london 36

I left my camera near the window of my office at Canary Wharf in time lapse mode on a cloudy day. The video is playing at 60 times normal speed. Check out the related time lapse videos. They're stunning. With this one, you can figure out which firms work till late in the night. Comments Sumit Dhar 27 Nov 2008 6:27 am: Hey Anand, Did you require some additional equipment to take snaps at particular intervals? Cheers, D. S Anand 27 Nov 2008 6:58 am: Nope – my Canon IXUS 70 has a time-lapse mode. I just placed the camera on the floor and let it do it’s job for an hour :-) Balaji 10 Feb 2009 7:53 pm: Really nice Anand… Fantastic to know that this can be done by a normal user too…

This is the park in front of my office in the evening. Fog completely covered London this week. Visibility: 200 ft. Hypnotic.

Comments Chitra 14 Dec 2006 2:51 am: Hmmm…very busy view…. Anamika 12 Feb 2012 10:35 am: Oru yenthiratha pola ada ingey ulla vaalkai Ithu yengey poi solla, manam ishtapada villai Nam oora pola ooru illai…!

Funny ads in London. To My Mugger: Last night you stole my phone on Holloway Road, you also stole my heart. I was the tall brunette in dungarees and psychedelic t-shirt, you were the hooded man on the bike. I was captivated by your white teeth and hypnotic eyes. My home number is stored on my contacts under “me”. (Please don’t call me at “me work”, or my boyfriend, “Josh”.) ...

Had tea at the Ritz today. Initially, after reading that “Gentlemen are politely requested to keep their jackets and ties on during tea”, my reaction was rather like Calvin’s. But the tea (Earl Grey) was outstanding. So were the scones, sandwiches and desserts. Although most people were ladies above 60, the younger ones were among the most beautiful I’ve seen in London.

Innocent in London. LONDON (Reuters): - A London underground train station was evacuated and part of a main east-west line closed in a security alert on Thursday, three weeks after suicide bombers killed 52 people on the transport network, police said. A Transport Police spokeswoman said Southwark station was closed and Jubilee Line services suspended between Waterloo and Canary Wharf in the east London business district. This Reuters story was written while the police were detaining me in Southwark tube station and the bomb squad was checking my rucksack. When they were through, the two explosive specialists walked out of the tube station smiling and commenting nice laptop. The officers offered apologies on behalf of the Metropolitan Police. Then they arrested me. ...

I cross the prime meridien almost every day. I live 0 degrees 5 minutes east of the prime meridien. I travel to Liverpool Street usually, which is 0 degrees 5 minutes west of the prime meridien. The station closest to the meridien, on my route, is Stratford, which stretches from 7 seconds to 17 seconds west of the meridien. Of course, crossing the prime meridien has no time-zone related significance like the international date line. But it does mean that I travel to the western hemisphere and back every day. ...

The public transport reacted beautifully to the damage. I had to take Bus 259 from Finsbury Park to Tottenham Police Station. As I waited at the bus stop, I saw a 259 double decker pull in. Followed by another. And another. And another. Four double-decker buses following one after the other – and they ended up getting filled. Almost felt like a train, except without rails and a floor above. ...

If it weren’t happening to me, I’d appreciate the British sense of humour. I was at the King’s Cross station, buying tickets for the next week at a counter. “Hi, um… I already have a zone 1-5 pass…” “Con-gra-tu-LAY-tions!” Comments Anonymous 11 Jan 2007 1:13 pm: dont follow the humour

The next London Geek Dinner is on July 11th. I’ve registered.

King’s Cross station. 6:20pm. I’m rushing along to catch the next train to Liverpool Street, when a jacket and suitcase step in front of me. “Salaam alekum.” This has happened to me before. 5 years ago. My response hasn’t changed. “Huh? “Salaam alekum?” “Huh? “SALAAM ALEKUM?” “Huh? “Aap Pakistani ho?” “No, India actually.” (smile) “I just lost my wallet, and I don’t have a ticket. Could you please help me?” ...

I always wondered what cuisines were famous other than the ones I knew (Indian, Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Italian, Lebanese, Continental). I’d heard of Ethiopian food from Rajeev Ved, but never of Argentinian and Spanish. I spotted a couple of menu cards while walking down Croydon.

There was a geek dinner at London yesterday. Pity I didn’t know about it.

Here's how expensive London is, in terms of clothing. ItemLondon (GBP)India (Rs)Costlier by Socks51004X T-shirt103502.3X Reversible jacket3020001.2X Formal shoes2515001.3X Cooling glasses101505.3X Suitcase5615003X Nothing's less expensive than in India. Similarly for groceries. ItemLondonIndiaCostlier by Curd 1/2 kg0.45182X Cucumber (one)0.49313.1X Beans (250g)0.99204X Baby corn (125g)0.99184.4X Carrot (kg)0.45241.5X Cabbage (kg)0.52182.3X Cauliflower (one)0.69252.2X Spinach (kg)4.3??0X Onion (kg)0.46103.7X Chilli (kg)4.39843.9X Cashew (kg)15.93603.5X Apple (kg)1.29601.7X Milk (litre)0.6182.7X

Net lettings has an interesting map of London areas classified by how high the rent is. Comments Sashi 2 Jun 2005 1:35 pm: another good site is gumtree.com. where you can also search for flatshare. unlike findproperty.com, this is a site filled with private ads as opposed to real estate agents S Anand 3 Jun 2005 7:19 am: Thanks, Sashi. How’re you doing? Will catch up.

Time: early in the morning, waiting for office to open. Location: public phone booth. Situation: calling a mobile number in London. Insert coin 20p goes in. Press button to push coin in. Credit: 20p 10p goes in. Press button again. Credit 30p Call mobile number... 07xxxxxxx "Hi Malu, this is Shobana." Credit remaining: 20p "We..." Credit remaining: 19p "...just..." Credit remaining: 18p "...got..." Credit remaining: 17p "...here..." Credit remaining: 16p "...last..." Credit remaining: 15p "...night..." Credit remaining: 14p "...and..." Credit remaining: 13p "...are..." Credit remaining: 12p "...staying..." Credit remaining: 11p "...at..." Credit remaining: 10p "...a..." Credit remaining: 9p "...hotel." Credit remaining: 8p "OK..." Credit remaining: 7p "...I..." Credit remaining: 6p "...will..." Credit remaining: 5p "...call..." Credit remaining: 4p "...you..." Credit remaining: 3p "...back..." Credit remaining: 2p "...later..." Credit remaining: 1p "...bye." Credit remaining: 0p

The longest day. We relocated to London on 30th May. This was one of the longest days of my life. 5:30am India. Wake up. Brush teeth. Bathe. Shave. Pack toiletries. 6:25am India. All set. Leave the house. 6:26am India. Forgot spectacles. Rush back and get them. Forgot many other things, but ignore them. 7:15am India. Long queue outside the airport to get an entry ticket. 7:25am India. Long queue in front of the security machine. 7:35am India. Very long queue to check into Emirates Air. 7:55am India. “Sorry sir. Your luggage is 38 kgs overweight.” “Can I pay for the excess baggage?” “Sure. That will be Rs. 1,107…” “No problem.” “… per kilo.” (long pause) “OK, I’ll take some things out.” 8:00am India. Unpack bags. Remove pickles – about 5 kilos. Go back to security counter. Seal bag again. 8:10am India. Back at check-in counter. “Sorry sir, you’re allowed only 40 kgs. I can stretch that to 60. You’ll have to pay for the remaining 13 kgs.” “Could I pay for 5 kgs, please? That’s all I have money for.” “No, sorry. If you were flying to Dubai, that might’ve been fine. But you’re heading to London, and there might be problems on that sector.” “Please?” “Can you pay for 8 kgs?” 8:20am India. Scrape all the cash available with relatives. Rs. 9,000 available. Barely. 8:25am India. Stand in queue to pay Rs 8,856 for excess baggage. 8:40am India. “Sorry sir. Excess baggage is to be paid in the next counter.” 8:45am India. Finally pay for baggage. Back to check-in counter. Wait in queue 8:50am India. All settled. Say “Goodbye” to everyone. Walk over to immigration. 8:55am India. “Sorry sir. You need to have filled these forms. You can’t fill them up while standing in the queue.” 9:00am India. Forms filled in. Stand in another long queue for immigration. 9:15am India. “No, sir. You don’t need a customs document for your digital camera.” “OK, but can I please have one? Just to be safe… It’s been a tough day so far.” 9:20am India. Customs cleared. Walk over to security. 9:25am India. “Sorry sir. The customs seal isn’t on your boarding passes.” 9:30am India. Walk back to customs, get stamp, go through the security machine. 9:32am India. “Sorry sir, no scissors allowed.” “OK.” (dump scissors) “Are you carrying any spoons?” “No… why?” “Can you please unpack this bag?” Long search for spoon reveals some puja items. Duly entered and signed for. 9:43am India. We board the flight. Flight departure time is 9:45am. 10:10am India. “What would you like to have, sir?” “Apple juice, please.” “Sorry, sir. We’re just out of apple juice…” 10:40am India. “Could you please ask the person in front to sit straight? We can’t eat!” 12:15pm Dubai. We land. Long queue for transit security. 12:45pm Dubai. Beep. Security alarm goes off. “Sorry sir. You’ll have to take off your shoes.” 1:15pm Dubai. Try calling a relative at Dubai. Credit card doesn’t work. 1:30pm Dubai. Try again. This time, the number doesn’t work. 2:00pm Dubai. “Excuse me, but are you boarding my seat number now?” “Yes sir. Please go right ahead!” My best moment of the day. 2:45pm Dubai. “Excuse me, the movies aren’t working on my screen.” 6:40pm UK. Flight lands without further incidents. Long queue for immigration. 7:30pm UK. “I’m afraid I have to detain you for health control, sir, since you’re staying for more than 6 months.” 8:00pm UK. Realisation that we don’t have a chest x-ray. 8:30pm UK. “Sorry sir. You’ll need a chest x-ray. Please wait here with the others.” 8:40pm UK. “Sorry sir. You’ll need to take off your shirt.” 8:45pm UK. “Sorry sir. You’ll have to take off that white thread as well for the x-ray.” 9:00pm UK. Clear immigration, and pick up baggage. Walk to foreign exchange. 9:05pm UK. “I need to make a call. Could I have change for 10 pounds, please?” “Sorry sir, all I have are one pound coins. You’ll lose a fair bit if you use these for calls.” “Excellent.” 9:10pm UK. Call car company. “Sorry sir. The driver waited until 7:00pm and left.” 9:15pm UK. Very hungry. Walk over to coffee shop. “Could I have that casserole, please?” “The ham & cheese, sir?” “Oh… no. Anything vegetarian?” “That will be 3 pounds 10, sir.” I pass him a five pound note. “Sorry sir. These are old notes. You can get them changed at the travel counter.” 10:00pm UK. Driver arrives. We leave for Jurys Inn. 10:05pm UK. Driver’s parking pass doesn’t work at the machine. 11:00pm UK. Jurys Inn. “Can you please help us with our luggage?” “Sorry sir, most of our staff have left…” 11:15pm UK. Sleep. Almost instantly

Pictures of pedestrians at Marble Arch. Now, that’s an inspiring site (to me, at least!)

Sorry, didn’t get time to write more. This page will no longer be updated.

The next stop was Inverness. I didn’t know Inverness had any history to it. It wasn’t till we got there that I learnt that the Inverness castle was where Macbeth (of Shakespearean fame) ruled from. In fact, it turns out that Macbeth was a really nice king. There was this barbarian who fought him, lost, and turned to the English for help – who of course were delighted, and they killed Macbeth. This barbarian stupidly signed a document saying that Scotland would pay tributes to England, and that’s been the source of all the trouble. ...

I got the film rolls developed from Fotango. You can see my photos on Yahoo.

Sheer laziness kept me in bed till 9:30AM. Then I got dressed, and logged on to the computer, only to be greeted with “I’ve set the clock an hour behind, because it’s Daylight Saving Time. Check if it’s OK.” or something like that. Neat! I truly got an extra hour. I mean, I actually did something useful. So I told Ashwin (an exchange student from UCLA) that I’d gained an hour of life. ...

The gale caused all kinds of trouble to the underground trains. When I got on at Newbury Park, there was an announcement that trains would be running slow today because there were trees on the track. It wasn’t too far after that accident, and the British Rail was running slowly as it is. Looked like the underground would match it. Then there was another delay – signal confusion this time. ...

It was a rather busy week. Nothing much happened. I realized that I’d been roaming around too much, and that it was time to get to some assignments. Not that much work was done. Understandable, since most of my time was spent reading movie scripts – notably The World is Not Enough. Diwali was not at all bad, considering that most of it was spent away from home. After spending 10 hours in front of the computer, I walked home from the Ilford station, when I was greeted with a BANG! It was with pure delight that I turned around, just in time to see a rocket exploding. It took me 45 minutes to walk home that night, watching as I was all the sights in the sky. Never, even in India, have I seen such lovely firework displays. The noise was probably a BIT subdued, but I wouldn’t even be sure of that. The place even smelt like home! I did hear the comment that “Indians have to bring noise pollution even here, do they?” Sure. We make ourselves at home. We lit a lamp, and that was about it for Diwali. ...

We visited Oxford in the morning. It was a tour with the Indian YMCA. Though I slept through most of the beauty of the English country side, Oxford itself was a classic example. We went up a tower from which we could see most of Oxford. It was a small town, (about an hour-and-half from London) with lots of spires and quite an old architecture. The Oxford University is split into many colleges, Magdalen (pronounced Maud-len) being the most famous of the lot. Lewis Caroll (of Alice in Wonderland) and Tolkien (of Lord of the Rings) hailed from here. We went first to Christchurch college. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as beautiful as the grass there, with the possible exception of Hampton Court Palace. From there, we took a walk along a river to Magdalen college. ...

After lazing around the whole morning, I went to the London eye this evening. The London eye is this huge giantwheel that’s probably one of the tallest structures in London. When on top, you’re supposed to be able to see all the important places in London. It was arranged by the LBS for the exchange students, but not many had turned up, since it was raining. So we got on, and despite my fear of heights, it was a nice experience. You do get to see quite a bit. The only problem was that it got over too soon, and since we didn’t have a guide, I didn’t know what most of the buildings were anyway. I did spot St. Paul’s Cathedral, which looks lovely, and another building which I’m told is a famous gay club (of which there are tonnes in London). ...

There’s a stall that sells theatre tickets for half price at Leicester Square, so I went there in the morning. It opened only at 12 noon, so rather than waiting, I just bought tickets for the balcony. 15.50 pounds didn’t seem to much. The musical was “The Phantom of the Opera”, running at Her Majesty’s Theatre. There were 6 of us, and we went to the show. That was when I realized why the tickets were so cheap. They were on the second row of the third floor. Which meant that we had to crane our necks to see anything. What made it worse was that the lady in front of me refused to sit still. But after a while, I got used to it. ...

Yes, I haven’t been updating for a while. Problem is, I’ve been doing too much and writing too little. Let’s see if I can fix some of that now. First of all, people can’t seem to tell where I’m from. This is despite the fact that I’m the only one with a moustache in the whole batch, and am therefore the one person whose name no one forgets. I mean, I lost my name card after the very first class. Yet all the Professors talk to me like long-lost friends. Anyway… ...

OK, it’s not in chronological order. So what? Some of us decided to go to The House of Mirth. Figured it might be worth watching a movie at London. May as well see what the theatres are like. Besides, Gillian Andersen would probably be worth it. (Incidentally, I learnt that it’s pronounced ‘jillian’, not ‘gillian’ with a hard ‘g’. While we’re on the subject of pronounciations, I may as well admit that I learnt ‘buffet’ rhymes with ‘ooph-hey’, ‘genre’ is pronounced ‘jaan-ra’, ‘Renoir’ is ‘Ren-wa’, ‘deluxe’ is ‘deloo’, ‘Nice’ is ’niece’, ‘rendezvous’ is ‘rondevoo’, and so on. England does teach one how to pronounce French :-) ...

A busy weekend ahead. A night of Antakshari, followed by a day at Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square, an evening at The Phantom of the Opera, and to cap it off, Madame Tussauds and the London Planetarium!

I hope to tour Europe next week. The Backpack Traveller tells me about rail travel, and Eurolines about bus. Of course, there’s a lot to see in London.

I had the courage to walk into Harrod’s today. Rather silly of me, really, since I had about 250 pounds in my pocket, and was wearing an IIM-B jacket with my backpack. As soon as I walked in, a guard came up to me and said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to carry your backpack in your hand in this store, sir.” Struck me as slightly crazy. What, is it a measure against shoplifting? Or is it like you’re supposed to wear suits in some shops? Or did he just want me to feel uncomfortable? If so, he succeeded extremely well. It’s painful to carry a backpack in your hand, even if it’s got next to nothing. ...

Stonehenge is jinxed. To those who don’t know, Stonehenge its a bunch of huge rocks from pre-historic Britain, and no one knows why they’re there. I tried to visit it last week, but had to cancel the trip and lost about 50 pounds. (No, I don’t want to know what that is in Rupees.) So this Sunday, we’d planned to go again. I called up this Magical Tour Company, which offered tours for just 22 pounds, and said, “I want to go to Stonehenge on Sunday.” The guy on the phone took my credit card number and said OK. ...

After a group meeting, we went to ‘The Biz’, a restaurant inside LBS. They served some kind of rice with curry containing lots of vegetables. I ate rather well and found it quite edible, until I heard the price. 3.50 pounds, or about Rs. 233. Roughly what my sandwich cost in Tokyo. Very nice. I needed a suit for the Boston Consulting Group presentation tomorrow, so the afternoon was largely a shopping exercise. I took the tube to the Bond Street station, and walked along Oxford Street. It’s something like the Brigade Road of Bangalore, I guess. The first shop I walked into had been strongly recommended by my cousing (Vishnu) – Ciro Citterio. Luckily they had BIG brushed aluminium signs outside saying “Sale!”, and had 99 pounds written boldly, so I had the guts to walk in. (Of course, I didn’t convert. I don’t fancy buying suits for Rs. 6,650). ...

Today was my first class at the London Business School, and I’ve written up my experiences on day 1. I plan to keep updating it.

I went to the Tower of London on a guided tour with a hilarious Yeoman Guard. The Tower Bridge, just next to it, is what people usually mistake to be the London Bridge. Oxford Street was expensive, but great for window shopping. The British Musuem, however, is free, and is a whole universe in itself.