I’ve taken a bit of a sabbatical from the usual reading this week.

Current
Watership Down, by Richard Adams (a chapter a week)
Glorious Angels, by Justina Robson
Naamah's Curse by Jacqueline Carey
Illegal Alien by Mike Tucker 

Last books finished
The Road to Ruin: how Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin destroyed their own government, by Niki Savva
The Sandman: Overture, by Neil Gaiman
House Party, by Rachael Smith

Last week’s audios
Welcome to Night Vale, episodes 81-83

Next books
Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis
A Princess of Roumania by Paul Park
Another Girl, Another Planet by Martin Day

Books acquired in last week
The Road to Ruin: how Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin destroyed their own government, by Niki Savva
The Sandman: Overture, by Neil Gaiman
House Party, by Rachael Smith
Adolf, an Exile in Japan, by Osamu Tezuka
Easter 1916: selected archive pieces from the New Statesman

Episode 11: A Helping Hound
First shown: 21 November 1970 (US), 19 March 1971 (UK)
Director: Jeremy Summers
Writer: Jan Butlin
Appearing apart from the Double Deckers:
Melvyn Hayes as Albert

Graham Stark as Mr. Brimble the Landlord
Nora Nicholson as Mrs. Vickers
Nicholas Phipps as the Garden Owner
Jennifer Daniel as Snowflake's Owner
(Snowflake doesn't seem to get credited)

Plot

The gang's friend Mrs Vickers risks eviction by her landlord because of the condition of her house. The gang try to fix it up, but screw up; they try to earn money to fix it up, but screw up; meanwhile Tiger, who has been told to go away because she is too little, gets a reward for finding a dog and uses it to pay for repairs to Mrs Vickers' house.

Glorious Moments

Not actually one of the great episodes, but there are three brilliant slapstick sequences: the two house repair scenes, and the garden work scene.

The most memorable moment is Albert and Billy skating together through the wallpaper paste.

Also Tiger gets some nice scenes with the dog.

Less glorious moments

Scooper puts his finger on it a few minutes in, when he protests that "the landlord is responsible for structural [problems]". The entire plot depends on a complete inversion of landlord/tenant law. (I'm not an expert on this, but my wife actually is, and two chaps who I knew in Belfast, one of whom subsequently became First Minister of Northern Ireland, literally wrote the book on Northern Ireland Housing Law.) If the gang had consulted a lawyer in the first place, they would have been advised to tell Mr Brimble that it was his job, not Mrs Vickers', to sort out the dodgy walls, doors and floors.

Apart from the gruesome mistake of law, it takes the Double Deckers far from the usual comfort zone of brushing into authority which is then won over by ἀγάπη. Instead they get involved in a nasty civil dispute which they actually make worse. Tiger and Spring get some good lines, and Billie and Albert get to dance, but otherwise none of the characters does anything much, including particularly the guests.

And god bless Tiger, using the reward money that she has earned despite being snubbed by the rest to boost the gang's plan to save Mrs Vickers.

What's all this then?

Glyn Jones, the script editor, recalls that when he solicited stories for the show, "I received half a dozen ideas of which there was only one I could commission. It was disappointing to say the least. Even the one commissioned had to have a virtual rewrite." I suspect that may have been this episode.

In the "Double Deckers Memories" feature on the DVD, Michael Audreson (Brains) reflects (rather inaudibly – his microphone seems to have been turned off) that there were only three plots in Here Come The Double Deckers. “I would invent something which would go wrong, we would meet some hapless adult whose life was in such a mess that they resorted to the help of a bunch of kids, and we would go on an outing somewhere with hilarious results.” This is a slightly warped version of the second combined with the third: the hapless adult, rather than being a charming pop singer, is a little old lady to whom the gang decide to do a Good Turn.

The evil landlord is a stock farce character, though even farces tended to get basic points of law right.

Where's that?

Mrs Vicker's house is 8 Malden Road, Borehamwood, and it is still there.
The garden that the gang try to fix up looks to me like the same one used in Robbie the Robot. It was in the studio in Borehamwood, now demolished.
Snowflake's owner presumably also lived in Borehamwood.

Who's that?

Graham Stark (Mr. Brimble the Landlord), born in 1922, could be considered the fifth Goon, standing in for Spike Milligan on the radio show when he was ill and later appearing in several Pink Panther films. His forte was supporting comedic roles like this, though he did get his own TV show briefly in 1964. He died in 2013.

Nora Nicholson (Mrs. Vickers), born in 1892, had been playing frail ladylike characters on TV for decades. She was given a wider range as a stage actress. This was one of her last roles; she died in 1973.

Nicholas Phipps (the Garden Owner), born in 1913, who tended to play stiff-upper-lip types was perhaps better known as a writer than an actor and adapted Richard Gordon’s book Doctor in the House for the screen in 1954, as well as its sequels. He seems to have stopped writing in 1963 and this is his last credited acting role. He died in 1980.

Jennifer Daniel (Snowflake's Owner) was born in 1939 (IMDB) or 1936 (Wikipedia). At this point she was best known as the female lead in 1960s horror films such as The Kiss of the Vampire (1963) and The Reptile (1966). She went on to a fairly standard career of supporting roles in TV and drama, of which the most recent bigone was Mrs Linton in the 1992 Wuthering Heights with Juliette Binoche as Cathy.

Jan Butlin (writer) had at this point been better known as an actress, especially as one of the girls on the Benny Hill Show. But from here on she became a writer with five sitcoms to her credit, Life Begins at Forty (1978-1980), That Beryl Marston…! (1981), Third Time Lucky (1982), Hell’s Bells (1986) and No Strings (1989), three of which starred Derek Nimmo. She was born in 1940, and died in 1998.

Jeremy Summers (director) might not have been quite as high-powered as Charles Crichton, the director of last week’s episode, but he still had a pretty impressive record, mostly with TV detective shows (seven episodes of the original Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Riptide, The Vengeance of Fu Manchu). Later in his career he settled down and directed soaps, most recently a 2001 episode of Brookside. He was born in 1931 and may well still be with us.

See you next week…

…for Invaders from Space.

Now that Nina Allan’s essay is available in electronic form (for a price), I feel able to rank the BSFA Non-Fiction shortlist. (I am still thinking about Best Short Fiction, and still finishing one of the novels.)

5) “Time Pieces: Doctor Change or Doctor Die”, by Nina Allan. I don’t particularly mind one way or the other if a future incarnation of the Doctor is female, though clearly other feel much more strongly than I do – the first person to suggest it, as far as I know, was Tom Baker in his valedictory press conference in 1980. But I don’t think A.L. Kennedy is a key figure in the debate; she has written precisely one Doctor Who book, admittedly a good one, twice (first in short form and then expanded to full length). It would have been more enlightening to parse the cryptic hints dropped now and then by the show-runners, on and off the record, about the Doctor’s possible future gender identity.

4) “From Annihilation to Acceptance: a writer’s surreal journey”, by Jeff Vandermeer. A frustrating essay for me. I often enjoy accounts of how-the-book-was-writ and how-the-show-was-made, and I quite enjoyed the Southern Reach trilogy when I read it for the Clarke Award (though not enough to shortlist it). However this piece didn’t bridge the gaps between creative effort and working life sufficiently to interest me.

3) “What Price, Your Critical Agency?”, by Jonathan McCalmont. Now we’re getting into the stuff I really did enjoy. This is an interesting examination of the unwritten Faustian deal between publisher and reviewer, and raises very interesting questions. (I should make it clear that I have usually paid for the books I review here.) It’s a longish blog post with one good idea, developed in detail.

2) Rave and Let Die: The SF and Fantasy of 2014, by Adam Roberts. I enjoyed this when I read it for the BSFA long list, and I stand by that judgement. Probably none of the individual essays is as strong as the Jonathan McCalmont piece I am ranking below it, but the cumulative effect is greater and, as far as I am concerned, more award-worthy. I can live with non-fiction awards occasionally going to blog posts, but most work is improved by going through the refining fire of the publication process.

1) Letters to Tiptree, eds Alisa Krasnostein and Alexandra Pierce. I got this more or less the day it was published, and hugely enjoyed it. It’s a lovely, original, stimulating, tragic take on a hugely important figure in the history of the genre, including also some moving correspondence from Sheldon herself. As soon as I read it, I suspected I would end up giving it my vote; and I will.

I’ve complained tediously in past years that the BSFA Non-Fiction category was not really delivering a usable shortlist. This year, the two-stage nomination process has clearly made a difference in this case. None of these nominees is bad; two of them didn’t appeal to me, but I can understand how they might appeal to others; and any one of them is better than any of the finalists for Best Related Work that Brad Torgersen and Vox Day put on last year’s Hugo ballot.

It will be interesting to hear the reflections of those most closely involved as to whether the (considerable) extra effort that the new method requires of a volunteer staff is justified by an improved output. But I think the output in the Non-Fiction category has definitely improved.

Incidentally, the BSFA award for Non-Fiction has been awarded a total of 11 times – to twelve men and one woman (she and one of the men have won twice). Does that really reflect the state of commentary on the genre?

4 Antwerp policemen facing serious charges

This is appalling.
(tags: Belgium )

The Journalist and the Troll: Benjamin Wey Spent Two Years Trying to Destroy Me Online

A shocking story of harassment.
(tags: internet )

My Dad and Donald Trump

In a moving piece, a right-winger expresses doubt.
(tags: uspolitics )

Back in 2004 I analysed the possible permutations of the application of the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the event that neither John Kerry nor George W. Bush got a majority in the Electoral College in that year’s election.

My conclusion was that in such a scenario, Republican congressmen would pick the next President, which would certainly have been Bush in that case. To remind you, if there is no candidate with a majority of votes in the electoral college, the House of Representatives votes, each state casting a single vote, and a majority of all states is require. This has happened only once since the Twelfth Amendment was passed, in 1825.

In 2004, Republicans held the majority of Congressment from 30 out of 50 states, Democrats had a majority in 14, and six delegations were evenly split. By my calculation, a uniform swing giving Kerry a 7.2% lead would have been sufficient to get him the vote of 26 out of 50 state delegations; but of course it would not have mattered as by then he would have been far ahead in the electoral college anyway.

This year it’s even tougher. By my count, Republicans currently have a majority of the representatives from 33 of the 50 states; Democrats again 14; and three are evenly balanced. Some of those we could naturally expect to shift back into the Democrat column in a half-decent year – the Republicans won the fifth of their nine seats in Arizona by 109,704 votes to 109,543 in 2014, so that will likely switch at the merest breath of a national swing. New Hampshire’s two seats are currently split between the parties, but the Republicans will lose on a 2% swing. However as one goes down the list it becomes increasingly difficult to see where the Democratic gains come from. My rough calculations require a 7% swing to pull the Democrats ahead of the Republicans by 25 states to 24, with Nevada split evenly; the jump to the 26th state is then a good deal further. (See the very useful Daily Kos guide to the 2014 results.)

This only matters if there is no candidate with a majority in the electoral college. In 2004 (and 2008 and 2012) that seemed very improbable, requiring basically a tie at 269 votes each. This year things are different; might a mainstream Republican running against Trump as a third-party candidate, or a ragequitting Trump cheated of the nomination at the convention running against the official Republican, manage to split the vote three ways with Clinton (who to all but the most starry-eyed must surely be a cert as the Democratic nominee, but also clearly has difficulty reaching some parts of the electorate) to the extent that all three are deprived of the 270th electoral college vote?

Some are already convinced that this will happen. I can see a logic to it. For some political leaders, it may be worth having a messy convention outcome and a campaign riven by disputed legitimacy if the result is that the next President is chosen, not by the unreliable and fickle electorate, but by the disciplined members of the House of Representatives.

If so, the fate of the nation may end up resting on the decision of that third representative from Nevada.

I just want to note that has persuaded me to alter my post about Fantasy and the Easter Rising. I had noticed that the account of how Lord Dunsany was injured was rather different from James Stephens’ eyewitness account of how “Sir Horace Plunkett’s nephew” was injured, but I assumed that Dunsany was embellishing his account; how likely could it be that his uncle, Sir Horace Plunkett, had two nephews who were both injured during the Rising?

But of course Sir Horace was a man of many talents, and many nephews, and it was indeed the case that the incident involving Lord Dunsany – injured by the rebels – was entirely different from the incident involving Thomas Ponsonby of Kilcooley – injured by the British in a friendly fire incident. So I have corrected my account, with thanks to .

What Students in Europe Learn That Americans Don’t

An effective summary.
(tags: education )

A man’s discovery of bones under his pub could forever change what we know about the Irish

Genetics vs Celtic mist!
(tags: ireland genealogy )

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Clare confided that in her previous life, not long after she had agreed to join the staff of former Labor minister Greg Combet, she was told that if she wanted to know what her life would be like as a press secretary, she should read my book, So Greek. She reached the bit where, early one day, my old boss, the treasurer, Peter Costello, sent the receptionist, Philippa, to get me out of the toilet in his Melbourne office, and I ended the same day by dropping the F-bomb on him in his Sydney hotel suite. This experience appeared in the opening pages, providing the title for what I thought would be my one-and-only book. Clare wobbled when she read that passage. She lasted six months in the job.

This is a book about Australian politics, of which I know little despite four years working for one of its more memorable characters. (He is quoted twice, one on the "Relevance Deprivation Syndrome" that hits politicians who have been removed from office, and once on Bronwyn Bishop: "Why do people take an instant dislike to her? It saves time.")

The story told is of the collapse of the government of Tony Abbott, who won the September 2013 election for the Liberal Party (as you know, Bob, the Liberals in Australia are the main right-wing party) and was then thrown out by his own MPs just before his second anniversary in power, six months ago. Savva is a journalist, but a journalist with a privileged position; she makes no secret of her support for the Liberals, who employ her husband and who she has worked for herself; and she somewhat obsessively tracks the last text messages sent by the protagonists to herself and to those she is friendly with. It's also a book written for those with more knowledge of and interest in Australian politics than I have; many crucial points of reference are simply not explained to the reader (eg the Bronwyn Bishop helicopter affair). The structure and style are journalistic rather than analytical, which I sometimes find tiresome.

But at the same time, it's a great study of how a political career can crash and burn. Two political careers, in fact, because Abbott's right hand (and occasionally brain and mouth) throughout his leadership, Peta Credlin, is portrayed as a key factor in his failure – centralising information flow, bullying staffers and political colleagues, leaking important stories to selected journalists (Savva seems never to have been one of them), demanding and getting special treatment way beyond the norm for her office. Abbott's key failing was that he took no interest in what other people thought, in particular his MPs but indeed Australians as a whole; Credlin's failing was that she protected him rather than help him deal with the problem, to the point that she became part of the problem herself.

Savva has been criticised for concentrating so much fire on Credlin, in the context of the atrocious misogyny directed at Julia Gillard during her term as Prime Minister from 2010 to 2013, and in particular for her coverage of the rumours that Abbott and Credlin were having an affair. But in fact she finds the rumours unfounded (though their relationship was clearly one of deep and unhealthy co-dependence) and it is hardly Savva's fault that the rumours were circulating. One could have wished for a more forensic interrogation of why there are always rumours of this kind in this sort of situation, but she actually isn't all that interested in it, unlike some of her readers.

In any case, she is very clear that responsibility for reining Credlin in rested with Abbott, and he failed to exercise it. I found it fascinating that the two key moments which prompted rebellions against him – one unsuccessful in February, and the successful one in September – were only marginally related to policy issues at all. The precipitating issue in February was Abbott's decision to award a knighthood to Prince Philip, which attracted widespread criticism for being tone-deaf and an unnecessary investment of political capital when there were much more serious problems to address. Abbott survived the February push, and promised to listen more in future. But his disastrous handling of an internal party discussion on same-sex marriage in August, which achieved the remarkable feat of deeply enraging both sides of the argument, was the final straw in convincing a majority to get rid of him – and the problem was not the policy itself, but the way in which Abbott dealt with it.

Savva's hour-by-hour account of how the coup was executed is the core of the book, and is very good writing. (The other really good passage is a historical description of how his staffers dealt with the disappearance of Prime Minister Harold Holt, who went swimming in the sea one day in 1967 and never came back.) On the backbenches, Abbott appears to have learned nothing and forgotten nothing – he blames his fall on "white-anting", an Australianism (that I had to look up) referring to termites undermining buildings; in other words, he was undermined because he was being undermined. He continues to ungraciously snipe at his successor, to Savva's dismay; she makes it clear that Abbott's behaviour risked and still risks bringing about what she regards as the ultimate catastrophe, the return to power of the Labour Party. I think reasonable people can disagree with her on that last point!

Thanks to Ryan Heath of POLITICO for flagging this up to me.

Ireland is perpetually reminded these days that it is exactly 100 years since the Easter Rising of 1916, when a small force of revolutionary militia, combining romantic nationalists and hardline socialists, seized control of various strong points of central Dublin and held them for five days before surrendering to British forces diverted from the war then raging in Europe.

The events touched many people, some in unexpected ways. Nevil Shute, the classic stiff-upper-lip British writer of solid yet moving engineering stories, best known in sf circles for the twice-filmed 1957 post-apocalyptic On The Beach, a novel of a dying Australia, was a 17-year-old in Dublin in 1916 whose father, Arthur Hamilton Norway, was the official head of the General Post Office which became the headquarters of the short-lived Provisional Government during Easter Week. His mother wrote a moving account of The Sinn Féin Rebellion As I Saw It. Nevil , too young to fight, was pressed into service as a stretcher-bearer; by his mother’s account, he had a thrilling time (much to his parents’ dismay), but I wonder how much this early experience of combat influenced his later writing which often seems to circle around the themes of conflict and pointless death.

Lord Dunsany (full name Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany) had been publishing fiction for over a decade by 1916, and remains one of the most prolific fantasy writers of all time. Like most chaps of his class, he had joined the British forces (specifically the Inniskilling Fusliers) and was on leave at home during Easter 1916. When news of the rebellion came to Dunsany Castle, he rushed into Dublin, and in literally his first combat experience was immediately injured in the face by a ricochet, taken prisoner and hospitalized for the rest of the week. An inch of difference would have cut short his writing career, and his influence on later writers such as Lovecraft and Tolkien.

As luck would have it, another fantasy writer witnessed the incident in which Lord Dunsany was wounded. James Stephens, who had published the lyrical The Crock of Gold in 1912 and was now Registrar of the National Gallery of Ireland, was on his way to work (not allowing himself to be deterred from turning up at the office by armed insurrection) when he found his path blocked. He records, in his vivid The Insurrection in Dublin,

As I came to this point shots were fired at a motor car which had not stopped on being challenged. Bystanders said it was Sir Horace Plunkett's car, and that he had been shot. Later we found that Sir Horace was not hurt, but that his nephew who drove the car had been severely wounded.

Stephens is a bit disingenuous here (though perhaps he had to be careful about identifying living individuals too close to the time of events). He knew “Sir Horace Plunkett’s nephew” (ie Lord Dunsany) very well.

Edited to add: As points out in comments, I had the wrong nephew. The circumstances reported by Stephens don't match those reported by Dunsany. I had spotted this at the time of writing, but thought it more likely that Dunsany was embellishing his account than that Sir Horace Plunkett might have had two different nephews who were injured in separate incidents in the Rising. However it's pretty clear to me now that the latter is indeed the case, and the incident witnessed by Stephens involved the otherwise not very famous Thomas Ponsonby of Kilcooley.

Dunsany had been a frequent contributor to and occasional funder of The Irish Review, a monthly literary magazine founded by Stephens and others in 1913.One of the others was Thomas MacDonagh, who took on the editorship of The Irish Review, which later passed to Joseph PlunkettPadraig Pearse was also a contributor. MacDonagh, Plunkett and Pearse wrote mostly poetry and polemic, but also some fiction which shaded the boundaries between folkways and mythology. They were also three of the seven signatories to the Easter Proclamation, and were among the fifteen leaders executed by firing squad after the Rising failed. They are the most obvious examples of writers of genre interest whose careers were fatally interrupted by Easter 1916.

I’ve been considering the direct impact of the Rising on fantasy (and, thanks to Nevil Shute, science fiction) here. But really this is the wrong way round. Just after the 50th anniversary of the Rising, William Irwin Thompson published his classic account The Imagination of an Insurrection: Dublin, Easter 1916, arguing that the whole affair is much better understood as a literary statement than a serious military initiative. Rather than the grizzled ex-combatants who were available, the planning of the campaign was entrusted to the very literary Plunkett and the leadership of the action to the equally literary Pearse. It was sheer fantasy to believe that a few hundred revolutionaries could carry out a successful independence revolt. The Rising was a deadly and realistic expression of the same sentiments that drove the Irish Literary Revival, and drew its roots both from romantic myth and the latest technology (the German guns which failed to arrive).

And in the medium term, though not the short term, it had the desired result. Although the Rising lacked popular support in 1916, the rapid execution by British forces of the revolutionaries, and London's failure to then address outstanding grievances in Ireland, rapidly tipped the political situation irreversibly against continued British rule for most of the island. Sinn Fein, the revolutionary political party which was generally (and quite incorrectly) credited with masterminding the Rising, won the vast majority of Irish seats in the 1918 general election, and went on to force the creation of the independent Irish Free State in 1922, covering 26 of Ireland's 32 counties. Sometimes fantasy, especially political fantasy, can turn out to be effective.

Mancunicon Progress Report (PDF)

Includes my tribute to @iannmcdonald, pp 14-15.
(tags: sf )

What’s the secret of getting hard-boiled eggs to peel easily?

This is important. #fb
(tags: cooking )

The Rise of Trump Shows the Danger and Sham of Compelled Journalistic “Neutrality”

Tremendous piece.
(tags: uspolitics media )

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Who Then Came to Realize That Life Was Meaningless

As it should have been!
(tags: comics funny )

The Power of Mental Models: How Flight 32 Avoided Disaster

Fascinating. #fb
(tags: psychology )

gave me M.

Something I hate: Myopia. I’ve had to wear glasses since I was six because I am very short-sighted. Glasses are expensive and they break. Now that my eyes are becoming middle-aged, I have to either peer through the lower half of my progressive lenses or take them off altogether and squint if I am reading small text; I daily encounter situations when neither option is really possible. I hate metaphorical myopia too, but the real thing has been a burden for over forty years.

Something I love: Marriage is jolly good fun, at least it has been for me. (I hope it has been for the other person most intimately involved!)

Somewhere I’ve been: Macedonia. Moldova. Montenegro. Malta. Manhattan. Mostar. Montreal. Munich. Milan. Maastricht. Mechelen. Moscow. Madrid. Macclesfield. Milton Keynes. Manchester (going again at the end of next week). The Mediterranean Sea.

Somewhere I’d like to go: The Marshall Islands, and their capital Majuro.

Someone I know: Marylou M (my aunt). Martin M (my uncle). Melanie M (who I introduced to her husband). Marianne Mikko (Estonian politician). Margarita M and Miriam M (former colleagues at CEPS). Mike M and Mark M (former colleagues at NDI). Markus Meckel (retired German politician). Mary-Teresa M (friend in European Commission). Michelle M (haven’t actually met her yet, but recently married my friend A). Marina M (Serb journalist in Brussels). And for triple impact, Marie-Myrtille M who I met at a Brussels Tweetup. Apologies to any who I have missed.

A film I like: Gosh, I have seen so few films! No Metropolis, no Mad Max, no Mission Impossible, no Midnight in Paris. But I will skip over The Martian, The Matrix and The Mission to The Muppet Movie, still a source of great pleasure.

If you want a letter, ask!

Shakespeare’s take on refugees, performed by Harriet Walter

From Sir Thomas More, unperformed in Shakespeare’s lifetime. #fb
(tags: shakespeare migration )

Why the Tory project is bust

Playwright David Hare explains (at length).
(tags: ukpolitics )

Myanmar’s moment of truth

Plenty left to do.
(tags: burma )

Rise and stall: The political trajectory of Marco Rubio

As he fades from view…
(tags: uspolitics )

The Ramblas today was not much like George Orwell describes it in the opening of Chapter X of Homage to Catalonia. The buildings are all mostly still there, but the human landscape is a bit more peaceful

About midday on 3 May a friend crossing the lounge of the hotel said casually: 'There's been some kind of trouble at the Telephone Exchange, I hear.' For some reason I paid no attention to it at the time.

That afternoon, between three and four, I was half-way down the Ramblas when I heard several rifle-shots behind me. I turned round and saw some youths, with rifles in their hands and the red and black handkerchiefs of the Anarchists round their throats, edging up a side-street that ran off the Ramblas northward. They were evidently exchanging shots with someone in a tall octagonal tower–a church, I think–that commanded the side-street. I thought instantly: 'It's started!'

(The octagonal tower of the Basilica de Santa Maria del Pi, visible down Passatge d'Amadeu Baguès)

But I thought it without any very great feeling of surprise–for days past everyone had been expecting 'it' to start at any moment. I realized that I must get back to the hotel at once and see if my wife was all right. But the knot of Anarchists round the opening of the side-street were motioning the people back and shouting to them not to cross the line of fire. More shots rang out. The bullets from the tower were flying across the street and a crowd of panic-stricken people was rushing down the Ramblas, away from the firing; up and down the street you could hear snap-snap-snap as the shopkeepers slammed the steel shutters over their windows. I saw two Popular Army officers retreating cautiously from tree to tree with their hands on their revolvers. In front of me the crowd was surging into the Metro station in the middle of the Ramblas to take cover. I immediately decided not to follow them. It might mean being trapped underground for hours.

(The Metro station in question, distinctly crowd-free.)

Spine-chilling to read the words in the exact place which they describe.

Someone Will Die

A grim prediction about the Trump campaign.
(tags: uspolitics )

Peter Firmin, the man behind Bagpuss and The Clangers

Another exhibition to go to!
(tags: tv children london )

Mathematicians Discover Prime Conspiracy

Glorious piece of research! #fb
(tags: mathematics )

Democracy in retreat

“2015 was the 10th consecutive year of decline in global freedom.”
(tags: democracy democratization )

Quietly, symbolically, US control of the internet was just ended

@MariaFarrell reports.
(tags: internet )

Danes to appeal conviction and €3000 fine for helping refugees

279 people have been charged with helping refugees in Denmark. #fb
(tags: migration denmark )

Black and Blue

Tochi reflects on race and the US election.
(tags: uspolitics race )

Revenge of the Simple: How George W. Bush Gave Rise to Trump

Rolling Stone’s take. #fb
(tags: uspolitics )

Tokelau, the World’s Online Superpower

.tk wins!
(tags: internet maps )

Bright Eyes: A True Story For Bonfire Season About Rabbits, Death And Fire

Tom Cox on rural England. Beautiful. (h/t @white_hart)
(tags: writing )

A contested Republican convention, explained.

Great overview. #fb
(tags: uspolitics )

The Big Search to Find Out Where Dogs Come From

Genetic history! #fb
(tags: biology )

I don't believe that I've ever submitted a full slate of Hugo nominations in the fiction categories before. I'm not totally certain that I will again. My own personal reading pace is very much geared towards novels; in past years, award nominations have determined my short fiction reading rather than vice versa. But this year is, of course, different, and I suspect I'm not the only person that resolved to nominate more this time.

I haven't kept strict count, but I reckon I've read about 250 pieces of short fiction in this process, and I know I've only scratched the surface. I found it quite exhausting to keep track, even though I knew that I was deliberately reading with a view to nominating. For next year, I may try a different approach; and in any case I won't blog about it.

I'm still deciding about the Best Novel category, and will read a couple more before the deadline, but I've pretty much made my mind up on all the others – not planning to read anything more in other categories apart from the two BSFA nominees (one in Short Fiction, one in Non-Fiction) that I have not yet read; if they change my nomination, I shall say so. (Also still looking for a fifth nominee in Best Graphic Story.)

Obviously I think all the below are wonderful and will be pleased if others share my tastes. I don't think that they will. In particular I can almost now predict that Naomi Kritzer's "Cat Pictures Please" will win the Best Short Story award; it is exactly the kind of story that Hugo voters tend to like. It didn't especially grab me, but I may end up voting for it anyway depending on what else makes the final ballot.

There are two items on my Best Related Work list that were not on my BSFA ballot. First, it had not occurred to me until the last couple of days that Phil Sandifer's magisterial TARDIS Eruditorum blog finished in early 2015 and is therefore eligible for nomination as a whole. I think it's an extraordinary achievement of criticism and commentary which richly deserves recognition.

Second, my one concession to recognising the Puppy affair is to nominate Matthew David Surridge's 16,000-word explanation of why he declined nomination on the Sad Puppies slate. Despite being a relative outsider to Worldcon, he basically nailed the weaknesses of the Puppy case at a level of forensic detail and balanced polemic that no later commentator was able to match (including George R.R. Martin, Eric Flint, Camestros Felaptron, Jim Hines and all the others).

I'm not revealing my votes in the various Fan and Professional categories. I will say that I share the widely held dissatisfaction with the dearth of information available to the lay reader wanting to be properly informed about the Best Editor (Long Form) category, and I also found it very difficult to know whether particular artists are fans or professionals.

And yeah, my Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) nominations are a little one-sided. So what?

(Most of my) Hugo nominations for 2016

Novellas
Aliette de Bodard, "Citadel of Weeping Pearls" (Asimov's, Oct/Nov 2015)
Lois McMaster Bujold, Penric's Demon (Spectrum)
Paul Cornell, Witches of Lychford
Eugene Fischer, "The New Mother" (Asimov's, Apr/May 2015)
Lisa Shapter, A Day In Deep Freeze (Aqueduct Press)

Novelette
Eneasz Brodski, "Red Legacy" (Asimov's, Feb 2015)
Paul Evanby, "Utrechtenaar" (1, 2 – Strange Horizons, Jun 2015
Naomi Kritzer, "So Much Cooking" (Clarkesworld, Nov 2015)
Sarah Pinsker, "Our Lady of the Open Road" (Asimov's, Jun 2015)
Alan Smale, “English Wildlife” (Asimov's, Oct/Nov 2015)

Short Stories
Karl Bunker, "Caisson" (Asimov's, Aug 2015)
Nino Cipri, "The Shape of My Name" (Tor.com, Mar 2015)
Amal El-Mohtar, "Madeleine" (Lightspeed Magazine, Jun 2015)
Hao Jingfang, tr Carmen Yiling Yan, "Summer at Grandma's House" (Clarkesworld, Oct 2015)
Kelly Robson, "The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill" (Clarkesworld, Feb 2015)

Best Related Work
Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J. R. R. Tolkien, eds. Janet Brennan Croft and Leslie A. Donovan
Letters to Tiptree, eds Alissa Krasnostein and Alexandra Pierce
Companion Piece: Women Celebrate the Humans, Aliens and Tin Dogs of Doctor Who, eds. L.M. Myles and Liz Barr
TARDIS Eruditorum, by Philip Sandifer – the entire blog, which finished in February 2015
A Detailed Explanation, by Matthew David Surridge

Best Graphic Story
Sex Criminals, Vol. 2: Two Worlds, One Cop, Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky
The Sculptor, Scott McCloud
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, Sydney Padua
Saga vol 5, Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)
Marvel's Jessica Jones (Season 1)
The Martian
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)
Doctor Who: Face The Raven
Doctor Who: The Girl Who Died
Doctor Who: Heaven Sent
Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song
Doctor Who: The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion

Retro-Hugo nominations for 1941

Best Novel
Twice in Time, Manly Wade Wellman
The Last Man, aka No Other Man, Alfred Noyes
Captain Future and the Space Emperor, Edmond Hamilton
Kallocain, Karin Boye
The Ill-Made Knight, T.H. White

Best Novella
The Mound, H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop
If This Goes On, Robert A. Heinlein
Fattypuffs and Thinifers, Andre Maurois
The Invention of Morel, Adolfo Bioy Casares
But Without Horns, Norvell Page

Best Novelette
It, Theodore Sturgeon
New York Fights the Termanites, Bertrand L. Shurtleff
Into the Darkness, Ross Rocklynne
Farewell to the Master, Harry Bates
The Sea Thing, A.E. van Vogt

Best Short Story
John Duffy's Brother , Flann O'Brien
The Stellar Legion, Leigh Brackett
The Piper, Ray Bradbury (as Ron Reynolds)
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, Jorge Luís Borges
Quietus, Ross Rocklynne

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)
Pinocchio
The Thief of Bagdad
Fantasia

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)
Weltraumschiff 1 startet

Best Professional Editor (Short Form)
Raymond A. Palmer
Mort Weisinger
Frederik Pohl

Best Professional Artist
Virgil Finlay
Margaret Brundage
Hubert Rogers

Deadline is 31 March; we'll see what comes out in the wash.

Lessons for UK Referendum Campaigns That Want to Rally Young People

My colleague @amelie1chan.
(tags: eu ukpolitics )

The Fabian Society commemorates Harold Wilson’s centenary

Looking on the bright side…
(tags: ukpolitics history )

Why were the polls in Michigan so wrong?

Howard Dean’s fault, apparently. #fb
(tags: uspolitics )

A conservative case for voting ‘in’

Eloquently put by @fromTGA. #fb
(tags: eu ukpolitics )

The non-EU workers who’ll be deported for earning less than £35,000

War on Schrödinger’s immigrants! #fb
(tags: ukpolitics migration )

Can A Government Be Formed In Dublin?

John Bruton’s analysis.
(tags: ireland )

Current
Watership Down, by Richard Adams (a chapter a week)
Glorious Angels, by Justina Robson
Naamah's Curse by Jacqueline Carey
Illegal Alien by Mike Tucker

Last books finished
Wings of Sorrow and of Bone, by Beth Cato
Short Trips: Steel Skies, ed. John Binns

Last week's audios
Shield of the Jötunn, by Ian Edgington

Next books
Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis
A Princess of Roumania by Paul Park
Another Girl, Another Planet by Martin Day

Books acquired in last week
Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard, by Lawrence M. Schoen
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers
The Life and Scandalous Times of John Nathan-Turner, by Richard Marson
Script Doctor: the Inside Story of Doctor Who 1986-1989, by Andrew Cartmel
The Commissioner, by Stanley Johnson
Zink, by David Van Reybrouck

Episode 10: The Go-Karters
First shown: 14 November 1970 (US), 19 February 1971 (UK)
Director: Charles Crichton
Writer: Peter Miller
Appearing apart from the Double Deckers:
Melvyn Hayes as Albert
David Hutcheson as the Magistrate
Jimmy Gardner as the court Clerk
Robin Askwith as Nigel Parks

Plot

We start with Spring in a go-kart which veers off track and onto the open road, causing chaos. He is charged with various driving offences, and in the course of the magistrate's court hearing we flash back to the story of how the gang built themselves a go-kart, with special fuel injection system invented by Brains, which was sabotaged by nasty biker Nigel Parks causing Spring's problems. The magistrate clears Spring, and has a go on the track himself after Scooper wins the race, while nasty Nigel is arrested due to an incriminating spanner left at the scene of his crime.

Glorious Moments

This is, again, one of the best episodes. The core of it is the two chase sequences (plot-wise the same chase sequence at different times in the narrative), which could have looked awfully dull but are shot in several different ways using different camera techniques to build up to excitement. The court scene which is the framing narrative is neatly executed as well (unlike, say, Trial of a Time Lord). It's not surprising to note that the director of this episode was probably the most senior director to work on the show.

Spring (Brinsley Forde), who tends to be just one of the others, does a nice job of being the centre of the narrative, and we hear more from Sticks and Tiger than usual as well. The narrative structure is quite different from the other episodes, giving the sense that this is something a bit different.

Less glorious moments

Actually there's very little to criticise here. The fact that the black kid is the one who gets arrested can be seen as subtle social commentary on the racism of the system; perhaps the fact that he gets let off is a bit unrealistic (though we should not be too obsessed by realism; last week, a fifteen-year-old designed a programmable dancing robot). Perhaps Albert forgives the kids for stealing his cart's wheels a little too quickly just because they look pleadingly at him. But I think this episode stands the test of time more than most.

What's all this then?

Karting was a very new phenomenon in 1970. History records that it was invented in the USA in 1956, and the Rye House Kart Circuit in Hoddesdon, where the karting scenes were filmed, was one of the first tracks in the UK. I'm glad to say that it is still going.

The plot of this episode is, errm, strongly reminiscent of Go, Kart, Go! a 1964 Children's Film Foundation production starring the 16-year-old Dennis Waterman alongside a future Doctor Who companion, Fraser Hines. It too was filmed at Rye House.

I have to admit that I went karting for the first time in my life last July, at the tender age of 48, with my son F (then aged 15) and various work colleagues, and we had a heck of a lot of fun.

Where's that?

As noted above, the karting scenes were filmed in Hoddesdon, thirty km from the studios; the street scenes, however, were much closer to home, in Aldenham and Borehamwood.

Who's that?

Brinsley Forde (Spring) was very visible as a child actor in the early 1970s, one of the survivors of Double Deckers predecessor The Magnificent Six and ½ and starring as the central character of 1980 film Babylon. Howeverm he is best known as the founder and lead singer of reggae band Aswad, from 1975 until he left the group in 1996. Their top hit was "Don't Turn Around", which reached no. 1 in the UK charts in 1988; their top hit actually written by Aswad was "Shine", which reached no.5 in 1994.

It's difficult to overstate the impact that Aswad had on the importance of reggae in the UK. Peaking at the same time as punk, in the late 1970s, Aswad were a major factor in boosting the sound as a London phenomenon that was not only happening in the Caribbean, and in making it one of the currents of the rich mainstream of British music. Could Forde have had that level of impact without cutting his showbiz teeth on Double Deckers and the like?

Charles Crichton is by far the most prominent director to have worked on Double Deckers. Born in 1910, he began nhis career working as an editor on such films as Things to Come (1936), Elephant Boy (1937) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940); he then moved into directing, and took the helm for (among many others) The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953). But he stopped directing films from 1965, and did bits and pieces of television for most of the rest of his career (including 14 episodes of Space: 1999), returning to the big screen at the age of almost 80 for one last hurrah in 1988 with A Fish Called Wanda. He died in 1999.

David Hutcheson (the Magistrate) was born in 1905 and had his only lead film role in 1934 with Romance in Rhythm. He had minor parts in many other films, including The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and The Evil of Frankenstein (1964). He died in 1976. I love the way he uses his spectacles for effect in this episode.

Jimmy Gardner (the Court Clerk), born in 1924, was another one of those actors who appears in the background of everything. I think the only other role I can remember him in is Ernie the bus driver in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). He died in 2010.

Robin Askwith (Nigel Parks), born in 1951, had already starred in the title role of the 1969 American TV movie Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates. After Double Deckers his next big break was a minor part in Carry On Girls (1973), which perhaps led to him getting the title role in the series of sex comedies Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974), Confessions of a Pop Performer (1975), Confessions of a Driving Instructor (1976) and Confessions of a Summer Camp Counsellor aka Confessions from a Holiday Camp (1977). That was the peak of his career; he still appears in soaps from time to time (including 12 episodes of Coronation Street in 2013-14).

See you next week…

…for A Helping Hound.

Former UUP leader James Molyneaux’s ‘close companion’ tells of 30-year relationship

No big surprise.
(tags: sexandgenderandsexuality northernireland )

Disability benefit is broken. Now even Iain Duncan Smith’s advisers say it

Is the war on the disabled actually working? #fb
(tags: ukpolitics disability )

I’m wielding my electoral power of 40 Texas Republicans to vote for a man I hate

The world is very strange. #fb
(tags: uspolitics )

How did Obama and Cameron fall out?

Tories kill the special relationship!
(tags: uspolitics