Ten awful puns

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I warn you, these are bad…

  1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, “I’m sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.”
  2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says “Dam!”.
  3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too.
  4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says “I’ve lost my electron,” The other says “Are you sure?” The first replies “Yes, I’m positive.”
  5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.
  6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. “But why?” they asked, as they moved off. “Because”, he said, “I can’t stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer.”
  7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named “Ahmal.” The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him “Juan.” Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, “They’re twins! If you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Ahmal.”
  8. These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to “persuade” them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he’d be back if they didn’t close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.
  9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him …(Oh, man, this is so bad, it’s good)….. A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
  10. And finally, there was the person who posted ten different puns to his livejournal, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make the people on his friends list laugh. No pun in ten did!

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Fair enough

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I have the usual Celtic tendency to cheer anyone who is playing against England. And also I enjoyed the hospitality of the Government of Croatia at a very fine embassy reception in Tervuren immediately before the match. But to be perfectly honest, England played better and Croatia deserved to lose.

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Thank you Keith

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Waiting for me this morning, to review for infinity plus:

The Holy Machine, Chris Beckett; River of Gods, Ian McDonald; Newton’s Wake, Ken MacLeod; Jupiter: Ganymede Spring 2004; The Human Abstract, George Mann; Tolkien: A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings, Lin Carter; Beyond Infinity, Gregory Benford; and Cartomancy, Mary Gentle.

[edit: , thanks for pointing out my typing slip!]

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Evil EU migration policy

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On the whole we love living in Belgium. But we have just been reminded how lucky we are to come from the right end of Europe.

Our former au pair just dropped by. She’s Bulgarian, has been studying at Leuven since she moved out of here in September last year, despite not having a student visa in the hope that eventually her application for temporary residence would be processed by the bureaucrats and she’d be allowed to stay.

She came around to say goodbye. She was told on Thursday that her application had been turned down and she had five days to leave the country.

The EU’s visa policy towards both the newly joined ten member states and the prospectives like Bulgaria is deeply stupid, offensive and counterproductive. At least I have the satisfaction of having said so in public, in my old job (PDF) and my current one (HTML). What good does it do to bar motivated, intelligent, honest people like A. from contributing to our society? Why do our governments insist on empowering the people traffickers and penalising the law-abiding traveller?

The only politician I’ve ever heard talking sense on this issue was Pat Cox, and he has now stood down from the European Parliament. I appreciate that my view is not the same as what we are told is the general view of the public, but I would like to see a little more courage from our politicians on this one.

Meanwhile I hope it won’t be too long before we can welcome A. back into our house. She is a smart, hard-working young woman, was the best of the three au pairs we have had, and deserved to be treated better than that by the Belgian state.

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Gaps in the map

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My recent trip to Russia fills in a big chunk of map:

Now I just need to get invited to Albania and Turkey, the two most embarrassing remaining gaps.

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Hugo nominees

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I’ve posted this on my web-site as it’s very long; but if you’d like to see it in livejournal format,

The 2004 Hugo Nominees (fiction)


A mega-meta-review

Repeating last year’s successful effort, I have read all the Hugo fiction nominees. (And finished a week earlier than last year, as well.) This is a mega-meta-review, a set of links to other people’s reviews with my own comments interspersed. Feedback is most welcome.

Best Novel


See also Richard Horton’s rasfw survey of the nominees in this category. Summary: two near-future stories of sort-of First Contact with non-humans on a parallel world; one classic fantasy; one cyberpunkish space opera; and one far future science fiction-meets-classical-mythology hybrid.

5) Humans by Robert J. Sawyer. This is the sequel to last year’s winner, Hominids, which I personally thought was the weakest of the nominees. Sawyer has repeated the performance. The book takes forward the story of contact between our world and a parallel universe where Neanderthals rather than homo sapiens survived and became civilised. The Neanderthal civilisation, which has become hi-tech without industrialisation, is completely implausible both technologically and socially. Sawyer’s comments on sex, politics and religion are below the level of an earnest undergraduate. The prose is wooden and clunking. Presumably local advantage will not be as much in Sawyer’s favour as it was at last year’s Toronto-based WorldCon (though Boston is worryingly close to Canada…)


My view is a minority one. Velvet Delorey in the Made in Canada Newsletter, John C. Snider in scifdimensions and Joe Murphy on the Dragon Page loved it. Asta Sinusas in SFRevu, Jonathan Cowie, Jerry Wright in Bewildering Stories, Timeshredder of Bureau 42, Wesley Williamson of BookLoons and Terry Baker at the Alien Online liked it. Steven Silver gives it a fair write-up and doesn’t say if he liked it or not. Only Max of SF Reviews, and to a lesser extent J.B. Peck of SciFi.com and Christian Sauve, share my reservations.


4) Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson. I liked this book. It’s about a community of research scientists in the very near future who have been able (for reasons they don’t fully understand) to observe remotely a community of aliens on a planet far far away. Their research facility is suddenly isolated from the outside world, with no communication possible, and the human relationships between the researchers churn out of control. I thought it was much more successful in this regard than Chronoliths, by the same author, nominated last year. However, as with Chronoliths, I felt the ending was a bit weak and left too little explained. I’ve been trying to think of books that managed the trick of leaving you with the sensawunda without explaining What Was really Going On, and really only Solaris by Stanislaw Lem and Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky come close; and of course 2001. But I thought the central human story was very well told, the aliens were very good too, and the failure of imagination of the human scientists studying them all too plausible. I think there are three better books on this year’s list but it would not be a travesty if Blind Lake won.

John Clute in the Toronto Globe and Mail loved it. Paul Giguere at SFRevu, James Schellenberg, Elisabeth Carey, Jerry Wright, Jonathan Cowie, David Brown at Rebecca’s Reads, Tom Easton in Analog and Cheryl Morgan in a (very perceptive) review in Emerald City really liked it. Richard Horton and John at sfsignal.com have similar reservations to mine.

3) Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold. I’m a fervent Bujoldian, and really like this book; I just happen to think the other two are slightly better. Bujold’s third fantasy novel, and her second in the world of The Curse of Chalion, the action is set in a much smaller scale than the continent-spanning action of its predecessor; the characters are beautifully drawn, in a world where theology is an applied science; and it’s nice to have an adventure and romance story whose character is actually middle-aged.

Tina Morgan in Fiction Factor, Sherwood Smith on the SF Site, Hilary Williamson at BookLoons, Harriet Klausner, Ernest Lilley on SFRevu, Blaise Selby on SciFi.com, Nora Charles on Slash Novel Review and Jo Rogers at MyShelf.com loved it (as did truepenny in a spoilerish but perceptive analysis). Dave Roy in Curled Up With a Good Book, Matthew Scott Winslow at Green Man Review, Richard Horton, KC Heath at Yet Another Book Review, Martin Sutherland, Jerry Wright, Simeon Shoul in infinity plus, Christopher Allen on RPG.net, Cindy Lynn Speer in Fantastica Daily, Nigel Quinlan in The Alien Online, Megan Powell in SDO Fantasy, David Brukman and Kate Nepveu liked it. Preeti at Romantic Science Fiction and Fantasy thought it a bit unexciting but recommends it on balance. Sondra Eklund thought (as did several others) that it started very slowly but ended up liking it. Evelyn Leeper was so unmoved that she couldn’t finish it.


2) Singularity Sky, by Charles Stross. I thought this was a very good book, the only real space opera on the list. As well as reflecting and refracting the very different future universes described by his friends Iain Banks and Ken MacLeod, there are all kinds of other influences in there, including slightly subversive genuflections towards both Bujoldian space opera and Boris Pasternak. Apart from its complex literary heritage, there is a core political message about freedom of information defeating repressive political regimes, obviously of relevance in today’s world, and a rather good love story. Slightly let down by incomprehensible battle scenes, but I understood the sense of tension if not the military jargon. As Richard Kleffel puts it, “Even if you don’t understand precisely what Stross is talking about, it’s hard not to get caught up in his enthusiasm.”


Ernest Lilley at SFRevu, Alma A. Hromic at the SF Site, Mark L. Olson and Jerry Wright loved it. Curtis D Frye in Technology and Society Book Reviews, Elisabeth Carey, Cheryl Morgan, T.M. Wagner at SF Reviews and Gavin J. Grant at BookPage liked it. Richard Horton, Niall Harrison and Corinna Underwood for Curled Up With a Good Book think Stross can do better. Byron Merritt and John at sfsignal.com didn’t like it.


1) Ilium, by Dan Simmons. Fourteen years ago Simmons’ first novel, Hyperion, an extraordinary tale of pilgrims en route to a mysterious shrine, won the Hugo award. I think there’s a pretty good chance of his repeating it this year. Three plot threads are intertwined: the twentieth century scholar Thomas Hockenberry, resurrected in the far future as a commentator on a grand full-scale re-enactment of the Trojan War; two cyborgs, Mahnmut and Orphu, who travel from the moons of Jupiter to Mars on a mission to find out what is going on around Olympus Mons; and a primitivised yet high-tech human society on Earth. The three strands are deftly woven together, and my biggest complaint is that we will have to wait until later this year for the second half of the story to find out What Is really Going On. But the Hugo voters have a track record of voting for the first book in a promising series, and sometimes for the second as well. It is striking how few negative reviews I could find of the book, and how many of those who really liked it are people who write hardly any sf reviews (ie this was one of very few books they felt motivated to write about). I know I have a poor record in calling the winner correctly, but I think Ilium is the one to watch this year.


Greg West at Mostly Fiction, Sue Bursztinski in the January Magazine, Adam Roberts in Infinity Plus, Stuart Carter (also in infinity plus), Debbie Moon in The Zone, Bruce Cordell, Ernest Lilley at SFRevu.com, John C. Snider, Tony Chester at Concatenation, Steven Wu, Michael Pusateri, Ken Lux on BookLoons, Greg Hamel, Cindy Lynn Speer on Fantastica Daily, Michael Berry in SFGate, BooksForABuck, Lalith Vipulananthan in The Alien Online, Harriet Klausner, Ian Walker-Smith and Keith Martin loved it. Rob Bedford in sffworld.com, David Kennedy, Richard Horton, Elisabeth Carey, Ian Caplan, Tama Leaver on Blogcritics, William Thompson on the SF Site, Pauline Morgan at SF Crowsnest, dragonsworn, News From The Outside, Gavin J. Grant in BookPage, John Clute, Karri Watson on Curled Up With A Good Book, Lorna Robinson at Imperial College, Chris Wyatt in CineScape and Ian Kaplan liked it, their main complaint being that the story is not finished. The only negative review was by Justina Robson in the Guardian who felt there were too many loose ends and plot holes; she may not have been aware, since the British edition does not make it clear, that this is only part one of two. We’ll see if she’s more satisfied when the sequel comes out.


Best Novella

In this section, Tom Veal agrees with me about the first and third placed stories, but we differ otherwise (indeed, we differ on many subjects, though we agree on who wrote the works of Shakespeare). In a sort of symmetry, Richard Horton agrees with me about the second, fourth and fifth, but puts Walter Jon Williams first and Kage Baker third. If the voters do the same I won’t complain too much.

5) “Just Like the Ones We Used to Know”, by Connie Willis. Suddenly, for no very good reason except that the author thought it was a cool idea, it starts snowing. everywhere in the northern hemisphere. Hilarity ensues. Or not, depending on your taste. Ingrid Blythe loved it, but comments, “It won’t win, though. Too sentimental, too many people cynical about Christmas, and too many people grounded in the now.” Bluejack rather damns it with faint praise.

4) “Walk in Silence” by Catherine Asaro. I’m sorry, I’m not a fan of Asaro’s writing, and still regard the Nebula award for The Quantum Rose as much more embarrassing than any recent Hugo (yes, even Hominids). Clunky story of yet another woman central character who falls in love with a man from whom society would part her, and far too many internal implausibilities. Mark Watson compares it to “a creaky Star Trek episode”, and Bluejack is pretty scathing too. But Phil Friel in Tangent On-Line loved it, and Jemima Pereira enjoyed it despite “weak characterization and a side of wholly unconvincing romance”. It won the Analog readers’ award for best novella, which is stunning given that at least one better Hugo nominee was also published in Analog. Obviously I’m just missing something about Asaro.

3) Now it gets a bit more difficult. If any of the other three stories wins I won’t be too dismayed. With some reluctance, I have put “The Green Leopard Plague”, by Walter Jon Williams third. It’s a complex story melding two time-lines, one in the far future related to his excellent 1997 story “Lethe”, the other near future including various parts of the world in which I take a professional interest (in particular, the little known, unrecognised, and thoroughly corrupt rogue statelet that I spell Transdniestria but he spells Transnistria, portrayed perfectly accurately here), with the linkage being historical research which is a topic I usually really like reading about. In the end I mark it down because the two story-lines didn’t quite mesh sufficiently for me. It worked better for Mark Watson and Bluejack, and Richard Horton puts it top of his list.

2) “The Cookie Monster”, by Vernor Vinge. It will probably win, as Vinge tends to win Hugo awards these days. Seems at first to be a normal story a la Microserfs. But then it turns out to be much much closer to numerous classic sf stories, mentioning any one of which will give away the main point of the plot. I don’t normally go for Vinge but I thought this was pretty good (though Frederik Pohl did it better, as James Nicoll said). Bluejack and Presenjeet Dutta also liked it. Claude Lalumière thinks it is embarrassingly fannish and pandering“. Mark Watson thought it was “ahead of the average Analog story“. Included in the Haber/Strahan Best of 2003 anthology.

1) “The Empress of Mars”, by Kage Baker. Now this is the sort of story that would satisfy Damon Knight’s definition of sf for anyone. On a corrupt corporate semi-terraformed Mars of the near future, the Celtic hewers of wood and drawers of water mount a successful challenge to their Anglo-Saxon overlords, led by Mary Griffiths, mother of three, landlady of the eponymous tavern. I thought it was great fun; a story that didn’t try to be any deeper than necessary. David Roy on Curled Up With A Good Book shares my assessment. Chris Markwyn on Tangent Online, Mervius of Fantastica Daily and bluejack liked it too. Interesting that it was published in the same issue of Asimov’s as two other nominees, “Hexagons” and “Robots Don’t Cry”.

Best Novelette

Here again Richard Horton has given his views via usenet. I must say I think this is a very strong category; all of these stories are very good. After much reflection, I’ve settled on this order (similar to Richard’s but I swap his first and second, and his fifth and sixth):

6) “Bernardo’s House”, by James Patrick Kelly. Central character is the incarnation of the computer program which controls Bernardo’s house. Bernardo himself has disappeared, but one day a girl called Fly appears on the doorstep. It seems there has been a large catastrophe outside… My only reason for marking it down is that I didn’t find the ending completely satisfactory, but I really enjoyed it, as did Bluejack and Mark Watson. In the Strahan/Haber Best of 2003 anthology, and shortlisted for the Sturgeon award.

5) “Legions in Time”, by Michael Swanwick  I find Swanwick’s sense of humour sometimes a bit wearing, but this one worked for me. Woman in 1930s New York has a job where she Must Not Open The Door. She opens the door. Time-travelling and saving the world ensue. Good fun; Mark Watson thought so too; Bluejack a little more reserved in his judgement.. In the Strahan/Haber Best of 2003 anthology; published in same issue of Asimov’s as “Nightfall” by Charles Stross.

4) “Nightfall”, by Charles Stross. I’ve sometimes found the sheer density of ideas and writing in Stross’ fiction difficult to cope with, but found this story very much to my taste, the first one I’ve really felt I properly grasped in the “Accelerando” series. Two of the previous characters find themselves incarnated as artificial personalities in a far-off galaxy – or are they?  Bluejack loved it; Richard Horton was dubious because he found the density of ideas less than other stories in this series. Published in same issue of Asimov’s as “Legions in Time” by Michael Swanwick.

3) “Into the Gardens of Sweet Night”, by Jay Lake. Originally published in L. Ron Hubbard’s 19th Writers of the Future collection, which will no doubt put some people off, but I thought it was a real gem. A boy called Elroy and a talking dog  called Wiggles go on a mysterious quest across (and ultimately off) a post-disaster Earth. Unexpected ending. Really good.

2) “The Empire of Ice Cream”, by Jeffrey Ford. At first it seems to be just another story about synaesthesia, but when the narrator starts seeing a mysterious girl whenever he tastes coffee, it’s clear that it’s something more; and the ending was (for me) quite unexpected. Apparently there’s a literary background to it drawing on the characters of the poets Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams; lost on me, but I enjoyed it anyway. Not to everyone’s taste: Jamie Poitra was not completely convinced; Sharon Turner and Prasenjeet Dutta loved it; positive marks from Yoon Ha Lee. Has already won the Nebula award. In the Strahan/Haber Best of 2003 anthology.

1) “Hexagons”, by Robert Reed. I love alternate history, strategy games, elections, and stories told from the point of view of a child where the reader has to work out some of what is going on. This story has all of those elements so for me it is the winner in this category (though as I said above all the stories are good). The only other thing I’ve read by Reed is Marrow (both short story and novel expansion) and I enjoyed that also; must look out for more. Chris Markwyn on Tangent Online, Jonathan Strahan, and Bluejack all liked it too. Published in the same Asimov’s as “The Empress of Mars” and “Robots Don’t Cry”.

Best Short Story


Once again, a good discussion by Richard Horton on rasfw and another by “communicator” on livejournal. If you read Bulgarian, Anima has also written about them.


5) “Robots Don’t Cry”, by Mike Resnick. I really hate cute robot stories in the Asimov tradition (see my comments on “The Bicentennial Man”) and this is no exception. The heartless materialist narrator finds compassion as a result of a robot’s selfless love. Some good lines but awful plot. Bluejack was less negative than me. Chris Markwyn in Tangent thinks it’s thin but “well-crafted”. From the same issue of Asimov’s as “The Empress of Mars” and “Hexagons”.


4) “Four Short Novels”, by Joe Haldeman. Reflections on the concept of immortality, as it might work out in four different ways. Nice ideas but didn’t really grab me. Bluejack liked it; Richard Horton puts it top of his list.

3) “The Tale of the Golden Eagle”, by David D. Levine. Space opera, cyborgs, glamorous robots, love across the man-machine interface. Standard stuff, but well told, with a convincing portrayal of the various societies. Several reviewers (conveniently indexed by Levine) point to parallels with the Golden Age author Cordwainer Smith, but it is certainly possible to appreciate the story without knowing his work, as I can testify. Most reviews were very positive (also Prasenjeet Dutta
2) “Paying It Forward”, by Michael A. Burstein. Nice story about help for a young science fiction writer apparently coming from a recently deceased fellow writer. I usually find Burstein’s sentimentality too sugary but this was much more acceptable. (However the best story about writers getting unexpected information via their computers is still the “Virtual Library” chapter of Zoran Zivkovic’s The Library.)  As Phil Friel points out in Tangent, the fact that it’s an Analog story gives you a fair idea of the ending.

1) “A Study in Emerald”, by Neil Gaiman. This is the lead story from the collection Shadows over Baker Street, a collection of stories melding the worlds of Sherlock Holmes and H.P. Lovecraft. It is also by far the best in the collection, as the narrator takes us through his unspeakable experiences in Afghanistan, his eccentric Baker Street flatmate, and encounters with a royal family whose habits are rather unlike the home life of our own dear queen, and a final confrontation with his version of England’s subversive mastermind. I think Gaiman’s writing is a bit more uneven than most people like to admit, but he’s caught the voice of Conan Doyle perfectly here, and interspersed the narrative with slyly allusive small ads from the alternative London he has envisaged. I’ll be sorry to see any other story win (which would give Gaiman three Hugos in different categories in consecutive years, a feat only previously managed by Ursula Le Guin in 1973-75; Orson Scott Card and Lois McMaster Bujold have won Hugos in three consecutive years, though not all in different categories, in 1987-89 and 1990-92 respectively, and Connie Willis won three in two years in 1993-4).

It’s had lots of positive reviews (and as with Ilium a lot of them are from people who haven’t otherwise written a lot of reviews). See for instance Giacomo Lacava, Anita Rowland, James Hsiao, Prasenjeet Dutta, A.M. Kuchling, Philip Jones, Gabe Chouinard and Tim Pratt, but also Cindy Lynn Speer in Fantastica Daily, Kelly Sedinger in Green Man Review and Dave Goldfeder in sfrevu.com. Also available in the Strahan / Haber Best of 2003 collection.

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European Constitution

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Well, I’ve had a quick browse and I’m very impressed with the diplomatic fixes that went into it. Rather than try and rig the mathematics so that the four big countries can’t just block things on their own, there is an explicit line saying that the four big countries can’t just block things on their own. And the Dutch government’s problem with the budget has been sorted by offering them a rebate a la Britain. The Eurosceptics will try and market their paranoia but I like the look of it personally.

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Quote source

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I’m trying to remember the source of a quotation about a small country that looks like a mistake on the map, so much so that “you can almost hear the printer saying ‘damn'”. A friend thought it might be from Douglas Adams but I’m not convinced (and anyway he wasn’t beyond using other people’s good lines). Does it ring a bell for anyone?

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The Mary Sue meme

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Or a slight variation on it. Searching for my full name on Amazon pulls up 10 results. 7 are references to me, 1 is the 19th century New York architect Nicholas Whyte, and 1 seems to be a confusion between composers of different tracks on a CD. But the tenth, Twilight Whispers by Barbara Delinsky, has me as a character in a romantic novel:

Their children were no less striking, though in truth they were not children, for they ranged in age from thirty to forty-four. There was the oldest, Nicholas Whyte, somber yet dashing, the heir apparent to the Whyte Estate, and his wife Angie, a stunning woman who had been the cause of many a broken heart when she had removed Nicholas from the ranks of the eligible ten years before.

It looks dire. But I can live with “somber yet dashing”. Even if I prefer to spell it “sombre”.

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Everybody’s doing it…

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Who’s been commenting in your journal?

1 162 comments 32.34% of total
2 43 comments 8.58% of total
3 Anonymous 21 comments 4.19% of total
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These statistics were generated using the LJ Stats Web Interface by . Original idea from ‘s LJ Comment Stats Wizard.

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It’s silly…

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…but I’m posting it anyway:

Slander!
is secretly married to a horse!
keeps a hamster for nefarious purposes!
has been sent by the government to spy on you to make sure you’re paying your taxes!
is gonna pop a cap in ‘s head, yo.
runs a secret pornography ring. and are regular models.
has secret fantasies about George W. Bush…

Enter your username to dish the dirt on your friends!
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European elections – my summary

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Austria


Government coalition gets only 7 seats out of 18.


(centre right ÖVP loses 1 but keeps 6; far right FPÖ loses 3 of its 4, down to 1).


Leading opposition party, centre left SPÖ, holds 7.


Greens hold 2


Surprise: Hans-Peter Martin, dissident MEP who rowed with his colleagues over expenses, wins 2 seats as leader of an independent faction.


 


Belgium


Government coalition (liberals plus socialists) wins 13 seats out of 24. (previously 13 out of 25)


Christian Democrat opposition does best in Flanders, Socialist govt partner best in Wallonia – each gains an MEP, as does far right Vlaams Blok.


Greens lose 3 of 5 seats; small radical Flemish Volksunie which won 2 in 1999 has disappeared.


 


Cyprus (new member state)


Govt coalition wins 3 out of 6 seats.


President’s party (anti-peace plan, liberals) won 1 seat


PM’s party (communist, neutral leaning anti on peace plan) won 2 seats


Main opposition (centre right, pro-peace plan) won 2 seats


Splinter from opposition (centre right, anti-peace plan) won 1 seat


 


Czech Republic (new member state)


Govt (socialist/centre right coalition) wins only 6 of 24 seats!


Ex-PM Vaclav Klaus (centre right) party won 8.


5 Communists, 5 independents.


 


Denmark


Government wins only 4 seats out of 14 – 3 for liberals (down from 5), 1 for centre right.


Opposition socialists gain 2 to win 5. Four smaller parties keep one seat each.


Surprise: Anti-EU party the June Movement loses 2 of its 3 seats.


 


Estonia (new member state)


Main government party Res Publica has won no seats! Junior (liberal) coalition partner won 1 out of 6.


Opposition socialists unexpectedly won 3. Two smaller opposition parties won 1.


 


Finland


Government parties (Centre, Social Dems, Swedish liberals) won 8 of 14 seats.


Largest govt and opposition parties consolidated their positions; smaller anti-EU parties lost out.



France


Dismal performance of centre-right government which won only 17 of 78 seats.


Socialists won 33; Greens 4; Communists 3; other centre-right factions 12; far-right National Front 9.


Two anti-system parties (the Hunting and Fishing party and the Workers Struggle) lost all their seats.


 


Germany


Dismal performance of main centre-left government party which won only 23 of 99 seats. But Green coalition partners almost doubled their share from 7 to 13.


Centre-right opposition also slipped back (from 53 to 49) because liberals crossed threshold and won 7. So did ex-Communists.


 


Greece


Recently elected centre-right government won 11 of 24 seats.


Opposition Socialists won 9; Communists 2; other left 1; far right 1.


 


Hungary (new member state)


Govt coalition won 11 of 24 seats (9 for socialists, 2 for liberals)


Centre-right opposition won 12, far right 1.


 


Italy


Centre-right government parties won only 30 of 78 seats (Berlusconi 17; Alleanza Nazionale 10; Lega Nord 3).


Centre-left Ulivo coalition won 27.


Lots of little parties including our own Emma Bonino, down from 6 seats to 2.


 


Ireland


Main government party wins only 4 of 13 seats. (Smaller coalition partner wins none.)


Main opposition Fine Gael (centre right) and Labour consolidate with 4 and 2.


Greens lose both their seats, Sinn Fein gains one.


One sitting independent loses her seat, 2 new independents win.


 


Latvia (new member state)


Government parties win only 1 seat out of 9!!!


Centre and right win 7; Russian-speakers’ party wins 1.


 


Lithuania (new member state)


Main centre left government party wins only 2 seats out of 13.


Newly established Labour Party (populist) wins 5.


Election coincided with first round of presidential election, which gave ex-pres Adamkus a lead.


 



Luxembourg


Government parties win 5 out of 6 seats (again).


But Christian Democrats manage a seismic shift by taking a seat off their socialist coalition partners. They now have 3; socialists, liberals and greens 1 each.


 


Malta (new member state)


Governing Nationalist Party wins 2 of 5 seats with 41%


Opposition Labour Party takes 3 of five seats with 48%. Liberals get 10% but not enough for a seat (best third-party result in Malta for 35 years)


 


Netherlands


Govt wins 12 of 27 seats (previously 17 of 31).


Gains by opposition Labour Party, far-left Socialist party.


Surprise: “whistle-blower” Paul van Buitenen wins 2 seats.


 


Poland (new member state)


Dismal turnout of only 21%.


Govt to win 6 seats out of 54.


Centre-left opposition tops the poll with 17. Right-wing opposition parties have 28 between them. Geremek wins 3.


 


Portugal


Centre right govt wins 9 seats of 24.


Main opposition socialists win 12; Greens 2; communists 1.


 


Slovakia (new member state)


17% turnout – the lowest anywhere.


Four-party centre right govt coalition wins 8 seats of 14. Remaining 6 divide evenly between populist ex-PM Meciar and centre-left opposition.


 


Slovenia (new member state)


Centrist govt wins 4 seats of 7; centre-right opposition wins 3.


 


Spain


Recently elected centre-left govt wins 25 of 54 seats.


Centre-right opposition wins 23; regionalists 3; Communists 2; small centre-right party 1.


 


Sweden


Centre-left govt parties and supporters win 8 seats of 19 (down slightly)


Centre-right opposition parties also win 8 (down a bit more)


Anti-EU “June movement” comes from nowhere to win 3 seats.


 


United Kingdom


Dismal result for ruling Labour party with only 19 of 78 seats. Opposition Conservatives won only 27.


Surprise: Anti-EU UK Independence Party likely to come third in votes, but level with Liberal Democrats on 12 seats.


Also 2 Greens, 3 nationalists (2 Scots 1 Welsh), 3 from Northern Ireland (probably including 1 Sinn Fein)

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At the European Parliament

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Well, here I am in the European Parliament building; the world´s press, and various aspirant politicians, are swirling around me: I’ve already congratulated two Dutch MEP friends (Joost Lagendijk, re-elected for the Greens, and Sophie in’t Veld, newly elected liberal), and various other semi-celebrities in the obscure field of European politics are circulating. And I’ve found a free internet terminal in a quiet corner as well.

Looks like the early predictions of UKIP winning 18 seats are rather exaggerated. My bet would be that the final GB vote shares are Con 26%; Lab 20%; Lib Dems 16%; UKIP 12%; Greens 6%. That is still a doubling of the UKIP vote, and probably 6 or 7 seats, but not the 18 that Sky News were predicting.

Interesting also to see the anti-system candidates – van Buitenen in the Netherlands, Martin in Austria – win two seats each.

Watching the Slovenian and Hungarian results to see who of my contacts there gets elected… but I think I may call it a day and go home to bed now; I have to work in the morning.

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Young women in government

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I’ve done some research, spurred by querying my remark that at 60, Annemie Neyts was considered too old to be in the Belgian government.

Belgium has 21 ministers (at national level; there’s also regional and other positions to fill, but I haven’t counted them).

8 are women; their average year of birth is 1965 (range from 1958 to 1975).
13 are men; their average year of birth is 1958 (range from 1947 to 1973).

I did the same tally for the U.S. cabinet. The average year of birth is 1943, four years before the oldest of the current Belgian ministers (foreign minister Louis Michel) was born.

However – interestingly – the three women in the cabinet are the youngest, second youngest and fourth youngest cabinet members. Their average year of birth is 1952 (still older than every Belgian minister except Louis Michel); the average year of birth of the 15 men is 1941. (Oldest – 1931; youngest – 1954)

It had never occurred to me before that female government ministers might be on average younger than male ones. I don’t have time to check other countries right now, but I wonder if this is a general pattern? What could explain it?

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Voting and election results

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So, went and voted this morning, for Annemie Neyts after all, since the gossip is that she is considered too old (at 60!) for national office and so she probably will take up her seat in the European Parliament this time (I was most annoyed when she became a minister instead of an MEP last time). Also there was a young woman from Leuven on the Liberals’ supplementary list so I gave her a vote too. Fun electronic voting; there doesn’t seem to have been an issue here about the security of the system (which may just mean that the Belgians are slower than the Irish to catch onto this problem).

Seems that here in Flanders, the evil Vlaams Blok is up by about the same amount as the Liberals are down. The Greens have won back most but not all of the votes they lost last year. The Christian Democrats (who are boring centrists here) have regained their historical position as largest single party, with the Socialists probably in second place (though Liberals and Blok not far behind if at all).

In Ireland the disappointing headline from the local election results is that Sinn Fein have almost trebled their vote. They still have less than 10%; the gains came directly from Fianna Fail. Fine Gael and Labour appear, incredibly, to have held their ground. PDs and Greens bubbling in the lower reaches, fortunately not quite off the scale. The election in Northern Ireland will be counted tomorrow.

I heard from a friend that the European Parliament is planning a big multimedia presentation this evening from 2230. According to their website they have had everything set up since this morning, so I think I’ll actually head down there for about 2200. Doubt if I’ll see any readers of this journal there though!

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New personality test

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From . This one is not a sneaky adds-entries-to-your-journal thing.

Nicholas, you possess an interesting balance of hemispheric and sensory characteristics, with a slight right-brain dominance and a slight preference for visual processing.

Since neither of these is completely centered, you lack the indecision and second-guessing associated with other patterns. You have a distinct preference for creativity and intuition with seemingly sufficient verbal skills to be able to translate in any meaningful way to yourself and others.

You tend to see things in “wholes” without surrendering the ability to attend to details. You can give them sufficient notice to be able to utitlize and incorporate them as part of an overall pattern.

In the same way, while you are active and process information simultaneously, you demonstrate a capacity for sequencing as well as reflection which allows for some “inner dialogue.”

All in all, you are likely to be quite content with yourself and your style although at times it will not necessarily be appreciated by others. You have sufficient confidence to not second-guess yourself, but rather to use your critical faculties in a way that enhances, rather than limits, your creativity.

You can learn in either mode although far more efficiently within the visual mode. It is likely that in listening to conversations or lecture materials you simultaneously translate into pictures which enhance and elaborate on the meaning.

It is most likely that you will gravitate towards those endeavors which are predominantly visual but include some logic or structuring. You may either work particularly hard at cultivating your auditory skills or risk “missing out” on being able to efficiently process what you learn. Your own intuitive skills will at times interfere with your capacity to listen to others, which is something else you may need to take into account.

Well, I don’t really think of myself as particularly visual; but apart from that it is flattering enough that I can accept it!

Test link is http://www.mindmedia.com/brainworks/profiler

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Latest (really stupid meme)

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If you click on this you get a new entry in your livejournal with the title “interesting…” and the text “this is really interesting”. I wouldn’t bother unless you want your livejournal cluttered with entries written by other people. It seem to be stupid but not malicious. See here for further details. I did actually change my own password but consensus seems to be that that is not necessary.

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Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, by Thomas de Waal

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This is a really good book. Even if you don’t have a professional interest in the Nagorno-Karabakh question (and let’s face it, not a lot of people do), I think the studies of how a historical dispute over a very small patch of land destroyed two countries and helped to destroy the Soviet Union are of worldwide, human interest. The narrative of the conflict is interspersed with either interviews with today’s survivors or historical reflections on how we got there.

The first few chapters are also particularly interesting because of the light they throw on Gorbachev, especially from research in the Politburo archives. In a week when we have all been debating the extent to which Ronald Reagan deserves any credit at all, I found this September 1988 exchange between the General Secretary and the hapless official in charge of preventing the conflict illustrative of the fantasy world in which the leadership of the other superpower lived: 

[Gorbachev] rang and said:”… Tell them that if they don’t stop this, we will expel them from the Party!” I said, “Mikhail Sergeyevich, they’ve already trampled on their party cards. The members of the committee are all the organisers of these demonstrations!… What Party methods are you talking about?” 

Two years later, of course, the Soviet Union suddenly collapsed completely. This was one of the few warning signs. (Also the August 1990 coup attempt in Moscow had a direct effect on the outcome of the war.)

It was also interesting for me to see someone else’s take on some of the personalities I met in the region last month – President Kocharian and his predecessor Levon Ter-Petrossian in Armenia, Leila Yunusova and Isa Gambar (and President Aliev the younger) in Azerbaijan. But the more interesting human story is what happens to people who used to live in a society that has been destroyed. The chapters about the massacre in Sumgait in early 1988, and about the children of Azerbaijan’s 750,000 refugees, are particularly vivid.

Home again

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Minor flurry of activity in Moscow yesterday, trying to head off a particular problem in the Caucasus before it arises. We’ll see.

Home again. Long wait at Mosocow airport, with bizarre combination of images of Reagan’s funeral from CNN with the sound turned off and a Queen album playing loudly in the background. Read Thom de Waal’s book on the plane.

Bridget seemed genuinely pleased to see me when she woke up (too early) this morning, which is nice. Looking forward to weekend.

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Russia impressions

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Well, it’s my first time in Moscow, indeed my first time in Russia, so a brief note on my impressions is in order.

First, the journey was pretty hellish. I was carrying a massive suitcase belonging to who is moving back here on Sunday (see his latest entry for scandalous comments on Belgian landlords and on unwanted visitors at work, including electronic ones). We’ll miss him and his sense of humour in Brussels. At least I will be somewhat less heavily laden on the way back.

The flight took off at 2340 Brussels time (early) and landed at 0500 Moscow time. There is a two hour time difference so in fact it was only three hours in the air. Time to read the Lindskold biography of Zelazny (see previous entry) but not really to sleep.

I was picked up and brought to the office which has a guest bedroom. Three hours sleep before first meeting. First meeting was very good and lasted two hours instead of one; and was sufficiently interesting to be worth the price of the ticket (I hope tomorrow’s meetings will compensate adequately for cost of visa and of lost sleep).

Back to office for some more rest, then a few hours work at computer, then time for a little sight-seeing. The important bits of Moscow are very close together. Our office is round the corner from the Duma (parliament), which itself is opposite one wall of the Kremlin, and the Lubianka (KGB) and President’s office are not that much further away.

Red Square is closed because of a public holiday at the weekend. A local contact commented (actually not to me but to a policeman guarding Red Square, who sniggered in response): “I’d be a lot more impressed by these Independence Day celebrations if they told me who we were celebrating independence from.”

Moscow looks surprisingly prosperous. I had a good look round the GUM department store and the surrounding shopping arcades – full of people, full of consumer items, things being bought and sold. No real sense of grinding poverty; I didn’t feel I stood out in my raincoat (bought from Tesco’s in Prague last month). Our pub lunch cost about what it would have done in Brussels.

We had dinner in a vaguely Lebanese restaurant (reviewed here). I’ve had more exciting Lebanese food, but there was a wonderful georgian wine to go with it. (Also loads of people were smoking resin from hookahs which gave the whole thing a more exotic air.)

Then a brief car tour of the university quarter (glorious building, built by forced labour of German prisoners post-1945) and the White House, famously shelled by Yeltsin in 1993 (the weekend we got married), and other bits of Moscow by night. Anyway, time for bed now.

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Feast for Crows – Bah!

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Just had a note from Amazon to the effect that A Feast for Crows, vol 4 of the superb Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, is not going to be published this month after all, but next March instead.

And hunting around the net it seems pretty clear that there was never a real June 2004 date anyway; all fantasy on Amazon’s part, alas.

Oh well.

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June books 4) Roger Zelazny

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4) Roger Zelazny by Jane Lindskold

There’s quite a back-story to this literary biography. It was written in 1990-92; published in 1993; in 1994 the author moved to New Mexico to live with Zelazny; but he was already ill and died in 1995 (on 14 June, almost exactly 9 years ago).

Zelazny’s always been a favourite author of mine, and part of the attraction of reading this, and also Theodore Krulik’s earlier literary biography, published in 1986, which I read last year is simply the fun of sharing an enthusiasm with the author. Lindskold’s is very definitely the better book. She throws aside all attempts at literary theory and basically identifies the main influences on Zelazny, with examples from all his published works, including some I had forgotten and, to my surprise, one or two I hadn’t known about and must now try and get hold of.

An aside on the literary analysis of sf. When it’s done well, as by John Clute and most of his co-authors in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction or indeed by and most of her collaborators in Reading the Vampire Slayer, I find it very much worth reading. I can’t understand people like the Amazon reviewer who wrote of Clute’s “pseudo-academic gibberish designed to appease Harold Bloom and his cronies which keeps you flipping back to the glossary as his burdensome tome clefts large cavities in your thighs” – especially since this was in a review of the woeful Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. But when it’s done badly, as with Krulik’s volume on Zelazny and I’m afraid one or two of the essays in the books mentioned above (and in Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature) then it’s just embarrassing. There are deep and meaningful things to be said about science fiction, but not everyone is equipped to say them and I think it’s to Lindskold’s credit that she went for a more biographical than theoretical approach to her subject.

When I read a book like this I want the pieces to fit together in my mind better than they did before – and her description of Zelazny’s attraction to the visual arts, to particular well-loved places, and to poetry, and the way that this worked out in his fiction, did make a lot of sense to me. I also want one or two insights that I hadn’t spotted before, and she duly supplied them by pointing out how several of Zelazny’s stories echo the Faust legend, and also how the descent into hell is also revisited several times. She even managed to make me feel I should reread the second Chronicles of Amber again, pointing out various things that rather redeem the five volumes (which I have always tended to feel are rather inferior in comparison with the first five).

She also makes a good defence of Zelazny’s treatment of women characters, which shifts from cliche and stereotype in his early work to a rather more mature approach later on. Though I have to say that the pneumatic busts on the women in Gray Morrow’s contribution to The Illustrated Roger Zelazny (1978) are a throwback to the earlier period. She gives Krulik’s earlier biography credit for spotting the psychological reverberations throughout his writing of a 1964 car crash in which Zelazny’s then fiancee was badly injured (notably He Who Shapes/The Dream Master, first published the following year).

The one gaping hole in her analysis is any treatment of religion as such. Sure, there is lots and lots about the mythologies of different cultures, which of course were used with verve in Zelazny’s early masterpieces (Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness, …And Call Me Conrad/This Immortal), but somehow these seem to be treated as literary images rather than actual belief systems. We are told that Zelazny’s family was Polish (well, obviously) and Irish. But the word “Catholic” doesn’t appear in the book. I’d be very unsurprised to discover that Zelazny was not a believer in any organised religion (though he certainly seems to have found considerable spiritual value in the martial arts). However Lindskold’s failure to ask the question (or perhaps to record the answer) weakens the book and particularly weakens her extended analysis of Zelazny’s hero-figures.

Finally, a couple of personal reflections. Lindskold was obviously more than a little in love with the subject of her book at the time of writing, and valiantly tries to defend him against the oft-made charge that he wrote a lot of potboilers for commercial reasons. She’s not 100% successful in this. As I said above, she does rehabilitate the second Amber series for me a little bit, but it’s absolutely clear that Zelazny’s heart was in his short fiction, not just because it won more awards, but from the obvious fact that it is much better (the pre-1968 novels, and perhaps the high points of the Amber series, apart). Does this demonstrate a slightly cynical approach to his readership? Well, he explained it to himself in terms of his obligations to his family. I can’t really judge, but Lindskold, having raised the issue, didn’t really settle it for me.

My other reflection is more positive. Apparently Zelazny actually set himself a reading programme, specifically to fill in gaps in his knowledge; he would always have an sf book, a history book, a biography or autobiography, and a non-sf novel at least on the go. My own approach to book buying tends to be based on impulse with occasional bursts of order (see posts about Hugo and other awards). But it could actually be rather cool to try and plan it a bit more, especially in terms of filling out embarrassing gaps in my knowledge of Great Literature. About this time last year I read Paddy Ashdown’s diaries, and decided to take up his habit of writing a memo to myself every six months of what I hope to achieve in the next six months. From what I’ve been posting to livejournal I now have a fairly good record of my own reading habits, and it should be fairly easy to add this as well. Well, it’s worth a try anyway.

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