Seu Jorge

If you aren't in the know, Seu Jorge was the one responsible for the David Bowie songs in Portuguese in 'The Life Aquatic'. He also played one of the characters in 'City of God'. He is absolutely fabulous, although more fun if you understand Portuguese, of course. You can listen to four of his songs here: Go to the link, click on "Brownswood Basement" under the Joining the Dots logo. This should open up a radio player, fast forward to 45mins. Worth listening to the comments afterwards as well! Here's the listing:

SEU JORGE LIVE IN SESSION - 11, Seu Jorge - 'Rebel Rebel' (Live In Session)12, Seu Jorge - 'Untitled' (Live In Session)13, Seu Jorge - 'Tive Razao' (Live In Session)14, Seu Jorge - 'Changes' (Live In Session)

Printed out my PhD exam entry forms today. Am feeling slightly queasy...

So what's been happening?

Friday went to see Nuno's show at the lovely Hackney Empire - go and see a show there if you can. Nuno was great, and it was nice to see some Bob Fosse coreographies again.
Saturday was my day as a volunteer at the Genes Talking at the ICA. Went quite well on the whole with lots of people really wanting to know how all this works. Plus an interesting conversation with an American economist on how British science is funded.
Then on to Cambridge for another weekend of rich food and discussions. We managed to cover everything, from 'arroz de marisco' (seafood risotto) to the greeks' opinion on Macedonia. As Ricardo said, we managed to have more politics discussions these two days than the whole of last year. Which maybe is the way to go about finding things to do in Cambridge.
Monday my long-awaited rugby game was foiled by the weather. I was ready to shrug my shoulders about this until Mark pointed out to me that it ONLY rained during the time we were planning to play (about 45mins). I am now a bit annoyed as this is absolutely true. We're considering trying again on Friday, so be warned.

The news isn't good. Obviously I'm not too upset by the fact that the bombers were British, as I'm not British myself. (Actually I've just recently discovered that by all definitions I am an immigrant. If you knew the status immigrants have in Portugal, you'd realize how shocking this is). But I admit it makes things more worrying. And the latest bombing in Iraq goes a bit too far. As the fact that one of the (English) bombers was a teacher. Getting children mixed up with this is a bit too depressing. Nothing you can do really, except stop watching the news.

The good news is that now I'm totally addicted to the phdcomics strip. As a lot of my friends are in the same situation as I am, thesis wise, I'm putting up these cartoons for them as well.
And I don't mind people asking about my research. Really, I don't mind.

It's funny, although I was on the other side of London from where it all happened, the air felt really heavy. It wasn't thunder weather, and anyway I think maybe the feeling was more like it would be if you were on a planet like Jupiter, where the gravity is stronger.
It seemed like all the worry and confusion everyone was feeling, all the calls everyone was trying to make to their loved ones to check if they were ok and all the determination that kicked in right away to get back to normal as soon as possible created a web of emotions and seriousness that weighed the air down.
It's funny how much better the photos of my family and childhood friends and family summer house (where I spent most of my childhood holidays), sent by my cousin, made me feel so much better.
Well, thoughts on this:
-although I thought I wouldn't be affected at all, I still felt like taking the day off and doing something different today. I didn't do it, but maybe it would have been better. All you true Londoners out there, you definitely shouldn't be working today.
- I wonder how Bob Geldof must be feeling now - it seems like all the hard work on the Live8 must have gone down the drain.
- It's hard not to be impressed at how well the emergency services and hospitals are performing, if you think that six (was it six?) bombs have killed less than a 100 people. Something here must have worked.

I'm all right..
Don't live or work anywhere near there.
Feel free to tell people here if you're all right.

For all of you who are wondering how my PhD is going...
Or who got puzzled by my deeply philosophical replies to this simple question...
This pretty much sums it up:

And on a different note, not all good advertising is profit-oriented:

http://www.ad-awards.com/inc/video.swf?id=104

MAKE POVERTY HISTORY

The Dana centre

Went there yesterday for the 'Art of the brain' event. Absolutely
loved it. Got to mess about with paints, crayons and misconceptions.
And heard the latest theory on the feeling of 'deja vu'.