Glad to see (assuming it is confirmed) that Joe Biden has got the nod for the VP slot. If they win, then some of my friends in DC may end up with interesting changes of job…
August Books 29) Liberal Democracy and Globalisation
29) Liberal Democracy and Globalisation, compiled and edited by Graham Watson MEP and Katharine Durrant
A collection of 21 short essays by 23 MEPs of the Liberal group (and two credited research assistants), addressing the subject in the title of the collection. Actually the more generalist pieces tend unfortunately toward waffle, and some of them, written immediately after the French and Dutch referenda, have been overtaken by subsequent events; the ones that jumped out at me were by Jelko Kacin on Turkey and the EU, by Philippe Morillon on Bosnia and France, and by Emma Nicholson on international adoptions and Romania. Still, it’s reassuring that the MEPs do have some however vague concept of ideology informing their thoughts.
Season 25, and August Books 26-28
This journey of mine through the years of Old Who is nearly over, with only the four books of Season 26 left to go. I have already written up Resurrection of the Daleks (TV original and novelisation) and the TV version of The Happiness Patrol, so we start here with the novelisation of the latter.
I wasn’t overwhelmed by the original TV story, but Curry has produced a novelisation which is passionate and convinced – the rather odd plot holes remain, but liberated from cheap-looking special effects, it turns into rather a good yarn. Definitely one of those where the book is an improvement. Also an easy pass for the Bechdel test, with Helen A and her women warriors running around after Ace.
Clarke used the opportunity of adapting the script for novelisation to put back some of the material which apparently ended up on the cutting-room floor, but the result is if anything even more confusing. Where the TV series can just about get away with characters being darkly mysterious, the written word demands a bit more clarity (thinking especially of the portrait of Ace in Windsor Castle, never explained). Fails the Bechdel test, unless the cook who Mrs Hackensack’s ancestor bribed away from Lady Peinforte was a woman. (Hackensack is a much less likely name than the TV series’ Remington for a 17th century English aristocrat; but then, so is Peinforte.)
Wyatt’s book is not really an improvement on the TV original. Shorn of (for once) decent production values and the compelling performances of the actors, the holes in the plot and clunky scene-setting are more apparent, and Wyatt, having written a TV script, is reduced to reporting what we saw on screen without being able to add much to it. Fails the Bechdel test – each female character is rigidly paired off with a male, and on the rare occasions that they converse it is always about one of the men (usually the Doctor).
I should have done a Mel retrospective with my last Whoblogging entry, but that can wait.
Labelling
I bought some tarragon leaves from the supermarket yesterday; when I got out the packet to start chopping them up, I noticed that the country of origin was marked as “West Bank”. Does this mean that it is Palestinian tarragon? Or (as I fear is more likely) that it was grown in one of the Israeli settlements?
August Books 24-25) The Office
24) The Office: The Scripts: Series 1, by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant
25) The Office: The Scripts: Series 2, by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant
I caught most of the first series of The Office (the BBC original, not any subsequent version) on TV, and of course found it cringingly hilarious – appalled moments of recognition combined with surrealism (eg the stapler in the jelly). Rereading the scripts (which are nicely illustrated with screencaps from the series, particularly catching people’s expressions at crucial moments) brought back fond memories.
I haven’t seen any of the second series, and in fact I think that dramatically it works a bit better – the two parallel love affairs of Tim and Dawn, and David Brent with himself, give itmore of an emotional edge – it is a situation comedy, of course, but the characters, unusually, do change and develop (or regress) by the end of the series.
Highly recommended. But totally and utterly fails the Bechdel test.
South Ossetia
Once again, I want to strongly recommend OpenDemocracy, this time for its series of articles on South Ossetia and its consequences. Today’s article is by my good friend Ivan Krastev, arguing inter alia that Russia may be a loser as well. At the start of the war they ran a good piece by Caucasus vetern Tom de Waal, “An Avoidable Tragedy”. See also these pictures by the children of South Ossetia, and the various other pieces they have done on the region. And in general, keep an eye on the
Telecoms package latest
As a result of my activism a few months ago, I have just received a reply from Flemish Socialist MEP Saïd El-Khadroui:
Daarnaast zijn er echter inderdaad een aantal amendementen van parlementslid Syed Kamall goedgekeurd vanuit de Commissie Burgerlijke Vrijheden die erg veel vragen oproepen. De amendementen hadden tot doel om toe te laten aan operatoren en instanties om gegevens over dataverkeer te raadplegen om inbreuken vast te stellen.
De socialistische fractie in het EP heeft tegen deze amendementen gestemd in de Commissie Burgerlijke Vrijheden, maar toch kregen ze een meerderheid en werden ze dus goedgekeurd.
Door de parlementaire procedure van versterkte samenwerking tussen commissies, waren de leden van de ten principale bevoegde Commissie Interne Markt en Consumentbescherming echter niet in de mogelijkheid om de gewraakte amendementen van Kamall uit de Commissie Burgerlijke Vrijheden weg te stemmen.
Na overleg met de socialistische fractie en leden van zijn eigen fractie (EVP), zou Kamall echter ingezien hebben dat zijn amendementen reële gevaren inhouden. Samen met de andere fracties zou hij bereid zijn om de situatie in de plenaire stemming in september recht te trekken en amendementen in te dienen die de gewraakte voorstellen verwijderen uit de definitieve tekst die het EP zal goedkeuren.
Uiteraard zal ik er samen met mijn fractie voor blijven ijveren dat de burgerlijke vrijheden niet in het gedrang komen door deze nieuwe wetgeving. Ik zal er dan ook met mijn fractie over waken dat de gewraakte amendementen niet in de wetgeving terecht zullen komen.
My translation:
[after detailed explanation of the communications package as a whole> In addition, however, the Committee on Civil Liberties approved a number of amendments from Syed Kamall MEP. The amendments were intended to permit ISPs to examine data traffic in order to identify violations.The Socialist Group voted against these amendments in the Civil Liberties Committee, but they were supported by a majority and therefore were approved.
Due to the parliamentary procedures regulating the relationship between the committeed, the Internal Market Committee, which generally should have the lead on this issue, was not able to overturn Kamall’s contentious amendments.
After discussions with the Socialist Group and members of his own EPP group, however, Kamall appears to have realised that his amendments contain real dangers. With the other groups, he is apparently ready to rectify matters at the plenary sitting in September, and to propose amendments which will remove the contentious elements from the definitive text which the European Parliament will approve.
In any case, I and my group will continue working to ensure that civil liberties are not put under any threat from this new legislation. I and my group will ensure that the contentious amendments do not end up in the law.
Of course, there is the typical political thing of making it look like it is all the doing of El Khadroui and his Socialist colleagues; but the central message is clear – the relevant amendments are likely to be withdrawn, and our activism of early last month did have an effect. I hope that there will be a chance to have another go before the plenary session.
August Books 23) The Execution Channel
23) The Execution Channel, by Ken MacLeod
A departure from MacLeod’s previous space-opera stamping grounds, this is a thriller set in the present or near future of a slightly alternate earth – Gore was elected in 2000, 9/11 hit Boston, and the War on Terror resulted in military operations in Iran and Central Asia as well as Afghanistan and Iraq. Secret technologies, disinformation through blogging, and confused but lethal rivalry between intelligence services all play a part, but the emotional dynamic that drives the narrative is the father-daughter relationship between the two key characters, perhaps the most successful characterisation in any of MacLeod’s novels. There is a very memorable climactic scene set in the main square in Oslo as well. Really good stuff.
Bechdel test: scrapes a pass. The daughter has numerous conversations with other women, of which almost but not quite all are about men.
August Books 22) Finding Time Again
22) Finding Time Again, by Marcel Proust
Well, I’ve done it: finished the final volume of the Penguin set of À la recherche du temps perdu, a year and a half after starting them. Like the previous one, I found the last volume very lucid and involving; I wonder if this is really the case, or just reflects my increasing comfort level with Proust’s prose? It’s quite a break with the previous volumes in some ways, chronicling the effects of the 1914-18 war on France, on Paris, on the places the narrator loves and on his social circle; then an accidental encounter with a gay brothel; then a fifty-page reflection on memory while the narrator walks upstairs from the courtyard to the Guermantes’ party; then further meditations on age, on death, on what has happened in the previous volumes and on what drives the narrator to write it all down and turn it into a book. It is very satisfying, and now I want to go back and read it all again (though I may read the Alain de Botton book first).
Bechdel test: as hinted previously, I am inclined to give this volume (like others in the series) a passing grade. Even though it is told entirely from the male narrator’s point of view, there are numerous conversations between women characters reported, observed or imagined; and in this volume they talk about death and each other at least as much as about men. (He doesn’t know what the Duchess is discussing with Rachel when he sees them talking on page 300, but from the context it is probably poetry despite their mutual links with Robert de Saint-Loup.) Given the admitted influence of Proust on Alison Bechdel, it is just as well that he passes her test. I imagine she would be prepared to stretch a point for him if necessary.
Season 24, and August Books 18-21
I actually finished watching the last stories of Classic Who a couple of weeks ago, but am only now getting around to writing them up, just as I work through the remaining novelisations. So I’ll start with Season 24.
The Sixth Doctor gets a bit more of a send-off at the start of this book than he did on TV, but that is not hard. However, the writing is still naff and there are way, way too many exclamation marks. After my third consecutive novel by the Bakers, my brain was in danger of exploding. (I’d seen the original a few months back.) It also fails the Bechdel test – on the rare occasions that female characters actually talk to each other, it is about the Doctor or another male character.
Wyatt has the courage of his convictions here: a reasonably strong story in the first place, and the opportunity to overcome the weaknesses of the production (the Kangs on paper can be teenagers, and we don’t get the awful music, though Pex as a character is still an anomaly). An easy pass for the Bechdel test, with the scene where the old ladies are about to eat Mel a particular delight.
Alas, Kohll doesn’t really augment what is already a weak story in his adaptation. The writing style is too childish, the Stubby Kaye plotlkine appears even more irrelevant (despite his attempts to give it more background) and one is left feeling that while the author thinks it’s funny the rest of us don’t really get the joke. Indeed the whole setting – and this is something I’ll return to at the end of the post – just doesn’t seem Whovian.
However it does pass the Bechdel test reasonably well, with Mel, Ray and Delta conversing about numerous things other than the Doctor or the Bannermen.
Briggs is able to overcome a number of the problems of the story as televised – in particular, the dodgy special effects and patching some of the more peculiar plot holes – to produce the best of the four novels from this season. There are even hints of various characters getting it on with each other – Tat Wood points to Glitz and Ace, but I would add that the Mel/Ace relationship in the book is very affectionate. (An easy pass for the Bechdel test here.)
Shakespeare chronology
List of Plays with Estimated Dates
(Dates in parentheses indicate the date of first publication only.)
- 1590 (1598) Henry VI, Part I
- Stationers’ Register on 25 February 1598.
- 1590 (1594) Henry VI, Part II
- 1590 (1595) Henry VI, Part III
- Parodied by Robert Greene in 1592.
- 1592 (1602) Richard III
- In Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1592 (1623) The Comedy of Errors
- If this is the same as the play titled “The Night of Errors”, it was performed on 28 December 1594. Probably the “errors” in Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1593 (1594) Titus Andronicus
- According to the first published edition it was performed by a company that folded in early 1593. In 1594 Philip Henslowe referred to it as a “new” play. In Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1593 (1623) Taming of the Shrew
- 1594 (1623) The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- In Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. The work may have been based on Bartholomew Yong’s translation of Jorge de Montemayor‘s Diana, which was done in 1583 but not published until 1598.
- 1594 (1598) Love’s Labour’s Lost
- In Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1591-1596 (1597) Romeo and Juliet
- In Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1595 (1597) Richard II
- In Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1595 (1600) A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- In Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1596 (1622) King John
- In Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1596 (1600) The Merchant of Venice
- 1597 Henry IV, Part I
- In Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare plays.
- 1594-1597 (1603?) Love’s Labour’s Won
- In Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. In Christopher Hunt‘s August 1603 booklist. A lost play, though some scholars think it might simply be an alternative name for another of the plays, such as As You Like It, Much Ado, or All’s Well That Ends Well.[1]
- 1598 (1600) Henry IV, Part II
- 1599 (1600) Henry V
- Chorus expresses hope for the Earl of Essex’s Irish expedition of 1599.
- 1599 (1623) Julius Caesar
- Mentioned by Thomas Platter in 1599.
- 1599 (1600) Much Ado About Nothing
- 1599 (1623) As You Like It
- Stationers’ Register in August 1600
- 1597-1600 (1602) The Merry Wives of Windsor
- 1599-1600 (1603) Hamlet
- Stationers’ Register in July 1602 describes it as “lately acted.”
- 1602 (1623) Twelfth Night
- 1602 (1609) Troilus and Cressida
- Stationers’ Register in February 1603.
- 1603 (1623) All’s Well That Ends Well
- No contemporary reference.
- 1603 (1622) Othello
- Performed November 1604.
- 1603-06 (1608) King Lear
- Stationers’ Register in November 1607.
- 1603-06 (1623) Macbeth
- 1603 (1623) Measure for Measure
- Court records show it was performed December 1604.
- 1606 (1623) Antony and Cleopatra
- Stationers’ Register in May 1608.
- 1607 (1623) Coriolanus
- 1607 (1623) Timon of Athens (probably revised by Thomas Middleton)
- 1608 (1609) Pericles Prince of Tyre (probably revised by George Wilkins)
- Stationers’ Register in May 1608.
- 1609 (1623) Cymbeline
- 1594-1610 (1623) The Winter’s Tale [2]
- 1611 (1623) The Tempest
- 1612 (1623) Henry VIII (probably written in collaboration with John Fletcher)
August Books 17) The Faded Sun Trilogy; and the Bechdel test
17) The Faded Sun Trilogy
Having rather bounced off both Cherryh’s Hugo winners, Cyteen and Downbelow Station, I’m glad to report that I found the Faded Sun trilogy much easier to get into. She slightly lost me at the climax of the last book, but apart from that I found them all very readable. It’s a story of questing for destiny and of relationships between three different species, humans, the warrior mri, and the regul. Cherryh gives her aliens an effective and convincingly different psychology, particularly by having us follow the human characters who try to get closest to them.
All three books pass the Bechdel test, if we allow it to apply to female aliens: Melein, a mri priestess, is one of the key characters and she confronts other priestesses at several crucial points (notably the climax of the second book).
On the Bechdel test: a couple of people queried whether it is really meaningful or reasonable to apply it in this way. To be honest, I am open-minded as to whether or not I will get much from doing this, but it seems to me a worthwhile and easy experiment. I was inspired by Charlie Stross’s applying it to his own work and
August Books 16) A History of the Black Death in Ireland
16) A History of the Black Death in Ireland, by Maria Kelly
Prompted by young F’s fascination with the subject, I bought this from the remainder pile in the University Bookshop in Belfast the other day. Given the extreme paucity of sources, Kelly has done a very good job – she makes the most of what few records there are, signals clearly where there is disagreement in the secondary literature, and is honest about the extent to which she is arguing evidence of absence from absence of evidence. It builds up into a convincing story: the 1348-50 outbreak of plague was devastating to Leinster and Munster, and much less so to Ulster and Connacht; and in particular it was devastating to the towns and communities of Anglo-Irish settlement, some of which never recovered – she estimates the pre-plague population of New Ross, Co Kilkenny Wexford, at over 12,000; today it is less than 8,000!
The result of this was a depopulated and reduced area of English control in Ireland, retreating into the Pale, and an effective decentralisation of power to the Gaelic and Anglo-Irish chieftains and intensification of warfare between them, all in the context of a devastated economy – merchants and sailors were especially badly hit, so trade effectively vanished, and meanwhile the price of labour soared, and the plague had literally killed off any chance of importing workers from England. The Irish population may not have returned to pre-plague levels until the 18th century. If anything Kelly slightly undersells the huge impact of the plague on Ireland, given the evidence she presents.
Kelly mainly draws on administrative and archaeological evidence, but there are a couple of personalities who stand out. One is Richard FitzRalph, the Archbishop of Armagh, who preached fiery sermons while worrying about church administration (especially staffing levels, for obvious reasons). The other is Friar John Clyn of Kilkenny, who chronicled the advance (and symptoms) of the plague from the Dublin ports across Leinster, seeing it as the end of civilisation and the first step of the apocalypse, before himself falling victim to it; the closing words of his chronicle, written perhaps when he already knew he was ill, are poignant.
Anyway, a good book, though I have a serious complaint about the index which has completely inaccurate page numbers.
Look outside!
Well, after all that rain, the skies cleared enough to see the lunar eclipse just now. Do have a look, if you are on the right side of the world.
William Thomas White, of Knoxville
I spent yesterday doing a bit of research into the sixteenth-century Sir Nicholas White. My researches threw up this surprising biographical note:
White, William Thomas, educator; born in Wahala, S.C., May 12, 1859 ; son of Thomas Warren and Margaret Branchefield (Keough) White. His father was a planter before the Civil War, and lived in South Carolina ; after the war he moved to Knoxville, Tenn., and engaged in real estate business. His father served in the Confederate Army. His great-grandfather was Sir Nicholas White of Leixlip Castle, Ireland, who was a Knight of Malta, and a lieutenant in his uncle, Sir Arthur Dillon’s Irish Regiment, that fought in the French Army in the American Revolution, 1778. He is a direct descendant of John White, who Sir Walter Raleigh commissioned as “Governor of the City of Raleigh,” 1587. A duplicate of this John White’s will, copied 1698, is still in the family archives. He was a cousin of Senator Stephen Mallory White of California, and of this family is Chief Justice White. His maternal grandparents were Edward and Margaret (O’Donnell) Keough. He was a nephew of Col. Myles Branchefield Keough, U.S.A., who was killed with Gen. Custer by the Sioux Indians near Yellowstone River, and for whom the American Army have named an important post in Montana in his memory — Fort Keough. His mother’s ancestors, John and James Keough, were Revolutionary soldiers of Virginia. He was educated in the University of Tennessee, and graduated in June, 1879, with B.A. and M.A. degrees, and prospective candidate for Doctor of Philosophy in 1914. He was principal of the Knoxville High School for over thirty years. He conducted normals in North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. Writer for daily press and educational magazines, collector of books and owner of one of the largest private libraries in the south. Conversant with German, French, Italian and Spanish tongues. Sinking fund commissioner for City of Knoxville, Tenn., 1889-91. Member and officer in the National and Southern Educational Associations. Member of the National Historical Association, Association of Advanced Science, Classical Association of Middle South, The Society for the Promotion of the Aims and Objects of The Hague Conference, Society for Celebrating the Hundredth Anniversary of the Signing of the Treaty of Peace between England and the United States; a member of the Irving Club, University Club and a Knight of Columbus.
This is from a 1916 Who’s Who-type of book called Builders of Our Nation, published in Chicago. I was immediately interested in, and also suspicious of, the reference to “Sir Nicholas White of Leixlip Castle, Ireland, who was a Knight of Malta, and a lieutenant in his uncle, Sir Arthur Dillon’s Irish Regiment, that fought in the French Army in the American Revolution, 1778.” While we do indeed have a Knight of Malta called Nicholas born in the mid-1750s in the family tree (we even have a contemporary document of his joining the Knights in the early 1770s), I thought that the Knights of Malta a) were celibate, b) didn’t use the honorific “Sir and c) were still in Malta in 1778. Maybe I am wrong on those points – the circumstantial detail is remarkable, and I’ve seen elsewhere a reference to “le chevalier Nicholas Whyte Seyslip” who did fight with Dillon’s Regiment in the War of Independence. And someone born in 1754 could quite reasonably have a great-grandson born in 1859, which is a 35-year gap between generations. (Thomas Warren White, William Thomas White’s father, was apparently born in Rathkeale, Limerick, in 1825.)
Likewise the reference to the famous John White – while it would be thrilling to add him to the family tree, the fact is that we know that the direct ancestors of the 18th-century Knight of Malta alive at the time of the doomed Roanoke venture were the jurist Sir Nicholas White (who died in 1592), his son Andrew (who died very young in 1599) and Andrew’s son, another Nicholas. And it is interesting that the White family of Knoxville claimed to have a copy of John White’s will, given that according to Wikipedia his document trail evaporates in Munster in the early seventeenth century.
A new name to me was Senator Stephen Mallory White. His grandfather, Edward White, emigrated from Limerick to Binghamton NY in the 1820s, where he founded a college for women. The family were all Catholics. The Limerick connection does make this one a bit more plausible; Edward could well have been the uncle of Thomas Warren White.
I also had not heard of Chief Justice Edward White, appointed by President Taft in 1910 (and succeeded by ex-President Taft in 1921). His immediate ancestors were also notable – his father was a governor of Louisiana and his grandfather, James White, was the first US representative from what became Tennessee. His father is thought to have emigrated from Ireland (I haven’t seen any more specific reference) to Philadelphia in the first half of the eighteenth century. Again, they were Catholics.
So there’s a certain amount of suspicion in my mind that William Thomas White was pulling together prominent Catholic Irish-Americans with his surname to claim as relatives. But there may be a bit more to it than that.
Apple juice
The carton of apple juice I got from our local supermarket the other day comes from Poland. It’s obviously made for export, as the contents are described thus on the side:
- Apple drink
- Яблочный напиток
- Obuoulių gėrimas
- Ābolu dzēriens
- Ябълкоба напитка
- Suc de mere
What struck me (apart from the sheer mind-boggling fact that these languages, firmly behind the Iron Curtain twenty years ago, are now on display in Tesco’s) was that the root for “apple” (and Dutch appel, German Apfel; plus, I am told, Irish abhal and úll and Welsh afal) clearly also lies behind Russian яблоко, Lithuanian obuolys, Latvian ābols and Bulgarian ябълка. A bit of googling reveals that this is an ancient root, but one found only in the northern European languages, which makes me suspect it may not be quite as ancient. Though the Finnish and Estonian words, omena and õun, look quite different and perhaps closer to Hungarian alma, Turkish elma, Mongolian alim. But perhaps not.
(The Romanian word măr is presumably from Latin malus/malum, badly corrupted I admit but no worse than Spanish manzana or Portuguese maçã.)
Rather surprisingly, the root of Romanian “suc” meaning “juice” is thought to be completely different from the root of Slavic “sok”/”сок” also meaning “juice”. Which seems a bit improbable to me; one almost imagines Slavicists bending over backwards to prove the relationship of sok/сок with the Albanian word for blood and the Latvian and Lithuanian words for tar rather than accept the possibility of an early derivation from Latin sucus.
Only the Romanian translator was bold enough to call the liquid in the carton “juice”, everyone else going for “drink”. The Slavic verb пить/пити is related to Latin bibere and its descendants (French boire, Italian bere) and more obviously to Greek ποτο. Meanwhile the Latvian and Lithuanian words dzēriens and gėrimas come from an Indo-European stem meaning “devour” or “consume”, which appears indeed in the second syllable of “devour” and in Russian “жрать” meaning the same.
So that’s what I learnt from my breakfast drink.
The 20 Books from 20 Years meme
See here for explanation. Bold if you’ve read (all of) them, italicise if you’ve started but not finished (inc some but not all of a series) and strikethrough if you hated them.
The Culture Novels, Iain M Banks (starting 1987) – definitely.
The Hyperion Cantos, Dan Simmons (starting 1989) – read the first two, liked them but was warned off the others.
Grass, Sherri S Tepper (1989) – agreed; I love this book.
The Aleutian Trilogy, Gwyneth Jones (starting 1991)
The Mars Trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson (starting 1992) – agreed.
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson (1992) – agreed.
The Flower Cities sequence, Kathleen Ann Goonan (starting 1994) (read Crescent City Rhapsody, quite enjoyed it)
Fairyland, Paul McAuley (1996)
Diaspora, Greg Egan (1997)
Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds (2000) – it didn’t do much for me, but I seem to remember reading it on a long plane flight.
The Arabesks, Jon Courtenay Grimwood (starting 2000) – agreed.Light, M John Harrison (2002) – bounced right off it.
Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang (2002) – agreed.
Evolution, Stephen Baxter (2003) – no way!
Pattern Recognition, William Gibson (2003) – agreed.
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004) – agreed.
Air, Geoff Ryman (2004) – liked it but not totally sure.
River of Gods, Ian McDonald (2004) – agreed.
Accelerando, Charles Stross (2005) – agreed.
Spin, Robert Charles Wilson (2005) – agreed.
Food meme
That food meme that’s going round: Bold what you’ve eaten, strike through what you would never eat.
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros – not sure, I’ve had a lot of egg variations in New York for breakfast – this one is eggs with tortillas and a chilli sauce
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht (properly борщ)
10. Baba ghanoush – wasn’t sure what this was: apparently it is an aubergine mush served in the Eastern Med, and therefore in Lebanese restaurants
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich – I hate peanut butter. Also this is an American meme so “jelly” = “jam”.
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses – a cheese I don’t recall ever trying.
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns – assuming this just means dim sum
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes – definition debatable, but I’m sure I’ve had them
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans – what’s so exotic about that???
25. Brawn or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper – don’t think so, not sure.
27. Dulce de leche in ice cream – don’t think so, not sure.
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala – Britain’s favourite dish!
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer – I think so, not sure.
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle – live in Heilbronn for a few months, they were inescapable.
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV – yeah, I live in Belgium!!!
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake – basically anything made from deep-fried dough.
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost – don’t think so, not sure.
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant – not sure if it was the tasting menu, but I ate at one a few months back. (Someone else paid.)
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano – don’t think so, not sure.
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake
Eight things
- My favourite sandwich filling is salmon and mozzarella. Maybe with a little dill.
- I have recently decided to drink tea without milk in future. I gave up sugar in my tea for Lent in 1986 and realised it tasted much better without. Recent experiences in places where milk was not available with my tea brought me from irritation that I couldn’t have it with milk in to the realisation that it tastes much better that way as well. I may indulge in lemon from time to time.
- I used to hitch-hike a lot in my late teens and early twenties, the longest stretch being a two-day trip from Brussels to Bologna immediately after my finals. It seems to be a lot less common now, I guess because of perceptions about crime.
- I set up the first political party website in Northern Ireland, for the Alliance Party in 1994. (There was a Sinn Féin website set up a few weeks earlier, but a) they are an all-Ireland party and more crucially b) it wasn’t an official site.)
- This won’t be news to anyone who knew me before then, but 1994 was also the year I shaved off my moustache for good. I grew it in 1985 after leaving school, and briefly augmented it with a beard in 1986 before going to university. It was never a hugely successful enterprise, especially given my habit of chewing it in the middle when lost in thought.
- I wanted to be an astronomer when I grew up. I changed my mind during a summer working at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in 1988, just before it moved from Herstmonceux to Cambridge; I found myself drawn to the history of science sections of its library, and also repelled by the lifestyle of the real astronomers I saw in action. I decided that people were more interesting to study than stars.
- Having said that, I then expected that I would end up as an academic historian with a side interest in political activity, rather than as an international affairs professional with a side interest in history. Life is very strange.
- Thammy Evans, in the second edition of Macedonia: The Bradt Travel GuideThe Superpower MythInternational Crisis Management: The Approach of European StatesThe Politico’s Guide to the History of British Political PartiesThe Jennifer Morgue are all kind enough to give me a mention in their introductory acknowledgements – which is a pleasingly diverse group.
I’m not going to tag anyone; consider yourself tagged if you want to be.
More on Dawkins
We have spent a romantic evening reading Andrew Rilstone’s fisking of Richard Dawkins:
Where Dawkins Went Wrong
Some More of Dawkins’ Greatest Mistakes
Final and Clinching Proofs
Who Is This Dawkins Person Anyway
Well, That Just About Wraps It Up For Dawkins
Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Dawkins But Have Been Forced to Find Out
Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Dawkins But Have Been Forced to Find Out (more)
responses
more responses
Arius v Athanasius
Great stuff, especially for fans of Doctor Who and Douglas Adams. (Hat-Tip to Andrew Hickey.)
This is a long shot, but…
…does anyone know of any material about the Black Death, or plagues in general, suitable for a nine-year-old?
Young F has been reading about it in Brendan O’Brien’s The Story of Ireland, and although now reassured that the danger from fleas and rats has been much reduced, and that in any case bubonic plague is treatable with modern antibiotics, he is keen to learn more.
A quick web search reveals that the Museum of London has an exhibit about it. But do readers know of anything else?
That’s a relief
I was pretty appalled by the casualty figures coming out of South Ossetia last week – 1500 to 2000 dead from such a small population is almost inconceivable. So I was relieved to see this from today’s BBC:
Russian officials say more than 1,500 civilians were killed in Tskhinvali after Georgia launched an all-out assault last Friday, using heavy artillery and tanks. The casualty toll cannot be independently verified.
Giorgi Gogia, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Tbilisi, described the Russian figure for Tskhinvali as “an exaggeration”, adding: “It is clear that both sides are exaggerating, and that figures are inflated”.
He said HRW, which is based in New York, had not found any evidence to back up Russian claims of atrocities committed by Georgian troops.
Giorgi Gogia used to work for me, in our mutual previous jobs, and organised my trip to Tskhinvali in 2005 (he is just visible in the background over the shoulder of one of the ladies walking towards me in my picture of the main square). Even if he weren’t working for HRW, which has a good reputation for getting this kind of thing right, I would be inclined to trust his judgement. The casualties are still pretty appalling, but I’m glad they are not as catastrophic as we first were told.
Irish language books
I am vaguely thinking about improving my knowledge of Irish. Does anyone have any views about the following textbooks?
Teach Yourself Irish Book/CD Pack by Diarmuid O Se, Joseph Sheils (Teach Yourself books)
Speaking Irish (DVD Edition) by Siuan Ni Mhaonaigh, Antain Mac Lochlainn (McGraw-Hill)
Colloquial Irish: The Complete Course for Beginners (PB + CD) by Thomas Ihde, Roslyn Blyn-LaDrew, John Gillen, Maire Ni Neachtain (Routledge)
Learning Irish: An Introductory Self-tutor by M O Siadhail (Yale Language)
Progress in Irish: A Graded Course for Beginners and Revision by M. Ni Ghrada (Edco)
Buntus Cainte by Tomas O’Domhnallain (An Gum)
Alternative suggestions, or indeed dis-recommendations, very welcome as well – these just happen to be the best-selling on amazon.co.uk.
Narnia/Torchwood
There are a lot of depressing links I feel I should post about world affairs. Howvere, instead of that, have a link to a brilliant piece of crossover fanfic by
August Books 15) Teach Yourself to Learn a Language
15) Teach Yourself to Learn a Language, by P.J.T. Glendening
This was one of the Teach Yourself series of the mid-1960s, running from Teach Yourself Afrikaans to Teach Yourself Welsh. I’m not really sure who it is aimed at; the first section decribes the motivations one might have for learning a language, and learning it well, but in such general terms that it’s difficult to imagine anyone finding it helpful in their own specific situation.
The second section is rather more interesting: brief surveys of eleven major world languages (Arabic, Chinese. French, German, “Hindustani” = Hindi + Urdu, Italian, Japanese, “Malay” = Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish) explaining the bits that an English speaker might find difficult or easy. It does have some interesting judgements (German “suffers from the serious disadvantage of having a great deal of useless luggage of language – case endings”; Portuguese “has progressed further than the other languages of the Peninsula in losing certain consonants in certain positions”) but as long as one bears in mind that the whole book is written in a style which would have surely seemed old-fashioned in 1965, it is enlightening – I had not realised, for instance, that Arabic has essentially only two tenses, or that Chinese adverbs are formed by doubling the adjective and adding a particle.
The final section gives basic word lists for Chinese, Italian and Spanish (odd choices) and then makes a very good point in the last couple of chapters: that basically there are only two stages of language learning, before “the penny drops” and after. While it is important not to kid yourself that you have reached that point of departure before you are really there, it is also important to plan ahead for the moment when you are ready to pick up newspapers and books and listen to the radio. Indeed (though Glendening doesn’t say this) it’s probably by keeping that goal in mind from the very beginning that you can best motivate yourself.
Right, where’s that Penguin Russian Course gone to…
August Books 12-14) Three 1970s Who spinoffs
Three spinoff books from the Tom Baker era of Who.
The Second Doctor Who Monster Book, from 1977, is simply a very brief retelling of the stories from the first three Fourth Doctor seasons, from Robot to The Talons of Weng Chiang. It is prefaced by character sketches of the Fourth Doctor and Harry, Sarah and Leela, which are I guess potentially important source material for interested fic writers. There are copious illustrations – mostly black and white photos with a few colour two-page spreads. Mostly the choice of pictures is good though there are some very odd exceptions – the illustrations for Revenge of the Cybermen appear to be in fact from Tomb of the Cybermen, and in one or two other cases we just have the book cover. Still, as an update to The Making of Doctor Who it must have served a purpose.
The least impressive of these three is The Adventures of K9 and Other Mechanical Creatures, from 1979. The first half of it is a summary of (most of) the stories between The Invisible Enemy and The Armageddon Factor, as narrated very briefly by the Doctor in rather twee first person. The second half mixes a rather context-free listing of the other robotic creatures encountered by the Doctor (going from the Ice Soldiers in The Keys of Marinus to the eponymous Androids of Tara, though in somewhat jumbled order) with puzzles, quizzes, and a cut-out K9 for you to make at home. I am sure that it is no reflection on the librarianship skills of previous owners that it also reached me in much worse condition than the other two.
On the other claw (or plunger), Terry Nation’s Dalek Special, also from 1979, is much more interesting. It starts with “The Secret Invasion”, presented as “An Original Story” by Terry Nation (though in fact it’s obvious from a crack about it being “Mr Wilson’s turn this month” that it dates from the second quarter of 1974, when it was first published in the Evening Standard), in which four children avert the destruction of London (ie the world) by the Daleks. It’s a fun little novella, as anyone who has read Rebecca’s World would expect, and it’s a matter for regret that Nation never tried his hand at any Who novelisations himself. Then there is a factual bit about how the Daleks took the world by storm in the mid-60s (which is interesting reading for us cultists, but must have left the target audience of the book a bit bemused). Finally there is a decent summary of each of the canonical Dalek stories up to Destiny of the Daleks, intermingled with more quizzes, puzzles and the inevitable cut-out Dalek model. If you have the chance to get any of these three books make it this one. (Of course, the completist will want all of them.)
Anyway, thanks go once again to
Hugo Winners
I guess everyone who cares already knows by now, but the Hugo awards in the fiction categories were:
Best Novel: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, by Michael Chabon, which had already won the Nebula; another to add to my list of joint winners once I have proper internet access again.
Best Novella: “All Seated on the Ground”, by Connie Willis, which I didn’t especially like but I see how it appeals to fannish humour. That makes her the first person to get her tally of Hugo awards for fiction into double figures
Best Novelette: “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate”, by Ted Chiang. This also won the Nebula so is also on my list of double winners. I liked it a lot, though I liked “The Cambist and Lord Iron” even more.
Best Short Story: “Tideline”, by Elizabeth Bear. I thought this was by far the best of the short story nominees – indeed, this was the only category (among written fiction) where I voted for the winner. Bear is only the second Hugo winner to have been born in the 1970s (and no Nebula has gone to anyone born since 1969).
Best Dramatic Presentation (Long):Stardust. This was the only one I had seen, but I really enjoyed it.
Best Dramatic Presentation (Short): “Blink” (Doctor Who). Steven Moffat makes it three in a row. People still talk of this as perhaps the best Who story ever, and in my poll it came only narrowly behind “Genesis of the Daleks”. The runner-up in the Hugo vote was Paul Cornell’s “Human Nature”/”The Family of Blood”.
Congrats to all the winners, including in categories I haven’t listed.
Inquiring minds want to know…
…a question that occurred to us when George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” came on the radio:
Why, exactly, were his feet guilty?
Or do we really want to know?
August Books 11) Doctor Who; the Unfolding Text
11) Doctor Who: the Unfolding Text, by John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado
I guess this was the first book on Who from an academic point of view (published 1983). Better such books have been published since (in particular Time and Relative Dissertations in Space, and the meatier parts of the About Time series) but this is a decent enough start – easy to mock for its slips (“Mandragola”, “Castravalva” and variations, “Doug Adams”) and for its rather partial selection of stories from the black and white era, and for its occasional repetitiveness, but I found a number of really interesting points too: despite the authors’ somewhat uncritical acceptance of Ian Levine’s views, Graham Williams is allowed to put his side of the story and puts it well, and one gets a sense as in nowhere else that I have seen of Who as emerging from continual dialogue among its creators. Also they actually explain the phrase “semiotic thickness” and make it comprehensible. If you have read the Butler collection and want more you should try and get hold of this (though I have no idea how easy that is –
Aggravations, minor and major
The minor aggravation is that the internet here is down. I am posting to LJ from my Blackberry, but my ability to respond is limited. (Have been having email hassles too.)
The major aggravation is the conflict breaking out in South Ossetia. I was there just over three years ago; a place with a tragic past and, it seems, a tragic future.