Can you please tell me about London, where to stay, what to eat, employment, social life, where to study and related things? I would love read your considerations and comments.
Semi-serious response follows:
Where to stay.
1) Under no circumstances live south of the river. This part of London is reserved for social outcasts who enjoy the complete absence of public transport (as opposed to the near abscence of it north of the river).
2). The west part of london is for rich people, although by the time you get to Shepherd's Bush that's pretty debatable. The East part of London is reserved for poor people, and rich people who want to live with poor people because they think it's trendy. The north part of London is for rich people who are left wing, Irish people, and Turkish people.
3). Finding somewhere to live in London is the most unpleasant aspect of living in London, full stop. You can either spend ages reading small advertisements in Loot magazine, phoning 10 people a night, most of whom are either out, mad, or have already found a tenant, or you can pay about 200 pounds in arbitrary fees to an agent. I strongly recommend the latter, it's worth it, and you only pay if they find you a place to live.
What to eat.
London has much nice food, but it's all expensive. London has no cheap food, but many noodle bars provide a plate of hot food for about 6 pounds, and sandwich shops (all run by Italians) provide big sandwiches for about 3.50 pounds. Pizza express provides pathetically small pizza's for about 6.00 pounds, and there's one on every other street.
London has a growing number of Japanese restaurants. These exist solely for westerners to loudly show off to their friends about how much they know about Japanese food.
Many pubs cheerfully advertise 'freshly prepared home-made food served daily'. THEY ARE LYING. The number of pubs in London that serve nice food numbers around 25, and you won't find them without a guide book. The rest serve generic deep-fried/microwaved rubbish.
There are some pretty good restaurant review websites, such as www.londoneating.co.uk
Employment
Personally I find myself headhunted on a regular basis and therefore have never had to stoop to actually 'looking' for work. However, lesser mortals tell me that the basic deal is:
1. Find great job advertised on website (www.jobserve.com, jobs.co.uk, monster.co.uk etc. etc.)
2. Ring up and discover it does not exist, but the agency would love to have you on their books.
3. Agency rings you twice a day offering you Microsoft VBA positions, data entry jobs, and contract landscape gardening positions.
Social Life
This is the world's least friendly city, except perhaps for Hong Kong. For a social life, I strongly suggest moving to somewhere sociable, like Brighton, or Leeds, or Manchester, or, I dunno, Leith.
Study
LSE is good for lots of things. Birkbeck college exists specifically for 'mature' students and part time students. You could do a lot worse than the Open University, which is a correspondence based system, with some real life meetings, but a very high standard of course and lecturer. There is a magazine called 'floodlight' that contains comprehensive listings of evening classes for just about everything.
-- Jonathan Peterson Technical Manager, BMJ Knowledge, +44 (0)20 7383 6092 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
