Are CEOs really as important as we’re led to believe?

A book of randomness and chance I’m reading suggests not.

Leonard Mlodinow’s ‘The Drunkard’s Walk: How randomness rules our lives’ has a beautiful example that illustrates the role of chance in performance and that shows how assumptions are made when using past performance to predict future results.

He takes the CEOs of the top 500 (Fortune 500) companies and assumes each of them has a certain probability of success each year, defined by their own company’s measure. And also assumes that these successful years occur at a frequency of 60%. He asks whether this means in a 5-year period each CEO will have a 60% success rate (3 successful years).

And he shows that the chances that in a given 5-year period any single CEO’s success rate will match the underlying rate is 1 in 3. In terms of the Fortune 500 companies this means that over the past 5 years (not an insignificant amount of time) around 333 CEOs would demonstrate results that did not reflect their true ability!! And by chance alone around 10% of the CEOs will have a 5 year winning or losing streak.

I have always argued that CEOs (and football managers, etc) often seem to be given credit and apportioned blame in amounts disproportionate to their real observable effect on a company. If only because they haven’t been at the company long enough for the results to shake off the randomness that can crop up anywhere.

Mladinow’s book has more insights on related topics such as

• The Law of Large (and small) Numbers (small sample sizes not reflecting true results, like for example “8/10 women prefer this shampoo to others” when only 100 women have been asked..)

• Human preferences for spotting patterns where there is true randomness, and vice-versa.

• Determinism where actors (in the social science sense) believe and act as though they have a greater say in an outcome than is true.

Mladinow also highlights throughout the book areas such as medical trials, court trials and betting shops, as well as day-to-day life, where knowledge of randomness and chance is absolutely critical.

Read it!

I have been the victim of severe neglect! No, not from the doctors at the hospital; my lobotomy worked out just fine. I mean from my teachers at business school.

I never understood why the Art of Sabotage is not taught by any business school. While studying I searched in vain for any mention of deliberate strategies to unseat your opponent, apart form the occasional doffing of the hat to the impenetrable text of Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’.

This would be like enrolling in a school of wizardry and witchcraft that didn’t teach you Defence Against The Dark Arts, indeed where they told you blithely that the ‘Dark Arts’ don’t exist, even though you as a speccy kid with a scar on your forehead shout “But the Dark Arts killed my parents!!!”

Are they scared of creating a ‘One-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’, a Saboteur Extraordinary? (This reminds me of a Frank Herbert sci-fi novelette, set in a future where bureaucracy ran so smooth a governmental Bureau of Saboteurs was required to keep things operational)

But we all know there are countless ‘Companies-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’ that are at this very moment ripping the eyes out of any competitor. While kicking them in the nadgers.

On a more personal scale you may have noticed this yourself (I shall claim not to have met any such characters personally); the nefarious schemers (Weasels of Dilbert) undermining each other to get a raise. And simple economics suggest that as long as office politics are arranged as a tournament, where the best performer gets rewarded, this will continue. Because one sure way of making yourself appear the best performer, apart from doing any actual hard work, is to make your colleagues appear dumber by comparison.

Logical enough. But why don’t we see this mentioned anywhere? I guess it’s because business studies are for business managers, who haven’t any answer to the conundrum of arranging work so that everybody contributes, while getting just reward.

And we sure don’t want to endorse sabotage as a viable option.

I suppose it’s a subset of the question of morality, and whether doing the right thing can be counterproductive to an individual. As Nietzsche said, some morals were created by man to hold back superman from acheiving what he could.

Is sabotage the unspoken truth? The elephant in the room? Is it a fact of business, nay life, that goes unmentioned but hovers around in the background like the smell of last night’s kebab, permeating everything with its odour?

And more importantly, is there money to be made writing a book called the Art of Sabotage…?

The Uncaged Monkeys are a group of popular speakers that hold entertaining mini-lectures on a variety of scientific topics. Hosted by Robin Ince, regular contributors include Prof. Brian Cox, Dr. Ben Goldacre and Simon Singh, with a number of guest speakers as well.

The ‘Night of 200 Billion Stars’ show kicked off in the Manchester Apollo on Tuesday, with Tim Minchin, Adam Rutherford and Helen Arney also appearing.

Favourite part? The video by science journalist Adam Rutherford consisting of original clips of the Space Shuttle program’s 135 missions, arranged in chronological sequence. I felt it was a moving tribute to one of mankind’s greatest accomplishments and beacons of hope. You can view the Space Shuttles United video on Nature Video Channel (YouTube); it’s accompanied by an amazing soundtrack by 65 daysofstatic, so turn the volume up to 11.

Robin Ince’s performance as a compere was top-notch, he kept things rolling along nicely even with having to make difficult segues between speakers on unrelated topics. Great story about 8 monkeys attempting the works of Shakespeare…

The cryptologist Simon Singh exhibited an actual Enigma machine, even dismantling it on stage to see the workings. He also rubbished the centuries-old trend of finding hidden codes and predictions in religious texts, by demonstrating them to be down to pure mathematical chance.

Dr Ben Goldacre gave what is quite possibly the only talk on statistics ever that could be termed ‘interesting’! As a doctor treating patients, he was concerned with ethics committees and drugs companies making it hard for doctors and patients to trial and/or see evidence supporting claims of drug benefits.

Prof Brian Cox walked us through the timeline of our cosmic beginning, with an interesting note about evolution in molecular biology, and I learned that Hubble’s Constant (rate of expansion of our universe) can be written as 42 miles/ second/ 3 million light-years. He ended with a quote from Dr. Carl Sagan’s Cosmos; in fact the last words in the book’s last chapter ‘Who Speaks For Earth?’

I’ll type up the words from my copy; they deserve to be repeated:

“Some 3.6 million years ago, in what is now nothern Tanzania, a volcano erupted, the resulting cloud of ash covering the surrounding savannahs. In 1979, the paleoanthropologist Mary Leaky found in that ash footprints – the footprints, she believes, of an early hominid, perhaps an ancestor of all the people on the Earth today. And 380,000 kilometers away, in a flat dry plain that humans have in a moment of optimism called the Sea of Tranquility, there is another footprint, left by the first human to walk another world. We have come far in 3.6 million years, and in 4.6 billion and in 15 billion.

For we are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth.Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.”

Wasn’t too sure about the funny songs by Helen and Tim though; I guess the format just doesn’t work for me beyond raising a few chuckles. The lyrics just end up being too brainy, and get shoe-horned into some semblance of a song. You can also see why audience participation is necessary to allow the performer(s) to feed off; it was kind of hard getting a stadium full of sceptics to sing along!

Thanks to Tom and Jill for arranging tickets!!

Four Seasons By Candlelight

The 25th of Nov was another great evening at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.

This time it was ‘Four Seasons By Candlelight’ playing Baroque music (a style of Western Classical music from around 1600 to 1760 AD. Which fact I didn’t Wikipedia at all. Honest).

The Mozart Festival Orchestra walked out on stage bedecked in the finest period costume, from the powdered white wigs through waistcots and knee-breeches down to the buckled shoes. It was a masterpiece of showmanship to transport the audience to the time when this music was written and played. I applaud the effort.

The music was divided by an interval; the first half had a well-thought out introduction to the period. It opened with ‘Te Deum’(Charpentier) and then followed Mozart’s ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’, Vivaldi’s ‘Concerto for two trumpets’, Bach’s ‘Air on the G string (don’t laugh!)’, Handel’s ‘Trumpet Suite’ and the beautiful soprano Ruby Hughes singing a moving ‘Dido’s Lament’(Purcell) and a joyous ‘Let the Bright Seraphim’(Handel).

The second half was Vivaldi’s. The Four Seasons.
Spring. Summer. Autumn. Winter.

Credit here must be given to conductor and lead violinist David Juritz for a superb performance, and also for taking the audience along with the music, introducing key aspects of the pieces and generally making it a very enjoyable experience.
I also enjoyed the jolly trumpet soloist Crispian Steele-Perkins (as I suspect most of the audience did).

We walked away from it with a general agreement that classical music made accessible and appreciable is a nice thing to have.

p.s. Happy Birthday to Ioan’s mum and cheers for the free ticket!!

..the title of a book, is also what author Jean Bricmont describes as an ideology that legitimises modern Imperialism (and war) using pseudo-humanitarian reasoning and rhetoric.

It’s a book I would seriously recommend to anyone calling themselves a humanitarian or liberal.

It has a lot of case examples and scenarios to highlight the points made and therefore is highly readable.

Bricmont has interesting points on:

• The rhetoric and illusions of war
• The duty of conscientious objecters
• The role of the United Nations
• The arguments against war
• The prospects for the future

I’m dying to give some excerpts, but they’d have to be quite lengthy ones to make sense and give context. The best I can do is these snippets:

“…The logical lesson of [the 1938 Munich Agreement that allowed Hitler to seize the Sudetenland] is that the great power gambit of using the discontents of minorities to destabilize weaker countries is extremely dangerous, at least for world peace…”

“…When we see that the principal recommendation given by international organisms to Third World countries is to follow the Western example, we can only wonder what on earth they have in mind. Do they want India and Pakistan to solve the Kashmir problem the way France and Germany solved the problem of Alsace-Lorraine?…”

“Moreover, to call on an army to wage a war for human rights implies a naive vision of what armies are and do, as well as a magical belief in the myth of short, clean, “surgical” wars.”

“…That interrupted honeymoon [of the West briefly welcoming Al Jazeera] illustrates a broader phenomenon. Democracy in the Arab world, which Westerners claim to love so much, would be the worst catastrophe that could happen there, because what the peoples of the region want is a better price for their oil, a more economical management of that resource, and more active solidarity with the Palestinian cause. This is by no means what we want…”

Quotes from Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights To Sell War (Bricmont, 2006 Monthly Review Press New York)

My favourite kind of fiction has always been the kind that ‘could-be’ rather than ‘never could be’.

I do like the escapism of a good fantasy, but I’m not satisfied if the story just has the hero winning a million pounds. I want to see the tax implications and his future investment plans as well.

That’s why when most people talk to me about science-fiction they’re thinking about the hoverboards of ‘Back to the Future II’ or the implausibly humanoid aliens from ‘Star Trek’ while I’m thinking DNA-screening for job roles like in ‘Gattaca’

I realised that fiction writers like John leCarre and Greg Egan are so enjoyable precisely because their ‘fiction’ blurs the distinction between truth and, well, fiction. Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ remains to me a profound exploration of socio-political, religious as well as ecological factors that shape mankind’s history. My Dune is not one of dodgy 80s science-fiction props from the Arts Department.

The book ‘Sandstealers’ by journalist and foreign correspondent Ben Brown that I’m reading falls into the same category. It’s a story about war correspondents (write about what you know) involved in the death of a colleague and halfway through it it hit me: This guy knows what he’s talking about. You feel that although names have been changed, there’s a gritty reality to the tale that only comes from being in such situations.

I picked it up as a page-turner, but it really interested me with questions of morality and judgement that reporters have to ask themselves.

Totally bucking the trend the 20th of October has seen 2 female and 1 male Nobel Laureates born.

in 2004 for Literature
> Elfriede Jelinek

in 1995 for Physiology or Medicine
> Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard

and in 1935 for Physics our dear Mancunian Neutron-Discoverer
> James Chadwick

Go look up the real celebrities born on your birthday at the Nobel Laureates pages

Been reading a lot of le Carre recently, a man who takes the spy novel to literary heights not seen or expected in the genre. And just noticed Carlos Tevez is back in the news again causing disruption at City.

So,

It was the incident of 29th september, 2011 that gave the proof, though the F.A had no means of knowing this.

It was all about the Red Devils.

n.b. Carlos Tevez is an Argentine footballer playing in the English Premier League. He played for, amongst other, ‘Red Devils’ Manchester United from where he was sold to bitter rivals and pretenders Manchester City.

n.n.b. My style is deliberately derivative.

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

A hauntingly simple short poem by Stevie Smith, whom I admire greatly. I find the last two lines suddenly overcome me; please tell me what you make of it. I first came across her work casually browsing in the library. Therefore libraries are good.

After many years of analysing tv programmes and advertisement scheduling, I am in a position to make this startling announcement: Advertisers (damn their scaly hides!) deliberately and calculatingly target their market groups via tv viewing preferences!!

That is why, I’ve managed to uncover, Michael Parkinson comes on advertising life insurance in between Countdown.
And why alcopops and pregnancy tests are sold during Eastenders.

Et voila! Another case cracked!

And here’s an example of a slimy Advertiser carefully choosing their words to say the opposite of what they mean.

A Personal Injury law firm starts with “Here in the UK we have some of the finest healthcare in the world” because they know its risky to diss the NHS that everyone is still proud of.
But they continue (and I paraphrase).. “However, if you have had a bad experience, let us help you sue the fuck out of the system”.

I watched a great programme on BBC 4 Thursday night. Presented and written by the author Rob Penn (he claims to be one; I haven’t found anything written by him after a quick search), it was called ‘Ride of my life: The story of the bicycle’ and in it Rob travels round the world buying hand-made parts to build his new dream bike and tells the history of the bike along the way. It was a very enthusiastic and joyful programme.

Some interesting facts were thrown out that I wasn’t aware of:-

• The Madonna del Ghisallo was made Patron Saint of cycling by some Pope and there’s a shrine near Lake Como, Italy, which serves as a museum for cycle racing greats and their bikes.

• In Italy, cyclists wear racing team colours like we wear football colours. It’s important to dress well, and the term ‘Bella in Sella’ meaning ‘looking good in the saddle’ is used to describe the look.

• One of the Italian cyclists accompanying Rob mentioned how employees on € 1500 a month bought bikes worth € 5000. And changed them every couple of years.

• Portsmouth, Oregon is the most cycle-friendly city in the U.S of A. The Oregon State Govt. has spent around $100 million over 10 years in making it so, and it looks fab.

• Mountain bikes were invented in Fairfax, California by the hippies doing downhill racing in the mountains. The original trail they used is called ‘Repack Ride’ because by the time you reached the bottom the ball bearings in the hub brake would be so hot all the grease would bubble out, and the hub had to be re-packed.

• 19/20 bicycles sold in America now are MTBs.

• The population of cyclists in London doubled from 2000 – 2007.

Just read a story on the BBC web about a 16-month-old kid in Florida, U.S.A. who fell from a balcony and was caught by a British lady. Great deed, well done,..
But…..
A couple of comments:-

> If I’d just saved a baby, I still wouldn’t want it mentioned in the papers if it meant they were also going to say it happened poolside at “Econo Lodge hotel”

> Who names their kid “Jah-Nea”?

> The headlines from a few news agencies. The first four run with ‘Brit’; note how CBS differs from the others:

Daily Express – ‘Briton saves hotel plunge toddler’
3 hrs ago

Reuters UK – ‘British tourist saves toddler in four-storey fall’
8 hrs ago

Telegraph – ‘Briton catches toddler who fell from fourth-floor balcony’
9 hrs ago

MSNBC – ‘British tourist saves baby in 4-story Fla. fall’
9 hrs ago

CBS News – ‘Toddler falls from balcony, caught by stranger’
16 hrs ago

..a bit happy with meself, after having read some of the best books of me life in such a short span.

Peter Hoeg: Mrs. Smilla’s feeling for snow. Indescribably unique. I loved the anti-heroine that was Smilla, her talents, attributes, and the toughness!.. definitely a fan.

Graham Greene: The end of the affair. My first Greene, some references I might’ve missed, but all the more poignant (and dare I say “timeless”) because of that.

Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up bird chronicle. Seemed like a hefty task to begin with, but the simple poetry of the narrative keeps you hoooked. I never had so many random strangers talking to me about a book/author they loved.

Greg Egan: Oceanic, Crystal Nights. And Science fiction used to have a ‘margin of uncertainity’; the difference between what could happen and what might actually happen. This fucker just blew that up.

Let me explain.

If you’ve ever walked between Piccadilly Train station and Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester, you’ll have noticed that the lines on the pavement outside the station follow the curves of the building front.

This means that, although the shortest route from the station exit as you round Greggs is a straight line to the pedestrian crossing of Ducie Street, 99.999% of the people going to and from the station walk a longer route following the curved path of the pavement lines, even when in a rush.

Once you notice this, it seems like ridiculous behaviour. But it happens all the same!

The lines on the pavement seem to subconciously channel the flow of people. I wonder if there are any other deliberate or accidental designs in town planning that influence us.

The ‘Wunders’ of the Universe is on again tonight. Saw the Prof. on Sunday morning telly, I agree with him that academics deserve recognition (and nurses, social workers, firemen, etc.). I also really like Jon Culshaw’s impression of him. And why was Total Wipeout presenter Amanda Byram squirming and blushing when the Prof spoke to her?

Just had a look on his facebook page, (which I have “liked”) and noticed that the postings on his wall show his fans fall into the following main categories.

1) Women (usually of a ‘certain age’) fawning over him.
ref.

“I wouldnt mind learning about particle physics off you, haha”

2) People trying to sound clever by asking questions about “The Universe, duh” that just highlight their lack of understanding of some basic tenets of physics. (I know there are supposed to be no stupid questions, but we know better).
ref.

“Hi Brian, was just wondering how come earthquakes tend to always be in the same parts of the world, especially the type of earthquakes we’ve seen in Japan yesterday. Are earthquakes seen as a weakness or simply where the earth is most active or alive meaning not particularly a weakness at all? I’m assuming parts of the UK thousands of years ago had active earthquakes as around Cornwall we have massive rocks sticking out of the ground. One such rock is called Roche Rock”

3) An intersection of the sets 1) and 2) containing both of the above.
ref.

“brian u was awesome on sftw..my question is what is happening in inter stellar space beyond are universe..does it ever end or is it infinate…”

4) People with some personal agenda who think their comments are actually being read by anyone except the sad people (temporarily including myself) who cruise this page.
ref.

“i have a son who is studying astro physics at york university he is just finishing his 3rd year in june he wants to do work experience can you recomend anywhere at the moment hes applied to serbia to do a month there and he hopes to canada to a masters degree then somewhere to do his phd”

5) Genuine scientists and science-lovers.

It’s encouraging to see that a large cross-section of society is getting interested in science.
It’s disheartening to see that a large cross-section of society knows fuck-all about science and spells atrociously: ‘our’ spelt as ‘are’, ‘infinite’ as ‘infinate’, and ‘symmetrical’ as ‘semetricle’! (I won’t even begin on the poor abused apostrophe).

Sigh!!

p.s. reference quotes taken from Prof. Brian Cox’s facebook page.

It wouldn’t seem like an idea that would get the nod from a TV producer nowadays: a programme with people just sitting and talking about books. No special effects, no loud shouting, no insane plot lines. Just two notable people coming on each week and talking about the five books that they feel influenced their life the most. But of course, this is the BBC; maker of the best programmes in the world. see My Life in Books

Anne ‘Weakest Link’ Robinson plays the host, walking the two guests through the books that were significant to them at various stages in their lives; childhood, puberty, adulthood; joy, sorrow, hardship. Guests included Alastair Campbell, Peter and Dan Snow, Robert Harris, P.D. James, Sue Perkins, Sarah Millican, Larry Lamb…

Some really great books cropped up, books that I’ve enjoyed and love as well i.e. Richmal Crompton’s Just William series, Robinson Crusoe, The Count of Monte Christo, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Hungry Caterpillar…

As a bibliophile myself, it was beautiful and moving to see people really cherishing their books; author Robert Harris had his ‘Just William’ from when he was 7, with his name and address on the flyleaf. And he’s almost 54 now!

It obviously led me to think what books I would choose, so I’ll randomly write the first books that come to mind, and then maybe rank them.

Frank Herbert’s Dune (The series), Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, David Attenborough’s My Life on Air, J.R.R.Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, Barack Obama’s Dreams from my Father, Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Steph Swainston’s Castle books, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated, Martin Amis’ The Rachel Papers, Richmal Crompton’s Just William (The series), Herge’s Tintin, Goscinny & Uderzo’s Asterix and Obelix, Bill Waterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun also Rises, Iain (M) Banks (all), Charles Bukowski’s Factotum, Irvine Welsh (all), G.D.Roberts’ Shantaram, ……..(to be continued).

Monday eve, heading off to swim again. I Googled for a poem about water but didn’t like any. Here’s one by John Masefield that I remembered. It fits the bill:-

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea’s face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

- John Masefield

It flows beautifully.

… to a generation of acheivers that went before us;

Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, Gagarin, Tereshkova, Armstrong.

Sputnik, Vostok, Gemini, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz.

We, the current crop of Earth-bound no-gooders, are ashamed of the lack of progress since. As I watch this superb film, it is the year 2011, 10 years later than Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke predicted that humankind would be breaking free from its terrestrial shackles.

And yet we still do not have:

> Pan-Am flights to the moon.
> $1.70 videocalls to Earth.
> Manned Jupiter missions.
> BBC 12.

Although a healthy 60′s-era American-Soviet mistrust still remains.

p.s.
(and I’m happy about the ESA / NASA satellites taking solar pictures from opposite angles. Nasa SOHO page )

This is Pearl Jam’s (Eddie Vedder’s) view of fame:-

The waiting drove me mad, you’re finally here and I’m a mess
I take your entrance back, can’t let you roam inside my head

I don’t want to take what you can give,
I would rather starve than eat your bread,
I would rather run but I can’t walk,
Guess I’ll lie alone just like before.

I’ll take the varmint’s path, oh, and I must refuse your test
Push me and I will resist, this behavior’s not unique

I don’t want to hear from those who know,
They can buy, but can’t put on my clothes,
I don’t want to limp for them to walk,
Never would have known of me before.

I don’t want to be held in your debt,
I’ll pay it off in blood, let I be wed,
I’m already cut up and half dead,
I’ll end up alone like I began.

Everything has chains, absolutely nothing’s changed
Take my hand, not my picture, spilled my tincture

I don’t want to take what you can give,
I would rather starve than eat your bread,
All the things that others want for me,
Can’t buy what I want because it’s free…
Can’t buy what I want because it’s free…
Can’t be what you want because I’m…

Why ain’t it supposed to be just fun, to live and die, let it be done
I figure I’ll be damned, all alone like I began

It’s your move now…
I thought you were a friend, but I guess I, I guess I hate you..

-Written after a $12 corduroy jacket of Eddie’s was sold for $650

One of the more unusual plots for a book I’ve ever read, it reads more like a screenplay and indeed Guillermo del Toro is planning to make a film out of it. Really beautiful, mesmerising, oddly captivating; it’s a tale of self-imprisonment and exile, the pain of so-near-yet-so-far.

Argentinian builder Jose Maria murders his foreman and resorts to hiding in the four-storey mansion of a wealthy Senor where his beloved works as a maid. But she is unaware of his presence. As their lives continue things get more and more complicated betwen them, with Jose Maria gradually turning into a phantasm, flitting around unobserved and eavesdropping on secrets.

The title seems slightly out of place, it’s called Rabia in the original Spanish version (2004), and described by Le Temps as a “Vitriolic portrait of Buenos Aires society…” and yet I see a rather metaphorical detachment to much of the violence portrayed by the author. I certainly see not much by way of “… a portrait etched in acid of a Buenos Aires society menaced by economic and political crisis…” (ibid). Perhaps I’m missing some subtext here.

I was instead rather charmed by the prose descriptive style, which vividly brings to life all the characters and scenes as seen from the viewer/reader’s eyes, and the dialogues (both real and internal) are very naturalistic.

An excerpt follows:

One evening he heard “new” voices inside the house. Leaning over the second-floor banister, he could catch intermittent glimpses of a man in a dark suit and a woman who, from his vantage point, seemed to consist in little else but a bright yellow wig balanced on the points of two stiletto shoes which came and went almost hysterically beneath full white skirts, and which made her appear like an energetic fried egg.

For people unaware of Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), the Lebanese philospher and third best-selling poet of all time, here is a sample of his writings. The following passage was selected by Paulo Coelho in his book ‘Inspirations – Selections from Classical literature.’ (Penguin Classics, 2010)

The original passage appears in Kahlil Gibran’s book ‘The Prophet’, in the first chapter ‘The coming of the ship’-

…

And she hailed him, saying: Prophet of God, in quest for the uttermost,
long have you searched the distances for your ship.

And now your ship has come, and you must needs go.

Deep is your longing for the land of your memories and the dwelling place of your greater desires; and our love would not bind you nor our needs hold you.

Yet this we ask ere you leave us, that you speak to us and give us of your truth. And we will give it unto our children, and they unto their children, and it shall not perish.

In your aloneness you have watched with our days, and in your wakefulness you have listened to the weeping and the laughter of our sleep.

Now therefore disclose us to ourselves, and tell us all that has been known you of that which is between birth and death.

And he answered,

People of Orphalese, of what can I speak save of that which is even now moving your souls?

Then said Almitra, “Speak to us of Love.”

And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, I am in the heart of God.”

And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, it directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and
a song of praise upon your lips.

…

(copied from RepatAfterUs.com)

I unexpectedly found myself reading three economics books recently, so a comparison is in order.

> Alan Beattie’s (2010) ‘False Economy - A surprising economic history of the world’.

> Robert Peston’s (2008) ‘Who Runs Britain? ..and who’s to blame for the economic mess we’re in’.

> Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s (2009) ‘Superfreakonomics – Global cooling, patriotic prostitutes and why suicide bombers should buy life insurance’.

My favourite? Alan Beattie’s book I found by far the most engaging as it examines economic policy and trade from a historical point of view, using his understanding of trade to examine the developmental history of the world. What at first glance of the contents page seems to be a loose assemblage of chapters is actually quite well arranged and his story-telling is clear and riveting.

Peston’s account focuses on the recent climate as the title suggests, but he gives a very good account of the build-up of practices in the preceeding two decades that have contributed to the current mess. However Preston’s constant name-dropping becomes quite tedious at times!

Superfreakonomics is the follow-on to Freakonomics, the book that arguably defined the new genre of ‘behavioural economics’, or the use of economic theory to rationalise human beahaviour (eg. Tim Harford’s ‘Undercover Economist’). Like its predecessor, it is packed with unusual case studies and makes for very interesting reading. It should help the casual reader familiarise him/herself with broad economic theories.

Yes.

There was Superman, Spiderman, and now Rodent-Penis-Bite-Man.

The BBC webpage reports that ” ‘Rodent penis bite’ man may sue.”. What has he done to earn the title, I wonder. But I’m scared to look further, surely it can’t get better?

Here’s one line -

“The parties dispute whether the rodent was a mouse or a rat, whether Solomon was bitten or scratched, and the nature and extent of his injuries,” US District Judge Arthur Spatt wrote.

I’ve been trying to locate this graphic for sometime now; ever since I saw it on the BBC programme Q.I. (Quite Interesting) I’ve been meaning to blog about it.

It is a comparison by volume, where the small blue sphere on the left is all the water on Earth, and the pink sphere on the right is all the air on Earth.

The guy who designed this computer image, Adam Nieman, has really hit the spot in showing how finite resources both the Earth’s water and atmosphere are.

The Science Photo Library has this to say:- “The water sphere measures 1390 kilometres across and has a volume of 1.4 billion cubic kilometres. This includes all the water in the oceans, seas, ice caps, lakes and rivers as well as ground water, and that in the atmosphere. The air sphere measures 1999 kilometres across and weighs 5140 trillion tonnes. ”

a poem for the dreariness of short days and long nights.

Mean Time

The clocks slid back an hour
and stole light from my life
as I walked through the wrong part of town,
mourning our love.

And, of course, unmendable rain
fell to the bleak streets
where I felt my heart gnaw
at all our mistakes.

If the darkening sky could lift
more than one hour from this day
there are words I would never have said
nor have heard you say.

But we will be dead, as we know,
beyond all light.
These are the shortened days
and the endless nights.

-Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate.

I have been terribly remiss about updating my blog, so here’s an attempt at setting things right.

Lots of stuff happening; I’ll talk about the hols though.

Spain.
Objective: Run with the bulls at the San Fermin festival, Pamplona
Present: Ioan, Jessy, Adam, Hannah, and me
We flew to Barcelona, drove to our apartment in San Sebastian.

France.
Objective: Laze around Hannah’s infinity pool. And practice French.
Present: Ioan, Jessy, Hannah, Lexi, and me
We flew to Nice, and drove to Seillance in the mountains.

—-work in progress—-

Went to see this Woody Allen (directing, not acting) and Scarlett Johansson (acting, not directing) movie yesterday at Spinningfields. They’ve put up a large screen in the open plaza and are showing free movies every Thursday from 8:30pm. Petra was up for the experience, and I expected to bump into some of the badminton group as well.

The BBC had predicted an onset of rain at around 10-ish, so we were prepared to abandon at first signs of precipitation. It turned out we both had seen the movie anyway, and the ‘British-Upper-Class’ acting was annoying to say the least (except you, dear Scarlett. As ever, you were fab!).

I had brought a sleeping bag as well as a picnic blanket to keep snug, so all was going well, lying against a grass knoll with dusk slowly descending. There was something very charming about being there that time of the evening, with good company, the smell of kebabs in the air, and the happy chatter of people around. And then the rain came down. Petra had a brolly, and there were Spinningfield staff handing out plastic macintoshes. To the credit of all the Mancunians, almost everybody braved it through to the end. It was quite a unique experience to sit huddled under a brolly under seige from the winds and rain, sitting through a movie we both knew the conclusion of.

So it begins, this story, like everything else – with a woman, and a city, and a little bit of luck.

-”Everything is allow no problem here. Except the fighting. Fighting is not good manners at India Guest House”.
-”You see? No problem”.
-”And dying”, Prabaker added, with a thoughtful wag of his round head. “Mr. Anand is not liking it, if the people are dying here”.

The past reflects eternally between two mirrors – the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn’t do or say.

I was tough, which is probably the saddest thing to say about a man.

“… You‘re a good listener. That‘s dangerous, because it’s so hard to resist. Being listened to – really listened to – is the second-best thing in the world”.

Leopold’s was a place to see, a place to be seen, and a place to see themselves in the act of being seen.

“Ah. This is a Bombay gold dealer‘s no. It is a no that means maybe, and the more passionate the no, the more definite the maybe”.

“I make ends meet, as they say, and when they meet I get a payment from both of the ends”.

“When you judge the power that is in a person, you must judge their capacities as both friend and as enemy”.

The truth is a bully we all pretend to like.

What we call cowardice is just another name for being taken by surprise, and courage is seldom any better than simply being well prepared.

Gradually, I realised that the wiggle of the head was a signal to others that carried an amiable and disarming message: I’m a peaceful man. I don’t mean any harm.

“And make sure he doesn‘t learn any bad words. Don‘t teach him any swearing. There are plenty of arseholes and bastards around who will teach him the wrong sisterfucking words. Keep him away from motherfuckers like that”.

It was a wild speech that called them cowards and invoked Mahatma Gandhi, Buddha, the god Krishna, Mother Teresa, and the Bollywood film star Amitabh Bachchan in the same sentence.

Life on the run puts a lie in the echo of every laugh, and at least a little larceny in every act of love.

Raju’s task was to determine whether I could live with them. Johnny’s task was to make sure they could live with me.

Didier once told me, in a rambling, midnight dissertation, that a dream is the place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and the fear are exactly the same, he said, we call the dream a nightmare.

It’s a fact of life on the run that you often love more people than you trust. For people in the safe world, of course, exactly the opposite is true.

If fate doesn’t make you laugh, Karla said, in one of my first conversations with her, then you just don’t get the joke.

A novel by Gregory David Roberts, an Australian armed robber, heroin addict and prison escapee. The story is about his life on the run, beginning when he lands in Bombay as a stranger and working through extraordinary adventures living in the slums, joining the mafia, acting in Bollywood and standing with the Mujahideen, living, loving, fighting, healing.

It is an exceptionally powerful story of life in Bombay’s underbelly, with a richness and truthfulness about it that is lyrical. The portrayal of characters is nothing but genius with a true love for India shining through.

Very few books come close to this.

I’ve started a new List of Things I’d Like to Do before I Meet the Great Tortoise in the Sky. It is a work in progress and I thought it would be nice to throw it open to suggestions from my wonderfully wise and well-wandered readers. And you.

Just leave a comment to this post and I will update the list if your dumb idea makes the cut.

No suggestion is too vague or precise. It could be something you have done or something you can comfortably lie about having done. It could be something you heard someone else doing or something you aspire to do in the future. We might even do it together!

I entertain the vague hope that this list will galvanise me into action and it might possibly even convince you to do something about your lazy-ass life!

I believe such a list is called a ‘Kick-The-Bucket List’.

Facts and figures.

Sights seen: British Museum, Kew Gardens. St. Paul’s Cathedral (in time for Sunday Mass). Hyde Park. Royal Albert Hall. Tate Modern. Hammersmith Apollo. Southbank. Regents Park. Covent Garden. Holland Park. Tower of London. Trafalgar Square. Big Ben. Marble Arch. The Burroughs. Piccadilly Circus. Leicester Square. Spitalfields. The Golden Hinde. Stag Beetles.

Distance covered: approx 60 miles.

Bridges crossed: Hammersmith, Putney, Westminster, Millennium, London, Tower.

Food and Drink: The Coach and Horses, Kew. Fuel, Covent Gardens. The Crispy Duck, Chinatown. The Slug and Lettuce, Soho. Nando’s, Southwark. The Pastry Shop, Euston Station. Various hot dogs, delicious and otherwise.

Celebrities spotted: Graham Norton, Johnny Vegas.

Highlights.

Has to be the Stag Beetle display at Kew Gardens. A bunch of tree trunks. Nothing else.

The Fuel balcony in Covent Garden is one heck of a cool place to be. Especially with pitchers of Long Islands.

And the Best-Burger-Ever Award goes to the Coach and Horses Hotel for a succcccculent burger and secret recipe mayo that was very memorable.

The celebs were like bookends to our visit; Graham Norton with two dogs at a Hyde Park hot dog stand by The Serpentine as we set out on a fine Saturday morning, and Johnny Vegas coming the opposite way in Euston Station as we were dashing with our bikes to get the train home to Manc.

p.s. we may have been in the presence of more celebs over the course of the weekend, but it’s fitting that I only recognised comedians.

For the first time in the UK an incumbent Prime Minister joined in live televised debate with the leaders of opposing parties.

Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg was always going to fare better than the other two as he was going in with nothing to lose and all to gain. With Labour’s Brown and Conservative Cameron pandering to him on the night (I suppose they were instructed not to publicly pick on the new kid) he grew a set of cojones and came out trumps. With the publicity he’s gained the Lib Dems have gone from long-standing laughing stock and also-rans to serious contenders. Betcha my Grannie to your old shoes they’ll try to shred him in the next two debates.

The performance of the other two? Brown looked stolid but tired and Cameron was patronisingly slimy as ever.

I guess what annoys me most about these so-called debates is that I, conceivably prematurely, foresee an inevitable decline of British politics towards the kind of show-boating and back-stabbing one-upmanship that will denigrate the almost faultless lives that our leading politicians lead.

Hah!

What really bothers me actually is the fact that we’ve now agreed, nay, demanded! as ‘The Public’, to be impressed by the person who’s most well-turned-out. Because that’s (pretty much) all that the televised debates will be able to highlight.

With record viewing figures (average 9.4 million, peak 9.9, which “beat even Coronation Street”) being quoted in the papers, it almost seemed as if they were competing against the other “talent” shows that abound nowadays.

Fair enough to say, the media is having its predictable field day with the ‘who-looked-at-whom, who-wore-what’ inane chatter.

I despair.

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly.

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain.

You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansions
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud.

You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins.

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
That even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do.

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.

And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand over your grave
‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead.

-Dylan

Tragedy in Moscow. I remember when a bomb went off in the underground floor of the Okhotniyy Ryad shopping mall next to the Kremlin. This is going to have serious repercussions, with Medvedev speaking in emotive terms.

Blair joins the Fray. Blair praises Brown. Desperate times with desperate measures indeed.

Rooney Injured. Munich pay back for 1999 with 2 late goals to finish 2-1 up in the first leg against Man U. But England fans will be more concerned about Rooney limping off at the end.

Ricky Martin is Gay. Whod’ve known?

I got this film through the post (via LoveFilm) and was disappointed at seeing the title. I didn’t remember choosing it and worse, it was rated 15 (I swore to myself as a child that as soon as I could legally watch 18 Certificate films I wouldn’t bother with any other type. I mean, what’s the point?) so I expected I had added it to my list while having a fit of “Culture Guilt”. This obviously meant the film would be “arty”, which in the world of DVDs mostly equates to ‘boring’.

But I was wrong. This was indeed a rather slow-paced movie, with the one lead actor on screen 95% of the time. But this wasn’t art, it was sci-fi at its simple, emotive best. Sam Rockwell is Sam Bell, an employee of a large organisation working alone on a 3-year contract on a far-side lunar base helping extract helium for use on Earth. He has an accident and then discovers a chilling truth about his existence on the moon. The film is a great example of what can be done with a good storyline. It stays firmly in classic sci-fi territory, but manages not to feel dated at all. I was quite moved by the film and delighted I saw it.

Apparently it’s won Best British Independent Film 2009 (2 wins, 7 nominations), and was nominated for 2 BAFTAs in 2010. Well done Duncan Jones for his directorial debut. All on a budget of $5 mill.

Sam Rockwell is really convincing in his role. And casting Kevin Spacey for the voice of the robotic-servant module GERTY 3000 was sheer brilliance.

Spotted: Best newspaper story headline of the current year (so far) in the free Metro.

Regarding the England Cricket team to line up against Bangladesh -

“Cook copes without Onions”

Captain Alastair Cook was left without bowler Graham Onions after an injury.

“Mesdames et Messieurs, j’ai l’honneur de vais vous presenter le soir de African Soul Rebel.”

Only the greatest night! Like, what, forever!

It was Sunday night at the Bridgewater Hall. As ever, the moment of walking into Manchester’s Crown Jewel of Musical Experiences was one to be savoured. I had Ioan and Jessy for company, and as we sat at our Circle seats I wondered whether the artists I’d suggested we see would be met with approval.

It opened with a bang. The Orchestre de Cotonou, strongly reminiscent of Buena Vista SC and Orchestra Baobab yet memorable in their own right, were groovy and more suited to a open air beach bar where gorgeously honeyed people sip cocktails into the night, swaying along with the palm trees. The horns, the bass, the drums, the big band sound, yeah man. They’ve been going for almost 50 years, and listening to them really felt like a bit of a time-warp. The guys from Benin were over much too soon for my liking.

I’d like to stay positive about the second act, the Kalahari Surfers. I’m assured they played and continue to play a not insignificant role in the political arena of South Africa with regards to the anti-Apartheid movement. However, while listening to them the thought kept occuring to me that three people were jerking off on the stage and expecting me to clap. Perhaps all music doesn’t sound good in the Bridgewater, as I previously thought. I can tell you that their electro-funk / kindergarten-poetry-recital effort certainly didn’t. And talk about stage presence! I was bored so numb I actually closed my eyes and recalled with no small delight a memorable rainy day spent indoors watching paint dry. But the organisers are surely to blame for buying a bull and asking it to give milk.

But perhaps it was a well-engineered pause, before the total immersion ahead.

As we sat down for the third time, we saw musicians enter with the tamalane, flute, djembe and guitar. As they took their places, two lithe girls entered stage left with calabash in hand and walked to the right, the strings started plucking and they opened with the choral ‘Kayi ne Wura’ (Good evening to all).

How would I describe her music? The rythms are mesmerising and primal. And when she, not too often, just opens the throttle and lets rip there’s almost an audible rustle of everyone’s goosebumps across the hall. And the subject is very homely; women and their lot, love and respect. She has always been critical of the treatment given to women in her home-town Bamako, Mali. There is castigation, but there’s also hope. And not understanding a word only made it better.

The time just flew by.

I first heard Oumou from a CD I picked up at Manchester’s Central library. It was a BBC World Music compilation with the soulful ‘Ne Bi Fe’ (I love you), which I shamelessly ripped. It led me to finding the 2-disc compilation album ‘Oumou’, which I treasure. I’ve now bought her new ‘Seya’ album.

Merci beaucoup pour tout.

Heavy hung the canopy of blue
Shade my eyes and I can see you
White is the light that shines through the dress that you wore.
She lay in the shadow of the wave
Hazy were the visions of her playing
Sunlight on her eyes but moonshine beat her blind everytime.
Green is the colour of her kind
Quickness of the eye deceives the mind
Envy is the bond between the hopeful and the damned.

An old Pink Floyd song, just sprung to mind like bumping in to a old friend on the street.

Dear Valentine,

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Valentine’s Day is just consumerist bullshit,
Now haven’t you got some ironing to do?

Tony “The Lapdog” Blair will be facing questions all day today regarding decisions made to send troops in to invade Iraq. So far the questions haven’t been very probing; he’s been allowed to ramble on about his opinions by a rather deferential Chilcot & Co. and seems to be in control of the proceedings even. Let’s see if he can (ever) be held accountable for his actions and if this time he can call in some favours from his pals in high places (there must be quite a few Lords owing him one) and find a weasely way out.

After all, it might set a bad precedent if our leaders had to explain their decisions..

On another front, can’t wait for Snowboarding Sunday! We shall be visiting the beautiful, staggering slopes of Val d’Trafford and make the run down the bone-crunching Le Chill Factore. Shoop shoop baby!