Great food in England to start the adventure

As a British expat living in Spain I'm frequently met with people claiming how terrible the food is in England. I'm not strongly patriotic in general but I do feel very passionately about this idea that all food in Britain is bland and badly cooked. I've been in England now for a couple of days with two foreign friends, on the way through to South Africa, where we will be heading this afternoon, and I've had the good fortune to be able to dispell some of the myths about the cuisine here.

One of the first things you notice as you come into London, especially from somewhere like Santiago is the amazingly rich cultural diversity. You are immediately met with an incredible variety of languages, and as we headed to East Dulwich we passed an endless stream of restaurants from all corners of the world, from Eritreian, to Armenian, from Jamaican to fine French dining. Incidentally, this isn't to point out anything about British food at this stage, but just the huge diversity on display and on offer in the Capital.

We headed out on Thursday night to a local Turkish restaurant and were greeted with plates of spicy olives and tahini laced humous which we gorged on even before the starters arrived. I have struggled to find really flavourful olives in Spain so far, though down in Andalucia they have come close. (I should note that I don't like to complain about Spain, there are many things going for it, but I do find that the lack of imagination in the cuisine in the North West is a huge pity given the incredible local produce - the sea food being outstanding. It might seem a strange paradox to many, but coming from Santiago to England I am suddenly aware of the richness of possibilities I have grown up with). Heading out afterwards for a beer in a local pub, my Polish/Norwegian friend had his initiation into the world of ales, being surprised by the complexity and depth of flavours on offer.


This was all very enjoyable, but the first real taste of the British culinary scene came the next day as we headed towards the Tate Modern via Borough market. I hadn't been to Borough market for a few years, but if you ever want to see what can be done with fine British ingredients and a true love of cooking then come to this place in the morning and gorge your senses. The place is a wonderful mix of incredibly passionate people, selling world class produce, from cheeses which would put many a Frenchman to shame, to incredible pies, filled with peppery wild boar and spiced pork, to locally produced beers and wines, incredible selections of fruit and vegetables, and a panoply of other tasty treats. We dug in for a little post-breakfast treat before heading to the Tate Modern where we took a few tentative steps into the darkness.

For lunch we headed to Chinatown and had some tasty Sichuan dishes before resting for a few hours in a heaving pub, filled with that end of the week feeling, and then moved on to Brick Lane for the true curry-house experience. It was really wonderful to meet up with old school friends, drink the evening away and dig into my first vindaloo in many a year and to be able to introduce friends from other countries to this experience, without it seeming over the top or too unruly , was really lovely.

The next day we moved on to another of East Dulwich's hidden treats where steak and guinness pie gave another perfect example of good, basic but very tasty food from the British Isles. In fact we needn't have gone to the restaurant as all along one of the side streets was a Saturday morning market, where pork was being spit-roasted, fudge was being sold and more local treats could be sampled for a small price. Walking around this sort of market makes me proud of British food and even more defensive of the fact that we really do have wonderful culinary traditions, even if the much maligned overcooked veg, and badly cooked meats can certainly be found all too frequently. The point is that amazing food is available in this country, but you have to keep an open mind and know what to go for and what to leave for the less discerning eater.

Last night we headed back to Oxford where my mother had produced the most classical of British meals, roast beef and yorkshire puddings. I was a little afraid of the cliche, but with such fine beef, crispy roast potatoes and herb-filled batter you couldn't go wrong. I was very happy that my guests, repleat and almost unable to move had had a great cross-section of Britain's finest.

So, from this, onto Johannesburg where we will land in about 24 hours, ready to start our new adventures.

A very merry Christmas

I hope that all are well and that you have a fantastic Christmas and New year. I'll leave you with a view from my parent's garden in Oxford after a wonderful night of frost. The journey that day between Oxford and London was truly spectacular.

Gap filling

This week I have been mostly.....Santiago leaving, Stansted fretting, coffee drinking, Oxford home-coming, mince-pie scoffing, cold feet chilling, night snowing, wine mulling, TV despairing, Christmas present belating, academic meeting, paper writing, deep breathing, London visiting, norovirus cuddling, program writing, cafe frequenting, gallery visiting, book worming, photo taking, path pondering.

Gaps may be filled in, or not.

Glorious

This one was going to wait, but I've just been informed that it's been made the Atmospheric Optics Photo of the day, with many thanks to Les at Atoptics.
Taking the morning flight from Stansted to Santiago on a cloudy day meant that the only place to sit in the plane was on the right hand side, opposite the sun, with a good view of the cloud cover below. I got lucky and had a great view of a glory during most of the flight:

This was one of the clearest I'd ever seen with a very nicely defined double defraction pattern. See here for the partial explanation of the glory.

Atempia

Ten hours on a train from Beijing to Shanghai, eleven hours in a plane from Shanghai to Frankfurt, an hour from Frankfurt to Heathrow, an hour and a half in a bus from Heathrow to Stansted, four hours on the floor overnight in Stansted airport, two hours stood in queues in Stansted, two hours from Stansted to Santiago - home, tired, happy, in need of nutrients, will update when lucid thoughts flow with less interuption from bodily needs.

Oxford revisited

I'm back home in Oxford for a few days, here to have a routine medical procedure performed (it would have taken a long time to get this done in Spain, so it was easier simply to come back to the UK). I've spent the last couple of days in various cafes in the city centre, getting on with some work while waiting for my appointment tomorrow. It's really lovely to be back and I'm reminded what a stunning city this is. We've been lucky with the weather and in addition to seeing sundogs every day, the sun shining off the ancient stone walls has meant for lovely conditions for walking around the centre.

(sundog this morning from the back garden - again, as I walked around the streets afterwards, keeping an eye on it, nobody else had a clue. I'm always saddened that people just don't look around them at the incredible phenomena right before their eyes):

Today I took a break at lunch and walked into the Natural History Museum, one of my favourite places to get lost for an hour or so, and wondered the isles as fascinated as I was when I first discovered the museum at a very early age. Not only is the exhibition wonderfully timeless, but also the fantastic Victorian architecture makes for one of the my favourite buildings in England. The details in the construction would take a lifetime to discover and I only found out yesterday that every column in the upper level is made of a different stone found in the British isles, every capitol having a unique native plant carved into the detail.

Before being greeted by the dinosaurs, the first thing you see as you walk in is the jaw of a sperm whale, rising up into the vaulted ceiling, calling for a vertical panorama:

Anyway, don't miss this museum if you're coming to Oxford - really a fascinating place.

I may be offline for a day or two from tomorrow morning, but will get back to things when I return to Santiago on Friday

Christmas, New Year and a look back

I'm back in Oxford, sitting in the Summertown Wine Bar with glorious sunshine pouring in through the windows in the roof. It's freezing out but a lovely, crisp day nonetheless.

I have just a couple of days left in England before heading back to Spain. It's been great seeing friends and family, but I'm also looking forward to getting back home and getting back into work which I've been itching to do ever since I realised that a vital file which I thought I'd bought with me was safely and uniquely stored on my computer in the office. Still, I've been able to scribble a few calculations down in the meantime and have plenty to get on with as soon as I touch down.

So, I thought I'd update the last couple of weeks with some photos.

Just after Christmas three of my Korean friends from Santiago turned up in Oxford and so I took them round the city, to see some of the views and the colleges. They were rather disappointed not to bump into Harry Potter in Christchurch but I think that in all they were rather impressed with my hometown. I took them to the top of St Marys on the High Street which offers one of the best views over the city. The sun was low and cast a rather beautiful light over the stone buildings surrounding us, including the Radcliffe Camera:

and the High Street and hills in the distance:

After a home-cooked Indian meal I saw them back on the bus to London and I had some time to spend with my uncle and aunt and cousins, catching up after many months without seeing them. I have to bite my tongue not to comment how much my cousins have grown (I didn't appreciate it much when I was in their shoes).

Anyway, with skateboards, juggling equipment and puppets in tow we made our way around various parks around Oxford, including a trip to Blenheim Palace which was great to walk around, having not been there for perhaps 15 years:

After saying goodbye I headed off to London to meet up with friends, staying in Mortlake, and Dulwich.

Sitting in a traditional London pub with an open fire and warming up over good conversation and good drink was truly a lovely way to wind down after the normal Christmas chaos. It's great to see friends all doing extremely well in their various endeavors.

On the 30th I made my way into central London to walk along the South Bank to the Tate Modern to see what was showing and get a view over the city (great view of St Pauls from the top floor). The city was bustling with shoppers looking for a bargain and the museums were similarly heaving with tourists. The crowds offered a great chance to try out the new lens which I'd picked up for a ridiculously cheap price on ebay just before leaving.

It seems that Parcour is the new Skateboarding, as this time there were more people jumping from bollard to bollard than there were falling off planks of wood:

With a 70-300mm lens I could get shots like this from a distance without feeling intrusive. Similarly from afar I could catch the tourists pouring over Westminster bridge:

Getting to the Tate Modern I wasn't in a Rothko mood and although I like his work, the idea of seeing it with a room packed from wall to wall with other people somehow detracts from the calmness, so I forwent that for the Cildo Meireles exhibit which I enjoyed a great deal. Rather fun was the room filled with hanging tape measures, with clocks covering the walls. Interestingly the room as a reference frame was never mentioned:

New Year's Eve was spent with friends in and around Farringdon, at a bar which had been hired out for the evening. Nothing huge, but a great chance to talk with people I haven't spent enough time with over the last few years. We headed back at three, feeling that that was pretty respectable though remembering the days we would have kept going through to the next day with no problem at all.

With a chill in the air on New Year's day we went to Richmond park, London's largest park with its local population of deer and parakeets. The park was full of families enjoying the crisp winter's day, people running off their hangovers and amateur photographers seeing what the first day of the New Year had to offer. I was lucky enough to spot my first Kingfisher, sitting by the stream and diving into the water to catch fish. Sadly I never managed a shot as it dove in, but did get a few perching shots.

I still have to get used to this lens, as it's clear that on an overcast day I do need a tripod for a steady shot at 300mm. The parakeets were also out, flashing their colours and squawking away incesantly:

After the walk I made my way back to Oxford where I've continued to gorge on Christmas food and spent lot of the rest of my time in cafes finishing as many Christmas books as possible. Proust and the Squid on the go now, which I'll talk about later, I hope.

Dreaming in Code was a fun, if somewhat quixotic look at the world of software design. The author spent several years following a company in Silicon Valley which was trying to design and build a large piece of software. It's simply the tale of how difficult it is to coordinate a large team of people to write good code and the frustrations which go along with it are clearly immense. In fact I was attracted to the book by the title, a state that I've got myself into on many enjoyable occasions where a problem won't leave you, even when you're asleep. These tend to be the occasions where I have the most breakthroughs in a problem and it can make you feel hugely focused, if exhausted!

Anyway, I'm going to leave it at that for the moment, but I wish you all a very happy New Year!

On the road, off the road

Fifteen hours in the air, chairs not designed for 6 ft 4 chaps, no sleep, a couple of movies, lots of turbulence, a fine sunrise, lovely views over Hong Kong, saying goodbye to Asia - again, back in Oxford, family reunion, back to Spain on Sunday, jet-lagged, contented, full of tea and toast, people to contact, people to thank, normal work life beckons, stream of consciousness, sleep needed!

Season's Greetings

My first Christmas back in the UK since 2004 is a lovely chance to catch up with family and friends. The weather is crisp and a little misty and so walks out on the nearby fields are wonderfully atmospheric. Season's greetings to all!

Advanced study in Dublin

Sorry, things are quiet on the blog front and I'm very busy with running round in circles.

Having spent a very enjoyable few days in Cambridge at the Newton institute with my former supervisor, chatting through ideas both new and old and possible new directions for further study I have now made it to the Institute for Advanced Study, in a very rainy Dublin, where I'm spending a couple of days. Today I gave my talk and tomorrow we will be hearing from one of the professors here on some interesting work related to emergent geometry.

Hopefully I will have a few hours on Saturday to see the city before flying back to England for less than 48 hours, and then back to Santiago to try and furnish my flat (my first night in the new flat, just before flying to England, was spent on a half inflated airbed covered only by a winter coat!).

A 4.15 start this morning to catch my 6.30 flight means that I'm a little tired, but the talk seemed to go ok and the questions were all interesting. Now, with a few loose ends to tie up I'm going to see if I can get me a Guinness.

Quick update

I'm back safely in the UK, which having not been here for 15 months is rather strange. I'm staying here for a couple of days before heading on to Santiago de Compostela.

The last couple of days in Beijing were filled with paperwork needed to be completed before I could officially leave. Boxes had to be ticked left, right and centre in order to prove that I was up to date with bills, canteen payments, doctors, finance offices, keys, internet, books, office space and more but in the end , after much running around (literally) all appropriate duplicates were filed and after a final dinner with my boss and his students I had my final night in Beijing.

Packing was somewhat panicked as I realised that my bags were well over weight and had to throw out or, in most cases give away, a large percentage of my belongings. So, two pairs of oldish shoes, all my novels, toiletries, stationary and various weighty pieces of winter clothing have to be repurchased at some point. There was a nervous moment when I was told my carry on was too large and would have to thow much of that out too, but some gentle pleading pursuaded those concerned that the extra couple of centimeters were allowable.

I'm now in an even tighter position as I find that although my flight with Ryan air to Spain is very cheap, I'm only allowed a total of 15kg stowed luggage and one bag weighing 10kg carry on luggage (I took around 28kg carry on and 20kg or so carry on back from Beijing). Seeing as I'm going to be living in this, probably until Christmas, this is really not a lot, given that the computer and the camera plus a pair of shoes (I wear something akin to canoes on my feet) probably take up a fair percentage of that weight!

Today I've spent in London getting various bits and pieces done and popping into the Tate Modern to see the Louise Borgeois exhibition, which is very interesting (the earthquake crack in the main turbine room does little for me). As I walked around I was struck by many things, probably the largest being the racial diversity which is in general not visible in most parts of Beijing (there are exceptions). This included the number of foreign languages I heard on the trains, in the cafes and on the street. I was pleased to be able to chat briefly in Chinese as I heard the waitress in a cafe talking on the intercom in Mandarin.

People, expats especially, complain bitterly about how crowded the trains are in Beijing but I was rather taken aback that the London underground is far worse. Taking a train back to Wimbledon (where I'm staying with some friends, my parents currently being out of town) I was forced to see four trains go by without being able to get on them. Football fans in the front two carriages of one of the trains singing and shaking the car didn't do much for my feelings of patriotism either.

Still, cups of tea and baked potatoes have bought back feelings of homeliness and yesterday's wonderful blue skies over London have made it lovely to come back home, if only for a couple of days.

Much to get done in the meantime so best be off for now...