i) births and deaths

24th September 1925: birth of Gary Downie, production manager on the later years of Old Who, partner of producer John Nathan-Turner, and editor of the immortal Doctor Who Cookbook.

24th September 1939: birth of Maurice Colbourne who played Lytton in Resurrection of the Daleks (1984) and Attack of the Cybermen (1985).

24th September 1951: birth of David Banks, who played the Cyber-leader in Earthshock (1982), The Five Doctors (1983), Attack of the Cybermen (1985), and Silver Nemesis (1988) and also wrote the New Adventures novel Iceberg (1993).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

24th September 1966: broadcast of third episode of The Smugglers. It’s the Doctor’s turn to escape from his captors by magic; and everyone comes to the church for the final confrontation.

24th September 1977: broadcast of fourth episode of Horror of Fang Rock. The alien is revealed as a Rutan; the Doctor destroys its ship with a laser, and Leela’s eyes change from brown to blue.

24th September 1993: broadcast of the fifth and, thank God, last episode of The Paradise of Death on BBC Radio. Does it help if I tell you that in the climactic scene, the president’s son is mauled to death in an arena by a giant toad? No, I thought not.

24th September 2007: on a much happier note, first broadcast of both parts of Revenge of the Slitheen, which kicks off the first regular season of the Sarah Jane Adventures. Maria and Luke, with Sarah Jane and their new friend Clyde, discover that the Slitheen have taken over their school; but are able to destroy them with vinegar.

• Chrononaut: Many writers have all the virtues of civilized persons
  One of the best comments on the recent nastiness.
  (tags: islam sf)
• YouTube – Do you want to know more about Belgium?
  Explains everything.
  (tags: belgium)
• (live blog) And the UUP leader is … Tom « Slugger O'Toole
  Liveblogging the UUP leadership election
  (tags: uup northernireland)

This is an anthology of classic sf stories – and classic pieces of sf criticism – assembled in the mid- 1990s on behalf of the Science Fiction Research Association. I found it somewhat frustrating and slightly incomprehensible. There is very little editorial apparatus to help the reader appreciate whatever point the editors are trying to make; some groupings of stories do have a clear linking theme, others less so. While the editors declare their intention to skip the classics of the 1940s-1960s, the collection does include five pieces from that era, which seems a bit inconsistent. The non-fiction pieces of sf criticism interspersed through the stories are of varying degrees of accessibility, and here I really felt the lack of an editorial voice explaining why another 30 pages of this vast tome had been dedicated to a particular commentator’s meanderings. I found Algis Budrys’ piece, “Paradise Charted”, incomprehensible. On the other hand I very much appreciated Sam Delany’s “Science Fiction and ‘Literature’ – or, the Conscience of the King’. On the fiction side, most of the stories that I liked were pieces I already knew – I bought the book in the first place because it had three joint Hugo/Nebula winners, “Blood Music”, “Ender’s Game” and “Bears Discover Fire”, none of which is a particular favourite of mine, and that should perhaps have warned me that few of the other stories would really blow me away. The one story that did grab the soppy romantic in me was Kate Wilhelm’s “Forever Yours, Anna”. But I was left rather wondering what the point of the anthology was.

i) births and deaths

23rd September 1949: birth of Floella Benjamin (now Baroness Benjamin of Beckenham) who played the recurring character Professor Rivers in the first three seasons of the Sarah Jane Adventures.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

23rd September 1967: broadcast of fourth episode of Tomb of the Cybermen. The Cybermen kill Kaftan; Toberman helps the others to freeze the Cybermen again, at the cost of his own life.

23rd September 1978: broadcast of fourth episode of The Ribos Operation. The Doctor is rescued by the shrivenzale, blows up the Graff, and converts the jethrik into the first segment of the Key to Time.

• diggerdydum: The Real Actual Long Game
  First in a series of eighteen polls, taking all the 216 Doctor Who stories so far, and voting for them a dozen at a time. If you haven't voted yet, you can do so in the next six days.

  In the first poll, choose from Gridlock, Image Of The Fendahl, The Caves Of Androzani, The Deadly Assassin, The Eleventh Hour, The Happiness Patrol, The Highlanders, The Long Game, The Sensorites, The Time Monster, The Visitation and The War Games

  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: Army Of Ticks
  choose from Army Of Ghosts/Doomsday, Bad Wolf/The Parting Of The Ways, Castrovalva, Enlightenment, Planet Of Evil, Silver Nemesis, The Armageddon Factor, The Daemons, The Tenth Planet, The Tomb Of The Cybermen, The Web Planet and Victory Of The Daleks
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: The Claws Of Ticksos
  choose from Four To Doomsday, Smith And Jones, The Ark In Space, The Aztecs, The Beast Below, The Claws Of Axos, The Curse Of Fenric, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Kings Demons, The Talons Of Weng Chiang, The War Machines and The Web Of Fear
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: Planet Of FITE!
  choose from Carnival Of Monsters, Planet Of Fire, Shada, Terror Of The Vervoids, The Dalek Invasion Of Earth, The End Of Time, The Face Of Evil, The Fires Of Pompeii, The Invasion Of Time, The Smugglers, The Wheel In Space and Tooth And Claw
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: Day Of The Polleks
  choose from Black Orchid, Day Of The Daleks, Love And Monsters, Partners In Crime, Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead, Survival, The Crusade, The Krotons, The Massacre, The Pirate Planet, The Sontaran Experiment and Warriors Of The Deep
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: Poll Reunion
  choose from Ghost Light, Kinda, Planet Of The Dead, School Reunion, Terror Of The Autons, Terror Of The Zygons, The Ambassadors Of Death, The Ark, The Chase, The Horns Of Nimon, The Mysterious Planet and The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: Tick-Flight!
  choose from Blink, Dalek, Death To The Daleks, Revelation Of The Daleks, Robot, The Creature From The Pit, The Dalek Master Plan, The End Of The World, The Enemy Of The World, The Romans, Time-Flight and Vampires In Venice
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: Ticks And The Rani
  choose from Frontier In Space, Full Circle, Revenge Of The Cybermen, Terminus, The Invisible Enemy, The Savages, The Space Pirates, The Stolen Earth/Journey's End, The Time Meddler, The Unicorn And The Wasp, The Unquiet Dead and Time And The Rani
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: The Monster Of Polladon
  choose from Amy's Choice, Attack Of The Cybermen, Delta And The Bannermen, Snakedance, Spearhead From Space, The Edge Of Destruction, The Gunfighters, The Idiot's Lantern, The Monster Of Peladon, The Ribos Operation, The Time Warrior and Utopia/The Sound Of Drums/Last Of The Time Lords
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: Tick Left
  choose from Aliens Of London/World War III, Battlefield, State Of Decay, The Daleks, The Dominators, The Hand Of Fear, The Mind Of Evil, The Power Of The Daleks, The Runaway Bride, The Sun Makers, Turn Left and Vengeance On Varos
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: The Celestial Tickmaker
  choose from Horror Of Fang Rock, Mawdryn Undead, Planet Of The Ood, Remembrance Of The Daleks, Rise Of The Cybermen/The Age Of Steel, The Celestial Toymaker, The Green Death, The Masque Of Mandragora, The Reign Of Terror, The Seeds Of Death, The Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone and The Two Doctors
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: The Tickspeare Code
  choose from An Unearthly Child, Inferno, Mission To The Unknown, New Earth, Rose, The Androids Of Tara, The Brain Of Morbius, The Doctor's Daughter, The Leisure Hive, The Sea Devils, The Shakespeare Code and Timelash
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: The Keeper Of Ticken
  choose from Galaxy 4, Midnight, Mindwarp, Resurrection Of The Daleks, The Christmas Invasion, The Curse Of Peladon, The Ice Warriors, The Keeper Of Traken, The Macra Terror, The Power Of Kroll, The Seeds Of Doom and The Waters Of Mars
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: The Tick Of The Rani
  choose from Arc Of Infinity, Daleks In Manhattan/Evolution Of The Daleks, Dragonfire, Fathers Day, Fury From The Deep, Planet Of The Spiders, The Evil Of The Daleks, The Mark Of The Rani, The Mutants, The Next Doctor, The Rescue and The Robots Of Death
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: The Tickless Ones
  choose from City Of Death, Colony In Space, Earthshock, Fear Her, Human Nature/The Family Of Blood, Marco Polo, The Abominable Snowmen, The Faceless Ones, The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood, The Stones Of Blood, The Twin Dilemma and The Ultimate Foe
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: Pollage Of The Damned
  choose from Destiny Of The Daleks, Logopolis, Planet Of The Daleks, The Android Invasion, The Five Doctors, The Girl In The Fireplace, The Greatest Show In The Galaxy, The Keys Of Marinus, The Lodger, The Mind Robber, The Underwater Menace and Voyage Of The Damned
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: Doctor Who And The Pollurians
  choose from Doctor Who And The Silurians, Genesis Of The Daleks, Invasion Of The Dinosaurs, Nightmare Of Eden, Paradise Towers, Planet Of Giants, The Awakening, The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, The Lazarus Experiment, The Myth Makers, Vincent And The Doctor and Warriors' Gate
  (tags: doctorwho)
• diggerdydum: Ticklos
  choose from 42, Boom Town, Doctor Who [the movie], Frontios, Meglos, The Invasion, The Moonbase, The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, The Pyramids Of Mars, The Three Doctors, The Space Museum, and Underworld
  (tags: doctorwho)

When the question is asked that way, one is tempted to reply in the spirit of Wendy Cope:

When they ask me, “Who’s your favourite poet?”,
I’d better not mention you.
Though you certainly are my favourite poet
And I like your poems too.

Rest assured that if you are a writer, and you know me well enough to be reading this, you probably fall into that category, if not quite in the biblical sense that Wendy Cope probably had in mind.

Anyway, I have a lot of favourite writers, in the sense of people whose works I like rather than people who I like who happen to be writers. (See my LibraryThing author cloud.) I thought of recounting here my teenage appreciation of Zelazny, my more recent experimentation with Hemingway, my lifelong obsession with Tolkien, my enjoyment of Bujold and/or Le Guin. But if I ask myself which of my favourite authors hasn’t yet featured in this meme, there is one name that jumps out at me: Brian Aldiss. Ever since I discovered his slightly awkward, sometimes passionate, occasionally baroque storytelling, I have enjoyed and admired his writing – particularly his short stories from the 1960s and 1970s (and rather less so the Helliconia trilogy). He has the gift of leaving the reader with a lasting image in the mind’s eye; he is hardly ever cute or over the top, and rarely even comfortable. I guess that for those who don’t know his writing, the collection variously titled Galaxies Like Grains Of Sand or The Canopy of Time is a good place to start, and then move on to the earlier novels and then Helliconia if you have the energy. I still find him refreshing and relaxing to return to.

Day 01 – Your favourite series of books (with more than 3 in the series)
Day 02 – A book that you wish more people had read
Day 03 – Your favorite recent book
Day 04 – Your favorite book ever
Day 05 – A book you hate
Day 06 – Your favourite writer
Day 07 – A writer you don’t like
Day 08 – Your favourite work in translation
Day 09 – Best scene ever
Day 10 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 11 – A book that disappointed you
Day 12 – An book you’ve read more than twice
Day 13 – Favorite childhood book
Day 14 – Favorite male character
Day 15 – Favorite female character
Day 16 – Your guilty pleasure book
Day 17 – Favorite trilogy or tetralogy
Day 18 – Favorite book cover
Day 19 – Best ensemble of characters in a book
Day 20 – Favorite kiss or love scene
Day 21 – Favorite fictional romantic relationship
Day 22 – Favorite ending/climax
Day 23 – Most annoying character
Day 24 – Best quote
Day 25 – A book you plan on reading
Day 26 – OMG WTF? plot
Day 27 – Favourite non-mainstream writer
Day 28 – First book obsession
Day 29 – Current book obsession
Day 30 – Saddest character death

There has been much speculation that if Sinn Féin were to ‘win’ next year’s elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly next year, Martin McGuinness wil therefore automatically end up as First Minister; and in the course of the general election campaign this spring, and the UUP leadership election (which concludes this evening) since then, much has been made of the idea that if the Unionist parties are not united, McGuinness’ assent to the top spot is all but inevitable.

Now, it is not improbable (though I think unlikely) that Sinn Féin will be the largest party in terms of votes in next tear’s election. They topped the poll in both 2009 (for the European Parliament) and 2010 (for the Westminster election) as follows:

SF’s position at the top of the table in both elections was essentially achieved not so much by their own merits but by the DUP shedding support to the TUV in the European election, and by its support of independent candidates in two otherwise promising constituencies, North Down and Fermanagh-South Tyrone. Had the DUP contested either constituency in May, they would certainly have gained more than the 3700 votes necessary to top the right-hand side of this table.

It is worth pointing out, of course, that Assembly elections have often tended to provoke fragmentation among Unionists; that the TUV had a poor Westminster election but may have a better Assembly election; and that SF may be able to squeeze the SDLP still further than they have already done next May. But my own gut feeling is that any fragmentation will be more than compensated for by the return to party voting in North Down and FST; that the TUV are a busted flush; and that SF’s vote in 2009 and 2010, though impressive, was actually down from its historic high of 26.2% in the 2007 Assembly election. Other things being equal (normalement, as we say in Belgium) I therefore expect the DUP to return to the top spot next year.

In any case, it doesn’t matter much to the appointment of the heads of the government. The St Andrew Agreement, paragraph 9, has this to say about the appointment of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister:

The Nominating Officer of the largest party in the largest designation in the Assembly shall make a nomination to the Assembly Presiding Officer for the post of First Minister. The Nominating Officer of the largest party in the second largest designation in the Assembly shall similarly nominate for the post of Deputy First Minister.

This is translated into the legislation (section 8.1 of the Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006, which inserts a new Section 16A into the Northern Ireland Act 1998, if you are interested) as follows:

(4) The nominating officer of the largest political party of the largest political designation shall nominate a member of the Assembly to be the First Minister.
(5) The nominating officer of the largest political party of the second largest political designation shall nominate a member of the Assembly to be the deputy First Minister.

So in fact, if SF end up with 32 seats to the DUP’s 30, it doesn’t matter because if Unionist MLAs still outnumber Nationalist MLAs, the leader of the largest Unionist party in the Assembly still gets the top job.

The balance of Unionist v Nationalist MLAs in the Assembly has varied over the years as follows:

	1998	2003	2007
Unionists	58	59	55
Nationalists	42	42	44
Others	8	7	9

So, to pass the combined total of Unionist seats, Nationalists must make a net gain of six seats from Unionists in next year’s election, which is twice as many as the net advance of three which they made between 2003 and 2007 (and more than twice the net change from 1998 to 2007). I can see a couple coming out of the new boundaries, if the everything goes right for Nationalist parties, but I don’t see it being anywhere near enough to activate Section 16A.4 of the revised Northern Ireland Act on behalf of Martin McGuinness, or of any Nationalist politician, for some time to come.

Which makes me wonder what all the fuss has been about.

Edited to add: As Conal points out in comments, I have got this wrong. He draws my attention to the new Section 16C.6 of the 1998 Act as amended by Section 8 of the 2006 Act:

If at any time the party which is the largest political party of the largest political designation is not the largest political party—

(a) any nomination to be made at that time under section 16A(4) or 16B(4) shall instead be made by the nominating officer of the largest political party;

Which is pretty definitive that if SF get more seats than the DUP then Martin McGuinness gets to be First Minister.

I still don’t think it’s likely. SF could gain four seats on 2007 if the everything goes right (in FST, Upper Bann, Mid Ulster and East Antrim) but are pretty certain to lose one in Lagan Valley. But even if the DUP lose their most vulnerable seats (in Strangford, East Belfast, East Londonderry and South Down) they will still end up a tick ahead, 32 to 31. However I admit that it is a little less improbable than I had first thought.

i) births and deaths

22nd September 1944: birth of Fraser Hines, who played Jamie from 1966 to 1969, and has appeared in more Doctor Who episodes than anyone except the first four Doctors.

22nd September 1982: birth of Billie Piper, who played Rose in the first two series of New Who (2005-06) and reappeared in 2008 and 2010; has appeared in more New Who episodes than anyone except David Tennant.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

22nd September 1979: broadcast of fourth episode of Destiny of the Daleks. The Doctor defeats first the Movellans and then the Daleks, and Davros is captured and taken away for trial.

iii) date specified in canon

22nd September 1960: birth of Tegan Jovanka, as revealed in the 2006 Big Finish adventure The Gathering.

• the .doc file of J. Alfred Prufrock
  (tags: poetry funny)
• The new Unicode symbols
  Includes 1F63B, 'smiling cat face with heart-shaped eyes'
  (tags: alphabets)
• Elliott & McCrea – odds are that one of them will be elected « Slugger O'Toole
  Yet more UUP leadership commentary
  (tags: northernireland uup)
• A Pint of Unionist Lite: Paddy's still betting on Tom…
  More UUP leadership commentary
  (tags: northernireland uup)
• Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness: Is the UUP really set to become the Stumbling and Mumbling Party?
  UUP leadership election commentary (it's tomorrow)
  (tags: northernireland uup)
• The smart Dutch take on teen sex
  sane and sensible.
  (tags: sexandsexualityandgender)
• Somalia's prime minister resigns – CNN.com
  As Dorothy Parker said on being told of the death of Calvin Coolidge, 'How can they tell?'
  (tags: somalia)
• : Making life harder for the bomb-makers
  …or rather, why the EU doesn't do that as well as perhaps it could
  (tags: eu waronterror)
• Tor.com: Happy Birthday Mario!
  (tags: sf games)

Thanks to my obsessive book-blogging and cross-referencing, I can reveal that these are the top ten books on LibraryThing by popularity which I have given two or fewer stars out of five:

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Twilight by Stefenie Meyer
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

There are very few other books that I hate as much as I hate any on that list. (Though Doctor Who – The Twin Dilemma by Eric Saward is one.) Of the lot, I think the one that I hate far more than any other is the execrable Da Vinci Code. But my review of Angels and Demons is funnier.

Day 01 – Your favourite series of books (with more than 3 in the series)
Day 02 – A book that you wish more people had read
Day 03 – Your favorite recent book
Day 04 – Your favorite book ever
Day 05 – A book you hate
Day 06 – Your favourite writer
Day 07 – A writer you don’t like
Day 08 – Your favourite work in translation
Day 09 – Best scene ever
Day 10 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 11 – A book that disappointed you
Day 12 – An book you’ve read more than twice
Day 13 – Favorite childhood book
Day 14 – Favorite male character
Day 15 – Favorite female character
Day 16 – Your guilty pleasure book
Day 17 – Favorite trilogy or tetralogy
Day 18 – Favorite book cover
Day 19 – Best ensemble of characters in a book
Day 20 – Favorite kiss or love scene
Day 21 – Favorite fictional romantic relationship
Day 22 – Favorite ending/climax
Day 23 – Most annoying character
Day 24 – Best quote
Day 25 – A book you plan on reading
Day 26 – OMG WTF? plot
Day 27 – Favourite non-mainstream writer
Day 28 – First book obsession
Day 29 – Current book obsession
Day 30 – Saddest character death

broadcast anniversaries

21st September 1968: broadcast of second episode of The Mind Robber. Jamie turns into someone else with the same name; team Tardis meet Lemuel Gulliver and end up being charged by a unicorn.

21st September 1986: broadcast of third episode of Time and the Rani. Yet more running around with the Doctor ending up plugged into the machine which will drain his brain.

It is going to be tricky to answer questions like this otherwise than going on about The Lord of the Rings, which really is my favourite book ever but maybe is not such an interesting answer. One other book that I rate very highly is George Eliot’s Middlemarch, which puts a very human face on a historical period of rapid social, political and technological change – it may seem odd to say this, but I find it in some ways a rather sfnal novel, dealing as it does with the social impact of new knowledge, if admittedly from a historical rather than futuristic perspective. It is years since I last read it, and we don’t seem to have a copy in the house, but that is easily remedied.

A couple of other books that blew me away: Mary Gentle’s Ash, with its amazing rewriting of the later Middle Ages (and I am sorry to say that I have not really enjoyed any of her other books); and on a completely different and more sombre note, the Lost Lives anthology of the lives and deaths of victims of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which I have not actually finished but which left a searing impression.

Day 01 – Your favourite series of books (with more than 3 in the series)
Day 02 – A book that you wish more people had read
Day 03 – Your favorite recent book
Day 04 – Your favorite book ever
Day 05 – A book you hate
Day 06 – Your favourite writer
Day 07 – A writer you don’t like
Day 08 – Your favourite work in translation
Day 09 – Best scene ever
Day 10 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 11 – A book that disappointed you
Day 12 – An book you’ve read more than twice
Day 13 – Favorite childhood book
Day 14 – Favorite male character
Day 15 – Favorite female character
Day 16 – Your guilty pleasure book
Day 17 – Favorite trilogy or tetralogy
Day 18 – Favorite book cover
Day 19 – Best ensemble of characters in a book
Day 20 – Favorite kiss or love scene
Day 21 – Favorite fictional romantic relationship
Day 22 – Favorite ending/climax
Day 23 – Most annoying character
Day 24 – Best quote
Day 25 – A book you plan on reading
Day 26 – OMG WTF? plot
Day 27 – Favourite non-mainstream writer
Day 28 – First book obsession
Day 29 – Current book obsession
Day 30 – Saddest character death

i)
births and deaths

20th September 1925: birth of John Wiles, innovative producer who succeeded
Verity Lambert but did not last long in 1965-66.

20th September 1969: birth of Mina Anwar who plays Rani’s mother Gita in the
Sarah Jane Adventures.

20th September 1986: death of Dennis Spooner, script editor in 1965 and
author of The Reign of Terror (1964), The Romans (1965),
The Time Meddler (1965), much of The Daleks’ Master Plan
(1965-6) and the first episode of The Power of the Daleks (1966).

20th September 2000: death of Mary Ridge, who directed Terminus
(1983)

ii) broadcast anniversaries

20th September 1975: broadcast of fourth episode of Terror of the
Zygons. The Doctor foils the Zygons’ attempt to attack London with the
Loch Ness Monster, and Harry stays behind on Earth.

20th September 1980: broadcast of fourth episode of The Leisure Hive.
Pangol attempts to create an army of dupicates of himself, but the Doctor
and Romana regress him to infancy, and depart.

20th September 1986: broadcast of third episode of The Mysterious
Planet (ToaTL #3). The Doctor and Peri continue being chased
around the mysterious planet, now revealed to be Earth.

20th September 1989: broadcast of the third episode of Battlefield.
The grand battle between UNIT and Mordred’s forces, though this turns out to
have been a diversion.

Another up-tick in the quality of the annuals; the stories are actually rather good, though confusingly six out of nine feature Jo Grant rather than Sarah Jane Smith who was now the established companion (and in those that do have Sarah, she is depicted as blonde). The best of the generally very literate stories is the second of the two comic strips, “After the Revolution”, with art by Edgar Hodges (though author of the text unknown), which has the revolutionary leader still in charge of the planet of Freedonia [sic] decades after he came to power as a bottled brain; just a little political, perhaps. Apart from the obvious fact that none of the illustratorts had ever seen Elisabeth Sladen, the art is generally rather good too, and the prose fillers a bit less silly than the previous year.

Copied verbatim from p. 55:

Dr Who and his team have many important decisions to make and problems to work out on their voyages through space and time. How good are you at working out problems that don’t always have a simple, obvious solution? Try these brain teasers:

1. The tide is rising. and you’re sitting in a ship in the harbour. A rope ladder hangs over the side of the boat, its ends just touching the water. If the rungs of the rope ladder are one foot apart, and the tide rises at the rate of eight inches an hour, how many of the rungs will be covered after four hours?

2. How much earth is there in a hole two feet by two feet by two feet?

3. You’ve cooked a tasty pie for dinner. and all you have to do now is to cut it into eight pieces for your eight guests [part of the question is omitted – the answer makes it clear that you are only allowed three cuts of the pie]. How?

4. How could Dr Who stand behind Sarah and Sarah stand behind Dr Who – at the same time?

5. There are three apples in a basket and three people in a room. How can you give an apple to each person and still have one in the basket?

<

It’s been the year for reunions. Back in April I went to the 25-years-on reunion for Rathmore Grammar Schooledited to add see discussion of the late Peter Bowron below]; we’ve been better at keeping in touch; and it was not the first reunion we had had, so there was a bit more of an air of routine (though none the less welcome and enjoyable); and perhaps most important of all, the reunion was actually held in the college premises rather than in a function room four miles away. I thought that my college contemporaries had generally aged better than my school contemporarieshatred – so these pictures are not as good as I would have liked, but I think still presentable.

has a season ticket with Scudamore’s! I am fortunate in my choice of friends. So six of us set off for a quick excursion down memory lane the Cam in the morning.

Waiting on Clare Bridge for the season ticket to arrive, and admiring our surroundings.

Nick shows us how it is done.

Anne, Neal and James, sun in their eyes.

‘s turn, James and Nick at their ease.

I too had a go, and found the old skill came back, though it took more of a toll on my muscles than I realised at the time (shows how out of condition I am).

Again, I found it a very life-affirming experience to return to the college for a formal dinner (I had forgotten that it was supposed to be black tie, so was in normal business suit, but Clare is not a place that hugely cares about such things), hang about with old friends in the bar (the crypt, to be precise) until my energy dissipated about half past midnight (my wife managed to stay up much later than I did), and then a leisurely breakfast and more conversation on Saturday morning. We will try and be better at staying in touch in the ten years between this and the next reunion, promise.

Edited to add: poem by here.

I’m taking this to mean the best books which I have read for the first time since the start of 2010. This is where my LibraryThing cataloguing is useful – I see that I have awarded five stars to the following:

Non-fiction
The Language of the Night, by Ursula Le Guin
Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama
The Bloody Sunday report

Non-genre fiction
Njal’s Saga
The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
The Dubliners, by James Joyce
A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute
A Farewell To Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

sf and fantasy
The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett
The Turing Test, by Chris Beckett
Lavinia, by Ursula Le Guin

Another reading of the question would be my favourite book published this year. The only book on the above list in that category is the Bloody Sunday report, but other books of 2010 which I have enjoyed include:

Non-fiction
Triumph of a Time Lord by Matt Hills, a very approachable academic treatment of Doctor Who;
A Fortunate Life: The Autobiography of Paddy Ashdown

sf and fantasy (non-Who)
The Restoration Game by Ken MacLeod, which I read in proof last year and thought was fantastic;
The Hundred-Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

Doctor Who
Dead Air by James Goss, the final Tenth Doctor audio

Day 01 – Your favourite series of books (with more than 3 in the series)
Day 02 – A book that you wish more people had read
Day 03 – Your favorite recent book
Day 04 – Your favorite book ever
Day 05 – A book you hate
Day 06 – Your favourite writer
Day 07 – A writer you don’t like
Day 08 – Your favourite work in translation
Day 09 – Best scene ever
Day 10 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 11 – A book that disappointed you
Day 12 – An book you’ve read more than twice
Day 13 – Favorite childhood book
Day 14 – Favorite male character
Day 15 – Favorite female character
Day 16 – Your guilty pleasure book
Day 17 – Favorite trilogy or tetralogy
Day 18 – Favorite book cover
Day 19 – Best ensemble of characters in a book
Day 20 – Favorite kiss or love scene
Day 21 – Favorite fictional romantic relationship
Day 22 – Favorite ending/climax
Day 23 – Most annoying character
Day 24 – Best quote
Day 25 – A book you plan on reading
Day 26 – OMG WTF? plot
Day 27 – Favourite non-mainstream writer
Day 28 – First book obsession
Day 29 – Current book obsession
Day 30 – Saddest character death

This was an early entry on my list of sf and fantasy set in Ireland, since when I’ve got to know its author from various sf conventions; with slight embarrassment I admit that this is the first of Diane’s novels that I have actually read. It’s the fourth in sequence of her successful ‘Young Wizards’ series, and takes her protagonist Nita Callahan to Ireland from her home in the USA to do battle with the evil Lone Power by reuniting the four ancient treasures of Ireland; there’s also some relationship tension between her usual partner Kit and local boy Ronan. The author had lived long enough in Ireland by the time she wrote it to avoid the kind of Oirishry that infects most of the books on my checklist, and local readers will accept her apology for messing with the geography of County Wicklow and feel pleased that she caught the mood of the early 90s rather well. I guess the whole series now can be seen as an ancestor of both Buffy and Harry Potter, an earlyish example of the urban fantasy sub-genre. I may even look out for some of the others in the series, now that young F is approaching the target age.

I liked this book much more than I had expected to. The story moves back and forth between the 1940s and the 1980s, telling the life of its central character, Penelope Keeling, and her relationships with her artist father, her husband and her wartime lover, and her adult children; she’s a sympathetic character who deals sensibly with life’s challenges and makes her dispositions accordingly. Two of the three children are almost, bit not quite, too awful to believe; and by the end of the story everyone gets their just reward. I guess I picked this up thanks to its appearance the BBC Big Read list – I would never have looked for it otherwise – and although I doubt I will delve much further into the ‘Aga saga’ sub-genre I rather enjoyed this excursion.

date specified in canon

19th September 1835: The Sixth Doctor and Evelyn encounter Charles Darwin and the Silurians on the Galapagos Islands (in Bloodtide, a 2001 Big Finish audio – one of their best, IMHO).

Popery

This turns out to be the answer to one of the later questions as well, but I do wish more people had read Ali and Nino by ‘Kurban Said’, the great romantic novel of the South Caucasus. Set in the time period straddling the First World War, it’s the story of the love between Azeri boy Ali Khan and Georgian girl Nino Kipiani, culminating in the collapse of the British protectorate of Azerbaijan (which I’m sure you have all heard of) in 1919-20. Of course, it’s steeped in the cultural background of its author, an extraordinary character who was an Azeri-born Jew who converted to Islam and wrote Ali and Nino five years before his bizarre death in Italy in 1942. It’s really short and actually quite cheap from The Book Depository (and elsewhere) – go out and buy it!!!!!

>Day 01 – Your favourite series of books (with more than 3 in the series)
Day 02 – A book that you wish more people had read
Day 03 – Your favorite recent book
Day 04 – Your favorite book ever
Day 05 – A book you hate
Day 06 – Your favourite writer
Day 07 – A writer you don’t like
Day 08 – Your favourite work in translation
Day 09 – Best scene ever
Day 10 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 11 – A book that disappointed you
Day 12 – An book you’ve read more than twice
Day 13 – Favorite childhood book
Day 14 – Favorite male character
Day 15 – Favorite female character
Day 16 – Your guilty pleasure book
Day 17 – Favorite trilogy or tetralogy
Day 18 – Favorite book cover
Day 19 – Best ensemble of characters in a book
Day 20 – Favorite kiss or love scene
Day 21 – Favorite fictional romantic relationship
Day 22 – Favorite ending/climax
Day 23 – Most annoying character
Day 24 – Best quote
Day 25 – A book you plan on reading
Day 26 – OMG WTF? plot
Day 27 – Favourite non-mainstream writer
Day 28 – First book obsession
Day 29 – Current book obsession
Day 30 – Saddest character death

i) births and deaths

18th September 1963: birth of Gary Russell, former editor of Doctor Who Magazine, former producer at Big Finish, author of twelve Doctor Who novels (counting the book-of-the-movie) and of various other related books, script editor for The Waters of Mars and The End of Time, and director of the two Tenth Doctor animated stories.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

18th September 1965: broadcast of “Trap of Steel”, the third episode of the series we now call Galaxy 4. The Drahvins hold Steven hostage while the Doctor and Vicki are sent to explore the Rills’ ship; and Vicki is horrified when she actually sees one.

18th September 1976: broadcast of third episode of The Masque of Mandragora. Sarah is hypnotised and attempts to stab the Doctor; the Mandragora Helix gathers power.

I feel that I would like to have a bit more content in here, and these 30-day memes which are going around are rather attractive. The “book-lovers” meme starts by asking for your favourite series of books with more than three volumes. I’m going to give several answers, as I imagine will be the case for later installments too.

The Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold: Starts off as a slightly quirky set of space opera tales, the hero being both the Emperor’s cousin and a liberal dwarf; but culminates in a set of brilliant character studies – Mirror Dance, Memory, Komarr, and A Civil Campaign – which I would recommend to anyone. (I was disappointed by the more recent Diplomatic Immunity, but hope that the new volume just out will be a return to form.)

Other sf series: the various Doctor Who runs, obviously; apart from that I am a bit pushed to think of any set of four or more sf books in the same series, all of which I have both read and enjoyed.

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin: Tolkien excepted, I find it difficult to care much about epic fantasy. But Martin’s series set in a world halfway between Middle Earth and the Wars of the Roses, told partly through the eyes of a family of noble children, growing up in the middle of a civil war which tears them apart, is an exception, though I wish there was a bit more action in the more recent books (and that the next one will come out soon). Really looking forward to the TV series of this one.

Other favourite fantasy series: Pratchett’s Discworld, Zelazny’s Amber (first half); Le Guin’s Earthsea; Gaiman’s Sandman; Bill Willingham’s Fables; Juliet McKenna. Odd how fantasy seems to lend itself more to series than sf; showing its roots in the sagas?

The Rebus series by Ian Rankin: A relatively recent discovery for me, in a genre that I had not otherwise read much since I was a teenager. Rankin’s Scotland is as much a fantasy country for me as Barrayar or Westeros, and he subverts the police procedural by turning his magnifying glass on the structure of society and the nature of justice; Rebus’ own flawed character is a mirror for his society in a way.

Other mystery series I used to read: Lindsey Davies’ Falco stories set in ancient Rome, which are frankly a bit variable; Patricia Cornell’s Scarpetta novels, about a forensic pathologist in Virginia, which I felt got repetitive and implausible as the series went on; and Janet Evanovich’s series about New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, which stopped being funny after a while. As a teenager I also devoured Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy L. Sayers, of which I suspect only the last-named would survive a return visit today.

I am sure there are horrendous omissions from the above, but those are what came to mind.

Day 01 – Your favourite series of books (with more than 3 in the series)
Day 02 – A book that you wish more people had read
Day 03 – Your favorite recent book
Day 04 – Your favorite book ever
Day 05 – A book you hate
Day 06 – Your favourite writer
Day 07 – A writer you don’t like
Day 08 – Your favourite work in translation
Day 09 – Best scene ever
Day 10 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 11 – A book that disappointed you
Day 12 – An book you’ve read more than twice
Day 13 – Favorite childhood book
Day 14 – Favorite male character
Day 15 – Favorite female character
Day 16 – Your guilty pleasure book
Day 17 – Favorite trilogy or tetralogy
Day 18 – Favorite book cover
Day 19 – Best ensemble of characters in a book
Day 20 – Favorite kiss or love scene
Day 21 – Favorite fictional romantic relationship
Day 22 – Favorite ending/climax
Day 23 – Most annoying character
Day 24 – Best quote
Day 25 – A book you plan on reading
Day 26 – OMG WTF? plot
Day 27 – Favourite non-mainstream writer
Day 28 – First book obsession
Day 29 – Current book obsession
Day 30 – Saddest character death

On Friday last week we had a major moment of family drama – B, our eldest, who is severely disabled and lives in permanent residential care 30 km away from us, went down with serious food poisoning and had to go into hospital. Because she can’t talk and can be rather difficult if people mess with her (eg, giving her medicine, or more specifically putting a drip in her arm), Anne had to go and stay with her full-time in hospital; I had to rush back early from my business trip to Moldova and look after the other two until B was discharged on Tuesday – not yet fully recovered, but well enough to return to her home.

I found sudden single parenthood tremendously exhausting (I had picked up a nasty bug on my travels which didn’t help the energy levels) and now appreciate my good fortune in the normal management of our household even more than I already did. My wife is pretty amazing, and I am a very lucky man.

And I boggle with admiration for anyone who is a single parent and also has a full-time job.

Thanks to the wonderful , who recorded it on the night and sent it over to me, I’ve been watching my TV appearance on BBC Northern Ireland for the general election coverage back in May. One thing that jumped out at me now, which I was too busy to pick up on the night, was the different reactions of the DUP and UUP to the fate of their leaders. Arlene Foster in the studio and Ian Paisley jr at his count were clearly disappointed but not shocked at Peter Robinson’s defeat; thinking about it, and reflecting on my conversations at the time with DUP activists, there had clearly been a central party decision to prepare lines to take once it was realised that East Belfast had probably been lost, and all DUP speakers were well briefed. By contrast, David McNarry of the UUP, asked to react to Reg Empey’s failure in South Antrim, hemmed and hawed for ages (despite Noel Thompson’s prodding) before declaring that Empey’s leadership was finished. The party’s campaign ended as it had started and continued, in confusion and without any real preparation. The new leader elected on Wednesday will have a very tough job ahead of him.

While I’m on the UUP election, Alan in Belfast has done a fascinating pair of video interviews with the two candidates. He rightly identifies the key differentiating question as one that is not overtly about politics at all.

Mac or PC?

[Elliott] Oh, PC.

Tom is traditional, conservative, low key and low risk. There used to be a phrase in industry that said “no one ever got sacked for buying IBM”. And Tom fits that space. I doubt whether as leader he would change much of the party structures or its appeal, and if I was a UUP member I’d worry that his profile outside the party would be lower than Margaret Ritchie and David Ford. He comes across as steady rather than inspirational. A good man to have on your team, but does he have the right strengths to be coach and leader?

[McCrea] “Undecided. Dithering with a Mac, but probably PC.”

Basil comfortably lives life on the edge. He can make decisions, but he’ll postpone making the commitment as long as possible. While he projects the image that if he wins he’ll turn the party upside down, the reality might be more nuanced. He’s media savvy and comfortable talking. At Proms in the Park – on his Hillsborough constituency doorstep – he managed to appear on the big screen at the side of the stage twice by standing in the right place striking the right pose when the producer needed a fun crowd shot. While a (very) small number of MLAs and councillors might walk away from the party if Basil is elected leader, he’d be well shot of them, even if it means his chance of winning back lots of Assembly seats for the UUP is even more remote. He sounds like a leader, and projects a mood of hope: growing the vote, beating the DUP. But he’ll need all the hope he can muster along with asbestos underwear if the UUP members vote him in as leader in the Waterfront next Wednesday.

For a contest in which I have very little stake – I’ve never voted UUP, have not lived in Northern Ireland for over thirteen years, and can’t really imagine the party changing to the point where I might vote for them in the unlikely event of my moving back – I’ve been grimly fascinated by this leadership election. I think it’s partly that the party’s campaign earlier this year was so monumentally badly run from a political-technical point of view, and I want to know what happens next; and partly also that the Unionist bloggers, and Alan and the rest of the Slugger O’Toole team, have made it a commendably open process (even if this doesn’t always go with the UUP’s own instincts). Anyway, come Wednesday evening it will all be over.

i) births and deaths

17th September 1972: death of Peter Stephens, who played Cyril, the Kitchen Boy, and the Knave of Hearts in The Celestial Toymaker (1966), and Lolem the high priest in The Underwater Menace (1967).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

17th September 1966: broadcast of third episode of The Smugglers. Ben and Polly use witchcraft to escape the villagers, but are recaptured; the Doctor fails to escape the pirates.

17th September 1977: broadcast of third episode of Horror of Fang Rock. People start dying; Reuben starts glowing; and the Doctor admits to Leela that he has locked the enemy in rather than out.

17th September 1993: broadcast of fourth episode of The Paradise of Death on BBC radio. Some very weird stuff with tame giant bats.

i) births and deaths

None that grabbed me.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

16th September 1967: broadcast of episode 3 of Tomb of the Cybermen. The Cybermen reveal their plan to convert all the explorers into Cybermen; the expedition have different views on this prospect.

16th September 1978: broadcast of episode 3 of The Ribos Operation. K9 rescues the Doctor and Romana from the Graff, but they encounter him again in the catacombs (with Binro the Heretic).

iii) date specified in canon

16th September 1909: Martha and the Tenth Doctor get caught up in Lord Haleston’s hunt for monsters near the Lake District village of Templewell (in Stephen Cole’s 2007 novel, Sting of the Zygons).

It’s very rare for Doctor Who to visit Ireland – the only other story set there of which I am aware is Simon Guerrier’s Seventh Doctor audio, The Settling, which took a measured look at Cromwell’s campaign. So I was looking forward to The Book of Kells as another Whovian take on my home territory, not worrying too much about whether it was any good.

The setting is Kells, Co Meath, in the year 1006; the plot is basically people running around after the famous Book, trying alternately to steal it and to prevent its theft, which gets a little pointless by the end – though in fact the real point of the play is two big reveals, one at the end of each episode, the first of which I should really have seen coming, and the second of which I might have spotted if I’d looked more carefully at the CD cover.

The Irish setting is not developed in huge detail, and I doubt if it would pass muster with anyone who knows more than I do about the period. King Sitric of Dublin apparently has jurisdiction over the Kells monastery, which I suspect is not really accurate. Terence Hardiman and Graeme Garden are rather delightful as King Sitric and the abbot. The new companion, alas, really doesn’t gel for me as yet. Though the ending of the story hints that she may be supplanted before long. Let’s hope.

I really don’t see why not. Announcement here, pledges here.