This weekend in London…
Streets filled with smoke, crammed with people, and loud Carribean music can only mean one thing…
The Notting Hill Carnival is in town!
Where’s the Fire?
Fact of the Day
Validated in Dublin by some locals…
“Guinness is really good for you”
Validated by a number of sources, Guinness actually has:
- Less calories (because it has less alcohol). In fact it has less calories than a pint of orange juice or skim milk (not to mention less fat than either); and
- A large number of antioxidants;
Luck of the Irish
Long weekends caused by bank holidays always tend to lead to expensive flights and hotels as demand pushes the costs up. Thankfully I scored a relatively cheap flight with Ryanair to Dublin. Ironically Dublin consistently ranks in the top 20 most expensive in the world, this year coming in at number 18. I only spent two days there despite the long weekend since I found the hotel exorbitantly expensive but I think I still got a good feel for the city in this short time.
On my first day I joined a tour that ended up in Glendalough (Valley of the Two Lakes) where we took in some marvellously spectacular scenery. The rolling green hills and a herd of sheep blocking off the path for our bus reminded me a lot of my time on the south island of New Zealand. The tour also stopped along the way at the town of Avoca (also known as Ballykissangel for the BBC series set and shot in this town).
After getting back from the tour we joined the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl, a comical trip around town with a group of actors recalling famous quotes and interesting stories from a number of the most famous writers raised in Dublin. Not particularly expensive and not technically a real pub crawl, it’s a fun and entertaining way to see parts of Dublin. People we spoke to also highly recommended the alternative musical pub crawl (it’s funny how most things in Dublin have to do with drinking).
We ended up in some club just south of the infamous and overly touristy Temple Bar area and stayed until closing (which is surprisingly early at 2 or 3am). I found Irish people probably the friendliest out of the places I have been too, with both girls and guys likely to start or continue a conversation. At the end of the night though, I also found the Irish the loudest and some of them the most aggressive I’ve seen. The numerous broken bottles and aftermath of rubbish in the streets the next day only emphasises this observation.
Though I struggled to wake early I still managed to get around to most of the sights in Dublin. The city is great for pedestrians with pretty much most of them all within walking distance. I visited Trinity College, home to the Book of Kells but I couldn’t wait out the long queues for such a quick trip. A short trip away is the Dublin Castle that was full of impressive sand sculptures and the Dublin City Hall just near that.
Overall I found the city of Dublin extremely warm and welcoming and although it didn’t seem overly dangerous, I noticed quite a number of dodgy people simply walking the streets, even during the day.
You can see more of the pictures here.
Who Knew Food Could Be So Complex
A few years back, I read the book ‘Fat Land.’ that dealt with the eating habits of mainly American society leading to greater and greater levels of obesity. Even though it discussed mainly American society, I thought it still readily applicable since their influences reaches many other countries. Fat Land focused especially on the effects of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a by product so sweet and cheap it is used everywhere but with the hidden cost of excessive amounts of calories.
After reading that book, the book named ‘Food Politics’ jumped out on the shelf. Food Politics compliments Fat Land by covering the “how” industry manipulates the government and the law, instead of the “what” result we have today which the latter book covers. The author, Marion Nestle, also a nutritionist writes about her observations and conclusions after serving on a variety of government boards and committees including the most well known Food and Drug Administration (FDA). I count her as a courageous author, with apparently many others involved in the industry unwilling to publish their opinions in such an open and industry-challenging manner, especially in a litigation friendly country as the United States.
She covers a wide range of topics reaching back to when the government first started advising on the food that the general public should be eating, and the number of events that changed the landscape too what it is today. She discusses the huge amounts of money industry spends on government lobbying, as well as the lesser known and certainly less desirable ways in which companies achieve their objectives without regard to the cost of safety of public health. She writes about the use of fear, confusion, and mass hysteria fuelled through misinformation or conflicts in information to pressure the government into easing their tight regulations as well as the marketing campaigns used to develop wider groups of consumers for their products, specially targeting children and low income earning groups.
It is a tough topic to describe since so many factors affect the choices of people’s food intake including cultural backgrounds, health priorities and financial states. Though not particularly surprised by what Nestle covers, I am sadden by the degree to which companies effectively handicapped the Food and Drug Administration’s capabilities and the result is glut of unhealthy and excessively over-nutritious and under-balanced products saturating the market.
I found it interesting the way in which companies use fortification to get around tight restrictions and responsibilities for ensuring the safety of their foods to boost their bottom line, and more importantly their influence on government with every guideline never recommending “eat less” but rather “eat in moderation”
The author researched the book extremely well and easily cross referenced hundreds of published sources of information. I found the book well balanced in the amount of dry data it offers together with the intimately detailed stories told and fills in a much needed gap not readily available to the public. Though I don’t recommend this as light reading, for answering the question why we have the products we have in stores today.
TheKua.com Rating: 7 out of 10
Back in London
I arrived back in London on Sunday, after an entire but expected day’s worth of travelling from Australia. The flight to Singapore went extremely smoothly, made even faster by the on-demand entertainment system – the first time I’ve ever flown with one. I watched the movie Thank You For Smoking as well most of the second series of the great English series, The Office.
The flight from Singapore to London was a little less enjoyable after sitting next to one of those people that overflow into your personal space every way possible (out reaching legs, over stretching elbows, not to mention the countless number of times he unintentional pressed buttons on my remote with his elbow) but at least I had a window seat to which I could lean to and get some sleep. The trip went uneventfully and disappointingly this British Airways craft lacked the much more preferred on-demand system I had on the previous Qantas flight.
London, like most times, welcomed the flight with overcast skies and gentle rain but the arrival and proceeding through the usual immigration points went smoothly. My new project is a .Net one and I’m already enjoying with a great bunch of people.
Watching the English
This book I chanced across in the library turned out to be a great read and I recommend that any foreigner living in London should read it (but it’s probably just as a good a read for English people as well). The premise of Watching the English, is the study of “Englishness” as researched and written by an English anthropologist, Kate Fox.
The author covers all aspects of modern English life included topics such as what constitutes valid topics of conversation, pub etiquette, queuing rules, dress codes and the English class system (that surprisingly has little to do with money). The focus of her research was to draw out the common but unique aspects that make English, well, English.
Part of her research method required her personal involvement along with her normal observations, and the author’s struggle against her “Englishness” added a lot of humour to the book as she describes forcibly attempting things that went directly against all her in-built mannerisms.
To some degree it explained a lot about the behaviour you see of ‘Brits Aboard’, especially their infamous Hen’s and Stag parties, as well as many other quirky behaviour foreigners typically comment on. At times her arguments fail to stand up as being exclusively English as there are always exclusions, but it is evident she made a strong attempt at keeping the focus on typically English-only behaviour. In many ways, you could interpret many of these common behaviours of people from ex-colonial countries as the influence of the English.
I think this book made a very enjoyable read and though the author attempted to formalise many of her conclusions, the humour and real life examples that she uses makes it very easy to digest. Many times I sat on the plane almost laughing out loud reading this book because it all too hard to live in England and not experience the very same situations she writes about.
Thekua.com Rating: 8.5 out of 10
ToriQ
Countless numbers of shopping centres fill Orchard Road and, from observing all the various construction, is a trend that will probably continue for some time. Amongst all the huge number of stores, food stops along the way offer the shopper a brief reprise to their endless frenzy.
I stumbled across one small food stop I thought worth blogging about, a small store called ToriQ. ToriQ is a store specialising in Japanese Yakitori, a semi-equivalent to the Malaysia Satay stick. One employee is always busy grilling away little hunks of meat and sometimes assorted vegetables skewered onto little sticks that provide a very portable and relatively healthy snack.
ToriQ is not very large with the insides only big enough for the all the employees grilling and serving and a few stools encouraging very brief stays. A big glass panel separates the customers from the grilling section but the entire cooking process is very visible, at least guaranteeing a certain level of quality.
The menu is not overly complex – you order various types of skewers with the option of the better value “packs” providing rice and a drink as well. Most of the grilled skewers are dunked into a warm sauce (my guess is teriyaki) and then put into the various bags or packages. The cheapest sticks are the chicken sticks at only S$0.90 each and the most expensive being the Unagi (eel) ones at S$2.00.
Details: ToriQ
Found On: I think it was at the bottom floor of Tang’s Shopping Complex on Orchard Road
Highlights: Freshly grilled meat and vegetables provide a healthier alternative to all the stalls serving fried variations. Pretty good value for money as well.
Improvements: More seating for patrons.
The Kua Rating: 6.5 out of 10
A Year Since Leaving Brisbane
I can’t believe it’s been a year since I left Brisbane to go on an internal exchange program to live and work in London. I also can’t believe that I’m at the end of what free days I’ve had in Australia before I fly back to London (yes, you guys have got me hooked).
Thanks to all the people that managed to make time to see me on this whirlwind visit (again!). My apologies for those I didn’t get a chance to catch up with (but you’ll just have to visit me overseas!). I managed to spend plenty of time with the family, get to the beach briefly, and catch up with most people. I had a great dinner and a very enjoyable evening at the Belgian Beer Cafe last night and worked off what ill-effects it had with a hearty breakfast at the ever wonderful Gunshop Café (shown below) this morning.
Brisbane city and especially West End continues to change, and it struck me at how inner-city apartment buildings have built up in such a short amount of time. I’m intrigued to see what effect the supply will have on the property market and how different city living will be in five year’s time. I also visited the Valley for some tea but noticed that at least it had not changed too much.
Petrol’s expensive at AUD1.40/L (though maybe not compared to the English cost) and thankfully public transports improved slightly (they now have a 3am night train/bus service) with prices only increasing by a little bit.
Finally the weather in Brisbane was as brilliant as ever with mostly cloudless but always radiantly blue skies for my entire visit. The temperature has averaged a good 23°C during the day meaning t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops (but more colloquially called thongs) though it does dip down to about 10 at night.
This visit reminds me of how much I will miss but, in another way, of how much I can appreciate living overseas. Til next time Brisvegas!