Monthly Archives: August 2012

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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.

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →

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 →