WEST LONDONTHREAD - JULY/AUG 2007 (when we finally get a summer?)

[ComeOVeneer]

Just thought I would get this up and running before the old one is full.

so kew - were you a smiler or a frowner?

amazingly I was a smiler (apparantly humungous deep grooves from nose teh mouth gave it away!)

..not that i've noticed the aforementioned deep grooves on the kew visage...will be checking now, though

a bit less and a littel more in future...

QC, v interesting. I know a few Japanese who grew up in England and they deffo look different, more stern face, etc. I can easily tell they never lived in Japan. Japanese women in Japan walk like geisha girls, pigeon feet you call?

Kew I think adoptive children take on their adoptive parents gait and body language so they end up looking alike

Sushi - Kew parish extends down to the A316, so includes Darrell School and Hester terrace etc. The other side of the A316 is technically "north Sheen" although people tend to just refer to it as Richmond, as N Sheen has no actual "centre" - unless you count a tiny station and a Superstore!

I grew up in Kew and we always wondered why North Sheen Rec is called that. I think N Sheen used to be an area which doesn't really exist any more - has been absorbed by either Kew, Richmond or Sheen. certainly we had friends in North Road who lived near the rec who considered that area Kew when we were kids.

(sorry, I'm turning into an anorak)

Oh and Sainsbury's roundabout used to be known as "gas works roundabout" ' cos Sainsburys was previously the site of two huge gas towers!

I always wondered why it was called North Sheen rec too Foxie. Like you I considered North sheen to be the other side of the A316 though without your authority.

North Sheen used to be a "poor" area (not so now!!), which would explain why it has dissappeared. All those roads around Darrell School were fairly working class when we grew up and they are now very expensive and middle class!

My sister had a boyfriend from Darrell Road who was one of those working class kids who was very bright and had got into the local grammar school. My sister went to a girls grammar school called Richmond County on the site of Parkshot College near Richmond Magistrate's Court. and there was a secondary school called Gainsburgh School and a primary called St Lukes, neither of which were very good and both of which have dissappeared.

My sister has a much posher accent than me, as Richmond County was very posh, taking local Richmond girls. I went to the sacred Heart in Hammersmith, full of 2nd generation Irish and Polish girls mainly from Ealing and Sheperd's Bush. Rishmond County had by that time closed, as most grammar schools were, which is why I went to one out of borough...I was ridiculed for my Kew accent and very quickly had to lose it after being cornered in the playground and being asked "are you posh" [threatening emoticon]

Sorry, I really am being a bore now aren't I?

Must get out of the house this arvo...

DS1 is following our lodger round like a shadow after discovering he owns a playstation, which is what Ds1 aspires to!

Oooh a role model for your DS1. How nice!

No, foxie, it's very interesting. Please continue education us! You are a living history book of Kew! I do remember those gas tanks thinking 'what would if they explore'!? LOL.

So what's the Kew accent like?[copying emoticon]

I did laugh Sushi at your description of anglicised Japanese women being stern! Are you saying we are stern?

lol at foxie's ds1! Dh went & bought a games thingy this weekend too, a Wii so lots of arm waving which means he looks v silly!

On the Lawrence Dallagio subject, he does seem to be a really nice person, saw him in Twickenham stadium car park once just playing with his girls but also happy to chat to anyone who came up to him.

Kew, sorry I missed that bit about your mum, fingers crossed that everything's ok.

Ds woken up, best go get him and then I think we'll decamp to the garden this pm

sorry to lower the tone but LD ia and arrogant pr**k on teh rugby pitch which is my main exposure to him...

Explode, I meant. Bet it cracked up your stern faces.

Japanese have this permanent smile on our face (think Japanese royal family) which often cause misinterpretation, like they think we are in agreement. On the other hand, you Western people have rather stern face but not necessarily in disagreement, IYSWIM.

We can always count on you Kew to lower the tone

And to be fair, you do have to be a bit arrogant on the rugby pitch, I don't think Wales have many gentlemen playing in their team, otoh after Saturday.... {naughty face}!

Right, really have to go get ds now (and am also running away before kew returns!)

I used to deal with a finace director in Japan in a previous job who drove me mad - kept saying "yes", then completely ignoring what I'd asked him to do. Took me a while to grasp that he was too polite to tell me that he didn't agree and just avoided the confrontation by saying "yes" meaning "yes I understand that what you want me to do", rather than "yes I will do that". Communications improved dramatically after that as I made sure to ask him what he was going to do as a result. Not sure if it was him specifically or a cultural thing though.

Saturday didn't count. We fielded our B team.

QC, that sounds like a typical communication malfunction which happens all the time in our office (Japanese company employing 100s local people).

LOL Kew! i REMEMBER BEING IN iRELAND A FEW YEARS BACK AND EVERYTIME WE ASKED DIRECTIONS, PEOPLE WOULD GIVE US A DETAILED AND VERY FRIENDLY (sorry, didn't mean to shout) explanation of how to get somewhere - whether or not they knew where it was! i.e. if they didn't know, they'd just send you off somewhere, rather than appear unfriendly! It was very nice, but quite confusing!

the welsh are similar Foxie - however they will not give you directions if they don;t know they will stop random passers by and ask them for you until you have a big posse of people arguing about the best way to get somewhere that none of them know where it is. The welsh do love to talk

I love a good national stereotype!

DH had that working in China, QC. E.g.

Q. "Do you have plans for X?"
A. "Yes, we have many plans [end of response]"

means "no, we don't" -- if they actually had plans for X then they would go on to tell you what they were. Hence it would be Rude, in the Q&A example above, to follow up with "Can you tell us about them?"

and not a in sight...

will that suffice. kew?

foxie..you should write a local history book!