Category Archives: Review

Review: Drift into Failure

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While having lunch with Ken Parish last week, I chatted a bit about a very long book review I wrote a few weeks ago, published on my personal blog. He asked me to cross-post it to Troppo. Enjoy.

Drift into Failure, by Sidney Dekker, is one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in a while.

“Thought provoking” is usually a shorthand used by buttered-up friends of the author to mean “I agree” or “he/she provided a great blurb for my dust jacket and now I’m returning the favour”.

But in this case, I found that the book provoked a lot of thought on my part. It tied to a lot of other books I’ve read in the past year or so, some of which I’ll name check.

So … what’s it about?

Dekker discusses how complex systems ‘fail’ in unforeseen ways. He characterises some of these failures as ‘drifts’. The system didn’t visibly zoom towards failure; there was no massive perturbation, no onrushing catastrophe, not even dark clouds on the horizon. In a drift-failure, the failure just happens, and only afterwards is there any chance of diagnosing the whys and hows.

Drift essentially crosses two fields of work. The first is reliability / failure studies and the second is complex systems. I’m not very familiar with reliability studies except through a Chinese-whispers version that has been transmitted via software operations literature. I feel that I have a more-than-nodding acquaintance with systems theory through a uni course and my own reading in that area.

To a reader unfamiliar with either body of thought, this book might be a bit difficult. Dekker isn’t really addressing the book to the layperson, it’s really addressed to practitioners reliability/failure field. Dekker’s ultimate hypothesis is that a “Newtonian-Cartesian” approach to failure does not and cannot address failures in complex systems.

If you’re not from the reliability field, Dekker’s writing is a bit like being an atheist at a theological debate. Interesting, but a little hard to follow in parts. But boy does he have lots of points to make.

I respectfully disagree

I don’t think Dekker quite nails his case down. For the rest of the review I will try to explain why. Hang on, because it’s a long, circuitous ride.

Continue reading →

Wolf guy is worth it

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As usual I’m a year behind the publicity machine, so I missed the original reviews of this book, as well as the fanfare during the Sydney Writers’ Festival, which the author Mark Rowlands attended.

This post is for any reader who might have encountered The Philosopher and the Wolf stacked up in piles in the bookshop, and who, while intrigued by the theme of the book, suspects that it will turn out to be a cute idea without much substance once you get into it.

In fact it’s surprisingly good. Even had I been unaware that Rowlands has published numerous well received books, he would have convinced me pretty quickly that he’s a philosopher of some substance.

The book is a combination of a memoir about life with an unusual pet, and an exercise in popular philosophy. But the adventures of Brenin the wolf are more than just an engaging way of launching his ruminations: Rowlands is convinced that being friends with a wolf gave him insights into human nature, morality, and the meaning of life.

He gives an unflattering account of human beings, or apes as he mostly calls us. Continue reading →

The Colours by Peter Houghton : Another Club Troppo Gold Star Review

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If you are of a certain age, you will know what people mean when they refer to “The War”.   You will be able to cast your mind back and imagine a type of blustery former warrior, of proud bearing, and fixed views on pretty much everything.  Having been in the War, they were accorded great respect, and it was a privilege when they’d share a fraction of their tales with some snotty kid who’s naturally hanker for the full gory details, but was happy to get the smallest tidbit of life in khaki.

Tommy Atkins aka Peter Houghton

Last night I saw Peter Houghton, bring to life a remarkable facsimile of those blustery old soldiers.  In his one man play “The Colours“,  he inhabits Colour Sergeant Tommy Atkins.  Veteran of the First World War (one of the Kaiser’s original old-contemptibles), of El-Alemain in the Second, and now, in 1946, stationed in a lonely outpost in the British colony of Batundi in Africa.  It’s a time of reflection for Colour Sergeant Atkins as his devotion to his regiment, to King and Empire, is not being reciprocated by a post War government that is drained, heavily indebted, and seeking to free itself from its burdens.

It’s a brilliantly funny portrayal of a man who knows nothing but the Army life and who knows where he sits in the pecking order. He knows that the Africans are cheating thieves, that the Irish are untrustworthy and stupid, and like to live in pig stys, that Americans are poseurs and soft,  that Kiwis and Australians have big chips on their shoulders hence the loud mouthed boosterism of their very modest achievements, that the grey uniformed Prussian Calvalry are really just men. You can tell that when you put the bayonet into them. And that the British Army is the most glorious army of all.

At one point Sergeant Atkins quotes those famous Kipling lines, that even today have a  chilling relevance.

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

Houghton is a genius.   His script is speckled throughout with historical British military tidbits, but given a real sense of life and place by Sergeant Tommy Atkins who revisits his life in an often hilarious, but intimately poignant way.  Houghton’s portrayal of the man, could easily have become a caricature with his handlebar moustache and bilious attitude,  but it doesn’t.  It is really quite moving, and as the play draws to a close I found myself captivated and dreading what might befall him.

Houghton’s skill as a writer and performer is such that he leaves you hanging over the cliff and then brings you safely back in the denouement. At the very last Sergeant Tommy Atkins gets to keep what he needs, and deserves.  His dignity.

I really wish I’d seen this play earlier, to let Club Troppo readers in Melbourne know about it.  As it is, today,  Saturday,  is the last performance.  So if time permits, instead of taking the safe option of Pizza and a Vid,  why not drop the kids off at Auntie Flo’s and get down to the new playhouse, and really indulge yourself with a surprising and really brilliant piece of work.  You won’t be disappointed.