Ha, turns out my flight isn’t until 1920, rather than 1445 as I thought, and goes direct to Heathrow. So today’s travel looks a bit less gruelling. (Though I still get to Georgia at stupid o’clock tomorrow morning.)

A good day today. I made it into Leuven to do some shopping for my field trip next week – one of our staff has just got married, and another needed cuff-links, so some browsing in unexpected quarters of Leuven; thanks to for her tip about the cuff-links. And managed to get and read the new Daniel Clowes book.

Tomorrow I’m off to the country that calls itself საკართველო, leaving by a mid-afternoon flight to Gatwick, followed by the usual soul-destroying bus transfer to Heathrow, finally arriving in the capital city, თბილისი, at stupid o’clock on Monday morning. Later on Monday, once I wake up, I’ll make a field trip to Цхинвал (aka ცხინვალი), capital of the rebel-held territory of Хуссар Ирыстон (aka სამხრეთი ოსეთია) and then from Tuesday to Thursday I’ll be in intense discussions of the disputed region known to most of its current inhabitants as Լեռնային Ղարաբա (or just Արցախ for short) though the other side of the dispute prefer to call it Dağlıq Qarabağ. (If your computer chokes on some of those alphabets, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.) Then on Thursday I’m flying to the UK as my cousin is getting married in Hampshire on Friday. And then I get home on Saturday.

I’ll get my cousin a wedding present in Georgia. (Not ‘s Georgia, which does not refer to itself as საკართველო, no matter how much Belgian beer is consumed.)

2) Ice Haven, by Daniel Clowes.

Last time I read anything by Daniel Clowes, people whose opinions I respect (well, and , anyway) said I should look out for more of his work, especially Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. Well, in the comic shop this morning picking up a present for F’s teacher (a Calvin and Hobbes book) I didn’t see Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron but my eye did fall on Ice Haven and I bought it. It’s a quick read, I understand previously serialised in a single Fantagraphics monthly, but very good – doings of various characters in a small town, much going on under the surface, unspoken fantasies, how we react to literature and writing, children’s views of the world.

There’s a good review of it here which links to three other thoughtful reviews. Now I’m going to read it again.

From yesterday’s RFE/RL:

WASHINGTON SAID TO HAVE FORCED CHISINAU TO SELL AIRCRAFT IN 1997. Former Moldovan President Petru Lucinschi said at a trial of former Moldovan Defense Minister Valeriu Pasat on 4 July that the United States pressed Moldova into selling its warplanes cheaply to Washington and dismissed charges that Pasat defrauded the state, Reuters reported. Pasat is currently standing trial on charges of selling too cheaply 21 MiG-29 jet fighters to the United States in 1997 (see “RFE/RL Newsline,” 28 June 2005). Lucinschi told journalists that Moldova had received an offer of $93 million for the planes, but had to yield to Washington’s bid. “We did receive an offer from a South Korean firm ready to pay $93 million, but the Americans told us the planes would end up in Iran,” he noted. Washington offered to buy the fighters as part of a plan to make arms stocks in the former Soviet Union safe (see “RFE/RL Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova Report,” 7 July 2005). JM

This may all seem ludicrous and conspiratorial, but I actually met a former US diplomat a couple of years ago who told me that he had been on the other end of this deal (which in his account was pretty much as ex-President Lucinschi describes it) and that the story was a little more complicated…

Google Earth is great, but I notice a few limitations – in particular, the overlay of borders doesn’t always exactly match the reality on the ground. Here, for instance, is a screenshot of the Albanian/Macedonian border on the south-eastern shore of Lake Ohrid (40°54’41” N, 20°44’27″E):

I know this area quite well, and in fact the large pool of water in the middle of the picture (the source of the Black Drim river) and the monastery complex to the west (left) of it are firmly in Macedonia, having apparently been given to the King of Yugoslavia by King Zog of Albania some time in the 1920s. So the yellow line is off by about 700 metres, I think.

So the lesson is, don’t plan delicate details of international diplomacy with Google Maps. But do use it and say, Wow!

Especially since you can generate pictures like this:

This is one of my favourite places – the former palace of the Emperor Diocletian in Split (in Croatia, here looking roughly south). The octagonal building in the middle was built as Diocletian’s tomb at the end of the 3rd century AD. It’s now the city’s cathedral (note large bell-tower attached to the octagon, built almost a thousand years later). Given the Emperor’s record of persecuting Christians, he’d be turning in his grave (if it weren’t for the fact that they threw him out of it some time ago).

And this, the work of nature rather than of humanity:

There is nothing quite like Mount Everest, is there?

Good for Ken Livingstone, finding the right words. Though a part of me wishes he had consistently taken this line throughout his career.

Sounds like anyone I know was safely out of the way, for which, as ever, much thanks. For Londoners, of course, it’s not something especially new, although it is always shocking.

I have been mulling ‘s somewhat provocatively phrased comments, and find myself in close agreement with ‘s response. Slightly rearranging ‘s final paragraphs, he says:

I don’t think it’s overstating to say that no matter how Utopian the society there will always be someone, somewhere, so unhappy, so outraged, so extreme in their opposition to it that they will be moved to violence. To imagine that countries like the UK can heal the causes of terrorism by amending their foreign policy is to assume that those committing acts of terrorism would even care, or believe, or choose to understand. On the contrary, I don’t think anything the UK or others could do would satisfy them.

That doesn’t absolve us from blame. It doesn’t mean, of course, that we shouldn’t try to be wise, fair, and open-minded in our way of life and our dealings with other countries. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to remove hypocrisy and self-serving interests from our politics. Of course we should. Some terrible, tainted, ideologically abhorrent acts have been committed in the name of democracy and freedom. And in general if we clean up our act it might improve the international climate. Gradually. A little. But it won’t prevent terrorists from emerging, and it won’t satisfy the ones already in existence.

I think that’s entirely realistic, as someone whose day job actually revolves around analysing the use or potential use of violence, and then trying to get the major countries of the world to adopt a wiser, fairer and more open-minded foreign policy. One doesn’t want to get too far down the line of saying “You should adopt these policies because it will reduce your exposure to terrorism” – that comes much too close to allowing violence to dictate the agenda; I prefer to say “You should adopt these policies because they are the right thing to do”. And if I get the answer, as sometimes happens, “We can’t possibly do that because it’s what the men of violence want”, my response is, “In that case you are letting them set your agenda, and any lone madman with an AK-47 is in a position to determine your policy.” Not thinking of any particular examples here, though I’m sure you can fill in the blanks.

On a somewhat lighter note. The careful phraseology of media commentators, none of them wanting to be the first to declare that al-Qaeda type terrorists are responsible, reminded me, I’m afraid, of the Peter Cook sketch about the 1963 Great Train Robbery:

Journalist:	Who do you think may have perpetrated this awful crime?
Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling:	We believe this to be the work of thieves. I’ll tell you why. The whole pattern is extremely reminiscent of past robberies where we have found thieves to be involved. The tell-tale loss of property, the snatching away of the money suggests that it all points to thieves.
Journalist:	So you feel that thieves are responsible?
Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling:	Good heavens, no. I feel that thieves are totally irresponsible – ghastly people who go around snatching your money!

From Wednesday’s Hansard:

Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con): I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Representation of the People Acts in respect of deceased candidates.

Obviously, I should begin by declaring a recent interest in this subject. May I also say to you, Mr. Speaker, and to Members in all parts of the House, how grateful I have been for the welcome that I have received on my delayed return to the House? Although I realise that that welcome has been genuine, it has also been partly prompted by the fact that every Member knows that there but for the grace of God could he or she have gone. I seek to save any colleague in any part of the House from having to face the sort of long ordeal that I had to face in May and June. I am grateful to the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs both for her helpful encouragement and for her presence here today.

I shall explain briefly why I seek to bring in the Bill. On 1 May I became the victim of a law drawn up in an era when most election contests were either straight fights or three-cornered ones, before the proliferation of candidates that is now so common in almost every constituency.

There are four main defects in the law. First, the party affected by the death of the candidate has no chance either to field a substitute or to withdraw from the election. Secondly, the law does not distinguish in any way between candidates. If any one of the Prime Minister’s 14 opponents had died, right up until the declaration of his result, he could not have been elected on 5 May. And if Catherine Taylor-Dawson of the Vote for Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket party had died, there would have been chaos in Wales. She obtained one vote—presumably her own—in Cardiff, North, but she also stood in all three other Cardiff seats, polling a total of less than 300 votes in all four. If she had died, Cardiff would not have been represented in the House at all—and I remember the day, in 1974, when the Government had an overall majority of four. Colleagues should reflect briefly on the consequences of such an action. And what if a single candidate stood against every Member for the Cabinet and then committed suicide? [Hon. Members: “Any volunteers?”] Those are all practical possibilities.

Thirdly, the length of the delay is surely inordinate. Twenty-eight days after the proof of death the writ is reactivated, which gives a minimum of seven weeks’ delay before the new election.

Fourthly, new entrants are allowed into the field. Although the new election is supposed to be, and indeed legally is, part of the general election, new candidates who had not signified their original intention to stand are allowed to enter.

My Bill does not propose to allow dead candidates to be elected, as in the United States, but I propose that the party affected by the death should have choice of withdrawing or substituting a candidate, and that if necessary, a delay of 72 hours would be allowed for the reprinting of ballot papers.

I am also suggesting that the law should not apply to any independent candidate. An “independent” candidate—three of the Prime Minister’s opponents were designated merely by that word—is by definition sui generis, unique, so if such a candidates dies, that is the end of the matter; nobody can substitute. That should not hold up an election. The law should not apply to any party that polled less than 10 per cent. in the constituency concerned at the previous general election, or less than 5 per cent. nationally, if the party did not contest the constituency concerned. That would solve the problem of maverick or mischievous candidates bringing constitutional chaos to the country. I also suggest that no candidate should be allowed to stand in more than one constituency.

My final main proposition is that the delay between the death and the new polling day should in no circumstances be more than 28 days. Last time such a thing happened was in 1951, and in those days the law said that no more than 14 days should pass. Perhaps that timing was a little tight, but 28 days should be ample even for a major party to find another candidate.

Finally, no new candidate who had not signified an intention to stand in the original election should be allowed to stand in the rescheduled election. Nor should any major party be allowed to substitute its original candidate without the certification of the returning officer that the reason is a genuine and acceptable one. I had a new Labour opponent and I am not suggesting that the reasons for the substitution were anything other than genuine and entirely acceptable, but I do not believe that substitution should be automatically allowed.

As it stands, the law at the moment qualifies for Mr. Bumble’s famous description that the law “is an ass”. It needs changing because the case that I have illustrated has brought to wider public attention what can be done by mischief makers or malevolent people. I am most anxious that, before the next general election, we should have tidied up the law.

What I am proposing is a partial repeal of that worst of all laws—the law of unintended consequences. I very much hope that all Members on both sides of the House will feel able to join me and my distinguished sponsors and give the measure a fair wind.

Jeepers, just after the Olympics bid…

Hope you’re all safe.

I’ve been following this really as an outsider, not really understanding the issues at all, but basically realising that people who I generally like for other reasons opposed the directive, and the people who supported it tended to be those who I am naturally suspicious of. So I can manage at least one cheer for the likely result tomorrow.

If your French is better than mine (not difficult) and you are interested in the topic I’d be very grateful if you could post a quick translation of the relevant bits as a comment.

SPLIT EU PARLIAMENT SET TO KILL SOFTWARE PATENTS DIRECTIVE Le Parlement européen s’apprête à enterrer la directive très controversée relative à la brevetabilité des logiciels, en votant mercredi en seconde lecture contre le texte soutenu par les Etats membres et la Commission. Première force de l’assemblée, les conservateurs du PPE ont décidé mardi soir de changer de position et de soutenir une proposition de rejet du texte, qui sera également votée par les socialistes, les Verts et une partie des démocrates et libéraux, mais pour des raisons totalement différentes. Divisé sur cette question très complexe, le PPE craint que des amendements défavorables aux grands industriels, et visant à réduire le champ de ce qui est brevetable, puissent atteindre la majorité absolue de 367 voix. “Ces amendements auraient des conséquences catastrophiques pour le développement industriel de l’Europe”, a estimé le conservateur allemand Klaus-Heiner Lehne. Les écologistes redoutent au contraire de ne pas avoir la majorité nécessaire sur les amendements proposés par le rapporteur, le socialiste français Michel Rocard. “C’est mieux de ne pas avoir de texte que d’en avoir un mauvais”, a estimé de son côté Rocard, qui jugeait “peu probable” une majorité sur ses amendements.

COMMISSION WON’T MAKE NEW PROPOSAL Le rejet du texte par le Parlement mercredi serait un camouflet pour la Commission et le Conseil qui n’avaient pas tenu compte de la première lecture du Parlement restreignant le champ d’application de la directive. Le commissaire Joaquin Almunia a fait savoir mardi que Bruxelles ne ferait pas de nouvelle proposition si le rejet était voté.

DRAFT WAS GOOD ENOUGH, SAYS ALMUNIA Several MEPs called for the Commission to revisit the drawing board and come back with a fresh draft. However, the Brussels executive rejected drafting a new proposal and Joaquin Almunia warned that allowing the bill to fail would hurt the EU aim of increasing the 25-nation bloc’s economic competitiveness. “The Commission believes that the common position meets the requirements of introducing predictable framework that promotes and rewards innovation,” Almunia told lawmakers.

ALL GROUPS TO VOTE AGAINST The two biggest groups in the parliament _the conservative European People’s Party and the Socialists_ decided late Tuesday to reject the bill. «We’ll vote against on Wednesday,» European People’s Party spokesman Robert Fitzhenry said. Some 178 amendments to the bill have been tabled by parliamentarians ahead of the vote. The Green Party alone has tabled 21 amendments in a last-ditch effort to dilute the legislation. Their amendments would limit the scope of the bill to include only «technical contributions,» meaning any pure software code cannot be patented. “The EPP party meeting has just voted to reject the common position tomorrow morning,” said Fitzhenry. Tony Robinson, spokesman for the PSE, said the group will also be voting to scrap the bill. The two groups combined have 468 deputies, easily passing the threshold needed to kill legislation in the 732-member assembly. Earlier in the day, the smaller ALDE liberal group, with 89 members, said it would also vote to reject the bill. A version of the bill agreed by the 25 member states of the EU left the assembly members divided and unable to muster the qualified majorities needed to amend it. “The rejection is the fallback option that everybody can understand in political terms and does not run the risk of the bill turning into a dog’s breakfast (a mess),” said liberal group spokesman Neil Corlett, a view echoed by others. If the bill is not amended or killed, the member-state version would become law. “Since it is not sure that we can get a really good directive, then I would rather have no directive at all than one which could be misused to legitimise too much patenting,” said Eva Lichtenberger, a member of the Green party. The Greens and their allies in the assembly number 42. Lichtenberger hoped the debate will now turn to the possibility of an EU-based patent. Europe-wide patenting is currently handled by the European Patent Office with no recourse to a single court, forcing firms to defend them in each country -a costly exercise.

LONG BATTLE Depuis 2001, partisans et opposants à l’idée du brevet logiciel bataillent vigoureusement afin d’orienter le débat en leur faveur. Des deux côtés, on demande “plus de clarté” car s’il existe depuis 1973 un office européen des brevets (OEB) à Munich, 25 régimes continuent à coexister dans l’UE avec des interprétations différentes par les justices nationales, d’où la proposition d’harmonisation présentée par Bruxelles. Le projet de directive prévoit que “les inventions mises en oeuvre par ordinateur” -de la machine à laver au téléphone portable- puissent être protégées par des brevets. Selon la position commune atteinte avec beaucoup de difficulté par les 25 Etats membres en mars, les brevets pour les logiciels “purs” sont expressément exclus mais demeurent envisageables si le logiciel est nécessaire au fonctionnement de l’invention. Dans cette logique, un système de freinage ABS serait brevetable, tout comme le logiciel à l’origine de cette invention, une pratique déjà appliquée dans les faits par l’OEB.

INDUSTRY SPLIT TOO Les grands industriels comme Siemens, Nokia ou Alcatel, regroupés au sein de l’

A VICTORY FOR LOBBYISTS «A strong lobby campaign has caused many MEPs to shift position and resulted in a flood of technical amendments that threatens to swamp the directive,» said Toine Manders, a Liberal Democrat. «There could be chaos in Strasbourg,» he said. «Some amendments might be adopted and others not. If the final result does not bring the desired legal clarity, Parliament risks creating a gold mine for patent lawyers and a nightmare for businesses. It would be better to have no legislation at all than bad legislation.»

BIG COMPANIES PUSHED HARD Big companies such as Nokia Corp. and Siemens AG have fought hard for adoption of the bill, saying they need to invest in research and development. Open source advocates have campaigned against it, saying that individuals and small businesses could be bankrupted by expensive legal battles with software giants over fuzzy patent law. «We’d miss a golden opportunity if the bill got rejected,» said Marc MacGann, director general of EICTA, a group representing 10,000 companies including Nokia and Alcatel SA. «Currently there are 25 ways of interpreting patent. This law would bring harmonization and simplify things.» About a hundred demonstrators protesting the proposed law gathered outside parliament before the debate. Clad in yellow vests with a «No to software patents» logo and holding banners saying «Software patents kill innovation» and «U.S. patents go out,» they stopped cars with deputies outside the parliament entrance, urging them to vote against bill. The bill stops short of the U.S. system that allows patenting of business methods or computer programs such as Amazon.com Inc.’s «one-click» shopping technique, which gives consumers a quick system to buy goods on its Web site.

SOCIALISTS SEE REJECTION AS PRESSURE ON EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE “Mieux vaut n’avoir aucune directive qu’avoir une mauvaise directive”, avait résumé mardi après-midi Michel Rocard, rapporteur dans ce dossier et auteur des amendements socialistes. Lesdits amendements, qui ont été rejetés le mois dernier par la commission juridique, limitent clairement le brevetage aux “inventions assistées par ordinateur”, à l’exclusion des “programmes d’ordinateur”. En commission, les eurodéputés ont préféré une formulation plus floue, qui, selon Rocard, “encouragera l’office européen des brevets (OEB) dans ses dérives”. “Si la plénière valide la position de la commission juridique, la zone grise s’étendra”, a affirmé l’ancien Premier ministre, en référence aux inventions auxquelles l’OEB a accordé abusivement une protection. Par contre, “si le Parlement rejette la directive, il exercera une pression contre l’extension de la jurisprudence de l’OEB à des brevets illégitimes”.

Edited to add: Hah, I see the BBC is now reporting the vote.

Excellent article by Charlotte Moore on life with her two autistic teenage sons.

Thanks, folks, for your support in response to my rather downbeat messages of the last few days. I reckon I was being brought rather low by the virus, or whatever, and now feel considerably recovered.

I had one of those extraordinary days at work today. Because the water had been cut off in our street, I found myself tossing and turning in bed from about 6 am onwards, and decided to make the best of a bad job and go in to Brussels smelly, hoping that the legendary shower in our office building would turn out to exist. I also made the strategic decision to go in wearing jeans, but take my smart suit anyway so as to get it dry-cleaned.

When I got to work, I encountered my boss (who had been there since 5 am) and he informed me that I was coming with him to today’s meeting with the European Union’s Political and Security Committee.

The Political and Security Committee is the EU body which runs the Common Foreign and Security Policy. It is the second most important of the EU’s Brussels-based committees and includes a full Ambassador from each EU member state, plus representatives also from Bulgaria, Romania and the European Commission. The British had invited my boss to speak to the Committee in what I guess was its first proper meeting under the British presidency, and now I had the chance to sit at the back.

Luckily the shower in our office was not legendary, and was working. And my suit, though in need of cleaning, was presentable. I did have to borrow someone else’s tie though, as I hadn’t planned on wearing one today.

So after a somewhat frenetic clean-up and preparation from me, we arrived at the big pink building on Rondpoint Schumann for the meeting. We were met by a British diplomat, an old friend of mine from Bosnia days, who shepherded us inside – the first time I’d seen him since he became a father at the end of March.. I got the impression that our participating in the meeting had been largely his idea because he looked very nervous. I asked him how he was feeling and he admitted that he too had been up since 5 am – “and it wasn’t just because of the baby”.

The meeting room itself was much bigger than I had expected. There are 27 countries and the European Commission and the European Council Secretariat represented, each with at least two seats around the table and another two or three behind, so I reckon there were upwards of 150 in the room. The whole meeting was done in English, apart from one of my colleagues who made a point of speaking in French (even the French Ambassador made her intervention in English). The British Ambassador, presiding, addressed everyone by their first name. Mobile phones seemed to be going off all the time – though quietly – as people received (or perhaps even gave) instructions to their national capitals.

My boss gave a fantastic performance, reviewing EU mechanisms in some detail and then hitting on various parts of the world, especially the ones I work on. I was particularly pleased that he took a swipe at the European Commission on one topic which I feel strongly about – the rather obscure question of double-hatting the EUSRs.

An EUSR is an EU Special Representative, whose job is to be a focus for the 25 member states in a particular region or country. I personally have been banging away for a long time to whoever would listen about how sensible it would be for such people to also run the European Commission offices in the country for which they are responsible, so that there would be a single office representing the EU rather than two or more. (And therefore an answer to Kissinger’s famous question, “What is Europe’s phone number?”) It’s an obscure issue, but one which could be of great benefit to the EU if resolved, especially in the Balkans. However, every time I’ve talked to Commission people about this, they’ve told me it is impossible to “double-hat the EUSRs”, in other words to give them both jobs, of representing the Council and the Commission simultaneously, unless and until the Constitutional Treaty comes into force, which as we now know thanks to the Dutch and French voters is unlikely to ever happen. So I was pleased that my boss chose to mention this as one of his points to the ambassadors.

The ambassadors responded pretty well to his presentation, including one Eastern European who asked a penetrating and well-informed question about Zimbabwe, no doubt surprising those who weren’t aware that his country has a policy on Zimbabwe (I smiled, because I’m well aware that his country indeed has no policy on Zimbabwe, but also that the Ambassador’s ex-wife is from there.) But I was myself surprised when the European Commission’s representative, the last to speak, actually said that the Commission had changed its mind, and he was now under explicit instructions to find a way of double-hatting the EUSRs, at least in the Balkans.

I was really pleased. As far as I know, while there were certain internal forces pushing this, nobody except our organisation – frankly, except me – had been saying this on the outside. Of course, it hasn’t happened yet, but it’s nice to feel that I am making a difference, even if it’s in almost invisible areas of EU comitology.

Then of course it turned out that one of the EU Council Secretariat staffers listening to the presentation is the daughter of a well-known British fandom figure. So once again my worlds collide.

Got back to work to find that one of our analysts in the field had resigned. It had been a tough call when I hired him a couple of months back, as I actually knew the reserve candidate rather better but he didn’t interview as well. Called the reserve candidate and put it to him – would he like to work for us after all? Luckily the answer was yes.

Going to bed now.

The Azeri democracy test

By Jackson Diehl
4 July 2005
The Washington Post

Less than six months after President George W. Bush’s inaugural address, the tension between his commitment to democracy and longstanding U.S. security and economic commitments grows steadily more acute, especially in the Muslim world. There is the problem of whether to endorse Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s half-baked presidential election; there is the dilemma of Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, who massacred hundreds of protesters in one town but continues to host a U.S. military base in another.

Next up: Azerbaijan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic on the Caspian Sea that hosts big U.S. oil companies, a new strategic pipeline for their products, a refueling stop for U.S. military planes — and a government teetering between consolidating a corrupt autocracy and embracing democratic reforms. Lodged between Russia and Iran, Turkey and Central Asia, Azerbaijan resembles Ukraine a year ago, as it performed a similar wobble — one that ended in a fraudulent election, followed by a democratic revolution. Like former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev — who was elected amid some blatant ballot-box stuffing two years ago — has promised to hold free and fair parliamentary elections this November. As it did last year, the Bush administration is trying to push the president to keep his word, without pushing so hard that he ends up in the arms of dictator-friendly Russia or China, or reverses his cooperation with the Pentagon and American oil companies.

Azerbaijan’s well-developed political opposition and civil society meanwhile is deliberately modeling itself on the democracy movements of Ukraine and neighboring Georgia. It has built a coalition, chosen a protest color (orange), and united around a demand that the elections be free and fair. If they are not, the opposition will call Azeris to the streets. Already, thousands joined two antigovernment demonstrations in the capital, Baku, last month. The Azeri opposition is not as united or popular as that of Ukraine or Georgia. But the challengers are far better organized and competent than those in many other Muslim countries.

As massive oil revenues begin to flow into Baku, U.S. acceptance of another rigged election this year could cement Mr. Aliyev as just another president-for-life. Administration officials say they understand the risk and have made a fair Azeri election a top policy priority. “We are using every bit of leverage we can muster,” one official told me.

After suppressing one opposition rally in May, the government allowed the two last month. It has opened a dialogue with opposition leaders, and there is talk that Mr. Aliyev will agree to debate his opponents on national television. At best, Azerbaijan could deliver a breakthrough for the Bush administration: a historic free election that would end up strengthening its ally Mr. Aliyev. At worst Bush will have to choose this November between another oil-rich autocrat and pro-democracy demonstrators who have taken his inaugural address to heart. Either way, a strategic Muslim country that hasn’t gotten much attention in Washington since 2001 will soon be in the spotlight.

This made me feel better:

More from the wingnut tendency.

The weird thing is that the most virulent of the wingnuts I deal with are the pro-Macedonian fanatics, far far worse than the Serbs; yet if there’s one country that is far and away my favourite of the ones I deal with, it is Macedonia. You just can’t win, I suppose.

…but our water has been cut off since mid-afternoon, and of course since I’ve been horizontal most of the day I never got washed.

Oh well, I’ll be fit for work tomorrow, I expect, and our office block is rumoured to have a shower on the ground floor. If it doesn’t I’ll just have to be smelly all day.

Some kind of tummy bug has hit me – went to bed instead of eating dinner last night, slept for twelve hours, still not feeling great.

Sitting at home watching the rain pour down outside and listening to the thunder roll. Unlikely to make it to work today.

June Books 5) Shadow/Claw: The Shadow of the Torturer & The Claw of the Conciliator, by Gene Wolfe.
July Books 1) Sword/Citadel: The Sword of the Lictor & The Citadel of the Autarch, by Gene Wolfe.

Once I’d read all the novels to have won the Hugo, I realised I was only ten short of reading all the novels that have won the Nebula as well, and soundings indicated this might be a good place to start, in that The Claw of the Conciliator (the second half of the first volume, as I bought them) won the 1982 award. I admit I was also intrigued by having read The Shadow of the Torturer and The Sword of the Lictor many years ago and glad of the excuse to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. And I wanted to find out what was behind John Clute’s breathlessly enthuiastic (if slightly spoilerish) write-up of it in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction:

As a synthesizing work of fiction — a type of creation which tends to come, for obvious reasons, late in the period or genre it transmutes — The Book of the New Sun owes clear debts to the sf and fantasy world in general, and in particular to the dying-Earth (>FAR FUTURE) category of PLANETARY ROMANCE initiated by Jack VANCE. Though it is a full-blown tale of cosmogony, the entire story is set on Urth, eons hence, a world so impacted with the relics of humanity’s long residence that archaeology and geology have become, in a way, the same science: that of plumbing the body of the planet for messages which have become inextricably intermingled over the innumerable years. The world into which Severian is born has indeed become so choked with formula and ritual that early readers of THE SHADOW OF THE TORTURER could be perhaps forgiven for identifying the text as SWORD AND SORCERY, though hints that the book was in fact sf-oriented SCIENCE FANTASY were — in the usual GW manner — abundant. Apparently an orphan, Severian is raised as an apprentice torturer in the Matachin Tower which nests among other similar towers in the Citadel compound of the capital city of Nessus, somewhere in the southern hemisphere (one of the easier tasks of decipherment GW imposes is that of understanding that the Towers are in fact ancient spaceships). Severian grows to young adulthood, falls into too intimate a concourse with an exultant (a genetically bred aristocrat) due to be tortured to death, is banished, travels through the land, becomes involved in a war to the far north where he meets-not for the first time — the old Autarch who dominates the world and who recognizes in Severian his appointed heir, and himself becomes Autarch.

It is a classic plot, and superficially unproblematic. But Severian himself is very distant in conception from the normal sf or science-fantasy hero he seems, at some moments, to resemble. As usual with GW, the protagonist himself narrates the story of his childhood and early youth from a period some years later; Severian makes it clear that he has an infallible memory (but is less clear about the fact that he is capable of lying); he also makes it clear that he has known from an early age that he is (or has been, or will be) the reborn manifestation of the Conciliator-a MESSIAH figure from a previous, or through TIME PARADOXES, a possibly concurrent reality — whose rebirth is for the purpose of bringing the New Sun to Urth. At this point, sf and Catholicism — GW is Roman Catholic — breed together, for the New Sun is both white hole and Revelation. The imagery and structure of The Book of the New Sun make it explicitly clear that Severian himself is both Apollo and Christ, and that the story of his life is a secular rendering of the parousia, or Second Coming. His cruelty to himself and others is the cruelty of the Universe itself; and his reverence for the world constitutes no simple blessing. His family is a Holy Family, lowly and anonymous, but ever-present; and their absence from any “starring” role — GW refuses in the text to identify any of them — has religious implications as well as aesthetic. (Much attention, some of it approaching the Talmudical, has been spent on identifying this Family, which does clearly include: Dorcas, Severian’s paternal grandmother; his unnamed though Charonian paternal grandfather; his father Ouen; his mother Katherine; and-almost certainly — a sibling, who may be the homunculus found in a jar in The Citadel of the Autarch.)

He got a lot more out of it than I did. I found the books an entertaining, surprisingly quick read, with indeed a sense of the author playing games with us readers through having an unreliable narrator; I loved the use of language, both the vocabulary of “fuligin”, “destrier”, etc, and the general descriptions (especially when it turns out that some of them are indeed partial); and I picked up the occasional homage to Borges. I appreciated the understated way in which various characters were dealt with, to the point where I felt sorrier about the fate of Terminus Est than about the death of Severian junior. But is this series really so very much deeper than Zelazny’s much shorter sequence of The Changing Land and Dilvish the Damned, published at almost exactly the same time? Maybe I’m just too tired to appreciate all its subtleties. Clearly the series arouses deep enthusiasm, not just from John Clute but also here, here, and here/here. However I did enjoy what I thought I was reading. Perhaps I’ll reread in a few months and see if I spot anything I’d missed.

Our excursion of the weekend was to Hoegaarden, home of the famous beers, but in our case we were going to see the show gardens (which claim to have a website here, but it won’t work for me in Firefox). They have set up series of twenty or so themed little gardens in the grounds of the former abbey, one with strongly scented plants, one with poisonous plants, one with roses, one small space dedicated to the memory of King Baudouin, etc etc. More interesting for Anne, really, so I let her wander while supervising the children in the small but entirely adequate playground. And then had a snack in the cafe, including a cool glass of the local brew. There is a note in the guidebook to the effect that the gardens remained in private hands until 1980 when the last owner was murdered by the head gardener. We are assured that they have a different head gardener now. Not very far away, and just the other side of the motorway from Tienen.

I’ve come to an important realisation: my fond hopes of organising grand social events here over the summer are illusory. B’s at her respite care place this weekend, and I’m still so exhausted from work and small people that I can barely move. So organising a party, even with several weeks’ lead-in, is out of the question. Casual visitors are still very welcome, though.

Thanks to  (or rather ):

Best SF Novel: The Baroque Cycle (The Confusion and The System of the World), Neal Stephenson – neither was even nominated for the Hugo; Iron Sunrise was 2nd, The Algebraist 5th and River of Gods 9th, placings for the latter two being particularly impressive given the lateness of their US publication.

Best Fantasy Novel: Iron Council, China Mieville – Hugo nominee as well.

Best First Novel: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke – another Hugo nominee

Best YA Book: A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett;

Best Novella: “Golden City Far”, Gene Wolfe – must look out for it.

Best Novelette (tie): “Reports of Certain Events in London”, China Mieville & “The Faery Handbag”, Kelly Link – the Link story is a Hugo nominee

Best Short Story: “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless house of the Night of Dread Desire”, Neil Gaiman – sounds from the title alone much better than any of the Hugo nominees!

Best Anthology: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-First Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois (ed.);

Best Collection: The John Varley Reader, John Varley;

Best Non-Fiction Book: The Wave in the Mind, Ursula K. Le Guin

OK, off to update my Hugo nominees page.

7.7: Conversations With Dead People – the one where Cassie from the previous episode appears to Willow, Joyce appears to Dawn, Andrew kills Jonathan, Spike is killing people, and Buffy meets (and eventually dusts) the vampire which tries to psychoanalyse her. Also the only Buffy episode to win a Hugo award. I must say I can’t quite see why. It’s very very creepy and atmospheric, but there are a couple of things I was left wondering about which I really hope will be resolved by season’s end rather than turning out to be inconsistencies. The biggest one of these is, why on earth would the Big Bad choose to manifest to Willow as someone she just read about on the internet and never met, rather than, say, Tara? [Seems on doing my research that Amber Benson just didn’t want to do the scenes, which is a bit of a shame.] And the second biggest question is, if the First can’t take corporeal form, why is the Joyce manifestation (including mysterious other Thing which then disappears) none the less able to smash up significant parts of the Summers’ house? I mean, for most of the episode it carried me along with it, especially with the superb opening – I can’t actually remember another episode where the title was displayed, though no doubt this is me getting old. If I hadn’t known I was going to be writing this in due course I’d probably have let it go, but… Anyway, I’m very glad that one Buffy episode won a Hugo, just surprised it was this one.

7.8: Sleeper – the one where we find out that Spike is being controlled by the First, and with the curious vignette with Robson and Giles in London. A pretty straighforward episode here, with just one plot line dominating. Loved Spike’s special tune, which I recognised at once: Oh, don’t deceive me / Oh never leave me / How could you use a poor maiden so…. Also particularly loved Anya’s attempt to persuade Spike that she was really trying to seduce him – presumably based on the similar scene from Tootsie! with Dustin Hoffmann and Teri Garr, except that of course that scene has a different ending. And the singer’s comment at the end of the gig, “Man, I hate playing vampire towns”. So in general, a pretty good episode, which explained some (but not all) of what happened in the previous one.

7.9: Never Leave Me – the one where Buffy &co capture Andrew, the First captures Spike and uses his blood to raise the Turok-Han vampire, the Watchers get blown up, and Principal Wood buries Jonathan’s body. The title of course refers back to Spike’s tune. Brisk moving on of the general story arc here, with some comedic moments around Andrew – especially his geeky conversation with the First at the beginning, his pathetic attempt to kill the pig, and the interrogation by Xander and Anya later on. I was flicking through ‘s book earlier in the week, and one of her contributors points out that Angel spends a lot of time in the first few series shackled and bare to the waist; well, Spike seems to be taking on that role now…

7.10: Bring on the Night – the one where Giles brings the three new potential Slayers to Buffy’s house, one of whom immediately starts flirting with Willow; another one of them is killed by the Turok-Han, which actually beats Buffy in a fight; Spike remains imprisoned by the First. Final scenes of the fight clearly based on Terminator. Buffy gives a stirring speech at the end – “There is only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil, and that’s us.” Funny moment in the school basement where Buffy and Dawn bump into the principal, all carrying shovels. Some very nasty and unpleasant torture moments for poor Spike (see previous comments about shackling). Much ramping up of tension without much being resolved.

7.11: Show Time – the one where more potential slayers arrive, one has to be rescued by Buffy and another turns out to be the First; Giles and Anya go consult the huge blobby thing in another dimension; Buffy kills the Turok-Han vampire in a staged fight in front of the potential slayers, and rescues Spike. Nice bits: Buffy actually says “Welcome to the Hellmouth” to Rona. Poor Anya fails to seduce yet again, but Giles cuts to the chase: “You help us, and the slayer won’t kill your clientele and burn your establishment to the ground.” Andrew is still very funny also (and Dawn’s line, “Buffy said if you talked enough, I’m allowed to kill you”). Good stuff from the actress portraying the slayer wannabee who is really the First, convincingly evil and destabilising, though I felt the others hadn’t quite settled in yet. I was also a bit confused by the scene with Buffy doing telepathy to Willow and Xander (had forgotten, if I ever knew, that they had that ability), and not wildly convinced by the staged fight at the library building site; and the overall plot is now creaking under the weight of an apparently unbeatable force. Except, of course, that Buffy does score a tactical success against it.

7.12: Potential – the one where Dawn is mistaken for a potential slayer, but it turns out to be Amanda from school. This was very very good. Anya as so often has the best single line: “Wow, it’s like one second you were this klutzy teenager with fake memories and a history of kleptomania, and then-then suddenly you’re a hero, a hero with a much abbreviated lifespan.” Amanda looks just like early Alanis Morrisette (from her singing rather than sit-com days, I mean). Brilliant performance from Dawn, even if it is silly of her to go running off to kill a vampire with just Amanda for company, knowing that the Bringers are on her trail (but people do silly things sometimes); and also from Xander in the final scene (“You’re not special. You’re extraordinary”), the storyline being reminiscent of two of my favourite earlier episodes, The Zeppo and Bewitched, Bothererd and Bewildered. And the junior slayers seem to be getting their act together as well. Most enjoyable.

7.13: The Killer In Me – the one where Willow turns into Warren. Another really good one, at least as far as the main plot is concerned. (But let me just gripe about the sub-plot – hey folks, Giles brought all those books from Watcher HQ three episodes ago, remember? Surely he was touching and handling them? And if he’s planning to off the potential slayers, why drive all the way out to the desert to do it? As he says, “You think I’m evil if I bring a group of girls on a camping trip and don’t touch them?” And if the rest of you are zooming off on a rescue mission, maybe it would be nice to leave a note for Buffy/Spike and Willow/Kennedy explaiing where you’ve gone?) However, the main plotline was excellent; for the first time we see Willow mourn Tara in a cathartic and ultimately healthy way. Full marks to Kennedy for her gentle seduction, and to Willow/Warren for the split personality performance. I love these confused-identity episodes, like Who Are You? and Dopplegangland, even though I don’t especially like Amy, whose means and motivation aren’t always very clear or consistent; her best scene IMHO is the one way back in Something Blue where she has no clothes on and doesn’t say anything. But the other sub-plot about Spike’s chip was fine; Anne reminds me of Spike’s superb line, “It’s like a bloody war-zone up there, and not in a good way!” Questions left open for my next week’s viewing: So what did happen with Giles and the axe-wielding killers in London? Will Buffy allow them to take Spike’s chip out? (I expect so; is this really such a difficult decision?) What is the story with the principal digging shallow graves? Is Kennedy only 15 like the rest of the potential slayers, or do we just not think about that? Looking forward to it.

You Are 27% American

America: You don’t love it or want to leave it. But you wouldn’t mind giving it an extreme make over. On the 4th of July, you’ll fly a freak flag instead… And give Uncle Sam a sucker punch!

Oddly enough my grandmother was born in Philadelphia and brought up in Plainfield, New Jersey, so I am in fact 25% American!

OK, so the colours were pretty awful. I’ve never had much taste in that area. I just wanted to look a little different from ‘s set-up, but I should have realised that she has better taste than me…

Well, it took a bit of experimenting, but eventually I got something I’m beginning to feel happy with. Still a bit of tinkering needed, but I’ve managed to develop a Zelazny theme for it which I’m pleased with.

Every so often, it happens; I have to go through the CV’s of various exceptionally motivated and intelligent young people, and then decide which of them gets the privilege of working with me. Unpaid. Yep, in Brussels (as in Washington, as in many other places), many organisations including mine are kept going to a certain extent by the volunteer labour of interns. I bring my interns along to most of the conferences I attend and for most of my meetings with senior officials, I give them tips on career development and contacts in their fields of interest as far as that’s possible, I write glowing references about them (no exaggeration is necessary – these are very bright and able people) for future employers. In return they keep my appointments diary, help me with general admin, do a certain amount of research, and provide intelligent conversation. And I admit that I get a certain kick out of mentoring in this way.

It used to be that the person in charge of internships in our office would thrust half a dozen applications at me, and I’d pick the one that was most obviously impressive. The problem now is that I’ve got much better at specifying what sort of person I want, and it is getting more and more difficult to choose between the CVs as they are more finely tuned to my needs – interest in the politics of the countries I work on, academic ability, experience of an office environment, language skills if possible. Of the ten I was given this afternoon I could only rule out five (on the grounds that their undoubted expertise lay too much in economics or human rights rather than in political analysis, or that their geographical interests appeared too different to mine). I’ll have to interview the other five on Wednesday, and I know it will be a difficult choice.

In three years in this job I’ve had nine interns:

#1 was the only undergraduate to have interned with me; she worked for me in summer ’02, got a first in Inernational Relations from St Andrew’s in 2003, and has a job with a London-based charity (oddly enough not an internationally oriented one).
#2 was French/German and doing a master’s in Québec; after working for me until early ’03 and finishing her studies she went to Africa and now works for an Italian humanitarian organisation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
#3 was Belgian (though born in India), an interesting case of someone who had intended to be a professional translator, didn’t quite make the top grade of the translation exams, and so decided to switch careers into a more intellectually challenging role; worked for me in spring ’03, finished her master’s in international conflict analysis at the University of Kent in Canterbury, and now has a job administering humanitarian aid at the European Commission.
#4 was (so far) the only young man (as opposed to young woman) to have interned with me, for the second half of 2003; an American, also doing the master’s in international conflict analysis at the University of Kent in Canterbury (which is taught in Brussels); still in Brussels doing bits and pieces of international political work. I know he’s still looking for new opportunities so will hardly mind my linking to his site from here.
#5 was a somewhat different case, a Croatian who already had a master’s in European affairs from Vienna and was working as a Brussels stringer for the Zagreb papers but wanting to diversify her work experience; she did a few months with me in spring 2004 and then went back full-time to her journalism work which she is still doing.
#6 was British/Slovenian, worked for me in the summer of 2004, had only a BA in History from Oxford but sold her other experience including a couple of other Brussels internships very convincingly; now works for an MEP.
#7 was Slovenian, worked for me in the second half of 2004, was just finishing up her MA in European Politics and Governance from LSE, managed to land a decent and oddly political job in the private sector in Brussels.
#8 was another Belgian citizen (though born in Kazakhstan), worked for me for the first few months of this year while doing her master’s in culture and development at Leuven, has now gone back to her studies there.
#9 is a Canadian/American citizen, doing a master’s in international relations and diplomacy in Paris, but fascinated with Macedonia which is also my favourite country of the ones I cover; hopefully she’ll go on to get a real job in Skopje in the autumn.

The first two are now both doing program management of hands-on humanitarian stuff. The others are all still in Brussels (or back in Brussels); two in the European institutions, two in the spin-off world of small think-tanks and journalism, one in the private sector and two still studying. I’ll follow them all with interest.

6) With Stars In My Eyes: My Adventures in British Fandom, by Peter Weston

I had been trying to get this as it was a Hugo nominee; already cast my vote by the time the book arrived, but thought it would be educational reading anyway, as the story of one of the leading figures in British science fiction fandom of the last forty years, indeed the man who actually makes the Hugo awards, despite never having won one..

And indeed I enjoyed reading it. I don’t think I’ve met (in the flesh) a single person named in this book; I attended a couple of speeches made by Terry Pratchett when I was an undergraduate, but that hardly counts. However I instantly felt I was reading a book by someone like me, about other people like me. I’m a relatively recent arrival in the world of active sf fandom (attended my first sf con only three years ago), but already feel very much at home in it. And my natural inclination is towards the more intellectual discussion of sf that it would appear Weston was trying to promote back in the ’60s and ’70s, so I feel naturally sympathetic to his Grad Project, such as it was.

I also had a serious flirtation with a slightly different hobby in my late teens and mid 20s, that being the postal games (esp Diplomacy) scene, full of zines whose lettercolumns seethed with controversy – usually on the political issues of the day (I remember huge fights over Northern Ireland with Joy Hibbert, later Joy Hilbert) but often just personality based – who, I wonder, other than or , can now remember the acrimonious circumstances of Pete Tamlyn folding The Acolyte? So the sf fanzine scene of twenty years before seems very familiar.

That is really thanks to the way Weston tells the story, with enough information about individuals that I like to think I’d recognise key protagonists from his description if I bump into them in the pub in Glasgow or elsewhere. He is detached enough to recount his own mistakes in managing interpersonal relationships over the years of his involvement to make you feel comfortable with his narrative, and also to make you sympathise all the more on the one or two occasions where his feelings clearly haven’t cooled down after the passage of decades.

I especially liked the occasional vignettes of people who I have at least heard of, though I’m struck that those I really wanted to hear more about are all those at the same literary end of fandom where Weston placed himself and where I’d like to place myself – Terry Pratchett, Tom Shippey, . My biggest frustration was that I’d have liked to hear more about the various cons described only briefly; on cool reflection, it’s an unreasonable criticism, based purely on the fact that I used to get con reports ad nauseam from Diplomacy fanzines and also read them eagerly when people post them on my friends-list.

Anyway, I’m sorry this arrived after I’d voted. I’d have put it ahead of The Best of Xero, but still behind The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction. I almost wonder if Peter Weston will do the same…

(Incidentally, I know that the last book I wrote up was June book #4 and this is June book #6. June book #5 will be reviewed together with its companion volume when I have finished them both.

Belgian taxes are an annual nightmare, but I smiled at one part of the instructions on the form:

Waar 2 kolommen zijn voorzien, moeten personen die alleen een aangifte indienen, steeds de linkerkolom invullen.	Where two columns are provided, persons submitting only one tax return must fill in only the left hand column.
Gehuwden en wettelijk samenwonenden van een verschillend geslacht die een gezamenlijke aangifte indienen, moeten de gegevens van de man in de linkerkolom en die van de vrouw in de rechterkolom invullen.	Married and cohabiting couples of different sexes who are submitting a joint tax return must put the data for the man in the left hand column and those of the woman in the right hand column.
Gehuwden en wettelijk samenwonenden van hetzelfde geslacht die een gezamenlijke aangifte indienen, moeten de gegevens van de oudste in de linkerkolom en die van de jongste in de rechterkolom invullen.	Married and cohabiting couples of the same sex who are submitting a joint tax return must put the data for the older in the left hand column and those of the younger in the right hand column.

Somehow it seems a special Belgian mixture of aspiration towards social equality, combined with insane bureaucracy.

With all the recent discussion of reviews, I spent an uneasy few minutes early this morning to check if any of the authors whose novels I have panned are likely to be at WorldCon. To my relief, only Stephen Baxter is on the list so far, and I suspect his ego is sufficiently robust (and the other reviews of the book in question sufficiently affirming) that he is unlikely to seek me out for revenge.

I’m usually happy to take the line that “This just didn’t work for me” rather than that the book in question is bad in some objective sense. Though I will be unforgiving of prose that is genuinely bad – such as the character whose wounds “looked like huge purple welts”, probably because they were large purple welts. And I like my villains to have a clear means and motivation for their actions.

My interest in this topic has been further piqued by a couple of recent posts on my f-list, and I’ve actually taken the time to read Carol Emshwiller’s story “Boys“, Trent Walters’ critique of it, and then the subequent argument between him and .

Basically – and while this is of course just my view, I think it’s what most readers of the story and the critique would conclude (eg here) – has the right of it. Walters, as far as one can tell, has completely and disastrously failed to understand the concept that the views expressed by a character may not be those held by the author. “Unreliable” is perhaps an unfortunate word to apply to a narrator, as it has implications of dishonesty, but as far as I’m concerned the narrator’s “unreliability” is revealed in the very first paragraph:

Boys are so foolhardy, impetuous, reckless, rash. They’ll lead the way into smoke and fire and battle.

We readers know that this is not universally true of all boys all the time, and I’m stunned that anyone could read it as an expression of the author’s personal view. The quote illustrates very well where the narrator is coming from, what he tells himself about the truth of the world; but we readers also know he’s wrong, because of our own life experience, and indeed the colonel’s own account confirms this, as he shows us his own more caring, less “manly” side at numerous points in the story.

My own “close reading” of the story suggests that the author is trying to say this: a society which rigidly divides the sexes and tries to enforce gender roles will fail, because it isn’t in human nature; and the narrator illustrates this through his own thoughts, words and actions. He feels loyal to the rigid divisions of his society, but he is in fact capable of acting in a less “manly” way, even though he may feel uncomfortable about admitting this to himself. The opening statements about boys are a statement of the character’s ideology, not the author’s, and should be seen as a profession of faith which the narrator (as it turns out) is himself not fully convinced of.

I’m not totally wild about the story – the basic theme seems to me a bit of a straw man, in that the society portrayed is unlikely to come about, and the whole theme was explored in much greater depth in a novel which I have an unfashionable affection for, Sherri S Tepper’s The Gate to Women’s Country. But it’s amazing that Walters missed the point so completely, despite the efforts of the author herself and numerous others to point him in the right direction. ‘s characterisation of Walters’ critique as both “massive and misguided” is accurate. The subsequent discussion is, unfortunately, somewhat pissy, though my sympathies are with . (Though I think his riposte re Electric Velocipede should have been left as an apologia for writing a shorter rather than a longer review, and it was unnecessary, as far as I can see, to personalise it.)

I also agree that because reviews are personal accounts, reviewers who write in the third person sound very pretentious, and this is a real disincentive to investing the time necessary to discover what the reviewer actually thinks.

Thursday 6:00pm
The Digital Divide

Christopher Rowe
Don Sakers
Renee Sieber (M)

Are we rushing to build a web-enabled society that disenfranchises those unable or unwilling to adopt the online lifestyle? Governments justify the push for e-services on the basis of cost savings, but even aside from privacy considerations, what are the implications for those happy with society as it is?

Friday 11:00am
The High Frontiersmen

Keith DeCandido (M)
Ken MacLeod

Is it inevitable that space will become the next battleground for geopolitics?

Friday 1:00pm
Dr. Who Retrospective: The Best Years

Chris M Barkley
Paul F. Cockburn
Paul Cornell (M)
Kathryn Sullivan

What were the best years of Dr. Who? While part of the discussion can include “who made the best Doctor,” it goes beyond that. Which years had the best scripts? The best set-ups (e.g, comparing the UNIT years with the more free-wheeling years with the years that included major arcs).

Saturday 10:00am
The Fracturing of the UK: is British politics too broken to stay together?

James Lovegrove
Ian R. Macleod
(M)

UK politics and race, class, geography, and changing poltiical alignments

Saturday 11:00am
Byzantium at our Borders in the 21st century: the Future of Europe.

Keith Brooke
Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Patrick J. Gyger
Harry Turtledove
(M)

Would we have needed a different past to have a different future? What would be the consequences if “recognition of Europe’s Christian heritage” is inserted into the constitution.

Sunday 10:00am
Is the American Empire on the Verge of Collapse?

Ken MacLeod

Lawrence Person (M)

(No explanatory text!)

Monday 11:00am
The World We are Making Now: Politics

John-Henri Holmberg
Klaus Mogensen
Caroline Mullan (M)

Today’s adults are setting the stage for the next half-century. Our careers, our causes, and the decisions we take now will determine both has power half a century hence and what they will use that power to do. What kind of world is being made now?

My flight to Glasgow from Belfast for Worldcon costs nothing at all!

(Plus £43.48 in taxes, so actually a little more than nothing.)