• vowels
  Where do vowels come from?
  (tags: linguistics)

I had literally no expectations of this book before I started it, and was interested to discover that it is about an American family in Africa, given that I’m due to go to the continent for the first time myself in two weeks.

The Price family move to the Belgian Congo as Baptist missionaries in mid-1959, against all advice but in line with the sense of mission felt by Nathan, husband and father. The story is told through the perspectives of his wife and three daughters, as the family endures tragedy and disaster, and each of them eventually settles their own terms with Africa and with each other. Nathan Price comes across as an absurdly unsympathetic character, sacrificing his family for his improbable mission, but each of the women gets a good bit of narrative to themselves. Not knowing the DRC, as it now is, I can’t speak to Kingsolver’s accuracy, but she seems to have done her research.

I was struck that a number of write-ups of the book seemed to think that it was about what the US did to Zaire (as it then was) and Africa, when in fact this is simply political backdrop, taken for granted, for the more human drama of the Price sisters and their mother. Having said that, of course the political circumstances shape the environment, and Nathan’s simplistic and disastrous attempts to bring Christianity to the natives are a direct parallel with the American fascinatiom with warding off Communism.

Anyway, a fascinating and thought-provoking read.

Somehow I never got hold of this lovely reference book on the first 20 years of Doctor Who when it was first published in 1983. Most of the material is of course familiar to me from many other sources, but there is a particularly nice piece by Barry Letts, who died only a few days ago. Lots of good illustrations too. Shame that Haining didn’t get any contribution from Philip Hinchcliffe or Robert Holmes, but the pieces by Terrance Dicks and John Nathan-Turner are also above average.

Enda Kenny, the leader of the opposition in Ireland, has been getting headlines for his pledge yesterday to abolish the upper house of the Irish parliament if he wins the next election (as seems increasingly inevitable).

He is right. Before I explain why, though, I thought it might be worthwhile to look at the other two parliamentary upper houses which have been inflicted on the twenty-six counties which now constitute the Republic of Ireland, and also at the reasons why they too were abolished.

The Senate of Southern Ireland, 1921

Most students of Irish history are aware of the Government of Ireland Act of 1920, which elected two parliaments for the six counties of Northern Ireland and the twenty-six counties of “Southern Ireland”. Rather late in the day, Lord Oranmore and Browne inserted a clause giving both parliaments a senate, arguing that it was a necessary safeguard for the Protestant minority in the South (and rather as an afterthought throwing in a Senate for Northern Ireland too).

The Home Rule Act of 1912, passed eventually in 1914, would have provided a forty-member Senate, initially appointed by the Lord Lieutenant but later to be elected by the provinces of Ireland (each as a single multi-member electoral unit) in proportion to population. This would probably have given Protestants a disproportionate voice in the new Senate’s first term, later to be ironed out by popular elections, as indeed actually happened with the later Irish Free State Senate. The Irish Convention, an earnest but long-forgotten attempt to get an agreed settlement between Unionists and Nationalists in 1917, proposed a sixty-four member Senate, which would have included seven ecclesiastics, three Lord Mayors (Dublin, Cork and Belfast), fifteen peers, eleven direct nominees of the Lord Lieutenant, fifteen representatives of commerce and industry, and from each of the four provinces one representative of Labour and two from the county councils.

Lord Oranmore and Browne’s proposal for Southern Ireland adopted most of the Irish Convention’s concepts, mutatis mutandis for the new situation: it had the Lord Chancellor of Ireland as its chairman; fifteen peers of the realm, resident in Southern Ireland, elected by their peers; eight Privy Councillors, elected by Privy Councillors; two representatives of the Church of Ireland; two representatives of the Catholic Church; sixteen individuals nominated by the Lord Lieutenant, including two who were to be nominated after consultation with the Labour movement, which however declined to be involved; and seventeen elected by the members of the county councils in different territorial constituencies, for a total of 61 members. Nobody could be bothered to argue against it, and it passed into law and the elections/appointments were duly scheduled for May/June 1921.

I found the papers relating to the Southern Ireland Senate in the Irish National Archives many years ago. The Catholic Church and the labour movement refused to nominate their two representatives each, and the county councils, all controlled by Sinn Fein, likewise refused to participate, but the Southern Ireland Parliament came into being with 39 (who I listed here) senators plus the Lord Chancellor and four MPs (elected by Trinity College graduates in the University of Dublin constituency). They met a couple of times, (the summons being issued by a Dublin Castle official with the glorious title of Clerk of Crown and Hanaper), but were then dissolved as irrelevant. Most of those elected to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland constituted themselves as the Second Dáil.

The Senate of the Irish Free State (1921-1936)

The 1921 Treaty made no reference to an upper house in the parliament of the Irish Free State. But it was literally the first concession offered by Arthur Griffith to the Southern ex-Unionists the day the Treaty was signed. (Donal O’Sullivan’s superb if partisan The Irish Free State And Its Senate is essential reading on this.) The new Senate was to have 60 members, serving twelve-year terms, to be replaced 15 at a time (plus casual vacancies) by elections every three years in which the entire population over the age of 30 could vote. Of the initial 60 members of 1922, half were simply chosen by W.T. Cosgrave as the head of government (the President, to use the terminology of the day) and half elected by the members of the Dáil (necessarily excluding the Anti-Treaty TDs who were boycotting it). Cosgrave, as had been understood and anticipated, included sixteen former Unionists among his thirty nominees. (And also W.B. Yeats, who though not a Unionist came from that tradition.)

The first election in 1925 (to fill places for half of those chosen by the Dáil three years ealier, plus filling four casual vacancies) was a pretty farcical affair, as I have reported elsewhere. 76 candidates contested for 19 places; since the ruling party, Cumann na nGaedhael, had more than 19 candidates in the running it did not campaign, and the turnout was accordingly low everywhere. Nobody much minded the subsequent constitutional revision: the Senate was henceforth re-elected by thirds, rather than quarters, for nine-year terms, rather than twelve, and the voters were to be simply the members of the outgoing Senate and the Dáil.

This meant that the original purpose of the Senate, to give bonus representation to Protestants, essentially tapered off over the years. What it then became was a mechanism to deter radical policy innovation. The way it had been set up, combined with the early boycott by Anti-Treaty forces, meant that when Éamon de Valera finally came to power in 1932 (consolidated in the 1933 election) he had a popular mandate in the Dáil which however was subject to obstruction by the indirectly elected Senate. Obviously, he needed to abolish the upper chamber, and did so as rapidly as constitutionally possible (May 1936), as part of his general transition from the Irish Free State to the 1937 Constitution. In the course of the bitter political debate, De Valera claimed that “The more modern thinkers who are dealing with present day affairs and conditions are gradually coming to the conclusion that, when all is said and done, a Single Chamber Government is the wisest.”

Seanad Éireann (1938-??)

De Valera drew up the current Irish constitution in 1937 (in the name of the most holy trinity, of course) and actually included a provision for an upper house, despite his earlier statements of disinclination. His argument in favour of doing so was not altogether convincing:

the only thing that made me put a proposition for a Seanad into this measure at all is this: that there were members on the benches opposite, as I remember, who, during the Seanad debate, said: “Very well, even a bad Seanad would be better than no Seanad at all.” It is precisely on that basis—that some Seanad, the best Seanad we can get, even though it may be adjudged a bad Seanad, is still better than no Seanad at all—that this proposal is now included. My attitude is that, even though some of us may be largely indifferent to the question of whether or not there is a Seanad, if a large section of the people of the country think that there is something important in having a Seanad, then, even if we ourselves are indifferent to it, we should give way to the people who are anxious for it.

This is hardly a ringing endorsement of bicameralism. Anyway, the system Dev established has survived unchanged to the present day.

Of the 60 senators, 43 are elected on various panels, supposedly as experts in / representatives of i) Public administration and social services, ii) Agriculture and fisheries, iii) Education, the arts, the Irish language and Irish culture and literature, iv) Industry and commerce and v) Labour. The electorate for these 43 seats consists of all local government councillors, TDs and outgoing senators. Rather than being actual experts in their field, therefore, the 43 senators elected this way tend to reflect the politics of the state as a whole; politicians will always tend to vote for other politicians. I don’t think that De Valera was under much illusion about this, but it was a sop to Catholic social theorists and could be argued as having roots in Pius XI’s Quadreagesimo Anno.

3 senators are elected by graduates of Trinity College Dublin and another 3 by graduates of the National University of Ireland. In the Irish Free State period, they had had the same representation in the Dáil, but this was abolished again at a fairly early stage by Dev. A constitutional amendment in 1979 created the possibility of including graduates of other institutions in this mix but it has never been implemented. NB that university graduates elected members of the House of Commons at Westminster until 1950, and of Stormont until 1968.

The remaining 11 Senators, in an odd cut-and-paste from the 1917 Irish Convention proposals, are nominated directly by the Taoiseach of the day. This normally rewards ruling party stalwarts who didn’t make it to either chamber by other means; recently an expectation has developed that the Taoiseach should include the occasional person from Northern Ireland on the list as well.

Why Enda Kenny is right

As I wrote recently, I share Dev’s 1934 scepticism on the utility of upper chambers in general, particularly when your state has no pretensions to federalism, and particularly if your population is already pretty small. Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus (both parts, under current arrangements, though this is likely to change in the event of a federal settlement), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Sweden , Turkey and Ukraine all manage perfectly well as unicameral states. Indeed, Sweden (in 1970) and Croatia (in 2001) actually abolished their upper chambers as part of a programme of democratisation. Both have larger populations than Ireland. (NB that the Croatian Sabor has fewer seats than the Dáil for much the same population.)

One can make claims in favour of the Seanad: that it is needed as a revising chamber (in a stronger form, that it is a democratic safeguard against the Dáil), or that it offers a platform to interests who otherwise would not get parliamentary representation. These arguments are weak. Most sensible parliaments deal with the needs for a decent revision of legislation by establishing a proper committee structure, adequately serviced by an independent parliamentary research division. As for the idea that the Seanad can be a democratic safeguard, in its seventy-two years of history, the Seanad has rejected precisely one government legislative proposal, as far as I know; this was De Valera’s attempt to abolish proportional representation in 1959. It did not matter, as the Dáil over-ruled the Seanad (and then the people, in the subsequent referendum, over-ruled the Dáil). That is not a tremendous track record for a revising chamber.

As for the notion that it represents the unrepresented, this is essentially in support of 1) the independent members elected from the universities, such as Mary Robinson, David Norris, etc; and 2) the occasional imaginative use of patronage by successive Taoisigh choosing their eleven nominees. Neither of these cases is convincing. While I have huge respect for both Robinson and Norris, their most significant contributions to modernising Ireland were made outside Leinster House, through the courts; and it is not as if articulate university graduates are exactly an oppressed group in today’s Ireland. And if we are to admire the occasional interesting nominee among the Taoiseach’s party hacks, we surely cannot admire the total absence of any democratic scrutiny in that process.

The one valid objection to Enda Kenny’s proposal is that he is making it out of sheer populism rather than after any mature reflection on the outcome. I can’t see into his mind so I don’t know if that is true, but it’s pretty clear that he is appealing to (his opponents would say pandering to) the massive wave of anti-system frustration in Irish politics at present. (For those of you who haven’t been following these things, the Ceann Comhairle – the Speaker of the Dáil – was forced out of office last week after publicity about his excessive expense claimsthe government proposes to pump massive amounts of public money into failing banks17,000 public service jobs are to be cut along with cuts to social welfare payments). It’s fair to say that the existence of the Seanad has little to do with the problems facing the country, but that doesn’t make its abolition a bad idea either.

I have only a handful of books left to read of those I marked as “unread” when I joined Librarything in late 2005, so I have decided to start working through those I had already read before then but hadn’t reviewed on-lline. There are a couple of thousand of them, so this is not a project I seriously intend to complete any time soon. The ordering is rather randomly determined by whatever happened to be on the shelves as I got around to cataloguing four years ago, so I’m starting with a run of Hartwell anthologies. (And a guidebook to Paris, if I can find it.)

This pulls together Hartwell’s selection of the best stories of 2000. As you would expect, they are all good: the standouts for me are David Langford’s “Different Kinds of Darkness”, from his series of BLIT stories, this one set in a boarding school for specially talented children; Greg Egan’s “Oracle”, which has an alternate-universe take on the possible interactions between C.S. Lewis and Alan Turing; and Teg Chiang’s “Seventy-Two Letters”, which combines steampunk and qabalah.

It is interesting to compare Hartwell’s choices with those of the Hugo and Nebula voters that year. “Different Kinds of Darkness” won the Hugo for Best Short Story (deservedly and decisively; the other nominees were all terrible). “Oracle” and “Seventy-Two Letters” were both on the Hugo shortlist for Best Novella, but were beaten by Jack Williamson’s “The Ultimate Earth”, which is not as good a story as either but was obviously the last chance to give an award to the nonagenarian author (it won the Nebula too, I guess for the same reason). None of Hartwell’s selections made it to the Nebula shortlist, or even the preliminary ballot, for either year of eligibility. Draw your own conclusions…

I never got around to writing up the second series of Sarah Jane Adventures properly – in summary, I loved the one where Maria and her father came back, thought the one with Sarah Jane’s parents had too much cut and paste from other New Who and SJA stories, and was surprised that the Brigadier’s return in the last story did not really grab me – but the third series is off to a good start. Of course it’s on while I am at work during the week, but I think I will find ways (cough, cough) of catching up at the weekends.

Prisoner of the Judoon is surprisingly subversive for a children’s show. The Judoon are authority figures whose authority stems as much from fear as from the Shadow Proclamation, and who behave quite unreasonably – their deference to regulation as much as their inclination for summary execution (and tendency to get deflected from it as well). Meanwhile the Androvax, while definitely a genocidal villain, is given a realistic motivation which comes close to being a sympathetic treatment. Not all policemen are your friends, children; not all bad people are irredeemable.

On the series format as a whole, we are heading in the dirction of the Clyde Langer adventures, which I think recognises Daniel Anthony’s talents. Elisabeth Sladen did not sound totally at ease doing the series intro. However, she clearly had a ball being the Androvax in Sarah’s body – much more exciting than being possessed by spiders, Mandragora or Eldrad. And the fun plotline in this series is obviously going to be letting Rani’s parents in on the secret of alien activity and their daughter’s involvement in it.

• reading_gibbon: Chapter VII: The Year of Six Emperors, and Philip the Arab
  On the younger Gordian:
  Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations, and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than ostentation.
  (tags: gibbon)

• Tove Jansson’s Alice in Wonderland illustrations
  Thanks to communicator
  (tags: sf)

…here is a video of every jelly baby moment from Doctor Who. (With added Brahms, for some reason.)

My reading rate has fallen off this month, partly because I have had some excellent listening on my commute.

I’m baffled by the critism of The Hornet’s Nest from some online commentators. Of course it’s not like a Big Finish audio play, this is because it isn’t a Big Finish audio play. Of course it’s not like a Fourth Doctor television story, but it isn’t a television story. I admit that Tom Baker is playing Tom Baker even more obviously than he did on screen in the 1970s; it’s also true that this is the Doctor presented as earthbound paranormal investigator rather than traveller through all of space and time; but it seems to me entirely within the range of the Doctor we know (especially as supplemented by Baker’s performance of himself as late). It’s not blow-me-away brilliant, but very entertaining.

The Robots of Death was one of the best Fourth Doctor stories, and its writer Chris Boucher brought the Doctor and Leela back to the same planet in his novel Corpse Marker. Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore, who had already gained my respect for their activites as critics, together with Boucher and others, generated seven audio plays based around the interactions between Commander Uvanov (now running the planet) and the mysterious Kaston Iago (played by Paul “Avon” Darrow, though I think they are different characters), fighting off the cultists of Taren Capel and also facing up to another Fourth Doctor era monster. The first five plays form a pretty decent story arc, of which the first is unfortunately the weakest, but the others all enjoyable. As well as Darrow, Russell Hunter reprises Uvanov and other characters are played by Peter “Nyder” Miles and Peter “Zen” Tuddenham. The sixth play, “The Prisoner”, is a much shorter face-off between Darrow and Miles, in their characters from Kaldor City but effectively as Number Six and Number Two, very nicely done. The last of the plays, actually set on a storm miner, is rather detached from the others and can be skipped (though you will probably want to listen to it anyway).

I have also been listening to the ongoing series of Bernice Summerfield audios from Big Finish, though I have not been writing them up as I go (likewise the Dalek Empire and Cyberman series). There was a sequence of three particularly good ones in the middle of Season Seven, however, which I wanted to note here: Timeless Passages, by Daniel O’Mahony, which involves a time-shifting library; The Worst Thing In The World, by Dave Stone, which is set on a Hollywood-like planet where different genres of entertainment are getting lethally entangled; and Summer of Love, by Simon Guerrier, in which the entire population of the Braxiatel collection appears to have become sex-mad. All very entertaining.

There is of course only one science fiction audio play that anyone has ever heard of, and that is Orson Welles’ 1938 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. I was delighted to find it downloadable from here. Anyone with the slightest interest in Wells, Welles or audio sf plays needs to hear it. It is only loosely based on the original novel; the brilliant introduction is retained, but then we are into light music interrupted by increasingly desperate news bulletins and horrible events, culminating with Times Square and the rest of New York succumbing to poison gas. That takes us to the 40-minute mark, at which point we are reminded that this is a work of fiction; and then the last third is essentially a post-holocaust survival story, Welles’ Martians having been much more thorough in their devastation than Wells’ originals. And at the very end, Welles himself steps out of character to remind everyone that it is Halloween. The discerning listener will have had no difficulty working out that it was fictional even if they tuned in after the first two minutes, but of course not every listener has the time to be discerning; my own adopted country was convulsed for days after a deliberate media hoax three years ago, so I can believe both that there was a significant public reaction to Welles’ broadcast, and also that it makes an even better story if exaggerated. Anyway, it’s essential material for any sf enthusiast.

• David Miliband for EU High Rep? | Charlemagne's notebook | Economist.com
  My own comment – this is not the first I have heard of this rumour; we should take it seriously.
  (tags: eu)
• doctorwho: Clutching at Christmassy Straws.
  Why Eight is not canon (old post)
  (tags: doctorwho)

I had been warned that this novel of parallel plots between 1209 and 2005 was pretty dire, but it is vastly superior to The Da Vinci Code, and will appeal to the same sort of reader. I found it a bit dull in places and implausible – these fictional conspiracies always tend to have perfect knowledge of their situation apart from the One Thing our heroes can tell them – but there’s a nice sense of the scenery of southern France.

I had logged the book as Not Fantasy before reading it, but in fact in the last couple of chapters it turns out that one of the 2005 characters has lived the whole way through from the thirteenth century, and the cave where the story started is collapsed by supernatural means, so I think in the end it is on the sff side of the boundary (certainly more securely so than Cryptonomicon).

In the hospital to get my various vaccinations for Southern Sudan, I spotted a familiar couple in the waiting room – one of the International Crisis Group’s board members and his wife, like me getting jabs for a forthcoming Africa trip. This would be Mark Eyskens and his wife Anne, he being a short, jovial viscount and former prime minister of Belgium (his father Gaston was prime minister off and on between 1949 and 1973, Mark followed for a few months in 1981 in which his major achievement was lowering the voting age from 21 to 18). He posts his somewhat surreal paintings of Leuven town hall, and other ramblings and deep thoughts, on his website, rather as the current prime minister posts haiku on his. We had a nice chat about Africa, and will see each other again later this evening at a reception. It can be a small world sometimes.

• The Millions: The More They Stay the Same: William Manchesterâ™s The Death of a President
  Fascinating review of an even more fascinating article on Manchester's book about what happened in Dallas on 22 November 1963
  (tags: history)

I’ve been reading at a less voracious pace this month – combination of better health, less travel, more useful occupation at the weekends, and some rather good audios to listen to on the commute (which I will write up in due course). Anyway, this is a short (190 page) but glossy book on seven plants and their impact on human history, especially colonialism: tobacco, sugar cane, cotton, tea, the opium poppy, chinchona (the source of quinine) and rubber. I wasn’t hugely satisfied: I can think of other significant plants (the spices, coffee and cacao, flax and sisal, the coconut/copra) whose trade has affected and continues to affect the world economy. I found numerous irritating trivial mistakes (one that I will treasure refers to the British occupation of “Cypress” rather than Cyprus). The major reference cited is J.M. Roberts’ Penguin History of the World. There are too many sidebar blocks of text which could have been better incorporated into the main narrative. It could perhaps be a nice jumping-off point for further reading but didn’t satisfy me.

I have a mega-trip coming up at the start of next month.

For the first week of November I shall be on mission in Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan. I have never visited any part of Africa before, and would very much welcome tips from those who have been there (looking especially at , who I trust will be discreet about this).

A rather punishing flight schedule then deposits me in New York for a prolonged staff meeting starting on the 8th. I believe that my evenings are fairly free – I’m wondering about organising a pub-meet or dinner with LJ friends and other in New York, probably on the 9th or 10th – any interest?

(This post friends-locked to deter potential burglars and agents of Khartoum.)

• mraltariel: Hooray!
  Recipes
  (tags: cooking)

• reading_gibbon: Chapter VI: Septimius Severus, Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus; and taxation
  In a magnificent temple raised on the Palatine Mount, the sacrifices of the god of Elagabalus were celebrated with every circumstance of cost and solemnity. The richest wines, the most extraordinary victims, and the rarest aromatics, were profusely consumed on his altar. Around the altar a chorus of Syrian damsels performed their lascivious dances to the sound of barbarian music, whilst the gravest personages of the state and army, clothed in long Phoenician tunics, officiated in the meanest functions, with affected zeal and secret indignation.
  (tags: gibbon)

The first US president to win the Nobel Peace Prize was of course Theodore Roosevelt, in 1906 for his mediation of the Treaty of Portsmouth. Browsing through YouTube I found that several recordings of his speeches survive. His accent, to me, sounds completely unlike any I have heard in New York – his family of course being New York aristocracy:

But his younger cousin Franklin Roosevelt’s accent sounds entirely recognisably northeastern to me:

What then surprised me even more was to hear the voice of Eleanor Roosevelt – wife of Franklin and niece of Theodore:

Queen Elizabeth II would be proud of some of those vowels! For extra amusement, here’s Eleanor Roosevelt on What’s My Line?

• The Doctor Who News Page: Barry Letts (1925-2009)
  Sad news.
  (tags: doctorwho)
• Watch Doctor Who: The Classic Series Online | blinkbox
  The Sensorites / The Web Planet / Tomb of the Cybermen / The Krotons, all available to watch for free worldwide
  (tags: doctorwho)

Good Lord!

• Who should be the first face of Europe? Not Blair (Pierre Defraigne)
  For the inaugural stint in this high-profile function, EU citizens should expect the selection of a decent national statesman, a statesman with impeccable European credentials, a respected and experienced politician, with a genuine ability to convince his former colleagues with the right mix of technical and political skills. Blair is not that man. He is, as the Financial Times's Martin Wolf once stated, just another British populist.
  (tags: eu)
• FT.com / Comment / Letters – Europe must look beyond Blair for a credible president
  So Tony Blair is being considered for the job of European Union president… If the new, improved, post-Lisbon EU is to have any credibility or integrity, it needs a different leader.
  (tags: eu work)

Resolved. With a surprising amount of grace all round. Kudos to for his mediation.

It would seem appropriate that anyone else who has commented on-line on this affair in their own blogs should link to the joint statement (I see a couple of people already have done).

…but I was never planning to be, not having much enjoyed the previous one I attended in 2007. (Where I failed to witness any of the alleged incidents.)

has been given no choice in the matter. (Further discussed chez Cheryl here, by here and by here.)

A pretty good example of public relations Fail. It is amusing that on Octocon’s committee page, the short bio of the Press Officer states first that he “is looking after PR affairs for Octocon” and then goes on to say that he “feels strongly that most PR people deserve to be liquidated”. I think further comment is superfluous.

Any wikipedians out there who are willing to help me out on a small matter which I can’t fix myself?

Replies screened and feel free to contact me by other means.

This is the second volume in the NESFA series collecting Zelazny’s writings, again edited by David G. Grubbs, Christopher S. Kovacs and Ann Crimmins. I had high praise for the first of these; the second didn’t grab me quite as much. Almost half of it is occupied by the original “…And Call Me Conrad” text of This Immortal, a separately published chapter of Lord of Light, and the first few Dilvish stories, which is I suppose necessary for completeness, but most readers will already have Zelazny’s preferred final texts of those works. (Though it is fascinating to learn that Lord of Light was inspired by a train of thought started when Zelazny cut himself shaving at a science fiction convention.)

Anyway, I won’t complain too much. As well as some excellent short stories (including the three wrenching pieces written the day Zelazny’s father died), there are two speeches and a short essay, forewords by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Walter Jon Williams (who tried, unsuccessfully, to get Zelazny to try the Amber roleplaying game), and Christopher Kovacs continues his fascinating bio-bibliography. I shall be getting the next two volumes which are apparently already out from NESFA.

I’ve been updating my presidential stats page to reflect recent developments and also to include some data on the wives of presidents and vice-presidents, and have run up against a slightly surprising problem: I can’t find a birth date, not even a year of birth, for the first wife of current Vice-President Joe Biden. As is well known, she was killed, along with their infant daughter, in a car accident in December 1972, just after he was elected to the US Senate; they apparently met in the Bahamas on holiday in 1964, and married in 1966. Biden had moved to Syracuse in 1965 after graduating to be with her, which suggests that she had not yet graduated so must have been a year or two younger than him (he was born in 1942).

Of course, she lived at a time when it was considered impolite to ask about women’s exact ages, but I am a bit surprised that I wasn’t able to find even her year of birth easily.

I am also still looking for sates of birth – though I have the years – for the following vice-presidential wives born in the nineteenth century:

• Evelyn Colfax, born in 1823, whose husband Schuyler served under Ulysses S Grant from 1869 to 1873
• Mary Wheeler, born in 1828, whose husband William served under Rutherford Hayes from 1877 to 1881
• Dorothy Barkley, born in 1882, whose husband was Truman’s vice-president in 1949-53 (though she had died in 1947).

Edited to add: Thanks to passer-by who pointed me at a good source which gave me 28 July 1942, so she was four months older than Joe.

Also Dorothy Barkley was born on 14 November 1882.

Still looking for Evelyn Colfax (née Clark) and Mary Wheeler (née King).

• reading_gibbon: Chapter V, which is mostly about Septimius Severus
  After Pertinax is murdered, the Prætorian Guards auction the empire to the highest bidder, one Didius Julianus. His rule is contested by Clodius Albinus in Britain, Septimius Severus in Pannonia, and Pescennius Niger in Syria. Septimius Severus outwits and kills the other three (starting with Didius Julianus), and settles down to rule Rome.
  (tags: gibbon)