The Empire Swipes Back

So, over here in the UK most credit cards don't have a black magnetic strip like in the states. Instead, they have a little microchip at their tip. Brits insert the card into a special slot which reads the chip, but which is incapable of reading an American-style card (referred to in this part of the world as a "swipe").

This means that I, with my lowly american black stripped card, have to inform the cashier of my backwards and barbaric ways. I have to make a tense, apologetic smile, hold my card between the very tips of my fingers as I wave it in the air, and meekly mumble, "I have a swipe."

Usually these magic words elicit a look of annoyance from the cashier and perhaps a few people in line behind me. This is because reading a swipe card requires a different piece of machinery (which has no doubt been gathering dust on the checkout counter). While this only takes about 15 seconds longer than using a proper card, I guess it's enough to prompt the bitter looks.

Once, instead of a bitter look, I got this refreshingly direct response:

Cashier: Your total is £10.95
Me: I have a swipe. 
Cashier: ...why?

In any case, it's a fifty-fifty shot of whether the customer can do the swiping themselves or if the cashier needs to do it. 

Now, I really don't mind asking "Do I swipe it or do you?" but at least five times the cashier has replied, "You can do it," then immediately took the card away from me and did it himself. Maybe "you can do it" means something different here...maybe it means, "you can't do it."

The final step of the process is the customer has to sign a copy of the receipt.  Pretty standard, right? Except over here they pour a lot of energy into comparing the signature on the receipt to the signature on the back of your card (in the US, I never even had a signature on the back of my card). 

One of my first nights here I made the mistake of squiggling a quickie signature at a Subway. The cashier actually threw his head back in shock when he compared it to the one on my card and said, "No...no, these don't look the same." Thankfully, he mustered up the mercy to let me buy my £3 sandwich without going through a DNA test.

Just about an hour ago I was buying groceries and the time came to sign the receipt. Only this time, the ink in the pen was low.

Me: Oh, this one is low on ink. It's hard to write with.

Cashier: That's ok, just sign it.

Me: Ok. I signed it.

Cashier: ...why did you sign it different than on your card?

Me: ...because the ink is low. It's hard to write with.

At this point the cashier produced a new pen and handed it to me. She told me to sign it again, and watched my every move like a hawk. Apparently, I was now a person of interest.

So here I was, signing my own name, buying groceries (the least steal-someone's-card-and-buy-things-with-it thing I can imagine), nervous that my signature will not be up to this woman's expectations of what my signature should look like.

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world.

In the footsteps of Dickens

An "mp3 walking tour" is where someone posts an audio file online, giving you directions of certain paths to walk in any given city. As you walk, the narrator gives you interesting facts and anecdotes about the area you're exploring. It's very much like having a tour guide, except it's free, at your own pace, and there's zero likelihood of your tour guide being a grumpy old man who hates his job (we've all been there, amiright?)

I found a tour online which is based on the novel Oliver Twist. As you follow the path you are actually retracing the steps that Oliver and John Dawkins ("the Artful Dodger") took to enter London for the first time! (Yes, I understand that Oliver and the Dodger are fake people who never walked on any streets because they were never alive...I'm just trying to make this story more exciting...jeeze, you're such a spoilsport...you're like that grumpy tour guide!)

So, there I was, walking along the streets where Dickens placed his immortal novel, being fed facts about the area, and being read excerpts of the book itself.

One such excerpt, was this one:

"As John Dawkins objected to their entering London before nightfall, it was nearly eleven o'clock when they reached the turnpike at Islington. They crossed from the Angel into St. John's Road; struck down the small street which terminates at Sadler's Wells Theatre; through Exmouth Street and Coppice Row; down the little court by the side of the workhouse; across the classic ground which once bore the name of Hockley-in-the-Hole; thence into Little Saffron Hill; and so into Saffron Hill the Great: along which the Dodger scudded at a rapid pace, directing Oliver to follow close at his heels."

Let's take a closer look at those locations mentioned...

"They crossed from the Angel..."

"...into St. John's road..."

(Though it's St. John's Street here...quit trying to ruin my fun!) 

"...struck down the small street which terminates at Sadler's Wells Theatre..."

(Pictured here, still in operation!)

"thence into Little Saffron Hill; and so into Saffron Hill the Great..."

(It's hard to read, but the street sign on the left of the picture says "Saffron Hill.")

Pretty cool, huh!? But there's more too. After The Dodger takes Oliver to meet Fagin...

Who lived somewhere around here!

Fagin and his group of orphans take Oliver to go steal the handkerchiefs of rich people.

"They were just emerging from a narrow court not far from the open square in Clerkenwell, which is yet called, by some strange perversion of terms, 'The Green'."

It's Clerkenwell Green, people!

Oliver is then caught in his attempted robbery and dragged away by the crowd to the local courthouse.

"The crowd had only the satisfaction of accompanying Oliver through two or three streets, and down a place called Mutton Hill, when he was led beneath a low archway, and up a dirty court, into this dispensary of summary justice, by the back way. It was a small paved yard into which they turned."

Again, let's take a closer look at the description...

"...beneath a low archway..."

"...and up a dirty court..."

"...into this dispensary of summary justice, by the back way..."

This area, now covered with apartments, used to be a courthouse. In the novel, the judge is named Mr. Fang. In real life, the judge of this courthouse was named Mr. Lang.

So, that was my day! I think'll I'll look up more tours like this. 

Or I could put it this way: "Please, sir, I want some more."