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!