Unbalanced Vision

Till death do us not part

Xin Nian Kuai Le! Gong Xi Fa Cai! Here's a plate of fish heads to wish for surpluses and bountiful harvests every year.

So it's the Year of the Golden Pig in London, and with Mayor Ken Livingston at the helm, this western capital is multicultural at its best. Red lantern-shaped lights were lit up at Oxford Circus, as well as festivities around China Town for a fortnight. However, some people's merrymaking can be pain for others. My chavy neighbours downstairs were raving from 4am till after midnight on Chinese New Year's Day! These white trash were not celebrating our holiday of course, but simply being world class ASBOs. Their ongoing awful techno makes cacophonous firecrackers sound like heavenly music. Yes, in fact that's what I'll do: the day I move out I shall release Chinese firecrackers to celebrate!

Balloon attack

Her cake

I was there

I've lost count on the birthday parties I've been to these past few weeks, and it's not the end. Birthday party invites are like spring flowers sprouting across your gloomy winter social calendar, you welcome their appearance more than you want to pluck them. You catch up with old mates, and make small talk with new ones--it can be a boring routine, unless once in a while you do meet an interesting soul. Or, say, you happen to sit next to a BA flight attendant, and you secretly think if this new found friend can upgrade your ticket to business class. People are always n.i.c.e., but I'm extremely choosy when it comes to picking shells from the sand. But such feelings must be reciprocated. I am lucky--ones I like happen to like me as well. Birds of a flock group together. In any case, just sing the song and eat your cake.

Eating like kings

It's the Opium War all over again

What are you looking at, R?

Here is Virginia Woolf speaking as a spoilt middle class of the Bloomsbury set; however, had she been to Pasha, her previous dining experiences would seem like a paler shade of grey. London is about multiculturalism and once in a while, about splurging inappropriately. One of HY's former colleague organised his leaving do at this Moroccan restaurant, and by the end of the night, I had filled my belly and emptied the wallet. It started like an endless supply of appetizers, and just as we thought there was no space left in our stomachs, a large bowl of couscous, saugages and lamb followed, and finally it was the plates of dessert. But food was not the only treat--melon and grape flavoured shisha were on the menu, and drop-dead gorgeous belly dancers make you feel like a Moroccan king. I, too, like to look at beauties.