Not that diary

Reader Alert: Bite-sized posts are great for my time-starved friends, my family and the world in general. However, some experiences in life deserve more space. This time, I take a few paragraphs to share the story of a fascinating district in Hong Kong. _____________ An escalator. So what's the big deal? In the distant past, my commute in London often involved hurtling down the escalators of Tube stations. On some days I was even courageous enough to purposefully climb up the moving steps. It is common knowledge that the longest escalator in London (barring T5 Heathrow) is at Angel station. I have had many occasions to use it, not the least to visit  Sadler's Wells Theatre or to reach an erstwhile tea-house of interest (shout out to Mai Chai ).  On a related subject, one of my favourite pastimes when using metros in new cities, is to speed-read advertisements along the escalators. A few years ago I noticed that paper posters had been replaced by digital screens at many places...

For better or worse, the Tescofication of India is still some years away but I have no doubt it will occur. In the meanwhile several domestic supermarket chains (Big Bazaar, Reliance Fresh, D-Mart and Spencers) have sprung up all across urban India. Often quirky, these superstores have loud announcements, piles of goods and BOGOs (Buy One Get One offers) at every aisle-end. A friend tells me they did extensive market research and found that the ' middle' middle class which they want to capture feels more at-home in this bazaar-type atmosphere albeit in an air-conditioned, enclosed setting. These superstores are mushrooming around towns as city-dwellers get used to sashaying down the aisles with their trolleys. Alas, the fruit and vegetable markets such as the Monday Bazaar in Mayur Vihar Phase1 (a part of east Delhi  I have grudgingly come to accept as the 'new family home') may soon become a thing of the past. Is it just me who thinks that cities across India wil...

Have re-discovered jelly again. This time in the form of 'exotic fruit' jelly with real fruit pieces. And that is just how I like my one of five-a-day (I mean fruit and veg of course). Rewinding back, my earliest 'jelly' memories are of birthday parties when I was 8 or 9 years old. There was usually jelly and custard on my sister's birthday or mine. We always bought the pink-coloured 'REX' jelly mix which mum would prepare a day before the birthday using the grey (aluminium? steel?) jelly mould. Anyhow, I didn't plan on going jelly-free for so long. It just kind of happened in the way these things do. More recently, I've seen a lot of vegetarian jelly being sold and that has reminded me of the 'animal gelatin' issue which had become a concern at some point in the past. I've also discovered numerous ways of eating jelly and this is not accounting for all the Masterchef finalists who put together some crazy stuff. Among all kinds o...

I sense a sparkle in the eyes of those of you who are below the 1.8 metre mark. That's 6 feet for those of you who, like me, struggle to comprehend height in metres. I exaggerate perhaps, but really most North European men appear to be more than a head higher to someone barely a few inches above the 5 feet mark. The North European women, although shorter than men, have an excellent relationship with their heeled shoes. This special relationship is usually developed, as I have been reliably informed, in their teenage years. Alas, this post is not about a super-soup that will help us pygmies gain height but rather about the woes of one who lost her 'reach'. The incident occurred some time ago on a Saturday evening. I was returning home from a social event and decided I was a little hungry. Being on an eat-healthy drive I headed to the M and S at Waterloo in search of  a light bite. I immediately made a beeline for the tinned soup section and scanned the shelves for the v...