Introduction

This blog is a continuation of an e-diary that I have been keeping on my home page for some time called As I Please . You could take these as earlier posts to this blog. I finally decided to take the plunge and turn it into a blog. For those of you who are interested, you can take a look at my earlier posts that are given above. However, just for completeness, let me reiterate what this blog is about... I am a theoretical physicist at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, India. However this blog is not about physics except only indirectly. It contains (or will eventually contain) random thoughts that occur to me in daily life or on my travels or whatever else that suits my fancy. That is why it's titled 'As I Please'. Those of you who know your Orwell will recall his eponymous column in the Tribune. I do not claim to have either Orwell's insight into current affairs or his felicity with English (though I try to follow his Five Rules for Effective Writing ). The title of this column is my way of paying homage to one of the greatest journalists and commentators of that age - the conscience of his generation, as he was often called.