I like watching movies in a theatre only when the movie is worthwile. The fascinating thing about watching a movie in the theatre is that it leaves a life long flash in your mind. If one does that in every Tom Dick and Harry movie then I feel it is corrupted thought. "Golamaal", "Chupke Chupke", "Mr India", "DDLJ", "MPK" etc all of them are of that genre. I as a person believe that if a movie/plot is good enough, it is like watching a movie afresh everytime. In the bollywood perspective I like people with fresh ideas/plots. I generallly like Ram Gopal Verma stamp movies. They are generally so different from other stories. If I feel a movie is good, I go and watch it in the theatres else online/Cds/DVDs are a better route. I happened to recently see "Darwaza Bandh Rakho ne" and "Shiva" both of them were a good movie for different reasons. I also happened to see "DON" the new onw. I should appreciate Farhan Akhtar for all his previous movies, but in this movie he has tried to copy a bit too much. Had he adapted it, it would have been more likeable than this. He should have copied only the story to a large extent and a few dialogues and essence and not the other things.
The Indian movies when they have a betterstorylinearebetter than most of the other movies that I see. HAIL BOLLYWOOD at the end of the day.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Typical Towns in England
English towns are very identical in nature. The town would have a railway station to which a bus station would be provided close by or there would be frequent city bus service taking to the bus station. Very close to the railway station there would be a central marketplace which is called a town centre in UK. In the US they call it a downtown. The towncentre would have the same shops across UK. The famous chains of retails stores are
Sainsbury – It is good for food and drink primarily. Have huge variety of wines and alcohol. They also have some really good value for money fast foods with a lot of variety
Tesco – It is supposed to be the cheapest overall. Cheap cosmetics are generally bought here. It is generally good for many day-today products. Most of the smokers buy their cigarettes from here as it is cheaper than the rest places.
Boots – This is the biggest chain of pharmacy/beauty products stores. Here one would find amazing variety of shavers, lotions and lots of other stuff.
Iceland – This is a very good shop for buying frozen foods. Amazing variety. Lot of Indian variety too. Beers generally have good offers.
Pound Shops – Almost all the major towns have these one pound shops. It is something similar to our 49 & 99 stores across India. All items are placed at one pound. People generally buy umbrellas, cosmetics – soap, deodorants, brush, paste, mints, chewing gum etc. We even get a watch for one pound. But as expected you get only sundar, sasta and ghatiya products here. Few Indians also buy some really cheap chocolates here.
Wilkinson – It is the biggest chain of hardware shops. You get all the carpentry, electrical, plumbing, construction, gardening equipment here.
Jessops – They are primarily into sale of electronic items. The point is that it is better to buy electronic items in UK online as there are some awesome discounts there. We can use these shops to do some window shopping.
Marks & Spencer – It is as most of now the biggest cloth store chain. They have some amazing collection of clothes but a tad expensive than the general merchandise. They primarily provide discounts only around Christmas. The clothes overall are of better value for money in India. Well people with taste for brands can definitely shop here.
H&M – Cloth shop. Never been there
Pizza Shops – Papa Jones, Pizza Hut, Dominoes – the preference hierarchy
Burger Shops – Subway(Provide some personal customizations), Burger King and McDonalds. McDonalds sometimes don’t provide any vegetarian items.
ATMs – Almost all the major banks will have their ATMs in the town centre. HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays seem to be the most popular ones here.
Café’s – There will be quite a few café’s which would be Italian kinds with an odd Indian/Chinese/Others types. Starbucks is the only one heard about still need to go there.
Others – There are various other shops like Beauty shops, cake and pastry, clothe stores, toy shops, gift shops etc. which are generally out of scope right now for me.
The town centres would have parking spaces allocated in the basement or in the top floor of the the place depending on the design.
Just next to the town centre would be a few streets where you will have some additional outlets. Majority of these would be pubs, restaurants, takeaways, clubs, real estate agents, banks, Post Office, flower shops etc. The car showrooms would be spread across the town as they require more space. Apart from this you have very few shops scattered across. A majority of those would be attached to the petrol pumps. Just like in India we have the weekly markets, UK has them too. The local farmers come along with their stuff which they typically sell in stalls. In Karnataka-India we call it the santi or weekly market. Loads of people buy the stuff from here. Most of the big retail chains provide vegetables but they seem to be a bit stale as they are brought through the route of freezing. The only other way to buy vegetables is to buy some frozen cut vegetables which is definitely good for the bachelor folks. Majority of the big towns have a theatre called the Haymarket here where plays are staged at least once a week. Majority of the people flocking these would be as expected old folks and many middle-aged people accompanying them.
The big expanse of London is totally different from the ones mentioned for a smaller town. We can read the London section for more details.
The whole town is generally built surrounding these town centers (Or maybe it is the other way around). Majority of the temporary workforce either stay in hotels or in apartments or bungalows closer to the town centre. Indians and Chinese/Koreans generally prefer this as they do not want to buy/hire cars and hence need to be in the vicinity of the town centre which is well connected by public transport. In UK all roads (& rails) lead to London (instead of Rome). Most of the towns are well connected to London. I would also be writing on the transport in UK shortly with links to helpful hyperlinks.
The city centre (market) in England is called a towncentre and apart from this place we hardly get any other shop. The adjoining areas of the towncentre is generally the commercial district and the re would be lot of shops, agencies, restaurants, offices, bus stations, train stations etc placed around it. Few minutes walk around the towncentre and one would be in the residential areas of the city. The only other things which could be found away from the towncentre are a few hotels, restaurants, petrol stations
Sainsbury – It is good for food and drink primarily. Have huge variety of wines and alcohol. They also have some really good value for money fast foods with a lot of variety
Tesco – It is supposed to be the cheapest overall. Cheap cosmetics are generally bought here. It is generally good for many day-today products. Most of the smokers buy their cigarettes from here as it is cheaper than the rest places.
Boots – This is the biggest chain of pharmacy/beauty products stores. Here one would find amazing variety of shavers, lotions and lots of other stuff.
Iceland – This is a very good shop for buying frozen foods. Amazing variety. Lot of Indian variety too. Beers generally have good offers.
Pound Shops – Almost all the major towns have these one pound shops. It is something similar to our 49 & 99 stores across India. All items are placed at one pound. People generally buy umbrellas, cosmetics – soap, deodorants, brush, paste, mints, chewing gum etc. We even get a watch for one pound. But as expected you get only sundar, sasta and ghatiya products here. Few Indians also buy some really cheap chocolates here.
Wilkinson – It is the biggest chain of hardware shops. You get all the carpentry, electrical, plumbing, construction, gardening equipment here.
Jessops – They are primarily into sale of electronic items. The point is that it is better to buy electronic items in UK online as there are some awesome discounts there. We can use these shops to do some window shopping.
Marks & Spencer – It is as most of now the biggest cloth store chain. They have some amazing collection of clothes but a tad expensive than the general merchandise. They primarily provide discounts only around Christmas. The clothes overall are of better value for money in India. Well people with taste for brands can definitely shop here.
H&M – Cloth shop. Never been there
Pizza Shops – Papa Jones, Pizza Hut, Dominoes – the preference hierarchy
Burger Shops – Subway(Provide some personal customizations), Burger King and McDonalds. McDonalds sometimes don’t provide any vegetarian items.
ATMs – Almost all the major banks will have their ATMs in the town centre. HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays seem to be the most popular ones here.
Café’s – There will be quite a few café’s which would be Italian kinds with an odd Indian/Chinese/Others types. Starbucks is the only one heard about still need to go there.
Others – There are various other shops like Beauty shops, cake and pastry, clothe stores, toy shops, gift shops etc. which are generally out of scope right now for me.
The town centres would have parking spaces allocated in the basement or in the top floor of the the place depending on the design.
Just next to the town centre would be a few streets where you will have some additional outlets. Majority of these would be pubs, restaurants, takeaways, clubs, real estate agents, banks, Post Office, flower shops etc. The car showrooms would be spread across the town as they require more space. Apart from this you have very few shops scattered across. A majority of those would be attached to the petrol pumps. Just like in India we have the weekly markets, UK has them too. The local farmers come along with their stuff which they typically sell in stalls. In Karnataka-India we call it the santi or weekly market. Loads of people buy the stuff from here. Most of the big retail chains provide vegetables but they seem to be a bit stale as they are brought through the route of freezing. The only other way to buy vegetables is to buy some frozen cut vegetables which is definitely good for the bachelor folks. Majority of the big towns have a theatre called the Haymarket here where plays are staged at least once a week. Majority of the people flocking these would be as expected old folks and many middle-aged people accompanying them.
The big expanse of London is totally different from the ones mentioned for a smaller town. We can read the London section for more details.
The whole town is generally built surrounding these town centers (Or maybe it is the other way around). Majority of the temporary workforce either stay in hotels or in apartments or bungalows closer to the town centre. Indians and Chinese/Koreans generally prefer this as they do not want to buy/hire cars and hence need to be in the vicinity of the town centre which is well connected by public transport. In UK all roads (& rails) lead to London (instead of Rome). Most of the towns are well connected to London. I would also be writing on the transport in UK shortly with links to helpful hyperlinks.
The city centre (market) in England is called a towncentre and apart from this place we hardly get any other shop. The adjoining areas of the towncentre is generally the commercial district and the re would be lot of shops, agencies, restaurants, offices, bus stations, train stations etc placed around it. Few minutes walk around the towncentre and one would be in the residential areas of the city. The only other things which could be found away from the towncentre are a few hotels, restaurants, petrol stations
UK versus England
United Kingdom is made up of 4 countries - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. UK minus N. Ireland is Great Britain. All these four countries are united for many things and independent on others. The language and culture of all the 4 provinces are different. One gets only a VISA of UK and not as England or Britain. England and Wales combine for Cricket, Scotland is a separate team. For Football they have different teams for all. They used to play hockey under the GB banner a few years back.
UK Flag (UNION JACK)
England Flag
Scotland Flag
Wales Flag
Northern Ireland Flag (Unofficial)
The UK flag is made after combining all these flags. Hence it is always referred to as the Union Jack. The reason why when there is mention of England we have a red plus sign in a white background and not the union jack. I never happened to notice it so far in my life and so would have quite a few people like me.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Start of my visit to UK
This is my first visit outside the Indian subcontinent and it is a funny feeling. It has been more than a month since I landed up here. I came to UK on the 13th of August, just 2 days after the UK police nabbed suspected terrorists. The timing wasn’t that great as I had to make lot many changes to my trip plans. I had to buy a new bag so that I could accommodate many things in one bag including the hand luggage and handbag. I had to leave behind quite a few things. All the flights that day were delayed and there were long queues in the airport. I was happy to see one of my pages being filled in the passport after 6 years of getting it. I was flying from Bangalore to Mumbai and Mumbai to London Heathrow. The Air-India flight was peaceful and it is not that greatly different from a domestic flight except that there are more number of seats, the food is served couple of times more and there is alcohol provided too. I finally landed in London Heathrow after 22 hours from the start of my journey. Three of us had started the journey together – Raviraja Dubba, Pradipta Nayak and myself. We were expecting some amount of frisking and scanning of our bags or a thorough check, but did not find anything of that sort. There was a big queue for the immigration check and were apprehensive. But it was just a cakewalk for us. Then we boarded a Taxi to Basingstoke and realized the stupid system of communication while finding the roads here. They call a circle a Roundabout and the call nth exit for getting out of a circle. Hardly any landmarks are stated as we often do in India and finally after a while we landed at the Copper Beeches hotel at 11.30 pm on a Sunday night.
We checked into our respective rooms and found out that the rooms were ridiculously small in terms of the size. I was put up in a 10 x 10 ft room including the bathroom and a cupboard. We had landed up in the second half of the English summer and found that the day breaks at 5am and night is realized around 8pm.
We were at the office by 8.30am the next day. In the next week or so started to get accustomed on the work front and trying to understand the scope of our work. Still most of us on the assignment are getting a feel of the work environment in UK. It is quite different to that India. People come on-time or early and leave after exactly 9 hours of work irrespective of the workload. Unless very very critical they do not hold back at the office. People hardly are on the phones, and they do not chat around much. People use more please rather than a thank you. People are at various positions irrespective of their age and most of the people like to do the same job day in and day out. Atleast this is the understanding. People speak primarily for work-related things only. I was also exposed to some British sense of humour but it would take a longtime to start really understanding them.
We checked into our respective rooms and found out that the rooms were ridiculously small in terms of the size. I was put up in a 10 x 10 ft room including the bathroom and a cupboard. We had landed up in the second half of the English summer and found that the day breaks at 5am and night is realized around 8pm.
We were at the office by 8.30am the next day. In the next week or so started to get accustomed on the work front and trying to understand the scope of our work. Still most of us on the assignment are getting a feel of the work environment in UK. It is quite different to that India. People come on-time or early and leave after exactly 9 hours of work irrespective of the workload. Unless very very critical they do not hold back at the office. People hardly are on the phones, and they do not chat around much. People use more please rather than a thank you. People are at various positions irrespective of their age and most of the people like to do the same job day in and day out. Atleast this is the understanding. People speak primarily for work-related things only. I was also exposed to some British sense of humour but it would take a longtime to start really understanding them.
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