Posts on Life in London
May 14, 2006
Wake up Call
I thought I'd sleep in a little late, being a Sunday and all and all, only to find myself quite mellifluously woken up by this marching band. It beat the hell out of my alarm clock! I jumped out of bed, stood precariously outside my window sill (still half asleep), and just managed to catch it on video. So here it is, my Sunday morning wake up call!
May 12, 2006
One of those days...
What an amazing day... sometimes it's nice when things go your way!
Amazing amazing weather...
A friend I meet (finally) after seven years!
Gopika's computer is OK (phew...!)
Mr. A and Ms. B seem to be getting along with me (sorry, this one is an EC441 insider joke)
Zsofia's birthday brought us together for a couple of drinks this evening...
And to top it up, a yummy green chilli, corriander, and onion omelette dinner with fresh Indian grapes (the best grapes in the whole world) for desert.
Good night world!
Posted by vinayak at 10:57 PM
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May 7, 2006
The Sultan's Elephant
As promised, we made it just in time to catch the very end of the Sultan's Elephant. Poornima (Hatti), PJ, their friend Rene and I made it there at around 5:30 to see the finale and the departure of the rocket, along with thousands and thousands of other Londoners (and visitors)! It was amazing! Some photos and videos are below. The rest of the collection can be foudn on my Flickr collection by clicking here.
The Videos:
Finale:
Departure of the Rocket:
Some photos:
The Sultan's Elephant:
The performers leaving the venue:
Poornima, Yours Truly, PJ at St. James's Park after the hooplah:
PJ, Poornima and random pink haired lady they stopped to take a photo with:
Posted by vinayak at 9:13 PM
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May 6, 2006
Of Sinners and Elephants
Just out of curiosity, how many of you have seen the famous Oxford Circus preacher Phil Howard ("Don't be a sinner... be a winner!")? Apparently he's been doing the rounds in Sydney Australia.
Also in London this week is the Sultan's Elephant, by the famous street theatre company Royal De Luxe ("renowned in three continents but hardly known in Britain"). If you're anywhere near Central London tomorrow and have the time, you have to check it out! Visit the website to see a map of how the play moves through parts of the city! Hopefully I'll get the time to go take some photos!
God I love this city! I'm a winner Phil... I'm a winner!
Posted by vinayak at 11:51 PM
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April 30, 2006
Nuestra comida en casa de Ines y Fernando
With barely a month left before the finals, we thought we'd unwind with a potluck at Ines and Fernando's. It was by far the most relaxing day I've had in ages! Here are some photos from the day out at Wimbledon, and here is the rest of the collection!
The gang: Hande, Sanchari, Nathan, Jin, Timothée, Ziad, Luigi, Marco, Selim, Ines, Stefan, Konrad, Vilma, Fernando, and seated: Burch, Yours Truly, with Fernando (Junior) at the helm. The ace photographer: Fernando (Senior) (everyone's in a weird state of laughter after I excitedly screamed "Gülümseme", which is "Smile" in Turkish)
Timothée putting on an arrogant French pose for the camera: "Je ne m'inquiète pas, mes poumons sont faits d'acier... non... acier français!!!" Tsk tsk... all I have to say is... Quelle dommage!
Vilma, Bernhard (in his usual Churchillian victory mode), and Fernando getting the food ready.
50% of our hosts: Ines (Senior) and Fernando (Senior)
75% of our hosts: Ines (Junior), Ines (Senior), and Fernando (Junior)
Posted by vinayak at 12:19 AM
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March 29, 2006
Winds of change
I have a feeling the Scorpions were walking down a London street when they thought up the song. One of the most beautiful things about living in London (in my humble opinion) are those few days in a year where you get to feel (and see) seasons dramatically change.
If on day zero it's so cold you could shit ice cubes out and then suddenly on day one it rains like crazy and you can barely move one step forward before being hurled ten steps back by the fierce wind... you've just experienced the Winter - Spring interchange day. (Incidentally, this happened two days ago)
If on day zero it's just darn beautiful outside and you feel like dancing to a Hindi movie song at Regent's Park, and then suddenly on day one your underwear is beyond drenched in sticky yucky sweat... you've just experienced the Spring - Summer interchange day.
If on day zero you can barely breathe because your office is in toaster mode, and then suddenly on day one you feel this cold breeze reach inside your pants and envelope itself around your most sacred possessions... you've just experienced the Summer - Autumn interchange day.
And finally... if on day zero you're wearing a scarf and a light sweater while braving the showers, and then suddenly on day one your nipples seem to have made their way to Brighton... you've just experienced the Autumn - Winter interchange day.
Seriously though... it's sad that most of these days happen during vacation time... they really give this city character (in my humble opinion)... does anyone know what I'm saying?
Posted by vinayak at 7:49 PM
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February 24, 2006
Drinks at Pitcher & Piano
Cheryl and I celebrated our birthdays in style this evening at Pitcher & Piano on Kingsway! Since I was really sick on my birthday, I decided to postpone a get together with my buddies from the department. Here are snaps with the MRes gang (just ignore Rex's totally bored look), and the Econ admin gang. Click on the pictures for the rest of the set.
Posted by vinayak at 10:44 PM
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February 15, 2006
Believe me I remember!
"Dear Vinayak, you probably don't remember me but I was in your ....."
"Hey Vinayak... you definitely don't remember but we met ...."
It's really annoying to get messages from people who know you but think they're too insignificant for my old rickety brain to remember. Seriously... it makes me feel really old! My brain still works... I still remember! I swear!
Incidentally, I'm much better now (thanks for all the get well soon notes)... it was an awful ten days but life's back on track!
Ohh... Happy Valentines Day! And if you don't believe in the big V... as Kevin says "It's an excuse for being convivial, I just don't get why people don't want to be convivial." What are the odds Kevin... "convivial" was just the GRE word I was thinking of when I woke up this morning! :)
Posted by vinayak at 12:01 AM
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January 29, 2006
One musketeer short.
I'm not sure how long we can hold the fort without you Ms. Lamba... you'd better get your arse back here the moment you can! I hope the Air India flight (that you complained about for ten whole minutes) was as miserable as I had wished for it to be :)
In the meanwhile, Kevin and I will try and write our Nobel Prize winning paper. Or we'll just mope around. Perhaps the latter.
Posted by vinayak at 1:21 AM
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January 9, 2006
Missing the not so modern world
Centralized fire alarms are an evil evil invention. At 6:30 in the morning (after two alarms sound off in a row), you tend to miss being back home in India.
Posted by vinayak at 6:32 AM
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January 1, 2006
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year from London! I had a great day -- spent the afternoon/evening with my gang from last year (Third photo - Me, Amitoj, Arti, Shruti, Rajesh), and then ended up counting down to the new year at Waterloo Bridge with the usual suspects (Second photo - Nikki, Kevin, Me, Gopika with Sobia as photographer). I even managed to capture the moment on video; if you're feeling down and feel like some absolutely hillarious New Years entertainment (including champagne up my nostrils), check it out! The Appu accents are courtesy Kevin, the shrill lady-like screaming is courtesy me. No... I'm not gay, I had champagne up my nose and up other places, so lay off.
December 18, 2005
Shirin's Day Out
It's time to say goodbye to another member of our extended family here. Shirin is heading back to India on Tuesday, so Madhav and I met up with her this afternoon for lunch and a stroll around Covent Garden. We tried heading out to Africa Centre for some Calabash cuisine, but they were shut so we ended up in Wagamama for some Japanese instead.
Click on the photo for the rest of the photos from our little day out. Christmas is beautiful in London, and if you're rotting away at home/school (squarely targetted at my MRes clan) get out and see the town... it's amazing!
Adios Shirin... and hopefully, you'll be back soon!
December 12, 2005
Down with the flu
The last four days have been miserable. I haven't been this ill (and hence depressed) in a very long time! However, I've been taking the time to update my LaTeX skills, and have decided that all my writing, from scribble notes to working papers will be in LaTeX for the next few months so that I can get a good grasp of the language.
I used the LaTeX excuse to update my Teaching Advice and Exam Advice.
More when I'm better...
Posted by vinayak at 1:37 AM
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November 26, 2005
The ups and downs of satellite TV
Sky has a channel bundle called the "News and Events Mix".
The Upside: The Indian in me gets NDTV 24x7, a popular Indian 24 hour news channel.
The downside: With the bundle comes Fox News. Just knowing it exists on my channel bundle makes me uneasy. They should have included it in the "Entertainment Mix" instead.
Posted by vinayak at 11:05 PM
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September 18, 2005
The perfect end to a perfect summer
This has been one of my best summer vacations ever. Starting with my trip to India, teaching at summer school, working on projects for next year, teaching (again) on the September Course, sneaking trips to the Proms, I've had such a great time! It's a bummer some friends aren't around, but they'll be in soon as well!
Autumn is officially in, but that wasn't before we celebrated the end of summer in grand style. It all started with Nikki calling me to ask if I wanted to go to the Thames River Festival. Kevin had some work to do at the office, so I figured I'd go with Nikki, and then the three of us could go out for dinner or something.
I met the two of them at Holborn Station, and as we were walking down towards LSE, we noticed a lot of activity at the Lincoln's Inn Fields. We strolled down to find an awful lot of policemen and a bus. Busses don't go down that road, so we were freaked out initially. After some keen investigation by the brave one among us (Nikki), we found out that we had stumbled on a location movie set! It gets better, the movie being shot was "The Da Vinci Code", directed by Ron Howard, and staring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou! We didn't see Hanks, but we did catch Audrey, and boy was it worth catching Audrey. She is so, so, *so* hot! We hung out for a while, they were shooting the bus sequence where (according to Nikki) they catch a bus to the library. Ron Howard was there too, and he looked quite busy.
After that exciting bit of action, we (all three of us, Kevin was too charged to go back to work) headed down to Waterloo Bridge where we started walking down the Thames Path. There were lots of shows, including German folk dancers, Japanese Drum dancers, South American pan pipe performances, everything you could imagine and more! The food was great too - there was a vegetarian Indian stall that was making fresh Bajjis and selling Corn on the cob... I think I died and went to heaven about five times. Kevin and Nikki tried their bit of desi Cobra Beer... and we even managed to stop by the Bollywood tent to catch the last of some guy singing "Mast Qalander".
As we were walking down, we bumped into Janak, his roomie Shirin, and his friends from Oxford, Sebastian and Sarah (who are married). Janak decided he wanted to go on the merry-go-round, and finally ended up taking all of us with him (except for Sebastian and Sarah, who volunteered to take photos).
We went back to the festival earlier this evening, to watch the fireworks display. It wasn't remotely as good as last year's was, and lasted less than five minutes. However, I think it's been the perfect end to a perfect holiday... I can't wait to get cracking on my courses this year!
Click here to see all the photos from my Thames River Festival / Da Vinci Code photoset.
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Posted by vinayak at 6:02 PM
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August 27, 2005
Fourteen years later
As you already know, I grew up in Saudi Arabia as a perfect American brat. Back in Saudi, I was a hyper cow. No seriously... I was a really, really hyper cow:
Scene from the weekly parties:
Vinayak, probably five or six years old, arrives. The party goes on code red Pepsi alert - if there's Pepsi anywhere around, they have exactly three minutes to hide it, or face an onslaught equivalent to nuclear decimation. However, there's a newcomer that just came in to Saudi. Vinayak makes a quick mental note and goes in to join the rest of the kids. After a while, he eases into the kitchen when the newcomer is around. He asks politely, "may I have some Pepsi please?" The newcomer is taken aback with such polite manners from a child as young as Vinayak. She is honoured to serve him a beverage as ignoble as Pepsi on the sheer merit of his manners. As she reaches up to the shelf to pull it out, some party regular observes this from the side, and screams out loud. He screams out 'NOOOOOOO' (all of this is in slow motion now), and calls everyone to lunge at the newcomer to stop her from giving Vinayak the Pepsi. Vinayak thinks, "drat... ruined again... idiots!"
As a kid, it was a couple of glasses of Pepsi until I became Nasa-grade rocket propellant material.
You'd imagine babysitting someone as hyper as me would be easy? The task often fell to this one girl... Maya. Maya was about six or seven years older than me, and I adored her for the perfect person she was. She got the best grades, was the object of every junior-high male's mind, and was just the perfect person to want to be when you grew up. Maya's mom was the school nurse, and regularly had to put up with me faking every illness in the book to skip class. Our families were close too, and often, my mom had to hand me over to her for safekeeping! I even learned how to bike on her old (really old) hand me down red girlie bicycle.
Would you believe she studied at the LSE this year, and I had no freaking clue? It was just by chance that Majid, who got to know me from this blog comes up and starts his usual bout of laughing. He says "dude, I can't believe it, but there’s ANOTHER person from Jubail here. And she knows you." So I was like "Huh? Who the hell could this be?" and he just says "Maya." With a little planning, Maya and I caught up for lunch a few days ago. It was SO much fun to meet her after all these years. She's still same in many ways - the smart thoughtful patient quiet person! She's doing a graduate law degree, and will be leaving in a few weeks. However, I'm glad we did manage to meet up, albeit one year late.
How cool is that? Only at the LSE... only at the LSE!
Hopefully I'll show you comparison photos from 1991 and 2005 :) I have to get Sandhya working on getting me the yearbook snaps. Let's see if it works out.
Posted by vinayak at 8:49 AM
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August 22, 2005
Monday morning blues
The summer has finally decided to move its arse southwards... it's an awfully nippy Monday morning... I realised (courtesy Shweta) that I hadn't written anything for over a week... and thats clearly unacceptable!
The 2005 Econometric Society World Congress is under way here in London - Kevin, Anisha, Ziad, Ilze, Ollie are attending/volunteering there. They report that just about everybody who's anybody is at UCL right now. I'm thinking of attending a few Monetary Policy / Inflation seminars, though how exactly I'm not sure :)
Just over a week left until the incoming grad students start up. The September Course this year looks quite different from what we had last year - not necessarily tougher, but more concentrated. If I'm not mistaken, I didn't even study as hard for my exams as I did for the Math camp - the sheer mass of work that needs to be done every day leaves you no choice. Enjoy your ten days while you can - don't bother reading Econ/Math/Stats... just have fun and then see what needs to be done when you get here!
Once you get in / if you're already here, drop by and say hi!
August 13, 2005
Baba Maal at the Proms.
For those of you that haven't had the chance to get to know London, it plays host to what is arguably the world's biggest classical music festivals, called the Henry Wood Promenade, or the "Proms" for short. This year, the 110th in it's history, Baba Maal, one of Africa's most gifted musicians, is performing at the Royal Albert Hall (where most of the Proms are held). You can catch it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/listen/ for upto a week after the event!
Baba Maal and his band can put together spectacular shows, and his concerts are always fun to listen to - there's this very personal touch to it that I can't explain easily. It makes you feel like you're in the heart of the Sahara, and it's just after dinner, where everyone unwinds around the bonfire, and dances to folk tunes.
Enough said, give it a listen! If you're in London, make sure to catch some of the other Proms - theres another month left! They're only four pounds if you want to stand in the arena, or relax in the gallery.
August 7, 2005
My arse is grass
After a year of deliberating, Herr Krabbenhoeft and I made our way down to the Elephant and Castle area to buy a 2nd hand bike for my cushy tushy. I've been meaning to do this forever, and I had been indecisive about the idea. Now that I'm moving into halls next month (oh... I don't think I've mentioned this earlier... I'll come around to it later), I figured it was a good time to buy a bike.
After buying it, Kevin and I walked down to Butler's Wharf, rode back down the Thames and London Bridge to my place, and then went back to Butler's Wharf to celebrate Anupama's birthday, and then I rode back. Thats about 9 kilometers of cycling on my debut. It was amazing! What normally takes around an hour by bus (or unless you have a nice bus driver drop you home... oh wait... that happened to me!) took 20 minutes!
However, as you would naturally understand, certain regions of my humble physiological being are rather sensitive and tender at this time.
As always, when my ass starts hurting, you're the first to know, and you found out right here. I strive to provide my small following of readers the very best in reporting... even if my ass is the only thing worth talking about.
What the hell am I saying?
Posted by vinayak at 10:05 PM
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August 4, 2005
The nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.
We had a potluck at Butler's Wharf today. Kevin, Nikki, Monica, Seddik, Anupama, and Anushri joined us. I put together a humble tamarind rice, but that was easily outdone by Anushri's intergalactically awesome Dal, and Anupama's first class Ben and Jerry's contribution. Nikki did the Houmous refills with the grace of an Egyptian belly dancer! Kevin, whose arse is firmly buried inside his summer job actually had time to spare as well! In all, a wonderful evening...
But it gets better! Monica and I took the 188 bus from Tower Bridge Road back to Holborn station. On the way, we found a 168 behind us and switched busses - the 168 goes straight home for Monica, and goes to within a second bus home for me. As we approached the Blackfriar's/Aldwych turning, I didn't think of getting off and missed a bus stop that was closer to home than Holborn station.
So I went up to the driver and asked him, "are you taking this left turn?"
The driver says, "yes, but I can go straight. Where do you live?"
I say, "Holborn Circus" (which is orthogonal to his route!)
He says, "Oh I can go that way and drop you off."
I say, "". (That's right... i just didn't know what to say...)
And so, this most radical bodacious gnarly bus driver diverted his big red double decker full of people to drop me within a 2 minute walk of my house. I felt like a King... no... I felt like a Nobel Prize winning Economist. No wait... I felt like a King. It just felt frickin awesome. The best part - I have a witness... it really happened - ask Monica!
That's what makes London amazing. Thanks a lot Mr. 168 - this is something I'll NEVER forget!
Someone up there is making my dreams come true. I can't tell you the number of times I've dreamt of a big red bus dropping me off right in front of my house.
Move along... the show's over.
Posted by vinayak at 11:28 PM
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July 31, 2005
whiling my summer away
I've been trying to keep myself busy this month... ever since I got back from India I've been working away on a lot of things! The biggest time demands come from teaching summer school, which (if you remember from my posts last year as a student of summer school) can be quite an ordeal to everyone involved! I'm teaching Introductory Micro this summer, and it's a lot of fun given the varied backgrounds that students come from during summer school!
I've also been taking a dab at helping out with some research work. One of the best things with research, especially if it is in something you enjoy but isn't your primary field, is that you get to learn a lot in a short period of time. Dynamic Macro has always been my favourite, but monetary has always held me a little more than other parts of the field. Reading up and working on growth has been an exciting opportunity, and I guess it helps me reaffirm my choice of primary field.
And yes, I did read Freakonomics. A lot of people gave it a bashing, but I have to say that it was good to read. Much of it seems obvious after you read it, but to come up with stuff like that, and to actually sit down and ask (as well as answer) such mundane and seemingly idiotic questions takes some wizardry!
The rest of my summer book list includes:
1. Longitude, by Dava Sobel
2. The Bookseller of Kabul, by Asne Seierstad
3. Recursive Methods in Economic Dynamics, by Stokey Lucas and Prescott
4. Local, by Jaideep Varma
5. A Term at the Fed, by Laurence Meyer
6. 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, by Patricia Schultz
7. LaTeX: A Document Preparation System (2nd Edition), by Leslie Lamport
8. The Broker, by John Grisham
9. The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky
Hope everyone else is having a fun summer. Keep me posted on what's up. If anyone joining LSE this coming year has already landed up in London, drop in sometime! I sit my arse at S-383.
July 18, 2005
oh nothing really
Now that I'm back in London and Dick Cheney's colon is okay, I thought I'd quickly describe the situation at LSE. Its the annual summer school invasion! Last year, when I was a summer school student, I didn't notice exactly how much chaos we bring to the tranquililty that LSE offers during the summer. This year, as someone trying to get work done, it comes as quite a surprise.
Now now, I'm not annoyed, I'm just jealous. When I look out of my window and find people mingling around having a good time, just about every part of me feels like rushing out of the office head on!
Ziad, a regular visitor to this depressing site, dropped in to see me today. It was great meeting someone who makes me feel unenergetic. To Ziad, rocket propellant is something of an antiquated way to fuel motion. I really enjoyed catching up with him - it reassures me that there are others as derangedly enthusiastic as I am about the things we're passionate about, although Ziad and I do differ on what our bowels find troubling.
See, I KNEW all this writing would come in handy some day!
In other news Kerry offers yet more excellent commentary on that brown goo we all love to hate.
July 14, 2005
Year two in London!
I got back last night... to racial profiling at the airport, and racial abuse on the streets. Looks like its going to be a tough few weeks for anyone with brown skin until London gets its character back together! Until then, my suggestion is just ignore the abuse! You really DONT want to be adding to the problem by being the blithering idiot that they're labelling you to be!
Posted by vinayak at 8:58 AM
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July 7, 2005
Is everyone okay?
What a horrible, horrible day. The fact that the probability of me being at any of those places if I were in London is statistically significant upsets me the most. So far, everyone I was able to reach is okay. However that is an statistically insignificant number of people in comparision to the total number of people I'm worried about.
I would really appreciate it if you guys could take the time to leave a comment or email me and let me know that you're okay. Students, staff, everyone... drop a note. It really makes a difference to hypertensive paranoid Indians like me.
Posted by vinayak at 12:32 PM
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June 14, 2005
At Guanabara (and a mild dull pain)!
On Nikki's birthday, about twenty of us landed up at Guanabara, this really snazzy Brazilian joint in Holborn. The Cheesebread was good, the live band stupendous, and Monetary Economics was forgotten for a night. Note to the Vinayak from the future: On this fateful day I left my keys inside the house and got locked out. Again. If you ever do something as stupid as this, make sure its not on a Jewish extended weekend so that your landlord isn't around to bail your butt out for five continous days. Emergency locksmiths cost 200 pounds at current prices, and inflation isn't expected to help ease that dull, mild pain in your arse. Vinayak from the future, avoid being locked out of your house, it can be a nasty experience. Even if you have amazing friends who let you stay over during exam time on short notice, that mild dull pain won't go away so easily. End note.
Nikki's Birthday
June 10, 2005
So long... and thanks for all the fish!
Now I'm not particularly your average social animal. However, I would have NEVER figured that I knew so many people who took my course, or that so many of them knew me! This evening at the London Aquarium (where we had our Econ Department farewell) was absolutely amazing!
Having spent an entire year here at the LSE, I really felt sad this evening to have to say goodbye to so many friends that I made along the way. From the gang that I survived Math Hell Camp with, to guys who are still cramming for the exam some of us still have to write next week... it felt so amazing to be around some of the smartest, most warm people I have ever met. It also was a day where you met people you have seen almost every day, but never bothered to introduce yourself to. People who (as I found out) could have lived in the same little hamlet that you might have grown up in... in Saudi Arabia. To talk about my kiddy days with someone who lives in the same neighbourhood that my mom spent a week squelching out my younger brother is just amazing. Its surreal.
Incidentally, its also interesting to notice that so many of you from my batch have come by this website. I'm happy that I provided you with cheap entertainment when the times were low. Make sure you pay me back for all this ugly crap by keeping in touch with me, wherever you might be. Most importantly, if you're in London this summer or next year, drop me a line and look me up!
If I can find the people who took photos from the party, I'll post them here later!
Posted by vinayak at 11:56 PM
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