Obama Signs Two Environment Memorandas

Memorandas would be a collective noun, I suppose?

Edited to add: I see they’ve changed it to “memos”!

Frozen Time revives the Ice Warriors for the first time in ages, and also the Seventh Doctor who appears to have been frozen in with a consignment of criminal Martians only to be unfrozen in a somewhat amnesiac state. The idea of the amnesiac Doctor is just as annoying when it is Seven compared to Eight, and the plot is really a retread of the original Ice Warriors story, but the cast is stellar – Bond girl Maryam d’Abo plays a French scientist, Nicholas Calf plays Lord Barset, doomed and deluded leader of the expedition. Some great scenes here, and generally good stuff.

In Son of the Dragon, the Fifth Doctor, Peri and Erimem end up in a straight historical story where they are the only sfnal elements, encountering the real Dracula (played by James Purefoy) and his brother Radu the Handsome (played with rather more authority by Douglas Hodge). There is always a problem with the pure historical stories (which Erimem has more than her fair share of – see also The Church and the Crown, The Council of Nicæa, The Veiled Leopard and arguably The Kingmaker which is at least as historical as The Romans) in that they have to decide if they are going for entertainment or being didactic. Steve Lyons here has gone more on the didactic, sticking almost too close to what is known of the historical record, with the entertainment provided by the usual companions-getting-separated larks, and Erimem being prepared to meet her fate, which makes this one of his less gripping efforts. Poor Nicola Bryant in particular gets some lousy material to work with as Peri, but Caroline Morris, obviously preparing for her exit, is good as ever. I will have been among the few listeners who winced at the mispronunciations of Târgovişte and the Argeş river.

100 BC is another pure historical play: the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn get all mixed up with whether or not they have accidentally-on-purpose prevented Julius Cæsar’s parents from conceiving him in the year of the title. It’s essentially a one-joke story, and a good joke too, but perhaps stretched a little bit.

Rob Shearman picks up some of the ideas from his own Jubilee and reworks them in My Own Private Mozart, in which John Sessions plays millions of (well, half a dozen) clones of Mozart including the original. Again a one-joke story, but less funny.

Joe Lidster’s Bedtime Story has a shape-shifting alien working through the centuries to get its revenge on a human family, and the Doctor trying to break the spell. It has the typical Lidster success of little moments of horror with his equally typical failure of overall plot implausibilities.

Paul Cornell’s The 100 Days of the Doctor has the Doctor fighting off an intelligent virus which will kill him in, well, 100 days, and visiting various other parts of his own Big Finish continuity to try and prevent his own death. Very fannish, but nicely done.

Robert Glenister was brought in as Selateen in The Caves of Androzani to help kill off Peter Davison, and here he is brought in to help dispose of Conrad Westmaas as C’rizz. Given that C’rizz is a reformed psychopathic killer reptilian, we always knew what the end was likely to be, and indeed the story is rather better on the Doctor/Charley relationship, where she accuses him of reminiscing about how things were better before C’rizz joined them (though in my humble opinion, if this is the Doctor’s view, he is right). Still, C’rizz manages to go out with a bang.

Since C’rizz is now gone, I should write up my general impressions of his 14 appearances (all with the Eighth Doctor and Charley). To be honest, they are a bit patchy. Part of this is because the whole narrative goes down a blind universe at the very beginning; and what is probably the best of the C’rizz stories, The Natural History of Fear, depends rather crucially on the listener having built up an affection for the character which I really hadn’t managed to do at that stage (it is only C’rizz’s second story, and arguably not even that). The others I particularly liked were The Twilight Kingdom, Caerdroia, Terror Firma and Time Works. There are some real turkeys as well, which I won’t embarrass by naming here except to point out that The Next Life is the only misfire I have yet encountered from the pen of Alan Barnes. Not C’rizz’s fault, and certainly not Conrad Westmaas’s, but the concetration on weird bendings of time and space as opposed to, you know, plot and character which seemes to have typified Big finish’s approach to the Eighth Doctor did not do him any favours.

Ah, nostalgia… Not quite sure what I’ll use this for, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.

I realised that I have already written up two of the three winners of the retro-Hugos for Best Novel (here and herePebble in the Sky, C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, E.E. 'Doc' Smith's First Lensman and Jack Vance's The Dying Earth, in that order. I've read them all except, oddly, the Asimov, and would certainly have voted for the Vance (incidentally the only author still living either today or in 2001 when the award was made). But my tastes are peculiar.

Farmer in the Sky is what would now be called a YA novel a juvenile (thanks, ), with our narrator, his father, his stepmother and her daughter leaving Earth to build a new colony on Ganymede. There is a significant amount of product placement for the scouting movement, which is not surprising as it was originally serialised in a scouts magazine. We encounter nice guys and nasty guys, and even a few women, though they don't get to speak much. There is a major natural disaster which wipes out two thirds of the colony, but our hero and most of his family survive. At the end of the book, our hero discovers some alien technology which incidentally saves his life.

A lot of this was already pretty standard sfnal fare even in 1950, but Heinlein fuses it all together into a coherent and literate package, which has a colossal amount of sensawunda, sufficient to keep the book going at full pace to the end and to keep its reputation alive among fans for decades. (He even manages the pro-scouting propaganda fairly discreetly, though of course this also helps underpin the gender and racial constraints of the narrative.)

It is not my intention to detain the reader by expatiating on the variety or the importance of the subject, which I have undertaken to treat; since the merit of the choice would serve to render the weakness of the execution still more apparent, and still less excusable. But as I have presumed to lay before the public a first volume only of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it will, perhaps, be expected that I should explain, in a few words, the nature and limits of my general plan.

The memorable series of revolutions, which in the course of about thirteen centuries gradually undermined, and at length destroyed, the solid fabric of human greatness, may, with some propriety, be divided into the three following periods:

I. The first of these periods may be traced from the age of Trajan and the Antonines, when the Roman monarchy, having attained its full strength and maturity, began to verge towards its decline; and will extend to the subversion of the Western Empire, by the barbarians of Germany and Scythia, the rude ancestors of the most polished nations of modern Europe. This extraordinary revolution, which subjected Rome to the power of a Gothic conqueror, was completed about the beginning of the sixth century.

II. The second period of the Decline and Fall of Rome may be supposed to commence with the reign of Justinian, who, by his laws, as well as by his victories, restored a transient splendor to the Eastern Empire. It will comprehend the invasion of Italy by the Lombards; the conquest of the Asiatic and African provinces by the Arabs, who embraced the religion of Mahomet; the revolt of the Roman people against the feeble princes of Constantinople; and the elevation of Charlemagne, who, in the year eight hundred, established the second, or German Empire of the West

III. The last and longest of these periods includes about six centuries and a half; from the revival of the Western Empire, till the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, and the extinction of a degenerate race of princes, who continued to assume the titles of Caesar and Augustus, after their dominions were contracted to the limits of a single city; in which the language, as well as manners, of the ancient Romans, had been long since forgotten. The writer who should undertake to relate the events of this period, would find himself obliged to enter into the general history of the Crusades, as far as they contributed to the ruin of the Greek Empire; and he would scarcely be able to restrain his curiosity from making some inquiry into the state of the city of Rome, during the darkness and confusion of the middle ages.

As I have ventured, perhaps too hastily, to commit to the press a work which in every sense of the word, deserves the epithet of imperfect. I consider myself as contracting an engagement to finish, most probably in a second volume, a the first of these memorable periods; and to deliver to the Public the complete History of the Decline and Fall of Rome, from the age of the Antonines to the subversion of the Western Empire. With regard to the subsequent periods, though I may entertain some hopes, I dare not presume to give any assurances. The execution of the extensive plan which I have described, would connect the ancient and modern history of the world; but it would require many years of health, of leisure, and of perseverance.


P. S. The entire History, which is now published, of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the West, abundantly discharges my engagements with the Public. Perhaps their favorable opinion may encourage me to prosecute a work, which, however laborious it may seem, is the most agreeable occupation of my leisure hours.


An Author easily persuades himself that the public opinion is still favorable to his labors; and I have now embraced the serious resolution of proceeding to the last period of my original design, and of the Roman Empire, the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, in the year one thousand four hundred and fifty-three. The most patient Reader, who computes that three ponderous volumes have been already employed on the events of four centuries, may, perhaps, be alarmed at the long prospect of nine hundred years. But it is not my intention to expatiate with the same minuteness on the whole series of the Byzantine history. At our entrance into this period, the reign of Justinian, and the conquests of the Mahometans, will deserve and detain our attention, and the last age of Constantinople (the Crusades and the Turks) is connected with the revolutions of Modern Europe. From the seventh to the eleventh century, the obscure interval will be supplied by a concise narrative of such facts as may still appear either interesting or important.



Diligence and accuracy are the only merits which an historical writer may ascribe to himself; if any merit, indeed, can be assumed from the performance of an indispensable duty. I may therefore be allowed to say, that I have carefully examined all the original materials that could illustrate the subject which I had undertaken to treat. Should I ever complete the extensive design which has been sketched out in the Preface, I might perhaps conclude it with a critical account of the authors consulted during the progress of the whole work; and however such an attempt might incur the censure of ostentation, I am persuaded that it would be susceptible of entertainment, as well as information.

At present I shall content myself with a single observation.

The biographers, who, under the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine, composed, or rather compiled, the lives of the Emperors, from Hadrian to the sons of Carus, are usually mentioned under the names of Aelius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, Aelius Lampridius, Vulcatius Gallicanus, Trebellius Pollio and Flavius Vopiscus. But there is so much perplexity in the titles of the MSS., and so many disputes have arisen among the critics (see Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin. l. iii. c. 6) concerning their number, their names, and their respective property, that for the most part I have quoted them without distinction, under the general and well-known title of the Augustan History.



I now discharge my promise, and complete my design, of writing the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, both in the West and the East. The whole period extends from the age of Trajan and the Antonines, to the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet the Second; and includes a review of the Crusades, and the state of Rome during the middle ages. Since the publication of the first volume, twelve years have elapsed; twelve years, according to my wish, “of health, of leisure, and of perseverance.” I may now congratulate my deliverance from a long and laborious service, and my satisfaction will be pure and perfect, if the public favor should be extended to the conclusion of my work.

It was my first intention to have collected, under one view, the numerous authors, of every age and language, from whom I have derived the materials of this history; and I am still convinced that the apparent ostentation would be more than compensated by real use. If I have renounced this idea, if I have declined an undertaking which had obtained the approbation of a master-artist, my excuse may be found in the extreme difficulty of assigning a proper measure to such a catalogue. A naked list of names and editions would not be satisfactory either to myself or my readers: the characters of the principal Authors of the Roman and Byzantine History have been occasionally connected with the events which they describe; a more copious and critical inquiry might indeed deserve, but it would demand, an elaborate volume, which might swell by degrees into a general library of historical writers. For the present, I shall content myself with renewing my serious protestation, that I have always endeavored to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend.

I shall soon revisit the banks of the Lake of Lausanne, a country which I have known and loved from my early youth. Under a mild government, amidst a beauteous landscape, in a life of leisure and independence, and among a people of easy and elegant manners, I have enjoyed, and may again hope to enjoy, the varied pleasures of retirement and society. But I shall ever glory in the name and character of an Englishman: I am proud of my birth in a free and enlightened country; and the approbation of that country is the best and most honorable reward of my labors. Were I ambitious of any other Patron than the Public, I would inscribe this work to a Statesman, who, in a long, a stormy, and at length an unfortunate administration, had many political opponents, almost without a personal enemy; who has retained, in his fall from power, many faithful and disinterested friends; and who, under the pressure of severe infirmity, enjoys the lively vigor of his mind, and the felicity of his incomparable temper. Lord North will permit me to express the feelings of friendship in the language of truth: but even truth and friendship should be silent, if he still dispensed the favors of the crown.

In a remote solitude, vanity may still whisper in my ear, that my readers, perhaps, may inquire whether, in the conclusion of the present work, I am now taking an everlasting farewell. They shall hear all that I know myself, and all that I could reveal to the most intimate friend. The motives of action or silence are now equally balanced; nor can I pronounce, in my most secret thoughts, on which side the scale will preponderate. I cannot dissemble that six quartos must have tried, and may have exhausted, the indulgence of the Public; that, in the repetition of similar attempts, a successful Author has much more to lose than he can hope to gain; that I am now descending into the vale of years; and that the most respectable of my countrymen, the men whom I aspire to imitate, have resigned the pen of history about the same period of their lives. Yet I consider that the annals of ancient and modern times may afford many rich and interesting subjects; that I am still possessed of health and leisure; that by the practice of writing, some skill and facility must be acquired; and that, in the ardent pursuit of truth and knowledge, I am not conscious of decay. To an active mind, indolence is more painful than labor; and the first months of my liberty will be occupied and amused in the excursions of curiosity and taste. By such temptations, I have been sometimes seduced from the rigid duty even of a pleasing and voluntary task: but my time will now be my own; and in the use or abuse of independence, I shall no longer fear my own reproaches or those of my friends. I am fairly entitled to a year of jubilee: next summer and the following winter will rapidly pass away; and experience only can determine whether I shall still prefer the freedom and variety of study to the design and composition of a regular work, which animates, while it confines, the daily application of the Author.

Caprice and accident may influence my choice; but the dexterity of self-love will contrive to applaud either active industry or philosophic repose.


P. S. I shall embrace this opportunity of introducing two verbal remarks, which have not conveniently offered themselves to my notice. 1. As often as I use the definitions of beyond the Alps, the Rhine, the Danube, &c., I generally suppose myself at Rome, and afterwards at Constantinople; without observing whether this relative geography may agree with the local, but variable, situation of the reader, or the historian. 2. In proper names of foreign, and especially of Oriental origin, it should be always our aim to express, in our English version, a faithful copy of the original. But this rule, which is founded on a just regard to uniformity and truth, must often be relaxed; and the exceptions will be limited or enlarged by the custom of the language and the taste of the interpreter. Our alphabets may be often defective; a harsh sound, an uncouth spelling, might offend the ear or the eye of our countrymen; and some words, notoriously corrupt, are fixed, and, as it were, naturalized in the vulgar tongue. The prophet Mohammed can no longer be stripped of the famous, though improper, appellation of Mahomet: the well-known cities of Aleppo, Damascus, and Cairo, would almost be lost in the strange descriptions of Haleb, Demashk, and Al Cahira: the titles and offices of the Ottoman empire are fashioned by the practice of three hundred years; and we are pleased to blend the three Chinese monosyllables, Con-fu-tzee, in the respectable name of Confucius, or even to adopt the Portuguese corruption of Mandarin. But I would vary the use of Zoroaster and Zerdusht, as I drew my information from Greece or Persia: since our connection with India, the genuine Timour is restored to the throne of Tamerlane: our most correct writers have retrenched the Al, the superfluous article, from the Koran; and we escape an ambiguous termination, by adopting Moslem instead of Musulman, in the plural number. In these, and in a thousand examples, the shades of distinction are often minute; and I can feel, where I cannot explain, the motives of my choice.

This and this were next to each other in my friends list when I checked this evening.

The Guardian’s 1000 books series comes to an end with the rather peculiar assortment of Travel and War (and thanks once again to for posting the list). 129 books here, of which I have read 36 (and started two more). My vote for neglected classic on the list goes to The Good Soldier Švejk.

Previous Guardian lists:
Love
Crime
Humour
Family and Self
State of the Nation
SF and Fantasy

Analysis of all of these coming tomorrow.

I’ve been idly speculating of late: how small would an asteroid, minor planet or satellite need to be for the average person to be able to jump right off it?

The world record for the high jump at present is 2.43 metres. Ouch. More modestly, I guess I can raise my own centre of gravity by at least a metre if I jump up from a crouching position. So using the old equation:

makes my takeoff velocity around 4.5 metres per second, before gravity inevitably drags me down.

Now, the escape velocity of any spherical body of mass M and radius r is √(2GM/r) – actually, I think I want to chage this around a bit: the volume of yer sphere is 4πr³/3, so its density is 3M/4πr³, so the escape velocity expressed in terms of the density ρ and the radius r is √(8πGρ/3) * r.

Well. The Earth’s escape velocity is about 11 km per second. This is roughly 2400 times faster than I can jump. Since the Earth’s radius is around 6400 km, I could probably jump off a celestial body of the Earth’s density which had a radius of about 2.7 km or smaller

The Earth’s density is roughly 5.5 grams per cubic centimetre (we live on the densest of the planets in our system). Asteroid densities are reckoned to be more in the 1.5 – 3 grams per cubic centimetre range. So in practice, I could probably jump off yer average asteroid or satellite of the 4-6 km size range. Most of the well known ones are bigger than that. Most of the obscure ones, almost by definition, are smaller.

Indeed, Mars’s satellite Phobos, whose mean radius is 11.1 km, has a numerically similar escape velocity of 11.3 metres per second – as you may vaguely remember fron Arthur C. Clarke’s story, “Hide-and-Seek”.

OK, bedtime now.

Too many favourites on here to pick any in particular. Not surprisingly I score better here than on any three of the previous lists combined, with 85 out of 149 books that I have read and also most of Pratchett (though he’s not quite as prolific as Balzac). Indeed, I have reviewed no fewer than 38 of these at greater or lesser length on line, and three of them are in my imminently-to-read pile.

Previous Guardian lists:
Love
Crime
Humour
Family and Self
State of the Nation

I prefer this one to the other one, even if the questions are now a bit dated.

Two days’ worth of Guardian novels to report here, because of last night’s distractions. Thanks again to for supplying the lists. They are two particularly odd selections.

I have read only 24 out of 145 of the Guardian’s the “Family and Self” selection, with another four started but not finished. It is interesting that they have chosen a number of comics in this section – my pick of the lot is Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. The selection also includes Proust as a single unit.

I did far worse on the “State of the Nation” selection – presumably these are meant to be the more political novels, and I actually work in politics, but nonetheless scored a mere 17 out of 133. My picks are boringly conventional, Middlemarch, Les Miserables and Vanity Fair.

To be reviewed elsewhere.

Those of you who get the free Metro newspaper in London may have paused briefly today over the centre spread, which covers my employers – or to be more specific, my boss.

I am awaiting his reaction, when he wakes up in New York later, to the crude but amusing illustration they knocked up for the article…

I missed watching the inauguration live last night because I was at a reception in the European Parliament launching some rather beautiful photographs of Timor Leste (as East Timor prefers to be known these days) taken by Luis Ramos Pinto. The foreign minister was also there. It’s not a country I have ever worked on professionally, but the MEP hosting the event has helped me in the past and I wanted to show support. Also, of course, Timor Leste is a very interesting place in its own right.

The photographer introduced his exhibition in English, but both the MEP and the minister made short speeches in Portuguese, which I think is the first time I’ve been an event which was largely lusophone (apart from a church service I attended in Porto many years ago). It was a salutary reminder that there are other languages than English with a worldwide reach. And the event as a whole was also a nice reminder, on a day when millions of people were (rightly) celebrating the triumph of the American narrative, that there are other, more recent, narratives of struggle and liberation out there.

I did catch up with Obama’s speech this morning. It did not disappoint. He’s not a great soundbite man (which is why he didn’t really shine in the debates). But the substance was all there, and the long Bush nightmare is over.

The only one of his senior officials who I have actually met is the incoming National Security Adviser, Jim Jones, who I went to see once at SHAPE in Mons when he was SACEUR (sorry for the mystifying abbreviations but spelling them out in full is tedious). He impressed me – a Marine general with an actual brain; another of Obama’s good picks.

Pedantic point: I was a bit startled by Obama’s statement that forty-four Americans have now taken the oath – by my count, it’s forty-three, because of Grover Cleveland’s non-consecutive terms. (Or was there some other occasion I’ve forgotten? I make the total number of inaugurations 63, assuming that all 19 re-elections of an incumbent required a swearing-in ceremony.)

We who work in the European district of Brussels have observed over the last few days a series of respectably-sized demonstrations outside the Council Secretariat building by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, protesting at their inclusion on the EU’s list of terrorist organisations.

While I know next to nothing of the specifics of this issue, it does occur to me that the PMOI might help their own cause by rebranding themselves to a name that doesn’t include the word “Mojahedin”…

Three more of the standard Big Finish releases, two of which are in the 3:1 format, and the latest Companion Chronicle

Exotron has Five and Peri arrive on a newly colonised planet with apparently hostile aliens; but the real problem is the colonists’ robots, and the fact that the chief scientist is the military leader’s ex-wife. It’s a fairly standard sf setting but the cast (including guest stars John Duttine and Isla Blair) take a decent script and do it well. Very enjoyable.

I was prepared to like Urban Myths as a funny piece about the Doctor and Peri feeding the Celestial Intervention Agency an antidote to their misremembering of recent history over dinner. Then unfortunately it ends with a really stupid and offensive joke about Peri waitressing all evening, which killed any charm it might have had.

When Marc Platt is good, he is very very good; but when he is not, he is boring, and I’m afraid Valhalla is in the latter category. I don’t know why it dragged – indeed, maybe it doesn’t, and I was just in a bad mood; but even Susannah York as the queen of the giant termites infesting the doomed human colony on Callisto didn’t really lift it for me.

By contrast, The Wishing Beast, which confronts Six and Mel with two mad old ladies and a collection of persecuted ghosts, really shouldn’t work, but it does. Somehow the cast, which includes Jean Marsh as one of the mad old ladies, make Paul Magrs’ script really zing. Great stuff.

The Vanity Box is a slightly humorous coda to The Wishing Beast, but the humour is based on the premise that old ladies from Salford sound a bit funny, and so does Colin Baker when he tries to imitate them. This turns out to be a rather weak premise.

The latest Companion Chronicle (though I think there’s another one out this week) has Jean Marsh again as Sara Kingdom, reminiscing about her time travelling with the Doctor and Steven long ago – rather a daring choice, since we all know what happened to her. Suffice it to say that continuity is respected and Jean Marsh turns in another stunning performance of a script that surely has deliberate echoes of William Hope Hodgson’s House on the Borderland.

So, I liked the two three-parters, Exotron and The Wishing Beast, much more than their accompanying single-episode stories; and Home Truths is a worthy addition to the Daleks’ Master Plan narrative.

As before, I thank for providing me with the list of today’s Guardian books – this time 149 supposedly funny novels, of which I have read 40 (my highest tally so far). I’ve bolded those that I’ve read; none unfinished and none that I didn’t like. There are, however, a number that I didn’t think were particularly funny.

makes an interesting point.

Two interviews with me (by the same journalist) in the Serbian papers Dnevnik and Blic. I talked to him about the interesting parallels between Irish and Balkan history. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what I said and can’t read the interviews…

I’m working up a small project on William Shakespeare’s appearances in the Doctor Who universe. I think I now have a comprehensive list of them, which I will list below the cut, listed in three different orders. Still thinking about how I might put this together more creatively.

1) Shakespeare’s personal timeline
1572: Shakespeare is kidnapped by Daleks as a boy, and meets Troilus and Cressida on his journey home with the Doctor (Time of the Daleks; Apocrypha Bipedium)
1592: The alien Shadeys attempt to use Greene’s hatred of Shakespeare to invade Earth (A Groatsworth of Wit)
1593: Marlowe avoids death and disguises himself as Shakespeare (All Done with Mirrors)
1597: The Doctor puts Shakespeare right about Richard III, with unexpected consequences (The Kingmaker)
c. 1598: Queen Elizabeth gives Shakespeare the idea for The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Francis Bacon gives him the idea for Hamlet (The Chase)
1599: The alien Carrionites attempt to invade Earth using the text of Love’s Labour’s Won (The Shakespeare Code)
c. 1600: Sarah Jane Smith complains to Shakespeare about the sexism of The Taming of the Shrew, and suggests the character of Lady Macbeth to him (The Stranger, The Writer, His Wife and the Mixed Metaphor)
c. 1601: The Doctor writes Hamlet for Shakespeare, who has sprained his hand writing sonnets (City of Death)
c. later in 1601: Shakespeare is transported back briefly to 1505 where after an argument in Leonardo’s studio K9 destroys the original Hamlet manuscript
1609: Shakespeare visits Venice as a secret agent of James I and meets Marlowe again (Empire of Glass).
(There are a couple more vignettes from the beginning of Managra, in 1613, and the end of Empire of Glass, in 1616, but I’ll leave them for now.)

2) The Doctor’s personal timeline
First Doctor: Queen Elizabeth gives Shakespeare the idea for The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Francis Bacon gives him the idea for Hamlet; the Doctor meets Shakespeare and Marlowe in Venice
Fourth Doctor: writes Hamlet for Shakespeare, who has sprained his hand writing sonnets; Marlowe avoids death and disguises himself as Shakespeare; Sarah Jane Smith complains to Shakespeare about the sexism of The Taming of the Shrew, and suggests the character of Lady Macbeth to him; Shakespeare is transported back briefly to 1505 where after an argument in Leonardo’s studio K9 destroys the original Hamlet manuscript
Fifth Doctor: puts Shakespeare right about Richard III, with unexpected consequences
Sixth Doctor: says he must see Shakespeare again
Eighth Doctor: rescues the boy Shakespeare from kidnapping by Daleks, and meets Troilus and Cressida on their journey home
Ninth Doctor: prevents the alien Shadeys’ attempt to use Greene’s hatred of Shakespeare to invade Earth
Tenth Doctor: prevents the alien Carrionites’ attempt to invade Earth using the text of Love’s Labour’s Won.

3) order of broadcast/publication/release
1965: The Chase (TV, by Terry Nation): The First Doctor, Ian, Susan and Vicki watch as Queen Elizabeth gives Shakespeare the idea for The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Francis Bacon gives him the idea for Hamlet
1975: Planet of Evil (TV, by Louis Marks): The Fourth Doctor comments to Sarah Jane Smith that Shakespeare was a dreadful actor
1979: City of Death (TV, by "David Agnew", ie David Fisher, Douglas Adams and Graham Williams): reportedly, the (Fourth, presumably) Doctor wrote Hamlet for Shakespeare, who had sprained his hand writing sonnets
1985: Mark of the Rani (TV, by Pip and Jane Baker): The Sixth Doctor tells Peri that he must see Shakespeare again some time
1992: Doctor Who – City of Death (unofficial novelisation, by David Lawrence): Shakespeare is transported back briefly to 1505 by the Fourth Doctor, where after an argument in Leonardo’s studio K9 destroys the original Hamlet manuscript
1993: The Stranger, The Writer, His Wife and the Mixed Metaphor (short story published in Doctor Who Monthly’s Brief Encounters series, by Graham Cox): reportedly, Sarah Jane Smith complained to Shakespeare about the sexism of The Taming of the Shrew, and suggested the character of Lady Macbeth to him
1995: The Empire of Glass (Virgin Missing Adventures novel, by Andy Lane): The First Doctor, Vicki and Stephen meet Shakespeare and Marlowe in Venice
2002: Time of the Daleks (Big Finish audio play, by Justin Richards): The Eighth Doctor and Charley Pollard rescue the boy Shakespeare from kidnapping by Daleks.
2003: Apocrypha Bipedium (short story in Short Trips: Companions, by Ian Potter): The Eighth Doctor, Charley Pollard and the boy Shakespeare meet Vicki/Cressida and her husband Troilus
2004: All Done With Mirrors (short story in Short Trips: Past Tense, by Christopher Bav): Marlowe avoids death and disguises himself as Shakespeare, with help from the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith
2005-06: A Groatsworth of Wit (comic strip published in Doctor Who Magazine, by Gareth Roberts): The Ninth Doctor and Rose prevent the alien Shadeys’ attempt to use Greene’s hatred of Shakespeare to invade Earth
2006: The Kingmaker (Big Finish audio play, by Nev Fountain): Peri and Erimem get caught up in the unexpected consequences of the Fifth Doctor’s attempt to put Shakespeare right about Richard III
2007: The Shakespeare Code (TV, by Gareth Roberts): The Tenth Doctor and Martha prevent the alien Carrionites’ attempt to invade Earth using the text of Love’s Labour’s Won.

For my money, the best are The Shakespeare Code, which is also the most recent; The Kingmaker, which of course I have described here without spoilers as it violates Shakespeare’s own continuity so badly; and the short story Apocrypha Bipedium. On the other hand, I would not especially recommend that you bother seeking out either Time of the Daleks or All Done with Mirrors.

I’d been pointed to Tomine’s work here and here, and seeing that Optic Nerve #8 was one of the recommended titles, decided to buy this, since its subtitle is “The Complete Optic Nerve Mini-Comics”.

Alas, this is “complete” as in “complete from #1 to #7”, so my curiosity about #8 remains unabated. Once I’d got over my disappointment, however, I did enjoy these 32 short vignettes of life, mainly in San Francisco, mainly with first-person narrative from Tomine himself or Amy, his fictional proxy character, published before he made his breakthrough commercially with #8.

In his introduction, Tomine admits disarmingly that he had originally planned to weed out the pieces which he is now embarrassed about, but that would have left very little, so instead he has aimed for completeness. He was right: they are none of them actually bad, and they point to someone who is capable of better. I’ll look out for more of Tomine’s work.

Picked this up yesterday in the bargain bin at Sterling for a euro, and it was money very well spent. Apparently this is part of a series of “How to Read” books; other topics addressed include Foucault, Derrida, Hitler and the Bible. This must demand a certain variety of approach from the authors.

Royle takes seven short dialogues from seven Shakespeare plays (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and Anthony and Cleopatra) and hangs a short essay on each of them explaining what Shakespeare is doing in the dialogue, in the play, and more broadly in his work, in particular concentrating on the words that are used. It’s a very good illumination of that particulat aspect of encountering Shakespeare, and I was particularly pleased that his take on Hamlet coincided pretty closely with my own (so he must be a very sensible chap).

However, he doesn’t really make enough of the important consideration that these plays were not intended as texts to be read – indeed, the title of the book asks the wrong question. It’s also rather striking that none of the English history plays are among the chosen seven. I would have been happier with the book if Royle had acknowledged these gaps.

Thanks to I have a full list of the 147 books the Guardian lists in the Crime section of its 1000 must-read novels. As before, I’ve bolded those that I’ve read; none unfinished and only one that I didn’t like. Today’s score is 33 out of 147, compared with yesterday’s 25 out of 145. I confess I’m not tiotally sure I’ve read those particular Cornwell and Hiaasen novels, but I know I’ve read most of them especially the early ones.

I posted a few months back about reports of the inquest on my great-uncle, John Nicholas Whyte, in 1906 and the remarks of the judge following the failure of the jury to agree at the trial of Dr Adcock for his manslaughter. I have now found that the complete record of the trial is online in the Old Bailey archives.

Basically it seems that Major Whyte was dying a slow, lingering, horrible death from septicæmia brought on by untreated bedsores, which were a side-effect of a spinal injury he had suffered while hunting three years earlier (ie he had broken his back falling off a horse). He had got interested in Christian Science and so rejected any medical treatment apart from surface disinfection of the wounds. The Crown attempted (and failed) to prove that this was the result of the negligence of Dr Adcock.

There is an impressive roll-call of participants. Ludwig Freyberger, the first doctor called to give evidence, pops up here as a practitioner of newfangled autopsy techniques; he also had a family connection with Friedrich Engels. Sir Victor Horsley, who had performed the original spinal operation, ended up dying in Iraq during the first world war. Another testifying doctor, Henry Huxley, was the son of Darwin’s bulldog and therefore uncle of Aldous Huxley and father-in-law of Elspeth Huxley. Captain Fisher, who seems to have brought Major Whyte into contact with Christian Science in the first place, was the incompetent general secretary of the League of Nations Union after the first world war.

Despite the fact that the establishment medics clearly felt Adcock was guilty, the jury was unable to agree (and press reports suggested that only one of them really felt strongly in favour of a conviction). He seems to have been a convincing witness, denying totally that he enjoyed a normal doctor/patient relationship with Whyte, asserting that Whyte was dying in any case and there was nothing that normal medical science (as opposed to Christian Science) could have done, and admitting to his own cocaine habit in a way which seems to have got the sympathy of the jurors.

It’s all a long time ago – Major Whyte was my grandfather’s oldest brother (born on Christmas Eve, 1864; my grandfather was born in 1880, my father in 1928 and I was born in 1967). It is an odd coincidence that he was the same age when he died as I am now (41).

Last night we sampled the delights of ‘t Zuiderhuis, a rather swanky new restaurant which is, crucially, within walking distance of our house.

We had the special – started with a salad with wee bits of pheasant, and the main course being delicious flash-fried chunks of tuna with baked endive. We accepted their recommendation of an Argentinian red wine, enjoyed the food and drink, and tripped merrily home.

But we both woke at about 5 am this morning having had weird dreams. In my case I was setting up a branch office in Geneva with various improbable problems afflicting me in the process, and it was All My Fault. (Anne told me her dream too, but neither of us can remember it now except that it was weird.) One suspects that something was up with the food (probably the tuna).

Well, there you go. I suspect we will try them again, but probably not soon.

There have been a number of interesting posts floating around lately about Irishness, and I hope this will be another one of them. Chasing quite a different track of research, inspired by , I discovered the likely origin of the famous quotation inaccurately attributed to the Duke of Wellington, that “just because one was born in a stable doesn’t make one a horse”. Of course, it’s entirely in character with Wellington, whose bon mots include “I don’t know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me” and describing the Battle of Waterloo as “a damned close run thing”.

Wellington’s reputation has of course been enhanced. He never said “I don’t know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me”. His real line was, “As Lord Chesterfield said of the generals of his day, ‘I only hope that when the enemy reads the list of their names, he trembles as I do.'” Likewise, the full Waterloo quote is “It has been a damned serious business… Blücher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice [i.e. delicately balanced] thing — the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life.” In both cases, his admirers (who were and remain many) have made his actual words a bit crunchier for the consumption of posterity. (It should also be noted that the original version in both cases is a bit more modest – in the former, he is actually quoting someone else; in the latter, he concentrates on the massive number of casualties.)

But the line about the stable is rather different – it doesn’t reflect terribly well on the Duke, unlike the other two. And interestingly its origin is not with the Duke himself at all, but with another famous orator of the nineteenth century: Daniel O’Connell. Here we have a court hearing in which O’Connell is reported as saying (on 1 October 1843, at a dinner speech after the Monster Meeting earlier that day), “The poor old Duke! What shall I say of him? To be sure he was born in Ireland, but being born in a stable does not make a man a horse.”

Wellington was of course born in Ireland (probably in Dublin) and brought up at Dangan Castle near Trim, Co. Meath (see local debate). By 1843 he was 71 and getting on a bit, but nonetheless was still Commander-in-Chief of the British army and minister without portfolio in the cabinet. O’Connell’s ally, William Smith O’Brien, speaking on the State of Ireland at the House of Commons on 4 July 1843, had also mocked the Duke’s pretensions to Irishness as part of the general failure of British state institutions to represent Ireland: “Again, let us see how facts actually stand: there are Cabinet Ministers, Englishmen 10, Scotchmen 3, Irish O. The Duke of Wellington is so much denationalized, that I believe he scarcely considers himself an Irishman, and certainly cannot be called a representative of Irish interests in the Cabinet.” Wellington responded in a somewhat verbose speech a few days later in the House of Lords, attacking O’Connell directly for wasting time on political agitation rather than the real interests of the Irish people.

So in fact, the origin of the quote was not the Duke dismissing his own Irish origins (and in a rather cursory search, I haven’t found any strong statement from him on his own Irishness one way or the other) but in fact the radical Irish politicians denying him any right to speak as an Irishman just because he was born there.

The quote has had a long afterlife. Here, for instance, Jim Tully (incorrectly) corrects his former party colleague Patrick Norton (who had just resigned from the Labour Party and was about to join Fianna Fáil) as to its origin in an 1968 Dáil debate on abolishing proportional representation.

Mr. Norton: Deputy Treacy mentioned nationality when speaking of the system of election. I cannot see it is in any way relevant whether the system of election is a British or an Irish system. Like the Minister, I think that, in fact, both the PR system and the straight vote system are British systems. I think it was Daniel O’Connell who said that the fact you were born in a stable does not make you a horse.
Mr. James Tully: Just to get the facts right, it was the Duke of Wellington.
[908] Mr. Norton: I am not aware who said it, but I certainly know the wisdom of it. I do not think it is important whether the person who conceived the system was English or Irish or what his nationality was. Surely it is the merits of the system we should be concerned about?

Most gloriously, there is an allusion to the quote in Finnegan’s Wake. At the end of Part 1, Episode 1, there is a long meditation on “Willingdone” (who combines aspects of both Finnegan and the Duke as commemorated in a (fictional) museum/museyroom under the Phoenix Park monument) which concludes as follows:

This is the Willingdone, bornstable ghentleman, tinders his maxbotch to the cursigan Shimar Shin. Basucker youstead! This is the dooforhim seeboy blow the whole of the half of the hat of lipoleums off of the top of the tail on the back of his big wide harse. Tip (Bullseye! Game!) How Copenhagen ended. This way the museyroom. Mind your boots goan out.

Phew!

Phew!, indeed!

…which of the first 145 of the Guardian’s 1000 must-read novels have you read?