Full disclosure: after saying that diet was an IQ test, I failed the next item.
Mazi 12-14 Hillgate Street, London W8 7SR (tel 020 7229 3794) is a deconstruction of Greek restaurants, in that it aims to be innovative, tasty, and even refined. The decor is refreshingly sparse, no fake taverna kitsch, the table tops plain oak, menus in English, no bouzouki music, just conversation, which is entertaining enough because about a third of the customers are Greek.
Spicy Tiropita, broken filo pastry, leeks and chillies; Fish Roe Mousse Tarama; Greek Salad with cherry tomatoes; then Black Truffle chicken Hunkar Begendi; Cool Souvlaki with pork strip in rice paper; Cannelloni Pastitsio, ground beef and béchamel; Lamb Duet of saddle and cutlet, tzatziki spring roll; Loukoumades, lavender honey, chocolate sorbet; Greek Yoghurt mousse, quince pudding, cinnamon rusks. Coffees.
I may have left some out. There were four of us, but….really. I blame the dark curly haired waitress in the white blouse, the animated company, the heavy rain outside, and the understandable stress of having reviewed some papers on dieting.
Booking recommended.
Greek Yoghurt is now an indispensable part of my diet, particularly at breakfast. Thus: chop up half a banana into a bowl and slap on two heaped tablespoons of yog. Potter out into the garden and pick up a windfall apple, wash, cut out any bruise or blemish, chop up, stir into yog. Consume.
ReplyDeleteNow, of course, the windfalls have ceased so it's a case of stroll to Apple Store (as we call our front porch). Also, you need a heartmate to eat the other half banana. If you're really lucky said heartmate will also serve you regular lunches or dinners of Greek Meze. Oh yes.
Dr T, may I ask you an off-topic question?
ReplyDeleteAs I read it, there are people who make too much of g - seeking to explain damn near everything by it - but a much, much larger group who deny g any merits at all, essentially as a matter of emotional revulsion rather than evidence-based reasoning. Sometimes genuinely distinguished people cleave to the latter attitude - Medawar, for instance, had a bee in his bonnet about it. Why? If I may phrase it in American, "What's their problem?"
dearieme -- If you don't already have it, may I recommend Earl Hunt's "Human Intelligence" (Cambridge Univ. 2011)? I'm about a third of the way through it. He seems to deal quite well with alternatives to the "pure" g theory, explaining strengths and (mostly) weaknesses, and venturing some guesses as to why they have so much appeal.
DeleteThank you for that.
DeleteYou guys are sorting it all out anyway. g is an abstraction derived from the analysis of a broad range of intellectual tasks, yet it hints at a reality, which is that the brain can take a general problem solving approach to most issues. g is not an area of the brain, but an aspect of the way it works. g accounts for about 50% of the variance, more if you add in some of the group factors, less if you use techniques to cut the latent factor into sub-sections. I go with the general finding, and don't get too interested in the different factor solutions. Earl Hunt is a good guide to all this, and I will keep plugging his book. (see my "The Wisdom of Crowds or Single Authors" 10th February.) Why are people so het up about this? Don't know. Some results seem to offend some people. Can't spend too much time on that.
ReplyDeleteHow does it differ from the other summas of psychometrics?
DeleteJensen's is probably too dry for most, and the "g-factor" was sometimes hard to understand, even with a strong quantitative background.
Eysenck's was good, but with so many interesting claims it should have contained citations (IQ testing outlawed in Nazi-Germany? Myopia strongly genetically overlapping with IQ? IQ shown to be much more heritable 40 years after Norway introduced obligatory education? And many others.)
Deary's was too short.
The title might be jocular, but I really believe there is some truth to it.
ReplyDeleteIn the periphery of my girIfriend's circle of acquaintances there was a guy who thought that he could have as many sodas as he liked because they only contained fifty calories each. He had understood that 50 calories was a lot less than 2000, but not understood the part about fifty calories being per 100 ml. Very decent fellow, but not too quick.
Authentic story, experienced first-hand.
Not surprising. The same thinking leads to people favouring small monthly interest repayments on debt, say at 3% a month. 3 is a small number out of a hundred.
DeleteThe title is indeed jocular, but as another noted, there's a deeper underlying substance and truth in this matter. However, this supposedly objectively analyzed phenomenon requires enormous introspection of a surprisingly nonverbal nature before such truth becomes evident.
ReplyDeleteThis is above my pay grade, but I wonder if there is any correlation between intelligence and the ability to diet? I guess there was an evolutionary advantage in eating as much fat and sugar as you could find when you couldn't find much of anything at all, and that's why clever people can't stop eating Mars bars.
ReplyDeleteDear Marshall, If you measure inability to diet by being over-weight, then there is indeed an IQ obesity link. As you say, the evolutionary preference is probably to eat whenever food is available.
ReplyDelete