I asked:

So, what covered Venezuela for just over half of the twentieth century, and returns this month (or possibly at the end of December) after more than forty years?

secritcrush

  got it right. The answer is:

The UTC -4:30 Time Zone.

This was Venezuela’s official time zone from 1912 to 1964; since then it has been on UTC -4 hours, the same as much of the Caribbean, Paraguay, Chile, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and most of Labrador. But now the clocks are to change by half an hour – though there has been some confusion about exactly when that will happen.

Though I must say that some of the other answers you suggested were pretty funny.

So, what covered Venezuela for just over half of the twentieth century, and returns this month (or possibly at the end of December) after more than forty years?

7) A Load of Old BoSh: serious scientific talks by Bob Shaw

As a fan of Shaw’s writing who never actually met him, I remember reading David Langford’s obituary back in 1996 with sadness, but also with considerable curiosity; I deeply regretted never having heard him give one of his “Serious Scientific Talks”. It’s good that the then Eastercon got this collection of ten of his talks published in time for him to read, less than a year before he died. And they are pretty funny even on the printed page; the jokes are laboured, some of them are repeated, but they are hilarious, especially read out loud. One can well believe , the Eastercon chair of the day who contributes a foreword, that in the transcription process she sometimes found herself laughing so hard that she was physically unable to type.

Presumably sound recordings must exist of some of Shaw’s talks? Is there any chance of their becoming available on-line?

6) Pile: Petals from St. Klaed’s computer, by Brian Aldiss, illustrated by Mike Wilks

A rather peculiar conjunction of Aldiss (writing in verse for once) and Wilks (later famous for The Ultimate Alphabet) supplying a superb depiction of the crazed architecture of the city of Pile (and its mirror image Elip), plus the power-hungry prince Scart. Aldiss fan though I am, the gorgeous illustrations score over the written narrative. My copy had a 1979 Worldcon souvenir bookplate signed by both Aldiss and Wilks; I got it at the David Stewart memorial auction last weekend.

5) The Kalahari Typing School for Men, by Alexander McCall Smith

This is the fourth I’ve read, and the fourth in the series, though I have been reading them out of sequence. As usual, the homely wisdom of the old ways wins out, sins are expiated rather than necessarily exposed, and everyone is back in the right place at the end; but McCall Smith has brought some darker elements in here as well, including a child with AIDS. A decent quick read.

It has been widely reported that Al Gore is the first person to win both an Oscar and Nobel prize in the same year, though apparently this is technically incorrect (as the Oscar did not go to him personally). Here is a Youtube clip of the one person who indisputably did win both an Oscar and a Nobel Prize, speaking at a dinner to introduce Albert Einstein, on 27 October 1930, in the type of Dublin accent that one really doesn’t hear any more:

Napoleon and other great men of his type, they were makers of empire. But there is an order of men who get beyond that. They are not makers of empire, but they are makers of universes.

And when they have made those universes, their hands are unstained by the blood of any human being here on earth.

Ptolemy made a universe that lasted 1400 years. Newton, also, made a universe which has lasted three hundred years. Einstein has made a universe, and I can’t tell you how long that will last.

I was going to do a serious post about the new EU reform treaty, and how the UK’s political discourse around it is totally absurd and lopsided. But then I decided to write about this important topic instead (I have been brewing this post for almost three years, since

stellanova

 inspired me). I hope these entertain you as much as they entertained me.

German

Ernst Busch, 1931. Everything else has to be measured against this.

The original Lotte Lenya. Illustrated with only still photos of her and Weill, and her on her own, but aurally gripping.

Ute Lemper. At least, she sings in the background while a couple in Ghent have an argument.

SLUT, 2006. This Bavarian indie band just get it so absolutely right, converting the Brecht/Weill original into at 21st century idiom.

Brazilian musicians, 2006. Valiant attempt to create a proper 1930s feel, riffing off other great Weill tunes in the process.

Other languages

Miloš Kopecký, 1964. My God, this is superb. (In Czech.) For other languages, see also Hebrew and Italian.

English (apart from Liberace)

Nick Cave, 1997. This is the performance of a tortured artist who loves this song. If it had been directed by someone prepared to rein him in, it would have been fantastic. As it is, it is memorable but painful.

Liberace, 1960s. Much better than I had expected – almost variations on a theme of Weill. No singing, just piano.

The Achordants, 2007. 15 blokes doing the male voice choir thing. Works rather well.

The Cotton Club of Hungary, recently. An arresting performance, by three men and two women singers.

Dinah Shore and Pearl Mae Bailey, 1960. Hilarious.

Bobby Darin, 1959. Very much a fifties “big band” style production. Joyous to listen to, but to be honest a little embarrassing to watch. Inspired many others, including:

Louis Armstrong, 1962. The performance that inspired a hundred imitators, none of whom could match either Armstrong’s trumpet-playing or his more understated menace.

Ella Fitzgerald, 1965. Cuddly Ella sings a nice song which shows off her superb voice very well. (We’ll just forget that it’s about murder, rape and violence, OK?)

The Jimmy Smith trio, 1962. Adventurous. Almost works.

Robbie Williams – at least not offensively bad.

Westlife, 2006. Certainly the worst of the performances in terms of getting the song. Although they are in tune, they seem to be reading the lines of the autocue at various points. The rolling subtitles of trivia about Westlife’s personal history add extra shallowness to what is already a superficial performance.

Blake Lewis, 2007. Out of tune and just horrible.

A rather hilarious compilation including some of the above and some others. Audio, with still photos. Another compilation, from the same source.

A couple of people today (including Tony Keen) have linked to this article in the Independent about Facebook, academics and students.

The Independent should not be surprised that it is a popular phenomenon in universities – after all, that is what it was designed for. But I am struck that Facebook is becoming part of my own working environment too. Well over half of my Facebook friends list are professional contacts, mostly people of my age and below (including a group of my former interns). In the last few months, I have found myself arranging meetings with British parliamentarians, Scandinavian diplomats, and European Union officials via Facebook.

I suspect there is one particularly attractive feature that Facebook has for those of us working in international policy. It presents the illusion of a relatively secure communications environment. Emails can easily be forwarded, deliberately or accidentally, from one person to another, as we all know to our cost. Your Facebook correspondence is in its own secure space, and while one can always take screenshots or otherwise cut-n-paste, it takes much more determination to leak.

At a time when, we are told, more and more people are moving off email and onto the social networks for their basic leisure on-line communication, Facebook seems to be in the lead for professional networking as well.

These are the current levels of support for the likely Lib Dem candidates on Facebook.

Nick Clegg for Lib Dem Leader: 299
The Nick Clegg Appreciation Society: 97.
Nick Clegg is more of a hottie than David Cameron any day: 24.
Nick Clegg for Lib Dem Leader [duplicate title]: 2.

Chris Huhne This Time: 125.
Im [sic] Backing Chris Huhne for leader: 72.

Steve Webb for Lib Dem Leader: 97.
The Steve Webb Appreciation Society: 82.
Steve Webb for liberal leader: 9.

Charles Kennedy for Prime Minister: 79.
(A satirical group on the same lines): 15.
Bring Back Charles Kennedy: 2.

John Hemming for Lib Dem Leader: 12.
John Hemming for Lib Dem Leader!: 11.

Vince Cable deserves to be Prime Minister: 16.

Donald Kennedy for leader: 8.

NB the following important points:

• Some of these groups may not be entirely serious.
• Many people will be in more than one group (possibly even supporting more than one candidate).
• As far as I can see, there are no declared groups supporting any of the other candidates whose names have been mentioned.
• Charles Kennedy says it is “highly unlikely” that he will stand.
• Vince Cable has ruled himself out.
• Donald Kennedy, Charles Kennedy’s two-year-old son, is not eligible.

It is interesting that a) the front-runner is already so clearly established, despite the fact that we are in very early days yet, and b) that Steve Webb is so close behind Chris Huhne for second place.

Myself, I haven’t made my mind up yet. I voted for Huhne last time, but the two other likely serious candidates (Clegg and Webb, not Hemming) both seem to me to share his strengths, weaknesses and policy preferences. I’m willing to be educated, of course.

Today is an official day of mourning in Macedonia: their great singer Toše Proeski was killed in a car accident in Croatia yesterday. I saw him perform at a Macedonian cultural/diplomatic event in 2005, an event I described here

…described in an anonymous comment to a 2005 post, here.

Anyone know any more?

Reference has been made to my strange requests, and to ‘s obliging me in them. All can now be revealed.

Octocon was held last weekend in Maynooth. The next town to Maynooth is Leixlip. I was aware of a historical family connection to Leixlip, but had never been before. I found what I was looking for – a very interesting memorial in St Mary’s (Protestant) church in the town.

Our family’s genealogy is fairly well recorded. On the left is the White/Whyte coat of arms as in the received records (argent, a chevron engrailed between three roses gules). On the right is the top half of the memorial in St Mary’s Church, Leixlip. You can see why a thrill of recognition ran down my spine:

Underneath the shield is this inscription (and you will have to take my word for it, because the photos are not very good – I should have taken ‘s advice and filmed it as a movie, but they were about to start a service and I felt embarrassed):

THIS TOMB WAS ERECTED BY THE LADY URSULA
WHITE DAUGHTER OF THE LORD MOORE

HERE LYETH THE BODIS OF SIR NICHOLAS WHITE
KNIGHT DECEASED THE 4 OF FEBRUARIE 1654 AND
HIS SON NICHOLAS WHITE ESQ DECEASED THE 31 OF DECEMB
1664

So, not just one dead version of me, but two – extra value! The elder Nicholas is my 7xgreat-grandfather; the other was his eldest son (though I am descended from the fourth son, Charles, who lived long enough to fight on the losing side at the Battle of the Boyne).

The right hand side of the shield in the church is taken from the coat of arms of the Moores of Drogheda – azure on a chief indented or three mullets pierced gules. Lady Ursula White was one of the five daughters (and twelve children) of Sir Charles Moore, later the first Viscount Moore (c. 1560-1627). Her husband died in 1654 and is reckoned to have been born about 1583. Her eldest son is thought to have been born about 1612 and died in 1664. She herself died in 1667.

My grandfather, who was into genealogy, named his youngest child after Ursula when she was born in 1939. She died rather unexpectedly ten years ago next month. In certain respects I have followed my grandfather’s example.

Thanks to for indulging my antiquarian whims. Rather odd to be described as a baroness two days after doing this little bit of research!

I have just been described to a group of MEPs as “Baroness Nicholas Whyte”. I am many things, but I am not a baroness.

(The chairman of the meeting was confusing me with this lady. That is a bit worrying.)

Jeepers, I didn’t see that coming!

Maybe it’s just my frame of mind, but I didn’t get a lot of actual sf experience out of Octocon. There were good things – dinner on Saturday evening with 

mizkit

, 

chefted

, 

captainlucy

 and 

irishkatebellinghman

, 

bellinghwoman

, 

jemck

 and 

natural20What is Octocon” page still says that the event will happen “on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th of October 2006”) gave me the feeling even before I arrived that the actual programming was an afterthought, and this impression was frankly reinforced by my experience (and what I heard of other people’s experiences) at the convention itself. As noted above, only one of the three teams billed to appear at the quiz actually showed (and they were not so much a team as just the students from the college in question who happened to be in the room).

Perhaps I am spoiled by my experience of conferences in my day job, where intricate programming, carefully prepared presentations, and vigorous chairing are the order of the day. I realise that running cons is a hobby rather than a profession, but I am surprised to see it (sometimes) done so casually.

I will not come to Octocon next year, but I will listen out for reports as to whether things have improved – it doesn’t take much, all it requires is actual planning ahead with the aim of ensuring that guests and participants have a good time. They have booked George R.R. Martin for the 2009 2010 event which will be a real challenge.

Many many thanks also to

bellinghman

 who facilitated a bit of historical research for me. More on that when I get back home.

Hat-tip to 

catilinarian

: The BBC invites you to re-fight the Battle of Hastings (941 years ago today) and the Battle of Waterloo.

Also

catilinarian

: Slate’s Dear Prudence and Salon’s Carey Tennis both answer the same question: “My evangelical teenage daughter thinks I am going to hell!”

james_nicoll

: Ursula le Guin vs Cory Doctorow.

pgmcc

 reports on me and others.

Those of you who were at dinner last night may not be terribly surprised to learn that Vince Foster’s death was the result of a single gunshot wound from the front, clearly self-inflicted, rather than two shots from behind. (At least that’s what Kenneth Starr, not exactly a stooge of the Clintons, reported.)

Today’s anniversaries are, for once, quite an interesting lot:
1582: Nothing at all happened on this date in 1582 in Catholic countries in Europe, as the day before 15 October was 4 October.
1630: Birth of Sophia of Hanover, who missed becoming Queen of Great Britain and Ireland by dying two months early
1633: Birth of her first cousin James II of England and VII of Scotland, who did become King of England, Scotland and Ireland for a few years.
1882: Birth of Éamon de Valera
1890: Birth of Dwight D. Eisenhower
1912: Assassination attempt on Theodore Roosevelt while campaigning – he still gave his speech despite a bullet in his chest
1926: Publication of Winnie-the-Pooh
1927: Happy birthday Roger Moore! 80 today!
1940: Happy birthday to both Cliff Richard and Christopher Timothy, both 67 today!
1949: Happy birthday Katy Manning! 58 today!
1959: Death of Errol Flynn
1977: Death of Bing Crosby
1969: UK (and, I suppose, Ireland) replaces the ten-shilling note with the 50p coin.

I’ve managed a couple of new countries every year for the last few years, but none so far in 2007. But now the potential opportunity for a very interesting business trip has come up, for mid-December, which will involve at least two new countries, even if one is still trying to get its status regularised. Will keep y’all posted.

3) Lord of Emperors, by Guy Gavriel Kay

My write-up of the first of these two books, Sailing to Sarantium, has attracted more comments than any other book blog entry this year. I ended it by wishing that I had bought the sequel at the same time. I repeat that wish now. The two books are so closely intertwined that it’s a shame to let the memory of one fade before you start the other. (Perhaps I have a bigger problem with this than some people, given that it was about a hundred books ago for me.) Anyway, like its predecessor, this book is simply a triumph.

But with a difference. Where Sailing to Sarantium stuck fairly closely to the history of our world, in particular the story of Justinian, Theodora, Belisarius and the Hagia Sophia, Lord of Emperors starts by nibbling away at the edges, and then abruptly and brutally swerves into its own timeline a bit over half way through. Suddenly, it all is up for grabs. Viewpoint characters die horribly. Any certainty we had is lost. I think that even if you don’t know anything about Byzantium, it’s a dramatic development on a par with George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. But if you do know what is “supposed” do happen, the impact is incredible.

But the historical knowingness is not what makes this a great book. (And I add to that historical knowingness the accelerated appearance of Kay’s versions of the rise of Islam and a specific spoilerish Christian controversy, brought into the novel for justifiable plot reasons respectively about a century and about two centuries too early.) The overall title of the series is The Sarantine Mosaic, and this is not only a reference to the grand work of art which Caius Crispius is brought to Sarantium to construct, but also surely a reference to the way the books are built up from little pieces – a progression of tight-third-person narratives (some crucial characters to the plot, some purely incidental) – within the overall structure of a framing plot, most of which in Lord of Emperors takes place in the course of two intricately and intimately described 24-hour periods, two days which illuminate the book’s structure like the mosaics on either side of an orthodox church.

And apart from fantastic characters, desperate sex, Machiavellian politics, and an unforgettable chariot race, the book – indeed both books – are a deep reflection on the place of art in life, and how some are called to it, some respond to it, and some reject it. A couple of people, responding to my earlier review, said they felt the ending of Lord of Emperors was a bit of a let-down. I agree that the emotional place where the key characters end up has been signalled too far in advance to retain the dramatic momentum which Kay probably intended. But read it again, and look at what he is saying about art and the artist. And then look at the work that inspired him. I don’t think you will remain unmoved.

And indeed others who are interested: Let California Ring, the campaign for equal marriage rights. Good luck to ’em.

St Oda’s

I know they are within their rights, but it’s a crying shame that the BBC have leaned on YouTube to take down all the Doctor Who videos, including the one that particularly pacified little U…

…you assume that the John Piper who is the subject of a set of quiz show questions is the evangelical Christian writer rather than the stained glass artist.

…hypothetically speaking, if you’ve had an idea for a book (non-fiction in this case), and you want to pitch it to a publisher, do you ask one publisher at a time or try several at once?

…or is every really aggressive and irresponsible driver on the motorway driving an Audi?

I was alerted during the week to the fact that the Northern Ireland Boundary Commission has finalised its recommendations for the new parliamentary constituencies, though it now looks like they will not be needed as soon as they might have been. In fact they have stuck to their recommendations from May last year.

In related news, thamks to Conal Kelly, the 1950-1970 Westminster election results for East Belfast, North Belfast, South Belfast, West Belfast, North Antrim, South Antrim, Armagh, Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Londonderry, North Down, South Down, and Mid Ulster are all now on my site.

Two Doctor Who audios this week – yes, the month that Big Finish are publishing the 100th in their series of plays, I have got around to #50, Zagreus, a three-CD extravaganza with four Doctors (Davison, C Baker, McCoy and McGann); and I also listened to Slipback, the first proper Doctor Who audio play (I shall justify this controversial claim below), broadcast by the BBC in 1985.

Zagreus is surely the best (so far) of the various anniversary offerings. The Three Doctors is rather poor, The Five Doctors is at least an honest effort, and the less said about the 30th anniversary the better. But here we have the “current” Eighth Doctor/Charley pairing (the sparkling Paul McGann/India Fisher combination) meeting a whole host of characters, more or less real, played by former cast members of the televised series. I didn’t recognise all the voices on first listening, partly because I wasn’t expecting so many, but I may even try listening again with a crib sheet in front of me; as well as Lalla Ward and Louise Jameson reprising Romana II and Leela, with splendid Time Lady/savage bitchiness setting up the scenario for the Gallifrey spinoffs (plus John Leeson as K-9), we have the voices of Polly, the Brigadier, Sarah Jane Smith, Nyssa, Turlough, Peri, Erimem, Evelyn Smythe, Mel, Ace, Benny, and the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors all playing other parts, and also Don Warrington as Rassilon, three years before he became President of Britain. Oh, and Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor, even though he had died seven years earlier. I’m not wild about the main plot strand, though it develops quite well from the previous Eighth Doctor story, Neverland, but the device of exploring the Doctor’s past through distorted reflections in his subconscious works – it could have been really gruesome and self-indulgent, but in fact you can’t wait to find out what happens next. I am not surprised to find that Alan Barnes, who is my favourite of the Big Finish writers, gets an authoring credit here.

Slipback was produced in the 18-month hiatus between Colin Baker’s two full seasons, a six-part radio series starring Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant as the Sixth Doctor and Peri. It’s an odd contrast to the more recent Big Finish audios featuring Baker and/or Bryant. The first difference to strike you is that Baker really doesn’t much reflect the egotistical brash persona of the Sixth Doctor as seen on TV and heard in the videos. (Bryant is unmistakeably Peri though.) The second difference is that the six episodes only last ten minutes each, which really is the wrong length. If this had been successful, we might have seen a seamless transitioning of Doctor Who to audio instead of television, more than a decade before Big Finish got into it. But it wasn’t. The problem is that the author was Eric Saward, trying to channel Douglas Adams and not doing it very well. One of the characters is a computer with a squeaky accent, combining Eddie and Trillian from the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide. Valentine Dyall is wasted as an insane spaceship captain who enjoys his baths. The whole thing fails to gel.

None the less, this is the first “proper” Doctor Who audio play. The 1976 Fourth Doctor audios don’t count: in Doctor Who and the Pescatons, most of the narrative is carried by the Fourth Doctor telling the story, with occasional voicing from Sarah Jane Smith and the villain, and in any case it isn’t a “real” BBC production. Exploration Earth is too didactic to count as proper drama. The two Third Doctor audio stories were recorded later. So Slipback is in a lot of ways the fons et origo for  Big Finish’s subsequent triumphs.

Ancestral rivers of the world

What if the Ice Ages had been less icy?

(Hat-tip to

tsm_in_toronto

 commenting in reply to

james_nicoll

.)

I’ve tended to rather rush through writing up the Pertwee stories I have been watching, as they are much of a muchness, but this is different. I remember back in 1981 when it was re-broadcast, we really wondered why – surely there were other, better Pertwee four-parters out there? The Terrance Dicks novelisation is only average. It seemed as if Carnival of Monsters had been chosen mainly because it followed on in continuity directly after The Three Doctors. Spoiled as we were by the Hinchcliffe and Williams years, Carnival of Monsters did not seem all that special.

I must say that now it does. The 1973 season was probably Pertwee’s second best (after his first, the 1970 season) and Carnival of Monsters is surely the best story in it – followed by Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks, which are both OK but not spectacular, and ending with  The Green Death which is also a good one, particularly because it gets rid of Jo. The one thing that lets it down is the visual effects, rather a lot of dodgy CSO being used. But if you can shut your eyes and pretend you are still six during those bits, the rest is fantastic – Robert Holmes at his very best in the script, Michael Wisher in pre-Davros days as the main villain, Ian Marter in pre-Harry Sullivan days as a minor character, a real feeling of several different completely alien cultures (the two classes on Inter Minor and the Lurmans), and an absence of the blatant padding that mars so many Pertwee stories. A special shout to Cheryl Hall, later the girlfriend of Citizen Smith, as showgirl Shirna.

And there’s a couple of serious reflections in there too – the MiniScope itself is a futuristic development of the zoo, and gives rise to a rather caricatured discussion of conservation versus entertainment’ more seriously, Inter Minor is clearly a communist totalitarian state, threatened to its very foundations by any influence from the outside. Michael Wisher’s character Kalik is the conservative brother of the unseen president Zarb. It’s nicely observed, although not all conservative backlashes end with the leader of the hardliners being eaten alive by a Drashig. Shame.