Next Two Weeks

The next two weeks or so we will not be posting much because we're leaving tomorrow to go home for Christmas. And we will actually be seeing most of the people who read this blog, so if you are one of the lucky ones, you will get the real deal, instead of mere words on a screen--enjoy!!!

We forgot to mention that my sister came through London again on her way back from Greece. She was only here one full day, as a long layover, but we managed to see a museum (Wallace Collection), eat some Asian fusion (Wagamama--no Adrian Lukis aka Mr. Wickham this time), and my sister got to see a show by herself, while Matt and I were both at our respective office parties. She saw Avenue Q which Matt and I saw a long while back when we were living in Cambridge, and we liked it.

When Matt and I get home we have a long list of movies we want to see in the theatre, that we couldn't afford to see when they came through London. Hope they're still on in one of the multi-plex theatres in Iowa!

Hopefully we'll be seeing you soon!

Photo of the Week, plus Christmas Work Parties

From Photo of the Week

A Christmas tree in Trafalgar square. The tree is donated from Norway every year, in recognition of the assistance Britain gave the country during World War II.

Office Christmas Parties: Grace and I both had our office Christmas parties on Tuesday night, which is why our photo of the week - which has evolved into a Tuesday affair - is going up today, instead of last night. Office Christmas parties in the UK are not exactly like the ones you might have in the states, though it probably depends on the organization.

First off, our party was held off-site, at a lobby in the Science museum and no partners are permitted. I think the idea is to keep it limited to familiar faces, so everyone is in on the same work jokes and thinking more about having a good time than meeting new people. The theme was Spirit of Havana, so the place was decorated with palm tree type plants and some women dressed as Marilyn Monroe (?). We were to show up at 7:00 for drinks, with dinner starting at 8:00. We were to be kicked out at 12:30 (we were allowed to come into work an hour late the next day!).

We weren't the only company at this event though. I think lots of places around London host Christmas parties in December, taking care of all the planning so companies just have to choose a package and say how many people are coming. It must be a good way to raise money, if you're a museum or concert hall or church. Anyway, there were maybe five companies at this thing.

Also, there's a dress code, which is not that surprising (I mean, you have a dress code at work too). Jeans and sneakers were barred (you will be turned away at the door, we were warned). Most of us men wore suits, but some people in my office wore tuxedos, and not just as a joke. And all the women wore ball gowns!

In some ways, this all reminded me of Cambridge, where they had formal dinners in the cafeteria (buttery) that required you to wear a tie to get in. At Cambridge and Oxford too, they have enormous lavish balls after finals that you must wear a tuxedo to get into. And so, most kids who go to University in the UK own tuxedos. And so, they use them whenever they get the opportunity. (I missed the end of year ball at Cambridge, as Grace and I were in India. Plus, I don't own a tux!). One of my co-workers did his master's degree in the states, and he complained that (jokingly) 'the worst part about school in America was that people had no taste. You would go to an end-of-year dinner, expecting everyone to dress up nice, but it would just be delivered pizza in an empty classroom.'

At the actual event, we had an open bar and seated dinner with assigned places. The company mixed everyone up, so that you were forced to interact with people from different departments. And there was a live band, and after dinner everyone went dancing. And that's how they do it!

Hamlet II

It turns out that we got incredibly lucky with seeing Hamlet! The lead actor is called David Tennant and he's hugely popular here, much MUCH more popular than even Patrick Stewart, though Americans won't know him for the most part. He played Barty Crouch Jr in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We went and saw Hamlet on the second night, less than a week ago, and it's only here for a six week run. Yesterday, it was splashed all over the papers that David Tennant has hurt his back and won't be back in the roll until after Christmas! The tickets for the full run of this show sold out in under three hours here. People who want to see Tennant now have to settle for the UNDERSTUDY!

Luckily, as the director said in a statement, this is the Royal Shakespeare Company and the understudy is apparently doing very well, getting standing ovations. You've got to be pretty gutsy to step into that roll on short notice.

As for Patrick Stewart, he may be less popular here, but he is definitely known as one of the best Shakespearean actors. Matt and I agreed that his Ghost (he played the Ghost and Claudius, for those that remember, how cool is that? they put a wig on him for the Ghost) was the best part of the whole production, notwithstanding Tennant.

By the way, this is was the photo on the programme cover. It's a pretty awesome picture, even if Tennant isn't actually playing the roll.




P.S. This is a new layout for a new, more austere time.

Picture of the Week, Plus Hamlet

From Photo of the Week

A slightly blurry vision of Regent Street, decked out for Christmas and closed to cars for shopping. They do it once a year.

Hamlet: On Thursday night, Grace and I went to see the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet. We were very excited, primarily because the show featured these two:

David Tennant, a.k.a the Doctor in Doctor Who (a famous sci-fi show in Britain that Grace briefly watched) and...

Patrick Stewart, a.k.a Captain Jean Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation (a famous sci-fi show everywhere).

Apparently they had to ban all sci-fi memorabilia from the show, because people brought so much stuff for these two to sign.

Anyway, Tennant was Hamlet and Stewart was his evil step-father Claudius. Everybody was great, and it was a very good show. David Tennant played Hamlet as kind of manic, not depressed and gloomy. We were really lucky to get tickets, because it's been sold out for months. But they have a deal for under-25s to get in on the night of the show for cheap. Excellent.

Also, I have previously read Hamlet, which meant I enjoyed the show more than King Lear, where I had no idea what was going on for the majority of the show. Alas, it wasn't perfect for me. I decided to skip dinner and eat after the show, but it didn't finish till 11, by which time I was in a rough state. Also the seats were built for people with thighs six inches shorter than mine, so I was contorted into a ball the whole night to watch the show. This seems to be happening more often to me.

But, Grace was in no physical discomfort and she assures me the show was really good.

Photo of the Week

From Photo of the Week

Matt and Gareth hanging out at the new shopping centre in Cambridge.

Sorry this is another photo from our trip to Cambridge, but we haven't been up to a lot of exciting things. We went shopping last weekend, and the weather was cold (for Britain) and rainy. Not photogenic anyway. But, we found some amazing deals at a shop called Woolworth's, which has declared bankruptcy. I guess I have the Great Recession to thank.

Photo of the Week, plus a Thanksgiving post

From Photo of the Week

Photo Caption: This is a new clock in Cambridge. The grasshopper on top pulls the outer wheel around with his legs, blinking and pausing from time to time. You read the time by looking at the blue lights, which sit where the numbers would normally be on a clock. In the glass you can see the reflections of buildings on King's College.

The Thanksgiving Post: Grace and I went up to Cambridge this weekend to have Thanksgiving dinner (a bit early, but the only time our friends could make it), with some of our old friends from Cambridge. The last two years Grace and I have hosted a Thanksgiving dinner, but this year our friend, Gareth, who is British, wanted to have a crack at it. We weren't sure what to expect, but he and his girlfriend really got it right. They must have done research ahead of time, because all the American staples were there - turkey, stuffing, cornbread, cranberry sauce, mashed sweet potatoes, roasted potatoes, pumpkin pie (made from Butternut squash, as no pumpkins were to be found), apple pie and more. Grace and I took the train up around noon, and we started eating around 2 for a few hours. We didn't leave the house all day, and we just kept going back for more leftovers. Excellent thanksgiving.

The next day we headed into town for a walk. The weather was cold (there had been freezing rain overnight), so it wasn't particularly cold. Grace and I were reminded how pleasant it is to go Christmas shopping in Cambridge, with all the nice shops down in the old town centre.

It was a really relaxing weekend, bookended by some idyllic train rides. I had been looking forward to getting on the train, as we were travelling midday, when it's not very crowded and drunk people are nowhere to be seen. I bought a paper, and felt like a real European, reading on the train, with a four seater all to Grace and me.

Other than that, I've been very busy with work. But, I'm on my last freelance assignment for 2008, so soon, hopefully, I'll be able to relax in the evenings. We're thinking of taking a weekend trip up to Leeds in December, where some of our other Cambridge friends live...

Photo of the Week

From Photo of the Week

Here we are visiting a new art installation at the Tate Modern Museum.

Update: I should add though, that Grace is not pictured. That's me and our friend Nicole.

To what we have been up.

Busy few weeks past. Here's the blow-by-blow:

Wed 29th--the day I went to the House of Lords hearing.

Thurs 30th--tried for the third time to open a joint checking account, banks in Britain being notoriously finicky. Apparently they don't want our money. Failed for the third time, prompting me to desire to make a blog post entitled 'Things I HATE', but decided this would be too pessimistic.

Fri 31st--massive disgusting eczema explosion on my right hand ring finger, went to the doctor, got a cream and antibiotics. All is now well.

Sat 1st--old, old friend from Cambridge, we'll call him 'Philosopher Gareth' (as opposed to 'Geologist Gareth') came to visit London with his girlfriend Deb. Haven't seen him in literally a year and a half since he left Cambridge. Met for lunch and drinks, had a great time.

Sun 2nd--Natural History museum with Gaz and Deb. Good times.

Mon 3rd--my uncle who lives in Bournemouth (south coast of England) was in London for a conference, met him for dinner. Haven't seen him since India.

Tues 4th--jittery and nervous all day.

Wed 5th, around 5AM--can't sleep, check the news, crawl back into bed and tell Matt the news.

Wed 5th, evening--celebratory Thai curry and Wednesday free movie night--Ghost Town with Ricky Gervais. If you've ever seen him in anything else, it's hard to see him as the 'nice guy'.

Thur 6th--interview with Amnesty International International Secretariat for volunteer position--it didn't go that well. They have a backlog of email enquiries in their inbox. Turns out the job is to clear the backlog. No thanks.

Fri 7th--another doctor's appointment, stupid finger.

Sat 8th--Nicole Novak, friend from Iowa City, is in town. She and two of her friends stayed with us, in our new improved apartment that permits overnight guests! She is a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford for the next two years, so we hope she visits often. Spend the day walking around--doing 'the Westminster walk' on which we were taken by Micky and Julia when we were new to London. UPDATE: In the evening we went to a ballet at the Barbican cultural centre/50s utopian concrete jungle. It was Romeo and Juliet, by a modern ballet company--THEY CHANGED THE ENDING SO THAT ROMEO AND JULIET LIVE, AND RUN AWAY TOGETHER. WHAT?!?!?!?

Sun 9th--massive city-wide search for cream tea in the pouring rain. Once we finally found it, it was totally worth it. Goodbye to Nicole.

Mon 10-Tues 11--boring old work!

Wed 12th--lecture at LSE by Navanethem Pillay, formerly one of the few women judges in the International Criminal Court, hugely influential in her work at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, particularly to its treatment of crimes of sexual violence against women. She is a huge hero of mine. Sadly she has left the ICC to be the new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. She was speaking in that capacity. She's a South African of Indian decent, was the first woman and minority in apartheid South Africa to open her own practice.

Thur 13--ETHIOPIAN dinner with our friends from Matt's work Martin and his wife Naheed! We used to eat a lot of Ethiopian in D.C. which has the largest concentration of Ethiopians and Eritreans outside of Ethiopia and Eritrea. You might have heard there is some really bad stuff going down in nearby Somolia right now and the UN has decided it cannot intervene, I think for justifiable reasons. Matt and I had a long discussion about it--look, the UN are not miracle workers, okay?

Fri 14th--WORK, BORING!

Sat 15th (today)--lazy Saturday. We're getting excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year, our friends Gar and Kirst, ie 'Geology Gareth' and his girlfriend Kirsten, are having Xgiving at their place in Cambridge! We're really looking forward to it, and are happy to have passed the love for an American holiday on to the Brits.

Photo of the Week

From Photo of the Week

This is a photo of me in a hedge tunnel at Kenwood house. Clearly the tunnel was built for people of mid-nineteenth century height.

Thanks to Mike for the gentle nudge to get this done.

Photo of the Week

From Photo of the Week

This is the famous escalator through a planet at the Natural History Museum.

From now on we are going to try to do a Photo of the Week, so that we use our camera more and take more nice pictures. All the photos will go into the public album, with the link above, so you can see all at once. Obviously this is just the first one.

The Election From Across The Pond

It's a cliche, but the rest of the world probably cares about the US election as much as Americans do and as much as they care about their own elections. Grace's work told her she could take the day off tomorrow, if she was too tired to come in from staying up all night to watch the election. Two people from my work (neither American) actually are taking the day off tomorrow so they can watch the election tonight. Because of the time difference this is a big commitment. The first exit polls from the East coast will begin to roll in here at midnight and the West coast will come in around 4 in the morning. These people will literally spend the entire night in a pub, watching the results come in. They've even booked a table and sent an invitation around the office (one of two all-night election parties we've been invited to).

Both of London's biggest free newspapers have extensive (multi-page) viewing guides for the election tonight. The London Paper gives you a quick background on 'how the electoral college works' and a full-page map about all the swing states. There's a viewing guide in the corner. The London Lite is my favourite though. It has a feature on American food to eat, to help you get into the spirit. They recommend Hamburgers, BLTs and Nachos and say 'don't forget the obligatory crate of Budweiser, or try a bottle of Californian pinot noir from Medocino County, California.' They also have this very brief description of the Republican and Democratic parties:

'Republicans are essentially the US version of our conservatives - they are Right-wing and want to reduce government spending and lower taxes, even for the rich. The Democrats stand to the Left, want higher taxes for the rich, a cut in taxes for the middle classes and for US troops to withdraw from Iraq eventually.'

In general, I think this election has really elevated the US in people's minds. As the British magazine The Economist says in its most recent edition, "the best thing that can be said for the [American presidential] system is that it is so democratic. In most countries party leaders are chosen by political insiders. In America rank-and-file party members (and some independents) get to choose—and this year they upset all political calculations by rejecting the inevitable Mrs Clinton on the left and choosing the maverick Mr McCain on the right." Consider that, in Britain, Gordon Brown is Prime Minister, despite never facing a national election. Here, everyone votes for their representative to Parliament, and the leader of whichever party has the majority becomes Prime Minister. Regular people have about as much control over who their national leader is as Americans have over who is elected speaker of the house or Senate majority leader.

Of course, this election is not just any election. People are a bit shocked I think at the fact that Barack Obama is the probable president of the US. It upsets so many notions about our country - mostly that we are a racist land ruled by corporate overlords. In my office, some people are, I think, a bit flummoxed by Obama's success. They note that it is difficult for them to imagine an Asian becoming Prime Minister here (people of Asian descent are the largest ethnic minority in Britain). I think of the British singer Morrissey, who released a song just five years ago called "America is not the world." It had these lyrics:

In America, the land of the free, they say
The Land of opportunity, in a just and peaceful way.
But where the president is never black, female or gay,
And until that day,
You've got nothing to say to me,
To help me believe.

Finally, for my job, I naturally read tons of local African newspapers - they are filled with columns praising our system. In Africa, it's hard to imagine an ethnic minority reaching leadership of the country. There is a joke going around in Kenya - Obama's father is from the Luo tribe in Kenya, an ethnic minority that has been subjected to some persecution. The joke is 'a person from the Luo tribe has a better chance of becoming president of the United States than president of Kenya.'

We're not going to any all-night election parties by the way - I have to go to a conference on Nigeria tomorrow, and I don't want to be sleep deprived or hung over while sitting all day in a room listening to people give presentations on financial markets. But, if the election ends up going to Obama, I can't help but be curious about whether the main topic of conversation during breaks will still be Nigeria.

House of Lords Judicial Hearing

When Matt and I lived in Washington D.C. we tried to see a Supreme Court case. We had to wake up very early, take the metro in and stand for 6 hours on cold hard marble, only to realise we weren't going to get in and leave. It was not a good experience.

Also while we were in D.C., we took a tour of the Capital Building. We went through a rigorous security clearance, then taken into the rotunda and told we could be in there, one other room full of statues, or go see the House chamber, the House unfortunately being out of session. It was also distinctly underwhelming.

Today, as part of my general education for my internship, I went to see a case before the highest judicial body in the UK, called the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords. So I went to Westminster, to the Houses of Parliament. It was a very different experience from D.C. There was a security check, but after that, you were pretty much free to wander around--and it's quite a big building!


Eventually I found the hearing rooms and watched the judges and the barristers for a few hours. It was quite dry stuff, but the case was interesting and important for my internship anyway.

The cool things were the actual rooms, which were paneled in beautifully carved wood, brightly polished, and burnt velvet silk wallpapers in jewel-like blue and crimson, and carved bookshelves and old carved wood and marble fireplaces (the Houses of Parliament date to 1840!) It was really a very small room but with a great sense of history and decorum as well. It could also have been a museum, because on the walls were two really wonderful and famous paintings that I read about recently. I had no idea they would be there, but there they were, with plaques underneath reading 'On loan from Her Majesty The Queen'. The other cool thing was that the Barristers were wearing their wigs and robes. The robes are like Cambridge robes Matt wore to formal halls; the wigs are a bit silly, but who knows about these strange British traditions. They are very, very old traditions.


I was supposed to be there to see a hearing on deportation cases, but was misdirected and spent half an hour listening to a proceeding on the eviction of elderly people from care homes! Other than that, it was an interesting experience.

Here's a picture of Matt outside the Houses of Parliament at night, from across the river. They are quite gothic and beautiful from this angle:

Money

This is how many dollars you can buy with one pound. It's been $2 for £1 most of the time we've been here, but in the last month or two its dropped fast to $1.50 for £1. Someone at work helpfully pointed out that my salary is now worth 25% less!

If things keep going this way, I'm doing my Christmas shopping here!

Also: It started snowing here! With no Halloween or Thanksgiving in this country to divide up the rest of the year, the relentless march of Christmas season is here earlier than ever!

Ivanov

Matt and I saw a play last weekend called Ivanov by Anton Chekhov, the Russian writer. It was at the Donmar Theatre in Leicester Square, and it starred Kenneth Branagh, the lady in the wheelchair from Notting Hill, Mary Bennet from the BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries, and a bunch of other people.

The website describes the story thusly:

"Once a man of limitless promise, Ivanov is plunged into debt.

His marriage is in crisis, and his evenings are spent negotiating loans, avoiding love affairs and fighting to resist the small town jealousies and intrigues which threaten to engulf his life.

Kenneth Branagh plays the title role in Chekhov’s explosive portrait of a man plagued with self-doubt and despair which vividly captures the electrifying atmosphere of Russia on the brink of change."

It was really, really good. We had never heard anything about the story before, but caught on quickly and really enjoyed the suspense and excitement. It's a really good story. I didn't really like any of the characters (more like I liked to dislike them) but Matt didn't feel that way.

It was a nice way to spend a Saturday night for once, instead of staying home and watching a movie or working!

We always say we're going to get more 'culture' since we live in London. Now that I'm interning 3 days a week, I'm going to get a part-time job the other two days, so we can do more. It would be nice to get theatre tickets, a gym membership, and to save up for future trips. We are in a saving economic climate right now and I'm sure the bank would appreciate our extra deposits!

Haunted House Of Modern Art

Grace and I went to the newly reopened Saatchi gallery last weekend. It's a free modern art gallery with changing exhibits. It used to be in another building but it's been closed for a year or something while it moves to a brand new space. It just opened a few weeks ago. The whole museum is currently given over to an exhibit called "The Revolution Continues: New Chinese Art."

I got the impression that something foul is going on in the Chinese modern art scene. The majority of the pieces kind of made my stomach churn. Walking through the museum felt a little more like walking through a haunted house. Some kind of ultra-modern minimalist haunted house that tries to scare you with unsettling imagery, rather than people jumping out at you in masks. Here are some pictures - not of the scariest stuff, just some of the stuff that we thought would make a decent photo.


Grace looking up at an installation.


This one is called "Misquito" and it's made from real bones.


No comment on this one.


This one's called "Fallen Angel."

The main attraction was an installation in the basement. It's a bunch of very realistic looking old men in wheelchairs randomly rolling around a room. Check out Grace in this video below.



Anyway, I don't think we'll be going back to the Saatchi until there's a new exhibit up, or if we want more Halloween kicks. But, before I end this post, I've got one more modern art photo of a sculpture I think is genuinely horrifying. This one was in the British Museum, not the Saatchi Gallery, as part of a new exhibit on modern sculptures. I didn't get it at first - it just looks like a bunch of dead animal parts on a stick. But there's a light illuminating them, and eventually I realised you have to look at the shadow on the wall, not the lump of mummified animal bits (apparently, that's what its really made of). Happy Halloween!

Credit Crunch Jokes

Want to hear some jokes and gags about the credit crunch/economic meltdown? These are coming out of the City of London, the financial district of probably the center of the financial world, so you have to say at least they have a sense of humor about it all. These are from The London Paper, by the way, not thought up by us.

What's the difference between an investment banker and a pizza?
A pizza can feed a family of four.

What do Wall Street and the Olympics have in common?
Synchronised diving.

The credit crunch is getting bad--
--I lent my brother ten quid (translation: bucks) a few weeks ago and it turns out I'm Britain's largest lender.

I've had terrible problems during the credit crunch--
--but I'm back on my feet now--they've repossessed my car.

What's the definition of optimism?
--A banker who irons five shirts on Sunday.

City stock trader: 'It's worse than a divorce! I've lost half my net worth and I still have a wife!'

What's the capital of Iceland?
--£3.50 (If you haven't heard, Iceland and Ireland are both in a dire financial meltdown.)

A masked man holding up a bank cashier with a gun says: 'I don't want any money! I just want you to start lending to each other!'

What's the difference between an investment banker and a pigeon?
--A pigeon can place a deposit on a Ferrari.

Matt here. At my office they forwarded around some Chuck Norris jokes about the crisis. If you're not in on the Chuck Norris jokes, there are a bunch of jokes around that all center on how awesome Chuck Norris is. For example; there is no 'ctrl' key on Chuck Norris' computer. Chuck Norris is always in control.

Here are some financial crisis ones.

The tears of Chuck Norris would supply enough liquidity to solve the credit crisis. Too bad he never cries.

When the U.S. economy sneezes, the world catches a cold. When Chuck Norris sneezes, the U.S. economy catches pneumonia.

Chuck Norris doesn't supply collateral, only collateral damage.

Chuck Norris trades on fear and greed simultaneously.

Alan Greenspan calls Chuck Norris ``The Maestro.''

Chuck Norris has a trade surplus with China.

The last few weeks: an update

I know we haven't written in a long time. We have been busy, but not with much to entertain. The few cool things we have done are:

1. We saw The Duchess on Orange Mobile Free Movie Night at our new local cinema, the Odeon Cinema in Holloway which is one of these urban theatres that's got a grand facade, but the theatres are laid out in a warren of underground tunnels and each one is the size of someone's living room. It's okay though, it's the cheapest tickets we've found at £6, so that plus some gummy bears for 1 pence each at the corner shop is a good deal for us.

The Duchess was interesting, if rambling. That's the problem with turning actual biographies into films, the lives are interesting and oftentimes remarkable, but they're just not movie material. There aren't great, grand moments which fit movie archetypes. It's just the story of a life lived--this happened, then this happened, then this happened, etc. I found it to be the same with Miss Potter, and although I didn't see it, Matt agreed about Marie Antoinette. I actually read the biography on which Marie Antoinette was based, and liked it, but again it's not typical movie material. In The Duchess, the 'this happened' etc. was that she continually got the short end of the stick in everything and was probably a very unhappy woman. If it hammered home one point, it was that women in that age no matter what their status or wealth had very, very little choice in how they lived their lives, and that is very sad.

2. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (about which I recently wrote a dissertation), spoke at the London School of Economics and Matt and I went to see him. It was a packed house. His talk was extremely interesting, if difficult to understand at times. He's argentinian/argentine (?) and though he speaks perfect English, it is with a strong latin accent. He has become a new career hero for me, joining Stephen Rapp. The thing that most struck Matt and I about his lecture is that this guy is not a politician. He's a lawyer, and he's a lawyer to the T. His job is to pursue justice and he does not and cannot take politics into consideration in doing his job. I really liked his attitude about it.

3. Poor Matt is sick. He stayed home from work today and slept almost the entire day. It's supposedly just a 24-hour bug he caught from someone at work, so hopefully he'll be on his feet again tomorrow.

4. I went for an interview at Amnesty International UK for a volunteer position, and... I got it! It's a policy volunteer position, so I will be doing research for them about... the human rights implications of counter-terrorism policy in the US and UK. And the FBI has a file on me... now. Anyway, I start Monday and I'm really excited!

That's all the news for now.

Coming next week:

Matt and Grace see Kenneth Branaugh in Chekov's play Ivanov, once again from the nosebleed seats!

Spudzillas

Matt and I don't live anywhere near a grocery store, so we've decided to order our groceries online and have them delivered. We did it once in DC and we really liked it. We get two very large deliveries a month of non-perishable boxes and cans of things, and supplement in between with visits to the nearest real grocery store for more fresh and quickly perishable things like milk and bread.

The pros are:

--The convenience of not having to carry huge loads of groceries, especially liquids.
--Always being able to cook pretty much whatever you feel like without having to go to the grocery store first.
--Not having to deal with crowded grocery stores (in the UK everywhere is crowded).
--Having a fully stocked pantry gives you a very warm and comfortable feeling.
--It's relatively inexpensive. If Matt and I went to the nearest grocery store on the bus, the bus trip would cost us £3.60 ($7.20). Having your groceries delivered only costs £4.00 ($8.00), so we're okay paying 40 pence extra.
--It allows us to use the cheapest grocery chain, instead of the more expensive ones which are the only ones nearby. The cheapest seems to be Tesco. If anyone remembers from Ireland, Matt used to live on Tesco Value Brand pizzas, only €0.49 ($0.75). We don't buy those anymore, but Tesco has lots of good cheap staples.
--It's easier to compare prices when you're looking online because they give you unit prices and if something has a cheaper alternative, they suggest it to you.

The cons are also numerous, though far outweighed by the pros. One of the biggest cons of grocery shopping online is that you can't physically see the food item in front of you before you buy it. Sometimes you don't read a label properly or you enter the proper weight or number. A friend of mine said she and her flatmates once accidentally ordered 20 cans of tuna. I once ordered a box of mushrooms three times the size I thought it would be.

The latest mistake is probably the worst I've ever experienced, but if I'm honest, I should have seen it coming. I wanted two sweet potatoes, because neither Matt nor I are too keen on sweet potatoes but I thought they might be good to have around. I ordered two of a variety or brand name called 'Spudzilla' and was shocked when I received TWO of these:




The worst part is the veins all over the outside!!! By the way, that is a normal sized dinner plate and normal sized silverware. So, Matt and I are going to be eating a lot of sweet potato for the next few weeks!

Lazy Summer Days

Every weekend we say it's going to be the last nice weekend of the summer and then the next weekend is also lovely. (This weekend is seriously supposed to be the last nice weekend though!). Every weekend for the last few weeks Matt and I have participated in a long-time British summer tradition for nice days: lazing about in a park. This involves:

1.) A picnic. The traditional English garden picnic is an elaborate affair. They are very serious here about picnic baskets with real dishes and cups and silverware. Below is not an uncommon sight when a group comes to the park:

Other people will just swing by a grocery shop and pick up some drinks, baguettes, sliced meats and cheeses, and fruit.

Matt and I pretty much slum it. We make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bring along Cokes and apples.

Not too bad though. Usually from where we live, it takes about 25 minutes to walk to a good picnic spot in Hampstead Heath. (Hampstead Heath is this huge park in the middle of north London. It's really hilly and has woodland, fields of heath, swimming ponds, etc, etc.)


2.) Hanging out in the park inevitably involves some napping.

Sometimes you try to read, but it's so warm and comfy.

3.) A view. The area where we live in called Highgate, aptly, because it's high up on a hill or ridge from which you can look down into the city and see everything. Hampstead Heath is on the same ridge looking down onto the city center, so you usually get a good view to enjoy.


4.) Last week we decided to wander through upper Hampstead Heath. Most of the major parks in London used to be under private ownership and were given as 'gifts to the nation' so sometimes, they used to be part of estates, and will keeping the estate house in the grounds, usually turned into a museum or private venue for weddings or events. Hampstead Heath used to be part of the estate of Kenwood, and Kenwood House still keeps its fantastic location looking down into the city, surrounded by idyllic ponds, tree-lined avenues and extensively manicured gardens. Luckily that week, it was a free open weekend, so we didn't have to pay admission! It was really, really nice inside as you might expect of a stately home. It had an amazing art collection actually with works by Stubbs, Gainsborough and Rembrandt among others. Here is a picture of the outside as it would have looked riding up in a carriage:


5.) Activity of some sort. Usually this is reading a book, but I got this Stonehenge cross-stitch bookmark kit when we went to Stonehenge and I am cross-stitching it so sometimes I work on that, usually with very little success. Matt sometimes brings along the math stuff he's trying to teach himself in preparation for reading a tough economics book. But today we spent almost three hours at Hampstead Heath, during which we didn't accomplish anything except Matt did one math problem and I sewed 15 stitches. The rest of the time we watched people, rested, talked, and wished we had a dog.

All in all, we've been pretty lazy on weekends, but you must enjoy the weather while you can in Britain. Soon it will be cold and rainy and DARK.

On The Economy

This is a rare post about the issues, not Grace and I's lives.

Given my background and my current occupation, I've been following the current economic turmoil in the US, and indeed the world, closely. And I've become extremely concerned about the plan being proposed by US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (I'm not alone - see this article, for instance). I'm worried that, in our haste to take action against the economic crisis, we're going to vote for a really dangerous plan that we'll come to regret in the coming months and years. Accordingly, I've written my representatives in the Senate and Congress to encourage them to take the time needed to really evaluate this proposal objectively. Paul Krugman has written a good column nicely explaining the problems of the bill, and its worth a read here. I'll lay out my worries here, but if you want to understand the situation or the logic behind the plan I recommend Krugman's article.

1 - Lack of Oversight: The plan contains a clause exempting Paulson from any oversight - from the Judicial or legislative branches of our government - in his conduct in exercising the plan. Since the plan involves at least $700 billion (see concern #2), that is giving an unprecedented amount of power to the Treasury secretary. If the secretary purchases 'toxic' assets from firms (including his former employer, Goldman Sachs) at inflated prices, it would be a subsidy for investment banks funded by the taxpayer, and we would have no recourse. We would likewise have no recourse if we don't agree to the terms he grants, if we don't agree to the contracts he awards to manage the debt, if we don't agree to the level of spending (which could balloon past $700 billion - see below), if he appoints cronies to positions of influence - nothing. Maybe you trust Secretary Paulson. But do you trust Obama? McCain? The race is close and one of them will be in charge of appointing someone in January. They could ask Paulson to stay, but there's no guarantee. Furthermore, while Paulson may be an honest guy doing his best, he's only been in this position for a year and a half and he (or anyone) has never faced a situation like this.

2 - The Cost: As I understand it, the plan lets the Treasury take on $700 billion worth of debt at any one time. For comparison's sake, that amount is more than the cost of the entire Iraq war (which has cost roughly $580 billion over the last five years) or more than the annual budget of the Department of Defense, the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services combined. It's true that we may be able to sell back that debt to the private sector in a few years and greatly recoup our losses, or perhaps even turn a profit. But it's also true that the terms of the deal allow the Treasury to take on $700 billion worth of debt, sell it to the private sector at a massive loss, then take on a second $700 billion in debt (you just can't have more than $700 billion at any one time as I understand it, but even that might be flexible), sell that on for a loss and so on, accumulating losses to no end. And because of concern #1, we wouldn't be able to do anything about that.

The cost of the bailout is such that you should forget everything you have heard from Barack Obama and John McCain about tax cuts and new spending programs, in my opinion. They will all have to go back to the drawing board, whether or not they want to admit it.

3 - Socialising The Losses: There are other plans in circulation (see this, for example) that do not involve such a massive commitment by the taxpayers. What is our upside in this? Is America really going to pursue an economic system where profits are private but losses are public? There needs to be consequences for the decision makers in these failing firms.

I want to stress that I think a massive government intervention is probably necessary, and taxpayers may need to shell up $700 billion or more to save the economy, in the end. But this plan is not the best one available, and the last thing I feel comfortable doing is giving the Bush administration more executive power. Fortunately, I think our representatives are looking out for us. Senator Chris Dodd, for example, has circulated a plan which is getting better reviews from the economists I read and trust. Think about writing your representatives and telling them not to rush into anything that is going to be another Bush fiasco with a price tag in the hundreds of billions.

UPDATE (submitted by Grace this time): Krugman (or as Matt and I call him, The Krug) is talking a lot more about this proposal and strongly advocates that in return for taking on this toxic debt and giving private companies (which have wilfully and negligently bankrupted themselves) cold hard cash for it, the American taxpayer should be given an equity stake on the off chance that maybe we can recover some of our losses. He says for him it is an absolute deal or no deal point. Read his ideas about it here.

FURTHER UPDATE: What does everyone else think? Feel free to sound off under comments.

EVEN FURTHER UPDATE: I've just learned that the Fed and the Treasury plan to buy these toxic assets NOT AT MARKET VALUE but at what they WOULD be worth, basically, if they were not toxic--ie the full value that they would have if those bad loans were fully and faithfully paid back. I'm sorry but that one makes no sense to me (Grace), maybe Matt or one of you can explain it.

Thames River Festival

Grace and I took the day to head down to the Thames river to enjoy probably the last day of good weather for eight months. There is a big festival on this weekend around the Thames and, it being free, it sounded like the perfect event for us.



For me, I was particularly interested in two things.

1 - Fresh fried donuts
2 - The traditional boat race

Fresh fried donuts are delicious, but I can only ever find them at festivals. They are a priority at any festival - in fact, they are reason enough to go to a festival. We found some and settled down on the river to wait for the boats.



They were supposed to start coming at 3:00, and I had no idea what to expect. Apparently there were a lot of boats. More than 200 I think. They were on a 22-mile race.

Anyway, we waited, and waited, but no boats came. And the donuts were not as good as we've come to expect. A first time for everything. At 3:30 we gave up on seeing the boats and went wandering.



What's a UK street without living statues?




On the course of wandering around we heard from one of the stages this really cheesy DJ. But as we passed by, we realised it wasn't a cheesy DJ, it was one beatboxing guy, making all the noises with his own mouth (and throat and everything). We started to listen, and before long we were hooked on 'the Petebox' (get it?).

He started out simple, and cheesy.



Then, he showed how he could perform vocals and lay down a beat at the same time.



I was impressed. Grace was impressed. We kept watching. Next he showed how he could use pedals to loop his vocals (record them and then have them repeat over and over). With that, he could make layered songs, with recordings of himself backing himself up. And he did just that.



When he finished up, we went to a cafe to use some free wireless to download some stuff for Grace's computer, and then left to spend a half hour at an art exhibition in the National Gallery Grace wanted to see (it's on "Love").

On the way to the museum, we finally saw those boats.



When we got to the museum, we were extremely confused. The exhibition on love seemed to feature mostly portraits of old white guys looking straight out. There was one of a monk contemplating death. We were scratching our heads a lot.

Then we realised we were in the wrong room.

Bernice's Visit Part Deux

...Following on from Matt's post below...

The next day poor Matt had to wake up at 6:30 and go to work! Bernice and I slept in quite late and then hit the museums.

We first went to the Science museum, which Bernice liked, because she's science-y. Next, we went very briefly to the Natural History Museum to do one of the best parts: riding an escalator through a giant paper mache model of the earth. Then we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, where we saw the jewelry collection. Holy moly, there were some huge gems in that exhibit. All under glass, of course. It was well bling-bling.

Then we walked through Hyde Park to get to Oxford Street and Primark, the cheap clothing store. Bernice bought some stuff, and I did too. The vast majority of our purchases was black tights. I bought a throw blanket for the couch. (It was only 2 pounds/$4!) Matt met us at Primark, and we decided to try to see a show. Bernice's choice: Wicked The Musical. Well, I'm not a huge musical fan. But we all really, really liked it! Matt and I even downloaded the soundtrack from iTunes.

The next day Matt went to work again. Bernice and I went to the Tower of London, which is always awesome. We had a really good Beefeater tour guide. He reminded me of Steve Coogan (who is in that movie Hamlet 2, unheard of in the US until now, but he's a huge star in the UK). Then Bernice and I went to eat at Wagamama (the same restaurant chain in which I have previously been stalked by a certain British theatre actor) and we both really liked it, but Matt hates it. They have these strange desserts like chocolate cake with wasabi cream, and strawberry cheesecake with ginger. Bernice and I tried the chili and lime pavlova with raspberry sauce. It was strange. The whole time we were eating it we couldn't really tell if we loved it or hated it.

After the Tower, we went to the National Portrait Gallery, which is one of my favourite art museums in London. We saw all the old Tudor and Elizabethan portraits that you see in European History textbooks.

The next day we went to Madame Tussauds wax museum. The following pictures are the fruits of our labours there:








It was simultaneously the creepiest and coolest thing. Of all the weird, creepy statues there, for some reason I was most creeped out by Patrick Stewart.

Next, we went to the National Gallery, where we were met by Matt and then we grabbed some pizza and saw Wall-E for Orange Movie night. It was cute.

This morning, I took Bernice down to Gatwick Airport and she just sent me an email from Greece saying she loves it already... so it must be good!

Now it's time to hunker down and look for A JOB!

Bernice's Visit

We've been back in the UK since Friday with Grace's sister Bernice visiting. It's been kind of an extension of our holiday in the USA.

On Friday we didn't do much except trek home. Things in the UK weren't working very well on our arrival. The passport line was drastically understaffed at Gatwick airport and Grace and I ended up waiting in line for two hours before they finally got to us. Then we were through in one minute. After that it took us another two hours to catch a train, then a taxi home. Everyone kind of collapsed after that. It was rainy and, by the time we were up again, it was close to six. So we went for a walk in the neighborhood, and got stranded in a really, really bad rainstorm (shoes like boats with water sloshing around in them, an extra ten pounds of water in your clothes).

But we bounced back on Saturday, getting up relatively early (9:30 is early for jetlagged people) and heading out to Cambridge for a daytrip. We snuck in a punting trip in the one hour of sunshine - perfect timing. And my punting was spectacular I would say. Not very fast, and there was some wasted effort, but we went in a straight line (relatively) and we went where I wanted us to go. Maybe it was easier without trying to simultaneously drink a corona.

Visiting Cambridge is great with nerds. Both Bernice and our friend Keith are in biology, and they are the only people enthusiastic about making a trek out to a monument to the discovery of DNA by Watson and Crick. In my eyes, its not a great monument, tucked off the main path, next to a parking lot. But Bernice, like Keith when he visited, took a picture and seemed pumped.

Otherwise we showed Bernice some colleges (my student ID is valid until January 2009) and the Fitzwilliam Museum. Grace was excited about the museum because it has a large ceramics section and I don't really like ceramics (at all). Bernice does though, so Grace got to see them.

We've also discovered the gardens of Clare college. It's a good garden. No seriously. Lots of weird paths that wind to different plants and sections. You'll be walking along and stumble upon a sunken pond, or a banana plant forest. Here are some banana plants.


We also caught up with some friends living there. One of them works in London and takes the train in. We have the same commute time, which is crazy. It's because she lives a two minutes walk from the Cambridge train station, where she can take a 45 minute express train to London King's Cross. From there it's a short walk to work. I take two buses across London, for a one hour trip, door to door.

Getting back to Cambridge was a bit miserable. We didn't want to leave by 6, when the last express trains leave, because we were still talking with our friends. We decided to eat before we left and had a really slow service at a restaurant, then waited for 20 minutes for a bus. I got fed up waiting and said we should walk, and then five minutes later the bus whizzed past us. Around 10:00 we got to the train station, took the 75 minute non-express train.

Taking the late train to London on a weekend is a bit hairy. It's like the drunk bus in a US college town. Lots of kids get on and are rowdy. We moved cars when the girl seated next to us started to vomit. Grrreat.

The next day we got up even earlier and took a 90 minute train to Salisbury. We were going to see...



Stonehenge!

We took a bus ("the stonehenge tour") from the train station and boom, we were there!

There were audioguides.



They were really, um, informative. Basically it said:

We don't know what stonehenge is for
We don't know how they made this thing, but the stones are from 20 miles away, and 200+ miles away.
It wasn't built by the druids. Don't be fooled. They came later.

Somehow they managed to stretch this out to an hour.

As for the stones themselves, they're puzzling. You can't get close to them, there's a roped off path. They look really heavy. Here they are with some crows, so you can get a sense of scale.



It's a relatively remote place. Almost 10 miles outside Salisbury, in a field (with a road running right by). Really windy out there.

There is one thing I liked. There's this rock placed maybe 200 meters outside the circle, and it's left uncarved and put into the earth at an angle, so it looks like its pointing to the circle. Creepy?



Anyway, we also went to see Salisbury Cathedral, which has a really tall spire. Check it out.


No pictures allowed inside. Sorry.

We made it on the 4:30 train, and were home before seven. No drunkies this time, very classy. The Thommandru sisters fell asleep on the ride and I read about physics - it's a shame no one else living in this flat finds them interesting to talk about, cause I am excited about this book. Upon arrival at our flat, we made dinner and watched I Am Legend. The end.

An observation

Matt's always talking about the differences between the US and the UK.

Land of the Free

It's great to be back in our hometown. We know where to buy anything we need, where to eat, where to go to pubs - it's great. We're driving on the right side of the road again, and there are open spaces. Relatively no traffic either.

Still, you can't help but be a little bit affected by time abroad. Here's three things I noticed about America, after having been away for eight months.

1 - We've still got a weight problem. It's obvious and everyone knows it, but it still struck me this time. A lot of people are, well, a bit larger.

2 - We're rich. The country is the richest in the world, and it shows. Everything was just a notch or two nicer than in the UK. Cleaner, newer, more designed. From the hair cut shops to the architecture. And cell phones seem to have caught up, though I can't be sure about that, since mine is the cheapest imaginable, and looks like its the first model developed with a color screen.

3 - Campaigns are way bigger. I just watched Barack Obama's big speech. This must be an area where the stereotypically reserved nature of the British continues to manifest. There is nothing like the American election that happens in the UK. People do not get this excited about candidates. Barack Obama is loved in the UK. He could probably fill a stadium there too (and he practically did in Germany). But no UK politician could.

Tony Blair, in his final, resignation address, said he was 'proud to have served the United Kingdom, the greatest nation on the Earth.' And people just scratched their heads. They were like, "we don't say that kind of thing here." The only people who fly the flags are soccer hooligans. On the way home from Chicago we drove through a small town with a bunch of flags hanging from the lamp posts on main street. Not uncommon here, not done there.

Done and Dusted

Well, Grace's dissertation is pretty much done and dusted. We're going into town this morning to print and bind the thing before we hop on an afternoon flight back to the USA. And I'm completely done with all my freelance work. My most important concern, for the moment, is what the inflight movies will be.

In the US, we'll be in Iowa till September 4. I've never packed lighter. I brought almost nothing to do, not even my laptop. I'm going to just relax and visit with people. It's gonna be great.

On the way back, Grace's sister is coming with us, and we should be getting in Friday morning. We'll do one or two day trips that weekend while she's in town (we're thinking stonehenge), but then I'll have to head back to work.

See (some of you) soon!

Summer In Britain

Get out your coats and scarves! It's August!

Two Things

(Can you tell I'm procrastinating?)

1. Check out this blog, it's about hilarious decorated cakes. I think the funniest ones are the ones where the cake decorator writes something like


Happy birthday
Jimmy
(in green)!


in icing on a cake... in red.

Check out the CakeWrecks Blog here.

Update: This picture should make clear what Grace is getting at.



2. I forgot to mention this earlier but while Matt and I were without internet, we went up to the Highgate Library to use their computers. We tried to check the blog to see if there were any comments. The Highgate Library internet filters blocked out our blog because they've classified it as a pornography site! We clicked the link to contest the classification, but I don't think it's been changed. This is a complete injustice!

Aaaaaauuuuggghhh

I'm sitting in the library at UCL writing my dissertation. I hope to finish the draft today, but I'm not sure I can. This is the first time I've left our flat in three days of constant writing. The sunlight was absolutely blinding this morning.

Four more days until we come home!!!!!!!!!

Visiting the USA from a Foreigner's Perspective

We've finally got the internet and I really should be working on some freelance, which is due Friday, but instead I'm writing a little something here. I lost my whole weekend to freelance work, so I'm finding it difficult to stay on the ball over the week.

Anyhoo, I've been wanting to mention this for a few weeks now.

I'm the only American guy at work, so its interesting to hear everyone's opinion about the land of the free. One thing that came up a lot two weeks ago was how much everyone hates our airport security. Apparently, a bunch of US tourism associations issued a survey to foreigners traveling to America and found that foreigners now fear US immigration and passport people more than terrorists when they are traveling to our country. The people at my office echoed this, saying how, when they get off the plane they get incredibly nervous and have to remind themselves that they haven't actually done anything wrong. They said it's far less stressful getting through customs in Russia than it is in the US. And these guys are Canadians and Europeans, not people from the Middle East. One guy in our sales department is from Lebanon (I think) and he got interviewed for hours apparently. The security people seemed to think it was amazing that a non-terrorist person from Lebanon would try to visit the country. And I remember how some of my other friends went to New York with their families for Christmas. They had to get their fingerprints and photos taken before they could enter the country. Like criminals!

I think its a shame, but these people don't have a Senator they can write to and complain so nobody does anything. In fact, everybody (myself included) is terrified to make a fuss about anything when you're at the airport, since the security people seem to have all sort of power that they can use arbitrarily. By the time you leave, you put it behind you though.


In lighter news, one of our relatives was talking about customs at Dulles International in Washington, D.C. Apparently at this airport, if you arrive on an international flight you are not permitted to leave the airport until you collect your bags and recheck in, and go through security. Let me be clear. This is not an instance where you have to collect your bags and go through security a second time before you can catch a connecting flight. This is an airport where you have to collect your bags and go through security a second time before you can walk out the door and take a cab home. I guess so you don't blow up one of the taxi cabs. My relative said that, because of this rule, Dulles international is perpetually on the edge of full-on riot. These Americans get home after these 8 to 15 hour flights and they just want to get into a car and go home. But then they find they are not allowed to until they go through security. And the yelling starts.

Good times!

If you are interested, there's a pretty funny blog post here about the Kafkaesque trials you must submit to before you can LEAVE the Pakistani capital of Karachi.

Also, I've added a bunch of links to the blog to all the nerdy economic and economic development and foreign policy blogs I'm reading now.

Spotting Number Two

I wasn't going to try new postings, but I had to make it known, especially for Patricia.

Spotting Number Two of Adrian Lukis, Mr. Wickham from the BBC Pride and Prejudice Miniseries:

For context:

This time he came in to Wagamama, a trendy yet cheap chain noodle restaurant, where I was eating with some friends. Matt was still coming to meet us from work, so he did not see him. I was with the same friend as before and she said the woman he was eating with was his daughter.

I just realised how stalker-ish this sounds. I'm not a stalker, honestly, if anything he's stalking me. What business did he have coming into the one Wagamama in the entire city in which I was already eating? Clearly I'm the one being stalked.

I apologise for sounding like a crazy person, my brain is mush from dissertation-writing.