If..Else Log

• Posted on: 26th February 2007
• Tags:
• books
• reviews
• recommendations
• novels
• 2007
• words

It always amuses me to see the surprise reaction when I mention that I enjoy reading.

"What? You Read? Books? You mean programming books, right? No?"

Personally, I find that there's a simple joy from curling up on the sofa with a good read and so am always on the lookout for recommendations on books to read. However, as someone reminded me recently, you have to give to receive and so, here's a list of the books I've read so far in 2007.

The Book Thief

It was probably the gorgeous looking cover that first grabbed my attention, and the idea of Death as the companionable narrator that helped pull me in but it was the charming and lyrical writing that really won me over. The Book Thief recounts the story of Liesel, a 9 year old girl growing up in the midst of a world war. Struggling to survive the darkness of Nazi Germany, she's comforted by being taught both words and kindness by her foster father. Indeed, it's a love of words which not only leads her to become the eponymous book thief but also indirectly leads her to the humanity that lies behind a war-torn nation. Playful at times (especially, Death's narration), tragic in others but always moving. A lovely and recommended read.

The Secret History

Where The Book Thief takes a complex setting and retells it with innocence and gentle simplicity, The Secret History is almost the opposite; taking the setting of an arts college, Donna Tartt explores how obsession and emotion intertwine and culminate in a modern Greek tragedy. Narrated in the first person and in hindsight, it tells the story of how a student finds himself accepted in a group of reclusive Classics students, an act which begins with acceptance and friendship before the inevitable tragedy of human emotion leads to an accidental murder and the eventual emotional breakdown of the group. Whilst the complex but well-written story is lovely to read, it does over-steep itself in melodrama at times; nonetheless, it's an beguiling and suspenseful read.

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes collection

This probably doesn't quite qualify as a book but I love Calvin and Hobbes too much to care:) If you haven't read Calvin and Hobbes, then you owe it to yourself to take a look. And if you do, then you probably don't need me telling you twice…

The Shadow of the Wind

When a father takes his son to a library of rare books and gives him the choice of any book, it leads a young boy into a tale of intrigue, murder and doomed love. After Daniel Sempere chooses a book by an unknown and supposedly unrenowned author, he finds him the centre of attention by a mysterious stranger and the tragic circumstances behind the author of the "Shadow of the Wind".

Whilst a fairly enjoyable read, the Shadow of the Wind reminds me of a Dan Brown novel, not only in the way it fashions murky intrigue but also in it's single-faceted characterisations. However, in the same way that The Da Vinci Code didn't overly suffer from the weak writing, the (writing) flaws aren't necessarily fatal for Carlos Ruiz Zafon novel. It's a pleasurable enough read but more one to borrow than to buy.

Anansi Boys

I loved Neil Gaiman's American Gods, and whilst Anansi Boys is less epic and more comical, it's an equally delightful read. The main protagonist is Fat Charlie, an ordinary guy with an ordinary life who has finds his life suddenly become more than ordinary when his dad, the trickster Anansi, dies. Gaiman's dark humour shines through in what is a modern fairy tale of family love and self-acceptance. Anansi Boys does take a while to get going but it soon becomes a page-turner.

Moneyball

Being british, I have to confess that Baseball is both a sport which strikes little interest in me. However, I was a fan of Lewis' Liar's Poker and the favourable writeups of Money Ball across the web were enough to convince me to give this a go. Telling the story of how the Oakland Athletics, a poor underdog in the moneyrich world of Baseball, and how their canny manager exploited the Baseball market bias and weaknesses in drafting players to beat teams with many times the bankroll. As with Liar's Poker, it's Lewis' engaging writing that help make Moneyball a good read even for non-baseball fans.

Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze?

I like trivia and I like collecting trivia which is why, back when I did Physics in college, the back pages were the main reason for me reading the New Scientist. If you've read any of the New Scientist "Last Word" books before, you'll know what to expect. Everyday questions are answered for the layman. You'll either find it a pointless read or, if you're like me, a fun way to wile away the time.

Empress Orchid

I decided to pick this up after I saw both my sister and a friend reading this. Empress Orchid is the story of the mother of China's Last Emperor and her struggles in the court of Imperial China. Whilst I enjoy books set around historical eras, I found myself struggling as Orchid did with her endeavours in the forbidden palace. The narrow confines of the experience, the one-dimensional characters and the difficulty in empathising with any of the protagonists meant that I can't really say that I enjoyed the read. It does pick up slightly towards the end of the novel, but it's still not a book that I would personally recommend. That said, my sister enjoyed it so YMMV.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive

Jared's previous book (Guns, germs and steel) was a brilliant look into some possible explanations for the rise of Western Civilisation. Exploring Easter Island, Viking Greenland and the Maya, Jared takes a brave stab at the other side of the coin by attempting to look into possible reasons why certain societies fall and perish. However, whilst Guns, Germs and Steel managed to succeed with well thought out reasoning backed by case study, Collapse is less successful. In examining specific circumstances and societies, it does a decent enough job but it's in trying to extrapolate and weave these explanations where it falls short. Whether it's due to the small sample set or the narrative, the analysis feels neither substantive nor authoritative to be truly convincing. Collapse is a well written read which works best as a collection of lessons and case-studies into failed societies; however, it perhaps would have been better if it constrained it's ambitions a bit more.

Over to you

Looking back, that does seem to have been a relatively busy couple of months of reading ¹. Whilst I'm generally a fast reader, even when I was young², this was more due to having obtained a few books courtesy of Christmas, being without home internet access for most of this year and having a lazy new year:)

However, you can never have too many books to read so going back to the reason for this post; what books are you reading and what books would you recommend?

1. It's actually a bit worse than even the above list suggests as there's a few books I left out because they were part of a series or because I haven't finished them ("The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana" which I don't like so far and thus, probably won't finish and "Never Let Me Go" which I do and probably will). Now, if only bookstores ran loyalty card schemes… [back]
2. As an amusing aside, I remember a time during Infants or maybe Junior school when we had reading periods. I'd finished reading the book that I was given and got up to ask the teacher if I could have another one. The teacher, looking at her watch and the rest of the class still making their way through their books, didn't believe I could have finished and proceeded to quiz me all about the book. Despite answering all her questions correctly, I don't think she was entirely convinced on that occasion though she did give me another book to read [back]

• Posted on: 6th November 2006
• Tags:
• blogging
• lessons
• routine
• regularity

If you were to take a random sample of successful blogs, you will find that, irrespective of their subject matter, country of origin or background, they are all likely to share a number of common characteristics. Good writing is easy enough to identify; whether it's biting analysis, insightful discussion or just sheer wit, content is very much king. Other characteristics that would probably lay on this list would be the blogger themselves, whether it's their personalities, depth of knowledge or background as would the topics that are being discussed.

Yet, whilst the writing and the writer are by far the most significant factors, what is often overlooked is that the regularity of the posts themselves is of substantial import. Whilst quantity rarely makes up for quality, all the blogs that I read have a(n approximate) consistent posting pattern¹. Without trying to sound too tautological, a predictable routine results in regular reads; expectation is a useful tool in hooking readers. Imagine the impact of a missed publication of a daily newspaper or the Olympic games being delayed by a 6 months or so. Or to continue to stretch the realms of believability, what if you couldn't rely on their regularity? Suffice to say, their popularity would suffer somewhat.

So if a regular posting pattern is so important, how do I explain my utter failure at adhering to my own advice?

Procrastination defined

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I enjoy blogging. I enjoy writing and enjoy having a platform to talk from. And yet, my last few main posts are about or have accompanied site redesigns rather than being more interesting fare.

The problem is that when it comes to blogging, the decision involves more than deciding what to write (about). As with all things in life², there's a cost as you have to weigh up what the benefits of writing that blog entry are against what you're giving up to do so. The time it takes to write that post on "Why Google bought YouTube" is time that could have been spent on development, watching a movie, spending time with family and friends or rather amusingly, reading someone else' blog post.

It's partly for this reason why I find "services" such as PayPerPost so unconvincing. Why would you want to give up your valuable time, not to mention your credibility, for a meagre 10 dollars?

Getting back on track

What makes procrastination so tempting is the way I write posts. I probably spend far longer on blog posts than many; I admire people who write off-the-cuff as it were but my style is more deliberate. The other factor is that I write as much for myself as for anyone else. That this blog is read by others is a nice side effect but, strictly speaking, not the main driver. The problem is that often, I would start writing a post on a topic, gathering up information and evidence for and against a given point, writing the introduction, bits of the middle and the end and then, having been satisfied with the process, leave it there. Definite room for improvement there.

Heading forward

One possible solution may be to tie your hands. Making a public commitment, that is removing options or at least removing some of the incentives, can make decisions easier. So here's mine; I'm going to write at least on a bimonthly basis. I'll try to aim to better that but at the least, there'll be a post every two weeks.

Let's see how this plays out…

1. Note that I used the word consistency. Different blogs succeed with widely different posting patterns. Some like 37SvN and Kottke manage to deliver on a daily basis whilst others have a less vigorous routine. What's important is a predictable pattern and not the specifics of the pattern itself, though there would be a strong correlation between post frequency and readership. [back]
2. As Netscape found out, simply being on the internet doesn't make you magically exempt. [back]

• Posted on: 15th January 2006
• Tags:
• names
• etymology
• origins
• Phu Ly
• culture
• history

I wrote a short post earlier today regarding names and I thought that this would be an interesting topic to delve into and talk about.

A rose by any other name

"Names are easy to understand, right? Forename, Surname; what's so difficult about that? OK, so sometimes, there's a middle name in there but that's about it, right?"

The fun starts when you consider that there are a variety of cultural naming conventions. Lets start with the basic western naming construct.

Personal Name, Family Name

The dominance of English as the dominant form of communication has also indirectly meant that the above construct is familiar to most. However, looking beyond the anglicised form, it's easy to see various divergances. Firstly, in China and other eastern countries, the order would generally be family name, given name¹ i.e. Ly Phu Cuong, Wong Fei Hong.

Even the two phased construct isn't a given as the Arabic system follows a more sophisticated naming in which an individual would be addressed as a chain of names². An example of such would be Osama bin Laden; an expanded form of his name would be Usamah bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Ladin. This would allow you to trace back an individuals family history; the bin (also spelt as ibn) means 'son of'. Hence you can, for example, work out that he's the son of Muhammad Awad bin Ladin. A similar construct is also used countries in Irish speaking countries e.g. John Michael Patrick Reilly; John son of Michael son of Patrick Reilly.

Family Name

"So, maybe I was a bit hasty there but at least I can't go wrong with saying that everyone has a Family Name, right?"

Well, step back a couple of years and you'd be wrong. Until 2004, most people in Mongolia were identified strictly on a firstname basis. This lead to a lot of confusion and severely pushed back many forms of census analysis. Upon attaining power, the communist goverment had abolished the use and record of family name, fearing that tribal loyalty would provide a power challenge.

The results of the 2004 election swung the seat of power away from the communist party and one of the more progressive legislations was to reinstigate the use of Family Names.³

Moving westwards, Russian surnames generally differ depending on the individual's gender; compare Boris Yeltsin with his wife, Naina Yeltsina. The use of grammatical gender is repeated across many other Eastern Slavic countries, though often each with their own regional variations; for example, whilst Russian names generally end with the masculine ov or the feminine ova, the suffix enko is generally restricted to Ukraine.

In Iceland, the last name is usually a patrynomic. I'll talk a bit more about what patronymic are in the next section.

The etymology of family names.

Before we move on, lets have a look at the etymology of family names. With English names, the derivation of the name can be broadly sorted into five categories:

• Occupation (Baker, Smith),
• Descriptive (Brown, Young),
• Location/Geographic feature (Hill, Rivers),
• Aspiring trait/expression (Hope, Goodspeed)
• and Ancestry.

Ancestry is an interesting one; generally, this would take the form of a Patronymic. A patronymic is component based on the name of one's father; for example, thtere is Richardson (son of Richard), and Wilson (son of William). Patronym are a popular cultural construct and arise all over the world. In Netherlands, you'd have Pietersen; in Iceland, you'd have Karlsson. There are patronymic such as di Marco (son of Mark) in Italy, and the Hiberno-Norman prefix fitz manifests itself in FitzGerald and Fitzroy⁴. Mac, the common surname prefix is also a patronymic (Mac being gaellic for son of).

In East Slavic countries, the patronymic would generally be used as the 'middle name'; for example, Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, who is the son of Sergey.

The other form of derivation through ancestry is the direct use of an ancestors name as the surname. For example, the Chinese family name of Yuan is believed to be descended from Yuan Taotu's use of his grandfather's name, Boyuan, as his surname.

Given name

"OK, you've beaten me over the head with your talk of family names. But I bet you can't do the same with first names. I mean, people just choose a name for their kid that they think sounds nice."

Popular opinion does have a big impact on the choice of first names. Names fall in and out of favour as time goes by. The big screen often plays a large role with many children being named after the current big star. For example, in recent times, names such as Keira and Leo rose up the charts; even Prime Ministers aren't immune.

The choice of name for a child is rarely an easy one. Chinese names are often chosen by consulting other family members (esp. Paternal Grandparents) and with extensive research. An interesting aside is that many Chinese also take up a western name as well e.g. Tony Leung Chiu Wai. I use my Chinese name as my forename (there's an interesting aside which I'll talk about later) whilst my kid brother uses his western name Michael as his forename.

The etymology of given names

"What, etymology again?!?"

OK, I'll try to be brief but personally, I find this interesting. However, we cannot reasonably summarise or encapsulate this in a tiny paragraph⁵, so I'll just give a quick introduction to this.

The popularity of many names stem from their roots in Religious texts; Michael (Hebrew, Old Testament), Muhammad (Arabic, Qur'an), Luke (Latin, New Testament). The origins of the words however, are often found everyday language. Many names derive from desirable titles or properties such as Sophia (Sofia, Wisdom). This can sometimes be in the form of multiple words or expressions such as Alexander ("Protector of men": Alex, protect; Andros, men) or Albert (Bright nobility). The decision to name the child in this manner was, perhaps, an attempt to shape the life of the child; that is, via a name, the child would be bound to a virtue or destiny. The other reason, which follows on from this, is that a name can provide legitimacy or purpose. There are certainly names that derive from titles/occupation such as Sarah (Sara, Princess) or George (Georgios, farmer).

Another popular source of names are Objects; for example, we have Peter (Petra, rock) or Steven (Stephanos, Crown). Another common example of such is in the popularity of flowers as female names e.g. Lily. Other origins include Locations e.g. Britney (Brittany) and Paris or Weather e.g. Fong (Cloud).

Another interesting thing to note about names is how they can evolve so as to jump across barriers. For example, the popular name Michael can be seen in other forms as Mikel, Mikael, Miguel as well as in the feminine name Michelle. There are always transliterations, of course. My western name is a romanisation of my Chinese name. This also works the other way, and often with humourous consequence; for example, Charlie would be transcribed as Tea Pot (Char Lae).

Middle Names

"That's the unimportant part of your name, isn't it?"

Not always so. We've spoken about the use of patronymic⁶ but in Chinese names, the 'middle name'⁷ is often a generation name. As far as I can tell, there's no analog to this in Western languages. The generation name, is as the term suggests, a name shared by all those in the same generation. For example, all my brothers share the same generation name⁸. The generation name is usually derived from a family's generation poem⁹.

My name

OK, enough. Let's wrap this up with your name?

Everyone knows me as Phu; using the western convention of Forename, Family name, it's Phu Ly. No surprises there; it's emblazoned all over my site.

In Chinese, I'd announce myself using the eastern system of Family name, Generation name, Given name as Ly Phu Cuong (pronounced Li Fu Keung). Phu means 'fortune' or 'prosperity' in chinese; Cuong means 'Strong' or 'Strength'. The transliteration of my name chosen by my Grandfather gives it a Vietnamese slant (which is not surprising as my Grandfather worked in Vietnam and is fluent in Vietnamese).

A rose by any other name

Since, in Chinese, my given name is Cuong, why Phu as my forename¹⁰? Well, I've already given away the answer. If you write my name in the eastern style, it'd be Ly Phu Cuong. Ly's my family name so Phu-Cuong must be my given name. And what happens when you write that on a form? Cuong is abstracted away as the middle name (as per western convention).¹¹

My family all call me Cuong (pronounced Keung) and when I speak Chinese, that's the name I give. However, in English, I'm Phu and that's the name I use in public.

Wrapping things up

So, this was a brief walk into the world of names. What's your name? How was it chosen? Do you have any information on the origin of your name or any interesting rules/information of your own? Feel free to add a comment:)

1. I'll use given name to denote what is commonly thought of as the forename/personal name so as to avoid confusion. [back]
2. Though as is the case with Eastern naming conventions, for practical purposes, a westernised naming convention is now commonly followed [back]
3. Rather ironically, the (perhaps predictable) dominance use of Borjigin, Genghis Khan's tribal name, mitigates some of the advantages of this new law. [back]
4. An interesting aside; Fitzroy would mean King's son and would be used by an acknowledged Royal bastard. [back]
5. Actually, the same applies with this whole entry in general [back]
6. This can informally manifest itself in Western culture by the choice of the Father's name as the middle name [back]
7. I hesistate when using this terms as the order often depends on the cultural convention as discussed above. [back]
8. I chose these words carefully; read on. [back]
9. I have a different generation name to my brothers because of an accident; the wrong generation name was picked in my case; an off-by-one error:) [back]
10. It's everywhere; all my official documents use Phu as my forename [back]
11. Yes, a bit of a cockup. But I've learnt to live with it:) [back]

• Posted on: 18th December 2005
• Tags:
• thoughts
• Galois
• time
• busy
• life
• ifelse

Mathematics is littered with tragic stories and the story of Evariste Galois, a precocious talent, is a poignant one. Whilst still in his teens, Galois was able to develop Group theory, laying fundamental foundations for a branch of mathematics known as Galois theory, and fashion a framework for solving the riddle of Quintics. However, it is his death at the tender age of 20 for which he is probably most famous for outside of Mathematics.

Whilst (now recognised as) an undisputed genius, he found himself rejected and falling into dangerous situations, partly as a result of bad luck and partly due to his own character and choices. He eventually found himself involved in a duel with one of the finest shots in France over a woman.

The night before the fateful duel, aware of the impending doom, he spent the whole night penning his thoughts and discoveries to paper. Desperate and fearful that this knowledge may be lost forever, he frantically dashed out his mathematical research so that he could send them on.

What I find particularly memorable however, besides the wealth and treasure trove of knowledge contained within the manuscripts, are his frantic scribblings, sheer exclamations of dispair, which feature alongside his work. In particular, there is the gut-wrenching line "Je n'ai pas le temps".

"I have not enough time".

I have not enough time

It is recent events at work which have been responsible for bringing this story to mind¹. In the last week, I finally left a project which I'd been working on, in various roles, for the last 2 years. Whilst I'd had more time to work with than Galois (and obviously, the work is nothing near the level of his work), there is still a sense that you can always do a little bit more. You feel that there should be something more that you need to handover, some more code to check in, and some more notes to jot down.

The problem is, of course, you're not really sure of what is necessary until the need crops up. So the best you can do is try to plan for what you expect may crop up and what you foresee may be needed.

Cobwebs on cobwebs

The other side-effect of being busy (both at work and on other little side-diversions) is that updates to this site have been sporadic. But that's how it's always been. It's not because of a lack of things to write about. I've got a whole directory full of text files with half-finished drafts and rarely does a day goes by when I don't feel that I can (or want to) post. Even my shorts section, which show a bit more activity, could see more frequent posts but it all comes down to that same line again. "Je n'ai pas le temps".

In the short term, things will probably be hectic with the end of the year, new project work and general catching up. Hopefully though, there'll be a bit more movement on this site. I work on this site because I enjoy doing so; I don't pump out posts because of obligation, financial gain or for the (frankly ridiculous) need to post for the sheer sake of doing so. But as with many things, that's a double edged sword.

And an apology

I'm not going to apologise for the lack of updates as I've explained this sites raison d'etre. But I will apologise for the few people who have emailed me recently. Though I may not respond immediately, I always check my mails. I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can but feel free to email me again just in case:)²

1. Don't worry. I generally don't talk about the day job and I'm not really going to break that habit today:) [back]
2. Immediately after I posted this, I got a "marketing email". So in the interest of clarity, I'll just say that you're free to email me as long as it's not to send me spam:) [back]

• Posted on: 16th October 2005
• Tags:
• time
• thoughts
• flying
• society
• bargains

I've never watched synchronised swimming before. Of all the olympic events, it's probably the one in which I feel the least affinity for. But when the plane I was on touched back down in London, I saw a similar act of unison unfold before me.

As the captain switched off the seatbelt warning sign, a whole group of individuals who I imagine have never met or conversed before engaged in a truly remarkable act of synchronicity; they all stood up, reached into their pockets, extracted a rectangular block of plastic and filled the cabin with the simultaneous melody of voice mail beeps.

OK, I used a bit of artistic license in the above passage but in essence the described events did occur. When we landed, one of the very first thing that most of the passengers did was to turn on their mobile phone. A minor thing really but it is quite indicative of the society in which we now live in. We are significantly more interconnected than at any time in history and we're moving much faster than we ever were.

Email has crossed the threshold of network effects and reliability ¹ allowing us to converse readily with people anywhere, anytime. Likewise, with 97% of the UK population have a mobile phone and nationwide mobile phone coverage, you can get in touch with someone wherever they are. In the few instances when you can't reach someone, there's always voice mail and text messaging.

It's the same with news coverage. I remember a scene in Star Trek IV where they come across a newspaper stand and decry that the news "must be hours out date". It's amazing that to a large extent, we can empathise with the sentiment as via RSS feeds, we can check and read multiple sources of news and information within minutes it being posted. Wherever a major event happens, we can flick on a channel/browse to a site and get live coverage as it happens. Even when you're at the epicenter of the event, you're not out of the loop when it comes to news coverage.

It's strange thing to say but quick and easy access to information is addictive. We become used to having information at our fingertips. We become used to doing things quickly. And as it bad as it sounds, I wouldn't really want it to be any other way.

Strolling through life

That said, I take a certain pleasure in taking my time. I'm perfectly happy to skip a train if it looks full. I enjoy just walking around, looking at the trees and the clouds whilst everyone's hustling around². I love being able to fully immerse myself into a good novel. And I probably haven't worn a watch in the last 10 years because I'm not particularly worried about time on a per minute scale.

We're rushing around a lot nowadays. Sometimes, I think if we slow down a bit, we'll be able to enjoy the world around us a bit more.

Paying the customer

I generally find myself in WHSmiths fairly often and as with most stores nowadays, it's a rare occasion indeed when there isn't some sort of promotion running. "Buy one, get one free", 20% off, 50p off a chocolate bar. That said, I was pleasantly amused to find that when it came to paying for my copy of Edge magazine, the lady asked me if I bought a copy of the Times for 60p, she would give me a pound off.

I've had cheap purchases but it's not often that I pay negative money for a product.

1. Does anyone else remember the dark ages when you weren't necessarily 100% sure if an email had been sent successfully? [back]
2. I think videogames and comic books have given me an immense understanding of the majesty of the beauty of the world around me. [back]

• Posted on: 13th July 2005
• Tags:
• guide
• catering
• good service
• rants

When reading the Waiter Rant (Thanks Kottke), I'm reminded of when I worked in the catering industry.

In my case though, I wasn't a waiter, though I know a lot of people who were; neither was I a chef yet I have had the pleasure of knowing many who were and still are. Nope, my brief stint was during my student days working on the counter of a takeaway. Not as fancy I'll agree, but I enjoyed it and it helped support my financial independence during university.

However, there were a few times when things were not so peachy and so, as my gift to the community, here is my guide for people who want good service.

Politeness matters

Forget tipping; the people who I gave special attention to were those that made that extra little effort to be nice. A friendly "good evening" and smile goes a long way. I read in the newspaper a few years back that a simple "please and thank you" to a bus driver can make his whole day and I can easily attest to that. It costs so little and can mean so much.

Time matters

Sometimes, I amazed by people who believe that I have the powers to change the laws of physics. Asking me to hurry things up is not going to make the food cook faster. Trust me when I say that there's no big conspiracy to keep you waiting. It's in our best interest to get food out as soon as we can. I can give you an estimate on how long it'll take and I'll make sure that you're not forgotten.

However, consider the fact if you order a lot, it may take longer to cook than usual. If there a lot of people waiting before you, it may take longer to cook than usual. And certain dishes take longer to cook than others.

You matter

If you're a regular, then I'll remember you and the chefs will remember you. Ramming the fact that you're a regular in the hope of special services will also make us remember you but for the wrong reasons.

We also like to know what you thought of the meal. Letting us know that you enjoyed it means a lot to us. Letting us know constructively that a particular dish wasn't up to our usual standards is also something we'd like to know. Mouthing off in the hopes of getting a discount however, will only piss everyone off.

Money doesn't matter

…or not as much as you think. If you're ordering a lot, don't try to use that as a blunt weapon to battering us down with in the hope of a discount. Remember that there are two sides to this transaction. You're getting a big meal and we're getting reimbursed for our services in providing this meal. If you ask in a nice way or I like you, I'll probably do you a few favours anyways. But don't get into a huff if you don't get what you want. I'd rather serve 10 friendly customers with smaller orders than a single jerk with a large one.

BTW, if I realise that I've made a cockup with the sums and have accidentally overcharged you, you can be sure that I will you. There's no incentive for me otherwise. Likewise, if I've undercharged you, I'd appreciate the same response.

Recently, I bought lunch from a cafe and realised that I'd ended up having being paid for the meal. There was no hesitation on my part to let the girl know what had happened. The tiny monetery gain would have made no difference to my life. The smile and emotion on the girl's face let me know that I made the right decision.

Mistakes happen

And finally, as I realise that most of you are probably quite bored at this stage, I come to my last point. Mistakes happen. If they happen too often, then it maybe a sign that there is a bigger underlying problem and someone probably deserves to be punished. However, if it's a single cockup in a run of spotless service, then maybe you should consider that maybe, just maybe, nobody is perfect.

• Posted on: 8th July 2005
• Tags:
• tube explosion
• london
• personal

There's a lot that can be and are being said about the events that happened today and despite the rather frequent news updates that I posted earlier today, I've yet to post anything personal with regards to the attacks.

I'm not going to speculate on what happened; neither am I going to join in the old battles that such events to reignite. All I have to offer are a few words on what I perceived.

On the ground

Despite the obvious shock of the event, there was a relative calm to the whole proceeding. Thanks to technology, news of the events quickly spread and everyone immediately checked to see that all was good with their loved ones. There wasn't really any signs of panic; in fact, a lot of the calls were fairly light-hearted. "Of course I'm alright you big pansy" and such like.

The next course of action was to immediately tune into the various news outlet. In this instance, despite the supposed "news at the speed of thought" nature of the web, the TV coverage was always a step ahead and a chasm more in depth. However, for better or for worse, people would return to their normal routines and get back to work. We talked about what happened of course, but in terms of disruption, it was akin to the unfolding of a big football tournament.

The general atmosphere was more a case of "shaken but not stirred".

On a larger scale

It's important not to understate what happened but it's equally important that we don't overstate the impact. Despite what precautions are taken, despite what measures are rolled out, you can never guarantee that events such as these will not happen. What we can do is mitigate the risk and make preparations in case it does occur, and then carry on with our lives.

From what I saw and heard today, the authorities acted appropriately and confidently. Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair did the right thing in projecting a calm and reassuring message. Within a short space of time, the authorities had isolated and controlled the affected areas. The ambulance services displayed a welcome show of initiative in utilising the buses for ferrying casualties. The emergency services in gener