This is the first in an occasional series of posts about How I Learned To Cook.

Practically the first thing I learned to cook was pasta. And also rice. They are both very easy. You put them in boiling salted water and cook for the length of time it says on the packet. For pasta that is usually shorter than for rice. (3-15 minutes rather than 20-40 minutes.) Once that time has passed you strain it through a sieve or colander and eat it. You can tell when it is ready by picking the odd bit of rice and pasta out of the boiling water with a fork and testing it.

I am not a fan of boil-in-the-bag rice. It is messy and inconvenient to serve; you inevitably risk scalding yourself as you snip the bag open. Much better to cook the rice swimming round freely, and chase the last few grains out of the pan with hot water from the kettle. (Also you can use that water to rinse the rice as it sits in the sieve, a technique my future wife taught me.)

An early variation on this basic boiling technique which I tried in my late teens was to tip a packet of soup into the rice or pasta as it boiled. Also eating it with a lump of butter can mildly diminish the sense of despair which is easily generated by such a diet.

There are other foodstuffs which respond well to the basic boiling technique – essentially, almost all green vegetables and many of other colours as well, which can be bought in appropriately cut ready-to-boil servings, both frozen and fresh. Some of these do take a significant preparation time. For instance, I like eating potatoes, but I resent the time it takes to clean them and scrape them, and if pasta or rice is available for cooking instead I will almost always choose them. On the other hand I love cooking peas; chuck ’em into the water (with some mint if feeling adventurous) and three minutes later they are ready to eat – the perfect afterthought vegetable.

The other food which I enjoyed boiling even in my early teens and still love today is the humble egg. Soft-boiled inside the shell, they furnish a self-contained hot meal (best at just about five minutes, so that the yolk is still runny but the white more or less set). But even better, crack them into a pan of hot salted water, extract with a slotted spoon after three minutes and deposit onto your thickly buttered toast, and you have the poached egg breakfast which sustains me most mornings.

My culinary technique has moved on from simple boiling – or at least I like to think so – but this is where it started.

Do we have a definite start date for the next series of Doctor Who yet?

I think this brings me to the end of Jane Austen’s novels. It is a peculiar case: some very interesting characters and family dynamics, with a wealth of layered detail, but I found the basic social message of the book rather uncongenial. Austen’s heroine is Fanny Price, informally adopted by her rich uncle and aunt; Fanny is generally passive and when she expresses an opinion tends towards priggishness (with the author’s full approval); the stable conservative world of Mansfield Park is under threat from the cosmopolitan horrors of London, but Fanny supports the resistance. Most of the climactic events take place off-screen in the last few chapters, which is a bit unsatisfying. (Also the kind rich uncle clearly has made his money thanks to slavery.) The book does have its points of interest, but I would advise anyone thinking of casual dabbling in Austen to stick to Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion.

Top LibraryThing Unsuggestion: On Intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins

My tooth saga continues.

Last week I had my long-awaited operation at the endodontist’s; she peered into my second upper left molar with a microscope and deftly rooted out all four canals (if that is the right terminology). Of course, it’s uncomfortable at the time but the whole point is that the nerves are all killed, so it stops any further toothache from that source, and I had my best sleep for weeks last weekend.

But I noticed increasing discomfort in my lower jaw opposite the tooth done last week. Even so, when I went to the dentist this morning it was rather a shock when she declared that the lower second molar was broken, and after a little fiddling, the whole inner face sheared off; it was somehow cracked longitudinally, though I have no idea how. She plugged the hole efficiently enough, but now it’s back to the endodontist at her next availability (9 March) and another two and a half weeks of eating on the right side of my mouth in the meantime. It is still pretty uncomfortable, and I have declared that my weekend has started now.

Looking in the mirror this morning I noticed many more visible grey hairs than I remember previously. That, the teeth and the recently acquired bifocals (of which I have no complaints apart from their cost) are making me feel rather middle-aged!

While waiting for my copy of Ursula Le Guin’s Lavinia to arrive, I worked my way through the short fiction nominated for this year’s BSFA awards. (I have been a BSFA member since the 2005 Worldcon, and am now kicking myself for not doing this in previous years.) I list the six stories below, in my reverse order of preference. NB that the two I liked most are also the two not available online; I wonder if their availability in dead tree form will affect the results?

‘The Beloved Time of Their Lives’, by Ian Watson & Roberto Quaglia

Gosh, this was a cute idea done very badly. The concept of the story is time-travelling lovers for whom the time travel itself both brings them together, and forces them apart. So far, so good. But the concept is wrapped in not very gentle mockery of nerds in love, of love between people of rather different ages, and in particular of obesity just because obesity is funny, y’know? – so I just lost interest. (And the time-travel punchline was pretty obvious from rather early in the story.)

‘The Assistant’ by Ian Whates

I fear that this was my Mike Resnick story, ie the one I couldn’t really believe was actually on the BSFA shortlist. The basic concept – that there is some sinister nano-infintration of a high-tech firm somewhere in middle England – is respectable if unremarkable. But the writing is simply clunky and embarrassing. It would be at the bottom of my ballot were it not for the Watson / Quaglia story being actually offensive.

‘Johnnie and Emmie-Lou Get Married’ by Kim Lakin-Smith

A rather peculiar (if mercifully short) tale of a young man battling his rival for the right to marry his pregnant girlfriend, everyone having odd fixations with their cars and able to survive, however briefly, horrific injuries. Really didn’t do anything for me.

‘Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast’ by Eugie Foster

Having vaguely known online for many years, I think this is the first of her actual stories I have read. It is excellent: a culture where people identify with each other through the masks that they choose to / are compelled to wear, and the narrator who is rather unwillingly dragged into challenging the structures. Slight reservations from me about the means and motivation of the mysterious woman who sets our hero on the right path, but it’s a good read. Glad to see today that it also made the Nebula shortlist.

February Books 11) The Push by Dave Hutchinson

I don’t think I’d even heard of Hutchinson before, which illustrates the abysmal depths of my ignorance. This is an excellent hard sf novella, combining a couple of plot elements from Zelazny’s “This Moment of the Storm” and GRRM’s “Sandkings”; the narrator has spent decades fleeing his own past, and then finds it catching up with him, as the dumb aliens on the planet he helped colonise turn out not to be so dumb after all. The resolution of the hero’s emotional and moral predicament is both imaginative and satisfying. Separately published by Newcon Press which is why this entry counts towards my February bookblogging.

‘Vishnu at the Cat Circus’ by Ian McDonald

Thanks to this being shortlisted, I opened my copy of ‘s collection Cyberabad Days, of which it is the final story. It is a return to the gloriously realised future India of River of Gods (as is the entire collection), looking at the Singularity from the point of view of the developing world; but also with echoes of Kipling’s Purun Bhagat, of Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, of Zelazny’s Lord of Light. Our narrator has been genetically engineered for genius, but also to age and live at half the usual speed. His relationship with his family meshes oddly with India’s relationship with the world of artificial intelligence and transhuman survivors; and he ends up, literally, herding cats. Looking forward now to reading the rest of the collection.

Although my top vote goes to Ian Mcdonald’s story, I will not be devastated if the winner turns out to be either Eugie Foster or Dave Hutchinson. I hope that BSFA voters have the taste and judgement to reject the other three.

Nicholas Whyte’s review of Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990

follow reviews
Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990
by Anastasia N. Karakasidou
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Nicholas’s review

http://www.incore.ulster.ac.uk/services/ecrd/new/reviews/102.html

This is a gripping and moving account of the construction of Greek nationhood in a municipality near Thessaloniki. Using both oral and official history, Karakasidou reveals how the inhabitants of the town once called Guvezna and now known as Assiros were altered from an Ottoman cocktail of Turks, Slavs and Greeks to the mono-ethnic culture present there today. The space left by departing Turks and Slavs after the town came under Greek control was partly filled by refugees forced to resettle in Greek Macedonia after the disastrous war of 1922. They mostly spoke Turkish themselves as a first language, but, like those Slavic speakers who remained in the town, they became assimilated during the course of the twentieth century. “In many ways,” the author concludes, “the past has become very much a foreign country to the Assiriotes”. (p.217)

But this book is not just about Macedonia, it is about nation-building. Karakasidou complains that “while there is overwhelming concern among Euro-American politicians and diplomats over what nationalism has brought to Eastern Europe in recent years, many seem unaware of the fact that nation-building processes are a longue duree”, (p. 146) and she describes the process in all its brutality. War, religion, politics and capitalism all contributed to constructing the ‘official narrative’ of this particular nation in this particular place over the last 120 years.

Cambridge University Press declined to publish this book, fearing attacks on their Greek staff if the crisis over the official name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia were to escalate. Fortunately it did not, and many Greeks now look to their new northern neighbour as a business opportunity rather than a military threat. Perhaps Karakasidou’s courageous research helped to open up the space in which this became possible. There may be hope for all of us.(less)
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comments (showing 1-18 of 18)
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message 1: by Mike (last edited 10 days ago, 12:42PM) – rated it 3 stars Feb 08, 2010 11:16AM
Hi Nick,

As you mention, Greeks tried to look at FYROM as a business opportunity. Unfortunately when they started contradicting their own elected government’s ethnic narrative that they weren’t claiming to be “ancient macedonians (and now portray Macedonia Greece as “occupied’).. it became evident that they have no interest in dealing honestly with Greeks.

For those, that supported FYROM (who are now building giant statues of Alexander and naming everything in sight Alexander and Philip)… a reminder of what FYROM’s own elected leaders assured you not so long ago.

‘We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great.’ (FYROM’S Ambassador Ljubica Acevshka in speech to US representatives in Washington, – January 22 1999)

‘We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are a Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian.'(FYROM´s Ambassador to Canada Gyordan Veselinov – Interview to Ottawa Citizen Newspaper 24 February 1999)

“We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century … We are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians” (Kiro Gligorov, FYROM’s first President – Foreign Information Service Daily Report, Eastern Europe, February 26, 1992)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA3kwC2YT…

The fact is people like you made a dramatic mistake in both intellectual and moral judgment. It now boils down if you are willing to take responsibility for those mistakes-or keep supporting FYROM’s conscious lies and blaming Greeks for your own racism against them.

Greejk have every right to protect their nation and heritage from the former self-identifying ethnic Bulgarians of the former Yugoslav state-that went looking for a fight against them.

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message 2: by Nicholas – added it Feb 09, 2010 10:59AM
Quite simply, Greece is reaping what it sowed in the early 1990s. Nationalist apologists like you make any reconciliation less likely.

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message 3: by Mike (last edited 2 days ago, 09:39PM) – rated it 3 stars Feb 16, 2010 08:33PM
Nicholas wrote: “Quite simply, Greece is reaping what it sowed in the early 1990s. Nationalist apologists like you make any reconciliation less likely.”

According to my reading of your logic above, Greeks are now responsible for the behavior of FYROM nationalist extremists-not FYROM nationalist extremists? Curious reasoning that.

Loring Danforth (that strongly supported them like you did on alleged “human rights’ grounds) once wrote…

“Extreme Macedonian nationalists, who are concerned with demonstrating the continuity between ancient and modern Macedonians, deny that they are Slavs and claim to be the direct descendants of Alexander the Great and the ancient Macedonians. The more moderate Macedonian position, generally adopted by better educated Macedonians and publicly endorsed by Kiro Gligorov, the first president of the newly independent Republic of Macedonia, is that modern Macedonians have no relation to Alexander the Great, but are a Slavic people whose ancestors arrived in Macedonia in the sixth century AD”
www.gate.net/~mango/Danforth_National_Co…

According to that definition, a fair chunk of FYROM’s population now qualify as “extremists” no? Rather ironic that the very people that used to ridicule Greeks for suggesting we have every right to protect our identity and nation… now claim themselves to be ancient Macedonians!

Surely Greeks haven’t been warning for 20 years it wasn’t just a dispute over a name and there would be such complications if they were recognized. Of course the wise Nicholas’ of the world couldn’t be bothered to take Greek peasant nationalists living a myth seriously (see Herzfeld). Instead you took at face value the assurances and historical narrative of a nation that had been living for 60 years under communist totalitarism. Clearly as events have unfolded such Greeks have proven themselves incapable of sophisticated reasoning.

As everyone knows ancient Macedonians were actually Slavic, spoke a Slavic dialect, and lived in ancient Paoenia (much like ancient English people were actually Russians, old English is actually a Slavic dialect. and the Ukraine is the “real” Wales) And if anyone questions that validity of this narrative they should be called “racists”, “nationalist” and “ethnic cleansers”. And if everyone “recognizes” FYROM thousands upon thousands of ancient Macedonian artifacts will eventually one day rewrite themselves from Greek into their Bulgarian dialect and put this issue finally to rest
http://macedonia-evidence.org/obama-lett…

The dirty mongrel Greeks are clearly to blame for everything. Surely neither FYROM nor self-proclaimed “human rights” experts like yourself are capable of errors and prejudices. I mean it makes perfect sense that FYROM nationalists (and their supporters) on the one hand claim the right to self-identification an absolute-yet on the other openly deny Greeks their own ethnic identity? It makes perfect sense that on one side they claim they are sure ancient Macedonians weren’t Greek-yet on the other obsess over trying to prove Greeks aren’t “real” Greeks. It makes perfect sense one day FYROM’s leaders argue they aren’t related to ancient Macedonians-the next they are great Macedonian warriors?

Frankly dear Nicholas, it seems hiding your mistakes means more to you then correcting them. No worries you are not alone. All the nations and media outlets that recognized are desperately trying to pretend they don’t notice FYROM’s erratic behavior and blaming Greeks too.

However, if you cared about protecting actual human rights you’d put your pride aside and realize those rights apply to protecting Greeks as well (as well as our own identity). Instead you apparently find it more important to continue to demonize Greeks and be an apologist for obvious conscious fraud being currently openly promoted by the FYROM government. That speaks volumes about your commitment to human rights.

I try to keep an open mind around the complex historical and moral issues. Only a fanatic closes their mind. However, thus far no historical argument has been able to win me over that FYROM has a better case than Macedonians. In addition, the dramatically inconstantly applied human rights standards (as applied towards Greeks by people like you) convinces me I am the victim of prejudice not reason.

And in my opinion, it;s precisely because of people like you (that rushed to call them “Macedonians” and try to paint Greeks in a negative light)… that the moderates in FYROM (who’ve been trying to come out of the closet as ethnic Bulgarians)… have been crushed

“To everyone of us it is clear that this entire thesis, this entire thesis for ethnogenesis from Macedonians, it isn’t so. Ancient Macedonians until today is founded on a series of mystifications and semi-historical truths which are emitted from Republic of Macedonia and that by using and abusing the media.[…:] “Why do Skopjans not ask how much Dardanian blood there is in them[..:] how much Thracian blood there is in them[…:] how much Illyrian blood there is in them[…:]how much Paeonian blood there is in them.[…:]I do not see anyone of us get into a fight over the amount of Paeonian blood in us, or God forbid, Dardinian one?[…:]Ancient Macedonia does not match with today’s Macedonia at all.[…:]Ancient Macedonia, we must clarify it once, is literally in entirety in today’s Greece.[…:] If we are looking at ethnogenesis then we should open at another place. Therefore we should discuss how much we are Paeoneans. ” (Ljubco Georgievski, ex-Prime Minister of FYROM, FYROM A1 TV June 2009) http://www.youtube.com/user/Srbolog#play…

“The creation of the “Macedonian” nation, for almost half of a century, was done in a condition of single-party dictatorship. In those times, there was no difference between science and ideology, so the “Macedonian” historiography, unopposed by anybody, comfortably performed a selection of the historic material from which the “Macedonian” identity was created. There is nothing atypical here for the process of the creation of any modern nation, except when falsification from the type of substitution of the word “Bulgarian” with the word “Macedonian” were made. (Denko Maleski, Minister of foreign affairs of the FYROM from 1991 to 1993 and ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997, in an interview to FYROMian newspaper Utrinski Vesnik October 16, 2006)

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message 4: by Mike (last edited 1 day ago, 12:05AM) – rated it 3 stars Feb 16, 2010 11:44PM
“They mostly spoke Turkish themselves as a first language, but, like those Slavic speakers who remained in the town, they became assimilated during the course of the twentieth century.”

Incidentally since you are trying to imply they were “assimilated” into Greeks did it ever occur to you (and Herzfeld, Karakasidou, Danforth, and co) this “assimilated” wording has 60 years of communist block framing behind it? (exactly why all the far leftists Greeks, the only one’s that agree with you, use the same wording)

A. How do you know they “mostly” spoke Turkish as first langauge? Census source rather than flaky post-modernist narratives please.

B. And lets suppose they did speak Turkish as a first langauge. So what. Clearly their ethnic consciousness wasn’t Turkish and they wanted to speak Greek (as opposed to a Bulgarian dialect like FYROM nationalists) Were Jews under the Ottomans that spoke Turkish as a first langauge not Jews? Were such Turkish speaking Jews “assimilated” into Israelis? How about the one’s the spoke Polish, couldn’t speak a lick of Hebrew (a dead language until the 19th century), and were atheists. Does that mean that modern Jews aren’t “real” Jews Nicholas?

Of course most Greeks don’t believe they are pure Greeks (just one more negative stereoptype that fake FYROM “human rights” activists use to spread ethnic hatred of Greeks- that people like you bought into) However, this is true of every ethnic group on earth.

You imagine dear Nicholas that the English haven’t “assimilated” Poles, French, Germans and many other ethnic groups into “English” folk over the last 500 years (do a DNA check to confirm if you doubt me). You think Americans haven’t changed toponyms after conflicts? (see status of native Indians)

So does the fact the English people have mixed, that the English language and culture has evolved considerably since the middle ages now mean I now get to pompously start starting suggesting you are just English-speaking peasants living a myth of being related to ancient English? That the “real” English people disappeared ages ago?

And if France has a civil war do they get to call themselves “ethnic Normaans” if they want? How about suggest you are fake English unrelated to ancient English? Suggest 1/3 of UK is “occupied”? Claim French as the language of Wales? Suggest the UK is persecuting “ethnic Normans”? Call you “mongrels”? Claim Newton and Shakespeare were actually French? And start framing you as racist nationalist extremists if you object?

And what exactly happened to all the self-identifying “ethnic Bulgarians” that used to live in FYROM? Where exactly did all these “ethnic Macedonians” come from? Could it be that Bulgarians were “assimilated” into “ethnic Macedonians” (by other Bulgarians ironically)

See how that works Nicholas.

That’s how far self-righteous people like you have strayed from human rights into supporting conscious liars in the FYROM government (that openly promote ethnic hatred against Greeks because we won’t accept their state myths since it hurts us the most) You think because you can utter the words ‘human rights’ it magically protects you from having prejudices.

WE are Greeks and Macedonia is part of our nations history not the former Bulgarians living in ancient Paeonia that speak a south Slavic dialect. Stop trying to blame Greeks because Yugoslavia had an ethnic war and you expect us to pay the price for FYROM’s mistakes. And grow up and take responsibility for your mistakes Nicholas. Don’t be like the former Bulgarians too “proud” to admit them and instead driven by their hatred of Greeks.

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message 5: by Nicholas – added it Feb 17, 2010 04:44AM
*yawn*

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message 6: by Mike (last edited 1 day ago, 09:41AM) – rated it 3 stars Feb 17, 2010 09:37AM
What are you 12 years old Nick? Why not try offering a response with facts and substance? Your pompous immature attitude is just more evidence of your prejudices Nick. If you cared about “human rights’ you’d be more sensitive. Instead you care more about your pride.

Here is an example of what kind of “human rights’ work people like you have produced in FYROM nationalist extremism.

“Divine blessing for you, my Macedonians. I have waited for thousands of years to be called by you. From always with you, from eternity I am coming, I am already among you because here neither time nor space exists. Here, at my place, the time is still. But at your place, the time is now, for me to explain. Your mother earth I have inhabited with three races: the White-Macedonoids, the Yellow-Mongoloids and the Black-Negroids. The rest-all are mulattoes. From you, Macedonians, the descendants of Macedon, I have impregnated the White race and everything began from you, to the Sea of Japan. All White people are your brothers because they carry Macedonian gene.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ITEdiSBl…
(footage from state owned TV in 2009 claiming “Macedonians” as progenitors of the White Race)

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message 7: by Mike – rated it 3 stars Feb 17, 2010 09:57AM
“We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great.” (FYROM’S Ambassador Ljubica Acevshka in speech to US representatives in Washington on January 22 1999)

‘We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are a Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian.'(FYROM´s Ambassador to Canada Gyordan Veselinov in interview to Ottawa Citizen Newspaper 24 February 1999)

“We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century … We are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians” (Kiro Gligorov, FYROM’s first President to Foreign Information Service Daily Report, Eastern Europe, February 26, 1992)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA3kwC2YT…

Yet today building giant statues to Alexander and claiming themselves ancient Macedonians? Pardon did some great new archeological discovery happen in the last 10 years?

Yet Nicholas the “human right” activist continues to ridicule Greeks… for saying this would happen all along? Both good and evil men make make mistakes Nick. One of the properties that separates them is the evil ones are incapable of admitting their mistakes in moral judgment. They are controlled more by their pride than principles. Instead they keep hurting people unfairly to hide their own shame.

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message 8: by Mike (last edited 1 day ago, 03:40PM) – rated it 3 stars Feb 17, 2010 12:13PM
FYROM nationalists use an endless stream of out-of-context 19th century “Macedonian” quotes to try and trick people into believing an ethnicity existed were there was none. “Macedonian” was an unofficial regional term back then. There were Bulgarians (who’ve been “assimilated” into today’s FYROM nationalists), Turks, Greeks, Albanians, Jews, and Roma which is easily shown by the lack of census data (which certain “human rights” supporters seemingly consciously publicly obfuscate)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic…

There is also currently a widespread effort to put our two ethnic claims on Macedonia at par by burying all sorts of facts that clearly support Greeks case-and insinuating “facts” that don’t. For instance, I read an article in the NY Times a year ago that tried to suggest Greek used to all speak Albanian. While no doubt some Albanians have been “assimilated” into Greeks (e.g. Avrites that used to be around Athens which was a small village under the Ottomans) the absurdity of trying to suggest we all spoke Albanian…when we know for a fact many were speaking Greek well before the formation of the modern Greek state… is just more evidence of prejudice masquerading as “human rights”. Modern demotic Greek is not a manufactured Greek dialect like Katharevousa, nor the liturgy dialect that is closer to Koine Greek (spread by ancient Macedonians ironically), nor attic Greek. It’s a time worn Greek Nicholas.

Although not perfectly, a twelve year old Macedonian girl can still read some of the words on a 2300 year old Macedonian artifact. There is a very real emotional distress to millions of Greeks, that people around the globe have been causing us to support what they know…they know… are unambiguous conscious deceptions from FYROM.

Why I suggest specifically prejudice is a factor is because media outlets have carefully avoided any mention whatsoever of their prior positions on Macedonia (or past positions of FYROM politicians that not so long ago claimed not to be related to ancient Macedonians). Why hide so many facts?

e.g. the NY Times itself reported Delchev’s death as a BULGARIAN in 1903. (today re branding him an “ethnic Macedonian”)

“SALONIKA. May 6. 1903 – An engagement is reported to have occurred at the village of Vanitza between Turkish troops and a Bulgarian band. Sixty Bulgarians, including their leader, Detzeff, were killed, while the Turks had four men killed and three wounded. Thirty houses in Vanitza were burned.
A Bulgarian band led by Petroff has been routed at Krapeseza. Seven of the Bulgarians were killed.”

e.g. the US government (and I believe the UK as well) flatly denied the existence of “ethnic Macedonians” in 1944 calling it communist demagoguery (when it was much more obvious that “Macedonians” were mostly “Bulgarians” renamed “Macedonians”)
tinyurl.com/nel46d

And why not mention that many Greek/Romans in the Romans/Byzantine empire considered ancient Greeks their ancestors, spoke Greek, and were still teaching Greek philosophy to westerners…. long after antiquity but before the “great powers” allegedly showed up to convince us we were related to Greeks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_schol…

Also carefully omitted from the discussion is Greek Macedonians (among the millions of Greeks who equally consider ancient Macedonia part of their history). What of their human rights? What of their identity which is being denied from them in order to support an unambiguous lie in FYROM?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonian_…

This demonization of Greeks has reached such epic proportions that when Greeks integrate non-Greeks into their nation it is now reframed disdainfully as “Hellenization” and prounced around as “proof” we are not “real” Greeks.

Is there a word like “Irish-ization”? “American-ization”? China-ization? FYROM-ization? Why are we being slandered as racists, xenophobes and nationalists for integrating? How can one reason with such hate tainted logic-coming even from those that claim to support “human rights”?

Some suggest Greeks are being a bully. They have it exactly backwards. Greeks are being bullied by the 100 plus nations that recognized them but are now too ashamed to admit they made a mistake in not trusting us. We too shoulder some of the blame for making a mess of our name (via our government finances) but this is not moral justification to erase us from history.

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message 9: by Nicholas – added it Feb 17, 2010 11:08PM
I don’t normally engage with anonymous commenters, and I certainly haven’t read much of the above, but I caught a mention of Goce Delchev. Do remind me, what was the name of his organisation?

If you want to devote your energies more fruitfully than posting comments which I probably won’t read to a review which I wrote over ten years ago, I suggest you try engaging with some of the other people who call themselves Macedonians. You may even find some in Ontario.

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message 10: by Mike (last edited 12 hours, 23 min ago) – rated it 3 stars 14 hours, 47 min ago
Do remind me, what was the name of his organisation?

Here is what Delchev wrote (while leading IMRO) to Nikola Maleshevski on 1 May 1899.

‘I have received all letters which were sent by or through you. May the dissents and cleavages not frighten you. It is really a pity, but what can we possibly do when WE OURSELVES ARE BULGARIANS…’

Many erronously believe “IMRO” was “ethnic Macedonian” organization. However, this is a perfect example of half-truths that emanate from FYROM. What they don’t tell you is originally IMRO was named BMARC. (which stands for BULGARIAN Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees). Here are some of their statutes (orginally co-authored by Delchev and future IMRO leaders and written in what was still widely considered a BULGARIAN dialect at the time)

Art. 2. To achieve this goal they [the committees:] shall raise the awareness of self-defense in the BULGARIAN population in the regions mentioned in Art. 1., disseminate revolutionary ideas – printed or verbal, and prepare and carry on a general uprising. Chapter II. – Structure and Organization
Art. 3. A member of BMARC can be any BULGARIAN, independent of gender, …
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Internal_Macedoni…

BMARC eventually became IMRO but was still founded by former BMARC members. Hristo Tatarchev, Dame Gruev, Petar Pop-Arsov, Andon Dimitrov, Hristo Batandzhiev and Ivan Hadzhinikolov-most of them connected with the Bulgarian Men’s High School they attended (and in practice most of the organization was made up of ethnic Bulgarians). Ivan Hadzhinikolov in his memoirs wrote as one of the principles of the organization.

“The revolutionary organization should be established within Macedonia and should act there, so that the Greeks and Serbs couldn’t label it as a tool of the Bulgarian government.” (i.e. clearly indicating he saw it as an organization specifically for Bulgarians)

Tatarchev (another leader in the organization) wrote in his memoirs.

“We talked a long time about the goal of this organization and at last we fixed it on autonomy of Macedonia with the priority of the Bulgarian element. We couldn’t accept the position for “direct joining to Bulgaria” because we saw that it would meet big difficulties by reason of confrontation of the Great powers and the aspirations of the neighbouring small countries and Turkey. It passed through our thoughts that one autonomous Macedonia could easier unite with Bulgaria subsequently and if the worst comes to the worst, that it could play a role as a unificating link of a federation of Balkan people. ”

Misirkov (a key FYROM national icon) wrote later after the failed Ilenden uprising: “The only Macedonian Slavs who played a leading part in the Uprising were those who called themselves Bulgarians.”

He also wrote-“We are Bulgarian more than the Bulgarians in Bulgaria. The population of Skopje is pure Bulgarian. The Serbian not only want to colonize Macedonia with Serbs from other part of Yugoslavia, but they wish to kill our Bulgarian consciousness.”
http://www.macedoniainfo.com/Krste_Misir…

Again let me stress, “Macedonian” in the 19th century was a regional term not ethnic. The region was populated by many ethnic groups-none of them “ethnic Macedonians” Census after census indisputable proves this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic…

Todays “ethnic Macedonians” (aka former self-identifying ethnic Bulgarians) misuse the term out-of-context to trick people like you (who I have no doubt are well meaning but are ill informed on this issue).

By FYROM nationalists refusing to compromise on a name they are trying to suggest Macedonia Greece is “occupied” (since they are now the real “ancient Macedonians”… that speak a Bulgarian dialect renamed “Macedonian”) This is akin to French renaming French English, themselves the “real” English, and calling the UK “occupied”.

Ancient Macedonian artifacts are all writen in Greek not a Slavic dialect. Would you prefer the primary language of the UK as Russian or English? Would you be a “nationalist” or “racist”” for being firm and suggesting English? If they claim to be Macedonians-why wouldn’t they want to speak the language of their own self-proclaimed ancestors?

Unfortunately people want quick easy answers where the story is very complex. All they see is a bunch of people saying they are “ethnic Macedonians” and can’t understand the extent of lying going on in FYROM. (the effects of 60 years of communist tyranny and propaganda) Instead they bought into the endless stream of hate and stereotypes that emanates from FYROM towards Greeks (because we won’t accept their absurd historical narrative-as we are the ones hurt by it).

Nocholas wrote: I certainly haven’t read much of the above

Someone that has firm opinions yet refuses to learn the other side of the story. That’s what prejudice is all about. This is why I suggest Greeks are victims of prejudice. Why are so many politicians and media outlets hiding such information? I couldn’t believe it myself until even the NY Times started contridicting its own reporting (claiming in 1903 Delchev was a Bulgarian yet today claiming he was an “ethnic Macedonian”?)

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message 11: by Nicholas – added it 14 hours, 42 min ago
So what did the letters IMRO stand for?

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message 12: by Mike (last edited 14 hours, 40 min ago) – rated it 3 stars 14 hours, 42 min ago
Even some of FYROM’s key politicians have come out of the closet as Bulgarians. Unfortunately it never gets reported (my guess is because many people in news organizations are ashamed to admit they were had and its much easier to keep demonizing Greeks)

‘Why are we ashamed and flee from the truth that whole positive Macedonian revolutionary tradition comes exactly from exarchist part of Macedonian people? We shall not say a new truth if we mention the fact that everyone, Gotse Delchev, Dame Gruev, Gjorche Petrov, Pere Toshev – must I list and count all of them – were teachers of the Bulgarian Exarchate in Macedonia.’ (former Prime Minister FYROM, Ljubco Georgievski, 2007, in his book ‘Facing the truth’-who now also has a Bulgarian passport)

“The creation of the “Macedonian” nation, for almost half of a century, was done in a condition of single-party dictatorship. In those times, there was no difference between science and ideology, so the “Macedonian” historiography, unopposed by anybody, comfortably performed a selection of the historic material from which the “Macedonian” identity was created. There is nothing atypical here for the process of the creation of any modern nation, except when falsification from the type of substitution of the word “Bulgarian” with the word “Macedonian” were made.”
(Denko Maleski, Minister of foreign affairs of the FYROM from 1991 to 1993 and ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997, in an interview to FYROM newspaper Utrinski Vesnik October 16, 2006)

“To everyone of us it is clear that this entire thesis, this entire thesis for ethnogenesis from Macedonians, it isn’t so. Ancient Macedonians until today is founded on a series of mystifications and semi-historical truths which are emitted from Republic of Macedonia and that by using and abusing the media.[…:] “Why do Skopjans not ask how much Dardanian blood there is in them[..:] how much Thracian blood there is in them[…:] how much Illyrian blood there is in them[…:]how much Paeonian blood there is in them.[…:]I do not see anyone of us get into a fight over the amount of Paeonian blood in us, or God forbid, Dardinian one?[…:]Ancient Macedonia does not match with today’s Macedonia at all.[…:]Ancient Macedonia, we must clarify it once, is literally in entirety in today’s Greece.[…:] If we are looking at ethnogenesis then we should open at another place. Therefore we should discuss how much we are Paeoneans. ” (Ljubco Georgievski on FYROM A1 TV June 2009) http://www.youtube.com/user/Srbolog#play…

And again let me stress what FYROM’s own elected government officials used to tell you not so long ago (to underline the amount of lying going on by their current government)

‘We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great.’
(FYROM’S Ambassador Ljubica Acevshka in speech to US representatives in Washington on January 22 1999)

‘We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are a Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian.'(FYROM´s Ambassador to Canada Gyordan Veselinov in interview to Ottawa Citizen Newspaper 24 February 1999)

“We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century … We are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians” (Kiro Gligorov, FYROM’s first President to Foreign Information Service Daily Report, Eastern Europe, February 26, 1992)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA3kwC2YT…

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message 13: by Nicholas – added it 14 hours, 37 min ago
So what did the letters in “IMRO” stand for?

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message 14: by Mike (last edited 13 hours, 4 min ago) – rated it 3 stars 13 hours, 12 min ago
Going back to Loring Danforth. He claimed (to NGOs and governments) the FYROM government weren’t claiming to be ancient Macedonians over a decade ago. He also bizarrely claimed there was a historical concensus ancient Macedonians weren’t Greeks. (which any public school kid with an Internet connection can discover is far from the case- see ancient Olympics where they competed as self-identifying Greeks)
http://macedonia-evidence.org/obama-lett…

Let me specifically quote him about FYROM because he’s been such a strong supporter of FYROM in the name dispute (ergo-no one can accuse him of being on the Greek side or Greek “nationalism”)

“The history of the construction of a Macedonian national identity does not begin with Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C. or with Saints Cyril and Methodius in the ninth century A.D. as Macedonian nationalist historians often claim. (Loring Danforth, “The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World”, Princeton Univ Press, December 1995 p.56)

“Krste Misirkov, who had clearly developed a strong sense of his own personal national identity as a Macedonian and who outspokenly and unambiguously called for Macedonian linguistic and national separatism, acknowledged that a Macedonian national identity was a relatively recent historical development.” (p.63)

“The political and military leaders of the Slavs of Macedonia at the turn of the century seem not to have heard Misirkov’s call for a separate Macedonian national identity; they continued to identify themselves in a national sense as Bulgarians rather than Macedonians.(p.64)

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message 15: by Mike (last edited 12 hours, 25 min ago) – rated it 3 stars 12 hours, 27 min ago
Indentally. Why I stay anonymous is because I literaly fear for my family’s safety. I live in Toronto where there are tens of thousands of “ethnic Macedonians”-most of which hate Greeks since we are the one’s that call out their historical fabrications (since it most effects us).

I’m not sure what they expect to happen. Even if every nation on earth “recognizes” them (and demonizes Greeks for protecting their own identity)… it will not change the fact ancient Macedonia is not ancient Peonia (which is where FYROM is primiarly situated) nor will countless ancient Macedonian artifacts (written in Greek) rewrite themselves into their south Slavic dialect that used to be called Bulgarian.

e.g.
“Men of Athens… In truth I would not tell it to you if I did not care so much for all Hellas (Greece); I myself am by ancient descent a Greek, and I would not willingly see Hellas change her freedom for slavery.
(The speech of Alexander I of Macedonia when he was admitted to the Olympic games, Herodotus, ” Histories”, 9.45, ed. A. D. Godley)

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message 16: by Mike (last edited 5 hours, 10 min ago) – rated it 3 stars 7 hours, 50 min ago
Nicholas wrote: “So what did the letters in “IMRO” stand for?”

You may know what the letters stand for but seemingly don’t want to know anything further than that. My guess for that is because to do so would require you accept moral responsibility for the fact you (and the mob) allowed your prejudices against Greeks to take hold of you (rather than reason and fairness)

Again let me repeat, Delchev and fellow IMRO members made it quite clear they were ethnic Bulgarians (but ethnic Bulgarians trying to control all of Macedonia… at the expense of macedonian Greeks living there) Delchev and co. in their own words (I can find more examples but these should make in abundently clear how they saw themselves ethnically).

Art. 2. To achieve this goal they [the committees:] shall raise the awareness of self-defense in the BULGARIAN population in the regions mentioned in Art. 1., disseminate revolutionary ideas – printed or verbal, and prepare and carry on a general uprising. Chapter II. – Structure and Organization
Art. 3. A member of BMARC can be any BULGARIAN, independent of gender”

You can find a photo of the original document here.
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Internal_Macedoni…

‘I have received all letters which were sent by or through you. May the dissents and cleavages not frighten you. It is really a pity, but what can we possibly do when WE OURSELVES ARE BULGARIANS…’ (Gotse Delchev to Nikola Maleshevski on Sofia, 1 May 1899 WHILE PART OF IMRO)

Or how about Misirkov whom FYROM nationalist portray as an “ethnic Macedonian” national father today. Here are some of the parts they carefully omit.

“Who is against a greater Bulgaria is against Slavism”
http://mak-truth.com/k_conf.htm

“Macedonians means only Macedonian Bulgarians”
http://mak-truth.com/k_conf.htm

“Some will ask why I speak of breaking away from the Bulgarians when in the past we have even called ourselves Bulgarians ”
http://misirkov.org/preface.htm

“The only Macedonian Slavs who played a leading part in the Uprising were those who called themselves Bulgarians.”
http://misirkov.org/what_have_we_done.ht…

“there were certain people who considered that the existence of such a society was quite unnecessary because there was no exclusively Macedonian nationality in Macedonia – only Serbs and Bulgarians – and since there were already Serb and Bulgarian student societies in St. Petersburg there was no need for a Macedonian one as well.” http://misirkov.org/is_there_a_need.htm

“Is it even possible now to bring about the national unification of the Macedonians when in Macedonia we have several nationalities and not just one, and when there is no separate Macedonian Slav nation?”
http://misirkov.org/is_there_a_need.htm

“Come what may, our separation from the Bulgarians…”
http://misirkov.org/is_there_a_need.htm

“We did indeed call ourselves “Bulgarians” and “Christians” in the national sense” http://misirkov.org/nacional_separatism….

“They use this fact – that the people of Macedonia are described variously as Serbs, Greeks, and Bulgarians…”
http://misirkov.org/nacional_separatism….

“The first objection — that a Macedonian Slav nationality has never existed — may be very simply answered as follows: what has not existed in the past may still be brought into existence later, provided that the appropriate historical circumstances arise.”
http://misirkov.org/can_macedonia.htm

“why is it that they cannot and will not agree that from this larger ethnographic unit, which everybody including themselves describes as the Bulgarian nation, two smaller units might be formed: a Bulgarian and a Macedonian one?”
http://misirkov.org/can_macedonia.htm

“The emergence of the Macedonians as a separate Slav people is a perfectly normal historical process”
http://misirkov.org/can_macedonia.htm

“No matter whether we call ourselves Bulgarians or Macedonians we shall always feel as a nationality with a Bulgarian national consciousness,”
http://www.mak-truth.com/k_pap1.htm

“We are Bulgarian more than the Bulgarians in Bulgaria. The population of Skopje is pure Bulgarian. The Serbian not only want to colonize Macedonia with Serbs from other part of Yugoslavia, but they wish to kill our Bulgarian consciousness.”
http://www.macedoniainfo.com/Krste_Misir…

“The Ilinden Uprising of 1903 had a pronounced effect on me and caused me to make some mistakes which completely isolated me from the Bulgarian cause in Macedonia. With great respect I was forced to temporarily renounce completely working for the realization of the Bulgarian national ideals[…:] “The same Mr Zanetov gave me the idea to appeal to you and ask for a lecturing position at the Bulgarian Male Gymnasium in Salonika. I agreed with satisfaction to Mr Zanetov’s proposal, since in this way I would receive the opportunity, anew, and according to my ability to serve the Bulgarian national interest and ideals”
http://www.mak-truth.com/k_re2.htm

In 1924 Mirsirkov writes in a Bulgarian newspaper.
“If the question of racial similarity and difference between Bulgarians and Macedonians comes to be resolved on the basis of the national name, language and history, there is no doubt that we should resolve it as a Greek priest did in 1804; author of a four-language dictionary Greek, Bulgarian, Rumanian and Albanian and who regarded as Bulgarian the Western Macedonian dialect. Therefore when in Macedonia and Bulgaria there was no mention of the Bulgarian Exarchate, the Greeks, obviously well acquainted with the Balkan nationalities, do not make any distinction between a Bulgarian, a Macedonian and a Macedonian Slav. We the Macedonians, cannot, and have no reason to ignore this and similar facts, which can be quoted by the hundreds. We cannot ignore them because to do so means to distort our history, to hide the truth and to deceive ourselves.”
http://www.mak-truth.com/k_pap2.htm

“But now cries from the Macedonians can be heard: we are Bulgarians, we are more Bulgarians than the Bulgarians themselves. …….. You could be victors over Bulgaria and impose on it all sorts of treaties but this cannot change our conviction, our consciousness that we are not Serbians, that up till now we have called ourselves Bulgarians and this is what we are today and this is what we want to be called in the future.”
http://www.mak-truth.com/k_pap1.htm

etc… etc..

You and the rest of the people that rushed to recognize FYROM… can certainly continue to bully Greeks Nicholas (by stereotyping all Greeks as racists and nationalists for standing up to your bullying attempt to hand over our ethnic identity to a neighbouring state)

Or you come to realization that Greeks aren’t all the nationalist extremist villians you make us to be and FYROM nationalist extremists aren’t the perpetual innocent “victims” some make them out to be.

http://www.i-macedonia.com/blog/files/FY…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Mihail…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohrana
http:// tinyurl.com/nel46d

Either way ancient Macedonian artifacts are forever going to be written in Greek. All people like you are accomplishing is torturing them (and Greeks) by having this drag out (because of your own pride and inability to accept you are in the moral wrong by continuing to support their unambigious historical fabrications).

We’ve come half way by suggesting composite name in good faith. There is no good reason why the former self-identifying Bulgarians of FYROM can’t compromise on a name. It doesn’t prevent them from speaking their language, having a culture, and having an identity. They just can’t have ours nor can they be allowed to use it as an a tool to imply Macedonia Greece as “occupied”. Otherwise that road will only lead to yet another bloody Balkan conflict because if push comes to shove millions of these Greeks (whose identity some so generously hand away while claiming to stand for ‘human rights”) will not volentarily commit ethnic suppuku because other people hate them.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonians_(Greeks)

Human rights applies to Greeks too. Period.

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message 17: by Mike (last edited 5 hours, 55 min ago) – rated it 3 stars 6 hours, 37 min ago
All men in all nations make mistakes. In my opinion, a property that distinguishes a good man from the bad ones is that a good man knows when its time to say “I’m sorry. I was wrong”. Such an admission does not mean one is intrinsicly a bad person or that another man is a better man. It’s only an admission one understands there is a difference between wrong and right beyond self-defensive pride. Otherwise morals is just reduced to sophistry where one pretends to stand for something but all they really stand for is whatever words senselessly come out of their mouths.

Justice demands following principles not simply a lynching by some self-righteous angry mob dujour. And the principles of justice demand observation of the facts-even if it sometimes leads to unflattering conclusions about our own mistakes.
….

‘We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great.’
(FYROM’S Ambassador Ljubica Acevshka in speech to US representatives in Washington on January 22 1999)

‘We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are a Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian.'(FYROM´s Ambassador to Canada Gyordan Veselinov in interview to Ottawa Citizen Newspaper 24 February 1999)

“We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century … We are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians” (Kiro Gligorov, FYROM’s first President to Foreign Information Service Daily Report, Eastern Europe, February 26, 1992)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA3kwC2YT…

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message 18: by Nicholas – added it 21 minutes ago
Now you are getting repetitive as well as boring. I think this exchange is at an end.

message 19: by Mike (last edited 2 days ago, 02:10PM) (new) – rated it 3 stars Feb 19, 2010 10:14AM
Another fact filled reply by Nicholas. Well here is my own narrative Nick. Whereas once it might have been excusable as an honest mistake, given FYROM’s obvious conscious deceptions today… every word you speak in defense of FYROM makes you partially complicit in setting up the ideological justifications for a future attempt at genocide of the Greek people.

Despite having such firm righteous opinions in the name dispute for so long, you don’t want to deal with inconvenient facts that don’t suit your little narrative of Greeks as the villians. Your answers here, in the face of what has now become blatently obvious deceptions by the current FYROM government, are full witness to the fact your motivations are not to arrive at the truth and human rights but to defend your prejudices, and pride.

(16th century reading, on the alleged 18th century invention of Greeks theory, promoted by 20th century “experts” that claim former self-identifying ethnic Bulgarians that clearly speak a Slavic dialect and live in primary ancient Paoenia… are “ethnic Macedonians”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_schol…

One day FYROM nationalist aren’t related to ancient Macedonians-the next they are direct descendents of ancient Macedonians? How would you like it Greeks started insinuating your identity was fake Nicholas to suit a completely different nation taking it from you?

If FYROM’s identity was as sacred to them as they claim-why did they abandon their Bulgarian ethnic roots and start self-Hellenizing themselves as Macedonians? Are they ashamed of their Bulgarian heritage? This isn’t the 19th century where the facts weren’t as well known and such behavior might have been excusable. Twenty years past communism they should know full well by now…

A. they freely used to self-identify as ethnic Bulgarians (their language alone should have been a “slight” clue)

B. the historical record shows ancient macedonians were SELF-IDENTIFYING Greeks

Since you don’t like repetition, here is new quote for you from another “human rights” activist.

“You seem to be afraid of Kimon Georgiev, you have involved yourselves too much with him and do not want to give autonomy to Pirin Macedonia. That a Macedonian consciousness HAS NOT YET DEVELOPED AMONG THE POPULATION IS OF NO ACCOUNT. No such consciousness existed in Byelorussia either when we proclaimed it a Soviet Republic. However, later it was shown that a Byelorussian people did in fact exist.” [Stalin to Bulgarian Delegation on 7 June 1946 (G. Dimitrov, V. Korarov, T. Kostov)
http://www.journaloforiginalthinking.com…

A Greek nationalist wingnut has discovered my GoodReads review of Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990. Note my careful point-by-point rebuttal of the arguments made by ‘Mike’. Please don’t feel under any obligation to engage him.

By the way, I noticed just as I was deleting it that someone had posted another comment to my Amazon review of Des Ekin’s book, where the first commenter accused me of being part of the Belgian conspiracy to further the interests of global jihad. If that was one of you guys leaping in to defend me, thank you for doing so; I’m afraid I had deleted the review before thinking to look at the new comment.

The first two Lost Stories released by Big Finish, The Nightmare Fair and Mission to Magnus, had both been destined for Season 23 before the BBC pulled the plug on them for Trial of a Time Lord. Leviathan was originally intended for Season 22, and we are given to believe that it was probably dropped as too ambitious – requiring a medieval forest village, a big scary monster and loads more special effects.

It certainly wasn’t a problem with the script as such: this is a far better story than either The Nightmare Fair or Mission to Magnus. It rapidly becomes apparent that the medieval village where the Doctor and Peri arrive is not what it seems, but I was still surprised and gratified by the plot twist at the end of the first disc, and though that in itself sets up the eventual resolution rather inevitably, it is all very well done.

I hope now that the other Lost Stories of this run will be as strong as Leviathan. I don’t really envy Big Finish, lumbered with the two well-known but really awful stories as part of the project, and having to decide where to put them in serquence. It was rather brave to front-load the Lost Stories as they did. In their place, I would have tried to conceal them in the middle somewhere.

Returning to the main sequence of Big Finish stories, Andy Lane has delivered another hit with A Thousand Tiny Wings, where the Seventh Doctor visits Kenya in the midst of the Mau Mau crisis of the 1950s and runs into Dr Elisabeth Klein, last seen in Colditz during the second world war trying to make sure that the Germans won (and aided by a sinister guard called Kurtz, played by one David Tennant). The story turns out to be a fairly standard Who plot, but the execution is excellent – both the African soundscape and the white women cooped up in a remote farmhouse waiting for the inevitable doom to arrive. (The incidental fact that I have passed through Kenya several times recently made it seem a bit more personal.) It sounds as if Lisa Bowerman as director was able to get the best out of her cast and team.

Alas, Bowerman is less well served in the latest Companion Chronicle, Bernice Summerfield and the Criminal Code, a two-hander between her and Charley Hayes (who has I think the unusual distinction of having appeared on Doctor Who in the form of a bump in her mother’s tummy, visible to the careful observer of Wendy Padbury’s cameo in The Five Doctors). Unfortunately the plot is slow to get going, has the Seventh Doctor rather uncharacteristically taking a public role as a mediator, depends rather heavily on a particular interpretation of what the Tardis translation circuits actually do, and then packs far too much exposition of What The Story Was Actually About into the last three minutes. The crew express the hope in the extra tracks that this will attract more listeners to the Bernice Summerfield range, but I’m inclined to doubt it.

I want to generalise from this to a wider gripe from a Companion Chronicle subscriber. I loved the idea of bringing back companions of the first four Doctors to tell their own stories. It seemed however a bit odd to start bringing in Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctor companions, and now we have crossed another line in bringing in a companion who was never seen on TV at all. I don’t really approve.

On the other hand, those who don’t know the Bernice Summerfield audio stories, but who download the free podcast of “Making Myths” (a short story from the years old Buried Treasures CD, starring Lisa Bowerman as ever with Sarah Mowat as a hamster-like alien journalist) will be charmed by it. Indeed, this would have been a rather better two-hander for the Companion Chronicles series, except that it came out several years too early.

In summary, A Thousand Tiny Wings and Leviathan are both very good; Buried Treasures: Making Myths is enjoyable; and you can skip Bernice Summerfield and the Criminal Code.

• A Mixed Constitution
  provocative thoughts on constitutional reform
  (tags: ukpolitics)

Thanks for the kind messages enquiring about my involvement or otherwise in this morning’s train crash. At 0830 this morning I was at Brussels airport, checking in for my flight to Switzerland. It’s not my sideof town anyway – I don’t think I have ever been on that particular train track. But I appreciate the concern.

• reading_gibbon: Chapter XVII: Constantinople and Constantine’s system of government
  The first quarter of the chapter is about the layout of the city of Constantinople; a good description, but hampered by Gibbon’s not having his own personal experience of being there, and also could have done with a map. There is then a lengthy section on how the empire was governed: the setup of the civilian administration, of the military, and last but not least of the imperial palace. Finally there are notes on the security system (spies and torture) and on taxation.
  (tags: gibbon)

I suspect I may skip Blackout, Connie Willis’ latest, given what has been saying about it (here and here).

The Eighth Doctor and Sam turn up in Victorian London where they have an adventure which largely retraces The Talons of Weng-Chiang, complete with Litefoot (but not Jago) and with added Zygons. It actually would have worked rather better as a second novel in the sequence than Vampire Science did; here Sam is still trying to get to grips with the Doctor and with time travel, rather than behaving as if she’s been at it for years. Morris’ descriptive writing is generally good but he doesn’t have as firm a grasp of Victorian dialogue (there is a particularly irritating ruffian called Jack). The fundamentals are sound, if not hugely original.

I have already read the next in sequence, Genocide by Paul Leonard, so next up is War of the Daleks by John Peel.

This is the second book in a series; its predecessor, Flood, which I haven’t read, saw the near-future Earth threatened by catastrophically rising sea levels, and Ark follows the story of a group of young survivors sent to colonise a distant planet in order to continue the human race. I will look out for Flood but didn’t especially feel the lack of having read it hampering my enjoyment (it is fairly easy to spot which characters must have been in the previous book). I did, however, feel that Ark is weakened as a novel by the number of loose ends left unresolved, in particular the characters and groups of characters who drop out of the narrative, fate unknown, some of whom will presumably to be brought back again (or definitively killed off) in future volumes. And in general, while Baxter’s writing always at least teeters on the brink of greatness, this doesn’t quite make it. The basic idea is a great sensawunda concept – the broad brush strokes of the mechanics of building the Ark, and the human factors which screw up its makers’ plans, are depicted in full glory. But at a human level Baxter’s characters don’t always sound like, say, 22-year-old women thrust into leadership positions; and they sometimes make peculiar choices which enable him to extend the narrative in the direction he wants. The book becomes more episodic towards the end, and I felt Baxter was rather rushing to finish it. So I wasn’t completely satisfied, and this will rank below Yellow Blue Tibia on my BSFA ballot.

This is one of the best-argued cases for atheism I have read (speaking as a non-atheist). Millennia before Dawkins, Hitchens, or even Bertrand Russell, Lucretius argued the nature of the universe from first principles, concluding vigorously that there is no God and no afterlife, just matter made of atoms. There is no tedious sniping at current beliefs (apart from a rather funny bit towards the end about why Jupiter does not hurl thunderbolts; and he has a go also at the beliefs of Heraclitus and Empedocles about elements), just an explanation in detail of the philosophy of Epicurus and how that helps us understand the way the world around us works. As with all such books, it is tempting to give the author marks out of ten for the accuracy of his scientific explanations as compared to our current understanding, but that would be a mistake; it is amazing how far Lucretius got given his starting point. It reminded me a bit of Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, but is of course much shorter; also Lucretius, writing in 55 BC or thereabouts, had two millennia less of scientific research to fit in. Unfortunately he doesn’t appear to have finished it; the text ends rather abruptly after a description of the effects of plague.

I first heard of De Natura Rerum when I attended a lecture in Cambridge in about 1987 explaining its links with Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man, part of a series of lectures from different academics on the Enlightenment which I skipped physics practicals to attend on wet Thursday afternoons, despite the lack of course credits (this in itself was a signal that my future did not lie in astrophysics). I wonder who the lecturer was? I suppose I should now complete the circle by reading the Pope poem.

Top LibraryThing Unsuggestion: Shopaholic Takes Manhattan by Sophie Kinsella

Well, I was rather impressed by this Doctor Who novel in the New Adventures series. The Seventh Doctor and Ace get caught up in the nasty machinations of a near-future biotech firm, variously in the US, London and a small island near Istanbul. Cartmel is a very good descriptive writer, both in terms of establishing the physical setting and in terms of getting inside the heads of Ace and the other characters. The Istanbul chapters in particular had some memorable set-pieces. As often happens, it wasn’t clear that the bad guys’ conspiracy made sense (and even less clear how the Doctor had got involved in stopping it; or for that matter where the cat’s cradle of the title comes into it) but I very much enjoyed the ride. Possibly the first really adult Doctor Who novel.

• Constitutional crumbs from the Prime Minister are not enough | openDemocracy
  Peter Facey, who is criticised here, is an old friend of mine but Barnett’s objections seem pretty sound to me.

• Stair na Teanga
  A Cork woman gets to grips with the Irish language

I think I am going to delete all of the book reviews I have posted at Amazon.

There are several reasons for this. First off, my primary book review log is here on Livejournal. I mirror everything here (and a few from elsewhere) to LibraryThing and most of the more recent book reviews are also on GoodReads and, via Facebook, LivingSocial. Both of the latter have their downsides and irritations, but it is pretty easy to copy the reviews across.

I’ve put several dozen of my reviews on Amazon, but find the interface annoying; no markups or hyperlinks allowed, and the extra bother of thinking of a title for the piece after you have written it. In addition, the social interaction of Amazon reviews is markedly nastier than anywhere else where I have been publishing them. I do not think of myself as a particularly delicate flower, and have no objection to robust debate, but I am struck by the preponderance of negativity in the few comments my reviews there have attracted (a small symptom of a wider problem; there have been several much more dramatic and well-publicised instances of Amazon review meltdown). It’s not a pleasant space for debate, and I don’t really want my words adding to the vicious spiral.

On top of that is Amazon’s unpleasant corporate behaviour. I have hinted it before, but I will say it directly now: I think the Kindle is a swindle. There are already cheaper and better electronic book readers out there, and in particular there are readers with a sane and sensible approach to digital rights management, which I translate into layman’s terms as meaning that you actually own the book that you pay for. The recent spat between Amazon and MacMillan did no favours for either side, reputationally, but Amazon were the more obviously evil of the two companies.

I shall probably continue using Amazon, for purchases, because living where I do and reading what I do I have little option (and they do get very good marks for delivery). But I simply do not want my words on their site adding value to what they are doing, so I shall spend some time over the next few days clicking “delete” on my reviews – which will of course remain visible here and elsewhere, as described above.

• SFX: the leading science fiction, fantasy and horror magazine
• The Human Security Report
• londonkds | Something I've been thinking for years about sectarianism
  (tags: religion)

For the last couple of years I feel I have been rather neglecting the latest sf, so I decided to start catching up by getting through the shortlist for this year’s BSFA award. Yellow Blue Tibia carries the subtitle Konstantin Skvorecky’s memoir of the alien invasion of 1986, and is about a Soviet science fiction writer who becomes entangled in a complex conspiracy possibly involving aliens, Scientologists, the KGB and the Chernobyl nuclear power station in early 1986. The point of the book is at least as much the style as the substance, and I thought I recognised homages to Zamyatin and Bulgakov, as well as to the intersection between the writing of pulp sf and the Cold War as experienced on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The absurdism and surrealism extends also to one character with Asperger’s syndrome, who is himself something of a metaphor for the Soviet system. I winced when I worked out what the title meant, about halfway through.

The first book in Carey’s second trilogy, set in an alternate magical Europe. Our narrator now is Imriel de la Courcel, much-abused son of the treacherous princess Melisande, who was adopted by Phédre nò Delaunay, the central character of the previous trilogy, at the end of the last book. Imri spends the first half of this book growing to maturity between his adoptive parents’ country estate and the royal court [in what we would know as southern France], and the second half as a student in “Tiberium” [Rome] and then as a defender in the besieged city of Lucca (whose name for some reason is not changed), dealing withhis own personal demons as well as with the mysterious entanglements of his birth mother. As with Carey’s other books, I loved the lush psychological and political landscapes she has created, and am glad I have the next two books waiting for me on the shelves. It may not be Great Literature but it is very enjoyable, even though (perhaps even because) it is less kinky than the first trilogy.

Top LibraryThing Unsugegstion: Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee

I have been listening to the massive 5-CD audiobook of this Tenth Doctor novel, as read by Nicholas Briggs, and enjoyed it very much. I think I saw another review somewhere pointing out that we have not really had a good Tenth Doctor story with Daleks on TV (bar perhaps Doomsday which they shared with the Cybermen; the New York two-parter was possibly the weakest of all Tenth Doctor stories, and the climax to Season Four certainly the most self-indulgent of all RTD’s finales). So I felt that Prisoner of the Daleks filled a void. Once again, we have Ten, post-Journey’s End, travelling still on his own, encountering Dalek bounty hunters in a separate time track (one of them comes from Gauda Prime, which made me smile). It’s an exotic crew, who first suspect and then cooperate with the Doctor; an early success against the Daleks turns into a debacle with the survivors captured (given the title of the book, this is hardly a spoiler) at the mercy of a particularly memorably nasty individual, nicknamed “Dalek X”. Baxendale captured the Tenth Doctor and the other characters well, and Briggs uses his talent for different voices to the maximum. Looking back at other work of Baxendale’s which I have read, I always felt he was pretty good but not always terribly even in execution; I think it comes together well in Prisoner of the Daleks.

I got to know the author ten years ago while he was the Bosnian ambassador to the EU and NATO, and he did one thing for me for which I will forever remain grateful: he introduced me to sushi. In 2000 he resigned his diplomatic position and returned to his career in banking, and most of the essays collected here were written after that, as opinion pieces for the WSJ Europe, European Voice, etc, drawing on Miles’ experience as an adviser to the wartime Croatian, Bosnian and Bosnian Croat leadership.

The two best sections were at the beginning and the end. The first couple of essays are the two title pieces – “If There Had Been No ‘Storm’ [Da Nije Bilo Oluje]” and “Who Saved Bosnia?” which make the case that, whatever Croatia’s previous or subsequent errors, the ‘Storm’ offensive by the Croatian army of August 1995 effectively ended the war on terms that Bosnia could live with.

I was less grabbed by the middle sections, a large number of pieces attacking the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague and also arguing that Croatia ought to be given a free pass to EU and NATO integration. These issues will be of historical interest only very soon (as ICTY closes and as EU accession talks near completion), but the pieces rather demonstrate how little even the best-informed observers from the region grasped what was really going on with the international community’s strategy. There are also a couple of pieces about that perennial chestnut, Bosnian constitutional reform.

But the final essays are back on form, looking at trade integration for the Balkan states, both with each other and with the EU, and also proposing rather cheekily that the Kosovo diaspora should simply purchase their homeland from Serbia. The book won’t be on any best-seller lists but I’m glad to have it on my shelves.

January Books 30) Southern Sudan: Too Many Agreements Dishonoured, by Abel Alier

I have read a fair bit of conflict literature, but this is quite an unusual book of general interst in conflict resolution as well as being an important primary source on the history of Sudan between 1965 and 1989 (published 1990, 2nd edition 1992). Alier, who had managed to make himself the indispensible southerner to the government in Khartoum, successfully managed a peace process with the southern rebels which ended the first Sudanese civil war of 1955-72 and set up an autonomous government in Southern Sudan for the south, which Alier himself then ran for more than half of its life. Without using any jargon, Alier goes into considerable detail of how the 1972 Addis Ababa agreement was negotiated – particularly interesting with regard to the security guarantees; a tortuous and at times underhanded process, the delegations at one point appealing directly to the Emperor, Haile Selassie, to settle an important point of disagreement. He discusses the rest as well, but once you have settled on autonomy within the state as the solution, and identified the negotiating parties in the dispute – though neither of those processes was straightforward – security was the key outstanding problem.

Alier then describes the successes and problems of the southern government between 1972 and its abolition in 1983, with a depressed coda on the failure of the following years to reach a peace settlement and the elements which he (correctly) predicts such a settlement must contain. He also includes the primary documents from the pre-1972 process.

February Books 1) War of Visions: Conflict of Identities in the Sudan, by Francis M. Deng

Deng is more of an academic than Alier, though he too is also a practitioner. In this 1995 book he covers a lot more ground in time and space than Alier, though generally in less detail; and he pulls in evidence from anthropology, cultural studies, and political science in support of his thesis that the Sudan conflict should be understood as a struggle between identities, not all of them Sudanese. I was impressed by his lucidity in explaining the various perspectives; I am more used to the discourse of nationalisms around Europe, and there are rather different nuances in both the Arab world and Africa (which of course intersect in Sudan). Deng, like Alier, was writing long before the 2005 peace agreement but, also like Alier, he expresses doubt that Sudan can be held together.

The most useful section for me was on the district of Abyei, the “crossroads of the conflict” as Deng puts it, where local dynamics between the Dinka and Arabs (to simplify the identities rather drastically) escalated over the 1970s and 1980s to the point where it became a significant factor in the destabilisation of the whole country. Alier says nothing at all about Abyei, but it is of course subject to a whole separate set of provisions in the 2005 Agreement.

The big mystery remaining for me is why Nimeiri, the Sudanese leader from 1969 to 1985, first allowed the Addis Ababa agreement to happen in 1972 and then reneged on his commitments in 1983. Alier and Deng have very different views on this. Alier sees Nimeiri as guided by popular dissatisfaction with the long war and taking his (Alier’s) advice on how to end it; and then later undergoing a personal religious re-commitment to Islamism from which it followed that the powers of the non-Muslim south must be removed. Deng believes that the Addis Ababa agreement was never more than a tactical ploy by Nimeiri, who shared the general northern prejudice against southerners but spotted a way of using the south as a supportive factor in northern politics. On this interpretation, when Nimeiri found that he could cut a deal with the northern Islamists, the southern settlement, to which he was never really committed, became dispensable. Both writers knew Nimeiri well and worked with him at the time; Deng also cites private conversations with him after his overthrow. No doubt the truth lies somewhere in between; Alier of course naturally believes in the importance of his own earlier work, but Deng could perhaps have been more sceptical of Nimeiri’s retrospective imagining of his earlier actions.

Anyway, both strongly recommended for Sudanists, and Alier I think is of more general interest for its case-study of peace-making with a popular insurgency.

• Lancet accepts MMR study 'false'
  The medical journal which originally published the discredited research linking autism and MMR has now issued a full retraction of the paper – and how many children have died as a result?
  (tags: autism)

An appointment with yet another dentist – an exotic endodontist this time – to try and pin down my continuing left upper molar problems. Root canal surgery booked for later this month. Ooogh.

Wild Life by Molly Gloss
Doctor Who: Ten Little Aliens by Steve Cole
Triumph of a Time Lord: Regenerating Doctor Who in the Twenty-first Century by Matt Hills
Juba Arabic – English Dictionary, by Ian Smith and Morris T. Ama
Moon Stallion by Brian Hayles
Argonautica by Valerius Flaccus
Southern Sudan: Too Many Agreements Dishonoured by Abel Alier
Rookwood by William Harrison Ainsworth
Doctor Who Annual 1968
War of Visions: Conflicts of Identities in the Sudan by Francis Mading Deng
Faust (Part I) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Doctor Who: Prisoner of the Daleks by Trevor Baxendale
Return of the Living Dad by Kate Orman
The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong
Transition by Iain Banks
Travel Green Thailand by Richard Werly
Resolving the Cyprus Conflict: Negotiating History by Michalis Stavrou Michael
Elizabeth’s Irish Wars by Cyril Falls

Non-fiction: 8

Fiction (non-sf): 7

SF (non-Who): 10

Doctor Who: 5

5/30 by women (Rendell, Austen, Orman, Blackman, Le Guin)
4/30 by PoC (Blackman, anonymous Confucian sages, Ama, Alier)
12/30 owned for more than a year (The Uplift War [reread], Ta Hsüeh and Chung Yung, The Wheel of Engaged Buddhism, Year’s Best SF 8, Irish Tales of Terror, The Two Faces of Islam, Cat’s Cradle: Times Crucible, Let It Bleed, Vampire Science, Mortal Causes, Thirteen Steps Down, Holy Disorders, The Wandering Fire)
1 other reread (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), total 2/30
page-count ~8400 (allowing for the fact that I didn’t read all the explanatory material of Ta Hsüeh and Chung Yung, and only the front and back matter of the Juba Arabic English Dictionary)