David Leigh

Last year I finally got around to reading some books that I should have read years ago. One of those was Neuromancer by cyberpunk novelist William Gibson, and I recently bought the two sequels, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive.

The prose is pretty dense and so they’re not exactly for the fainthearted, but great reads all the same. In many ways it is remarkable how Gibson foretold of a massively internetworked world and it was he who is responsible for the term cyberspace (as well as ‘the matrix’ please note). Although I can’t quite visualise what Gibson’s cyberspace looks like, it doesn’t seem all that distant in some ways from virtual worlds such as Second Life.

One of the aspects that I find interesting is the way in which AIs (artifical intelligences) are born and evolve in cyberspace, appearing as voodoo gods to some, as well as the consciousness of people being captured in in a biochip so that they survive beyond death, questioning the nature of existence.

A couple of things that date the novels somewhat - Neuromancer was written 25 years ago to be fair - is the number of times that faxes are mentioned, the amount of smoking that goes on (although in a post-WW3 scenario perhaps smoking in public has become accepted again), and that nobody seems to use a mobile phone.

Thoroughly recommended, if you haven’t read the trilogy yet go and buy on Amazon now.

Technorati Tags: cyberspace, william gibson, neuromancer

You can hardly miss this book by Tim Ferriss at the moment, it seems to be everywhere, but the question must be is it just hype or does it live up to its seemingly unbelieveable title?

I read the book straight through when it first arrived and although it seems to set the reader up for a big fall, the author really does live up to his promise; he actually does only work 4 hours a week and checks his email just… once a week. (more…)

One thing I was happy to see in Casino Royale was the appearance of the Vesper. This drink is featured in the book and, as in the film, it was concocted by 007 himself and later named after the heroine.

Now, one of the ingredients in the Vesper is Kina Lillet and author Kinsley Amis took Ian Fleming to task about this. Amis’s take on it (in The Book of Bond) was that the quinine content of Kina Lillet was too high and the drink would be too bitter and what Fleming really meant was Lillet vermouth. It is interesting to note that the film makers cock a snoot at Amis because Vesper mentions at one point that the drink has a bitter aftertaste.

However, Kina Lillet is no longer available - the name was changed long ago to plain a simple Lillet and later Lillet Blanc (when they introduced a red version). Finally in the 1980s the recipe was altered to make it much less bitter, so the film makers decided to go with Fleming on this rather than fact. Anyway, I recently saw an article that mentioned adding quinine powder or bitters to the drink to give it that genuine Fleming touch, so decided to give it a go. Lillet isn’t easy to find, but you can order it online to do this test and no, vermouth won’t do.

So which version of the drink wins, with or without the bitterness? No contest actually, the version with a couple of drops of bitters included does make a better drink, the bitter-less version is powerful but missing something, so my take on this is that Fleming did get it right after all.

Here’s the recipe:

3 measures of Gordon’s gin
1 measure of vodka
½ measure of Kina Lillet (buy it in the UK or US)
2 drops bitters (optional)

Shake until ice cold and serve in a deep champagne goblet with a large thin slice of lemon peel

What do you think?

Links:

The James Bond Cocktail Bar ebook

Kina Lillet - UK supplier

Kina Lillet - US supplier