The one and only Andy Carling persuaded us to watch Clueless with him at the weekend. The only thing I knew about this film was that it is based closely on Jane Austen’s Emma, which I thoroughly bounced off when I read it a few years back. But in fact this worked much better for me – Alicia Silverstone, who was still a teenager herself when the film was made, is hilarious as Cher, monstrously insensitive and yet meaning the best in her own special way, and then reaching an epiphany of realising what she has really done. And there are many brilliant lines. I may give the original Austen novel another go.

At a loose end in London on the Bank Holiday Monday last week, I decided to try the Sci-Fi London film festival and wandered down to Stratford (much nostalgia for Worldcon planning meetings in 2013-14) to try this Kickstarter-funded movie. I saw some familiar faces in the audience, which was very nice.

The film is about an astronaut sent to investigate alien signals coming from the outer solar system – moons of Saturn and Neptune and the dwarf planet Eris – and the tensions that arise between him and Earth (i.e. NASA and his wife). It looks and sounds beautiful. Purists may argue that the sunlight in the outer solar system will be much dimmer, or that liquid methane doesn’t behave like that, or that we know the rocks on Triton will be different, but I am enough of a Doctor Who fan to appreciate the effort that is made to make an alien landscape look alien. The soundtrack was great as well.

However the script has numerous massive holes in it. The mission team at NASA seems to consist of just three people, one of whom is the U.S. Secretary of Defence, and they don’t seem to have internalised much about communication with astronauts on long missions (particularly how to handle spouses). Our hero discovers that his landing shuttle has an AI with its own voice for the first time when he gets into it to carry out his first landing. The ending literally veers off in a completely new and unforeshadowed direction. The cast do well enough with this material, but one feels it may not be playing to their strengths.

Still, it was a welcome diversion for an evening.

Microsoft Windows™ – the waltz

LOL!
(tags: music microsoft funny )

Protecting Citizens’ Rights in the Negotiations with the UK

Very important speech by Brexit negotiator @MichelBarnier. (Where is UK on this?)
(tags: eu brexit ukpolitics )

Guggenheim Made 200 Art Books Free to Download

Hooray!
(tags: art )

On the state of our democracy

Malta’s constitutional problems.
(tags: malta )

What if Britain crashes out of Euratom?

It won’t be pretty.
(tags: brexit ukpolitics nuclearpower eu )

Current
Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (a chapter a month)
A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth
Short Trips: Ghosts of Christmas, ed. Cavan Scott and Mark Wright

Last books finished
The Obelisk Gate, by N.K. Jemisin
The Parrot’s Theorem, by Denis Guedj
All The Birds In The Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders
A Taste of Honey, by Kai Ashante Wilson
The Dream Quest of Vellitt Boe, by Kij Johnson
The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle
This Census-Taker, by China Miéville
Lavondyss, by Robert Holdstock
Butterscotch, by Milo Manara
Ms. Marvel Volume 5: Super Famous, by G. Willow Wilson and Takeshi Miyazawa

Next books
Argonautica, by Valerius Flaccus
The Stormcaller by Tom Lloyd
The Dalek Factor, by Simon Clark

Second paragraph of third chapter:

So, it was something of a shock walking along one cold wintery night when I saw a figure in the moonlight heading towards me. The fells are a lonely place on a windless night like this. It’s hard to judge distance and, enveloped in the dark, with the Moon weaving between the clouds, the sound of boots over icy rocks filled me with dread. The footsteps grew ever nearer, the silhouette of what approached grew bigger. I saw the looming figure appeared to be holding something, but what made me take notice was that this apparition seemed somehow out of place, not quite fitting into the world. Crunch, crunch, they came closer I could see it was a man wearing very dark clothes, rather like an oilskin jacket. He had a stoic and weatherbeaten face edged with matted black hair and short beard.

Andy Carling was one of the best people I knew in Brussels until he decided to move back to his beloved Lake District two years ago. I read his short story a couple of months ago, and seeing the author once more this weekend reminded me that I have not yet written it up here. It is a nice compact story told by a spirit of the fells, navigating between human society and the physical geography of the Cumbrian landscape to come to acceptance of one’s place in the universe. It ends:

…after wandering on the fells and through the ages I know that I will be here in this ever changing beauty for eternity.

It just won’t be long enough.

Somehow it never is long enough, is it? Thank you, Andy.

Dear France: You Just Got Hacked. Don’t Make The Same Mistakes We Did.

Wise words.
(tags: elections france hacking )

Posted in May, with the intention of unlocking in August.

Almost as soon as we opened nominations, Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire established an early lead. Second paragraph of third chapter:

Then the eight-year-old walked into the room.

I am on record as having bounced pretty thoroughly off Seanan McGuire’s work before (and am slightly dreading engaging with the October Days books for Best Series), but this time it worked very well for me – a brilliant story of a school for children who have had otherworldly excursions, and a detective story. Gets my top vote and I expect it will win.

My second preference goes to Penric and the Shaman by Lois McMaster Bujold. Second paragraph of third chapter:

He’d used the time as well as he could, canvassing the lower town across the Linnet River where merchants and caravans stopped, and where the inns, taverns, smithies, saddlers, liveries, and other businesses catering to the trade of travelers were congregated. The docks and quays servicing the lake traffic were growing quieter with the advancing season, although the lake had not yet frozen over. But in neither venue was he able to unearth any sure report of a lone traveler matching his quarry’s description.

I actually thought that the third Novella of this sequence, Penric’s Mission, is the best so far, but it was not eligible in this category on length grounds. However, I am really enjoying the unfolding story of young scholar and ancient witch cohabiting in the same body and navigating the dangers of inter-realm politics, and this one scores very well on detail.

My third preference goes to The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson. Second paragraph of third chapter:

It was ten minutes later. The Dean had ordered Hust to return to bed, but Vellitt saw a flicker of a bright shawl above them as they descended the stairwell: Angoli, lurking on the landing. Never mind. Hust would need comfort, and Angoli as well: the Inseparables separated forever now, and for such a reason.

I loved this reworking of Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath from the point of view of one of the women so completely absent from the original. Sometimes a fresh glance at a classic text becomes something remarkable in itself, and this was one of those times.

My fourth preference goes to The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle. Second paragraph of third chapter:

Now Tommy Tester led his father out of their building and down the block. He’d returned home from the encounter with Robert Suydam, with Malone and the private detective, and felt himself in need of a night out. It took time to convince Otis to step out. Otis never left the apartment, hardly left his bedroom. He’d become like a dog gone into the dark so he could die alone, but Tommy had different plans. Or maybe he needed his father too much to let him go easily.

Again a partial Lovecraft homage, but this time set firmly in New York of the 1930s; a historic urban fantasy with elements such as race and class that urban fantasies sometimes seem to gloss over. Nicely done.

Fifth, A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson. Second paragraph of third chapter:

Aqib sat up in the sheets. “No, come to bed. I was waiting for you.”

I thought this was a decent enough fantasy story, with the added wrinkle of a same-sex relationship as a key narrative strand, but I was rather put off by the graphic violence and it didn’t seem to me to be breaking very new ground.

The only finalist that I really bounced off was This Census-Taker, by my fellow Clare College alum China Miéville. Second paragraph of third chapter:

‘What did you see, boy?’ they asked. ‘What happened?’

I must have missed something, but I didn’t actually see what was sfnal about it at all, and I found it difficult to engage with the characters – the narrator spends much of the story trying to work out what is going on, but I did not really care.

Still, it’s a good array – the Hugos often bring out the strengths of the Novella format.

If People Talked About Other Things the Way They Talked About Gender Identity

Ow.
(tags: sexandgenderandsexuality )

Tweets of the week: French elections, Brexit dinner, and the House of European History

@BrusselsGeek is back!
(tags: eu )

The future’s not orange. The Lib Dems look set to miss out

@MSmithsonPB is sceptical.
(tags: libdems )

Implementing Brexit: Immigration

@instituteforgov: “A new immigration system will not be ready by the time we formally leave the EU.”
(tags: brexit ukpolitics eu migration )

The Eurosearch Song Contest – Google analysis

Brilliant stuff!
(tags: eurovision internet )

Reflections From the Bid Chair

The origin of the @Dublin2019 Worldcon.
(tags: sf worldcon )

13 times Eurovision got super political

A partial explanation for the interested but confused.
(tags: eurovision )

You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you

This is great. Read it to the end.
(tags: comics )

The Comey Letter Probably Cost Clinton The Election

Long but convincing from @NateSilver538.
(tags: uspolitics )

Posted in May, with the intention of unlocking in August.

I guess I was just very tired from organising the actual awards, but I bounced off several of these. However…

My first vote went very clearly to All the Birds in the Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders. Second paragraph of third chapter:

The first week of school, Patricia smuggled an oak leaf in her skirt pocket—the nearest thing she had to a talisman, which she touched until it broke into crumbs. All through Math and English, her two classes with views of the east, she watched the stub of forest. And wished she could escape there and go fulfill her destiny as a witch, instead of sitting and memorizing old speeches by Rutherford B. Hayes. Her skin crawled under her brand-new training bra, stiff sweater, and school jumper, while around her kids texted and chattered: Is Casey Hamilton going to ask Traci Burt out? Who tried what over the summer? Patricia rocked her chair up and down, up and down, until it struck the floor with a clang that startled everyone at her group table.

I really loved this from the first chapter on, a sort of Jo Walton / Neil Gaiman mashup which really worked for me. It was the first of the Hugo finalists that I got (I was given an ARC in late 2015) but in fact the last that I read. Interestingly it has by far the most owners on both Goodreads and LibraryThing, but also the lowest ratings on both. Still, I think it must have a good chance of winning.

Top ranked by LibraryThing users, though owned by fewest of them, is my second choice, A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers. Second paragraph of third chapter:

It was too much. Too much, and yet, the restrictions that were in place made processing the Port all the harder. Things were happening behind the kit, she knew. She could hear them, smell them. The visual cone of perception that had rattled her upon installation was maddening now. She found herself jerking the kit sharply around at loud noises and bright colours, trying desperately to take it all in. That was her job. To look. To notice. She couldn’t do that here, not with fragmented views of crowds without edges. Not in a city that covered a continent.

I read the first book in the series last year but confess that I have forgotten so much about it that I was reading this as a standalone. Never mind; I thought the two interweaving storylines worked well, and Chambers actually made me care about the fate of a more or less anthropomorphic artificial intelligence. Nicely done.

Top ranked by Goodreads readers, Death’s End by Cixin Liu is my third choice. Second paragraph of third chapter:

Tianming read the newspaper and came to the following conclusion: Compared to the time before he was hospitalized, news about Trisolaris and the Earth-Trisolaris Organization (ETO) no longer dominated everything. There were at least some articles that had nothing to do with the crisis. Humanity’s tendency to focus on the here and now reasserted itself, and concern for events that would not take place for four centuries gave way to thoughts about life in the present.

I loved the ambition of this book, from present day China and America to the far future of humanity, firmly in the Clarke/Stapledon tradition. I felt there were some flaws of execution, especially of the means and motivation of the alien threat, so am marking it down accordingly.

My fourth preference goes to Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee. Second paragraph of third chapter:

The Burning Leaf had shuffled itself into a new configuration. More importantly, a message on the terminal alerted her that they had already separated her from her company. She wished she had been awake for it, but they had undoubtedly done it this way on purpose. If anyone had a sense of mercy, her soldiers would be allowed some rest before they were hauled off for an examination by Doctrine, and those needing further medical care would receive it before they, too, went to their fate.

Basically military SF isn’t really my thing, but I do admire the gradual unfolding of what the dead general’s plan really is.

The sequel to last year’s winner, The Obelisk Gate, by N. K. Jemisin gets my fifth preference. Second paragraph of third chapter:

The force that shatters the Clalsu is orogeny applied to air. Orogeny isn’t meant to be applied to air, but there’s no real reason for it not to work. Syenite has had practice already using orogeny on water, at and since Allia. There are minerals in water, and likewise there are dust particles in air. Air has heat and friction and mass and kinetic potential, same as earth; the molecules of air are simply farther apart, the atoms shaped differently. Anyhow, the involvement of an obelisk makes all of these details academic.

I bounced off the first volumen last year, and equally this year found it difficult to engage with the world-building or characters. No doubt many others will rank it higher.

Finally, I completely bounced off Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. Second paragraph of third chapter:

Martin Guildbreaker alighted from the car and crossed the gleaming footbridge over the flower trench to ring the main door’s bell. What could those inside see as he approached? A square-breasted Mason’s suit, light marble gray, and crisp with that time-consuming perfection only seen in those who perfect their appearances for another’s sake, a butler for his master, a bride for her beloved, or Martin for his Emperor. A darker armband, black-edged Imperial Gray with the Square & Compass on it, declares him a Familiaris Regni, an intimate of the Masonic throne, who walks the corridors of power at the price of subjecting himself by law and contract to the absolute dictum of Caesar’s will. Martin wears no strat insignia, not even for a hobby, nothing beyond his one white sleeve announcing permanent participation in that most Masonic rite the Annus Dialogorum. His hair is black, his skin a healthy, vaguely Persian brown, but I will not bore you with the genetics of a line that has not worn a nation-strat insignia these ten generations. There is no allegiance for a Guildbreaker but the Empire, nor a more unwelcome presence on this doorstep than a Guildbreaker.

Perhaps I was just too tired, but I never understood what was going on or why I should care. Running the damn awards does put a bit of a crimp in one’s reading…

The Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist has been announced, and the popularity of the six books on Goodreads and LibraryThing is as follows:

The standout for me is After Atlas, which despite being owned by the second fewest number of users of both systems has the highest rating on LibraryThing and the second highest on Goodreads.

Though it's also arguable that it's more difficult to retain a high ranking as the number of people reading the book increases and more people who don't like it record their opinions, in which case A Closed and Common Orbit also looks good. (And The Underground Railroad doesn't look bad either.)

Albania-Kosovo union would create a weak state, if not an ungovernable one

Rakipi on hollow threat of Greater Albania.
(tags: albania kosovo )

How Trump Could Get Fired

Wishful thinking?
(tags: uspolitics )

Very sorry to learn this morning that we lost Anne-Marie Le Gloannec last week. She was intelligent, witty, perceptive, wise, and shamefully unappreciated in the English-speaking world – though her English was perfect, she concentrated much more on Germany as France’s key partner, and on the EU as a global player.

In her last interview, with the Bertelsmann Stiftung at the end of March (when she must have already known that her time was short), she was asked,

What is the greatest challenge facing the EU today?

Her reply:

Survival!

We are richer for her life and thoughts.

The UK Government Is Completely Deluded About Brexit

Fascinating and awful detail.
(tags: ukpolitics eu brexit )

On the day of the 1997 election itself I was in Graz, Austria, buying furniture for our office in Bosnia. Anne was still (heavily pregnant) in Belfast. Even in Austria, CNN and Sky News were available so I was able to help an American colleague follow what was going on – the extraordinary thing was not just the huge scale of the Labour victory, but also the Lib Dems winning more seats, despite the lower vote. And then I woke up in the morning with this odd memory of a dream that Anne had phoned me in the very small hours to tell me that my sometime vague acquaintance from student politics, Stephen Twigg, had defeated leading Conservative Michael Portillo. Impossible, I thought, and went in search of a coffee…

How Ireland achieved a crucial Brexit coup

This is a good summary. Also, how to negotiate well.
(tags: eu brexit ireland )

No agreement, no Unficyp and the Turkish troops stay

The likely next steps for Cyprus.
(tags: cyprus )

What is happening in Macedonia?

A good summary.
(tags: macedonia )

Brexit negotiations will be brutal, nasty and potentially short

@IrishTimes on form.
(tags: brexit eu )

Non-fiction: 3 (YTD 12)
Traveler of Worlds: Conversations with Robert Silverberg by Robert Silverberg and Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
The View from the Cheap Seats, by Neil Gaiman
Words are My Matter, by Ursula K. Le Guin

Fiction (non-sf): 1 (YTD 5)
The Habit of Loving by Doris Lessing

sf (non-Who): 8 (YTD 26)
A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers
Pounded In The Butt By My Second Hugo Award Nomination, by Chuck Tingle
The Arrival of Missives, by Aliya Whiteley
Daughter of Eden, by Chris Beckett
Europe in Winter, by Dave Hutchinson
Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee
Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer
Death’s End, by Cixin Liu

Doctor Who, etc: 2 (YTD 10)
The Cabinet of Light, by Daniel O'Mahony
The Gods of the Underworld, by Stephen Cole

Comics: 2 (YTD 6)
The Vision vol 1: Little Worse Than A Man, by Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta
Lars (Anders vol 1), by Kristof Spaey

4,500 pages (YTD 14,600)
5/15 (YTD 20/60) by women (Le Guin, Lessing, Chambers, Whitely, Palmer)
2/15 (YTD 5/60) by PoC (Lee, Liu)

Reread: 0 (YTD 2)

Reading now
Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (a chapter a month)
A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth
The Parrot’s Theorem, by Denis Guedj
The Obelisk Gate, by N.K. Jemisin
Lavondyss by Robert Holdstock

Coming soon (perhaps):
Argonautica by Valerius Flaccus
The Stormcaller by Tom Lloyd
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold
Every Step You Take by Maureen O'Brien
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
Saga Volume 6 by Brian K Vaughan
Warriors ed. George R. R. Martin
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
Europe In The Sixteenth Century by H. G. Koenigsberger and George L. Mosse
Dune by Frank Herbert
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J. K. Rowling
De Mexicaan met twee hoofden by Joann Sfar
De piraten van de Zilveren Kattenklauw by Geronimo Stilton
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
1688: A Global History by John E. Wills
New Europe by Michael Palin
The Angel Maker, by Stefan Brijs
Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
HWJN by Ibraheem Abbas
Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 by David Kynaston
A Woman of the Iron People, by Eleanor Arnason
Short Trips: Ghosts of Christmas, ed. Cavan Scott and Mark Wright
The Dalek Factor, by Simon Clark
The Squire’s Crystal, by Jac Rayner

Current
Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (a chapter a month)
A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth
The Parrot’s Theorem, by Denis Guedj
The Obelisk Gate, by N.K. Jemisin
Lavondyss, by Robert Holdstock

Last books finished
Words are My Matter, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Lars, by Kristof Spaey
Death’s End, by Cixin Liu

Next books
Argonautica, by Valerius Flaccus
The Stormcaller by Tom Lloyd
Short Trips: Ghosts of Christmas, ed. Cavan Scott and Mark Wright

May orders large consignment of Dalmatians

LOL
(tags: funny ukpolitics )

Was a “soft” Brexit ever possible for the UK government?

@JackOfKent: May’s conference speech was crucial.
(tags: eu ukpolitics brexit )

The Permanent Mission Of Yugoslavia in New York

Amazing building – been there a few times!
(tags: architecture )

I'm writing this as a locked entry in April, with online voting having started less than a week ago, and planning to make it public after the results are out. I think what I'm going to do is simply post my votes, without much analysis, and also my laughably foolish retrospective prediction of who I thought was going to win.

My first preference vote went to Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books, 2000-2016, by Ursula K. Le Guin. Second paragraph of third essay:

They asked me to tell you what it was like to be a pregnant girl—we weren’t “women” then—a pregnant college girl who, if her college found out she was pregnant, would expel her, there and then, without plea or recourse. What it was like, if you were planning to go to graduate school and get a degree and earn a living so you could support yourself and do the work you loved—what it was like to be a senior at Radcliffe and pregnant and if you bore this child, this child which the law demanded you bear and would then call “unlawful,” “illegitimate,” this child whose father denied it, this child which would take from you your capacity to support yourself and do the work you knew it was your gift and your responsibility to do: What was it like?

I found this collection of essays full of wisdom and wit, often making fun of people who deserve it. It made me feel like I was in conversation with a vastly intelligent and immensely compassionate old friend. I voted for it with no hesitation.

My second vote went to The Geek Feminist Revolution, by Kameron Hurley. Second paragraph of third essay:

Clients come to you because sales are down, or a new competitor is in town, or they’ve been told they need “a website” or “a radio ad.” And a lot of the time you have to just be an order taker and do those things, even knowing that’s not the real problem. It’s like coming to your therapist and saying you have depression but what you really need to get better is a Snickers bar so if the therapist could just give you one, that’d be great, and you go on your merry way and wonder, three months later, why you’re still so depressed even though you got the Snickers bar you asked for, so you say it’s because you have a shitty therapist.

Includes the last winner of this Hugo, “We Have Always Fought…”. I deducted points for one piece where my take was rather different from hers, but in general this is the sort of interesting and often angry writing about genre that is firmly in the Le Guin mould, except several decades younger. In a different year, I'd have been tipping it to win.

My third vote goes to Neil Gaiman's A View From The Cheap Seats. Second paragraph of third essay:

This means that I have impressed my daughters by having been awarded the Newbery Medal, and I impressed my son even more by defending the fact that I had won the Newbery Medal from the hilarious attacks of Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report, so the Newbery Medal made me cool to my children. This is as good as it gets.

There are some nice pieces here, particularly if you are interested in the craft and career of writing either prose fiction or comics (which I'm not particularly). There are some very passionate piece as well. Nothing wrong with it! Just that I liked the other two more.

In this category I'm pretty sure that Carrie Fisher's The Princess Diarist is going to have won by the time you read this, though it got only my fourth preference. Second paragraph of third chapter:

Everything was a little worse for the wear, but good things would happen in these buildings. Lives would be led, businesses would prosper, and men would attend meetings—hopeful meetings, meetings where big plans were made and ideas were proposed. But of all the meetings that had ever been held in that particular office, none of them could compare in world impact with the casting calls for the Star Wars movie.

It is a brutal reminiscence of youth from a woman who (though she did not know it) had only a short time to live after writing it down, making it clear how she was exploited by those around her and how clearly she sees that now. I think it will be pretty irresistible to those who loved her performance both on and off screen, especially if they haven't read a lot of showbiz memoirs (personally, I've read a lot of books by and about Doctor Who people, so I'm more familiar with this sub-genre). But hey, maybe I was proved wrong last Friday.

I'm voting Sarah Gailey's Women of Harry Potter posts fifth, though I imagine that voters will be kinder. Second paragraph of third post (about Dolores Umbridge):

Is the villain the leader who starts the movement? The demagogue who decides to rally the tiny cruelties that live within the hearts of people who think of themselves as good? Is it the person who blows on the embers of hatred until they finally catch and erupt into an all-consuming flame?

I'm not a massive Potter fan (though I have no quarrel with those who are) and I found these pieces a bit one-note. Perhaps if I were more deeply immersed in the Potterverse I would have liked them more.

Sixth, but not finally, is Traveler of Worlds: Conversations with Robert Silverberg, by Robert Silverberg and Alvaro Zinos-Amaro. Second paragraph of third chapter:

Robert Silverberg. I awaken early in the morning. I eat regular meals. When at home, I have the same breakfast every day. I have the same sandwich for lunch every day. When I’m traveling, of course, anything goes.

In fairness, it’s not all as dull as this extract would suggest. But I’d have liked to hear more about Silverberg’s attitude to his own work, and the book lacked a chronology or other analytical apparatus.

Last of all, No Award. The Best Related Work category is the one that has been hardest hit by the recent unpleasantness, with No Award (rightly) winning in 2015 and 2016. Thanks to the new arrangements, we had six viable candidates this year, and I am pretty confident in predicting that No Award will come last. And a good thing too.

Brexit puts security cooperation at risk

Looking at detail rather than rhetoric
(tags: ukpolitics eu brexit denmark )

United dragging report: ‘Our review shows that many things went wrong that day’

No shit!
(tags: unitedairlines )

Three Things to Know About the 2017 IMF / World Bank Spring Meetings

My colleague @thomaseymond on the global economic challenges.
(tags: economy )

What Bullets Do To Bodies

Profile of a trauma surgeon.
(tags: guns uspolitics )

Launch of Sheela-na-Gigs Map

Looks very useful!
(tags: northernireland archaeology ireland maps )

Backing up red lines with more red lines

My favourite Cyprus columnist reckons the process is over.
(tags: cyprus )

Current
Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (a chapter a month)
A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth
Words are My Matter, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Death’s End, by Cixin Liu
The Parrot’s Theorem, by Denis Guedj

Last books finished
The Habit of Loving by Doris Lessing
Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer
The Vision, Volume 1: Little Worse Than A Man, written by Tom King, illustrated by Gabriel Hernandez Walta

Next books
Lavondyss, by Robert Holdstock
Argonautica, by Valerius Flaccus
The Stormcaller by Tom Lloyd

Can Global Britain Defy Gravity?

Probably not.

“Perhaps the boost to productivity from being able to use incandescent light bulbs while vacuuming with high-powered hoovers will be significant, but the above suggests new free trade agreements alone can’t do it.”
(tags: ukpolitics brexit eu economics )

35 Years Of American Death

Statistics and maps. Grimly fascinating.
(tags: Death ushealth Maps )

#Kazakhstan education ministry establishes working group to transfer alphabet to Latin

From қазақша to qazaqşa?
(tags: Language kazakhstan alphabets )

French Candidates Talk of ‘Frexit,’ but Le Divorce Would Be Chaotic

Great piece by @StephenFidler1.
(tags: eu france )

I ATE THREE EGGS EVERY SINGLE MORNING FOR A WEEK – HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED

Caps lock merited.
(tags: sf )