This week, for reasons of paranomasia and other forms of borderline insanity, I've been mainly writing puns about Egyptian gods. (I'll explain later...) If you feel I should have been writing about vampires instead, well, I'm not disagreeing.
Apologies again to those of you who've already seen this on one mailing list or another, but the only way to keep this blog going while I'm quite so busy is to run "The Best of PPH" while I'm on sabbatical. So...
I saw The Dark Knight on Wednesday. I thought it was great -- very enjoyable, with some brilliant acting. Some spoilers follow...
I didn't believe for a moment that they'd killed Jim Gordon. But at least it provided an opportunity to quote Brian Blessed.
Heath Ledger is, obviously, brilliant, playing the Joker as a shambling, demented individual with no social skills. He somehow manages to have tremendous charisma without any charm whatsoever, and makes the atrocities he sees as practical jokes seem like a convincing, almost rational response to the world around him. It's a more impressive performance than Jack Nicholson's, and that's not to denigrate the former. Where Nicholson's Joker made hideous things seem funny, Ledger's never lets you forget that they're hideous. But also funny. But hideous.
I've no quarrel with anyone else's acting, mind you, but even before his death it was always going to be Ledger who stole the show. I spent ages trying to remember who Maggie Gyllenhaal was, and why I didn't remember her from the first film.
The plot, however, goes somewhat to cock in the last third, with the Joker and Harvey Dent both spiralling out of control in different directions simultaneously. The film feels overlong, and really everything after the Joker escapes, maims Dent and kills Rachel could have been a 20-minute coda focussing on the Joker, with the Dent's revenge plot held in reserve for a future film.
Given the screentime the scarred Dent got, though, I was disappointed that more wasn't done with his duality as Two-Face. Admittedly this would also have been difficult to handle without disappearing into the realms of comic-strip psychology, but if they were going to put Two-Face into a realistic reimagining of Batman (and let's face it, Batman Begins is the most realistic film that could conceivably be made about a billionaire dressing up as a giant bat to fight a league of assassins and a drug-dealing psychiatrist with a bag over his head), I feel they ought to have done it properly.
Of course this isn't helped at all by the fact that Two-Face looks nothing like a horrifically scarred burn victim and everything like a genre movie special-effect, thus demolishing the carefully-constructed edifice of a realistic Gotham City where the villains really are tragically insane people, rather than cartoon characters. Gah.
Generally though, bloody good film. I could just have done with editing out most of the post-Two-Face Dent stuff and keeping it -- with entirely different design work -- for the next film.
(As it is, I'm wondering who they will have as the villain, assuming there is a third film. Two-Face is dead within the fiction, and they couldn't possibly recast Ledger's Joker. Catwoman's been ruined too comprehensively within recent memory by Halle Berry, and most of the other well-known Batman villains head off into the realm of the fantastical or obviously ludicrous. I'm wondering if the Mad Hatter could possibly work...)
08 August 2008
22 July 2008
Nobody Calls Me Mezzo
Apologies to those of you who share a mailing list with me and saw this yesterday. I'm widening out the consultation.
For the past few years, every time I'd started worrying that I was coming to an end of the list of post-1990 TV which I could persuade B. to watch episode-by-episode and which we'd both be interested in, I'd been comforting myself with the fact that neither of us had ever seen an episode of The Sopranos, the groundbreaking series (and studio stablemate of the damn near perfect Six Feet Under) widely acclaimed as the best TV show of the past 10 years.
We've now watched a season and a half of it, and can't honestly see what I'm supposed to like.
For a start, I don't care about any of the characters -- except, rarely, a couple of the women. When watching drama I'm able sympathise with well-characterised villains, and with complex morally ambivalent characters, and with heroes who are forced to do terrible things in the name of a greater good -- but the characters in The Sopranos perform atrocities routinely, banally, as part of their daily grind. That's just... repellent. It's like watching a soap opera about concentration camp guards.
The macho face-saving culture to which the men all subscribe (where it's apparently shameful to admit to -- among other things -- receiving counselling, having a relative with a learning disability, performing cunnilingus, forgiving anyone for anything ever) is one with which I simply can't have the slightest sympathy. If this was a drama set in, say, imperial China then I'd be able to accept it as a given of the characters' subjective world, but this is, for God's sake, about 21st-century Americans. I keep wanting to slap them in the face repeatedly until they grow up.
I honestly can't imagine why I'm meant to care whether a single one of them lives or dies, but the fact that all the non-gangster characters -- and even the news programmes we see -- find these people endlessly fascinating strongly suggests that the writers are assuming the opposite is true.
The psychiatry aspect of the show is occasionally borderline-interesting (and Dr Melfi is one of the few characters for whom I occasionally feel a twinge of sympathy, when she's not too obviously hero-worshipping Tony), but it's so bound up in the aforementioned idiotic social assumptions, plus obscure U.S. pop-culture references, that half the itme I have no idea what it's getting at.
In the last episode I saw, Tony's therapy sessions kept referring to some ancient pop-folk song I'd never heard of, as some kind of keystone against which Tony judged himself and other people. It was never made clear what the significance of this, for him or for anyone else, might be. At the end of the episode something mildly unexpected happened, and the song played portentously over the end credits. It was like trying to decode a transmission from Tau Ceti.
As a piece of anthropological observation, the show may well have something to be said for it, although I wouldn't want to watch two episodes of it, let along 86. As it is, I'm too busy trying to get a handle on the anthropology to penetrate to the actual drama.
My imminent brother-in-law (according to definition 2b in Merriam-Webster, anyway), who works in TV and knows about this kind of thing, tells us that we need to watch the first three seasons before we give up on it. Honestly, though, I'm not sure I can summon up the stamina.
What am I missing? Does it get better, or will I never like it if I haven't yet?
Am I being racist (for U.S. definitions of "race", since as far as I'm concerned Italians are the same ethnicity I am) in assuming that Italian-American men should be capable of the same degree of moral, emotional and intellectual development as everyone else?
Am I broken inside, or is this the most appallingly overrated television series since the invention of the medium?
I'd welcome your thoughts...
For the past few years, every time I'd started worrying that I was coming to an end of the list of post-1990 TV which I could persuade B. to watch episode-by-episode and which we'd both be interested in, I'd been comforting myself with the fact that neither of us had ever seen an episode of The Sopranos, the groundbreaking series (and studio stablemate of the damn near perfect Six Feet Under) widely acclaimed as the best TV show of the past 10 years.
We've now watched a season and a half of it, and can't honestly see what I'm supposed to like.
For a start, I don't care about any of the characters -- except, rarely, a couple of the women. When watching drama I'm able sympathise with well-characterised villains, and with complex morally ambivalent characters, and with heroes who are forced to do terrible things in the name of a greater good -- but the characters in The Sopranos perform atrocities routinely, banally, as part of their daily grind. That's just... repellent. It's like watching a soap opera about concentration camp guards.
The macho face-saving culture to which the men all subscribe (where it's apparently shameful to admit to -- among other things -- receiving counselling, having a relative with a learning disability, performing cunnilingus, forgiving anyone for anything ever) is one with which I simply can't have the slightest sympathy. If this was a drama set in, say, imperial China then I'd be able to accept it as a given of the characters' subjective world, but this is, for God's sake, about 21st-century Americans. I keep wanting to slap them in the face repeatedly until they grow up.
I honestly can't imagine why I'm meant to care whether a single one of them lives or dies, but the fact that all the non-gangster characters -- and even the news programmes we see -- find these people endlessly fascinating strongly suggests that the writers are assuming the opposite is true.
The psychiatry aspect of the show is occasionally borderline-interesting (and Dr Melfi is one of the few characters for whom I occasionally feel a twinge of sympathy, when she's not too obviously hero-worshipping Tony), but it's so bound up in the aforementioned idiotic social assumptions, plus obscure U.S. pop-culture references, that half the itme I have no idea what it's getting at.
In the last episode I saw, Tony's therapy sessions kept referring to some ancient pop-folk song I'd never heard of, as some kind of keystone against which Tony judged himself and other people. It was never made clear what the significance of this, for him or for anyone else, might be. At the end of the episode something mildly unexpected happened, and the song played portentously over the end credits. It was like trying to decode a transmission from Tau Ceti.
As a piece of anthropological observation, the show may well have something to be said for it, although I wouldn't want to watch two episodes of it, let along 86. As it is, I'm too busy trying to get a handle on the anthropology to penetrate to the actual drama.
My imminent brother-in-law (according to definition 2b in Merriam-Webster, anyway), who works in TV and knows about this kind of thing, tells us that we need to watch the first three seasons before we give up on it. Honestly, though, I'm not sure I can summon up the stamina.
What am I missing? Does it get better, or will I never like it if I haven't yet?
Am I being racist (for U.S. definitions of "race", since as far as I'm concerned Italians are the same ethnicity I am) in assuming that Italian-American men should be capable of the same degree of moral, emotional and intellectual development as everyone else?
Am I broken inside, or is this the most appallingly overrated television series since the invention of the medium?
I'd welcome your thoughts...
Planet Carefully
My latest column, about solar and planetary religion, is now up at Surefish.
Reading it back, I'm startled by how incoherent it is. At the time I could have sworn I was more or less making sense. Sorry about that...
Reading it back, I'm startled by how incoherent it is. At the time I could have sworn I was more or less making sense. Sorry about that...
19 July 2008
Dr Acula, Ph.D.
The reason it's been three weeks since I last updated this blog thing is that I've been up to my throat in writing this vampire novella, the day job's been really busy and B. and I have been away every weekend and faffing about with stuff most evenings. Some of these are perfectly pleasant things in themselves, but taken together they've tended to engender a large amount of stress and busytude.
Life's been so hectic recently I've barely had time to update my Facebook status, let alone write a blog post. Sadly, B. and I have had to turn down a party in London tonight as being just that one thing too many for the maintenance of sanity.
The novella's coming along nicely, though, you'll be pleased to hear -- I now have around two-thirds of it written, at a little over 20,000 words.
I realise that I've not said much about Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Vampire's Curse here, except to praise my co-authors and to drone on about writing the thing. At this stage I know little of Mags' and Kelly's stories, and they're not mine to talk about anyway. My third of the book (originally entitled The Predator Principle, which proved to be rubbish, and now called, still rather tentatively, Predating the Predators) is about the First Interdisciplinary Conference on Vampirology, which is first infiltrated and then gatecrashed by a coven of vampires.
It's a blending of genres -- as a vampire novella, it's obviously a horror story, and as the umbrella title suggests it has a certain schlocky Hammer vibe. I also decided to go for the authentic Gothic flavour of Dracula and its ilk, by building the narrative out of letters, journal entries and excerpts from secondary documents. It's also inevitably a campus novel[la], and equally inevitably (given that it's part of the Bernice Summerfield range) it's S.F., taking place in Benny's space-operatic galactic milieu.
Being me, I felt that those weren't really enough genre referents, so I've also introduced a Jesuit priest wrestling with an apparently intractable theological problem on a remote planet, thus tying nicely in with the rarefied but venerable S.F. subgenre of "Jesuit priest wrestling with an apparently intractable theological problem on a remote planet" stories[1]. In a revolutionary twist, mine's called Imogen.
In short, it's an allegorical-epistolary-gothic-horror-pastiche-campus-space-opera -- not quite on the scale of a a detective-ghost-horror-whodunnit-time-travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic, but not bad at only a little over 30,000 words.
I've also written my monthly column for Surefish, gone on a training course which may entitle me to do some Thought for the Day slots on BBC Radio Bristol, and am now working on a short piece for a kind of collaboration which is altogether new for me, though sadly neither earth-shakingly high-profile or notably paid (come back in late August for more on this).
Coincidentally, it's about something vampires are afraid of, although admittedly there seem to be quite a lot of objects that applies to.
Life's been so hectic recently I've barely had time to update my Facebook status, let alone write a blog post. Sadly, B. and I have had to turn down a party in London tonight as being just that one thing too many for the maintenance of sanity.
The novella's coming along nicely, though, you'll be pleased to hear -- I now have around two-thirds of it written, at a little over 20,000 words.
I realise that I've not said much about Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Vampire's Curse here, except to praise my co-authors and to drone on about writing the thing. At this stage I know little of Mags' and Kelly's stories, and they're not mine to talk about anyway. My third of the book (originally entitled The Predator Principle, which proved to be rubbish, and now called, still rather tentatively, Predating the Predators) is about the First Interdisciplinary Conference on Vampirology, which is first infiltrated and then gatecrashed by a coven of vampires.
It's a blending of genres -- as a vampire novella, it's obviously a horror story, and as the umbrella title suggests it has a certain schlocky Hammer vibe. I also decided to go for the authentic Gothic flavour of Dracula and its ilk, by building the narrative out of letters, journal entries and excerpts from secondary documents. It's also inevitably a campus novel[la], and equally inevitably (given that it's part of the Bernice Summerfield range) it's S.F., taking place in Benny's space-operatic galactic milieu.
Being me, I felt that those weren't really enough genre referents, so I've also introduced a Jesuit priest wrestling with an apparently intractable theological problem on a remote planet, thus tying nicely in with the rarefied but venerable S.F. subgenre of "Jesuit priest wrestling with an apparently intractable theological problem on a remote planet" stories[1]. In a revolutionary twist, mine's called Imogen.
In short, it's an allegorical-epistolary-gothic-horror-pastiche-campus-space-opera -- not quite on the scale of a a detective-ghost-horror-whodunnit-time-travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic, but not bad at only a little over 30,000 words.
I've also written my monthly column for Surefish, gone on a training course which may entitle me to do some Thought for the Day slots on BBC Radio Bristol, and am now working on a short piece for a kind of collaboration which is altogether new for me, though sadly neither earth-shakingly high-profile or notably paid (come back in late August for more on this).
Coincidentally, it's about something vampires are afraid of, although admittedly there seem to be quite a lot of objects that applies to.
[1] S.F. novices who feel disinclined to believe in this as a bona fide subgenre may wish to investigate Anthony Boucher's "Balaam", Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star", James Blish's A Case of Conscience, Philip José Farmer's Father John Carmody stories, the 80-page segment "The Priest's Tale" in Dan Simmons' Hyperion and Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow and Children of God. S.F. initiates who can spot any I've missed should feel free to chip in.
26 June 2008
Discuss
Ah. My latest column's up at Surefish. It's a bit meandery and mentions vampires, which accurately reflects my state of mind recently.
A point of discussion which you may find it interesting to comment on here:
Or do you think the question's a meaningless one?
A point of discussion which you may find it interesting to comment on here:
I sometimes try to imagine a scientific discovery which would persuade me that my faith was spurious. As yet I’ve come up with nothing.What do we (and by "we" I mean "you", given that I wrote it) think of this? If you have a religious faith, can you think of a potential scientific revelation about the universe which would convince you to become an atheist? If you're an atheist, what revelations (actual or hypothetical) do you think should so persuade me?
Or do you think the question's a meaningless one?
25 June 2008
[M]emetics
With apologies for the delay, here are the actual answers to last week's pop quiz:
Minimal Kudos Points go to Not Invented Here for identifying 3., 4. and 7. and (implicit in her very correct diagnosis of "way too much ABBA") 1., 12. and 15.. Matthew (I'm not entirely sure which one) identified 10. and 13., Jon Dennis 9., 14., 23. and 25., Pete 2. and 24.(sort of), 19. and 20., Rebecca 11.. Simon BJ implied he knew what 5. was, but wasn't saying.
I conclude that you're all incredibly ignorant about The Pogues and Blondie, and are becoming regrettably lax regarding the works of Queen.
For the record, I'm ashamed of the Enya and the Abba, and wish the Walkman had picked a less banal Clannad track. And something from the two discs full of The Pet Shop Boys.
And more Beatles, obviously. Nothing confers musical respectability like a Beatle.
1. "I have a dream, a song to sing to help me cope with anything."...hence my embarrassment.
ABBA, "I Have a Dream" (Gold)
2. "I returned a bag of groceries, accidentally taken off the shelf before the expiration date."
They Might Be Giants, "Dead" (Flood)
3. "Here I stand, looking out to sea, where a thousand souls have prayed and a thousand lives were laid on the sand."
Iona, "Here I Stand" (Iona)
4. "Robin, the hooded man."
Clannad, "Robin (the Hooded Man)", (The Collection)
5. "One, two three four... Oo-ooh, oo-ooh..."
Queen, "Innuendo" (Innuendo)
6. "Life's a bitch then you die, black Hell."
The Pogues, "Hell's Ditch" (The Rest of the Best)
7. "My life goes on in endless song..."
Enya, "How Can I Keep from Singing?" (Shepherd Moons)
8. "Yo; el otoño. Yo; el vespero."
Enya, "La Soñadora" (The Memory of Trees)
9. "Well, I was born an original sinner..."
Eurythmics, "Missionary Man" (The Ultimate Collection)
10. "It was upon a Lammas Night, when corn rigs are bonny..."
Magnet, "Corn Rigs" (The Wicker Man soundtrack album)
11. "Eurus, Afer Ventus..."
Enya, "Caribbean Blue" (Shepherd Moons)
12. "If you change your mind, I'm the first in line..."
ABBA, "Take a Chance on Me" (Gold)
13. "Much has been been said of the strumpets of yore..."
Magnet, "The Landlord's Daughter" (The Wicker Man)
14. "He's a hypnotist, hypnotist of ladies."
They Might Be Giants, "Hypnotist of Ladies" (Apollo 18)
15. "I work all night, I work all day to pay the bills I have to pay..."
ABBA, "Money, Money, Money" (Gold)
16. "Toe to toe, dancing very slow..."
Blondie, "Rapture" (Atomic: The Very Best of Blondie)
17. "What is there left for me to do in this life?"
Queen, "Was It All Worth It" (The Miracle)
18. "When the ship runs out of ocean and the vessel runs aground..."
They Might Be Giants, "Women and Men" (Flood)
19. "Why is the world in love again?"
They Might Be Giants, "Theme From Flood" (Flood)
20. "Another red-letter day..."
Queen, "Friends Will Be Friends" (A Kind of Magic)
21. "Bright the light through my windowpane. Shield my eyes from the beam."
Audience, "I Had a Dream" (Life on Mars soundtrack)
22. "Monday finds you like a bomb that's been left ticking there too long..."
Eurythmics, "I Saved the World Today" (Peace)
23. "I spy a boy, I spy a girl..."
Pulp, "I Spy" (Different Class)
24. "Wasted youth! Wasted youth!"
Meat Loaf, "Everything Louder than Everything Else" (Bat Out of Hell 2)
25. "Tell me that you've got everything you want, and your bird can sing..."
The Beatles, "And Your Bird Can Sing" (Revolver)
Minimal Kudos Points go to Not Invented Here for identifying 3., 4. and 7. and (implicit in her very correct diagnosis of "way too much ABBA") 1., 12. and 15.. Matthew (I'm not entirely sure which one) identified 10. and 13., Jon Dennis 9., 14., 23. and 25., Pete 2. and 24.(sort of), 19. and 20., Rebecca 11.. Simon BJ implied he knew what 5. was, but wasn't saying.
I conclude that you're all incredibly ignorant about The Pogues and Blondie, and are becoming regrettably lax regarding the works of Queen.
For the record, I'm ashamed of the Enya and the Abba, and wish the Walkman had picked a less banal Clannad track. And something from the two discs full of The Pet Shop Boys.
And more Beatles, obviously. Nothing confers musical respectability like a Beatle.
19 June 2008
Patagonia of Tiny Feet
OK. I'm not going to make a habit of this, you understand, but while I'm slavishly copying other people's ideas, Simon Guerrier has rather eccentrically requested me to select an S.F. book of my choice, turn to p123 and record the fifth sentence here.
Predictably perhaps, but also because I can reach it without getting up, I've chosen Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, which says:
Because I don't really do "memes", I'm not going to oblige anybody to continue this. If you think it would be fun, feel free to link to this post and say I told you to.
I'm still trying to write vampires today, although I've also sent off another Surefish column. As usual I'll mention here when it's been put up.
I'd normally be writing tomorrow as well, but I seem to be obliged to turn up here and learn to cook tapas instead. Saturday I'll be attending festive Midsummer nuptials in Oxford, which will be fun.
Predictably perhaps, but also because I can reach it without getting up, I've chosen Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, which says:
"It became the party's most sacred object, for it kindled in every mind the strong parental disposition so characteristic of Patagonians."So there you go -- Patagonians like having babies. You heard it here first, unless of course you've read Last and First Men at any point during the past 78 years.
Because I don't really do "memes", I'm not going to oblige anybody to continue this. If you think it would be fun, feel free to link to this post and say I told you to.
I'm still trying to write vampires today, although I've also sent off another Surefish column. As usual I'll mention here when it's been put up.
I'd normally be writing tomorrow as well, but I seem to be obliged to turn up here and learn to cook tapas instead. Saturday I'll be attending festive Midsummer nuptials in Oxford, which will be fun.
18 June 2008
Mi Mi Mi
I'm suspicious, frankly, of my Walkman's ability to select songs with anything resembling actual randomness.
Usually I'm too much of a control-freak to listen to music on shuffle mode in case a song I don't like comes up (although as you'd probably expect I'll listen to such songs all the way through if they come up in the correct play order on an album, because skipping them would be wrong).
On my way home from work today, though, it occurred to me that I had no strong feelings about what I wanted to listen to. Then I realised that, if I shuffled the contents of my Walkman, I could use the experience to generate a spurious blog post in the manner of those LiveJournal <air-quote> memes </air-quote> where the poster posts the lyrics of the first 25 songs selected randomly from their playlist, and their friends try to outcool them in the comments by identifying all the songs in question and sneering politely at them all. Given how little work this would be, and how much I've been neglecting this blog lately, this seemed appealing.
Admittedly my Walkman's memory, while not remotely approaching the trenditude of the LiveJournalling community, is somewhat catholic in scope, and in order to pick tracks with actual lyrics I had to skip past various instrumental pieces, Karl Jenkins's ravishingly beautiful but untranscribable choral gibberish, scenes from lost black-and-white Doctor Who stories released by the BBC on CDs with idiotically intricate indexing (just one of the five-disc The Daleks' Master Plan set contains 76 tracks), one of the quotes on the Life on Mars soundtrack album and that bit on Made in Heaven where Freddie Mercury says "Yeah".
Even so, the resulting edited list shows a disturbingly heavy bias towards the stuff which even I'd admit to being embarrassed about liking, rather than the stuff which was, at least, pretty damn cool during the late '80s. It also contains two separate instances of three songs coming from the same album. Some of the entries appear to have been carefully selected for their crashing obviousness.
Minimal amounts of kudos, therefore to those who guess artist, title and the album I found the song on (not always the one it was originally issued on).
Usually I'm too much of a control-freak to listen to music on shuffle mode in case a song I don't like comes up (although as you'd probably expect I'll listen to such songs all the way through if they come up in the correct play order on an album, because skipping them would be wrong).
On my way home from work today, though, it occurred to me that I had no strong feelings about what I wanted to listen to. Then I realised that, if I shuffled the contents of my Walkman, I could use the experience to generate a spurious blog post in the manner of those LiveJournal <air-quote> memes </air-quote> where the poster posts the lyrics of the first 25 songs selected randomly from their playlist, and their friends try to outcool them in the comments by identifying all the songs in question and sneering politely at them all. Given how little work this would be, and how much I've been neglecting this blog lately, this seemed appealing.
Admittedly my Walkman's memory, while not remotely approaching the trenditude of the LiveJournalling community, is somewhat catholic in scope, and in order to pick tracks with actual lyrics I had to skip past various instrumental pieces, Karl Jenkins's ravishingly beautiful but untranscribable choral gibberish, scenes from lost black-and-white Doctor Who stories released by the BBC on CDs with idiotically intricate indexing (just one of the five-disc The Daleks' Master Plan set contains 76 tracks), one of the quotes on the Life on Mars soundtrack album and that bit on Made in Heaven where Freddie Mercury says "Yeah".
Even so, the resulting edited list shows a disturbingly heavy bias towards the stuff which even I'd admit to being embarrassed about liking, rather than the stuff which was, at least, pretty damn cool during the late '80s. It also contains two separate instances of three songs coming from the same album. Some of the entries appear to have been carefully selected for their crashing obviousness.
Minimal amounts of kudos, therefore to those who guess artist, title and the album I found the song on (not always the one it was originally issued on).
1. "I have a dream, a song to sing to help me cope with anything."I imagine all of these can be guessed by at least some of my readership without illicit googling. My tastes may be eclectic, but they're hardly original.
2. "I returned a bag of groceries, accidentally taken off the shelf before the expiration date."
3. "Here I stand, looking out to sea, where a thousand souls have prayed and a thousand lives were laid on the sand."
4. "Robin, the hooded man."
5. "One, two three four... Oo-ooh, oo-ooh..."
6. "Life's a bitch then you die, black Hell."
7. "My life goes on in endless song..."
8. "Yo; el otoño. Yo; el vespero."
9. "Well, I was born an original sinner..."
10. "It was upon a Lammas Night, when corn rigs are bonny..."
11. "Eurus, Afer Ventus..."
12. "If you change your mind, I'm the first in line..."
13. "Much has been been said of the strumpets of yore, of wenches and bawdy-house queens by the score..."
14. "He's a hypnotist, hypnotist of ladies."
15. "I work all night, I work all day to pay the bills I have to pay..."
16. "Toe to toe, dancing very slow..."
17. "What is there left for me to do in this life?"
18. "When the ship runs out of ocean and the vessel runs aground..."
19. "Why is the world in love again?"
20. "Another red-letter day..."
21. "Bright the light through my windowpane. Shield my eyes from the beam."
22. "Monday finds you like a bomb that's been left ticking there too long..."
23. "I spy a boy, I spy a girl..."
24. "Wasted youth! Wasted youth!"
25. "Tell me that you've got everything you want, and your bird can sing..."
06 June 2008
Blood Harvest
Note to the National Blood Service: you'll generally find me rather more sympathetic to a call for donations than I was yesterday. It's just slightly unfortunate that, when you phoned me, I was in the middle of writing a story about vampires, and therefore rather sensitive to the topic.
(But I love the fact that their website is at www.blood.co.uk. Perhaps they should let "Blood, blood, blood!" be their motto...)
(But I love the fact that their website is at www.blood.co.uk. Perhaps they should let "Blood, blood, blood!" be their motto...)
30 May 2008
2008 Weddings -- #2
The second of the year's weddings (well, the ones I'm invited to, at any rate -- I imagine there must have been others) happened last Sunday at West Quantoxhead in Somerset[1]. It was another thoroughly pleasant affair -- the weather put a rather literal dampener on the proceedings (and the vows were amusingly heralded by an ominous squall), but the rather large indoor venue was ample to contain us all.
As is customary at these events, the bride and groom seemed very happy. In addition there were lots of lovely friends, and pleasant veggie food, and drink, and ceilidh dancing. Possibly because of the astonishingly generous profusion of the penultimate item, the complexities of the last proved somewhat beyond my grasp, but B. seemed to enjoy herself with a succession of partners, which is always nice.
This was the first wedding I've been to which featured rival speech-length sweepstakes, a tradition which I inaugurated many years ago now[2]. I feel both proud and humbled (especially since I won one and lost the other, having hedged on 32 and 42 minutes respectively. Still, I got £19 out of it.) I'm considering making up bingo-cards for next time, with phrases like "be upstanding", "four years old", "N.'s first girlfriend" and "into our family" on them.
In addition to plentiful and varied drink, I enjoyed some fine cigars with friends. Cigars at weddings are not only permissible but almost mandatory, unlike cigarettes which border on the gauche. They do, however, act as a gateway drug -- someone had brought snuff, which I'd never tried before, to stick up our noses. Goodness, that's an odd sensation.
After the reception we returned to our hotel with various other guests, purchased a bottle of vodka and sat around until 4 a.m. playing a traditional English swearing-game[3] and talking mainly about -- if memory serves -- gardening and babies. I forget whether the two were alleged to be connected.
Whether it was because of the cigars, snuff, drink or late night, I felt somewhat rough the next day. Still -- hurrah for weddings! Only three (or possibly just two) more to go this year.
[1] I hadn't previously realised that St Audrey -- after whom West Quantoxhead is alternatively named, and from the shoddy reputation of whose saint's-day market we derive the word "tawdry" -- was the same person as St Ethelreda, and indeed St Æthelthryth.
[2] At least, I'm fairly sure it was me. I'm open to correction, as it's possible that the wedding booze has blunted my memory there.
[3] I've spoiler-protected the game rules to protect innocent eyes -- highlight the whitespace to read: Think of film titles, and try to work out whether they're funny with either "Up My Arse" or "On My Cock" stuck on the end. Eg Shooting Fish Up My Arse, The Unbearable Lightness of Being Up My Arse, The Hands of Orlac On My Cock, etc. We worked out that E.M. Forster adaptations are particularly productive, viz: Howards End Up My Arse, A Passage to India Up My Arse, A Room with a View Up My Arse, Where Angels Fear to Tread On My Cock. It's, er, fun when you're drunk.
As is customary at these events, the bride and groom seemed very happy. In addition there were lots of lovely friends, and pleasant veggie food, and drink, and ceilidh dancing. Possibly because of the astonishingly generous profusion of the penultimate item, the complexities of the last proved somewhat beyond my grasp, but B. seemed to enjoy herself with a succession of partners, which is always nice.
This was the first wedding I've been to which featured rival speech-length sweepstakes, a tradition which I inaugurated many years ago now[2]. I feel both proud and humbled (especially since I won one and lost the other, having hedged on 32 and 42 minutes respectively. Still, I got £19 out of it.) I'm considering making up bingo-cards for next time, with phrases like "be upstanding", "four years old", "N.'s first girlfriend" and "into our family" on them.
In addition to plentiful and varied drink, I enjoyed some fine cigars with friends. Cigars at weddings are not only permissible but almost mandatory, unlike cigarettes which border on the gauche. They do, however, act as a gateway drug -- someone had brought snuff, which I'd never tried before, to stick up our noses. Goodness, that's an odd sensation.
After the reception we returned to our hotel with various other guests, purchased a bottle of vodka and sat around until 4 a.m. playing a traditional English swearing-game[3] and talking mainly about -- if memory serves -- gardening and babies. I forget whether the two were alleged to be connected.
Whether it was because of the cigars, snuff, drink or late night, I felt somewhat rough the next day. Still -- hurrah for weddings! Only three (or possibly just two) more to go this year.
[1] I hadn't previously realised that St Audrey -- after whom West Quantoxhead is alternatively named, and from the shoddy reputation of whose saint's-day market we derive the word "tawdry" -- was the same person as St Ethelreda, and indeed St Æthelthryth.
[2] At least, I'm fairly sure it was me. I'm open to correction, as it's possible that the wedding booze has blunted my memory there.
[3] I've spoiler-protected the game rules to protect innocent eyes -- highlight the whitespace to read: Think of film titles, and try to work out whether they're funny with either "Up My Arse" or "On My Cock" stuck on the end. Eg Shooting Fish Up My Arse, The Unbearable Lightness of Being Up My Arse, The Hands of Orlac On My Cock, etc. We worked out that E.M. Forster adaptations are particularly productive, viz: Howards End Up My Arse, A Passage to India Up My Arse, A Room with a View Up My Arse, Where Angels Fear to Tread On My Cock. It's, er, fun when you're drunk.
Meat Processing
I keep getting spam with the subject line "Your soft", which seems to distill two of the most pervading themes of the unwanted junk I receive down into one succinct phrase of two four-letter words. Is it referring to some item of software which I might -- in that ethereal imaginary netherworld from which these messages emanate -- have notionally purchased? Or is it instead discussing my widely-hypothesised erectile challenges, incorporating into its introduction of the subject a habitual your / you're solecism?
We'll never know, because I'd have to actually open one of the fucking things to find out.
On a more whimsical note, though, a message just came through from someone called "Darth Natalie".
We'll never know, because I'd have to actually open one of the fucking things to find out.
On a more whimsical note, though, a message just came through from someone called "Darth Natalie".
22 May 2008
Stakeholder Society
The new regime at Big Finish's Bernice Summerfield product range (his name's Eddie) obviously believes in getting announcements out quickly. The new writing project I was being secretive about just the other day is out in the open now. It may now become slightly more obvious why I've been thinking about vampires this week.
It's another three-decker novella collection, much the same as Nobody's Children was -- and while I wasn't looking it's been given the appropriately Gothic title of Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Vampire Curse.
As it happens, this Benny anthology is an all Faction Paradox authors affair. As well as being fellow-contributors to The Book of the War, my co-conspirators Mags L. Halliday and Kelly Hale wrote Warring States and Erasing Sherlock respectively. (What with Lawrence Miles' Benny CD out in July, it's looking rather as if we're taking over.) Unlike me, Mags and Kelly also have Doctor Who novels under their belts -- the rather excellent History 101 and Grimm Reality -- and between them they run an exceptional Who fanfiction site, lostluggage.org.uk.
They're both very talented people and it's both pleasing and gratifying to be sharing a book with them. Now I just need to write my third of it...
It's another three-decker novella collection, much the same as Nobody's Children was -- and while I wasn't looking it's been given the appropriately Gothic title of Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Vampire Curse.
As it happens, this Benny anthology is an all Faction Paradox authors affair. As well as being fellow-contributors to The Book of the War, my co-conspirators Mags L. Halliday and Kelly Hale wrote Warring States and Erasing Sherlock respectively. (What with Lawrence Miles' Benny CD out in July, it's looking rather as if we're taking over.) Unlike me, Mags and Kelly also have Doctor Who novels under their belts -- the rather excellent History 101 and Grimm Reality -- and between them they run an exceptional Who fanfiction site, lostluggage.org.uk.
They're both very talented people and it's both pleasing and gratifying to be sharing a book with them. Now I just need to write my third of it...
20 May 2008
Planetary Romance
That review I mentioned of that book about these books is now up at Surefish. It may be more informative and persuasive than my earlier witterings, or of course it may not. Ignore the big pull-quote about feminism [ETA: now fixed], which appears to be from another review altogether.
In theory I should be having a column up this week as well. I'm not sure whether Andy's going to hold off on that one.
[ETA: Yes, the column's up too. It's about vampires.]
In theory I should be having a column up this week as well. I'm not sure whether Andy's going to hold off on that one.
[ETA: Yes, the column's up too. It's about vampires.]
17 May 2008
Limeraiku
Since I've owned up to still writing poetry occasionally... a while ago, for a (not especially hearty) laugh, I wrote this:
(I want the "or" and "more" to kind of cascade at the end there, each being on a subsequent line but at the appropriate alignment for the line above, as a compromise between the limerick's demand that they should form the third and fourth lines, and the haiku's demand that they should be part of the middle one. But it doesn't look like blogger will do that.)
Anyway. It turns out I wasn't even the first person to think of this. Some of those are even reasonably funny -- I like the E.O. Parrott one.
Limeraiku
A verse can conform
to one well-known form or more,
but one is the norm.
(I want the "or" and "more" to kind of cascade at the end there, each being on a subsequent line but at the appropriate alignment for the line above, as a compromise between the limerick's demand that they should form the third and fourth lines, and the haiku's demand that they should be part of the middle one. But it doesn't look like blogger will do that.)
Anyway. It turns out I wasn't even the first person to think of this. Some of those are even reasonably funny -- I like the E.O. Parrott one.
16 May 2008
Dougal, we are not watching aliens!
Hmm. So the Vatican's official astronomer has finally got around to outlining what James Blish predicted 50 years ago would be the Catholic church's position on the spiritual implications of extraterrestrial life[1]. (Admittedly he misses out the "sentient creatures without souls" category, but it's difficult to imagine that one catching on. Unless the aliens in question were militarily naïve and owned large amounts of oil, obviously.)
As Blish suggests in his introduction to A Case of Conscience, Fr Funes refuses to countenance the possibility that extraterrestrials might have experienced their own salvation event as well as their own fall from grace -- making it the church's duty, if they exist, to evangelise them mercilessly. He calls Jesus' incarnation "a unique event that cannot be repeated", which seems parochial to me.
There is, by assumption, only one divine Logos, the active principle of the Creator of the universe, but I don't see any reason to believe that this entity could only become incarnate once, or couldn't work towards the salvation of other planetary populations in other ways. (Nor does the Reverend Father cite any evidence for this. What does he expect us to do, just take it on faith?)
...And speaking of damned creatures doomed to eternal torment, I've just landed another writing gig. The usual reasons of commercial secrecy mean I can't say anything about it yet, but I'm looking forward to it already[2].
[1] Actually, Blish was quoting Gerald Heard,but since he doesn't cite the source and I'm largely unfamiliar with Heard's work I can't say where he gets it from. Look, if you want unimpeachable standards of academic rigour, go and read someone else's blog.
[2] There is actually a sequitur there, but it's one that won't become apparent until I can tell you more about the story. Sorry about that.
As Blish suggests in his introduction to A Case of Conscience, Fr Funes refuses to countenance the possibility that extraterrestrials might have experienced their own salvation event as well as their own fall from grace -- making it the church's duty, if they exist, to evangelise them mercilessly. He calls Jesus' incarnation "a unique event that cannot be repeated", which seems parochial to me.
There is, by assumption, only one divine Logos, the active principle of the Creator of the universe, but I don't see any reason to believe that this entity could only become incarnate once, or couldn't work towards the salvation of other planetary populations in other ways. (Nor does the Reverend Father cite any evidence for this. What does he expect us to do, just take it on faith?)
...And speaking of damned creatures doomed to eternal torment, I've just landed another writing gig. The usual reasons of commercial secrecy mean I can't say anything about it yet, but I'm looking forward to it already[2].
[1] Actually, Blish was quoting Gerald Heard,but since he doesn't cite the source and I'm largely unfamiliar with Heard's work I can't say where he gets it from. Look, if you want unimpeachable standards of academic rigour, go and read someone else's blog.
[2] There is actually a sequitur there, but it's one that won't become apparent until I can tell you more about the story. Sorry about that.
07 May 2008
2008 Weddings -- #1 in a Series of at Least 4
Last Sunday Kate and Silk, of whom you may have heard me speak (almost invariably in the context of beer, to nobody's particular surprise) tied the knot and got married in the Town Hall in Oxford, where B. and I held our wedding reception many years ago.
(For the usual reasons of busyness I failed to blog the relevant stag party a few weeks ago, where Silk and some sixteen other men in the 25-40 age bracket met at the stone circle in Avebury, wandered some ten miles through the thick scrubland of Wiltshire then drank a great deal of unsurprising beer in the middle of bloody nowhere. The plan of meeting for a drink at the stone circle was more sensible than it sounds, given that Avebury is the only stone circle in England which encircles a village, and more pertinently a pub.
It's a particular shame I missed the opportunity to blog about this, as I was going to use the title "Only Us Menhir". You'll just have to pretend I used it and react accordingly.)
Silk and Kate made the elementary error of asking me not only to read at the ceremony, but also to write something special for the occasion. Having tried before to write a sincere celebration of marriage as a sacrament and discovered that it came out a bit rubbish, I wasn't going to be tempted down that route again.
Here's what I read (or rather, since it requires a certain amount of comedy business with tones of voice and pieces of paper, performed):
(I'll be adding this to the website in due course, as soon as I can decide whether to put it among the poetic juvenilia or the mature prose, or to create a new category for it or what. It's about time I updated the site, given that the last time that happened seems to have been last year. [Edit to add: now updated.])
The wedding was the first of at least four, possibly five, that B. and I'll be attending this year. The bride and groom looked very very happy, and in Silk's case unwontedly smart (Kate looked gorgeous, but that's less unusual). It was, as ever, thoroughly lovely to catch up with many old friends, together with their partners and in one case progeny.
The three speeches, incredibly, were only 13 minutes 30 seconds long between them, meaning that B., who'd taken a risk with 14 minutes, won the sweepstake. My guess was nearly twice that.
The wedding breakfast was followed by punting (in which I wisely didn't partake) and board games (in which I equally wisely did -- Hive is fantastic and I need to buy it as a matter of urgency), music and dancing and at least four different types of cheese. Very nice wine, as well, which I didn't drink far too much of -- indeed, the only areas in which I disgraced myself were (inevitably) my dancing, and succumbing to the temptation to have a quick cigarette before leaving. Bad Phil.
Generally a very successful day, though, and one which would have achieved high marks if we'd kept up our scoring system. Roll on Sunday 25th in Taunton.
(For the usual reasons of busyness I failed to blog the relevant stag party a few weeks ago, where Silk and some sixteen other men in the 25-40 age bracket met at the stone circle in Avebury, wandered some ten miles through the thick scrubland of Wiltshire then drank a great deal of unsurprising beer in the middle of bloody nowhere. The plan of meeting for a drink at the stone circle was more sensible than it sounds, given that Avebury is the only stone circle in England which encircles a village, and more pertinently a pub.
It's a particular shame I missed the opportunity to blog about this, as I was going to use the title "Only Us Menhir". You'll just have to pretend I used it and react accordingly.)
Silk and Kate made the elementary error of asking me not only to read at the ceremony, but also to write something special for the occasion. Having tried before to write a sincere celebration of marriage as a sacrament and discovered that it came out a bit rubbish, I wasn't going to be tempted down that route again.
Here's what I read (or rather, since it requires a certain amount of comedy business with tones of voice and pieces of paper, performed):
CONTRATHALAMION
by Philip Purser-Hallard
To Silk and Kate, with love
on the happy occasion of their wedding –
Sunday 4 May 2008.
Let not the marriage of true minds –
but you’ve heard that one. Let me talk
instead about the many kinds
of daily strife which make it awk-
ward to stay married, once those first
impediments are past. I’ve made
a list of those I find the worst.
My wife… helped. First – the marmalade.
No, hang on, that’s page 2. Let’s see...
You may find things that you yourself
put somewhere safe will later be
somewhere absurd, like on the shelf
where mug-trees live. Unless, you know,
they’re mug-trees, and that’s where they go.
Toenail clippings, rather than
the bin, might turn up in your bed,
your trousers, or your frying-pan.
A book that should be under Z
in fiction – a Zelazny, say –
you’ll find instead is in the car,
the bath, the fridge, or under J.
You’ll wonder where your pliers are,
and as for DVD remotes –
I’m ranting now. Perhaps it’s best
if I just give you all my notes,
and spare these charming folk the rest.
(You may think I’m exaggerating.
See what you think in 2018.)
© Philip Purser-Hallard 2008
(I'll be adding this to the website in due course, as soon as I can decide whether to put it among the poetic juvenilia or the mature prose, or to create a new category for it or what. It's about time I updated the site, given that the last time that happened seems to have been last year. [Edit to add: now updated.])
The wedding was the first of at least four, possibly five, that B. and I'll be attending this year. The bride and groom looked very very happy, and in Silk's case unwontedly smart (Kate looked gorgeous, but that's less unusual). It was, as ever, thoroughly lovely to catch up with many old friends, together with their partners and in one case progeny.
The three speeches, incredibly, were only 13 minutes 30 seconds long between them, meaning that B., who'd taken a risk with 14 minutes, won the sweepstake. My guess was nearly twice that.
The wedding breakfast was followed by punting (in which I wisely didn't partake) and board games (in which I equally wisely did -- Hive is fantastic and I need to buy it as a matter of urgency), music and dancing and at least four different types of cheese. Very nice wine, as well, which I didn't drink far too much of -- indeed, the only areas in which I disgraced myself were (inevitably) my dancing, and succumbing to the temptation to have a quick cigarette before leaving. Bad Phil.
Generally a very successful day, though, and one which would have achieved high marks if we'd kept up our scoring system. Roll on Sunday 25th in Taunton.
The Bat Dome
Yet more fun with predictive text:
"I'll get the cat food"...is predicted as:
"I'll get the act done"Or -- if you remember to correct the first time but not the second -- the rather more apposite:
"I'll get the cat done".
26 April 2008
"Well, Narnia and barmier don't rhyme, to begin with."
I've only just noticed that my column for this month is now up at Surefish. In retrospect, I may have got a little carried away with the S.F. theology towards the end.
This is slightly unfortunate, as I'm now writing a review for Surefish endorsing this book, which claims to have discovered a "secret imaginative key" to C.S. Lewis's Narnia septet, based around the tenets of medieval astrology.
And yes, I know how that sounds, but in point of fact Michael Ward's argument is so well-informed, persuasive and -- if you actually know anything about Lewis's thought -- downright reasonable, that I can't imagine not endorsing it. And as someone who reads Fortean Times religiously every month, I have some experience of evaluating dodgy arguments. (Actually, "religiously" sounds wrong in that sentence. In fact I probably read Fortean Times secularly every month.)
If you don't believe me, that's probably fair enough, but if you find Lewis's work interesting enough to be open to new perspectives on it, do give the book (or even this summary) a read before dismissing it. Perhaps you'll decide I'm less insane than the readers at Surefish are now likely to believe.
Otherwise, I've been grindly slowly onwards on the reading front. River of Gods is still huge and difficult to fathom -- I'm perhaps two-thirds of the way through now, but it's slow going. I'm finding that McDonald's use of local (Indian) vocabulary goes way beyond scene-setting and into the realms of deliberate obscurity. The book has an "If I know this, why don't you?" air, which might seem reasonable (if smug) if its target readership consisted of Indians and indologists, but is only going to irritate the average western reader. There's a glossary, admittedly, but it's hopelessly sketchy.
In other respects it's a pretty good character-driven S.F. novel, although there are a hell of a lot of characters. Perhaps a cast list would have been more useful than the glossary.
I think the only other things I've read are a couple of Doctor Who books, The Pirate Loop (mindless fluff, nothing like as good as the author's capable of) and The Many Hands (immensely better, but still suffering from its curtailed length).
I'm also halfway through Reginald Hill's A Cure for All Diseases, which as a police procedural set in modern Yorkshire suffers rather from being closely based on an unfinished Jane Austen comedy of manners set in 18th-century Sussex. Crime writers are weird.
This is slightly unfortunate, as I'm now writing a review for Surefish endorsing this book, which claims to have discovered a "secret imaginative key" to C.S. Lewis's Narnia septet, based around the tenets of medieval astrology.
And yes, I know how that sounds, but in point of fact Michael Ward's argument is so well-informed, persuasive and -- if you actually know anything about Lewis's thought -- downright reasonable, that I can't imagine not endorsing it. And as someone who reads Fortean Times religiously every month, I have some experience of evaluating dodgy arguments. (Actually, "religiously" sounds wrong in that sentence. In fact I probably read Fortean Times secularly every month.)
If you don't believe me, that's probably fair enough, but if you find Lewis's work interesting enough to be open to new perspectives on it, do give the book (or even this summary) a read before dismissing it. Perhaps you'll decide I'm less insane than the readers at Surefish are now likely to believe.
Otherwise, I've been grindly slowly onwards on the reading front. River of Gods is still huge and difficult to fathom -- I'm perhaps two-thirds of the way through now, but it's slow going. I'm finding that McDonald's use of local (Indian) vocabulary goes way beyond scene-setting and into the realms of deliberate obscurity. The book has an "If I know this, why don't you?" air, which might seem reasonable (if smug) if its target readership consisted of Indians and indologists, but is only going to irritate the average western reader. There's a glossary, admittedly, but it's hopelessly sketchy.
In other respects it's a pretty good character-driven S.F. novel, although there are a hell of a lot of characters. Perhaps a cast list would have been more useful than the glossary.
I think the only other things I've read are a couple of Doctor Who books, The Pirate Loop (mindless fluff, nothing like as good as the author's capable of) and The Many Hands (immensely better, but still suffering from its curtailed length).
I'm also halfway through Reginald Hill's A Cure for All Diseases, which as a police procedural set in modern Yorkshire suffers rather from being closely based on an unfinished Jane Austen comedy of manners set in 18th-century Sussex. Crime writers are weird.
09 April 2008
01 April 2008
Do Ordinands Dream of Electric Priests? ...etc.
To accompany today's (ahem) fortuitously-timed news story about the first automated church minister package, my latest column on the spiritual dimensions of artificial intelligence is up at Surefish.
31 March 2008
Triptych of Stuff
1. S.F. authors -- the unacknowledged legislators of the world. (Thanks to Geoff Wessel for the link.)
My favourite paragraph:
I'd pay good money to see a U.K. equivalent of this group, with the likes of Iain Banks and Ken MacLeod explaining to Gordon Brown why technology makes the revolution of the proletariat inevitable, and why he might as well hand over power to the people now.
2. For various reasons relating to small publishers and the extreme commercial pressures they face, most of the writing contracts I've had have involved flat fees -- I deliver the manuscript, I get paid, then the publisher takes it and sells it as best they can without having to worry about any further outgoings in my direction. There's one exception, who I won't name for obvious reasons of confidentiality, and they sent me my first genuine actual royalty cheque last week.
Hurrah for royalties! B. and I were so excited that we went out and blew the entire £21.72 on a modest pub lunch. Rock and roll!
3. If you're on Facebook, you may have been reading the products of the Six Word Stories writing group. If you aren't or haven't, then you'll be momentarily distracted to know that I'm the runner-up in their fortnightly writing contest with a werewolf story:
My favourite paragraph:
Instead the writers used their time to pontificate on a variety of tangentially related topics, including their past roles advising the government, predictions in their stories that have come to pass, the demise of the paperback book market, and low-cost launch into space.The neocon ranting is somewhat less funny, admittedly, though more or less what I'd have expected from this particular clique of hard-S.F. practitioners. What the article doesn't mention is that Niven and Pournelle have been itching for a shot at statesmanship for a while now: their 1985 novel Footfall has a pair of strangely familiar S.F. writers advising the U.S. government during an alien invasion.
I'd pay good money to see a U.K. equivalent of this group, with the likes of Iain Banks and Ken MacLeod explaining to Gordon Brown why technology makes the revolution of the proletariat inevitable, and why he might as well hand over power to the people now.
2. For various reasons relating to small publishers and the extreme commercial pressures they face, most of the writing contracts I've had have involved flat fees -- I deliver the manuscript, I get paid, then the publisher takes it and sells it as best they can without having to worry about any further outgoings in my direction. There's one exception, who I won't name for obvious reasons of confidentiality, and they sent me my first genuine actual royalty cheque last week.
Hurrah for royalties! B. and I were so excited that we went out and blew the entire £21.72 on a modest pub lunch. Rock and roll!
3. If you're on Facebook, you may have been reading the products of the Six Word Stories writing group. If you aren't or haven't, then you'll be momentarily distracted to know that I'm the runner-up in their fortnightly writing contest with a werewolf story:
"You teach, like, anthropology?"Yay me.
"No -- lycanthropology."
22 March 2008
Resisting All The Usual Puns
"Everyone knew he was gay," writes Michael Moorcock of Arthur C. Clarke.
Well, it would have taken a remarkably closed mind to read, say, Imperial Earth or 2061: Odyssey Three without realising that this was a strong possibility. But as far as I'm aware, Clarke never publicly acknowledged his sexuality, and nor did his family, his ex-wife or anyone else close to him.
I'm wondering why Moorcock feels the need to out Clarke when he's been dead less than a week. It feels oddly gleeful, somehow, as if he still thinks he's living in 1967 and needs to freak out the squares.
Well, it would have taken a remarkably closed mind to read, say, Imperial Earth or 2061: Odyssey Three without realising that this was a strong possibility. But as far as I'm aware, Clarke never publicly acknowledged his sexuality, and nor did his family, his ex-wife or anyone else close to him.
I'm wondering why Moorcock feels the need to out Clarke when he's been dead less than a week. It feels oddly gleeful, somehow, as if he still thinks he's living in 1967 and needs to freak out the squares.
20 March 2008
And So To Beer
Hurrah, and many of them, for last Saturday, when B. and I, nine of our friends and a couple of thousand other people piled into the Brunel Passenger Shed at Temple Meads to drink 120 different kinds of beer.
We all had a splendid time. At least, I know I did -- I was enjoying my beer to much to keep track of everyone else. As a particular personal triumph, this year I managed to avoid the perennial trap of previous years: deciding that what's needed after four-and-a-half hours of drinking many different kinds of beer is -- huzzah! -- more beer, and thus falling over outside some nearby pub. (The absence on family business of Silk may have assisted in averting this.)
Instead we repaired to the chocolate café in Clifton to replenish our sugar and fat reserves. (There we met up with, among others, our goddaughter E., who I perhaps unwisely promised she could accompany us to the 2019 Beer Festival, by which time she'll be old enough.)
My tasting notes were, like last year's, a little incoherent and not always easy to decipher. Of the circa 25 beers I tasted (13 of which I drank half-pints of), the following were notable:
I was less keen on the Dr Okell's I.P.A. ("tad generic"), Purple Moose's Dark Side of the Moose ("liquoricey aftertaste") and Nottingham Rock Mild ("sluggy aftertaste", bizarrely). For Shardlow's Whistlestop I wrote: "No idea. Forgot to make a note. Beery???".
Things I need to remember to do next year include rereading my notes from past years, so that I know a) what I've had already, and b) which of those I liked. (I don't seem to have duplicated any from last year, as it happens, but there are a couple I'd have liked to sample again.) Also to bring my CAMRA membership card, folding chairs and chocolate.
We all had a splendid time. At least, I know I did -- I was enjoying my beer to much to keep track of everyone else. As a particular personal triumph, this year I managed to avoid the perennial trap of previous years: deciding that what's needed after four-and-a-half hours of drinking many different kinds of beer is -- huzzah! -- more beer, and thus falling over outside some nearby pub. (The absence on family business of Silk may have assisted in averting this.)
Instead we repaired to the chocolate café in Clifton to replenish our sugar and fat reserves. (There we met up with, among others, our goddaughter E., who I perhaps unwisely promised she could accompany us to the 2019 Beer Festival, by which time she'll be old enough.)
My tasting notes were, like last year's, a little incoherent and not always easy to decipher. Of the circa 25 beers I tasted (13 of which I drank half-pints of), the following were notable:
- Skinner's Cornish Knocker -- a very decent beer, despite the tweeness of the website. My tasting notes read "Nutty and sweet -- mm. Good session beer, I suspect" (a "session beer" being one you could sit and drink all evening, or at least that's what I've always imagined it means).
- Orkney Dark Island. Orkney do some lovely beers, and I very much enjoyed this one, although it was probably too dark to drink early on (as I did). I've underlined and ticked the word "chocolate" in the CAMRA-provided programme notes, and written: "[M.] says 'whiskyish' -- tasty and caramely."
- Ottley O.B.B.. Everyone seemed a little surprised by how much I raved about this one, but I really liked it. "Refreshingly bitter -- sloshy, persistent. Good stuff.", I wrote.
- Copper Dragon's Scotts 1816. My notes read: "Mellow and cheerful, like a relaxing tongue-massage." [Later annotation: "I expect."] "This is good."
- Triple FFF's Comfortably Numb. Not as good as it sounds -- I've written "Way too sweet... OK otherwise. Grows on you, actually." I've underlined "fruity" in the phrase "subtle fruity flavours", but crossed out "subtle".
- Dark Star Festival. Despite the quirky name (and wanky website), I wasn't all that keen on this one. I wrote: "Grows on you... don't judge by early appearances. Still... bit unimaginative. Coffeeish (oddly)."
- Spire's Sgt Peppers Stout. This one I really liked, although it wouldn't have been to everyone's taste. The CAMRA programme explains that it's "An unusual stout that is flavoured with ground black pepper," although I have to say this wasn't overly apparent in the taste. It was very tasty, though. I said, "Good. Esp w food. Smooth & stouty.", and added three ticks.
- Beowulf's Dragon Smoke Stout. I seem to remember I was too late to get any of this in 2007, so I made sure I managed it this time. I described it as: "Smoky, stouty, dragony. Mm. Good stuff, though not supernally so" (supernally?), and underlined "full roast" and "bitterness" in the programme notes.
- Bath Ales Dark Hare, from a brewery close to both Bristol and my heart. Dark Hare is a rare seasonal beer including chocolate malt, roast barley and nutmeg. My notes read: "V. nice -- rather mellow (though less so than [Cottage Brewery's] Norman's Conquest) -- velvety and pleasing mouthfeel", and all instances of the word "chocolate" in the accompanying programme notes are underlined. I think I'd just tried the Norman's Conquest (which I found "mellow and calming"), and had been amused earlier by the word "mouthfeel" in the programme notes for the Dark Star.
- Moor's Ported Pete Porter. By this stage I was frantically buying all the dark beers I could find and quaffing them. This one I pronounced "Good -- little bit metallic, but hurrah." Which is less flattering than it could have been.
- Sarah Hughes' Dark Ruby Mild. This was almost the last one I had, so I'm not altogether sure my opinion can be trusted, but I voted for it as Beer of the Festival. An initial tasting note (when I tried someone else's) reads, "Ooh. I could drink lots of that," and I later added: "And indeed, it is fine & relaxed & leisurely, with fruity, chocolatey tones."
I was less keen on the Dr Okell's I.P.A. ("tad generic"), Purple Moose's Dark Side of the Moose ("liquoricey aftertaste") and Nottingham Rock Mild ("sluggy aftertaste", bizarrely). For Shardlow's Whistlestop I wrote: "No idea. Forgot to make a note. Beery???".
Things I need to remember to do next year include rereading my notes from past years, so that I know a) what I've had already, and b) which of those I liked. (I don't seem to have duplicated any from last year, as it happens, but there are a couple I'd have liked to sample again.) Also to bring my CAMRA membership card, folding chairs and chocolate.
Life, Death, Space, Time, Matter, Gods, Aliens...
...you know the drill.
And now so do I. A BLOODY GREAT BIG DRILL, in fact, positioned a few inches from my head as the next-door house is disassembled down to its very foundations (warning: slight risk of hyperbole). I guess that writing I mentioned won't be happening today.
(Disturbingly, the van at the front of the house belongs to a pest control company, suggesting that they've been called in to deal with something living in the walls.)
So -- books. And beer as well, but probably in a separate post.
I think I've said what I wanted to about Arthur C. Clarke in my piece for Surefish. I'll update here when that's available online -- I'm hoping it might be today [ETA: Yes -- see above], but it may have to wait till Tuesday[ETA: No, I told you, the link's just up there.]. Suffice it to say that Clarke's been an inspirational figure since my childhood, has had a pervading influence on my thinking in all kinds of ways -- most of them too deeply ingrained to identify -- and that his death, whatever age he reached, was always going to be a loss to the world.
(One thing I hadn't room to mention in the article was that his 62-year professional writing career was one of the few to threaten the 65-year record of George Bernard Shaw. If Clarke had lived another four years, as Shaw did, I'm sure he'd have overtaken him.)
One thing that some of you might be able to tell me, though... the most recent book of Clarke's I read was 3001: The Final Odyssey, one of a cluster of utopian novels by senior SF writers which popped up unexpectedly around the turn of the millennium. I've not read any of his co-written stuff, not being a big fan of Stephen Baxter's work and suspecting that Beyond the Fall of Night and the Rama sequels in particular were blatant cash-ins.
So, um... are any of the collaborations any good? I'm thinking here particularly of the Clarke-Lee Rama books and the Clarke-Baxter Time Odyssey series, all of which I really ought to have read at some point.
In other S.F. news... I enjoyed Iain Banks' Matter, but like The Steep Approach to Garbadale and to some extent The Algebraist, it had the feel of Banks working to a reliable formula without much interest in stretching himself. (Dead Air didn't feel like that to me, and nor did Look to Windward, so I hope this is an extended lapse rather than a long-term slide into senescence.)
The complex and massive detail of an insanely long-lived galactic metacivilisation (and a completely different one from the one in The Algebraist, at that) was well done, but other elements felt fairly familiar. This is particularly true of the absurdly advanced and enlightened Culture's covert intervention in the affairs of the rather boring feudal society who form the focus of the novel, since this was also the plot of Inversions nearly ten years ago. Admittedly this feudal culture occupies a portion of a world-sized artifact left behind my mysterious long-vanished aliens, but -- as one of the characters even points out during the novel -- that's the only interesting thing about them.
Admittedly there's a cleverish twist in that the Culture's agent is herself a native of the feudal society in question -- a princess no less, donated by the king as payment for services rendered some time previously, and immediately emancipated as a fully entitled (and enabled) Culture citizen. (Her name, Djan Seriy, recalls "Janissary", whether deliberately or otherwise.) In other respects, the book rehashes elements of Excession, Use of Weapons and The Player of Games, to no particularly worthwhile effect. It's a fun read and I was never bored, but I do feel Banks has been treading water for the past half-decade or so.
Since finishing Matter I've started River of Gods by Ian McDonald. I'm not very far in, and so far it's a little baffling -- I'm ashamed to say the panoply of Indian names, not all of them readily distinguishable to my angloglot eyes, isn't helping with that. I've just reached the part where the synthetic Bollywood-soap star explains that he was created as an A.I. actor rather than an A.I. character because everyone likes to know what stars get up to behind the scenes, only for it to be revealed that this part of his life is just as scripted as his soap appearances. That's fairly promising.
I'm also most of the way through Bryan Appleyard's Aliens: Why They Are Here, an examination of fictional and supposedly-real aliens which blends pop-culture and philosophy with immense readability. It's fascinating.
Oh, and this isn't a book, but it did appear in the Guardian Books supplement, and is written by the author of a book I want to read. Well, I guess that about wraps it up for Dawkins.
And now so do I. A BLOODY GREAT BIG DRILL, in fact, positioned a few inches from my head as the next-door house is disassembled down to its very foundations (warning: slight risk of hyperbole). I guess that writing I mentioned won't be happening today.
(Disturbingly, the van at the front of the house belongs to a pest control company, suggesting that they've been called in to deal with something living in the walls.)
So -- books. And beer as well, but probably in a separate post.
I think I've said what I wanted to about Arthur C. Clarke in my piece for Surefish. I'll update here when that's available online -- I'm hoping it might be today [ETA: Yes -- see above], but it may have to wait till Tuesday[ETA: No, I told you, the link's just up there.]. Suffice it to say that Clarke's been an inspirational figure since my childhood, has had a pervading influence on my thinking in all kinds of ways -- most of them too deeply ingrained to identify -- and that his death, whatever age he reached, was always going to be a loss to the world.
(One thing I hadn't room to mention in the article was that his 62-year professional writing career was one of the few to threaten the 65-year record of George Bernard Shaw. If Clarke had lived another four years, as Shaw did, I'm sure he'd have overtaken him.)
One thing that some of you might be able to tell me, though... the most recent book of Clarke's I read was 3001: The Final Odyssey, one of a cluster of utopian novels by senior SF writers which popped up unexpectedly around the turn of the millennium. I've not read any of his co-written stuff, not being a big fan of Stephen Baxter's work and suspecting that Beyond the Fall of Night and the Rama sequels in particular were blatant cash-ins.
So, um... are any of the collaborations any good? I'm thinking here particularly of the Clarke-Lee Rama books and the Clarke-Baxter Time Odyssey series, all of which I really ought to have read at some point.
In other S.F. news... I enjoyed Iain Banks' Matter, but like The Steep Approach to Garbadale and to some extent The Algebraist, it had the feel of Banks working to a reliable formula without much interest in stretching himself. (Dead Air didn't feel like that to me, and nor did Look to Windward, so I hope this is an extended lapse rather than a long-term slide into senescence.)
The complex and massive detail of an insanely long-lived galactic metacivilisation (and a completely different one from the one in The Algebraist, at that) was well done, but other elements felt fairly familiar. This is particularly true of the absurdly advanced and enlightened Culture's covert intervention in the affairs of the rather boring feudal society who form the focus of the novel, since this was also the plot of Inversions nearly ten years ago. Admittedly this feudal culture occupies a portion of a world-sized artifact left behind my mysterious long-vanished aliens, but -- as one of the characters even points out during the novel -- that's the only interesting thing about them.
Admittedly there's a cleverish twist in that the Culture's agent is herself a native of the feudal society in question -- a princess no less, donated by the king as payment for services rendered some time previously, and immediately emancipated as a fully entitled (and enabled) Culture citizen. (Her name, Djan Seriy, recalls "Janissary", whether deliberately or otherwise.) In other respects, the book rehashes elements of Excession, Use of Weapons and The Player of Games, to no particularly worthwhile effect. It's a fun read and I was never bored, but I do feel Banks has been treading water for the past half-decade or so.
Since finishing Matter I've started River of Gods by Ian McDonald. I'm not very far in, and so far it's a little baffling -- I'm ashamed to say the panoply of Indian names, not all of them readily distinguishable to my angloglot eyes, isn't helping with that. I've just reached the part where the synthetic Bollywood-soap star explains that he was created as an A.I. actor rather than an A.I. character because everyone likes to know what stars get up to behind the scenes, only for it to be revealed that this part of his life is just as scripted as his soap appearances. That's fairly promising.
I'm also most of the way through Bryan Appleyard's Aliens: Why They Are Here, an examination of fictional and supposedly-real aliens which blends pop-culture and philosophy with immense readability. It's fascinating.
Oh, and this isn't a book, but it did appear in the Guardian Books supplement, and is written by the author of a book I want to read. Well, I guess that about wraps it up for Dawkins.
19 March 2008
I Know, I Know...
...I really need to update this blog more often.
I was expecting to be writing a report on Saturday's Bristol Beer Festival today -- I've got my tasting notes and everything, and I really need to use them before everything I drank falls out of my head.
(Er, metaphorically. It didn't do that in literal terms, thank heavens.)
But then Arthur C. Clarke died, and I spent this morning expecting that I'd be blogging instead about his books, their influence on my life -- which has been substantial -- and on the world.
Which I would have done. Only when I got home from work I got an email offering to pay me for writing something along these lines... only obviously not here. So what I've actually been doing this afternoon is writing the wittily-entitled "2008: A Space Obituary", which should be appearing at an internet near you after the Bank Holiday weekend.
I'll try to catch up here tomorrow. But -- and this is also somewhat crucial -- I actually succeeded in doing some proper creative writing late last week, with characters and descriptions and stuff. Given how rare that's been recently, if I can manage to carry on with that tomorrow, it may have to take precedence over telling you all about my exciting adventures with beer. Fun though those were.
I was expecting to be writing a report on Saturday's Bristol Beer Festival today -- I've got my tasting notes and everything, and I really need to use them before everything I drank falls out of my head.
(Er, metaphorically. It didn't do that in literal terms, thank heavens.)
But then Arthur C. Clarke died, and I spent this morning expecting that I'd be blogging instead about his books, their influence on my life -- which has been substantial -- and on the world.
Which I would have done. Only when I got home from work I got an email offering to pay me for writing something along these lines... only obviously not here. So what I've actually been doing this afternoon is writing the wittily-entitled "2008: A Space Obituary", which should be appearing at an internet near you after the Bank Holiday weekend.
I'll try to catch up here tomorrow. But -- and this is also somewhat crucial -- I actually succeeded in doing some proper creative writing late last week, with characters and descriptions and stuff. Given how rare that's been recently, if I can manage to carry on with that tomorrow, it may have to take precedence over telling you all about my exciting adventures with beer. Fun though those were.
25 February 2008
I've Got You Under My Skin
Call me a shameless future-slut... but if this is the Mark of the Beast, I want to be Left Behind.
The tattoo display communicates wirelessly to other Bluetooth devices - both in the outside world and within the same body. Although the device is always on (as long as your blood´s flowing), the display can be turned off and on by pushing a small dot on the skin.That is so cool. Or maybe I just haven't watched enough David Cronenberg films to realise.
21 February 2008
Goodness, has it really?
As long as that? Blimey.
I'm actually having grave trouble writing anything at all at the moment, not just posting here. Possible reasons for this might include:
This is why I'm rather glad I've managed to spend today writing a column for Surefish (and on only three coffees, too), even if it does retread some rather familiar ground for anyone who's heard me witter on about my thesis. It isn't this one about TV's Heroes, which as it happens has just gone up today -- some editorial rescheduling at Surefish has meant that that one's been waiting in the pipeline a little while. (I didn't really need to write the next column today at all, in fact, but since I seemed to be making actual progress with it I thought I ought to press on.)
So what else have I been doing recently? Well, consuming various bits of culture, pop- and otherwise, in diverse media. There'll be too many to list, but they include:
I also, last weekend, met up with a cluster of friends whom I love a great deal and get far too sentimental about, together with assorted partners and a baby, to eat food, drink too much and talk random nonsense. Sadly B. was working at the weekend and couldn't come. The whole thing was thoroughly lovely, though, and put me in a far mellower mood after the weekend than I was at the end of last week. Or, unfortunately, this one.
I've also been listening to the Walkman I acquired at (though not for) Christmas. Now I've got over the "My god, it's the soundtrack to my life!" response which comes from stalking about the place with non-diegetic music sounding in your ears, I'm finding it's a good way of consuming the CDs of random audio drama I have lying about the place, as well as discovering quite how limited my music collection is. Recommended.
I'm actually having grave trouble writing anything at all at the moment, not just posting here. Possible reasons for this might include:
- natural idleness
- extended post-Christmas lassitude
- busyness at work
- mild depression
- my caffeine dependency reaching the point where coffee no longer has any actual stimulant effect.
This is why I'm rather glad I've managed to spend today writing a column for Surefish (and on only three coffees, too), even if it does retread some rather familiar ground for anyone who's heard me witter on about my thesis. It isn't this one about TV's Heroes, which as it happens has just gone up today -- some editorial rescheduling at Surefish has meant that that one's been waiting in the pipeline a little while. (I didn't really need to write the next column today at all, in fact, but since I seemed to be making actual progress with it I thought I ought to press on.)
So what else have I been doing recently? Well, consuming various bits of culture, pop- and otherwise, in diverse media. There'll be too many to list, but they include:
- Alan Moore's brilliant and hilarious The Black Dossier -- the latest in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series -- which is about multiple characters from different fictional universes, including that of Dracula, spying in post-Big-Brother Britain in the 1950s.
- Kim Newman's clever and mildly disturbing Andy Warhol's Dracula -- a a follow-up, though not a particularly recent one, to his Anno Dracula series -- about multiple characters from different fictional universes, including that of Dracula, hanging out with Andy Warhol in New York in the 1970s.
- Paul Magrs' very fine and splendid Something Borrowed -- the sequel to the equally fine and splendid Never the Bride -- about multiple characters from different fictional universes, including that of Dracula, meeting up at a B&B in Whitby in the present day.
- Newtons Sleep, the sixth (or seventh, or eighth, depending how you're counting) Faction Paradox novel and the first from new publishers Random Static. Which is just great, and which I should probably also say more about here soon.
- Iain M. Banks's Matter, which is fun so far, although if you've read the previous Culture novels it's rather noticeably more of the same. Still, there's a lot of incredibly detailed and imaginative worldbuilding, which it's always worth reading Banks-the-S.F.-writer for.
- Cloverfield, which is very clever and interestingly done, but not actually all that entertaining to watch, which is a bit of an oversight. It's rather lucky that they do keep the monster offscreen for most of the time, because when you actually see it it's a bit rubbish. (It also gave me terrible motion sickness, which has been happening more recently. I suspect this is the current cinematic trend towards low-tech verisimilitude, rather than my advancing age, but if it carries on I'm going to have to take travel-sickness pills before going to the cinema, which is silly.)
- Penelope. Christina Ricci -- whom the plot requires to be repulsively ugly -- is sexier as a pig-faced woman than I'd have imagined possible.
- Ashes to Ashes. That Keeley Hawes really isn't John Simm, is she?
- Torchwood, which, while more consistent this season, will have to do an awful lot of arse-gearing before I start feeling it's actually worth my while watching it. (That said, and presumably just to keep me paying attention, the episode Adam was blindingly good.)
I also, last weekend, met up with a cluster of friends whom I love a great deal and get far too sentimental about, together with assorted partners and a baby, to eat food, drink too much and talk random nonsense. Sadly B. was working at the weekend and couldn't come. The whole thing was thoroughly lovely, though, and put me in a far mellower mood after the weekend than I was at the end of last week. Or, unfortunately, this one.
I've also been listening to the Walkman I acquired at (though not for) Christmas. Now I've got over the "My god, it's the soundtrack to my life!" response which comes from stalking about the place with non-diegetic music sounding in your ears, I'm finding it's a good way of consuming the CDs of random audio drama I have lying about the place, as well as discovering quite how limited my music collection is. Recommended.
26 January 2008
Scotch - Wahey!
I'm feeling somewhat sluggish this morning, following a celebration last night with friends of the 249th birthday of Robert Burns, the most renowned of all Scottish poets who aren't William McGonagall.
As is traditional, the event involved haggis, tatties and neeps, readings of Burns's poetry and copious quantities of whisky. In deference to the fact that we're all middle-class urban English cultural tourists, the haggis was vegetarian, the potatoes and swede roasted rather than bashed, and the poetry read out in a variety of painful imitations of Scottish accents (except for Seamus Heaney's "A Birl for Burns", for which an Irish accent was felt to be more appropriate). It was thoroughly good fun -- the Quorn-based pseudo-haggis, homemade by B., being a particular triumph -- and the whisky at least included a wide range of thoroughly genuine Scottish single malts. Mm, Talisker.
All of which (together with our entirely spurious inclusion among the readings of MacGonagall's immortal The Tay Bridge Disaster), made me speculate about the possibility of a MacGonagall Night supper, involving the foulest whiskies available, dramatised readings, a recreation of MacGonagall's legendary performance as Macbeth, and plates of peas for throwing purposes. But it's probably been done.
As well as being an obvious way of preserving meat through the winter months, haggis is also an excellent stomach-liner, as are the carbohydratey vegetables which accompany it. So I don't feel too rough this morning, despite the many whiskies.
I'm now pondering the extent of Burns's literary reputation, and especially Wikipedia's claim that "He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement and after his death became an important source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism." Clearly Burns was and remains pivotal to the development of both Scottish poetry and Scots-language poetry. Having studied most of the major English Romantics, though, I've a strong suspicion that the rest of this is a patriotic exaggeration.
Burns remains best known for his pithier lyrics: the sentimental ones, like "Auld Lang Syne" and "A Red, Red Rose"; the humorous ones, like the Addresses to haggises and mice; and of course the patriotic ones, like "Scots Wha Hae". While it's true that the English pioneers of Romanticism, Wordsworth and Coleridge, started off like Burns, writing pastoral, lyrical poetry with an emphasis on folklore and rural traditions, they were hardly unique in this. What's more, both soon progressed to longer, weightier works like The Prelude and Biographia Literaria, and it's these which herald the emergence of English Romanticism as an intellectual movement -- everything before that was just pootling about in fields.
Although Burns certainly shared many of Wordsworth's and Coleridge's political and social convictions, too much of his time was taken up with practical farm work, learning to dress flax and knocking up all the women he could get his hands on (not a big concern for his English Romantic contemporaries, but one which their successors Byron, Keats and Shelley would throw themselves into with great enthusiasm), to produce any works of parallel significance. Burns's most sustained accomplishment is "Tam O'Shanter" -- a short pseudo-epic about an encounter with witches, which is essentially a prolonged drunken anecdote. Albeit quite a funny one.
Burns was splendid at what he did, of course, but I remain to be convinced that what he did would be considered so highly if it wasn't for Scottish national pride. Not, I have to admit, that I'd relish arguing the point with a well-informed Scot.
As is traditional, the event involved haggis, tatties and neeps, readings of Burns's poetry and copious quantities of whisky. In deference to the fact that we're all middle-class urban English cultural tourists, the haggis was vegetarian, the potatoes and swede roasted rather than bashed, and the poetry read out in a variety of painful imitations of Scottish accents (except for Seamus Heaney's "A Birl for Burns", for which an Irish accent was felt to be more appropriate). It was thoroughly good fun -- the Quorn-based pseudo-haggis, homemade by B., being a particular triumph -- and the whisky at least included a wide range of thoroughly genuine Scottish single malts. Mm, Talisker.
All of which (together with our entirely spurious inclusion among the readings of MacGonagall's immortal The Tay Bridge Disaster), made me speculate about the possibility of a MacGonagall Night supper, involving the foulest whiskies available, dramatised readings, a recreation of MacGonagall's legendary performance as Macbeth, and plates of peas for throwing purposes. But it's probably been done.
As well as being an obvious way of preserving meat through the winter months, haggis is also an excellent stomach-liner, as are the carbohydratey vegetables which accompany it. So I don't feel too rough this morning, despite the many whiskies.
I'm now pondering the extent of Burns's literary reputation, and especially Wikipedia's claim that "He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement and after his death became an important source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism." Clearly Burns was and remains pivotal to the development of both Scottish poetry and Scots-language poetry. Having studied most of the major English Romantics, though, I've a strong suspicion that the rest of this is a patriotic exaggeration.
Burns remains best known for his pithier lyrics: the sentimental ones, like "Auld Lang Syne" and "A Red, Red Rose"; the humorous ones, like the Addresses to haggises and mice; and of course the patriotic ones, like "Scots Wha Hae". While it's true that the English pioneers of Romanticism, Wordsworth and Coleridge, started off like Burns, writing pastoral, lyrical poetry with an emphasis on folklore and rural traditions, they were hardly unique in this. What's more, both soon progressed to longer, weightier works like The Prelude and Biographia Literaria, and it's these which herald the emergence of English Romanticism as an intellectual movement -- everything before that was just pootling about in fields.
Although Burns certainly shared many of Wordsworth's and Coleridge's political and social convictions, too much of his time was taken up with practical farm work, learning to dress flax and knocking up all the women he could get his hands on (not a big concern for his English Romantic contemporaries, but one which their successors Byron, Keats and Shelley would throw themselves into with great enthusiasm), to produce any works of parallel significance. Burns's most sustained accomplishment is "Tam O'Shanter" -- a short pseudo-epic about an encounter with witches, which is essentially a prolonged drunken anecdote. Albeit quite a funny one.
Burns was splendid at what he did, of course, but I remain to be convinced that what he did would be considered so highly if it wasn't for Scottish national pride. Not, I have to admit, that I'd relish arguing the point with a well-informed Scot.
Work in Progress
Apply this rule after the message arrivesThis now works about 50% of the time. 'Casino' was removed from the roster after it filtered out a mailing-list discussion of the recent James Bond film.
Where the Subject line contains 'cock' or 'penis' or 'rolex' or 'replica' or 'fuck' or 'stick' or 'watches' or 'schlong' or 'erectile' or 'sexy' or 'phallus' or 'bodypart' or 'dick' or 'pharmacy' or 'erection' or 'viagra' or 'cialis' or 'tabs' or 'willy' or 'pen!s' or 'medication' or 's'e'xual' or 'sexual' or 'loser' or 'giant' or 'FDA' or 'OEM' or 'pill' or 'length' or 'organ' or 'shlong' or 'masculinity' or 'masculine' or 'pleasurable' or 'pleasure' or 'lover' or 'girlfriend' or 'boner' or 'd'ick' or 'di'ck' or 'dic'k' or 'love wand' or 'ejaaculation' or 'gambling' or 'poker' or 'herbal' or 'pharma' or 'repl1ca' or 'hero' or 'phalli' or 'inches' or 'anatrim'
Move it to the Spam folder
09 January 2008
The Elseworld, the Flesh and the Devil
Yes, sorry, that last entry was a bit dull, wasn't it? I've been rather dim-witted at work this week as well.
I'm still trying to persuade my brain and body that Christmas is over, and that I really am expected to be functioning as normal at the moment, rather than lounging around reading, sleeping and watching TV. Also that there are no mince pies or chocolate decorations left, because I've eaten them all.
Never mind. Surefish have put up my latest column, written back in December, about alternative history and what it might tell us about christianity. Read it and let me know what you think.
A slightly more interesting allotheological question than the one I ask here, "What if Jesus had never been crucified?" would (unless, of course, you're a boringly conservative penal substitutionary atonement fan) be "What if Jesus had never been an adult?".
Infant mortality in first-century Palestine was shockingly high, not to mention that a successful conception is absolutely no guarantee you'll end up being born. Many doctrines of the atonement hold that Christ's incarnation, with an optional side-order of death and suffering, were sufficient for the salvation of humanity -- but what if this happened and no-one knew about it, because the saviour had perished from diphtheria, saving the world in the process, while two weeks old?
Er. That probably won't be of much interest to most of you, but it's the kind of thing I sometimes think about (along with "What if Jesus had been born Persian, say, or indeed Roman?", "What if Jesus had used his powers for evil and become a supervillain?" and "Mm, I could really do with a mince pie".) This doesn't necessarily mean anyone else has to take any notice, at least until I put it in a novel or something.
...and now, inevitably, I'm imagining what that middle one would look like as a comic, with rival Roman and Jewish teams of superheroes (The Centurion and Kid Caesar, Simon Magus and the Wandering Jew) vying for the privilege of taking down Messiahman and his Disciples of Doom. I need to go and clean my brain out now.
Oh look, a badger!
I'm still trying to persuade my brain and body that Christmas is over, and that I really am expected to be functioning as normal at the moment, rather than lounging around reading, sleeping and watching TV. Also that there are no mince pies or chocolate decorations left, because I've eaten them all.
Never mind. Surefish have put up my latest column, written back in December, about alternative history and what it might tell us about christianity. Read it and let me know what you think.
A slightly more interesting allotheological question than the one I ask here, "What if Jesus had never been crucified?" would (unless, of course, you're a boringly conservative penal substitutionary atonement fan) be "What if Jesus had never been an adult?".
Infant mortality in first-century Palestine was shockingly high, not to mention that a successful conception is absolutely no guarantee you'll end up being born. Many doctrines of the atonement hold that Christ's incarnation, with an optional side-order of death and suffering, were sufficient for the salvation of humanity -- but what if this happened and no-one knew about it, because the saviour had perished from diphtheria, saving the world in the process, while two weeks old?
Er. That probably won't be of much interest to most of you, but it's the kind of thing I sometimes think about (along with "What if Jesus had been born Persian, say, or indeed Roman?", "What if Jesus had used his powers for evil and become a supervillain?" and "Mm, I could really do with a mince pie".) This doesn't necessarily mean anyone else has to take any notice, at least until I put it in a novel or something.
...and now, inevitably, I'm imagining what that middle one would look like as a comic, with rival Roman and Jewish teams of superheroes (The Centurion and Kid Caesar, Simon Magus and the Wandering Jew) vying for the privilege of taking down Messiahman and his Disciples of Doom. I need to go and clean my brain out now.
Oh look, a badger!
06 January 2008
6 / 366
Happy New Year, belatedly, to whoever's reading this. Hope you have a splendid time in 2008, and that it brings you everything you might conceivably desire. (Unless you're a U.S. Republican, in which case I'm sorry, but no.)
"2008" in a mirror looks very much like "BOOS". We'll be in a better position to assess the numerological significance of this later in the year.
Since I last posted here, I've flitted around the country like a moth in bloody great Doc Martens, visiting various relatives, in-laws and friends for Christmas and New Year, then spent a week or so recovering from same.
I'm very pleased with various presents, and most weightily with the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, a four-way joint birthday-Christmas gift from my and B.'s parents. It's basically the full twelve volumes of the O.E.D. scrunched up small enough to fit into a single book, plus a magnifying glass. It's enormous and splendid, and has already told me that I was lied to long ago about the etymology of "marmalade". Hurrah.
Very happy also to have got Paul Magrs' Something Borrowed and Twin Freaks, Kim Newman's Andy Warhol's Dracula plus various other books and DVDs of Casino Royale, The Fountain (which I've still not seen, though I love Π) and the outstanding Children of Men. I've also obtained, though non-christmatically, a shiny new Sony MP3man which I need to learn to use, and the utterly splendid League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Black Dossier... bringing to three the number of sequels to successful modern multitextual crossovers of nineteenth-century novel characters which I've acquired in the past fortnight.
Last night B. and I went to see The Golden Compass, which I wish had spent a tenth as much effort getting its script right as it evidently did on its (mostly superlative) special effects. The very obvious attempts to emulate successful recent movies (the spoken introduction telling us about the last remainingRing alethiometer; the rubbish stardust-visionary effect when Lyra uses the same; the casting of Christopher Lee as a sinister old man and the last-minute recasting of Ian-McKellen-by-the-numbers as Iorek Byrnison), together with the deliberate ironing-out of anything contentious Philip Pullman might have had to say about religion, have turned his remarkable visionary parable into a thoroughly generic children's fantasy film.
I particularly enjoyed the visuals accompanying that opening narration, where the contrast between worlds was shown by first presenting the Radcliffe Camera surrounded by modern office-blocks to show our world rooted in reality, and then dissolving into the whimsical fantasy world by replacing these with the buildings which are actually bloody there. I can only imagine the derision with which the Oxford audiences would have reacted to that one.
Thanks to the maniacity of December I've fallen badly behind on writing and on updating this blog. I've rather signally failed to stick to my resolution for 2007 of reading a book a week and blogging about them -- the last time I wrote about what I'd been reading it was early November, and even then I left a couple out. I'll try to rectify this in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, I'm back to work tomorrow, for the first time this year. Hurrah for Bank Holidays which fall on my working days and prevent me having to take unmanageable amounts of leave.
Enjoy the year. I'll try to blog again before the end of it.
"2008" in a mirror looks very much like "BOOS". We'll be in a better position to assess the numerological significance of this later in the year.
Since I last posted here, I've flitted around the country like a moth in bloody great Doc Martens, visiting various relatives, in-laws and friends for Christmas and New Year, then spent a week or so recovering from same.
I'm very pleased with various presents, and most weightily with the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, a four-way joint birthday-Christmas gift from my and B.'s parents. It's basically the full twelve volumes of the O.E.D. scrunched up small enough to fit into a single book, plus a magnifying glass. It's enormous and splendid, and has already told me that I was lied to long ago about the etymology of "marmalade". Hurrah.
Very happy also to have got Paul Magrs' Something Borrowed and Twin Freaks, Kim Newman's Andy Warhol's Dracula plus various other books and DVDs of Casino Royale, The Fountain (which I've still not seen, though I love Π) and the outstanding Children of Men. I've also obtained, though non-christmatically, a shiny new Sony MP3man which I need to learn to use, and the utterly splendid League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Black Dossier... bringing to three the number of sequels to successful modern multitextual crossovers of nineteenth-century novel characters which I've acquired in the past fortnight.
Last night B. and I went to see The Golden Compass, which I wish had spent a tenth as much effort getting its script right as it evidently did on its (mostly superlative) special effects. The very obvious attempts to emulate successful recent movies (the spoken introduction telling us about the last remaining
I particularly enjoyed the visuals accompanying that opening narration, where the contrast between worlds was shown by first presenting the Radcliffe Camera surrounded by modern office-blocks to show our world rooted in reality, and then dissolving into the whimsical fantasy world by replacing these with the buildings which are actually bloody there. I can only imagine the derision with which the Oxford audiences would have reacted to that one.
Thanks to the maniacity of December I've fallen badly behind on writing and on updating this blog. I've rather signally failed to stick to my resolution for 2007 of reading a book a week and blogging about them -- the last time I wrote about what I'd been reading it was early November, and even then I left a couple out. I'll try to rectify this in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, I'm back to work tomorrow, for the first time this year. Hurrah for Bank Holidays which fall on my working days and prevent me having to take unmanageable amounts of leave.
Enjoy the year. I'll try to blog again before the end of it.
21 December 2007
If It Wasn't for December, I Wouldn't Have Any Embers
Inevitably, this month has been spent largely in preparing for the forthcoming santaic rituals, and I've had very little time for blogging, or indeed for writing anything other than our Christmas cards. (I have managed another Surefish column, but that won't be up till January.)
I trust that "Sol Invictus" will partially remedy this lack, although a few of you will have seen it already last year. Those of you I send cards to should be receiving this year's story, "Polarity", shortly -- the rest of you will have to wait till December 2008.
Much of today has been spent rushing around manically, distributing presents and buying supplies for the forthcoming jollities. (I've never actually visited the Bristol Beer Factory before, but it turns out to be the only place one can actually buy kegs of their beer. Not that there's a brewery shop or anything -- I wandered in and found a chap in overalls, who was kind enough to stop putting mash into vats with a great big scoop and sell me some.)
In other, unrelated Christmas news... look, Kylie with a Dalek! Her dress may be minimal in scope, but at least she kept it on, unlike certain 1970s Doctor Who companions I could mention (and who'll appear fairly swiftly if you type "katy manning dalek" into Google Images).
Forgetting Christmas for the moment (as if such a thing were possible)... Elizabeth II may now be Britain's oldest monarch, but she won't be our longest-lived head of state for a few years yet. That honour goes to, of all people, Richard Cromwell, who succeeded his father as Lord Protector when he was 31, ruled for a disastrous eight months in 1658-59, then lived on in obscurity until the age of 85. If longevity in our rulers is a thing to be celebrated, than All Hail Tumbledown Dick.
Finally, the new word for worldbuilding an alternative history is whatification. Pass it on, and use it at all available opportunities.
And a Merry Christmas to all of you at home.
I trust that "Sol Invictus" will partially remedy this lack, although a few of you will have seen it already last year. Those of you I send cards to should be receiving this year's story, "Polarity", shortly -- the rest of you will have to wait till December 2008.
Much of today has been spent rushing around manically, distributing presents and buying supplies for the forthcoming jollities. (I've never actually visited the Bristol Beer Factory before, but it turns out to be the only place one can actually buy kegs of their beer. Not that there's a brewery shop or anything -- I wandered in and found a chap in overalls, who was kind enough to stop putting mash into vats with a great big scoop and sell me some.)
In other, unrelated Christmas news... look, Kylie with a Dalek! Her dress may be minimal in scope, but at least she kept it on, unlike certain 1970s Doctor Who companions I could mention (and who'll appear fairly swiftly if you type "katy manning dalek" into Google Images).
Forgetting Christmas for the moment (as if such a thing were possible)... Elizabeth II may now be Britain's oldest monarch, but she won't be our longest-lived head of state for a few years yet. That honour goes to, of all people, Richard Cromwell, who succeeded his father as Lord Protector when he was 31, ruled for a disastrous eight months in 1658-59, then lived on in obscurity until the age of 85. If longevity in our rulers is a thing to be celebrated, than All Hail Tumbledown Dick.
Finally, the new word for worldbuilding an alternative history is whatification. Pass it on, and use it at all available opportunities.
And a Merry Christmas to all of you at home.
Sol Invictus
A cheerily pagan Midwinter's tale for you all. This is the one which went out with last year's Christmas cards. You can also read it on my website.
SOL INVICTUS
The card read: To Dick and Mel – Yuletide Greetings from Jez and Sandy. The design on the front depicted a trestle-table garishly laden with seasonal delicacies, a giant log burning in a grate behind.
The painted food’s profusion and glazed stickiness made Melissa feel faintly queasy.
‘Who on earth are Jez and Sandy?’ she asked her husband at breakfast, as she passed him the marmalade. ‘And do they really call you Dick?’
‘Never heard of them,’ said Richard, accepting the jar. He glanced from his newspaper to his watch. He was always wary of being drawn into a conversation when he had to catch the train. Apparently reassured, he added, ‘And no, not if they’ve got any sense. No-one’s called me Dick since school.’
‘Well, they know our name and address. We’ll have to send them one back. Did we meet them in Marrakech?’
Their overfed labrador, Boris, trundled into the room. He lay down heavily beside Richard, who absently tickled the dog’s ears as he bit into his toast.
‘Don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t that Gerry and Alex?’
Melissa was relieved. ‘Well, there you are, then. Jez must be short for Gerry, and Alex and Sandy are both short for Alexander. Or do I mean Alexandra? Which one of them was which?’
‘No idea,’ Richard replied, immersed again in his newspaper. He didn’t seem remotely curious as to why Gerry/Jez and/or Sandy/Alex might address Melissa as ‘Mel’. She was ‘Lissa’ to close friends, and ‘Lizzie’ to her parents and sister. Only Richard himself ever called his wife ‘Mel’, and that was in the same abstracted tone in which he called Boris ‘boy’.
‘I think we’ve got a new postman,’ she murmured.
Richard glanced at his watch again. Boris began to snore. Melissa put the card up on the mantelpiece.
* * *
She caught a glimpse of him the next morning, in the early cold-and-grey of late December. He looked very young, and wore a uniform she hadn’t seen before. She wasn’t sure whether his red cap was part of the outfit or something more festive. It didn’t look like a Father Christmas hat, but she knew that folklore and traditions changed from generation to generation.
‘Yo! Saturnalia,’ read Richard reluctantly, when she showed him the card she’d picked out of the pile. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Saturnalia? It was a Roman festival, I think,’ Melissa answered. She flipped the card closed to show a pile of traditional-looking carved toys – dice, tops, wooden soldiers. ‘What they used to have at midwinter, instead of Christmas.’
Melissa read a lot. It was one of the few things there were to do while all the commuters were at work. Their Kent village might be quiet, the station unmanned and the post office about to close, but somehow they still warranted a little rural library. Melissa suspected an elderly, wealthy relative’s influence on some county councillor or other.
‘Bloody funny thing to say,’ Richard grumbled, collecting a fresh slice from the toaster. ‘Who’s it from?’
‘Marcus, apparently.’
‘Mark at work?’ He cast around for the butter, which Melissa passed to him.
‘I thought he was just Mark,’ she said. ‘But darling, it’s addressed to “Richard and Debbie”.’
Richard dropped his butter-knife on the floor. Boris, startled from his torpor by the clatter, gave a reproachful yelp.
‘Debbie’s your secretary, isn’t she?’ Melissa felt slightly aggrieved.
‘Mark must have got the two of you mixed up,’ said Richard, busying himself with the hunt for a fresh knife. ‘Head in the clouds, that one.’
‘I remember,’ Melissa said. ‘I worked for him for two years. You’d think he’d remember my name.’
When they’d been married, she and Richard had agreed there wasn’t a lot of point in her carrying on at the office. Richard could support them both on an accountant’s salary: she’d benefit from the leisure time. Melissa had never been particularly bright or gifted, and the arrangement had seemed to make reasonable sense at the time.
Of course, she’d had some expectations then which life, and Richard, had never quite fulfilled. Still, she couldn’t complain. It would have been rather churlish under the circumstances.
‘Oh, don’t mind him,’ said Richard. ‘Dopy as hell, Mark. Marcus. Whatever his name is.’
Melissa put the card in the middle of the mantelpiece, next to Jez and Sandy’s Yuletide greetings.
* * *
On the Friday, the postman brought the biggest pile of Christmas cards yet.
They were predictable enough for the most part: trees and stars, robins and lambs, Santas and Jesuses. All the usual reminders of hope, of birth and well-filled bonhomie amidst the bleak and hungry emptiness of winter. All except one were from the same familiar names.
The picture on the front of the exception was a stylised diagram of earth and sun, indicating exactly how midwinter solstice happened in the northern hemisphere. Citizens! the printed matter read. Fraternal Greetings on the occasion of the Hibernal Festival.
‘Must be a joke,’ said Richard, when she showed him. ‘You know, “Happy Politically Correct Christmas” sort of thing.’ He sounded doubtful.
‘It isn’t very funny,’ she said.
‘No.’ He peered uneasily at his watch, then out of the window at the driving rain. ‘It’ll take me longer to get to the station today.’
The postman had been just a smudge that morning, black coat and scarlet cap against the sleety dawn.
‘Hang on,’ said Richard, his early-morning synapses catching up with him. ‘Let me see that one again.’
Melissa passed it over. She was surprised he’d been paying that much attention.
‘To Lissa and Guy,’ read Richard. ‘Who the bloody hell’s Guy?’ He sounded quite cross.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Melissa said quietly.
Guy was an old, old boyfriend. He’d been her first really serious crush, and some years later her first lover. The two of them had talked for a while about settling down together, but then he’d gone away to university and found somebody on his newly-acquired intellectual level.
They’d both been very young. She still thought of him sometimes.
Staring at the signature Richard added, ‘And who’s Britannica?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ she repeated, truthfully. She was sure she’d have remembered someone called that. ‘Like you said, darling, it must be a joke.’
‘Well, it’s not bloody funny,’ he repeated. ‘If I find out who’s sending these damn things…’
‘You’d better hurry,’ said Melissa. ‘Your train’s nearly due.’
She put the card up later, after he left. The tiny golden sun shone brightly, between the polished toys of Saturnalia and the glazed meats of Yule.
* * *
The next morning, the Saturday, she was waiting for him.
He was no more than a boy, fifteen or sixteen at most. He wore a tunic, and a cloak against the midwinter cold. Its black, fur-trimmed interior sparkled with stars.
His face was Mediterranean with a hint of the Middle East, and his red cap was buoyed up on a tide of dark curls.
Grinning, he showed her two stiff envelopes. She took the one addressed to her, and opened it.
Dear Lissa, Guy and Felix, it began. It wished the three of them a happy Lux Arturi, and expressed the hope that Brigida would make their lands and family fertile during the coming year.
Melissa had always liked the name Felix. Richard hated it. It had been one of the last things the two of them had disagreed about with any degree of joy or passion. That had been a year or so after their wedding, before the miscarriage.
She read the signature. Though not the name of anyone she knew, it was a name she recognised. She looked up into the postman’s grinning face, ruddy and glowing in the leaden English winter.
‘Thank you,’ she told him. ‘I’m ready now.’
Taking the second card, she closed the door behind her, and slid it in softly through the letterbox. Inside the house Boris growled gently, then subsided into sleep.
The young man spread his cloak wide, welcoming her into its summer warmth.
* * *
When Richard got up later, hungry, craving coffee, Melissa was gone. Probably to the shops, he thought. Typical. Why hadn’t she gone yesterday, when he was at work?
He needed breakfast. The doormat held a single card, addressed to him alone. He opened it with a butter-knife he found on the kitchen floor.
The picture was of a young boy hatching out of an egg, although it might perhaps have been a rock. Sunbeams poured from the child like honey. He wore a red cap, and a cloak the colour of the summer night.
Hail Richard (and Boris), he read. A very merry Mithras-tide to you and your household. All the best, Guy, Lissa and Felix. He stared at it for a while.
Then he threw it in the bin, and started looking for the frying-pan.
© Philip Purser-Hallard 2006.
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