tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-93882042009-06-13T19:11:36.980+01:00A spinoff in proper "Rhoda" style of my patented e-mail blastograms, this blog was created with the intention of keeping friends and family updated on and amused by my life.Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.comBlogger226125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-62732409118095366442009-06-13T18:29:00.003+01:002009-06-13T19:11:37.093+01:00

For those of you following me in Twitterland, you'll know that not only am I off to Uganda and Kenya tomorrow, but that I'm also feeling a bit unprepared for the whole thing. This morning I was looking at the health advice for the countries and realised that the entirety of Uganda is a 'high level risk' for malaria. Too bad I didn't have much left of my malarone stash...So the bike journey today

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-34943441724577843752009-06-12T00:36:00.002+01:002009-06-12T01:14:10.198+01:00

After a day of diligent WAHing (that's Working at Home for the uninitiated) I found myself looking for some semblance of human interaction. So I phoned a friend and he suggested I come up to his in North London for dinner and a fillum. In fact, I believe the direct quote was 'I dare you to cycle to mine'.Well, the sun having come out (thank you and welcome back! You can stay now!!! Or actually,

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-46600411834195454482009-06-02T01:06:00.003+01:002009-06-02T02:17:30.031+01:00

Having previously been south (on several occasions) and east (to the Dartford Crossing) on my bike, I thought I should try a different cardinal direction today. And so, today I went WEST, with weird visions of 'Firefly the Musical' dancing in my head set to a soundtrack of Lily Allen's The Fear and the Village People's Go West.Setting insanity aside, I was discussing with a friend the other day

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-18228147597315190642009-05-25T23:31:00.003+01:002009-05-26T01:05:59.890+01:00

(c) Flickr/Dee RailerThank goodness for a three-day weekend. And even more thank goodness for a sunny London. I've maintained for ages that there's no city better in the world than London on a sunny day -- luckily that's roughly three out of 365 days per year or we'd be even more inundated with tourists than we already are!So, with the sun at my back, I set off on a bike to the Eastern limits of

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-75280583766275944022009-05-22T10:10:00.002+01:002009-05-22T10:14:08.716+01:00

Made it about 30 miles yesterday. My legs are still burning a bit!Yesterday's Bike Ride - 21 May 2009Work > West Norwood > Coulsdon > Mitcham > Super market > Home

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-65130084797280093802009-05-19T23:54:00.003+01:002009-05-20T00:21:15.371+01:00

Well, over the weekend I bought my first London bike. A bit scary I know, but I've discovered that the idea of riding a bike in London is generally a lot more frightening than the act itself. At least that's what I'm telling myself. :o)I'm working up for a bike trip to Brighton, which is a good 50 miles from where I live in London. Should be a good way to prepare myself for a week-long bike

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-26998263384578202782009-02-10T01:27:00.004Z2009-02-12T00:45:51.147Z

Wow, just noticed that I haven't posted since September 11th... that's a horrible last date to have posted something, so let's go again!Imagine this scenario:You go to the bathroom ready to brush your teeth before bed only to find a sink full of water. The plunger/stopper/whatever you want to call it is stuck down. You try the lever at the back of the faucet, but nothing happens. You try from

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-81944652092332315052008-09-11T23:17:00.004+01:002008-09-11T23:25:01.903+01:00

One day soon, I will be posting a blog about the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, or so is my hope, as it's played a surprisingly significant role in my London education. In the meantime, I will leave you all with the question posed at last night's comedy night at the RVT:What's the difference between Sarah Palin and an eggbeater?As part of the joke competition, they ask the audience to compare a famous

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-55717026229945922212008-09-06T16:52:00.002+01:002008-09-06T16:57:10.289+01:00

That's 'version original' for all you non-French speaking folk:I hope to get a few more excerpt from the potato performance, for your own amusement.Meanwhile, the full text of my ode to the potato:My first experience with potatoes was at a pretty young age. In second grade, we did this experiment where we cut the eyes out of potatoes and put them in a shoe box to watch them grow towards the light

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-64667957660895032432008-09-04T22:20:00.003+01:002008-09-04T22:52:55.927+01:00

Well, this year, in honour of the UN-declared International Year of the Potato, my birthday theme is... you guessed it, that twisted tuber, the russet root: the noble spud.I have therefore decided to preview the much anticipated evening with song and video. Enjoy!IYPMy name is potatoPotato SongPsycho PotatoPotato Song 2Wiggles (an Australian kids TV show) do the Hot PotatoThe Little Wiggles (to

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-34675153066611039282008-07-01T19:30:00.001+01:002008-07-01T19:32:24.418+01:00

On my last visit to the US in March, the trans-Atlantic leg of my flight was particularly empty. I had a full row to myself, and bodies dotted the section.Today the flight is full, and I’m crammed into the back corner. At least it’s a window seat. More families flying than I’m used to – families out for summer jaunts in Europe, defying all my lofty predictions of Americans avoiding a

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-88122221988185035182008-05-27T21:28:00.001+01:002008-05-27T21:28:56.482+01:00

Proper brits would be appalled. And yet there is something so deliciously beautiful about an american ex-pat sitting across from big ben in a track top eating kebabs and drinking stella while reading a book by an american ex-pat about the quirkiness of this quaint nation.

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-7095678898990816222008-05-14T16:24:00.001+01:002008-05-14T22:24:58.862+01:00

Though i walk by parliament almost daily. Yay sun!

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-46910637522738429512008-05-13T02:04:00.002+01:002008-05-13T02:06:08.404+01:00

IMG_0431Originally uploaded by knezovjb This photo was taken on the highway between Chengdu and Kangding, which lies within a couple hundred kilometers of the epicentre of today's earthquake.They were still in the middle of building the road the first time I travelled the route. We got stopped on the highway for three hours because of the construction--they had limited it to only one lane of

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-45741035511736366272008-05-13T00:28:00.004+01:002008-05-13T01:43:04.715+01:00

I hate the feeling of helplessness. In fact, if I had to choose a single motivating drive in my life, it's avoiding that feeling of helplessness. And yet, here I find myself today. The earthquake in Sichuan, China, has brought me there again.Terrible things happen around the world daily. Hourly. Probably even by the minute. I imagine it to be the opposite of the naive, or at least blissfully

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-31053425172866329802008-02-01T14:33:00.000Z2008-02-01T14:40:09.260Z

I thought I'd try a new type of post this week. Since so many of my blogs were collections of good articles that I was reading (with commentary), I thought I'd start saving and tagging on del.icio.us and create a weekly list of Goodreads.Don't get me wrong, there's more commentary to come, but at least this way I can get the things I'm thinking about out there sooner rather than later!If you're

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-2896922552786094322008-01-27T01:24:00.000Z2008-02-07T23:57:04.428Z

We have entered the epoch of timeless time. At least, this is a key argument put forward by Manual Castells in his seminal, The Network Society. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) and biotechnologies have eroded the logic of linear time. We may not be able to physically travel to points past, control the future or exist in multiple place simultaneously, but as technology develops

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-1446406583984572462008-01-23T22:35:00.000Z2008-01-24T01:05:58.305Z

For having gone to the London School of Economics, you'd think I'd know something on the topic. But, much to the chagrin of my father, I have yet to take an economics course. That doesn't mean that I don't have an understanding of economic fundamentals, it just means that I have a difficult time answering the deeper questions.I was just listening to the Democratic debate in South Carolina, and

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-15619900273080098022008-01-22T23:24:00.000Z2008-01-23T01:50:39.528Z

Now that the pump is primed and I have you thinking about Davos; and now that my duties as a member of the ODI comms team have been fulfilled, and I have promoted my colleagues' opinions. It's my turn:What better place to start than the IHT?You know something big is happening when an article published just today topped the 'most emailed in the last 24 hours' list and is quickly ascending the '

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-37581566624046192852008-01-22T22:44:00.000Z2008-01-22T23:22:58.764Z

This week sees the return of the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland from the 23-27 January.The director of the Overseas Development Institute (where I work), Simon Maxwell, is already on his way there to talk money with the best of them. But thanks to an innovative online comms manager (no not me, I'm not that immodest), the ODI also thought it'd try its hand at participative

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-85212445554602502372008-01-07T00:18:00.000Z2008-01-07T00:27:59.157Z

In the most recent Presidential debate, the moderator started by doing his bit to strike fear into the hearts of US Americans (as Miss Teen South Carolina is so fond of calling us) by pressing the hypothetical issue of rogue nuclear bombs being smuggled into America and detonated (a la fictional TV show 24).As part of his response, Governor Bill Richardson talked about the broader need for

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-35929029550006697772008-01-04T20:21:00.000Z2008-01-04T22:35:43.534Z

Last week I began posting interesting articles that I come across to my del.icio.us account goodreads tag (subscribe to the RSS feed to see what I'm reading as I'm reading it). Among the first articles that I posted with some chagrin was a Guardian (good UK newspaper) article entitled China Limits Providers of Internet Video.The article explains that the Chinese government was implementing a

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-22621917063661084352007-11-26T02:40:00.000Z2007-11-26T02:47:53.923Z

Ok, call me immature, but sometimes Chinglish just gets the best of me. I was watching the Amazing Race on tudou.com, a Chinese video sharing site, and I got the following ad:Couldn't help but laugh. I wonder where I can find me some virgin oil...And so we can class up this post a bit, here's an interesting IHT article on Hinglish coming into its own that you might find worthwhile.

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-66357455709923654442007-11-05T14:34:00.000Z2007-11-05T15:04:27.843Z

If the European side of Istanbul is a destination in and of itself, the Asian side seems to me a point de depart (in the various senses of the term). I took the ferry across this morning, hoping to escape the steady rain that was beating down in the old town. It was a breezy journey of twenty minutes. I managed to pick the smoking "cabin" (which had lots of open windows to let out the smoke)

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9388204.post-86970049909210261322007-11-04T16:08:00.000Z2007-11-04T16:36:25.511Z

Arriving at the uber-modern Ataturk airport in Istanbul last night, any preconceptions I had about the place were shattered.I suppose that I didn't really know what to expect. Probably something along the lines of Marrakesh or Casablanca (though Istanbul is significantly bigger than either), but my visit to Delhi (with the international airport shielded by a corrugated tin roof!) has taught me

Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12780484559361743488noreply@blogger.com0