Whose could be considered the best portrayal of Hercule Poirot in the media?

David Suchet is very impressive in the BBC television series but Albert Finney in Murder on the Orient Express is superior by far and was, to me, the epitome of Poirot-ness – until I chanced upon to a collection of BBC radio dramas starring John Moffatt. With his Suchet-esque yet mischievous voice and his array of ominous tut-tutting, hums and grunts, Moffatt as Poirot is everything that ever leapt to your imagination when you first read the books!

Move over Finney and Suchet, Moffatt rules all.

I’m a big fan of GTD and am subscribed to lifehack and a dozen similar sites. As part of the credo I carry around a little notebook to capture notes, thoughts and ideas. I find this very useful especially while I’m waiting in queues or travelling. Trouble is, I tend to leave the notebook lying around, and since I’m the jolly friendly type, I have tons of friends dropping in at my desk who are more than happy to go through any unattended book lying around.

So I thought to myself, some sort of a cipher was in order. For a bit I toyed with the idea of inventing one or using some standard substitution code. but it seemed like too much effort and rather pointless. Then it hit me! Short-hand!! For one, I wouldn’t have to make up my own cipher or learn an otherwise useless code. Two, I could actually end up writing faster. Three , since it was phonetic, it would be harder to decipher. I looked up some of the standard options. Some like Pitman’s depended on pressure of strokes while others depended on the location of the strokes and could only be used with a ruled notebook. Then there was Gregg which was versatile but involved a high learning curve. I had pretty much started started out on Gregg when I found Handywrite. It was quite similar to Gregg but a lot simpler in terms of the rules. The sum total of all information on Handywrite seemed to be limited to just this site but that was enough to convince me.

The script took me just a weekend to master and it suited all my needs. It was simple to read and write, I could use it on any sort of media and could use anything from a pen or a pencil to a piece of chalk. I incorporated madd , tashdid and hamza from Urdu to help me spell proper names and add that extra confusion if faced with someone who actually knew Handywrite.

Actually, learning to write in short-hand doesn’t mean I can write fast. It’s been a month of daily use and I’m still only as fast as my long hand. My reading speed is abysmal. But then speed isn’t my concern, privacy is; which has been met satisfactorily. Colleagues who glance at my notes during meetings are impressed, as are others who pass by my to-do list on the white board in my cubicle. I can now safely leave my planner lying around at my desk. As for speed , it’s just a matter of time I’m sure.

I first met her at a friend’s party. Inevitable, considering she was the only other smoker in the vicinity. Turned out she was practically my neighbour, just a street away from where I live. We decided to catch up over a coffee sometime.

We did. And again. Often. Every evening. She was delightfully witty, independent, promiscuous, well read, informed, complicated, manic depressive, pretty, average kisser and smelled indeterminate yet nice. A daily dose of hormones, tobacco, caffeine and conversation… didn’t take me long to be smitten silly.

One such evening she mentioned that she couldn’t read Urdu although it is her mother-tongue and she speaks it well.

Predictably, my infatuated heart leapt at the opportunity to impress the lady. I told her that by next week, this time, I’d have learned to read (and write in) Urdu. Learning a new language is hard of course but learning just the script of a language that I understood well, now that I knew I could pull off.

Wonderful thing, the internet. I stumbled upon this site. Ten short chapters, focusing on teaching just the script, not the language or grammar! In fact most of the tutorial is actual English words and sentences written in Urdu script. The chapters are terse and paced well. At five chapters a day, I managed to go through the lot thoroughly over the weekend. And that was enough.

Urdu script is written right to left. With most letters having three different forms depending on where in the word it appears, the script is like none other I’d encountered before. Many times vowels are not written but guessed whilst being read depending of usage. A very involving task and a strongly recommended activity on a rainy weekend.

Right then, was the fair maiden impressed, you ask? Never got the chance. That week she found a job in New Delhi and moved there. The relationship then went the way all long distance relationships go.

< sound of toilet flushing … >

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