The man they couldn't pin down

First chapter of latest novel:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Second chapter of latest novel:

I write like
Chuck Palahniuk

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

(Who? Oh, him.)

Third chapter of latest novel:

I write like
Dan Brown

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I decided to stop there.

Not sure which of these is funnier

The juxtaposition of items 3 and 4...


... or the opening paragraphs of no. 3.


Thatcherite initiative at its best, I say.

Beeb headlines herald medical breakthrough

Though not quite up to the high level set by my favourite example.

My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed / when he finds out I publish first

J.K. Rowling is being sued (again) for alleged plagiarism. In this case the estate of the now-deceased author of the 30pp self-published Adventures of Willy the Wizard (published 1987) claims (a) that by some miracle Rowling became aware of this opus and nicked bits of it for Goblet of Fire, because (b) it is inconceivable, inconceivable I tell you that anyone else could possibly imagine a society of wizards taking everyday life as we know it (sports competitions, chess, trains) and adding their own magical twist to it. QED.

Prognostications for the plaintiff are not good and this may well be the last you hear of it.

If you want a case that just might have merit, however, tune into BBC1 on 10 April (and make sure you do because I'm calling you all as witnesses), which is when "The Beast Below", the second episode of the new Dr Who series will be shown. According to the Beeb's publicity lords:

"The Doctor takes Amy to the distant future, where she finds Britain in space. Starship UK houses the future of the British people, as they search the stars for a new home."

Sound of screeching brakes. Now, hold on just a minute! Starship UK? Starship UK?? Why, that's almost exactly the same as:

"UK-1 ... the largest spaceship ever built – seventeen massive wheels in space spinning around a common axis. The last redoubt of the exiled House of Windsor." (His Majesty's Starship, 1998)

Note that even though HMSS was published in 1998, I sent it to my agent in early 1995. Later in 1995 I spoke on the phone to Steven Moffat, then a mere script writer a decade before he would achieve the status of Hugo-winning Dr Who Deity with "The Empty Child" and 15 years before he would take over series production from Russell T. Davies. Now, my memories of the conversation are mainly that we coordinated ideas for our forthcoming stories in the Decalog 3 collection: but I put it to you, is it entirely impossible that the conversation could have gone:

[Gentle Scottish burr] "So, Ben, what else have you written?"

[Crisp, eager, slightly naive English accent] "Well, I've just turned in my first novel, which includes the UK in space, based on a giant spaceship and ruled by the guy who would be king if Britain was still a monarchy."

[Slightly more acquisitive Scottish burr] "Fascinating! Tell me more ..."

Not at all impossible, I'm sure you'll agree. The fact that I don't remember it is obviously because I dismissed it as unimportant. The phone call was about our stories, after all, not my novel, and anyway, I trusted the man, trusted, I tell you.

I will hold my horses for the time being. I have still to watch this episode, and I'll wait for Willy the Wizard vs Rowling's inevitable dismissal, because I wouldn't want my chances affected by any perceived similarity to such an obviously futile, money-grabbing case.

Except you become as students ...

I hadn't realised how old I'm getting until I realised how long it's been since I had a decently silly theological conversation.

I had made the offer of transferring my collection of Dr Who videos to Middle Godson's family. Middle Godson's father and I were at uni together. At one point the discussion of the terms of the transfer, conducted devant une des enfants but phrased to avoid arousing excitement until a conclusion was reached, lapsed into New Testament Greek. The years just fell away.

MG's vicar father has also developed the Christingle concept for other festivals where the quotient of unchurched punters on pews might be higher than usual: Eastingle (chocolate eggs instead of oranges) and Harvestingle. This is an idea that could run and run. The higher forms of church could pick it up too. I propose Annuncitingle. Children could all clutch a parthenogenetically grown fruit on which they have drawn a very surprised face. Stick a cross in it, hold it upside down and you've got a ♀ .

I wonder if the student Richard Dawkins and his friends ever lapsed deliberately into really bad science just for the fun of it?

Medical mirth

To make the long winter evenings at InsanelyRun fly by, I very unprofessionally started to keep a file that I called Cheap Giggles: turns of phrase from our books that got passed around the office to crack the occasional smile on the face of the hard worked, badly managed staff. Here are some of them ...

• "Difficulty in extracting prostatic fluid experienced by practitioners as well as the undesired infelicitous mode of the massage also led to its ill-starred fate."
  - an author laments the sad decline of the science of prostate massage
  
• "I made an effort, when not taking Nystatin, to correlate my balanitis outbreaks with sexual contacts and my wife’s vaginal yeast infections."
  - from a book on prostatitis. Everyone should have a hobby, eh?
  
• "I have been on medical leave of absence and was unable to obtain another good set of stained prostatic fluid."
  - ibid. What a disappointing break it must have been.
  
• "Does your bladder problem make you feel depressed?"
  - from a questionnaire in a book on urogynaecology. (our Production Manager's answer: "no, I’m pissing myself")
  
• "Urine loss during provocation can be significantly decreased by crossing the legs."
  - ibid.
  
• "The loss of anal contents during intimate times can adversely affect a woman’s quality of life."
  - ibid, chapter on faecal incontinence. I feel an expression featuring negative faecal content and Mr Holmes would be very appropriate at this point.
  
• "In geographical terms, Australia is the driest continent on Earth. Regrettably the same cannot be said for the state of its inhabitants."
  - ibid, chapter on the prevalence of urinary incontinence in Australia
  
• "The appearances of internal sphincter can be described as being analogous to the white meat of chicken breast as opposed to the red meat appearance of the external sphincter."
  - ibid. Never let this man carve your chicken.
  
• "Stripping of veins is very stimulating"
  - book on anaesthesia.
  
• "... patients who do not like to sit on public toilets and hover instead ..."
  - yet another book on incontinence
  
• "Antigen-pulsed DCs are capable of stimulating a response simply by injection into naive mice."
  - book on prostate cancer. Presumably clued-up mice refuse to be injected.
  
• "I would suggest that Figure 2 was seen as an alternative to Figure 3, although Figure 5 could perhaps appear in addition to Table 4 which contains additional data not reproduced in that table."
  - covering letter for a submitted chapter on prostate cancer, just making everything clear.
  
• "... the higher incidence of prostate cancer in blacks may partly be due to the lower age of first sexual intercourse and the higher number of sexual partners, both of which are thought to be associated with a higher risk of prostate cancer."
  - our contribution to racial awareness, from the first edition of a book on prostatic diseases that predated me. We cut it from the second edition.
  
• "Many of the authors in this book were pioneers in endoscopic techniques and had to boldly go where no endoscopist had gone before"
  - introduction to book on endoscopy.
  
• "Art illustration of best positions for colonic examination"
  - legend for figure in ibid.
  
• "Vaginal hysterectomy was successfully performed — it provided relief to the patient and was an exhilarating experience for the operator."
  - book on hysterectomy
  
• "Vaginal hysterectomy is the least invasive route after all, one is using the portal designed by God."
  - ibid.

Another cheap, easy target form of humour was devising insults based on actual medical terms:

• You imperforate anus!
• You capacious vagina!
• You pancreatic pseudocyst!
• You incompetent cervix!
• You pathologic clot!

And finally, some interesting organisations that really do exist (or did, 10 years ago):

• Erectile Dysfunction Alliance
• Serious Hazards In Transfusions
• Superficial Bladder Cancer Working Party
• The Hospital Infection Society

Holy nativi-tivi, nativi-tie

Just in case any Scrooge-like feelings come creeping in this Christmas, I know I'll be cheered up by my recent discovery that "While shepherds watched their flocks by night" (most irredeemably boring of all 19th century Yuletide dirges) can be sung to the tune of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from Mary Poppins.

I doubt I will hear it sung this way, but just knowing it exists will bring me no end of festive cheer. The only thing that could make it even better would be if it could be sung by a chorus of dancing penguins.

Shuffle! The Musical

Driving to Oxford and back I had to decide what to set the iPod to. Of late I've worked through all my REM songs, my collection of carols, all the classical stuff, all the synth pop ... I know, I'll set it to shuffle through the musical tracks.

And then I'll pass the time by working out a plot to encompass them all.

Track 1: "At the end of the day" (Les Mis). Easy. There's a lot of poor, discontented people and one woman in particular is forced to prostitution for losing her job.

Track 2: "Everything's alright" (Jesus Christ, Superstar). Sounds like she landed on her feet, falling in with a nice guy who stands up for her even when one of his friends complains about her expensive tastes in perfume. Mind you, he also comes out with the slightly bummer comment that the poor will always be with us, which coming after track 1 is perhaps a little smug.

Track 3: "Invitation to the Jellical Ball" (Cats). Our girl's luck is still in: she gets an invite to the coolest party on the block.

Track 4: "I feel pretty" (West Side Story). Her star is truly in the ascendant. She's met an even nicer guy - or maybe she's just fallen properly in love with the nice guy from track 2 - not sure (the libretto could do with a bit of work here). Her friends are sceptical. To be quite honest, though the tunes are fun this is turning out quite a dull, feel-good sort of thing that Doris Day might have starred in.

Track 5: "One day more" (Les Mis). Aha! Revolution is brewing. That's more like it. I knew there had to be something more.

Can't wait for Act 2.

Strings attached

Alastair Reynolds posts some musings about the roll-out of the Ares 1-X. (How does it stay up, for goodness sake? It looks like someone balancing a pencil on their finger.) He also engages in some speculation about what the world would be like if Gerry Anderson were in charge of human spaceflight. Like, for instance, the rocket wouldn't roll out; the assembly building would instead roll back. Yes, if there's a way to over-engineer a problem, our Gerry will find it.

Rather, if I may smugly outgeek correct Al (who once trounced me in an informal test of knowledge about prog rock drummers) it would be Derek Meddings or Mike Trim who would find the way, they being the ones who designed the fantastic vehicles that made Gerry famous. But for the sake of argument we will use the umbrella term "Anderson" to describe the milieu.

I actually think they did have a hand in some of the Soviet space designs, like their prospective moon rocket the N1. It looks like an upturned cornetto because the Russkies didn't have the industrial base to build five massive engines as used by the Saturn V. Instead they had to pack in 30 much smaller engines, so the base of the rocket had to make room for them all. The fact that all four of the N1s that actually left the launchpad managed to blow up before first stage separation also has a distinctly Anderson feel to it, doesn't it?

In the Anderson world, anything resembling a Health & Safety executive was strangled by red tape at birth and no one ever invented the fuse. These two facts alone mean that a cloud-piercing skyscraper can be brought down by a small fire in the basement. On the other hand, we wouldn't have had to wait years for the A380. Okay, a couple might crash mysteriously in the development phase but hey, there's always another fresh off the production line. So we can assume that all that spared H&S effort went into enhanced R&D, which included an aesthetic element sadly missing from modern design bureaux. All in all, quite a reasonable payoff.

There would be a strange dissonance between very clunky hardware (all tapes and rackety nosies) running extremely powerful software, not to mention an advanced degree of miniaturisation that enables satellite phones with full video to be hidden in watches, power compacts etc. The roads would be a lot safer because no one would dare erupt into road rage when there's the possibility the object of your rage will sprout hidden machine guns and blow you to pieces. There would be no fuss over a third runway for Heathrow, or anything like that, because heavy planes the size of a 747 can take off vertically (or, failing that, off a short ramp).

At the family level, the high degree of personal automation would make us all very quickly clinically obese: why come through to the dining room for tea when you can be carried there by a chute hidden behind a picture in the wall? On the plus side, if your child's a snotty brat then simply implant a new personality. And think of the saving on driving lessons or indeed any form of education. No, it's not abuse, really.

Overall I think the world would be a happier place. International terrorism would be a thing of the past: how successful would 9/11 have been if the twin towers could simply duck? And even if someone did smuggle a bomb onto a plane it would be handily labelled "bomb", so quickly dealt with.

As long as we don't have to wear the clothes. That's all I ask.

The lesser of two weevils

Tomorrow is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. I will be seriously disappointed if I meet anyone who does any such thing.

I will however buy a drink for anyone I meet who observes International Talk Like Dr Stephen Maturin Day.

Total Eclipse of Art

I've always had a soft spot for Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart". It combined traditional Jim Steinman anthemic passion with the best of eighties excess, and managed to be sad and moving at the same time.

Then it became a staple of the end-of-year SFSoc weekend at university, with a mash-up video of classic Dr Who scenes (tragically still not available on YouTube, as far as I can tell), so it also became associated with the bitter-sweet end of term feeling that you were saying goodbye to your friends, even if you were going to see them again in September.

And now I like it even more. Cue the Literal Video Version.

Separated at birth

One of these is Dr Conrad Murray of Los Angeles. The other is Dr Julius Hibbert of Springfield.

I know which I'd rather be right now.

Party excuse

If you find the sidereal calendar just so drearily predictable, there is an alternative. Decimalise!

I am currently 16140 days old. My next centennial birthday is on 23 June this year, when I'll be 16200 days. Or maybe I'll just keep my strength for the millennial celebrations on 1 September 2011 when I hit the big 17000.

I may just call it 17 mega-days. I'll be 17 again but without the spots and hormones.

Spread the joy and work out your own:

http://partysuppliesonline.com/decimal_birthday.htm

Oh. My. God.

I am married to Richard Dawkins ...

Your result for The Doctor Who Companion Test...

Romana II

You are Romana II. While you still retain all your knowledge from the Academy, your time spent traveling with The Doctor has mellowed you a bit, and you and The Doctor now get along quite well. The Doctor also greatly enjoys your company - you're smart enough to keep up with him, but are no longer the brash young know-it-all of your previous incarnation.

Unfortunately, all that mellowing has also caused you to become a bit more dependent upon The Doctor than you might like - you seem to be getting captured by monsters more and more these days. Still, you know how to enjoy yourself, and will probably stick around for the time being.

Take The Doctor Who Companion Test at HelloQuizzy

Observation affects outcome

Put it this way - if you weren't a tiny percent nerd, you wouldn't do things like this, would you?

The CIA is hiring!

And I don't mean the Church in Abingdon.

According to their vacancies page, "This includes Clandestine Service Officers to be on the front line of human intelligence." Along with people like Einstein and Hawking? These will be recruited into the National Clandestine Service, the service so clandestine it - um - has a name with "clandestine" in the title. In this field they're basically looking for people to recruit traitors in other countries, but strangely they feel the need for a sexier sounding job title.

Open Source Officer (Foreign Media Analyst) looks fun, but on closer inspection they have a different understanding to "open source". I could reasonably go for Publications Officer, Librarian or Graphic Designer. I have a certificate to say that I successfully completed the LRQA Internal QMS Auditor Course but, even so, Contract Auditor would just be too scary - all depends on what you mean by contracts, eh, nudge nudge wink wink?

Of course, this all leaves aside the needlessly picky requirement of being a US citizen. I bet I know more American history than most Americans, and if Hollywood is anything to be (and has it ever let you down?) the CIA can employ both Brian Cox (Scottish) and Russell Crowe (Australian) so I could probably swing it.

Beenip loses another member

Thanks to Major Clanger for alerting me (via a story in the Times) to the concept of the Hitler Tantrum Mashup. Not something I'd encountered before. The rules are very simple: take the above scene from the excellent Downfall, and insert your own subtitles.

On the Times story linked above you can also get others including "Banned from World of Warcraft" and "Windows Vista problems". You can't (as I write) get this one.



And for the fun of it, here's the one where Hitler twigs someone is re-subtitling him.

Charlton Heston, eh?

Your result for Reincarnation Placement Exam...

Deep Space Explorer

Hmm... You're a tough one to place. Your answers indicate that you like technology and education. You enjoy intrigue, adventure and chaos. You're fine with hard work and civilization. This all bodes well for an interesting, adventurous life.

What makes it difficult, however, is that you don't seem to be much of a 'people person.'

If you were more of a people person, we would have commissioned you aboard the Starship Enterprise. But since you don't care much for the complications of dealing with your fellow man... we have another deep-space mission, more tailored for your tastes... a way for you to enjoy the benefits of high-tech civilization without having to put up with civilization itself. Let's set you up to pursue the solo career of a deep space explorer. You can go ahead and hibernate through the boring parts of your mission, and not worry so much about being a few decades out of touch with your fellows by the time you get home. In fact, you pretty much don't have to deal with people at all, but you can still enjoy a high-flying adventure of a life. Far, far away from the madding crowd, you get to play with your scientific instruments, serve your glorious civilization, and do interesting things with strange discoveries in exotic places.

The career might work out all right. Look what it did for Charlton Heston.

Take Reincarnation Placement Exam at HelloQuizzy

Large Hadron Rap

As the world ends next Wednesday, you might like to know exactly what it was all about.

Servalan sings Pink Floyd

Does what it says on the tin. While it starts from a basic state of being quite amusing, enjoyment increases proportionate to your familiarity with (a) who Servalan was and (b) the music of Pink Floyd. If you're reasonably familiar with Blake's 7 (there's a clue to (a)) then an extra gag kicks in at 48 seconds.



In researching that - thanks to the latest issue of SFX for the pointer - I also came across this little gem which, I dunno, spoke to me somehow. Again, enjoyment increases proportionate to familiarity with the key players.