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Monthly Archives: August 2012
Worldcon London Party 2 September
For those who are interested in the proposed 2014 London Worldcon, and in reach of the city on Sunday (unfortunately I'll be on a plane going east): Originally posted by at London Party Originally published at London in 2014. You … Continue reading
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Links I found interesting for 29-08-2012
Kerry Kennedy: A Brush With Morocco’s Secret Police in Laayoune, Moroccan-Occupied Western Sahara (PHOTOS) Moroccan police harassing RFK’s granddaughter.(tags: westernsahara ) The Billionaire Who Would Rule Georgia: An Interview With Ivanishvili – Armin Rosen – The Atlantic A frank interview.(tags: … Continue reading
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Links I found interesting for 28-08-2012
BBC News – Wayne Soutter makes history with North Channel swim First person to swim from Scotland to Ireland (as far as we know).(tags: sport ) Amazon.co.uk: Customer Reviews: BIC For Her Amber Medium Ballpoint Pen (Box of 12) – … Continue reading
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August Books 27) The Poison Factory, by Oisín McGann
Short kids’ urban fantasy novel, somewhat sub-Diana Wynne Jones with added toilet humour; the sinister factory in the neighbourhood is responsible for the horrors of modern food, and our heroes destroy it with explosive pee. (Sorry about the spoiler, but … Continue reading
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Links I found interesting for 27-08-2012
Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction | kglobal Georgian politics: a US consultant writes.(tags: georgia ) steve_mollmann: A Man, a Can, a Microwave That’s one modestly-sized microwave for man…(tags: space ) wwhyte: Interesting Links for 27-08-2012 A roundup of links about … Continue reading
August Books 26) Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Sometimes great classics (often by American writers) fail to grab me and I’m afraid this was one of those times. The novel follows the dubiously named psychiatrist Dick Diver, his wife and former patient Nicole, and the young actress Rosemary … Continue reading
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August Books 25) The Space Age, by Steve Lyons
An Eighth Doctor Adventure that I felt might have worked better as a TV episode; in a dying city on a desolated planet, two gangs of mods and rockers, kidnapped from 1965 England many years before, are preparing for the … Continue reading
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Links I found interesting for 26-08-2012
First Man, by Neil Hansen Review of biography of Neil Armstrong.(tags: space ) A Man On The Moon, by Andrew Chaiking My review of a book about the Moon landings.(tags: space ) Moondust, by Andrew Smith Another book about the … Continue reading
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August Books 24) Warlock, by Andrew Cartmel
I thought this was a particularly good New Adventure, a partial (though independent) sequel to the much earlier Warhead, taking the Doctor, Ace and Benny to very near-future England and America to deal with a peculiar new drug and a … Continue reading
HTC Desire for sale
After two years, I've had enough; I have been using my loathed Android HTC Desire for videos and ebooks, and that's OK, but I think I may as well sell it on to anyone who wants to try out the … Continue reading
August Books 23) The Great California Game, by Jonathan Gash
Completely by chance, the next in the random selection of Lovejoy books I have picked up recently takes place immediately after Jade Woman, which I read earlier this month. Lovejoy has escaped Hong Kong and arrives penniless in New York, … Continue reading
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Geopolitics: Sweden vs the UK
Blogging has been pretty light here for a while – I had almost no net access for my three weeks in Ireland, and last week has been spent catching up on other stuff. So I have missed my chance to … Continue reading
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August Books 22) Emil and the Detectives, by Erich Kästner
Classic children’s books, which I had first read many years ago long before I got to know and love Berlin, the city in which it is set. It’s a very basic but charming story of the young and smart and … Continue reading
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August Books 21) Yearwood, by Paul Hazel
I’d had this on my list for years as a fantasy book set in a disguised Ireland. It isn’t really; there’s Irish, Welsh and Norse bits and pieces all jumbled up in a quest tale where I didn’t really get … Continue reading
Doctor Who in the Countdown Annual 1972
I bought this a month ago in Broadstairs, and am now able to share with you both the exciting two-page documentary on the making of The Dæmons and an exclusive Doctor Who comic strip story. Here’s the documentary: Page 59 … Continue reading
August Books 20) The Wheel of Ice, by Stephen Baxter
Two years ago I was at the DiscWorld Convention in Birmingham, and was drawn for a place in a kaffeeklatsch with Stephen Baxter, who had just begun his Long Earth collaboration with Terry Pratchett, but whose work I have known … Continue reading
August Books 19) The Quantum Rose, by Catherine Asaro
Many years ago, when this book originally won the Nebula, I read it and was distinctly underwhelmed. But that was in the days before my bookblogging became serious; now that I am almost finished working through the Nebula winners, I … Continue reading
August Books 17-18) The Book of / Return of the Bunny Suicides, by Andy Riley
A single-frame joke stretched out to fill two short books. The two that really made me laugh were the Fatal Attraction riff in the first book and the Doctor Who joke in the second.
August Books 16) Barbaraal Tot Op Het Bot, by Barbara Stok
A couple of years back I read one of Stok’s more recent albums, Nu We Toch Hier Zijn and enjoyed it; this is her first collection, a series of autobiographical stories in comic strip format, set around her student days … Continue reading
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August Books 15) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, by Émile Durkheim
I should stop readng the classic works on religion and culture, because I always end up disappointed. In this classic anthropological analysis from the first years of the twentieth century, Durkheim generalises from studies of the totem cults of Australia … Continue reading
Links I found interesting for 15-08-2012
United Airlines Lost My Friend’s 10 Year Old Daughter And Didn’t Care – Bob Sutton The title says it all.(tags: usa ) Next Westminster Election in NI – Early Preview No boundary changes; so what changes are possible?(tags: northernireland ) … Continue reading
August Books 14) Jade Woman, by Jonathan Gash
Another Lovejoy book with a particularly implausible plot, allowing Gash to place his hero in Hong Kong (not contemporary 1980s Hong Kong, but the 1960s city that the author clearly knew well and loved) for fun with organised crime, sex … Continue reading
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August Books 13) With The Light vol. 5, by Keiko Tobe
I’m working through this excellent manga series about the difficulties of raising an autistic child in contemporary Japan; in this volume, Hikaru Azuma finishes elementary school and moves on to junior high, his mother Sachiko dealing with the problems of … Continue reading
Links I found interesting for 14-08-2012
Romney’s Not So Bold Choice “By choosing Ryan, who has little foreign experience and who despite, like most of the people on the planet, being more exciting than Romney, is hardly an inspiring figure or great orator, Romney did not … Continue reading
August Books 12) The Reign of Elizabeth 1558-1603, by J.B. Black
This is the eighth of the original 14-volume Oxford History of England, originally published in 1936 but revised in 1959. I can’t very easily count the number of books I have read recently about Elizabeth right now; this is one … Continue reading
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August Books 11) Morgoth’s Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien
Having moved through the process of revisiting the compilation of The Lord of the Rings, the History of Middle-Earth now starts into Tolkien’s later working through of his mythology. I found a lot of this material very interesting and it … Continue reading
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Links I found interesting for 12-08-2012
Declassified Photos Reveal CIA’s Deep-Sea Rescue of a Spy Satellite Old news, but fascinating.(tags: technology ) Huge pumice ‘island’ floating in Pacific Extraordinary.(tags: ) Sport in schools: the debate With comments from prominent martial arts practitioner and ex-ambassador.(tags: ukpolitics ) … Continue reading
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August Books 10) A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeleine L’Engle
This classic book is fifty years old; it was first published in 1962. Young F absorbed it with enthusiasm a few months back, and now I have reread it properly; of course I first read it when I was almost … Continue reading
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Links I found interesting for 11-08-2012
How Your Sweet Valley High gets made Ghostwriter tells all!(tags: writing ) Close Obama ally rated worst ambassador in the State Department How not to be an ambassador!(tags: southsudan usa ) Georgian Opposition Claims Repression …government getting too nervous to … Continue reading
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Links I found interesting for 10-08-2012
Georgian politics: Bread and circuses Opposition footballer’s assets frozen by democracy-loving government t.(tags: georgia ) Pigs! And! Communists! Freddy and the Men from Mars I remember this fondly from when I was 7. Or maybe 6.(tags: sf ) Talking cars … Continue reading
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