I’ve just done a moderate update of my list of sf and fantasy set in Ireland.

Added the following – in many cases I don’t know much about them, so if you think they don’t belong on the list – and also if you know of other books that should be on it – please let me know in comments or by email.

Novels
(Anonymous) The Dawn of the Twentieth Century: A Novel, Social and Political, 1882
Mary Arrigan, Searching for the Green (thanks, )
Paul Brandon, The Wild Reel, 2002
Lisa Carey, The Mermaids Singing (2002)
George Green, Hound (2003)
Patricia MacDowell, Daughter of the Boyne (1992); Sorrows of Tara (1995) (thanks, )
Marsha Mehran, Pomegranate Soup (2005)
Caiseal Mór, the Wellspring trilogy: The Well Of Yearning (2004), The Well of the Goddess (2005), The Well of Many Blessings (2005)
T.P. O’Mahoney, The Lynch Years: A Political Fantasy (1986)
Selina Rosen, Adventures of the Irish Ninja (1998)
Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, Oracles: A Novel (2004)

Novels featuring Ireland in the background
David Graham, Down to a Sunless Sea
Howard Waldrop, The Texas-Israeli War, 1999 (1974)

Short stories

• Richard Cowper, “Piper at the Gates of Dawn” (F&SF March 1976)
• Gil Fitzgerald, “The Vengeance of Nora O’Donnell” (F&SF, April 1983)
• Robert E. Howard, “The Dark Man” (Weird Tales, December 1931)
• Peadar Ó Guilín, “The Mourning Trees” (Black Gate, issue 5, Spring 2003); “The Bag” (Reckless Abandon, ed. David Sparks and Bob Strauss, 2002); “Fairy Fort” (Walk On the Darkside, ed. John Pelan, 2004); “Hair”; all horror short stories.
• Joel Richards (Joel Richard Fruchtman), “In the Prison of His Days” (Alternate Generals II, ed. Harry Turtledove & Martin H. Greenberg, 2002)
• Gene Wolfe, “How the Bishop Sailed to Inniskeen” (Asimov’s Dec 1989)

As always, grateful for more material, including also anyone who can identify these stories that people have asked me about:

1) a brilliant short story possibly called “Ringsend”: it was set in Dublin after a cataclysm in which everyone died. It becomes a very funny and absurd account of the protagonist’s discomfiture when one day he meets the only other survivor – a girl he had fancied and was rebuffed years before.

2) A story by Lucius Shepard set in Ireland

3) A novel set in an Ireland rapidly modernised by aliens, and isolated from the world by stringent security? points out that this must be Fred Hoyle’s Ossian’s Ride.

4) A novel where Ireland developed the technology to produce a birth control pill, and was the only country in the world with this knowledge (written in the 50s or so 😉 The pill was made from turf and was made in one factory in the midlands. The protagonist of the book was a British secret agent, sent to infiltrate the factory.

5) Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril, by Judith Merril and Emily Pohl-Weary

Then some of my (male) friends and compeers began publishing politely laundered autobiographies of their successes and I was snowblinded by the detergent. Here were lists of stories sold, banquets attended, speeches given, editors lunched, even wives married and divorced, with never a shriek of tear or tremor or orgasm, and hardly a belly laugh anywhere… Somebody, I thought, should tell it like it was.

Well, she certainly did. I remember as a teenager reading with fascination Fred Pohl’s memoir, The Way the Future Was, and thinking that at last I had a real insight into the life of a real science fiction writer. I now know that he wasn’t telling us the half of it; he, Walter M. Miller, Theodore Sturgeon and Fritz Leiber, as well as being giants in the field, had something more intimate in common too.

But this is not a kiss and tell book; it’s a passionate account of a passionate woman, pulled together from drafts and essays by her granddaughter, several years after her death. I’m afraid I skipped some bits – the correspondence between writers about writing and the weather and how much they liked each other, whether from the 1940s or the 1990s, didn’t really grab me, and I also didn’t appreciate the format of shifting typefaces.

There were three chapters though that really came alive: her account of her intense but platonic friendship with Cyril Kornbluth, which coincided with her affair with Leiber (while she was still just about married to Pohl) was a gripping piece of introspective writing; a bit later on, the dramatic account of the shotgun confrontation during a custody dispute between Pohl and Miller, which apparently she could only bring herself to talk about on the record a few days before her death; and, more positively, her account of settling in to Toronto on the wings of resistance to the Vietnam War, which made the city sound recognisably like the one described in ‘s livejournal, if at a rawer stage of its development.

I also really wish I knew more about her mini-documentaries which filled in the rest of the half-hour for CBC’s broadcasts of Doctor Who. The dates aren’t given, but it must have been in the mid-1970s glory days of the series, either late Pertwee or early Tom Baker. I wonder if they will ever be seen again?

4) Macedonia: The Bradt Travel Guide, by Thammy Evans

It’s always a pleasure when someone you like writes a book you like about a subject you like. I’ve only known Thammy for a couple of years, but her husband is one of the two or three people still involved in the Balkans who I got to know when I first went out there in 1997. Her book is perhaps the first guide book ever written about Macedonia; I’m sure it won’t be the last. She rightly concentrates on the capital Skopje, its immediate surroundings, and the resort town of Ohrid on the lake of the same name; but she also devotes time to the rest of the country (broadly, the rest of the south-west, the rest of the north-west, the north-east and the south-east).

I’ve done less travel in Macedonia than she has, tending to yo-yo between Skopje and Ohrid; but on my first visit in 1997, I did a long tour taking in Štip, Strumica, Bitola, Gostivar and Tetovo, and during a lull in the 2001 fighting I participated in what in retrospect was a very bizarre trip down the western side of the country, through Tetovo, the Sveti Jovan Bigorski monatery, Debar and Struga, ending up with a prudent detour home through Prilep as the fighting intensified on the other road. (I also visited the Bektashi Shrine in Tetovo a few weeks ago.) Part of the thrill of a book like this is to plan for things I must go and see next time I am fortunate enough to be in the country; the stone age observatory near Kumanovo sounds particularly intriguing, and I want to get a better idea of what my grandfather was up to in the Lake Doiran campaigns of the first world war. Even around Skopje, which I thought I knew pretty well, there’s more stuff to discover – I’ve seen the sarcophagus of Goce Delčev in the courtyard of Sveti Spas on several occasions, but somehow never discovered the next-door exhibition about his life; nor was I aware of the grisly detail that the revolutionary hero’s head was lost shortly after his execution.

In her chapter on Lake Ohrid, she rightly extols the virtues of the special trout found only there. Alas, as she and I discovered over dinner in Skopje last time I saw her, you can’t get the Ohrid trout any more; they are under environmental protection, and simply not being sold in restaurants. At least, not in the restaurants I know of.

Slightly surprised that Gostivar is not one of the towns described in detail; it’s no less interesting than many of those that are. Also if I’d been on the editorial team I’d have used the more usual English names of some of the historical figures – Emperor Basil II, for instance, rather than Vasilie/Vasilius/Basilius, and Bohemund of Tarentum rather than Boemund of Tarent. Lazar Koliševski’s name is misspelt on one of the two occasions it is used. Few readers need be bothered by this kind of thing. Anybody fortunate enough to be going to Macedonia should buy the book.

Edited to add, May 2007: The second edition is now out, with an extra 80 pages and most of the points I note above addressed (including especially Gostivar). Even more strongly recommended.

3) The Clan Corporate, by

Gosh. The best of the “Merchant Princes” series so far. Miriam Beckstein attempts to play the game by her own rules, but there are plenty of her relatives who have been playing it better for much longer… We see more of Miriam the former investigative journalist rather than the startup manager this time, and her ex-boyfriend turns up. Ends on a great cliff-hanger (unlike the first book). No economics lectures (unlike the second book). Can’t wait until it comes out.

Am at studio pre-recording interview for ‘The World Tonight’ on Radio 4 this evening at 10 pm British time. Let me know if they use it!

From today’s Financial Times:

Orange dawn in Brussels
Published: October 7 2005 03:00

Is there an unwritten directive requiring the European Commission to support the Dutch royal family? Perhaps it is Brussels’ recompense for throwing the Oranges out of Belgium in 1830.

Neelie “no pussycat” Kroes, the competition commissioner, has just taken on Jaime Bourbon de Parme, nephew of Queen Beatrix, as her personal assistant.

Beatrix’s son, Constantijn van Oranje, worked for ex-Dutch commissioner Hans van den Broek in the 1990s. He now runs a consultancy in Brussels.

Bourbon is a career diplomat (perhaps even a born one given the family history) who was, Observer understands, on a shortlist of one provided by The Hague to Kroes to replace Hans Kribbe, who has joined lobbyists G-Plus. Conveniently, his dad Carlos Bourbon de Parme, who briefly claimed the Spanish throne in the 1960s, lives in Brussels.

“He has been posted here by the Dutch foreign ministry,” says Observer’s man at court, though Kroes’s aides say she chose him.

Ben Smulders, her chief of staff, says Bourbon brings vital diplomatic experience. He has spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan, so he should be handy at fending off attacks in the bureaucratic jungle, particularly from Günter Verheugen, the über-competitive competitiveness commissioner, who likes to blunt Neelie’s claws.

It is usual for a Dutch royal to work for a living. “From what I hear, he is very down-to-earth and unpretentious, like most of them,” says Observer’s palace flunkey.

He might find life at the court of Queen Neelie a bit different, then.

The fact that Queen Beatrix’s nephew and her son have got (admittedly similar) Brussels jobs eleven years apart is hardly a growing trend! Anyway while Jaime de Bourbon Parma’s mother is the sister of Queen Beatrix, she gave up her rights to the throne in 1963; and while his father did have aspirations to the throne of Spain, that is a dead issue now. I met him a few years ago and he seemed a perfectly normal, if perhaps brighter than average, Dutch diplomat; he was not at last year’s wedding. His twin sister Margarita appears to be a different matter.

Koningshuis: Oranje Europeanen

Jaime de Bourbon de Parme gaat naar Brussel. Die stad werkt als een magneet op de Oranjes. Ze werken er anoniem. ‘De Oranjes zijn goede Europeanen.’

Europees commissaris Neelie Kroes (63) zocht een persoonlijk assistent met strategisch denkvermogen en vond deze in Jaime de Bourbon de Parme (32). ‘Ik heb hem zelf gevraagd. Er was een vacature in mijn kabinet en ik had behoefte aan –iemand met internationale kennis en scherpe intelligentie. Met zijn ervaring op Buitenlandse Zaken paste Jaime precies in dat profiel,’ zegt de voormalige VVD-minister.

Met haar nieuwe assistent, een zoon van prinses Irene, haalde Kroes het zesde lid van de koninklijke familie naar Brussel. De Belgische hoofdstad werkt kennelijk als een magneet op de Oranjes. Koningin Beatrix leidde als kroonprinses al een Europese werkgroep. Of zoals oud-Europees commissaris Hans van den Broek (CDA) het zegt: ‘De Oranjes zijn goede Europeanen.’

Commissaris Kroes (Mededinging) bezweert dat haar keuze voor de prins niets van doen heeft met diens afkomst. ‘Voor mij telt inhoudelijkheid en anders niets.’ Maar ze kende de Oranjetelg wel. ‘Ja, u kunt me beter vragen wie ik in Nederland niet ken.’

Het kabinet van een Europees commissaris telt lieden uit verschillende lidstaten van de –Europese Unie. Kroes, wier werkzaam–heden zich uitstrekken over de hele wereld, zegt te beschikken over een ‘uitstekend team’ –bestaande uit onder meer juristen en economen. Haar nieuwste medewerker studeerde internationale betrekkingen, werkte bij ABN Amro in Argentinië en Brazilië, de Wereldbank in Washington en als diplomaat in Rwanda, op de Balkan, in Irak en in –Afghanistan.

Van den Broek nam destijds prins Constantijn in zijn kabinet op. De jurist en jongste zoon van koningin Beatrix was eerst stagiair en later lid van Van den Broeks kabinet. Als hij geen prins was geweest, zou hij graag politicus zijn geworden. Van den Broek: ‘Hij onderhield de relaties met het parlement en ging ook vaak met me mee naar Straatsburg.’

Brussel trekt veel ambitieuze jongelui. Met een goed cv op zak en hard werken voor weinig geld doen ze ervaring op bij internationale instellingen. Daarna hopen ze er een goedbetaalde baan te vinden in het circuit van belangenbehartigers die tegen die instellingen aanschurken. Zo ging het eind jaren tachtig ook met prins Carlos (35), Jaime’s oudere broer. Hij liep stage bij het directoraat generaal voorlichting (nu persvoorlichting) van de Europese Commissie en belandde daarna bij European Policy Advisors. Nu kent hij als ondernemer de weg in Brussel perfect.

Een stageplek veroveren is voor een mens van koninklijke bloede makkelijker dan voor een gewone sterveling. Vooral in de tijd van Carlos was het geen probleem om via-via in Brussel aan de slag te komen. Hij had zelfs onderdak bij een Brusselse topambtenaar.

Prinses Laurentien kreeg ‘Europa’ van huis uit mee. Als meisje vergezelde ze haar vader, D66-minister Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, al naar de Europese Beweging. Na even bij CNN en de Haagsche Courant te hebben gewerkt, vestigde ze zich in Brussel. Werkte bij een denktank, behartigde de belangen van tabaksfabrikant Philip Morris en was vice-president bij een internationaal pr-bureau.

Prins Constantijn zat in hetzelfde circuit. Op een dag verscheen hij bij een borrel van commissaris Van den Broek met Laurentien. Daarna waren ze onafscheidelijk in het Brusselse circuit. Laurentien introduceerde later directeur Mabel Wisse Smit van het Open Society Institute bij Constantijns oudere broer Friso. Netwerken is de helft van het werk in Brussel.

Dat blijkt wel uit het gezelschap dat een paar jaar daarvoor gezamenlijk lunchte: Van den Broek, Constantijn, de europarlementariërs Arie Oostlander (CDA) en Willem Jan Bertens (D66) plus Mabel en haar toenmalige vriend, de Bosnische VN-ambassadeur Mohammed Sacirbey. In 2004 trouwde Mabel met Friso. Eveneens in dat jaar financierde haar organisatie samen met de British Council een rapport dat door onder meer Hans van den Broek werd geschreven ten gunste van de toetreding van Turkije tot de Europese Unie. Een kleine wereld.

Voordat Constantijn bij de Commissie kwam werken, was er vanuit Nederland een missive gekomen om de nieuweling met ‘prins’ aan te spreken. Maar die zat daar zelf niet op te wachten. Hij ontpopte zich als een gewone medewerker, die ’s avonds graag mee ging om een steak te eten bij Frère Istas, een simpel maar goed restaurant waar sinds jaar en dag dezelfde rondborstige dames bedienen. Constantijn trapte ook graag een balletje in het Jubelpark.

In Brussel kan de jongste zoon van de Koningin dat makkelijker doen dan in Nederland. De anonimiteit daar biedt een kans om redelijk normaal te leven. Ze komen er graag van jongs af aan. Zelfs prinses Máxima heeft iets met Brussel: ze woonde en werkte er in 2000 een blauwe maandag, maar dat was vooral om te kunnen wennen aan Europa en dichter bij – toen nog vriend – kroonprins Willem-Alexander te zijn.

Het Brusselse circuit is een prettig milieu om sociaal in te bewegen. Niet voor niets wonen Constantijn en Laurentien, inmiddels 35 en 39 jaar en ouders van twee kinderen, nog altijd in Brussel, waar zij communicatieadviseur is en hij beleidsonderzoeker bij de non-profitorganisatie Rand Europe, bijvoorbeeld op het terrein van innovatie en de informatiemaatschappij. Ook adviseert Constantijn staatssecretaris Atzo Nicolaï (Europese Zaken) over strategieën om de kennis over Europa te vergroten, bijvoorbeeld in het onderwijs. Zo gaf hij vorig jaar nog een uiteenzetting voor diplomaten.

Een gewone medewerker, maar toch ook niet helemaal. De bijna aangeboren terughoudendheid laat een Oranje nooit varen. Zelfs niet in Brussel, al zijn ze daar wel wat gewend met een ‘monsieur le president’ als Giscard d’Estaing in het Europees Parlement en markiezen en graven, zoals destijds de Duitser Otto Graf von Habsburg.

De Brusselse correspondenten interesseerden zich in zijn tijd bij de Commissie amper voor Constantijn. Maar de roddelpers repte over een relatie met collega Lousewies van der Laan, ook lid van het kabinet-Van den Broek, later europarlementariër en nu Tweede-Kamerlid (D66). Hoe het ook zij, Van der Laan foeterde over de canard, maar werd voortaan geassocieerd met het koningshuis. Wat voor een ambitieus burgermeisje op zichzelf niet nadelig is.

Ook in Brussel koesteren genoeg mensen zich graag in koninklijk gezelschap. Zoals een voormalige Brusselse ambtenaar zegt: ‘Face to face met een prins, voor een boel mensen is dat toch wel wat.’ Ook binnen de Europese Commissie valt de aanwezigheid van koninklijke stagiairs of medewerkers altijd goed. ‘Het toucheert de ijdelheid,’ zegt diezelfde ambtenaar. ‘Vooral buitenlanders vinden dat wel wat hebben. La famille Royale. Ze voelen zichzelf ook in achting stijgen. Ach, het is een onschuldige vorm van ijdelheid.’

Alle geraadpleegde bronnen zijn enthousiast over de Brusselse Oranje-prinsen. Aardige kerels die zich nergens op laten voorstaan en gedegen werken. Jaime kan trouwens ook nog altijd met zijn vader, Carlos Hugo, eten, want die woont beurtelings in Wenen en Brussel. De hoofdstad van Europa: een ideale dependance voor een Oranje.

Kader bij artikel:

WANNEER NAAR BRUSSEL?

1989 Prins Carlos, stage bij directoraat-generaal voorlichting; later public affairs consultant European Public Policy Advisors

1992 Laurentien Brinkhorst, bij het Belmont European Policy Centre, een denktank; nu nog actief in Brussel als communicatieadviseur

1995 Prins Constantijn, stagiaire en later lid van kabinet Hans van den Broek; nu in dienst bij non-profitorganisatie Rand Europe

1997 Mabel Wisse Smit, directeur West-Europese vestiging van Open Society Institute

2000 Máxima, Deutsche Bank

2005 Prins Jaime, persoonlijk assistent eurocommissaris Neelie Kroes

Melvyn Bragg’s speech on reforming the House of Lords, from 29 March 1999, is one of the best parliamentary speeches I’ve ever read.

My Lords, I feel diffident about speaking in this debate, being new alike to this House and to the expert and opaque art of politics. Therefore, if I may, I shall take a rather personal tack.

At school I had a history teacher, Mr. James, who said that everything that ever happened came from three causes. I have observed this often enough in today’s debate. Perhaps we all had the same history teacher. However, I am grateful to him today because I am offering three causes for this diffidence. The first is history itself. No one taught as I was the history of this country, of Europe and the European world, could fail in the 1950s to be proud of much of what we the British had done. Although other stories, other versions, other truths have since been well aired, there still remains in me a pride and even a wonder that these small, damp, unpromising islands exerted so much influence, had so much imagination, bred and provoked so much knowledge, and irradiated so much that was positive around the globe.

There is of course a negative side, a darker seam–and how we have been made aware of it over the past 50 years, when our history has not only, rightly, been scrutinised from the outside but, less acceptably, often turned inside out in a mistaken zeal to revisit the past using only the lamp of a current fashionable correctness.

But the history I was taught, and was lucky enough to go on to study at that historic university, Oxford, though not blinding me to the sewers under the roads to greatness, left me in some awe that fallible individuals ever came together with such force to do what they did here in this country and over centuries. One of the great creations of the British was a constitution which, despite expert battering and acidulous attacks, most fiercely from critics in our own country, has in a relative world served better than most, even any–though sometimes most reluctantly and late–to represent and express the people in whose name it exists. Two cheers for democracy, said E.M. Forster, and our least worst of systems has weathered well.

Such a constitution is not likely to be subjected to radical surgery. The fact that it is at this time–and that the electorate agreed that it should be done, which gives it all the legitimacy it needs–does not dent or lessen the momentous and solemn nature of the debate now before your Lordships’ House. It gives us all pause.

The second cause of diffidence was well expressed, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Stafford, in his maiden speech last November, on the day when I, too, made my maiden speech. In the final paragraph of the speech, which he called a digression, he said:

“I hope that this maiden speech is not the first and last speech that I shall make to this House, possibly closing a chapter in our family’s history as I do so. It was in 1299 that the first member of my family was called to Parliament, 700 years ago next year, while just over 600 years ago we were elevated to the peerage. In the succeeding six centuries three members of the family had their head chopped off–not entirely careless to lose one ancestor every 200 years, particularly as we kept choosing the wrong side”.

As I listened to that, and more, I was moved by the tradition, the length and strength of the service, the sheer virtue of continuity, and the quality of long persistence which informed that modestly described digression, as indeed I am moved by other hereditary noble Lords.

Perhaps I may mention just one out of many: my fellow Cumbrian, the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, whose care of his family’s past and his country’s best interests has been exemplary. Of all the silent choirs which haunt even this comparatively modern building, surely the most resonant are those ancient voices, the chorus of past noble Lords. Their names and deeds, at their best, stand high in our history. Moreover, I would guess that the guile of centuries will not have slackened over the past few months and a number of your noble hereditary Lordships will find a way to change into a suit which fits the modern cut, and we shall see some resurrected in this place–the place which bears so much witness to their ancestral histories.

But I have ancestors too. I did not find their names in the books of history I read at Oxford. But they too had fought in wars: my grandfather, Herbert, and several of his brothers served in the Army in World War I; my father, Stanley, and his brothers were in the Air Force in World War II and doubtless before then they made up the numbers in battles which raged in the Borders between England and Scotland for several centuries and in bloody battles various around the world and in other battles here at home.

Just as they added to the wealth of the country by ploughing its fields and digging its coal, the women, too, strained to bring up decently its often inadequately provided for children: foot soldiers, housewives, manual workers, men and women, and as far as I can discover any records, decent people whose patience and tolerance helped this country, and so this House, to be what it was and what it is.

As your Lordships would expect, I am proud of my ancestors–as proud, I may say, as any hereditary Peer. They wanted betterment for themselves and their families; they wanted what was fair; they knew that the world must change and, perhaps of all people anywhere, they stalked change with caution and forbearance. But one well defended castle after another finally fell: in the franchise, in education, in health, in housing, and in a multiplicity of areas and in the sense that opportunity is equally possible. Now, perhaps the last citadel is reached: the constitution. Perhaps I feel a little less diffidence here.

But my third cause of diffidence is that I am no constitutional historian. Nevertheless, even as a new Member of your Lordships’ House, I believe that to function with the power which will be of the greatest benefit to this country your Lordships’ House can no longer be so spectacularly tilted and biased to one form of entry–thus by a chain reaction causing disproportion in gender and background and, to an overmarked extent, in political allegiance. To legislate for the country, even to amend legislation; to debate for the country, even though such debates can be lonely vigils–this demands that the House represent far more truly the vivid, changed and varied groups in this country now taking us beyond the year 2000.

Will the new House be elected or will it be representative–or to some extent both, to the advantage, I hope, for the former? Whatever it is, I am sure that the very newness will release new energies and new vigour. Will it be as independent as before? Will it be as eccentric as before? Will it have the style it had before? I hope so and I believe so. Style is not the monopoly of one section or class in our society; neither is eccentricity, and neither is independence of mind. All these qualities are liberally dispersed across all sections of the British people.

What most of us want, I am sure, is a stronger House, a more grounded House, a House able to look another millennium straight in the eye because the tradition it calls upon and the new ancestors it serves come from a far wider, more diverse, less-the-icing, more-the-cake, an unconfined range, able to give Parliament and our democracy the best energies of the British people and so be in safe hands. For that reason, I support the Bill.

If in doubt – just do it!

Or should that be, if in doubt, don’t do it?
…I’m not really sure….

From the excellent Barbara Stok.

Occasionally one picks up stuff by Googling old friends and acquaintances which is not very welcome news. Peter Whaley was the first US diplomat to be posted full-time to Banja Luka in Bosnia in early 1998, after I’d been there for a year myself. (They’d had a succession of people parachuted in for a month or so at a time; he was supposed to be staying there long-term.) We clicked at once, and I found him a really helpful mentor in the minefield of international politics. He didn’t describe himself as a career diplomat, but as a failed novelist who had gone into foreign relations as an alternative; yet at the same time, by taking me and my work seriously, helped me to realise that I had become an expert in Balkan politics with marketable skills.

He was a very modest guy, never mentioning his role in attempting to prevent the Rwanda genocide, though occasionally railing against the stupidities of US foreign policy (it being Bosnia in 1998, his unorthodox views on refugee return – proved spectularly right in Zaire – were frequently aired; also his opinion of President Aristide of Haiti was very much lower than is stated in his obituary). I only saw him really annoyed once, when a particularly juicy piece of political gossip flowed from me to my Sarajevo colleague to the US embassy in Sarajevo, unfortunately bypassing him en route. He raced furiously into my office (down three flights of stairs, across the road and then up another flight) to demand the details from me in person. We sorted it out over a beer, though (and anyway it turned out in the end that the story wasn’t true).

I understand that he left Bosnia not long after I did, and parted company with the State Department shortly after that; I never got back in touch with him, and to be honest probably wouldn’t have got around to it quickly. But it’s sad news, if old news by now, and I’m sorry that he never got the chance to write his novel.

I don’t often do these unless I spot several people at or around the same time. But happy birthday, , off on your Morocco trip, and to , immersed in algebra and psychology.

1. Nicholas Needs YOU!
2. Nicholas Needs A Loving Family
3. Nicholas Needs Your Help
4. Nicholas needs lots of adult attention and may occasionally exhibit attention-seeking
5. Nicholas needs a predictable schedule and quiet atmosphere.
6. Nicholas needs to go to the doctor!!
7. Nicholas needs to see “Remake of the Jedi”.
8. Nicholas needs to make it on his own
9. Nicholas needs money fast to provide for his mother and sister.
10. Nicholas needs her, too.

Hah, , only another 90 reviews and my total will be ahead of yours!

(Because it’s just so important.)

2) The Hidden Family, by

Yep, the time stamp reveals that I once again sat up far too late reading this, the sequel to The Family Trade. And enjoyed it too. Our heroine from the first book has a business plan, an economic model, three parallel universes to trade between, and a bunch of enemies out to kill her. Some vivid scene-setting, including of the weather; one nice little touch which reminded me of my debate with Ken MacLeod back in August:

I don’t know much about English history, but it’s got this civil war in the sixteen forties, goes on and on about some dude called the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. I looked him up in Encarta and yes, he’s there, too. I didn’t know the English had a civil war, and it gets better: they had a revolution in 1688, too! Did you know that? I sure didn’t, and it’s not in Encarta — but I didn’t trust it, so I checked Britannica and it’s kosher. Okay, so England has a lot of history, and it’s all in the wrong order.

As the climax loomed and the number of pages left to read dwindled rapidly, I began to wonder if the book would end on a genuine cliff-hanger to encourage us to look out for The Clan Corporate. But in fact enough was resolved – if in a bit of a rush – for the story to come to a satisfactory halt for now.

Charlie does like his feisty women heroes! And does them well.

Travel meme from :

You’ll need an atlas. Index Mundi can be useful, and though it doesn’t always provide links to latitude and longitude tables, once you’ve found the pattern /zp/[country code, though they don’t always use the ISO standard ones] e.g. UK you can prod it into action. (I’d add that even Wikipedia is pretty useful.)

What are the furthest points North, South, East and West you have visited?

These four points can be used to define a rectangle (well, in more-or-less spherical geometry they do) whose borders lie along the lines of latitude and longitude you have identified. What’s at the centre of this region? Have you been there? Where is the nearest place to the centre you have visited?

Farthest north for me:
Farthest south:
Farthest east: Baku, Azerbaijan: 49.882 degrees east
Farthest west: SanFrancisco, California: 122.444 degrees west

If you’ve read Neal Stephencon’s Cryptonomicon, you’ll be aware of the fictional island of Kinakuta which sets itself up as a data haven. Well, Montenegro hasn’t quite gone that far, but it does now have a deal with Microsoft worth $2.34 million; roughly $3.60 per Montenegrin, in other words.

I see that there are five books that have been reviewed by five or more Library Thing users –  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Da Vinci Code, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Eats, shoots & leaves, and The time traveler’s wife. But only one Library Thing user has in fact reviewed all five.

(Actually I suspect I may well have put more review links than any other user. Though on close examination I may have duplicated some of them.)

EU reaches deal on Turkish talks

Hope this is true – BBC has a tendency to take the Foreign Office line a little too uncritically at times like this.

Austrians have managed to stop Turkish EU accession talks from starting today.

This is bad. The Austrians have gone back on the deal they agreed to in December, and the EU as a result has broken the biggest promise it ever made to Turkey. Even Greece and Cyprus wanted the talks to start, on the basis that a Turkey which is looking forward to European integration is going to be much easier to deal with on the big security issues that both governments are concerned with. Even the French and Germans made it clear they wanted the talks to go ahead. I can’t think of any other EU decision of equivalent importance that has been wrecked in this way by a member state changing its mind and backing off from a solemn commitment made to the other members. Now, it’s not just about whether Turkey can join; it’s about whether the EU has any credibility as a negotiating partner with anyone at all.

A rather silly parlour game from Foreign Policy and Prospect.

The surprising thing is how many of them I’ve had contact with. I know Pavol Demeš quite well, and see Robert Cooper a lot around Brussels; and have at least been in the same room on at least one occasion with the Pope, Kemal Derviş, Niall Ferguson, Timothy Garton Ash, Robert Kagan, Sergei Karaganov, Martin Rees and I think Slavoj Žižek. Not that any of them would be likely to remember.

The Concordance Feature:

The 100 most used words (presumably excluding obvious pronouns, articles, short verbs and conjunctions) in Science, Colonialism and Ireland are:

1921  1922  academy  activities  agriculture  although  art  ascendancy  astronomical  astronomy  between  british  buildings  case  catholic  century  church  collection  college  colonial  colonialism  committee  corcoran  council  culture  dati  de  department  development  dublin  during  education  even  fact  first  fisheries  geological  george  government  history  however  institutions  interest  ireland  irish  john  later  may  members  museum  national  nationalism  nationalist  natural  new  nineteenth  now  number  observatory  own  papers  part  particular  perhaps  period  plunkett  political  pp  professor  protestant  published  rather  rds  report  research  royal  science  scientific  scientists  see  seems  should  society  staff  state  students  studies  survey  teaching  three  time  tradition  trinity  two  ucd  unionist  university  war  work  years 

Two books are highlighted as being on “related topics” – though they are completely different: Defenders of the Union, a very expensive collection of papers on unionism edited by George Boyce and Alan O’Day, and The Garland Encyclopedia of Astronomy – which, ironically, contains an article by me on a subject completely unrelated to Science, Colonialism and Ireland.

Clearing out the memory of the digital camera; some here go back to July!

Uncle R

B

The Princess, 23 July

Zed and F, 23 July

U and the Abomination of Desolation Barney, Loughbrickland

F on tractor, Loughbrickland

F and U, Loughbrickland

Back at home, U has discovered the swing

U (taken by F)

F’s mummy telling him to be careful with Daddy’s camera

F as the picture of innocence

From our holiday in August:

U runs up the slope but finds it too much for her (1.1MB, avi)

F and Anne in the woods (0.8 MB, avi)

[Edited to add: F on his tractor (1.3 MB, mpeg)]

12 years today since we got married; almost halfway to our silver wedding!

One of our former interns has asked if I will write her a reference for a job she’s applying for. I have naturally agreed to do so, but given her credentials, I don’t think it will be necessary…

1) Travelling Towards Epsilon, ed. by Maxim Jakubowski

A collection of sf stories by French (and one Belgian) writer, collected in the mid-1970s; very much feeling like New Wave, plus an added appreciation of sex which somehow feels different from the way an American or British writer of the time would have tackled the subject. The collection wisely starts and finishes with strong pieces – Daniel Walther’s “The Gunboat Dread“, a sort of sfnal riff on “Heart of Darkness”, and Nathalie Henneberg’s “Wings in the Night”, of supernatural goings on in an isolated Polish castle. Some of the others were a bit same-ish; the other standout story for me was Julia Verlanger’s “The Bubbles”, the oldest story of the collection (from 1956), which started off like an after-the-holocaust story but had an almost Philip Dick-like twist at the end.

While the editor’s choices of story seem to have been good, I was not madly impressed either by his commentary or by his translations. It seemed to me that three of the four stories (including the Walther one) translated by Beth Blish (daughter of James) ran more smoothly in English (the fourth, I suspect, was unsalvageable in any language).