Places

It has been a while since my last post on here. Again like on my other blog, it has not been because of a lack of topics but rather the need to write a post that is different compared to other ones. So here goes a lighter read, very light in fact, a list of places I have travelled/lived etc etc..

Day/Night Visits
Birmingham
Brightlingsea
Ipswich
Leicester
Mersea
Nottingham
Northampton
Norwich
Solihull
Southend
Stratford
London (here and there lol)
Wycombe
Wolverhampton

Short Stays
Blackpool
Brighton
Liverpool
London (South)
Portsmouth

Lived
Colchester
Wivenhoe (probably the best town!)

Places I wouldn't mind visiting ...
Bristol
Bournemouth
Cardiff
Leeds
Manchester
Nottingham (again, but this is different!)
Scotland (in particular Edinburgh and Glasgow)
Sheffield

Machines and Humans

Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to.
-- H. Mumford Jones

Building machines is something that no single person can do and requires teamwork. One may come up with the rough sketch, another may build the parts and someone else might do most of the assembling. Jones perhaps recognises this and so we have the use of the word "ours". No-one person can claim ownership, somewhere along the line they would have to share the glory with someone else. This is illustrated with the use of the word "proud".

Machines are built constantly to aid life whether it is in big industries or for domestic purposes in homes. The use of the phrase "is the age" suggests this as much in that every generation will try and out do the previous generation therefore we should be satisfied in our achievements that will improve our lives.

The quote is balanced however with the second part of the sentence. Somewhere on another blog I had read the quote which went along something like this "if it isn't a competition, why are we called the human race"..(if that didn't make sense I apologise but I hope the meaning is conveyed some how). Anyway, it is about how sometimes thinking is frowned upon simply because it disrupts an aspect that is comfortable and thus now challenged. For me I remember the novel 'Animal Farm' a satire on Communism and Russia, where society was advised and believed everything that was told to them. Anybody who did otherwise was punished.

Machines will follow orders, humans will challenge.

Reviewing Arvind Adiga's 'The White Tiger'

As 'The White Tiger' by Arvind Adiga won the booker prize, I wanted to see what the fuss was all about. And so I decided to read it myself. What did I make of it?

The format was an interesting one. The main character, Balram a.k.a Munna a.k.a the White tiger (refered to by a school inspector), decides to write a series of letters to the prime minister of China in order to tell him the truth about Bangalore and more so about India as a whole. An innocent child who had a bright future according to the school inspector is taken out of school in order to help his family ease their debts. From there on begins a journey for Balram where he learns a lot of things, good and bad from the situation he finds himself in at various stages of his life. Born in 'the darkness' as he puts it Balram travels to the capital Delhi before finally landing in the call centre capital of India, Bangalore. The letters gradually shift towards the more recent past and then we find Balram reveal his present status.

This novel a first for Adiga, is refreshingly honest about the part of India we rarely hear about, especially in the Western World. There are many more people like Balram in India who we rarely hear about and worked tirelessly under a system that can often be corrupted. The democracy is 60 odd years old now, so is still finding its way but the novel reveals much of what happens in parts of India.

Adiga tries to do a contrast with many things, the rich vs the poor, the north vs the south, capitalism vs communism, India vs China, master vs servant, men vs women and so forth and for these reasons alone it is a book that must be read in order to get a broader perspective of life in arguably the biggest democracy in the world.

Issues, Issues and News

So many things go through a mind sometimes it is difficult to give detailed attention to one. This has been the problem in recent days and hence there wasn't a post on this blog.

I am just getting used to my PC now safe from any external dangers i.e. viruses, spyware (I hope). Although am not too impressed that my new 5.1 surround speakers are not working at all. So I have a deaf computer or should it be dumb computer since it cannot communicate to me?!

Should wikipedia change the way it operates? The owner Jimmy Wales is thinking of having senior staff look at modification of entries by new or unknown users. So if I wanted to add something, it might not be accepted straightaway. Problem with this system and its been mentioned before is that staff simply wouldn't be able to cope with trying to look at every change being made. The other idea that came up I think was charging users. Now the thing I love about Wikipedia is that it is excellent as a rudimentary source and it is free. A few fools who vandalize an entry, while it is amusing to see these, should not force Jimmy and his Wikipedia force to work in a different way.

Walked in my town centre the other day and saw a KFC advert on one telephone booth and a 'change 4 life' advert on another telephone booth. Found it pretty amusing to see them both side by side. I have to admit the KFC advert is a little rubbish "top urself up for £1.99", just reading the message I'm sure it strengthened the campaign for euthanasia in this country. The picture changed the meaning of course implying that KFC meal would re-charge our energy like electricity and mobile phones. Still a rubbish advert though!

Finally I have just finished "designing" a flyer for a community fun day. Hopefully this should receive better feedback considering it is only my 3rd attempt to create a flyer. It must be said that though that photoshop and design don't really go hand in hand. And the less said about my creativity when it comes to art the better; art in pictures that is, art in words may be another matter altogether.

What is creativity? Can you define it?

Few weeks back I had watched the bollywood movie 'Taare Zameen Par', a story about a dyslexic boy who struggles in his ability to spell words, has impairement in motor skills yet has a fantastic gift which is only discovered by a determined teacher. What has that got to do with the title of the post? This I'll come to later in the post.

Creativity for me is the enthuasism, active or passive to work towards something that forces us to think and assess our views about the world we live in. Creativity is present in a range of talents bestowed on us. Some of us can write simplistic stories that have deep meanings, some of us can a paint a wall bringing an infusion of colour that leads to a renewed sense of hope. Some of us play melodious music that shifts our emotions, while some can make us laugh with their perspective of mundane aspect of life. And so the list goes on.

Coming back to the movie mentioned earlier, the main character's gift is an drawing and painting. The kid wanders around his surroundings, gets immersed in daydreams and does everything in his own pace. He refuses to do things at the pace everybody does. A creative person is often an introvert prefering to work on their own. On the other hand, she or he can also thrive in extrovert settings because it is a place where opinions and conceptions are challenged.

Research indicates that the left side of the brain is more logical, organisational while the right side of the brain thrives on emotion, another characteristic sometimes involved in creativity. But to say that those who predominantly use the left side of the brain aren't creative is to say to code things into black or white which should never be the case. We have all the gift of creativity. It is just that it is seen on a different channel.

Gunners escape from Ninian Park

Watching the Gunners performance against Cardiff in the FA Cup I was left a little frustrated, annoyed and perplexed. And when the final whistle went I blew a sigh of relief even though the momentum of the game had shifted immensely towards the boys from North London.

Decision number one I found surprising was that to play former Cardiff lad Ramsey from the start. The boy is only 18 and although am happy for his progress through the season, I couldn't help but think Wenger massively underestimated the effect the Cardiff crowd would have on Ramsey. Clearly the occasion seem to have got to him with several passes going astray and even getting out muscled by the Bluebird players. This set the tone for the opening period in which truth be told Cardiff City should have been out of sight.

Decision number two that was surprising was that Eboue played. This boy when on song cannot be faulted for commitment but his enthusiasm or lack of enthusiasm at times leads him to make things difficult for himself. He too, like Ramsey passed a man in charitable mood and also received a yellow card for his frankly, pathetic attempt to win a penalty kick.

The introduction of Diaby had me nervous as well but I think it was the first time the boy had a positive impact as a substitute. Tactically, as well, Wenger should have played a 4-5-1 . Ninian Park is a compact ground and the Gunners should have won the midfield battle before outrunning the Bluebirds. Using this formation also Bendtner could have played on the right wing like he did against Hull and Diaby could have replaced either Eboue or Ramsey more so and given us the direct pace and width.

Nevertheless a draw wasn't the worst result in the world and with perhaps a stronger team Cardiff could be in for a hiding at the Emirates and with a relatively easier draw with either the Baggies or Burnley in the next round, FA CUP success looks on the cards.

It is written..

So finally, I saw the much talked about film 'Slumdog Millionaire'. In the summer of 2008, I resisted another media hyped movie in 'Batman' purely because I didn't want to follow the crowd. The difference with Slumdog was that as a Mumbai born kid a portrayal of my home city was always going to intrigue me. And this was the case even before the media momentum began to accelerate towards towards the positive.

I have to confess, I haven't read the novel written by Vikas Swarup, which it is based on. And you haven't either let me tell you this now, this book has significant variations from what I know. Naturally this is a given, Boyle commented this had to be done in order to bring the Bollywood element of romance to a wider audience. As a viewer of Bollywood films this film was a refreshing sight. The glamour shown in Bollywood films was starting to get a little predictable. This film kept many elements real about the city I used to live in and also combined elements of a historic, social, and political nature but kept it brief so as to not distract the audience from the main story itself. The direction also deserves praise for the effortless way it combined past and present.

When I saw the nominations for the Oscar couple of days ago (this was before I actually saw the movie itself!) I was surprised that Dev Patel who plays 'Jamal' and Freida Pinto who plays 'Lathika' weren't nominated for an Oscar themselves. However given the relative lack of dialogue involved, by Freida especially this wasn't too surprising. Nevertheless the efforts of both cannot be downplayed either. Both were acting in their first films and did tremendously well. Dev Patel 'Jamal' who also acted in the UK teen sitcom 'Skinz' plays a role completely in contrast to that in the sitcom and certainly has a bright future.

One key question though, may be the answer to this is "director's/writer's license" but how did the kids learn to speak in what can be termed as 'fluent english'?