Tim Harford's Trust Me, I'm an Economist Part 1: Love

Do you want to find love?

Get ahead at work?

Take on and succeed against big business?

Secure your future?

If you have said “yes” to any of the questions above, then what you need is : Economics!

Now, don't give me that look. Stranger things have happened, but turning to economics to solve any problems in life may just be the most rational thing you will ever do.

Tim Harford, the part time agony uncle of the Financial Times and full time economist, would like to show you a new way. With the help of economics, Tim would help you to find love, take on big business, get ahead at work and look into your future, sans a crystal ball- all with the tools of analyses available from economics.

Convinced yet? Hmm, I thought so. No wonder the show is called Trust Me, I'm an Economist.

Well, it may sound gimmicky, but it's all true. Harford is a very well respected economist. He has worked for the World Bank and the International Finance Corp, writes the “Dear Economist” column at the Financial Times, hosts the BBC Radio 4 program More or Less and is the author of such international bestsellers such as The Undercover Economist and The Logic of Life.

And now he is in your TV screen, talking about your everyday decision making viewed from the angle of economic analysis. Would you bite?

Well let's have a look shall we? How would Tim Harford help you find love? Simple. He will train you in a concept called game theory. It is the field of study where strategies and payoffs in competitive atmospheres are the primary focus. Every thing in life can be viewed as a game with the goals as highest payoffs and the strategies as how to get there.

For example, you can play the game of finding love. The goal is to end up with a romantic partner and the strategies involved would be how to achieve such an outcome. Tim takes us to the world of speed dating which is the one place where information is truly random, hence rational predictions are possible. What are your strategies about proving to a potential partner that you are a reliable and trustworthy person and not just playing the field?

Then we go to a couple buying an engagement ring- how much is it worth? How would a couple entering marriage view it: in terms of the commitment that they expect form the other or in terms of the commitment and effort that they bring to the table? How much is marriage worth? Unromantic as it may sound, is it not really like a business merger?

How would a couple, after some time of stable relationship show their commitment? Would the man sell his bachelor pad and move in with the woman?If he does not, then may be he's not entirely committed! If she asks him to sell his flat, would he agree to it just to show how much he is in love with her? Would he come up with a counter offer: let both of us sell our places and move into somewhere bigger and better. If this was a poker game, you would call it raising the stakes.

Do you want high or low quality children? To answer that question, consider this: how much would you be able to afford to spend per child? A perfect illustration is the musical instrument. If you have four of five children, you may be able to buy them cheap instruments like the flute. If you have three, then you may be able to invest in guitars. With two, you can buy violins and cellos. And with only one child, you can invest in a grand piano.

These are just some of the areas of romantic relationships and family dynamics you can explore with economics. With Tim Harford as the host, there is always an interesting angle to the most mundane of human events. There is never a boring moment!

Next time, I shall talk about how Tim can help you turn the table on big business by using the same strategies they use to gouge cash off your pockets.

Trust me I'm an Economist is available on DVD.

Forbrydelsen: The Killing- A review

So Auntie goes for fishing in the continent.

Ever since I had the pleasure of watching Smilla's Sense of Snow I have been a fan of the Nordic noir genre. They do make good TV and are cracking good at makings suspenseful crime dramas. So much so that even BBC has decided that they want a share of the pie. The recent adaptations of Henning Mankel's Wallander novels are a good example. (More on that series on a later post.)

But sometimes it just pays to show the original with subtitles instead of remaking the whole show. That is exactly what BBC4 is doing. They are showing Forbrydelsen, renamed The Killing. It is a twenty-part Danish drama produced by Denmarks Radio. The show is written by the Danish Crime writer Søren Sveistrup and has a stellar Danish cast.

The concept of the show is not unlike that of 24. However, instead of focusing on 24 hours of a day, each episode focuses on each day of the investigation. It is a tightly knit story with many different plot lines running through, all centered on the main event: the brutal rape and murder of a young girl.

Detective Sarah Lund of the Copenhagen is looking forward to her last day on the job. She is moving to Sweden with her boyfriend and hopes to take up a post at Stockholm PD. All she wants to do is pack up all her stuff from her office, hand it over to the next guy and take off to her going away party. She is excited about spending more time with her beau and her son.

A call comes in about clothing remains found near a forest. The Superintendent asks Lund to go along with Detective Jan Myers, her replacement, to show him the ropes. They find torn clothings belonging to a young woman and a video card. Suspecting that a john had abandoned a prostitute at this remote area, Myers feels a bit indignant and wants to pay a visit to the man whose name was on the card.

While visiting Theiss Larsen's family, they discover that he has a nineteen year old daughter. Lund and Myers realize that she may have been carrying her father's video card and may have been a victim of violence. They undertake a prolonged search and soon discovers that near the forest is a waterway. A car is found submerged under water and inside the boot they find the body of Nanna Larsen, the young girl.

The Superintendent decides to give Lund the job of investigating the murder. She protests but after looking at the forensic report and seeing how the girl was raped and then murdered, decides to stay and finish the job.

While all of this is going on, the Copenhagen City Hall politics is heating up. The mayor is facing a robust challenge from a young and coming politician- Troels Hartmann. However, to bring a twist in the tale, the car where Nanna's body was found was linked to the Hartmann campaign. Hartmann is facing political disaster because of this link but he is compassionate enough to cancel a debate and not talk to the press at the request of Lund. Back room political deals are going on and he faces delicate political negotiations but is constantly hampered by the fact that the Mayor, who has a mole in his office, seems to be one step ahead of him all the time.

And then there is Nanna's family. Theiss is a loving father and husband and Pernille is a devoted mother and wife. Nanna was their eldest and they have two little boys. They run a moving business and as employers they are very considerate. A nicer family you will not find and to have this tragedy befall them is really a testament to how basically unfair life is.

The pace of the show is quite fast, considering that all the 20 episodes are focused on one single murder investigation. It helps that each episode is based on each day of the investigation and focuses the investigation on a different suspect so you are always left guessing and so the storyline never slacks off. There is a lot of character development within the show so those who are literary inclined would find it an interesting watch. For those who are fans of noir fiction, this is a good show to watch because the characters and the storyline are so compelling as are the numerous subplots that criss cross the show.

One simple description of the show could be that it builds tension. It builds it over time and takes a lot of care in doing so. It is very well written and well done in terms of directing. The performances of the actors are simply superb and dramatically intense.

I am looking forward to seeing how the show ends.

The Killing is on BBC4 on Wednesdays at 10.30 pm and Saturdays at 9 pm.

Fast and Loose- A BBC Comedy

Well, Outnumbered and Mock the Week was not enough, Auntie (the BBC, that is) feels that Hugh Dennis deserves his own show. So we have, ladies and gentlemen, the next generation of Whose Line type. It is called Fast and Loose and it is hosted by none other than the aforementioned star.

I must say that my first encounter with Hugh Dennis was not on television. I heard him before I saw him on screen. With his comedy partner Steve Punt, he hosts The Now Show on BBC Radio 4- a program devoted to topical comedy. If you want a bellyfull of laugh and memorable jokes, you should listen to this program, it is superbly done.

Although he has been a regular on TV as one of the team leaders in Mock the Week and the dad character in Outnumbered, this time Dennis has his own panel game show. Fast and Loose debuted on BBC Two on January 14^th. One thing you noticed straight away was how effortlessly Dennis stepped into the role of the host. He was entertaining and funny and instead of making a huge song and dance about it, he quickly introduced the participants who were all comedians.

A word about the format of the show. As stated earlier, it is based on Whose Line but it does have its originality. Six comedians are introduced and they take their seats on the stage. Hugh then gives them silly things to do and funny things to say. They usually make the audience laugh. One of the good things about this show is the focus on one liners and character performances. That is why comedians are the best performers of this game: no one can take a character and run with it like a stand up comedian.

The regulars on the show include such contemporary comedy stars as Laura Solon, Pippa Evans, Greg Davies. Justin Edwards and Ruth Bratt. Often, David Armand appears as a guest star to do interpretive dance of a popular song- which the performers have to guess. Armand's performance is truly hilarious- in re the choice of the song sand the way he performs them. I guarantee it will leave you hwoling with laughter.

I really hope that Fast and Loose would be a success in terms of the ratings because I am hoping that BBC commissions another season. It is good to see Hugh Dennis exploring other venues of his talent within the realms of comedy.

Fast and Loose is on BBC Two on Wednesdays at 10 pm BST.

It's a Bird- A review

You can accuse me of going on a Nietzschean complex and you may have a fair point. For a guy who prefers not to read superhero comics, two articles about one superhero might be a little too much. But then again, I am talking not about the traditional narrative of this comics universe or that. I am however, interested in writers who take a different take on the story.

Now when you come across the title It's a Bird the first thing you are aware of is alarm bells going off at the back of your head. This may be something to so with Superman, you think to yourself. Who needs another take on the Man of Steel? Aren't there enough hack writers employed by DC to write one more set of predictable stories?

Well this one is different. Firstly, this is not about Superman but about the man behind the story. Published in 2004 by Vertigo, It's a Bird is written by Steven T Steagle as an autobiographical approach to telling the story behind the comic book. It is about a writer who is given the job of writing Superman. He has to come up with a whole new approach to it. For a comic book writer he does have a distinctive approach towards Superman but he doubts if anyone would be interested in it: he hates the character and the comics that comes with it.

Now you might say that it's a job, get on with it; plenty of people wake up every morning and go to a job they hate, why should you be any different? Most of the time you'd be right but we are talking about a writer who cares about his what he does. He wants to do a good job because in his soul he knows he is not a hack.

Why does he not like Superman? His main objection to him is the idea that Superman is a character whose contradictions are irreconcilable. He is a protector of the people but what Steagle sees in him is more of a symbol of fascism. Superman, while serving as a protector of the people also seeks to impose on them a lifestyle more suited to the powers that be. He seeks not to change the status quo because he is in fact part of it. With Superman at its beck and call, what State would not feel emboldened in extending its role in the lives of people at the expense of their liberties?

In fact to Steagle, Superman appears as symptom of infantalization of ordinary human institutions. In an ordinary world justice is to be achieved at the expense of power siince the exercise of the latter causes the formers demise. This is usually done through collective demands of the people. The Dieux Ex Machina approach to justice that Superman delivers is not some thing any one who had any sense of social responsibility would appreciate. You cannot render justice from up high while you hold all the power as well- a critical flaw in the character of Superman.

There are also personal considerations. Years ago, when he and his brother were little, their parents discovered that his grandmother had Huntington's Disease. This had haunted him all his life because he heard his parents say that had they known earlier, they would not have had children. He shares the sentiment and is unwilling to engage in a conversation with his girlfriend about it. They even go the point of breaking up but he is adamant about it.

He has a mortal dread about the effect Huntington's will have on him- he does not want to die like his grandmother or his aunt. His aunt has been moved permanently to a hospice, her brain reduced to pulp by the disease. One look and he knows what is in store for him in the future.

So how does he reconcile dealing with a potential debilitating disease and writing about a man who is the paragon of physical perfection?

How would he deal with the various crises in his life? His girlfriend has left him, his father is missing, his agent wants him to accept a job that he would very much like to pass on. And above all, he has not resolved the issue between him and Superman.

What makes the comic so moving and personal is the way Steagle's narrative flows between his inner monologue and the out side world. What makes it interesting is the evident paradox: when things are going well for him he is experiencing an emotional meltdown. And yet when his life starts snowballing into one disaster after another, he discovers his true relationship with Superman.

Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. A PBS NOVA Special

How would you feel if creatures no more than 2% away from chimpanzee DNA were in charge of your children's education?

So, a group of primates decide to play havoc with the biology curriculum. They decide to promote an unprovable and more importantly, untestable, idea and equate it with a perfectly working existing model.

If you have not been crawling under a rock for the last few years, this story may already be familiar to you. We have to move our attention to small town America, particularly, Dover Pennsylvania. As Stephen King rightly points out, if you want a horror show, skip the urban areas and go to a cornfield. No wonder certain ursine femme politicos are so fond of these nooks and crannies of “real America”. As The Hitch once said, all politics is yokel.

Some trolls decided that they had had enough of living under the bridge (or in some cases, golf courses) and decided to join the local school board. Once in it, they were astonished to find that the public school curriculum was based on teachings of modern science. (Shocked! Shocked I say! ). Being faithful (pun intended!) thumpers of a particular book they decided to bring their bearded-old-man-in- the-sky back to the classroom.

They began by putting pressure on the biology teachers not to teach the Theory of Evolution. They even went to the extent of not approving the funding for high school text books because the books were modeled on teaching the theory. Failing that they decided to look around for other avenues of disruptions.

Soon opportunity came knocking in the guise of the Discovery Institute. This collection of odious nincompoops, erroneously called a think tank, promotes the idea of intelligent design(ID). ID states that life, the Universe and Everything could not have formed ex nihilo. To them, life on Earth shows distinct sings of being designed and therefore there must be some intelligent designer who had created all this we see around us. (some one needs to learn how to multiply seven by six!).

What the Discovery Institute does is not waste their time on such tedious and boring tasks like doing research and testing their theory. They do not need evidence! Evidence is for suckers! They would rather spend their valuable time promoting the idea of teaching ID in schools. So this is quite a novel idea: by-pass the entire scientific process and go straight to the curriculum. Brilliant!

So one of the books published by this think tank is called Pandas and People which was promoted by the aforementioned trolls of the board. Failing to secure funding for the books, they raised money in their churches to pay for them and send them to the public schools.

The science teachers were livid! They refused point blank to teach nonsense in their classroom. So a member of the board went to each classroom to read out a notice about ID as an alternative to Evolution.

Some of the parents sued the school for violating the separation of Church and State. The case went to Federal Court and landed on the courtroom of Judge John Jones. (Can we call him 3J?). The parents were represented by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and Pepper Hamilton LLP. The School Board was represented by the Thomas More Law Center, a hub of politically motivated religious lawyers who want to promote religion in the public square. The horns were locked.

The witnesses for the plaintiffs included many top academic biologists including the sublime Dr. Kenneth Miller of Brown University. They spoke about the nature of Science and what science is and what it isn't. Evolution falls on the former category and Id on the latter.

The witnesses on the side of the defense were proponents of irreducible complexity- a major argument in favor of ID. That was the only argument that they offered in favor of their position. When their star witness, Michael Behe took the stand, he was humiliated by Eric Rothschild, counsel for the plaintiffs.

Every time Behe made an assertion, Rothschild would put piles of books refuting his position in front of him. The iple of books and journals grew so tall that t they hid his features from the court!

Apart from ruling on the violation of Church and State argument, Judge Jones was in a unique position to rule on whether ID was science or not. His response? ID was, according to his verdict, “Breathtaking inanity”! Way to go, Your Honor!

Judgment Day is available on the PBS NOVA website.

Gavin and Stacey: BBC Comedy

What happens when a girl from Wales hooks up with a boy from Essex? Cracking comedy with cultural differences, that's what!

Gavin and Stacey is less of a relationship comedy and more about how people from different backgrounds have to make allowances because of love. It is also quite the social commentary about the way culture and identity travels across county lines all the way to border. Mostly, it is about two people being in love and the people around them having to make adjustments to their prejudices because of that.

Written by James Corden and Ruth Jones, it is a 2007 BBC comedy which became the most nominated comedy show at the British Comedy Awards of that year. Corden and Jones also star in the show as the best friends of Gavin and Stacey

Gavin (Matthew Horn) works as a computer expert for a local company in Essex. Stacey (Joanna Page) works in accounts for a local company in Barry, Wales. They met over the phone because their employers do business together. Business conversations had turned into flirtations and that turned into a full length long distance relationship- without having met each other.

After six months of exchanging heart to heart conversations, Gavin and Stacey decide to meet at a neutral venue. Barry is on the west coast of Britain, and Essex is on the East coast of England, so these two lovebirds can claim to have the entire island (not to mention two countries) separating them. So they decide on a neutral venue, halfway between: London.

Just to be on the safe side, they each bring their best friends with them. Gavin brings Smithy, a burly builder who is very fond of beer (well who isn't?). Stacey brings her friend Vanessa, a woman who apparently has seen it all and is subsequently jaded about men.

Hilarity ensues as Stacey's uncle Brian (pronounced “Brin”) (Rob Brydon)equips her with a rape alarm for protection. The Welsh distrust of the English is not going away very soon as is the English misconception about the Welsh. But I'll tell you this for starters, other people's prejudices are hilarious to watch!

Gavin and Stacey hit it off and after a coupe of false starts, so do Smithy and 'Nessa. An awkward situation happens when the four of them have to share one room- but it is soon resolved. One can understand that being a best friend is about being able to ignore the fact that your friend is having very noisy sex four feet away. It does not hurt if you're doing the same as well.

As far as relationship comedies go, the comedy is centered more around the people in the lives of the two protagonists. Stacey's family is rather insular and very overprotective of her- not surprising since her father had passed away recently. Gavin's mother Pamela (Allison Steadman) is a typical Essex girl (presumably retired) who is very much your poor man's Hyacinth Bucket. Just imagine what could happen when these two clans meet. Here's a clue, I'm still laughing.

If you are looking for a non-formulaic comedy show that would actually make you laugh, you may want to give this one a try.

Gavin and Stacey: BBC Comedy

What happens when a girl from Wales hooks up with a boy from Essex? Cracking comedy with cultural differences, that's what!

Gavin and Stacey is less of a relationship comedy and more about how people from different backgrounds have to make allowances because of love. It is also quite the social commentary about the way culture and identity travels across county lines all the way to border. Mostly, it is about two people being in love and the people around them having to make adjustments to their prejudices because of that.

Written by James Corden and Ruth Jones, it is a 2007 BBC comedy which became the most nominated comedy show at the British Comedy Awards of that year. Corden and Jones also star in the show as the best friends of Gavin and Stacey

Gavin (Matthew Horn) works as a computer expert for a local company in Essex. Stacey (Joanna Page) works in accounts for a local company in Barry, Wales. They met over the phone because their employers do business together. Business conversations had turned into flirtations and that turned into a full length long distance relationship- without having met each other.

After six months of exchanging heart to heart conversations, Gavin and Stacey decide to meet at a neutral venue. Barry is on the west coast of Britain, and Essex is on the East coast of England, so these two lovebirds can claim to have the entire island (not to mention two countries) separating them. So they decide on a neutral venue, halfway between: London.

Just to be on the safe side, they each bring their best friends with them. Gavin brings Smithy, a burly builder who is very fond of beer (well who isn't?). Stacey brings her friend Vanessa, a woman who apparently has seen it all and is subsequently jaded about men.

Hilarity ensues as Stacey's uncle Brian (pronounced “Brin”) (Rob Brydon)equips her with a rape alarm for protection. The Welsh distrust of the English is not going away very soon as is the English misconception about the Welsh. But I'll tell you this for starters, other people's prejudices are hilarious to watch!

Gavin and Stacey hit it off and after a coupe of false starts, so do Smithy and 'Nessa. An awkward situation happens when the four of them have to share one room- but it is soon resolved. One can understand that being a best friend is about being able to ignore the fact that your friend is having very noisy sex four feet away. It does not hurt if you're doing the same as well.

As far as relationship comedies go, the comedy is centered more around the people in the lives of the two protagonists. Stacey's family is rather insular and very overprotective of her- not surprising since her father had passed away recently. Gavin's mother Pamela (Allison Steadman) is a typical Essex girl (presumably retired) who is very much your poor man's Hyacinth Bucket. Just imagine what could happen when these two clans meet. Here's a clue, I'm still laughing.

If you are looking for a non-formulaic comedy show that would actually make you laugh, you may want to give this one a try.