One thing that fascinates me a little bit about Britain is the recent quick rise of supermarkets. When we think of supermarkets back in the states, we tend to think of mostly a place to get food and other sundry items. However, supermarkets have quickly become the central stores for almost everything you need here in Britain. Tesco, the largest chain of supermarkets, apparently accounts for about 25% of all sales in Britain. That's quite impressive, if not a bit scary. Supermarkets don't just sell groceries in Britain. The larger ones sell clothing, appliances, and other large household items. Now, some larger stores like Walmart are also grocery stores in America, but that is more of a case of Walmart branching out, rather than the supermarkets branching out.

However, supermarkets in the UK don't stop there. They also have the cheapest gasoline (petrol) at their gas stations, their own mobile phone networks, internet services, and even their own banks (plus insurance plans). They literally provide almost every home service that you might need.

Often the supermarkets are good value, as one might expect. However, sometimes their pricing schemes don't make sense to me. Normally I think that buying more of an item would yield a greater value. Yet, this is often strangely not the case. For example, I bought some toilet paper recently. The six-pack of toilet paper was 1.55 (pounds), but the 12-pack was 3.41. If you buy a 7-pack of apples that they have packed, the cost is 30p an apple, but it's only 17p/apple if you pick them out of the loose apples. Very strange...

Well, Victoria and I have not been so lucky with our interviews. We went 0 for 3. But, we are keeping our heads up and applying for lots more jobs. Hopefully something will work out.

I've been busily preparing for my upcoming interview. I'm mostly reviewing all the types of work I have done in the past, so that I am ready for any questions of a more technical nature.

Today and yesterday were a little worse on the job search side of things. However, today's bad luck was almost comical. I just got a phone call from a guy who looked at my resume on monster.co.uk. He asked me, "Are you looking for a job currently?" Right then, the phone just cut out, before I had a chance to say anything. I imagine it couldn't have really happened at a worse time in that conversation. He probably assumed I was rude and just hung up on him because I was not interested. Perhaps I had been getting tons of calls about jobs. Who knows what went through his mind, but he didn't call back. I tried using BT's service where you can find out the last number that called you, but they had caller-id blocking on, so I was unable to call him back. It's almost funny just how much bad luck it was.

Yesterday was not that much better. A recruiter called about a job I had applied for. However, he hadn't noticed that in my application I had mentioned I would need a work permit. When he found out, that was the end of the conversation, because it would take longer than they would want to wait.

At least some people are interested in me after reading my CV. However, I worry that it will be problematic for anyone to get me a work permit. It looks like it might take 1-2 months, during which time I will also need to leave the country.

Victoria will find out about a job she interviewed for at a charity travel agent sometime today. She also got invited to an interview as an assistant editor at a publishing company. The interview is this afternoon. If I get the job in Oxford, we might end up living on the outskirts of London, at one of the locations that is a bus stop to Oxford and a subway stop for London. I looked up how much a yearly bus pass to Oxford is, and it costs 950 pounds, about $1800. I thought that was expensive, but it would also be an hour bus ride each way, so that isn't actually that bad. Then we found out how much the yearly subway pass would be, and nearly had a heart attack. From zone 6, it would be 1600 pounds, about $3000. It's shocking because the distance is much shorter than to go to Oxford. However, the underground is really overpriced in London in general. By comparison, a monthly pass in New York City costs about $70, for a yearly bill of $840. It's quite surprising how much the subway costs, because it is really old and not that nice. I think the trains are quite cramped and small, and there aren't even escalators in a lot of the stations, despite long staircases.

Well, enough about how much of a ripoff London transport is. Off to go do my laundry.

Well, my luck has just changed for the better. I have an interview for a university job on October 19. Now I have to see if needing a work permit will be a big problem. However, on the application form, I did check that I needed a work permit, so they should know at this point. I think, however, if it is close after the interview, then the British candidate is supposed to receive precedence. But, if I am clearly the most outstanding candidate, I think I can get a work permit. I plan on brushing up some of my old knowledge in the next couple of weeks. Wish me luck.

While I have yet to hear some good news on the job front, Victoria had a lot of luck today. First she got an email from one of her friends' sister, who works at a publishing house. Since Victoria is interested in going into publishing, she had emailed the aforementioned sister asking to have a chat about the industry. The email she got today said that there was a possibility she could do some paid work experience at the company. So Victoria called them up and they offered her some money to come into the office and do some work, including refiling contracts. She starts tomorrow.

Then, later in the day, we got the mail, and found it included a note that Victoria has reached the interview stage for a job as an assistant at an adventure travel agent. The travel agent apparently organizes adventure trips for charities. It sounds interesting, and I think Victoria will probably get offered the job. She is still waiting to hear back from some other jobs as well. Hopefully she'll get interviews with them as well.