This is why it’s very hard for me to understand the wall of repression and accusations raised against the book (and subsequent movie). Why such a vehement attitude against what clearly is a work of fiction? After all, the world is full of works that pick a few historical details and make the most preposterous statements. We don’t go all out on Saving Private Ryan or The Three Musketeers or similar works for going out of history books and into fiction. Sure, we underline what’s fact and what’s imagination when we discuss them with friends. But I don’t see, for example, the Sorbonne putting up a big plaque at Richelieu’s tomb explaining that he wasn’t the bad guy Alexandre Dumas painted him to be.

So then, why is there this attitude against Dan Brown? Why do we have an army ready to accuse all the creative liberties taken by some author? It’s quite baffling. Sure, there’s no Rose Line, there’s no protruding pyramid under the floor of the Louvre and so on. We can choose to see the basic symbols for male and female ( triangle pointing up or down respectively) wherever we want because it’s a basic geometric shape. Even in computer graphics each and every image is composed by polygons with a certain triangle count and the performance of graphic cards is assessed by how fast they render them. We know all that.

So then why the fear? Why the need to debunk fiction? It makes as little sense as saying that there never was a musketeer with the nickname Porthos. We know that. There is no evidence, thus we dismiss the idea or at most set it aside as something we can never verify thus it’s something we can never rely on.

Anyone can take a single fact and add fiction on top in a coherent way that can make even the smartest man pause for a moment and think “what if” ? But it never goes beyond the what if, because there’s no real support and nobody can claim otherwise (unless, of course, someone stumbles on some sort of evidence eventually).

Unless …

The most vocal reprimand against Dan Brown comes from the Church. Why is the Church threatened by a fantasy? Because the Church *is* a fantasy. The Church itself is built on a strikingly similar shaky foundation, just like the Da Vinci Code. Its doctrine starts from a historical character, a man named Jesus, who lived and did some things and left a whole philosophy of morality behind. That we know. Starting from there, the Church has built an intricate system of fantasies which (much like Apple’s iPhone) managed to build a whole industry around itself, just to give itself a purpose. Just like Dan Brown takes pieces of history and builds an intricate conspiracy theory for the purpose of entertainment which in the end only says: buy me!

Two fantasies, an old one which gave us great works of architecture and has caused billions of deaths across time. And another one which asks us to look closer at the first fantasy. One is dangerous to humanity, the other is a danger to the first fantasy. After all, in the end, looking too close and too critical at anything fake only helps reveal the holes.

I must say, I felt entertained by both and I dare anyone to claim they weren’t. The Church’s fantasy has shaped history. A pretty neat feat for a work of fiction, but not unbelievable (see Star Trek or Star Wars and their effect on people). The other is a witty piece and it’s the only one of the two that passes my second test, that of being consistent within its own universe.

In the end, neither shook my universe. Only truth could (or should) have that power.

Fleming writes in a rather captivating style about a glamorous spy who deals with a small state’s army before burning half a city and a quarter of the world’s production of luxury sports cars before sleeping with supermodels and finally getting things done.

Le Carre is a boring writer but who draws from his own real experience to convey believable intelligence operations. There’s no glamour, just tedious work of putting together puzzles and doing research in a time when information technology and communications in general were a spy’s wet dream. It’s hard to imagine and Le Carre’s writing does nothing to help.

2011′s adaptation of his book Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is closer to its source that it seems. You have to fight hard with still scenes, boring camera work and a general lack of action in order to follow the razor sharp smart story. One thing that helps is that virtually all actors that get more than two minutes screen time are familiar. Each and every one of them. Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones, Simon McBurney and others.

However, there are a few things worth underlining.

Gary Oldman speeks little and spends a lot of screen time staring dully. He seems ice cold with a hint of humanity underneath. That’s how he’s supposed to be, a career spy whose wife slept with a colleague of his (part of the plot). Years upon years of layer upon layer of truth, deceit and betrayal. How can one keep sane?

In a scene, Oldman’s character tapes suspect photos over chess pieces. Might be a push into the obvious (uncharacteristic to the film), but I liked it. Sure, it’s a chess game which Smiley’s boss (Control) lost to the Russians but Control’s bishop (Smiley himself) might still win.

Another scene, Tom Hardy’s character (Tarr, a setup spy) gets punched by Smiley’s assistant. Smiley himself sits and watches quietly, although he knew Tarr was innocent (albeit sloppy) all along. He made no attempt to protect Tarr or to tell his assistant in advance, instead he allowed the anger to burst. Life had been hard on Tarr but then again life’s not fair, is it? Instead, Tarr had to take all that was thrown at him, take it, swallow it, embrace it and then still have the guts to hope for better.

Lastly, the scene when the Russian mole is caught. We are given a voiced count of all the suspects in turn (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), then a clever moment of suspense spiced up with unseen doors opening and closing, footsteps on the other side of the door and eavesdropping on a conversation in Russian before we look through the eyes of Smiley’s assistant to see Smiley pointing a gun at the mole. That’s it. No face-off, no “how could you do this to us” speech, no betrayal guilt-trips or other fake stuff. No. A game was played between people who put their lives at risk knowingly, willingly, albeit on opposite sides. They went head to head, someone won and someone else lost in game where eventually the penalty is always death. Regrets have no place there, it’s a condition that preserves sanity.

And the cherry on top? Le Carre doesn’t say it and the film doesn’t dare to hint it but the gloomy truth is that Smiley didn’t really win. When you catch the mole within your own organization, that’s merely a desperate defensive gamble that worked. The outcome is that you’re once again even with your opponent. A win would imply an upper hand somehow but in Smiley’s case is just a return to the drawing board, to the status quo. Sure, Smiley gets Control’s job but in the end he goes home to his gloomy lonely apartment where he gets to sit in his chair with that cold lost stare in his eyes. Nothing more.

Such is the case of sweeping under the rug the crimes of the 1989 anticommunist Revolution, the crimes of the communist regime itself as well as those of the neo-communist regime (like the miners’ invasion of Bucharest).

Spain however managed to equal and surpass the neo-communist regime of Romania and its lack of justice. Such completion was achieved by not covering up crimes and thousands of kidnappings and cases of torture, but also by overtly accusing a judge of … trying to solve said cases! Sure, in Romania judges are bribed, threatened and there’s a lot of pressure on the good ones but never before have we seen a judge sent to jail for the sole guilt of trying to solve a case.

Such is the situation of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon . Judge Garzon is a well known judge specialized in human rights cases, most famous for being the negotiator that obtained the arrest of former dictator Augusto Pinochet in London and for being the second judge to issue an international warrant for the apprehension of Osama bin Laden.

The charges brought against him are that of violating a general amnesty offered for the crimes perpetrated during the fascist regime of Francisco Franco. However, this law has been under constant attack by human rights organisations ever since its inception and subsequent Spanish legislation regarding human rights is considered to supersede the amnesty, as Spain currently offers a great deal of power to human rights abuse investigations.

Despite widespread support especially from the part of families of victims, judge Garzon is the target of resentment from colleagues due to his popularity and his well-paid human rights speeches.

* In Franta, operatorul Free continua sa vina cu oferte care asigura un mediu concurential benefic consumatorului: (20 euro/luna abonament de telefonie mobila cu: apeluri si SMS nelimitate catre fix si mobil in 40 de state ale lumii + USA, 3Gb de date la viteza 3G, MMS nationale nelimitate, fara perioada de contract obligatorie – iPhone 4S la 1 EUR)
* Romania este (alaturi de Bulgaria) una din cele doua tari din Europa unde operatorii de telefonie mobila continua sa limiteze apelurile in reteaua proprie si sa diferentieze intre apelurile in reteau proprie si cele nationale. Deasemenea, Romania este singura tara din Europa unde operatorii de telefonie mobila continua sa limiteze strict traficul de date (si taxeaza traficul excedentar, in timp ce toti ceilalti doar limiteaza viteza). Deasemenea, operatorii din Romania au cea mai proasta oferta de trafic de date (limite derizorii gen 100Mb la abonamente de peste 10 EUR/luna).

The crazy world we live in is best depicted by the behavior of other consumers. Take Black Friday as an example, where a consumer stampede has been tamed with pepper spray. If you need more, Google is happy to provide with plenty of images and articles glorifying the indiscriminate buyer. Isn’t it amazing? There’s actually no particular corporation to blame! We can’t even single-out particular countries as clashes happened all across Europe!

No so in the case of the new edition of Nike’s Air Jordan basketball shoes. The iconic footwear that proved most popular in the 90′s made a comeback that sparked clashes all across the US. Lafayette saw a mob literally break down the doors of a mall, a woman got arrested for leaving her underage kids unattended in order to buy the shoes, a young man got stabbed in California and his bags stolen because some punks thought he had bought the shoes, in Texas a group of women spent the night in jail for beating the crap out of each other over the shoes, New York queues put Apple Store to shame.

The only thing we can conclude is this: learn your martial arts and learn them now. You might need them next time you go shopping.

Headhunter Dominic Connor forwards all the frustrations a human resources specialist faces when sorting out CVs. Bad spelling and funky colored paper can only scratch the surface. The article goes deeper, towards the significance and relevancy of information, its accuracy and trustworthiness. There’s no need to reiterate what Dominic says, but there is a slight need to dispute and underline some facts.

• I already know you want to leave your current job or else we wouldn’t be talking. So why are you listing the defects of your employer? – I’m not so sure about that myself, save for the fact that in all my interviews in the past 4 or 5 years I’ve been asked why I want(did) to quit my current/former job. So putting it in a CV doesn’t seem so far fetched. Whether it’s defects with the employer or something else, it might be worth mentioning (statistically speaking from my point of view) unless told otherwise.
• Why did you send the file as a Word document? – I know, I prefer PDF myself. However, in more than 80% (counted) of my applications for one job or another, I was asked to resubmit my resume/CV in Word format. Why? Only my current employer bothered to explain: they wanted to edit and translate my CV into an internal format. Aside from that, for online submissions Word is the safe choice. I don’t really agree since Word can mess up a CV in many ways (both from my point of view as well as for the human resource victim dealing with my CV)
• The average HR has to deal with everything from sales droids to accountants as well as thirty different flavours of techie. Do you think she has a deep and informed view of the relative merits of Python and Ruby? – this should be put in large platinum letters at the entrance to every human resources department and every interview room. Yes, human resource specialists are not tech people. This is true whether you go for IT or anything else. They browse and search for the keywords that they were given, do some assessment and the propose the candidate for interview. Technical details and nitpicking of a subject on your CV is out of place. You can do that at the interview.
• It’s my fault and your problem – a golden subsection. Yes, conveying your education and expertise in an efficient way may borderline art. When building a CV you need to account for the fact that it will be read by a human, a human that has faults, prejudices and who is in fact searching for something specific and you need to help them find what they’re looking for with your resume/CV.

Note: Even though I’m not always looking for employment, I do something take up interviews anyway. I do that to keep in touch with market requirements or simply to brush up my interview and people skills. It may not be fair to everyone, but it’s necessary. However, during these endeavors, as I get to discuss my CV a lot, I keep getting a lot of advice from human resource specialists about my CV.

• a Chinese fighter jet dived at an airshow, while the pilot ejected.
• a German biplane crashes into a car. Miraculously, nobody got seriously injured.
• a Korean Airlines Boeing with almost 400 people on board lands on its tail at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport (NRT). Bumpy ride for passengers but the airport still closed for an hour amid fears of an explosion. Again, nobody got hurt.
• in Colombia, a small Cessna flipped over after what appeared to be a fairly normal touchdown. Guess that back wheel simply didn’t want to stay down.

A few years ago Red Hot Chili Peppers as well as U2 experimented successfully with self distribution. Now, a meager stand up comedian made a million in a few days by distributing his latest performance as an unprotected video file.

If a mediocre stand up comedian can sell his performance for $5 and make a million in a few days, just think what a Batman movie could bring if after a theatrical run it would be distributed like this. No more HBO, Sony, Paramount or anyone else, just a quick download, $5 instead of $40. I’d pay a movie ticket and then the download.

This proves once and for all that the issue is not that people simply want everything for free, just that the people hate the middleman that leads to triple prices.

• The outrageous CEO of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary strikes back: We don’t want baggage fees, we just don’t want your baggage!
• Etihad picks up Air Berlin, nudges Lufthansa out of the way taking 29.2% off the German carrier. Thus, Air Berlin moves East, opening new airways into Abu Dhabi and the orient.
• World airline awards 2011 tend to go East as well. Qatar is the best airline, followed by Singapore, Asiana and Cathay Pacific.
• Asian airline are doing well: JAL is not only preparing a new website interface, but it is also repaying early parts of its loan.
• ANA and Boeing relationship is marred by late deliveries.
• BA and Virgin are competing to buy BMI from Lufthansa.
• Chile’s LAN and Brazil’s TAM merge to form a supergiant airline: LATAM.