No-u-velty in the Park

There is more than one legitimate reason as to why I have not written much lately.

Firstly, soon after my return from Budapest, the World Cup 2010 kicked off, quite literally. The event is of course much awaited but soon turned out to be quite a dismay; in case you do not know, I support the Italian team. Need I say more? The performance of the team was absolutely rubbish, unlike that of 4 years ago when the azzurri were crowned champions. I was not too upset by the early departure of my team from South Africa since I think I have had my fair share of soccer joy this year for Inter has won a record 3 cups this year. So I cannot complain really. Anyway, I still watched almost all of the games and this kept me quite entertained and thus refrained me from doing much other stuff, including blogging. So that's reason no. 1.

Secondly, I was quite busy with work. As usual, I will refrain from giving to much details, primarily because it will bore the reader to death and/or confuse you beyond any level of understanding. In addition, if I do so, I am afraid I will have to..well, kill you? Bond style! The work is slowly but steadily progressing and am getting some positive results, though I am anxious to get the materials over and start doing some lab testing which might prove to be slightly more interesting than handling and manipulating equations and tens of thousands of numbers. So that's reason no. 2.

And I guess those are the only reasons and will now get back to London. For 5 or 6 consecutive weeks, we have had unusual consistent sunshine and heat; on some days, it was actually hotter here than Malta (albeit only by 2 or 3 degrees, but still!) and temperatures were up to 30 or 31 degrees! And I can say that I got my first suntan for 2010 in the UK! Unbelievable! Of course, this was too good to be true and now things are back to "normal" at 21 or 22 degrees, but we are still getting decent levels of daily sun. I hope it remains so!

A couple of weekends ago, the wife and I went up to Oxford for a day. This was my second visit to the intellectual city but still managed to entertain myself anew and visited a few places I did not see before, including the Natural History Museum there, which is quite exciting. I wish only to add that I am so glad to be doing my Ph.D. in London rather than, say Oxford and this is not a case of sour grapes: (a) Imperial rules over Oxford at engineering anyway and, (b) what on earth would I be doing in Oxford after school hours?! I wonder how people entertain themselves there (besides binge drinking)...once you have seen the colleges etc. there is virtually nothing much to do! No wonder students there are such "nerds" for they have nothing else to do but study!

The highlight of the month was probably the unveiling of the 2010 Serpentine Pavilion. This year's design was entrusted to Jean Nouvel (for the architecturally illiterate, this is the guy who did the Agbar Tower or the Barcelona Gherkin). He is surely one of the giants of architecture of the 21st century and seeing one of his "free" creations (free as in not limited by pure function, planning, cost and whatever usually restricts 100% creativity in a normal building) is already a big bonus. But the real bonus was the fact that Nouvel himself was present at the opening in Hyde Park and explained the concept behind the design. And after the presentation he was available to take pictures and give autographs. Yes, well guessed: I managed to get my copy of his book signed and dated by him and also have a picture taken with the master (courtesy of the wife!)

And to round things up, yesterday we went down to Guildford/Cranleigh in Surrey at my cousin's place for a BBQ, which turned out to be tastefully (pun intended) successful and which also served as a massive gathering of the Micallef UK-based cousins and their spouses and children (were applicable). For over 50% of them, this was the first time they met my wife and to be honest, given that they have always been in the UK, I have not seen them as often in 25 years as I have have in the last 2, so such a gathering is also somewhat of a novelty for me too. It was a fun day, with loads of talk, laughter, child-rearing training (I can successfully keep a 1 year old happily entertained in my lap but that is all) and, of course, food and drink. Thanks again, K+A.

I think this summarises most of what has been going on in July. Now it is time to conclude the week with a good meal, a power shower and a massive sleep to boost me up for yet another week of Ph.D-ing as I count down for my sole summer trip to Malta in precisely 3 weeks' time!