• Can You Speak Commission?
  
  The Brussels dialect of the young folk!
  (tags: eu )

So, poor old Roz, eh? Having done due service to the Seventh Doctor for 18 books, she dies in battle defending her high-powered family, one of whom is an even closer relative than she first seems, against a peculiar shape-shifting alien threat. I’m afraid the plot rambled a bit too much for me, but I did like the lifting of the veil to Roz’s background – rather as we were told about Turlough back in 1984, only done better this time. Not one of the great New Adventures unfortunately, but an important building block of the (soon to be completed) series.

I very much got into this story of a young American in Mexico who ends up working for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, is present at the murder of Trotsky, moves to the USA (where in fact he has not previously lived) and gets caught in the web of McCarthyism.  Lots of good description and acute personal observation. Not quite as gripping as The Poisonwood Bible, but perhaps a bit more circumstantially convincing.

• Alastair Campbell – why I love Jacques Brel
  
  @campbellclaret shows good taste.
  (tags: music )
• Behind the Scenes in Putin’s Court
  
  Excellent piece by Ben.
  (tags: russia )
• Flight MH17: Putin’s disasters
  
  Another piece by Ben.
  (tags: russia ukraine )
• The Spanish government must find a positive message for Catalonia if it is to reduce support for Catalan independence
  
  Good advice; not being followed.
  (tags: catalonia )

At 3.15 we had a cabinet, where there was a lot of talk about Ulster, but the real interest was Grey’s statement of the European situation, which is about as bad as it could be. Austria has sent a bullying and humiliating ultimatum to Servia, who cannot possibly comply with it, and demands an answer in 48 hours – failing which she will march. This means almost inevitably that Russia will come on the scene in defence of Servia, and if so it is difficult both for Germany and for France to refrain from lending a hand. So that we are within measurable distance of a real Armageddon.

Current
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, by Maggie O’Farrell
The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch

Last books finished
η1
[Doctor Who] So Vile a Sin, by Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman
How Languages are Learned, by Patsy M. Lightbown and Nina Spada
Brussel in Beeldekes: Manneken Pis en andere sjarels, ed. Marc Verhaegen 
Plastic Jesus, by Wayne Simmons
[Doctor Who] The Book of the Still, by Paul Ebbs
Doctor Who: Cybermen Monster File
Crash, by J.G. Ballard
ι1
Ireland Under The Tudors vol 3, by Richard Bagwell

Last week’s audios
[Doctor Who] Destroy the Infinite, by Nicholas Briggs
current: [Bernice Summerfield] The Revolution, by Nev Fountain

Next books
Rogue Queen, by L. Sprague de Camp
334, by Tom Disch
Billionaire Boy, by Davd Walliams

After my sampling of Suske en Wiske last month, young F was anxious that I should get a decent impression of the more recent stories in the series, and lent me this one from 2008 in which our heroes fly to the newly established Belgian base in Antarctica to investigate strange goings on there (the story is therefore in part advance publicity for the actual base, which opened for business in 2009). As with De Apenkermis forty years earlier, the core sf element is meteoric radiation which causes animals to acquire human intelligence and makes them conspire to take over the world; as with Het Aruba-dossier, poor aunt Sidonia is sidelined from the story from the beginning and doesn’t get to travel. Indeed, Suske and Wiske themselves are almost left behind and have to smuggle themselves into Antarctica. (This gives rise to one of several metatextual moments in the book, when Suske indignantly asks whose names are on the front cover anyway; at another point it is so cold that the speech bubbles freeze as they leave the characters’ mouths.) I do admit that it is a bit cleverer and actually funnier than the other volumes I read, though the entire problem could have been solved pretty quickly by Jerome working to Professor Barabas’s orders, with Suske, Wiske and especially Lambik just getting in the way (when Lambik gets hit by meteoric radiation, he suffers an explicitly Hulk-like transformation and gets in the way even more). The Suske en Wiske line doesn’t look to be in immediate danger of fading away.

• Who is to blame for Iraq’s problems?
  
  In case you’d forgotten.
  (tags: iraq )
• How the Israel-Palestine Peace Deal Died
  
  Excellent reportage.
  (tags: middleeast )
• Dutch Foreign Minister on MH17 crash
  
  “Did they look each other in the eyes one last time in a wordless goodbye?”
  (tags: netherlands ukraine )
• Migration Stereotypes
  
  Looking at the facts.
  (tags: migration )

There are sometimes diminishing returns in publishing material that a long-dead writer never saw fit for publication; sometimes, when the work is put away in a drawer for the rest of the creator's life, it is the right decision. Adam Roberts has written of his disappointment with this publication of Tolkien's translation of Beowulf, though I actually found there was enough here to keep me entertained. As well as a 200-page prose translation of the poem itself – which did give me some new insights, in particular in that Tolkien is not at all shy about the Christian content – we get Tolkien's lecture notes on the first two-thirds of it, which are full of fascinating and wide-ranging Anglo-Saxon speculation (Scyld Scefing's name points to ancient corn cults, for instance).

We also get "Sellic Spell", a reworking of the Beowulf story by Tolkien to get nearer what he would have liked the original version to be – a very interesting riff on ancient tales, which I think is in the same respectful spirit of innovation as, say, the 2005 Icelandic version starring Gerald Butler, or the 2007 Robert Zeleckis animated version whose script was co-written by Neil Gaiman. It's an interesting insight into how Tolkien conceived of story-telling, and a snapshot, or a series of snapshots, of his own take on the poem that inspired his best known academic work and clearly lay behind his writing.

Let's be clear, Seamus Heaney's 1999 translation is far superior, but also veers a little further from the original meaning, if creatively so. Here's a good example from lines 286-289 of the original, where the watchman on the beach resiles with dignity from his initially hostile reaction to Beowulf's arrival:

Weard maþelode,                ðær on wicge sæt,
ombeht unforht:                "æghwæþres sceal
scearp scyldwiga                gescad witan,
worda ond worca,                se þe wel þenceð."

Heaney's translation:

Undaunted, sitting astride his horse,
The coast-guard answered, "Anyone with gumption
And a sharp mind will take the measure
Of two things: what’s said and what’s done.["]

Tolkien:

The watchman spake, sitting there upon his steed, fearless servant of the king: ["]A man of keen wit who takes good heed will discern the truth in both words and deeds[."]

Tolkien's lecture notes, recasting the spoken sentence:

"A man of acumen, who considers things properly, will naturally show discernment in judging words and deeds."

Note the differences:

1. Tolkien's translation is potentially ambiguous as to whether the watchman or the steed is the fearless servant of the king! His "fearless" is anyway not as good as Heaney's "undaunted", in that the original "unforht" clearly refers to the relationship between the speaker and Beowulf; Heaney's coast-guard is standing up to a suspicious bunch of armed men, Tolkien's watchman is just generally not frightened. And the king, mentioned by Tolkien, is not mentioned in this part of the original, though I guess he's implied as the employer of an "ombeht"; Heaney takes it as read that we understand who the coast-guard works for. (I am tickled by the link to Dutch "ambtenaar", meaning "civil servant", which comes from "ambacht", which now means something different but was originally the same word as "ombeht".)
2. Tolkien is consciously archaic: "spake" instead of "answered"; "steed" instead of "horse". Heaney uses the good colloquial word "gumption" rather than "keen wit" or "acumen" to translate the standard that the coastguard sets himself.
3. In both the translation and the lecture notes, Tolkien dissipates the force of the final line's "worda ond worca" – "words and deeds" is not bad in English, but doesn't have the same ring as "what's said and what's done"; more importantly, the fact that the sentence starts with "æghwæþres" flags that there's a choice involving two things coming up (yeah, I am simplifying a bit), and Tolkien's "both words and deeds" tagged on at the end loses that emphasis, whereas Heaney builds up to it and delivers a punchline.

Of course, it's deeply unfair to make the comparison. Heaney produced this towards the end of a long career, shortly after winning the Nobel prize; Tolkien knocked this off as a teaching aid in the 1920s, years before he started on his best known writing, and with no intention of ever publishing it. We Tolkien completists will not be too disappointed by it.

• Competing J.R.R. Tolkien Biopics
  
  Out next year, perhaps.
  (tags: tolkien films sf )

A decent enough story of the Fourth Doctor meeting up with an older Harry Sullivan at the end of 1999, to prevent aliens exploiting fears of the Millennium Bug to Conquer The Earth. The Fourth Doctor does need a female companion, though, it’s not quite the same just with Harry (who misses Sarah; don’t we all). Justin Richards is this generation’s Terrance Dicks, in that he’s written more Who novels than anyone else (indeed, than anyone except Dicks if my count is correct); this is a case of him doing a decent job.

We picked this up at the commemoration of the Battle of Wavre. It's pretty awful; not just a case of the English being an imperfect translation from the French, but I suspect the French original is as poorly structured and rambling as the English version. Readers will, for instance, be startled to learn that "Wellington was an Englishman, a bit like Paddington Bear." None of those things is quite like the other. Wellington was born in Ireland, and Paddington Bear was a) from Peru and b) a bear. The book is aimed at the 6-12 age group, and they will like the illustrations but may not learn much from the text.

A competent retelling for today’s younger audience of the story of Aillén the Burner from the Boyhood Deeds of Finn MacCool, enlivened by McGann’s own illustrations.

Won the 1995 Tiptree Award. I wasn't quite sure what to expect; it's not terribly closely related to Shelley's own Frankenstein (and I'm baffled by the numerous online reviews whining that it's not a "sequel" – most of the book is set before the action of the original novel, so if anything it would be a prequel; but in reality it is an extended meditation on the character of Elizabeth Frankenstein and what might have shaped her life and Victor's to their date with destiny. It provides an unexpected background of the creation of the monster in the obsession of the senior Baroness Frankenstein with alchemy, and her manipulation of Elizabeth (who is presented as Victor's adopted sister, as well as his eventual wife) and Victor as part of her own grand plan, which inevitably grinds to a halt against Victor's interest in science rather than alchemy, though he shares the goal of creating a new form of life (and indeed is more successful). Poor Elizabeth is nastily manipulated by everyone, though I was amused by the outraged scholarly apparatus purportedly provided by an older Robert Walton (who, as everyone forgets, is the narrator of the framing story in Shelley). Inevitably one must compare with Mists of Avalon, which is the same sort of book (reframing of familiar legendary material through perspective of an alternative, more female-centred and largely fictional belief system). I think Roszak is a bit more disciplined than Bradley, but is also drawing on a smaller canvas which may make that easier.

I thought this was a fascinating and gripping book, with Butler exploring symbiosis and slavery – topics she often returned to – in the context of renewing humanity after future disaster and alien intervention. In particular, her portrayal of human/alien intimacy, both physical and emotional, is pretty vivid without being titillating. Also commendably short. First of a trilogy; will look out for the other two.

Using the methodology here, but using Gephi's newer Force Atlas 2 generator:

Interesting that the Balkans are so far from science fiction; and that my year group at school are so clearly differentiated from the year below (and likewise for CUSU). "FH" = Fisher House (Cambridge Catholic chaplaincy); "dip" = postal diplomacy players of the 1980s; "ALDE" = European liberals; "NDI", "ICG" and "ID" are previous and current employers; "TRNC" = northern Cyprus.

A lot of you were surprised to see me on the news last night – apparently the BBC Ten O’Clock bulletin featured a clip of me, though I also had sightings from Belgium on the main programme Terzake, Slovakia and even Australia. I suspect it was this euronews story filmed by AP, and then sold as a decent talking-head clip to many other broadcasters.

This is how it happened. My office is right next to Associated Press’s office in Brussels. Normally this has the practical effect that we get access to the kitchen at the end of the corridor, which is technically part of their lease, and occasionally they are receptive to taking stories from us. The AP office has diminished sadly in my time in the building, and though I am never quite sure how many people work there it’s certainly fewer than it used to be.

Bishr Al Touni, one of their journalists, popped into my office on Tuesday to say that there was a Dutch court case about Srebrenica coming to judgement Wednesday morning. Did I feel I could say a couple of words about it? We obviously didn’t know the verdict now, but they wanted to get a reaction from me as soon as the verdict was out. I had a fairly clear calendar for Wednesday morning – just a lunch engagement which as it turned out didn’t even happen – so I agreed.

Ten years ago, in my previous job, I would in fact have been the automatic choice for anyone in Brussels wanting to film a quick talking head about Bosnia. My job then was much more one of being a public intellectual and commentator than it is now, and my work had a Bosnia focus which it now lacks. However, my former employers have abandoned Bosnia in some confusion, and there’s almost nobody left in Brussels in a position to say anything about the place; the receding tide of interest has left me exposed after some time of being safely under the surface.

Anyway, AP came across the corridor just after the verdict was announced, filmed me apparently working (actually writing an email to Anne) and then asked me to turn to camera to give an off-the-cuff reaction, where I don’t think I did more than state the bleeding obvious. The final piece is a pretty standard news story – film of the event, archive film of the event to which it refers, cut to expert commentary who is in a sense the voice of the informed viewer, saying the thing that people will mutter over coffee or in the pub. I knew my role and I played it, shook hands with Bishr and his colleague Sylvain, and got on with work. (Which then consumed me for the rest of the day.)

I spotted the piece on EuroNews mid-afternoon and linked it from facebook and Twitter, and just at that point a visitor arrived in the office and stayed until hometime; when I got home I was feeling queasy from lunch and went straight to bed after dinner without checking the internets. (Feeling better now.) So I woke up to find numerous messages on Facebook about it – apeards to have ben the first to spot me, in Australia as far as I know, and then the BBC used the clip for their late bulletin. Here I am in Slovak. I do occasional TV stuff, most notably for BBC Northern Ireland around election time, but this piece has been unusually widespread.

Well done to AP for putting together a marketable package so swiftly after the verdict came out. Presumably, EuroNews, BBC, ABC, Terzake, TA3 and all the others will have paid them a significant chunk for the piece. (I haven’t seen a penny of it, and I don’t really expect to.) It’s a bit shameful that the BBC didn’t have their own talking head available; I can think of at least five people in London who I would defer to on this subject.

But bear this in mind when you are watching news items like this: the talking head chappie (or chappess), who looks like the reasonable person in a confusing story, may simply have been roped in from across the corridor at the last moment. Broadcast media, for a piece like that, are much more interested in getting a piece that looks good and makes an impression on the viewer than they are in the content. It’s always worth questioning why we are being show this particular image or person or soundbite; news doesn’t just happen, it is constructed by journalists.

Current
[Doctor Who] So Vile a Sin, by Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman
η1
How Languages are Learned, by Patsy M. Lightbown and Nina Spada

Last books finished
[Doctor Who] Millennium Shock, by Justin Richards
ε1
Beowulf, tr. J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Christopher Tolkien
ζ1
De Sterrensteen, by “Willy Vandersteen” [Peter Van Gucht & Luc Morjaeu]
The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver
Ireland Under The Tudors vol 2, by Richard Bagwell

Last week’s audios
[Doctor Who] Second Chances, by John Dorney
Current: [Doctor Who] Destroy the Infinite, by Nicholas Briggs

Next books
Ireland Under The Tudors vol 3, by Richard Bagwell
Brussel in Beeldekes
Crash, by J.G. Ballard
[Doctor Who] The Book of the Still, by Paul Ebbs

• Why the next climate treaty is vital for my country to survive
  
  Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum explains.
  (tags: climatechange )
• The Fourier transform lets you have your cake and understand it
  
  Integrating for fun and profit.
  (tags: mathematics )
• When Fandom Falls Apart: DashCon Edition
  
  The symbolism of the ball pit!
  (tags: sf )

The last of the novels in the Hugo voter packet, included for the John W. Campbell award. I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t all that impressed. Apparently every historical achievement of humanity was really done with the help of alien psychic symbiotes, which I find a rather depressing concept. There is a visit to Dublin with absolutely no credible local coloration. The writing was competent enough, but I have problems with the basic concept and the detail.

• What is the evolutionary benefit or purpose of having periods?
  
  Gosh.
  (tags: sexandgenderandsexuality )

I foolishly omitted Fiona Staples from my write-up yesterday as her work is not in the Best Pro Artist folder in the Hugo voter packet; however, it is in the Best Graphic Story folder, and basically you should go buy it anyway. Thanks to for pointing out my error.

How did this happen? I was almost all caught up with bookblogging, and then slacked off for a week or so; and I’m still half a dozen books behind for June. I guess last week’s fairly frenzied attempts to meet with new and returning MEPs didn’t help. This coming week is a Strasbourg week which will give me a bit more slack.

Anyway, diligent blogging is the answer. (Also the fact that it’s now 13 July and I’ve only read three bloggable books so far this month will also help.)

Nexus is a rather interesting update of a classic cyberpunk theme, the upgrade to humanity which is being developed and helped by our heroes and blocked by The Man. It reminded me a lot of Neal Stephenson, except much shorter and with rather more rounded characters. I was particularly impressed by the in-your-face portrayal of the EU/USA as the bad guys in terms of constraining the new technology, though perhaps a little less convinced by the relatively benign portrayal of the Chinese government in that regard.

I had heard of Nexus because it was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award this year, and scored rather well on Goodreads, with almost as many readers and a higher average rating than this year’s star novel, Ancillary Justice. (It did less well, but still decently enough, on LibraryThing.) I found it good though not quite as good as Ancillary Justice