www.sussexaestheticdentist.co.uk » Books

Malcolm Gladwell

Andrew Vance — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:03:06 +0000

I had a very interesting Tuesday evening. I went to the Dome in Brighton to hear Malcolm Gladwell speak. For those who don’t know who he is. He is the author of three books, Turning Point, Blink and his latest Outliers. Blink was about instant appraisals of people produced by our own conditioning. Outliers is about people with events that produce phenomenal outcomes.
His talk on Tuesday was about the financial crisis tying in with the American Civil War! It was all about the battle of Chancellorsville. General Hooker took over a very dispirited army. He was able to inspire them and get them food. Due to his spy network and the availability of a hot air balloon he was able to get much information about the other side who was commanded by Robert E Lee. Gladwell then spoke about a physiological test. Students were given two pages about a person and then asked to answer questions about him. They were then give a couple more pages and asked the same questions. They were given another couple of sheets again having to answer the questions. Finally they were given all the information about this person. The research showed that with the added information the students still only got around 27% right. The very interesting observation is that the students assessment of how well they did went up to nearly 90% when given all the information.
Getting back to the American Civil War, General Hooker had all this information coming in and made his own assumption of what was happening. He did not listen to his other Generals. He felt he new everything. He was beaten by Lee.
He was looked on as an expert, like all the top bankers who were dealing with our money. They all felt they new better and didn’t heed any warnings! The conclusion is that it is best to have someone who is humble in a position of power, who is not afraid to admit there are other possibilities, rather than an overconfident person who does not listen. Unfortunately we are drawn to the charismatic characters who are confident. We are told confidence is a good thing. Unfortunately it has caused the problems we are in now!
It was a very interesting talk. I came away with a signed copy of Outliers!

The Last Cigarette

Andrew Vance — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:15:19 +0000

This is a new play by Simon Gray and Hugh Whitmore, based on Simon Gray’s The Smoking Diaries and his final book Coda. He is played by three actors, including Felicity Kendal, not at different time periods but all at the same time. It is as though he is having an inner conversation with himself. He talks about life from his early years to being diagnosed with cancer. It could be melancholy, but due to Grays sharp wit it is ofter hilarious. You did feel what a waste of a life. But he knew what he was doing. He was warned by friends to give up smoking many times. He also drank heavily, consuming several bottles of champagne a night. He also had the habit of working through the night and sleeping in to midday. This did cause problems with his co author Hugh Whitmore, who had more sociable hours. But they have managed to construct a very enjoyable play about a man who lived life the way he wanted. At the end of the play he is told that instead of one year to live it was more likely going to be two. He then died, last August, not from the cancer caused by the smoking but from an aneurysm only a couple of months into his two years. He did not live long enough to complete the play.

There are some lovely passages in the play – “I regret the hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of cigarettes… pause, as if to denounce the weed, but ends … I’ve never experienced.”

My favourite is when he was talking to Harold Pinter, who also died last year, ”We can’t die yet, we haven’t grown up!” They were in their 70’s.

In the end it left me wishing to know more about this extraordinary man.

I also saw “The curious case of Benjamin Button”. I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It is nearly 3 hours long, but it kept my attention throughout. It was a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald which I had never read and never heard of before. It seems to say that your course in life is the same, whether you grow old naturally or are born old and become young. This is what happen to Benjamin. In growing up this way he had only a short time with the one woman he really loved before he grew too young for her. It was a sad and thoughtful film worthy of its Oscar nomination.