Sunday Posts

It is that sort of time of the year when I am tempted to look back, as well as look ahead, at the same time. The festive season is already here, with the police closing traffic at the West End for shoppers' convenience and the weekend parking charges at our local shopping centre shooting up from £3.50 a day to £16.30 a day: The work at office is coming to an inevitable halt as people start to disappear for their year-end holidays. I can't wait to end this year, one of the most difficult in my life, but a strange sense of melancholy overwhelms me somewhat. It seems it is the time to say a final goodbye to so many people who have already departed, but those who I so dearly loved and thought I would never let them go, whose memories lived with me every waking moment during the year: It seems, with the turn of the clock this year-end, they would finally step back and become a part of my past, never to return to presence yet again.  However, this was also a year spent in preparati...

It is one of those moments: I am tired of my rusty old self and want to make a fresh start. So, no mid-life crisis for me. That would be against the principles I grew up with: Never mind the difficulties, keep working and things will happen to you. Sort of thing my grandfather, who built a successful business from the scratch, would have approved. He went by some sort of Asian value - 'the man who rises up before dawn 360 days a year, never fails to make his family rich' - but this may as well pass by the name of 'protestant work ethic'. But, whatever it is, it serves me well. Despite the inescapable ups and downs, recessions and all that, it helps to keep my head down and keep moving. This is what I am doing right now. I had to write off my last few years of work, relationships and all that, and make a fresh start. But that was okay: I could condition myself to think that my life is starting afresh and I must be humble enough to absorb the difficulties and keep my mind...

George Osborne did what he promised to do - took maximum advantage of recent poll victory, wimpishness of Liberal Democrats and the usual Conservative scare-mongering - and delivered a very harsh budget. It hit home, and thousands of teachers and other public service workers have been imposed a pay freeze. This government excels in PR, indeed that was this Prime Ministers chosen profession, and the practice of spin reigned supreme on the budget day. Britain is bankrupt, indeed, a second Greece in the making; though it is interesting to note that Britain can afford to maintain and upgrade Trident, at the cost of £50 billion, whereas Greece can't dream about such a waste. I am not affected. I have nothing to do with public sector. But it is a stunning display of conservative comeback, which is happening all over Europe in all its ugliness. There is a cosy coalition of newspapers and conservative dagger-wielders, with some clueless privileged bobbies like Nick Clegg literally being ...

I am thrilled today. I know which compartment of my train from Moorgate stop right in front of the exit of Liverpool Street station. This meant I walked a little less, but may be not - because I had to walk those extra steps anyway while getting on to the train. But, still a small victory: I have saved about 30 seconds and the hassle of walking through the gathered crowd waiting to get into the train while I get off. That was surely smart! But, may be, it is just my lucky day. I got onto the same train I get on to every day, at 8:26 from Croydon , a busy commuter suburb on the South of london , but today, amazingly, I got a seat. This was just lucky, someone got off at a station in the middle [they never get off, at least from this particular train] and the girl standing next to the seat did not want to take the vacant seat. That was so unusual! This almost looked tailor made to make this a happy day for me. As the departing passenger packed his bags and slided past me for the stati...

First things first. Be rich or be human? This rhetorical question isn't meant to be a moral one, but rather a practical one raised by Paul Saffo , formerly of Institute for The Future. His point is that with access to biotechnology innovations, the rich may soon become a different species. This is similar to other predictions made by scientists recently, the American scientist Ray Kurzweil in particular, that, with the advancement of nano -technology, immortality may be possible in a few generations. So, the dream of creating an ageless super-race isn't an impractical dream anymore. Indeed, whether this will happen is a matter of futurists, whose job is to weigh in various possibilities and make responsible predictions. Paul Saffo has been particularly prescient in the past and his ideas count in the Silicon Valley, where most of the research projects which can make this vision come true are being undertaken. However, since the thought has entered the realm of possibility, i...