FYI - last month's Scientific American contains an interesting article explaining the current problems with inflation theory. The latest copy contains an article on galaxy formation. Both articles are worth a read. Cheers.

I haven't been following the paper magazines at all save for New Scientist online of late. What are the current problems with inflationary theory? :)

The original theory of the 80s agrees well with observations. However, the theory has been developed over time to take into account quantum effects and this more advanced version of the theory predicts that one is more likely to end up in regions of space which do not look like ours. So rather than explaining flat space and so on, it transpires that the theory predicts pretty much any kind of outcome and so doesn't explain the appearance of our region of space at all - unless it is argued that we happen to live in a region that inflated by just the right amount to give rise to flat space etc, but then you could argue that without inflation!  

Points noted here in brief: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-inflation-summer

To those interested in the basics of general relativity I would recommend these lectures by Susskind. Master these and then move on...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbmf0bB38h0