Month: January 2010

Categories
Reviews TV

The F word final

Gordon Ramsay chose his winner of the Best Local Restaurant 2010 and it is Lasan, due entirely to their brilliant if a little arrogant chef Aktar Islam. I would not be at all surprised to see him go on to open up his own restaurant at some point down the line.

I’m a little disappointed for Jay Scimshaw and The Pheasant but on the night perhaps he was a little too adventurous with the food he prepared and so the diners preferred the food of Lasan.

I think off the back of this competition that both chefs will go far and should be winning Michelin stars of their very own in the not too distant future.

Categories
Reviews TV

The F word semi-finals

The F Word has been looking for Britain’s best local restaurant and this week we are down to the semi-finalists, the final will be broadcast tomorrow.

I think that if the competition really is about finding the best restaurant then Gordon Ramsay made the wrong decision in the first of the semi-finals. He chose Lasan over Santa Maria because he believes that Aktar Islam the chef of Lasan has a ton of potential, however if the decision was being based upon the restaurant as a whole then given the evidence presented in the show Santa Maria as a whole worked better.

True Santa Maria have a narrower repertoire but if your restaurant produces the best steaks in the country then what more do you need?

The second semi-final was more clear cut because The Pheasant won out in all areas and in Jay Scrimshaw they have a chef that is willing to push the boundaries of his food and create dishes truly worthy of Ramsay’s three star restaurant.

Based on the evidence so far I think that The Pheasant should win it because despite the genius of Aktar Islam of Lasan the service is not quite at the same level as that at The Pheasant.

Categories
Politics

Labour Party coup or clever ploy on Brown’s behalf

I’m perhaps far too cynical but the apparent coup by Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt appears to me to be nothing of the sort but instead is a ploy to drum up support for the leadership of the beleaguered Prime minister.

It is merely a play being put on for the benefit of the country to show that the parliamentary Labour Party are behind their leader. I believe that neither Hoon nor Hewitt wish to see Brown ousted from office and have done this to force the backbenchers and ministers who have been sniping in private to put up or shut up.

So far it seems to be a gamble that has paid off as no one has come out in support and the media are reporting on this as a failure.

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Uncategorized

The mathematics of roots produces beautiful imagery

The beauty of roots [via]

Categories
Books Reviews

Review: One Bullet Away

A very good military memoir written by Nathaniel Fick, former Captain, First Recon. USMC. Also it is a good companion piece to Generation Kill as Fick is the platoon leader of the US Marines that Evan Wright rode with during the Invasion of Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

However Fick’s time in Iraq only makes up the second half of the book first comes the story of how he became a Marine officer and the account of his first battlefield command in Afghanistan.

In addition we get at the end after First Recon.’s mission is done little moments that Evan Wright didn’t get to witness such as when Fick takes the platoon to the ancient city of Babylon for a bit of historical sightseeing. They meet a distinguished older gentleman who had been an archaeologist who gives them a guided tour of the site. The man’s first words to Fick which make him laugh are “Call me Ishmael”.

Colbert remarks that in only two years they’ve followed two of the campaigns of Alexander the Great – across Afghanistan and Iraq – but that he doubts they themselves will be remembered in the same way. Ishmael gets tipped probably what is to him a years wages by the platoon for his excellent tour.

Categories
Movies Reviews

Review: Avatar

Avatar

Categories
Copyright

Happy Public Domain Day

January 1st is Public Domain Day, the day when the copyright terms for many works expires, which in many cases is 70 years after the death of the creators unless you live in Australia where it is merely 50 years. [via]

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 would have entered the public domain today in the US if they hadn’t repeatedly extended copyright terms.

For Bradbury’s book, this means that the reading public, the braille printer, the budding playwright, the school library face either higher prices, or legal restrictions on reuse or both. And they get no benefit from it. Clearly, the incentive of 28 + 28 years was enough to encourage him to write the book and the publisher to publish it. The evidence is that.. it happened. Retrospectively extending copyright is deadweight social loss — harm without benefit.

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Uncategorized

Civil Liberties 2009

Henry Porter believes that 2009 was a bad year for civil liberties.

It was not all bad news though as there was an increase in the levels of awareness about the erosion of civil liberties as more and more people became affected by the encroachment.

One particular example is the large number of innocent people in the DNA database and the great difficulties and apparent postcode lottery in getting oneself expunged from the database. Damian Green writes that DNA retention hampers policing.