Thu, 16:05: RT @DaveKeating: Very interesting map of who dubs and who subtitles in Europe. You can see the direct correlation between this and English…
Thu, 17:11: RT @MatthewdAncona: Here’s what’s happening, then. Pretty much everyone has decided that Boris Johnson is going to win, and the numbers so…
Thu, 17:47: RT @Unwise_Trousers: When you just want to clutch your head in a field in peace, and people keep slapping you on book covers: https://t.co/…
Thu, 19:04: RT @garius: LIDINGTON: Phil! Wasn’t expecting to see you at the Leadership hustings! HAMMOND: Why not? I love this stuff. LIDINGTON: Really…
Thu, 20:48: RT @wesstreeting: I’ve had enough of crap like this. My constituent wasn’t a snowflake when a guy tried to rip her hijab off on Oxford Stre…
Fri, 08:48: RT @davidallengreen: The political support for Johnson and the other No Deal candidates is an index of how little has been learned by the g…
Fri, 10:45: RT @APHClarkson: Brexiter MPs obsessed with escaping supposed German domination also claiming that Angela Merkel will sweep in and fix Brex…
Fri, 10:47: RT @BrunoBrussels: Brexit will not happen – with or without a deal – on 31 October: that’s EU’s planning assumption, at the moment
Fri, 11:27: RT @mothzarella: My English cousins are over and they were giving out that their Irish change didn’t work for the toll, I’m fucking crying…
Naomi Novik shouldn’t need much introduction; she’s been on three of the last four Hugo ballots, and was previously a Hugo finalist in 2007, the year she won the John W. Campbell Award. Here she has teamed up with manga artist Yishan Li for a story set in an academy for budding superheroes, Liberty Vocational, where the young folk need to learn that with great powers comes great responsibility. Our heroine, Leah Taymore, has the ability to manipulate atoms – but is being conspired against by others in the school. It was quite a fun read, and it’s interesting to see the manga style applied to a US college setting, but unfortunately was published in 2011 and there is no sign of a second volume to sew up the plot threads. You can get it here.
This was my top unread English-language comic. Next on that pile is the conclusion of Jason Lutes’ Berlin trilogy, City of Light, but I think I will go back and re-read the first two.
Wed, 12:14: RT @MattChorley: If you believe Boris Johnson will win a 140-seat majority against Jeremy Corbyn, I’ve got a leather-bound collection of Th…
Wed, 12:35: RT @FriendsofEurope: “North #Macedonia has made immense progress in the last year. Are you not concerned that with the upcoming elections i…
Wed, 12:56: RT @KittyHollandIT: I will never understand why some women, who self identify as feminists, have such fear of some of the most vulnerable w…
Wed, 17:45: RT @DeHavilland: The Government has seen off a cross-party motion to take control of the Order Paper on 25 June with 298 votes for and 309…
Wed, 23:07: RT @sarahw: Google Reader died almost exactly six years ago and if I had to pinpoint when the Internet nosedived, that would be the day
Thu, 10:45: RT @PickardJE: Breaking: Cabinet note (from late May) shared with the FT reveals that Whitehall is not ready for No Deal in October https…
Thu, 11:52: RT @jonlis1: OK, everyone. I think it’s time I told my Boris Johnson story. It’s a story about the time as foreign secretary where Johnson…
Second paragraph of third chapter (apologies, this is long):
Thirty-third-generation Bay was crisis generation, the point at which all the changes from old race to new race began to come together and become manifest. It was also an unstable generation, neither new (though "Bay" meant "new") nor completely old. The changes took their toll. Many a line ended at thirty-third Bay. Once past thirty-third, the danger of the line ending was past, and even chance no longer held the reins of their directed evolution, since all Bays greater than thirty-third generation had the power to choose the sex of their offspring-and chose a son. That was one of the changes. But continuing past thirty-third was difficult, so rare as to only have happened once-in the Mercer line. Many lines ended at thirty-third, the Brekks' being only one of those many. Thirty-third-generation Bay Ven Brekk was the last Bay of his line. After sixty-six generations of breeding—thirty-three to Bay and thirty-three more—they'd come to nothing. Kaela Stewert did not want the same happening to his own line. Teal must sire a son, a thirty-fourth-generation Bay. Not that it mattered for evolution's sake, for his people's sake, since the Mercers had produced the Trieath. But for pride. Because he was a Highlander. Highlanders were the leaders and the breeders, the ones who caused the changes, the fathers of the new race. Lowlanders bore daughters and common sons. Lowlanders were the people, the followers. One son, that was the Highland way, the only way for change. If more than a single son was born, the changes did not occur. Although the physical characteristics were unchanged by the birth of brothers and sisters, the line ties were weakened and diffused; the mental and emotional links branched off in divergent ways, many taking energy from a single source. A Royalist was affected by those of his own blood, by someone who came to be in the same womb or from the same father. For a Bay to suddenly gain a brother or sister would be like putting a cold molecule next to a heated one—like a drain of consciousness, a sharing of line memories and strengths, a splitting and splintering of the line. An end.
I’m not quite sure how I got hold of this – one of Meluch’s other books is on Ian Sales’ list of Mistressworks, and I enjoyed a 1998 short story of hers too. I got the book via Bookmooch back in the days when that still worked, so I must have had a specific recommendation.
There’s lots of interesting stuff here, but it doesn’t quite all hang together. Our hero is the product of an absurdly long-term genetic experiment (his race is long-lived as well, so 33 generations add up to a very long time indeed); he falls out dramatically with his home people and heads off to join the Earth space navy, where he rapidly rises to become a supremely gifted commander. He narrowly escapes certain death several times, has deep relationships with people who don’t really seem to matter all that much, and suffers horrible losses of comrades and family which seem to leave him rather cold. A slightly odd book, but I believe the author went on to better things. You can get it here.
This was the sf book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next on that pile is Smallworld, by my old friend Dominic Green.
Tue, 12:01: RT @DavidHerdson: It says much that Boris is hiding under the duvet, when his supposed greatest strength is as a campaigner and a front-man…
Tue, 12:29: RT @pmdfoster: So the MaxFac “technology can deliver a border in Ireland” crew are trumpeting latest EU update on ‘no deal’ preps as ‘proof…
Tue, 14:29: RT @faisalislam: V odd this “race to be PM” from afar – tax plans that won’t pass this Parliament, Brexit “plans” that won’t pass Parliamen…
Tue, 17:38: RT @SkyNewsBreak: Labour says it plans to use the opposition day debate tomorrow to seize control of the Commons order paper to stop a ‘no-…
Tue, 19:06: RT @paulwaugh: .@RoryStewartUK praising Clem Attlee as much as Churchill is one example of why he really is a different kind of Tory. No MP…
Tue, 19:07: RT @pmdfoster: So this morning you may have read versions of the “EU fixes Irish border” in event of a #brexit no deal….and yet tod…
Tue, 20:28: RT @gilliantett: I have some exciting news! Next week @ft launches a new platform and newsletter #moralmoney to cover ESG, Impact investing…
Tue, 20:48: RT @DmitryOpines: 1/ “CV’s Don’t Matter,” writes this CEO of a major media empire before launching into some moving paragraphs about how he…
Tue, 20:52: RT @ic_iordachescu: “Our position is very clear: all agreements with the EU will stand, nothing will be cancelled,” #Moldova‘s Igor Dodon t…
Tue, 21:12: RT @StefanieBolzen: Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt claimed last weekend Angela Merkel was willing to renegotiate the #Brexit deal since he h…
Wed, 11:44: RT @MSmithsonPB: Great line from CON peer and polling expert, Lord Hayward ‘Any MP who believes that the Tory Party will win an election b…
Current Robert Holmes: a Life in Words, by Richard Molesworth The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters In Another Light, by Andrew Greig
Last books finished Five Women Who Loved Love, by Ihara Saikaku Perelandra, by C.S. Lewis Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire
Next books Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, by Dennis O'Driscoll Becoming, by Michelle Obama
Mon, 17:46: RT @geraldratner: Michael Gove ‘“ people shouldn’t be defined by the biggest mistake they’ve made in their lives “. I wish
Mon, 17:46: RT @patrickkmaguire: If I’d had the weekend Michael Gove has had, I wouldn’t necessarily be pacing a stage with a tightly-rolled piece of p…
Mon, 19:05: RT @jackwdoyle: 1922 announces full list of candidates to stand in Tory leadership contest, each with eight nominations from MPs. :: Mich…
Sun, 19:52: RT @ruxjosan: #Moldova 86 NGOs ask for all Constitutional Court judged in Moldova to resign, accusing them of ruling in PD’s favour. They…
Sun, 19:54: RT @NoYardstick: What is happening in #Moldova is essentially a coup attempt. An interest group that controls most state institutions is at…
Sun, 19:54: RT @BalazsJarabik: A constitutional crisis enfolds in #Moldova after months of deadlock following Feb 21 parliamentary elections. There is…
Mon, 07:34: RT @DionisCenusa: Growing external legitimacy for the new government in #Moldova. In less than 1 day, EU, Council of Europe, the US, OSCE,…
Mon, 07:35: RT @JHahnEU: #Moldova: #EU stands ready to work with the democratically legitimate government, on the basis of a mutual commitment to refor…
Thomas Jefferson said of his vice president, in words that would later be full of irony, that he was “a crooked gun, or other perverted instrument, whose aim of shot you could never be sure of.”
Published in 1992, the subtitle of the book lays it out: From Adams to Quayle – the Cranks, Criminals, Tax Cheats, and Golfers Who Made it to Vice President. There’s lots of fascinating historical trivia here, including sidebars on the Twelfth Amendment, the provisions for succession and Alexander Stephens, but there is a rather wearyingly cynical tone throughout which I felt was one of the precursors to today’s sorry state of affairs of a lack of trust in politicians generally. You can get it here.
This was the non-fiction book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next on that pile is Kate Bush: Under the Ivy, by Graeme Thompson.
Sat, 14:48: RT @georgeeaton: I don’t think anyone expected class A drugs to feature so prominently in the Conservative leadership election. https://t.c…
Sat, 15:23: RT @PaladinoEU: #Climatechange is seen as an elitist issue – But it impacts everyone (wherever the person in the White House says), notes @…
Sun, 10:55: RT @LordRickettsP: What an excellent way to begin our life as an “independent “ country needing new trade agreements…..by massively defau…
Sun, 11:15: RT @xtophercook: A brief reminder that Boris Johnson stayed in the cabinet for a year after the sequencing was agreed, and seven months aft…
Second paragraph of third story (“Non-Zero Probabilities”, by N.K. Jemisin):
Then she starts the trip to work. She doesn’t bike, though she owns one. A next-door neighbor broke an arm when her bike’s front wheel came off in mid-pedal. Could’ve been anything. Just an accident. But still.
I wrote some of these up at the time for the Hugos (novellas, novelettes, short stories), but this collection includes all of the short stories and novelettes, so that’s three out of six short stories and five out of six novelettes which were new to me. It didn’t change my personal judgement that “Spar” by Kij Johnson was the best of the short stories (though neither Hugo nor Nebula voters agreed) and I enjoyed “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” by Eugie Foster best of the Novella nominated novelettes. The book also has short stories by that year’s SFWA Author Emeritus, Neal J. Barrett, and that year’s SFWA Grand Master, Damon Knight; and also the two poems by Geoffrey A. Landis and that year’s winner of the Rhysling Award (short form), a poem by someone called Amal El-Mohtar; I wonder what happened to her? A solid collection, and you can get it here.
This was my top unread book acquired in 2011. Next on that fast-dwindling list is In Another Light, by Andrew Greig.
Fri, 14:04: RT @davidallengreen: No sensible person could defend Johnson’s falsehoods from a political or moral perspective. But that did not mean tha…
Fri, 14:13: RT @SamuelStolton: Lady Ashton says that it “breaks her heart” to hear about the squabbling between Kosovo and Serbia as part of the Belgra…
Fri, 14:13: RT @tom_nuttall: Former EU high rep Lady Ashton haranguing Serbian and Kosovan presidents at testy #GLOBSEC2019 debate. “Everyone knows you…
Fri, 16:49: RT @tom_nuttall: .@MichelBarnier: we have contingency measures ready to manage Irish border in event of no deal. But declines to offer deta…
Fri, 16:50: RT @stephenkb: Get someone to put “We crowdfund £359,626 to take Boris Johnson to trial. Let’s spend it on something politically effective…
Fri, 16:56: RT @tom_nuttall: I ask @MichelBarnier if he wants to comment on Tory candidates pledging to renegotiate the Brexit withdrawal agreement. “C…
Fri, 16:58: RT @patrickwintour: Barnier “A new Prime Minister will not change the problem. The problem is there”. He adds the goal is to protect the Go…
Fri, 17:15: RT @georgeeaton: Given the 2017 election result, the most impressive thing about Theresa May’s premiership was arguably its length.
Fri, 17:21: RT @ZEKvSR: @MichelBarnier We regret the #brexit but we are going to deliver if the UK still wants to leave. we have to work on posit…
Fri, 17:29: RT @MarietjeSchaake: I just learned I am in a textbook for students in Flanders and can die happily now (thanks for sharing @MpanzuBamenga)…
Fri, 17:43: RT @SusanCorke1: Ivan Krastev at @GLOBSEC – worried about democracy in US. “The pendulum starting swinging before Trump. Trump has swung th…
Fri, 17:43: RT @OAJonsson: Ivan Krastev at #GLOBSEC2019: “In Eastern Europe, we’re exporters of fragility for good & for bad. We know how quickly thin…
Fri, 17:56: RT @OanaPope: Ivan Krastev, Robin Shepherd (@HFXforum) and one smart woman: Karolina Wigura, Institute of Sociology, Warsaw – at #GLOBSEC…
Fri, 17:56: RT @franakviacorka: Krastev also says that just before the Soviet Union collapsed, the group of the US experts produced the report saying t…
Sat, 07:26: RT @StevePeers: I’ve delivered a letter to Gareth Southgate demanding to be added to the England team, a letter to the Nobel Committee dema…
Sat, 10:45: RT @stellduffy: Those arrested for the homophobic, lesbiphobic and misogynist brutality and hate crime on the bus in May are 15-18 years ol…
A very light affair, even by the standards of Doctor Who annuals; this is the first one featuring the Thirteenth Doctor, and its main purpose seems to be to get new young fans interested in the past history of the show, with a couple of pages devoted to each previous Doctor and a comic strip story which references all the previous incarnations in its plot (and in which most of the Thirteenth Doctor’s appearances seem to have been drawn from the same set of publicity photos, and Ryan is actually drawn as white in one frame on page 41). I wasn’t hugely impressed, but you can get it here.
Thu, 21:30: RT @davidallengreen: The candidature of Raab must be a ruse to make Johnson seem acceptable as leader.
Fri, 08:12: RT @MarkyGoodrich: If BxP can’t win a by-election in a 60% Leave seat where the previous Labour MP was convicted for perjury and the Labour…
There was a gentle hiss as the train doors parted. As Bernice stepped out onto the plush carpet, an android server moved along the platform towards them, displaying a tray of sparkling drinks. Its long, thin body was sprayed the pale pink and green colours of Spring. Its face was smooth, silvery and featureless until it saw Bernice, then two eyes, a nose and a mouth shimmered into place in the traditional human positions. Bernice knew from the on-train audio tour that each server had the capacity to approximate any facial features it came upon, in an attempt to make each guest feel comfortable no matter what their planet of origin.
I thought this was a rather good novel in the Planetary-Archaeological-Adventure mould, in which Bernice (and her two companions, Ruth and Jack) must deal with mysterious giant alien cat statues, randy researchers, having access to all future history, and an obligation to write poetry before the week is out. I thought the characterisation fairly crackled and the plot seemed to hang together. I’ve rather got unmoored from the overall Bernice continuity (I don’t think I knew who Jack actually was, and there is no introduction) but apart from that I rather enjoyed it. You can get it here.
Next up: Filthy Lucre, by James Parsons and Andrew Stirling-Brown.
Wed, 16:31: Very sorry to hear that Albert Rohan, one of the greatest Austrian diplomats, has died aged 83. I will post my pers… https://t.co/c0g8LQrmWL
Wed, 18:11: So, this is my story about the late great Albert Rohan, whose passing was announced today. He was 83. https://t.co/TNv8kyLiAJ
Wed, 18:42: RT @AndrewDuffEU: @nwbrux He was also a hugely informed and committed friend of Turkey, and a founding stalwart of @ecfr . A wonderful gent…
Wed, 19:39: RT @Enver_Hoxhaj: We have lost today Albert Rohan, one of the giants of European diplomacy and one of the finest peacemakers on the Balkans…
Wed, 19:39: RT @josattler: Huge loss. Albert Rohan insisted on and excelled at negotiatons, diplomacy’s finest tool. And as MFA Secretary General was…
I got to know him in the 1999-2009 period, from when I first arrived in Brussels as a thinktanker on Balkan issues up to his time as Marti Ahtisaari’s deputy in the Kosovo final status process. We saw each other often at conferences and I enjoyed learning from his vast experience. (Which included serving as Kurt Waldheim’s chief of staff at the United Nations.)
We both attended our friend Mabel Wisse Smit’s wedding to (the tragically short-lived) Prince Friso of the Netherlands, and I asked him then if this was the first royal wedding he had attended. He gave me a slightly odd look, and replied, “You could say that.” I was a bit puzzled, because most people would be able to give an unambiguous yes-or-no answer to that question.
So I did a little research, and discovered that Albert had presumably attended both of his own weddings. The next time I saw him, at a conference in Ljubljana, I said to him, “So, you’re a prince, then!” He replied, “Well, technically, yes, but the Republic of Austria does not recognise the title or permit me to use it.” Which explains the ambiguity of his previous answer.
That was quite a memorable trip to Ljubljana. Albert and I came in on the same flight from Vienna and he was met by the Austrian ambassador who kindly let me take the spare seat in the car. As we drove into Ljubljana, the subject of the Monument to the Unknown French Soldier came up, and the ambassador excitedly asked the driver to detour so that we could admire it. It’s quite a remarkable historical statement.
We all got out of the car to contemplate it silently. Who, you may ask was the Unknown French Soldier defending Slovenian liberty *from*? The Austrian diplomats knew perfectly well, and so did I.
Born under Schuschnigg’s struggling government to an Austrian father and Hungarian mother in 1936, Albert devoted his career to overcoming the divisions of the past, and I think he succeeded more than most.
Tue, 16:05: RT @pswidlicki: Its quite amazing to see people falling over themselves to be rude about the EU then solemnly insisting that no matter what…
Tue, 17:06: Change UK loses six of its 11 MPs after dire EU elections result – “It was worse than a new party; it was a mistake… https://t.co/FfP6PsOOjM
Tue, 18:38: RT @MaxCCurtis: So the Gareth Roberts situation – it’s just tediously transparent how people are rallying around him by deliberately mis-fr…
Wed, 09:44: RT @Be_Herrero: @Zoran_Zaev: “We believe so much in European values that we have changed our name. We have done everything. And we’ll…
Wed, 11:43: RT @damonwake: Election poster produced by the European Parliament office in Germany in 1994. They don’t make ’em like that any more. Wowse…
Current Robert Holmes: a Life in Words, by Richard Molesworth Five Women Who Loved Love, by Ihara Saikaku
Last books finished Bland Ambition, by Steve Tally The Bridge on the River Kwai, by Pierre Boulle Gather, Darkness!, by Fritz Leiber Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach, by Kelly Robson Sovereign by R.M. Meluch The Belles, by Dhonielle Clayton Will Supervillains Be On The Final?, by Naomi Novik, art by Yishan Li Binti: The Night Masquerade, by Nnedi Okorafor
Next books The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters In Another Light, by Andrew Greig
Mon, 12:56: RT @EU_Commission: This week we recommended the @EUCouncil to open accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia in light of the…
Mon, 14:00: 52 days after hitting Level 39, I am half way to Level 40. At this rate I should get there before the end of July.… https://t.co/jIY3NdrVwz
Mon, 17:11: RT @Care2much18: A certain Irish woman is running around spreading hatred towards non-white immigrants. One thing I’m guilty of is not doi…
Mon, 17:20: RT @lizo_mzimba: Such sad news. Paul Darrow known to millions as Avon from Blake’s 7 has died at the age of 78 his agency has confirmed #RI…
Mon, 18:54: RT @alexwickham: Matt Hancock the only Tory leadership candidate to defend Sadiq Khan re Trump tweets. Says he is “proud we have the first…
Tue, 06:54: RT @KeohaneDan: There is at least one aspect that should not be overlooked here. It was the UK that asked for an extension (both times), on…
Tue, 09:48: RT @DmitryOpines: @pmdfoster No idea what you’re alleging Peter, now if you’ll excuse me the German Car Industry and I have to use the Lisb…
Second paragraph of third chapter (re the Companion Chronicles):
The opening story of the fourth season was a sequel to Simon Guerrier’s hugely popular Home Truths, which marked the return of Sara Kingdom. The Drowned World carried on the story of Sara’s ‘ghost’ in the house, talking with Robert. Simon said, “David didn’t really ask for anything except a second story for Sara. I sent him a number of ideas – both for the stories she recounted and the framing device around them. And we was really keen to find out more about Robert. So I worked up an outline for The Drowned World and said I’d an idea for a third one.”
I was rather underwhelmed by the first Big Finish Companion volume when I read it some years ago. This is considerably better, though it’s barely worth the hefty cover price. It covers Big Finish’s output from 2005 to 2008, with cast lists and production details, but also interviews with the production team including some self-criticism of stuff that didn’t work. This time I knew pretty much all of the audio plays produced, with the exception of the The Tomorrow’s People and Stargate ranges, and I realise that I did indeed miss some crucial chunks of the Bernice Summerfield audios when I was listening to them. It’s a good starting point for further analysis of the amazingly diverse and complex Big Finish ranges, but it misses by not including any external criticism – not that I am making great claims for my own sporadic commentary, but quite a lot has been written about it, and it would be interesting to feel that there was some sense of responsiveness to external feedback. You can get it here.
My own consumption of BF has decreased since I discovered Ingress, Duolingo and Pokemon Go. But I will come back to it once I have achieved Level 40.
Sun, 12:56: RT @Sime0nStylites: 1. The newly appointed Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister sits alone in 10 Downing Street. After a fr…
Sun, 13:47: RT @JP_Biz: Matt Hancock wants an ‘Irish Border Council’ with a George Mitchell type chair. Also prepared to bung in £1bn. Acknowledges sol…
Sun, 13:50: RT @pmdfoster: Leave aside the tactics of the Tory leadership race, this is the first ‘pitch’ on Brexit that seems to me to be in the ballp…
Sun, 15:43: RT @RoryStewartUK: Principles on Brexit. And a challenge to all other candidates: 1. Will you take No-deal of the table? Completely. It won…
Sun, 15:48: RT @JP_Biz: In one sentence Sajid Javid refers to Ireland as ‘the tail that wags the dog’ & the need to build goodwill & confidence in Irel…
Sun, 20:26: RT @katyusha13: The #Catholic church needs to leave the 19th century. There are several reasons I am an ex-Catholic. Thinking a few old guy…
Mon, 10:46: RT @AidanCTweets: I see that @john_boyne is using his access to the media (The Guardian) again trying to frame the criticism of his transge…
I’ve been doing a bit of culture over the last few days. Anne and I went up to Utrecht on Thursday, which was a holiday, and took the Friday as well to look around the Catharijneconvent (which I will hope to write up separately some time). And yesterday I went on another historic walk around Leuven organised by Leuven Leisure. (Of about a dozen participants, I was the only one who wasn’t Dutch.)
The Catharijneconvent‘s current temporary exhibition is of treasures from St Paul’s Cathedral in Münster, Germany (which is only a little further from Utrecht than we are). Most of the displayed items were made as reliquaries, but this really caught my eye. It is a goblet, possibly a chalice, made of a single intact polished coconut shell, crowned by a crystal lion which has been adapted to become a Christian lamb.
Coconuts were not unknown in Northern Europe from Roman times – they are probably native to the Maldives, the Indian Ocean is a corridor not a barrier, and the Romans ruled from Scotland to Sudan. But they were still pretty rare, and the practice of turning them into goblets is a purely Northern European one in the middle ages. This one dates to around 1230 and is the oldest one known.
The hinged lid of the cup is decorated with a rock crystal lion from Persia or Arabia, which has been adapted to become an Agnus Dei lamb complete with cross. The original crystal lion must have been rather special as well, to have made it to Germany from its pace of manufacture, and I guess it may have already been rather old before the Christian sculptor got at it.
The goblet was used as a reliquary at one point as well (sadly there doesn’t appear to be a record of which relics), but was surely first constructed as a luxury drinking vessel. The word used for it in German, Pokal, is a less commonly used term, also used for the World Cup.
2) The Cathedral Doors of Utrecht
The most extraordinary thing about St Martin’s Cathedral in Utrecht is that it is only half there. In 1674 the unfinished nave collapsed during a violent storm, and was never rebuilt, as shown in these before-and-after prints from the seventeenth century.
So the huge bell tower sits detached from the remains of the cathedral, and what would originally have been the soaring opening from the transept to the nave has been bricked up, a barrier between the sacred space and the outside world rather than a religious passageway.
The main opening through this barrier is through the bronze doors created in 1996 by Theo van de Vathorst, surmounted by a huge picture of St Martin dividing his cloak to clothe a naked beggar. Here are the doors in their full glory. Click to embiggen.
The theme is the six works of mercy listed by Jesus in Matthew 25: 1) To feed the hungry. 2) To give water to the thirsty. 3) To clothe the naked. 4) To shelter the homeless. 5) To visit the sick. 6) To visit the imprisoned. Traditionally a seventh is added to the list, To bury the dead. The upper half of the doors carries the passage from Matthew in several non-Dutch languages – Frisian, Japanese, Syriac and English. The lower half is almost entirely in Dutch, apart from the Greek original text; it includes two Dutch translations, notes about St Martin and St Willibrord, and an explanation of the whole thing. In the bottom left you can see the sheep being divided from the goats. Here’s a Youtube documentary about the making of the doors – in Dutch, alas.
The choice of languages is very interesting. Frisian is not a foreign language in the Netherlands, and it’s important for the historical tradition to which the church belongs. Japan has a long-running trade and cultural relationship with the Netherlands. Syriac would have been Jesus’ own language. And English of course is today’s world language of communication.
And the overall message, of course, is that it’s good to be nice to people.
3) The Kang’Xi-Verbiest celestial sphere
After almost two decades living near Leuven, I can still be utterly astonished by the city. Here in the courtyard of the Atrechtcollege on the Naamsestraat, 300 metres from where my daughter was born, is this full-scale replica of a celestial sphere built in the 1670s by the Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest for the old Beijing Observatory at the command of the Kangxi emperor. It is more than two and a half metres across, and weighs 3.85 tonnes, but apparently it turns easily with a simple crank mechanism.
Almost 1900 stars are marked on the surface. As you may be able to see, the starmap is reversed – here the Pleiades are at the top, with the V of the Hyades below pointing left instead of right, and the stars of Aries left along the zodiac instead of right as we would see them in the northern hemisphere.
Verbiest’s story is quite extraordinary; he persuaded the young Kangxi emperor to adopt European science as part of his modernising policies, and also designed a steam-powered car and was the first person to use the word “motor” in its modern sense. He died aged 64 in 1688 of injuries sustained from falling off a horse. Two Belgian beers are named after him (Pater Verbiest, which comes in 6.5% blond and 9% brown versions, and Ferre, which is an eye-watering 10% quadruple).
The globe here was constructed by the Chinese authorities in the 1980s as a gift to Leuven University, commemorating Chinese-Western friendship. The university had maintained its links with China over the centuries (with one unexpected benefit being the enlightenment of Hergé). Unfortunately I cannot find details of how this particular present came about, nor the names of the people who designed and built the replica.
Quite by coincidence, I discovered that the celestial sphere was formally unveiled in its present location exactly thirty years ago today, 2 June 1989. Needless to say, it immediately became a focal point for demonstrations of solidarity with the Tiananmen Square protesters.
So, three things that I’ve seen in the last three days that will all stick in my mind, all pointing to the links between Asia and this part of Europe (the coconut and crystal must have reached Münster via Asia; Japanese, Syriac and to a large extent New Testament Greek are Asian languages; and the Chinese globe speaks for itself). There’s always something interesting out there.
Sat, 13:30: RT @gavreilly: Casual reminder that the last time Boris Johnson visited Dublin as a member of HMG, his own civil servants had to pre-advise…
Sat, 16:05: RT @ellle_em: Make sure you have the tough-but-necessary conversations with your loved ones: my husband, for example, knows that if I ever…
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This review contains SPOILERS for both the film and the novel. The film has been out for 62 years, but if you haven’t seen it, do go and see it first before reading this.
The Bridge on the River Kwai won the Oscar for Best Motion Picture of 1957, and picked up another five, Best Director (David Lean), Best Actor (Alec Guinness), Best Adapted Screenplay (Pierre Boulle, with Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman, who actually wrote the screenplay, being awarded posthumous Oscars for it in 1984), Best Music, Scoring (Malcolm Arnold), Best Film Editing (Peter Taylor) and Best Cinematography (Jack Hildyard), with Sessue Hayakawa losing out to Red Buttons in Sayonara for Best Supporting Actor. The other contenders for Best Motion Picture that year were 12 Angry Men, Peyton Place, Sayonara and Witness for the Prosecution, none of which I have seen, though I have read the theatre script for 12 Angry Men and also the Agatha Christie short story on which Witness for the Prosecution is based.
IMDB users rank The Bridge on the River Kwai5th or 2nd of the films of 1957, with 12 Angry Men top on both rankings and The Seventh Seal, Funny Face and Paths of Glory between the two on the popularity metric. There were a lot of famous films, these and many others, produced in 1957, but I have seen none of them at all apart from The Bridge on the River Kwai, which I had previously seen when it was on TV at Christmas time in 1981. Here’s a contemporary (post-Oscars) trailer:
I’ve never been to South East Asia, though I have a number of links there – my godfather and one of my uncles actually fought in the Burma campaign; my father was born in Malaysia; my niece was born in Vietnam; my aunt appears as an extra in The 7th Dawn, which is set in Malaysia a few years later and also stars William Holden along with my aunt’s schoolfriend Susannah York. (You can see my aunt dancing in the embassy scene about 38 minutes into The 7th Dawn, if you want to check.) I’d love to go.
Back to The Bridge on the River Kwai. It is a problematic film in terms of race and gender, but it is spectacular in its execution on every level, and I’m bumping it right to the top of my table, in fifth place just behind the greatest of all war films, All Quiet on the Western Front, and just ahead of the soldiers returning in The Best Years of Our Lives. Like last year’s Around The World In Eighty Days, it’s an adaptation of a French novel about an Englishman’s encounter with Asia, with the spectacular collapse of railway bridge near the end. There are also some important differences, of course.
Gender: There are five credited women in the cast and none of their characters are named – Ann Sears plays an anonymous “Nurse” whos is William Holden’s character’s love interest, and four Thai actresses, credited as Vilaiwan Seeboonreaung, Ngamta Suphaphongs, Javanart Punynchoti and Kannikar Dowklee are credited as “Siamese girls” – the partisans who accompany William Holden’s character through the jungle to the final confrontation. There is also an uncredited nurse (as opposed to the credited but unnamed nurse played by Sears).
Ann Sears had a better known younger sister, Heather Sears, and was married to Michael Holden, a British producer (not related to William Holden as far as I can tell).
Vilaiwan Seeboonreaung – วิไลวรรณ สีบุญเรือง – is better known in Thailand by her maiden name, Vilaiwan Wattapanich – วิไลวรรณ วัฒนพานิช, and has a Thai Wikipedia article listing dozens of films and TV appearances since 1950. Due to variant transliterations she has three different IMDB pages (Seeboonreaung, Vatanapanich and Vatapanich). She is clearly one of the most prominent Thai actresses.
Ngamta Suphaphongs – งามตา ศุภพงษ์ – had previously starred in a Thai blockbuster, Forever Yours, as a young woman married to a much older man, with the hit song Forever. If I understand this correctly, she went on to found the Music Faculty at Silpakorn University.
Javanart Punynchoti – whose name I have found in Thai as both ชวนารถ ปัญญโชติ and ยาวนารถ ปัญญะโชติ, differing by the first syllable of her first name and whether or not there is a middle vowel in her second name – was much the most difficult to track down; her name I think has been particularly mangled. Her son Arthur Panyachote is much better known in Thailand, both as a singer and gay rights activist.
Kannikar Dowklee – กรรณิกา ดาวคลี่ – had another starring role in The Stars Unfold / ดาวคลี่ (1959), in which she gets top billing. Otherwise I can’t find much about her.
Having said that, this extraordinarily minimal acknowledgement of half of humanity on screen is, believe it or not, a considerable advance on the original book, in which no women at all appear or are even referred to in passing. (There is a figurative reference to maternal love.) The fact that the Thai partisans are young women rather than men gives the march through the jungle and the destruction of the bridge a much more gritty feel.
Race: Let’s face it, this is a film about an Englishman encountering the Orient. The audience is expected to share the English and American characters’ views and perspective, and the Japanese and Thais are the Other. And yet… the fact is that the story is rooted in Pierre Boulle’s real life experience of working for the Japanese as a prisoner of war in Indochina. And Sessue Hayakawa’s Saito, who begins the film as the evil head of the PoW camp, evolves into a complex character whose relationship with Alec Guiness’s Nicholson defines the film. It should also be said that unlike in last year’s Around The World In Eighty Days, at least we have Japanese actors playing Japanese characters and Thai actors playing Thai characters. Again, it’s a better effort than the original book, where Boulle allows himself to slip into stereotypes of Japanese, English and Americans rather readily, and the Thais are even more anonymous. (As well as there being no women in the book, there are no French people either, nor any reference to France.)
There is one very dark-skinned extra whose only function is to operate the Japanese officers’ fan.
NB that the upper part of the Mae Klong river, which was crossed by the Burma Railway, was renamed the Khwae Yai in the 1960s by the Thai government to bring real and fictional geography into closer alignment.
Music: Here we have the great composer Malcolm Arnold at his best. This is the entire soundtrack album:
But of course what everyone remembers is the extraordinary scene in which the PoWs arrive, defiantly whistling “Colonel Bogey“, and at the end of the scene the orchestra swells into Arnold’s “River Kwai March”, conveying the sense of lost military glory so very vividly.
Script: A surprising number of memorable lines in the film are lifted directly from Boulle’s novel, including “an unfortunate disagreement for which I was not to blame”, “healthy competitive spirit”, “the elm piles of London Bridge have lasted six hundred years”, and “Our experience of missions dropping into this sort of country can be summed up as follows: if they do only one jump, you know, there’s a fifty per cent chance of an injury. Two jumps, it’s eighty per cent. The third time, it’s dead certain they won’t get off scot free.” But a great film has been made from a good book here, and the changes to the story made by Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman are crucial from the beginning – Shears is not a fellow-prisoner or impersonating an officer in the book – to the end – Boulle’s Nicholson does not have an epiphany and successfully prevents most of the sabotage before his death. In particular, a lot more is made of the commando raid in the film than in the book. These are all good dramatic choices. It is a matter of disgrace that Wilson and Foreman’s Oscar-winning writing was not recognised for almost thirty years.
Cinematography: I should have said last year that the new wide screen format enables a vast amount of spectacle to go on the screen. A less gifted team would allow some of this extra space to go to waste, but that’s not happening here. I am sure that someone more familiar with the respective landscapes of Thailand and Sri Lanka than I am would be able to point and laugh at the differences, but basically it all looks gorgeous, and although it was presumably all filmed on the same short stretch of the Kelani River in Sri Lanka, we get a great sense of a long journey.
And the most extraordinary scene of course is the final collapse of the bridge with the train tumbling off it (as previously mentioned, added from the book).
Alec Guinness: All of this is a huge achievement. But what keeps you watching to the very end of two hours and forty-one minutes, even if you already know perfectly well what is going to happen, is the performance of the leading man. (It is striking that Guinness is billed third, and Hayakawa fourth and below the line, in the publicity posters; were Hawkins and Holden really such box-office draws?) He takes us inside the mind of Nicholson, whose concept of duty drives him to build the best possible bridge, even though this could lead to the end of the British Empire, who is grasping the best he can at dignity for himself and for his men, and even for the Japanese to an extent, in appalling circumstances; and who at the end realises what he has done, and destroys it.
I will now watch The Incredible Shrinking Man, which won the Hugo that year, and then progress to Gigi, of which I know nothing except that it stars the glorious Leslie Caron.
I’m 30 films into this project now, so here are my rankings so far, with the most recent ten picked out in red. It’s been a good decade, with six of them in my top ten and only two in my bottom ten. That said, it’s going to take a pretty awful Oscar-winning film to break into my bottom five, all produced before 1936. See also my previous rankings of the first 10 and first 20.
As for the book by Pierre Boulle, here’s the second paragraph of the third chapter:
Ce fut la proclamation du colonel Saïto, stipulant que les officiers devraient travailler avec leurs hommes, et dans les mêmes conditions, qui suscita les premiers troubles. Elle provoqua une démarche, polie mais énergique, du colonel Nicholson, qui exposa son point de vue avec une sincère objectivité, concluant que les officiers britanniques avaient pour tâche de commander leurs soldats, et non de manœuvrer la pelle ou la pioche.
The cause of the initial disturbances was Colonel Saito’s proclamation stipulating that all officers were to work side by side with the other ranks and on the same footing. This provoked a polite but firm protest from Colonel Nicholson, who outlined his ideas on the subject candidly and methodically, adding in conclusion that the task of British officers was to command their men and not to wield a pick and shovel.
As already noted, the book is a good book but not as good as the film. I think it’s the first case of a straight adaptation where I have been able to say that quite so firmly. There are no women; the English, Americans, Japanese and Thais all play somewhat to national stereotype. On the other hand, the core narrative of Nicholson as English army officer, attached to his duty for entirely recognisable reasons, and Saito as his captor who ends up being effectively captured by his prisoner, is a firmly sound story and well told. As a French author, Boulle is able to keep an ironic detachment from the drama, and perhaps this ends up a bit less manipulative of the reader/viewer. Boulle’s ear for dialogue and character meant that many of his best lines were preserved for the screenplay (for which he won an Oscar, not entirely on his own merits, as noted above). It’s also a really short book. Strongly recommended. You can get it here.
Fri, 12:56: Well worth reading, right to the end: “it’s far easier to solve problems with friends, rather than manacled to an a… https://t.co/wz4YOI9ued
