One crucial element to Assembly elections in Northern Ireland is the question of how many candidates to run in each of the constituencies. On the face of it, this should be a fairly simple calculation, based on the following steps:

1) defend all seats won in the last election
2) if the party’s likely vote share multipled by seven exceeds the number of seats won in 2007, run an extra candidate
3) that’s it.

The problem is, of course, to get a good feel for the vote share, given that there has only been one election since 2007 using the 18 constituencies, and that most of the boundaries have been changed from 2007; matters are further complicated by the withdrawal of Sinn Féin in South Belfast, of the DUP in North Down, and of the DUP and UUP in Fermanagh-South Tyrone; and we also need to bear in mind the impact of the TUV in 2010 (likely to be diminished in 2011) and the likely retirement in 2011 of the three MLAs elected in 2007 from beyond the five big parties (Kieran Deeny, Independent, West Tyrone; Brian Wilson, Green Party, North Down; Dawn Purvis, PUP, East Belfast). So my recommendations below, based almost entirely on the 2010 Westminster election results, should be taken with those caveats and with a certain deference to local circumstances of which I may be ignorant. But my reading of the Westminster result, and its implications for the party strategies for next year’s Assembly, is as follows:

Sinn Féin targets for 2011 Assembly election
West Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 5.0 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 4.8 quotas, defending 5 seats; run five candidates
Mid Ulster : 2010 Westminster election 3.6 quotas, 2007 Assembly 3.3 quotas, defending 3 seats; run four candidates
West Tyrone : 2010 Westminster election 3.4 quotas, 2007 Assembly 3.1 quotas, defending 3 seats; run four candidates
Fermanagh and South Tyrone : 2010 Westminster election 3.2 quotas, 2007 Assembly 2.5 quotas, defending 1 seat (1 lost by defection); run three candidates
Newry and Armagh : 2010 Westminster election 2.9 quotas, 2007 Assembly 2.9 quotas, defending 3 seats; run three candidates
North Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 2.4 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 2.1 quotas, defending 2 seats; run three candidates
Foyle : 2010 Westminster election 2.2 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 2.2 quotas, defending 2 seats; run three candidates
South Down : 2010 Westminster election 2.0 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 2.3 quotas, defending 2 seats; run three candidates
Upper Bann : 2010 Westminster election 1.7 quotas, 2007 Assembly 1.8 quotas, defending 1 seat; run two candidates
East Londonderry : 2010 Westminster election 1.4 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.5 quotas, defending 1 seat; run two candidates
South Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 1.0 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.1 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
North Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 0.9 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.0 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
East Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 0.5 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.5 quotas; run one candidate
Lagan Valley : 2010 Westminster election 0.3 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.5 quotas; run one candidate
Strangford : 2010 Westminster election 0.3 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.3 quotas; run one candidate
East Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 0.2 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.2 quotas; run one candidate
North Down : 2010 Westminster election 0.1 quotas, 2007 Assembly 0.1 quotas; run one candidate
South Belfast : did not contest 2010 Westminster election, 2007 notional Assembly 0.9 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate

Best chances of gains: FST 2nd (recoup defection), FST 3rd, Upper Bann 2nd, Mid Ulster 4th, East Antrim
Most vulnerable: North Antrim

Comment: SF’s overall vote in 2010 was down a pip from 2007, but this is more than accounted for by their withdrawal in South Belfast. On the Westminster figures, they should not only regain Gerry McHugh’s seat in FST but gain a third as well (if they can maintain the squeeze on the SDLP). The second seat in Upper Bann was missed in 2007 due to poor balancing, and recedes a bit on 2010 figures; only three candidates in Mid Ulster got more than three quotas last time, so a fourth may well manage to sweep an extra seat. In East Antrim there is almost a Nationalist quota, almost evenly split between SF and SDLP; it will be tight. The flip side of the potential East Antrim gain is the vulnerability of one of the Nationalist seats in North Antrim from where the new voters have been moved; though even there the SDLP are in the weaker position. At this stage, all else being equal, I would expect SF to make two or three net gains, mostly from the UUP.

DUP targets for 2011 Assembly election
Lagan Valley : 2010 Westminster election 3.5 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 3.7 quotas, defending 3 seats; run four candidates
North Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 3.2 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 3.6 quotas, defending 3 seats; run four candidates
East Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 3.2 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 3.0 quotas, defending 3 seats; run three or four candidates
Strangford : 2010 Westminster election 3.2 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 3.4 quotas, defending 4 seats; run four candidates
North Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 2.8 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 2.5 quotas, defending 2 seats; run three candidates
East Londonderry : 2010 Westminster election 2.4 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 2.7 quotas, defending 3 seats; run three candidates
South Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 2.4 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 2.5 quotas, defending 2 seats; run three candidates
Upper Bann : 2010 Westminster election 2.4 quotas, 2007 Assembly 2.2 quotas, defending 2 seats; run three candidates
East Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 2.3 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 2.9 quotas, defending 3 seats; run three candidates
South Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 1.7 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.6 quotas, defending 1 seat; run two candidates
West Tyrone : 2010 Westminster election 1.4 quotas, 2007 Assembly 1.5 quotas, defending 2 seats; run two candidates
Mid Ulster : 2010 Westminster election 1.0 quotas, 2007 Assembly 1.4 quotas, defending 1 seat; run two candidates
Newry and Armagh : 2010 Westminster election 0.9 quotas, 2007 Assembly 0.9 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
Foyle : 2010 Westminster election 0.8 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.2 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
South Down : 2010 Westminster election 0.6 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.1 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
West Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 0.5 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.8 quotas; run one candidate
North Down : did not contest 2010 Westminster election, 2007 Assembly 2.4 quotas, defending 2 seats; run three candidates
Fermanagh and South Tyrone : did not contest 2010 Westminster election, 2007 Assembly 1.8 quotas, defending 2 seats; run two candidates

Best chances of gains: North Belfast 3rd, South Belfast 2nd, Lagan Valley 4th, North Antrim 4th
Most vulnerable: Strangford 4th, East Belfast 3rd, East Londonderry 3rd, South Down

Comment: Despite the grim circumstances of the 2010 election, the DUP vote was not down by very much, and those voters who did opt for the TUV are surely likely to return either directly or by transfers. Still, the position is not a strong one, and on the Westminster figures it will be very difficult to hold all the party’s seats in East Belfast, Strangford and East Londonderry. The South Down seat is also vulnerable due to boundary changes, though here the UUP look even worse off. On the flip side, gains should be very possible in North and South Belfast, and perhaps also in Lagan Valley and North Antrim where Nationalist seats are lost on the new boundaries. My sense would be that the DUP will hold their ground, more or less.

SDLP targets for 2011 Assembly election
South Down : 2010 Westminster election 3.4 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 2.3 quotas, defending 2 seats; run three candidates
Foyle : 2010 Westminster election 3.1 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 2.6 quotas, defending 3 seats; run three candidates
South Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 2.9 quotas (boosted by SF withdrawal), 2007 notional Assembly 1.8 quotas, defending 2 seats; run three candidates
Newry and Armagh : 2010 Westminster election 1.6 quotas, 2007 Assembly 1.4 quotas, defending 1 seat; run two candidates
West Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 1.1 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.0 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
East Londonderry : 2010 Westminster election 1.1 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.0 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
Mid Ulster : 2010 Westminster election 1.0 quotas, 2007 Assembly 1.2 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
West Tyrone : 2010 Westminster election 1.0 quotas, 2007 Assembly 1.0 quotas; run one candidate
Upper Bann : 2010 Westminster election 0.9 quotas, 2007 Assembly 0.9 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
North Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 0.9 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.0 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
North Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 0.6 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.8 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
South Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 0.6 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.7 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
Fermanagh and South Tyrone : 2010 Westminster election 0.5 quotas, 2007 Assembly 1.0 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
Strangford : 2010 Westminster election 0.5 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.6 quotas, defending seat; run one candidate
East Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 0.5 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.6 quotas, defending seat; run one candidate
Lagan Valley : 2010 Westminster election 0.4 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.3 quotas, defending seat; run one candidate
North Down : 2010 Westminster election 0.1 quotas, 2007 Assembly 0.3 quotas, defending seat; run one candidate
East Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 0.1 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.2 quotas, defending seat; run one candidate

Best chances of gains: South Down 3rd, West Tyrone, East Antrim, Strangford, Newry and Armagh 2nd, South Belfast
Most vulnerable: FST, South Antrim, North Antrim

Comment: The SDLP vote went up slightly in 2010, though as with SF this is more than accounted for by the circumstances of South Belfast. The two most likely gains as far as I can see are West Tyrone (which was missed through sheer carelessness and overnomination in 2007) and South Down (where Unionism loses a seat in the boundary changes). The others listed here are a bit more speculative, the strongest being East Antrim, where as noted above there is almost a Nationalist quota, almost evenly split between SF and SDLP, and Strangford where the Nationalist vote share is less but the SDLP have more of it. If the squeeze in FST is maintained by SF, the SDLP seat there will be difficult to defend; and a significant improvement on previous votes will be necessary to save the seats in North and South Antrim. But I think the party should come out about the same overall.

UUP targets for 2011 Assembly election
South Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 2.1 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.5 quotas, defending 1 seat; run two candidates
Strangford : 2010 Westminster election 1.9 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.3 quotas, defending 1 seat; run two candidates
Upper Bann : 2010 Westminster election 1.8 quotas, 2007 Assembly 1.5 quotas, defending 2 seats; run two candidates
East Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 1.7 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.4 quotas, defending 2 seats; run two candidates
East Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 1.5 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.5 quotas, defending 1 seat; run two candidates
Lagan Valley : 2010 Westminster election 1.5 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.4 quotas, defending 1 seat; run two candidates
North Down : 2010 Westminster election 1.4 quotas, 2007 Assembly 1.7 quotas, defending 1 seat (one lost by defection); run two candidates
Newry and Armagh : 2010 Westminster election 1.3 quotas, 2007 Assembly 0.9 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
East Londonderry : 2010 Westminster election 1.2 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.2 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
South Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 1.2 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.3 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
West Tyrone : 2010 Westminster election 1.0 quotas, 2007 Assembly 0.6 quotas; run one candidate
Mid Ulster : 2010 Westminster election 0.8 quotas, 2007 Assembly 0.8 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
North Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 0.8 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.0 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
North Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 0.5 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.7 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
South Down : 2010 Westminster election 0.5 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.6 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
Foyle : 2010 Westminster election 0.2 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.3 quotas, defending seats; run one candidate
West Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 0.2 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.1 quotas, defending seats; run one candidate
Fermanagh and South Tyrone : 2010 Westminster election 0.0 quotas, 2007 Assembly 1.4 quotas, defending 1 seat; run two candidates

Best chances of gains: South Antrim 2nd, West Tyrone, Strangford 2nd, North Down 2nd (recoup defection), Lagan Valley 2nd, Newry and Armagh 2nd
Most vulnerable: East Belfast 2nd, South Down, North Belfast, East Antrim 2nd, North Antrim, Mid Ulster

Comment: The UUP vote in 2010 (counting in the two Conservative candidates) was actually up slightly from the 2007 Assembly, even before taking into account their withdrawal in FST. In both South Antrim and Strangford, this should be easily enough for a second seat, and in West Tyrone enough to regain the seat lost in 2007. Regaining the seat won by defector Alan McFarland in North Down, however, looks a tougher proposition, and second seats in Lagan Valley and Newry and Armagh will require an improvement in vote share. On the other hand, the UUP were fortunate with transfers in 2007, with lucky breaks in a number of constituencies which may not be repeated, and South Down, affected by boundary changes, now very vulnerable. If the party manages to stay level with its 2007 result that can be considered a success.

Alliance Party targets for 2011 Assembly election
East Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 2.6 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.2 quotas, defending 1 seat; run two candidates
South Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 1.1 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.9 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
Lagan Valley : 2010 Westminster election 0.8 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.7 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
East Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 0.8 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 1.0 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
Strangford : 2010 Westminster election 0.6 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.7 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
South Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 0.5 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.9 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
North Down : 2010 Westminster election 0.4 quotas, 2007 Assembly 0.7 quotas, defending 1 seat; run one candidate
East Londonderry : 2010 Westminster election 0.4 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.3 quotas ; run one candidate
North Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 0.3 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.2 quotas; run one candidate
North Antrim : 2010 Westminster election 0.2 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.2 quotas; run one candidate
Upper Bann : 2010 Westminster election 0.2 quotas, 2007 Assembly 0.1 quotas; run one candidate
West Tyrone : 2010 Westminster election 0.2 quotas, 2007 Assembly 0.0 quotas; run one candidate
West Belfast : 2010 Westminster election 0.1 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.0 quotas; run one candidate
South Down : 2010 Westminster election 0.1 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.1 quotas; run one candidate
Newry and Armagh : 2010 Westminster election 0.1 quotas, 2007 Assembly 0.0 quotas; run one candidate
Mid Ulster : 2010 Westminster election 0.1 quotas, 2007 Assembly 0.0 quotas; run one candidate
Fermanagh and South Tyrone : 2010 Westminster election 0.1 quotas, 2007 Assembly 0.1 quotas; run one candidate
Foyle : 2010 Westminster election 0.0 quotas, 2007 notional Assembly 0.0 quotas; run one candidate

Best chances of gains: East Belfast 2nd, East Londonderry
Most vulnerable: Strangford, North Down, South Antrim

Comment: The Alliance result in 2010 is looks lop-sided at first glance – strong in Belfast, floppy elsewhere – but the picture is substantially confused by the absence of the party leader in South Antrim, and the peculiar local circumstances of North Down, which mean that the apparent vulnerability of those seats on Westminster results is illusory. If Naomi Long and her colleagues can keep even half of her votes gained in the Westminster election, there should be a second Alliance seat in East Belfast; best chance for new representation is East Londonderry.

Obviously, there may well be local circumstances operating in a number of seats which make the Westminster numbers a less reliable yardstick. But that is my reading of them, for what it is worth.

Well, a clear gap of policy has opened between the two candidates for the UUP leadership, with Tom Elliott, generally considered the front-runner, clarifying that he will not attend GAA matches or gay pride parades, though in a burst of tolerance he will apparently "hold no issue with any of those who would". His opponent, Basil McCrea, has indeed attended both such events in the past. Gerry Lynch aptly characterises Elliott as posing as Lord Brookeborough‘s reincarnation. Ian Parsley is appalled. Elliott’s cheerleader, Mike Nesbitt, seems to have been told the opposite by the candidate. ‘Chekov’ mocks Elliott’s apparent inconsistency; Lee Reynolds recommends that Nesbitt should manage his own comments better. (Reynolds also twists the knife by reporting that the UUP have over-nominated in Lagan Valley. Again.)

Tom Elliott will no doubt be dismayed and offended when he is accused of bigotry (rather than "big tent"-ry). But this affair shows his unsuitability for the leadership of any party that wants to expand its appeal beyond heterosexual Protestants. Perhaps the UUP has no such ambitions. We shall find out on 22 September.

A nice story of redemption in the English countryside, with the nice characters getting their reward and the nasty characters getting what was coming to them. A quick but satisfying read.

i) births and deaths

4th September 1975: birth of Kai Owen, who plays Rhys Williams in the first three seasons of Torchwood.

ii)broadcast anniversary

4th September 1976 – broadcast of first episode of The Masque of Mandragora, starting Season 14. The Doctor and Sarah find an older console room in the Tardis, and then find themselves in a part of Renaissance Italy which looks just like a set from The Prisoner. Inevitably they are captured by the bad guys and the Doctor is made ready for the executioner’s axe…

For those of you who watched it in the old days, a full episode of Vision On in three different Youtube uploads:

here
here
and here.

This third part, with Sylvester McCoy as a fugitive from Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange and then meeting multiple versions of himself and Pat Keysell, is strongly recommended.

i) births and deaths

3rd September 1940: birth of Pauline Collins, who memorably played companion-that-never-was Samantha Briggs in The Faceless Ones (1967) and Queen Victoria in Tooth and Claw (2006).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

3rd September 1977: broadcast of first episode of Horror of Fang Rock, starting Season 15. The Doctor and Leela land at the lighthouse of Fang rock, where the two keepers, Reuben and Vince, are behaving oddly (indeed, Reuben so oddly that he is dead). And a ship is wrecked on the Rock…

3rd September 1993 – broadcast of second episode of The Paradise of Death. The Doctor rather bizarrely recovers from his fall because he is able to turn his whole body to jelly. The bad guys capture Sarah Jane Smith and take her to the planet Parakon, while the Doctor, Jeremy and the Brigadier set off in pursuit but land insyead on the planet Blestinu.

iii) date specified in canon

3rd September 2007 [?] – events of Revenge of the Slitheen (SJA 2008), where the slimy green gits attempt to infiltrate Park Vale Comprehensive School, attended by Luke (and Clyde, and Maria) but are foiled by our young heroes and Sarah Jane Smith.

Got this because I was very much impressed by Bendis’ work on Alias, and this seemed a good place to continue following his œuvre. In retrospect I’m not sure if it was such a good choice – it’s part of the ongoing saga of the Daredevil, one of the many Marvel superheroes of whom I know pretty much nothing, so I was left a bit uncertain as to how much continuity the reader should be assumed to have absorbed. Taken on that basis, it’s good but not blow-me-away excellent; the story is essentially about a child who has unwillingly become a witness to the dark underside of the world of superheroes, and the journalist who is trying to establish the truth. I was rather more impressed by David Mack’s art, which uses pictures to tell bits of narrative in a way that text (or text bubbles) never could.

i) births and deaths

2nd September 1911: birth of Eileen Way who played the Old Mother in An Unearthly Child (1963), the old woman in the woods in Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966) and Karela in The Creature from the Pit (1979).

2nd September 1994: death, two days after his 60th birthday, of Roy Castle, who played Ian in Doctor Who and the Daleks (1965), the first of the Peter Cushing films.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

2nd September 1967: broadcast of the first episode of Tomb of the Cybermen, starting Season 5. The Doctor, Jamie, and new companion Victoria land on a deserted planet and encounter an archaeological expedition exploring the eponymous tombs. But they may not be as dead as all that…

2nd September 1978: broadcast of the first episode of The Ribos Operation, starting Season 16 (the Quest for the Key to Time). The White Guardiuan visits the Doctor and gives him both a quest – the Key to Time – and a new companion, Romana. Landing on Ribos, the two Time Lords are trapped with the savage shrivenzale….

2nd September 1995: release of Downtime – I wouldn’t normally note the release of spinoff video like this, but the reunion of Victoria, the Brigadier, Sarah Jane Smith and the Yeti is quite remarkable. Usually in a good way.

iii) date specified in canon

2nd September 1666: The Fifth Doctor starts the Great Fire of London, as shown in The Visitation (1982); I guess we assume that most of the 17th-century scenes in the story are set on that day.

I managed to get to most of three days of the Discworld Convention in Birmingham last weekend; it was great fun as I expected. The headline for me was that Terry Pratchett himself is looking and sounding very well. I saw him speak at the opening ceremony on Friday and the "Man in the Hat" interview on Saturday, and my friend D won the draw to meet him in a klatsch and reported that he was just as lucid in a group conversation. Long may he continue.

The striking visual thing about the con was the number of people in costumes; some tremendously elaborate, others just striking (eg as Conina the Barbarian [edited – thanks for correction]). The children were particularly sweet – one young man was a superb Nac Mac Feegle, pained blue with kilt and red wig. (I think it was a wig.) This all culminated in the Maskerade on the Saturday night, which was won by a grand operatic double-act, performing the Depature Aria from Maskerade. Other colourful clothing was in evidence among guests at a very large wedding party also occupying the hotel (we appear to have coexisted peacefully).

I was staying with D in Kidderminster, an hour away by train, which meant no late nights and other commitments meant arriving around lunchtime all three days. D has just turned sixty-mumble and had never attended any kind of sf convention before, but also claimed to have enjoyed it greatly. Indeed, an oft-quoted statistic was that abut half of the 900 attendees had never been to any such event, which indicates that at least one part of fandom can still attract new blood. I suppose one test will be how many of them turn up for the next DWCon, or are attracted to other cons. (I saw no flyers for the next Eastercon, though its chair was in evidence and there were flyers for both Eastercon 2012 and the 2014 London Worldcon bid.)

As was pointed out by others, several con members were too young to have attended any such event. I was pleased to make the acquaintance of five-week-old Astrid, six-week-old Abigail and three-month-old Gwyneth and appreciated their (and their parents’) tolerance of me talking to them.

As well as the Pratchett sessions, I managed to narrowly win a round of Unseen University Challenge as captain of a scratch team including two Irish woman and a young Canadian guy who suggested that we should be the University of Buggerup. We were no doubt helped by our mascot, an inflatable kangaroo which we borrowed from a lady dressed as a witch. Unfortunately I missed the second round due to an unexpected work meeting in London on the Saturday morning; I was replaced at short notice by a werewolf from Tallaght, but we lost.

The other grand extra-curricular activity for me was the Election of the Low King, as voted by all members of the convention. put herself forward as candidate, and I volunteered to be her campaign manager; it started well when she was endorsed by the Honourable Company of Journalists, Clackspersons and Gossipmongers. While I fear that the baby-kissing may not have been the grandest of ideas (compare first try, slightly improved second go), the campaign otherwise went swimmingly; my main contribution was prepping for her awesome hustings speech on the Saturday night after the Maskerade, and of course on Sunday she won and was duly inaugurated with full trappings of folklore, graciously appointing me her Prince of Darkness.

And I got drawn for a klatsch with Stephen Baxter, who is collaborating with Terry Pratchett on a series of sf novels. He was not over-pleased when I suggested that he was supplying the hard sf element to the collaboration, but got very entertaining about Doctor Who – his favourite story was The Mind Robber, and he had actually written the original 100th story for Big Finish in 2007 though in the end they went for a different concept. I am not always a fan of Baxter’s writing, but I did like both Voyage and The Time Ships, and he was very charming in person.

It was of course also great to see old (and new) friends such as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and (apologies to anyone I missed). I would have liked to have had longer with everyone. Next time I shall try to stay on site.

in particular deserves huge congratulations; quite apart from running a super event overall, he himself ran an invent your own religion session and was always visible and approachable. His inspiring chant at the end of the opening ceremony will linger with me and I hope he will publish the words somewhere. Brave man that he is, he is apparently doing it all again in 2012. I hope I shall be there.

i) births and deaths

1st September 1974: birth of Burn Gorman, who played randy (and later undead) medic Owen Harper in the first two series of Torchwood (2007-2009).

ii) broadcast anniversary

1st September 1979: broadcast of episode 1 of Destiny of the Daleks, opening episode of Season 17. Romana regenerates; the Tardis lands on Skaro a radioactive planet; the Doctor is captured by the Movellans, and Romana threatened with extermination by the Daleks.

iii) dates specified in spinoff literature

1st September 1991: happens over and over again in the Suffolk town of Thorington. Incidentally, what happened to the sea? (as told in the 2008 Eighth Doctor audio play, Brave New Town)

1st September 2982: funeral of Eighth Doctor Adventure companion Roz Forrester (in Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman’s 1997 novel, So Vile a Sin).

Non-fiction 11 (YTD 52)
The Bloody Sunday report, Vol IX
The Bloody Sunday report, Vol X
A Viceroy’s Vindication? Sir Henry Sidney’s Memoir of Service in Ireland, 1556-78
Faith in Europe?, by Jean Vanier, Mary McAleese, Timothy Radcliffe, Bob Geldof, Chris Patten and Cormac Murphy-O’Connor
The Moldovans: Romania, Russia and the Politics of Culture, by Charles King
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, by Thomas Merton
Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia’s Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War, by Pete Earley
Back To The Vortex, by J Shaun Lyon
The Bookseller of Kabul, by Åsne Seierstad
Mistress Blanche: Queen Elizabeth I’s Confidante, by Ruth Elizabeth Richardson
Aké: the Years of Childhood, by Wole Soyinka

Non-genre fiction 5 (YTD 36)
Soul Mountain / 灵山, by Gao Xingjian
A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute
Dubliners, by James Joyce
The Rosary, by Florence Barclay
A Farewell To Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

SF (not Who) 9 (YTD 55)
Black Blade Blues, by J.A. Pitts
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
Sinai Tapestry, by Edward Whittemore
Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopedia, by David Day
A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
The Wizard Knight, by Gene Wolfe
Diaspora, by Greg Egan
The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett
Northern Lights, by Philip Pullman

Doctor Who 9 (YTD 46)
Longest Day, by Mike Collier
Doctor Who Annual 2011
Legacy of the Daleks, by John Peel
Wishing Well, by Trevor Baxendale
The King’s Dragon, by Una McCormack
The Ring of Steel, by Stephen Cole
The Pit, by Nigel Penswick
The Slitheen Excursion, by Simon Guerrier
Fallen Gods, by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman

Comics 3 (YTD 12)
With the Light… / 光とともに…, vol 2, by Keiko Tobe
Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, by Bryan Lee O’Malley
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, by Bryan Lee O’Malley

8/37 (YTD 42/202) by women (McAleese, Seierstad, Richardson, Barclay, Shelley, McCormack, Orman, Tobe)
5/37 (YTD 16/202) by PoC (Soyinka, Gao, Tobe, O’Malley x 2)
16/37 owned for more than a year (A Fire upon the Deep [reread], Northern Lights [reread], Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, The Wizard Knight, Frankenstein [reread], Faith in Europe?, Longest Day, Legacy of the Daleks, A Viceroy’s Vindication?, The Pit, A Town Like Alice, Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopaedia, Dubliners, A Farewell to Arms, Diaspora, Wishing Well)
Three rereads (YTD rereads 14/202)
~11,000 pages (YTD 63,100)

35) The Slitheen Excursion, by Simon Guerrier
36) Fallen Gods, by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman

As sometimes happens, my scheduling of Who books in my reading pile produced an odd synergy, with Simon Guerrier taking the Tenth Doctor back to a Slitheen incursion on ancient Athens, and Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman (in a Telos novella) taking the Eighth Doctor to the soon-to-be-destroyed citadel on the island of Thera. Both storied feature the cataclysmic Thera eruption at a distance (of space in The Slitheen Excursion and of time in Fallen Gods), both have a character called Deucalion, both have the Doctor in unlikely combat with bulls owing more to contemporary Spain than ancient Knossos, and both feature a strong female viewpoint character who is effectively the one-off companion for the story.

I thought that they were both also rather good, in very different ways. The Slitheen Excursion is in most ways a standard alien invasion New Series Adventures romp, but lifted partly by the total absence of fart jokes for the Slitheen and mainly by the strong presence of June Brown, a contemporary classics student who bumps into the Doctor while on holiday in Athens and helps him go back in time to defeat the nefarious plans of the green slimy shape-shifters. Perhaps it helped that I was listening to the audio as narrated by Debbie Chazen, who really gave June a credible voice, but I found myself hoping (despite knowing that it wouldn’t happen) that the Doctor would take her with him at the end. There is an article to be written about last year’s spate of companion-free Tenth Doctor adventures, on TV, audio and paper.

Fallen Gods is on quite a different level (and not really one for the kids). Here the Doctor links up with Alcestis, a lapsed priestess from a temple on Thera, and together they try to deal with the demons shapes like bulls threatening the population; this inevitably brings the Doctor to the court of the local king where he ends up discovering the awful secret behind the kingdom’s success. Alcestis turns out to have a lot more behind her than first appears, and the ending is pretty gruesome if also loyal to the themes of Greek legend. I see that one reviewer perceived the book as a prequel to The Time Monster but really, Fallen Gods makes a lot more sense.

So, two Who books strongly recommended to the classicists, and indeed others.

i) births and deaths

31st August 1932: birth of Roy Castle, who played Ian in the Doctor Who and the Daleks movie with Peter Cushing (1965).

31st August 1991: death of Gerry Davis, script editor of Doctor Who from The Celestial Toymaker (1966) to part 3 of The Evil of the Daleks (1967), co-writer of The Tenth Planet (1966), The Highlanders (1967), and Tomb of the Cybermen (1966-67), and sole writer of Revenge of the Cybermen (1975)

31st August 2005: death of Michael Sheard, who played Rhos in The Ark (1966), Dr. Summers in The Mind of EvilPyramids of Mars (1975), Lowe in The Invisible Enemy (1977), the Mergrave in Castrovalva (1982), and the Headmaster in Remembrance of the Daleks (1988)

ii) broadcast and production anniversaries

31st August 1968: broadcast of fourth episode of The Dominators. Jamie and Cully manage to destroy a Quark; the Dominators threaten to take revenge by killing the Doctor.

31st August 1990: John Nathan-Turner resigns as producer after a decade, and the Doctor Who production office is closed by the BBC.

• Getting things done « Francesca Elston
  Notes on finding a job (and other things too)
  (tags: life)
• Ultonia: Building the vote
  Lee Reynolds references an older post about Ulster Unionists
• On self-preservation « Ian James Parsley
  Parsley references my recent post about Ulster Unionists
  (tags: northernireland)

I must have read this over a decade ago – I seem to remember buying the first two books shortly before the third came out – and it’s interesting to discover which bits have stuck in the mind and which seem new. Pullman’s world-building is simply superb. It’s not just the places – Lyra’s Oxford, the Fens, the Arctic wastes – but also the rules of the world – the most memorable and horrifying moment of the book is that point near the end of Chapter 16 when it looks as if Pantalaimon and Lyra are going to be separated, and it is a really impressive achievement to make the reader care about what happens to a child’s relationship with her dæmon.

I was slightly surprised (my memory of this book having been contaminated by the third volume) that there is not much about religion here – a fair bit about the evil ecclesiastical bureaucracy, but that is not quite the same. Also, because I was looking for them, I spotted more resonances with C.S. Lewis this time. There’s the Oxford setting to begin with; Mrs Coulter clearly draws from the White Witch; note also that Lyra thinks she is a magician’s niece. Pullman is, however, much the better writer: none of his non-human characters are talking cuddly toys, and his world is one where horrible things routinely happen but are none the less horrible for that.

Looking forward now to rereading the other two in a couple of months.

broadcast anniversaries

30th August 1975: broadcast of the first episode of Terror of the Zygons, launching Season 13. The Doctor, Harry and Sarah, responding to the Brigadier’s appeal via space-time telegraph, land in the neighbourhood of Loch Ness which looks strangely like Sussex. Oil rigs are being wrecked in the North Sea; while tending to a survivor, Harry is shot and injured by a servant of the enigmatic Duke of Forgill. As Sarah visits him in hospital, she is grabbed by… a Zygon!!!!!

30th August 1980: broadcast of the first episode of The Leisure Hive, launching Season 18. Poor K9 gets short-circuited on the beach at Brighton; the Doctor and Romana head for the famous pleasure planet, Argolis, but the Doctor, investigating a mysterious chamber, apparently gets torn apart. (Perhaps symbolic of new producer John Nathan-Turner’s plans for the show.)

30th August 2002: release of fifth episode of webcast Real Time. Cybermen, viruses and the Time Portal; by this stage I’d lost interest in it but I will give it another go some time.

Is this public knowledge? Great to hear that the BBC have authorised more Past Doctor Adventures.

Also Baxter’s favourite Second Doctor story is The Mind Robber which shows his good taste.

Rather a sweet memoir of growing up as the headmaster’s son in colonial Nigeria before and during the second world war. I liked it more than Chinua Achebe; there seemed to me to be more interrogation of political and gender power structures – one memorable scene has Soyinka’s mother yelling her rage down the phone at the local British official at the Allies for bombing the (non-white) Japanese rather than the (white) Germans. The other point that grabbed me was the lip-smacking portrayal of Nigerian cuisine. I would like to know more about West Africa in general, and I guess Nigeria is the way into it as the regional power; and I guess that Soyinka is one of the better ways into Nigeria.

broadcast anniversary

29th August 1964: broadcast of ‘The Tyrant of France’, fourth episode of the story we now call The Reign of Terror. The Doctor, in disguise, confronts Robespierre; Susan and Barbara are recaptured; Ian is trapped by Leon’s co-conspirators.

More mad goings on in the world of Scott Pilgrim, where not only does he face another of Ramona’s evil ex-boyfriends, but she does battle with his ex-girlfriend in the middle of the Toronto Reference Library. I can see why people got hooked on this.

births and deaths

28th August 1918: birth of Tutte Lemkow, who played Kuiju in Marco Polo (1964), Ibrahim in The Crusade (1965), and Cyclops in The Myth Makers (also 1965). He also choreographed the dancing scenes in The Celestial Toymaker (1966).

i) births and deaths

27 August 1946: birth of Peter Craze, brother of Michael ‘Ben Jackson’ Craze, who played Dako in The Space Museum (1965), Du Pont in The War Games (1969), and Costa in Nightmare of Eden (1979).

ii) broadcast anniversary

27 August 1991: radio broadcast of episode 1 of The Paradise of Death, starring Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney as the Third Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and the Brigadier. Sarah and her dimwitted assistant Jeremy Fitzoliver investigate the new Space World tourist attraction on Hampstead Heath; The Doctor and Brigadier are looking into it as well, and the Doctor apparently falls to his doom from a very high tower…

iii) historical date referenced in canon

27 August 1883: eruption of Krakatoa: the Third Doctor says he witnessed it in Inferno (1970), there is evidence in Rose (2005) that the Ninth Doctor was there too, the Tenth Doctor and Rose narrowly escape the explosion in the Doctor Who Adventures story Under the Volcano (2006) and the eruption releases the alien Xylok which becomes Sarah Jane’s computer, Mr Smith, as we discover in The Lost Boy (SJA 2007). August is a good month for volcanic eruptions (cf Pompeii on the 24th).

Gosh, this Seventh Doctor novel is pretty poor. Lots of good ideas, including William Blake, disappearing planets, Cthulhoid monstrosities and the secret history of Rassilon, but thrown together really hastily so that the reader must find some real motivation to make sense of it all, and I could not find that motivation.

Continuing my discovery of Hemingway, I started A Farewell to Arms with no knowledge of the content at all. I soon realised that it was about the Italian front in the first world war where Hemingway had served as a medic, which I was aware of from Haldeman’s “The Hemingway Hoax”, but then became rather delighted when I realised that I vaguely know the area in question, now the eastern part of Slovenia. (I once stumped a leading French intellectual over dinner in Ljubljana by asking him which nineteenth-century French ruler is buried in Slovenia. The answer is Charles X.)

It is, of course, a great, gritty, utterly unheroic depiction of war, with deaths, horrible injuries, and what some have called emergency sex. The Frederick Henry’s struggle then shifts to his relationship with Catherine Barkley. You know that it is doomed from the start, because it’s that kind of book, but I was still startled by the bleak suddenness of the ending. It’s a sparse, clear picture of people thrown together by conflict, and how lives end in that situation, as ever told in Hemingway’s crystal prose.

I am becoming a Hemingway addict, something I never quite expected.

Since I hardly ever go the cinema, I don’t know when I’ll see the movie, but I must say I liked the first volume: Scott and all his friends are well-drawn characters, and the sheer insanity of ending the book with the first of Ramona’s evil ex-boyfriends duelling with the unfortunate Scott, video-game style, at the scene of an abortive gig is very engaging. I also liked the depiction of the Canadian background, hemmed by by snow to the north and the USA to the south. I wasn’t sufficiently charmed to go on about it at great length here, but I was sufficiently charmed to buy another volume.

The relatively new stats feature on LJ rarely delivers much of interest, but I did notice something interesting around 3-4 August when traffic to my account doubled:

I have to say that my posts on 3 and 4 August were not really sufficiently interesting to warrant that sort of attention, and my first thought was that perhaps a link to an old post – maybe, I flattered myself, the series on the Bloody Sunday report – had found their way onto some very populous but closed online community (a number of obvious possibilities occurred to me), and been widely shared around there, though with nobody leaving any comments.

But I do not think this is the case now, after checking the time distribution of hits over the two days in question:

Looks to me like this must have been a bot of some kind, passing by three times in just over 24 hours. Some new search engine, gearing up for a launch, perhaps? Has anyone else noticed unusual activity of this kind around that time?

A good friend of mine, interviewed by the excellent Five Books site, on The Psychology of Terrorism.

My thanks to Bobballs, who has posted links to the statements made so far in the UUP leadership campaign. I’ve gone through them – it didn’t take long – and my big conclusion is that I wish I had also done this for the SDLP leadership election a few months back. My secondary conclusion is that neither candidate seems terribly strong on substance, and on the evidence so far, the UUP led by either of them can look forward to more years of the same. My fisking of the two below:

Tom Elliott’s main piece so far is this article in the Newsletter. His points are as follows:

1. It is important for grassroots unionists to be allowed to express their opinions (no indication given as to how this might happen, or as to whether he distinguishes between the UUP’s membership and "grassroots unionists" as a whole).
2. "Some politicians would have us believe that the Union has never been more secure. And yet, the unionist vote has never been smaller throughout the history of Northern Ireland." (These two statements are presented as if the second is intended to disprove the first. Of course, one interpretation – mine, as it happens – is that because the Union is perceived as secure, voters feel less need to vote for parties that bang on about it all the time.)
3. Threats to the Union come not only from those "committed to murdering their way to a united Ireland" but also from "Scottish nationalists, and Welsh nationalists and English nationalists and little Northern Ireland nationalists". (How does Elliott plan to combat the threat from Scottish, Welsh and English nationalists? And who are the last-named of these?)
4. Three paragraphs advocating what has been called (by others) "civic unionism"; more on this below.
5. Three paragraphs on the prospect of Martin McGuinness as First Minister. This is the most deluded section. Having failed to win a mandate to change the current arrangements at the ballot box in May, Elliott now proposes to persuade the Conservatives in Westminster to "vigorously pursue the changing of this legislation to undo these mistakes and ensure that unionism once again has the right to appoint the First Minister as the largest designation in the Assembly". How Elliott will do that with no MPs, and without agreement from Sinn Féin, is left to the imagination. (Probably he will write more articles about it in the Newsletter and send photocopies of them to David Cameron.) Whatever David Trimble’s faults, he at least always realised that London was never going to legislate to undo a deal which the main parties in Northern Ireland had agreed. And Elliott raising this issue is positively dangerous for the party, because it reminds those voters who care about it that the best way of preventing McGuinness from becoming First Minister is to vote DUP!
6. No single unionist party – Elliott has been tagged as the ‘Unionist unity’ candidate in some quarters, and it’s interesting that here he doesn’t state his own preference but instead says that ‘it is clear’ that it won’t happen.
7. His vision is "a grassroots settled mindset [which grassroots?] on the future of the Union, which has Northern Ireland firmly embedded as an integral part of it". Ringing prose indeed.

Basil McCrea’s opening statement is even shorter on convincing specifics. The entirety of the first half is taken up with bemoaning the party’s poor election results. We then move on:

1. "Now is the time for a UUP re-invigorated, re-energised and re-positioned under new leadership to take advantage. The party must be bold and radical. It must capture the mood within the electorate for change." (Stirring words, but is there actually a mood within the [Northern Irish] electorate for change? Or rather sullen acceptance of the status quo?)
2. "[The UUP] must offer candidates that reflect and relate to the widest possible section of the electorate." This is the most interesting thing said by either candidate (note that it was emphasised also by Ian Parsley, who of course is not himself a UUP member but is hoping for their endorsement in next year’s elections), and I will expand on it below.
3. "[The UUP] must realise that the electorate has moved on. It must develop a new vision for unionism – inclusive, positive and pluralist. Our role is to build a consensus to make Northern Ireland work, to make politics work" – again, interesting that McCrea like Elliott has internalised the ‘civic unionism’ paradigm; more on this below.

The statement finishes with more fluff, but slightly better written than Elliott’s.

If I were a voter in this election, I would support McCrea on the basis of these statements, purely because he seems to have started to grasp the problem of internal party organisation. The killer blow to the UCUNF project came several weeks before the election when the few Catholics who had managed to get selected by the Conservatives (none had been selected by the UUP) pulled out of the process. There may well have been particular factors in each of these cases, but the overall picture was that no normal Catholic need consider candidacy with the UUP or with any group allied to it. (Sir John Gorman, whatever his qualities, is not a normal Catholic.)

It’s not enough, though, just to run a couple of Catholic candidates, for two reasons. First, for most Catholics, the UUP’s big problem is that it was the party of single-party Stormont rule; it was the Unionist regime from 1921 to 1972. When I have taxed senior UUP members about this in the past, their protest has been that the ancien regime was actually a rather good government, which of course closes down the discussion immediately. The UUP needs a better narrative for what happened in the middle decades of the last century. Of course it is still struggling for a narrative for what has happened this century, so perhaps I should not expect too much.

The second problem is that the UUP’s failure to run Catholic candidates, though embarrassingly visible, was much the least of its problems in May. What kind of serious political organisation starts a campaign by tossing aside its only elected MP, and fails to select a candidate in its most winnable seat until the day before nominations close? Will we see, in next year’s elections, the UUP over-nominating as usual – running too many candidates, partly out of hubris from long past electoral peaks and partly to push local party disuptes to the electorate to resolve? (The electorate have a history of responding by choosing neither option.) The new UUP leader needs to construct a system of very tight central control of campaigning, as well as having a coherent vision; form, as well as content. Neither candidate convinces me on the content, and McCrea has only the slightest inkling of problems with form (Elliott may have more ideas but is so far silent on them).

Finally, the other issue I want to pick up on is the question of civic unionism, which both candidates adopt as a given without using that term: McCrea talks of "a new vision for unionism – inclusive, positive and pluralist", while Elliott wants "a Union in which everyone can have ambitions and opportunities to work to better themselves economically and provide for their families; a Union which is prosperous, and which supports our businesses and farms rather than impeding them; a Union which protects the rights of the most vulnerable in our society, and provides for our children and older people." The originator of the ‘civic unionism’ concept was Norman Porter, who himself has since moved away from it, but it has clearly become accepted wisdom in UUP circles.

My problem with it is that I miss the intellectual argument that a good society – inclusive, positive and pluralist, or nice to families, businessmen, farmers, children and old people – is necessarily one located within the Union. It seems to me that you can prioritise the Union (or a United Ireland, or a confederal Belgium for that matter) as a constitutional concept, or you can promote a state which is generally nice to all of its citizens, but you have to choose one as the priority over the other, and my choice will always be for the second, with deep suspicion of anyone who tells me that the only way to achieve that is by accepting their vision on the first. And my suspicion is that more voters in Northern Ireland are beginning to feel that way; and I am not sure that any party with ‘Unionist’ in its name can ever appeal to them.

i) births and deaths

None that grabbed me.

ii) Broadcast anniversary

26 August 1991: first broadcast of the so-called ‘Pilot Eisode’, the first mounting of ‘An Unearthly Child’ which was not shown in November 1963.

iii) date specified in canon that I should have noted two days ago

24 August, 79 AD: Vesuvius erupts, destroying the city of Pompeii, as witnessed by the Seventh Doctor and Mel in Big Finish audio The Fires of Vulcan (2000), and by the Tenth Doctor and Donna in The Fires of Pompeii (2008).