Link of the Day

The Big Lies People Tell In Online Dating

My no longer frequenting Twitter means the return of Link of the Day! Yay! Maybe. And what better way to mark the occasion than a dating link? Whether this vindicates your own experiences (or more likely shows you up to be a big fat liar yourself) there's no doubting that not only do people turn all creative when pimping themselves out, but also that it seems to work.

My advice? Well, be honest yes, but not only in terms of how you choose to describe yourself; we have to equally be honest about how the world works and what we want but can't admit to wanting. Which could mean a pretty face, fat wallet or decent height. Denial is both wasteful and unhelpful, so just cut it out already.

Link of the Day

What If? Soul Mates

There's a new slot on XKCD exploring various situations and hypothesises and then handling them in the way XKCD does best - with a little bit of maths, cynicism and curmudgeon-ness. This week the topic was that of Soul Mates. Uh oh.

Of course anyone who has an account on an online matrimonial site has pretty much already figured out most of the odds concluded here. But it's nice to see a more technical analysis.

Food: Spice Village

Ah, Southall. The Promised Land. I've only really been here a couple of times before, so to visit is still very exciting for me. But this trip wasn't to shop or even to cruise, but to actually grab dinner with a friend who was local to the area. And unlike last time where we didn't have a native to guide us, our friend specifically took us to Spice Village.

And it wasn't that bad actually. It was hardly novel - we had the typical curries and kebabs and naans, and nothing in particular stood out. But the food was good, the service decent and the buzz... well buzzy, and we had a nice time at the end of it.

The price was a little more than I would have been used to, with the total coming to £17 per head, but we did have drinks and what can only be described as the best falooda in the world. Really I would say it's worth visiting just for dessert alone.

So no, it's not really a reason to go to Southall in the first place, but since there are many more reasons for that anyway you can't really do that much worse than to eat here while you're there.

Shakespeare staging the world

The British Museum's current main exhibition attempts to cover all things Shakespeare. It does this by focussing mainly on the life of the world during his time, and then loosely coupling these presentations with the main themes from his plays. I found this strategy to be a little tenuous and even weak, but as soon as I stopped trying to see Shakespeare everywhere I found myself enjoying the exhibition much more, purely from a "randomly historical" account of England and London during the 1600s.

Overall though apart from being a decent distraction I wouldn't say there was anything essential that needed to be seen here.

Lucky Eight

I'm the first to realise the irony in marking the anniversary of starting this blog - for sure, eight years is a long time. But I've long come to the conclusion that this blog is kind of on life support. But hey, on the bright side at least it seems to have outlived my use of Twitter.

Of course the true demise of these pages (and Twitter, and before even that Facebook) is correlated with my increasing curmudgeonous hatred of all things social on the Internet. Who would have thought I'd grow out of it? Bah humbug I guess.

When the rest of you realise the same, just make sure you remember who left cyberspace first.

Film: The Dark Knight Rises

Despite the countless plot-holes and the awful dialogue and soundtrack I have to say that I still found Rises to be a brilliantly enjoyable few hours at the cinema. It wasn't the same kind of deep and respectful enjoyment I got from the last one though - no this was much more lightweight; in fact I would say it was a bit of a throwback to the Tim Burton era of Batman films.

I'm not sure how I feel about that, but instead of thinking about it too much I will say that Rises was very satisfying and definitely recommended.