Saw this on my way to work today, looks like the protests have come to San Francisco. Got to love the 'look at me!' cammo gear, very SF.

Today’s the day the atheists have their picnic

So last night I went on a bad date and came home early to consider what the weekend had in store.

While the hotel is very nice I didn’t want to spend the weekend watching TV and drinking beer. I’m here for a year and it’s time to get out and meet people. So I got on the internet (what did we do before it?) and had a look around.

For Saturday the options didn’t look good. One of my favourite pubs here, the Irish Bank, was hosting a mixer organised by Urban Diversions that involved a series of challenges like using a cheesy chatup line etc over six pubs and two nightclubs but I’m not in the mood for Club 18-30 frolics.

However a Google search for SF Atheists bought up their calendar and the group was holding a summer picnic in a park near the ocean. I was a little apprehensive; as an online friend Del pointed out it might consist of “Yeah, I have no divine guidance...ooh! is that three bean salad?”

Nevertheless I though I’d check it out and popped onto a MUNI train to head over to the area. That was an experience – the MUNI starts off as an underground train – just like the Tube but with air-conditioning. But after a point the train emerges into daylight and starts rolling down tramlines on the street. What a brilliant idea.

The downside it that it stops everywhere like a normal tram so I got a bit lost but saw a library and went in to ask where I was. What is it with librarians; they must be the nicest people on the planet. I’m sure there must be the odd axe murder or two who works in a library but everyone I’ve met in one, including this one, was nothing but helpful.

So I found the park where the party was being held, braced myself and wandered into the fray. It’s always a bit tricky introducing yourself to a large crew of people who you’ve never met before but it has to be done if I’m going to avoid being a loner.

As it turns out it was a really fun afternoon. After some initial awkwardness I started to mingle and tucked into the barbecue. This was a revelation – public parks over here have barbecues built into the parks that anyone can use. Just turn up with charcoal and start grilling. Add in a Frisbee game and we all had a really good time.

The group had had to reserve the place, but that only cost $55, and everyone brought a potluck dish so there was more than enough food and plenty to drink. In the hot sun (spf15 got slapped on but I’m still slightly burnt) it was a very nice way to spend an afternoon and I met some fun folks and one or two really interesting ones.

I was a bit perturbed by some of the activities. There were two bible throwing competitions – one for distance and the other for accuracy. I didn’t take part. First off no matter how you feel about Christianity a lot of people care about the bible and you shouldn’t disrespect those feelings even if you don’t agree with them.

Secondly, and more importantly, it’s a book dammit. You don’t wilfully damage a book – care went into it and you should no more fling a book than burn it. It was interesting that very few people took part in this activity and it was mainly the older crowd. I suppose they may have had more problems with the religious folk and so have demons to exorcise.

There was also an atheist band (see picture) singing for a while but to be frank they were really not up to snuff. They needed more practice – the rhythm guitarist was groping around for the melody with more desperation than a blind monk in a strip club. Nice idea though.

But as I say there were some interesting people there and I hope to see some more of them soon. On the way back we crested the hill into the San Francisco downtown area and the view was truly beautiful, with the sun shining off the buildings and the bay surrounding the urban centre, with the two bridges like antenna leading to the north shore. What a wonderful city.

Day One

Woke up to the sound of an American police siren and mused on the fact that this was it: I’m really here now and will sink or swim based solely on my own efforts.

Since it was very early to go out I unpacked. I should have done it last night but was too tired. I’ve bought way too many t-shirts, so some will have to go, and somehow the Sock God, the one who steals odd socks from the washer, had gifted me with a couple of spares that had no partner, so into the bin they went.

Thankfully my three jars of Marmite and tea bags had made it through intact, I was a bit worried all my clothes would be covered in black goo and I’d have to lick them clean :)

I was still a bit stiff (must get a gym membership) from manhanding the luggage so put on a birthday present CD, ‘Burning’ by Whitest Boy Alive. Norwegian electro-folk might seem an odd choice but it’s a bouncy little track that was enough to get me dancing while I worked.

Then it was off for a morning stroll to get my bearings. It was a chilly day as the fog hadn’t burnt off yet, so went to see Union Square again and then up the hill to Pacific Heights and down back through the Tenderloin.

By this time the stomach was sending signals that it wanted to be fed so stopped off at Dotties for brunch. My former San Francisco landlady took me there when I was staying with her in November and I’ve been dreaming of their home fries ever since. The food is great, as shown by the queue that is so long it can take an hour before you get a seat.

As it was they had an opening for a singleton so I got in quickly and laid in with gusto to a bacon and mushroom omelette with home fries and toast. They even have good quality tea there, although there’s a subtle discrimination. If you’re a coffee drinker you get free refills but tea drinkers just get more hot water and there’s a limit to the number of good brews you can get from a single bag.

Fully replete I waddled down the hill back towards Civic Centre. The office has a number of downsides but a major benefit is that it’s next to the main library in town and that was my target. I am now the proud owner of a library ticket and took out my first book, Harlan Ellison’s ‘Angry Candy’. That card will save me a fortune and keep me in books, and their library’s AV collection is very good too.

Next it was up the mall and Kiehls to stock up on toiletries. Their stuff is very expensive, back when I was doing the New York run regularly I’d take out marmalade and chocolate and bring back Kiehls and mustard. But it’s the best there is and was a must buy.

Then it was over to North Beach to revisit some old haunts and back to the hotel. It’s 9pm now and my body is telling me to quit and go to bed but I’ll stay up for a few hours yet to make sure of a good night’s kip.

Tales of the City

I’ve know I have a book addiction (if it comes to it I'll be the bloke with a sign 'Will work for book tokens'), and leaving them all behind is going to be bad for me in the short term, but good in the long run. The temptation to bury oneself in a book can be strong and lead you to ignore other things, like people or impending deadlines.

But in the spirit of the move I’m reading Armistead Maupin’s first three books of 'Tales of the City', and am sorely impressed. He’s a brilliantly skilled writer, with short, finely crafted stories that benefit from their original form as newspaper serialisations. There's also usually an 'Oh fuck' moment at the end of them as well.

Yes, the San Francisco he described probably doesn’t exist any more; herpes, AIDS and the War on Drugs have seen to that, but the images of some parts of city life are timeless. Candice Bushell’s Sex and the City book owes a lot to Maupin but was a very pale imitation, and the TV series looks like Tales for the City for the educationally challenged.

Fiction it may be, but I’m already a little bit in love with Mona and hope to find an Anna Madrigal of my own to stay with.

Old friends

One of the joys of the internet is that it allows people of any interest and location join and share ideas and gossip online.

I first got into forums in the mid-90s, through an online magazine called Salon. It’s a free-thinking title, with some very good writers and the forums were full of people largely of my ilk. I made some good friends, and even the occasional lover, on there and gained some valuable insights to boot.

It was a cartoon in the New Yorker that coined the classic phrase “On the internet no-one knows you’re a dog”. It’s true that I’d never met most of the people that I chatted to online and it’s possible that among them there might be an axe murderer or two. But when you converse with people online for a number of years they have to be very good at covering those traits up consistently.

Thankfully I’ve found not one of them to be angry loners with collections of skins in the attic; in fact most have turned out to be exactly who they said they were. It’s been a real bonus on my travels to know that if I went to New York, San Francisco, Florida or Seattle, that there would be a local who could show me around and share a good meal with.

Once Salon started charging for forum use the crowd split and shifted to new sites. Most went to Worldcrossing and I tagged along. But about four years ago work commitments and a lingering feeling that I should be putting more effort into offline relationships led me to drop out.

But with the move I decided to get back online. Seeing as I know less than five people in San Francisco I figured it wouldn’t hurt and besides, curiosity got the better of me. So yesterday I went back, and to my delight a lot of the old crowd are still there. There are few things in life better than catching up with old friends and I’m looking forward to doing just that.

Prudence or pleasure

Well the last few contractual nibblets seem to be unravelling and with any luck the 30 day move clock will start ticking around the middle of next week. Now it's time to address practical concerns.

As part of the new job is going to mean travelling outside the city to meetings then a car is a must. Public transport in San Francisco is good but beyond the Caltrain to San Jose there's virtually nothing.

Driving in America is a very different experience to the UK, at least once you get out of the cities.

American roads are, in the most part, a joy to drive on. Huge highways criss-cross the nation, tracing the contours of the land with gentle curves and have excellent visibility, enabling the easy spotting of police vehicles. The only downside is the ridiculously low speed limits but you get used to those and without the cameras that bedevil British motorways going a bit above the limit isn't a problem.

In 2005 I took a week off after a conference in San Francisco, hired a car at an absurdly cheap rate and pointed it south (see above picture). After some initial confusion about driving down the road on the wrong side, particularly a sphincter-clenching moment when I realised I had turned into oncoming traffic, it was a breeze – and turned into one of the best holidays of my life.

The only real downer on the trip was hearing the news that Hunter S. Thompson had died. He'd been a hero of mine for years, ever since reading Hell's Angels, and I was actually in Barstow when the news broke that he'd gone out with a bang not a whimper. Sadly there were no drugs to take hold (to quote Fear and Loathing) and when I asked the check-out clerk he'd never even heard of the man who put Barstow on the map.

Today's oil price news will cast a bit of a damper on that now. Petrol (I can't bring myself to call it gas, although that may change) back then was around $2.50 a gallon. It seemed incredibly cheap compared to the $7 I would have been paying in the UK and it was an intoxicating feeling. I travelled over 2,000 miles on that trip, mainly because I kept making detours to interesting sounding places.

Now petrol is up to $4 a gallon and motoring will be pricy – not as bad as the UK but more of an issue. So I'll need something reasonably economical, reliable (nothing ruins an interview like arriving late) and fun to drive.

Another key feature is that it'll have to be a manual, not automatic. This isn't just because automatics hurt miles per gallon. Automatic gearboxes are like having a plastic cover from your phone – eminently sensible but take some of the fun out of the whole experience.

Logically I should go for a Honda or Toyota, cars that never go wrong and provide a reasonable ride. American cars are out – I've never driven one I wouldn’t happily throw on the scrap heap due to cripplingly uncomfortable seats, suspension like overcooked spaghetti or the cornering abilities of a supertanker.

But I've just spied this little beauty on Craigslist, the Mazda MX5. I had one of these ten years ago and it was the most fun you can have in a car with your clothes on. A rear wheel drive sports car that's sure-footed, quick off the blocks and very forgiving. I am sorely, sorely tempted.

Intro/Outro - with a nod to Neil Innes

At the tail end of last year I got good and bad news. The bad is that the head of our San Francisco office had decided to move companies, and indeed countries. The good was that they needed someone to replace him and I was in the running.

Now it looks as though I'm not only in the running but the favourite, with the next best option being a three legged nag expecting a visit to the nearest Pedigree Chum factory. So long as I can get certain details sorted it looks as though I'll be able to start the 30 day clock some time in the next week or so and be in Fogtown by April. Exciting but a wee bit scary.

The last few months have been a tad stressful and there have been many ups and downs, some of which will get referenced at some point I have little doubt. But in the meantime, at the suggestion of a good friend I'll be blogging the experiences of a dyed-in-the-wool Brit moving to San Francisco and becoming a stranger in a very strange land indeed.

The following blog will hopefully serve many purposes. It'll save an awful lot of phone calls by keeping my friends and family updated, let me vent in a city where I know fewer people than the fingers on my left hand and give an outlet to write.

Writing's what I do for a living and it's also my passion – there are very few things in life that can compete with feeling of a good sentence flowing onto the page and the others generally involve other people, intensely good music or near frozen Moskovskaya Cristall with an en suite snow-bound sauna.

Read and enjoy, and comments are always welcome.