6 of the Best – Gamban’s Jack Symons

This week’s 6 of the Best comes from Jack Symons, Co-Founder and Director at Gamban.

In the latest edition we discover which Matt Damon hit is a particular favourite, have a different take on a musical answer and find out which dominant sporting side was a joy to behold.

Best Holiday

I’ve been lucky enough to travel a lot of the world [I’m writing this from a 5* resort in Cyprus – albeit a work trip!]. My best holiday would have to be a family break in Amalfi. There’s a little restaurant in Ravello where the owner just wanted to show us the best food. She kept bringing out the most amazing pastas and fish (sea bass) and was reluctant to charge anything. I’ve never met anyone so obviously dedicated to her passion. I learnt that the Amalfi coast is nerve-wracking to drive but even scarier when the guy driving you is clearly having an argument on the phone. The Hotel Santa Caterina will always be one of my favourite hotels in the world.

Best Album

I have so many (doesn’t get much better than Aja by Steely Dan) but if I’m honest, I don’t really listen to ‘albums’ – maybe it’s because of the way I listen to music (streaming). I generally feel music is digested differently these days, so instead I’m going to share with you my 13-song playlist:

• You Want it Darker by Leonard Cohen
• If I Ever Recall Your Face – Melody Gardot
• I’ll Fight – Wilco
• One of a Kind – Andrew Synowiec
• Hunger Child Blues – Townes Van Zandt
• The Night Josh Tillman Came to our Apartment – Father John Misty
• I’m in the Mood for Love – Julie London
• The Nightfly – Donald Fagen
• Heart Don’t Stand a Chance – Anderson Paak
• Betray My Heart – D’Angelo
• Righteously – Anna Ash
• Sweet Inspiration – The Derek Trucks Band
• Yègellé Tezeta – Mulatu Astatke

Best Sporting Experience

Watching the All Blacks and Brumbies in NZ with my father. Watching Ma’a Nonu and Stirling Mortlock cut through like a knife through butter was pretty cool.

Best Film

The Talented Mr Ripley ticks every box for me. The storyline, pace, score/soundtrack, synergy between the actors, tension, script, atmosphere, direction, camerawork – I can’t understand why it scores a rating of only ~7 on IMDB. Personally I think it’s a masterpiece.

Best Book

Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes). Takes a lot to make me cry. If you haven’t read it, read it. There’s so much I love about this book; the style of writing is both clever and innovative – it takes the form of a diary, full of spelling and grammatical mistakes but improves as experimental surgery is performed on him to increase his intelligence. It’s sad, beautiful, clever and disturbing. It’s on my ’to read again’ list.

Best App

This is a tough one. I’m a massive fan of ProductHunt for discovering new products. My favourite app at the moment is ColorSlurp. It fulfils a relatively simple task for me [grabbing HEX/RGB/CMYK colours] but I find the sound effect quite funny – and my colleague Stephen does the best impression. A close follow-up is Shazam – I keep meaning to understand how it works – but for me this is one of those apps that if you showed someone from ye olde days, they’d have you burnt at the stake. Of course, as soon as you took out your phone, you’d be in the ducking stool.