Book: A Clash of Kings, George R.R. Martin

More disconnected and "bridging" than A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings may have been better for that as it served to open up more of the world the saga is set in. The number of protagonists, locations and arcs have all increased, setting up an even larger story than the detail alone would have indicated. The characters managed to gain even more depth as they flip between being good and bad, and it's hard to remain neutral as the reader is forced to take sides in the story.

All that, and it's not even a chore to read. Great stuff.

Film: The Amazing Spider-Man

You know you're old when you go to the cinema to watch a reboot of a reboot.

But it goes without saying that The Amazing Spider-Man looked good. There was swooshing and swinging and great action and fight scenes. I'd say that there wasn't quite enough of these things, although the film did follow a brisk pace so I guess there wasn't much room for any more without it becoming a little over saturated.

Overall though, there was something a little... two bit about this incarnation of Spiderman. It was almost Dawson's Creekish in fact, with the focus being on "the journey" and personal relationships rather than comic book shallowness and action. This change of direction laboured the film I thought and so made it a bit less enjoyable than the Toby McGuire version we loved from a decade ago (a decade ago!).

But it was enjoyable all the same so it gets a mild recommendation from me.

Santorini, Day Seven: Kissing Fish

Our last day was pretty much as all the others, however in the morning we did decide to visit the local fish therapy spa. For those of you who haven't tried, this is a weird set up where you sit with your feet in a tank of fish which nibble/suck at your feet. After the initial ick factor, for me it felt like sitting in a pool of bubbles and it was actually quite relaxing and maybe even cleansing.

Lunch was in Amoudi Bay, which I decided to walk to instead of taking a taxi. We got to pick the fresh fish we eventually ate, and after a hearty meal I took some time to explore the bay proper. I found a little alcove where people were enjoying the water, complete with some classic 25 feet high jumping into water action - if it wasn't our last day I would have loved to have come back with my trunks.

The afternoon was spent chilling by the pool - poignant seeing as it was to be our last time doing so. Dinner was had indoors, after which we rounded off the day and holiday as a whole with a friendly game of Scrabble.

Good times.

Santorini, Day Six: Jummah

Today was all about Jummah. As with most holiday of this type, my biggest concern was always how to offer Jummah (and I've written elsewhere why this would be so important to me) on an island with no mosques. Internet research came up with nothing, and our host at the villa equally dismissed the idea of any organised congregation on Santorini. Our only hope was to see if we could tap into a hidden local Muslim community and to either join their congregation or make our own.

Our Afghani friend turned out to be a useful and enthusiastic contact to have on the island. As I wrote before he confirmed that although there were Muslims on the island they weren't organised to establish a regular Jummah, but he said he would try to get as many people to join our initiative as he could.

Unfortunately despite his best efforts our small adhoc Jummah turned out to consist of only him, a Muslim friend who was staying at the villa and myself. Nevertheless it was a decent Jummah and well worth doing.

After prayers our friend cooked us the best lunch I had in Santorini yet; fried masala beans with crusty bread. Honestly it was pretty amazing and my mouth waters just thinking about it now. Oh and as aside amazingly enough the local supermarket sells halal chicken. Yes, I was shocked too.

After saying our goodbyes I then headed home for... that's right, some more chilling by the pool. After only six days I have to admit that I was starting to feel a little homesick; a feeling compounded by the realisation that Santorini may have been a little wasted on a single guy like myself.

Santorini, Day Five: Diving

The second item on my sparse agenda for this trip was to get a few dives in. I had no idea if Santorini had any decent diving sites, but since I got my licence last year I've made it a point to dive when I can. Which hasn't been since last year.

The two dives I did this morning were very similar - not much life but lots of interesting rock (and I don't mean that as sarcastically as it sounds). I even managed to swim through a cave which was fun. Apparently there are two shipwrecks on the island, but we weren't due to visit them today. Bummer. On the plus side I did borrow a friend's underwater camera so have some pretty decent video of the two dives.

On the bus back to Oia I made friends with a random person, which whom I also had lunch. Once again, it seems Santorini is more about people and relationships than the island itself, but it's all good; I'm sure we'll remain committed Facebook friends for years to come (and I don't mean that as sarcastically as it sounds).

And of course the rest of the day... we just chilled by the pool.

Santorini, Day Four: We Are Sailing

We met more Muslims on our morning walk today. Again they were hawking stuff on the street, but they were friendly and open to conversation which was nice. It seems that Greek Austerity is hitting everyone in the region.

Today we actually had something to do as we booked a private boat to take us around the island. That said it was pretty uneventful (with the captain making a spectacular effort in telling us how there isn't much to do with a boat in Santorini) and there weren't many sights to see - even the snorkelling was pretty quiet, and once more I realised that Santorini was more about doing nothing than something.

And that was the point - a great bunch of friends on their own boat having a laugh and diving into the (kind of) open sea. Lunch was awesome too, as was my second viewing of Santorini's sunset.

Santorini, Day Three: Have I Mentioned The Pool Yet?

The trouble with a place like Santorini is that there really isn't much to write about. My notes are particularly sparse about today and pretty much consist of the following:

Pool, lunch, chill, snooze, dinner, pool, chill.

Apologies for the lack of creativity.

Santorini, Day Two: Grilled Squid

Since there's quite a few of us friends in the villa things like being served a shared breakfast are scheduled, and since most of the friends have kids this means early starts. This is a good thing; it gets way too hot mid day so at least there'll be a chance to get stuff done in the mornings while it's still cool.

After lunch a few of us went to the main village of Fira. Compared to Oia where we are staying, Fira was much more commercial and rushed... yet not really compared to most other places.

It was in Fira that we met a Afghan Muslim guy. He told us about Islam on the island (there isn't much), but we left him with a loose plan to offer Jummah on Friday together.

After returning to the villa, we hit the pool. It seems that the pool will feature a lot on this trip. Dinner was had on a high roof terrace overlooking sunset - apparently one of the most famous in the world (although I didn't see the fuss myself).

Santorini, Day One: OMG the Pool

Some holidays are just built to be dossy from day one, but you wouldn't have thought it about this one - an insanely early flight and budget-airline-hand-lugguge-only made getting here much harder than it should have been. I've not done the budget airline thing for a while now; it was the type of thing to remind you exactly how young you're not any more.

But the underwhelming start was soon forgotten once we checked into our pretty gorgeous villa and after we grabbed a late lunch we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the pool.

Yep, this is so gonna be a dossy holiday.

Food: The Savoy River Restaurant

Possibly one of the fancier places I've been to in a while, the River Restaurant certainly starts to impress well before you even get there, the Savoy itself being pretty darned lush and decadent. Of course the service that comes with such a place is also of a high standard too, with all being immediately polite and accommodating - particularly since this was actually a surprise party of 12 people.

As usual we stuck to the set menu, myself going for the chicken and mango starter (the meat and chicken are halal), the salmon main and the apple tart dessert. If I'm totally honest I was only really taken with the dessert, with the other dishes being well under the par I had experienced in other hotel restaurants recently.

The disappointment in food made the bill of £37 per person even more of a sting - if I factor in character and service of the place I would call that a fair price, so I guess it's up to the individual to decide what they value in a restaurant. For me though I would say it's not really something I would choose to go to too often and doesn't quite get the same recommendation alternatives would.

Katie, Freed

I'm sure all of you would have heard the amazing, yet sadly unsurprising, news by now. Of course, I'm not the kind of guy to say "I told you sohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif", so instead I shall link you to all my commentary on the whole saga:

28th April, 2005: I Have Straight(ish) Teeth Too

11th June, 2005: Link of the Day

6th January, 2006: Link(s) of The Day

13 December, 2007: Katie Holmes In No More Babies With Tom Shocker!

Being a mature gentleman, I am of course still able to express affection for dear Katie. Just so she knows. If she's reading.

City Circle: Ten Things You Should Know About Happiness

First of all: yikes! Has it really been that long since I last came to City Circle? Crazy stuff. Still, it was pretty poignant seeing the place again - some things had changed, a lot yet hadn't really.
But yes, seeing as my days as a pseudo-regular attendee are long gone, it took something a little more than the usual to grab my attention. And this was it: a talk on how to be happy, a topic I've covered a little here on this blog and elsewhere (in reality). I admit it: I didn't really come for guidance, but more for vindication.

Ajmal Masroor is a Cool Enough Dude. He's concise and accessible, although I wouldn't really call him "one of us" quite yet. A lot of what he says is common sense and he didn't really surprise today either, pretty much telling us all stuff we should have already known. In brief, here are those ten things:

1. Happiness is all around us already (or, be happy with your lot, there is always someone worse off).
2. Happiness is not found in material gain.
3. Happiness comes from within.
4. A content heart is vital to be happy.
5. A happy person is one of sound character.
6. A happy person shares their happiness, their wealth, their time.
7. Happiness stems from true and meaningful relationships.
8. Happiness is correlated with simplicity.
9. Happiness comes from serving others.
10. Those who celebrate life are happy.

I may have paraphrased a little but you get the picture. The talk was a good one and it was good to have attended.

I left the talk after Masroor was done, hoping to avoid the inevitable annoyance brought by an inane Q&A (see? I know how to be happy); it's a little depressing that the majority of people will miss the point of what was being said.

No, you don't have to point out the irony in that.

Food: Nabrasa

Ah but it should have been so much better. Go on, take a look at the website yourself. This was supposed to solve all of the problems we had with Cabana; a fully halal menu and an "all you can eat" pricing structure getting rid of all any fear of racking up a high bill.

But to be honest Nabrasa was all it claimed to be. The non meat buffet was pretty nice; varied and plentiful there was enough there alone to keep you busy - and indeed there is an option (albeit a pricey one) if you would want to stick to that. But no, we, and I'm guessing everyone else there, came for the meat on tap, the servers who come around with skewers to cut off all types of grilled meat straight into your plate as you ask for it.

The trouble is that the food wasn't that great. Out of the five types of skewer (the variety alone was kinda disappointing), I only really enjoyed the chicken wrapped in turkey bacon; the other meats proving to be a little too fatty and chewy for my liking. The thing is that the lack of quality didn't seem due to cost-cutting, but just a lack of cooking talent. As such, it wasn't the idea that was at fault here but the execution. For those of you interested the final bill came to 26 quid for the buffet and pricey mocktail.

So yes, as a novelty the place was pretty cool, but I don't think I'll be coming to eat here any time soon unless the quality of the food changes.

Film: Snow White and the Huntsman

I should have listened to my gut really. I mean, hey, I'm not the type to write off a film just because it has a certain actor in it (Salman Khan aside), but anything that had anything to do with Twilight (aka, those sorry excuses for movies) I should have known would be bad.

And Snow White was indeed bad. Choosing to go all "dark" and arty, it ends up being as dry as a bone, ironically soulless and just plain boring. The classic story doesn't even save the film; nothing much really happens in the movie and it feels like a big lump of middle with not much beginning or end to talk about.

Avoid.

Book: Holes, Louis Sachar

Sometimes there comes a book that makes it all seem so easy. Characterisation, plot, drama - Holes has it all, and all in under 240 pages of wonderful prose.

Stanley is a kid who, after being accused of the major crime of stealing a pair of trainers, gets sent to Camp Green Lake to do some time. The holes he and his co-inhabitants have to dig seem at first to be an exercise in character building, but it soon becomes apparent that there is more to their punishment than that. And it is on this mystery that the whole book is built.

Flashing between Stanley's present and his ancestral past, a tale is spun that was such a joy to read that I was a little upset when it ended. The bottom like is that if you claim to like books then you must read this. Recommended.

Food: The Montagu

Today's fancy dinner was at the five-star Hyatt Regency Hotel. The Montagu was certainly fancy from the start - the decor and service both being top notch before we even sat down to look at the menu.

As is the usual, we stuck to the set menu. However as the meat and chicken served there was all halal, we had more than the fish and veggie dishes to choose from. Nevertheless, I stuck to the razor clam and herb soup for my starter, the fish for the main and an apple tart for dessert. The starter was an easy win, adding to my increasingly growing taste for soups, while the dessert was generous. The main was a little dry and although wasn't bad was a little disappointing.

But a good time was had by all, proving once again that a restaurant is about slightly more than just the food. And at around £25 (via TopTable) for the three courses, a mocktail and sides shared between pairs there really wasn't any complaints about value either. Recommended.

Indexed

Ah, vindication:



While I have no doubt that seeing the world is an amazing thing to do, I do think that many of us take for granted how much we love home.

SMBC

Here's a new strip that I've started reading:



Proof that women don't appreciate what they have available, or that men are fickle scum? You decide. Either way I guess the lesson here is to expect someone who walks on coals for you to have, uh, leathery soles. Or something.

Film: Prometheus

Maybe I just didn't get it? Perhaps I should have seen the movie as an arthouse flick instead of science fiction? I dunno. All I know is that I didn't really enjoy this film that much. My only surprise is my surprise, since I got exactly what I expected after watching the trailer.

But let me try to remain objective here. The plot was pretty nonsensical (which was impressive considering how simple it was), the acting shabby, the direction poor and stuttery. There wasn't even a technical basis on which to watch this film.

I've already spent more words on this than I wanted to. Totally not recommended. In fact, I think I'll watch Alien over the weekend to get the taste of Prometheus out of my mouth.

Khalid and Rifat

I've long become desensitised to amazing things. For whatever reason over the past decade I've been lucky enough to meet a whole bunch of authors, politicians, entrepreneurs, PhDs, film directors - the list really goes on. But what makes my meetings invariably special is that I didn't meet these people as authors, politicians, entrepreneurs, PhDs or film directors, but as normal people. It's this normality that desensitised me to their achievements - not in a bad way but in a more inspiring one, because if normal people like these can achieve such great things, then surely the rest of us can too?

Anyway, opening waffle aside, Khalid is one of these inspiring people. It'll take me many fingers to list exactly how many pies he's had his in, but for me personally the most important must have been his involvement in establishing ICSS. I think the key characteristic I admire about Khalid is how unafraid of failure he is, or rather his ability to recognise that sometimes an effort is worth more than the result.

It was great to see him get hitched today, and I can't wait to see him out and about as a married. Inspiring once again for sure, and not least because of the constant reminders during his nuptials of how I was "next" in the group (even though I blatantly am not).

Wah! Wah! Girls

Oh look! Another British Bollywood play set in London! I think I must have seen at least ten of these in the past decade, and at the time of writing this review can't really remember enjoying any of them too much. So yes, colour me cynical as yet another one makes the scene - I still had to watch it of course.

But wait! What's this? Could it be that Wah Wah is actually pretty good? Well let's see: first of all, it was blindingly funny. This, coming from someone who doesn't think it's possible for brown people to raise any kind of laugh (except perhaps out of pity). Next up, the plot was actually quite good in a KISS way - there wasn't any self-hating of Asian culture (quite the opposite in fact) and none of the victim mentality (usually of a poor repressed girl) that is the staple of every Asian story that makes it to the west. I guess that makes it rather original then?

The music and choreography was brilliant and engaging, with the acting more than good enough and most certainly endearing (of which Sophiya Haque was a part of bringing this whole review full circle). Production values were good with everyone looking fab in their wardrobes with the stage coming a close second in terms of how it was dressed (I especially loved the huge "curtain screens" per location). Actually on that note, it was so refreshing to see "East London" finally translating to Leyton/Leytonstone/Walthamstow. Represent.

So yes. It may have taken ten years to finally find it, but Wah Wah Girls actually was an Asian play that I really really enjoyed. I'm still gushing a little just writing about it, so it kind of goes without saying exactly how thoroughly it gets a recommendation from me.

Food: Automat

We ended up in this American themed brasserie (no I don't know what that means either) after looking for a place that did decent fish and chips. That is, by total mistake. Still the fact that the chicken happened to be halal was a saving grace and so we stuck around anyway.

And it was a decent enough place I suppose. The food wasn't spectacular and very much on the bland side; certainly not worth the 18 quid we paid for it. The service and atmosphere made up for this in some sense though, the place packed for a Tuesday night in a town that's supposed to suffering from a recession.

Overall though one to skip.

Book: Out of Our Heads, Alva Noe

Some books make me feel something. Usually the book is fiction and that feeling is joy. In this case the book was non-fiction and the feeling was irritation. Since I'm too old and tired to write about a book I didn't really like that much, I'm just going to list a few adjectives that came to mind while I was reading it:

Laboured, offensive, confrontational, petty, semantic, vacuous, non-progressive.

If you're still bothered, Out of Our Heads is a discussion on what consciousness is, or rather what it is not - in particular how it's not something that resides inside the brain. Yes, exactly, zzz.

So no, not recommended then. Thankfully it was pretty short though.

Film: The Raid

First, what The Raid isn't. It's not deep. It's not intelligent. It's not got any kind of decent plot or story. It has no decent characters.

With that out of the way we can talk about what The Raid is. It's full of action. It's lightning quick. It's engaging. It's awesomely violent. And it's hella fun.

Although my high hopes for The Raid were dashed during the first 30 minutes, I did enjoy the film a lot. It wasn't exceptional and most certainly is not going to be a classic, but it does manage to hark back to an era when choreographed fighting scenes were awesome to watch.

Recommended, and definitely something I will have to catch again on DVD. In slow motion, perhaps.

History of the Ottomans

I distinctly remember the day I realised that The Ottomans were in fact Muslim. I was very young, and assumed to be Muslim was to live in a minority. It was a quality few people had, and something that made me different.

On being told this little fact, I suddently had so many questions. They ranged from "but weren't they the bad guys?" to "woah, you mean the Muslims had some kind of power?" to "you mean you can get non brown or Arab Muslims?". Looking back I realise exactly how naive I was.

But as one grows older, wiser and more cynical they learn not to blame themselves too much for being ignorance. My lack of awareness wasn't my fault, but that of an education system that had this pretty important part of world history almost clinically cut out of it. Compared to what I had known about Greek, Chinese, Persian and British empires at that age, I would even go on to say it was deliberately repressed.

But of course once you know there is knowledge out there you want there's no real excuse not to pursue it. Which finally brings me to this review or a two day course I attended this weekend with Ebrahim College, the title of which promised to fill me in on exactly what I wanted to know: The History of the Ottomans. Actually to be honest the main pulling point for me was that they were also showing the feature film Fatih 1453 about the conquering of Constantinople.

I generally tend to avoid the typically Islamic courses places like Ebrahim College tend to offer. They're not really my cup of tea (and I may write about my position on how we overuse prescription as a crutch and neglect introspection some other time), but I figured that this particular course would be academic enough for me to enjoy. I was right and wrong in this, but more about that in a bit.

On day one, the lecture topics were pretty varied, which is always a good thing, except when they don't really flow from one into another. For example I would have expected any history course to be laid out in some kind of chronological order with a flowing narrative, pretty much as if it's a story that's being told. Looking back at the programme outline, it is clear that this was attempted in this case, but in my opinion it was poorly executed and I found it all a little disconnected and muddled. Professor Mehmet Ipsirli was clearly knowledgeable about this stuff, but I'm not sure I took away much from his opening "Emergence of power: political, social and administrative structure" talk. Similarly Professor Alparslan Acikgenc's "Ottoman culture, Science and Philosophy" course was a bit over my head too.

To be fair this was more a matter of taste than anything else, me being more suited to structure and pointedness in talks. Nevertheless I felt that Professor Azmi Ozcan's "Caliphate institution of the Ottomans and Relationship with the other Muslim Countries" was a little vague in content, although I did love the clarity in how he explained how the caliphate was not religious but political. I don't even remember what Professor Ipsirli said in his second lecture "The institution of Rulership of the Ottomans and the Great Sultans".

But as time went on and more lecturers presented, I found the courses did become more structured and so easier to follow for me. Professor Acikgenc returned to tell us about "Islamic Education in the Ottoman Period", a talk which I thought was wonderful in its focus and literacy. It was interesting to hear about how education belonged to the community rather than the state during the early years of the empire. Unfortunately I don't think I got as much from Professor Ozcan's second lecture "The Causes of Decline" as I did from his first.

Of course it goes without saying that I was irritated by the audience. Although the course itself wasn't an Islamic Course in the typical sense, the crowd most certainly was, and we had all the lack of etiquette in the Q&As that followed each talk that we usually see during these things. Over-fawning, pontification, self-promotion and digression were the name of the game here and although the lecturers were polite enough to go along with it, I would have expected the various chairs from the college to keep things in control and moving a little more. In my opinion a lot of the value to be had in these talks is wasted simply because we don;t know how to ask pertinent questions in a concise manner. But hey, I guess that's why I avoid these things.

Day two was much better. A new presenter, Dr Salim Ayduz, gave two lectures: the first was on "Contributions of Ottoman Science and technology to Modern Civilisation" and then a more focussed "Muhammed II and the Siege of Constantinople". Both were excellently prepared and structured and I felt that I took a lot away from them and even the Q&As were decent. I was especially interested in hearing how Da Vinci and Copernicus may have each plagiarised Ottoman scholars, and how in contrast the same Ottoman scholars would credit their inspirations and refuse to accept that they had "invented" anything themselves. Dr Ayduz may be a little biased, but it was clear over the course of his two lectures that there was a certain honour in the way the Ottomans rolled.

The day ended with an extended panel Q&A which had some really good questions asked and answered. The film that I (and most other people there, it seems) had come to watch had actually been cancelled; Ebrahim College were denied the ability to cut certain scenes in order to make it acceptable for them to show. A bit of a shame then, except that I wasn't able to stay for personal reasons anyway.

Overall I would say that I don't think I got all I wanted from this course. Although I have a taste of some of the aspects of Ottoman culture I'm still missing the "bigger picture" of what went on during the period, and I'm not sure I'm even aware of some of the more interesting deeper aspects of the empire. And of course I still haven't seen Fatih either. That said, it has served as a launchpad into further independent study, albeit an inefficient one at two days long, and I hope to explore some of the themes that personally interested me at a later date.

Film: Town of Runners

I managed to catch this documentary about two Ethiopian runners striving to make it big in their sport, in a country where running is the only real alternative to education and marriage. If there was such a genre as sportploitation then this would probably fall under it, although that could just be my reaction to the gushing in the Q&A afterwards. Oh yes, the director was there too.

As a film it wasn't too bad though and in fact I did quite enjoy it. It's always interesting to see the rest of the training and livelihood beneath the tip of the iceberg we see at events like the Olympics, and I guess this journey is even more striking in a place like Ethiopia where, let's face it, making it big in a sport means a lot more than it does in most other places.

Technically the film was good, and I enjoyed the narrative that eventually emerged from the otherwise confused progress - if anything I thought the film fell a little short of its conclusion and wish that it went a little further on that.

Otherwise you can pretty much predict what happens in the film and how people will react to it (group tours to Bekoji anyone?). I probably wouldn't recommend going out of a way to watch this unless you already have an interest in the topic to feed.

My Name is Ahsan

The really scary thing is that I'm actually not writing this post freely. I was going to make some satirical remark about how I'm not really safe from extradition either (seeing as these pages are hosted in the USA), but then I asked myself "what if the US government don't find me funny?". The point here isn't about terrorism or even the concept of extradition itself, but the manner in which it can so easily be done by party that has no sovereignty over here. The US wouldn't have to make an argument that I wasn't being funny or sarcastic, their word and request would have been enough to get me a free flight across the pond to face trial - and that even though I had written this post at my home in London.

For those who don't know, that pretty much covers the situation that a few British citizens currently find themselves in. You may have already heard of Babar Ahmad, but there are others too, including Gary McKinnon and Talha Ahsan. Tonight was mainly about supporting these guys, raising awareness and creating some kind of actions afterwards.

It's actually quite shameful, not from a universal justice view (although yes, that too), but in terms of how easily the US managed to get into a position where it could violate citizens of another country so easily - even more so that that country is the UK. Where's the self respect?

The speakers today included Gareth Peirce, Bruce Kent, Victoria Brittain, Salma Yaqoob, David Bermingham and Riz Ahmed. For sure, I only knew of Riz, but judging by their presence and received reception the others were big names too. Some spoke objectively, some from a personal viewpoint, some were fun and exciting other were boring. All were passionate and compelling and even the cynicism and polemic I always have waiting for these kind of political movements was stemmed. It really is as straightforward as this: there is no way that this arrangement can ever be seen as fair or just even from a subjective or US-biased viewpoint.

Regardless of whether you care enough to do anything about this or not, I do request that you all reading at the very least privately acknowledge that this is wrong. And if not, then to please spend some time explaining why you hold that position.

Abstruse Goose

Make no mistake, this counts for brown Asian women too:



Pity us men please, thanks.

Book: A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin

I like to think that I don't judge books by their covers. I give most things a go before actually judging them, and generally I go into a book with an open mind. I have to admit however that I was very surprised with how A Game of Thrones panned out, indicating that I did have some kind of preformed expectation of the book in this particular case.

I'm not too ashamed of this, if only because the surprise was so pleasant. The thickness of the book did not imply that it would be a chore to read, the plentiful characters did not imply that it lacked good characterisation and the immense background and universe that the book is set in did not imply that I would have to dredge through tons of descriptive text. In other words, this was no Lord of the Rings.

So yes, in a word A Game of Thrones is brilliantly accessible. I never once tired of what was going on and after getting used to it didn't lost my thread or pace in reading. Okay I admit that I did at first find the plentiful number of characters confusing (with names and nicknames adding to that confusion), but even that wasn't an issue a few chapters in.

A lot happens in this, the first volume of A Song of Ice and Fire, and yet it's clear that we're in it for the long haul - I can only imagine what else we have in store. It's a testament to the book that I want to jump straight into the next part, and I'm already excited with the idea of continuing on my journey through the Seven Kingdoms.

Film: Marvel Avengers Assemble

There are two types of people who went to see this film. The first are those who wanted to catch the biggest film of the year, the non-stop action superhero rollercoaster that everyone would be talking about at work/school the next day. The second group are those who went to see it because it was directed by Joss Whedon.

Since this is a movie review, I won't go into too much detail as to why Whedon is such a genius except to mention a single name: Buffy. Vastly underrated, it's about time he got high profile, and must admit I felt a little vindicated as I saw one of his films break all opening weekend box office records.

Of course the main fear was always going to be whether Whedon could resist any "creative pressures" being placed on him from above. And if I'm completely honest I would say that Avengers Assemble wasn't as Whedon as I wanted it to be - for a recent example of what that means, go watch Cabin in the Woods.

But I did laugh extremely out loud at three uniquely Whedonesque gags, yes, the ones that everyone else did too - who said Whedon was just for the culty geeks? Overall though, the first half was kinda bad, with the second half very much worth the wait. Oh and for those who care Ruffalo was much better than Norton. Oh and a special raised eyebrow goes to Pepper Potts' short shorts.

So yes. As hugely enjoyable as as it was, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed at the lack of total polish and genius I've come to expect from Whedon. That's not to say that the film isn't good - on the contrary, those in the first group will go away very satisfied - so it gets nothing less than a recommendation from me.