European N scale modelling of
the SBB and ÖBB
Using my pictures
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Visitors since 02.03.07:
Being neither a discerning critic nor a raving lunatic I feel well placed to present to an audience of size zero my irrelevant opinions on a selection of literature. In my defence I say only that I love good books and that sometimes it's not possible to read the dusk jacket and the first line and tell if it's a corker or a waste of trees.
Books that get fewer than four flying snails are probably not worth reading because there are so many great books out there and so little time to read them all in! Some people use stars, others use marks out of ten, I use the ÖBB 'Pflatsch' thus:
Absolutely brilliant : 
Highly recommended : 
(Recommended : 
Mediocre
: 
Woeful
: 
)
If
the Middle East doesn't bore you with the continual explosions and pointless
loss of life featured in the news regularly and you actually want to know, from
the beginning, why the area is such an awful mess today then this is the book to
read. From the 'liberating' British invasion of Iraq in 1917 to the
'liberating' American invasion in 2003 and every genocide, ethnic cleansing and
pointless conflict in the region in between this is the book that explains it
all. Well at least tries to, since there is so much injustice and
suffering to cover! Fisk is incisive and analytical as he lays bare the
double standards and hypocrisy, the horrific abuses of human rights ignored, the
disastrous meddlings of superpowers, the deranged regimes and the endless cruelty
man shows to fellow man.
That may sound depressing but there is a nice contrast between his recollections and tales of journalism in dangerous places and the sad truth about just how thin the veneer of civilisation truly is. Throughout the book Fisk asks awkward questions to despots and policemen, Imams and generals, politicians and terrorists and also the reader - reading their justifiable answers and the lack thereof is very enlightening, but often sharply illustrates the darkness of mankind. I was left wondering how the people in power could not only be so incredibly stupid, but make the same stupid mistakes again and again. It's fun to look up from our consumerist trough once in a while and think about people elsewhere...just because you can't hear the screams doesn't mean it's not happening.
The only problem with the book is that Fisk sometimes comes across as expecting too much from human nature. It's only natural to exploit others and hide the evidence to ease our conscience, but why do we make such an awful mess of the procedure overseas? Honesty would make a refreshing change here, and more thought about the long term consequences of our actions on others would make the whole thing less unjustifiable. Back to my to trough...
My rating :
An
enjoyable book that is best read at a leisurely pace, I've been reading it on
and off for about six months. Hofstadter ambles slowly through
mind-bending ideas and past brilliant Escher drawings on his quest to explain
Gödel's Theorem: that any internally consistent set of logical rules cannot
describe everything unless the rules are inconsistent. This of course sounds
absurd and like setting out to prove that up is down or that black is white, but
Hofstadter has realised that if he includes enough Escher drawings for us to
stare at and leads us round and round in logical loops then eventually we'll sit
down and enjoy the resultant dizzy feeling and think we've made progress.
Of course it turns out that we haven't, and Gödel's Theorem is actually as
useful as a chocolate teapot (except to pure mathematicians dangerously close to
the genius/insanity line) but this doesn't stop the book being tremendous fun to
read.
Hofstadter approaches the Theorem from all sides, building up analogies with many systems we can associate with, be it music, Zen Buddhism, music, art (via Escher) or mathematical logic. This leads cleverly to the reader seeing that everything including real life can be translated into a formal system of laws and consequently that it must be bound by the Theorem. This is at once wonderful and disturbing, and very enjoyable to think about - in fact if you like thinking then this is a particularly thought provoking book (so much so in fact I would describe it as a kind of anti-television). Whilst I am a physics student there is no need for the reader to have formal mathematical knowledge to be able to grasp the importance of the books central idea. Yes the central idea is difficult but difficult for everyone.
People in a rush and those who don't like to think deeply on occasion won't enjoy this book, but then they live trivial lives - if you've never looked up at the stars and wondered then you're already dead.
My rating :