congestion charges (and I think we need to increase the taxes on gas to support public transport and/or alternative fuel research).