Visit to the Garrick Club

A couple weeks ago my masters program were invited to visit the Garrick Club, a gentlemen's club in Covent Garden with an extraordinary collection of theatrical paintings. It was founded in the early nineteenth century as a theatrical and literary society for actors and educated men interested in the theatre (it is named after the Shakespearean actor David Garrick). Almost from the beginning, the club has collected paintings of actors, mostly portraying them in costume for a specific role. Walking through the rooms of the club, you can quite literally see the history and traditions of the English stage: Garrick, Kean, Bernhardt, Olivier and others are all represented, in plays by Shakespeare (which seemed to predominate) but also others.

It's quite an interesting phenomenon that such an industry obviously grew up around painting actors and actresses as a certain character they were famous for playing. Perhaps this was the beginning of the actor as icon culture; but, other than movie posters, I'm not sure that it's still current to collect pictures of actors as a particular role. One interesting thing that we noticed was that the paintings often put the actors into a natural-looking landscape rather than painting a portrayal of stage scenery. It was as if the actors were represented in the painting more as the characters than as themselves.

Since most of the masters program are female, we ranged from amused to indignant when we learned that the Garrick Club is one of the last of the gentlemen's clubs not to admit women into their membership. Apparently (we learned), there is a vote every year on the issue, and every year it is voted down. But I have to say: the women's restroom we were shown as a place to leave our bags made more than one jaw drop. Women are allowed to be guests of members, and it is obvious they are taken care of when they're there.

The UCL Shakespeare masters program with a smattering of our professors. I'm almost exactly in the middle.

Catch-22s for Immigrants

I am frustrated this morning. It's easy not to think about this in today's world of the online global community, but effectively, when you move to a new country, you become almost a non-person. No contacts, no renting history, no credit history. You don't exist until you start paying utility or credit card bills.

One would think that it ought to be easy for someone with a legitimate reason (say, a student) to move to another country. But if often seems that things have been designed to throw obstacles in an immigrant's way.

Your experience as an immigrant to the UK might be something like this: you cannot get a visa without first having a job. But you are unlikely to get hired without a visa. Even if (like me) you have been accepted to a UK university, your visa application might still be rejected. The universities don't seem to have any power to tell the immigration office who to admit to the country.

Once you make it here, of course, you will need somewhere to live. But you may find this hard as well: most likely, without a renting history, you will be required to provide a guarantor who must be a land-owning UK citizen. Arrived in the country with no contacts? You might be out of luck. If you have a guarantor, or if you don't need one, you will still need a UK bank account. Problem there? You're often required to have lived in the UK for 12 months before you can open a bank account, and you will need first to have a permanent address (which you don't have yet, remember, because you're looking...)

And then, perhaps, after you're settled, and you wait until you have a bank statement or utility bill and a debit card so that you can finally get yourself a mobile phone with a monthly plan (by far the most cost-effective option). So you take your documents and go to the phone store, only to be denied on a credit check (yes, they check your credit to sell you a phone).

Such was my luck today. I wasn't trying to buy a house or a car, just a phone, but because I've only been in the country for a little over a month, I have no credit history. Now, worst of all, since I've been denied a mobile phone, I'm starting out with bad credit history.

I'm trying not to sound bitter. I understand, of course, why it is that I am almost a non-person in the UK at this moment, and why in many cases it must be that way, although I have to wonder if there's a reason why a credit check company can't exist across national borders. But really--should my lack of credit history prevent me from buying such a small item as a mobile phone? And should the fact that I tried to get a phone soon after I moved here because I need phone hurt my credit score?

I was a bit bewildered while applying for my Visa when I had to travel into downtown Houston to have my fingerprints taken. My father thinks this is because George W. started a policy that all immigrants to the U.S. must have their fingerprints taken, and so other countries created that policy for Americans as retribution. That was bizarre, but I think this beats it. In the United States, someone who walked into a phone store with a bank statement to prove their ability to pay--who would even be willing to pay a few months worth of statements ahead of time--would have no problem getting a phone. They might beg her to do so.

I'm hoping this will be the end of the seeming catch-22s I encounter, but I fear that's wishful thinking. I've never had to worry about my credit history before, but apparently now I will need to consciously build it up.