Off-topic/chat thread

Lefty2Guns

cranky bollix wrote: »

We're in south ealing as well, it is a really nice place to live, although its a fair bit away from the nightlife of the city.But we're thinking of staying here for a while anyway until we get work and a proper feel of the area.

I'm moving over to Ealing myself next month as I have a mate living there, he seems to like it. I'm starting a job in London on the 1st of March, and I am currently looking for a house share if anyone knows anybody looking for some one to move in.

Tefral

Lefty2Guns wrote: »

I'm moving over to Ealing myself next month as I have a mate living there, he seems to like it. I'm starting a job in London on the 1st of March, and I am currently looking for a house share if anyone knows anybody looking for some one to move in.

Myself and a friend want to move into a place 7th march. Round acton area. It's the next stop in the Piccadilly line.

Lefty2Guns

cronin_j wrote: »

Myself and a friend want to move into a place 7th march. Round acton area. It's the next stop in the Piccadilly line.

Hi Cronin, I'd be interested in that. Are you living in london now? I'm flying over on the 22nd of February so we could meet up when I get there if you like. I'll PM you more information.

LadyMayBelle

Snow!!

ICANN

Aaaaahhhh the place looks beautiful covered with snow.


I don't even care that it took me an hour to get home on the bus that usually takes 10 minutes!



Has anyone ever gone to Alexandra Palace? Just wondering what's around that area?

Jack B. Badd

If the weather had a face, I would punch it in the face! There is no need for snow right now...

Jack B. Badd

Ok, as unimpressed as I am with the snow, I have to admit that the YakTrax I bought 4 months ago (and only now have reason to use) are bloody brilliant!

Semele

cranky bollix wrote: »

We're in south ealing as well, it is a really nice place to live, although its a fair bit away from the nightlife of the city.But we're thinking of staying here for a while anyway until we get work and a proper feel of the area.

It's a lovely place to live! I was there for 18 months till I moved back SW and I really miss it. It has such a nice small-town vibe- it's the only place I've lived in London that I felt part of a local community, or had a proper local, or knew random people to say hello to. The Rose & Crown and The Red Lion were my usual haunts:rolleyes::( I go back every now and again but its such a trek when you're not used to doing it every day.

Now I live on a main throughroad, with no high street for shops and my local involves accidentally walking into lectures (with slides. Oh god the slides...) on hardcore gay porn...a fun night in many ways admittedly, but not the quiet pint I'd wanted!

cranky bollix

Semele wrote: »

my local involves accidentally walking into lectures (with slides. Oh god the slides...) on hardcore gay porn...a fun night in many ways admittedly, but not the quiet pint I'd wanted!

oh do tell

Scarinae

More snow! Boots tomorrow it is

Semele, I am also intrigued... Why does your local pub show hardcore gay porn?

silvervixen84

http://www.irishpost.co.uk/index.php/component/content/article/5-stories/174-the-emerald-city

[HTML]Every weekday morning Tube stations at Bank, Moorgate and Liverpool Street spill workers into London’s financial district.
Train lines act like arteries, delivering thousands of number-crunching worker bees to glass palaces which dominate the skyline and shape the world’s markets. Pavements run rivers of hurrying suits and ties, flowing past food outlets like Pret A Manger and Eat, and Coffee Shops like Costa and Starbucks.


The City UK, an organisation that promotes financial and professional services industries in London, estimate that 641,000 people work in those industries in the capital.


Among their number is Patrick Foley from South Kerry. Patrick is 26 years old and works as a private banker with Coutts. He has been working in London for over two years.


The vista of The City is a long way from the serene surrounds of his upbringing, yet he points out that he would make it home to Kerry in less time than it would take if he were travelling by car from the financial services centre in Dublin.


He explains that more and more he is seeing fellow graduates in London.


They are attracted by better opportunities and are educated to a level where they can take them.


“The prospects are bright for graduates,” he says. “You have the world’s leading financial centre right on our doorstep. Since moving to London two years ago I have noticed a large amount of people I went to college with coming over - and more are coming.”


Foley says it’s not just a matter of turning up in London and getting a job, but thousands have and in his experience the Irish are well received.

“I wouldn't say it’s easy to get a job in London. But in today's environment you wouldn't expect it to be either. There is plenty of competition for jobs but Irish people are known for their willingness to compete and fight for places, which is why it's no surprise to see so many here.

“In my area of work, success comes from being able to build relationships, rapport with clients and be a good people person. Whilst everyone is different, generally speaking Irish people are friendly and easy to get on with. This definitely helps and lends itself to the financial services industry.”
Official sources speculate that in excess of 10,000 Irish people are employed in financial services in The City of London. It’s an estimate others believe to be conservative.

The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) told The Irish Post that the number has yet to be quantified, but the evidence on the ground suggests it is considerable and growing.
Morgan Stanley is one of the world’s biggest financial services firms. Their London office in Canary Wharf employs nearly 6,000 people and has spawned an Irish network called Net-Eire which has approximately 250 members.
This represents just over four per cent of the total workforce but significantly, it doesn’t account for every Irish person working for the company.
David Byrne, 33, works for a world-leading financial services company in Canary Wharf. He is in the process of trying to form an equivalent network and estimates that of the 4,000 people employed at his firm, at least 200 are Irish people – a figure representing five per cent of the work force.

He says the financial services industry in London is experiencing a tough period and many investment banks are downsizing.

As a result, the atmosphere in the industry is tentative and the majority of those interviewed wish to remain anonymous for fear of bringing bad publicity to their company door.


However, Byrne explains that the sheer number of extra roles and the variations on those roles make The City very attractive to Irish professionals.
“Irish graduates are continuing to arrive and many have been recruited through career fairs in Ireland,” he says.

“In my experience Irish people in the City are hard-working, well-qualified and friendly. That leaves them open to opportunities and they take them. To be successful in finance you need to know what you are talking about, but you also need the communication skills to get things across. Irish people have this.”
Byrne says a typical starting salary scale ranges from £18,000 to £40,000. But a source working in Canary Wharf said the average salary of the estimated 50,000 people working in financial and professional services there is £100,000.

“Irish people work hard and play hard,” says Byrne. “They are two very important qualities in The City.”
An Irish sales trader working in the Square Mile of the City tells a similar story of Irish influence but with a reduced figure of three per cent. He is from Dublin and says the network of Irish people in financial services is very active and believes the number to be vast.

If a figure of four per cent is applied to the total number of financial and professional service employees working in London, 25,640 of them would be Irish.
This figure is purely speculative, but it is an interesting comparison that 25,057 people were employed in the financial services industry in Ireland, when data was last collated, by Finance Dublin in 2010.
Anecdotally, the Irish Embassy in London says more than half of the membership of the Global Irish Forum is linked with the financial services sector in London.

Jill Tully is from The London Irish Business Society (LIBS).
She says that over one third of their 1700 members are employed in the financial sector “from entry level graduates to senior management and decision makers.


Irish people have a very good reputation in banking and finance in London and many of the top management teams will have Irish representatives.”


David White is 31 years old and from County Kildare. He graduated with an MA in accountancy just when the boom was making its last play.


He worked in corporate banking with an Irish bank in the IFSC for two years, but against the backdrop of decline he saw opportunity in London.


He describes his degree as ‘middle of the road’ but being Irish helped when he travelled to Britain for interview - the desk manager turned out to be Irish.
Today more than 20 per cent of his team is from Ireland. He works in front office role in Treasury and Trading.

David says Irish graduates leave Ireland for the City of London because there are “more options, the pay is significantly better and there is a bonus system which is absent in Ireland.”
If Dublin has created a strong ‘back office’ culture, then London is a leader in terms of front office roles. The city is one of the major centres of finance in the world and the Irish are embedded in their thousands.

“I’m sure it benefitted me that my boss was Irish when I came first,” he says. “There’s an awful lot of Irish in our bank alone. Some are not long out of university in Ireland and others are well established, but you get to know everyone very quickly.

“It’s a stereotype but the Irish go well because they relate to people. Your qualification will get you in the door but after that it’s down to the quality of your work and your personality. Confidence goes far and Irish people rise through the ranks.

“All the Irish people I meet are working in finance. I don’t think people work harder here than they did in the IFSC, it’s probably about the same.”

Finance Dublin told The Irish Post that many of the senior management roles in the Irish Financial Services Centre (IFSC) are filled by Irish people who have risen through the ranks in London before returning to Ireland to take up management roles.
They explain that Irish professionals leave to work in finance in London because of the increased opportunity which derives from ‘front office’ services like asset and fund management, opposed to the ‘back office’ offshore operations like fund administration of which Dublin is a world centre.


"Thousands of talented Irish people work in the City of London,” says Michael O’Toole, a managing director of Morgan Stanley and one of the founders of Net-Eire.

“What we try to do is harness the power of this group through business networks such as LIBN and Morgan Stanley’s Net-Eire. This not only gives the Irish finance community in London a louder voice, but helps us to forge stronger links with similar groups in Ireland. Morgan Stanley’s network operates at the business level but also in the communities we live and work in.”


[/HTML]

LadyMayBelle

Bit Of a last min thing but there is a vintage fair on this afternoon in bethnal green... Any takers?

silvervixen84

Anyone interested in going for a quiet drink this evening?

fluke

silvervixen84 wrote: »

Anyone interested in going for a quiet drink this evening?

What time and where did you have in mind? Myself and OH might be around.

silvervixen84

fluke wrote: »

silvervixen84 wrote: »

Anyone interested in going for a quiet drink this evening?

What time and where did you have in mind? Myself and OH might be around.

I don't mind travelling a bit out your direction if you know somewhere nice?

fluke

silvervixen84 wrote: »

I don't mind travelling a bit out your direction if you know somewhere nice?

Somewhere nice? Too hard on me ha ha. how about somewhere a bit central, say Chandos near Trafalgar square or anywhere in Old Street (apparently some nice pubs there).

If you have any suggestions fire away

silvervixen84

fluke wrote: »

silvervixen84 wrote: »

I don't mind travelling a bit out your direction if you know somewhere nice?

Somewhere nice? Too hard on me ha ha. how about somewhere a bit central, say Chandos near Trafalgar square or anywhere in Old Street (apparently some nice pubs there).

If you have any suggestions fire away

I've never sampled the pubs in Old Street so that sounds cool. What time will we say?

fluke

silvervixen84 wrote: »

I've never sampled the pubs in Old Street so that sounds cool. What time will we say?

How about 7? I'll pm ye my number.

silvervixen84

fluke wrote: »

silvervixen84 wrote: »

I've never sampled the pubs in Old Street so that sounds cool. What time will we say?

How about 7? I'll pm ye my number.

Cool, see ye around then. I'll join ye in whichever pub ye choose.

supernova84

What's Craigslist like for accommodation search? Just looking at it, there seems to be a lot of nice one bed apartments for 100 quid a week and 500 monthly. This seems pretty reasonable to me for your own place. Any thoughts?

Fysh

supernova84 wrote: »

What's Craigslist like for accommodation search? Just looking at it, there seems to be a lot of nice one bed apartments for 100 quid a week and 500 monthly. This seems pretty reasonable to me for your own place. Any thoughts?

I'd expect something more like a bedsit or a studio apartment at that price, tbh (unless they're really grotty or in the middle of nowhere). What sort of location are you looking at, and do they mention average bills or council tax?

(I've not used craigslist over here for accommodation, but I have found holiday accommodation in the US via there so as long as you're careful, I don't see any reason for it to be any worse than gumtree or other similar sites. Just have your wits about you).

supernova84

Not really sure yet tbh about my preferred location but anywhere near a tube would do for a start.
It looks like bills and council tax included in most of the places on Craigslist. Yeh I'd say some could be dodgy alrite but from the pics they do look ok.

Semele

Fishie wrote: »

Semele, I am also intrigued... Why does your local pub show hardcore gay porn?

It's the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. It does a lot of quite stereotypical gay nights (bingo, kareoke etc) but there are sometimes acoustic acts, talks, burlesque shows that can be pretty cool. The few other pubs near us are uncomfortable yuppie gastro-pub style things so it's where we usually go if we want something a bit edgier and cooler but still round the corner...that night was the oddest I've ever seen it though! They were showing my flatmates band's new video (entirely unrelated in topic fortunately) in the intermission though, which is why we ended up there.

Aoifebm

Hi!

Just want to introduce myself and say hi I'm from Cork and I moved to London about a year ago. I had two friends from Cork here at the beginning but they have since moved back home. I'd really love to meet some Irish people who live here in London.
Sorry if I've posted in the wrong thing but this is my first time posting on this so not sure what the story is, Lol!

Aoife

83ste

Aoifebm wrote: »

Hi!

Just want to introduce myself and say hi I'm from Cork and I moved to London about a year ago. I had two friends from Cork here at the beginning but they have since moved back home. I'd really love to meet some Irish people who live here in London.
Sorry if I've posted in the wrong thing but this is my first time posting on this so not sure what the story is, Lol!

Aoife

Welcome! A few of us generally attend a pub quiz in the North London Tavern on Kilburn High Road on Monday nights from about 8, or keep an eye out for 'London Social' threads with details of upcoming drinks/meet-ups.

Aoifebm

Thanks so much, I'll check that out

83ste

This is fantastic: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/magazine/explaining-londoners.html?_r=1

philologos

I went on a long walk today with one of my housemates starting at Ilford to Leytonstone, and then walking to Stratford and then Liverpool Street with stops in between, but walking around really gives you a good sense of London geography.

What's everyone else up to for the weekend?

silvervixen84

Right lads, now's your time to shine!

http://www.irishpost.co.uk/index.php/component/content/article/13-entertainment-news/245-search-is-on-to-find-the-finest-irishman-in-britain

LadyMayBelle

Happy St Patrick's Day everyone !!