One one things

I took a bet with a friend that i’d finish my dissertation by the 14th of this month. I lost. I think this is fairly good proof that i’m not cut out to do a PHD or what not bc I simply lack the academic discipline required for such an endeavour. I’ve had about 9 months to write 10000 words, and that really is piss easy, specially when its a topic of your choice. But I’ve managed to keep putting it off and now i’ve got about 10 days to go for the deadline. I’ve done about 4500 but I’m still finding numerous excuses to do other things. My ability to do academic work has been on the decline for a while now. In school teachers used to love me, I worked hard, didn’t disrupt the class, got good grades and was generally nerdy. I think I peaked at OL’s, where everyone goes crazy and studies bc its the first public exam. Luckily in my year we didn’t have this AS level nonsense and had the whole of lower 6th to arse around. And arse around I did. I did literally no work during first term and almost failed my termly maths exam. (Lots of ppl did quite poorly, I remember the following conversation across the classroom)

Bugger 1: Ado you bugger, how much did you get?
Bugger 2: Not too flash you bugger, managed 15%
Bugger 1: Woohooo!! kicked your ass!! 16%!!

I could not be bothered taking my finger out till sometime in the middle of upper 6th. My mother claims that my econ teacher told her during a parent teacher thingy that he thinks I’ve got a crisis of faith. I still think that’s bollocks. I got my conditional uni offer which was 3As so I had to sort something out. Until then I completely struggled to motivate myself, I really needed to feel the noose tighten.

The same story continued in uni, I completely bummed around through 1st and 2nd years and woke up in the middle of Hilary term in final year and started to work. And again during masters. I didn’t work for the whole year, barely made it out of the house in 2nd and 3rd term and almost screwed up my exams. The week before my exams I went to Bristol for a Googoodolls gig, 2 days before my first paper I went to Oxford for a friend’s final exam party, resulting in being unable to work at all the day before the exam. The night before my first paper I felt what exam pressure was about for the first time. I knew about 40% of the syllabus and I panicked big time around 3am. Each time I looked at my notes my mind went blank, and I was forgetting the few things that I knew. I paced back and forth, palms sweaty, throat dry. I drank lots of water, pissed a lot and slept for a couple of hours. When I woke up I felt a bit better, and could actually remember a few things, but I knew deep down that I had a fairly good chance of completely messing this up. The paper went surprisingly ok. I had 2 very doable questions and one bluffable one, bless social sciences. The other two exams were ok as well, (despite going to Southampton to see Bon Jovi 2 days before my second exam) and I have a hunch that I got away with murder. (I still didn’t get my results so I won’t know till after my dissertation). I thought to myself at that time that i’ll not repeat that mistake for my diss, that i’ll work 3 hours a day, every day during summer and get through the diss with plenty of time to spare. But that doesn’t look like it’ll happen.

It’s not a great feeling to know that you could have taken a better stab at things. I know that whatever happens on the 31st of August the guys in uni will not be seeing my best effort. The same applies to my June exams. I know that I could have done this really well if I wanted to, and that’s a pretty poor effort on my part. I think it stems from a degree of over-confidence. I’ve always thought that I could do almost anything that I set my mind on, but clearly that’s gone a bit too far on this occassion. I also need to work on my self discipline. On the other side of the coin, my apathy may stem from knowing how pointless this whole exercise is. In all probability I will pass this, get my masters and in 5 years time not give half a shit about how well I did my dissertation and my exams. It’s all a means to an end. So I’m hoping that once I find something I really want to do, and am really passionate about, I just might not fudge it and muck about. The question now is what that thing is. More on that later. Right now i’m listening to Mozart and staring at the ceiling. Things have clearly gone pear shaped.

I woke up very feeling very antsy this morning. It probably has something to do with my dream that there were bears outside the house and the windows were open. I also dreamt that I was a five year old boy working in a street shop with my ex-military father who was paranoid that ppl were out to get us. One day he saw a hidden camera on the tree in front of our shop and said, “putha, get my shotgun, they’ve been filming us all along”. Thankfully I woke up and didn’t have to find out the outcome of that one. The building has stopped next door and our new neighbours have moved in. I know this bc their baby started shouting early morning. The father’s warning was ominous, “The noise from the building will stop in a couple of weeks, but once we move in I can’t guarantee silence from the baby”. He obviously hasn’t heard of gags.

Anyway I’m trying to lead a balanced life from now. Splitting my time between doing some useful revision and ploughing my way through the big bad essay (dissertation) whilst leaving room for some London fun. I’ve had a deficiency of testosterone of late. Well not exactly my own testosterone but that of others. That sounds terrible. Anyway, point is i’ve not had much male company over the last few months and there were some worrying signs developing. I’ve begun to notice things like girls’ shoes, accessories and make up including the finer points of mascara, to such an extent that my opinion is sought on the compatibility between attire and accessories on certain occassions. I once caught myself saying “Good lord no, not that handbag with that lipstick!” All very butch of course. So it was not with a small amount of joy that I discovered that a school friend of mine was back in London looking for employment.

Last weekend a couple of other school friends were in town so we all met up for some fun and frolic. First things first so we went to some Arabic place in Edgware road for some lunch and shisha. Edgware Road is another example of London’s variety. This part of town is very Middle East/ North African with lots of restaurants serving food from that part of the world. In the night the cafes spill on to the road and groups of men dressed in Arab attire sit around a Hookah puffing away with tea or coffee in a glass waiting to be sipped. The shops are also generally brighter and shinier in typical Middle Eastern style, Arab music drifts across the road and the wonderful aroma of shisha wafts into your nostrils beckoning you to the closest hookah. The population haunting Edgware rd is primarily of Middle Eastern origin so you get a lot more women in full Hijab and men in Arab clothing too, and they all appear to be quite laid back in their approach to most things. Service is no exception here, the mandatory wait for a shawarma is about 35 mins, regardless of whether it has been pre-cooked. But I never really mind bc it’s hard not to be relaxed with some shisha, a comfy couch and leisurely conversation. That’s pretty much the theme for the entire length of the main road and then you turn the corner and you’re in Marble Arch, a different world in the same City, that’s London for you.

Today there was an amusing incident with a waiter, a yoghurt drink and mistaken FOB identity. On the menu card there was something called yoghurt drink with it’s arabic name printed next to it. The following ensued.

Me: Turkish coffee please
Friend: I’ll have the yoghurt drink
Friend (pointing to arabic name): How do you say the word?
Waiter: Yo-gh-urt dr-ink, you pronounced it quite well actually.

Hilarity of course. Both Turkish coffee and yoghurt drink were quite terrible. The coffee was like a double espresso with lots of spices in it and the yoghurt drink, well the less said the better. It was much like the liquidy layer that forms over a pot of curd. It reminds of another day when my friend tried to order a Lamb Liver Shawarma, the waiter didn’t understand him so my friend pointed at the menu, and the waiter goes “ahh chicken?”, my friend just shrugged and agreed to the deal. Food is food after all. But the food on Edgware road is a secondary attraction, the main event is shisha. It is possibly the nicest thing to smoke. Whenever I have shisha it feels like my nose has developed taste buds and that I can smell the sweet taste. It’s incredibly relaxing and soothing, except rose water flavour which is crap. Grape, apple and Strawberry are the solid bets. That cafe was strange though, they had hip Arabic music but the music video playing on the big screen was a soft-pornesque Danni Minogue flick. Worryingly there was a shotgun attached to the wall, but reassuringly it looked like it hadn’t been used since a 12th Century Jihaad.

We decided to watch The Producers in Covent Garden so had to kill time till around 6.30 so we walked around the West End and thought it’s about the right time to see what this Soho place is really like, with no ulterior motives, purely explorational. I always see signs pointing in its direction but have never gone there. The signs were rather misleading, and it took a good half hour of meandering between dodge alleys to see the first indication that we had arrived, Licensed Sex Shop. As my friend pointed out, it was a classic case of Parangaya Soho giya. Whilst keeping a weary eye out for the upstairs windows, where there are rumoured to be scantily clad females beckoning customers to join them, we walked around trying not to look too suspicious. Soho isn’t all its made out to be, at least not at 5 in the evening, and we ambled off. We decided to muck about in a pub until it was time for the show, but after going in we discovered that it wasn’t really a pub but a restaurant disguised as a pub. And a pricey one at that. We split a bottle of the house white, ate the carrots that had been laid out as a nibble and when they asked if we’re ready to order we said we’ll just step out and come back, which naturally we never did. Oh but we did pay. That said, the restaurant looked very good, it was designed for pre and post show goers and the decor was made to resemble a stage set. It could potentially have been very tacky but they had managed to pull it off very well indeed. It’s on Drury Lane just next to the Producers.

Unfortunately the Producers wasn’t doing student discount that day so we decided to watch an average stand up comedy in Leicester Sq. instead. I was coerced into having a couple of pints of beer despite my lifelong contempt of what I call glorified cowpiss. But one must give everything a fair trial, and unfortunately for brewers the world over, the beer failed to give me anything apart from a bloated stomach and very unpleasant burps. We got home late that night and fell asleep half way through The 40 year old virgin. But a good day of much needed testosterone.

P.s. Happy birthday Murali!!

I was rudely awoken this morning by the drilling and hammering next door. We seem to have bad luck with houses this year, first dead boilers (I dreamt last night that the boiler in our new place had broken, I am truly scarred) and now building next door. The unfortunate thing is the guy who owns the place seems a lovely fellow and is so apologetic that I don’t have the heart to show him my wrath. The builders themselves are Eastern European so it’s a bit tough to get through to them. My sign language skills have been tested and by the looks on their faces i don’t think i’m getting too far with it. Might have to resort to a single finger extended vertically. It’s funny how when speaking to ppl whose command of English is less than perfect, your own use of language also deteriorates. I catch myself saying things like “drilling lot of noise, sleep very difficult, drilling stop”. Sounds like a telegram.

So this goes on between nine and five, and that is fair enough as these are regular working hours and most ppl are out of the house. Only slacker students like me will be bumming around at home. But come 5 O clock the drilling stops, and there’s an uneasy silence. And then it starts. Europop. I tried to decide which I prefer, pre-pubescent Latvian girls doing a dodgy imitation of the vengaboys or post-pubescent Polish men drilling to the tune of she’ll be coming round the mountain, and i couldn’t so i just left the house for most of the day.

With this very invalid excuse for not working I did a bunch of touristy things in London. I spent ages in Covent Garden watching the street theater which is really good. I particularly liked the crazy Jamaican limbo dancer who managed to limbo under a stick balanced on just two bottles side by side. I’m sure he was inspired by “Feeling hot hot hot” playing on his little radio. The crazy tattooed guy who juggled the apple with two machetes was also a hit. More than what he did it was the whole act and his witty banter that made it really entertaining. The two middle aged guys in suits who did a double act were probably the most amusing bc they have an excellent sense of humour and despite some of the jokes being rehearsed it was quite apparent that a lot of it was adlib. The shows are free but you are expected to drop in a quid or two into the performers hat at the end of the show, and they make sure that the cheap skates who try to free ride are ridiculed sufficiently. The finishing line of the tattooed guy is “Drop in one or two quid, if you’re rich 20 quid, if you’re a tourist 50 quid, if you’re Australian..I understand”.

I also dropped into some of the nice markets in London. Portobello market in Notting hill is very nice despite the crowds on a Saturday. After crawling through a mass of American and European accents I managed to get a glimpse of some of the shops. These line the street and sell mainly “antiques”, the authenticity of many of which I can’t guarantee. I could have sworn that I saw a sign saying “antiques made to order” but then that may have been a figment of my imagination. There are also some amazingly cheap CD shops. They sell 4 for a tenner and they appear very authentic. I got myself a copy of the Lion King London musical soundtrack and have now taken to singing it aloud to scare the tourists. My favourite part of Notting hill is the farmer’s market where they have loads of fresh veggies, fish and butchers. Few things give me more pleasure than fish shopping. After much fussing about, sniffing and head scratching we decided to get some French Sea Bass and Sea Brine. The former was steamed after being marinated in lemmon, fish sauce, french dressing and vinegar. It was divine. The latter was baked but I think it’ll be better curried. We got some squid too which we had as a snack, beautifully batter fried by my housemate, another experiment that turned out very well. A different stall was selling splendid looking Italiany stuff. Too much choice can be bad for you, specially on menus and in food stalls. It took at least ten minutes to decide which 4 things to buy and finally decided on some artichokes bathed in olive oil, an excellent pesto of black olives, anchovies and capers, a variety of mushrooms marinated in olive oil and spices and some feta cheese, topped off with some fresh ciabatta bread. Santa Maria.

On another day I quite randomly walked into a massive second hand book market in Southbank. Book markets are another source of endless joy for me, I tend to spend hours and hours at them. As one would expect the quality of book varies greatly, you get some very ordinary stuff like “How to get rid of worms: fast” but if you can be bothered and have the time, there are bound to be some excellent finds. I was lucky enough to find a book that i’ve been looking for for ages, “In Xanadu” by William Dalrymple. Some time ago I wrote very briefly about “The Age of Kali” by the same writer, “In Xanadu” is his first book. The guy was a student in Cambridge when he decided to mimic the journey of Marco Polo from Jerusalem to Xanadu, the summer palace of Kubla Khan. I’m only a few pages into the book but it’s tremendously interesting and rich so far and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of it. This sort of book frustrates me bc I can barely organize a trip to one or two countries in Europe let alone a trip across one or two continents. I need to get my act together before the academic year, and my student life ends.

And finally we have moved. I spent the better part of last weekend shifting my life from North London to a more central area. A new flat where hot water runs from taps, where the raditors emit heat, where boilers work. Gone are the days of kettle heated baths, of pissing icicles and of standing near the fridge whose 4 degrees is an oasis of warmth. The electric heaters brought some solace, but they didn’t have a chance against the freezing conditions outside. It’s been a tough term. Had someone told me that I had to live in a house without heating or hot water through January and February, I would have asked him what he’s smoking. And I’d have asked him to give me some of that shit if I really had to go through with it. But looking back, it wasn’t all that bad. I mean, it wasn’t fun by any stretch, but we got used to it. It’s amazing how well human beings adapt to situations and learn to make the best of what is available. You just got to bite the bullet and get on with life.

Living with two girls is fun. For one there’s an endless supply of Cosmo and other magazines which provide a perfectly legitimate excuse to look at girls in lingerie, and learn other useful things like “10 ways to make her scream” (and there I was expecting some appropriately scary pranks). That said, it has its disadvantages. I had to do the bulk of the heavy-duty lifting when it came to suitcases, desks, cupboards etc. during the shifting process. Whilst I was carrying a massive desk up the stairs I quietly cursed everyone who was working out at the time. They ought to be helping me, not lifting weights for the fun of it, bloody time eating devils. Don’t join a gym, help somebody shift house, now there’s a business.

On Saturday the moving van came home and we finally packed away the last bits of our life. The journey was uneventful until we came towards Hyde park where there was a massive traffic block bc of some parade. The driver and I didn’t exchange much conversation all this time, mainly bc I was too tired to say anything. He then received a phone call and said, “434?! Is it a one day game?? Faaarking hell.” Shit shit, I thought, our record. I asked him to clarify and he said that Aussie had scored 434-4 against South Africa, a new world record team score. We spent the next 40 mins or so talking about cricket, it’s very rare to see an Englishman so fascinated by the game. His knowledge was very impressive too, he knew about the Sri Lankan team and even about the not so prominent guys like Malinga Bandara. It was amusing to find that he had the same problem as I when it came to bowling leg breaks, we both end up producing only googlies and toppies. With an average male in India, Sri Lanka or Pakistan such a conversation would be expected, but in England with a young white Englishman, it was truly surprising. He took my phone number and invited me to play for his club up in Mill hill. We ended the day comparing our bowling actions on the main road, run-up and all.

We didn’t move all the furniture so more DIY was in order. My early attempts at DIY were an utter failure. I fixed a toilet seat in our previous flat which towards the end of its tenure wobbled like an octopus on skates. At least I learned to shake that booty. My flatmate’s bedside table ended up with half its drawers collapsed and the legs of her table clearly had the hibbery jibberies. So I wasn’t looking forward to doing the same again, specially after all that lifting. After much fuss we set about it, and fixed up a TV stand, 2 desks and a couple of storage boxes. Not a bad effort at all, they all seem in pretty good condition. DIY isn’t all bad once you get the hang of it. But that’s what I said last time. As my wobbly ass reminds me.

Half way through the DIY process I get a text from the moving van dude (I never quite caught his name, though moving van dude would be a good name for a dutch baby) saying that South Africa was 270 odd for 3 in under 30 overs, and that they had a chance of winning. I scoffed and went back to work with the hammer. A couple of hours later I get another text saying they won it off the last ball. I was in a state of shock, I had just missed the greatest ODI ever. The next day I went and watched the highlights at a friend’s place and came off in a stupor. So many of our inhibitions and constraints are in our mind. Almost anything is possible if you put your mind to it and if you want it bad enough or if you really really have to. We lived through an English winter without heating or hot water, South Africa chased 434 in 50 overs. Common sense would suggest both are near impossible, and that entertaining such thoughts would be stupid. But the human will is something that is insurmountable. Well done RSA, take a bow. Well done us.

I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to pull an all-nighter, it’s been so long since i’ve done one. The last couple of weeks have been excessively hectic bc finally all my slacking has caught up with me and end of term papers have begun rearing their ugly heads. I just finished my first presentation over here and it went alrite I thought, except the part of having to work like a biatch to get it done. It’s a massive topic, explanations of the collapse of the global economy during the interwar years, also it’s really hard to structure a nice coherent answer. Presentations for IPE are done between two ppl, and I was sharing the burden with a Nordic dude who reminds me lots of that backstreetboy who used to have the mushroom haircut (I know his name but i’m trying to be cool by acting oblivious). Annoyingly the Nordy had already got a good knowledge of the issue in his Monetary class so he had an advantage in splitting the question. He took the mainstream view and I had to fill in the gaps and try to explain the anomalies. Bugger.

So the past week i’ve been buried in early 20th Century political economy literature and surprisingly enough it’s been mildly interesting. We tend to underestimate the power of history a lot. There are an infinite number of lessons to be learnt and the advantage of hindsight is one of the nicest things to have, I must edit my letter to Santa and see what he can do. Several years down the line ppl will look through history books and pass judgements upon us the way that we pass judgements on the past. I was reading about economic policy in the interwar goldstandard years and thinking what a bunch of thick gits, sticking to a fixed exchange regime and raising interest rates while in an economic downturn. Historians in the future will probably look at SL’s recent election and have a good chuckle. But even worse, they’ll laugh at our dress sense and hair-dos (or don’ts), like the way we laugh at the ’80s, they’ll laugh at our taste in music, well some of us laugh at it right now. I do hope they have some good things to say about us too.

Anyway work moved on until last night when around 9pm I realised that I hadn’t even finished my reading, and I still had to organize my notes into a coherent structure. 12 hours to go. I had a midnight snack later on, topped up with coffee, by this point I had just finished reading the last paper and begun giving structure to that haphazard bunch of scribbles. It’s usually around this time that the urge to play Hearts and Minesweeper and have a chat on MSN are most pertinent, I tend to indulge every 20mins or so. Speaking of Hearts, the programmer deserves a pat on the back, almost everytime I try to shoot the moon the computer players seem to double guess me, I have no idea how it’s done, amazing. Around 2 I ran into a crisis and had to re-read a large chunk of a paper by a guy called Horowitz, as far as I’m concerned he was on about a bunch of cock that I could make no sense out of. But I had to work my way through it bc this particular tutor loves to grill. And you can’t dodge with him, he doesn’t let up until either you admit failure or you come up with something fully baked. But I finally finished around 5.30 in the morning leaving me a little over an hour and a half of sleep. But that’s quite pointless bc as soon as my head hit the pillow arguments were running through my head, questions, potential answers, nearest windows to jump out of, they all appear at once. I didn’t have time to dream, soon as I hit REM i hear the worst sound in the world, my alarm. Put snooze for what was supposedly 5 mins but I could swear someone changed it to 5 seconds. Up and about by 7.15, out of the house by 7.30, still pitch black and freezing, and I forgot my scarf and gloves. Bugger.

Get to the library, make a whole heap of photocopies of my presentation, I couldn’t be bothered doing powerpoint bc at 5am I just didn’t have the energy. Walked early into class, must be some kind of record, and I was feeling quite awake. It’s the last IPE class for the term so attendance is abysmal. The tutor ambles in and makes a B line towards me and says; “Hey, you know that Nordy isn’t coming right?” The bastard. He’s bailed on me. Never trust a Scandinavian. Thankfully he said that he’ll look after Nordy’s part of the presentation and that I can go ahead with mine. So I went ahead and it went alrite despite the fact that I was relying on Nordy’s paper to give my arguments some form of structure and template. The first question I was asked was if I was trying to answer a question, which is a bit embarassing bc I’ve just spent half an hour giving an answer. But to be fair it was just a haphazard bunch of theories with a semblance of empircal justification attached to them. I got through the grilling reasonably alrite so I walked home rather content. It’s a mara pretty day, shame that i’m going to spend the better part of it catching up on my REM. Two more essays due by this Friday. Bugger.

Thought for the day: If it is my human right to be able to work in Colombo, Kandy or Jaffna as I please, why is it not my human right to work in London, New York or Adis Ababa as I please?

Woe is me, I am ill. And in a rather foul mood to boot. The road next to our house has been under perpetual repair and today again the silly buggers in the yellow hats are drilling away. I can feel my sinuses throbbing to a vaguely similar beat, not a good sign. Last night I thought that my teeth are finally beginning to give way. After 21 years of neglect, dodgy toothbrushes, cheap toothpaste, lot’s of coca cola, coffee and cigars, it is probably about time. One of my lower incisors began to pain a bit, and feel sensitive to heat and coolness. My childhood dentist, uncle Jiffrey, would shake his head and say that he told me so. But once again they are proved wrong, I realised that my teeth act funny soon as I get a clogged sinus, nothing to do with depleted dental health. Ha. That should buy me another few years away from that dental surgery, shudders.

I blame my ill health on the weather in this God forsaken country and the fact that our boiler, Henry, had passed away until this morning. Henry is an utter pain in the arse. From the moment we walked into this house he’s been giving trouble, always trippin’ the fuse, shuddering, blinking it’s lights of multiple colours and giving me a headache every time. Finally on Friday it gave up the ghost and decided to leak. And when Henry leaks it pours. Had to keep a bucket to collect all the water, I thought Henry was going to explode when it huffed and puffed a bit more and quietly passed away. Great, a weekend without hot water or heating. Just to double check I had to go and take a look at the gas meter which is inconveniantly placed just under the neighbours window. The last time I was checking it the window opened and a lady popped her head out and asked “Excuse me sir, may I help you?” I politely declined and she said “Oh, do pardon me, there have been a few break ins and I was worried”. I was slightly taken aback, I mean, is that how you’d address a suspected thief? Excuse me sir can i help you? In SL if there was a dodgy looking bugger (and I looked plenty dodgy that day, unshaven, squatting with my sarong tucked up ammuday style) under your window you’d be reaching for the mole gaha. British politeness, I tell you.

So I called British Gas who kindly said that my contract has expired and asked if my name is Fernando. After a bit of gawking and hyperventilating they said sorry sorry small kachal, contract is all good. Good! I wasn’t about to pay a plumber 65 quid for an hour of poking around only to say “Sorry guv’ your boiler’s knackered” and walk off. Anyway this morning the Brit gas dudes came in and sorted it out, Henry is back in action, for the moment. At least I have a decent excuse to cut my tute, though I do have a book that has been recalled by the library and they won’t be too thrilled with me for not bringing it back. I’m going to have to put a sob story and cough violently in their faces to convince them that I was sufficiently deincapicitated.

My mood was uplifted last night when I watched Nevermind the Buzzcocks. That is undoubtedly the funniest show on Brit television, Mark Lamarr is simply hilarious as host. Nobody really cares about the points and who wins, the idea is just to get in as many laughs as is possible within half an hour. The format is as follows. There are 2 teams of 3, each team has a standing member who shows up every week, both fairly ugly chaps, and 2 celeb guests on each team. There are 4 rounds of questions, in the first round each team has to spot the commanality between two musicians. Yesterday it was Rick Astley and AC/DC. Tough one. The answer was that both artists had their music played on loudspeaker as part of an attempt to drive a dictator out of his house in Lebanon (I think). Second round 2 players have to mimic the music in a song and the 3rd player has to guess the song. In the third round they pick a member of an ancient (70s/80s) inconspicuous band and put him in a identity parade with 5 randoms and the teams have to pick the correct bugger. The identity parade is a laugh a minute, they take the absolute mick out of the ppl in the parade and they have to all keep a straight face during the process. In the fourth round Lamarr reads the first line in a song and the teams have to say the second line. 90% of the show is made up of Mark Lamarr taking the piss out of the contestants and the subjects of the questions, even the contestants are invariably funny and the whole show is a good workout for those abs.

Last weekend was fabulous but I’ll write about it when i’m feeling more upto it, went for a Dali exhibition and Stomp the musical, marvellous stuff.

Thought for the day: When a woman sells her body she’s a prostitute, when a man sells his mind he’s a consultant.

On friday evening I went back to the place I consider to be my second home. If ever Sri Lanka goes under water and England drifts a bit closer to the equator, I will gladly live in Oxford. It was my convacation on Saturday, a good 17 months after I passed out of university, so I had to make the short 90 mins journey up there with my parents on Friday evening. We stayed at the Head of the River hotel on Abingdon road, about 2 mins from the house I lived in during 3rd year, just by the Cherwell river. On friday we were all quite tired and my parents were jetlagged so they ate and slept early. After dinner I went up to Cowley road which is on the other side of town and where most of the students live. Cowley has loads of character and eating houses with food ranging from polish (try their zupy), jamaican, vietnamese, cambodian, thai, bangladeshi (they royally food poisoned me though), japanese and lebanese. I met up with two of my old housemates and went to a couple of bars, Joes and The Globe to have cocktails (I had something called Pimms something something, it resembled Kola Kenda and tasted similar, but nevermind that) and chatter. I couldn’t visit Oxford without having a kebab from Hassan’s van on Broad street outside Trinity, chips, cheese and chicken meat with chillie and garlic sauce, you can’t beat it. After several hours I took a cab back to the hotel around 2 and got to bed. The Head of the River is a nice place by English hotel standards, it costs 95 a night for a double room and is well located by the river where most of the University rowing takes place in Trinity (summer) term. The hotel is a pub as well, serving pretty decent food, they have good comfy beds and lovely bathrooms (with thermostatically controlled showers!).

The next morning I was up at 8 to pick my brother up from the rail station, he got a bit delayed so I decided to buy High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and a cup of coffee and settled down to wait for him. All of us had to be in my old College by 11am for the initial preparations for the ceremony, and that meant getting ready a lot earlier to get into Sub Fusc. The Sub Fusc is standard academic dress in Oxford, it consists of white shirt, black trouser, dark socks, black shoes, white bow tie, coat, academic gown and mortar board. I discovered that I had brought only one sock so I had to borrow thaththi’s extra pair and we headed off. I had a bit of nervous excitement in me, it felt like I was being examined and I didn’t want to mess up. Something in me said that there is a little something a miss. But it was nice to be back in College, loads of memories came flooding back, coming in for enrolment, walking into the JCR for the first time, going passed the computer rooms where I spent several hours in my first few weeks sending e mails home telling them that it gets dark so soon here and how the food is getting progressively worse.

After doing a few initial admin stuff I had to meet to Vic the head porter to sort out my gowning arrangements. After exchangingl pleasantaries he asked me where my BA gown and hood are. Shit. “I thought we get it from college” I said, my heart rate quietly increasing, the moisture in my throat evaporating, the vacuum in my stomach expanding. “No, no” Vic said “You have to get to Shepphard and Woodward immediately, hire a gown and hood, and get back to me before 12, that is imperative.” How idiotic could I get? Everybody has to hire their gowns for graduation, and I foolishly assumed that college sorts it out. I was surprisingly calm, I said alrite, jogged to the JCR, got some cash from thaththi and started to run. I didn’t know exactly where I was going but there were one of two academic dress shops to which I could have gone, one on the High street and the other on Broad street. I didn’t have time to go to both in case one was closed. I flipped a coin in my head and High Street it was. While I was running, in full Sub Fusc mind you, I realised that this was the road I used to take to lectures at the Schools each morning (ha who am i kidding, lectures EVERY morning?!). It seemed to take ages those days, but I passed Schools in 4 mins. I was making good time and I didn’t really have to run any more but I thought might as well get a bit of a work out bc lunch was going to be heavy. Got to S&W and there was something else that I didn’t factor in, everyone pre-orders gowns before booking them, what if there weren’t any left of my size? I finally got to S&W and happily enough the required garments were available. I walked back feeling lots more content.

Surprisingly there were several ppl in my year who were graduating at the same time. I had expected to graduate with a bunch of kids who passed out this year, but there were about 6 ppl from my year, and a couple from the year before mine as well. I ended up chatting most with a girl that I never even liked in my 3 years at uni. She was my staircase mate’s girlfriend and she’d forever come knocking on his door shouting his name, I hated it. But she was very nice on Saturday and it was fun catching up. The Dean of degrees, Simopoulos, sat us down for 30 mins to explain ceremonial protocol including the Latin we had to recognize and say, the order in which we bow to the proctors, which door to walk out of and which to enter and where to stand. The Latin wasn’t easy to remember, but ironically it sounded like “don’t forget” and we all agreed that if in doubt just say “D’oh!” and bow. We then moved in for the lunch hosted by College and I was relieved to see that according to the seating plan I was next to my Development Econ Prof and his guest. The coolest part of the day was walking into the dining room and having everyone stand up for us.

Guests at lunch in College, the High table is in the background.

For 3 years I sat in the lower tables and had to stand up when the Dons walk in to the High table and remain standing until Grace is said. On Saturday everyone stood up for us as we trooped upto the High Table, chests forward, collars up. Lunch was good, mushroom something something for starters (the menu was in french), grilled lamb with cheesy parsley potatos and salad for lunch and chocolate cheesecake for dessert. After lunch we had the usual coffee and Port and then Simopoulos led us to the Sheldonian building where our degrees would be betsowed upon us.

The Sheldonian theatre is in my opinion the most majestic building in Oxford. This probably has something to do with the fact that I was matriculated there and graduated there. It is regal on the outside and simply majestic from within. The building is in the shape of a Roman Collosseum and is designed by Christopher Wren.

The Sheldonian from outside (My brother’s photograph wasn’t great so i got an older one)

The amazing thing about the architecture is that in keeping with the collosseum design, it becomes difficult to place a roof on the building, but Wren managed to design a roof structured in such a manner as to not require supporting pillars. And to add a little bit of flavour there’s a gorgeous engraving on the inside of the roof. All this makes it rather annoying that the building was under some renovation and as a result there was scaffolding in the surroundings and the magnificent painting on the inside of the roof was covered.

The organ in the Sheldonian

When my college graduands walked in there were already quite a few of the other college graduands already seated. I sat down and looked around the interior and spotted my parents on the second tier, they waved at me and I grinned back. I noticed aiya looking rather dramatic and pointing to the camera, it looked like something was wrong. I found out later that the battery had died. There would be no photographs of my degree ceremony. Happily enough they make a DVD of the whole process so I’m going to order that soon. He did however get a couple of shots of the initial moments in the sheldonian.

My College arriving in the Sheldonian

We had to wait for several degrees to pass before it was our turn, the DPhils, the DLitts and the Masters. Simopoulos told us to look out for our names within one very long latin sentence at the end of which we stand up and walk towards the middle. Simopoulos holds the right hand of the graduand on his right, and the rest of the graduands of our college stand behind them in rows of 4. Simopoulos then tells the Vice Chancellor and proctors in latin that he presents his scholars in the Faculty of Arts and that he requests they be admitted to the degree bachelor of arts. The Proctor then doffs his mortar board to us and we bow before him and he recites the oath in Latin which is rougly translated as, you shall swear to follow the rules, statutes, privileges, customs and liberties of the university. We then say “Do Fidem” which means you bet! The VC then officially admits us in latin, and we nod and bow to the VC and two proctors and leave the building to get into our new BA robes. After changing we return through the main door to rousing applause (in Simopoulos’ words) and then go back to the VC and procs, bow to them again and we’re officially Bachelors of Arts.

After the ceremony we went to the Queen’s cafe to celebrate and I met up with some friends in the evening and went to a place called Baby Love Bar in the night for some Drum n’ Bass. By coincidence Anush was in Oxford the same weekend and I wanted to show him Cowley Road and its evening wonders but we were quite late so most of the bars were closing shop (except the Jamaican Pub but everyone thought it looked much too dodgy, despite the fact that i know the uncle there!). Finished up quite late and went back to a friend’s place, shared another kebab and chatted in a slightly buzzed state till 4 and then walked back home bc I had busted all my cash. The next day it was raining and I think I was coming in for some disease. I was feeling quite rotten and had a slightly dodge stomach to boot. Nonetheless I went into town with my parents for lunch at my favourite Creperie, Cleo’s. In my book the Crepe Newcastle (a crepe with white and milk chocolate) is the best sweet crepe and Le crepe d’Agneau (crepe with roasted lamb) is the best savoury crepe. I stepped out to say hello to Savi (who was also by coincidence in Oxford that weekend) and Anush again, showed them the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, from the tower of which you get some of the best views of Oxford on a clear day. I headed home around 5 that evening after dropping aiya at the station. I was incredibly tired when I got home but very satisfied too. I miss Oxford; the town, Cowley, my friends there and even the whole university thing (in some twisted way). Made a mental note to keep a few days free next Easter break to drop in again and visit my favourite part of England.

One of the nice things about being a student is you get random days off without lectures or tutes. You’re technically supposed to catch up on reading and reflect on the material covered, but that doesn’t tend to happen unless exams are knocking on the door. Today is one such day, I’m planning on reading a couple of journal articles this afternoon but till then I’m taking it easy. I put on my Bob Dylan CD and decided to make some preparations for dinner, grilled rainbow trout! I love fish, and back at home I make sure to bring home some Red Mullet or Garoupa every so often. Rainbow Trout isn’t anywhere near as good as Mullet or Garoupa, but beggars can’t be choosers. I just put the fellow to marinate in an assortment of stuff including Nando’s Hot Peri Peri sauce. What I love about cooking is the freedom it gives you to experiment with flavours and come up with new stuff pretty much every time. When I first went to uni for undergrad I didn’t have a clue as to how to cook, since I was in catered accommodation I didn’t think it would matter too much. But that was until I tasted the food. After 3 weeks I had had enough, I think the turning point was when one day for dinner it was Tandoori chicken that was simply boiled chicken in some red colouring. I stopped eating Hall food and resorted to eating seeni sambol sandwiches for dinner and ham sandwiches for breakfast. I lost almost 20 kilos in my first term so I had no choice but to learn to cook, pronto.

Unsurprisingly my first attempts went rather drastically wrong. I still remember my first parippu, I overcooked it and most of it got burnt till the saucepan and lentil grains became one. I tried to boil an egg but didn’t realise that you need to keep it in boiling water for 5 mins, I kept the egg in water over a fire for 5 mins and each time it wasn’t even soft boiled. Wasted many an egg that day. I came back the next term armed with Larich curry mixes and I was on my way. Chicken curries, Pork curries, parippus, bonchi kirata and ala kiri hodis emerged like magic, just cut the stuff up, put the curry mix, some water or coconut milk powder and say abracadabra. In my second year in uni I evolved from the curry mix stage and learnt how to cook using thuna paha and other spices, with practice, a bit of experimentation and a solid cook book, I became better. I cooked for the new Sri Lankan kids who joined that year and every Saturday night there’d be dinner at my place. The variety improved as well, I experimented with Wambotu, Cucumber, Wattakka and other veges along with roast and grilled chicken and pork chops. In my third year I moved in with a couple of Sri Lankans and some Germans and together we came up with some quite decent meals on a regular basis. I learnt to make Roti and pol sambol using dessicated cocounut, PseudoGotukola sambola using watercress leaves and lamb curry. I tried my hand at a few western dishes too and they turned out ok, Pasta with smoked salmon and dill, Spaghetti Bolognaise, baked macaroni and pan fried fish. I tried to become too clever a couple of times and tried making rabbit and pigeon (on separate occassions) and it didn’t turn out too flash. But more often than not cooking didn’t go wrong bc once you got the basics it’s hard to go wrong and you can adapt as you wish, judging flavours by instinct and using your imagination.

Cooking has become more of a hobby than a chore now, it can be relaxing and enjoyable if you got the right mindset. The only annoying part is washing up, but then what are housemates for?

ASKED how political coalitions are formed, Germany’s chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, once shot back with a question of his own: “How do porcupines mate?” After a short pause, he then answered it with a grin: “Very slowly.”

Sorry I was just going through The Economist and came across that line, quite funny for a German politician I thought. It’s a Saturday morning and i’m wondering what to do this afternoon when I meet my friend and his girlfriend for lunch at Trafalgar Sq. I’d rather avoid a restaurant chain sort of place like pizza express or Nando’s (though Nando’s is a most reverred place ohm ohm) and would prefer a local place with a bit of character, something unique about it and of course good food. I guess it isn’t easy to find such places without snooping around yourself and accidentally coming across such a place. The other day in Camden town we came across a superb little Vietnamese place which I’d never have found on a website or tour guide. I’m also forever on the look out for little places that play live music in the evenings, a friendly cozy sort of place hidden away from the big loud clubs. Last night I explored Leicester Sq. to an extent and most of the places there are very hyped, loud and in your face clubs and night spots, not really my game. But China Town was nice, we went to a couple of places which being a Friday night were understandably full to the brim. At the first place they asked if we’re willing to share a large table with some strangers, we politely declined and buggered off. I wasn’t about to share a table with a bunch of boisterous smoking ppl. So we carried on, passing Mr. Wu’s restaurant, Mr. Tan’s, Uncle Yim’s etc. etc.. After much walking I thought screw that and we walked into the next restaurant we saw. We asked for a table and were promptly told to follow the waiter and without being asked he laid out the cutlery on a table where there were already 3 ppl! Anyway hunger had the final say so we stayed on without complaint. A fourth man joined our table and promptly planted a kiss on one of the other dude’s lips. His voice was initially very squeaky but it mellowed down as the evening wore along. Those two were very fond of one another, and they showed it. The other couple was an elderly gentleman, possibly 65ish with silver hair, and a youngish girl who I assumed was his daughter. She was well dressed so I figured it must be some sort of celebration. But quite soon the two of them were also kissing, fondling and what not. It was a totally new experience and after the initial amusement (and making a mental note to never bring a date here) we dug into our food that was quite decent. Spare ribs, pork in black bean sauce (haraam haraam!), mushrooms in chinese greens and squid with chillie and salt. I’ve never eaten squid in England before and i was most suspicious but it turned out like a bastardized version of Sri Lanka’s own cuttle fish in hot butter sauce! Nowhere near as good but decent in its own right. I managed to drink a whole pot of Chinese tea and I hope it compensated for some of the excessive quantities of cholestrol I consumed last night. Unfortunately my bladder and I are not quite on talking terms after that.

I quite like China town in London, I like the food and the atmosphere. The crowded streets remind me of Beijing but I think that’s more a psychological connection than anything else. The Crispy Duck Restaurant is a good bet if anyone ventures that way, try and avoid weekend nights bc it packs up big time. The last time I was there 8 ppl ate for 110 quid, consuming two starters, duck, chicken, pork, prawns and lobster! Nobody believes that it was so cheap but it was! After eating way too much we headed out to look at the rest of Leicester Sq. which wasn’t as crowded and buzzing as I last remember but it had great atmosphere nonetheless. I hadn’t noticed the hand marks of famous ppl who had come for openings at the Leicester Sq. Odeon, Hugh Grant has rather small hands, as does Colin Firth. Sir Richard Attenborough on the other hand has bigass hands. Stopped for some dessert at Garfunkel’s, some cake thing with a smallish scoop of vanilla ice cream. Les Miserables is showing at one of the Theatres in Leicester Sq. and that’s one on my long list that I need to start ticking off soon. I was tempted to stop for some coffee at one of the quaint Italian coffee joints but it was getting late, and with the Northen line totally buggered we weren’t too sure about the reliability of the replacement bus services to my side of town, so I headed home, quite tired and much too full for my liking.

Finally we managed to get internet up and running in our flat, no more dodgy internet cafe up the road and no more waiting in line for a computer to free up in the main library. I finally feel like things are settled and that I can get along with all my plans, I’m getting into the rhythm of living in London (if slightly out of it in zone 3) and getting to know my university and how it works and all that. Work has been quite easy paced so far, the material isn’t particularly challenging and I’ve only got something like 5 lectures a week of which one is a basic economics course that I can practically teach, so I’m going to cut that. As a result I’ve had free time on my hands and I rummaged my flatmate’s bookshelf and came across a bit of a gem. What attracted me to it was the cover, it was vivid and colourful but not in the bright glaring sense, more of the earthy, dull colours that I like. They say never judge a book by it’s cover but something about that cover made me think that I’ll probably like it.

It’s called Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and it sort of rang a bell so I started to read. I finished it yesterday and it now ranks right up there with my Carl Mullers as my favourite reads. The amazing thing about that book is the fact that it’s just a story of a young man’s life and his journey through it, nothing flash, no startling murders, no conspiracy theories, no hilarious episodes with Spanish Bulls and no racy encounters of the triple x kind. Just ordinary life. And yet it’s so so readable, she writes beautifully and so many little parts of the story touched a chord in my own life and made me smile to myself thinking hey I know the feeling. It’s amazing how rich a person’s life could be, regardless of how ordinary and mundane it seems at first glance, there are so many stories behind each person, so many incidents that have blended together to shape their lives. The other day on the tube I was thinking that each and every person on the carriage has their own book inside them, full of little anecdotes, funny moments, sad moments and scary moments. In Namesake Gogol Ganguli has a fairly ordinary life of a 2nd generation Indian living in New York, he goes to college, has girlfriends, smokes pot, gets a job, gets married, gets divorced and so on, but Jhumpa Lahiri manages to spin 291 beautiful pages about this life and makes it a most amazing journey. One thing I loved about Namesake was the intimate descriptions of pretty much everything, buildings, faces, streets, day to day activities and even a childbirth, gulp. Since I started reading the book I’ve started to notice so much more about the things I’d normally bypass on a daily basis. The way my arms swing when I walk, a girl stopping in the rain to try and light a cigarette, the faces of ppl on the tube, so many little things that aren’t particularly important but that i’ve started to notice and appreciate, it feels nice. So i’d certainly recommend Namesake to anyone who’s a fan of reading and basically anyone who’s still reading this post without being put off by my long drawn out description

Besides reading i’ve dabbled in some University work this past week and it’s been somewhat of a let down. When I left home I wasn’t hugely depressed bc I was looking forward to getting back into academics and losing some of the responsibility of working and just arsing about in College. But I’ve found myself getting bored and struggling to motivate myself with uni work. I went for my first seminar yesterday about the aims of the study of international political economy (yes, exciting stuff), and i was hoping for a mildly amusing discussion on the synergies between international economics and international relations, but no, the 12 ppl in the room talked about the role of bloody constructivism and post modernism in deciphering the fundamental unit of research in international relations. Yes, I know, wtp? (btw, the p refers to puck, a far nicer word, and closer to home) After about 45 mins of this cock I put my hand up and said that I think they’re both getting at the same thing so why don’t we just get on with it and do something real? (Ok i didn’t say the last part). But seriously, I felt like I was in a room full of ppl with their heads in the clouds talking about something that is of absolutely no use to anyone who doesn’t live in some text book. But then thats academia for you. After working for more than an year tackling real issues, practical problems, I’m finding it difficult to roll up sleeves my and really get into things that will not leave the realm of thought. Anyone who has studied economics will probably remember from information economics Spence’s argument that education acts simply as a signal to employers. I never quite bought this argument but it seems to make more and more sense. What I’ve learnt in uni hasn’t exactly made me fantastic at what I do, it’s helped for sure in terms of confidence, organizing material, working to a plan and under pressure and has greatly improved my skills of analysis and creativity, but at the same time I could have learnt this stuff without going to uni and spending a mint. In the week so far what I’ve learnt is nonsense, and i’m quite sure that by the end of this year i’ll be much the same as when I started it, if slightly thinner. I’m quite aware that I’m doing a Masters so that in my next job application it’ll say Ba Hons, Msc. Hons and i’ll look a hell of a lot prettier to my potential employer. So I play the game, and hopefully will win too!

All in all not the best of starts academically, the course itself has lots of potential and I’m hoping that in the weeks and months to come this will be realised. But the rest of the fun will kick in shortly, this weekend i’m planning on going to Chinatown, Leicester Sq. and Camden town on Sunday, which Anush promises is an experience and a half. I actually went there a couple of days ago and it was extremely cool. There’s a little market with lots of little shops selling clothes with funny things written on them, ethnic jewellery, Goth paraphanalia, many tattoo and piercing studios (yes, many messers Pierce) and most importantly loads and loads of record stores selling new and second hand rare CD’s, records and cassettes, most of which you’d never find in your average HMV or Virgin stores. I love record stores, ever since I read High Fidelity by Hornby I made a mental note that if all else fails i’m going to open one of my own in Colombo and kick Torana’s ass. On that note (pardon the pun) I shall retreat to my room (living room) to get engrossed in Bob Dylan’s autobiography, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. Please?