Guiulio Pane e Ojo

Arrive in Milan very late. But I haven't had dinner. Among the restaurants near my hotel that Time Out Milan guidebook lists, only Guiulio Pane e Ojo (via L Muratori 10) opens till late. Although this restaurant serves Roman cuisine, I have no choice.

For a primo (8 euro), I take lombrichelli all'Etrusca, home-made pasta with tomato sauce. Pasta really looks home-made: each piece has a different, rough shape. But it tastes very good. The texture of al dente pasta goes very well with tomato sauce.

For a secondo (11 euro), I follow Time Out Milan: abbacchio aromatizzato, grilled lamp chops. As Time Out says, very tender lamp chops make me smile. But, as is often the case with Italian cuisine, the amount is a bit too much, and towards the end I find it rather boring.

The atmospher is laid-back. The decor is rather traditional. The service is quite good. They prepare a menu in English.

After asking him for a bill (he doesn't understand the term "bill", but he is eager to learn it by asking me to say it again), the waiter gives me home-made biscotti and a shot of sangria-like sweet red wine. As I have a seminar presentation at Bocconi University tomorrow, I do not want to drink alcohol, but just one sip makes me unable to resist. I walk to the hotel half-tipsy.

Phantasmagoria - 'Kamiuta'

I thought rock music was long dead, perhaps after Kurt Cobain killed himself.

Today I start thinking I may be wrong, because I discovered a song by a "visual-kei" rock band from Japan, which sounds rather good to me. It's called "Kamiuta" (God song) by Phantasmagoria. Check out this promo on YouTube:


What's fascinating about this song is its unpredictability of what comes next. There are several catchy rhythms and melodies in almost random sequence flowing into your ears. Guitar refrains are not straightforward. Vocals exhibit several hues: violent shouts, scary murmurs, sensitive monologues, religiously high-tone chants. Along with elaborate structure of the tune, this makes continuous tension felt throughout the tune. And the promo follows the "visual-kei" tradition (dating back to the early 1990s in Japan): featuring band members in fancy feminine gears with make-up and dyed hair. As an audio-visual entertainment, I must say the quality is very high.

A Lecture on Democracy and Development

I gave an one-off lecture on democracy and development at the university today, partly based on my own research. Three takeaway messages are:

1. Be careful about the difference between correlation and causality. Comparing the average performances between democracies and autocracies does not tell you anything about whether democracy is better for development. We need to know, for example, how quickly the Chinese economy would grow if China was democratic. Which is impossible to observe.

2. The competitiveness of national leadership selection appears to be key for democracy to have a good impact on development. Other aspects of democracy such as human rights protection do not seem to matter much.

3. The flip side of democracy, or autocracy, is more heterogeneous than democracy. A simple comparison between democracy and autocracy is therefore misleading.

You can have a look at slides and figures that I used for the lecture. Technical details are kept at minimum.

For a succinct background reading for the lecture, check out the discussion between Daron Acemoglu at MIT and Ed Glaeser at Harvard on Wall Street Journal Online.

Flat White

I was in London for a week. Kirsten, my former flatmate, recommended a Soho cafe called Flat White (17 Berwick Street, W1F 0PT). She went to this cafe because Tyler Brule, currently the editor in chief of Monocle magazine, wrote about it on one of his FT columns.

So when I met up with Kotono-chan, I took her to Flat White and each of us ordered a cup of flat white which, according to a waiter, is a double-shot espresso topped with steamed milk. What they served was the above picture. It was also tasty enough for us to order another cup. It didn't have any bitterness or sourness typical for bad coffee. It still had some distinct taste which I never enjoyed before.

Broadband at home

Finally got the broadband at home!

But Telia sent me an invoice in which they overcharge my telephone line installation fee by 300 krona (more than 20 British pounds). I need to ask a Swedish friend to tell me which numbers I should press after calling their customer service to reach an operator rather than automated voices in Swedish...

Telia

I still haven't really settled in Stockholm.

After finally opening a bank account last Wednesday, I tried to arrange the opening of my landline phone to use the Internet (my landlord does not allow me to open a fiber connection for the Internet). With help of an assistant at the Institute, I placed an order on the website of Telia, Sweden's telecommunication company, which is all in Swedish.

This morning someone from Telia is supposed to come to open my landline phone. So I wait at home in the morning.

Nobody shows up.

I call their customer service number 90200. The computerized message answers me IN SWEDISH. I wait for them to automatically connect to an operator. This never happens.

Come to the Institute, and ask a friendly Swedish PhD student sitting at the Institute to help me. Then I finally manage to talk to an operator. She says, "The appointment is this Friday morning."

Without any notice, they've changed the appointment time.

Opening a landline phone, and thus opening the Internet access at home, is delayed at least two days.

Microwave and Skype headphone obtained

Go to the Institute to email Sonia with photos of Swedish plugs and sockets so that she can bring converters when she visits Stockholm in a few weeks.

Head for Mörby Centrum. According to Torsten, Mörby is an area of Stockholm the most affluent live in. According to the Sato memo, the term centrum means a shopping mall. So I suspect there may be a better shop than those in the city center, to buy a microwave and bed linens.

My guess is wrong. The shops at the centrum include Åhlens and Hemtex, exactly the same list as in the city center. Anyway, buy an olive green double bed size flat sheet.

Have lunch at a Mexican fast food restaurant. Not too bad, and only 60 krona (4 pounds). If you have 4 pounds for lunch in London, the only option is a sandwitch.

After paying 5 krona for a public toilet (I can't stand this...), take Tunnelbana to Hötorget, to check if Siba on Kungsgatan has a better microwave than Åhlens City. On the way, stop by at On/Off and ComputerCity if they have a Skype headphone. Their stock is more expensive than what I saw in Tokyo. Philips offers the least expensive one at 149 krona. I remember a store in Tokyo sold one at about 55 krona...

On the first floor of the Siba store, find a Samsung microwave for a price of 899 krona, about 400 krona cheaper than the one available at Åhlens City. To buy an electric appliance in Stockholm, you do need to walk around a bit to find the best offer.

The shop assistant tells me that the delivery costs more than 300 krona while taking a cab shouldn't cost more than 200 krona.

Before going home with a microwave, then head for Teknik Magazinet if they have a good Skype headphone. The shop assistant shows me a 99 krona Chinese one as the cheapest. Ask for the second cheapest. He shows me a gigantic headphone costing 149 krona. Philips's one looks much better and costs the same. I come to think that Teknik Magazinet is actually quite useless.

Then visit Åhlens City to buy magazine boxes and a Ordning & Reda's mouse pad on the downstairs.

Go back to Siba and buy the Samsung microwave with Philips skype headphone. Take a cab home with it.

Stockholm Design Tour still continues

Take bus 40 to Odenplan. Check an Italian food store Salino, only to find that it has been replaced by a cafe.

Take Tunnelbana to Hötorget. Walk on Tunnelgatan. As the name suggests, it leads to a pedestrian tunnel under Johannes Kyrka. After passing through it, hit Birger Jarlsgatan.

Norrgavel (Time Out's recommendation) is yet another furniture store with focus on lamps, crockery, chairs, and dining table decoration. Find a rather luxurious pair of wool slippers.

Walking to the northwest along Birger Jarlsgatan, I am supposed to find a shop called Klara according to Time Out. But it's been replaced by Poggen Pohl, a minimalist kitchen showroom, and G.A.D., yet another furniture shop with focus on dinning table suggestions and lamps. Nextdoor is The Rug Company, selling seemingly expensive rugs with patterns reminding me of the 1960s psychic movement, and Plan Ett, full of living room suggestions.

Going back to Norrgavel, buy the luxurious wool slippers. It may be pricy, but I haven’t found slippers anywhere else. Then walk down on Humlegårdsgatan. I didn't expect anything on this street, but it turns out to be another cluster of interior goods shops. First Dis Inredning, displaying gothic living and dining rooms with inspirations from traditional Japanese and Chinese furniture. Next the famous Alessi store, selling expensive but very fancy-looking kitchen items. Next door is another branch of Bang & Olufsen, a design speaker store. I now realize that their speakers are VERY expensive, more than 20,000 krona (more than 1,000 pounds).

Walking further to the east, find a store called Rum & Kök, which has a good stock of cooking tools, bath room items, etc. Find the designer towel stand that was on sale at John Wall for more than 1000 krona, whose price here is 595 krona. You really need to walk around Stockholm before buying anything.

Arrive at Östermalmstorg. Use a public toilet for 5 krona. Stop by at its saluhall (indoor food market). A very upper class vibe here, strictly European. Several fishmongers.

Take Tunnelbana to Medborgarplatsen. Here is another saluhall. This one is much more down to earth. Have late lunch at a kebab restaurant. A lamb kebab lunch set is delicious though the amount of lamb is rather small. For the first time here at the kebab restaurant, I encounter a person who doesn’t speak English. He may be a Turkish immigrant.

Go downstairs and visit Asian Livs, a Chinese food shop. Buy sesame oil.

Walk through Fatbursparken (a very nice park in Södermalm) to JFK, in order to buy a rice cooker. The shop owner remembers me. For some reason, this store has a pleasant atmosphere, which is missing in those two Japanese food stores on Tegnergatan. They give away a 2kg bag of rice because I bought a rice cooker for 880 krona. They also give me a stamp card. One stamp for 100 krona purchase. 20 stamps give you a 100 krona discount.

Going back to the Institute. The IT guy, Karl, comes to my office to set up my office computer. Now I can type Japanese letters.

Get a phonecall from Ameet in Kenya.

Go home and cook Japanese rice.

Shopping Spree continues

Go to the Institute to check email and make an appointment with IT staff to set up my office computer (installing Japanese fonts etc.)

Then head for the city center. The first target today is a pair of Japanese food shops on Tegnergatan: Japanska Torget (no. 6) and Sun Ai (no. 15). Buy Nissin Demae Itcho tonkotsu (pork bone) ramen noodle at the former and chicken bone soup stock and ra-yu (chili sesame oil) at the latter. Japanska Torget has a good selection of tabi shoes at the back of the store. Sun Ai sells Japanese books, magazines, and manga comic books. Compared to JFK, however, the atmosphere is rather depressing for some reason. Perhaps because of its very small store size. I may not want to come here often, but Sun Ai sells Akitakomachi Japanese rice for a good price (149 krona for 5kg) and my favorite Japanese magazine. They also sell very expensive rice cookers (more than 1000 krona), making me decide to buy one at JFK.

Next door to Sun Ai is, by the way, yet another furniture store FolkHemmet, which stocks modestly stylish living room solutions.

Walk down to Eden shop on Drottninggatan. On the way find an Asian and Afro food shop Taj Mahal on Kammakargatan, which stocks South Asian spice.

Buy a rubber wood chopping board and an instant shoe shine at Eden.

Walk down to the southeast. Visit OMI Food (Olofsgatan 10), a Chinese supermarket. I will come here again to buy some East Asian vegetables.

Walk further down on Olofsgatan. Find another branch of Granit.

Then head for Hötorgshallen, an indoor food market. Have lunch at Kajsas Fiska, a tiny budget restaurant at the corner of the market where customers share tables with others. It is around midday, and there is a long queue. As this long queue and the Sato memo (a Stockholm city guide written by Japanese people living here) testify, their fish soup (Kajsas Fisksoppa), bits of white fish meats and some mussels and prawns in tomato soup topped with melted cheese, is amazing. And it costs 80 krona (6.5 pounds), impossible in London.

The range of foods available in the market is tantalizing. Fish looks very fresh here (except for tuna which is too blackish for Japanese people). Buy a ciabata baguette for 15 krona (1.1 pound).

Head for Åhlens City to check microwaves and double-bed duvet covers and sheets. Find a good-looking duvet cover, but they don't have one for a double bed. There are only two microwaves on the shelf. At Muji on the same floor, find an affordable mirror with a wooden frame. Also at Muji, find a wooden turner and a wooden chopping board both of which look better than the ones I already bought here in Stockholm, even though I visited this Muji once already... You can't check all the goods on offer just by one visit.

Visit Electrolux Home on Klarabergsgatan opposite Åhlens City. They have only three microwaves, all pricier and uglier than Åhlens City.

Visit Hemtex to buy duvet covers and sheets. Find a good-looking duvet cover, but they don't have one for a double bed. I say, "Is a double bed unpopular for Swedish people?" "I don't know. But I know our duvet covers for a double bed don't look good." My guess is that Swedish couples like to sleep on the same bed but independently. So they buy a double bed but two single bed mattresses and duvets. I don't know where else to go for double bed duvet covers...

Walk to DesignTorget on Nybrogatan. Just before arriving at the store, find a newsagent selling magazines in English including Monocle! Buy a door mat at DesignTorget. Also try to buy Koziol's toilet roll stand with an eye, but learn that the eye is too big to put rolls easily. Good design often conflicts with functionality.

Then go home. I've done most of the shopping for the time being. Tomorrow I will buy a rice cooker at JFK. The day after tomorrow, buy a microwave at Åhlens City. On Sunday, buy a mirror at Muji. But I still need to buy double bed duvet covers (I may buy one in London when I visit the city for my viva early October), slippers, sandals (to get out only briefly for rubbish disposal and laundry etc.), a citrus squeezer, a wok, a blender, a coffee grinder, a can opener, a frying pan with a lid, a towel stand (which is rarely on sale perhaps because every house is equipped with a towel warmer on the bathroom wall), a laundry stand for flat-drying sensitive clothes (which I haven't seen anywhere yet), quality speakers, a shopping bag for supermarkets (to avoid paying 1.5 krona per bag), an iron board, socket extensions, magazine boxes for my office, clocks, a desk chair (the furnished one is umconfortable). No, I haven't done most of the shopping...

Then after obtaining my personal number, open a bank account, transfer money from my bank account in UK, subscribe to a mobile phone and the Internet.

Shopping Spree

Go to Södermalm again, but this time its western part. After checking out David Design's concept store at Sankt Paulsgatan 27 (which is not so impressive), walk down to JFK Shop, a Japanese food store. Find a rice cooker manufactured by a Japanese company. The shop owner, a middle-aged Japanese guy, is a rather pleasant person.

Having visited all the major homeware stores in Stockholm and checked what's available at what price, I'm now ready for shopping spree. After paying 5 krona for using a public toilet at T-Centralen station (it seems almost all public toilets in Stockholm cost 5 krona to use), I buy the following:

Black, heart-shaped oven mitt at Design Torget

Screw driver, adjustable spanner, disposable washing gloves at Clas Ohlson

Clear-blue soap bar at Muji in Åhlens at Gallerian

Lime green bathroom mattress at John Wall

Black laundry bag at Granit in NK

Wooden turner at NK

Renova's lime green toilet rolls at Stockhome

Lime green basket at Village

Wilfa black kettle at Åhlens City

I will upload photos of some of these in the future.

During the shopping, have lunch at Souperb in Gallerian (tasty green curry chicken soup for 65kr with rice and bread and soft drink included) and pay another 5 krona coin to use toilet at NK.

Swedish pocket dictionary and Ikea

Briefly visit the Institute to check email at 9am. Then head for Gallerian's Teknik Magasinet to return the stupid electronic dictionary. They pleasantly accept my claim for refund. Then I walk to Akademibokhandeln to buy Norstedts's pocket English-Swedish Swedish-English dictionary which contains 32,000 words for each language, 12,000 more than the stupid electronic dictionary. This is a must-have for any English speakers living in Sweden.

Today I plan to go to Ikea, but I have a bit of time before the bus to Ikea comes. So I stop by at Cervera on Regeringsgatan, next to NK. From outside, the store looks like just a crockery store. But it has a huge lower ground floor where a lot more kitchenwares are available along with lamps. The basement is connected to another homeware shop John Wall, whose range of bathroom items is probably among the widest in Stockholm. I need to come here again when I have plenty of time.

Opposite Cervera is Hemtex, a bedlinen store. Just a brief browse assures me that I need to come here again.

Take the Ikea free shuttle bus at 11am. Many other people are also on the bus. It takes around 20 minutes to the Ikea store.

The Ikea store is worth visiting for buying bed mattresses and duvets. A wide range of them is available and you can try each out. But after being exposed to the high standard of Stockholm's homeware on the market, most Ikea goods look rather boring. But when the design happens to be good, it's a real value for money. I buy a nice shower curtain.

Meatball with lingonberries jam at the third floor restaurant is excellent, by the way.

Finish shopping by 3:30pm. Take the free shuttle bus to the city center with a rolled king-sized bed mattress on my shoulder.

Back at home, continue unpacking the UPS boxes delivered yesterday. When it's finished, my flat doesn't look much different than before. A huge storage space absorbs most of my belongings. Great.

Laundry, UPS, and Södermalm

8am: laundry

Doing the first laundry in a foreign country always involves a surprise. Swedish people usually share washing machines with others living in the same apartment building. My residence has a rule on this: you need to book your laundry either from 7-11am, 11am-2pm, 2pm-6pm, or 6pm-10pm (for Sundays, the 7-11am slot is unavailable) by inserting a cylinder with your room number into the time table hanging on the wall outside the laundry room in the basement. You cannot pull out the cylinder without inserting your key in it; so nobody can change your booking.

I book my laundry this morning, and there are two washing machines and a huge tumble dryer (by Electrolux, Sweden’s electric appliances maker) in the laundry room. I don’t know which button to press as all the instructions are in Swedish. Luckily, an elderly lady comes to the room. I ask her for instructions. She seems to start believing that I never did laundry before. No, I just don’t understand Swedish instructions…

It takes 2 hours to finish, as I need to wash my clothes in three separate batches (whites, blacks, and sensitive textiles with a hand-wash laundry tag). What is stupid is that you cannot select a washing program that includes spinning. After washing is done, you need to press a button for spinning, and wait for three more minutes…

9:30am: go to the Institute and check UPS online tracking. No updates. Call them up. They say they will come today. Go home immediately.

While waiting, hoover the flat floors.

3:15pm: UPS finally arrives. Immediately after the UPS driver leaves, go out to Södermalm, Stockholm's equivalent of Hoxton and Shoreditch in London.

4-7pm: Get off at Slussen station. Walk to Götgatan. Check out Wallpaper*'s recommendation Konsthantverket at Södermalmstorg 4. Not my taste. Wallpaper* may not be so useful for me.

Walk down to the south along Götgatan. The pedestrianised street is busy with youngsters perhaps going out after the first day of school and college. Ordning & Reda's flagship store is here with better presentation of its products than all the other branches I've visited so far. Opposite this is 10 Swedish Designers, which mostly sells bags. Its geometric patterns are, however, rather disappointing. One block south lie two shopping-centre-esque places on both sides of the street. At Götgatan 36, boutiques for youngsters surround a nice bohemian cafe. It's called Bruno Götgatsbacken. David Design is supposed to be here, but it has moved to another place. On the other side of the street, Götgatan 31, sits a cluster of interesting shops including Granit and DesignTorget. There is also Press Stop, a magazine store which also sells some magazines in English including The American (a magazine newly launched this month featuring Japan and Sweden) and Monocle, which the shop attendant tells me will be on the shelf tomorrow.

Turn left and walk along Högbergsgatan, which is pretty much deserted today. After passing the crossing with Östgötagatan, find yet another furniture store called Ritto. Although the store looks a bit untidy, its presentation of kitchen tables is enlightening. They do stock things unavailable at other stores. How many more stores like this does Stockholm offer?

Further walking to the east and then turning right to go down on Nytorgsgatan, find a kitchen show room called Svensk Kökstradition. It seems very expensive, but offers a classical atmosphere with some contemporary twist.

This area appears to have several offices for creative types. Looking through the windows, I notice all these offices feature stylish desk chairs etc.

Walking down further, I learn that Apparat and Klara at Nytorgsgatan 36, featured in Time Out, have been replaced by some boutiques for youngsters. Walking one block to the east, Elviras Värlad at Renstiernas Gata 24, also featured in Time Out, are shut down, too. But find Chimra, which displays popart-ish lighting. There's also a furniture store next door.

Walk to the south on Renstiernas Gata. At the crossing with Skånegatan sits Stockholms Stadsmission, a second-hand clothes and crockery shop. Find an old steel pan with nice turquoise decoration on the side, kind of a pan you can't see these days.

Walk two blocks to the west. This area has many boutiques targeting bohemian youngsters. Mixed with them are Coctail and Coctail Deluxe, two separate shops under the same management recommended by Time Out. They sell rather girlie home accessories. But Coctail Delux store displays a small, pink suede buddha(!). Find another boutique called Grandpa, playing eccentric rock tunes as background. Along with clothes they also sell glass cups, one or two used leather sofa, and a golden tank-shaped vase.

It's now about 6pm, when most shops close on weekdays. Just before reaching Medborgarplatsen station, find YET another furniture store Bolia.com. They make an interesting CD storage suggestion and teach me how to use your postcards from friends as an interior decoration.

Back at home, start unpacking the UPS boxes. My Hi-Fi system comes up. For the first time in a week, manage to listen to music without using earphones.

Day Six: Stockholm Design Tour continues

Plan to go to Ikea. According to Time Out City Guide, there is a free shuttle bus to Ikea store from Regeringsgatan 13 every one hour from 11am to 5pm daily. Arrive at the bus stop a couple of minutes before 11am. No bus comes. I may have missed one. So I wait for the midday bus by visiting an Åhlens store in front of the bus stop. It does sell some tempting products like napkins with nice patterns. It also tells me about the best colour combination for my bathroom. Muji is also here, and I find colourful and transparent bath soap bars (in yellow, blue, organge, and green) and tissue boxes which are surprisingly rare in Sweden. It's a good idea to open a store like this in front of the bus stop for Ikea.

Midday approaches. A girl speaking American English asks me if the bus to Ikea is operating on Sunday. The bus stop has a sign: "går alla vardagar." The electronic dictionary I bought yesterday doesn't help me at all. It does not have an entry for any of these words. Actually the dictionary has only 20,000 words in total. Since it translates into 29 different languages, it boasts 580,000 words on the package. A pocket Swedish-English dictionary on sale in a bookstore contains 32,000 words! What's the point of an electronic dictionary then? I'll definitely return this dictionary. It's called 29L Global Translator. Never ever buy this.

Several minutes later, the girl, coming out of the Åhlens store, speaks to me: There is no Ikea bus on weekends.

Changing today's plan, visit NK department store, probably the Swedish counterpart of UK Harrods. Its lower ground floor is another temptation for design addicts. In addition to Design House Stockholm, Bookbinders, Ording & Reda, and Kosta Boda (see yesterday), it also has Granit, which is a bit like Muji but offers products either in white, black, or the mixture of both. Find a tempting shower curtain (last night I found that the shower curtain already furnished in my flat allows water to spill out) and a black laundry bag. At Ording & Reda, I buy paper clips of black and white stripes.

Time Out recommends NK's bookstore as it offers books in English. But to me it's not very useful. Where can I buy Monocle magazine here in Stockholm?

After having lunch at the NK canteen, I stop by at Clas Ohlson in Gallerian (see yesterday) and buy a measure tape. I need this to know what size of furniture I need to buy before going to Ikea etc.

Then I head for R.O.O.M., yet another furniture store in Kungsholmen of western Stockholm. It displays quite a few living room furniture suggestions, which is enlightening to learn what colour and texture combination looks great. The store is very large, and also has a small item section. Find a tempting soap dish here.

On the way home, stop by at my office in the Institute. Log on to Tyda, an excellent online Swedish-English dictionary. It's better than Lexin, which everyone seems to recommend, in terms of the speed of translation. I check what "går alla vardagar" at the Ikea shuttle bus stop means; "går" means run, "alla" every, and "vardagar" weekdays. I'll definitely return the stupid 29L Global Translator.

I also track my UPS boxes online. It's not updated over this weekend; so I don't know whether they will deliver tomorrow. I need to call them up tomorrow's morning.

Day Five: Stockholm Design Store Tour

*** You may need to change your browser's language encoding to properly display Swedish alphabets (å, ä, and ö). ***

As UPS is off duty over weekends, I take a tour of design stores in Stockholm all day. As most stores in Stockholm close by 4pm on Saturday (and often all day on Sunday), I leave home by 11am when most stores open.

The tour starts at Stadion tunnelbana station. Walk down on Sibyllegatan street takes you first to Jacksons, recommended by Wallpaper* City Guide. It's a classy atmosphere with expensive chairs and glass and ceramic bases. Not my taste.

Next Asplund, both Time Out and Wallpaper* recommendation. A very cool store with cool music in the background. Find a stylish beige pepper mill. And a white designer globe without latitude and longitude lines, reminding me of why every globe has such lines which are rarely important, aren't they?

Further down on Sibyllegatan is Modernity, another Wallpaper* recommendation. Well, it sells furniture and bases which are not my taste.

Now I'm on Östermalmstorg square, where a stylish outdoor cafe/bar/restaurant called Lisapatorget is found. Outdoor cafes tend to be boring, but this one is different. Next time I will try.

Now walk down on Nybrogatan street. Time Out's recommendation, Nordiska Galleriet on the west side and a branch of DesignTorget on the east side, both of which turn out to be very interesting and even enlightening. Nordiska displays a wide range of light, chairs and sofas, and tables for living rooms. This branch of DesignTorget, unlike the one I visited last Thursday, is full of temptation. A black oven mit, pop art alarm clocks, a toilet roll stand with an eye, a designer door mat, and a mouse-shaped socket extension cover cloth.

Walk further south to the sea, and visit Carl Malmsten and Svenskt Tenn on Strandvägen street. Not my taste. The latter is recommended by almost all Stockholm city guides, but its focus on bright flowery patterns is not my cup of tea.

Now walk up northwest on Birger Jarlsgatan. Find a store called Kartell (which appears to be Italian judging from its website address) specializing in pop art style lighting and chairs. Then an amazing Orrefors and Kosta Boda (both in the same store), recommended by Wallpaper*. This store is for very stylish glasswares, and the price is not that high.

Turn left and turn left again after one block. Norrlandsgatan street has three interesting stores. First, Bookbinders, a stationery store. Then Pause, an audio-visual store with its display very elaborate. Finally, Salming, a stylish underwear maker's store. Turn left on Smålandsgatan and there is Design House Stockholm. Although neither Time Out nor Wallpaper* mentions this store, it does offer quality design furniture. The display presentation is also good here. I'm tempted to buy black doughnut-shaped ceramic salt & papper containers with a rectangular wooden tray.

One block south runs Hamngatan street. Walk to the west and opposite to Stockholm's top class department store NK is The One furniture store. Again neither Time Out nor Wallpaper* recommends it, but it's a very distinctive store because its theme on the ground floor display is Gothic. Shop attendants wear a red T-shirt with a white cross, acting like an emergency helper. The store display teaches me that I may want to buy olive green bed sheets.

Further to the west is Gallerian shopping mall. It is rather like those London boring shopping malls, but go upstairs and there is Clas Ohlson, a recommendation by "Sato memo", a Stockholm city guide written by Japanese medical researchers living here. This store lacks in style, but its range of products is amazing, almost everything you need in daily life (e.g. socket extensions, screw drivers). Customers are much more male-dominated than the stores I visited so far. :) I ask the shop assistant if they have a socket converter. I need several of them to use electric appliances that I brought from London. He tells me a surprising fact: socket converters are BANNED in Sweden. As stupid Americans moving to Sweden who are unaware that different countries adopt different voltages, often used a socket converter without changing electricity voltage, I'm told, the Swedish government decided to ban it for the safety reason. A bad example of having a big government.

Next door is another branch of Teknik Magazinet. I ask for the electronic dictionary translating Swedish to several foreign languages, the one I saw last Thursday. The shop assistant is friendly enough to allow me to use it for a while. I now realize that one of the foreign languages is Japanese. And it can be used as, say, a Japanese-Arabic dictionary as well. I decide to buy it. It's less than 500 krona (about 20 pounds).

Now I'm hungry. Have a light lunch at Coppola Caffe on the ground floor of Gallerian. Its sweet bread (winerbröd) is excellent. But mozzallera and tomato salad is mediocre. Mozzallera doesn't do a job at all. By the way, you can take bread for free here. Is this a Swedish way?

Walk further to the west and arrive at Åhlens department store, a Swedish equivalent of UK's Selfridge's in my opinion. The second floor has a reputable homeware section. Design House Stockholm (see above) and Japan's Muji are part of it. A stylish kettle I saw elsewhere sells at a cheaper price here. And it also sells another cool kettle. Sleek bathroom scales are on sale as well. The lower ground has a stationery section where Bookbinders (see above), Ordning & Reda, and again Muji are part of it. I buy a Muji pen which I will use in the kitchen to take note of what to buy next time I go to a supermarket.

Now walk up to the north on Drottninggatan street to visit Pub department store partly because I want to use a toilet. Five krona (about 30 pence) is required for using it. Another reason to visit this rather boring department store is to take photos of my face at a photoshop for the forthcoming ID card application. Once I obtain my personal identification number from the Tax Agency (see 23 August), I can get this ID card from a bank or a post office which can be used for the identification purpose in Sweden. Six passport size photos cost 159 krona (12 pounds). It's expensive, but given that I don't understand Swedish, having someone (who of course speaks English) take photo is easier for me.

Walk further up north on Drottinggatan, and there's another branch of Ordning & Reda. Find a cool mouse pad. It seems that these design stores probably limit its product range on display on purpose in branches housed in department stores like Åhlens.

Further north on the same street. Find a store called Eden. It's not that cool, but its range of products on offer is diverse including probably all the toiletries available on the market. An instant shoe shine, a wooden chopping board, and a designer toilet brush are tempting.

Next door is Bo Concept, an expensive furniture store.

Then turn right towards Japanese foods shops (mentioned in the Sato memo) on Tegnergatan street. Turns out that both are closed. They are open on Monday to Friday from 10 to 18, Saturday from 10 to 14, and closed all day on Sunday. They are NOT Japanese! :)

On the way back to a tunnelbana station, find a supermarket chain Coop Konsum. Finally I manage to buy wheat flour as there is a shop assistant to ask in front of the shelf. I also find tagliatelle which is not available on the nearest grocery store to my place.

I'm worn out when I'm back at home. But it was a pleasant journey. It's just amazing that an enormous number of interior goods stores is on offer here. And I haven't visited Södermalm, where another cluster of such shops can be found, or the world's famous Ikea store.

Day Four

*** If you haven't read, please start reading from the 21 August post.***

Wait for UPS to come all day. As I can't go out, I think of how to make my flat look nicer. Put the television set and an uninspiring carpet into the wardrobe. Move the bed sofa to create a space for quality speakers that I plan to buy. Move the dinning table in the living room to use it as a desk. Think of what color should define each room of the flat, given the colour of the wall and the furniture already provided. It's just fun.

UPS doesn't show up by 6pm. Giving up, go to the ICA grocery store (and still unable to buy wheat flour), cook dinner, and go to the Institute to use the Internet.

Starting a new life in a foreign country is not that easy.

Day Three

Meet Christina at Slussen tunnelbana station at 9am. She takes me to the Tax Agency where I apply for my personnummer, or my personal identification number. Without this number, you can't open a bank account, set up a phoneline, etc. I'm told it will take a couple of weeks. Christina says, "That's quicker than the average."

Go to the Institute. Unpack one of the boxes shipped from London. Change my email address for email alert of top 5 economics journals.

The lunch bell rings. Have lunch at a restaurant by taking a 10 minute walk in the middle of nowhere to the east with Torsten, John, Harry, Christina, and two more people whose name I don't remember. Sweet chili salmon (85 krona) is not too bad. I'm asked whether my PhD thesis defense will be public. In Sweden, I'm told, the viva is conducted in public, where any participant can ask the doctorate candidate.

Come back to the Institute. When I'm about to leave around 3pm, David, a PhD student at the Institute, drops by, inviting me to a drink this evening.

Take Tunnelbana to T-Centralen. Visit Kartcentrum, a map store, and buy Pocket Street Map. In the end, there seems to be no A to Z map in Stockholm. This pocket map covers a very small area of Stockholm. But other maps in the book format covering larger areas are too big to carry around.

Then I visit Teknik Magasinet for electronic Swedish-English dictionaries, because a shop assistant at another electric appliances store told me to visit this store yesterday. It's a tiny shop where customers cannot browse products unless they ask a shop attendant at the counter who appears to be knowledgeable of all the products they sell. He introduces me to a large pen-shaped device which scans words in print and shows translation. But this one only translates from English to Swedish. He then shows me another flat device, just like all those Japanese electronic dictionaries, which translates 66,700 Swedish words and phrases into more than 10 other languages including English. But he doesn't know what dictionary this device uses. I can't decide to buy this one as reliability is doubtful...

As I'm in the city centre, my tour of Stockholm design stores begins. First Lagerhaus. They have a wide range of stationery, bathroom items, and kitchenwares.

Then Visit DesignTorget. I find this place just eclectic and selling mainly fun stuff.

Go home once, and find a card from UPS. They came to deliver my personal belongings from London today even though the web tracking yesterday said the delivery was scheduled to be tomorrow. What's worse, I don't understand what the card says (all in Swedish)...

Go shopping at ICA, the nearest grocery store. Want to buy wheat flour, but can't find one on the shelf. Today there is only one shop attendant who is busy handling customers queuing at the till. Ask a couple of other customers. Turns out that they are not Swedish and have no idea. Seems like people living in this area are mostly foreign students... Go home without flour and cook dinner.

Beef tastes better here than in London. Beef burger that I cooked yesterday was excellent. Today I simply cook a thinly sliced beef steak, and it's just juicy. Milk is also tasty here. Another relief from London.

Go to a bar David told me. Meet Katrin, a classmate of mine at LSE who also just moved to Stockholm, and several PhD students both from the School and the Institute. I ask one of them what the UPS card says. It says, "We are coming at the same time tomorrow." Great.

We then move to Tranan bar/restaurant. As I can't drink anymore but didn't have vegetables when I cooked dinner at home, I end up having an expensive goat cheese salad (120 krona, or 9 pounds), which is not too bad.

Go home around midnight.

Day Two

Go to the Institute. It's a 10 minute walk from my flat. For the first time since my primary school days, I commute by walk, something almost impossible in Tokyo and London. (I commuted to secondary school and university by taking one-hour train ride in Tokyo.)

Visit Christina. After briefing basic things at the Institute, she takes me around to see people at the Institute who are already back from holidays.

Following the lunch bell at 11:30am, have lunch with Christina, Mats, and Harry at a university restaurant. At the Institute, someone rings the bell at 11:30 to invite colleagues to lunch.

Go to the city centre by Tunnelbana (Stockholm's underground) to look for an electronic Swedish-English dictionary and a Swedish equivalenet of A to Z map to carry on. I end up finding several interesting shops for interior goods, including Bang & Olufsen for designer speakers, Village (at Kungsgatan 27) for household accessories, and Stockhome for household goods.

As several creative-type friends of mine in London told me, Stockholm appears to be an interesting city for those into design.

Day One

Move to Stockholm exactly five years after I arrived in London.

Fly with SAS from London City Airport. Unlike Ryanair, SAS allowed me to check in online smoothly. Unlike any other London airports, boarding on the aircraft at London City is very smooth. I'll definitely book a flight arriving in London City next time I come to London.

Yumiko-san kindly comes to the airport to see me off with a piece of quiche she baked. This is very helpful as having dinner on the first day of your stay in a foreign city can be very difficult. (I ended up at McDonald's five years ago.)

The airplane arrives at Stockholm Arlanda Airport on time. The passport control is easy to pass without being asked anything, after I pass my passport with the work permit page shown. My check-in luggage returns to me without any difficulty.

My apartment keys were sent to the airport bagport by Christina, the Institute's super-secretary. ("The Institute" refers to my new workplace hereafter.) After learning where it is at the information desk, I pick up my keys at the bagport by paying 30 krona (about 2 quid) in cash (I bought a large amount of Swedish krona in cash at M&S in Convent Garden, London, yesterday. With your passport shown, you can buy foreign currencies by debit card).

Now start feeling hungry. Stop by at a Seven Eleven store in the arrival lounge and order mezewrap. It's surprisingly tasty. I'm delighted by the fact that I no longer need to suffer from stupid London sandwitch shops.

Then I take a taxi to the apartment. By reading a Stockholm travel guide obtained in the SAS aircraft, I've learned Taxi Stockholm and Taxi 020 (so named because its contact number is 020 20 20 20) are the most reliable. I find a Taxi Stockholm taxi. I notice that minor taxi company cars imitate Taxi Stockholm car's appearance.

About half an hour, I arrive at the apartment building. It first looks like a London's council flat building. When I enter, it smells of smoke as there was a fire in the basement last week. My apartment is on the first floor, but I don't know whether Sweden follows the British or American convention of numbering floors. On the ground floor, there is no door indicating my name. Walking upstairs, I find my apartment. The smoke smell continues.

Opening the door, I learn what my new place to live looks like. The spacious entrance hall has got three wardrobes. On the right, the door to the compact kitchen. In front, the door to the spacious living room with a very comfy sofa. Next to the living room is a bed room with two single beds and a study desk. Between the bedroom and the kitchen lies the bathroom. At the centre of the flat is one more wardrobe.

Read through the apartment instruction provided by University Accommodation Center. Learn that while the standard voltage in Sweden is 230 volt, bathroom sockets must be 110 volt by regulation.

And this instruction tells me where the nearest grocery shop is. After eating Yumiko-san's delicious quiche, I visit the shop. Three surprises. First, when I want to buy salt, pepper, or butter, it's hard to tell which one I should buy. I can't tell the difference between different types of, say, salt as the package description is in Swedish only. Second, there is a machine accepting used cans. It appears that you will get a receipt after returning cans and get refunded. Finally, plastic shopping bags cost 1.5 krona (about 10 pence) each!

Staring a new life in a foreign country may be tough, but it's also full of stimulation for curiosity.

Beware of Ryanair's online checkin system

I booked a Ryanair flight to Italy a month ago. By paying a bit more money (4 pounds), I opted for online check-in (and priority boarding).

Two days before the departure, I got email reminding me of the online check-in.

Then I realized that the online check-in system is only available for passengers with an European passport who are NOT travelling from Italy to UK.

Well, I still enjoy the priority boarding, but I feel like I was cheated...

PhD Thesis Submitted

I submitted my PhD thesis today. In economcis, the PhD thesis is rather a formality. The effective examination of your thesis is already done during the job market process. But, I don't know why, I feel more strongly today than when I got a job offer that I have done something. Formality does have some meaning, maybe.

Joshi Puroresu Diary Launched

By the way, I have launched Joshi Puroresu Diary even though I have been supposed to be very busy writing up my PhD thesis. :-)

The aim is to organize joshi puroresu YouTube videos (which are increasingly uploaded during the past one year by presumably mad American fans of joshi puroresu) by date and wrestlers.

I believe that joshi puroresu is the last hidden gem in Japan. With help of YouTube and all those YouTube users who upload joshi puroresu videos, I can finally promote this to a wider audience.

Anyway, so far the best match is Momoe Nakanishi vs Ayako Hamada. Try watching this.

Am I an Alpha Blogger? :-)

I have found that some posts on this blog are cited by a couple of websites.

I have already mentioned that my review on Ping Pong restaurant is featured in the restaurant's own website.

My review on Menelik restaurant appears in Ethiopianrestaurant.com.

Now my review on Budapest Festival Orchestra's performance at BBC Prom last year is featured in the orchestra's own website.

What's next? :-)

Where Am I Going?

In case you still don't know where I'm going from next academic year on (especially for one reader in New Haven---I'm sorry I ignored your request until today), I'm moving to the world's 8th most livable city on 21 August.

Proof of Impossibility Theorem: Step 1

A couple of years ago, I was mad about this girl. The encounter with her made my life a lot easier. I even used a deformed version of her name as my login password for various websites.

But I didn't understand the nature of her job. She was like a fisherman. No matter how long you work, you won't earn any money on a day when there is no fish in the sea. The more you work, the more you earn on a day when there are tons of fish in the sea (assuming that the price of fish is constant no matter how much you sell them ... I apologize for my economist self). Working 8 hours everyday does not maximize your income. You need to work hard when you are lucky. You don't need to work at all when you are unlucky. Which will be the case tomorrow is uncertain, out of your control.

But I didn't understand this simple thing. I demanded a constant, steady flow of interactions with her everyday, which must have annoyed her a lot. If she reads this, I want to belatedly tell her that I'm very sorry for my immaturity.

If I'm asked, "If I met her today, then would I behave differently?" my answer is unfortunately no. To start a relationship, I need to have a sizable amount of time to stay together initially. Then we will learn about each other. Once I go through this period, then no matter how busy my partner is, I can trust this person and endure loneliness. If, from the beginning, we can't stay together at all, I can't go anywhere with this person.

Given that my life will be pretty much busy for the next six years, and given that I like a woman who is busy doing her work, this proves, at least partly, the impossibility that I will meet somebody soon.

This series "Proof of Impossibility Theorem" will continue irregularly.

Acknowledgement: This post is inspired by a blog post in Japanese on 7 July 2007 by Professor Fumio Ohtake, a labor economist at Osaka University.

D-Fix plus Takaco vs Kansai, Eagle, and Devil

I've learned that I can use YouTube to promote what I love in Japan: old-skool visual-kei rock and women's pro-wrestling. Here's an example of the latter:


Watch out for 4'10'' when Kaoru did swanton from the balcony. Also Kansai's Splash Mountain at 7'30''.

Get Addicted? Here's the last half of the match.

Enjoy another Japanese world.

Econoclasm Travel Guide vol.1: Tokyo

Last month's issue of Monocle magazine ranks Tokyo as the world's 4th most livable city (see the magazine article via International Herald Tribune's website).

American cities including New York are all out of top 20 (except for Honolulu) because crime rates are high. London is out, too, because of its infamous public transportation and due to the absence of bars after midnight.

To celebrate this, I make public my own travel guide for anyone planning (or longing) to visit Tokyo. Enjoy! (Adobe Reader required.)

S.K.I.N.

Imagine you are NOT from an Anglo-Saxon country. So rock musicians from your country are never famous world-wide.

Then two of the best rock stars for you back in school days, each the leader of a hugely popular rock band in your country, form a new group more than 10 years on, play the first gig, not in your home country but in Los Angeles, in front of screaming American fans.

How would you feel?

Well, this happened to me:


And it's not just rock music but also pianos, violin, and shamisen (a Japanese traditional guitar).

This is the final answer from Japan's rock music to the world. And here's more information on S.K.I.N. from a blog run by an American Japan's rock music fan.

In case you know the term "visualkei" by reading French Vogue or watching a German tv program, they are the best "visualkei" rock musicians.

Commix - Strictly (Metalheadz)

Commix has produced a couple of wicked tunes recently. This is one of them. His album is forthcoming from Metalheadz, Goldie's imprint. Watch this space.

This is a test post. As drum & bass tunes are of high quality these days, I should do something to let this be known to a wider audience. With the help of Blogmusik, I will start a music blog dedicated to drum & bass. If you click the above embedded music player, you will hear the tune, recorded from BBC Radio 1 programme hosted by Fabio on 23 June 2007. So it contains a couple of jingles of BBC Radio 1. This may be annoying, but this should be enough for you to appreciate the music and to buy drum & bass tracks.

A Sunny Day in London

Leave home around 10:30am, when the voice of a flatmate's girlfriend upstairs starts depressing me. Hop on a double-decker, heading for Shoreditch, the edgy area of East London. Getting off, walk towards Macondo, my favorite cafe on Hoxton Square. Find funky railings on a backstreet building on the way.



Arriving at Macondo, order seafood paella and chicken salad with mixed berries yogurt smoothie. Start reading an article on the June issue of Monocle, interviewing a Russian opposition PR woman. The smoothie comes first, which could have been colder on such a sunny day. But the paella and the chicken salad are gorgeous, a rarity in London.

Tired of reading Monocle, leave Macondo and enter Hoxton Square park. Following other Londoners, lie down on a lawn in the sun. With my iRiver MP3 player---a resistance to iPod dominance---start listening to the music London gave birth to: drum and bass.

Fabio's liquid funk mix and London's rare sunshine make me drowse a while. Waking up, notice that people keep visiting the White Cube gallery, which is usually closed on Sundays. With my headphone still on my ears, visit the gallery only to find it's the exhibition of latest works by Damien Hirst, probably the most popular contemporary artist in UK. Without being moved at all, leave the gallery and think about where to go next.

Walk down to Old Street tube. Find a graffiti of high quality beside rubbish bins.



Take the Northern Line to London Bridge. From the station, walk towards the City Hall. Realize that the City Hall has a really strange shape, with the Tower Bridge aside.



Walk along the Themes to the west, heading for the Tate Modern museum. Quite a few, but not an overwhelming number of, tourists.

Arriving at the museum, enter the Level 2 gallery, which is in my view the best gallery in Tate Modern. Like Anselm Reyle's works. Futuristic because he uses silver foil, neon colors, and mirrors. And stylish because for contemporary art works, they don't depress viewers. Wish I would have money in the future to buy his works to decorate a large, inorganic room for playing back music.

Getting out of the museum, see St Paul's dome looms across the river.



Turn back and head for Southwark tube station by following orange lamp posts. Take the Jubilee line to Green Park because there is an M&S above the station, where I can buy decent whole milk (I can't stand British milk on the usual supermarket shelf).

Then stop by at a Caffe Nero at the corner with Dover Street, ordering Frappe Latte with an extra espresso shot. Sit at a table outside, watching red double deckers and red bendy buses passing on Piccadilly, which makes me look back at the past five years of my life in London.

I could have visited Dover Street Market, Rei Kawakubo's revolutionary brand clothes store. But prefer not being reassured that any good-looking clothes in London are not affordable. Go back to Green Park tube station, taking Piccadilly and Central Lines to get home with Monocle at hand and earplugs inside my ears to silence the sound made by the clunky train carriages.

Tip for copy-and-past

I've long been grumpy about copy-and-pasting. When you want to copy and past some text on a webpage to, say, your Word file, not only letters but also the font format, which is different from your Word file text font format, is also copy-and-pasted. I finally understand how to avoid this. See this webpage.

A moving quote

"Don't discount Africa. The giant has woken up. You can feel it. I tell you because I travel in Africa a lot. You can see the pride in people's eyes. ... We are awake now. It is coming." ---Titus Naikuni, CEO of Kenya Airways (Monocle, Issue 03, May 2007, p.69)

Nigeria

During the past few weeks, the British media (ie. FT and The Economist) has produced revealing articles on Nigeria.

Andrew Jack of Financial Times reports Nigeria's war on fake drugs.

By the turn of the millennium, Nigerians had become among the world’s most frequent victims of fake drugs.

The Economist reports, two weeks in a row, how Nigerian politicians rig elections:

In Anambra state, most people could not vote at all. They turned up at the voting stations, but often INEC's officials [that is, electoral commission officials] simply did not arrive. When a polling station did open, usually about six hours late, the officials did not have enough materials, notably a register, to let voting begin. On a tour of a dozen voting stations in the state capital, Awka, on the afternoon of polling, your correspondent did not see a single vote being cast, just angry mobs of frustrated would-be voters saying they had been “disenfranchised”. Barely any polling stations were provided with a results-sheet, on which officials and party agents are supposed to record the number of votes cast for each party; presumably these were being filled in elsewhere. ("How to steal yet another election" The Economist, 21th April, 2007)

On the day of the presidential election money-politics could be seen in action in central Kano, the dusty, dilapidated industrial capital of the north. There, in the local government area of Fagge, the PDP had budgeted 35m naira for political “mobilisation” and the main opposition party, the All Nigerian Peoples' Party (ANPP), 40m naira. In one ward, Fagge A, the PDP, according to one of its operatives, had budgeted 594,000 naira ($4,650) for 21,000 registered voters and 35 ballot boxes. Thus each “independent” presiding officer at the polling station was given 3,000 naira and his clerk 2,000 naira. Each policeman was getting 1,000 naira. That left payments of about 200 naira ($1.57) per voter—whose votes, far from being secret, were inked with a thumb on the ballot in front of party agents. Multiple voters, who will have registered several times with sympathetic election officials, might vote ten times, at a reduced bulk rate of 100 naira—still picking up a tidy 1,000 naira each. The friendly officials are paid for a variety of services, one of which is not to scrutinise the register too closely. Hasia, for example, had just voted with the registration card of her mother, who had already voted herself. Hasia had the second of her mother's two cards. She has probably not even reached the legal voting age of 18. Her card clearly identified its owner as being 60 years old, but this had not proved a problem with the right official. ("Big men, big fraud and big trouble", The Economist, 28th April 2007)

But there are pockets of the bright side as well. The war on fake drugs starts paying off.

Recent studies suggest that the proportion of fake and unregistered medicines in Nigeria has dropped to less than 20 per cent over the past six years.

Foudeh Darwish, the Lebanese managing director of Afrab-Chem, a manufacturer of antibiotics and other drugs based in Lagos, ... shows me the plans for his new ₤2m factory set to open later this year in compliance with international quality manufacturing standards. "Two years ago, this would not have been possible," he says. The investment is a sign both of new demand within Nigeria for high-quality medicines, and a reduced threat that genuine regulated products will be undermined by fake alternatives.("Lethal Doses", FT Magazine, 7 April, 2007)

Cross Rivers, one of the 36 states of Nigeria, has a good state governor:

In the state capital, Calabar, the streets have no pot-holes. According to the state government, every village is connected to the national grid and everyone has access to clean water. ... Cross Rivers has no oil wealth. [State Governor Donald Duke] has achieved all this on a fraction of the money available to his neighbours. Instead, he has frozen official salaries, cleverly exploited existing resources and taken on debt. In partnership with private investors, he is also responsible for Tinapa, the largest retail and business development in west Africa. It contains several new giant studios to grab a large slice of the $200m-300m a year "Nollywood" film industry, which churns out, by some estimates, more films than either of its rivals in Los Angeles or Bombay.

You've never heard about Nollywood? The Economist already reported it last July:

IT ALL started by accident in 1992, when Kenneth Nnebue, a Nigerian trader based in Onitsha, was trying to sell a large stock of blank videocassettes he had bought from Taiwan. He decided that they would sell better with something recorded on them, so he shot a film called "Living in Bondage" about a man who achieves power and wealth by killing his wife in a ritualistic murder, only to repent later when she haunts him. The film sold more than 750,000 copies, and prompted legions of imitators. Nollywood, as Nigeria's film industry is known, now makes over 2,000 low-budget films a year, about two-thirds of them in English. ("Nollywood dreams", The Economist, 27th July 2006)

I'm rather impressed by Nigeria's potential both in the right and wrong directions.

DNB in Week 15 of 2007

Fabio's BBC Radio One show last night played several excellent stylish liquid funk tunes (artist name(s), title in quotes, and record label name in parentheses, followed by my comment):

High Contrast featuring Diane Charlemagne "If We Ever" (White) --- An old skool flava with High Contrast's upperclass sophistication.

Unknown artist "Piece Of Heaven" (Zinc Remix) (Bingo) --- This is exactly what drum & bass heads call a BAD TUNE. The bassline is really bad. It's so imcompatible with soulful, smooth female vocal that the result is a perfect match.

Calibre "Dirty Mind (VIP remix)" (Signature) --- minimalist summer cosiness.

Insight "No Love" (Progress) --- Listen to a MP3 sample provided by Juno Record.

Tidal feat Olivia "So Sexy" (White) --- A summer liquid funk featuring female vocal from a new drum & bass talent.

Total Science "Divided We Stand" (White) --- Another BAD bassline.

A.I. "Desperado" (Liquid V) --- A masterpiece. One of the tunes that established, back in 2004, the current popularity of liquid funk. Listen to a MP3 sample provided by Juno Record.

The Nature of Cell Science

Check out this music video clip by Dirk Pacholsky.

Robert Mugabe

The Economist article on the Zimbabwean President this week gives you a slightly different view on Mugabe: giving lessons to staff in the government, working punishing hours, frugal, teetotal, faithful to his wife...

Distillery District

The Distillery District is what Toronto can boast about to the rest of the world. The former booze factory buildings, dating back to the 19th century, are all preserved in outer appearance while their inside is occupied by trendy boutiques, design furniture shops, stylish cafes, spacious contemporary art galleries, and so forth. What impresses me is I can't tell what's inside until I open the door. Shop signs are all discreet, preserving the distillery atmosphere.


Shopping experiences in high streets are usually tiring because you are exposed to too many showy advertisements. Contemporary art galleries are often located in scruffy streets because rents are cheap in such areas. Here in the Distillery District you can enjoy shopping and art viewing in style. I like the whole concept behind this complex. A must see when you visit Toronto.

FT columnists

I terribly miss Tyler Brule's column on FT Weekend everytime I read the very first sentence of the column by Chrystia Freeland, who succeeded Brule as a columnist for the last page of FT Weekend at the beginning of this year.

This week, her column begins with the following sentence:

When Nancy Pelosi celebrated her swearing in as speaker of the House this year...

I actually stop reading before reaching the end of the first sentence of the column. Freeland, FT's US managing editor, keeps writing about America. That's already a cliche. Ordinary intellectuals love writing about USA because the country offers many mainstream polemical issues. Last week, Freeland began her column with:

Whenever the FT runs a picture of Hillary Clinton...

I then stop reading it. I don't care about Hillary Clinton. Intellectuals who love talking about USA always try to talk about some social or political issue triggered by some incident taking place in the State. It's so predictable. Absolute nothing beyond my expectation.

Instead, I have recently discovered an intriguing columnist on FT Magazine: Mrs Monneypenny. She's funny because her views often conflict with mainstream ones in Western society. This week, she writes: "I am not sure why we need lists of endangered species." She defends her position by referring to Darwin's survival-of-the-fittest theory. "If species are not fit enough to survive, then surely they should be allowed to become extinct?" It's so hilarious.

Her view on childbearing is also provocative to many in the West. Two weeks ago, she wrote: "I generally believe in sending [children] to boarding school as soon as possible after they start eating solid food." She refers to her three kids as Cost Center #1, Cost Center #2, and Cost Center #3. (I still don't fully understand what "cost center" really means. I know it's a term from accounting. Anybody willing to post a comment on this?)

Now you know my taste. This is why I tend to be quiet in front of people and keep blogging. :-)

How to Write a Press Release of Your Empirical Economics Research

Based on my analysis of a successful example of RES Media Briefings. (Her research was featured in many major UK newspapers.)

1. The first paragraph begins with a general sentence on the main finding of the research, followed by another sentence repeating the same finding but in a more specific way. The first paragraph must be self-contained: "if you took away all the paragraphs except the first, the press release should still make sense." (Romesh Vaitilingam, RES Media Consultant)

2. The second paragraph states additional important findings.

3. The third paragraph introduces a bit of details on the data used (e.g. what survey is used, who answers the survey, when the survey is conducted, how many respondents the survey obtain) and what you actually investigate. But do not describe these too precisely. Keep the paragraph short.

4. Then restate the main finding with details including the magnitude of the effect, for whom the effect is larger, etc.

5. Restate the additional important findings mentioned in the second paragraph. Introduce some less important (but still interesting) findings.

6. Mention some theoretical arguments explaining the results, if any.

7. Mention the methodological innovation (ie. identification strategy) in an accessible way.

8. Conclude with a couple of policy implications of your findings.

Also see Mankiw's writing guideline.

Libor Novacek

My second-to-last lunchtime concert at LSE is a performance by a Czech pianist Libor Novacek.

Mozart: Rondo in D, K485

For the first time ever in my life, I enjoy Mozart. Libor Novacek juxtapose various expressions within this piece of music, sometimes even at the same time by playing the piano in one way by one hand and in the other way by the other hand. Libor reveals his sutble, but generous and embracing touch on keys. I would get bored if somebody else plays this piece, as the music itself, as usual for Mozart, is rather simply structured. But with Libor's hands, it sounds totally different.

Mozart: Rondo in A minor, K511

The same comments as above. I have heard some of the melodies in this piece.

Janacek: In the Mists (1912)

An intersting and sleepy piece. Towards the end, I nearly fall asleep, not because I get bored. It is because I'm pleased with Libor's play.

Brahms: Sonata No.2 in F sharp minor Op.2

A theatric, Christian Lacroix-ish piece. Again I easily imagine myself being bored if someone else plays this piece. But Libor plays it in a pleasant way. Towards the end, my mind is truly refreshed.

------

Another thing that deserves a mention: the Steinway piano, recently bought by LSE, sounds superb. Part of the reason I enjoyed Matan Porat two weeks ago, I now notice, is also owing to this piano.

Pierre Victoire

Have dinner with Yumiko-san at Pierre Victoire, London's affordable French restaurant.

We have duck in red wine sauce and baby chicken in tomato and basil sauce. Both main dishes are excellent. Bread and olives are excellent as well.

However, service and comfortability is not excellent. Waiters keep kicking Yumiko-san's chair. It takes five minutes to have a bill after asking for it. The place is packed with tables. Our private zone is rather limited. Plus, customers are amazingly noisy here.

I guess this restaurant is affordable despite its excellent food, because it's not that comfortable. If you only need good French foods, it's highly recommended. If you look for a place to relax, never go to this place.

Flatmate Hunting

On the day I decided my future, my landlord asked me to move out in a month's time (see 20 February).

Talking to my landlord revealed that she wanted me (and my flatmate) to move out because she got fed up with finding a tenant for each single room in our house and wanted to rent our house as a whole. (One of our flatmates moved out recently.)

Then I suggested to her that I look for a new tenant to our house. She liked the idea. It also made sense to me because if you're on the supply side of the market, you don't need to travel around in London to view flats and houses or to make many calls to ask questions and arrange viewings. It would be less stressful and less harassing.

I was right. In five days, I managed to find a new flatmate! Plus, I learned a couple of things from this flatmate-hunting experience.

The biggest puzzle to me was why nearly all flat advertisements provide incomplete information on the specification of a room/house. Part of the reason is that the advertisement media limits the number of letters you can use in your ad. But this doesn't explain why all the advertisements at Gumtree.com (this is a nice website for Londoners though it's a bit chaotic) are also incomplete, because you can write your ad as long as possible on this website.

You want to minimize the number of viewers. You want to screen out those not really interested in your property. Otherwise your precious time will be consumed by those who won't take your room.

So in my ad at Gumtree.com, I put every piece of information on the room and the house, including photos of the room, the kitchen, and the garden.

I browsed a real estate agent's brochure to learn how to take a good picture of your rooms. A room picture can be quite tricky. It can make the room look smaller than it actually is. You can end up screening out those who are otherwise interested. I noticed one basic rule among the room pictures on the brochure: take a picture at the corner of a room and make sure that the opposite corner of the room comes at the one-third of the length of the photograph. This makes the room look spacious in a photograph (Lesson 1). See my learning outcomes: a double room and a single room.

On the Gumtree.com ad, I didn't put my phone number. One reason is to avoid receiving calls after you found a flatmate. I also wanted to control the whole process rather than being disturbed every time you get a call. Initially, my landlord kindly created an ad on the gumtree.com with my mobile number on it. Literally a few minutes later, I started receiving calls and texts including unsolicited sales pitches. I hurriedly deleted the ad once. I also didn't want to be distracted by callers who just wanted to ask questions on the room.

Instead I put an email address which is NOT my usual address. I created a Hotmail account for this purpose. This not only prevents spammers from picking up your address but also allows you to shelter your private messages from flatmate-hunting messages.

I learned that Hotmail is quite annoying (Lesson 2). I usually use Gmail (called Google Mail in UK due to the trademark issue). Gmail automatically refreshes the screen when a new message arrives. Hotmail doesn't. You need to click "Inbox" many times. Gmail cleverly screens out spams. Hotmail very often misclassifies junk mails. Finally, Gmail does not have conspicuous advertisements on the screen. Hotmail does.

In addition to the ad at Gumtree.com, I also created an original webpage for the room advertisement by using Blogger. Then selectively email those who have placed an ad at the "Room Wanted" section of Gumtree.com by mentioning the address of this webpage.

Whenever I received a message to my Hotmail account, I called up the sender to arrange a viewing. On Sunday afternoon, I scheduled five viewings. The first viewer, Caroline, didn't come on time because she got our house number wrong. She didn't look impressed by our house after viewing, telling me she would call me after she visited other places as well. The second viewer, Faisal, didn't come one hour after the scheduled time. Neither did Alex, the third viewer. I wanted to make sure if I needed to wait for them. So I called Faisal. He sounded like he overslept. We rescheduled the viewing in the evening. I then called Alex. She got lost. Alex finally came 30 minutes later. Her reaction while viewing the house was Meditteranean: "Fantastic!" But she wasn't Meditteranean when I said no to her question of whether we have the TV. She said she would call me after viewing another flat.

I learned one thing from Alex. She liked the high ceiling of the room. Which I didn't realize when I wrote an ad. Now the biggest puzzle was solved. The reason why flat advertisements tend to be incomplete is that advertisers have incomplete information on what flat-hunters are looking for (Lesson 3). People have different preferences. Unless you are an experienced flat advertiser, you certainly fail to specify important aspects of your room/house.

On Sunday evening, Faisal was supposed to come, but he texted me saying, "Sorry, I can't come. Bye." Another viewer, Eva, never came and never called or texted me. The final viewer of the day, Andrew, didn't come, either. One hour after the scheduled time, he texted me to ask if there is a living room in our house, without a single word of "Sorry" or whatsoever. I didn't reply to him as he wouldn't be a good flatmate.

Some people in London are quite nasty (Lesson 4). Well, I already knew this anyway.

On Monday morning, Caroline texted me, saying she decided to take another place. She's such a nice person. Alex, on the other hand, never contacted me again.

On Monday evening, I had two viewers. Nordine, the first viewer, said he would like to take the room, immediately after he finished viewing the house. Brett, the second viewer, said he was very interested but wanted to see another place as well before his decision. He said he would call me by lunchtime the following day.

Today, Brett didn't call me by lunchtime. I called him to learn that he was waiting for a call from another place he visited. Which suggested that he didn't like our place the most. Nordine becomes our new flatmate.

(In case you wonder, although the ad says there are two rooms available, my landlord says she's happy with just one new tenant. I just wanted to increase the probability of finding flatmates by attracting those looking for a room with a friend of theirs.)

Mankiw's Advice for New Junior Faculty

I learn that Greg Mankiw, probably the most popular economist blogger, advises new assistant professors NOT to start a blog:

Avoid activities that will distract you from research. Whatever you do, do not start a blog. That will only establish your lack of seriousness as a scholar. ("Advice For New Junior Faculty," Feb 24, 2007)

What if a new assistant professor has already started a blog?



I know, I know this is a stupid question.

So the bottom line is ...




Econoclasm's days are numbered (as my days in London are).