Freshly Social

Everybody thinks of London as central London: people visit Oxford Street and Buckingham palace over and over again and if they’re feeling particularly brave they may venture out to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. The same goes for London Property: people search for property in Chelsea, Bayswater and Westminster but tend to neglect the equally charming areas of Islington and Putney. We’ve dug a little deeper to bring you ‘London off the beaten track’ for those of you who are bored with Big Ben and the London Eye.

Chislehurst

Chislehurst in Bromley, South East of London is, historically, a very rich area and definitely worth a visit if you’re willing to venture off the beaten track. Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile at the present Chislehurst Golf Club (formerly Camden Place) and the area is home to the ancient Chislehurst Caves.

The Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) near Clapham Junction has gained a reputation for ‘fringe’ productions, i.e. productions that push the edge and are often experimental in nature. It’s gained a loyal following of supporters thanks to its reluctance to host anything mainstream and its willingness to allow performers to hone their craft and their productions via the BAC’s unique ‘scratch’ methodology. Scratch methodology refers to the practice of performing productions before they have been fully developed so that they can be fine tuned according to audience input.

Contemporary Dance

The Battersea Arts Centre, or National Theatre of the Fringe as it’s also known, was founded in 1980 and since its inception has added significantly to the Battersea property market, attracting residents who have a taste for art, culture and diversity. Performers who are lucky enough to land long-term contracts with the Battersea Arts Centre often rent property in the area to take advantage of the affordable rates offered by estate agents, not to mention the safe, family-friendly atmosphere.

We all face the danger of road accidents whether we drive ourselves to work in heavy traffic, commute, or only drive occasionally to the shops and back. In fact, fatal road accidents are South Africa’s third biggest killer above AIDs. We don’t always want to expect the worst but what we can do is take preventative measures to ensure that if an accident does befall us, we come to as little harm as possible.

Roadside assistance

Road assistance trucks are often seen as vultures, waiting for an accident. However, they offer an importance service. Roadside assistance trucks remove vehicles that have broken down or been involved in a road accident from dangerous areas in and around busy roads. There are various affordable roadside assistance packages available which include towing services, emergency fuel supply and mechanical repair. As soon as you have bought a car, look for comprehensive roadside assistance packages.

Spending too much time on the internet? How about a change?

Wasting time on the internet

A poll of over 3000 people on TechCrunch revealed that on average people waste (in their own words) between one and five hours per day on the internet. Only 8% of the participants claimed that they wasted less than an hour on the internet per day and 14% of the participants claimed to waste all their free time by spending over ten hours on the internet daily.

Although it’s hard to determine how accurate the statistics are (as obviously people who fill out online polls are more likely to spend more time on the internet), it’s safe to assume that your average person spends a good few hours a week on social networking sites, searching for products online, reading news and playing games. While not all these internet activities can be called completely wasteful – after all keeping touch with friends and reading news is a part of life and good for the brain – people do end up with less time to enjoy ‘the good life’.

The good life

Job satisfaction is the Holy Grail of the professional world. We often think if we could just get that promotion, that raise or that new job, we’d be happy at work. And if we think about the best jobs in the world, we tend to think of high flying corporate jobs that involve high heels or power suits, not manual work that involves protective or hi vis clothing.

Despite the common preconceptions, a study published by City and Guilds on the index of happiness in the workplace found that out of all jobs in the UK, blue-collar workers consider themselves to be the happiest, while white-collar workers are the among the more miserable workers. So, if you’ve still not found job satisfaction in the work place after all the promotions and pay rises, consider losing the high heels and donning a women’s high visibility vest.

It’s no secret that broadband services in South Africa are expensive and that the infrastructure isn’t there to provide high speed connections. A report by the Department of Communications revealed that South Africa is lagging far behind the developed world in terms of broadband speed and also has some of the highest Internet and telecoms tariffs in the world. Yet, despite the dismal statistics the ASDL broadband sector is showing signs of growth and improvement in various arenas.

Vodacom cables

Vodacom laid down 720 kilometres of fibre optic cables this year in a bid to improve wireless broadband service to businesses. Wally Beelders, Vodacom business executive, predicts a vast improvement for telecommunications and broadband services in South Africa in the future.  Beelders said: “South Africa’s telecommunications landscape is going to be dramatically reshaped over the next few years, as the price of bandwidth plummets and newly empowered businesses and consumers increase their appetite for hosted services and applications.”