I went to church this morning, for the first time in several years; you may remember I reported from the churchyard in the first of my lockdown videos, and now that the lockdown is easing, I wanted to see how the community is putting itself back together.

Well, it's still not religion as we knew it before. No hymn singing allowed by the congregation, just a cantor intoning from the back; no communion for anyone except the priest; only every third seat in every second row was available to sit in.

But it was still an important celebration. The service was centred around the Paschal candle which should normally have been lit at Easter, two months ago. The gospel was Matthew 10:26-33, whose tagline is "Be not afraid". And the first time that the congregation as a whole spoke was to jointly profess the Creed – one of the special Belgian ones:

I’m not sure that I will go back very often. But it was important to go today.

• Sat, 12:56: RT @johnnythin: A short thread on this evening’s visit to a rare sight in Surrey: a large standing stone, some 3-4m high. But it’s not qui…
• Sat, 15:34: The Beiderbecke Affair https://t.co/AYtGObXEkB
• Sun, 10:45: Man smuggling cocaine in artificial penis caught at Brussels Airport https://t.co/peDJLZN2DA Headline of the year?

The Beiderbecke Affair is the story of two middle-aged teachers in love, in Leeds, at the height of Thatcherism. If you don't know it, just go and get hold of it somehow. It will be five well-spent hours of your time. At present all six episodes are available on Dailymotion:

I fell in love with it at first sight when it was first shown in 1985, the combination of quirky humour, lovng detailed camera work, and upbeat jazz. Here's the first scene after the credits, which introduces us to James Bolam and Barbara Flynn as the protagonists, and Dudley Sutton as their colleague.

There is a plot, as it turns out, but it's kind of marginal to the experience of watching Jill and Trevor exploring their world and their affection for each other, and the beautiful sequences of them and other people simply walking or driving around Leeds to the soundtrack composed by Frank Ricotti. The script is crackling, the actors are electric and the whole thing is a delight.

I was very glad to discover that the show is deemed culturally significant enough to have the British Film Institute publish a book about it, by Bill Gallagher who has also written four Doctor Who audios for Big Finish (all of which I enjoyed). The second paragraph of the book's third chapter (quoting Alan Plater) is:

I said, 'What about Jimmy Bolam?' I'd known Jimmy a long time, socially, and we had worked together in radio. So then we had Jimmy and we got Barbara Flynn. We didn't continue with Bridget Turner because I think there was a feeling that we wanted to go for a new team throughout, and try a new character. I think we've been kind of vindicated in that.

It's a lovely detailed analysis, including the fascinating information that the show was originally intended to continue the story of an earlier Plater series, Get Lost!, but had to be reimagined when Alun Armstrong was no loner available. Somehow it all came together.

I do have to note that there isn't a single non-white speaking part, and very few non-speaking parts either. Leeds is not the most diverse of British cities, but it's not completely white either, nor was it in 1985.

It was funny to come to this at the same time as reading Charles Stross's The Nightmare Stacks, also set in Leeds but from a very different angle.

• Fri, 15:09: B’s 23rd birthday – first time we had seen her since March. Hygienic measures had to be observed of course, but she… https://t.co/80CgPME5GY
• Fri, 16:05: Incest uncovered at the elite prehistoric Newgrange monument in Ireland https://t.co/kDZcvKTkse Wow. Much much more as well.
• Fri, 16:16: RT @LMMyles: Most saddened by this. Ian Holm was one of those magnificent actors who could make the direst script better. For me, it was hi…
• Fri, 18:56: Who was both oldest former US President and oldest former Vice-President, but not at the same time? https://t.co/NvUUYJDIfW
• Fri, 20:15: “He made us all laugh. Except when he was trying to make us all laugh.”
• Fri, 20:48: RT @KatHunt4: @RogerHelmerMEP https://t.co/C0HPGhptvP
• Fri, 21:43: “Surely there will be superior forces, retreating, to add to the complement?” “If they were *superior* forces, they… https://t.co/5lZ8cAAC2S
• Sat, 10:45: Enjoy Toto’s “Africa” Played Entirely on Tesla Coils https://t.co/FogHI5oJW5 yep.

Last week I posed a wee question on social media: Who was both the oldest former President of the United States, and the oldest former Vice-President, but not at the same time?

Lots of people scratched their heads over this, which was gratifying, and the answer is admittedly a bit obscure.

Below is the full list of people who were the oldest former President of the United States, and the oldest former Vice-President, at all times since the terms of the first holders of both offices ended on 4 March 1797. I have put in bold the cases where a President or Veep who was older than all their living predecessors (if any) left office at the end of their term. In all other cases, the distinction is transmitted through mortality.

You'll see that since 1797, there have been five intervals when there were no living former Presidents, and two when there were no living former Vice-Presidents. There were no living ex-Presidents 1) between the death of Washington and the end of John Adams' term; 2) between the death of Andrew Johnson and the end of Grant's term; 3) between the death of Cleveland and the end of Theodore Roosevelt's term; 4) between the death of Coolidge and the end of Hoover's term; and 5) between the death of Lyndon Johnson and Nixon's resignation.

More obscurely, there were no living Vice-Presidents between 1) the death of Hannibal Hamlin and the end of Levi P. Morton's term, and 2) between the death of Levi P. Morton and the end of Thomas R. Marshall's term.

John Adams, Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and the elder George Bush were all both the oldest former President of the United States, and the oldest former Vice-President, at the same time. (In all cases except Nixon, they held both distinctions at the time of their deaths.)

John Quincy Adams, William Howard Taft and Charles G.Dawes all appear twice in their respective columns, having been succeeded in their offices by older men who they then outlived.

The otherwise rather obscure Levi P. Morton outlived six younger successors as Vice-President. I think that is a record.

And the answer to the question, "Who was both the oldest former President of the United States, and the oldest former Vice-President, but not at the same time?"

It's Calvin Coolidge.

He was elected Vice-President on the same ticket as Warren Harding in 1920, and took office in 1921. When Harding died in 1923, Coolidge became president and the only other living former vice-president was his immediate predecessor Thomas R. Marshall, who was older than him. Marshall died in 1925, making Coolidge not just the oldest living former vice-president but the only one. Coolidge's own vice-president, Charles G. Dawes, was older than him, so when their term ended in 1929, Dawes took over the mantle of oldest former Vice-President from him.

At that point the only living former presidents were Coolidge himself and William Howard Taft. When Taft died in 1930, Coolidge became the oldest former president until his own death in 1933, after which there were no living former presidents until Herbert Hoover's term ended two months later. (Hoover lived another thirty years.)

If you spot any mistakes below, please yell.

• Thu, 12:56: RT @ashleybsumerel: I know masks aren’t exactly comfortable, but neither are bras, and a good portion of the population wears those regular…
• Thu, 13:08: RT @OmniumIntl: #DigitalTalk next Monday 22nd June at 4pm (CET) ‘Will a fractured EU survive the challenges of COVID-19?’ We will try…
• Thu, 16:05: World Dream Bank: Planetocopia https://t.co/ap3yckXK65 A brilliant selection of alternate Earths.
• Thu, 18:25: Thursday reading https://t.co/6xggiZN9f0
• Thu, 18:48: Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist – Goodreads/LibraryThing stats https://t.co/cSJINSRVnZ
• Thu, 19:44: RT @Glasgowin2024: In the last few months we have seen extraordinary changes in the world around us. However, further change is needed, and…
• Thu, 20:48: Sex Redefined: The Idea of 2 Sexes Is Overly Simplistic – Scientific American https://t.co/xH4KLCIyBi Fascinating and well worth a read.
• Thu, 21:09: This evening’s TV. https://t.co/uGXIizxlpa

The Clarke Award shortlist is out. Although (as I well know) it's a juried award, the leader on this table has won the award four years out of the last six. (2019, 2017, 2015 and 2014, but not 2018 or 2016.)

A clear leader in all four columns… (Also my personal favourite, of the three I have read.)

Current
The Complete Secret Army: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Classic TV Drama Series by Andy Priestner
Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens
The Wicked + The Divine vol 4: Rising Action, by Kieron Gillen etc
The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov
Dreaming In Smoke, by Tricia Sullivan

Last books finished
The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within, by Stephen Fry
Modern China: A Very Short Introduction, by Rana Mitter
Heaven's War by David S Goyer and Michael Cassutt (did not finish)
The Ghost of Lily Painter by Caitlin Davies
Laatste schooldag, by Jan Siebelink (did not finish)
From A Clear Blue Sky, by Timothy Knatchbull

Next books
De dag waarop de bus zonder haar vertrok, by Beka
The Overstory, by Richard Powers

• Wed, 12:56: Wow. https://t.co/DPfOg1ehpE
• Wed, 16:05: Glorious. https://t.co/Wke7xYbRbX
• Wed, 18:10: November 2006 books https://t.co/Vf4JlcEY8P
• Wed, 19:18: This is bad, Julian. I am agreeing with you more and more often! https://t.co/umoJAjAdBr
• Wed, 19:51: RT @OxfordDiplomat: There is nothing more joyous then seeing Boris Johnson being called out like this. “Mr Speaker… this is turning int…
• Wed, 20:01: Commemorating Jo Cox https://t.co/iMN3aYbng4 #brexit Blog post from September 2018.
• Wed, 20:29: RT @SylviaObell: Some of y’all need to stop using the phrase “cancel” like it’s synonymous with “critique.” There’s a difference b/w wantin…
• Wed, 20:48: RT @JenniferMerode: Black MEP makes complaint against Belgian police after “humiliating” incident at Brussels Gare du Nord. https://t.co/W5…

As previously mentioned, we started the month with a half-term break at my sister's in Burgundy. Cluny is a remarkable town with a ruined abbey which dominates the urban landscape.

I moved my personal website to http://www.nicholaswhyte.info – I should start updating it a bit more often… I also visited London for orientation with the new job, and drove to the depths of the Ardennes for my last Crisis Group retreat. We got reports out on Serbia, Kosovo and Georgia, as my time with the organisation wound down.

The month ended dramatically. I had a work trip to Berlin which included, rather unusually, a meeting in the Defence Ministry (normally I end up farther east, between the Bundestag/Kanzleramt and foreign ministry). On my way out I asked the silver-haired colonel who I was meeting about the building's history. He told me that it had originally been the headquarters of the German Navy from 1911, and was then the territorial army headquarters; and then became the centre of resistance to Hitler within the armed forces, in particular under Claus von Stauffenberg. "So after 20 July 1944, von Stauffenberg was shot in one of the courtyards," indicating which one with a nod.

That wasn't the really dramatic part. The really dramatic part was after I landed back in Brussels on an early morning flight and started driving the family car to the office. As I went through the Montgomery tunnel, I felt a sudden KCHUNK, and the car coasted to a halt on the uphill stretch. Phone calls to Touring, long wait while traffic pooled around me in one of the prime choke-points of Brussels suburbia, finally the Touring guy arrived and towed me to a nearby layby, more long wait while he fiddled with the distributor cap before shaking his head in bafflement and calling a pickup truck, more long wait for the pickup truck, which then couldn't find the garage, probably because its driver was too busy talking to his girlfriend on his mobile phone to look for it properly, and eventually walked from the garage to my office with all my luggage from Berlin. The garage looked at the car for a few days and then confirmed that fixing it would cost more than we had paid for it, so since then I have largely commuted to Brussels by public transport.

In my office, my Macedonian intern E was doing handover to her successor, Belgian S. E now works for the European Commission, a few blocks from my current workplace, at least in normal times. S now lives in Geneva, where he married a Quebecoise; their children's French must be very interesting to hear. Here's a picture of the three of us at a conference in the European Parliament where I was speaking that week, E on the left, S on the right and me sitting down. (And a bearded chap, who I don't recognise, talking to us.)

I managed to read 27 books in November 2006, more than half of which were short Doctor Who books, mostly by Ian Marter.

November 2006 books

Non-fiction 9 (YTD 62)
The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-First Century, by Robert Cooper
A Bachelor's London: Memories of the Day before Yesterday, 1889-1914, by Frederic Whyte
An International Relations Debacle: The UN Secretary-General's Mission of Good Offices in Cyprus 1999-2004, by Claire Palley (did not finish)
Disaccord on Cyprus: The UN Plan and after, by Clement Dodd
Everything is about Cyprus, by Hasan Erçakica
Skeletons on the Zahara, by Dean King
Western Sahara: The Roots of a Desert War, by Tony Hodges
Endgame in the Western Sahara, by Toby Shelley
Western Sahara: Anatomy of a Stalemate, by Erik Jensen

SF 3 (YTD 65)
Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2006 edition, edited by Rich Horton
Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2006 edition, edited by Rich Horton
A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin

Doctor Who 14 (YTD 26)
The Clockwise Man, by Justin Richards
The Monsters Inside, by Stephen Cole
Doctor Who and the Ark in Space, by Ian Marter
Doctor Who and the Sontaran Experiment, by Ian Marter
Doctor Who and the Ribos Operation, by Ian Marter
Doctor Who and the Enemy of the World, by Ian Marter
Doctor Who – Earthshock, by Ian Marter
Doctor Who – The Dominators, by Ian Marter
Doctor Who – The Invasion, by Ian Marter
Harry Sullivan's War, by Ian Marter
Doctor Who – The Reign of Terror, by Ian Marter
Doctor Who – The Rescue, by Ian Marter
Evolution, by John Peel
The Stealers of Dreams, by Steve Lyons

Comics 1 (2006 total 6)
Preacher: Until the End of the World, by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon

6,000 pages (YTD 54,200)
1/27 (YTD 30/187) by a woman
None (YTD 8/187) by PoC

Robert Cooper's The Breaking of Nations was the best of these; you can get it here. Close behind is Skeletons on the Zahara, a tale of shipwrecked sailors sold into slavery; you can get it here. Claire Palley's book on Cyprus is awful, but you can get it here. (I didn't pay for it – a friend had been gifted a copy and passed it on to me.)

• Tue, 12:56: RT @BretDevereaux: Statues are back in the news; I suppose I ought say something about statues, because I’m a historian and people keep say…
• Tue, 14:12: Working from home in good weather – taking a Zoom call in the garden, actually helps concentration as there are few… https://t.co/yChUVJeEpQ
• Tue, 16:05: The Supreme Court’s LGBTQ ruling, explained in 5 sentences https://t.co/HDwOlvEfmV Good stuff from @imillhiser.
• Tue, 16:48: RT @David_Cameron: The Prime Minister is right to maintain the commitment to 0.7 – it saves lives, promotes a safer world and builds Britis…
• Tue, 17:16: RT @RolandGehrels: Bicycle path density. https://t.co/bHktWYXZQB
• Tue, 18:21: Thread https://t.co/azpPToAhr7
• Tue, 18:24: RT @djmgaffneyw4: Are we the baddies?
• Tue, 20:48: I Long to Read More in the Book of You: Moomins Creator Tove Jansson’s Tender and Passionate Letters to the Love of… https://t.co/B6EHd45kgR
• Tue, 21:28: RT @timfarron: Right, we’re on a roll, let’s see if we can get Ruud Van Nistelrooy to come out in favour of proportional representation by…
• Tue, 22:00: A little bit of inspired insanity from the Goodies, first broadcast 12 November 1971. https://t.co/xRAvUsW6lf

• Wed, 09:57: Croatia region declares natural disaster after 50 million bees were poisoned https://t.co/29mk2X5aq0 Good lord. Me… https://t.co/h76x7Qoiq7
• Wed, 10:39: RT @RozKaveney: This was my Jo Cox poem. God, it reads prescient now. https://t.co/0JDjxQr9LE
• Wed, 10:45: RT @kj_charles: If you’d asked me in 2016 to match ‘famous beloved children’s author’ and ‘uber-rich footballer’ to ‘vicious attack on tran…
• Wed, 11:00: RT @bbcdoctorwho: Best birthday wishes in the universe to our brilliant Doctor, Jodie Whittaker #DoctorWho https://t.co/qpj98IJB5O

A little bit of inspired insanity from the Goodies, first broadcast 12 November 1971.

• Mon, 12:56: A Rainy Night in Georgia https://t.co/jwLmVkR3lW Sad and worrying.
• Mon, 16:05: From Private Lives to Public Memory https://t.co/djiZEffWYs Very interesting on the 1918 flu pandemic.
• Mon, 17:11: Bad News is Good News https://t.co/IvVsRjYE8h good news is no news, and no news is bad news.
• Mon, 18:16: RT @_jamesmeek: Me and this book have travelled far together. Thank you, Marcus Wheeler, and farewell to a kind, wise man. https://t.co/S67…
• Mon, 18:21: Ninety days on from lockdown https://t.co/ffCEVGrmPb #horeca
• Mon, 20:23: RT @steve_vladeck: #BREAKING: First (and not last) merits decision from #SCOTUS this morning is in #LGBT/Title VII case. Court holds that…
• Mon, 20:39: RT @CharlesTannock: You couldn’t make it up. Where has the UK Home Office been for the last 30 years. Czechoslovskia, GDR and USSR long gon…
• Mon, 20:40: RT @TheNimraaa: Wild that Neil Gorsuch come out with a better opinion on transgender rights this month than JK Rowling
• Mon, 20:48: RT @HooiWanV: i had time https://t.co/robaeodXOo
• Mon, 20:49: RT @AndrewDuffEU: WHAT ?

• Tue, 07:35: RT @alexstubb: Today seven Zoom/Teams meetings or Webinars. Locations: Florence, Brussels, Helsinki, Berlin, Bratislava and Lausanne. Video…
• Tue, 08:59: RT @anthonyzach: Four years since Jo Cox was assassinated by a far right terrorist. Still feels like the symbolic start of the populist dar…
• Tue, 10:45: RT @OutlivedDixie: Betamax production lasted 10 times longer than the Confederacy https://t.co/rfC1T6bttz

Lockdown is not quite over yet, but we are a lot closer to normal now. I have been keeping an anxious eye on the daily numbers of COVID-19 cases in hospital, those in ICUs and fatalities, and all are now down to pre-lockdown levels. The Belgian government has stopped its daily press conferences and will do a weekly update instead. We are lucky – the numbers are now grimly rising in Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia, India and Pakistan (and Iran seems to be having a second wave) – not to mention the continuing horror in the United States.

The restaurants opened a week ago and I went for lunch with a colleague:

The Belgian prime minister bilingually posted about her own meal with her (Australian) husband. (More than one of my colleagues looked at the tweet and said they knew the restaurant – I have eaten there too, but only outside which is why I didn’t recognise it!)

Vandaag heropent de #horeca! Ik heb ervan geprofiteerd om samen met mijn man iets te gaan eten. Voor wie een sector wil steunen die zwaar geleden heeft is dat de makkelijkste manier, en ook veruit de gezelligste. ( Photonews) pic.twitter.com/Qw6YyzZIAk

— Sophie Wilmès (@Sophie_Wilmes) June 8, 2020

En ce 8 juin, l’#Horeca rouvre ! Nous avons profité avec mon mari d’un court instant dans la journée pour afficher notre soutien à ce secteur de la manière la plus simple et la plus conviviale possible: en partageant un bon repas. ( Photonews) pic.twitter.com/8SH5sT8oc8

— Sophie Wilmès (@Sophie_Wilmes) June 8, 2020

Back on 7 April I did a videoblog about our village, ending with the hope that I would sometime soon be able to enjoy a beer at the nearest pub:

Well, last night was the night it happened at last:

(Note very young fellow customer in the background.)

Friday will be B’s birthday, and we will go and see her for the first time since the lockdown. U will have to wait a bit longer, unfortunately, given her needs and the logistics of continuing restrictions. But the trajectory is upwards.

• Sun, 12:13: At supermarket for emergency Sunday restock. Me: Thanks, but I don’t need a trolley, I’m just buying a couple of th… https://t.co/W2ow96ecMU
• Sun, 12:55: RT @ChairmanYaffle: @nwbrux Trolley distancing.
• Sun, 12:56: How the alt-right shifted the Overton window https://t.co/5cY1EoE3zn Grim review of what sounds like a fascinating book by @andrewmarantz.
• Sun, 14:15: RT @xtophercook: There are problems with black box big tech and algorithm design. The idea that their automatic scraping is hiding Churchil…
• Sun, 14:48: RT @DrLeeworthy: Identifying yourself with #PaulRobeson in post-war Britain was a political act – that statement shouldn’t surprise anyone.…
• Sun, 15:38: RT @Keir_Starmer: What is it going to take for the Prime Minister to finally act? https://t.co/wcy7ascPmB
• Sun, 16:05: Generation X and Trans Lives https://t.co/IuaTJosaR8 Very good commentary from @scalzi -and for once, do read the comments.
• Sun, 16:52: Laatste Schooldag, by Jan Siebelink https://t.co/E7du1QbI8B
• Sun, 18:09: Started Cycle with #cyclemeter at 18:09, on a new route, see https://t.co/3KJza8BLWO, Cyclemeter will speak your replies to me.
• Sun, 18:30: Finished Cycle with #cyclemeter, on a new route, time 20:47, distance 6.68 km, see https://t.co/3KJza8BLWO, average 19.30.

• Sun, 20:48: After Hundreds of Years, Unknown Woman in Tudor Portrait Identified as Mary Boleyn https://t.co/zi67mT5Irc Brilliant!
• Sun, 21:10: As long hoped for, return to De Sortie for a couple of Leffe! (Note *very* young customer at the next table!) https://t.co/KRkfMD9iqP
• Sun, 23:14: RT @PamKeithFL: Let’s pull up for a brief summary: Biden is winning in EVERY blue state. He’s also leading in MI, NC, NH, FL & GA. He’s…
• Mon, 10:45: RT @ConUnit_UCL: BLOG on the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill @alanjrenwick & Robert Hazell argue the principle of automatic implementati…

Another lovely sunny weekend day of reading in the garden, another book that I've given up on. I did get as far as the third in this collection of short stories, but none of the first three really engaged me so I'm leaving the rest. The second paragraph of the third story, "Een evenwichtig bestaan" ("A balanced existence"), is:

Een jaar geleden solliciteerde Ernst Greve, net afgestudeerd aan de universiteit van Leiden, naar de betrekking van docent Nederlands aan het Willem de Zwijger College te E.

A year ago, Ernst Greve, just graduated from the University of Leiden, applied for the position of Dutch teacher at William the Silent College in E.

The stories are all set among the staff of William the Silent College in a medium-size Dutch town identified only as E. I think they may have been meant to be comedies of manners, but I did not get the humour, and I expected more recurring characters in a series of stories set in what isn't such a big school. You can get it here. Siebelink is quite a well-known Dutch writer – his best known book, Knielen op een bed violen (Kneeling on a Bed of Violets) has been translated into English – but I think I'll give it a miss.

This was top of my unread books acquired in 2013, and the non-genre fiction book that had lingered longest on my unread shelves. Next on the first of those piles is Tim Dolin's biography of George Eliot, next on the second is The Inside of the Cup by the other Winston Churchill – but the latter will have to wait until I have finished all the books I acquired in 2013. (Which I'm getting through pretty briskly.)

• Sat, 12:56: How JK Rowling Betrayed the World She Created https://t.co/eWKaQ6kqyB Well put, by @gabbybellot.
• Sat, 13:47: Finished Cycle with #cyclemeter, on a new route, time 42:15, distance 12.16 km, see https://t.co/oMcOlOjpaG, average 17.26.
• Sat, 14:32: What strikes me is that only two of the last 10 Leaders of the Opposition became prime minister! https://t.co/YB9pXADyWk
• Sat, 14:48: RT @CBeebiesHQ: NOTE Blue Peter is on CBeebies at 5pm. This clip is a few minutes into the show. You may want to sit with your child.…
• Sat, 16:05: RT @Mikel_Jollett: Dear Republicans, You can’t call yourselves “the party of Lincoln” AND wave the Confederate flag. Love, History
• Sat, 17:37: RT @sundersays: Despite desire to caricature both ways Idiots who vandalised statues in London v.unrepresentative of anti-racist opinion.…
• Sat, 18:45: Heaven’s War, by David S. Goyer and Michael Cassutt https://t.co/U8TYCTY4Zd
• Sat, 20:48: 1968 Isn’t The Only Parallel For This Political Moment | FiveThirtyEight https://t.co/r8s6gV2PS4 “The latest anti-l… https://t.co/5E8mCogttH
• Sun, 09:50: RT @meghamohan: Just before 01:00 on 14 June 2017, fire broke out in the kitchen of a fourth floor flat at the 23 storey tower block in Nor…
• Sun, 10:45: RT @ignaciobercero: On brinkmanship and trade negotiations-thread.

For once, I'm not citing the second paragraph of the third chapter, because I did not get that far. It turns out to be the second book in a series where I have not read the first, and the action is so tightly connected to the previous volume that I could not make head nor tail of it, and gave up after only 16 pages. For what it's worth, the characters seemed to me to be behaving very oddly, but I was not interested enough to keep reading and find out why.

• Fri, 12:24: RT @Keir_Starmer: What is it going to take for the Prime Minister to finally act on this? https://t.co/i4mOh2yPYh
• Fri, 12:56: RT @NaomiOhReally: “Nowhere does it say we killed 10 million Congolese, that we cut off men and women’s hands to build Belgium,” @SololaBie…
• Fri, 16:05: No time for Europe to go wobbly https://t.co/lXqUyYg3AM @NathalieTocci calls for unity vis a vis the US and China.
• Fri, 16:31: US presidential trivia: who was the only person to have been both the oldest living former Vice-President, *and* th… https://t.co/s1HAOAKDdv
• Fri, 17:05: And we have a winner!!!! Yep. Coolidge was the oldest ex-Vice-President for most of his own term as President (fro… https://t.co/3OtcUbA25r
• Fri, 17:11: RT @aljwhite: This is the only good statue discourse. https://t.co/1GPEO0t7nq
• Fri, 18:19: October 2006 books https://t.co/94EO8TSdYc
• Fri, 20:48: The Doors Get Their Own Comic for ‘Morrison Hotel’ 50th Anniversary https://t.co/icG9UNm8hn And Leah has written it!
• Fri, 21:18: RT @CBeebiesHQ: A message from our house to yours. @ben_cajee https://t.co/I8WAjIfxcS
• Sat, 08:31: RT @tconnellyRTE: Brexit: No light ahead of the tunnel via @RTENewsNow https://t.co/Yo0tfoHLMo

• Sat, 10:45: RT @alexstubb: If you are an eternal doomsdayer or pessimist, please read this. It will cheer you up, or at least point to literature which…
• Sat, 11:36: Started Cycle with #cyclemeter at 11:36, on a new route, see https://t.co/oMcOlOjpaG, Cyclemeter will speak your replies to me.

The major personal developments for me in October 2006 were breaking the news of my imminent job change to colleagues and friends, and also finding a daycare place for B, whose behaviour was becoming too difficult for her special school to cope with. We had some diversion also at work when it was rumoured that we might get the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. (We didn't.) My foreign trips were a rather weird one-day trip to Ankara, Turkey, (the only time I have been there); a much less weird conference in Chişinău, Moldova; and a half-term visit to my sister in Burgundy at the end of the month, taking in the Eiffel Tower en route (inspired by Barnaby Bear). Here's the view from the top (well, as far as we could get), with F (aged 7) practicing to be a teenager.

Sadly this was also the month that we lost David Stewart, of Irish sf fandom.

As well as enjoying I, Claudius and the first episodes of Torchwood, I did read a few books.

Non-fiction 3 (YTD 53)
Confessions, by St Augustine
Charlotte Brontë's Promised Land, by Eric Ruijssenaars
A Wayfarer in Sweden, by Frederic Whyte

Non-genre 4 (YTD 28)
Villette, by Charlotte Brontë
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
The File on H, by Ismail Kadarë
One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

SF 8 (YTD 62)
The Syſtem of the World, by Neal Stephenſon
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
Star Songs of an Old Primate, by James Tiptree Jr
Nine Princes in Amber, by Roger Zelazny
The Guns of Avalon, by Roger Zelazny
Sign of the Unicorn, by Roger Zelazny
The Hand of Oberon, by Roger Zelazny
The Courts of Chaos, by Roger Zelazny

Doctor Who 1 (YTD 12)
The Scales of Injustice, by Gary Russell

5,100 pages (YTD 48,200)
4/16 (YTD 29/160) by women
1/16 (YTD 8/160) by PoC

My own all-time favourite of my reviews was my write-up of The Syſtem of the World, by Neal Stephenſon.

The best book of the month was Ismail Kadarë's Albanian tale The File on H, which you can get here (I enjoyed it a lot more than the most recent book I read by the same author). And the first Chronicles of Amber remain a guilty pleasure; you can get them in a single volume here. I thought The Lovely Bones was an awful book, but you can get it here if you want.

• Thu, 12:56: RT @make_trouble: Fascinating. Spain was main source virus import to UK, followed by France, major sporting events had “negligible” effect,…
• Thu, 13:25: RT @Keir_Starmer: This moment must be a turning point. #PMQs https://t.co/4w9HiLiJwq
• Thu, 14:12: RT @davidallengreen: A thread on slavery and property https://t.co/okEmFezu10
• Thu, 15:03: RT @Carter_AndrewJ: Since JK Rowling has blocked any reply to this litany of half-truths and transphobic dogwhistles, I thought I’d catalog…
• Thu, 16:05: Daniel Radcliffe Responds to J.K. Rowling’s Tweets on Gender Identity https://t.co/Oj4ZOQlOW6 Good man.
• Thu, 16:27: RT @ChairmanYaffle: I didn’t quite realise how bottomless a feeling of shame I would feel upon hearing my colleagues’ stories and experienc…
• Thu, 17:02: RT @bheater: What if the President is right and Antifa is breeding 75-year-old super soldiers who fall over on command?
• Thu, 17:07: Former ally of Boris Johnson speaks out: https://t.co/3aD5WN2lz6
• Thu, 17:11: The Spectator, war and slavery: a note on our history | The Spectator https://t.co/m6BLMxcUgx “The language used to… https://t.co/zepEuTSoB1
• Thu, 18:19: Thursday reading https://t.co/kxEn7ZPvFN

• Thu, 18:36: The Imperial enclave at Ormendaal https://t.co/lsUNuHsyNs We’re not locked down as firmly as we were, but I’m sti… https://t.co/90KnF1Ud06
• Thu, 20:48: RT @AmandiOnAir: A tale of two Presidential intern pics. https://t.co/I2jvqmZ9eE
• Thu, 21:28: Tonight’s Secret Army quote: “Belgium may not be a very big country, Sturmbannführer, but it does take ten men a *v… https://t.co/j9fGxOyv1X
• Thu, 22:16: Thursday reading https://t.co/7C5QuzBAj0
• Fri, 10:11: The former president of Georgia explains how to restore public trust and beat corruption. https://t.co/CFeFWGKRlx… https://t.co/nDhCn6pien
• Fri, 10:45: RT @arrroberts: https://t.co/74VFU0h3Dq

Current
The Complete Secret Army: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Classic TV Drama Series by Andy Priestner
Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens
The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within, by Stephen Fry
The Ghost of Lily Painter by Caitlin Davies
Modern China: A Very Short Introduction, by Rana Mitter
The Wicked + The Divine vol 4: Rising Action, by Kieron Gillen etc

Last books finished
The Wicked + The Divine vol 2: Fandemonium, by Kieron Gillen etc
The Beiderbecke Affair, by William Gallagher
The Queen's Agent: Sir Francis Walsingham and the Rise of Espionage in Elizabethan England, by John Cooper
The Wicked + The Divine vol 3: Commercial Suicide, by Kieron Gillen etc

Next books
Yugoslavia's Implosion: The Fatal Attraction of Serbian Nationalism, by Sonja Biserko
Heaven's War by David S Goyer

• Wed, 12:56: RT @Gilofthepeople: employer: can you explain this gap in your CV me: yes. you see, it was then that i carried you employer: employer: i do…
• Wed, 15:52: RT @damonwake: Fantastic overview of the wonderful wines of Bulgaria by @CarolineGilbyMW. I have to thank @nwbrux for introducing me to som…
• Wed, 16:05: Why Is Maine So White? And What It Means To Ask The Question https://t.co/LKnEh9BaeP Sober reflection.
• Wed, 16:07: RT @DaveKeating: A statue of #KingLeopoldII in #Antwerp has been removed after being torched by #BlackLivesMatter protesters over his atroc…
• Wed, 17:11: Wave of New Polling Suggests an Erosion of Trump’s Support – The New York Times https://t.co/FFdbhdX8vS Joe Biden a… https://t.co/qypnFBwuHH
• Wed, 20:48: RT @redhistorian: Some thoughts on history, memory and the removal of public statues – and where we might go from here. [THREAD]
• Wed, 21:13: The Tiger’s Wife, by Tea Obreht https://t.co/xm6K6dtnaP
• Thu, 08:20: RT @Shane_Conneely: Haven’t seen this many statues move since 1985
• Thu, 09:14: Globally, probably Vivian Campbell of @DefLeppard: https://t.co/GLB2rLaiLu More locally, @WeatherCee or… https://t.co/irsIxnAgll
• Thu, 10:45: Well, there’s a surprise! https://t.co/zsMz4AqSi4

• Thu, 11:35: RT @dst6n01: Story I learned last night: I started Girl Scouts in first grade and was an active scout until I was 17 (12th grade)—did ALL…

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Months later, long after the forty days were over, when I had already begun to piece things together, I would still go to sleep hoping that he would find his way into my dreams and tell me something important. I was always disappointed, of course, be-cause even when I did dream of him, he would inevitably be sitting in an armchair we didn't own, in a room I didn't recognize, and he would say things like, Bring me the newspaper, I'm hungry, and I would know, even in my sleep, that it didn't mean a fucking thing. But that night, I hadn't learned to think of him as dead yet, hadn't processed news that seemed too distant to belong to me, not even when I tried to bring it closer by thinking of his absence from our house.

This popped up on my reading list as the best-known book set in Serbia on both LibraryThing and Goodreads. It's a magical realist book, set between the present-ish day and the youth of the narrator's grandfather. There is a strong fantasy element with a character who appears to be immortal and keeps on popping into the narrative. I didn't really think it was all that brilliant. There are some arresting images, but most of them are rather brutal, and at the end of the book the narrator has explored her past a bit but isn't really much the wiser for it. Anyway, you can get it here.

This was my top unread book by a woman, and my top unread sff book (giving it a pass for the immortal character and the general magical realism air). Next on both lists is Tooth and Claw, by Jo Walton.

• Tue, 12:56: Good cops vs. bad apples: policing reform after Ferguson and George Floyd. https://t.co/D0Q6erW5W6 Jaw-dropping detail.
• Tue, 14:53: Hooray! Congrats @helene_legay! https://t.co/3ZPwNB5boh
• Tue, 15:31: RT @Helene_Legay: I am truly honoured to make this year’s list. Thank you @prweekuknews for this recognition, and @apcoworldwide for giving…
• Tue, 16:05: RT @prweekuknews: #BlackLivesMatter and the diversity of British PR – A collective call to action: https://t.co/r5gqXHFNxg #comms @PRstarsT…
• Tue, 16:11: RT @davidallengreen: Now joining Mr Kurtz
• Tue, 18:46: The Nightmare Stacks, by Charles Stross https://t.co/2uqTF1Mx0f
• Tue, 19:46: RT @anthonyzach: I love the FT, all the more because it makes sure readers know who Cristiano Ronaldo is (“isn’t he that guy who worked on…
• Tue, 20:46: RT @fivemack: @anthonyzach @nwbrux The Economist is careful enough about such things to say ‘Credit Suisse, a bank’ in a complicated report…
• Tue, 20:48: The fall of Colston’s statue: ‘It didn’t take long – about four tugs of the ropes’ https://t.co/SV0oRJW6cj A figure… https://t.co/UirIFmbdM3
• Tue, 20:53: OMG! Tonight’s episode of Secret Army features both Anthony Stewart Head – Giles from Buffy – and Guy Siner – Nyder… https://t.co/yRb9jg0HEK

• Wed, 09:42: RT @Samir_Madani: BREAKING: After 34 years since the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, the public prosecutor has now anno…

Second paragraph of third chapter:

I'm a mathematician with an interest in higher-dimensional topological deformations, and a recent career track that includes designing visualization systems for directed exploration of stochastic market movements with application to the Black-Scholes model—a weaponized banker, in other words. I have zero training or understanding of architecture, facilities management, structural engineering, or logistics. So I'm somewhat puzzled that Management have shoved me out here with Pete (who, as a vicar, is just as unqualified as I am) to tramp around various decaying crown estate assets in West Yorkshire and pronounce on their fitness for refurbishment for various missions that I am not yet cleared to know about.

One of the Laundry Files novels, in which the protagonist is one of the vampires introduced in The Rhesus Chart, working for The Laundry, the secret British government agency set up to prevent supernatural incursions. Our hero discovers an incursion into our world from a parallel universe whose people have mastered magic; there is lots of fun with tropes from elvish lore (and some nods to vampire culture too), but also the horrific and sanguinary consequences of a breach between the dimensions are made very clear. The action takes place in Leeds, the author's home town, which is very well depicted; I'm struggling to think of other sf set there, though as it happens I've just been rewatching The Beiderbecke Affair, which might count as fantasy in some ways. Great fun, and you can get it here.

This was my top unread book acquired in 2017. Next on that pile is East West Street, by Philippe Sands.

• Mon, 12:56: My first boss paid £29.3k of my wages into his own bank account –and kept it. Now, I’m speaking out… https://t.co/msp0P9l26i
• Mon, 14:08: I wouldn’t put it quite so strongly as far as the EU quarter goes. About half the places in Place du Luxembourg are… https://t.co/wOvMdKYCmS
• Mon, 16:05: Where the science went wrong https://t.co/04rcXaopah The murky story of the UK’s mistakes.
• Mon, 17:56: RT @Sophie_Wilmes: Vandaag heropent de #horeca! Ik heb ervan geprofiteerd om samen met mijn man iets te gaan eten. Voor wie een sector wil…
• Mon, 18:52: A Border Too Far: The Ilemi Triangle Yesterday and Today, by Philip Winter https://t.co/BFacUCI8HC
• Mon, 20:45: RT @LaylaMoran: Oriel College must take down the statue of Rhodes, a white supremacist who does not represent the values of Oxford in 2020.…
• Tue, 08:16: RT @JenniferMerode: The paranoid style in British politics. Three things 1. EU long given up on Brexit extension (although still thinks sen…
• Tue, 10:45: RT @davidallengreen: Interesting and detailed blog post on the applicable law for the Colston statue criminal damage, by one of the very be…

After I wrote up his book abut the Inter-Congolese Dialogue, Philip Winter was kind enough to send me a much shorter publication of his, which you can get here courtesy of the University of Durham. The second paragraph of the third chapter is:

The victory over the Mahdist forces of the Khalifa at the Battle of Omdurman led to the establishment of a hybrid form of rule over the Sudan for the next 56 years and the establishment of the borders of the country as they were until 2011. This odd creation needs to be understood because its boundaries could not be set or changed by one imperial power alone, in this case Great Britain, but, in principle at least, had to receive the consent of the other “Codominus”, in this case Egypt.

The Ilemi Triangle is a territory of 10-14,000 km² (so roughly the size of Flanders, Connecticut, Lebanon, Jamaica or Montenegro) whose borders with Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan (previously Sudan) have never been properly defined. Ethiopia does not claim it as sovereign territory, but both South Sudan and Kenya do. It is not very clear how many people live there. Kenya counts it as part of Turkana County, and South Sudan counts it as Eastern Equatoria State, both of which have a population density of roughly 13 per km², so probably there are 100-150,000 inhabitants given that there are no towns of any real size. In any case they are mostly transient pastoralists. Google Maps knows of four settlements in the area, Lokomarinyang, Kibish, Napak and Kokuro; going by the satellite pictures, none of them has a permanent population very far into three figures.

Philip Winter looks at the history of how this particular territory fell through the cracks of cartography. It's a narrative interwoven with personal reflection; here's a representative footnote:

Writing in 1975 [Sudanese scholar Faisal Abdel Rahman Ali Taha] suggests that Mt. Tomadur, a mountain on the Sudan-Ethiopia border some 40km north east of Mt. Naita is the northernmost point of the Triangle. The author climbed this mountain in 1998 and found no sign of any presence of any government whatsoever, Sudanese, Kenyan or Ethiopian, no trig point and no beacon. When the author climbed Mt. Naita some two years later, there was also no trace of any previous visits by anyone at all, let alone of any beacon or a marker.

Fundamentally, it was too far away to be of much concern to the heads of government in Nairobi, Khartoum, Juba or Addis Ababa, all of which had other more pressing problems to deal with, both internally and in terms of their mutual relationships. South Sudan still claims the entire territory de jure, but de facto Kenya has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force (though this could easily be contested by either neighbour, and has been on occasion). Philip Winter chronicles a list of border resolution processes over the decades which simply failed to reach a decision. Both Juba and Nairobi are committed in theory to coming to an agreement, but pressure of other business has prevented this from happening.

There is, of course, an sfnal connection; in the Marvel Universe, the Ilemi Triangle is the location of the kingdom of Wakandsa, ruled by T'Challa, better known as Black Panther. Frankly, it does sound like one of the few places on earth where you could hide a high-tech civilisation without anyone much noticing.

• Sun, 14:48: Driving the social divide: planning in Belfast reinforces the city’s segregation | Essay | Architectural Review… https://t.co/L2IpnW6vzq
• Sun, 15:13: Sleeper (1973) and The Sleeper Awakes (1899/1910) https://t.co/L19EAb5bRC
• Sun, 18:27: Trees. https://t.co/CSwhEntgTj
• Mon, 10:45: Ronald McNair’s Civil Disobedience: The Illustrated Story of How a Little Boy Who Grew Up to Be a Trailblazing Astr… https://t.co/QEjYEQxjPU