Aidan Williams - High Acuity

My sister and I met up with my brother at his new offices at 30 St Mary Axe (‘The Gerkin’) for an early Christmas lunch last Friday. He has the most incredible view over London from his office on the 31st floor, and despite the fact that the weather was terrible – it was still a great experience. We proceeded to the restaurant on the 40th floor which had more beautiful views over London AND fantastic food, and possibly the best Earl Grey tea blend I’ve ever tasted! (is it wrong to get that excited about great tasting tea? I don’t think so) I will definitely be going to visit my brother more often in the New Year.

If I were to regale you all with the fabulous food that my mum cooked over Christmas, it would provoke longings to embark post haste for my parent’s house, there to eat oneself cheerfully to death and gorge on Christmas delights. Everyone claims that their mother is the best cook in the world, but my mum really is the best cook in the world.

Christmas with my parents in the West Midlands was a haze of frosty mornings, country expeditions, conversations aside a crackling open fireplace, wonderful food and sweets, and a couple of great classic Christmas movies thrown in there for good measure. I cannot have Christmas without watching Scrooged at least once – it’s still timeless and classic and still my favourite Christmas movie of all time… just ahead of Die Hard.

On Boxing Day, my friend John, who I’ve known since I was twelve, and his girlfriend drove us out to Hay On Wye – a small town that’s famous for being filled with pretty much nothing but book shops and cafes. They have an annual famous literary festival where my brother saw Bill Clinton speak a few years ago.

We had a great day out walking in the (freezing cold!) countryside and ended it with a nice meal in a country pub at the Llantony Priory, which is the only building left standing in the ruins of an Augustine monastery that was build in 1180AD.

All in all it was a wonderful break for my girlfriend and I. I haven’t been home all year, so it was great to spend some quality time with my parents.

After an incredible week, cramming in 5 days of work into the last two, and looking after my girlfriend who was sick, I started my journey to Cape Town on the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow Airport.

After checking in and doing a small amount of duty-free shopping, I sat and surfed the web for free via The Cloud network with my iPhone – I fricken love this thing! I was able to send a couple of last-minute work emails to ensure everything went smoothly while I was away and give myself some peace of mind, and I was able to surf the net and relax before the flight.

My brothers Kim, Rory, his girlfriend Caroline and I spent most of Sunday visiting Vinyards in Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, such as Tokara, Dieu Donné and Delaire, where we did some wine tasting. The views in this area of Cape Town are particularly breath taking. Every time I visit Cape Town, I understand why there are so many health resorts in this part of the world – it’s so beautiful, peaceful and rejuvenating.

On Monday morning, a small group of us walked up Lion’s head. While the most common tourist destination in Cape Town is Table Mountain, I really think the walk up Lion’s Head gives the best views over the city and the surrounding areas, not least because you get incredible views of Table Mountain as you walk up.

While some people seem to find walking up Lion’s Head a rather blasé affair, making it to the top is always somewhat of a cathartic experience for me. And while I feel as though my heart is about to explode in my chest just before I make it to the top, making it to the top and seeing those views is always a great moment.

On Monday and Tuesday nights, my brother Rory rented a beautiful beach house for us out in Hermanus. Kim brought his poker set so on both nights we played into the wee hours of the morning. While Rory, Dan and I spent the evening shouting playful banter at each other, Kim quietly and stealthily gleaned our chips from beneath us. Whenever we pointed out to him “What’s going on here, Kim?? You’ve got all the chips!” he would consistently reply “What? I’ve got hardly any chips! Look at Aidan, he’s got them all!” (I had a bit more than the others). I ended both nights with fifty percent more money than I put in, but Kim really took the pot both nights.

On Wednesday and Thursday I spent a lot of time looking after my beautiful niece and nephew, Nicholas and Maya. We played various games, mostly involving drawing with crayons, various forms of hide and seek, and also clambering all over me whether I was standing or sitting. I also took them to see Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium – which is a fun film and worth seeing. These children are wonderful, but they have way too much energy for me – I know I’m relatively young and should have more energy, but they nearly gave me a heart attack on numerous occasions. Needless to say, they and I slept very well on both of those nights.

Friday was Kim’s birthday so we met up with him at the Planet Bar inside the beautiful Mount Nelson hotel. Kim has some amazing friends – I met Lars (or ‘Larry’ as Kim calls him) a Norwegian actor who I last met just after he finished playing the part of ‘Bugs’ in the film ‘The Beach’. He kept on walking up to me, putting his arm around me and pushing olives into my mouth, and as I was trying to have a conversation with people, I ate them, despite the fact that I just can’t get a taste for olives. I see everyone enjoying them so much and I want to try them every time, but the taste is just horrible to me.

After visiting various pubs and clubs around Cape Town, I ended up staying at Kim’s friend Stephan’s flat at about 5 in the morning. The next day Stephan and I went out to Haut Bay for a great ‘steak roll’ lunch and n the way back, he showed me around his university labs. Stephan is researching minimally-invasive heart surgery techniques using da Vinci S Surgical System robot, going in through the abdomen and working your way through the body to the heart. No more cutting open the breast-plate/chest!

For my final meal in Cape Town, Kim, Stephan and I went to a restaurant in the city where I had an ostrich fillet steak on a bed of crushed sweet potato with red thai curry sauce – yes, it sounded a little strange to me too, but wow… very tasty.

Overall I had an incredible time in Cape Town. Yes, there were some family politics and other things going on, but I always have an incredible time with my brothers. If you have a hectic lifestyle and need to go somewhere to relax for a week or two, I couldn’t recommend any place better than Cape Town.

Okay, come on, you knew I was going to get one!

I picked up an iPhone a few weeks ago and I have to say, it does have its shortcomings, and they could be considered significant: A 2 megapixel camera with no other features, settings or flash. Mono Bluetooth audio on a device that’s designed to play music. Edge and no 3G on a device that’s designed to browse the Internet. No expandable memory. No detachable battery. No multimedia/photo messaging. No front-side camera for video calls. No GPS. No Radio. No 3rd party applications (for the moment).

That’s a lot of very old technology for a device that’s supposed to be so technologically advanced. These issues are compounded by the fact that the iPhone’s direct competitors do have all of the very latest technologies in these areas and are sold at a fraction of the price, sometimes even given away free with a new contract. Such as the Nokia N95 with it’s 5 megapixel camera with auto-focus, flash, great camera settings, stereo Bluetooth, and 3G. To add to this, the sound quality of voice calls isn’t brilliant, and there is a big difference between the sound quality on the iPhone and the Sony Ericsson phones I’ve owned.

Suffice to say; I am very disappointed with the iPhone’s shortcomings. Partly because I really like having a decent camera on my phone, and given all the hoo-haa Apple made about displaying photos on the iPhone, I would have thought the device’s built-in camera would have been more… substantial/advanced, etc. But I’m also disappointed largely because Apple is usually so good at knowing what a new device needs in order excel in the modern market place, and in knowing what the public wants.

However, even with all these shortcomings, I have to tell everyone that the iPhone is absolutely stunning and it does all the typical mobile phone functions far better than any other device on the market. And the extra features that no other mobile phone has are all excellent as well. Three weeks in and I honestly can’t imagine living without this incredible device. I genuinely didn’t expect to be quite this impressed as I am, given that I’d read everything about it six months ago and was starting to feel a little bored with all the adverts, articles and press on it.

Even basic everyday functions, such as being able to walk down the street while listening to my music with the iPhone’s heaphones and knowing that I’ll be alerted to any calls, texts or emails is brilliant - and being able to answer calls without getting it out of my pocket … okay, maybe I’m getting excited over nothing - but this thing is awesome!

The iPhone shows an infinite amount of promise and I can imagine some absolutely incredible improvements and applications available on future generations… but I really do miss that great camera on my three-year-old Sony Ericsson phone.

As a side note, I also bought a family pack of Leopard for myself, my girlfriend and my flatmates and upgraded, and I love it as well! Definitely worth upgrading, especially if you’re working on OSX every day.