1. On June 15 2010, I moved to my city of birth and childhood, Nairobi and am currently based here for the foreseeable future.
2. Professionally, I have re-branded myself as ‘Paras Gudka’ (my full name) and am now a freelance Graphic Designer, Web Developer, Copywriter and Photographer based in Parklands, Nairobi, Kenya. More at my new site: www.parasgudka.com (people love the ‘Services + Rates’ section).
3. I also have a professional presence on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheParasGudka (81 ‘fans’ so far).
4. Part of this blog will be moving to the new blog on aforementioned website that I am in the process of setting up. Please bear with me during the transition phase.
5. There will be just one more post on No Signal after this one, to announce the web URL and RSS/Atom feed address of the new blog at ParasGudka.com.
6. On the personal front, I have rediscovered my passion for the sport of chess and am part of the Nairobi Chess Club team participating in the ongoing Kenyan National Chess League (we are leading at the moment).
7. To this regard, I have even begun an initiative called Chess Events EAC, a website providing reliable information on chess events in the EAC (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi) at www.chesseventseac.com.
8. We have a presence on Facebook too at www.facebook.com/pages/Chess-Events-EAC/103358966400456 (14 ‘fans’ so far).

Now, usually I get so crabby when I have the flu that I can’t see, smell, taste or think straight. This time though, I wanted to document the progression of symptoms from day one to day seven, by when I would hopefully have fully recovered, so I tried keeping track of it in spite of my irritation.

This is what my brain remembers from the ordeal:

Day One: The throat is the first to go down in the attack. I woke up with a sore throat and went to bed in the same intensity of pain.

Day Two: The throat continues to hurt and somewhere in my nasal cavity the plumbing has sprung a leak. With a dripping nose and watery eyes, my hanky saw its busiest day of the year.

Day Three: Pain in the throat starts subsiding and nose drips less but headaches have been activated. I slept as much as I could. By night, scattered incidents of coughing have been noted too.

Day Four: Pain in the throat is considerably less, phlegm from the nose is thicker and I seem to have control over its release from the nostrils. What I couldn’t control were the intermittent headaches and increasing bouts of coughing. I spent most of the day in bed.

Day Five: The coughing has worsened, though my throat seems to be on the verge of recovery. I didn’t have to blow my nose as much which was a relief (for my handkerchief too)! I felt well enough to go to the airport with my brother to drop my dad off and then treat myself to a burger at the new KFC in Basaveshwaranagar (which, by the way, has some really cool furniture and is a lot better laid out then its counterparts in Indiranagar and on Brigade Road). The dry coughing fit I had later that night was another story though.

Day Six: Can’t feel any pain in the throat, phlegm production in the nose is mirroring the economic recession worldwide, the body isn’t aching and the cough is more manageable. I slept through most hours of day light.

Day Seven (today): The pain in my throat is mysteriously back but my cough and cold are very close to saying good bye. If I feel perfectly fine when I wake up tomorrow, my theory that a flu will come and go within a week whether you visit a doctor or not will be justified. Then I can start telling people to wait it out instead of spreading paranoia and wasting money on medication.

In other news, my post on Fuzzco came to the attention of Fuzzco’s founder Josh Nissenboim encouraging him to have those annoying hover sound effects on the navigation menu removed. So he did and you can now enjoy Fuzzco.com with no sounds at all. That’s the power of the written word (that is published for the world to see)! So if you’ve been considering starting a blog or being more regular with your posts on one, do it! Just don’t go crazy with ‘influentia’.

In still more other news, I have another interesting 6KQ interview lined up for you on Tuesday, November 10, 2009; this time featuring Nishita Kavadia, an interaction designer based in Mumbai, India. So be sure to check it out then.

I am writing to share with you a wonderful piece of news. My journey with the published world has begun, albeit in a small (but significant) way.

I have been quoted in an article in the Harrow Observer about recent Banksy-style graffiti discoveries in Harrow, Greater London, as such:

Paras G, who runs a London graffiti appreciation website, said: “While I can’t be completely sure of whether any of these stencils is a Banksy, I have a feeling that they have been done by someone trying to emulate him.
“For one, the quality of stencilling on these three is fairly average, indicating a lack of experience.
“The subjects too, seem to have been chosen without much thought to the message they convey and lack the characteristic humour of an original Banksy, except maybe that of the cat.
“Even there, I would have expected to see a speech bubble inscribed with a funny observation and not the ‘Matey’ tag.”

The author of “Who is ‘Matey’ – the artist behind Banksy-style graffiti in Harrow town centre?” got in touch with me for my quote after having seen pictures from my graffiti-spotting expedition to Harrow Skate Park in 2006.

Fortunately, I haven’t been misquoted, but he could have done a little homework on my background. I don’t run a “London graffiti appreciation website” as you will have noticed from my articles here. I just write about things that interest me and might interest others too, without choosing a specific subject.

Like the 6KQ interview (featuring Kunal Bhat, a graphic designer and programmer based in Chicago, USA), that I have lined up for you next week.

Have a fun weekend!

Best wishes,
Paras G.

It’s been an eye-opening 26 days and I’ve finally seen the city for what it really is – a mad dash of people working from dawn to dusk, in a bid to barely survive the next set of bills. Here, people don’t even have time to walk. There’s always a bus to hail or a train to catch. Everyone’s almost always half-jogging on their way to work/play/eat/whatever.

Londoners have a hard life, to say the least. I’m glad I don’t live here. But I do appreciate the amazing variety of brands/products one can sink one’s hard earned cash into. Whether it’s stylish apparel, uber cool accessories (casual belts at Topman), illustrated stationery or just fattening food (try the Beanie burger at Nando’s) it’s hard not to drool over what you see.

This city also offers memorable experiences of the non-materialistic type. Of the two that I will remember for a very long time, one involved dinner and drinks at a Moroccan restaurant where I waited at my table even after the bill had been paid, so I could watch a belly dancer ply her trade in flesh. The slow-motion video of those swinging hips and that curvaceous body is going to be hard to erase from my mind for a long time. Thank God I’m single or I’d be forced to forget that night soon!

The second one involved watching a 3-hour Shakespearean play standing in a theatre built like those from his own time, with a stage area that is open to the sky. The venue was Shakespeare’s Globe near Tate Modern and the play was Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Thank you London, for giving me much to think about and reflect on. I’ll be back soon.

Now, onward to Dubai for two days of fun in the sun.