The Beginning...

Eight hours can take you a fair few places from West London: on a train into the heart of Europe perhaps, or down to Portsmouth on a bicycle. A car will get you to the outer reaches of Scotland or a half-dozen times around the M25 on a quiet day – and only half-way around on a busy one. Jump on a plane and the world’s your oyster, literally. It’s a sizeable amount of time. However, it's probably too long a time to be devoted to a commute, there's little time left for anything else. Consider please:
1am - Leave home for start of commute
9am - arrive office (traffic permitting)
Work through lunch and leave at 5pm for return commute
1am - arrive home with just enough time to pick out a new tie for the day ahead.

See what I mean?

It’s for this reason that I’ve had to leave West London… and move to New York.

The likelihood is that if you’re reading this then you probably know me. But this isn’t called the World Wide Web for nothing. There’s a lot of you out there and chances are that someone’s stumbled down to paragraph three here and is wondering, “Who the hell drives round and round the M25? Come to that, what is the M25?” So just for you here’s some background. I’m Ummit. I’m four days away from turning twenty-ten,
live(d) in London for the past eighteen years, was born in Wales (yup), once landed a 737 running on only one engine (indeed), and have eaten bulls' testicle soup (don't ask). It’s all true. As for the M25, it's London’s orbital motorway - or Europe's largest carpark depending on your point of view - its construction began in 1975 and it is 117 miles around.

Web Logs (Blogs). They always appeared relatively pointless to me. Someone’s “I did this today”, “I like that movie”, “My brother Billy has a crush on my best friend Holly.” I don’t know - it all seemed rather inane. So what am I doing here then? Well two things I suppose.

1) I spent last year travelling, lots of countries and lots of experiences. I got to writing down my musings in a journal and in monthly emails to friends and family. The journal has proved to be a great log of the trip – so many things that would have otherwise been lost in my rather whispy memory are now there in ink. And the emails seemed to be popular with at least three people being more of a commentary on the experience than a diary of what I did. So here I am – a foreign pair of eyes in an alien country again, it’s an experience I want to remember and it’s something others may enjoy too as I don’t intend it to be a diary and I don’t intend to be writing about Billy and Holly.

And 2) It’s cathartic. If this first week is anything to go by then getting settled here is going to take a bit of time. I think cleaning out my brain every so often might help me see the wood for the trees. That process may also prove good material for psychology students at NYU too.
So, there’s your background and introduction to the site. Come visit from time to time, post comments if you want, most importantly of all though – if you never come back here again - take this one piece of advice away with you: always check what you’re ordering from the menu if you don’t understand the language it’s written in.