The “London Boy” Tour
- Isaac Cui
- Mar 7, 2021
- 22 min read
You probably know at this point in the blog that I’m a big fan of Taylor Swift. This blog post — the first real “travel blog”-style post — is about touring London based on one of her songs, “London Boy.” If you haven’t heard the song, do give it a go. I won’t pretend it’s my favorite Taylor Swift song (there are many, many such obviously superior songs), but it’s a fun song.
Why tour London based on an American singer’s escapades? Reason the first: see above. Reason the second: there’s only so much novelty in walking around the same few square kilometers after half a year mostly in lockdown. Even though I had already been to most of the places on the list, making a project out of touring the city injected some jazz into life. Reason the third: I’ve come to the conclusion that, alas, most of my readers are not particularly interested in my musings about politics or social science. I started this blog to record my thoughts, and so I imagine I’ll return to my frankly more boring writing in subsequent weeks. (Sorry.) But for this post, I thought I’d try something more fun.
Before getting into the thick of it, I should say two things about our “replication” effort. First, we did, unfortunately, little to none of the activities Taylor Swift describes. We could not be “f[ound] in the pub, . . . watching rugby with his school friends.” There was no “rainy cab ride” (many “gray sk[ies]” though), nor “me[eting] all of his best mates.” It’s a London Boy Tour, COVID style. Second, I imagine this song is about her English boyfriend and their various dates. There’s no parallel London Girl in this tour, although I was accompanied by friends the entire time — for most places, my cycling buddy, but for Shoreditch, a Marshall friend. At each place, we recorded a voice memo about what was happening and what it was like. For each location, I quote from those recordings, presented as dialogue in italics (I is for me, G is for my cycling buddy, and E is for my Marshall friend).
* * * * *
In the song, Taylor Swift sings about nine places. It’s a scattering of places: from the very touristy Soho, West End, and Hampstead Heath (but not “Louis V up on Bond Street,” the luxury fashion outlet on a street of — you guessed it — luxury stores), to more hip places: Shoreditch, Hackney, or Brixton. I’ve mapped them out below.
London is a rather big city. As it turns out, the term “urban sprawl” was first coined to describe London, because the city (thought not administratively but rather in contiguous “urban-ness”) extends quite far. London is divided into thirty-two boroughs as well as the City of London (the financial center, dating to the Roman settlement at Londinium). The tour took us throughout Inner London: the boroughs of Hackney, Islington (where I live), Westminster, Camden, as well as briefly to the south of the Thames in Lambeth. I looked at the three extremities of the tour (Hackney, Highgate, and Brixton), and it would be around 20 miles round trip — doable on a bike, but perhaps difficult to fit in and make interesting. Instead, we took Taylor Swift’s own advice that “you’d never make it” in one day, and we split it up based on when we had time. Alas, it took us three weeks.
* * * * *
Day 1: Thursday, February 19, 2021
We set off that morning to get the north and west destinations — Highgate along with Hampstead Heath, and then to make our way down to Camden Market and the touristy places (Soho, the West End, and the Louis Vuitton on Bond Street). Unfortunately, we ended up cut short for time and only did Highgate and Hampstead Heath.
The day was somewhat windy, so we decided against cycling. As a side effect, that day was the first time I’ve ridden in British public transit! We rode, of course, a double decker bus. And we sat, of course, at the front of the second floor. It was a lovely experience. I also captured some shots of cool buildings on the way.
“Stick with me, I’m your queen / Like a Tennessee Stella McCartney on the Heath”
You probably know from this blog that one of the loveliest aspects of the city is the number of parks embedded in this deeply urban place. Hampstead Heath (sometimes just called “the Heath,” per Wikipedia) is one of those beautiful parks, and it’s quite hilly, which makes it a popular place for panoramic shots of London. (You can basically look directly south and get a nice shot of Westminster, as well as southeast to see St. Paul’s, the City, and Canary Wharf.)
I: It’s 11:52 in the morning . . . what is today? It’s the nineteenth.
G: Of February.
I: We’re at the top of Hampstead Heath.
G: Slightly overcast, as expected.
I: Slightly? Very overcast! There’s literally no sun.
G: But quite a clear view across London, no smog.
I: Is there usually smog? I don’t think I’ve ever seen smog.
G: Well, it could be smoggier, or foggier. Sometimes you can’t see anything.
The top of the Heath was quite busy; lots of folks were milling around. (Lockdown, it turns out, is not very successful anymore — at least as measured by people going to parks.) The view was decent — clear sight, but overcast skies. It had been raining, either earlier that day or in the previous days, so the grass was quite muddy. But it was quite pleasant.
I: What else [do we see]? Crying baby. Oh, it’s the crying baby with the same boots, but the boots are off now.
G: Boots are off, still crying though, unfortunately.
I: Rest in peace. It’s not that cold, though.
G: No, it’s quite nice.
I: Compared to Texas, certainly.
G: We still have running water in London; things are not as bad as they could be.
In front of us was a view of the London skyline — the iconic picture everyone has to take when they’re up at Hampstead Heath. (Indeed, I took a similar picture last time I was at the spot.) Behind us was Highgate, which has had the only “gated communities,” with all connotations implied, I’ve seen in London.
I: Okay. Well if we turn backwards, we can see a hill. Do you know what hill that is?
G: Uh, I would say that’s Highgate Hill.
I: Highgate Hill? Okay. Oh, so the mansions are there then. Oh, those are the mansions.
G: Yes, those are some very nice little old houses — they look like Tudor houses from here. I love Tudor houses.
I: Is it because of Hilary Mantel?
G: No! It’s ’cause I think they’re cool. They’re very historical.
Alas, I didn’t take a picture of the Highgate mansions. But this is what Google gives me as an example — and it lines up with memory fairly well.
“Took me back Highgate, met all of his best mates / So I guess all the rumors are true”
Highgate is a broad suburb, and it is quite rich (“one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live”). We ended up going to a park near Hampstead Heath called Waterlow Park, adjacent to Highgate Cemetery. Highgate Cemetery is most famously the burial place of comrade Karl himself. But for my purposes, it is most famous as the only Magnificent Seven cemetery that I’ve visited that charged an entry fee. Because I’m cheap, I, alas, haven’t gone inside.
I: We’re at Waterlow Park, which is right next to the Highgate Cemetery. I think we’re actually looking into the cemetery, I think the cemetery is behind that gate, or that fence over there.
G: It’s actually quite lovely here, lots of interesting trees. Like this one over here.
I: Honestly, I did not notice the trees being interesting. That’s a fair point. It is 12:19, so it wasn’t very far from the top of that hill.
Like at the Heath, Waterlow Park had a ton of people milling around. I noticed a lot of children and even school-aged teenagers, which confused me (it was a Thursday, after all).
I: I feel like we’re seeing a bunch of school-aged kids, like, shouldn’t they be in school right now?
G: Schools are closed.
I: But like, aren’t they online? Or is there some kind of break right now.
G: I’m not sure. Maybe they just don’t have that much schooling.
I: Uh. Educational standards going down the drain. Back in my day, they wouldn’t have allowed this!
G: Maybe it’s some sort of lunch break.
I: Fair enough.
We talked about the playground, which was, admittedly, very cool. (I’ve mentioned this before, but I am eventually planning on doing a blog post about British playgrounds. Fascinating stuff.)
I: So what are we seeing? A bunch of kids.
G: A bunch of kids. A playground. Another pretty cool playground, actually.
I: Honestly, it looks really dangerous. Like that kid looks like she’s going to fall and die. Like, look at her.
G: I mean, people fall off playgrounds. It’s all part of growing up.
I: Fair enough.
G: I fell off the monkey bars, broke my arm.
I: Oh wow. That’s why we should ban monkey bars.
G: Yeah, I was four or five. It didn’t stop me. I still loved monkey bars afterwards.
I: I thought you were saying you couldn’t do monkey bars anymore.
G: Well, anymore. Right now. ’Cause I’m now, unfortunately, very un-strong and much heavier than when I was seven. But thanks for reminding me.
We also noticed the ~English~ dress in front of us.
I: Anything else we’re seeing that’s interesting?
G: Pretty standard park.
I: Yeah. Screaming children. Dogs with . . . hoodies.
G: Hoods.
I: Did you see the one with, like, rain gear? That one was cute. Good stuff.
G: Everyone wearing navy blue. It’s very English.
I: I didn’t notice that. That’s a fair point. [My flatmate] was making a comment that was like, you can tell I’m an American because I’m wearing something that’s, like, light green.
G: It’s very Oregon.
I: Yeah, a little bit.
The park had a plot of land dedicated to gardening (the “Old Kitchen Gardens”), so we took a look. It was rather depressing. But perhaps to be expected given the British winter.
We made our way back from Highgate walking, mostly, along Holloway Road (G: It’s quite boring). I took a few pictures of things that caught my eye.
* * * * *
Day 2: Wednesday, February 24, 2021
The next Wednesday, we went to Hackney — one of the suburbs to the northeast. We were cycling that day, so I don’t have any “to” or “from” pictures like I did with Highgate and Hampstead Heath. Hackney, at least as Taylor Swift depicts it, is supposed to be “hip” and more interesting than ostentatious. I thought the assessment was apt.
“So please show me Hackney / Doesn't have to be Louis V up on Bond Street”
The first place we stopped at was St. Augustine’s Tower. I think I landed on the place because I went to the Borough of Hackney Wikipedia page and scrolled until I saw a cool picture. (As you can tell, this tour was very Methodically Planned.) It’s a pretty cool tower though; the tower itself apparently dates to the sixteenth century, and it was built as part of a church that dates back further (at least to the thirteenth century). Being in Britain always reminds me of just how young America is.
Our main destination was Hackney Marshes — basically the only landmark I actually knew of in Hackney before Googling “Hackney.” We cycled there, and then recorded our voice memo.
For background, we were in the middle of reading week, which meant we were both doing essays all week and lacking in the normal cycle of school (i.e., seminars at certain times with readings to have prepared before). The result? I was definitely somewhat dazed.
I: Okay, so it is the 24th of February. It is a . . . is it a Wednesday or a Thursday?
G: It’s a Wednesday.
I: 1:15pm. We are walking on . . .
G: Hackney Marshes.
I: Hackney Marshes!
Hackney Marshes is a big park, and at least part of it is an actual marsh. But at least at first, we were essentially on a large field of manicured grass.
G: We can see lots of soccer goals.
I: Yes, but not soccer players, as far as I can tell.
G: Everyone seems to be [wind]. No sports until March the twenty-ninth.
[. . .]
I: There’s a dude with a lawnmower. That actually might be the first British lawnmower that I’ve ever seen.
G: I’m really shocked that they have someone pushing that, not some sort of driver on top.
I: Yeah. Full time job, I assume.
G: Never stop. Once you finish it, have to start again.
Once we got off the field and into the actual marshes, it was quite a lovely place — we saw some nice art. We also walked through a wonderful market. I didn’t catch the name, but one of the nice things about keeping a blog is that you remember to search for these kinds of things! It was Ridley Road Market. There was just a wonderful diversity of produce from all over the world. We saw bowls of five massive avocados (imagine an avocado twice the size of a typical California avocado) for one pound each.
* * * * *
Day 3: Friday, March 5, 2021
By the third day, we finally finished the tour. We (my cycling buddy and I) cycled down to Brixton first, and then went up through the Soho-West End area, as well as Camden. That took the entire morning, and I barely made it in time for a 1pm walk I had scheduled with a Marshall friend (E).
“You know I love a London boy, I enjoy nights in Brixton”
Brixton is the only place on this tour that’s south of the Thames. As I understand it, Brixton is a very diverse and culturally rich part of London; apparently it’s where a lot of young people love to go out. (Note that Taylor Swift spends nights in Brixton.) It’s also, I think, gentrifying, although I didn’t see too much of that. Mostly, I saw a really cool market (that was largely closed, unfortunately).
I: Okay, so we’re at Brixton . . . right outside of Brixton Market? Was that our conclusion?
G: We’ve just walked past Brixton Market.
I: Alright.
G: Near Pop Brixton.
I: It is the Fifth of March. That’s terrifying.
G: I know.
I: Yeah. In the morning, 10:20. It is very . . . very Britain weather.
G: It’s overcast. Slightly colder than we were expecting, but it’s nice.
I: Yeah.
G: We’ve walked through Brixton. Markets are open.
I: Kind of.
G: A little bit sad. All the cafes are closed.
The markets that were open had a decent number of people milling around, so we stopped to record in a bit of a side street that caught my eye. It had some nice art, as well as (I would learn) a craft beer chain.
I: So we’re standing in Beehive Place, a little alleyway with lots of art!
G: It’s an art installation along the wall.
I: And a … is that a pub looking place?
G: This is a chain. Craft beer chain.
I: Oh okay. Is that a thing? I thought craft beer was supposed to be independent?
G: Everything is a chain in London.
I: I think Pablo [our competition law professor] was saying the same thing.
G: He was. It’s true though.
I: He gave you that rant in your class, too?
G: Yes. And I completely agree with him. I rant about it all the time. Everything.
I: Have you lived here long enough to realize that?
G: I’ve been to London many, many times. And I used to work in Mayfair [where lots of hedge funds are located].
I: Oh, that’s right, you worked in Mayfair.
G: And everything around Mayfair is Pret a Manger, It (they’re owned by the same company) . . .
I: Wait really? Actually, I don’t even know what It is.
G: It. Itu? Itsu. It’s like a chain Japanese store.
I: Okay.
G: And then there's Eat. And then there’s another one. Basically the same. And that’s all they have there. And they all have the same food all the time because they never change their menu.
I: And this is why you don’t enter into finance. Every place you go to will look the exact same, across the world.
G: Exactly. And they’re all super busy, because no one supports anything that’s not a chain.
I: That’s pretty depressing.
G: It is depressing.
I: But I do think that’s kind of what you’d expect of “global elites.” You’d go to places that you’re used to. You go to the McDonalds and the Wendy’s of the world.
G: I don’t think global elites go to the McDonalds and the Wendy’s of the world, actually.
I: They go to the Prets of the world. The Starbucks.
G: I think it’s the convenience. It’s a London thing. It’s the same in Angel and Islington.
I: Yeah, the global elites live there.
G: Global elites.
I: Yeah, there we go.
G: Well . . .
The next step was to cycle up to the Soho-West End area. This is the really expensive area of London, and it’s also near the center of British government — Parliament, Number 10 Downing Street (where the Prime Minister lives), the Supreme Court of the UK (I have to say, SCOTUK doesn’t have the same ring as SCOTUS), and so on. We were cycling, and we passed the Palace of Westminster, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, and a lot of the other iconic London areas. Incidentally, I walked through this area a few weeks earlier (on February 20), so I’m going to supplement some of my pictures from Day 3 of our tour with those older pictures.
The first stop on the tour was Bond Street, the street of luxury retail outlets.
“Doesn't have to be Louis V up on Bond Street / Just wanna be with you”
We were both, I think, taken a bit back by just how grand everything looked on Bond Street.
I: It is 11 o’clock, we are now outside the Louis V on Bond Street.
G: Yes. It’s pretty flashy.
I: It’s quite bougie.
G: It’s very bougie. It’s a nice, very clean limestone path here.
The Louis Vuitton had a lot of cute art installations in the windows, though. Here’s us talking about them (and pictures of them below).
I: What do you think of this cat, inside — is that cheese?
G: Oh I didn’t really see . . . it’s really cute. It’s like a bed; it’s cuddling the cheese.
I: Is this supposed to make me want to buy fashion though?
G: I think it’s a mouse. I assume.
I: It’s a mouse?
G: Well, it’s cuddling the cheese. And it’s the size of the bread.
I: Okay, okay, that does make sense. Although it looks like a cat, doesn’t it?
G: Yeah, it’s not a great mouse.
I: It is cute. But I don’t get what the point is. Maybe it’s just to catch your eye. I guess there are other animal things. Is that a Louis V thing generally?
G: It’s like a . . . they’re doing a . . . Here’s another one.
I: So it’s a snail on a banana. This is a cat right?
G: Looks like a cat to me.
I: Cat with a lightbulb. And then we have, uh, a bird with a hat, call it a Texan bird.
G: It’s a fish!
I: And then a . . . that thing.
G: Oh, yeah.
I: And then a fish with a tongue.
G: It’s a farmer bird. And it’s a snake. It’s eating a worm. And then you have . . .
I: I was about to make a very dumb comment about a fish eating worms.
G: They do eat worms.
The next stop was to the West End. We stopped at Shaftesbury Avenue (we thought it was Picadilly — Piccadilly turned into Shaftesbury a few blocks behind us).
“And now I love high tea, stories from Uni, and the West End / You can find me in the pub, we are watching rugby with his school friends”
The area we stopped at was in a cluster of the famous West End theaters — kind of like, I take it, the London Broadway. (Or maybe Broadway is the American West End.)
I: Okay, so we’re at Piccadilly — the West End. We’re on the road with all the theaters.
G: Yes. And obviously closed. But we’re missing out on watching Les Mis. Something called Six.
I: Something called ATM.
G: ATM. You can see the Apollo.
I: There’s a rainforest cafe! That’s kind of cool. It’s a themed . . . I feel like this is like a . . .
G: A very touristic area?
I: I was going to say, I feel like it’s a very American thing.
G: Yes. It’s for the American tourists.
I: Take your kids there at the jungle-themed dinner or something.
The last of the three areas clustered here was Soho.
“You know I love a London boy, I enjoy walking Soho / Drinking in the afternoon”
Like the West End, Soho is a neighborhood/area, not a discrete place, so to speak, so we ended up stopping at one of my friend’s favorite restaurants. There was a lot of roadwork happening in the area. It was rather funny. (Just imagine that behind this conversation, there’s a jackhammer in the background — the entire time. It felt apt.)
I: Okay wait so tell me about Barrafina [the restaurant].
G: Okay, so it’s like, Spanish tapas, which are like now, you know, now it’s very common. But it was one of the first.
I: Is that really common?
G: Yeah. Yes it is. [Gives me exasperated look.] Yes, it was one of the first, it was very cool. It’s pretty good — you usually have to line up, and then you can only sit around the bar.
I: Okay.
G: But it’s good.
I: Fair enough. Fair enough. So what street are we on?
G: We’re on Dean Street.
I: Dean Street, okay. And there’s a WB thing right there, that’s kind of cool.
G: Yes. And there’s also along Dean Street, I think, quite a lot of gay bars and lesbian, like, clubs. Big gay night scene.
I: I see. Alas, not hopping right now, I assume.
G: Yes, not as wild as it could be. If you came down here at 3am in a year’s time, it’ll be —
I: It’d be quite hopping.
G: It’d be quite different.
I: And I assume there wouldn’t be construction here normally.
The final place that we cycled to was Camden Market.
“I enjoy walking Camden Market in the afternoon / He likes my American smile, like a child when our eyes meet / Darling, I fancy you”
Camden Market had a lot of hole-in-the-wall-type restaurants. In other words, everything looked (and smelled) amazing. Also, I think I was pretty hungry at that point. So we spend a decent amount of time chatting about the food options we’re seeing. Also, to give some background for our conversation: Wetherspoons is the most common chain pub in the UK (apparently there’s almost 900 venues!), and it’s reputation is very cheap, not very good food and beer. I haven’t actually been to one yet, unfortunately.
I: So we’re at Camden Market. It is 11:47, so we’re making really good time actually.
G: Yeah, we’re doing really well!
I: Okay so things that are surprising to us.
G: We’ve got Camden Town Brew, which is, like, everywhere, super famous.
I: Wait, is it also one of those chain . . .
G: Well, not a chain. But they were probably one of the first craft beers. So now they’re like mass marketed. So Camden is on every single tap.
I: I see. So if I were to go to a random Wetherspoons, I’d get it?
G: Maybe not a Wetherspoons. But if you went to a random pub, you’d probably get it. Don’t go to Wetherspoons.
I: Really? I figured when things open up the first place I’d go is Wetherspoons.
G: Yeah, I figured that’s probably — that’s probably your vibe.
I: I feel like I’m being called cheap. Which is fair.
G: Yep. So there’s a couple stores open. There’s a “healthy Indian cooking,” some Dutch pancakes, some halloumi fries.
I: “Naan of the bad stuff.” That’s pretty good.
A delightful British thing I learned about that day: Cockney rhyming slang.
I: “Up the apple and pears.” Is that a British way of saying up the stairs?
G: I think so, it must be some Cockney rhyming slang.
I: Is that actually a thing?
G: Cockney rhyming slang, yeah.
We cycled back, stopping at my friend’s favorite bakery (she wanted a baguette).
I had planned a walk with a friend for 1pm that day. We met at St. George’s Garden (right around King’s Cross and the British Museum), and then walked to the last destination on the list — Shoreditch.
St. George’s Garden was gorgeous.
“You know I love a London boy, I enjoy nights in Brixton / Shoreditch in the afternoon”
Just like the majority of places on the list, Shoreditch is a district rather than a specific place to visit. Wikipedia suggests it’s known for its pubs, bars, and nightclubs, and my original Shoreditch destination was a historic pub (The Stag’s Head, Hoxton). But when we set off from St. George’s Garden, we basically decided to just wander in the general direction of Shoreditch and just to see whatever we could find. I’m much happier with what we found compared to going to a closed pub.
I: It is around 2 o’clock on the fifth of March. [. . .] We’re at Shoreditch, we kind of wandered here, we don’t really know what part of Shoreditch we’re at. But there’s a lot of really cool art, so we decided to stop here. What are you seeing? What stands out to you?
E: I’m just seeing so many different levels of people producing street art. I mean, you can see, on every surface, people — even on the stairs — people trying to create some sort of artistic production, even to the point where they’re erasing over each other. There’s just an immense amount of color. It’s almost difficult to describe because so much of it is written over each other.
I: Yeah, yeah. That’s a good point. I feel like that’s like a common thing in graffiti, right?
E: Right.
I: There’s like all sorts of norms about when you’re supposed to draw over someone else’s?
E: Right! I would almost wonder if the people who did the most recent things — the things that are on top — saw and continued to see the things that were there before and after a while, they almost become part of the wall rather than some new form of expression, in some way.
I: Yeah! It’s quite cool.
The area was just immensely colorful, and there were incredible, huge murals on the walls. Here are pictures from where we stopped.
We continued to wander the area, and I took pictures of random stuff that caught my eye. We eventually got back to our places by around 3:30pm.
* * * * *
That, in sum, was the three-week, London Boy (COVID-style) tour. It’d be fun to try doing it again once everything is opened up and everyone is vaccinated. Takeaways from the tour:
* London buses are so cool.
* I need to do grocery shopping at street markets, especially at Ridley Road.
* Shoreditch is an artistic treasure. There’s a bunch of street art throughout London, but I was just blown away by what I saw at Shoreditch (you can probably tell just from the number of pictures I took).
* I want to try the food at both Brixton and Camden Market.
* I would concur with the sentiment that if you want to have fun in London, it “[d]oesn't have to be Louis V up on Bond Street.”
* * * * *
I have three weeks’ worth of Rose/Bud/Thorn/Gratitudes to get through, so I’ll separate them chronologically.
February 14–20
Rose: I had a nice Zoom dinner with a friend (ah, the wonders of pandemic social life), and I had a meeting with my dissertation supervisor to get more insights about how to approach the project. Both were really fun and helpful. Also, a Pomona friend and I popped into the Physics Department’s weekly social hour, which was really nice — always lovely to see old friends again. Lastly, I had a meeting with my competition law professor from last term because I’m helping her with a project — she’s a delightful person, so it was a fun chat.
Bud: I’m volunteering with something called the “Marshall Connect” program — basically, it matches Marshalls with people in the UK Government’s “Fast Stream” program, which is a government honors program that brings recent graduates into the civil service. It’s been a really nice program, in the sense that I’ve really enjoyed chatting with my Fast Streamer buddy every other week. My volunteering role is with the “Evaluation” team, so we’re trying to measure how well the Marshall Connect program is doing. We had our first real substantive preparation meeting this week because the first major event that the program was putting on this year happened the week after (i.e., on February 25).
Thorn: I think I had overloaded myself this week. For example, I remember feeling very behind on my readings because I was simultaneously also trying to get in a bunch of prep work for my dissertation meeting (which was immediately after my last class, so all my preparation work was stacked and needed to be ready by Tuesday and Wednesday). I also scheduled five separate calls on Saturday, so I remember feeling just kind of tired by the end of it, even though I had a lot of fun talking with everyone
Gratitude: I’m grateful that the Physics Department (and, like the week before, the Politics Department) is continuing to do events, and that they’re all open to alumni. It’s really, really nice to know that I can always connect back with old friends and colleagues (even if I always feel a bit like an old codger jumping into a Zoom call with mostly first-year students I haven’t met before).
February 21–27
Rose: Three this week.
First, I got to call a few friends I hadn’t talked with in months (one who had graduated a semester before me, and one who was in the freshman seminar that I was a writing partner for), which was really nice.
Second, though it was reading week, my capital markets regulation professor decided to hold an informal class meeting just to chat and get to know each other. Only one other student showed up, but it was still a fun chat between the three of us. I learned a bit about their views on Brexit, which was helpful (finally getting that cultural exchange that I’m here for!).
Third, I’d read Imagined Communities a while ago (if you remember, I had a very confused blog post about the book), and one of the professors at LSE I know, who runs our BLM reading group, studied under Benedict Anderson, the book’s author. So a few months ago, I had emailed him asking to have a chat about Imagined Communities, and we finally made it happen this week. It was a nice conversation; I was mostly confused and didn’t ask very good questions, but I definitely came away feeling like I had learned a lot.
Bud: This was the first week I was really doing my competition law “research” position (perhaps “project assistant” is a better term, because I’m not doing substantive research). It was tiring and a bit boring, as most such work is, but I still feel like I’m learning from it, and that’s good and encouraging and exciting.
Thorn: Because it was reading week, we were doing formative assessments — basically essays that aren’t graded (since for most classes, you only get one graded assignment, which constitutes your course-wide grade). One formative, for capital markets, was honestly kind of fun, and I was able to do it close to the suggested time limit (they said to take ~1–1.5 hours, and I think I ended up taking around 1.75 hours, but it sounded like the rest of the class took around 3 hours, based on my professor’s informal straw poll in class). But my formative assignment for competition law was devastating — it took me like three days to do. I have no idea how I’m going to do two essays like that in a 3 hour chunk (the technical time window is 24 hours, but they want you to use only 3 hours, like it would be in a real in-person exam).
Gratitude: I’m thankful for the capital markets professor and the BLM reading group professor for taking time out of their reading week to talk about random stuff. I saw a tweet the other day that, in academia, time is the “most valuable currency,” and I’ve always gotten that sense, too. Most of these folks are really busy (the capital markets professor is the head of the LSE law department!), and so it’s really nice that they take chunks of their time just to chat and offer their insights.
February 28–March 6
Rose: I think Friday — making it from Brixton, through Soho, to Camden, and then to Shoreditch — was a really nice day. And probably a healthy day! I got something like 26,000 steps that day, plus, according to my friend’s Strava app, we cycled 33.4 km (20 miles). Saturday, I had some really nice calls — one with old high school friends (it was absolutely lovely to see everyone again and hear how they’re doing, although they’re all such adults compared to me — talking about babies and searching for apartments!), as well as a call with a new Marshall friend and a walk with an LSE friend.
Bud: One of my old Pomona politics professors asked me to write a piece for the Monkey Cage (a blog for the Washington Post) about the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act case. I’m not sure if it’ll end up getting published (it’s pushed up to the managing editor level right now), but it’ll be cool if it does! I’m a bit nervous, though — it’s always scary to think that much smarter and experienced people could read this and say it’s very dumb.
Thorn: I got a very bad grade for a summative assignment (75% of the class grade!). The feedback was that the paper would’ve been a distinction (the “A” equivalent) but the professors didn’t think I answered the prompt, so they gave me a bad grade. I’m going to try to make a learning experience out of it and to talk to one of the professors about how to avoid the problem moving forward. But it’s mostly sad that I felt like I worked really hard in a class, spent something like two weeks researching and writing this paper, and then ended the term on such a low note.
Gratitude: I’m grateful for my friends for doing the London Boy tour with me. It had the propensity to feel rather gimmicky, to be honest, but I found it really fun — and hope you all enjoyed reading about it, too (for the few of you who made it this far!).
Future topics:
* Other tours of London? I’ll have to figure out what other themes make sense.
* Progressive-Era reforms — specifically in terms of home rule and elections (e.g., the secret ballot). I think I had always thought of these reforms as quite positive (“good governance,” support for “experts,” etc.). And, indeed, I think a lot of regulatory studies date to the Progressive Era — after all, one of the chief progressives, Woodrow Wilson, was also one of the founders of modern American political science and public administration. But I’m starting to feel many of those reforms were more questionable than I used to think.
more tours of London would be better.