7,500 pages (YTD 25,200)
13/25 (YTD 36/83) by non-male writers (Le Guin, Perry, Black, Wynne Jones, Kowal, Older, Chambers, McGuire, Valente, Roanhorse, Dawson, Chown, Okrasko/Penkova)
1/25 (YTD 8/83) by PoC (Roanhorse)
4/25 (YTD 6/83) rereads (Around the World in Eighty Days, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Conjure Wife, Gather, Darkness!)
Reading now Sovereign by R.M. Meluch Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach, by Kelly Robson Will Supervillains Be On The Final?, by Naomi Novik, art by Yishan Li Robert Holmes: a Life in Words, by Richard Molesworth
Coming soon (perhaps): Five Women Who Loved Love, by Ihara Saikaku The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters In Another Light, by Andrew Greig Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, by Dennis O'Driscoll Becoming, by Michelle Obama
“Goat Song”, by Poul Anderson The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Graham 1913: The World before the Great War, by Charles Emmerson The Making and Remaking of the Good Friday Agreement, by Paul Bew Gateways, ed. Elizabeth Anne Hull Better Than Sex, by Hunter S. Thompson Het Amusement, by Brecht Evens Grimm Tales, by Philip Pullman The Ghosts of Heaven, by Marcus Sedgwick The Time Ships, by Stephen Baxter Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky Kate Bush: Under the Ivy, by Graeme Thompson Berlin Book Three: City of Light, by Jason Lutes Smallworld, by Dominic Green Filthy Lucre, by James Parsons
Thu, 15:43: RT @markdevenport: When British & Irish ministers launched Stormont talks at start of May they said there was a narrow window to make progr…
Thu, 15:58: RT @AodhanDonnelly: Ireland is the only country in europe (or the world?) whose population is still smaller (by a long shot!) than it was i…
Thu, 22:59: RT @malcolmbruce: @GuidoFawkes A shocker? Exhilarating if you are Lib Dem and want to see the back of the old firm. Head to head to stop Br…
Fri, 06:24: RT @alexstubb: Glad to see that my longtime friend and colleague @SchallenbergA is nominated as interim Foreign Minister of Austria. Could…
Fri, 09:05: RT @JustineGreening: .@esthermcvey1 You can’t pick & choose on human rights & equality. Children should understand a modern & diverse Brita…
Fri, 09:20: RT @youngvulgarian: I don’t know who needs to hear this but……………………you are valid, you are enough, you do not need to run fo…
Fri, 10:45: RT @davidallengreen: Yes, the Four Horsemen of Brexit Reality – The Deal Negotiations are Over – The 31 October Deadline – A Hung Parliame…
Wed, 12:33: RT @SkyNewsBreak: A district judge has ruled Boris Johnson will be summonsed to court to face accusations of misconduct in public office fo…
Wed, 12:33: RT @nickeardleybbc: PA just flashed: Boris Johnson will be summonsed to court to face accusations of misconduct in public office for comme…
Wed, 17:42: RT @davidallengreen: Am not in favour of private prosecutions, or the criminalisation of political speech. But you would need heart of sto…
Thu, 10:15: RT @pmdfoster: Everyone – I mean everyone – connected with Brexit needs to read @CER @sammarclowe‘s dispassionate piece on the search for a…
Thu, 10:45: RT @KeohaneDan: Not being funny, I only ever hear this from UK reporters. Any colleagues I ask across EU give v different message. Some t…
Wed, 10:45: RT @Nndroid: Say what you like about Jeremy Corbyn but he’s built a mass movement from scratch, energised a party base, got it back to its…
Current Bland Ambition, by Steve Tally The Bridge on the River Kwai, by Pierre Boulle Gather, Darkness!, by Fritz Leiber
Last books finished The Slender-fingered Cats of Bubastis, by Xanna Eve Chown Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente Doctor Who: The Official Annual 2019, by Paul Lang Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse Nebula Awards Showcase 2011, ed. Kevin J. Anderson Conjure Wife, by Fritz Leiber, Jr
Next books Sovereign by R.M. Meluch Will Supervillains Be On The Final?, by Naomi Novik, art by Yishan Li
Mon, 13:10: I’ll be on TV later on, commenting as the Northern Ireland votes are counted for the European elections. First BBC… https://t.co/l7P64AeVrg
Mon, 13:26: RT @patrickkmaguire: A Sinn Féin source gets in touch to blame the SDLP’s poor showing on Seamus Mallon, its former deputy first minister.…
Mon, 13:54: RT @SJAMcBride: The DUP’s Sir Jeffrey Donaldson tells @BBCTalkback he thinks Alliance’s Naomi Long could get 100,000 first preference votes…
Mon, 14:36: RT @SJAMcBride: Huge Northern Ireland EU Election result: Anderson (SF) 126,951 Dodds (DUP) 124,991 Long (Alliance) 105,928 Eastwood (SDLP)…
Mon, 14:36: RT @SJAMcBride: The story of this election is the remarkable surge to Alliance. But the fall in the vote of the UUP & SDLP is also signific…
Mon, 14:39: Northern Ireland will elect three women to the European Parliament – incumbents Martina Anderson (Sinn Féin) and Di… https://t.co/sXNtx3nF3z
Mon, 15:49: RT @gerrylynch: Northern Ireland vote share & change since 2014 #ep2019 Sinn Féin 22.2% (-3.3%) Remain DUP 21.8% (+0.9%) Leave Alliance 18.…
Mon, 15:57: Second count of Northern Ireland European election. Naomi Long (Alliance) gets almost half the available transfers… https://t.co/nepWySX33J
Mon, 17:21: Diane Dodds surplus is 12k votes; only the 29k she got of Danny Kennedy’s 55k will be transferred (at presumably ab… https://t.co/si5hWVVvdG
Mon, 17:23: RT @samgadjones: BREAKING: Austria’s government has fallen. Parliament has passed a no confidence motion against Sebastian Kurz’s administr…
Mon, 17:26: UUP transfers went 51% to DUP, 29% TUV, 13% Alliance, 2% SDLP and 5% non-transferable. (Also 0.1% to Sinn F�in.) https://t.co/Eut3CbjPMH
Mon, 17:34: RT @deeharvey: @railwaydave @nwbrux She has been elected, not eliminated. It’s only the votes she got that are surplus to the quota that ca…
Mon, 17:43: Looking at the people counting, it’s clear that those on the Allister desk are a lot busier than those on the Ander… https://t.co/W4wxZLJRUD
Mon, 17:46: Indeed – Eastwood’s current margin over Allister is in fact a lot smaller than my previous back-of-envelope calcula… https://t.co/hZ2Vo5Mzqh
Mon, 18:19: RT @CSharpWords: Paraphrasing: “Unlike elections in England, Scotland and Wales, elections here have to be fair.” Laughing my socks off at…
Mon, 18:33: Largely as I expected, 12,310 Dodds-Kennedy surplus went 10314 (73%) to Allister, 10.5 (0.07%) to Anderson, 312.5 (… https://t.co/CcQNUz1NqQ
Mon, 18:36: Largely as I expected, 12,310 Dodds-Kennedy surplus went 10314 (73%) to Allister, 10.5 (0.07%) to Anderson, 312.5 (… https://t.co/BWnNteCn60
Tue, 07:50: RT @maartenzam: As a late Christmas gift to myself, I just discovered some glorious vintage Belgian election maps. A proportional symbol ma…
Tue, 08:48: RT @EuropeElects: Denmark: Map showing comparison of which party won the most votes in the European election in 2014 and 2019, in each cons…
Sun, 12:58: RT @brusselsred: Très ému d’avoir voté pour la première fois en tant que citoyen belge. Merci mille fois à tous les volontaires souriants q…
Sun, 16:05: RT @AidanCTweets: – Hello Mrs. Y – Actually, It’s Mrs. X. I didn’t take my husband’s name when we got married. – Oh, okay, for politeness s…
Sun, 16:57: RT @SeeSome: @nwbrux FYI, the artist for that cartoon is @tomgauld, who does lots of great literary gags and deserves credit (or retweets f…
Sun, 17:33: RT @jonlis1: This is spot on, except for the fact that Brussels will not move whatever the beliefs of the next PM. The fantasy that we just…
Sun, 18:44: RT @APCOBXLInsider: So, first four exit polls have: @EPP up in Austria, maybe Cyprus, down in Netherlands @PES_PSE up in Netherlands, vulne…
Sun, 19:21: RT @APCOBXLInsider: Interesting French historical fact: the sitting President’s party has only twice “won” the European elections, in 1979…
Sun, 19:32: RT @APHClarkson: Can most UK pundits bloviating about the rise of Far Right populism even name the leadership of Germany’s Green Party? #Gr…
Sun, 19:32: RT @gerrylynch: Far right goes backwards in Germany (as it did in the Netherlands). Greens with an enormous, all-time record, result. https…
Sun, 19:54: RT @APCOBXLInsider: Croatian exit poll disappointing for ruling @HDZ001 @EPP who expected (& didn’t get) increase from 4 MEPs. Opposition @…
Sun, 20:13: RT @simonjhix: @GoodwinMJ Steady on Matt! Governing parties always do worse in EP elections. This is actually a disappointing result for L…
Sun, 20:13: RT @APCOBXLInsider: Exit poll from France. Many will be dismayed that @RNational_off came first, but NB their position is barely changed fr…
Sun, 20:52: RT @APCOBXLInsider: Well, this will be a nail-biter – forecast that Lib Dems end up 0.2% *behind* Labour in votes, but elect 1 *more* MEP!!…
Sun, 22:14: RT @gerrylynch: @APCOBXLInsider It’s only a forecast of pre-election polls. The count rumours I’m hearing are much worse for the Tories tha…
Sun, 23:37: RT @APCOBXLInsider: North East England is first UK region to declare: Brexit Party 39% 2 seats (+1) Labour 19% (-17%) 1 seat (-1) Lib Dems…
Sun, 23:43: RT @EuropeElects: Cyprus: Electoral commissioner announces names of the Cypriot MEPs. DISY (EPP)- Loukas Fourlas (new), Lefteris Christofor…
Mon, 08:23: RT @damonwake: Absolute peak French political TV. It’s the presenter helplessly bleating “monsieur, s’il vous plait” that really makes it.…
Mon, 09:28: RT @AndrewDuffEU: All we can be certain of this morning is that (1) the European Parliament is more popular than its enemies hoped, (2) @Ma…
Mon, 10:07: RT @JamesCrisp6: Word to the wise. Anyone who talks about a managed no deal Brexit is, as things stand, a bullshit artist who is either bei…
Mon, 10:45: RT @ParkerMolloy: So, one thing transphobes like to do is post photos of trans women who *gasp* want to compete in school sports and go “Bu…
I made up my mind some time ago on how I would vote in the European Parliament elections. In terms of how Europe is going to work in the future, the two main European parties, the European People's Party (EPP) and Party of European Socialists (PES) have wedded themselves to the concept of the Spitzenkandidat, where a vote for either of them is a vote for the new European Parliament to force the chosen candidate of the EPP (or PES, if they win more seats, which they won't) onto the EU as the new President of the European Commission. Franklin Dehousse explains here why this is a bad idea in principle (see also Denis MacShane). I'll add that it's a bad idea in practice, as the EPP candidate is the rather unimpressive Manfred Weber, who has never run anything more than the EPP group in the European Parliament. I actually went to the EPP Congress in Helsinki in November to campaign for Weber's opponent:
So far this morning three different people have recognised me and said to me, “What are you doing here???” I would have thought it’s pretty obvious what I’m doing here. (Thanks to @alexstubb for photo.) pic.twitter.com/Pe17UT4wiO
The liberal ALDE party are running a team of potential EU leaders, a majority of them women, and starring the impressive Margrethe Vestager as well as the incredible Emma Bonino. I'm not especially a fan of former Belgian Prime Minister, now ALDE group leader, Guy Verhofstadt, but a vote for his party in the EU election is a vote against the Spitzenkandidat system and also a vote for Vestager – yes, I'm aware that's contradictory, but both statements are still true.
In Belgium we have open lists so you get to choose the candidate as well as the party. Scanning down the Open VLD list, I came across Stéphanie Anseeuw, from the far west of Belgium; the Open VLD profile doesn't mention it, but she uses a wheelchair, and during her term as senator successfully brought in legislation to enable swifter official recognition of disability. She gets my vote for Europe, though I'm under no illusions that she stands much chance, in 8th place on a list where her party is generally expected to drop at least one of their three seats.
That still leaves the Belgian federal and Flemish regional elections, in which I must vote today, since I have been a Belgian citizen since 2008 and voting is compulsory here. Rather to my surprise, I have to report that we have received election literature at this house from all parties except Open VLD, for whom I actually voted in the municipal election in October and who as noted above are getting my support at European level today. I'm certainly not voting for the anti-immigrant Vlaams Belang (formerly Vlaams Blok), and nor am I voting for the right-wing NVA, who collapsed the previous government over their refusal to sign the UN Marrakesh Global Compact on Migration. Otherwise I'm really rather at sea on this, and fortunately every media outlet has its own online survey – stemtest in Dutch – to help you decide which party fits your views best.
One issue that I care rather passionately about is migration, where I am a leftie libertarian – I want movement between countries to be as easy as possible and I hate it when my adopted country is nasty to people who have already gone through hell. (It's really telling that one of the questions you are invited to answer is "should the children of unsuccessful applicants for asylum be locked up?") Het Nieuwsblad has broken its stemtest into three different policy areas, and on migration I am basically a Trotskyist, aligned with the far-left PvdA.
On economic issues, however, I'm more centrist, with the Christian Democrats just ahead of the Left, and the Right further behind. I suspect that we are rather unusual among higher income earners in that our family gets a lot more value back from the Belgian state than we pay in taxes.
I must say I was deeply unmoved by most of the economic questions. "Should inheritance tax be lowered?" – I have no idea what the level of inheritance tax is at present. "Should the port of Antwerp be expanded?" – I have no idea. "Should unemployment benefits be cut off after a fixed period?" – ah, that one is much easier; I don't think you help people to escape poverty by making them poorer.
On climate, the Christian Democrats are level-pegging with the Greens at the top of the chart. I suspect the Greens would have scored better if it weren't for my instincts on keeping nuclear power plants open for a bit longer. Open VLD and SP.A score particularly poorly here.
De Morgen has had the idea of doing a stemtest that actually checks the past voting records of the parties against your policy preferences. I found this particularly interesting precisely because it's not actually all that helpful; it unwittingly emphasises how close the parties are – of the 22 questions I cared enough about to answer, two parties (the centre-left SP.A and centre-right liberal Open VLD) both agreed with me on 14, and the Christian Democrats and Greens agreed with me on 13; which the far-left PvdA are with me on 8/13 questions relevant to the federal level which is the only one they are contesting. Even the rabid right are only a couple of questions further away from me, on 11 each.
The EUandI survey, developed internationally, has (it claims) a standard set of questions which apply across the EU. It thinks I am a leftie, balanced between Groen and SP.A:
VRT's youth stemtest, hosted by the MNM ("Music And More") radio station, thinks I should vote Green:
Finally, Het Laatste Nieuws has a nice gimmick where it tells you which candidate you are supposedly most aligned with – of course, this is really a proxy for the party whose list they lead, but it humanises the process a bit. HLN thinks that I am closest to the Green politician Stijn Bex, who I cannot vote for because he is a candidate for the Brussels regional parliament. Interestingly, they seem to have omitted Open VLD – perhaps they too didn't get any election literature?
Anyway, taking all of the above into aggregate and running a quick and dirty Condorcet count on the various options, it was pretty obvious which way I would vote. This time.
PS – and then it turns out that an old friend is on the Green list of substitutes for the Flemish parlimanet, so I happily gave her a preference.
Sat, 15:26: RT @ColinYeo1: THREAD. What is Theresa May’s legacy on immigration? Given she quoted Nicolas Winton, who saved hundreds of child refugees b…
Sat, 16:05: Finland is winning the war on fake news. Other nations want the blueprint https://t.co/mUfq446hD0 Good for Finland (as usual).
Sun, 10:45: RT @tortoise: Theresa May is quitting on June 7, which means there is a serious prospect of @BorisJohnson becoming the next Prime Minister.…
Sun, 11:46: RT @sundersays: The warning has force. There are ifs and buts too. * A govt needs confidence. A majority could remove/replace a PM (for an…
A wet salty wind. And tomorrow Marion comes back. And the two of us sit here wagging our American legs. Marion, stay away a little longer, please. Don’t want the pincers on me just yet. Greasy dishes or baby’s dirty bottom, I just want to watch them sailing. We need a nurse for baby to wheel her around some public park where I can’t hear the squeals. Or maybe the two of you will get killed in a train wreck and your father foot the bill for burial. Well-bred people never fight over the price of death. And it’s not cheap these days. Just look a bit glassy eyed for a month and take off for Paris. Some nice quiet hotel in Rue de Seine and float fresh fruit in a basin of cool water. Your long winter body lying naked on the slate and what would I be thinking if I touched your dead breast. Must get a half crown out of O’Keefe before he goes. I wonder what makes him so tight with money.
I bought this after Donleavy died, as I’m always interested in books set in Dublin from the external perspective. The time is roughly 1948, the place more or less Trinity College and the Dublin of student accommodation; Sebastian Dangerfield, Donleavy’s protagonist, runs between women and beds, drinking ruinously, stealing to survive as he has already spent his inheritance. He’s a thoroughly unpleasant character and I didn’t much enjoy reading about him. I appreciated the literary salutes to other writers, particularly Joyce of course, but after a while they got rather laboured and the humour of the book is painful and dated. Not really recommended, but if you want, you can get it here.
This was my top unread book acquired in 2017. Next on that list is Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Fri, 12:56: RT @binarybits: I was pretty bullish about bitcoin and blockchains from 2012 to 2014. I’ve gotten steadily more skeptical since then. At th…
Fri, 16:05: RT @simongerman600: #Map shows how closely related a #language is to English. The graph estimates the number of weeks that might be require…
Fri, 16:18: RT @unamccormack: The Eagles could not fly the Ring to Mordor because: 1. 3 Eagles / 9 Nazgûl; 2. Eagle Dark Lord? No thanks! 3. Eagles’ sp…
Fri, 16:22: Very interesting to see apparently strong correlation between increased vote in European election from 2014 to 2019… https://t.co/wdRc1EOWT2
Fri, 16:32: RT @DavidHenigUK: Any Conservative leadership candidates need a quick trade and Brexit tutorial before publishing their manifesto in the we…
The other ground vehicles were all-drive holster-buggies, armoured scree-cars, one- or two-gun landromonds and the huge multi-turreted tanks known as bassinals. The struggling convoy accounted for a good sixth of the King’s military transport, and represented either a brilliant flanking manoeuvre to supply the beleaguered garrison of troops guarding the workings in the fifth-floor south-western solar, or a desperate and probably forlorn gamble to win a war that was not only unwinnable but anyway pointless; Sessine had still to decide which.
For such a celebrated writer, Banks won rather few awards – this and Excession both won the BSFA, two years apart, and that was it. I had read this ages ago soon after it came out, and to be honest didn't remember much about it. The notable character is Bascule, who narrates his chapters semi-phonetically:
O yes, I sed, which woznt stricktly tru, in fact which woz pretti strikly untru, trufe btold, but I cude always do them while we woz travelin.
Wots in that thare box yoor holdin? he asks.
Itz a ant, I sez, waven thi box @ his face.
Bascule's is only one of four different plot strands following different key characters through the landscape of a post-singularity society where most people live in a vast structure called Serehfa, and also interact with a virtual space called the Crypt. What appear to be not just different stories but different worlds eventually fit together and add up to more than the sum of their parts. But I wasn't quite convinced by it all, and there's a reason that this is not generally listed in the top ten of Banks's works. You can get it here.
Feersum Endjinn won the BSFA Award for 1994. The other shortlisted novels were Engineman, by Eric Brown, which I have not read; and Necroville, by Ian McDonald, North Wind, by Gwyneth Jones and Permutation City, by Greg Egan, all of which I have read. I don't retain clear memories of any to be honest, but I think I enjoyed Permutation City more than the others. The Clarke Award was won by Pat Cadigan's Fools, and the Tiptree by Nancy Springer's Larque on the Wing, with Moving Mars winning the Nebula for Best Novel and Mirror Dance the Hugo.
Thu, 12:13: RT @MargSchinas: The sentence attributed to the @EU_Commission Secretary General at 1:16 of this video is fake, fraudulent and pure disinfo…
Thu, 15:29: RT @davidallengreen: There have been many Bills and Acts which have caused controversies and political crises. But as far as I can work ou…
Thu, 17:11: RT @JasonCowleyNS: Has a book received more brutal reviews than Jacob Rees-Mogg’s paen to the Victorians? – Horrible history: this is witho…
Thu, 19:00: RT @maitlis: I remember asking #JudithKerr Kerr if the tiger symbolised the 1960s sexual revolution where normal mores and suburban life be…
Thu, 19:49: RT @davidallengreen: Just as UK wasted valuable months after making the Article 50 notification having a needless general election, UK will…
Thu, 20:48: RT @malorieblackman: Okay, here it is – as I’m in a feisty mood today. My life is not political correctness. The stories of my life are not…
Thu, 21:00: RT @IanCooperEU: For UK friends, about these EP elections, I want to make a point about what MEPs actually do, based on my own personal obs…
Fri, 10:45: RT @Dublin2019: Our Dealers Area is taking applications! Thousands of SF fans are coming to Dublin 2019 this August, looking for treasures,…
Fri, 11:02: Declared Turnout 2019 vs 2016 referendum result B&NES 44% – 58% R Wiltshire 44% – 52% L Cardiff 42% – 60% R Exeter… https://t.co/H37jnAKxVn
Fri, 11:12: RT @PeterKGeoghegan: Almost hilarious irony of Theresa May talking over and over about ‘compromise’ in her resignation speech having, in of…
Fri, 11:26: RT @TomMcTague: The great Matthew Parris: “We are in just as much of a mess as we were before Theresa May resigned as prime minister.” Indi…
Fri, 11:28: RT @JP_Biz: In last few minutes Irish ForMin Simon Coveney said Theresa May had made mistakes but did try to compromise & recognised the vu…
Fri, 11:28: RT @JP_Biz: He said the biggest mistake had been to lay down red lines very early on whuch could not be delivered on. He thinks she would…
Fri, 11:28: RT @JP_Biz: Mr Coveney says he does not see the EU offering a better or fundamentally different deal to a new Prime Minister.
Fri, 11:28: RT @JP_Biz: He adds that ‘in many ways’ within the EU patience has run out – though not in the Irish government. Nonetheless he thinks a fu…
Fri, 11:33: RT @davidallengreen: But. The UK is still set to leave the EU by automatic operation of law on 31 October. The “deal” cannot go through…
I’m not always enthused by the various Who spinoff publications, BBC or otherwise, but this one is a real winner (and I should say that in general I’ve been more than satisfied with Steve Tribe’s work). Here we have the TARDIS examined from all angles, its non-fictional inspiration in the drafts of C.E. “Bunny” Webber, the designs of Peter Brachacki and his successors, and the various ways it has been used in the show, from both in-universe and external perspectives. It was published in 2010, just nicely in time for The Doctor’s Wife the following year. It’s fully but not obsessively detailed and gorgeously illustrated. I’m sorry I missed it on first publication (actually got it at a remaindered books fair in March). Here’s a nice video review by someone else. You can get it here.
Wed, 17:08: RT @stephenkb: May has achieved the impressive feat of convincing MPs who like the sound of her concessions that she doesn’t mean it and ca…
Wed, 17:11: RT @DanKaszeta: OK. Regarding this milkshake stuff. Some context on where and how I’m qualified to comment. I spent 6 years in the US Sec…
Wed, 20:47: RT @IciLondres: Andrea Leadsom, ministre pro-Brexit, démissionne. C’est la 35ème démission d’un ministre sous Theresa May. https://t.co/OxN…
Wed, 20:55: RT @chrisdeerin: this is like the night Thatcher fell, but not interesting
Wed, 21:18: RT @politicobadger: Banter cabinet now inevitable: Leadsom: PM, Minister for Parents Francois: Defence Williamson: Ambassador to China…
Thu, 06:41: RT @MarietjeSchaake: Last day before a new class of Dutch Members of European Parliament get elected Thank you for the debates, question…
Thu, 07:27: RT @davidallengreen: Brexit: the brutality and plotting of Game of Thrones, combined with the national humiliation of Eurovision. The perf…
Thu, 08:53: RT @WeyandSabine: As EP elex start, a necessary reminder that we must not get used 2 disinformation: „even though we saw the warning signs,…
Thu, 10:30: Best wishes to all my friends who are candidates in the European Parliament elections. Some are very likely to get… https://t.co/RzNuBpfZNf
Second frame of third entry ("Something is Missing", by Juliana Penkova):
Every two years since 2013, the Brussels office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation has run a competition for EU-themed comics. This year's award ceremony was held at the end of last month, and as usual was a nice collection of stories by five artists, one German, one Argentine/German, one Bulgarian/German, one Polish and one from Northern Ireland, David Shaw (now resident in Dublin). I'm glad to say that David Shaw's story, a short narrative about a gay couple driving north across the Irish border and reflecting on the impact of the EU, won the award on the night.
I assume that the whole book will be made available soon (ISBN is 978-3-95937-012-7), or at least the Friedrich Naumann Foundation will probably give you a copy if you ask them nicely.
Tue, 12:55: RT @ilgarmammadov: Shame UEFA! The dynastic regime in had tolerated freedom of assembly when it was about putting flowers to the 1st Rep…
Tue, 12:55: RT @katyusha13: #Brexit related potential “collapse of a firm that employs 4,500 people directly and has 20,000 more at risk in the supply…
Tue, 13:54: RT @pswidlicki: Solid analysis from @stephenkb. Its astonishing how much Brexit commentary is divorced from very recent lived political exp…
Tue, 19:08: RT @pmdfoster: This passage in @theresa_may speech is goes to the soft, mushy centre of the entire #brexit debate. Incoherent, choice-free,…
Tue, 19:09: RT @rowena_kay: When a lawyer drafts that you’ll “seek to” do something, it usually means it’s probably not possible but you’ll give it a s…
Tue, 19:12: RT @pmdfoster: So the DUP ‘stormont lock’ goes in anyway. Will that sway the DUP 10, I ask someone inside that world@ “I’ve no indication…
Tue, 20:33: RT @AlexKane221b: Having observed/commented on politics here for over 30 years I can’t think of a Secretary of State or NIO minister so lac…
Wed, 09:06: Conductor just asked passengers to make sure they don’t leave any personal belongings on the train. Or children. @SNCB @NMBS
Wed, 10:45: RT @davidallengreen: “In its mixture of marginal short-term benefit and wholesale ineffectiveness in the longer term, the Prime Minister’s…
Current Nebula Awards Showcase 2011, ed. Kevin J. Anderson Bland Ambition, by Steve Tally The Slender-fingered Cats of Bubastis, by Xanna Eve Chown Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente
Last books finished Feersum Endjinn, by Iain M Banks The Ginger Man, by J. P. Donleavy The Invasion, by Peadar O Guilin Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers The Big Finish Companion, vol. 2, by Kenny Smith Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire
Next books Sovereign by R.M. Meluch Will Supervillains Be On The Final?, by Naomi Novik, art by Yishan Li
Mon, 12:56: Tremendously good series of pieces on Brexit as seen from Whitehall/Downing St. Puts the spinning from Davis defend… https://t.co/dfHmX13B21
Mon, 13:43: RT @akulith: 17. Neither the history nor the geography of Ireland are going to change between now and October.
Mon, 16:05: RT @akulith: 1. Writing in the Sunday Times yesterday, the Prime Minister announced, ‘My Withdrawal Agreement Bill will be a bold new offer…
Mon, 19:27: RT @djmgaffneyw4: Maybe this will finally kill off the Brexiteer myth of Enda Kenny as king over the water? It was Kenny, not Varadkar, who…
‘Oh I think it just might be.’ The Doctor paused for a moment. She hopped from foot to foot. Ryan knew this dance too. It was the do we run away from this or towards it dance. And he knew exactly which she’d choose. ‘Come on, let’s take a little look. There’s only two things I don’t believe in, and one’s coincidence.’
Apparently the first published of the three recent Thirteenth Doctor books, by Juno Dawson (possibly the first out trans writer to contribute to the official Whoniverse; she also did a couple of Torchwood audios for Big Finish in 2017). It’s really rather good – the story starts at the end of an adventure, following which the Doctor and friends return to the same planet centuries later, to discover that their first visit has become the founding myth of the dominant oppressive religious cult, with Graham remembered as the Doctor, the Doctor herself largely forgotten, and their own past used to justify slavery. It is very well done and packs a lot of action and thought into 227 pages. Recommended. You can get it here.
Mon, 07:46: RT @gideonrachman: If you lived behind the Iron Curtain you would know that, when the Wall came down, all of the countries there immediatel…
Mon, 10:28: RT @Mij_Europe: #EP2019 & #Brexit thread. Euro elections this week. EU officials reeling, as UK participation in Euro polls will:- 1) massi…
Mon, 10:45: RT @Sime0nStylites: 1. There’s an assumption that the next leader of the Cons Party, very likely a ‘hard’ Brexiteer, will press ahead with…
Around The World in 80 Days won the Oscar for Best Motion Picture of 1956, and picked up another four, Best Cinematography, Color (Lionel Lindon), Best Film Editing (Gene Ruggiero and Paul Weatherwax), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Victor Young) and Best Writing, Best Screenplay, Adapted (John Farrow, S. J. Perelman, and James Poe). It was also nominated in Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; Best Costume Design, Color; and Best Director. Interestingly, none of the actors was nominated despite the all-star cast. The other contenders for Best Motion Picture that year were The King and I (which I have of course seen) and Friendly Persuasion, Giant, and The Ten Commandments (which I haven’t).
IMDB users rank Around The World in 80 Days14th or 10th of the films of 1956. Ranked ahead of it in both cases are: The Ten CommandmentsThe KillingThe SearchersThe King and IThe Man Who Knew Too MuchForbidden PlanetInvasion of the Body SnatchersGiant. Of those, apart from The King and I, I have also seen Forbidden Planet. The only other 1956 film I think I have seen is Moby Dick. It’s a pretty good year; I liked all of them. Here’s a contemporary trailer.
I thought this was generally very good fun. In case you didn’t know, it’s the story of a chap called Phileas Fogg in 1872, who bets his London clubmates that he can travel around the world in eighty days. He brings with him his recently hired manservant, Passepartout, and also acquires en route an Indian princess who he saves from suttee and a detective who suspects him of bank robbery. The journey gives the excuse for lots of brief portrayals of exotic settings, both in the original 1872 book and spectacularly in the 1956 film. It’s not a deep film, but it’s very entertaining. I’m a bit of a fan of David Niven anyway, having greatly enjoyed his two autobiographies which I read as a teenager. I’ve also loved the book since I was a child. As usual I’ll start with the bits of the film I didn’t like so much.
Whitewashing: as usual, I’m afraid. The lead female role is the Indian princess Aouda, played by the thoroughly Caucasian Shirley MacLaine (aged 22, in her third film). Though, of course, even in the original book we are told on first seeing her that Aouda is “as fair as a European”.
The film can hardly avoid Asian characters in the Indian, Chinese and Japanese segments – though of the credited actors, Robert Cabal, of European and Polynesian heritage, plays the unnamed Indian elephant driver; Philip Ahn, a Korean, plays a passer-by in Hong Kong). But there isn’t a single sub-Saharan African or African-American visible anywhere. (It is implied that Achmed Abdullah is North African; he is played by the Mexican Gilbert Roland.) It’s striking that in the scenes set in San Francisco, there is not a single non-white face to be seen – not in the election parade that starts this section of the film, not in Clancy’s saloon. The book, on the other hand, singles out Chinatown as one of the sights of San Francisco, and mentions that the hotel waiters were “negroes of darkest hue” – which is not brilliant, but in the film they are not there at all.
Stereotypes: Of course this is a film which relies on stereotypes for the humour of its (Oscar-winning) script, as indeed did the book. The French of the 1870s and the Americans of the 1950s are alike in finding English reserve and snobbery alien and mockable (and an excuse to look at someone else’s failings). I found it striking just how closely the film stuck to the book in this regard (with a couple of big additions, which I will get to, and the deletion of the scene with the Mormon preacher, which would have been less funny for 1950s Americans than for 1870s French readers). Oddly enough the weak point here is David Niven, who was a naturally warm and slightly vulnerable actor, and could not really carry off the impervious, on-the-spectrum Phileas Fogg.
The film does lampshade this, of course. In the closing seconds, Aouda appears at the Reform Club.
Fogg: My dear, I must ask you to leave these precincts at once. No woman has ever set foot in the club. Aouda: Why not? Fogg: Because that could spell the end of the British Empire.
(various crashes as Passepartout arrives through the window.) The Governor of the Bank of England [Robert Morley]: This is the end. (closing titles.)
Music: It’s inoffensive (though Oscar-winning) stuff, the catchy theme tune being a minor hit with the instrumental version from the film on the A side and Bing Crosby crooning it on the B side. Rule Britannia is of course the theme for the British sections, but I was very amused that the French sections raid Gershwin’s An American in Paris – no doubt from the film that had won the Best Picture Oscar only five years before.
Cast: There are 1302 named actors here. The number of cameos is breathtaking. You may have already spotted Marlene Dietrich running the San Francisco saloon. Here’s Noel Coward (who wrote the 1932-33 Best Picture) and John Gielgud as the head of an employment agency and Phileas Fogg’s recently sacked manservant.
Here’s Frank Sinatra playing the piano in Marlene Dietrich’s bar.
Here’s Buster Keaton as the train conductor in the Wild West.
I am not enough of a film buff to really appreciate them all, but it’s a remarkable array.
I think it’s also unfair that none of the cast were nominated in any of the acting categories. Cantinflas in particular shines as Passepartout (and was apparently given top billing, ahead of Niven, in Spanish-speaking countries where he was better known).
I do I’m afraid have my issues with Robert Newton, who is a bit too chunky for the cadaverous Inspector Fix (and of course died of alcoholism several months before the film was actually released).
Spectacle: The whole thing looks fantastic. The two early inserted sequences, not in the original book, are the balloon out of Paris and the bullfight. The balloon is utterly gratuitous to the plot, but allows the film to be in Paris and to have some amazingly well contructed shots. It’s a gorgeous sequence. (Of course, real balloonists would have needed to be more warmly dressed.)
Bullfighting is of course a terrible thing, but the point was that Cantinflas had actually been a bullfighter and was able to pull it off.
I’ve mentioned the establishment shot of San Francisco already. Everywhere is convincingly portrayed, the American bits best obviously. Passepartout is rescued from the Indians off-screen in the book but on-screen in the film:
And I had totally forgotten about the wind-propelled railcar in the book, which again looks great on screen.
This was very enjoyable. I’m putting it a quarter of the way down my list, just below All About Eve and above From Here To Eternity. You can get it here.
Next up is Bridge on the River Kwai, which is also based on a novel originally written in French but is a lot less funny.
This is of course not the only adaptation of Verne’s novel for the screen, though it is probably the best. You may remember the 2004 version with Jackie Chan getting top billing as Passepartout and Steve Coogan in second place as Fogg, also featuring Jim Broadbent as a villainous Lord Kelvin and Arnold Schwarzenegger as an Oriental prince. It varies just a little further from the book than the 1956 version did. Here’s a trailer:
Those of you who go back as far as I do may recall an Australian animated series in which Fogg is proving himself worthy of the love of Belinda, and Fix is an agent of his potential father-in-law. This opening sequence may jog your memory.
Back to the original novel, then. Second paragraph of third chapter:
Phileas Fogg se rendit aussitôt à la salle à manger, dont les neuf fenêtres s’ouvraient sur un beau jardin aux arbres déjà dorés par l’automne. Là, il prit place à la table habituelle où son couvert l’attendait. Son déjeuner se composait d’un hors-d’œuvre, d’un poisson bouilli relevé d’une « reading sauce » de premier choix, d’un roastbeef écarlate agrémenté de condiments « mushroom », d’un gâteau farci de tiges de rhubarbe et de groseilles vertes, d’un morceau de chester, — le tout arrosé de quelques tasses de cet excellent thé, spécialement recueilli pour l’office du Reform-Club.
He repaired at once to the dining-room, the nine windows of which open upon a tasteful garden, where the trees were already gilded with an autumn colouring; and took his place at the habitual table, the cover of which had already been laid for him. His breakfast consisted of a side-dish, a broiled fish with Reading sauce, a scarlet slice of roast beef garnished with mushrooms, a rhubarb and gooseberry tart, and a morsel of Cheshire cheese, the whole being washed down with several cups of tea, for which the Reform is famous.
It’s striking that both “Reading sauce” and “mushrooms” are in English in the original French text. I can understand there not being a French equivalent for the former, but what’s wrong with “champignons”?
I last re-read the book in 2004, fifteen years ago, and wrote this:
After watching the dismal Steve Coogan/Jackie Chan film on the plane a couple of weeks ago, I realised I had the novel on my PDA and decided to re-read it. And, well, it’s good. There’s a little bit of the nerdishness recently satirised here, in that every means of transport is described in total detail. There are one and a half total implausibilities in the plot. But basically, this is a story of its time, full of the new wonders available in 1872 – the Suez Canal had been open for only three years, so had the rail link across the United States,and of course the whole point of the book is that the railway across India opened only that year. And this is an India only fifteen years on from the 1857 Mutiny – as far as we are from the fall of Communism; a Japan that has just experienced the Meiji restoration; a United States recovering from the Civil War, and doing its best to deal with the Mormons. And of course this is written by an author whose own native France has been devastated by a catastrophic military defeat the previous year, and is a determined attempt to look outwards and forwards.
The half implausibility I mentioned above is this. The whole basis of the story is that as a result of the trans-Indian railway being completed, our hero, Phileas Fogg, makes a bet that he can go around the world in eighty days. Well, when he gets to India, it turns out the railway hasn’t been completed; and he has to complete the rest of the journey by elephant, rescuing the beautiful Aouda on the way. Now come on; the whole basis of the bet was that the railway was there, and surely the gap between Kholby and Allahabad is sufficient cause to call the bet off?
The complete and total implausibility is the punchline of the entire book, where we are asked to believe that in the course of 26 days travel between the International Date Line and London, none of our leading characters had actually checked the date and realised that they were a day ahead of themselves. So they saw no newspapers and experienced no weekends in America or between Cork and Dublin or Liverpool and London; and the schedule of steamers in New York and railways in Ireland and England was utterly insensitive to the day of the week? Come off it! Of course the plot simply doesn’t work unless you are prepared to overlook this gaping hole in it, and most people do.
And how come all the bells in London strike at ten to nine anyway? Philip José Farmer had an explanation of this in The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, an otherwise completely forgettable effort. Apart from the points noted above, this is really fun and everyone should read it.
Re-reading it now I was even more struck by the cutting-edge aspects of the text. “Bungalows” are exotic buildings found only in India. The (American) Indian raid on the railway train is a cliche of the Western genre which had only recently come into existence (the dime novels Malaeska and Seth Jones both first appeared in mass circulation in 1860). I guess balloons out of Paris were still a painfully recent memory, or Verne would probably have put one in. It’s a short book with lots of fun spectacle. You can get it here.
Sat, 14:48: RT @Lexialex: Not a single Arab has ever shot up a school. This isn’t only racist, it’s stupid. Every school shooter looked like your All-A…
Sat, 21:10: RT @VictoriaCoren: I haven’t watched the Eurovision Song Contest for so long, the last time I watched it was basically just France, Ireland…
Sat, 21:17: #Malta – only 18, bless her. Was that a cartoon chameleon in the background? Oh yeah, that’s the name of the song…
Sat, 22:00: RT @Durotrigesdig: It’s nearly #Eurovision (yay!!) – time to choose a song for this year’s fieldwork. Will anything be as good as Ukraine #…
Sat, 22:01: RT @redfacts: That Cyprus costume meeting in full: “Binliners or crotch? Binliners or crotch? I know, binliners AND crotch!!” #Eurovision
Sat, 22:49: RT @timcairns: @nwbrux My 11 year old just said – they say anything is possible, well a British person can’t be American president, so the…
Sat, 23:26: RT @sydneypadua: Oh wow I totally want to try this pole swinging thing? Though it would End Tragically for me? It looks so fun! https://t.c…
Sat, 23:36: RT @caronmlindsay: 30 years since Like a Prayer! Who remembers the fuss that was made about it? Madonna has been groundbreaking so many tim…
Sat, 23:37: RT @alexvtunzelmann: Madonna has dressed appropriately as a glittery Warhammer space pirate and has tried to marry a gay man within fifteen…
Sat, 23:37: RT @chancehatesyou: Is Madonna running for president? I’m lost. Also, why does she have an eye patch? I assume this is some alternate histo…
Sun, 01:05: Well, am a bit astonished by that. But I think I may actually try and go next year, since it will be more or less n… https://t.co/9RYDxYBlfp
Sun, 01:05: RT @JamesKerLindsay: Did really well in the professional votes. Came second. Just sad to see it did not get more support from the public. N…
Sun, 01:06: RT @alexvtunzelmann: Well, that’s a disgrace. Absolutely the antithesis of glamour or fun. Booooo!
Sun, 05:58: RT @maxseddon: You know there’s a geopolitical crisis in process when Belarus gives nul points to Russia at Eurovision
Sun, 06:55: RT @locusmag: The #Nebulas2019 Award for Short Story goes to “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington”, Phenderson Dj…
Sun, 07:00: RT @locusmag: The #Nebulas2019 Andre Norton Award goes to Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt; Macmillan)
Sun, 07:30: RT @locusmag: The #Nebulas2019 Award for Game Writing goes to Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Charlie Brooker (House of Tomorrow & Netflix)
Sun, 07:33: RT @locusmag: The #Nebulas2019 Award for Novella goes to The Tea Master and the Detective, Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean)
Sun, 07:42: RT @locusmag: The #Nebulas2019 Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation goes to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse https://t…
Sat, 09:19: RT @tconnellyRTE: Brexit: the EU looks on in “suspended disbelief” Here’s my take on the latest plot twists, and why Europe is bracing itse…
Sat, 09:31: RT @DPhinnemore: “But anything in the [Withdrawal Agreement] bill which seeks to alter any elements of the Withdrawal Agreement will convin…
The two of them preceded Querida and Barnabas up the straight drive (for, despite working until after midnight, Derk had not found room to make the drive wander as he wanted) and to the enormous terrace, where they politely bowed the two wizards up the steps. It was perhaps unfortunate that the moving around of the garden had resulted in the clump of man-eating orchids arriving at a bed just beside these steps. They made a dart at Querida as she passed, all several dozen yellow blooms at once. Querida turned and looked at them. The orchids drew back hastily.
This came to me strongly recommended as a superior example of the great Diana Wynne Jones’ work. It didn’t completely grab me, but I still quite liked it. The setting is a fantasy world which has been taken over by a commercial tour company from a world like ours; inhabitants are expected to dress up and engage in mock fantasy activities for the benefit of the tourists, and the unfortunate Derk is appointed Dark Lord of Derkholm in an effort to lead his world’s response to the problem, which at the same time dealing with some complicated teenage family dynamics where not all of the teenagers are human.
DWJ was always particularly deft and sympathetic at portraying family relations (perhaps The Ogre Downstairs is her high point) and that’s certainly the strength of this book, where quite a lot is shown rather than told. My difficulty was with the fantasy setting, where on the one hand we are invited to dislike the tourists from “our” world who don’t take it seriously (or take it too seriously), and yet the characters veer a little too closely to early Pratchett in their own appreciation of their setting. In Farah Mendlesohn’s terminology, it veers between several different rhetorics – liminal, immersive and portal (and possibly a kind of reverse intrusive) – without really settling on any of them. It’s also rather longer than the story really deserves. As mentioned above, I still quite liked it. You can get it here.
This was the top unread sf book on my shelves (excluding previous award winners and current Hugo finalists). Next on that list is Grimm Tales, by Philip Pullman.
Thu, 17:27: RT @ALDC: Richard Gilachrist Moore obituary – written by Stephen Hardy MBE Richard Moore, resident of Battle, has died. Battle is an appos…
Thu, 17:54: RT @PacificStand: There are believed to be no more than 80,000 koalas left in Australia, so we’ve declared them “functionally extinct.” But…
A group of men passed him, trudging along the road towards the docks. A vegetable cart passed the other way, piled with carrots and greens of one sort or another, and a few ripe apples.
Honestly not sure why I picked this up. It turns out to be 18th in s series of 24 (so far) novels about a Victorian detective, William Monk, who here gets sucked into an 1864 London murder, linked to the government’s involvement in the opium trade. I bounced off a number of points. The nicer characters have much too sympathetic political views for their time (for comparison, there is an awful chapter in the otherwise not too bad The Next Generation, by John Francis Maguire MP, published in 1871, about the Chinese and opium). The middle-class women of the book seemed to me rather more politically emancipated than could really have been expected in 1864. The actual murder plot was a bit improbable, and the motivation of the suspect who is first arrested for the crime seemed incomprehensible to me. On the other hand, there is a good and sensitive appreciation of London’s geography. And on doing a bit more digging, I discovered that the author knows at first hand what it’s like to be a woman on trial for murder. However, I don’t think I will look out for more of her work based on A Sunless Sea. If you want, you can get it here.
This was my top unread book acquired in 2015. Next on that list is The Ghosts of Heaven, by Marcus Sedgwick.
Wed, 12:38: RT @carolinepennock: While we’re gaping in horror at Alabama, don’t forget that abortion is almost entirely illegal in Northern Ireland, in…
Wed, 17:08: RT @sirgrahamwatson: Very sorry to learn of the loss of Richard Moore, a stalwart Liberal internationalist and a person of punctilious prin…
Wed, 17:08: RT @hansvanbaalen: Today Richard Moore passed away. He played an important role in the Liberal Family. He was SecGen, Patron of Liberal Int…
Wed, 17:08: RT @RowanMoore: My dear Dad, Richard Moore, gracious and generous man, lifelong liberal, Liberal and European, has died. As others have sa…
Wed, 18:46: RT @KeohaneDan: 3/ And who is destabilising who exactly? Of course, one should read the article by @JohnBew too, which is much more nuanced…
Thu, 05:54: RT @robertbrowne1: A great Liberal died this morning, Richard Moore, father of Charles (Daily Telegraph). The worldwide Liberal family salu…
Thu, 05:55: RT @liberalinternat: Liberal International regrets to announce the passing of our patron and former secretary-general Mr Richard Moore of t…
Thu, 11:56: RT @AndrewDuffEU: Richard Moore was the first Brit to be employed on the staff of the Liberal group in the European Parliament, to which he…
Thu, 11:57: RT @SalBrinton: Two years ago Richard Moore received the @LibDems President’s Award for his amazing liberal life and career. We will miss h…
Thu, 11:57: RT @LibIntBg: Devastated to have lost one of most eloquent, distinguished and kind Liberals one could ever meet. He always gave me the time…
Hordenza started. She’d been engrossed in the icefield analysis and hadn’t realised the signal from Versimmon was getting through. ‘Ah – Minister Hordenza here,’ she said. ‘Over?’
This is a novel in the Bernice Summerfield continuity, set during the Road Trip audio sequence (not that you’d really notice). It’s a short book set on a world with no native animals, entirely ruled by trees; Bernice and three other women from the human colonising power have to make sense of it all. Another reviewer compared it favourably with Ann Leckieget it here.
Next in this sequence is The Slender-fingered Cats of Bubastis, by Xanna Eve Chown.
Tue, 14:46: RT @Dorianlynskey: Perhaps it speaks to my current assessment of politics and human nature but I thought that Game of Thrones episode was e…
Tue, 16:05: RT @simonjhix: Conservatives in 5th place in latest @YouGov#EP2019 poll. I have never seen a poll for any national UK election with the Co…
Tue, 20:48: RT @SebDance: My granny worked as a typist to the German Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Graf von Schulenberg. He was executed in 1944 for…
Wed, 11:42: RT @nickeardleybbc: Brutal for Change UK. Their top candidate in Scotland – David McDonald – is now backing the Lib Dems at the European el…
