Whole lotta writin' - Jogging

The next thing which comes to mind is jogging. The reader might recall that, many months ago, I mentioned my quasi-daily jogging activities. I am pleased to say that the effect of this was that I lost some 4 or 5 kg in a few weeks but I regret to say that this activity lasted only until the wedding, after which I regained those 4 or 5 kg and more! And I have proof for that...

The reader might also recall that in June I was in Budapest for a conference. During that conference, I wore a suit and it fitted me quite comfortably. Last August (i.e., 2 months later), I happened to try on the same suit and the trousers failed to go up any further than halfway my thighs! And this caused me a severe panic attack! Besides prompting me to buy a new suit (which, by the way, I really like!)

From that day onwards, I decided to take up jogging again, 3 to 4 times a week, as well as cutting out all the rubbish food I was consuming almost daily (nachos, crisps, desserts and that kind of stuff). The initial efforts were painful, but nowadays it has become part of the routine and I also invested in a new cool pair of running shoes which makes the effort much less stressful on my feet and also gives me incentive to get back on track, quite literally.

Despite the many urges from my wife, I keep insisting that I do not want to buy a scales to measure my weight but a few weeks ago, I happened to try again the trousers I mentioned above and, voila! The trousers did go up to the expected position and I also buttoned it, albeit not comfortably! So the effort is paying off! I hope that this time I will not abandon the exercise, both for the sake of fitting in my clothes but also for the benefit of my health!

Whole lotta writin' - Sketching

It is 10.22pm on a modest weekday and I decided to extend my writing antics, not in writing technical reports or journal papers but to update my blog. Given the late hour and the level of tiredness, I will try to remember all of the events from the past couple of weeks and record them here, but I cannot promise that I will not forget some minor episode; the good news is that there were no insignificant occurrences at all, as you shall read in this post and the few that follow...

The first thing that comes to mind is that after an absence of many months, years actually, I decided to start doing some sketching again, for leisure. In my early undergraduate years, it was part of the design syllabus to create sketches of urban and rural landscapes, abstractions as well as some nonsense, hoping to nurture the skills required to master architectural design. I recall the initial painful long stays outdoors, trying to sketch a streetscape, with pad on the lap, shadows changing with the setting sun, people stopping to stare and all the complications of drawing "live" in the street. More happily I recall the advent of the digital camera being accessible to all, my fun, isolated snapping trips and the comfortable sketching at home off the monitor, accompanied by background music, the omnipresent coffee mug and the liberty of intermittent yet regular breaks.

Back to 2010, I decided to start off by a set of sketches of Michelangelo's sculptures (again, off a monitor using photos I took at the plaster cast collection of the V+A or images off the net). Modestly, I think the work is getting better as the number of sketches increases; now, I even upgraded to a proper sketchbook rather than loose sheets!

To be honest, the first few consisted solely of naked (or almost naked) men, which may seem to be suspicious as to my mating habits really are. Not that I am homophobic, but I happen to be heterosexual and nowadays I am shifting towards the female nude (again, Michelangelo works). One problem: the Renaissance genius happened to sculpt mostly males and his females are really as muscular and well-built as any healthy athlete, so I guess I will soon conclude my Michelangelo series and seek an alternative subject...

So this activity started off in September and I am proud to say that I have managed to keep it going (to date) and intend to maintain it! Not that I have any ambitions in the art world, but at least it serves as a break from academia, math and the computer keyboard!

End of summer '10

Thank God for this one September afternoon when I am (shamefully) spending my lunch-break sitting at my workstation at Imperial; every cloud has a silver lining, for I plan to update my blogging antics once and for all before my memory starts to fail me...

So back in August, when the British summer was aiming at making an end, I headed down to Malta for a short break of 4 days. This particular flight started off as a challenging one: the flight was at 7.30am, which implied waking up at 1.30am, get ready to leave by 2.00am, take a night bus to Marble Arch at 2.15am, take the Green Line bus to Luton at 2.30am, arrive at the airport at 3.30am and finally head down to the Med. I included the "am" each time simply to emphasise the pain endured, but which was leading to a dose of real summer - no pain, no gain! The highlight of Sunday was a fiesta of Maltese rabbit for lunch prepared unfailingly by mum. Monday was a day spent almost entirely at the beach, which turned me from an expanse of ghostly white to a boiling red lobster. Tuesday was a fantastic day out virtually sponsored entirely by one of my good mates, who kindly gave us a mini-tour of the Maltese north-eastern coast by boat in the morning and an al fresco ride in his new sexy car in the evening. The day was concluded by a seaside BBQ with the rest of my Maltese friends. The last day started off with a sunny morning spent at The Point in Sliema and then back to London in the evening. An intense and delightful break which provided me with my annual dose of Vitamin D and good fun!

Back in London town, I was working on my first research paper which to date is virtually complete (except for one section which is pending due to lack of software to complete it!) but will hopefully be submitted to a journal for publication by autumn. It is great to know that , as I move on with my Ph.D., I will have publications which put my work into the public domain. Hopefully...

The end of the month was characterised by music! On my wife's birthday, I took her out to the musical We will rock you, which I thought was the closest thing to a concert by her/our favourite band, Queen. And then on Sunday (when my mum and sister were visiting), we went to see The Lion King, which was awesome. As usual, such events make me want to indulge into music, full time, but I suppose it is virtually impossible at this point in time.

Summer is drawing to an end (although today it is rather sun and warm!) and very soon it will be 3 years since I first came to London (albeit with a 6 month absence therein) and also the completion of my first year into my Ph.D. Which reminds me, my lunch-break is over and I need to get back to work!

Requiescat in pace, Profs

I am still shocked at the news of the passing away of Maltese President Emeritus, Prof. Guido De Marco (1931-2010).

I am not much of a fan of politics, especially Maltese politics, which are heavily saturated with partisan sympathy. I do, however, admire several giants of politics in the local scene, and one of the foremost of these is Prof. Guido de Marco. In my childhood, I was referred to as 'Guido' by my relatives, thanks to the random abundance of hair I sported which was similar to what the Profs. had in the 80s, clearly a man who lived up to the sign of the times. Throughout the next 2 decades of my life, I developed an admiration for the statesman, whose achievements surpass by far those of many Maltese politicians; being President of the UN General Assembly and President of the Republic suffice in this regard.

Earlier last year, whilst in Malta before my starting my Ph.D., I devoured de Marco's The politics of persuasion and my admiration for the statesman continued to expand. Such a great figure in the world of law, a holder of such a prestigious position in the global and local scene, and yet his writing is not any more complex than that of a well-versed adult, devoid of any unnecessary articulation but simple and accurate and, most admirably, diplomatic and ethical in all its forms of criticism towards his opponent.

I recall one ordinary morning last year when I was heading up Republic Street in Valletta towards my workplace when I spotted de Marco walking, slightly bent but steadily with the aid of a walking stick, with an immaculate suit and sunglasses. I said, slightly louder than usual to make sure he would hear, "Good morning, Profs" to which he immediately nodded, smiled and replied, "Buon giorno." Indeed, that morning I was heading to my workplace, which was the architectural practice of his son-in-law and this led to the following serendipitous event.

At the office, I was lucky enough to befriend my boss's son, one of de Marco's nephews, who, during one random afternoon chat gathered my looking up towards his grandpa, promptly set up an informal meeting with the President Emeritus. Indeed, prior to my departure from Malta to London to embark on my Ph.D., I had the great privilege of spending 30-45 minutes with Guido, who welcomed me in the Orangerie, his Hamrun home-cum-office, with confident hospitality as if he had known me for years.

I recall that meeting vividly, where we discussed on-going world and local politics, terrorism, his vision of Malta's future, his colourful rival Mintoff, well-deserved criticism of the latter and equally warranted appreciation where applicable of the former premier, the obvious talk on architecture and the architectural profession in Malta, my vision of the latter, my upcoming Ph.D. and informal talk of how I know his nephew and son-in-law. The meeting came to an end after Guido signed (in his characteristic green ink) my copy of his autobiography, in which he wished me "a bright future in [my] service of architecture and of Malta."

I was wholly impressed by the grandness of the character, which I was of course expecting, but never knew that such a giant would combine with such handsome quantities diplomacy, modesty and charisma even before a complete stranger. In later years, Guido had clearly lost weight and was no secret that his health had been deteriorating, but during that time in his elegant office, I thought to myself that his physical persona had surely diminished over the years but only to provide more room for his ever-growing internal grandeur, which is not subject to the limitations of the physical realm.

I will cherish that September morning of 2009 for the rest of my life.

Last week, Guido was admitted to hospital and was in a critical condition. Only 2 days ago, he was released from hospital and yesterday he reportedly said, "I feel I have been born again. Life is beautiful. I am seeing life with new eyes and I am looking to the future." Only 48 hours later, Guido passed on to a better life and he has lived up to his prophecy in all its correctness: he is born again in a world of no pain and is now conscious of a better existence where the future is unbounded and beauty is beyond what the eye can comprehend.

Rest in peace, Prof. de Marco and I assure you that I will do my best to keep up to your recommendation of serving the architectural profession and the mother nation which we both affectionately love: Malta.

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!

A trip to the land of Magyar

It has become quite a habit of mine to break my own rule in keeping this blog entirely devoted to my stay in London. However, my recent week-long trip in the city of Budapest surely deserves some mention and, in fairness, it is indirectly an extension of my London work; the whole idea started off with my interest in attending a conference related to my Ph.D. in the Hungarian capital. I will try to be as brief as possible but not fail to portray my impression of the Magyar culture...

I am not sure where to begin for I have loads to write, but I think I will follow an approximate chronological order. The adventure kicked off on the first Sunday of June with a direct flight from Gatwick to Budapest which was all smooth. Upon landing for the first time in eastern Europe, I was surprised to find out that the climate is almost as good (or bad!) as the Mediterranean. Actually, the month of May was the wettest month in Hungary in the last couple of decades, causing widespread flooding all across the country. I thought it would be rather fresh, but that week probably happened to be the hottest week of the century, for I was greeted by fierce sunshine and temperatures roaring up to 40 degrees. I took a shuttle to the hotel, freshened up, left my stuff and headed off to the conference venue to register.

As I later found out, Budapest has a very good public transport system of trams, buses and metro. One minor detail: tickets are sold only in post offices and metro stations. The former are closed on Sundays and the nearest station was miles away from the hotel. Or else, you can get tickets from machines at bus/tram stops. Great, there was a stop just outside the hotel, but the machine takes only coins and I had only banknotes of several 1000 HUF! And this made me walk, which I do not mind doing at all. Being in possession of a map, walking about was a simple task so I could afford to look around. I was immediately impressed by the sheer amount of graffiti on buildings. And by the rough appearance of shops with dense metal grills outside shop windows. The same can be said for the housing blocks with repetitive window and balcony patterns, clearly an inheritance from the communist era. The occasional contemporary buildings were then obvious signs of capitalism slowly infiltrating within the landscape.

After registration, I headed off to the famous River Danube, which Strauss had described as "blue" in his famous waltz. I soon found out that the composer was either totally colour blind or had a great sense of humour or, more likely, was too optimistic and thought it would be better to describe the subject of his music as blue rather than a hue of brown (like all rivers, after all). I was amazed by the width and flow of the river but even more by the presence of a "30mph" sign in the middle of the water. I thought to myself, "The Hungarians even have speed limits for boats." I walked a further 50m and encountered a traffic light...some 20m away from the river bank. I was even more amazed to see that the Magyar people also have traffic signals for boats. But, 50m later, I saw a zebra crossing sign! Clearly this was not intended for swimmers! So I quickly realised that the river had actually flooded the embankment road and the water level had risen by a good 1.5 or 2m! And then I recalled the floods...

The first half of the week was mainly characterised by the conference and the persistent hot weather. The lectures were interesting and useful and I met one of my academic idols whose papers have been the subject matter of several weeks' worth of reading and subsequent work. But conferences are not just about academic work: there are also the social events, which will give a good taste (quite literally) of the local culture. The welcome reception was held at the splendid Gellert Hotel, where I visited the spa baths and pools therein. And then the gala dinner, which was held in an equestrian park in Godollo outside of Budapest. The dinner was preceded by a horse show, which was quite amusing but also made it quite obvious why Dracula originated in east Europe: I never was tormented by so many blood sucking mosquitoes in my life until that day. The dinner was great: the Hungarians know how to eat. Their food is all about meat; a vegetarian will not survive in Hungary. The goulash soup was brilliant and the paprika-infested meat of all kinds which followed was unbelievably tasty.

The conference came to an end on the Thursday, but this meant that my wife was flying over to Budapest on that day and then 3 days of holiday were about to start! Thus started 3 packed days of sightseeing, walking, snapping, eating, drinking and chilling. Accompanied, of course, by the burning sun during the day and the annoying insects at night. During the travels, I was impressed by the sheer level of manual labour replacing automated systems doing the same tasks in other European cities. For example, you get paper tickets written off by hand by a ticket seller. The tickets are checked by inspectors at the entry of each station rather than by an automatic turnstile. And virtually every single shop, be it a Tesco express or a Burger King, has its own security guard employed. Surely there are no unemployed people in Hungary.

I was impressed by the number of superb Baroque, Neo Classical and Neo Gothic monuments - the Parliament, the Castle, museums, palaces, churches, avenues and monuments. The buildings on the Pest side lack any of the graffiti found on the Buda side of the river. Of noteworthy mention are the Liberation Monument, which is sited on top of some 200m high hill, which we went up on foot and, given that the temperature was high 30s, the gradients were over 45 degrees and the water supply was lacking, once on top, I felt I was as triumphant as the 3 Maltese who recently scaled Everest. The view was definitely worth it, though. Another demanding exercise was going on top of the 95m high dome in St. Stephen's Basilica, which entailed some 30 floors of stairs! Again, the view was breathtaking. I was impressed by the quality of the metro: the stations are airy, modern and all clad in marble and the platforms are clean, wide and even. Surely unlike some of the London underground! In fairness, there are only 3 lines in Budapest, but still I think they are an example to be followed. On the other hand, the train carriages are vintage machines, probably discarded prototype trains from communist Russia.

On Saturday night, we had dinner in the Castle in a very nicely decorated restaurant which was surprisingly quiet. The food was awesome; we started off with a bowl of goulash (naturally) and then I had pheasant and the wife had pike. And mentioning food, I forgot to mention the trip to the Market Hall, which was entirely dominated by meats of all sorts and all animal body parts, including tongue, tripe and, erm, genitalia. We did not fail to buy some Magyar sausages to bring back to London with us; half of the supply is shamefully gone already! And another aspect of Budapest: spa life. My wife and I enjoyed an hour or so in the hotel's jacuzzi and sauna and this was very welcome, given the aching muscles and blistered feet after several kilometres' worth of walking! The sights are beautiful, especially at night, with the illuminated Castle, Chain Bridge and Parliament defining the skyline in a most appealing way, probably even more than daytime. Needless to say, this deserved many, many photos and attempts in getting the right exposure and shutter speed to get the desired product...some things never change!

The week soon came to an end and on Sunday afternoon we headed to the airport and back to London, where we were welcomed by sun but cooler temperatures and fresh air. Besides bringing back a considerable level of suntan, a dozen or so mosquito bites, 1.5 GB worth of pictures and (of course) sausages, I can now say that I have visited an eastern European country, with official proof in form of a stamp on my passport. I am sure the nation has come a long way but I think it takes more than the pulling down of a wall or the replacement of a communist regime by a capitalist ideology. The biggest change is not a physical or political one - it is far easier to dismantle a concrete wall the size of the Berlin Wall or to replace an entire government system rather than changing people's mentalities overnight. It will require a few generations to go by for the western mentality to sink in and make the city a rival to other European capitals. Albeit all this, the Hungarians have ample potential to make their capital a modern, western-world city and are well on their way in realising this potential.

Of course, now I am back in London and the holiday mode is switched off. I had a terribly busy week at work, trying to catch up with my modelling work and am obtaining some good results. Budapest was a welcome trip and a deserved break which renewed my energies for more work. And, on top of all, the 2010 World Cup has started, which is keeping most afternoons and evenings busy! Forza Italia!

A trip to a Kentish town

For those readers who are familiar with London, especially the Camden area, you might initially suspect that this post is about a trip to the bohemian part of the city. I am afraid you are incorrect - this post is about a day trip to a real town in the county of Kent: the Royal Tunbridge Wells (referred to hereinafter as RTB for the sake of fast typing, or laziness). This trip was brought about by one of many departures (short and long term) in the office in the past couple of weeks, but perhaps this particular departure brought about a serendipitous trip outside of London...

In the last week of May, one of my colleagues went off for a mini Euro trip across France, Holland and Germany; I cannot comment much on this for, to date, I have not seen the guy (though he is back to the UK but clearly taking his time to resume with his appearances at Imperial). Another one of my colleagues went off for a weekend in Riga, which I heard a lot about and I would say, diplomatically, that such a trip is not exactly my cup of tea. Yet another colleague took the Eurostar to Brussels for a weekend in the first week of June and all I know for sure about this trip is that his mobile phone ended up at the bottom of a swan-infested lake. Finally, another colleague of mine was about to head off to Valencia for 3 months on a research placement and thus, before she departed, she invited a group of friends over for a BBQ at her house in Kent, precisely in RTB.

My wife and I promptly booked tickets for RTB as soon as we received the invite and decided to go "slightly" earlier than the given time to wander around the town. And so we did. And on that particular weekend, I had to prepare my suitcase for my own departure, precisely on the next day! The packing was done and dusted in no time, mainly due to the assistance of my wife and also due to my frequent travelling which has made me an expert of short-term packing. Back to RTB. The trip was pleasant - just under an hour and amidst countryside and blessed with sunshine. We soon found out that RTB is not as flat as London but is rather hilly, which at first was exciting but then proved to be stressful in the unusually hot and sunny weather!

RTB is a little town which has nothing of the hustle and bustle which dominates London but has plenty of English charm that I find very relieving given that London tends to get so busy most of the time. The Pantiles area and the spring were particularly interesting and (needless to say) merited a generous number of photo taking. Wandering around the town centre, shopping areas and various parks brought the morning/early afternoon to an end and then off for the BBQ, which was the main motivator behind the trip to RTB!

Of course, I love BBQs and this one in particular even more since I could sit for the entirety of the do and not bother with grilling stuff as I usually end up doing in most BBQs back home; it is somewhat taken for granted in Malta that the men are "in charge" of BBQing. Consumption of meat, bread, sangria, cheeses and cake made it extremely hard to leave my seat and the fact that it was virtually still broad daylight at 8pm did not motivate me much further to leave! Alas, around 9pm, I had to bid my friend farewell before her departure to Valencia and my own departure to Budapest in 15 hours' time! But that is another story...