Book Review : Flight of the Titans

As most of you know am a avid reader and generally post the latest book that am reading and the one i completed on social media . I also publish top ten books that i read during the year at end of every year . However have never attempted to write review of any books that i have read . This is my attempt to venture into that and i intend to write reviews of each of the books am going to read going forward.

The below is review of the latest book i completed . 

Title - Flight of the Titans

ISBN - 9780753513453

Publisher - Virgin Media

Author - Kenny Kemp

First Published - 2006/07

Review

The author of the book Kenny Kemp is a journalist , business writer and author . His book attempts to look at the commercial airline industry, specifically the two large commercial airplane makers Boeing and Airbus .

The book is aptly titled the Flight of the Titans , as most of us are aware that these two behemoths i.e. Airbus & Boeing deliver 90% of the planes that fly in the commercial segment.

Given the complexity of the organizations in question due to political involvement as both Boeing and Airbus are keenly supported by the US and European governments respectively , it is understandable that the author has tried his best to explain the political intervention although he has also tried to keep the political equation simple to understand .

The book specifically focuses on the strategy undertaken by the respective companies. On the one hand he looks at how Boeing is betting on a small point to point 250-300 seater and ultra efficient Boeing 787 as the future. On the other he also looks at Airbus' opposite strategy as they look at the delivering a sucker punch to what is the most known object on the skies i.e. the Boeing 747 by delivering the Airbus A380 which at its peak can have capacity of upto 600 passengers .

In order to discuss the future strategy , its inevitable for the author to get into the roots and history of both the corporations.

Various chapters have been devoted to look at the history of the companies, one cannot miss the fact that the history in the book is overwhelmingly skewed towards Airbus given extensive interviews with Airbus founder Roger Beteille. 

The author enthralls the reader by giving a mix of history and related politics behind the scenes with various degrees in different chapters . To avoid dragging the reader into boredom of history and politics , the author has kept these components very simple and enjoyable to ensure that the book isn't too heavy.

The flow of the book is really nice as each chapters move in logical steps. The author has not limited the book to these two companies but he has also devoted specific chapters to the engine makers i.e. Rollys Royce and the Engine Alliance (GE , Pratt&Whitney alliance), The employees and the sales people . This is key in ensuring that book feels complete to the reader.

It goes without saying that such big organizations and mega projects often have controversies intertwined in their history , author has discussed the Boeing labour union strikes, design issues, infighting , insider trading to name a few to add spice to the book. 

Book has focussed on key areas ,History, strategy , growth markets and expectations, controversies and the future.

It has been written very well and the author has had the lay man in mind while writing it . It is a very enjoyable read and has lots of information .

Given that the book was published in 2006/07 long before either Airbus or Boeing made their deliveries of the planes ts quite commendable that the author has been able to write this book in such vivid style and character .

What i did miss in the book was a chapter devoted to Air shows , as a general public , we tend to see lots of news around these air shows would have been good to have a chapter on this to explain why these take place and what happens here and which are the premier air shows and why. Apart from that it was a very enjoyable read.

As such this is my opinion and you can clearly see that this is my first stab at any book review , please feel free to give your opinion and i'll improve upon this.

London to Dubai & Dubai to Chennai

Its been three weeks since i blogged & lots have happened in the last three weeks.

Just about three weeks ago , I had the opportunity of meeting and spending time with my old friend and mentor Suresh Iyer. We spent one evening having dinner, nothing fancy as Suresh just could not bear the cold , so we settled for a near by Mcdonalds. 

Braving the freezing temperature, we also went shopping.

Then it was time for some hectic work in office as i was busy preparing for my ten day break and travel to India and there was some residual work to be completed before i left.

Thursday a week before last , i left to Dubai where i was to stay with my sister and my brother in law. It was a great escape for me as my flight took off just before the snow started , i was mighty relieved.

I touched down in Dubai , i had pre-arranged my visa's online so it was easy to pass through customs and immigration. Once i was out both my sister and brother in law was there to pick me up. It was an amazing two and half days in their home , as we went to different places. The highlight was south indian food in " Vazha Ellai" and the desert safari . Not to forget my niece Sriya , she was just amazing.

After two and half joyful days , i left for Chennai . It was another Emirates flight and another upgrade to business class :)

As such i did not greatly enjoy the flight , did not eat anything , just had a glass of water . Flight was smooth and touched down on time.

I was coming to Chennai to participate in my dad's " Sasthiapthaboorthi" function . For those who do not know what that is , " Sasthiapthaboorthi" is a function to celebrate 60th birthday.

Prior to the function i had lot of work to do . I had to specifically open a bank account and also a trading account . The latter was specifically an advice from Suresh who did insist that i start looking at investments .

The days in Chennai flew by . I also had the rare opportunity of buying gold for the first ever time. Appetite for gold never dies . I had presented my mom and dad with gold during the function . I had it as my goal for several years and was pleased that it was fulfilled at the right time . 

The Sasthiapthaboorthi function was well attended , the function was held in our local temple with food being served at my home . As with every other function in my family , this was also done as per our custom and tradition and was attended by everyone from our whole family.

I also had to attend One reception and one bethrothal function in the mean time and also had to meet relatives of my better half.

I now have couple more days in Chennai and then am back to London.

Its been a hectic seven days here but i have thoroughly enjoyed it .

YENGA INGA ANNACHI KADAI YEDHUVUM ILLAYA ?

This one is going to be very short & i expect you will smile at the end of this, i really do.

To start with , Annachi Kadai in my local language (Tamil) means a small shop sometimes it can also mean  tea shop. Normally the owner of the shop is fondly called "Annachi" as a form of respect.

The reason i write this blog is actually funny , having moved out of country one tends to forget what all he/she misses . Top of the list comes that one misses is family , friends, food etc . Having said that there are other subtleties one tends to miss during certain times or occasion/s.

This post is just another reminder of one such thing.

The occasion for me was last Thursday evening.

These days thursday evenings are packed , its a day which is extremely long for me . Normally Thursdays tend to be busier as its closing in on the much anticipated day of the week i.e. Friday . With so many people want to get everything done and closed out by Thursday so Friday becomes less hectic , means Thursday's are always hectic , its not different for me and apart from it i have also packed my thursday with linguistic class i.e. my Mandarin class in evening, which makes it a day that i least look forward to.

Last Thursday was a particularly busy one , lots of meetings and massive amount of work to do. Compounded by the fact that there were other issues in office which took up considerable effort . There was a nagging issue which was causing lot of stress , hey ho it comes with part of my job . Can't complain much but the day was busy and i was very tired.

Just as my work day was coming to close , it dawned to me that its not over yet and i had to get to my class.

I dutifully packed my things, just had a quick face wash and left to take public transport to my class. While i was walking across the road to get to my class , i just realized that i completely forgot to do my homework to be discussed right at the beginning of the class.

I was tired and this homework thing got me even more irritated . As you can imagine  i signed upto the class to ensure that i gain maximum advantage of the time i spend and also ensure that i gain maximum advantage . Naturally feeling dejected , i was angry on myself.

For reasons unknown when one is tired & angry, hunger isn't far enough . I was hungry by now. The bitter cold was not helping either . I wanted to have something quick to eat . I walked in search of a shop where i could eat something sitting comfortably knowing that in this country prices vary if you are to "Eat In" or "Eat Out" . I just couldn't find anything. All i could see were up market coffee shops or pubs . I felt irritated , finally went into a shop and bought a bottle of water and started walking to class .

While i was walking to my class, i replayed the situation and thought what if this same situation i.e." someone hungry and wanted to have quick bite" were to happen back in my hometown . Suddenly it dawned to me that the outcome would have been drastically different . How & Why ?

The answer is very simple " Annachi Kadai aka Tea Stall aka Chai Shop in another avatar called Bakery "  for every 100 or so meters i would have found them and where i could have savored on local delicacies such as -

" Onion Bajji or Vazahakai Bajji or Masala Vada ... oh big daddy Samosa  for that matter puffs or something along with a hot or cold drink not only that i could have actually savored all of these sitting comfortably " 

The above list of delicacies isn't exhaustive but just a sample .... the list is just endless.

As i replayed the situation in my mind , lots of emotions flowed i my mind . I just smiled and said to myself sometimes we do not consider such subtle situations when we decide to work overseas .

On that high note , its time to say good bye. Hope you enjoyed this post.

Have a cracking week ahead!

Tale of A Pair of Shoes

This week just gone by had two major focus, deliverables in office in what has been a super hectic week and my gym trainers i.e. shoes .

As most of you might know , i was never a great fitness freak . Although the fad of keeping fit did come to me once a while but i never had a disciplined approach to it.

As is often the case , anything done without focus and discipline is bound to fail and mine was no different , i never really succeeded in being fit. It never really caught on until about 18 months ago.

I was inspired by a close friend and a colleague of mine ( Sathish aka Jillu) who was so disciplined that he went on to reduce his weight and also his waist size enormously.

Getting inspired is one thing and carrying on that inspiration is another one. As i left Chennai to London , my colleagues masterminded by Sathish presented me a high quality to sneaker and during my parting get together it was explicitly stated i put that to proper use.

That was 18 months ago. It took a long time for the idea of hitting the gym sank in my mind. 

Being alone and finding lots of free time was a big boost and a key reason for me to finally take to going to the gym. It was during first week of September 2010 i decided to go to the gym and rest is history.

Now am a regular at the gym and make it to the gym at least four days a week of which two days are dedicated to running.

During the initial days running for just 10 minutes was very tough , i was extremely unfit but i was determined to get better.

As with every-other thing , going to gym is a habit , once the habit catches on , its very difficult to let go . On this occasion i did not need to let go but i had to preserve the habit.

Slowly my running capacity increased . I moved from 10 minutes to 15 minutes and by April 2011 i was doing close to 30 minutes .

My target was to run for 60 minutes and i did it by Sep 2011 , a full 12 months since i took up the activity.

In all this planning and execution , i forgot to understand one key component . The Accessories, unknown to me my pair of sneakers were getting worn out because they were getting hammered when i do running full steam ahead. As 2011 closed , whenever i ran hard i started feeling pains in  my shin and joints and also in my ankle.

When i asked around and researched a bit , it was becoming increasingly clear that my running shoes had to change .

If i were in my home country , i would have just gone to a showroom and picked up a new shoe. Over here i.e. developed world , everything including buying a pair of shoes needed some research and scientific explanation on which shoes fits the buyer the most. If that sounds way to sci-fi , read on until you find out what actually happened.

I finally decide to buy the shoes and go to shoe shop.

Me : Hello , am looking for a pair of trainers for running, my current one is hurting me when i run

SK (Shop Keeper) : Sir, which one do you use ?

Me: I use Addidas

SK : How long have you been using it ?

Me : about 18 months

SK : Looks like your trainers are due for replacement and it may have run out of its life

By this time i was scratching my head and thinking does a shoe have shelf life 

Me : Ok , i need a new one

SK : Sir , lets test which one/type will fit you best

Me : Test?

SK: Yes , Sir

Me : Test what?

SK: Test your running and your foot landing angle when you run

Me: So what should i do for you to see that

SK: Sir , all you need to do is run on this running machine (Treadmill) and our video will capture your running motion , we can then see which type will suit best

Me: Do i just do one run?

SK: No sir, you do different run on various types of shoes

Me : Ok , lets do it.

By this time , i was astonished to see buying a shoe had such amount of details into it. This was unheard of.

After about 30 minutes i had done six individual running test with six different sets of shoes.

After each run, the shopkeeper also a trainer showed me my running video and showed the angle in which my leg hit the ground.

After the 30 minute stint and six sessions of video, the shopkeeper said , "sir your leg fall is near neutral on your left leg but not completely neutral ". 

To this , i asked what this means, he said you need a paid of shoes which has some support to nullify the angle of your fall.

Bewildered, i accepted . He had placed few pairs of shoes for me to choose from , all from various brands.

I finally choose a pair of Nike shoes with a bit of hard support in its sole to support inclined landing during running.

Am Keen to keep my habit of going to gym and running going . This blog was just to bring out the Tale of a pair of shoes . 

It definitely was a fairy tale to me.

Hope you enjoyed the blog.

2012 Kick Off

This is going to be a short blog. I just wanted to get back to blogging given that we are already getting into last week of January.

January always is a push with everything coming back to full force after the Christmas and new year Holiday season and this year has been no different.

As for me , i have set my goals for 2012 , which are more specific this year and is lot lesser than last year but are very aggressive.

Iam keen to be on track and deliver on these personal goals. Last year i barely achieved my personal goals I had achieved about 46% of my overall objectives . 

Of course this isn't like office where i get rated but was interesting to reflect on why certain objectives were not achieved.

During last week of December i had my own reflection session about 2011, although i had not achieved all the goals i had set , i was happy that some of the most important goals had been achieved.

2012 has started on a busy note, work in office has been maniac already . Lot of external pressure is driving through the organization. 

In the mean time , i have got admission to study Mandarin course , my first class has already started and enjoying to do something different .

Apart from the above , my dad is retiring from his active service in May this year , i admire him for what he has done and the hardship he has gone through to help me to where i am today .

I really look forward to help him settle down post retirement , i did try to cajole him and my mum to come over to London and stay with us but he is looking forward to some pilgrimage & well deserved rest , hey ho his happiness comes first so have agreed to support that.

Apart from the above , am looking forward to 2012 F1 season  . Alas BBC are not going to telecast all of the races , i need to seek alternatives.

Also looking forward to 2012 Euro and Olympics. 

Going by what i have seen already , its going to be another busy year .

Lets bring it on .

A Year to Remember- Curtains 2011 & Welcome 2012- Will 21/12/12 be the End?

Samoa & Tokelau have had their dateline changed they have jumped from 29 Dec to 31st Dec skipping a day in its entirety to aling with their major trading partners Australia and New Zealand. 

Its New Years eve across the world  & New Zealand's Chatam Islands has about 7 minutes to welcome the new year .

As i sit down to give final touches to this blog, Its a gray morning here , clouds seem to be all over the place and only few speckles of brightness around .

Doesn't that sound vaguely familiar? 

Yes it does sound quite familiar as the year just gone by 2011 was an embodiment of bad news all around only with speckles of good news. It was a year of revolution in many countries mainly caused by usage of social networking often leading to overthrow of governments. 2011 will go down in the modern history books as a year where human will triumphed against all odds.

2011 started off on a cracking note , not in a figurative sense but a literal one . I was out with one of my closest friend Ramakrishnan , standing on the banks of River Thames to watch the fireworks in central London and welcome 2011. It was a spectacular affair and i was pleased that i heeded to my friends advice to see this spectacle and thoroughly enjoyed the fireworks , one of the best that i have ever seen.

February marked a shake-up to my personal life as i got engaged and started courtship period which climaxed in Sep i.e. marriage.

As things ploughed along in my personal life, real world was pushing hard and where ever one looked it was bleak and things were heading south.

Economy stagnating all across Europe & rest of developed world. There was wide spread discontentment against the bankers and banking society in general and they were vilified for having caused the issues in the first place . Housing prices struggled to rise and new home ownerships slumped across the developed world.

Bankers took a pounding from the public and many of the so called ' Masters of the Universe' i.e. I Bankers aka Investment bankers were torn apart by legislators and also by general public , this is here to stay and its widely expected that Investment Banks will look at the way they do business and will be clipped of their risk taking abilities by the ensuing legislation's across the Atlantic. 

Among notable personality both for their goods and the ills, Kweku Adoboli the UBS rogue trader who cost the firm $2 billion and Oswald Gruebel the firms CEO his position , Jon Corzine , former I banker , a Senator turned CEO bought his firm MF Global to its knees as it filed for bankruptcy and who could not explain the missing funds from client accounts stand tall for their deeds , however Mario Draghi , Christian Lagarde, Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy all vie for a place in the league of powerful people to shape the future of the financial and economical world .

Hitherto considered panacea for world issues , BRIC Economies had its fair share of problems. 


Brazil had the worst ever flooding in Jan , its main stock index Bovespa fell nearly 16% . Russia had to deal with discontentment among its people widespread loss of faith in elections due to rigging , Putin seemed to have lost his edge there & its own stock index The RTS fell by 22% , Poster child India was hammered by a heavy blow with a weakening rupee, inflation seemed to be the buzz word as it once again showed its ugly face and the cost differential, cheap work force with which India had grown so far is now narrowing and there are many competitors in the same scale, India's main index The Sensex has fallen 22%, India was also deeply plagued by political will to pass the Lokpal bill, the 2G scam to name a few . Big Daddy, China had its own share of problems not limited to Economic slowdown but also news about rail disasters and the bad press relating to China's bad IP laws including the one with Siemens , where Chinese Railway systems (CNR) which had received training from Siemens bumped Siemens in bagging the rights to build the Beijing-Shangai high speed rail networks. and its stock index the SSE has fallen by a whopping 26%


The bold prediction by Jim O Neil and fellow Goldman  alumni that BRIC economies would be the largest economy by 2050 and will be the engine of growth seems to be fading away. The new economic acronym seem to be CIVETS (Columbia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey & South Africa)


Commodity prices started to tumble in a late slide , gold lost ground but still ended  up about 10% year on year , Silver is trading 10% lower while Platinum lost 21% & Palladium fell by 18%

With Economy faltering , it was up to the politicians to seize the opportunity and push forward for reforms , political will was tested severely and in majority of the cases political will failed to stand the test.The Arab spring spread across much of Middle East , It was a unanimous referendum that people were not willing to wait any longer and voted strongly in favour of democracy against dictatorship. The rioting was not limited to Arab world , discontent spread to developed world , as there was rioting and strikes in many parts of Greece, Italy, Spain and also in England pre-dominantly sparked off by economic issues rather than political.


As if wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were not enough , Nato forces this time around were defiant to defeat the brutality of Libyan dictator, Muammar Ghaddafi whose regime had plundered the middle eastern state and virtually handicapping the entire nation. Defeat they did when Muammar Ghadafi was killed in cross fire in middle of the year.


The US played its part too in the killing of much wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden.


Journalism had its Achilles heels in Rupert Murdoch & the News of the International phone hacking scandal , which cropped out of nowhere and made international head lines and shaming the Murdoch empire and journalism as a whole.


During the early part of the year , Nature played its hand too . A massive earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale triggered a tsunami in east of Japan killing more than 15,000 people and destabilising the countries nuclear reactors.


As things looked bleak , one specific sector was hotting up , it was the technology sector where the battle of the titans had just begun . Amazon surprised everyone by launching their colour e-reader called the Kindle Fire , which got rave reviews. Google kicked off its battle to thwart Facebook by launching its own social networking website called Google+ . Google also entered into the lucrative airline travel search business and is causing furore in the markets. In the mobile front , it was loggerheads with Apple , HTC , Samsung slugging it out with new launches. It was one of the very few sectors that saw actions leading to positive outcome.


The world population reached 7 billion in 2011 and is continuing to grow . There were scores of scientific discoveries , specifically discovery of a earth like planet called Kepler 22-b & hints of Higgs Boson particle in a recent experiment at CERN grabbing headlines in the scientific community.


Not to leave out the entertainment industry , this year has been no exception as there were hundreds of movies released , one of the major competitors to theatre owners seem to be technology companies like Netflix which stream movies into home, this battle continue to be fought in the years to come.


The Airline industry saw the first delivery of much delayed and much anticipated, fuel economic releases from Boeing in the form its 747 Dreamliner airline and ANA (Air Nippon Airways) was the first to take delivery of  it and with it Boeing has fired their first salvo in their competition against Airbus and this time Boeing is placing its bets based on Fuel efficiency, with oil prices hitting high , this bet looks like a sound one.


In sports, Sebastian Vettle did the job for Red Bull racing , a clinical drive from start to finish enroute to 2011 championship , India displayed nerve of steel to clinch their second cricket world cup defeating Sri Lanka , Novak Jkovic won three grand slams in 2011 on his way to becoming world number 1 dethroning clay king Rafa Nadal.


We bid adieu to some of the best known faces on earth , Steve Jobs, Dev Anand , Michael Jackson to name a few.


To conclude , we step into 2012, with lot of clouds hanging around and each one threatening to unleash maximum pain to the society , its long been shown that whatever happens, humankind have always found ingenious ways to solve problems and am supremely confident that we will find way around issues this time around.


2012 will be hot , politicians pushing to stave off contagion across Eurozone , Americans would hope to stabilize their economy and take a heavy view on Financial and associated services. Euro 2012, London Olympics will light fireworks in the sporting field , Apple expected to launch Apple ITV, Mini Ipad, Ipad 3 , Google expected to launch the Ice cream Sandwich (aka Android 4) , Facebook's mega IPO said to be largest since the early 90's , 4G roll-out . The amount of activities expected across various segments and sectors are immense and its going to be another busy year.


Having said that and as proven in 2011 , Nature always goes one better than any of us could possibly imagine , with the Mayan calendar predicting cataclysmic damage in 2012 and dawn of the new age . Whether any of the above will be true or not , only time will tell. We can be cautiously optimistic that nature will take its own course and am sure she will prove who the ultimate master of the universe is.


I am Stepping into 2012 with a handful of specific goals , am hoping to pursue each of these goals with rigour.


I wish you and your family a very happy new year , May this new year bring prosperity and happiness.

Don't Take Yourself too Seriously !

That was an advice given by The President of the United States - Barrack Obama.

I was watching a documentary about life of the official photographer of the white house Pete Souza .

It was an amazing documentary which took the viewrs behind the scenes of the white house and showed the inside view of the supreme commanders daily chores and some of the magnificent photos that were taken by the photographer.

In the programme which was delivered in an interview format , there was one moment which was an interview with the president , where he quotes an incident in the white house.

This was his meeting with a very young kid , who happened to be a kid of his white house staff.

This kid stood up to the president and said " people say I have a hair cut similar to yours , can I examine your head " !

The president instantly obliged . The kid examined president's head and patted him on his head . Vividly captured in the photo below.

http://www.google.co.in/search?q=google+images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari#sclient=tablet-gws&hl=en&client=safari&tbo=d&source=hp&q=baraack+obama+pat+on+head+photo&pbx=1&oq=baraack+obama+pat+on+head+photo&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1833l17593l0l18125l49l42l2l0l0l4l544l6814l5.26.5.1.1.1l44l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=a5d3a2c5563f73ea&biw=1024&bih=672

The president quotes this incident and says " sometimes you shouldn't take yourself too seriously and have a good sense of humour".

How true , in life we always take ourselves too seriously engrossed in things which do not count in the long run and there by missing out on splendid moments that nature befalls us. We don't appreciate what has been bestowed upon us and how much better off we are when compared to scores of other people who are out there.

We don't appreciate what life has given us , neither do we enjoy it, all of it is lost in our ever increasing complex lifestyle which surely is destroying some of the fundamental human values. only to regret what is lost in the last stages of our life.

Let us take a step back and say to ourselves , life has to be enjoyed and not to be taken too seriously .

Enjoy life.