The Wallace Monument, for William Wallace who fought for Scotland against the English.

A sculpture of Adam Smith in the monument, one of the intellectual elites of the time..

The Stirling town.

Went to the Glengoyne Whiskey distillery in Scotland... was interesting to see the whole process of barley being malted heated, fermented and the spirit being created.
one thing I never knew that the transparent spirit changes it's colour by itself after being kept in the cask for over 10 years...

Finally found the real Bud from czech at Babbity Bowster (a pub) ... with a distinct taste of the grain.

"You get no cans of this", the bartender told me ... on telling him that Anhuesher Busch, the American company would soon be getting them all over; "What a pity?"... he replied, that's Europe for you!

North Sea, from Cromer ...South East of England.
Arabian Sea, from Mumbai...West of India.

Can you guess the style of architecture ?

Odeon Cinema's in the UK .... a multi national chain of cinema's was started by Oscar Deutsch and stands for "Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation".... started in 1928, the chain changed many hand and is now owned by a british private equity firm. The brand became synonymous to cinemas and can be seen in the US, Canada and many erstwhile British colonies across the world!

a walk down the river clyde ...

nelly comes to town!

Cloudy and Windy Glasgow, that's probably only how Europe is different from it's warmer Asian counterparts .... the heating up of the cold western world has created the first ever serious attention towards global warming. The US faces never before like pressure on the senate and the the EU has planned to create a charter towards drastic reduction of fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, Maurice Greenberg CEO, C.V. Starr a US financial firm in an FT interview said that he wasn't sure if humans were causing global warming, a report suggested that human related factors contributed to just 6% of carbon emissions. There is yet to be a consensus on who is to blame!

Came across this interesting movie, while searching for Ewan McGregors Scottish roots. It's called scenes of a sexual nature ...now I know Iam a bit outdated with movies so you guys would probably know of it already ... anyways here's the trailor..

Charlies Angels ... this is the Glasgow Cathedral, built in the 13th century and one of the only surviving medieval churches in Scotland...

Today around 30,000 people gather in Las Vegas to attent the annual pornography award ceremony. The industry is believed to bring revenues in the tune of $12-20 bn and exceeds Hollywood for it's revenue generation ... the biggest reason for this rapid growth they say is the arrival of new media technologies !

Sorry ...couldn't get the picture of a pornstar :(

The University of Strathclyde's country castle in Loch Lomond, Scotland.

Apple's iPhone is the latest rage in gadgets ...what's interesting are the unsung windfalls for the Taiwanese Co. Hon Hai, that manufactures ipods; and now would also be manufacturing the new cellphone. Taiwan is also one of the largest Laptop makers in the world today ... though most taiwanese companies are manufacturing in mainland China, especially around the Fujian province, where most Taiwanese have their ancestory.

Hon Hai, was recently caught in a labor mistreatment case in China, which almost took away it's client Apple, investigations cleared off, meanwhile Hon Hai sued the journalists who made the comments, only to face a furious response from the blogging community in China. The charges were later revoked..

This is another interesting one ... Budweiser, the American Brand of beer mad by Anheuser-Busch actually comes from the town of Budweis in the Czech Republic with a tradition of Brewing from the 13th century. The Americans took it forward and built the brand violating what the americans later start calling 'Patent Rights'.

Well after years of trying to Buy Out Pivovar Budějovický Budvar, the official owner of the budweiser brand ...which the Czech's have refused to sell out reasserting national pride; Anheuser-Busch finally has entered in an alliance to market the real Budweiser in the US.

Czech's couldn't handle all this marketing business ... and the American Cos. are always there to help!

A wet street in candleriggs market area .... just one of the many rainy days in Glasgow!

Went to this Russian store across the road ...met a Georgian lady running the store. She told me what was hard to believe (untill I checked wikipedia) ...Georgia is the birthplace of wines, which have been made from 5000BC !

It's probably the most agrarian country in Europe (Georgia, a Greek name means "farmer") but has been under Russian subjugation for a while...Western Europe continually seeking places to procure basics, seems to be oblivious of this nation.

Went to the orchestra today ... amazing work of Mozart with the rather non traditional Bass Clarinet. Beautiful mix of sounds :)

A limo getting football players in the stadium. Being a football star could probably give one of the most materially satisfying life one could have in Europe!

A witch shop in Glasgow .. one of the originator countries of the Halloween festival ...witchcraft has been a part of the pagan traditions ... which was squashed with the growth of christanity and modern society ...much like tantra in India.
witchcraft does exist beyond Africa :)

That's good global integration ..an Indian restaurant with Pakistan's flag in the UK :)

Jassi Jaisa Koi Nahin ...now in the UK!

Pfizer launches a drug to reduce dog obesity in the US .... iam not against animal rights or anything ...but this just sound quite hilarious:)

and more..

more posters...

Infosys in Bangalore India ...one of the IT companies that made Bangalore the global hub it is! Thomas Friedman in his acclaimed book 'The world is Flat' was smitten by it .... I think it's just a bit far fetched though! the company now searches for cheaper labor within India ...as Bangalore's labor becomes expensive ...it's the same story everywhere!

my friend Rahul ..loves to go to tennessee quite often!

Shell had to leave the Sakhalin II oil project in Russia, since the regime was hell bent on getting it's oil resources back from foreign control. The Russian adminstration recieved quite a flak around it.
Meanwhile in the other part of the world the Dubai based company , DP world that bought P&O the british shipping company that gave it rights to ports in the US had to sell off their acquisition to the AIG Global Investment Group.The Americans and Russians are so similar ..somehow the International media fails to see this.
Sometimes all that matters is the art of dealing with mass psychology. AIG has little experience in managing ports they say!

more bills..

Bills in the streets of Glasgow...

This New Year, Europe welcomes two of its neighbours to the EU club. Romania and Bulagaria. Trust me Sophia nd Bucharest were the places to be on the New Year's Eve.

This adds 22m people to Europe's labor hungry economy!

That's Irn Bru ...for those who've not seen this rust colored (Iron!) drink.

Edinburgh's Hogmanay 06/07

Happy Hogmanay! Well that's what you say for Happy New Years in scotland. Traditionally much more significant than christmans, Hogmanay has its roots in Scotland's Pagan past distinct from christanity. Surprisingly Christmas was banned in Scotland for some centuries uptill the 1950's!