11) Duel in Nightmare Worlds, by “B. Flackes” (W.D. Flackes)

This is the third sf book I have read attributed to the veteran Northern Irish political journalist W.D. Flackes, written in the early 1950s. It is basically the only one where we can be pretty certain of his authorship as it is under his own name – the other two that I have read are both by “Clem Macartney”, and John Clute informs me that he is thought to have been one of the people behind the pseudonym “Vektis Brack”. Reading this was especially useful for me because I felt that the two “Clem Macartney” novels were quite possibly by different people, one a competently executed but unexciting Dan Dare rip-off, the other a thoughtful but clunky rewrite of When Worlds Collide.

On the basis of Duel in Nightmare Worlds I now feel pretty certain that Flackes wrote the latter but not the former of the Macartney books. The prose has improved, but we have the same somewhat cardboard characterisation, the same casual disregard for celestial mechanics, and most of all the same colonial/imperialist approach. The agenda is made clear on the first page:

Kyle and Gar Braddan had been commissioned by Earthcontrol, the Earth Government, to prevent the occupation of Venus by the Mercurians, as well as to conquer the planet, Mercury, where two separate races had developed, each possessing scientific knowledge rivalling Earthmen’s. On Earth, there was widespread fear that the Mercurians would conquer Venus and threaten the Earth.

Rex Kyle, our hero, and his allies Walter Holt, Burgess, West and the glamorous Kay Lammins, all have good British-type names; the treacherous human military leader Gar Braddan and his sidekick scientist Carl Roshen sound vaguely foreign and sinister. The story is largely set on Venus, which rather than rather than being hot and swampy is a desert rather reminiscent of North Africa. The native “Veenies” are an inferior race, sometimes quaint, sometimes vaguely threatening, but in any case destined to remain under the enlightened rule of the Earthmen (note the gender of that noun). The intriguing possibilities of the two civilisations of Mercury are not, in fact, explored, as the Earthmen unite in conquest of the planet.

The book is interesting as a revelation of the author’s mind-set, but really not one I could recommend as literature.

Alas, this is copyright so has to be friends-locked for now – I want to try and get permission to publish it on my elections website.

I’ve just been granted access to the on-line archive of government papers from the Stormont era, 1921-1972, and came across an impassioned internal discussion paper arguing for the re-introduction of proportional representation in local government elections. What really surprised me was that the author was John D. Taylor, now Lord Kilclooney. While he is not the most hard-line figure among Unionists, I have never considered him to be exactly a raving moderate.

Full paper for the interested (three scanned pages, very large images) behind the cut.

10) The Falling Woman, by Pat Murphy

The latest in my quest to finish reading all the winners of the Nebula Award for Best Novel. (Now only six left – Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin, A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg, The Healer’s War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick, The Terminal Experiment by Robert J Sawyer and Camouflage by Joe Haldeman.)

This is a very good book, one of those rare but welcome moments when the Nebula process picked up on a real gem of a novel that had been overlooked elsewhere, even though it is only barely a genre novel, if anything more of a ghost story than sf or fantasy. The plot concerns an estranged mother and daughter, the former a famous archaeologist working on a Mayan site in the Yucatan, the latter escaping from a set of bad relationships to track down her mother, and the mother’s ability to see the ghosts of the past (which has incidentally helped her get lucky with spectacular finds during her career). The writing alternates between first-person POV’s of the two women. The third character is a Mayan priestess buried on the site who attempts to project her own life experiences onto the modern women. The writing is gripping and convincing, and although several of the layers of significance are pretty explicit, it worked for me. I’m glad it worked for the 1987 Nebula voters too.

Lots of people are doing this; you can too if you like.

1) Where do you live?
2) How old are you?
3) Married, or otherwise attached?
4) Kids? How many? How old?
5) Pets?
6) Occupation?
7) Religious leanings?
8) Political leanings?
9) What do you do for fun?
10) Play any instruments?
11) Favorite types of music?
12) What makes YOU special?

1) Where do you live?
Belgium, in a small village 25 km east of Brussels.

2) How old are you?
39, since April.

3) Married, or otherwise attached?
Married, since October 1993.

4) Kids? How many? How old?
Three, aged nine, nearly seven and three and a half.

5) Pets?
None.

6) Occupation?
Political analyst, specialising in the Balkans and Caucasus, with side orders of Moldova, Cyprus, the European Union and Northern Ireland..

7) Religious leanings?
Liberal Catholic.

8) Political leanings?
Liberal, in the British sense of left-of-centre but not socialist.

9) What do you do for fun?
Read science fiction. Blog.

10) Play any instruments?
Not any more. Experimented with violin and clarinet at school. Ascended to the dizzy rank of Second Percussionist in the City of belfast Youth Orchestra.

11) Favorite types of music?
Rather eclectic. I am a big fan of Sibelius. But also like all the standards of the last 40 years, with Pink Floyd perhaps on top of the playlist at the moment.

12) What makes YOU special?
You tell me!

9) The New Macedonian Question, ed. James Pettifer

A collection of essays on Macedonia, first published in 1999 though this is a 2001 reprint, whose relevance was therefore immediately superseded by the conflict that took place in the latter year. Many of the essays had been published elsewhere before, including one as early as 1950. As well as a number of dull articles by Macedonian writers explaining how wonderful their policies are, I found some really good pieces. In the first section, I found the analyses of the competing claims to Macedonian identity by Kyril Drezov, and Stefan Troebst’s essay on Macedonian nationalism, particularly lucid, and there’s a lovely piece on the Vlach minority by Tom Winnifrith. Particularly revealing also is a piece by Evangelos Kofos on Greece’s approach to the name issue, in which he exposes the domestic political machinations behind this particularly counter-productive policy, yet remarkably without really challenging the foolish assumptions on which the policy was based. Pettifer includes two pieces by himself, which combine his almost unmatched ability to penetrate and explain what is going on with the Albanians with his unfortunate tendency to perceive geopolitical conspiracy behind the motivations of most other actors. Sophia Clement finishes with a decent but too brief description of the international community’s approach. Not really a classic collection – apart from anything else, the separate essays simply don’t cohere particularly well – but useful to have on the shelf.

I am here, after a bare-knuckle roller-coaster of a drive, guided by GSM, from Ashford International railway station. Back tomorrow.

Jacques Brel sings “Madeleine”. Even for those who don’t speak French, I think this video (from Scopitones) of Brel singing his own song about a bloke who is perpetually stood up by his girlfriend, but thinks she still loves him, is really gripping.

On another much more important theme, I had missed the discussion of the proposed new User Info pages. I must make a heretical statement: I actually think the new version is an improvement over the current version. It would be nice to have some freedom of which bits get placed where, though. And I’m well aware that I have no taste at all in matters of graphic design.

8) The Triumph of the West, by J.R. Roberts

This book has been sitting guiltily on my shelves since Rathmore Grammar School awarded it to me in 1985 as congratulations on my A-level results. Roberts, a well-known academic historian, was given the task of doing an update of Clarke’s “Civilisation” for the BBC, and this is the book-of-the-series. The New York times found the TV version uninspiring, and I regret to say I found the same of the book. Perhaps if I’d actually read it when I was 18, and knew a lot less about history than I do now… no, I don’t think so. It’s surprisingly meandering, mixes complacency with hand-wringing, and not very clear on who the target audience is. I read the first quarter, and decided I had done my duty by the school awards day of twenty years ago.

7) The Television Companion: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who, by David J Howe and Stephen James Walker

This has been bedtime reading for a week or so (since I came back from London, I guess), getting through a season or so every evening. Of course, it is all on-line on the BBC website, but it’s nice to hold the dead tree version in one’s hands as well.

Good and comprehensive basic stuff, though I think I am now ready to move on to some more in-depth examination of the history of the series. I also think that I will buy the DVD of The Aztecs and the audio of The Daleks Master Plan, watch/listen, and decide that I have seen enough Hartnell (having also got through the first episode, The Daleks, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Crusade, The Chase, and The Massacre in the last year) – I hear that The Web Planet is not in fact very good, though also available on DVD.

Then, on to Troughton, and this book makes a strong argument in favour of Season Five as a Great Season Of Doctor Who – including the likes of The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Abominable Snowmen, The Ice Warriors, The Web of Fear and Fury from the Deep. Must see how many of those are available in different formats. There doesn’t seem to be a convenient point of reference for that information.

I tried two more Georgian recipes last night, one of which, for the first time since I’ve been using the book, was not totally successful (a lamb and bean stew – somehow there didn’t seem to be enough ingredients and the tast of the herbs didn’t come through) though the other was good (fry slices of aubergine, smear with crushed garlic, scrape the garlic off again, serve bedecked with coriander leaves).

Another beautiful day here. I still have those two writing tasks from earlier in the week (and thanks, and for your input – and I see also Carl Bildt is thinking about it). But will try and fit it all in before going to England (for conference in rural Sussex) tomorrow.

6) [Doctor Who] Timewyrm: Genesys, by John Peel

The first ever of the New Adventures of Doctor Who published by Virgin between 1991 and 1997 (since I only recently read the first of the Missing Adventures). Actually rather good stuff as the Seventh Doctor and Ace find themselves in ancient Babylon battling an alien force, mixing it up with Gilgamesh. If I’d picked this up back in 1991 I would certainly have ended up buying many more. Biggest flaw – the silly title. Why the “y” in “Genesys”?

(Mind you, passing through Dublin airport last weekend, I noticed a new and horrible mutation of the Heavy Metal Umlaut – you can now buy your souvenir Irish fudge at a shop whose name is WRIGHTS ÖF HOWTH.)

5) The Story of the Salonica Army, by G. Ward Price

I spent yesterday in the city known to its inhabitants as Θεσσαλονίκη and variously called in English Thessaloniki, Thessalonica or Salonica. I was there to discharge certain duties, but happened to find on the internet this account of the Allies’ campaign in the region from 1915 to late 1917. The text as presented online seems to be a U.S. edition of a book originally published for a British audience, mainly altered by the addition of a foreword addressing American readers by Lord Northcliffe.

This is one of the forgotten corners of the First World War – the Western Front is of course well known, especially (but not only) here in Belgium, and for the British and Irish (and rest of the then Empire) the only eastern campaign that lives on in memory is Gallipoli. Many of the survivors of the Gallipoli debacle ended up in Thessalonica (as I tend to call it) in late 1915, at first in a vain attempt to shore up the Serbian army from collapsing, and then just as a continuing irritant to the Axis powers.

It was observed that they were not, in fact, doing an awful lot of fighting. The first major engagements were all managed retreats down the Vardar valley, followed by another from the shores of Lake Doiran, which I understand my grandfather was involved with. The Allied soldiers in more combative zones, such as the Somme, dubbed the Macedonian contingent the “Gardeners of Salonika”, because they actually had time to engage in a bit of gardening. (Hence the second half of my earlier question.)

Anyway, this account is a pretty good first-hand telling of the story from a journalist who was actually there. You have to strongly filter for propaganda, but there are numerous really good and vivid descriptive scenes that would make me willing to buy the book if it were ever actually reprinted.

Of course, today’s Thessalonica is a completely different place – after the disastrous fire of 1917, it was mostly razed and rebuilt in the early 1920s, and its majority Jewish population almost all left/were kicked out at about that time. So although I was looking out for traces of the first world war in the city yesterday, and being taken around by a friend who knew her history, there was very little to see. I’m hoping to be able to look at some of the actual battlefields next month. (Means I will miss the Doctor Who finale, but I will finds means of catching up.)

The best story in the book is from just after the recapture of Monastir (now Bitola) by the Allies and its consequent restoration to Serb rule in 1916. The (ethnic Greek) owner of one of the hotels is caught embarrassedly repainting the hotel’s sign. It turns out that when the Serbs first captured it from the Turks in the 1912 Balkan war, he had renamed the establishment “l’Hotel de la Nouvelle Serbie”. But then when the Bulgarians marched in three years later, he had renamed it “l’Hotel de la Nouvelle Bulgarie”. Now the Serbs were back, he was covering his bets, and had renamed it (perhaps permanently) as “l’Hotel Euroopéen”.

On my flight into Thessalonica late Thursday night, the gentleman sitting next to me, who had been reading over my shoulder, leaned over and asked my nationality. I told him that I am Irish (a convenient shorthand; of course I have dual citizenship, and often carry both passports). He informed me that there were some mistakes in the text I was reading, and that Macedonia is not a country, but a region. I told him that there were no statements in the text I was reading about that particular issue. I just didn’t feel like an argument.

Further discussion, perhaps, when I’ve had time to digest tonight’s episode.

But just now, I want to remember the year of 1988-89, when I was the External Officer of the Clare College Students Association in Cambridge, and the Welfare Officer was a guy called Dan who was not as much into student politics as I was, and more into arts, and theatre, and acting, and especially directing. So much into directing, in fact, that he directed this week’s episode of Doctor Who.

…I now know that the shortest sentence in Dutch containing all twenty-six letters of the alphabet is:

In Zweden vocht groepje quakers bij sexfilm.

(In Sweden a small group of Quakers fought at a sex film.)

My life is immeasurably enriched by that knowledge.

Was it Borges who wrote about meeting his younger self, and finding that they didn’t get on very well?

St Paul wrote two letters to this city’s inhabitants. Later residents were accused of gardening.

That may explain why she has been so absent from the Confidentials!

Just did an interview for Polish television, in my Queen’s University of Belfast capacity, on today’s EU summit and the challenges of the constitution. (Something I do muse about in public, but not as part of my day job.)

This evening I am off for a mad 24 hour trip to Thessalonica in another of my roles. This was a little number I picked up as a result of two evenings in the pub with the American academic who set up this research center; in gratitude for the leads I gave him, they put me on the Advisory Board, whose duties appear to consist entirely of attending the (theoretically) annual meeting in Thessalonica. This happens tomorrow, so I will be off late tonight and arrive back home very early Saturday morning.

The in-laws were supposed to be arriving today, but may be delayed…

Sir Humphrey Appleby: There are essentially six options. One, ignore it, two, file a protest, three, issue a statement condemning it, four, cut off aid, five, sever diplomatic relations, six, declare war. Now, if we ignore it, we tacitly acknowledge it, if we file a protest it’ll be ignored, if we issue a statement it will seem weak, we can’t cut off aid because we’re not giving any, if we sever relations we risk losing the oil contract and if we declare war… people might just think we’re overreacting.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now when it’s worked so well?
James Hacker: That’s all ancient history, surely.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn’t work. Now that we’re inside we can make a complete pig’s breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased, it’s just like old times.
James Hacker: But if that’s true, why is the foreign office pushing for higher membership?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: I’d have thought that was obvious. The more members an organization has, the more arguments it can stir up. The more futile and impotent it becomes.
James Hacker: What appalling cynicism.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: We call it diplomacy, Minister.

[On the 1938 Munich Agreement]
Sir Humphrey Appleby: It occurred before certain important facts were known, and couldn’t happen again.
James Hacker: What important facts?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, that Hitler wanted to conquer Europe.
James Hacker: I thought that everybody knew that.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Not the Foreign Office.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman on Iraq, since November 2003.

“The next six months in Iraq — which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there — are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time.” (New York Times, November 30, 2003)

“What we’re gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war.” (CBS’s Face the Nation, October 3, 2004)

“I think we’re in the end game now…. I think we’re in a six-month window here where it’s going to become very clear…” (NBC’s Meet the Press, September 25, 2005)

“We’ve teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it’s going to come together.” (CBS’s Face the Nation, December 18, 2005)

“I think we’re in the end game there, in the next three to six months… We’ve got for the first time an Iraqi government elected on the basis of an Iraqi constitution. Either they’re going to produce the kind of inclusive consensual government that we aspire to in the near term, in which case America will stick with it, or they’re not, in which case I think the bottom’s going to fall out.” (CBS, January 31, 2006)

“I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq.” (NBC’s Today, March 2, 2006)

“Well, I think that we’re going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months — probably sooner — whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we’re going to have to just let this play out.” (MSNBC’s Hardball, May 11, 2006)

Have promised my friend in Berlin 1600 words on EU enlargement fatigue, and the same or more on Zoran Živković, by end of week. Problem is, I am in Greece on Friday, leaving late Thursday and returning very early Saturday; and there is a Georgian Embassy reception tomorrow as their prime minister is in town. So that leaves this evening, or the weekend.

You know what? It’s awfully warm, Brazil are playing Croatia, I’m pretty tired, so I think it’s going to be the weekend. ‘s deadline is the 19th anyway. Berlin will just have to wait. (In fact, the entire city appears to be watching the match.)

When I was working in the Balkans, the Croats would always complain abut Carl Bildt, and mutter that he really had it in for them.

Well, I see he’s cheering Croatia against Brazil tonight.

The BBC is reporting that Charles Haughey has died.

Like him or loathe him (and I certainly loathed him), he was one of the most significant and symbolic figures of Irish politics from the 1960s to the 1990s.

More later, perhaps.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it probably bears mentioning again: if you are interested in international politics, one of the best possible ways of dipping your toe in the water is to get a place on an election observation mission. A colleague has just alerted me to an upcoming training course run by Peaceworkers UK in London on August 5th for anyone (all nationalities) interested in doing this.

It’s not compulsory to have attended such a course if you want to observe elections, but it probably helps. Just to review how you actually apply to be an election observer, US citizens go here, UK citizens here, Canadians here, Dutch citizens here, Belgians hier and ici. Irish opportunities are listed here, though they don’t give the contact for OSCE missions (but I know who it is, so email me if you want to know).

It does help to know which elections you want to observe. The following, all due before the end of this year, are likely to attract international observation missions:

      Macedonia Parliamentary, 5 July
      Turkmenistan Municipal – Village Councils, 23 July
      Bosnia and Herzegovina General, 1 October
      Bulgaria Presidential, probably November
      Georgia Municipal, November though rumours say they may be postponed
      Moldova Election of Governor of Gagauzia, Autumn
      Montenegro Parliamentary and Municipal (probably separately), Autumn
      Tajikistan Presidential, Autumn
      Albania Municipal, Autumn (TBC)
      Turkmenistan Municipal – District and City Councils, 3 December

Let me know if you are interested in any of these and I will do what I can in terms of other information.

“Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker were the quintessential Doctor Whos. After that it was downhill all the way.”

Practically the last comment in a series of blog entries chronicling a joint entry with the (relatively) new party leader, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

http://lunar-affinity.livejournal.com/114028.html
http://holyoffice.livejournal.com/80533.html
http://tomsdisch.livejournal.com/22187.html
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=5&id=36542

4) Impossible Stories, by Zoran Živković.

For review at Strange Horizons. Superb.

The U.S. Episcopalian church is holding its tri-annual General Convention (presumably equivalent to the CoE Synod). The Rev. Robert Certain reports:

Yesterday I spent an hour with former President and Mrs. Gerald Ford. Mr. Ford voiced a concern that we avoid schism in our deliberations, and he and Betty assured me of their prayers throughout the coming days.

I wasn’t aware that they were faced with threats of schism? Is Gerald Ford better informed about this than I am?

3) [Doctor Who] I Am A Dalek, by Gareth Roberts

Picked this up on impulse from Forbidden Planet the other week. It’s part of a special BBC series – the only Doctor Who title among them, as far as I can tell – for “people who either don’t have much time to devote to reading or who have perhaps never been bitten by the reading bug”. So I am not in the target audience then.

So, an odd mix of relatively simple language and large print, with relatively adult themes (implied sex, graphic exterminations). I have no idea if it will really succeed in popularising literacy. It’s quite a good read, starting with a strange find on a Roman archaeological dig and continuing with the horrors of aliens in contemporary England. As a Doctor Who story, it adds a certain amount to our understanding of Daleks, picking up both on the Ninth Doctor’s first encounter and, I thought, also on the Second Doctor’s last encounter with them. Purists may wonder about the role played by the Tardis as an agent of adventure.

From the International Herald Tribune:

Serbs are again turning to black humor to deal with their woes. One joke told here … “Srbija kao Nokia,” or Serbia like Nokia. Just like the Finnish cellphones, Serbia comes in a newer and smaller model every year.