“I saw things you wouldn’t believe!”
“Mummies.”
“I’ve met ghosts.”
“Robots. Lots of robots.”
“Slitheen. In Downing Street.”
“Daleks!”
“Met the Emperor.”
“Anti-matter monsters.”
“Gas-mask zombies.”
“Real living dinosaurs.”
“Real living werewolves.”
“The Loch Ness Monster!”
“…seriously?”
(Presumably the werewolves reference is to the story with Queen Victoria next week?)
The former Swedish prime minister, Carl Bildt, has a blog at http://bildt.blogspot.com/ – I have just syndicated it as
I don’t believe that there is any other political figure of equivalent seniority from any country who takes it as seriously as Bildt does. Margot Wallström, Vice-President of the European Commission, and (like Bildt) a Swede, though from a different political party, blogs too – but unfortunately it is a) anodyne and b) infested by trolling comments from British Eurosceptics. Her colleague Vladimir Špidla, also like Bildt a former prime minister (but Czech rather than Swedish) also has one, featuring seven whole entries since last November. Like Bildt, he has wisely disallowed comments. I will not bother syndicating either for livejournal readers (though don’t let me stop you).
Edited to add – Hmm, though I thought it was me that had syndicated it, turns out someone else already got there! Doesn’t affect the inforamtion above anyway.
April 1967 – summer 1984: 54°33’32” N, 5°59’23” W
(but summer 1973 – summer 1974: 42°29’22” N, 71°6’43” W)
(and summer 1979 – summer 1980: 52°09’00” N, 4°24’15” E)
summer 1984 – summer 1985: 54°19’15” N, 6°18’27” W
summer 1985 – summer 1986: 53°17’50” N, 6°13’41” W
(but October-November 1985: 52°20’35” N, 0°32’12” W)
(and December 1985-February 1986: 54°21’15” N, 6°28’19” W)
(and April-August 1986: 49°8’58” N, 9°6’38” E)
September 1986 – Summer 1987: 52°12’17” N, 0°6’37” E
Autumn 1987-Summer 1988: 52°12’42” N, 0°6’51″E
Autumn 1988-Summer 1989: 52°12’43” N, 0°6’57″E
Summer 1989: 52°11’38” N, 0°6’31” E
Autumn 1989-August 1991: 52°12’47” N, 0°7’10″E
September 1991 – July 1992: 54°35’11” N, 5°55’42” W
July – September 1992: 54°34’39” N, 5°55’51” W
September 1992 – September 1993: 54°34’31” N, 5°56’28” W
September-November 1993: 54°35’43” N, 5°51’16” W
November 1993-August 1995: Malone Rd, Belfast
August-October 1995: Jordanstown Rd, Newtownabbey (two different houses in the street during a two month period)
October 1995-January 1997: Serpentine Parade, Newtownabbey/Belfast
February-April 1997: 44°46’9″ N, 17°11’36” E
April 1997-May 1998: 44°46’38” N, 17°10’46″E
May-December 1998: 45°48’51” N, 15°59’1″ E
February 1999 – August 2001: 50°44’20” N, 4°22’18” E
August 2001-present: here.
1) Male and female reading meme:
Originally from
I rather agree with much of the criticism of these lists, but here goes anyway.
Jane Eyre
Wuthering Heights
The Handmaid’s Tale
Middlemarch
Pride and Prejudice
Beloved
The Golden Notebook
Catch-22
Remembrance of Things Past
Persuasion
Frankenstein
Oranges Are Not The Only fruit
One Hundred Years Of Solitude
Mill On The Floss
Little Women
Madam Bovary
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
Gone with the Wind
Heart Of Darkness
To Kill A Mockingbird
That’s 13 out of 20 – am a bit surprised to see Catch-22 and Heart of Darkness on that list, I wouldn’t have thought of either as being particularly appealing to women.
The boys’ list:
The Outsider
Catcher In The Rye
Slaughterhouse 5
One Hundred Years Of Solitude
The Hobbit
Catch-22
1984
The Great Gatsby
The Book Of Laughter And Forgetting
To Kill A Mockingbird
Lolita
Lord Of The Rings
Crime and Punishment
Brighton Rock
High Fidelity
Ulysses
Huckleberry Finn
Heart of Darkness
Metamorphosis (presumabvly Kafka rather than Ovid, though I have read both)
Grapes of Wrath
That’s 17, and I suspect I may in fact have read Brighton Rock though I’m not sure. Rather surprised to see L’Étranger on this list. I have always thought of it as more of a “girl’s book”, largely because I read it at the urging of a former girlfriend. But I see Marcel Berlins singing its praises.
2) Women’s writing meme
Originally from
Italicize the ones you have wanted/might like to read
* = Another book by this author read, but not this
?? = Any titles/authors you’ve never heard of
*** = I’ve tried it and abandoned it
XXX = Life Is Too Short
Alcott, Louisa May–Little Women
Allende, Isabel–The House of Spirits
Angelou, Maya–I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
* Atwood, Margaret–Cat’s Eye
* Austen, Jane–Emma
?? Bambara, Toni Cade–Salt Eaters
?? Barnes, Djuna–Nightwood
de Beauvoir, Simone–The Second Sex
* Blume, Judy–Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret
Burnett, Frances–The Secret Garden
Bronte, Charlotte–Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily–Wuthering Heights
Buck, Pearl S.–The Good Earth
Byatt, A.S.–Possession
Cather, Willa–My Antonia
Chopin, Kate–The Awakening
* Christie, Agatha–Murder on the Orient Express
?? Cisneros, Sandra–The House on Mango Street
Clinton, Hillary Rodham–Living History
?? Cooper, Anna Julia–A Voice From the South
?? Danticat, Edwidge–Breath, Eyes, Memory
?? Davis, Angela–Women, Culture, and Politics
Desai, Anita–Clear Light of Day
Dickinson, Emily–Collected Poems
Duncan, Lois–I Know What You Did Last Summer
DuMaurier, Daphne–Rebecca
Eliot, George–Middlemarch
?? Emecheta, Buchi–Second Class Citizen
?? Erdrich, Louise–Tracks
Esquivel, Laura–Like Water for Chocolate
Flagg, Fannie–Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Friedan, Betty–The Feminine Mystique
Frank, Anne–Diary of a Young Girl
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins–The Yellow Wallpaper
Gordimer, Nadine–July’s People
Grafton, Sue–S is for Silence
?? Hamilton, Edith–Mythology
Highsmith, Patricia–The Talented Mr. Ripley
?? hooks, bell–Bone Black [Having looked the author up on Wikipedia, I’m fascinated]
?? Hurston, Zora Neale–Dust Tracks on the Road
?? Jacobs, Harriet–Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
?? Jackson, Helen Hunt–Ramona
Jackson, Shirley–The Haunting of Hill House – in fact I think I bought it in Dublin last month
Jong, Erica–Fear of Flying
Keene, Carolyn–The Nancy Drew Mysteries (any of them)
?? Kidd, Sue Monk–The Secret Life of Bees
?? Kincaid, Jamaica–Lucy
Kingsolver, Barbara–The Poisonwood Bible
?? Kingston, Maxine Hong–The Woman Warrior
?? Larsen, Nella–Passing
L’Engle, Madeleine–A Wrinkle in Time
Le Guin, Ursula K.–The Left Hand of Darkness
Lee, Harper–To Kill a Mockingbird
* Lessing, Doris–The Golden Notebook
* Lively, Penelope–Moon Tiger
?? Lorde, Audre–The Cancer Journals
XXX Martin, Ann M.–The Babysitters Club Series (any of them)
?? McCullers, Carson–The Member of the Wedding
?? McMillan, Terry–Disappearing Acts
?? Markandaya, Kamala–Nectar in a Sieve
?? Marshall, Paule–Brown Girl, Brownstones
Mitchell, Margaret–Gone with the Wind
Montgomery, Lucy–Anne of Green Gables
?? Morgan, Joan–When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost
Morrison, Toni–Song of Solomon
Murasaki, Lady Shikibu–The Tale of Genji
Munro, Alice–Lives of Girls and Women
* Murdoch, Iris–Severed Head
Naylor, Gloria–Mama Day
Niffenegger, Audrey–The Time Traveller’s Wife
Oates, Joyce Carol–We Were the Mulvaneys
O’Connor, Flannery–A Good Man is Hard to Find
Piercy, Marge–Woman on the Edge of Time
?? Picoult, Jodi–My Sister’s Keeper
Plath, Sylvia–The Bell Jar
?? Porter, Katharine Anne–Ship of Fools
Proulx, E. Annie–The Shipping News
XXX Rand, Ayn–The Fountainhead
?? Ray, Rachel–365: No Repeats
Rhys, Jean–Wide Sargasso Sea
?? Robinson, Marilynne–Housekeeping
?? Rocha, Sharon–For Lac
Sebold, Alice–The Lovely Bones
Shelley, Mary–Frankenstein
?? Smith, Betty–A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smith, Zadie–White Teeth
Spark, Muriel–The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Spyri, Johanna–Heidi
?? Strout, Elizabeth–Amy and Isabelle
Steel, Danielle–The House
Tan, Amy–The Joy Luck Club
Tannen, Deborah–You’re Wearing That
?? Ulrich, Laurel–A Midwife’s Tale
?? Urquhart, Jane–Away
Walker, Alice–The Temple of My Familiar
Welty, Eudora–One Writer’s Beginnings
Wharton, Edith–Age of Innocence
Wilder, Laura Ingalls–Little House in the Big Woods
Wollstonecraft, Mary–A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Woolf, Virginia–A Room of One’s Own
I obviously have some way to go.
Yes, I admit it; I splashed out on the new Genesis of the Daleks DVD, and it arrived today, and we watched the bit from Blue Peter (with John Noakes, Peter Purves and Lesley Judd) and the first three episodes tonight. And it is Great.
I couldn’t help but feel that Nyder is just ever so slightly Peter Robinson to Davros’ Paisley. But perhaps that is an Evil Thought.
Do you see what I mean?
A rare post about Northern Ireland politics from me. In contrast to the pathetic begrudging comments elsewhere in the blogosphere, I was rather glad to hear the news that Eileen Bell has been appointed interim presiding officer of the Northern Ireland Assembly (suspended since a year before the November 2003 election). To appoint a well-known moderate Catholic woman to chair the Assembly’s first meeting on 15 May is well within the Secretary of State’s powers. If the Assembly decides that it wants someone else to be the Speaker thereafter, that is its members’ business.
More particularly, it makes the recall of the Assembly on 15 May look that bit more realistic. The arithmetic decrees that the only actors whose agreement is needed to get devolution up and running again are the British government, the DUP and Sinn Féin, with a walk-on role for the Irish government and the smaller political parties. Hain, as Northern Ireland secretary, has been setting up the machinery for the Assembly at least to function. While Eileen does not have the gravitas that John Alderdice brought to the job (I regard him as one of the most exceptional political figures I have worked with), she is entirely capable of chairing meetings; and anyway, now that the DUP are on the winning side, the assembly’s inaugural meeting is unlikely to be as chaotic as, say, 1973.
This is a response to
Ireland was 25 minutes behind Great Britain until 1916, “Dublin Time” being based on the meridian of Dunsink Observatory. In the wake of the Easter Rising of that year the clocks went back only 35 minutes in the autumn rather than an hour, thus putting Ireland on the same time as England, Scotland and Wales. In 1919 a couple of the early meetings of Dáil Éireann, the revolutionary parliament, kept minutes in both standard and “Irish time”, but this did not survive into the era of independence.
Once independence had arrived and the civil war was won, the Dáil got around to passing a new Summer Time Act in 1923. The debate, precisely 83 years ago today, featured proposals for going back to the old Irish summer time in summer only, and also for local councils to possibly opt in or opt out.
In the 1960s Ireland decided that it would be on Central European Time in the summer, and Central European Time minus an hour in winter. Completely different from the UK, which of course is on Greenwich Mean Time in winter and British Summer Time in summer.
The choice of time is obviously political in other parts of Europe. the entirety of the Benelux countries and almost all of France are west of the 7°30′ longitude which should really be the cut-off point for Central European Time; most of Spain, indeed, is west rather than east of Greenwich, but they have all opted to go with the Germans, Swiss, Italians and neighbours further to the east.
The 45° line, which should give you three hours’ difference from the UK, cuts through Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, but after independence all three kept the Soviet practice of putting the clocks another hour ahead anyway. After the 2003 revolution in Georgia, President Saakashvili moved the country an hour to the west, so they are now in line with Moscow and Iraq, and the shift at the Turkish border is only one hour instead of two. (This doesn’t seem to have been picked up by on-line sources.)
There is a nice animation of world time zones here.
on-line survey about holidays – for a friend of a friend.
F and I had an excursion to Mini-Europe and the newly re-opened Atomium two weeks ago, but I’ve only just got around to putting the picures on-line here. You can see most of the important bits in the preview version of the gallery apart from one shot of the 25 EU member state flags:
(Apologies to Lithuania which has got lost).
The Atomium is basically a funfair ride through a weirdly-shaped structure, and that’s about it. The top level isn’t open again yet, and they obviously plan to put in more exhibits (I remember there being at least something to look at when I was last there, aged 12 in 1979). So we’ll go bak in a year. Mini-Europe, however, never palls!
Seen in passing:
The judgement in the case known as The Da Vinci Code vs The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail is discussed by
It is a testament to cynicism in our times that there have been suggestions that this action is nothing more than a collaborative exercise designed to maximise publicity for both books. It is true that the book sales of both books have soared during the course of the trial (in the case of HBHG it is said to be a tenfold increase)… I am not in a position to comment on whether this cynical view is correct but I would say that if it was such a collaborative exercise Mr Baigent and Mr Brown both went through an extensive ordeal in cross examination which they are likely to remember for some time.
and
Mr Baigent was a poor witness. Those are not my words: they are the words of his own Counsel in his written closing submissions (paragraph 111). Those words do not in my view do justice to the inadequacy of Mr Baigent’s performance. His evidence was comprehensively destroyed by the thorough and searching cross examination of Mr Baldwin QC for the Defendant. It is no good for Mr Rayner James QC in closing submissions to say that Mr Baigent was “over awed by the circumstances and agreed almost without exception anything that was said by the Judge”… I do not understand the implied criticism in the Claimants’ closing that he accepted most of everything the Judge put to him. If it is to be inferred that he was somehow browbeaten by me in to meekly accepting everything I said I reject that suggestion.
Memo to self: if I am ever in that position, remember not to try and make the argument to the judge that my own witness was wrong to agree with him!
As someone said, one wishes they could have both lost. Edited to add: See also in The Guardian, though they mysteriously omit to mention the judge’s mocking of them as the Grauniad.
If you are completely mystified by the words “Doctor Who”, Alex has a good explanation here. He has followed up with his take on last year’s stories, recs of DVDs of the old series and of the novelisations.
Am struck that only Europe-based readers have had a go. Are my readers elsewhere not so much into Buffy? Or not so much into quizzes?
1) What was the address Buffy gave when she phoned for an ambulance in ‘The Body’?
2) Who was Xander’s best man in ‘Hells Bells’?
3) Which episode was Dawn introduced in?
4) Who did Anya think was she engaged to in ‘Tabula Rasa’?
5) How did principal Flutie die in ‘The Pack’?
6) How did Buffy kill the Judge?
7) How did Buffy prove that Kathy was a demon in ‘Living Conditions’?
8) What did Anya think apart from bunnies might be causing the singing in ‘Once More With Feeling’?
9) What was Ted’s job?
10) What was the name of the oracle that Giles and Anya consulted in ‘Showtime’?
11) In which episode did Giles and Joyce kiss, Buffy drive a car and the doctor body surfed?
12) How many hearts did the Gentlemen have to get in ‘Hush’?
13) What happened to Amber the cheerleader in ‘The Witch’?
14) Who played Joyce?
15) What kind of statue did Brad steal for Harmony in ‘Real Me’?
16) What was the name of the character who was Buffy’s boyfriend between Angel and Riley?
17) What three word message did Ethan Rayne leave behind in ‘Halloween’?
I won’t be so ungentlemanly as to give final scores, but thanks for playing.
1) What was the address Buffy gave when she phoned for an ambulance in ‘The Body’.
2) Who was Xander’s best man in ‘Hells Bells’?
3) Which episode was Dawn introduced in?
4) Who did Anya think was she engaged to in ‘Tabula Rasa’?
5) How did Flutie die in ‘The Pack’?
6) How did Buffy kill the Judge?
7) How did Buffy prove that Kathy was a demon in ‘Living Conditions’?
8) What did Anya think apart from bunnies might be causing the singing in ‘Once More With Feeling’?
9) What was Ted’s job?
10) What was the name of the oracle that Giles and Anya consulted in ‘Showtime’?
11) In which episode did Giles and Joyce kiss, Buffy drive a car and the doctor body surfed.?
12) How many hearts did the Gentleman have to get in ‘Hush’?
13) What happened to Amber the cheerleader in ‘The Witch’?
14) Who played Joyce?
15) What kind of statue did Brad steal for Harmony in ‘Real Me’?
16) What was the name of the character who was Buffy’s boyfriend between Angel and Riley?
17) What three word message did Ethan Rayne leave behind in ‘Halloween’?
As seen here. Anyone want to have a go at answering them in the comments? No sneaky Googling now…
As seen at
Planning a longer version of this soon (indeed did a longer version several years ago):
Go to Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/). Type in your birth date (but not year). List three events that happened on your birthday. List two important birthdays and one interesting death. Post this in your journal.
Events:
1937: Guernica
1986: Chernobyl
1994: South Africa’s first multiracial elections.
Births:
121: Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor
1912: AE van Vogt, sf writer
Death:
1865: John Wilkes Booth, assassin of Abraham Lincoln
Well, a veritable feast this evening, with not one but two subjects which I am fascinated by.
The woman who chose Buffy was very very good on the first round, and at half way was joint first on 15 points. She then let the side down badly, I felt, by insisting that the great thing about Buffy is that the show makes vampires look interesting. Silly old me, watching it for the humans. Despite this she made a creditable recovery and lost by only one point.
The bloke who chose Eleanor of Aquitaine got noticeably harder questions, I thought, but was also not very good at answering them. He got confused between William the Marshall and Hubert Walter, not a good sign, and was way behind in fourth place after the first round. He didn’t do too badly on general knowledge but it was too late.
(The winner was the guy who chose the Diggers. I’ve read The World Turned Upside Down so I knew a little about them but that was years ago.)
-You are advised to come to work dressed according to your salary.
– If we see you wearing Prada shoes and carrying a Gucci bag, we will assume you are doing well financially and therefore do not need a raise.
– If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage your money better, so that you may buy nicer clothes, and therefore you do not need a raise.
– If you dress just right, you are right where you need to be and therefore you do not need a raise.
Sick Days:
We will no longer accept a doctor’s statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.
Personal Days:
Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturdays & Sundays.
Bereavement Leave:
This is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives or co-workers. Every effort should be made to have non-employees attend the funeral arrangements. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary, the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave one hour early.
Bathroom Breaks:
Entirely too much time is being spent in the toilet. There is now a strict three-minute time limit in the stalls. At the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, the stall door will open, and a picture will be taken. After your second offense, your picture will be posted on the company bulletin board under the “Chronic Offenders” category. Anyone caught smiling in the picture will be sectioned under the company’s mental health policy.
Lunch Break:
– Skinny people get 30 minutes for lunch, as they need to eat more, so that they can look healthy.
– Normal size people get 15 minutes for lunch to get a balanced meal to maintain their average figure.
– Chubby people get 5 minutes for lunch, because that’s all the time needed to drink a Slim-Fast.
Thank you for your loyalty to our company. We are here to provide a positive employment experience. Therefore, all questions, comments, concerns, criticisms, complaints, frustrations, irritations, aggravations, insinuations, allegations, accusations, contemplations, consternations and input should be directed towards someone who cares.
The Management
4) Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, by Amanda Foreman
I’m not in principle a big fan of the 18th century, but I read McCullough’s John Adams just over a year ago and have spent today in bed with the Duchess of Devonshire, as it were. They were contemporaries (she was born just over twenty years after him, and he died just over twenty years after her) but neither book actually mentions the other’s subject, though they must surely have met when Adams was in London in the 1780s, given her interest in America.
The fact that Foreman’s book is two hundred pages shorter than McCullough’s has nothing to do with its subject’s shorter lifespan. Their public careers were in fact close to contemporaneous. Adams, aged forty, was thrust into prominence by the Constitutional Convention in 1776; Georgiana, aged only 23, had become a national figure by 1780. Adams’ career ended with his presidency in 1801, though he lived another quarter century; Georgiana succeeded in putting together the Ministry of All the Talents, which took office in February 1806, just a few weeks before she died.
Foreman’s is much the better book. I confess that I had very little idea who Georgiana was before I picked it up from the lower recesses of my “to read” pile. As I said above, I don’t especially care for the 18th century. But Foreman made me care much more about the politics of the time, the factionalism between Fox, Pitt, Burke, Addington, Grenville, and the rest, far more than McCullough’s rather blasé treatment of the Federalist/Republican split.
It must also be said that Georgiana had much the more interesting love life of the two. There is not even the faintest whiff of suspicion about Adams’ fidelity to his wife Abigail. Georgiana had three children by her own husband and a fourth by one of her lovers, and Foreman concludes, having tantalisingly raised the question, that we will never know quite how physical her passionate friendships with other women were.
But an interesting subject doesn’t guarantee a good biography. Foreman has done the legwork, seeking out primary sources and secondary sources, not ashamed to tell us when she feels she has got something especially new (as in her account of Georgiana’s construction of the new government in 1804-06), and stringing it all together to form a coherent and compassionate account of a complicated life. And she makes a convincing call, based on her research, for women’s history not to be segregated from men’s history. Georgiana’s indirect influence was considerable. On one or two occasions she exercised direct influence, as in 1783 when (aged 26!) she persuaded the Prince of Wales not to push his luck with the government lest it fall. Her impact on election campaigning methodology in 1779 and 1784 seems to have been considerable, and largely her own idea. The tragedy was that her male political allies were so useless, shown most clearly by their screwing up in the Regency crisis in 1789.
Her experiences in Paris and Belgium during the revolutionary years would be material enough for a book on their own, but are just an interlude here. (She was on intimate terms with Marie Antoinette, and left Paris just before the Bastille was stormed.) In 1792 she was back in France again, to give birth to Charles Grey’s child, exiled from England by her husband in an episode which seems to have resulted in her taking up science rather than sex as a diversion. Georgiana’s own expertise in mineralogy and chemistry, we are told, was recognised by her male contemporaries, and she also sponsored the discovery of nitous oxide (actually this is one poiont where I would have liked a few more details).
She had her faults. Addiction to gambling, most obviously; a certain amount of wishful thinking as well, both in her personal life and in politics (her trust was often betrayed, by her husband’s lover Lady Elizabeth Foster, and on a wider political level by Fox and indirectly by Napoleon). But I find it possible to comprehend and forgive. In particular, she stuck her neck out in 1798 to insist that the minimum of force be used to oppose the Rising in Ireland that year, and did her best to get Catholic Emancipation (though that foundered on the rock of George III’s intransigence). I wish there were more biographies like this.
Slept really badly last night – I thought at the time due to having had too heavy a lunch yesterday. Still, made it into town in time for Very Important Meeting at 9. Then went to the office, but rapidly realised that I just wasn’t up to it and baled out before midday. Have spent most of the time since then in bed, and so will miss a work dinner this evening I had been rather looking forward to.
Thinking about it I have been feeling a bit under the weather for the last week, and slept very badly last Thursday night as well, so perhaps it’s some minor bug that has chosen today to come to a head and not just the grilled bacon and sausage at the Irish pub near work. I do hope so – I have a busy day scheduled for tomorrow. (And I like the food at the Irish pub as well so would hate to think it was the problem.)
On the plus side, I did a good deed on Monday – driving to lunch at the European Commission, I saw a cyclist drop her handbag right in front of me. She zoomed blithely on; I stopped the car, picked it up, tried to catch up with her (but was stymied by one-way streets), found her Commission ID card and handed it in to the guards at the front desk. On my way out of the building to my lunchdate I bumped into her again at the next corner. She was very relieved, and very nicely sent me a bottle of Spanish wine and Belgian chocolates as a thank you, which arrived at the office this morning.
Though in my current state it will be a day or two before I enjoy them.
3) The Jennifer Morgue, by
I got this book from the author himself; he very kindly beamed a copy from his PDA to mine across the table at an Indian restaurant in Dublin last month. Just as well, as it won’t be out in hardback until the end of this year and the paperback comes out next February. (At work we have an average turnaround between final text and publication of perhaps 48 hours, with little amendments still possible up to the last minute; the longest I’ve had to wait was for the paper we decided to launch in three languages simultaneously, so had to wait two weeks for the translation; I am aware that for commercial publishers conditions are rather different.) I had actually had a look at some of the earlier chapters in draft, and am gratified to see some of my suggested tweaks were accepted. (And indeed acknowledged in the introduction.)
It’s a sequel to The Atrocity Archives, and thus to the Hugo-winning novella “The Concrete Jungle”; Bob Howard works for the little-known British government agency combining cutting-edge information technology with combat against the forces of darkness of the type first described by H.P. Lovecraft. As usual, Charlie writes breath-takingly fast and smart prose, in a story that takes the standard James Bond plot and warps it through disturbing dimensions. The settings, memorably evoked, include the Caribbean island of St Martin, shared between France and the Netherlands, in and around which most of the action takes place; I hadn’t previously heard of it but it turns out to be quite real.
There are a few mind-numbing in-jokes – the villain’s head of security is named after a well-known figure in British sf fandom, and Bob’s middle initials are a neat subtle touch. The reader who doesn’t get these will I think be entertained anyway, and there may well be others I didn’t spot.
Added to the end of the book is a brief meditation by
A plausible character, I thought. But obviously not plausible enough. Always more than a little alarming when this happens to people one has actually met.
I am not a huge architecture fan. But I am of course interested in the ways in which international politics is institutionalised, reified even, and on my way home from work the other day I was pondering on the architecture of the various public buildings I visit. So, I thought, why not make an LJ entry on my impressions of those foreign ministries I have been to twice or more, listed in order of population of country below.
Austria: The Bundesamtsgebäude, between the Ballhausplatz and the Minoritenplatz, house the Chancellery, the Interior Ministry and the Foreign Ministry, and were built between 1983 and 1987.
Netherlands
Belgium
Ireland
here. This review-in-advance of tonight’s RTE documentary celebrates “the singular vision of The Third Policeman, with its amoral murderer lost in a hellish world where garda sergeants are more bike than man, thanks to molecular exchange. It is as bleak and morbidly funny as anything by Beckett, only more recognisably Irish: hell looks alarmingly like the midlands, and all the blacker for that.”
Hat-tip to Bookslut, who reviews The Third Policeman here.
Those of you who are able to watch the documentary, please let me know what it is like!
Signed on to MSN Messenger as nicholas.whyte@gmail.com – and will now switch to GAIM as
At Strange Horizons, here.
2) A Man On The Moon, by Andrew Chaikin
On recommendation from
It’s a good narrative but without much depth. I was initially puzzled by some curious repetitions of familiar material about a third of the way in, and a little later a sudden shift of concentration to the (extensive) scientific work of the latter three moon landings, but oddly enough Library Thing gave me the crucial clue – the reason it reads a bit like three different books stuck together is precisely that it is three different books stuck together, the originals having been the story to Apollo 10, Apollos 11 to 14, and Apollos 15, 16 and 17.
The last section of the book, with its strong emphasis on the science of the Moon landings, is perhaps surprisingly the most interesting, outdoing the drama of the first landing of Apollo 11 and the crisis of Apollo 13. The politics of getting a serious scientific component into the lunar programme in the first place, and then the psychology of persuading the astronauts to take it seriously, are a rather fascinating story, with ups and downs – a down in particular for the non-scientist astronaut who was bumped off the very last lunar mission for his geologist colleague. “He told a reporter that the toughest thing he could remember doing in a long time was explaining to his kids that he wasn’t going to the moon.”
The politics of astronaut selection for the various missions also makes interesting reading, particularly in contrast with First Man. Chaikin, writing ten years earlier than Hansen, seems to buy Armstrong’s own instistence that there were no special reasons why he was chosen as the commander of the first lunar landing; it was just his turn on the roster. This is belied by other evidence even in Chaikin’s book, in that the spot had in fact been offered to another astronaut. This makes Armstrong’s role a conscious choice rather than a default option; and when one considers the stronger ego of Pete Conrad, the next astronaut in line, one can see why the decision was made to stick with Armstrong. Incidentally, of the three moon landings before they got serious with the science, Armstrong appears to have done much the best job of gathering and recording moon rocks.
So yeah, a decent enough account, but I will be looking out for more.
Certainly we alway have the subtitles on when we can, because of background noise from children.
(Hat-tip
Posters are up all over the village advertising an open air religious ceremony and candle-lit procession to take place on 1 May at the local cultic centre. The distant past is sometimes surprisingly close in this country. Can anyone tell me the Flemish for “Beltane”?
PS – this is my new icon for Belgian-related posts, though I know less appropriate in this case than in some others!
From
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Seems to mean entirely “how many people’s friends lists are you on”, which is not quite the same thing as “popularity”. Those listed as being ahead of me are
Edited to add: All explained here.
The in-laws got this for free from the Guardian or somehing, and brought it over. Gosh, it isn’t anything like as bad as I had been told. Generally beautiful to look at, with occasional dodgy effects to remind you that in 1984 sf films looked like Doctor Who rather than vice versa. Sting’s acting, which I had heard was atrocious, is certainly no worse than anyone else’s, including Kyle MacLachlan. Lynch did manage the tricky feat of combining long periods when the pace seems very slow with cutting out large amounts of the plot, which leaves the end result a bit confusing (which of course he took to greater lengths in Twin Peaks), but all the basic elements are still there. Diehard Herbert fans (and they are among the most hardline groups I have encountered in fandom) were no doubt annoyed by the liberties taken with the ending, but since that was one of the aspects of the book that least overwhelmed me I can live with it.
I’m not saying that it is actually a good film, mind. Just that its virtues, few though they be, have not been sufficiently credited, at least not to me.
1) Mappa Mundi, by Justina Robson.
Read for review elsewhere. (Will send review to
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