After another hellish exam week I find myself completely void of any necessary task or hindrance. In short: I’m Free!!! My summer has yet to begin, as I have an upcoming group project to attend to, but I have no details about what that entails or when it begins, so for now, I can do whatever I like.

After a small amount of experimentation, I found that a pursuit for diabetes was the key to me enjoying this newfound (and incredibly rare) spare time. Prior to exams I had a thing called “Chocolate Tuesday”, where every Tuesday I would make it a point to make something delicious involving chocolate. It lasted a good month, featuring truffles, shortbread biscuits and various other things, but was cut short because of exams and my terribly dull priorities.

With the pain of revision over, it returned with a bang featuring a project I was thinking about since Easter: the solid Easter Egg. The key is in the chocolate, filling it with solid chocolate would make it impossible to eat, so instead I used truffle chocolate, which is about 40x richer and 800x more unhealthy (95% of all statistics are wrong).

Recipe: Bring about 250ml of double cream to boil while cutting up 300g of dark chocolate (at least 60% cocoa; no one likes wimpy truffles). On completion, you should have at least 250g of chocolate left, which you place in a bowl, pouring in the double cream and mixing. One you have a consistent delicious colouring in the bowl, rehearse a two minute acceptance speech for a food based award you will soon win for these treats and then add 50g of unsalted butter in two stages. Mix until they have completely melted and then pour into two easter egg halves. Quickly put them together and tightly wrap in foil. Fridge for at least 3 hours, turning occasionally to avoid pockets of air. Once done, you’ll need a calving knife and a round of insulin injections to serve

Thanks for reading,

Chris

xx

Epic Chocolate Time

London is an amazingly multicultural city. I can confirm this as I’ve been here for 20 years and in that time have built a friendship group consisting of two people from Poland, a Malaysian/Chinese architect, a Theologian from the Philippines and live with housemates from China, Japan and Northern Ireland. In very few cities in the world am I able to meet and befriend such a assorted selection of treats in the pick-n-mix that is life.

When it comes to celebrations, the regional enthusiasm of all of these diverse backgrounds has an accommodating stage somewhere in the city. Last week was Chinese New Year, and I was particularly excited about this because it would be my first year celebrating in China town itself.

My housemates and I went early to an atmosphere that was steadily amplifying till the festivities began. Outside each restaurant were large, foil-wrapped, tubs of street food, ranging from noodles with pork, beef and chicken to treats like egg tarts and sponge cake. All nostrils were tinged with the aromatic blend of the concoctions used to make this vast mound of food. Towards the outer edges of the town were stalls selling bright red souvenirs for tourists, such as trowing-crackers (whose small, exhorting sound were filling the air) and origami dragons that children were playing with. Every Chinese face was aglow with anticipation, every other face was eagerly looking around with great curiosity.

A Very Photogenic Lion

Just before noon the lion came out, as prominently indicated to all by the rhythmic drumming and the steady cymbals that accompanied it. It danced it’s way through the throng of people, their cameras and camera-phones raised yearningly above their head, trying to capture the beast before them.

The mission for the lion was to make it’s way to every restaurant and get itself some cabbage with a red envelope attached. It would stand outside the door and dance to earn it’s meal. The cabbage was hung high above the door, and once the lion was ready, it would reach up and grab it with it’s mouth, later expelling shards of the cabbage to indicate that it had been eaten (festival aside, I don’t think doing this at a dinner party would be a particularly nice way to impress the guests).

Following the lion was incredibly difficult. The only way to move about was to go with one of the small streams of people that were making their way through the horde. If you were inadvertently caught in one of these flows, you had no choice but to go with it and see where you ended up. In spite of this world-record-setting group hug we all seemed to be a part of, everyone had a great time, and left with a stomach full of delicious Dim-Sum and a camera full of incredibly blurry images of a bright orange lion.

Kung Hei Fat Choy!

新年快樂

Thanks for reading,

Chris xx

The way you perceive money changes a lot when you become a student. When growing up, my sister could always find some extra funds by putting on a sad face, sweetening her voice and approaching the nearest parent. Whenever I imitated this behaviour, I would come away with no money, less dignity and a serious discussion about my sexual orientation. Money certainly doesn’t grown on trees, but it’s a metaphor that could be feasible if our preferred method of picking was to have young, want-ful girls try to lull the fruits down.

Whether you had a means of accumulating money with minimal effort or not, when you become a student, regardless of how potent your parent’s wallets are, you find you don’t have any. With this comes a complete unashamed disregard for anything that adds cost to anything. Things like expiration dates, “tap water” as apposed to “water” or having a nice 45 minute walk, instead of a 10 min tube journey. I don’t usually crave stale croissants at 9:00 in the evening, but when it’s 10 pence a pop, do I really want to splurge on Tesco’s basic loaves?

As cheap and unhygienic as I’ve now made myself out to be, there are quite a few nice things a student can actually do for no money. This applies to London more than any other city because of the pure abundance of places to go.

The Applause store is a website that provides free tickets to television recordings. When BBC, ITV or Channel 4 wish to record a show in front of a live audience, it’s more important for them to have every seat filled than for them to make money on ticket sales. In this website you apply for tickets and, if you get them, have the chance to see popular shows like Never Mind the Buzzcocks or even Top Gear for absolutely nothing. I say “have the chance”, because they always overbook tickets, so if you don’t get to the studio early enough, you will be turned away.

Previously, I’ve only made it to the hilarious “Now Show”, a Radio 4 comedy that I suggest all of you subscribe to (after subscribing to EPOD, of course). but last week I managed to book free tickets to see KT Tunstall, an artist who I’ve been a colossal fan of for quite some time.

The format was an interview (filmed in glorious 3D), with her playing a few songs when the particular track became appropriate. While it was annoying that only a handful of songs were played, I much preferred this kind of show to anything else I’ve seen. It was an intimate meeting with her, so the audience really got to know the person behind the artist. A summary of the night: KT Tunstall is a remarkable woman. Her life involved going down to London from St Andrews, as a teenager to busk every weekend; slumming it in a dirty old van to do gigs round the UK; and sleeping behind friends sofas while recording her first album at the age of 28. All of this she did proudly with the unwavering belief that her passion would see her through. Without a doubt, I’m not giving her story its deserved zeal, but it was one of the most inspiring nights I’ve ever had.

What separates a good musician and a great musician is conviction, not talent. Only when you apply 100% of yourself, can great things come your way. Intelligence and obsession are important and will lead to success, it’s the reason I have no worries about the career prospects of every Imperial undergrad. Why not all of us end up being Zuckerberg’s and Jobs’ is that very few have the drive and the arrogance to fully commit to a project. In my view, a big factor in that is they both dropped out of college. For Jobs, arguably it was a sign that he had nothing else to fall back on, if he didn’t give Apple his all, he would be back to having nothing. For Zuckerberg, it was a sign that he knew how big Facebook would become and he no longer needed the distractions College provides.

I’m not encouraging everyone to drop out of Imperial (although a less crowded JCR would be nice). I believe: to have the ability to shed all, including your safety net and march forward with credence in your own idea and your own ability, leads to failure 95% of the time. However, it also permits, and is the only path to, that small 5% that makes you legendary.

Thanks for reading,

Chris xx

Sunday morning made it’s unwelcome visit to me and the housemates to find us all in a deep sleep. After a substantial amount of waiting in the littered house it left with an indignant stomp, slamming the front door behind it. Following this, the afternoon arrived to the same scene, but gently tried prodding and poking our foreheads to wake us all from our state of unconsciousness. Eventually we all arose to find that the mess was still present and immediately pondered why we had bothered to get up at all.

Today, the house consisted of the usual suspects: Alex, Mini, Cathal and myself, as well as Amy who, along with Kumaran and Hanan, is one of our honorary housemates. We decided now would be the perfect time to invite Kumaran round and have a Housemates’ Christmas dinner, since the fridge well stocked with beverages from the night before, and our timetables meant that this would be our only chance to do it. I would be in charge of the meat (since vegetables aren’t classed as food, in my diet), Mini would tackle dessert and Amy would take on the vegetarian dishes. After a brisk and irritatingly cold walk to and back from Sainsburys, we returned with all the ingredients we would need as well as a frozen chicken, which was previously thawed when we bought it.

I come from a Sri Lankan family. A culture built on food and an irresponsible use of spices, most notably: chili powder. Given my heritage and my quick access to a vast array of South-Asian seasoning, I decided to ignore all I had been taught and make a Chinese style roast chicken for the dinner. It’s a simple recipe: take various bottles of dark liquids from ones cupboard, pour absentmindedly into a large bowl, mix and adjust using additional quantities of liquids to taste. Take a Sri Lankan helping of chili powder and remove portions based on how much the other guests value their taste buds. Add to bowl along with chinese five spice, salt and pepper. Make quick joke referencing Michael McIntyre’s impression of chinese five spice and proceed to mix. Lavishly smother the marinade onto chicken and spread using a deep tissue massage (other massage methods may be used, except Thai, as Thai massages risk compacting the chicken back into egg form). Once chicken is adequately coated, lay it top down on an baking tray and slide into the oven along with a tray of boiling water. Sauna for 40 mins, turn over, add bacon, and leave in oven for 40 mins, or until the line of drool protruding from your guests’ mouths reaches the floor. Remove from oven and admire for 5 mins before serving. Present with wine which is uncorked and costs more than £5 in Tesco.

After eating enough to render all exercise done since 2008 completely useless, we sat back and held our stomachs with delight. Fortunately, there were no leftovers between the 6 of us, so after 15 mins or so, we were all able to walk unaided to the couch, and collapse.

Next we played a new board game Amy had got us as a Christmas present, called “Pub Quiz”. As you can imagine, the rules were quite straight forward: a point for every correct answer and the team with the most points at the end wins. We played boys vs girls and predictably the team with the most comprehensive array of useless knowledge in their heads was the boys; victorious by 16 perspicacious points.

The night wound down with chatting and much merriment with our nostalgic musings. Eventually Cathal decided to call it a night and head off to bed. We unanimously decided this was a great idea, so we went into his room and lied across him as he tried to sleep. The talking continued for a bit longer, till eventually we were interrupted by a soft creek and then a large jolt as the foot of Cathal’s bed came crashing to the floor. We all darted upwards and burst into laughter as everyone examined the wooden bed which was completely shattered down it’s right hand side. While moving the evidence out of his room, we wondered how much fun it would be to explain this mishap to the estate agents, beginning with the phrase: “well, there were six of us in bed and…”. Everybody moved back into the living room, and while we were very guilt ridden, we were still somehow able to make jokes as “All I want for Christmas is you a bed” played in the background.

Soon after, we clambered onto the sofas to see if we might give their structural integrities a run for their money. Fortunately, they were both comfortable and unyielding, and were thus an adequate place to settle for the rest of the night/early morning/late morning/Monday, until we all made our slow progression back towards our own beds to sleep.

Thanks for reading,

Chris xx