• A letter to the Greek government from a concerned leftie
  
  Jon Worth writes to Tsipras.
  (tags: eu greece )
• The Agas Map
  
  16th century London.
  (tags: london history maps )
• The 2015 Hugo Awards: Why I Am Voting No Award in the Best Fan Writer Category
  
  I agree with a lot of this.
  (tags: sf )
• Volcanoes and climate: After Tambora
  
  @eaterofsun frightens Economist readers (including me).
  (tags: science geology volcanoes )

• Officials take down international botnet
  
  Cyber-crime!
  (tags: internet )
• George R.R. Martin’s posts on the Hugo Awards
  
  Forensically and passionately dissecting the slate arguments.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Old posts and the problem of broken links
  
  Link rot strikes.
  (tags: blogging )
• On Laura Mixon-Gould’s Hugo Nomination for Best Fanwriter
  
  Also only non-slate candidate in that category.
  (tags: sf )

One of the complaints I’ve seen, more than once, from those who believe that the hijacking of the Hugo Awards by racist misogynists was a justifiable tactic, is that back in 2011 a collection of Doctor Who essays by women called Chicks Dig Time Lords defeated a collection of articles by Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg in the vote for Best Related Work; this proves, apparently, that chromatic feminists are conspiring against old white men to take away their rightfully earned rewards.

Of course, in 2011 we Hugo voters didn’t know that Resnick and Malzberg would become poster boys for one side of the culture war due to the controversy around their column for the SFWA Bulletin in 2013, which ultimately led to the Bulletin itself being suspended and relaunched. I suspect that some people are reading the vote of 2011 retrospectively through a 2013 lens.

I have been poking around online and as far as I can tell, the only person who reviewed both books in advance of the awards was, er, me: see my LJ entries on Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It, edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O’Shea, and The Business of Science Fiction: Two Insiders Discuss Writing and Publishing, by Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg. I voted for Chicks Dig Time Lords, which is decently internally structured, sticks close to its theme, and admittedly has one or two duff essays but is generally enlightening stuff if you are a Doctor Who fan – possibly even if you aren’t. Its title is of course a bit ironic and some people didn’t get the joke. (Some people think that “ironic” is a synonym for “ferrous”.)

By contrast, the Resnick/Malzberg book really was nothing more than a bunch of old articles assembled between two sets of covers, with no editing or updating; I enjoyed it none the less, but I felt it fell short of being a proper book. When choosing the Best Related Work for the 2011 Hugos, I preferred (and voters preferred) to go for something that feels like a properly finished concept, and which also relates reasonably closely to the view from 2010. If The Business of Science Fiction had actually been edited to look and feel like a book, I would feel a bit more sympathy – but I suspect that most of those now expressing outrage on its behalf have read neither it nor Chicks Dig Time Lords.

As a matter of fact, the Resnick/Malzberg book actually came third, beaten also by the pinko commie Social Justice Warriors who liked Robert A. Heinlein in Dialogue With His Century, Vol 1, by William H. Patterson Jr. It’s odd how I don’t see any of the slate campaigners complaining about the overlooking of the officially authorised biography of such a crucial figure in the history of sf; but of course they failed to include the second volume, published last year, on their slate so perhaps they are not really all that fond of Heinlein’s legacy. I didn’t like the Heinlein biography myself, and felt it was deficient as a biography, but I think it objectively meets the criteria of form for Best Related Work of 2011 better than the Resnick/Malzberg book did; Hugo voters in 2011 probably thought so too.

Incidentally the Best Novel winner that year was Connie Willis’ Blackout/All Clear. I was very disappointed by that result; as it turns out, I should have counted my blessings.

Current
Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (a chapter a day)
Watership Down, by Richard Adams (a chapter a week)
Kushiel’s Justice, by Jacqueline Carey
Timeless by Steve Cole

Last books finished
χ2
Wages of Sin, by Andrew M. Greeley
A Slip of the Keyboard, by Terry Pratchett
Burning Heart, by Dave Stone
η3
λ3

Last week’s audios
The Romance of Crime, by Gareth Roberts, adapted by John Dorney

Next books
Scales of Gold, by Dorothy Dunnett
The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Ship of Fools, by Dave Stone

Books acquired in last week
El Libro del Mar / The Book of the Sea, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bolivia
The Primal Urge, by Brian Aldiss
Comic Inferno, by Brian W. Aldiss
Frankenstein Unbound, by Brian W. Aldiss
Queen of the States, by Josephine Saxton
Valley of Lights, by Steve Gallagher
The Invention of Happiness, by Brian W. Aldiss
Lethbridge-Stewart: The Top-Secret Files, by Andy Frankham-Allen
Sprawl, ed. Alisa Krasnostein

• Is Hillary Any Good at Running for President?
  
  And does it matter?
  (tags: uspolitics )
• Hugo Thoughts from Mike
  
  (tags: I agree with all of this. (Except that I did nominate a few things this year.) )
• Tural Mustafayev, “I Withdraw My Complaint Against Khadija Ismayilova”
  
  So will they free her?
  (tags: azerbaijan )
• Sad Puppies: Mission Statement
  
  A manifesto.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• 2015 Hugo Awards: How the sad and rabid puppies took over the sci-fi nominations.
  
  Slate reports.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• New York destroyed an African-American / Irish village to make Central Park
  
  Ethnic cleansing in Manhattan.
  (tags: uspolitics newyork race )

The Arthur C. Clarke Award 2015 shortlist has been announced. For obvious reasons, I'm not going to make further comment, but here are the Goodreads/LibaryThing stats for the six shortlisted novels.

There are some interesting shifts from the figures of a few weeks ago (compiled 21 March).

• A celebration of old-school Livejournal
  
  How it was in the old days.
  (tags: livejournal blogging )
• Valar Morghulis: An illustrated guide to all 456 deaths in “Game of Thrones”
  
  The Washington Post decided that we needed to know this.
  (tags: sf )
• When Employee Engagement Turns Into Employee Burnout
  
  Turns out that working people till they drop isn’t such a good idea.
  (tags: career work )
• Gazprom is the Biggest Loser of the War in Ukraine
  
  Unintended consequences.
  (tags: russia ukraine )
• Gabriel García Márquez’s Formative Reading List
  
  20 by men, 4 by women.
  (tags: books reading )

Time to write something positive about this year’s Hugos!

I was glad to nominate this and very glad to see it make the list of finalists. I found it more satisfying than Volume 2, as our heroes (after some initial faffing around) settle into the lighthouse stronghold of a cult writer; meanwhile we have a brain-bending parasite and two tabloid journalists who themselves are hiding a secret. Staples’ art remains gorgeous, and I felt that Vaughan’s plotting matched it here as well. Off to a good start.

• Smugglers’ Stash & News (The Post-Hugo Nomination Debacle Edition)
  
  The Book Smugglers explain why it matters.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• How the ‘Sad Puppies’ Internet campaign gamed the Hugo Awards
  
  Daily Dot reports.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Books You Won’t See at the Hugo Awards
  
  Henry looks at what’s been left out.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Writing this makes my stomach hurt but I feel obligated to say it
  
  Kate on Best Fan Writer
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• The Hugos – Voting For and Against
  
  Voting for the health of the Hugos.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Elizabeth Bear on the Hugos
  
  No slates, please, we’re fannish.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Hugo Awards Ballot Stuffing Affects Nominations
  
  Comics Alliance puts it bluntly.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• No Longer the World’s Slowest Blog: The Problem with Slate-Voting for Popular Awards Like the Hugos
  
  Laurie Mann puts it briefly.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Wesley Chu – How this year’s Hugo drama has affected my Worldcon
  
  John W. Campbell finalist puts it on the line.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• This year’s Hugo Award nominees are a messy political controversy
  
  The A.V. Club is very snarky.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Sci-fi’s right-wing backlash: Never doubt that a small group of deranged trolls can ruin anything (even the Hugo Awards)
  
  Salon reports.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Signal-Boosting Other Voices In The Hugo Kerfuffle
  
  Andrew’s links roundup.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )

• How a Slate Distorts the Nomination Process
  
  Cat explains.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Philip Sandifer: The Day Fandom Ended
  
  “The Hugo Award Nominations have just been successfully hijacked by neofascists.”
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Asking the Wrong Questions: The 2015 Hugo Awards: Thoughts on the Nominees
  
  Abigail enlarges on her Tweets.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• The Biggest Little SF Publisher you never heard of pulls on the jackboots
  
  Charlie explores the political ramifications.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• A Journal of Impropriety – Everything is wrong with the Hugos and it starts with ME
  
  Chance confesses.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• “No Award” and “Blank Spacing” the #HugoAwards — The Only Response I Can Make to What is to Come
  
  Shaun Duke’s plan of action.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )

• Valleys of trouble – Labour’s difficulties in their Welsh heartland
  
  Unexpected risks of erosion.
  (tags: ukpolitics wales )
• WINNERS: 2014 James Tiptree, Jr. Award
  
  Monica Byrne’s The Girl In The Road and Jo Walton’s My Real Children – congratulations, @BluejoWalton !!
  (tags: sf )
• second verse, same as the first
  
  Kate comments.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Making Light: The 2015 Hugo finalists
  
  Patrick @pnh comments.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• More Words, Deeper Hole – As expected
  
  James Nicoll comments.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• Entering the Lists | File 770
  
  Mike breaks down the lists.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• The Hugo Awards Were Always Political. But Now They’re Only Political.
  
  Charlie Jane Anders @charliejane reflects.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• The Puppy-Free Hugo Award Voter’s Guide
  
  Deirdre recommends.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• A Detailed Explanation
  
  Matthew Sturridge on why he declined nomination. (Long.)
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )
• So What’s Happening With The Hugos
  
  Andrew’s summary.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies )

A collection of Tolkien short pieces, including his aesthetic manifesto, “On Fairy Stories”; the allegorical story “Leaf by Niggle”; and his verse drama “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son”. 

I wonder what possessed the publishers to combine these very different pieces by Tolkien together between the same set of covers? I was a little baffled when I first read them, I don’t think I was more than twelve at the time. 

I now find it much easier to grasp “On Fairy Stories”, since I’ve read a great deal more Tolkien, a lot more fantasy literature, and also a lot more literary criticism since the first time I tried it. Not being partisan in the debate myself, I can only say that Tolkien defends his patch vigorously and well.

As a convent-school pupil, I was pretty familiar with Catholic teaching on the afterlife even aged 12, and the allegory in “Leaf by Niggle”is not subtle. But what I realise now is the extent to which Tolkien was writing about himself – Niggle’s great work of art is not appreciated by his neighbours, who think it’s a waste of time, rather as some of Tolkien’s fellow dons must have speculated about his writing.

“Beorhtnoth” is still rather above my head. The play in itself, Tolkien’s only attempt at drama, isn’t very dramatic. The short essay before it (and the shorter one after) make it clear that this is in some way a critique of, well, I’m not sure what; is it other scholars, or the original author of the “Battle of Maldon”? I actually liked it more as a twelve-year-old, where there was the romance of the partially preserved manuscript and the effort of tackling an unfamiliar form of writing.

Funny how we change, as life changes us.

A collection of De Poortere’s popular one-page graphic stories about “Boerke” (“Wee farmer”) or sometimes his cousin “Hoerke” (“Wee whore”) who endure the craziness of the universe, usually dying in some all too plausible way at the end. Not really for me; too much punching down, rather than punching up, and an attitude of depressed fatalism leading nowhere very much.

I really loved Bechdel’s Fun Home, which analysed her relationship with her closeted, repressed father; this didn’t quite spark for me in the same way, though it’s still pretty good. It’s the story of Bechdel’s mother’s life, and of how Bechdel herself came to write it all down, and of her own relationships with lovers and therapists over the years. Perhaps because it lacks the brutal punchline of Fun Home, it felt rather less structured and didn’t have the same element of drama. Bechdel is still sharply observant, not least of herself.

Many electrons have already been spilt on this, and if you want a detailed roundup, Mike Glyer has it.

Myself, I think this is a pretty bad situation for the Hugos.

In six categories (three short fiction, two editor, and Best Related Work), all five finalists come from the slates of nominees backed not only by the mild-mannered if somewhat incoherent and inconsistent Brad Torgerson, but by another person who supports acid attacks on feminists and describes non-white people as savages. Four of the five finalists for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and likewise four out of five in the Best Fan Writer category, were backed by one or other slate. A third of the short fiction finalists, including 60% of the Best Novella nominations, are by the man who wrote a frothingly incomprehensible letter of protest to the Science Fiction Writers of America last year, complaining about the apparently unreasonable proposition that SFWA’s bulletin should try not to offend its own members. Some crap is nominated every year, but this year has demonstrated how easily the system can be gamed by a few dozen people willing to spend $50 on a supporting membership.

The slate efforts claim to be about widening diversity and improving quality in the Hugo system. They have had precisely the opposite effect. No woman has been nominated Only two women are finalists in the short fiction categories; although two women are on the Best Novel list, they are the two out of five not backed by either organised slate. One of the organisers (the acid-throwing racist) blithely talks of “blowing up the Hugos”. Back-slapping slate supporters are jubilant, not about getting good candidates onto the Hugo list, but about poking their “Social Justice Warrior” enemies in the eye. (And boasting about a fawning and mendacious article published on a right-wing news website by a leading supporter of GamerGate.) This is an effort to destroy, not to enlarge; to tear down, not to build.

I have no ethical problem with those whose tastes are different from mine and therefore nominate works I don’t like, because they like them more than I do. I am normally sympathetic to the view that one should assess works on their literary merit, though for me that would always also include the political context in which and for which they are written; and I normally take it as a pleasure of my reading year to work through the Hugo finalists and publish my ranking of them here.

This is different. This campaign is based on spite, not love. This is people who don’t actually care about the Hugos, abusing them because they are an easy target to promote their own political agenda. I don’t feel any motivation to read or review the works or other finalists that they have supported (I am open to reasonable argument, and Andromeda Spaceways have indeed made one, but the bar is high). I anticipate that I will be supporting a vote for “No Award” in at least the three short fiction categories, the two Best Editor categories and the Best Related Work category. And I don’t think I’ll be alone.

2015 Hugos: Initial observations | Voting No Award above the slates | How the slate was(n’t) crowdsourced | Where the new voters are
Best Novel | Short fiction | Best Related Work | Best Graphic Story | Pro and Fan Artist | Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), Best Fan Writer, John W. Campbell Award

Well, it’s been a brutal evening. We’ve always known that any old crap can get nominated for the Hugos – see my reviews of nominated works over the years – but it does hurt a bit to have that driven home quite so directly.

Anyway, the Best Novel list does offer some glimmers of hope. The nominated works, and their popularity on Goodreads and LibraryThing, are as follows:

A pretty clear ranking order then.

This may be a year when I don’t get around to reading all the nominations, for the first time since 2000.

This is the first in a new line of Who spinoff novels, this time prequelling UNIT by looking at Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart’s life and adventures in the gap between The Web of Fear and The Invasion (nine months for the viewer which we are told has been four years in continuity). I was a bit worried about this one, having been underwhelmed by the same author’s look at Doctor Who companions in the history of the series, but in fact it’s a competently done tale of clearing up after the events of The Web of Fear which also quite neatly salutes the Matt Smith era version of the Great Intelligence as well. The next two volumes in this series are by Lance Parkin and David A. McIntee, and my interest has been duly whetted.

I bought this after discovering that its author is a fellow member of Clare College, Cambridge; this is the top fiction book by a Clare graduate on LibraryThing which is not by China Miéville (though Nick Harkaway and Peter Ackroyd are not far behind). It’s a story of a woman in a City job being driven crazy by the competing demands of work and family, and was made into a widely panned movie starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Pierce Brosnan which shifts the setting to New York so as not to confuse people who haven’t heard of London. I have to say I don’t think this is a terrific example of chick-lit – you can see from a fairly early stage which way the plot is likely to go, and it duly does so. If I venture into this genre again I shall probably give Freya North another go instead.

• China And The US: The AIIB Fiasco & America’s Colossal Loss Of Face
  
  The failure of American strategy.
  (tags: uspolitics China )

Here’s the full list. Note that in a couple of cases I have retrospectively added / changed the winner since my original post. Full analysis with links coming soon.

Russia: Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Germany: The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
Turkey: The Iliad, by Homer
France: Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
Italy: Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown
England: Nineteen Eighty-four, by George Orwell (not counting Harry Potter)
Spain: The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Ukraine: Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer
Poland: Night, by Elie Wiesel
Romania: Dracula, by Bram Stoker
Netherlands: The Diary of Anne Frank
Belgium: Villette, by Charlotte Brontë
Greece: The Odyssey, by Homer
Czech Republic: Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka
Portugal: Blindness, by José Saramago
Hungary: Embers, by Sandor Márai
Sweden: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larssen
Azerbaijan: Ali and Nino, by Kurban Said
Belarus: Defiance, by Nechama Tec / The Bielski Brothers, by Peter Duffy
Austria: Persepolis, tome 3, by Marjane Satrapi
Switzerland: Heidi, by Johanna Spyri
Bulgaria: Arms and the Man, by George Bernard Shaw
Serbia: The Tiger’s Wife, by Tea Olbreht
Denmark: Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
Finland: Finn Family Moomintroll, by Tove Jansson
Slovakia: Zoli, by Colum McCann
Scotland: Macbeth, by William Shakespeare (not counting Harry Potter)
Norway: Sophie’s World, by Jostein Gaarder
Ireland: Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt
Georgia: Magic Rises, by Ilona Andrews
Croatia: Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie
Moldova: Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, by Tony Hawks
Bosnia and Herzegovina: People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks
Wales: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs
Armenia: Armenian Sketchbook, by Vasily Grossman
Lithuania: The Issa Valley, by Czesław Miłosz / In the Shadow of the Altars, by Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas
Albania: The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax, by Dorothy Gilman
Macedonia, by Harvey Pekar and Heather Roberson, illustrated by Ed Pisko
Slovenia: Veronica Decides to Die, by Paolo Coelho 
Latvia: The Dogs of Riga, by Henning Mankell
Kosovo: Secret Sanction, by Brian F. Haig
Northern Ireland: The Case of the Missing Books, by Ian Sansom
Estonia: Purge, by Sofie Oksanen
Cyprus: Othello, by William Shakespeare
Montenegro: The Black Mountain, by Rex Stout
Luxembourg: The Expats, by Chris Pavone
Malta: The Jew of Malta, by Christopher Marlowe
Iceland: Jar City, by Arnaldur Indridason
Jersey: Night of the Fox, by Jack Higgins
Isle of Man: Safe House, by Chris Ewan
Andorra: If You Dare, by Kresley Cole
Guernsey: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Faroe Islands: Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion?, by Johan Harstad
Liechtenstein: Ludmila, by Paul Gallico / Stamping Grounds, by Charlie Connelly
Monaco: I kill, by Giorgio Faletti
Gibraltar: Uneasy Relations, by Aaron Elkins
San Marino: Smoke Into Flame, by Jane Arbor
Åland Islands: Ice, by Ulla-Lena Lundberg
Svalbard and Jan Mayen: Dark Matter, by Michelle Paver / Bear Island, by Alistair McLean
Vatican City: Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling, by Ross King
Sark: Mr Pye, by Mervyn Peake
Herm: Fairy Gold, by Compton Mackenzie

See note on methodology

I’m glad to say that we are finishing this set of posts on a highbrow note. I have disqualified Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, not on the grounds of literary quality, but because as far as I remember much less than half of the book is actually set in the Vatican, with other parts of Rome getting a good deal of coverage. 

Instead, the top book with a Vatican setting, on both Goodreads (by a wide margin) and LibraryThing (by a smaller margin) is a 2003 work of non-fiction, recounting the story of how one of Europe’s greatest artists spent four years creating probably the best known artwork in the Vatican. It sounds excellent and (when I eventually have some time) I will try and get hold of it myself. It is:

Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling, by Ross King

There are an awful lot of thrillers with Vatican scenery (looking particularly at the works of Daniel Silva here), and I have spent more time than is really necessary looking for those where the majority of the action is actually set there rather than just visiting to have a look. The most convincing candidate (on that criterion only) is a novel regarding the revelations of Fatima, spilling over into a papal conclave (which let’s face is is the only newsworthy thing that ever happens in the Vatican these days). It is:

The Third Secret, by Steve Berry

Appropriate enough to finish up in the Vatican on Good Friday!

• Where are the women in Brussels’ policy panel debates?
  
  Good question.
  (tags: eu sexandgenderandsexuality )
• It’s the geopolitics, stupid: Why TTIP matters
  
  Unusually passionate from @CER_London.
  (tags: eu uspolitics )
• A Good Week for Democracy Globally
  
  @gerrylynch: “if elections didn’t change anything, people wouldn’t be shot for demanding them.”
  (tags: politics elections )
• Debate Predictions
  
  Probably all true. I’m Belgian so I don’t care. (Much.)
  (tags: ukpolitics )
• The Flawed Standard Model of Geopolitics
  
  Unpicking the definition of a state.
  (tags: politics )
• Geopolitical Anomalies in the “Greater Middle East,” Part I
  
  From Bosnia to Somaliland, via Nagorno-Karabakh.
  (tags: azerbaijan georgia russia cyprus kosovo moldova bosnia serbia iraq armenia turkey somaliland caucasus world: middle east world: ukraine )
• Obama’s Leadership and the New Framework Agreement with Iran
  
  A positive assessment.
  (tags: uspolitics iran )

This was the first book I had read by Canada’s only Nobel laureate in literature, but it won’t be the last. It’s a collection of short stories, each one of them beautiful in its own way. The title story and the one about the man who accidentally killed his own child are the ones that particularly linger with me; but they are brilliant and evocative slices of ordinary life, expressed in an understated but effective tone, usually showing rather than telling. Strongly recommended.

A collection of four decades of cartoons from the Irish Times‘ Martyn Turner, concentrating on Liam Cosgrave, Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey, Garret Fitzgerald, Albert Reynolds, John Bruton, Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowan and Enda Kenny as successive heads of government since Turner first picked up his pencil. Unfortunately the collection only includes cartoons not previously published, so some of his best ones are omitted (and some jokes recycled verbatim), and the fact that he concentrates on the Taoisigh means that other social and political issues are a bit sidelined, so it’s not a great starting point for Turner’s work – though I imagine that the likely target audience will already be familiar with him.

Current
Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (a chapter a day)
Watership Down, by Richard Adams (a chapter a week)
Wages of Sin, by Andrew M. Greeley
A Slip of the Keyboard, by Terry Pratchett
χ2

Last books finished
ζ1
Shan Mohangi: 95 Harcourt Street, by Kevin Higgins
Beyond the Sun, by Matthew Jones
ρ2

Last week’s audios
Welcome to Night Vale, eps 62-64

Next books
Kushiel’s Justice, by Jacqueline Carey
Scales of Gold, by Dorothy Dunnett
Burning Heart, by Dave Stone

Books acquired in last week
Space Helmet for a Cow, by Paul Kirkley
Companion Piece, ed.L.M. Myles and Liz Barr
Tove Jansson: Work and Love, by Tuula Karjalainen
A Visitor’s Companion to Tudor England, by Suzannah Lipscomb
The Quarry, by Iain Banka
A Delicate Truth, by John le Carré
Shan Mohangi: 95 Harcourt Street, by Kevin Higgins

• And you think those anti-immigration mugs were bad? Labour’s ‘appalling gutter politics’ on drugs
  
  Ugh.
  (tags: ukpolitics )
• Generous welfare benefits make people more likely to want to work, not less
  
  No surprise, surely?
  (tags: politics economics )
• My Lib Dem ambivalence
  
  By James Graham; well put.
  (tags: libdems ukpolitics )

A comprehensive analysis, with my old friend Dominic Bryan as one of the co-authors, looking at the dispute over flags which convulsed Northern Ireland, Belfast in particular, in the winter of 2012/2013, available for free from QUB. In a nutshell, after Belfast City Council voted on a policy of flying the Union Jack only on particular days rather than 365 days a year, Loyalist protestors created havoc by nightly demonstrations which often escalated to disorder, particularly targeting the Alliance Party which was seen as the main culprit for the council’s change of policy. The economic disruption was significant; the impact on Alliance representatives, including many who were not actually Belfast councillors but were none the less subjected to violent harassment and death threats, was serious in terms of personal security; the issue remains largely unresolved.

The report gives a sympathetic hearing to all sides, perhaps more sympathetic than I would have been in some cases. The most interesting finding of fact for me was how little the mainstream Unionist parties were involved in the organisation of the protests. The authors seem not completely convinced (though I personally am) that the DUP and UUP were behind the leaflets of November 2012 which urged Unionists to lobby Naomi Long (an MP, not a Belfast councilor) on the flag issue. That was before the protests; once they started, the DUP and UUP were not particularly made welcome by the organisers and duly distanced themselves in due course (though not terribly rapidly or visibly). The inarticulate demeanour of the protest leaders limited their ability to gain widespread and active support, and the electoral impact in the 2014 elections was far from clear, with Alliance’s vote slipping a bit but the DUP’s slipping more.

The report makes two recommendations – one to political leaders to remember their responsibility for leading communication and conflict resolution, rather than exacerbating division, and to put forward a clear peace plan (something that has been partly implemented in the year or so since publication); and one more interesting from the public policy point of view, that funding for Loyalist community work needs also to be directed

to train community members in the art of advocacy: achieving a manner in which arguments are made that relate to evidence and also policymaking. Any future work must turn senses of alienation into a process of evidenced claims and also to place those concerns within an equality framework. Loyalists have articulate spokespersons who advocate for a living wage, argue for leadership to challenge poor educational performance and highlight the need for republicans and nationalist to better understand their cultural identity. Unfortunately, those types of voices are burdened by funding shortages, internal feuding and the actions of those beyond. The overall aim must be to shift from anecdote and rumour into a politics in which reconciliation invokes identity raising but also identity sharing. Northern Ireland will remain within a power-sharing dispensation and all communities must be cognisant of that.

This is not the only case I’ve seen of this sort of problem. It’s terribly easy for donors to fund cross-community dialogue, bringing both or all sides together; it’s also straightforward enough to fund cultural celebrations, even if these end up being one-sided and exclusive. Funding the better articulation of political beliefs you don’t agree with is a tough but necessary stretch.

See note on methodology

Very slim pickings here. The most popular work of fiction with much of a San Marino presence – and it’s a lot less than half of the book, which is mainly set in Milan – an alternate history in which the USSR won the Cold War, and our plucky young heroes attempt subversion. Fifth in a series of typically doorstop novels, it is:

The Gladiator, vol 5 of the Crosstime Traffic series, by Harry Turtledove

I suspect that the best I can do – other than guidebooks and travel books, which I have to say feel like cheating – is a 1976 Mills and Boon romance, a genre that hasn’t figured very much in these lists. The blurb is enlightening:

Clare Yorke arrives in the tiny Italian republic of San Marino expecting to marry Bruno Cavour. But when Bruno and his family decide that marriage isn’t such a good idea, Clare is stranded in a foreign country with no job and no fiancé.

Imagine that! No fiancé!

To her rescue arrives the handsome Tarquin Roscuro. He offers Clare a post and takes her mind off Bruna. Once again, Clare finds herself falling in love. But will her affections be returned? Can she hope for marriage? Or does another woman, namely the attractive Jaquetta Fiore, stand in the way of a passionate romance?

It’s difficult to imagine how this book will end: the plot appears utterly unpredictable to me. If you want to find out what happens to Clare, you must read:

Smoke Into Flame, by “Jane Arbor” [Eileen Norah Owbridge]

Grateful for any other leads. (I think.)

Just one more to go…

• Life of a Russian internet troll
  
  Kremlin-sponsored AstroTurf!
  (tags: russia internet )
• Russia’s top 120 lies about Ukraine
  
  Latest in a long list.
  (tags: russia ukraine )
• Dispatches: Thirty One Hours Marooned at Azerbaijan’s Airport
  
  Baku bars my friend & ex-colleague @giorgi_gogia.
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