Retired policeman Jens flies the Union Jack

If there is one thing to take away from this series, it is that we should be grateful to live in London and not Bradford or any place up north. Being a student who spends most of her time in central London, apologising even when someone steps on my feet during a frenzied rush hour, I couldn’t envisage the brutal intolerance people face on the show. However, I did expect the drama to be somewhat exaggerated, owing to this being a Channel 4 production. It seems that the producers were more interested in appealing to the type of people that watch such tripe as Big Brother and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, rather than those who are genuinely interested in contemporary social and cultural trends.

So in that vein, the show presents us with eight selected candidates, most of whom have failed to pass the British citizenship test, to spend some time in a house together, ostensibly to get to know each other better and learn about the different types of people living in the same city. However, the show wouldn’t be entertaining enough if it did not descend into a stereotypical mockery showing ethnic minorities to look and behave exactly as you would expect them to do. Naturally, there’s always the odd one out who takes either his religion or his culture to extreme lengths and the show wouldn’t be the same if it didn’t select exactly those people with a weird tick. One of these was a devout Muslim man who was so dogmatic about his adherence to daily religious rituals that he managed to annoy everyone in the house, including the other Muslim guests.

Then we have Mohammed (the name is almost a synonym to the word “ethnic”), a taxi driver whose perception of British is limited to his experiences with drunken youth roaming the streets in the early hours of the mornings. He doesn’t shake this idea out of his head when he speaks of Brits or even when he meets the more respectable Maura and Jens on the show. His misogynistic demeanour is so appalling that he prides himself on choosing to tap his feet to raise attention in the house rather than using his voice. Not to mention the fit he threw when the presenter asked about his reaction if his daughter was to “come back home with a white boy.” You can dismiss the question as irrelevant since his daughter is married, but remember the exaggerated dramatic effect
mentioned above.

At the other extreme, we meet a retired officer who finds it completely normal to use phrases such as “black bastard” and shrug them off as banter. The horror continues in the pub as another Caucasian man feels the need to harass the traditionally dressed Sabbiya by feeling her legs and advising her to “wear a mini and show off your titties.” Both men, despite being ethnically “white,” present “being British” as nothing more than being an oversexed bigot.

More than anything else, this vile representation of the people of Britain left me thinking that the show should have first tackled the question of what it means to be British before launching into educating people on how to become British.

Making Bradford British is available to view online via 4OD

Mario Party 9 on Ninetendo Wii

Finishing up Lent term like a boss? Resigned to some of end-of-term procrastination? Look no further, our games roundup for this March has just what you need to inhibit your educational aspirations this term’s end.

First up, an iPhone game, and a couple of pertinent questions. Do you like music? Do you like stealing? No, I’m not berating you for your questionable methods of music acquisition; I’m referring to Beat Sneak Bandit for the iPhone, iPad and or iPod Touch. You are the eponymous Beat Sneak Bandit, a sharply dressed, groove-busting thief whose bodily movement is limited only by his ability to get down. He is tasked with “reacquiring” the clocks stolen by the nefarious Dr Clockface and while two wrongs don’t make a right (or a decent plot, it seems), our favourite bandit makes up for it with charming graphics and a powerful soundtrack, brother. Play it out loud like it’s 1999 on your daily commute if you wish, but on the later levels you’ll find yourself reaching for the headphones as the difficulty cranks up and your concentration is put to the test. Beat Sneak Bandit is available now for £1.99 in the App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

The Nintendo Wii has enjoyed a comfortable existence as the go-to video-gaming platform at many a social gathering. However, those of us stuck with two left feet or a unique kind of tone-deafness (Singstar still tells me I’m awesome!) have found the curious white box a little less enticing. Thankfully, Mario Party 9 has arrived and with it a whole new reason to dust off those Wii remotes and invite a few of your chums around for a good thrashing. Through its nine iterations the premise has been the same: traverse a virtual board game set in the Super Mario universe with each roll of the dice bringing your team closer to victory, or a huge hissy fit ending with someone upturning the table (except it’s virtual, so they can’t). Think Monopoly, crossed with Snakes and Ladders interspersed with your favourite iPhone games. It’s the iPhone-style mini-games which are the real bread-and-butter here, pitting you against your fellow players in mad 3 minute button-mashing frenzies. From a dizzying dash for mushrooms (drug reference heavily implied) to a strangely satisfying lumberjack “chop-off” (in spite of the pun you’ll have to trust me on this one), the games are as fun as they are varied. Your usual selection of cutesy Super Mario characters are out in force and the game incorporates a new team mode which takes the rivalry to new friendship-testing proportions. Mario Party 9 is available now for the Nintendo Wii, from £29.95.

Finally, like the chips you find at the bottom of the bag, we’ve left the best for last. Mass Effect 3: without a doubt the biggest release of March and probably one of the few heavyweight contenders until Assassin’s Creed III finally stops taunting us in October. The franchise that many describe as the Star Wars of video games has us painted a deep spacey blue however as we learn that the game will have day one DLC. For those of you wondering why you’ve not heard of this new boy-band, let me elaborate. DLC actually stands for “downloadable content,” paid add-on packs created by game developers which extend your purchase with new game modes or extra storylines. They are generally made available after the game’s initial release and do not usually affect the canonical story in any way. Sadly, neither is the case with ME3, meaning fans who purchase the non-special editions will need to fork out another £10 if they want the definitive experience. Tedious money-grabbing aside, the jaw-dropping visuals, steady pace, and galactic clash of civilisations which have become the hallmark of the Mass Effect series are dutifully provided by developer BioWare, bringing the trilogy to a fierce, uncompromising conclusion. An eclectic mix of RPG (a turn-based, role-playing game) and classic shooter, the breath-taking pace takes no prisoners as we begin with ol’ reliable Commander Shepard on trial for his part in events which took place in Mass Effect 2. Of course, things are cut short by an alien invasion: Reapers have invaded Earth and Shepard, naturally, goes on a recruitment drive to see if there isn’t something he can do. This is certainly a game whose prequels need to be played. Both to understand the story, and to pay due respect to one of the most influential video games of all time. Mass Effect had always been envisioned as a trilogy and the final piece does well to tie up the story. A must-play. Mass Effect 3 is available now on XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3 from £29.95.

FIFA 12 on Xbox 360

Over the years many games titles have captivated us and left us wanting more and more. Now we only have to wait a year for most of our favourite titles. With the industry churning out sequels at a record rate, what does this practice do to originality in gaming?

An example of one of the many beautiful sequels this year is The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, released five years after the release of predecessor Twilight Princess. But Nintendo did not dawdle in those five years. Instead, they refreshed the series with a control system built from the ground-up, experimented with previous titles and created a new graphic style that pushes the Wii to its limits. It was an extensive change to the “Zelda formula,” as the series seemed to be repeating itself. Skyward Sword resulted in mass bowing and chants of “we are not worthy” from the Zelda community, which was not surprising, given that the series is widely regarded as the greatest of all time. The yearly “100 greatest games ever” features we shall see soon will be placing this gem of a title on a high pedestal.

If all sequels were this good, would we really complain? We should. If we carry on playing the same titles, we run the risk of being narrow-minded and less open to other gems. There is also the risk of video games becoming too typical and boring and in the extremes of this case there could be another video games market crash.

During the festive period we were spoilt with so many quality titles. Apart from the fact that none of these titles were stinkers, they have another trait in common. All are sequels: Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Batman: Arkham City, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, FIFA 12, Gears of Wars 3, Saints Row: The Third, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception.

You would be forgiven for thinking that with the look and size of this line-up, there would be a street fight in the charts. But all of these titles have sold exceptionally well, despite the competition from each other. Saints Row: The Third easily outsold its predecessor, despite predictions that it would be swept-away in the rush. Money is clearly there for developers to use for original projects, but for some reason we rarely see any new titles. Making games is a costly process, but developers are just filling the market with titles that are in most cases just a continuation of their predecessors with slight tweaks. An expansion pack if you want, that costs four times more than an actual one, but justifies the price with longer game time.

The FIFA series is one of the most successful yearly updated games ever – the series is Electronic Arts’s cash cow and produces a title every year that has a near identical experience to its predecessor, with a graphical upgrade. But fans do genuinely enjoy the yearly updates. Student and series fan Faradh Maharoof says, “It’s a brilliant series that brings all your mates together, I don’t really buy games much anymore,  but when I do, I would definitely always pick up FIFA.” According to Electronic Arts, one of the largest games producers, “Fans don’t actually complain about sequels – editors do,” says Tammy Schachter, vice president of public relations for EA. “Besides, they do the same for Hollywood movies.”

“Unlike film, there’s typically no huge secondary market for video games, such as DVD or cable TV sales,” writes columnist Dan Ackerman. “So big initial sales are key, which leads to an abundance of caution and an over reliance on sequels.”

We saw so many sequels released at Christmas, but this could just be a matter of timing, as the lead up to Christmas is the most profitable time of the year for the games industry, so much so that no triple A titles are released during the summer. Combine this with the fact that people are always willing to come back to something familiar. A tried and tested formula will always reap rewards, especially with the world’s economy still on edge, people will understandably only spend on what they deem as worthwhile. It is also true of other mediums. Some of the most anticipated films of 2011 were sequels: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (eighth instalment), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (fourth instalment) and Cars 2 did exceptionally well at the box office. TV is also guilty, with fans waiting for months for the next series of their favourite shows, like The Walking Dead, South Park and Two and a Half Men.

Where does this leave originality? Well it is not dead, for one, it is just hard to jump the “it’s is expensive to make a game” hurdle, for a new franchise to succeed it takes an awful lot of marketing, which of course also means a lot more money. The Batman Arkham series is an example of an originality gamble gone right, with Warner Bros giving Rocksteady Studios one of their most prized assets as well as the money, resources and time to fully bring to life their vision of the Dark Knight.

These are good times with so many prequels we can pick on the cheap. But with the way the market seems to be shaping, we could be seeing even more sequels filling up release schedules, not that many will complain if they match the quality we’ve seen this year. The stagnation of the industry is something to consider, but realistically it is not as much of a threat as in the past – gaming is now considered a pastime, not a passing fad. But if people have seen something enough times, they will surely get bored of it. Video games make more money than the film and TV industries but this could change. The coming months will shape the way things are done in the games industry for years to come.

Julian Bird as Lear and Jessica Guise as Regan

King Lear. Shakespeare’s tale of the eponymous king whose kingdom, and person, is undone by court intrigue and an infectious madness as those around him fight for power. In the end, the kingdom is rightfully restored under the guidance of the honest Albany. The conclusion of this epic tragedy teaches us – in part thanks to political pressure on playwrights at the turn of the seventeenth century – that the house always wins.

It must be a daunting task to put on one of Shakespeare’s most celebrated plays; the more interesting recent productions are those that add a touch of originality to the story – perhaps most easily done by relocating Lear’s court to a more recent era. The director, Grace Wessels, has used the excess and glamour of the 1920s as a setting for what appears at first to be an interesting adaptation. The audience is treated to a mock cocktail party preamble in which the cast are seen to swan around exchanging gossip and compliments. Yet the play typically opens with a rather tense scene in which Lear divides his kingdom among his three daughters, making the initial, carefully-constructed, amicable atmosphere appear to be a strange decision by Wessels. This set the tone for the rest of the play – there was no further reference made to the 1920s and the cast were undermined in performing a very obviously Jacobean drama – sword fights and patriarchy – in smart 1920s suits.

The Rose was originally an Elizabethan playhouse, discovered in 1989. It is still under construction, and the indoor building site was used to depict the moor that the characters amble across in their varying stages of insanity. This gave the actors a great deal of space, and added further depth to the relationship between Lear and his subjects – their loyalty evident in the way they protect him. It was perhaps overly cinematic though, and with the actors a good 30 yards away, it was difficult to make out their behaviour let alone facial expressions. This area of the stage was dimly lit and bore an uncanny resemblance to the arena on Robot Wars – unfortunately, Craig Charles failed to make an appearance.

The performance was flat across the board, the characters appeared to lack any real direction in a shortened script that did at least manage to keep the most relevant scenes. It has to be said that Alex Woolf’s performance as the deceitful Edmund was generally very good – he added some welcome depth in the way in which he allowed the audience to engage with his motives and action. Felix Trench played the Fool in an interestingly sinister manner, his relati0nship with Lear was convincing and his character’s showmanship was superbly executed in an entertaining performance.

The Rose’s King Lear was, on the whole, a real shame. The 1920s theme collapsed from the very first line and the cast then proceeded to drain the script of any meaning. This is not to condemn the performance outright – there were some good moments, the stage is interestingly separated and the actors will certainly improve on what was a lacklustre first night.

Rating: 1/5

King Lear is at Rose Theatre Bankside until 31 March 2012

While this is technically a “house” record, nothing quite fits perfectly with that label. So many different influences find their way into these tracks, that by the album’s end, you’re left with a familiar, yet oddly uneasy feeling. Nods to Balearic pop, Boards of Canada style IDM, UK bass music, 80s synthpop, all weave and intertwine throughout ƒIN, never jarring and always in sync with the flow of the record. Vocals are sometimes overt, but mostly he employs a variety of samples that consist of chanting, vowel sounds, burbling or even a horror movie scream, utilising them all as just another sonic element in the mix.

ƒIN is a wonderful headphones album, where multiple listens are necessary to get the full effect. The most startling aspect to all this is how he keeps everything in control, the builds and releases never seem calculated or unearned, all feeling organic and in the right place.

Lead track “Depak Ine” starts things off on an odd note, a downtempo beat and percussion is bandied about with various sounds of nature, like birds and crickets, and a ghostly wash of chanted vocals. This melange of sounds morphs into a more upbeat track, adding more forceful drum programming and banks of keyboards.

Talabot finds his muse with two tracks featuring Pional, who adds his smoky vocals to the house rhythms. “Destiny” multi-tracks his vocals into an amazing chorale, volleyed around by a dense mix of several different synth patterns. He reappears on the intense build and release of final track “So Will Be Now…,” his voice echoing all over the track, the bubbling basslines working with the climbing drum programming. He also uses Barcelona compatriot Ekhi Lopetegi of house rockers Delorean, whose dreamy vocals ride sweetly in the middle of the mass of buzzy, trippy synths on “Journeys.”

The remaining tracks are all instrumentals, with various uses of interesting vocal samples. “Missing You” sounds like it takes tribal chanting and spins it through a rubbish disposal factory, the drums getting more liquid as the track moves, with harsh blasts of synths pounded around the mix. “Oro Y Sangre” takes the aforementioned horror movie scream and pairs it against rolling organs and synths, whirring bass lines, and retro drum programming.

What sounds like the penultimate track, the dance floor heavy beats of “When The Past Was Present,” combines de rigueur blasts of male diva vocals along with increasingly rising synth chords that is pure house bliss.

One of the charms of ƒIN is that among all the house beats he takes time to go on detours, with more atmospheric, IDM type material. Like the post-dubstep track “El Oeste,” with its broken beats and haunting washes of synths, the skittering percussion and glitchy synths of “H.O.R.S.E.,” and even the slight 80s synth-funk of “Estiu,” all of which bring a nice range of styles and breadth to the album.

ƒIN is some of the most gorgeously produced house music of the year, and is as effective on the dance floor as it is on headphones. It is a constantly engaging work that is immediate as well as rewarding after multiple listens. Indeed, I have yet to hear many albums that sound just as fresh after 20 listens. It is a remarkable introduction to this intriguing producer.

What is your staple food?

There is a saying in Russia that if there is no bread with a meal, then it is as if one has not eaten at all. I love great bread. Finnish rye is my absolute favourite.

Contrary to what the picture suggests, Nutella is not my staple food.

Do you have a favourite café or restaurant in London?

I love Middle Eastern food, so I tend to avoid such venues. It just asks too much will power not to gain five pounds in one sitting. I tend to stick to Japanese restaurants – you will often find me in Sushi Hirobi on Kingsway. Japanese food hits the right balance for me of enjoyment per unit of will power invested. Similarly, during the holidays, we tend to stack up on ginger snaps wherever we find ourselves. They are not as great as Christmas cookies, but it’s the only way to survive the holidays.

This is all in line with a famous poem by Blake: “He who binds to himself a joy, Does the winged life destroy; He who kisses the joy as it flies, Lives in eternity’s sunrise.” It’s crucial to know which joys are safe items for in flight kissing. Life is a  very delicate exercise of optimisation under constraints.

What is the strangest food or dish you’ve had?

I grew up in Belgium where you find horse and rabbit in butcher shops. Rabbit in Belgium is actually sold with the head on. This is due to an old law that dates back from some war or another. Apparently, rabbit and cat very much taste alike and cats were disappearing fast in town and sold as rabbit when there were food shortages.

My hometown also cherishes a recipe of lung simmering in onions and vinegar. But then again, it was part of the staple that I grew up on – so it does not seem strange to me. What is strange is that we don’t think twice about throwing half of the animal away, and furthermore this preference for, say, steak over heart, lung, udder or what have you is not shared across cultures. I do draw the line at chicken feet in dim sum – the image of chicken feet digging for worms in the mud kills my appetite.

The other day I was working my way through a cookbook with soups. Every single one of them was absolutely delicious. Then there was a cauliflower soup with an infusion of camomile flowers. It seemed absolutely disgusting to me, but then, the book had never let me down. Well, induction fails sometimes… the whole batch ended up in the drain. Take it from me: cauliflower soup with camomile is really foul.

I read an article recently that insects are really very efficient engines that can turn just about anything into proteins. So grasshoppers seem to be the way of the future. I must say that I feel some resistance to eating these critters – and yet if very similar creatures run around in the sea, like shrimp, I love it. These food taboos really make no sense at all, but I guess that it’s not only the heart that has its reasons that reason does not understand (following Pascal) but also the palate.

If you had to cook one dish for a dinner party, what would it be?

I like a sense of adventure when I have dinner guests. So I tend to just open the cookbook and cook something I have never cooked before. It kind of works most of the time, but I remember one occasion when I had found a soufflé recipe in a French cookbook. I was in Boulder, Colorado on the foot of the Rocky Mountains at the time. Now, as I learned the hard way, you simply can’t make soufflé at high altitude. It looked frightful and tasted like an omelette with sugar. My dinner guests took a few spoonfuls and were nice enough to say that it was “interesting.” Well, you win some, you lose some.

Is there a particular dish that you cook more often than any other?

We get a food box every week from Riverford, an organic food delivery company. I highly recommend it in the big city. It’s cheap, terrific quality and it makes you feel connected to the land. Most of my food consists in making very basic seasonal soups or stir-fries, with bread, loads of bread. I value the simplicity of dishes in which one recognises every single raw ingredient. We are what we eat and, as the Shaker hymn says, it’s a gift to be simple.

If you could give students a tip about food or eating, what would it be?

A good trick in home-cooking is to spend more money on cheap food types. That is, buy high-quality onions, rice, potatoes. Delicatessen stores may charge twice the price of supermarkets, but it’s worth it and at the end of the day it will have minimal effect your food budget. You may even save money, since you’ll be more inclined to eat in or to pack lunches.

Another tip is to eat food that is in season. There really is no need to ship in cherries from New Zealand in midwinter or to crank up the heat in greenhouses for watery tomatoes. And in any case, Pooh Bear tells us that it’s not the eating of the honey that is his favourite thing in the world but the moment just before he starts eating the honey. So cherish the time of anticipation. You’ll be doing the climate a favour and it’s good for your soul.

In a multicultural school like the LSE, I really should be able to say something about religious and secular dos and don’ts about food. But frankly, I am confused about it and so what follows is hardly advice. Part of it is that such dos and don’ts build walls between people, since it stops people from sitting down for a meal in each other’s houses and creates an in-group mentality. That’s the part that I find worrisome. If the dietary restrictions keep us from forming community with each other then I don’t have much respect for these restrictions.

But then, I do have some sympathy for dietary laws as such. Think of the Kosher prescription not to mix milk and meat. There does seem to be something repulsive about killing a calf and then boiling it in its mother’s milk – the very milk that was meant to feed it. And maybe we do have a deeply felt need to let our eating be rule-constrained. Note that dietary laws are not a strictly religious phenomenon: secular culture can’t seem to get enough of quasi-religious food obsessions with detoxing, food allergies and various dieting guru schemes.

What are your favourite soft and hard drinks?

Being Belgian, I like Trappist beers of all kinds – Westmalle Double is my favourite. My absolute favourite beers, though, are the various US microbrewery versions of the India Pale Ale – the hops flavouring is out of this world. India Pale Ales came into being in the eighteenth century because beer spoiled on the long journey on the ships from the UK to India and the excess hops were supposed to preserve it. Hence the India in the name. But the US microbreweries really took the hops one notch further.

As to non-alcoholic drinks, I drink pots of infusions which I have shipped in by the kilo from the Bremen Tee Handel in Germany. The Germans give their concoctions all kinds of endearing names like “Grandma’s Berry Garden.”
And then I do appreciate a Scottish whisky. Anything but Laphroaigh though – you might as well chew on peat moss.

Professor Luc Bovens is Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method

These talents are prominently displayed in his 2011 book The Social Animal. Described as “the happiest story you’ve ever heard,”  it centres around the lives of two fictional upper-middle class characters, Harold and Erica. Brooks makes clear from the beginning that while neither is exceptionally smart or talented, they still manage to lead deeply fulfilling lives due to their “noncognitive skills.” The format is innovative – Brooks narrates Harold and Erica’s rise from childhood to death in a perpetual present moment, thus articulating what it is like to live in the year 2011 for people of all ages. He peppers the narrative with digressions on the latest scientific research (so much so that it sometimes feels like the story is a digression from the latest scientific research), and descriptions of Harold and Erica are frequently interrupted by recent findings from the likes of the Universities of Pennsylvania and Toronto on child development and commentaries on the ideals of the French and British Enlightenments.

Brooks’s goal in telling the story of Harold and Erica is to highlight the importance of the unconscious mind on human behaviour. His fascination with “priming” experiments is palpable throughout – Brooks loves relating psychological studies about how people who have been subtly manipulated at an unconscious level change their conscious behaviour. Variations on “people tend to overpay for apartments when a picture of an attractive woman is placed in the realtor brochure” make all sorts of appearances in The Social Animal.

Brooks is at his strongest discussing social psychology; it becomes apparent as the book progresses that this is truly his natural habitat. He does a laudable job of synthesising a voluminous literature on human cognition into a coherent whole without straining or sensationalising the research. Brooks can describe both the sordid aspects of humanity (46 per cent of aroused men would have sex with a 12-year-old girl) and our better angels (contrary to popular belief, our happiness actually increases after many years of marriage, such that long-married couples are as happy as newlyweds) with equanimity. He also demonstrates an impressive ability to talk about the experience of being human with an appealing blend of scientific rigour and soothing, semi-spiritual language – he can discuss vague concepts like “character” and “street smarts” without the overwhelming neuroticism to qualify that tends to plague other popular science books (especially those by academics).

That Brooks is an excellent writer of psychology is important, because the story of Harold and Erica quickly loses steam. As wonderfully complex as Brooks evidently believes humans to be, he certainly struggles to inject any sort of depth into his characters – even at their best, Harold and Erica have all the vitality of a rock. Brooks seems to understand this, however, and their actions begin to seem like increasingly obvious stage props for another disquisition on some aspect of life.

Brooks also struggles to adopt necessary vocabulary to deal with the heavier neuroscience that occasionally appears in The Social Animal. To paraphrase David Foster Wallace (a remark in a review of a John Updike novel), he displays a roughly Newsweek-level comprehension of the science. For example, after a humorous riff on the pseudoscience of “neuromarketing,” Brooks proceeds to talk about brain regions that “light up” or “activate” in fMRI studies – the exact same language that he just finished mocking. But again, Brooks seems to understand this limitation and adjusts accordingly, and most of the book tends towards the softer end of the spectrum. His ventures into heavy neuroscience might be lacking, but they are usually judicious and timely.

The tone is beguiling but uneven. While humorous at times (his description of management consulting is memorable, although poking fun at management consultants is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel), he tends to pack his humour into dense almost black-hole-like bursts. The beginning of Chapter Five, in which the young Harold sits down to do his homework, has so many jokes jammed into such an incredibly small amount of space that I quite frankly didn’t even know how to respond. And while the writing is usually polished as would be expected, there are a few passages of bizarre clumsiness – “the angry dog of her anger,” “he collapsed to the floor into a tangle of body parts,” “she wanted to punch someone and see a face explode in a flash of blood.” How does a face explode? What is a flash of blood?

The true power of The Social Animal is that it will cause readers of almost any stripe to step out of their comfort zone. Journalists will get a primer on the emerging focus in the scientific community on systems theory and how it might revolutionise both science and our understanding of complex entities. Neuroscientists will get a dose of political philosophy; anthropologists a dollop of economics; philosophers a sampler plate of developmental psychology.

These intersections offer rich data points for public policy. Consider that children learn fastest in face-to-face settings and slowest through audio/video lectures (much to the chagrin of techno-utopian optimists who think the internet is the answer to any and all questions about education). Or that despite what would seem to be an intuitive universalising effect of globalisation and technology, cultures are actually moving farther apart. What does it mean for public policy that in 1950, 12 per cent of American teenagers claimed to be important people, while in the late 1980s, 80 per cent did? Or that children raised in wealthy families tend to hear 32 million more words spoken by the age of six than those in poorer households?

While these findings are quite compelling, Brooks is ultimately interested in synthesis. And here, his performance is mixed. It is often hard to know when Brooks is providing a valuable summary of the research and when he makes up for a lack of understanding with comely vanilla language. For example, how is one to make sense of the claim that “mental character is carved into the hinterland of the mind,” or “in… sublime moments, internal and external patters are meshing and flow is achieved?” While Brooks seems to have an appreciation of the complexity of the human condition, one major drawback is that he continually details the attempts of social scientists to categorise human beings into simplistic frameworks without providing any judgment as to the merits of the frameworks themselves. We see the world divided between askers and guessers; rationalists and romanticists; life sliced into discrete stages of “adolescence,” “odyssey,” and “adulthood,” etc, etc.

Despite his hesitation to castigate these models as overly reductive, Brooks’s great strength is his inherent scepticism towards faddish thinking. Fads are quite easy to get swept up in (they are fads for a reason), but Brooks has a refreshing way of framing the present intellectual consensus as part of an on-going evolution rather than an endpoint, and he intuitively understands that our unquestioned truths and methods of thought might well be as ephemeral as the movements of the past.

In the end, however, the main complaints are rather minor. Despite the weak rending of Harold and Erica, the landscape surrounding them is lush. Brooks does an admirable job integrating the latest research on the human condition from all sorts of disparate fields and melding them together into an impressive finished product. He is able to talk about basic research and still reflect on its broader thematic importance with flowery language, something that is impossible to do in academic literature and rare in popular science. The Social Animal will surely inspire in readers awe at the brain’s abilities, a heightened awareness of its weaknesses, and above all, a rethinking of what guides our behaviour. Perhaps witnessing the machinery of the unconscious mind laid bare might cause some of us who fashion ourselves very important to think twice.

The Social Animal: A Story of How Success Happens (2011), David Brooks, Short Books, Paperback, £14.99

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, 2007

In her unofficial biography, Karen Blumenthal chronicles the experiences, people and events of Steve Jobs’s remarkable life while trying to identify those aspects which ultimately shaped the vision of the founder of one of the most successful companies of all time. The book is a concise, thought-provoking history of Steve Jobs, Apple and its influential products.

Inevitably, every unofficial chronicle of Steve Jobs’s remarkable life will be compared to the much-lauded and official biography by Walter Isaacson. Happily, I have not yet had the chance to indulge in Isaacson’s version, so it was with limited knowledge but a keen interest that I sat down to read Karen Blumenthal’s Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different. Flicking forward to the bibliography, (I am a student of history after all) one comes to appreciate two things. Firstly, the depths Blumenthal has traversed in order to ensure that she accurately captured both the semblance and spirit of “employee number 0” (a Jobs interview with Playboy Magazine anyone?). Secondly, the sheer amount of material on her subject: aside from various articles and books dedicated to the man, Jobs has featured prominently in countless corporate histories chronicling Apple, Pixar and Atari – all companies he played a significant role in.

What emerges from this intimidating mass of oral accounts, naughty magazine interviews and company histories is a well-paced, thought-provoking narrative stitched together with the poignant and inspirational, if slightly morbid speech Jobs gave to Stanford graduates during their commencement ceremony in 2005 (well worth a viewing on YouTube if you have not seen it). His parting words at the end of that speech, “Stay Foolish. Stay Hungry,” are reprinted by Blumenthal on the final page in the iconic iPod typeface to hauntingly powerful effect, giving this reader the inexplicable urge to go-it-alone and break out as an entrepreneur. Of course, Jobs was never really alone. Even after initially being pushed out of Apple, his charisma convinced many of his loyal, if not enduring colleagues to follow him on his ultimately unsuccessful endeavour with NeXT. It is in his interactions with those around him that Blumenthal highlights his less endearing features. From a penchant for dismissal to cheating a close friend out of a few dollars, this darker side
to the man is now standard fare for any account of his life. It is common knowledge among the technology community that while a visionary leader, he was far from the perfect human being.

Some attention is given to Jobs’s turbulent but ultimately enduring relationship with Bill Gates, that other maverick of computing. Blumenthal has gone to some lengths to solicit opinions and anecdotes from individuals who knew both men, as well as effectively utilising one of the few public appearances, and indeed interviews the two men agreed to: The Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital conference in 2007. The result is that, to the casual reader, who may know a little of the rivalry between these two tech giants, a new dynamic in the relationship is revealed. We learn that both men admired one another’s achievements while at the same time fundamentally disagreeing with the other’s approach. We also learn that the relationship was closer and more personal than it appeared, with Blumenthal referring to Gates occasionally dropping by the Jobs household through the “unlocked” back door.

Blumenthal goes to admirable lengths to educate the reader on some of the more technical topics in which her subject’s history is rooted. A charming Mac OS “window” encapsulates these nuggets of information at the end of each chapter, leaving their purpose pointedly unambiguous. While the technical discussion on the computers is more amateur than academic, it fits the purpose of the book well and gives the reader enough information to continue reading comfortably without wondering what is meant by an Apple II or a Newton. An illustrated time line and concise glossary tucked away at the end of the book are also helpful in visualising and understanding some of the technology that Jobs was influenced by and indeed created. Peppered throughout the narrative are images depicting a dashing Steve Jobs (awkward yearbook photo: check) at various points throughout his life. In the spirit of Apple’s early advertising campaigns (and the interests of publishing costs) the images are rendered in glorious black-and-white, which you can’t help but linger on – and flick back to – as Jobs’s fascinating story unfolds.

Perhaps one reason to read this take over the officially sanctioned Isaacson iteration is length. Coming in at 268 pages, Blumenthal’s biography is less than half the length of Isaacson’s epic. Yet as a reader you never feel that the story is rushed or lacking. This is aided by the periodic references to the Stanford graduate speech, enabling the book’s logical but concise progression, or, as Jobs would say, “connecting the dots.” This concision is possible when you consider Blumenthal’s remit: to write about “The man who thought different.” Certainly, the author charts this territory well, planting the seeds of Jobs’s creativity early on in the book. Whether referring to his decision to drop out and take a calligraphy course, or admiring his adoptive father’s craftsmanship, “For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through,” Blumenthal later brings these key moments to the reader’s attention in a meaningful way: linking calligraphy to Steve’s pioneering introduction of different typefaces in the first Mac operating system, or a nod to his appreciation of craftsmanship in chronicling his obsessive perfectionism (he once forced an employee to try 36 different shades of green for the background of a presentation). I would find out later that the book was actually aimed at the teen market, and in hindsight the shorter length, double-spaced type and bite-sized chapters are telling indicators. I would, however, argue that Blumenthal’s concise, relaxed writing style and episodic structure lends to the busy student as much as it does to the Apple-toting teen and in no way detracts from the enjoyment of the book.

Coming in at less than 1 per cent of the price of that iPhone tucked away in your pocket, Blumenthal’s unofficial biography is well worth a purchase. For the ultimate “fangirl” or “fanboy” experience (tainted with a hint of Amazon-induced irony) Apple lovers can purchase Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different on their iDevices via the Kindle App for a very reasonable £4.65.

Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different (2012), Karen Blumenthal, Bloomsbury, Paperback, £6.99

Mediaeval Arab depiction of Aristotle teaching astronomy to other Greek scholars

There are some areas of history that even historians have a pretty patchy knowledge of. There are certain periods that, because you don’t study them personally, you have to rely on general knowledge garnered from what you do know and, dare I say it, popular history. The focus of Jim Al-Khalili’s book falls right into that category.

In Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science Al-Khalili explores a relatively forgotten and obscure part of history that covers a span of seven centuries from the collapse of the Roman Empire to the High Middle Ages. Throughout this period, scholars from across the Arab world, under the auspices and patronage of numerous Caliphs, translated, expanded and surpassed the works of the great scientists, philosophers and mathematicians of the ancient world. By combining their works with ideas from other regions and peoples, such as ancient India and the Babylonians, the Arabic scholars helped to classify, regulate and professionalise science, mathematics, geography and countless other fields of research, effectively creating the basis for much of the modern science and research taking place today.

What Al-Khalili has attempted to do is rectify the common misconception that much of the knowledge from Late Antiquity was somehow buried in the sands of time and forgotten throughout Europe’s “Dark Ages,” only to be reawakened and appreciated in the Renaissance. However, it is not that people choose to believe this story over the truth, as he seems to imply. It would be wrong to argue that we are all Western-centric people who either scorn the supposed achievements of others or patronise them. The problem lies in the fact that people have little to absolutely no awareness of the golden age of Arabic science. Al-Khalili in his introduction, explaining his early childhood in Iraq before Saddam Hussein came to power, tells us that this Europe-centric story was in Iraqi schoolbooks as well. This is hardly encouraging.

As a historian at the LSE I consider myself reasonably knowledgeable and I did have some awareness of this golden age. However, the sheer scale of what went on was far beyond anything I was aware of. The breadth of translation and research ranged from astronomical and astrological texts, geography, biology, chemistry and alchemy, and even poetry and philosophy. For example, I had a vague awareness of the importance of Arabic and Indian numbers from GCSE maths, but the vast range of numerical systems from Rome, India, the Babylonians and the Arab world itself, and their integration into and impact on science today was staggering.

One of the most fascinating and useful parts of this book however, was not even its core subject. Al-Khalili begins his work with a brief, balanced and fairly comprehensive chapter on the birth and early history of Islam itself. Given that the subject matter is based entirely in the Muslim world this is incredibly useful. I personally found it incredibly interesting as this is once again, sadly, a historical narrative of which I only have a vague knowledge. The way in which Islam’s relationship with inquiry, reasoned argument and scientific research develops when compared with that of Christianity, especially as the centre of research shifted back to Christian Europe and the Church played an increasingly oppressive role was particularly thought provoking.

The relationship between science and any religion is of course interesting, so I appreciated Al-Khalili’s slight detour to discuss this first real relationship between the two. His description of the birth of the great city of Baghdad was also fascinating, especially for most of us today, whose views of the city are heavily skewed in a negative way. Colourful descriptions of the great centres of learning and the characters that inhabited them come naturally to Al-Khalili and some of the highlights of the book are not the actual science, but the stories and anecdotes about the people behind it.

Equally so, his discussion of the end of this period, as the great works are translated back by European scholars as the ideas permeate into Europe from Muslim lands in the Middle East and Spain, helps to explain how this story came full circle. It is impressive to see how at a time when much of the world’s communication was rudimentary and social attitudes were often conservative, science and the pursuit of knowledge remained a universal interest across cultures.

Al-Khalili presents all this information, it has to be said, quite methodically – after all, he is a theoretical physicist and not a historian. A good third of the book runs through each topic: alchemy, libraries, geography, algebra, philosophy, medicine and so on, covering each one, the prevailing views and Al-Khalili’s own opinions. However, this can quickly become quite dense. Perhaps it is just part of being a historian, but fascinating though the stories of Al-Jebr and Al-Khwarizmi are (they give their names to “algebra” and “algorithm” respectfully), the discussions of algebraic terms and quadratic equations can become tiresome. Each chapter ends, however, with a clear statement of the importance of what has been covered and it is these parts that are truly the most informative.

It is not all praise though. Al-Khalili is more than ready to criticise the mistakes and failings of the figures he discusses and is quick to point out that we shouldn’t always raise them up as paragons of virtue and reason. In his discussion of geography and early attempts to calculate the size of the earth for example, he acknowledges their successes but makes sure we take this with a pinch of salt, as their methods of calculation were exceptionally rudimentary and lacked the rigour of their peers in other fields.

Perhaps the thorniest issue Al-Khalili addresses is that in his conclusion; the relationship between Islam and science today. The impact of centuries of religious conservatism has undoubtedly suppressed the flourishing research that was found at the end of the first millennium. Of course, Europe itself saw centuries of religious repression of science and it is only in the last few centuries that it has emerged from the oppressive shadow of organised religion. As a scientist, Al-Khalili admits that he is unashamed of criticising religion’s faults in this area. However, he makes the point that there’s more to this than just conservative religion. The Arabic world has seen upheaval in the form of war and colonial rule, as well as neglect and stagnation. Nevertheless, at the dawn of the twenty-first century there is certainly hope that it could once again become a centre of scientific research, especially as preconceptions in the West (heavily influenced by religious discourse) begin to be broken down and as centres of learning are reenergised. Al-Khalili remains optimistic about the future.

This is not a book for light bedtime reading, unless you think you will find the intricate details of the origins of the Pythagorean theorem heavily stimulating in the small hours. It is however, a real eye-opener and opens up a historical period and a dynamic of knowledge that has largely been forgotten and ignored. It has realigned my somewhat layman’s understanding of the development of Western thought, both in science but also philosophy and the arts. For this alone I think this book is worth a read. After all, if it taught me anything it is that for the inquisitive mind, a fresh knowledge of both new and old ideas can develop anywhere, anytime and completely change the way we look at things. Even while doing a book review for PartB.

Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science (2012), Jim Al-Khalili, Penguin, Paperback, £9.99

Rauffenstein, Maréchal and Boeldieu

One of the first things Joseph Goebbels did when the Germans occupied France during the course of the Second World War was to order the seizure of all prints and the negative of La Grande Illusion. Such was the power of Jean Renoir’s anti-war masterpiece. It stood for everything the Nazis hated. The original nitrate negative was thought to be lost for decades, until it was rediscovered and restored in the 1990s; with a new digital restoration, Renoir’s pacifist message is clearer than ever before, while still retaining its poignancy.

Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin) were on a reconnaissance mission before being shot down by Captain von Rauffenstein (Eric von Stroheim). They are then transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp where they meet other French captives, including Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio). Ironically, this is a war film without a single battle scene. Renoir’s camera serenely roams around these characters, silently observing these prisoners as a microcosm of war, quietly expressing the nobility and futility of it all.

The nonchalant Boeldieu and the stiff, Teutonic Rauffenstein are both aristocrats cut from the same cloth. They have both dined at Maxim’s in Paris, courted the same woman, shared the same acquaintances, and they are – most importantly – bound by their duty to the war. Yet they are a dying breed, a fact Boeldieu recognises when he tells Rauffenstein, “Neither you nor I can stop the march of time.”

Renoir grounds his film in the characters’s humanity, despite being divided by class. The aristocrats are being gradually replaced by the working class and parvenu, epitomised when Boeldieu sacrifices himself to allow Maréchal and Rosenthal to escape. Boeldieu proves to Rauffenstein that a gentleman’s word is now worthless by falsely promising him they will not attempt to escape. In the face of rising fascism, Renoir subverts stereotypes through Rosenthal, a nouveau riche Jew, who generously shares his food parcels with his fellow prisoners, despite their teasing of his Jewishness. Even Elsa (Dita Parlo), a German who lost her brothers and husband in the battles of Verdun, Liège, Charleroi, and Tannenberg – “our greatest victories” – provides food and shelter for the escapees.

La Grande Illusion is ultimately a critique of social, political, racial divisions, which are all irrelevant in war, and a case for unity in shared humanity. One can perhaps hear Renoir’s voice in Rosenthal’s when he says, “it is a grand illusion” in response to the claim that it was a war to end all wars.

Rating: 5/5

La Grande Illusion is at the BFI Southbank from 6 to 19 April 2012 and is available on DVD and Blu-ray from 23 April 2012