this is how john and i spend the days

london
John has free bus pass so that is how we have been spending time , going on buses. 

We went to a naked party in archway, and took the number 4 bus from waterloo. i made a mistake chosing that bus because it went all over the place going as far north as seven sisters before swinging back down to archway. took us ages. like 70-80mins. 

anyway during the party someone there told us we could have taken the 91 that ends at trafalgar square, and it would be quicker too.
Afraid he was wrong. 91 do not go to archway. there is,it seems, no better route but by tube from my place to archway. another reason why that place is not really a good place to stay, as the transport links are so poor. haha. speaking from my perspective of course. 

 Added. 15.10.12 i have since found out the best bus route is 88 to camden and then 134 to archway.

(Added.14.10.12 i was reading what i wrote, and realise it is all very from my point of view.haha. of course the place is highly desireable, as it is in highgate, a posh area and the houses there are big. the one we were in has 3bedrooms, large lounge, kitchen, dining room, and a garden with jacuzzi. and it overlooks wooded areas. the house must be worth a bomb. haha. 
but i like living where i am in central london and would not exchange it. to me a garden and large house is not a recommendation. so much work to upkeep a garden, and so much cleaning to do with a large house. haha. )

it has v good connections by bus to the city of london.

and even though we have been to that house before, we still got lost. ah makes me realise not everyone is that fortunate as me to live so centrally. most have to live far out and miles from the nearest tube station, and no buses running near them.

that was yesterday night(friday) 

today we decided to get the bus to peckham where there is the lidl, asda, and aldi supermarkets to check the prices. 

not really that cheap prices, only the aldi has cheap toilet paper. john bought a umbrella for £5 in asda, and i saw there were umbrellas with trimedges like the one i found which i like very much. they cost £10. 

i really like these trim edged umbrellas, even though they are women umbrellas. 

long ago we had a lamb shish kebab at a cafe near the tesco in peckham. and we went back again to check the prices, thinking it cannot be as cheap or as nice now after so many years. 

the small lamb shish kebab is £3.90, before it was £3.60. and though the lamb pieces were smaller it was still very delicious. the bread was smaller and the salads are not packed into the bread but otherwise it is still very nice and good value. the lamb ws the same price as the chicken kebab, yet lamb is so much more expensive. john and i shared a small kebab. but i am sure we could easily eat the big kebab at £5.50 and have a skewer of lamb for each. 

generally, shopping here would have to be selective. if i want toilet paper (12pack for £1.89)or mushy peas 300mg for 4p. i wold go to the aldi. and if tesco is not giving 50p veg, than aldi is good for veg. i got a huge savoy cabbage for 49p there. and frozen corn 1kg for 99p. 
I got powdered skim milk from asda, 454mg for £1.68. tesco is £1.15. tesco's is a refill bag, whilst the asda is a big tin. so this is not a good buy at all. i got lots of tins to put my milk powder in. 

u have to have a good idea of the quantity and price before u come here, and bring a calculator too. these cheap supermarkets are not serious competition to the big players like tesco, sainsburys etc. 


and i got  horlick 500mg for £2 from asda , saves me 70p if i bought in elsewhere. 

asda do £2.50 a kg pork which is good to know if i ever want to replenish by pork diet. 

without any reductions, when it can be £2 a kg, the usual price of the basic pork in my area is £3.19 a kg. 

other than that there were not really any real bargains in these cut price supermarkets in peckham. 

my road was being resurfaced and for some time the buses c10 and 88 which runs near me has been diverted. but it is now back to normal which is good news for us. 

Life has its petty upsets, like my service charges being wrongly printed out by the computer, missing out some items so that the total did not add up. i got onto the phone to scold them and they send me a new account. 

the bill is about £1000 a year. it was a big jump from last year, about £200-300 extra because of the  computer system being revamped. and after paying so much about £400 my share that computer fxxk it up by giving me a account that do not add up. 

these computer people have been fxxking everyone for a long time. so many times after very expensive work, the system crashes and causes more trouble than before using the old system. 

ah well, i guess that is modern life for you. 

during this period we have been to the naked sex club in soho, and that was very nice even though we have been 3-4times there. some places gets boring if u go there many times, but not this one.

i met a guy and had a great time kissing and playing and then afterwards saw him at the bar and he said we have met before. 

i could not remember , but he then recalled that we met in another naked club in january. and i did remember him. 

so it seems all the naked guys are ending up in this naked club sooner or later.

there are still lots of new guys to meet though. there was a hunky saudi arab who told me he is out to his family who are not religious and so accept him. he is of the opinion that everyone even in the uk do not live open lives. 

i thought of saying gay people can be gay openly and live exclusively gay lives here, and we do, i do, but of course we may still not be out to our family. so he may be right that even the openly gay guy living his gaylife in london may be hiding his sexuality from his friends and family in his hometown. 

 There are not many clubs like this giving such good value for money. we went just before 7pm and got in for £6 with free drink and free cloakroom and still have all the fun as those who came later and who paid £7.

the naked party in archway we went to yesterday was a social one, so no hanky panky. there was a hot tub, and we contributed vegetarian food. 

it did remind me how nice naked parties are when there is some hanky panky and orgy going on. haha. we need something like this to remind us of it and not make us take orgies for granted. 

must find more guys giving naked parties with orgies. 

simon's car

london
Simon is having trouble with his car. he left the side lights on and drained the battery.
he managed to ask a neighbour with a charger to charge it for him, but it appears that battery is too far gone to recharge.

my initial thought was why the fuck dont they make it that when u switch off the ignition , it automatically switches everything off. but no, they  keep the lights on. 
if u ask me it is another ploy by car manufacturers to get u to drain your battery and force u to buy one. 

added. to buy a ford battery costs £180, but simon bought a non branded one for £34. 


simon's car is only 3yrs old, and he tells me new batteries these days are not so easy to recharge as the old ones. those old ones u can recharge just by jumpstarting with leads from another battery. 

but it seems to me that most of the time, people set themselves up for botheration in their lives.

buying a car is one eg . u can remove so much bother from your life if u dont even start owning a car in the first place.

it set me to thinking what other things that people will take up to make their lives difficult.

marrying and have kids... that is a killer botheration. haha. of course u can have kids and wife and let them do what they like and not bother to keep them in the luxury they want and let the state look after them. but if u do, u will get the neighbours sticking their nosy business into your home and shopping u to the social services. 
most would do what this family is doing. making a fuss of their kids. To me that woman is making her life difficult. but hey, it is her life. she can make it as difficult as she wants and i am sure she is enjoying herself. 

drinking and smoking... those are two things u can take up that will lead to a lot of bother to your health and pocket. 

what else?

being straight instead of gay. i think if u have to get involved with women, it is like you bring on yourself 99% of the problems. i mean just look at the stories i hear about women accusing a guy of raping her if after a night of wild sex, he enters her and wakes her up with a fuck.  i would have thought it a pleasant way to be woken up. haha. but hell no, she screams rape. why she just dont tell him to stop it and that would be that. but i guess that is too simple. let him continue to fuck u while keeping quiet making him think he is doing you a favour by pleasuring you, and then the next day call the police. ah women!!! some of them gives all women a bad name. 
(not politically correct i know. and that is another thing about being gay, if a guy does this i would clout him on the head and tell him to get real, but u cannot do that , or even suggest that when women are involved or u will be called terrible names. 

i think it gives those women who have been genuinely raped tarred with the same brush... people will say all women are liars or will accuse women of  saying anything if it suits them or if they are in the mood. we have heard of any number of cases where some women have confessed that they will shout rape just because they dont want their boyfriends to find that they have been having sex with another.

it makes me so glad to be gay.

And today, in the papers all about toxoplasmosis, a protozoa parasite that is spread by cats via rats, and get this, it alters the rat's brain so it become reckless , instead of freezing when it smells cat urine, it makes the rat recklessly go and investigate and easier for it to get caught by a cat and eaten and so allow the protozoa to enter the cat where it carries on its lifecycle. clever parasite hey?

and they wonder if it affects rat's brains, what is to say it does not affect human brains, and that schizophrenia and reckless behaviour , or suicidal behavior  may be caused by this protozoon infection. 

so now they are saying beware of cats and while you are at it beware of eating bloody sheep meat, because it infects sheep too... 

haha. i guess all those stories about mad cat women may have a basis in fact. 

but it goes to show u are storing lots of trouble for yourself if u keep a pet... 

of course to us humans , we might positively welcome such trouble. i know humans enough to know plenty are attracted to making their lives difficult, they think it makes them feel alive and doing something worthwhile. 

how else to explain why people keep doing these things to themselves. 

added. I just have a thought to why people do this to themselves. that protozoon parasite toxoplasmosis, that might give us a clue . maybe these guys got infected with this parasite or something similar. 

On another note, i went to the supermarket last night on the off chance of finding bargains, and was fortunate that the meats were reduced just when i arrived. 

i got 2packs of  pork shoulder joint 1.3kg for about £1.70 each reduced from about £7. pork is particularly my favourite as i cut it up and store it in the freezer to stir fry or make stewed dishes in future. pork as any chinese cook will tell you is very versatile to make any number of ways of cooking it. my mother likes shoulder pork as opposed to leg pork as it is more tender. i find now i know why she likes it because i too like to cook with them.

This lot will make 8 meals for me in the future. 

i got 2packs of chicken livers for 20p each too. normal price is 99p. 

mince beef 440mg 20p

london
I was at the supermarket tonight and saw their basic mince beef reduced from £1.25 to 60p. It's been quite a long time since i saw minced beef reduced.  i took some but there were quite a lot of them and i know it will be reduced even more at final reduction. so i hung around, bought 2loaves of warburton wholemeal bread reduced to 10p each (they were selling loads of sliced loaves at 10p each) and apricot jam 81p(full price) and sure enough the mince beef was reduced. i thought it might be to 30p and was pleasantly surprised to see it reduced to 20p. what a bargain. 
i bought 8packs. 
there was the eastern european old man hanging around but strangely he was not interested in the minced beef. 
so that was lucky because if he wanted them, he would swipe the lot. he would keep them in his trolley and then whip them out when the reductions start and get them all reduced. 

granted it is 20% fat but that is ok, at this price.haha. 
and in some dishes it tastes better when there is that much fat in it. 


they were selling sausages for 40p,(reduced from £1.80) and that i did not buy as it is not worth the money even at the reduced price. u can do so much more with minced beef in so many different variety of dishes. 


Life is very nice in london now. the weather is very good for me, cool and no pollen. you read in the papers all those people lamenting about the wet weather, but dont u believe them. they dont know they got a good thing in this wet weather. no drought for one thing, and no pollen, and comfortable temperature. 


i read from a expat blog in japan about how hot it is now, and another expat blog in dubai about how hot it is there, and i can only say tough shit... serve u right for living there. ahhaahahha. 


have you noticed no country ever let u know in their tourist brochure that their daily temperature can be unbearable. anything over 30C is uncomfortable. and if it is humid it is hell.imagine paying good money to go there for a pleasure visit. is that madness or what!


though that expat in dubai says she is now in london, and says' she prefers dubai... after experiencing our rain here'.  bet she wont continue to think that if she is really there now. but of course i am only imputing what amount to my views on her. who is right? who knows? but i guess the important thing is right now she is convinced she is right in her choice and that is all that matters. doesnot matter what i think about her situation. after all, if the husband have to work there to make money, she might as well get to like it there. until such time as in future they all come back to the uk, and then maybe she will find she will like living in uk again. that is if they can come back to the uk, and not priced themselves out of the uk and never can get back anymore. 


 she is now in uk having brought the children back to spend the holidays in uk, whilst hubby slaves away in the heat in dubai... because she had come back to uk to escape the fierce heat there now.  


expats will never admit that they are there in the first place because of the money...to work, as it pays well, (and they must wonder why pay me so much to come here unless this place and weather is so bad,no one will come otherwise)and so they convince themselves they love it really... though reading between the lines when they say the swimming pool water have to be cooled , it is too hot to swim otherwise, and no one walks outside in the heat and the airconditioning have to be on all day and night and their electricity bill is enormous u realise that the heat is hell and no amount of lying to yourself can hide that fact. 


u are still an expat when u yearn for the goods and stuff produced by your country of origin. like this article saying how some british expats in france actually order their groceries from M&S in uk to be shipped over to france. 
It reminded me of my buying sliced loaf from uk to cap dagde in france when everyone was saying i am mad. haha. but slice bread are very perfect for sandwiches. and perfect for eating as toast. baguettes are so tough to chew... the outer bits i mean. they are nice but u cannot really eat them in a variety of ways, and the shape of  a loaf of bread is perfect, unlike the round loaves u get in french bakeries.


I too used to want to buy stuff from malaysia and go speciallly to chinatown to buy them, but that was long ago,  not anymore. 


if u really love a place u wont want to leave it, like me, who love living in london and everything about it, i dont even want to go abroad anymore. in the past i thought i might winter in s.e.asia, and summer here in london, but i could not be bothered to want that anymore. haha. 


and where in any country abroad can u get such bargains like 20p minced beef. ?None!! not even in so called cheap countries like asia. 


in fact, beef in malaysia and thailand are very expensive. the price of beef in restaurants in those countries are as expensive as london restaurants. and they always smother it in sauce. unlike here where u can get it unadorned. just the beef and nothing but the beef. and prices in supermarkets in malaysia are really high for beef and meats. 


there is a brazilian restaurant here where u can eat as much meat as u like for about £20, last i look. it might have gone up £5 or £10 now. it is called preto. i haven't eaten there as i dont really like to stuff myself with meat that much. 

wettest june since 1860

london
I note this with mild curiosity. funny that i do not get the impression it was particularly rainy...nor cold. i dont notice it. i read of flooding in other parts of the country but in london i dont see it round where i live. 


and i hardly notice when it rains, because in my first floor flat, i dont hear it, and only when i happen to look out of the window, do i notice the furious rain lashing on the ground. 


Just goes to show that record events can pass over the person who actually live during that period and they do not notice it. 
until such times like this when i read it in the papers. i suppose that is what records are for, haha. so we can say, 'fancy that', 'well, i never' haha. 


today has been milder, 22C highest temperature, and cloudy. i like it, and when there was a fine misty rain when i left the gym, my last day there, i felt very happy, imagining all the dratty pollen being washed down to the ground and kept there. i dont know why grass want to keep shooting off those huge amounts of pollen every summer.it is in their nature... but they are damn pesky things. 


ya, today is my last day at my gym. boo hoo... not really!


I am glad to leave it as the gym is being renovated with the machines rearranged and all over the place. it is not a very restful place to work out. they are enlarging the space in preparation for the merging of the gym with the other branch in victoria. 


but after today, i shall not have my routine every morning to perform now. that circuit of gym-shower-library will be broken. i wonder what i shall put to replace it. 


Added. 9pm. I have got back from the supermarket foraging. i had intended to buy fruits for my naked party this sunday, but they were reducing these cakes , blueberry cheesecake £6 to 99p, walnut cake and lime/coconut cake 5" from £2.25 to .54p.so i bought them for the party. there will be about 11 people coming. 
there was a 1.3kg chicken reduced to 99p too and i bought that. I fancy making a curry out of it. 

its quite rare to get cheesecake reduced. the original price is rather expensive, dont you think?
i bought a gold blend roast coffee as well, now that i am not going to the gym and getting free coffee,(though they have stopped the coffee 2months ago, and only now am i buying coffee) i suppose i shall have to buy it now. haha. 
i thought i should give my guests the option of having coffee and tea. 
so i am all set for the party. 
only thing left is to clean the lounge. 


Added.30.6.12 9.30pm.i have cleaned the lounge and the kitchen. the lounge look great now, rather bare but clean. i removed all the clutter and put them in my bedroom. 
i might take this chance to sort out the clutter now packed in bags in my bedroom , and throw stuff away. 


i never knew how much cobwebs and dust the corners of the room can accumulate, even  found a spider, the longlegged kind. naturally i let it be. Spiders are good. 
I wonder where they go during winter when even though I am wrapped warm but since i dont have the heating on, my flat is cold, i am sure they cannot survive. maybe they move next door. haha.


Added.15.7.12 took me this long to add this. i noticed that the cheesecake was all gooey when we ate it at the naked party. so not many ate it and lots left over. i put it back in the fridge and we ate it over the next few days and i notice it was really very nice and firm... it seems it needs to be chilled so that the cheese is kept firm. hmm, that is a tip i hand to you guys. haha.

reduced hamburgers on sale tonight

london

900mg 85%beef74p reduced from £3

93%beef 340mg50p reduced fr £3.29

Lots of hamburgers on sale at sainsburys tonight.  i saw a guy bought lots last night and bought it all. But tonight there were even more. so many that there was enough for everyone and even more left over.

I bought 3 of the 74p packs, 900mg. and one of the more expensive taste the difference pack. 50p.i shall freeze most of it and save it for the naked bike ride evening supper for john and i and anyone else we invite back.

Pure mince beef is better buy of course, but nowadays it is difficult to get them reduced. These got preservatives in them. but i think once in a while it is ok to have them. 
i am of the school which says moderation in everything and that u can eat anything as long as u dont eat too much of them. 
Added 2/6/12. dont feel too bad that u are not getting this bargain. as is usual with these processed foods, it has a lot of fat in it. no mention of the fat content in the list of ingredients(of course) but this morning when i cooked it, lots of fat came out. 
at the price i bought it it is just ok. but i would hate to have bought it at its full price of £3,(reduced from £6 imagine!!) these experiences constantly remind me that processed foods are the devil. 
that guy last night who bought so much of it, i hope he has a restaurant that he can offload it too.haha. 
which is again should make us wary of eating hamburgers in a restaurant or takeaway or cafe. they are likely to use these very fatty processed hamburgers. 
once in a while it is ok to eat them, as fat will always make food tastes nicer. just restrain yourself not to eat too much of it. what is too much?


a good question quite impossible to answer. maybe once a month?.. is a good guide. anything over is too much. haha. 
for me , this is the first time i bought these processed hamburgers. and i think it wont come up reduced price like this again till next summer, and even then it has to be a rainy one like now... to produce such a glut of them.after this experience i shall be wary of them. 


i read new york is banning or going to ban, bigger portions of soft drinks, (not diet nor milkshakes, which is strange as it is just as bad). 
they are trying to address the obesity problem. it wont really work, because of course anyone wanting to can buy two portions of the smaller cups on sale and the ban does not extend to supermarkets. but i think trying to force people to conform to what u think is causing their obesity may not work generally. 
just drinking huge portions of soft drinks may not be the cause of the obesity. eating too much processed foods is the cause, but will they ban processed foods? not likely, as they make lots of money. they can double if not triple the price, or increase it by 10... whilst the raw meat cannot command such a big price increase. 
Added. 8.18pm 2.6.12 Simon cooked more of the hamburgers, and i noticed his cooked hamburgers are browned all over and even rounder unlike mine. and tastes v nice, i asked him how he did it, and he said he cooked it under high heat, and turning it often. whilst i cooked it under low heat and that caused the oil to run out. he did not have much oil even though he cooked double the number. 8 instead of my 4. hmm, so there is an art to cooking hamburgers after all. it means i have to sacrifice taste for healthy eating. makes me wonder whether that kind of defeat the purpose. On the other hand, i eat these so seldom it does not matter, really. it be better that i cook it the way simon does so i get the taste. 
Added.5.6.12 simon seemed to have eaten quite a lot of the 12 hamburgers i could not fit in my freezer. just as well, as i dont really fancy eating so many of them. he fries them, and have them with boiled potatoes, or mash and peas, with gravy and takes them to work to eat. 


all it does by banning bigger cups of soft drinks is that those who are sensible and share their drinks with others in the family or friends will lose out. 


But i guess if u are thrifty to start with u wont buy those soft drinks anyway, and just bring water from home and drink that. haha. 

i

digital changeover

london
this first effect of the changeover. my itv channel has blanked out. i thought the bbc2 channel will go first but it is not so.


i suppose the govt is using psychology to get even the die hards like me to change. cut off one channel to give us a foretaste of what it will be when the full changeover occurs on 18th april. that will let us know what it will be like when all the channels go blank. haha. 


it should force even the most hard core luddites amongst us to buy that freeview box and start fiddling with the signals. I think even those of us who have freeview now will have to fiddle around as the frequency will be different. the trouble is i dont know how to bring up the menu on my tv for the frequency selector button. 


Ah well, i suppose i shall have to get a freeview box too.
added 10pm. 
i saw simon watching the football match chelsea and barcelona, (or something likethat) and that was on itv, so it cannot be blocked. it seems my tv has switched channels so that what was channel 2 with bbc2 is now switched to show itv. 


he was telling me about it, one kick which caused the ball to bounce back... and this player, who was sold to chelsea and got booed by the opposition, and he took the ball and ran all the way up and scored. i guess it is these moments that make the fans lap up and like watching ... i can understand it , moments like these are very special i am sure. haha. but all i wanted to know was who won(read about the match ) its very boring, i warn you. it seems so simon is pleased. 


Chelsea's win puts them to fight barcelona for the semi final. i forgot for what cup, there are so many of these things. 


i went to the sainsburys to forage for food at about 8pm. the shelves were practically empty, i suppose it is the easter effect, but there was still good bargains . lamb liver reduced 90p for 19p, and 1kg packs of bacon reduced £6 to £1.49. i bought two. there were loads of it. I have not cooked them so dont know how much water they contain, but i guess at that reduced price it matters not. its been ages since i ate bacon and eggs and i am looking forward to it tomorrow for my lunch. 
Added 5.4.12.cooked it for my lunch with eggs, and some leftover potatoes and carrots, and it was delicious. surprisingly not much moisture in the bacon. once in a while, bacon really is very nice to eat, and it adds flavouring to other dishes too. usually it is overpriced, like that original price of £6 for the 1kg pack. to me it is overpriced though most people would think it a  good price, considering it can cost like £2-£3 or more for a 250mg pack. 
Tesco has a promotion , selling 2.5kg potatoes for about 70p, and carrots for 60p so i bought them to go with the chicken i bought 1.5kg for £3.15. i wanted to roast them all and it was very nice. simon said he always forgets how good roast chicken is till someone cooks it and he eats it and is reminded. 
the carrots are so sweet when roasted. 
i think roasted veg and chicken is one of the nicests things about the english way of cooking. 


Another simple pleasure of life to savour. 

london
II went out tonight to forage at the supermarket and on the way i saw venus and jupiter in the sky, like what they have been talking about on tv. they appear to be close but of course  they are not. 


There is not much to see, just two bright unblinking lights low in the night sky. I saw this some nights ago but did not realise they were planets. 
it made me wonder what it will be like if we ever have space travel and can go there for a holiday. i mused that the moons might be the better bet to base a space station on, and for tourists to stay so they can have a grand stand view of the jupiter surface and rings of saturn, etc. would n't it be wonderful to live in those times where u can sight see the solar system. 


i got some bargains tonight, packs of sainsbury sausages for 20p reduced from £1.99. Last week i bought quite a lot of them for 40p ,and now they are reduced to 20p,so i missed out even more of a bargain then. (i suppose 40p each is still a good price from £1.99)anyway i bought some more of them now as they are so cheap. 


i think no one is buying sausages at their full price now since there was all that report about red meat and processed meats leading to increased risk of dying early. maybe people realise they are overpriced at £1.99 for a 8sausagepack
but this spike article   , titled 'red meat is bad for you?, burger off '
 gives a good critique of the whole thing. 
i must suppose all that scare stories against red meat and processed foods must have put people off the sausages, as there were huge numbers of it for reduced sale tonight. 
here is an article called lets hear it for processed foods' which is quite an eye opener. 
i got a roast pork joint reduced £6 to £1.49 which is a better bargain than the two small packs of stuffed pork belly 500mg for £1, whcih i bought two of.
you lose some and u gain some. haha. 
There have not been that many bargains lately, or someone is swiping them before i came, and it is a matter of luck if u happen to get there just when they are reducing it, or there is a glut like now.


I have been reading this article in the FT , entitled ' Syria's stockholm syndrome and its sectarian war' about a woman, Rhonda Roumani, who had a  close family friend who also came from syria but now lives in texas, usa who have emailed her to defriend her because she is shia and they are sunni. She was accused of not writing to express her opposition to the regime, and so this good friend of hers, who lives in Texas, (so must have migrated there) is telling her he is cutting her off. 
She said when she lived in syria as a journalist in 2004-7 there were lots of people support the regime, and not only one sect. people she says, prefer stability, and believed that the son, Bashar,who is the present leader, is better than his father. 
Now all is turmoil, and degenerating into a sunni -shia conflict. 


it seems to me that those who have migrated away from syria and live outside it wants a regime change, no matter what, whereas maybe those who are actually in syria may prefer to keep the old regime simply for stability. rather than the chaos now which benefits no one except those who are intent on regime change for its own ends. 
but for this woman, it has become a family conflict dividing family and friends.


after all, justlook at egypt. all that angst and conflict and what do they have now/ a totally dysfunctional state. i suppose to a freedom fighter it is all good. though maybe if u listen to another view, they are terrorists intent on changing the stable society to anarchy. What is a patriot and what is a terrorist? i wonder?


The goldman Sach resignation letter by one of their own is a very damning accusation against the organisation. I remember reading of how they duped the german bankers of one small bank to buy up bad subprime mortgages, to get it off their books knowing it is bad , but offering it to the germans, who continued till the end to believe they are good top class risk free investments. i read this in a book by michael lewis, boomerang, which was such a relevation. I thought how come no one criticise goldman Sach for their part in this.
also we all know Goldman sach helped cook the books for Greece so that they can show good results and be allowed membership into the EU. why no one condemns Goldman Sach? if they really have the clients welfare at heart they would not have done it as it would have been unethical.
now we have this guy who in his resignation letter accuse them of a culture of putting their clients last, and to make money for themselves. 
 I have always been wary of financial advisers, and it seems i have reason to be. 
I think if any of their clients continue to use this unscrupulous bunch of people u have to question the morals of those clients too... won't you?


Added 16.3.12 i read some more articles in the FT giving the other side of the picture. Quotes from the clients of Goldman sach, made without attribution to preserve their anonymity, and many of them said they prefer to employ Goldman sach as they are so ruthless and good at their job that they rather have them on their side rather than on the other side. 


just goes to show to us onlookers who dont appreciate what is going on within the culture of traders and takeovers, that lots of money to be made and  that trumps everything. also many of them dont bother with the morals of the situation, if u have knowledge and expertise that can outgun the opposition and allow u to win, that is all that matters. 


so i think the clients will continue to use goldman sachs. 
There is another piece of news there about corruption in india. one letter writer wrote in the letters page saying he actually saw ticket sellers not wanting to give receipt until someone offerred to pay   to get a receipt and he was quoted 1000rupees. 
and he said with this kind of rampant corruption by the employees  is depriving the state of income. he said if the employer is paying so low pay, that the worker have to rely on bribes to make ends meet. but it deprives the state of income. 


another writer wrote in reply saying it is more complicated than that. the workers have paid bribes to get the jobs or be transferred to areas where the money from bribes are bigger... and so they are paying off their investments. 


You can see there are layers of meanings the deeper u dig. one simple act of bribery can explain and involve so much more reasons and subtle influences. 


there was another article i read a writer wrote in about his father who worked for the indian civil service during the time of the british rule, and he said there was no corruption because they were paid so well, it makes no sense to take bribes no matter how much, it wont compensate the loss of their job , earnings, and pensions.