Am trying another Georgian recipe. Unfortunately, after I had blithely bought all the other ingredients in the expectation that I would pick up a brace of pheasants somewhere in Leuven, I realised that there are in fact no pheasants to be had. So I bought two guinea fowl (parelhoenen) instead. Will report back.

Certain circumstances have enabled me to watch the 1965 Doctor Who story, “The Crusade”, this evening. (With a break to watch a BBC2 documentary about, er, the Crusades.) Sadly only episodes 1 and 3 survive in full, but we have the audio of episodes 2 and 4 with reconstruction via photographs etc. It is rather enjoyable.

In particular, there are three strong guest stars – Julian Glover as Richard the Lionheart, Jean Marsh (ex-wife of future Doctor Who Jon Pertwee) as his sister Joanna, and Walter Randall as the fictional villain el-Akir (Randall’s career seems to have been otherwise not awfully memorable bit parts but he did this pretty well, I thought). I’ll put in a word also for Viviane Sorrell as Fatima, who (according to IMDB) never played another role on-screen. And the regular cast are good (though Vicki not given much to do).

The plot is a fairly basic “time-travellers get caught up in real historical events and spent most of the story untangling themselves” one but done effectively, with a real sense of different places as between Crusader-controlled Jaffa and Saracen-controlled Lydda. (Though the thicket in which the Tardis lands does not look in the least Palestinian.) Of course, because the Doctor and Barbara know their history, this gives rise to the usual potential for time paradoxes, though with a certain air of wistfulness:

VICKI: Doctor, will he really see Jerusalem?

THE DOCTOR: Only from afar. He won’t be able to capture it. Even now his armies are marching on a campaign that he can never win.

VICKI: That’s terrible.

THE DOCTOR: Hmm!

VICKI: Can’t we tell him?

THE DOCTOR: I’m afraid not, my dear. No. History must take its course.

A particularly striking aspect is the use of rhythm in the script. I found one website claiming that parts of it were actually written in iambic pentamenter, and, well, it’s nearly true; see what you think.

RICHARD: We think our words were plain enough.

THE DOCTOR: It is
a good scheme, sire, if the princess agrees.

RICHARD: (quietly) Joanna knows nothing of this matter.

THE DOCTOR: Will she agree?

RICHARD: (firmly) You should rather ask
how can she refuse? To stem the blood,
bind up the wounds and give a host of men
lives and futures? Oh, now there’s a marriage
contract to put sacrifice to shame
and make a saint of any woman.

LEICESTER: Sire,
with all the strength at my command I urge you,
sire, to abandon this pretence of peace!

THE DOCTOR: (angrily) Pretence, sir? Here’s the opportunity
to save the lives of many men and you
do nought but turn it down! Without any
kind of thought. What do you think you are doing?

LEICESTER: I speak as a soldier. Why are we here
in this foreign land if not to fight?
The Devil’s horde, Saracen and Turk,
possess Jerusalem and we will not
wrest it from them with harried words.

THE DOCTOR: With swords, I suppose?

LEICESTER: Aye, with swords and lances, or the axe.

THE DOCTOR: You stupid butcher! Can you think
of nothing else but killing, hmm?

LEICESTER: You’re a man for talk, I can see that.
You like a table and a ring of men.
A parley here, arrangements there, but when
you men of eloquence have stunned each other
with your words, we, we the soldiers
have to face it out. On some half-started
morning while you speakers lie abed,
armies settle everything, giving sweat
sinewed bodies ironed life itself.

THE DOCTOR: I admire bravery and loyalty, sir.
You have both of these. But, unfortunately you haven’t any brain at all. I hate fools!

LEICESTER: A fool can match a coward any day.

(Leicester pulls out his sword and faces the Doctor.)

RICHARD: Enough of this! (to Leicester)
You dare to flourish arms before your King?

(Leicester reluctantly sheaths his sword.)

Perhaps I should start writing my livejournal entries in blank verse. I know of two people who do all theirs in haiku – which is all very well, but I tend to have more to say.

A spanking new recommendations system. Log in and click here.

Fasinating piece from Transitions On-Line describing a new film about Šuto Orizari, The Shutka Book of Records. It is indeed an extraordinary place – I visited during the conflict in 2001 – and my friend Thammy Evans describes it memorably in her book. Knowing the politics of it all I’m not surprised that the film has drawn some controversy. I note, however, the sensible comments of one guy from an extremely credible NGO quoted in TOL, “The protests should be directed towards the bad policies of Roma parties that are not able to deal with the problems of the Romani community.” I’ll be looking out for this.

News from one of the peace processes I follow:

New talks on Moldova’s rebel region scheduled for 19 April in Moscow

Chişinău, 13 April: A new round of Dniester settlement talks will be held on 19 April in Moscow, Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister and envoy to the Dniester settlement talks Andriy Veselovskyy has told a news conference in Odessa [Ukraine].

Veselovskyy did not rule out that either Moldovan or Dniester representatives will attend the talks.

It’s good to hear that he thinks one of the two sides might show up to the talks, isn’t it?

One of our neighbours was murdered by her husband last weekend, stabbed with a kitchen knife during a row. We didn’t know her well, but she had been part of the organising team for the annual village fair. Very sad.

(And while I am noting this kind of thing, the gentleman in this story was a friend of a friend. Apparently he took out his hand-grenade to frighten some people he was arguing with, and accidentally set it off. Memo to self: don’t wave hand-grenades at people.)

“I saw things you wouldn’t believe!”
“Try me.”
“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 have a view on his impact on Swedish politics (except that I suspect my Swedish readers may not be big fans of his) but I think his international impact, especially in the Balkans, has been pretty positive.

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 here here. (And I think a couple of others, but can’t find them.)

I rather agree with much of the criticism of these lists, but here goes anyway.

The girls’ list:

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 , I think, but I saw it chez here (and again I think elsewhere but can’t find it right now). This one is a bit more confessional – includes the possibility of saying not just what you have read but admitting what you haven’t.

Instructions: Bold the ones you’ve read
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 ‘s fascinating post about time zones and ‘s Singularity Sky. (Hat-tip, as so often, 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:

has collected lots on The Gospel of Judas.

The judgement in the case known as The Da Vinci Code vs The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail is discussed by here and here. I skimmed the entire 71-page judgement and found it surprisingly badly presented – could have done with a lot more commas and better sentence structure. However there were some passages that caught my eye, such as:

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.

is probably sick of reading sentences that start “I’m not a big fan of vids/Coldplay/the Eighth Doctor, but…” – however, that is not going to prevent me from saying that I am indeed not a big fan of vids, Coldplay or the Eighth Doctor, but I really loved her montage of Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Doctors, plus little bits of the Seventh, to “Clocks”. (Hat-tip to .)

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’? 1630 Revello Drive – well done, and .

2) Who was Xander’s best man in ‘Hells Bells’? Willow – well done, , , and .

3) Which episode was Dawn introduced in? The correct answer is “Buffy vs Dracula”, as she does appear and have one line (“Moooooooooommm!”) at the end of the episode. The contestant said “The Real Me” which was understandable but incorrect. Well done, , , , and .

4) Who did Anya think was she engaged to in ‘Tabula Rasa’? Giles – well done, , , , and .

5) How did principal Flutie die in ‘The Pack’? Eaten by his students – well done, , , and .

6) How did Buffy kill the Judge? With a rocket launcher – well done, , , and (more or less) .

7) How did Buffy prove that Kathy was a demon in ‘Living Conditions’? Her toenail clippings kept growing – only got this exactly right; and gave an answer that is close but not 100%. I just watched this episode a few weeks ago and had completely forgotten this point.

8) What did Anya think apart from bunnies might be causing the singing in ‘Once More With Feeling’? Midgets – well done, , and . ‘s answer rather stunned me until I realised she was answering the next question. , no, that’s what Xander thought it might be.

9) What was Ted’s job? computer salesman – nobody got this, both and (in her answer to #8) being close but not quite there. It’s one of the very few epsiodes I haven’t actually seen, so I have an excuse. The contestant on Mastermind answered correctly.

10) What was the name of the oracle that Giles and Anya consulted in ‘Showtime’? Beljoxa’s Eye – the contestant got this completely wrong; only got it, with close and a bit further off.

11) In which episode did Giles and Joyce kiss, Buffy drive a car and the doctor body surfed? “Band Candy”, of course; well done , , and .

12) How many hearts did the Gentlemen have to get in ‘Hush’? Seven – sorry, , , and .

13) What happened to Amber the cheerleader in ‘The Witch’? Her hands caught fire – well done, and had the right episode but wrong character.

14) Who played Joyce? Kristine Sutherland – well done, , and will be kicking herself.

15) What kind of statue did Brad steal for Harmony in ‘Real Me’? A unicorn – well done, , and .

16) What was the name of the character who was Buffy’s boyfriend between Angel and Riley? Parker Abrams – well done and , the time-frame is important here I think!

17) What three word message did Ethan Rayne leave behind in ‘Halloween’? Be Seeing You – well done and .

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 and , among others.

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.)

Dress Code:
-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.

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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 on “The Golden Age of Spying”, mostly entirely factual but including an amusing little interview with Blofeld set in Transdniestria. That doubles the number of sf stories I have read referencing that peculiar place (the other being Walter Jon Williams’ “The Green Leopard Plague”).

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.

USA: The Harry S Truman Building, so renamed in 2000, built in 1947-1961 (see me standing outside it here). A rather soulless office environment, though full of bustle and with a strong sense of internal hierarchy. Most memorable for the entrance hall with flags of all the states with which the USA has diplomatic relations – see picture here – which is just as well as you tend to spend a long time in the entrance hall clearing security. From 1875 to 1947 the State Department was in the Old Executive Office Building, which I find much more atmospheric, although also a bit more dilapidated (now home to among others the National Security Council, which is why I go there).

Germany: The Auswärtiges Amt at the Werderscher Markt in Berlin. Perhaps the most architecturally interesting of the foreign ministries (with compretition from the Irish). Certainly the most historically interesting (in German here). Originally built as the Reichsbank between 1934 and 1940. Badly damaged in the war (its president condemned to life imprisonment at Nuremberg for complicity in war crimes and genocide). Became the seat of the East German Conmmunist Central Committee from 1959. Was then the meeting place of the short-lived multi-party Volkskammer of the DDR, and thus the place where reunification was ratified by the former East Germany. Foreign Ministry since 1996. The old 1930’s core building is now fronted by a beautiful 1990’s entrance with water features, but the most memorable feature must surely be original, the paternoster lift which takes you between floors – somewhat nerve-racking when you first encounter it.

UK: The building on King Charles Street between Whitehall and St James’s Park was built between 1861 and 1868, the Foreign Office as such having been created in 1782. George Gilbert Scott famously wanted to build Gothic, but Lord Palmerston, then Prime Minister, insisted it be Classical and so it was (if you want to consider what might have been, Scott also designed and built the Albert Memorial and St Pancras Station about the same time, and was given more of a free hand). Originally the building housed the India Office, the Foreign Office, the Colonial Office and the Home Office, but the Foreign Office absorbed two of the others and kicked the third out. The aerial photo demonstrates how difficult it is to get a feel for the exterior of the building in the cramped architectural environment of Whitehall; the Foreign Office have however put on a nice on-line tour of the interior. Feels inside like what it is, a building that has been used as office space for 150 years, with the inevitable cycles of decay and regeneration.

France: The Quai d’Orsay is the oldest purpose-built foreign ministry building on my list, built between 1845 and 1853. The picture here shows the gardens at the back and the formal entrance, and if you took the on-line tour you could get the impression that the whole building is like that; however, I usually get the unprepossessing business entrance on the quayside, and then find my interlocutors in windowless rooms off peculiar landings of staircases that would once have been much grander. The Foreign Office in London must have been like this not so very long ago, and I hope the French make some effort to improve the working environment since the function rooms are so very impressive.

Italy: The Farnesina Palace (not to be confused with the sixteenth century Farnesina Villa downtown). Unlike their German counterparts, the official ministry website is a bit coy about what exactly the building was doing in the first quarter century of its life, before the Ministry moved there in 1959; it is, however, impossible to describe the architecture accurately, however coy you may be about it, without using the word “fascist” somewhere. It has to be said that it is a well-designed office building – reputedly the biggest or second biggest office building in Italy – along three principal corridors with different departments clearly labelled, and gives off a certain hum of professionalism. The worst thing about it is that it is so far to the north of the city centre.

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 recommends.

At Strange Horizons, here.