The Fear Index by Robert Harris

The Fear Index

From Dickens of two hundred years ago I jumped straight into a future thriller ‘The Fear Index’ by Robert Harris on Kindle e-reader. I also listened to the unabridged audio book version, narrated by Christian Rodska.

What I admire most about Robert Harris is the extensive research he does for each one of his books, whether set in the past historical Pompeii or in the port city Archangel in Russia or into the computer world.

The Fear Index reminded me Bill Gates’ talk of 1999 ‘Business at Speed of Thought’.
‘As I was considering these issues…a new concept came into my head: The digital nervous system. A digital nervous system consists of the digital process that enable a company to perceive and react to its environment, to sense competitive challenges and customer need and organize timely responses.’

The Fear Index: Dr. Alex Hoffman and Hugo Quarry are partners in an investment company in Geneva – Hoffman Investment Technologies. Alex, the physicist is the brains of the operation. He programs his smart computers to generate huge financial returns for their clients. Hugo Quarry, an Englishman, is the financier who takes care of the business side. The success of the company is due to the vast sums the investors are able to reap due to the company’s digitized programme, VIXAL-4’s calculations of the money market.

The operation moves along well allowing both men the means to enjoy expensive life styles. Alex pursues his hobby acquiring Antiquarian books. Being a paperless advocate he insists on a totally paperless office and so he keeps his antique book collection a secret. Alex’s wife is well provided for and is a high-powered artist who converts body scans into glass sculpture. Hugo follows an expensive decadent life-style with yachts, fast women, and faster cars.

Soon fear on fear mounts. The super computer develops a personality of its own. The artificial intelligence evolves its own algorithm and starts to work for itself. It begins to virtually stalk the creator. It rearranges Alex’s life dangerously. Alex receives the first edition of Charles Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, with the bookmark on the page about fear. It appears he purchased and paid for it. The super computer takes over his life and his business. It begins to work on the financial market. The out-of-control computer disseminates information in nanoseconds and sends out ‘buy and sell’ messages. It creates price shifts that cause volatility and fear in the financial market. Neither Alex nor his team of computer experts is able to control the output of the VIXAL-4′s “brain”. Considerable tension builds up. The rest thrilling and nail-biting, and I am not revealing more.

The plot is riveting. One does not need knowledge of high technology or of hedge funds and stock markets to enjoy this thriller which is part sci-fi and part mystery. Yes, there is murder too. The ending leaves one imagining a sequel.

‘The Fear Index’ had me contemplating on our super technology assisted lives. Artificial intelligence has already taken over the many tasks we did for ourselves and much is now taken for granted. I am thinking about my own electronic future. Will computers move beyond my control?

Denim Jeans

Stressed Distress

When I first went to Britain I heard the statement buy black, black does not show dirt. I was quite taken aback with this. Having been brought up in the tropics, where we change clothes a few times a day, not only because we sweat but dirt is dirt. Just because dirt is not seen it does not mean the garment worn over a period of time is not dirty.

But recently when I went to Japan more of that dirt situation came into focus. My friend, TJ believed in travelling light. On a ten-day trip my TJ wore the same pair of denim jeans. Ten days in Tokyo and two days of travel there and back, twelve days in all. I was quite appalled.

Then I came to hear the story of denim jeans not being washed for six months. Six months for the lived-in look to create your own body fashion. The lived in jeans gives you ‘whiskers, honeycombs and stacks’… big body fashion statements and your very own too. Your own body distressed denims. Denim fades not only with wash but also with wear. Jeans not washed but worn over a long period of time creates whiskers on the upper thighs, honeycomb behind the knees and stacks around the ankles. For the last you need to buy a size long in the legs. One could try to look even more distressed by creating one’s own raggedy fashion ripped with a pair of scissors.

Weighing The Distress

Jeans fabric originally came from Nimes in France, a serge, Serge de Nimes. It became popular in America in the late 18th Century. Mostly miners and construction workers found it to be sturdy due mainly to the weft supported by more than one warp, which can be seen on the reverse side.

The number of indigo (natural or synthetic) dips gives the fabric the different blue shades, and stretch fabric is created with the introduction of elastic to the fabric.

Denim jeans, distressed or not, is now universal wear.

Dirt Fashion.

CHARLES DICKENS

Great Expectations By Charles Dickens

Each time I read and reread Dickens I find his writing more interesting, more humorous, and revealing more layers.

In February on Charles Dickens’ 200th anniversary Don and I read ‘Great Expectations’ at the same time on our kindles. It is the second reading for me having read it the first time many years ago. Our reading took us a little longer than most modern books do, but it was much fun. Most nights we compared what we had read during the day and came up with humorous incidents that had us laughing again. We were filled too with much appreciation for this 200-year-old author.

Dickens is satirical of his times, looks deeply and critically into the foibles of his society but 200 years later we find the same foibles in our society. Great Expectations at first seems simple but it is a complex novel of love and cheer, loyalty and betrayal, guilt and innocence, and sympathy, sentimentality, and much wry wit.

The story is full of forebodings and dark too from time to time, but keeps the reader engaged throughout. We get great insight into the lives of the ordinary people and high society, into the lives of the poor and rich. The language is a little archaic but does not slow the reader. Much of the text is beautiful.

Expectations are several. We follow Pip’s character as he grows from a village boy to a young man lost to a man sensible and cultured and with good values.

A very strict and nasty older sister and her husband, Joe, bring up the orphan Pip. Joe, a kind mild mannered blacksmith, is a good influence in Pip’s life. His first expectation is to get a good education. But he is soon contracted by Miss Haversham to serve his apprenticeship with Joe with a view to becoming a blacksmith. Becoming a blacksmith is not part of the Pip’s ambition. His expectation is to be part of high society. The young boy wants to be well educated and move away from the village, move up to high society. Soon a mystery benefactor arranges through a prominent London lawyer to buy him out. Circumstances change immediately and Pip is sent to London on his way to becoming a gentleman. That comes at a cost. He is in Iove with a highly placed young lady in Miss Haversham’s care. And he knows nothing of money management and gets into debt squandering his quota of money from his benefactor in high living. Due to even more higher expectations he’s deeply disappointed when he finds out his benefactor is no nobleman. His fierce anger towards the man who is a criminal, whom he at first found not up to be to his expectations turns into kindness and love. This love for the stranger nearly costs his own life.

Towards the end he realizes that many of his expectations were merely superficial. He sheds his false values and looking for deeper meaning in life finds happiness and love.
Humour in the first chapter: Pip as a young boy is in the churchyard on a foggy evening and walks about looking at inscriptions on the tombstones, one of them is his parents’, both his father and mother buried in the same plot.

‘At the time I stood in the churchyard reading the family tombstones. I had just enough learning to be able to spell them out. My construction even of their simple meaning was not very correct for I read “Wife of the Above” was a complementary reference to my father’s exaltation to a better world.’

And Dickens has such witty and clever way of saying things. When Pip is a young man of means he says of his housekeeper and her niece:

‘They both had weak eyes, which I had long attributed to their chronically looking in at keyholes, and they were always at hand when not wanted, indeed that was their only reliable quality besides larceny.’

Love it.

My Collin’s Classics

Note: About Collins

In 1819, Millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set p a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymnbooks and prayer book. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperColins Publishers as we know it today.

THE SNAKE TEMPLE – PENANG

The Snake Temple

Temple of Azure Clous

Penang

The Temple of Azure Cloud built in 1850 perches on a small hill in a lush setting with a magnificent back drop of trees and a tropical sky.
Later the temple was dedicated to the Buddhist monk Tan Chiau-eng (Hokkien name), honorific title of Chor Soo Kong. He was born in southern China on the 6th day of the Chinese Lunar calendar, some time during the Song Dynasty (960 – 1279). He dedicated most of his life as a healer in Penang and was ordained as spiritual leader at the age of 65.

Compasion

In central position at the temple is his statue, built in China and brought to Penang. He is portrayed with a black face, some believe his face turned black on eating poisonous herbs and others that he escaped from demons that tried to burn him. But his black face has now become a symbol of his compassion.

What is unique about this temple is it’s the abode of pit vipers. In his life time the monk gave shelter to snakes and when the temple was dedicated the snakes from the nearby forest and hills moved in.

Pit Viper

Everywhere one looks one sees green and yellow diamond headed pit vipers coiled around images, incense burners, offerings and lamps and furniture.

It is often said the snakes are drugged by the joss stick smoke but whatever the reason there has been no report of anyone having been bitten by any of these venomous snakes in the temple.

Much of the offering consist of fresh chicken eggs food for the snakes

For a time when the temple was being renovated the snakes left the place and came back later, no doubt unhappy about the new concrete and paint.

Spirituality

Chanting of sutras begins at dawn but by late morning the nuns, monks and worshippers are out-numbered by other visitors who flock to the temple more interested in snakes than in worship or spirituality. The interest of tourists has given rise to souvenir and soft drink stalls.
Behind the temple lies a garden of herbs and lush fruit trees and here too snakes abound, coiled in the branches and around garden ornaments.

Garden Snake

To the side separated from the temple, a hall houses other snakes and large pythons. And for a small fee at the snake hall one can have a sad python weighing close to one’s own weight wrapped around shoulders for photo opportunity.

Visitor Information: The Snake Temple is open from 6 am to 7 pm.
From the city George Town one can get to Sungei Kluang which is not far from the Penang Airport in Bayan Lepas. It takes about 25 minutes by taxi. Buses are available from Komtar.
No entrance fee is charged. The temple is run on donations.

The Lunar New Year

The lunar year of Chinese, Japanese and Korean people consists of twelve Zodiac animals rotating twelve every years: Dragon, Snake, Horse, Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig, Rat, Ox, Tiger and Rabbit. Some of these animals and their friends paid Hong Kong a visit recently.

When the Zoo came to Tsim Sha Tsui

The animals they came all
A sunny winter, not fall
One by one the lunar year
To see from far and near
Like a zoo come to our town
Hoping to return by sundown

Water Dragon

The Water Dragon elegant, long
He spanned above the throng

The Zebra too, he was there,
Forgot his stripes I swear

Horses

Purple, Magenta horses two
Meeting friends Snow and Skyblue

Ram

A donkey, a ram
Surely not two from Siam

Python

A Prussian python in spotted coil
Confused by all the turmoil

Cockerel

Past noon but the cockerel he crowed
Had he no wings he would’ve rowed

Parakeets

In a ring two parakeets blue agate
Among grapes and pomegranate

Rat

A rat, ‘Oh my God,’ he said
‘Is that a dragon tail overhead
Indra, someone take my photo
Before I go total gung-ho

Pig

Red decked. In walked the pig
Stood like a rotund bigwig
He said, ‘Where’s the shindig?’
Looked about nearly wearing a grin
For he knew not where to begin,
He’d just followed the year in.