Snow

It's snowing again in London, which means...

Kilburn

I love where I live. The culture, the energy, the amenities, the transport links. It's been my only home, and it hurts to see what's happened in the past few months, as the economic downturn has taken it's grip.

Photos taken on Kilburn High Road on the 5th April 2009

In Greenwich

My mum is an office worker for P&O. The ferry company is a sponsor of ‘The Bridge’, a new wing of the National Maritime Museum, and she was given free tickets to attend the opening ceremony. The NMM is the largest maritime museum in the world and the collection is very well laid out and explained. I know so little about all things nautical but it was fascinating to have a look around all the artefacts and have a play with the interactive exhibits in the kids’ section. They really help you to learn and I think I now have a (very) basic understanding of how a ship works. There’s also a new section on Nelson & Napoleon, chronicling and comparing the lives of the two leaders, which I definitely recommend – go and visit! Oh, and entrance is now free.

Open House

This week, was Open House London. This is an initiative where around six hundred of the most beautiful and/or architecturally significant buildings in the capital are opened for the public to see for free. We went on a guided tour of ‘The State’ first, a stunning building which is perhaps the most famous building in Kilburn. When it was finished in 1937 it was the largest theatre in the world, and had seats for over 4000 people and standing room for a further 4000. It is now a bingo hall.

Kingsgate Workshops were also open, showcasing the work of artists working in all range of different mediums. I’d never been before and don’t normally take much interest in art, but it was really nice to see what was going on and to talk to the creators. I met a one-legged lady there who was working on films depicting disability. I couldn’t tell which was her prosthetic when she walked to the other side of the room.

Whereabouts did you go?

The State
























The Wurlitzer in the State, the larest in working order in the country



















My main man James, outside Westminster

Mega mela

It’s Mela time! Yesterday I was first-aiding at the London Mela in Gunnerbury Park. It was said to be the largest celebration of South Asian culture outside the Indian subcontinent, but the turnout was less than expected. It’s a shame, because it was quite a colourful spectacle, broken only by the frequent downpours we had, that had people scuttling to our tent for some shelter. One terrible thing happened though – heard some subtle racism from a first aider. Twice! And the aim of the day was to promote unity and community understanding.

On the way back, one thing did brighten up my day though – a young Asian boy was with his friends, and as they passed a girl he turned round to stare.
Boy [to Girl]: Hello. Hi. Can I just say something to you? You’re really buff.
Girl [pointing over her shoulder]: That’s my mum.
Mum: OK OK son. Please carrying on walking.
Boy: No no, no disrespect or anything aunty. No disrespect at all. You’re daughter’s just really fit though, and it had to be said, innit…Innit?
Unknown boy, I salute you.

London update

The atmosphere in London is pretty eerie at the moment. The eyes of the world seemed to be on London a month ago. What with the Wimbledon tennis championships, the G8 summit, Live8 and then winning the honour of hosting the 2012 Olympics, there was a feeling of euphoria, mixed in with some cynicism (most of my lab colleagues aren’t students and so have to pay council tax, which will be raised to pay for the Olympics). The next day, however, there were a series of fatal bombings on parts of the London public transport system, and since then there have been further failed bomb attempts. There are now almost daily security alerts and evacuations in North London. Over the past month I’ve been cycling around the city and my daily life hasn’t been too disrupted, but on the way to work (Hammersmith Hospital) today I passed a street that had been cordoned off my police. I didn’t stop to wait, but I’ve just heard that it seems armed forces have cornered one of the suspected bombers there. It’s only five minutes away from work and ten minutes from home. Initially it was thought that the 7/7 attacks were the work of a small cell within the UK working independently, but now it seems they were part of a much larger network, with arrests already being made as far away as Egypt and Pakistan. Strange times.

Check out the BBC News site for more details.

More violence

Four more bombs on the Underground today. It seems to be a repeat of the events of a fortnight ago. Again there was chaos, and most of the public transport networks within the city were closed for a while. Thankfully the devices only partially exploded, and nobody was hurt.

Riding the Underground

Since the summer’s started I haven’t been using the Tube, London’s metro system, preferring to cycle around the city. It’s actually turned out to be a lot quicker to get around, and I’ve also got (slightly) fitter. I was speaking to my sister about the public transport network, and she’s noticed quite a change in people using the system. Before 7/7 most people preferred to keep to themselves on the Tube, reading, listening to music, staring into space or whatever. It was quite unusual to have a conversation with a stranger. Now though, people are a lot more wary, taking in their surroundings and being a lot more observant of unattended baggage and the like. There’s also been some hostility towards Asian men, especially those carrying a big bag. Some commuters have shouted abuse at them and others have not boarded a carriage with a brown guy, preferring to wait for the next train. I can kind of sympathise with them (most people would, if they’d seen fifty people killed and a further seven hundred injured earlier that month), but it’s brought about what one person has called a path towards ‘a racially segregated form of transport’. I doubt that will last, but it’ll be a travesty whilst it does.

Welcome and thank you

Hello and thanks for stopping by my page. My name’s Moc, and this is my first ever blog. Thank you for reading it! I hope my site will be a fairly frequent update on my daily activities, and act as an outlet to my thoughts, experiences, hopes, dreams and rants. I’ll try to keep it as true and as honest as possible. Please feel free to post any comments or suggestions (I’d love constructive criticism) and I’ll do the best I can to improve the blog. Enjoy.


First of all, a little about me. I’m 21 years old, and am a fourth year med student at Imperial College in London, UK, having just passed my end of year exams. We’ve just started our holidays, therefore, and in our three month vacation I plan to go to Egypt to a summer school on tropical medicine, to prepare to take the Step 1 USMLE exam (an American medical licensing exam) and to finally learn to drive. In the meantime, however, I’m going to have some fun. London is an amazing city, and even though I’ve lived here all my life, I’ve seen so little of it. I still consider South and East London the dark side of the capital. Hopefully I’ll catch some of the less well know treasures it has to offer. Any ideas?


Being a Londoner, and having to commute to hospitals all over the city as part of my training I have chosen to live back at home this year, with my parents and little sister. She’s seventeen years old, and currently slacking for her A-levels, with the ultimate dream of being a dentist. I’m not sure how interested you all are about home life, and I don’t intend to write about it too much, but human relationships are fascinating, so let me know if you’d like to know more.


Personality-wise, I’m not really sure how to describe myself. I love meeting new people, especially those with a different background to mine. I’m very interested in other cultures and traditions and the way other people live their lives. As a result, I also enjoy travelling, and over the past few years have been fortunate enough to travel to the USA, Canada, Tanzania, Madagascar and Germany. They’ve all been brilliant experiences and if I have time, I’ll try and type up all the notes I made to remember it all.


Even though I’m gregarious with new people, though, I’m quite introverted most of the time. I feel quite comfortable spending time alone, but sometimes I feel I isolate myself too much. I have lots of friends, but I want to be closer to some of them. In fact, one of my aims this year is to meet fewer people but to try and establish a closer bond with them.


I love reading, and sitting down with a good book is one of my favourite hobbies. I enjoy all forms of the written word, and have recently started to explore African literature, but from a very callow starting point. At the moment I’m enjoying Nigerian master Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’. My favourite books include the hilarious ‘Vanity Fair’ by William Thackeray, Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’, a tale of partition and love in 1940s India and ‘The Woman in White’ by Wilkie Collins. Sweeping epics are my thing.


I have a passion for sport, though with my current body habitus I’m more of an armchair fan than an active participator. Cricket, cycling and football (or soccer) are my favourites, and I’m avidly following the European Championships in sunny Portugal.


Finally – medicine. It’s my degree subject and my future career, but I’ve lost the love I used to have for it. Where is the passion, where is the intensity, I ask?? Sometimes I am overwhelmed by how privileged I am to be a doctor in training, to be learning about the beauty of our bodies and acquiring the skills to help save lives, but this has recently dimmed. By reflecting upon what I have learned and conveying this in writing to you all I hope this passion will be rekindled; and for my readers, a medical student’s training is certainly never dull! I’ll keep you updated in the endeavours it takes to be the best doctor you can be, the latest medical advances and amazing bodily facts. One field I will probably discuss in depth is neuroscience. I love neuro. And this year I will have the opportunity to deepen my understanding of what we know about the intricacies and functional diversity of the brain, as I complete a Batchelor of Science in the subject. I hope I may even have the chance to personally contribute to our search for neuroscientific knowledge. It promises to be an exciting time of growth and discovery, and I’ll keep you all updated.


Once again, thank you for reading, and please feel free to leave comments.


Moc