Save AWARE part 2

It was late Sunday night, I was preparing to go to bed, when L messaged me, "check out the AWARE takeover, its big news in SG". I was intrigued by any kind of takeover... and if its big news it gotta be really good. Having the vaguest idea of AWARE, I typed "aware takeover" in google...

The first link I clicked praised the new exco (executive committee). The blogger thought that the old AWARE was "an organisation made up of the sort of Western educated Singaporean women of a certain social class whom I find particularly irksome." She congratulated the new exco, saying any change is better, and blamed the old guard (the former exco) for being complacent and sore losers.

Fine, I thought. But I still didn't know what AWARE was and what was the big deal. So I clicked the second link...I found out that the takeover was a conspiracy - the website showed lots of emails. I was short on time so I skimmed thru the emails and I saw a lot of these words, " I pray that", "May He in His almighty wisdom...", "God"... I got the creeps...

Then I got the link that finally clearly outlined the issue. The story, in my own simplified terms, is that AWARE, an associated for advocating women's rights, were deemed by a Christian church to be pro-homosexuality. Its not hard to see how it works - the church got its members to join AWARE, take part in the AGM and vote its own members into office, thus hijacking this once stable organisation for its own goals.

While ordinarily I would have said, "suck it up, old guards", the more I read about AWARE, the new exco and what they stand for, and how the takeover happened, the more concerned I got and the greater the injustice I felt.

I don't want to sound like biased but I do believe the truth is out there for people to draw their own conclusions. There are huge issues at stake here - it isn't really about the old guards being sore about losing control of AWARE. The issues, if you would forgive me for generalising, are:

Homosexuality - I saw a video given by a pastor at COOS (church of our saviour), the church which instigated the takeover, give a sermon about homosexuality. He proclaimed, based on the word of God, or the bible, that homosexuality is a sin. Anyone remember Galileo, who was prosecuted by the church for saying the earth rotates around the sun? Or the witch hunts back in the medieval times? The bible is open to interpretation. How can we allow an organisation, built on the promise of fighting for the rights of all women, discriminate against another group?

Ethics and Integrity - the way in which the AGM was hijacked was something you would only imagine in the brutal and evil world of corporate finance. Even I was amazed at how the new exco didn't invite one of their officers, because she was also a part of the original exco.

Religion - AWARE wasn't a christian group. It helped women of all race, religion and sexuality. Now its being run by a pro-christian organisation.

At the press conference, the new exco said they were surprised and upset by death threats that they've received. The curious thing, to me, is that they can't see the reason why! I'm not a woman, not gay, not in Singapore and not feminist, and yet I feel anger and resentment towards these people - is it so surprising that they've angered a lot of people?

The good news, as many people has pointed out, is that this saga has brought all these issues to discussion.

Sign the petition if you are like me, or even better, if you are able to attend the EGM, sign up as an AWARE member and go vote for justice!

Save AWARE

http://www.gopetition.com/online/27163.html

- getting late, I gotta go sleep but just want to highlight this issue. Will blog more about it when I get the time.

gosh there's just so much to write I don't even know where to begin.

Den of thieves

Reading this book called "Den of Thieves" by James B. Stewart, written some time ago about the insider trading scandal back in the 1980s, involving people like Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky and Martin Siegel. Don't blame you if you never heard of them...

Was introduced to this book by an accountant friend. She told me once that we are in evil jobs. I refused to accept that banking, as a profession, is evil. Will skip my arguments now - but at that time I was protesting quite a bit.

And now, reading through just like 20% of the book, I'm really starting to reconsider. Maybe its true... bankers are evil...

Easter Sunday

Went to Margate - a small town east of England at the coast to cycle on Easter Sunday. It was quite a last minute decision... Friday and Monday were bank holidays so it was a pretty long weekend, and all my closest friends had programmes already so I had to find my own. A colleague asked me to join him, so I was like, what the hell, lets do it! We got another 2 more colleagues to join us.

Was quite a relaxing day. We cycled in total for about 5 or 6 hours.. spent some time at a beach lazing in the sun. Some pictures below...

Golf course

Sun shining through the clouds

Boss dropped a bombshell on me...

He called us (me and Colleague A) out for a coffee after the market closed. Now, we don't normally go out for coffee together, much less in the evening... I guessed something was up - maybe it was to do with the upcoming job cuts. Asking us out for coffee, the news can't be that bad... otherwise he wouldn't be the one telling us. So, a little apprehensively, but not-too-worriedly, I walked out the door with him.

After a few moments of inane, inconsequential conversation, he dropped the bomb. And it was a fast moving, exploding bomb... I didn't even hear the words carefully. I think I heard,

"... I am leaving the bank... end of May... so will be another two months... will maybe come back next year..."

I was stunned. We were making money this year. He had just closed several deals which not only cut our risk but made some money. And he was a geniunely nice guy who took care of us.

I learned he was planning to quit finance, go back to Greece, and start a family with his soon-to-be wife (in July). A reasonable explanation, one that I could definitely identify with. So I don't blame him, and am actually quite grateful for, thinking back to the past 2 months, he had been giving me more responsibility while being very nice (He would say, "would you like to do this? Only if you want to!").

But the question is, what does this mean for me?

I'll get a new boss, for sure. A few options - another senior colleague becomes my boss (in which case I'll most likely be VERY disillusioned), the head of another team becomes my boss as well (in which case I'll be stressed but I'll adapt and survive), or a head from asia comes over (in which case I'll probably just quit). Option B seems to be most likely - and me surviving.

Good news for me is that the bosses of my current boss knows about me and thinks pretty highly of me. The bad news is the other head (the one most likely to be my boss) doesn't think that.

Life goes on. I'm still collecting my salary. Wont get too stressed over it, don't worry :)

Sun, glorious Sun!

How rare it is for the sun to be shining bright in London. Its out again today! I felt like a typical Angmor... I changed into berms and sandals and walked to the nearest park (Primrose hill - its so pretty!), threw out my gym towel (I was going to wash it after my sunbathing trip) on the grass, took off my shirt, plugged in my ipod, and closed my eyes. Ooooh it felt soooooo gooooood.

There was nobody within 50 meters of me. Clean, green grass and bright sunshine. My words can't do it justice.

But it got a little cold at some point - the wind was pretty strong in an open field... so after about an hour of photosynthesizing, I got up and came back home, all the while still enjoying the warmth of the sunshine on my face.

I never really loved the sun back in Singapore. There was too much of it. And you'll always equate the sun with heat, and with heat comes sweat, smell, and discomfort. But its different here. Six long months of cold, dreary London can really drain your soul... and now Spring is here, and the Sun is back, and I'm like, "Gosh, I really missed you... don't leave me again."

G20 protests

I wore jeans and a scruffy looking Tshirt to the office today. Not hard for me to pull off the non-banker look, given I am pretty young and poor...

I was expecting a lot of people to be dressed down - but still I was surprised by what I saw as I left Liverpool St station. I could count the number of people wearing suits in one hand! Its surreal... usually at 7.30am in the morning its the other way around - its the people not wearing suits that are the minority.

And so it got a bit fun for me. I was checking out what some people were wearing. Some young ones looked like me - some even wore a hooded sweatshirt. Some were obviously trying to fit into their son's skinny jeans. And some people still can't ditch their striped collared shirts...

Thru the day I was watching the news about the protests. Was quite exciting. I actually wished for protesters to show up outside my building so I could experience what its like. Then at about 2pm, apparently a group of protesters smashed the windows of another building and a few of them scrambled in. They threw out some office equipment through the windows - but the police eventually evicted them from the building. Then it started getting a bit violent... then I changed my mind... I don't want them outside my building.

About an hour later an email from management came down, advising us that they received reports that the protesters will gather outside our building at 3.30-4, and advised us to leave if we don't have any urgent business. Ho ho ho... i don't need any prodding to leave early man... so I finished up my stuff and left the office :)

I was home by 4pm. The sun was still shining bright (it was actually 3pm because of the daylight saving) and so I took a leisurely jog to the park and then bathed in the sun for a bit. Heh heh you hardly find sun in London so you better squeeze all that you can get!

A very exciting day indeed for me :)

Casual wear week

From HereIsTheCIty:

Only the very brave (or the very stupid) admit to being a banker these days.

In times of trouble, we all like someone to blame. And bankers are getting it in the neck big time for the current financial and economic crisis - but not just the bankers that were responsible for our current difficulties, but any banker. These days, it's all about guilt by association.

Things have become so bad, that some firms are telling their staff to come to work in casual clothing, and not to wear anything that identifies where they work, or who they work for. Some staff have received death threats, or have been physically threatened.

Protesters went on a bus tour (the so-called Rich & Infamous tour) of the houses of AIG executives in the US last weekend, and vandals went to work on a house and a car owned by former Royal bank of Scotland CEO Sir Fred Goodwin in Edinburgh earlier this week, smashing windows. Police are investigating an e-mail which claims responsibility for the attacks, and says: 'We are angry that rich people, like him, are paying themselves a huge amount of money and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless......This is just the beginning'.

And then we face the prospect of the G20 protests in London next week, which are predicted to end up in riots and more vandalism.

So, we've been advised by the management to come in casual wear next week during the protests. While I'm happy at the opportunity to dress casual, I'm more concerned about the future outlook.

We know that banks are built on reputation. When the name of a bank has been so thoroughly tarnished - there really is no turning back. The bank will start to lose business and sooner or later, it will go down...

90% Tax on Bonus payments - what others say

The work we have all done to try to stabilize the financial system and to get this economy moving again would be significantly set back if we lose our talented people because Congress imposes a special tax on financial services employees.

Vikram Pandit, CEO, Citi

I am very concerned about our ability to retain some of our most valuable associates. The very best performers on our team will always have offers from competitors.

Ken Lewis, CEO, Bank of America

This will undermine the recovery efforts. It will decrease industry interest in participating in any recovery program, and cast a pall over existing and future contracts.

Scott Talbott, SVP for government affairs, the Financial Services Roundtable (Bloomberg)

While I totally understand the desire to recoup the bonus money, passing this bill out of anger and rage will only destroy the competitiveness of the industry and the banks you are trying to save. It is as simple as that.

Dan Greenhaus, equity analyst, Miller Tabak & Co (MarketWatch)

If you are not careful, the only people who will be interested in working for bailed out US banks will be about as bright as those lunatic US lawmakers.

Vic Daniels, publisher, Here Is The City

What Congress has said is that 'We will be an irrational-acting partner.' It dissuades anybody from taking on a relationship with the government.

John Canning, chairman, Madison Dearborn Partners (The Chicago Tribune)

Mass Hysteria Over AIG Obscures Simple Truths: Michael Lewis

I was feeling a little bit strongly about the AIG bonus tax affair when I came accross this commentary from Michael Lewis (the author of Liar's Poker) for Bloomberg news. I felt it described my thoughts so much better so I have shamelessly reproduced it here for your convenience.

Mass Hysteria Over AIG Obscures Simple Truths: Michael Lewis
2009-03-20 04:00:29.0 GMT

Commentary by Michael Lewis
March 20 (Bloomberg) -- Last September the U.S. government began to dole out the first of $173 billion to American International Group. A big chunk of it passed right through to banks that had bought insurance from AIG against mortgage and corporate defaults -- foreign banks such as Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale but also some domestic ones, such as Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.

U.S. government officials then went to great lengths to disguise from the public exactly what they had done, and why, going so far as to declare the ultimate list of recipients of taxpayer funds off limits to the taxpayer. To its immense credit, the media -- or, rather, a handful of diligent reporters, the New York Times’ Gretchen Morgenson chief among them -- prevented the public officials from getting their way.

This incredible act triggered hardly any political backlash. In effect, the U.S. taxpayer had paid off AIG’s gambling debts. The end recipient of the money was not AIG, but Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and the others.

Some large portion of the billions obviously wound up, in one form or another, in the pockets of their employees and shareholders. A few people on Capitol Hill moan and groan but there is popular agreement on the wisdom of this transfer of ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY THREE BILLION dollars from the taxpayer to the financiers.

Hari Kari

But when AIG itself pays out $165 million in bonuses -- money it is contractually obliged to pay -- the entire political system goes insane. President Barack Obama says he’s going to find a way to abrogate the contracts and take the money back. A U.S. senator says that AIG employees should kill themselves.

Every recriminatory bone in the political body is aroused; the one thing you can do right now in Washington without getting an argument is to rail against the ethics of AIG’s bonus payment.

Apart from Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times, it occurs to no one to say that a) the vast majority of the employees at AIG had as little as you or I to do with its quasi- criminal risk taking and catastrophic losses; b) that the most- valuable of those employees can easily find work at AIG’s competitors; and c) that if the government insists on punishing those valuable employees they will understandably leave, and leave behind a company even less viable than it is, and less likely to give the taxpayer back his money.

And also -- oh, yes -- that if the government can arbitrarily break contracts made by firms in which it has taken a stake no one in his right mind will ever again make a contract with one of those firms. And so all of the banks in which the government has investment will be damaged.

Big Numbers

From this episode we can observe several general truths about the financial crisis, and the attempt to end it:

1) To the political process all big numbers look alike; above a certain number the money becomes purely symbolic. The general public has no ability to feel the relative weight of 173 billion and 165 million. You can generate as much political action and public anger over millions as you can over billions. Maybe more: the larger the number the more abstract it becomes and, therefore, the easier to ignore. (The trillions we owe foreigners, for example.)

2) As the financial crisis has evolved its moral has been simplified, grotesquely. In the beginning this crisis was messy. Wall Street financiers behaved horribly but so did ordinary Americans. Millions of people borrowed money they shouldn’t have borrowed and, not, typically, because they were duped or defrauded but because they were covetous and greedy: they wanted to own stuff they hadn’t earned the right to buy.

On the Line

But now that taxpayer money is on the line the story has changed: innocent taxpayers are now being exploited by horrible Wall Street financiers. The guy who defaulted on mortgages on his six spec houses in the Nevada desert has turned himself into the citizen enraged by the bonuses paid to the AIG employees trying to sort out the mess caused by his defaults.

3) The complexity of the issues at the heart of the crisis paralyzes the political processes’ ability to deal with them intelligently. I have no doubt that, by the time this saga ends, we will all know what happened to every penny of that $165 million in bonuses and each have our opinion of the morality of it.

I doubt seriously we will ever understand the morality of the $173 billion payment that is the far more serious issue. For instance, Goldman Sachs, which received about 8 percent of the pile, or $13 billion, has claimed publicly that the money was, to them, a matter of indifference, as Goldman had hedged itself against a possible collapse of AIG -- by making bets against AIG.

Goldman’s Clue

This suggests that it was clear to at least one market player, before the collapse, that AAA-rated AIG was behaving in ways that might lead to its demise -- which is to say that there was really no responsible place to lay off these bets. (So why bail out those who made them?)

It also suggests that it is a matter of indifference to Goldman Sachs whether AIG lived or died, as either way it was protected. (So why bail it out?)

Since the beginning of the crisis I’ve wondered why the government has found neither the will nor the way to attack the root of the problem -- the people who borrowed money to buy homes they shouldn’t have bought.

Now I think I understand. It would be too simple. People would understand a lot of small payments to the guy down the street who doesn’t deserve them, and become outraged. Far better to throw trillions at opaque corporations, the inner workings of which no one still really understands.

Thoughts on AIG bonuses

There's been a furor over the AIG bonuses. Apparently they paid 165million in bonuses to the people who ran AIG with "greed" and played a part in the current crisis. Almost every single US politician is voicing their anger at the payments.

It seems like everyone is furious over the payments - so much so, that Congress actually passed a law taxing 90% of these bonuses. Retrospectively, after the payments were made. The speed at which the bill passed is also astonishing: the bonuses were paid just a few days ago and this tax is now legislation...

But lets put everything in perspective. The government has pledged like what, 165 billion in aid? The bonuses are just 0.1% of this aid package. So they have recouped 90% of this. But at what cost?

1. Destruction of their credibility. They have put in doubt all legally binding contracts. Who would want to do business in the USA, knowing that the government might just, due to some populism frenzy, CHANGE the law and rescind on agreements.

2. Corporations and banks will no longer be willing to take government aid. This exactly undermines the very aid stimulus they have been trying to revive the economy with. I would imagine a bank would rather seek help from one of the middle eastern soveriegn funds than help from their own government.

3. The very corporations and banks that they have injected money with... well, its predictable what's going to happen. Their most talented people are going to leave, they'll be left as a poorly run, horribly unmotivated organisation. It will be a spiral of rot and disposal. These banks will never return to profitability and the American people will never get their money back.

Man, I thought the UK government was hopeless. The USA is just appalling. Goodbye corporate america!

It wasn't me that caused the crisis!

It was Washington that left the CDS market unregulated, Wall Street that securitized trillions of dollars of worthless mortgages, and Main Street that bought homes it never could afford. - Evan Newmark, DealJournal, via FTAlphaville

Bonus update

So, I just learned about my bonus. Its a number close to 0. A number that won't affect me much, prob wont be able to pay for my wedding either. And I will get in 3 installments over the next three years (starting 1 yr from now). Which really really sucks.

But I guess I should be thankful. Half the team didn't get a bonus at all. My bonus was a token of appreciation for my hard work, apparently.

I'm not motivated. Worst thing is, there's so little business now, even if I was motivated, there was nothing to do! I spend half.. or 80% of my time reading news and surfing the net right now. My colleagues and I are now betting on what the level of the S&P will close each day (the closest guess wins a cup of coffee). Yeah, how bored we are.

Next week will be better. I'm sure.

We're doomed!!!

First came to me about a couple of weeks ago when both the UK and the US politicians started chastising the bank chiefs and blaming the banks for the financial crisis. Besides humiliating them on their huge pay packages, they have also brought out a lot of very flawed arguments - that makes me wonder if they really know what they are talking about.

Argument: RBS made a very bad decision buying ABN AMRO.
Analysis: That is now clear in hindsight. RBS simply didn't have enough cash to make such a large purchase - it would only have made sense if both RBS and ABN were growing as they had for the past 3 years. However, 94% of shareholders were in favour of the takeover. No one could have forseen the depth of the current crisis - that all banks, not only RBS and ABN, have massively lower market cap.

Argument: Bankers with their large pay packages siphoned money off the economy, therefore they shouldn't be paid so much.
Analysis: Bankers that have caused losses have long been fired from the banks, but its the ones remaining that are suffering the brunt of the blame.

Argument: Banks and their fancy financial products caused the financial crisis.
Analysis: Admittedly, they were part of the problem. But who profited from getting cheap mortages they couldn't afford, and walked away when they realised they couldn't pay up? Who built and sold houses on what we know now are inflated prices? Who bragged that boom in 2007 was due to the deregulation of the economy? We are all to blame.

There was even this very pointed question at a particular chairman of a bank, "How many in your board have experience or qualification in finance?". This question coming from a gray haired politician who, himself, has no such experience or qualification. In fact, looking at the entire room of executioners - I doubt that anyone in the room really understood the crux of the crisis.

I thought the point of the whole exercise was to find the problem, fix it, and prevent it from happening again. Alas, they never even got past finger pointing.

Under the current leadership.... We're doomed...

Swimming pool water is not good for you.

I went swimming on Thursday. I thought it would be a good idea to learn how to breathe from my left side as well as my right - since if I'm going to be swimming regularly better even out the neck muscles on both sides right?

Problem is, I can't. I ended up drinking quite a decent amount of swimming pool water...

I ended up with diarrhea, stomach aches, and a mild fever. I missed work on Friday and instead slept for roughly 20hours...

So take my advice. Don't drink swimming pool water.

The woes of a poor banker

We heard our bonus pool (the pool of money, not a real swimming pool) on sky news, not through our intranet. Headlines were "NO CASH BONUSES", "BONUS POOL CUT FROM 2.1 BILLION LAST YEAR TO 175 BILLION".

The mood in the office was sombre. I could almost forsee people jumping off buildings.

Ah well... I was prepared for it. Its sad but... I guess there's no point thinking about something you cannot control.

What I can control is my spending. Sigh...

Snow in London

Just to show you a few pictures of London covered in snow. So, I mentioned how I came in from the airport last Monday. I took a train to Paddington, and took the Bakerloo line to Oxford Circus, where I got stuck for more than an hour waiting to get on the Central Line. In the end, I gave up, and walked out of the station - to be greeted by this scene:

So this is Oxford Circus, one of the busiest streets in London. Granted, its a little early in the morning, but notice the lack of traffic! The scene was so peaceful, quiet, and beautiful, I almost got over my frustration on waiting immediately.

The scene next to my building. Trying to capture the thickness of the snow.

Random shot of snow building up on bicycles - it was still snowing quite heavily at about 1pm.

The bench near my place.

Bonus time

Everyone is talking about it. I mean, not just everyone in the bank, but everyone in the street. Its on BBC, its on the Metro, its on Evening Standard, the Times, the Daily Telegraph.

There is just so much vitriol and distrust against ALL people who work in the bank - innocent me included. "NO BONUS SHOULD BE PAID" they exclaim, "How on earth can they pay bonuses to bankers after receiving 20bln pounds in government aid?".

Indeed, if the government hasn't bailed us out, there's a chance I'd be jobless, let alone having a bonus.

But on the other hand, if the government didn't bail us out, maybe some other bank would have bought us (like Nomura buying parts of Lehman), and maybe we would have had guaranteed bonuses (again, drawing the Lehman example)...

I'm not really arguing for a bonus. I'm just upset at every layman hurling abuse at bankers in general, and applying pressure for us to get nothing. We all know the bulk of a banker's compensation is his bonus...

But I know, whatever I say will change nothing. The bank is owned by the government now. The government has to answer to the people. It will no longer care about running the bank like a commercial business, basing decisions on economic merit. The best talent will go without the accompanying compensation. The bank will, soon enough, become a lethargic, 9-5 government entity.

Even my bosses' boss said, "Either the salary moves to match the work, or the work moves to match the salary. There can't be a mismatch."

oh kay...

Time to plan my move. In the meantime, its gonna be 9 to 5 for me.

Alumni Gathering

Today I was supposed to be playing football. But it got cancelled because of the snow - the pitch I suppose, was covered in it. Luckily there was this stanford alumni event that evening that my colleague (who was also in the same course as me) told me about. So I went together with him.

I had no expectations for that event. It was just a simple gathering at a pub. When we arrived the pub was crowded and we didn't really know who to look for. So we went around and found a small staircase with a little A4 sign with a Stanford logo on it. So we went upstairs, thinking that the whole room would have been reserved.

The room was packed. Like 50 or so people, all in their own cliques talking to each other. We felt a little intimidated. So we bought our drinks, and spent some time surveying the place and trying to at least talk to someone. Turned out that not everybody was there for the same purpose!

So finally we found this table of 4 with again the same Stanford sign on it. Talked to them and realised that the organiser was actually chased out of the pub because it was too crowded to hold organised gatherings there. She was in another pub across the road. We finished our drinks then headed over there.

There were another 5 people with her. Was nicer there as the music wasn't loud and there was a large table that everyone could sit around. We talked in smaller groups and changed seats as and when somebody had to go to the toilet. It was cool, I met mostly everyone there.

I didn't have any expectations, but I was glad that I turned up. Met new people and thoroughly enjoyed myself as they were a genuinely funny bunch! The organiser's going to set up a facebook group and maybe we'll have more of these gatherings in future.

How I got in to the office this morning

I landed at Heathrow at 4.45am. Cleared immigration at 5. Baggage collection was delayed because of the snow. Managed to get my bags by 5.30.

Walked out to catch the Heathrow Express and learned that it was suspended. Next train (which is the heathrow connect) which they couldn't guarantee would arrive at 6.20 or so. So I walked over to the underground station - and the next train wasn't for 7mins, and it only went up to hyde park corner... I also didn't want to waste my return ticket on the heathrow express, so I went back and managed to finally take a train to paddington - and I thought the chaos would be over... It was 7.20.

Then I found out most of the tube lines were suspended, except the bakerloo and the central line. I was advised to travel to Liverpool street via the Bakerloo line to Oxford Circus and then the Central line. I managed to get to Oxford Circus and thats when the real nightmare began.

The central line was packed. There was even a crowd to get to the platform. When I managed to get to the platform I was like four "layers" of people away. When the train arrived a few minutes later, the carriage itself was packed. I was standing in between doors so there was no chance i can get aboard. After two more trains came and left, I decided to try my luck at the end of the platform where I naively thought would be less crowded. Another three trains came and left (all with intervals of like 10mins..). Finally, the station announced that the next train would take 50mins to arrive, so I gave up getting on the tube. It was really stressful standing at the edge of the platform for minutes before the train arrives... you were not sure u could get on and when the train left there's this gaping hole in front of you and twenty people crowded behind you. Imagine what if someone decides to stretch, nudges someone who loses his balance, and knocks into you....

At 8.40 or so I walked out of oxford circus and while i was so frustrated at the whole affair, a curious sight greeted me. Oxford Circus was bright white with snow. It was still snowing. There were no buses, no vehicles (well there were some very sparse traffic). People were taking pictures. There was probably a feet of snow. I took a few snaps and then tried to find my way to work. There was no buses and the few taxis that passed were full so I trekked, lugging my luggage through the snow. It got tiring and cold so I stopped at starbucks for a takeaway coffee and then continued my hike. It went on for about an hour. I was still thinking it would be cool if I managed to walk to the office with all my stuff... but the going got tougher and finally, at Aldwych, a taxi that was free came by and I hopped into it. Brought me straight to work for 7quid. I finally sat at my desk at 10...

So it took me 5hours to get from the airport to my office...