Book: Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts

It's not often that I don't really know where to begin when reviewing stuff. And yet here I am, wondering exactly where to start with Shantaram.

I'll get the easy stuff out of the way first, and start with the plot. The story (apparently largely based in reality) is about an escaped Australian convict who, en route to Germany, finds himself in Mumbai where he decides to remain. Over the next decade or so we hear about his adventures in the Bombay city, its slums and even its Mafia, all told in wonderful and vivid first person.

Despite the pretty incredible (and almost nonsensical) plot it's a pretty thrilling ride, made all the more real by some of the best characterisation I've read. I'm still trying to figure out how exactly Roberts manages to do this since, technically at least, the book seems largely plot rather than character driven. Perhaps it's the constant almost-poetry littered throughout, talking about all sorts of things like morality, truth, life and, of course, love? Whatever the case the whole thing is so real it almost feels like you're reading someone's autobiography and as you share the journey with Lin, the protagonist, you get to feel all of his love, romance, anger and emotions.

Technically the book is very well written and extremely easy to read and get lost in. Roberts' skill is not only in the creation of the story but the story telling itself; despite being quite the epic the book is perfectly balanced in terms of pace, progression and weighting of the chapters. The book is complete in the tying of all its thread and is thus immensely rewarding to consume.

But as well as being entertaining, the book also makes a good attempt at discussing relevant real life issues like morality, religion and justice - most of the conclusions essentially saying how although things are never as black and white as we like to think they are, what is right and just is almost always obvious.

But I'm gushing now. Shantaram really is a brilliant read and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who has even a passing interest in books, India or just a great story.

The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company

Okay I'm going to put my hands up here: I did roll my eyes when I heard about this going on. "Oh look, another patronising and feeble attempt to reach out to The Youth in their own language".

As usually is the case I was proven wrong. Gladly so in fact; the evening was a lot of fun as we saw various members of the company perform bits for the bespoke audience made up of all kind of ages and backgrounds (although I've never felt so old and uncool in a crowd before. It didn't help that I am old and uncool).

I was partly right though in that the connection between their art and that of Shakespeare was made unclear at best, and tenuous at worst, but for me that wasn't the point. Live music is always great, and the eclectic mix I saw tonight was well worth the entry fee (which happened to be nothing). Yes, okay, there was a bit of a clever experiment at the start where we had to guess whether a quote was from modern hip-hop or the bard himself - and yes it was fun and surprising - but that message quickly got lost as the night progressed. Of course it could quite possibly have been my lack of coolness missing the point.

All in all though it was a brilliant couple of hours out and I had a lot of fun. The hip-Hop Shakespeare Company is well worth checking out if you get the chance.

Food: Papa J's

Who knew Luton could have such nice places to eat? Sure, at almost £20 a head for a starter and main you can hardly consider this place cheap, but for once I have no complaints about the food we got. The Chilli Paneer, the Seekh Kebabs, the Chicken Tikka Masala and the Daal Makhani were all pretty awesome - enough for me to over eat by quite a margin.

Service was adequate if not polite and prompt and the place had a nice enough character in which groups, families and smaller parties could all have a good time.

Of course me being me, I have to take away points for the cost... but other than that I can't end this review without recommending the place - you know, if you ever have the misfortune of having to go to Luton in the first place.

XKCD

XKCD in a nutshell explains the curse of the programmer, or more accurately, the abstract logician:



That right there is why I get no work done. Okay maybe not exactly that, but you know.

Snippet

[18:50:48] Shak
    heh
    there's nothing wrong with being a hermit
    only boring people need to go out and about
[18:53:20] xxxx
    nah
    only single ppl
    :-)
[18:53:34] Shak
    hmm
    i spend most days in now
    looking forward to xfactor tonight
    that is my life :D
    oh well. have plenty of stuff to watch
[18:55:02] xxxx
    :-(
    man...
[18:55:15] Shak
    dont say it
[18:55:16] xxxx
    hurry up and get married already
    too late
[18:55:31] Shak
    so many hot girls in can wharf man

[...]

    :D
[18:56:15] xxxx
    there are loads
    i love it here
    if you're a banker
    easy to get fit *****
    wait for the economy to tank
    there will be loads
    you can 'save' the really poor ones from a life of stripping
    sounds harsh...but it's reality
    you'll be able to provide where a hot guy with big **** may not
    remember these words my friend
    great recession = hot ***** for you
    don't save this chat
[19:05:37] Shak
    ah man, i havent posted one of your quotes for ages. this is def going on the blog
[19:06:16] xxxx
    ...
    call it....
    recession *****

Film: Ra.One

The only thing surprising about Ra.One is how precisely it fulfils what you would expect from a Bollywood superhero movie. It has a thin and nonsensical plot, horrendous acting (with a special award going to the annoying brat and his haircut) and awful special effects. Oh and the 3D gave me a headache (which to be fair has nothing to do with Bollywood superheroes).

Nevertheless I have to admit that for some bizarre reason I kinda fell for the charm of this movie. In fact I kinda enjoyed it. And yes, that song was pretty cool too.

I can only assume I'm going to be alone in this conclusion - maybe I was just having a good day - and I find it my duty to not recommend any of you to go watch this.

Trust Us With Your Life

Another week and another BBC filming. This time the show was a new one named "Trust Us With Your Life", billed as a kind of spiritual follow on from the classic "Whose Line Is It Anyway?". So improv was the main course today, brought to us by all the names we're used to including Colin Mochrie, Wayne Brady and less visibly but probably most important the genius that is Dan Patterson (who I just realised was present at Mock The Week too).

The premise was simple - we have two celebrities telling us various tales from their lives. Each scene they paint is then given the improv treatment in the typical Whose Line minigame manner. In theory it's a pretty sound idea, but in practise it was a little forced as we discovered that the stories were (understandably) more cherry picked than random, which kind of defeated the point of improvisation.

Still, I have to say I enjoyed this filming a lot and laughed more genuinely than I would have at another comedy show. The comedians were smart and funny, and I even begun to like the two Osborne kids who were the celebrities in the hot seat tonight. The usual downsides that come with a filming like this - the interruptions, the pick ups, etc - were particularly painful to sit through though. Interestingly, the show is bring filmed here but for an exclusively American audience, and that affected the style and sensitivity of the humour - it wasn't as brash and edgy as that found in Mock The Week. And while we're comparing the two, I have to say that I now appreciate Dara all the much more.

So yes, I think it's a thumbs up from me. The show is still filming and will bring more guests in the coming days, from David Hasselhoff to Ricky Gervais (which could in theory be incredible to watch), and I may even go as far as catching the show on that television thing.

Food: Big Moe's Diner

I could save myself a lot of words by just pointing you to my Tinseltown review, but it's true: Bog Moe's is just a clone of the previously unique pace annoying young Muslims go to eat.

So it's the same adequate food, the same adequate service and the same value for money (that is, none). But hey, options are always good things and I can't knock a place for being unoriginal. On balance I might even say I preferred it here.

Food: Fish!

Swanky and clean, Fish! is a nice place in which to eat. The food was above average - I stuck to the good ol' cod and chips with mushy peas, and if I had to be harsh then I would say that the chips were a little overcooked.

Service and atmosphere were all great and my friend and I did walk away feeling happy with the pleasant dinner we had. All this came at a cost though; at £20 quid a head it was very expensive for what it was - enough for me to steer clear of the place in future.

Software G Forces and Ease At Work

One of the good things about working in a big flashy corporate are the facilities that are made available to employees. For example today we had Kent Beck come in and give a talk for the most part of the morning.

It was a good talk. Beck himself is a brilliant speaker if a little sheepish, but the manner in which that he embraces this side of him in itself gives him an air of confidence. Indeed a major theme in his work is to accept people as people and not assume that just because the work of programmers is largely mathematical that programmers themselves are - as well as accepting that we as an industry have social issues that need to be acknowledged and worked on.

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. The first part of the talk was titled "Software G Forces: A talk discussing the dramatic changes to the development as the deployment cycle shrinks", and literally listed what to expect if we attempted to shrink our own release cycles from months to minutes. Beck assumed that we had all already bought into the idea that instant release cycles was the aim and in that sense it was more of a observational than conceptual talk.

Although the talk was very good and did what it aimed to do, I think most of the audience were stuck in stage zero and were not of the position that shorter cycles was always a good thing. As such the questions and feedback was less about what was said and more to do with why we wanted to in the first place. For sure, Beck's ideas require a philosophy change or paradigm shift to work and reap benefits and simply "working faster" wasn't the point.

In other words this talk was probably came a little too early for some of us. Still I found it quite beneficial to know the material effects of moving to a faster release cycle, and I was uplifted when he explained how Amazon manage to release thousands of times a day. It was liberating in the same way as when you realise you don't necessarily need static typing or OOO any more, a kind of vindication of a feeling you may already have had, or a meta-awareness of the software development industry.

The second part of the talk, "Ease At Work: The importance of maintaining an accurate self-image" was pure psychology and in my view didn't have much to do with software but more general work ethic - but perhaps in a way us in technology may understand. Ideas like self-awareness and communication were correct and materially rewarding as well as learnable behaviours, and that the only thing holding us back were the lack of traction, laziness and habit. I already try to implement many of the things he mentioned in my everyday life, but it was refreshing to hear it in the context of IT let alone work.

I'm going to put my hands up here - before today I had no idea who Kent Beck was. That's more an indication of my own disinterest in my chosen career rather than his celebrity status, and having studied XP in university I certainly know of his ideas and work. So yes, it was a privilege to have him address us this morning. I was expecting a fully technical talk but instead found something quite human, commonsensical and practically useful. For sure, I still think Computing is a technical field and can never be seen as a social industry and that a lot of modern effort to make it so is a bit shoehornish. But what I realised today is that there is room for some soft skills in my work and that it's quite worth the time to achieve some of those.

Britain's Got Bhangra

Despite being terribly cynical about all the desiploitation going on in the past decade, I must admit that I was a little gutted after having missed Britain's Got Bhangra last year. Even if I don't dig the scene I do love brown music, and in recent times Bhangra in particular, so I think I would have liked a musical based on that part of the culture. So when I heard that it was being brought back this year, I made a point of going.

It was pretty much what was expected. There was music and dance and it was fun I guess. The acting was okay, with the plot being the real star of the show. Otherwise I found the whole thing a little flat and amateurish, both planned (it was all quite silly) and unplanned (sets falling apart and the like).

I'm told that last year's production was much more, both in terms of depth and quality, so it seems at least in theory this should have been great. But for this day in the Hackney Empire I can't quite say it was that amazing an experience.

Book: The Duke and I, Julia Quinn

Initially, the biggest issue I had with this book was the cover. Bright and pink, with a picture of a lady putting gloves on, it was obvious what genre I was reading on my daily commute to work. And yes, I did get a few looks. But all my misgivings and embarrassment went away after I got my first smile from a passing girl. Result.

But this is a book review, not "ways to pull on the tube" (coming soon). It would be easy to assume that, as a guy, I would be gearing up to trash any kind of chicklit and had decided to hate this book before I even turned the first page. I think I can be objective with these things (although many would argue that's not the point of literature), and I'm also open-minded enough to give a recommended book of any genre a try. That doesn't mean I would like it though, and Twilight is still embarrassingly crap.

So then, The Duke & I. The title alone should fill you in about most of the book: set in 19th century England, about an aristocratic community and in particular a woman and a Duke. Heck, if you've seen any Bollywood in the past decade then you could probably guess even more about the plot and the pace of the story.

I have to admit I was gushing over the first few chapters of the book. It, or rather the characters, were funny and sassy and I totally fancied the main character in Daphne. It was way more intelligent than some of the other books I've read of this type and unlike other female authors who think they're funny, Julia actually is.

Alas, just like its Bollywood analogy, the book does seem to suffer from a post-interval crash. All the magic that made it so great at the start gets replaced by angst, heaving bosoms and various kinds of metaphorical (and not so metaphorical) explosions; and even I was made quite uncomfortable by what I can only call pornography (and I thought I had been desensitised by American Psycho). It's a shame because it made the whole thing a little trashy and cheap, but not just because of the rude bits; the chapter endings (which are a bit of a personal bugbear of mine I admit), were a little too leading for my liking.

But as a book it was better than most; at the very least Quinn should be applauded for being literate - I'm looking at you Myers. Actually on that topic and as a side commentary I do think it's as much evidence as Twilight was of how confused and hypocritical women are - apparently reformed rakes make the best husbands. Please.

So yes, I can't quite recommend it unless you're specifically looking for something like this. If you know what you'll be getting yourself in for then you'll probably enjoy the banter and fun, but if you want something a little more sensible and mature and less shallow then you're better off going for something like this or this.

Shak's Choice: Nazanin Boniadi

It's a bit of a special edition today. You see the magnificent Nazanin isn't technically my choice; heck I don't even watch How I Met Your Mother, the show in which she was spotted. But after a (girl) friend suggested I marry Nazanin I thought it prudent to look her up and, yes, it turns out that she's actually quite the knockout.



Notable tidbits include how she's Iranian, that she's won awards for her work in cancer research and how much of an activist she is. So no, not just a pretty face then.

Mock The Week

The Mock The Week screening a few of us went to was pretty much as expected. It wasn't a full three hours of stand-up comedy, and we saw a lot of the technical "behind the scenes" work that goes into creating a 30 minute show. That said, there wasn't as much dead time as I thought.

It was funny throughout, but that just proved that there can be too much of a good thing - we were mentally and physically exhausted after laughing so much. It's actually quite weird; even though I was laughing I did actually become bored of doing so. Before tonight, I assumed those things were mutually exclusive.

Dara was amazing and seemed to be the only one who succeeded with his improvising. The others were good too, but seemed a bit well prepared. I guess part of the genius is making it all look so natural on the show itself.

It was long but it was fun. I don't think I could do it again any time soon though. If you wanted to see the end result, feel free to hit the see more link above.

Abstruse Goose

One of my more irritating habits is to constantly remind someone complaining about anything that they're the ones who choose to feel how they do. This isn't just from a causal perspective ("you hate your job? Well you're the one who wanted to work, and you can quit now if you wanted to.") but even further in a self-awareness or CBT kind of sense. Cue today's Abstruse Goose:



At first glance this might look like the complete opposite to what I advise, but it's not really. Accepting that life is what it is is a fundamental step to being happy.

Film: Crazy, Stupid, Love.

CSL is so well built and balanced that you could almost forget that it is essentially a romantic comedy about a couple going through a bit of a marital crisis. Steve Carell and Julianne Moore are the guys in question, with Carell doing such a good job as the guy struggling with his wife's decision to divorce that you can't help but admire his genius.

The rest of the film is hung on this premise, with Ryan Gosling playing the part of the womanising bar hop, Emma Stone the sensible girl learning to jump blind a little more, and an ancillary cast (Bobo and Tomei) propping up the rest of it.

The film itself feels a little long, and yet I can't see how they could have done it any different. Unquestionably feel good but with a reality-bites undertone, I thought CSL was brilliant and so I can't help but recommend it.

Book: How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog, Chad Orzel

The danger with being a smarter than the average cookie is not that it brings with it a certain arrogance, but more that it becomes difficult to relate to mere mortals (which is why I don't expect many of you to have realised what I did there).

Take quantum physics for example. Even the name itself sounds clever and so it's always going to be a tough task explaining it to the layman like me. But it's not impossible and there are many strategies available to transfer ideas and thoughts - most of which take time and effort to implement. Another way is to use analogy to relate and this is the approach Orzel takes in this book.

The problem is that almost by definition there are no analogies for quantum physics - Orzel explains as much in the first chapter. And yet he still tries to do this, using his dog Emmy, and her fondness for rabbits made out of cheese.

On the surface, this isn't really a problem; it's easy to ignore irrelevances like a talking dog after all. However the trouble here is that Orzel does this at the cost of the essential detail - he glosses over the important stuff and anaesthetises the reader with humour and theatre. Sure, some bits are funny, but for someone who is interested in the maths it's a little frustrating to be asked to suspend our disbelief instead of being made to understand.

The biggest show of Orzel's incapability of transmitting his ideas is toward the end - a whole chapter dedicated to slagging off and debunking other scientists (not that he would use that word to describe them). It's almost propaganda in style, and extremely ironic considering his book doesn't sound any more real and acceptable than those he criticises - I wouldn't be surprised if many more "con men" with a false understanding of quantum physics come about after reading this book. It actually reminded me of certain Islamic "scholarly" works, where the message essentially boils down to "believe me, not them". I don't expect that from science.

One of the themes of the book is to do with conservation of energy and an underlying natural order, but unfortunately it's Orzel who thinks we can get something out of nothing with his book. I've come away learning about some buzzwords but cannot say I have any kind of deeper understanding of the science. Which is a shame, since it means I can't really recommend this book.

Abstruse Goose

Okay I admit it - tons of "grass is greener" syndrome here:



It's quite ironic actually since I realised the above way back in primary school; when clearing up after a particularly mess afternoon, Jodie suggested I slow down a bit and do it properly, like she was. Of course I ended up clearing my mess up in half the time she did.

But that was a unique example of how pragmatism won the day - generally I tend to follow the rules and advice that the consensus provides, but doesn't necessarily follow itself.

Which makes me wonder: is doing things the "right way" really the right way to do things? And if not, is it too late to change? I'm not saying I'm not already a complete douchebag, but if it's clear that some strategies do bring what you want, then maybe it's time for a change.

Food: Pizzeria Pappagone

In terms of food, Pappagone is a decent Italian joint just north of Finsbury Park. The portions were just right (that is, not especially generous), and the bill of 15 quid per head for mains, a drink and desserts pretty decent value. The menu is varied enough to have you coming back for a new experience for a couple of visits at least.

Where the place lost tons of points was for the atmosphere. The place was incredibly noisy and had us screaming at each other just to make conversation. There were even FIVE rounds of happy birthday (of which only one seemed particularly appreciated by the birthday guest it was played for). In short, this isn't really a place you should go for ambience or intimacy. Or, heck, even a birthday party.

Its a real shame because otherwise this place was excellent.

A quick note about the website - ignore the map because it's wrong. It's actually on the north side of Tollington Park, not south as indicated.

New Music

If you make it a point to read these music posts, make sure you check out the note at the end of this post.

Bewafa - AAG

AAG does Imran Khan cover? Not only that, but better (not that that would be that difficult - sorry Imran)? Well yes, it seems so.

Dil To Bachcha Hai - Ishqiya

Simple but sweet, almost folk like.

Rabba Main Toh Mar Gaya Oye - Mausam

I didn't really get this at first (oye rhymes with oye?), but now I really like it. But which version am I talking about? Well to be honest I don't think there's much in it between the Shahid Mallya and Rahat versions so I'm not quite sure.

As an aside this will be the last music post I make on this blog. I don't think it's been very useful for a while now, and any songs I really would want everyone to listen to will probably be made known via Twitter.

Thanks for reading!

Book: The Alchemy of Happiness, Al-Ghazali

Before you ask: no, I haven't suddenly become a fan of classical Muslim literature and scholarly works; I'm still way too lazy for that. This slim book was actually given away at a wedding I attended in South Africa last year - a neat alternative to the party favours we usually would have received. It even had a dedication inside the front cover! Neato.

I don't think this is actually the full Alchemy of Happiness but just a few chapters from it. In fact the book feels more like an extended pamphlet than a volume, although that's not to say that it doesn't cover some relatively deep topics. Still I didn't find it as useful as the last (and only) Ghazali book I read; this seems a little more abstract and fluffy and so, for me at least, not as engaging.

Particularly amusing is the chapter on marriage and discussion on wives and how to pick one. I won't go into too much detail except to say that I would think most women I know would probably have a problem with it. The "editor's note" goes on to blame the translator, accusing Claud Field of being an Orientalist, but whether the editor himself is being objective or a feminist is open to debate. Either way, this little conflict is actually the most interesting part of the book.

As much as I appreciated the book as a party favour, I can't say it compels me to read any of the full version or even Ghazali's other stuff. As such, I'm not quite sure I can recommend it.

Arabick Roots

The Royal Society are currently running an exhibition on the historical Arabic and Muslim sources of inspiration that the organisation has. Since this weekend was one of the two that they exhibition was open to the non-guided public, a friend and I decided to check it out.

It was a very personal show, both in terms of content and presentation. The Royal Society isn't a gallery or museum, and so the artefacts and show-pieces were dotted around the building in a kind of ad-hoc fashion; this may have made it a little difficult to follow but looking at the free guide we were handed I don't think we missed much. The themes covered included pharmacy, chemistry and alchemy amongst others - all stuff that many may already know originated from an older Muslim world - but the whole personal touch, about how members of the Royal Society itself were the ones to form these relationships made it all very intimate and even more striking.

On the flip side it's probably this personal slant that made the whole thing so limited. We had covered most of the material on offer (as well as checking out the Royal Society itself) within 45 minutes or so. In those terms it's difficult for me to recommend the exhibition for those who have no other business in the area, but if you happen to be passing this weekend or that of the 1st-2nd October then it a nice enough way to kill an hour or so.

WharfMA: Eid in the Wharf

It's hard to believe that it's been a whopping three years since I last attended a WharfMA Eid in the Wharf event. Personally I had found that I had kinda grown out of the whole Muslim Professional Networking thing a couple of years ago - so it's quite ironic that I find myself in the thick of the scene working where I do now.

And if I'm honest I would have given this year a miss too. But this year the organisation I volunteer for, ICSS, decided to make a well organised push to recruit at the event. In other words tonight was more about work than socialising. Ahem.

Of course that didn't mean I wasn't going to enjoy the entertainment on offer. The WharfMA decided to take a distinctly arty yet eclectic turn this year, with a whole bunch of weird and wonderful artists performing alongside the more regular ones. First up was David J, a spoken word artist who may have even been my favourite performer of the night. This wasn't the flippant and rhetorical stuff I was expecting but actually multi-dimensional and entertaining on an obvious (ie funny) level.

Daniel Waples managed to stun the audience with his Hang Drum skills, and I was really impressed by the sound that he was able to create on his own. The next act was pretty much pure fan-service for the girls - Sound of Reason had popped over from Canada to do a few sets. Now I really don't like the whole Nasheed thing but these guys were more on the Outlandish side of the scale so I was able to enjoy it more than I would have otherwise. Well until the girls in the audience regressed to teenagers. No, I'm not hating. What was really ironic is how uninvolved the audience was otherwise - come on guys, are we so uptight that we can't even wave our arms in the air to a beat?

I have a theory about Islamic (or rather, brown) Comedy: that it doesn't exist. Aman Ali didn't disprove this idea, although there were two times that I did actually laugh out loud. Still the audience seemed to love it more than I did, so I will put it down to me being a grouch (either that or Muslims just don't get out much).

Otherwise the event flowed smoothly enough; Mohammed Ali hosted and engaged the audience well while the ancillary speakers did their part (although I do think that the majority of those twenty who were donating £1000 a piece didn't actually realise it. Hopefully I'm wrong). The food before and after was adequate enough, and there was plenty of time to mingle - sorry, I mean "network" - after the entertainment had finished.

We even managed to drum up a record level of interest in the schools, so in our eyes it was a massive success; but even aside from that it was a decent enough way to spend a Friday night too.

Fall Season 2011

This last year has pretty much been a failure for me in terms of TV watching. The truth is that between a full time job (sigh) and a years' Sky Movies subscription I had totally no time to watch much in terms of serials. But the Sky subscription is now over and I'm slowly becoming a hermit which means things should come back on track. For example in the past month I had already cleared the last season of Smallville and House.

Smallville has finally ended, and it's quite difficult for me to express how glad I am of that. It was like a dead weight around my viewing schedule, a kind of punishment for being a fan of the time pass that is television. House kind of made up for it this year, even though I felt some of the main story arc was a little against what I was expecting. I'm currently making my way through One Tree Hill, which has now officially taken the place of Smallville as Bane of My Life. Please let it end soon; the next season has been said to be last (and is only 13 episodes to boot), but we've all heard that before.

Otherwise I don't have much else to say regarding last year. Although I had plans to, I decided not to watch An Ordinary Family, Hellcats and Camelot - all three have been axed so I'm glad I didn't invest any time in them. My official backlog now consists of Doctor Who, Family Guy, Glee, Little Mosque and Torchwood. Oh and I've decided to jump on Entourage, The Big Bang Theory and The Wire too, so you can add those to the lists of shows I've yet to start (30 Rock, Community, Dexter, Modern Family and Parks and Recreation).

The new shows I'm looking forward to this year are Archer, Falling Skies, Game of Thrones, Ringer (Sarah Michelle Gellar FTW!), The Event (yes, even though it's been axed), The Killing and The Walking Dead.

And this isn't even a comprehensive list: I have a ton load of BBC documentaries to watch with my dad (Planet Earth, Human Planet and Planet Dinosaur), as well as short stuff like Sherlock and The Inbetweeners to watch. And to top it all off I just decided this morning that I had a craving for Quantum Leap.

Crazy? Well yes, although it's quite interesting how many of these shows are either really old or just started. As such there's no real rush to watch any of them immediately so if anything paradoxically there'll be less for me to watch on a regular basis. Maybe I'll even save the shows I've yet to begin to watch for a later date (if you'll excuse the pun).

Book: The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli

There comes a point in one's cynical life where you consider the question of whether it's okay to manage people. Of course it's easy enough to argue that it's impossible not to, and in fact that's all that communication is, so I guess the real question is whether or not it's okay to exploit people for their own good.

Leaving that wider question aside, I think most people would regard The Prince as a good discussion of the topic - I say discussion but it's not really seeing how prescriptive Machiavelli is in it. His themes and advice isn't hard to understand or even implement, but his justification is where the interesting stuff lies, and it's clear that he's a great believer in "the greater good" and "means being to an end". And since morality is subjective it's hard to argue against his methods that have been shown over the years to be quite effective.

It's not a long read although can be hard to follow at times, particularly if you don't know much about Italian political history. Oh and as an aside, the copy I was loaned was a pretty little book.

So I guess this isn't really a book that one learns from - if you're reading this then you probably know how to manipulate and represent yourself to others. But as a test of your own moral code - essentially whether you protest or embrace the book - it's quite a good read. And no, I won't tell you my own reaction in that much depth. That would only give the game away.

Video of the Day

Mario is 30?!? THIRTY! Cripes. I'm so speechless at this fact that I'm just going to post the video and get on with it.



Yes it's 18 minutes long, but if you're anything like me you'll love every single one.

HP TouchPad

So it seems that the tablet effect is in fact real.

I was one of those who didn't quite see a use for a dumbed down portable and keyboard-less slab that could at best only be used to check mail and web. But after HP's discontinuation of WebOS hardware and subsequent firesale, I couldn't resist picking up a TouchPad. For 90 quid, it was an easy punt.

The effect wasn't quite immediate. But taking this week for example, I've left my main PC off for two evenings because the tablet served any purpose I wanted on those particular days. In fact I was quite surprised that there were in fact days when all I wanted to do on a PC was check email. I guess I'm a consumer after all.

And strangely using the tablet is actually more efficient than the PC. Perhaps it's ironically how its hard to type that I don't want to that much, or maybe it's the change of environment - it's easier to tear yourself away when you're lounging on a sofa rather than at a desk. Whatever the reason, for those two days I spent less time plugged in.

Although the future of WebOS is uncertain, there is already a lot that the TouchPad does already. It has mail, a calendar, a browser, Gtalk and Skype already loaded. It has an (admittedly quiet) app store and can play flash videos off YouTube and the like. Sure, it will never do everything my Android phone does, but that's okay - that's why I have my phone. And as has been said elsewhere the paradigm of using cards to represent multitasking is pretty much genius - I'm left wondering why Android and iOS settled on such respectively archaic ways of doing more than one thing at a time.

There are niggles though - the much talked about contact management, or Synergy, doesn't quite work as well as advertised, and there are a fair few UI issues where buttons or inputs lock up. Oh and the platform performs incredibly slowly.

Hardware wise there's not much to say. I miss a hardware back button, and the slab is a little heavy but other than that it's quite sleek (until your fingerprints destroy it). I'm a little annoyed that I can't charge it via my PC, but I'm sure there's a workaround for that.

Of course this isn't a fair review - tablets like this don't usually retail for under a ton. And even knowing what I know now, I still wouldn't pay more than £150 for one. But pricing aside I have to say I'm both surprised and impressed by the utility of such a device, and can even see how some are describing it as the future of computing.

Game: Heavy Rain (PS3)

What? A game full of QTEs? That can't be good. After all, we all hated Dragon's Lair and those countless lame MegaCD games, right? The creators must have been crazy to even bother with this.

But it turns out that armed with a great story and characters you can actually get away with the lowest form of interactive entertainment. The game itself describes this as "interactive drama", and is placed firmly between film or TV drama and videogames. So a lot of it is passive, but yet active enough to make you feel involved in the story. As someone who is increasingly complaining about how demanding games have become, this is actually a good thing. Graphics, music and the rest of the presentation are good, with few niggles to complain about.

So yes, it turns out that a game full of QTEs can actually be rather good. Recommended.

Food: Chimichanga

You see, if it wasn't for Wahaca, Chimichanga might have actually been better received. I mean there's nothing wrong with the place; the South Woodford branch at least is clean and well serviced. The food was generous if a little bland, and at 17 quid per head for shared starters and dessert, a main and a drink, the value wasn't too bad.

But then seeing as Wahaca beats Chimichanga on all those fronts, there's really no point in going to Chimichanga if you specifically want Mexican. Although I guess the location is pretty handy for us locals.

Slice: Lahore - London

I spent a few hours after work checking out the Slice exhibition at Rich Mix. To be honest I wasn't quite sure what it was about - a dysfunctional and unclear website didn't help with that. I thought it was one of many related exhibitions being held across London, but it turned out that the whole thing was there. Which was a pleasant surprise I guess.

So the premise then? Well this was a series of video and audio art related to places plotted on a line traced from London to Lahore. The way in which they were presented was interesting: each country had a monitor that was controlled by a arrow shaped "puck" that was to be placed on a table map below it. Although this excited the geek in me, it did make viewings a little frustrating as you had to share the platform with other viewers.

What I did get to see was, as expected, a mixed bag. I mean I'm hardly the most likely to appreciate this kind of stuff so my opinion probably doesn't mean much in this situation, but I didn't quite get a lot of it. I did like Conrad the Scoundral's and another artist whose name I can't remember. Oh and there was free food courtesy of Tayyab's, not that I got to eat any. Darned Shawwal.

Although I can't quite recommend people go out of their way to view this exhibition, it's a free event so if you happen to be passing (I dunno, while grabbing a bagel or something) then it might be worth a quick look.