Haven't done one of these for a while, but as my friend Mr Bookzombie points out, it's a little more grown-up and assumes a little more life experience than the usual round. So without further ado:
1. What bill do you hate paying the most?
As I no longer have to pay printers' bills and all the usual domestic ones are comfortably covered by direct debit, none of them hold much terror for me.
2. Do you miss being a child?
I miss the excitement about (what I now realise are) really quite mundane matters, but that's all. The tingle of opening that week's Countdown/Warlord/2000 AD; the warm glow of anticipation as a good Saturday evening's TV viewing hoves into view ...
3. Chore you hate the most?
Picking with tweezers through someone else's badly written HTML.
4. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner?
Well, we dined out every evening in Gothenburg this summer, which was quite high on the him-and-her scale. If you're talking a properly constituted duly certified romantic dinner(tm) that would probably be our anniversary dinner at Kitson's ... Um, that's last year's anniversary.
5. If you could go back and change one thing what would it be?
Probably nothing. What hasn't killed me has made me stronger. On the other hand, 10 years of compulsory rugby led to the need for regular chiropractic adjustment, probably for the rest of my life, so that is something I could do without whilst still retaining my essential character.
6. Name of your first grade teacher?
"Grade?" The first sign that this quiz was dreamt up by an American. Anyway, Miss Barker. I think.
7. What do you really want to be doing right now?
Putting down the flow of words that come effortlessly to me as I write my next novel.
8. What did you want to be when you grew up?
Time Lord. Or a pilot.
9. How many colleges did you attend?
The second sign of transatlanticality. I attended just one higher education institution, thank you.
10. Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now?
It's Thursday.
11. What are your thoughts on gas prices?
Quite reasonable really for a very convenient but rapidly declining resource. Oh, you mean petrol prices, right? Ludicrously high.
12. First thought when the alarm went off this morning?
The alarm has gone off.
13. Last thought before going to sleep last night?
I often spend this time thinking of what to do with the next morning's writing slot.
14. What famous person would you like to have dinner with?
I once had dinner with the Northern Ireland Commander of Land Forces*, the Chief Constable of the RUC, the Northern Ireland Secretary and the head of MI5 in Northern Ireland, so I'm not that easily impressed. (Though I was still quite nervous about having dinner with Terry Pratchett ...)
* In fact I have spent quite a lot of time with this guy, one way or another.
15. Have you ever crashed your vehicle?
Yes.
16. If you didn't have to work, would you volunteer?
Probably. To do what?
17. Get up early or sleep in?
Depends on day of the week, dunnit?
18. What is your favorite cartoon character?
Shouldn't that be "Who is ..."? Not to mention "favourite". Anyway, Calvin's dad.
19. Favorite thing to do at night?
Those few seconds as you sink into the mattress with a good book and the duvet settles around you and the day is over.
20. When did you first start feeling old?
I have always resisted the feeling, though it gets harder when you're older than the Doctor, the vicar, James Bond and the leaders of all three main parties. Or when you realise that children of friends, who you knew before they were babies (if you see what I mean), are now an age that you remember being quite well.
21. Favorite lunch meat?
What on earth is lunch meat? Is there an animal bred specifically to be eaten at lunch?
22. What do you get every time you go into Wal-Mart?
I have been in a Wal-Mart exactly once, and while my host bought some cat litter I remember goggling at the guns and thinking "My God, it's true."
23. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?
That implies marriage requires a ritual. The sense that it does is probably on the way out, and what we currently (for legal purposes) call "marriage" and what we call "civil partnership" will blur more and more into one. I suspect the pairbonding instinct will always be there and hopefully lifelong partners will require fewer hoops to jump through to attain legal recognition of this fact.
24. Favorite movie you wouldn't want anyone to find out about?
Operation Petticoat. No, stuff that, it's a comic classic - everyone, watch it. "Today we torpedoed a truck ..." [Breaking news: think of it as a memorial to Tony Curtis who died today.]
25. What's your favorite drink?
A good red wine - or (for its rarity value) a G&T, but that's really a one-off whereas a good red wine you can have seconds of, and thirds, and fourths, and fitfs anbd si-... sh- ... wh'ver comsh neksht.
26. Who from high school would you like to run in to?
Run in to as in walking along the pavement, or run in to as in driving a car while he walks along the pavement? Different questions, different answers.
27. What radio station is your car radio tuned to right now?
Classic FM.
28. Sopranos or Desperate Housewives?
Sopranos, because (a) it's the only one I've seen and (b) nothing about Desperate Housewives, from the title onwards, really interests me. If I want more Teri Hatcher in my life then I just watch repeats of Superman.
29. Worst relationship mistake that you wish you could take back?
There is one moment the memory of which makes my toes curl still - but the sheer joy of actually comprehending the scale on which I am loved and forgiven probably means I wouldn't change it. Plus it means I probably won't do it again.
30. Do you like the person that sits directly across from you at work?
I face the window.
31. Have you ever had to use a fire extinguisher for its intended purposes?
Other than the basic training I had to do when I started my present job, no.
32. Last book you finished reading?
Silverfin by Charlie Higson.
33. Do you have a teddy bear?
Only by marriage. I do however retain the Clanger my mother made me following instructions from Valerie Singleton on Blue Peter. He was made out of a grey sock, because we only had b&w TV and didn't know Clangers were meant to be pink. (Technically, as a spherical object orbiting the sun, the planet of the Clangers must have tropics and an equatorial region but observation suggests there are no environmental factors leading to selection of a darker skin in those areas for ultraviolet protection.)
34. Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth?
Not strange as such, but I do remember getting stuck into it at Knutsford M6 motorway services at 3am, shortly before discovering they turn the water off for the night.
35. Do you go to church?
Yes.
36. How old are you?
45.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Game plan
Pay attention because I'm going to talk about writing, which I don't often do. At least, not my current writing. Not my actual work in progress stuff.
It weighs on me more with every passing year that there hasn't been a genuine original Ben Jeapes novel published since 2004. And guess what - following yesterday's meeting with my publisher this doesn't look immediately set to change. But there is a renewed sense of purpose in the air, which makes a pleasant change.
I haven't exactly been twiddling my thumbs in the meantime: 3 Vampire Plagues, 2 Midnight Library collections and 3 $INSECT_EATING_TV_GUY ghostwriting gigs bear testimony to this. Time's Chariot was also reissued in 2008, which was nice.
Part of the problem is precisely all that hackwork, which pays bills nicely but gets in the way. I'm happy to be in a position now where I can turn down such offers without regret, unless they pay really well (like $INSECT_EATING_TV_GUY did).
Part of the problem was that when I put the last full stop at the end of New World Order that was the end of the stories that had been burning inside me for years. Thereafter I had to start writing new stuff from scratch rather than just giving voice to pre-existing collections of thoughts. Ideas I can come up with until the cows come home, but plots ... plots! Don't talk to me about plots! Sticking needles in my eyes would be preferable to cudgelling my brains to work out what the £$%& happens next.
So with New World Order out of the way I started on a work which we will call for convenience Untitled Space Opera, or USO. The set-up for USO had been bubbling away for a while but it soon appeared that a satisfactory plot wasn't going to develop, and anyway I had other distractions like getting married and what with one thing and another USO did get finished, after a fashion, but was never really fit for release into the wild. And anyway, in the meantime I had rather gone off space opera so my heart wasn't in it. My heart was in a complete change of direction: taking an old short story of mine, "The Grey People", and stretching it and expanding it backwards and forwards and generally developing in into a novel - a present day urban fantasy set in Salisbury with a present day slightly geeky teenage hero. Called Ted, so call this book Ted1. Even then the plot fairy wasn't entirely beneficent and it did a lot of bouncing back and forth between me and the publisher, who correctly identified a lot of what wasn't working and which lead to a lot of rewriting.
(I mean, a lot. Imagine if Rowling's publishers had said "Well, we like Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone but the Philosopher's Stone bit doesn't really work - can you fix it?" That's the kind of lot I mean. Eventually I had to write up a list of scenes, essentially delete anything with $NON_WORKING_ELEMENT and fill in the gaps with added Plot to make it work better. Which it did.)
It was meant to be standalone but a sequel did suggest itself within the last pages, so while Ted1 moldered with the publisher and in between the hackwork I started on Ted2, which is now almost finished. And guess what, it was meant to be standalone but a sequel is suggesting itself so there could well be a Ted3 and I'll have committed trilogy for the first time. But trilogies are good. Trilogies are sellable. I also want to do another alternate history fantasy which we will call N, possibly because that actually is what I might call it anyway.
Cut a long story short, fast forward to yesterday ...
He likes Ted1. A lot. He also thinks it's such a departure from my current track record with Random House that he could buy it but RH wouldn't really be able to do it justice. In a couple of years he might (for currently undisclosable, but good, reasons) be in a position to do better, but not now.
BUT over the last few years USO has also been bubbling at the back of my mind, and it's had a couple of very useful critiques from friends. I now think it's fixable, and what's more we both agree it's more in line with my other titles.
So, I have a game plan! This is exciting and makes me feel all grown-up.
So, there we are and here I am. Onwards!
It weighs on me more with every passing year that there hasn't been a genuine original Ben Jeapes novel published since 2004. And guess what - following yesterday's meeting with my publisher this doesn't look immediately set to change. But there is a renewed sense of purpose in the air, which makes a pleasant change.
I haven't exactly been twiddling my thumbs in the meantime: 3 Vampire Plagues, 2 Midnight Library collections and 3 $INSECT_EATING_TV_GUY ghostwriting gigs bear testimony to this. Time's Chariot was also reissued in 2008, which was nice.
Part of the problem is precisely all that hackwork, which pays bills nicely but gets in the way. I'm happy to be in a position now where I can turn down such offers without regret, unless they pay really well (like $INSECT_EATING_TV_GUY did).
Part of the problem was that when I put the last full stop at the end of New World Order that was the end of the stories that had been burning inside me for years. Thereafter I had to start writing new stuff from scratch rather than just giving voice to pre-existing collections of thoughts. Ideas I can come up with until the cows come home, but plots ... plots! Don't talk to me about plots! Sticking needles in my eyes would be preferable to cudgelling my brains to work out what the £$%& happens next.
So with New World Order out of the way I started on a work which we will call for convenience Untitled Space Opera, or USO. The set-up for USO had been bubbling away for a while but it soon appeared that a satisfactory plot wasn't going to develop, and anyway I had other distractions like getting married and what with one thing and another USO did get finished, after a fashion, but was never really fit for release into the wild. And anyway, in the meantime I had rather gone off space opera so my heart wasn't in it. My heart was in a complete change of direction: taking an old short story of mine, "The Grey People", and stretching it and expanding it backwards and forwards and generally developing in into a novel - a present day urban fantasy set in Salisbury with a present day slightly geeky teenage hero. Called Ted, so call this book Ted1. Even then the plot fairy wasn't entirely beneficent and it did a lot of bouncing back and forth between me and the publisher, who correctly identified a lot of what wasn't working and which lead to a lot of rewriting.
(I mean, a lot. Imagine if Rowling's publishers had said "Well, we like Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone but the Philosopher's Stone bit doesn't really work - can you fix it?" That's the kind of lot I mean. Eventually I had to write up a list of scenes, essentially delete anything with $NON_WORKING_ELEMENT and fill in the gaps with added Plot to make it work better. Which it did.)
It was meant to be standalone but a sequel did suggest itself within the last pages, so while Ted1 moldered with the publisher and in between the hackwork I started on Ted2, which is now almost finished. And guess what, it was meant to be standalone but a sequel is suggesting itself so there could well be a Ted3 and I'll have committed trilogy for the first time. But trilogies are good. Trilogies are sellable. I also want to do another alternate history fantasy which we will call N, possibly because that actually is what I might call it anyway.
Cut a long story short, fast forward to yesterday ...
He likes Ted1. A lot. He also thinks it's such a departure from my current track record with Random House that he could buy it but RH wouldn't really be able to do it justice. In a couple of years he might (for currently undisclosable, but good, reasons) be in a position to do better, but not now.
BUT over the last few years USO has also been bubbling at the back of my mind, and it's had a couple of very useful critiques from friends. I now think it's fixable, and what's more we both agree it's more in line with my other titles.
So, I have a game plan! This is exciting and makes me feel all grown-up.
- Finish Ted2
- Rework USO
- Sit on Ted1 pro tem
- Write N and/or Ted3
- USO gets published
- Teds 1, 2 and possibly 3 are published in short order
- N gets published
So, there we are and here I am. Onwards!
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Not impressed, Vale
From the official Vale of the White Horse literature on Abingdon's new bin system:
"Live in a flat or communal property?You will still be able to recycle more and have your food waste collected although your new service may not start in October. We will be in touch with you to let you know when the new service will start."
Oh good, I thought, because I live in a flat and the thought of one grey + one green wheelie for each flat all stacked up in a row is just too silly. It will take up too much room. Still, October is getting close and no squeak from them yet; maybe I should drop them a line to ask what service we will be getting instead. A nice automated reply tells me that I will get an answer from the appropriate authority. Oh good, I think, anything but a row of bins, one per flat.
So guess what we come home to today:
Well, that avoids confusion.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
More than MGs and Morlands
Today was Abingdon Heritage Open Day, when the nooks and crannies of our own little hometown are opened up to the public gaze. It's the kind of thing a future Neil Gaiman could write a story about to flex his muscles before going on to write something like Neverwhere.
Lunchtime beckoned and so we thought we would leave the attractions of East St Helens Street and the Long Alley Almshouse for the afternoon, which as it turns out with one thing and another will have to be another day in another year. Instead we wondered home via the Abingdon School chapel. Some quite attractive modern stained glass ...
... and an eagle lectern apparently modelled on Sam the American Eagle.
Don't say you can't see it.
Descend into the very bowels of the earth beneath the town hall ...
... and encounter a Mamod enthusiast's wildest dream, the gas-powered engine that used to pump water to north Abingdon. "North" being, of course, a relative term that nowadays could more accurately be described as "central" - the Vineyard, St John's Road, Swinburne Road, that sort of area.
Sadly not working or even moving, though apparently that will change after the forthcoming museum restoration. This was one of the few solid facts to pass the lips of the lady guide down there, who must have said variations on "I don't know how / why / if ..." more times per minute than any other guide I have ever met.
Onwards, and a more mobile relative of the water pump lurks beneath the Abbey archway. Anyone who knows me more than passingly well will detect another reason for photographing it. Anyone who doesn't will be left dangling in tantalising speculation.
The Abbey Baptist church is Tardis-like, much bigger inside than the exterior would suggest. The main doors rather appropriately follow the Tardis motif.
(Unfortunately, this visit meant I had a variant on a classic hymn going through my head for the rest of the day:
... and encounter a Mamod enthusiast's wildest dream, the gas-powered engine that used to pump water to north Abingdon. "North" being, of course, a relative term that nowadays could more accurately be described as "central" - the Vineyard, St John's Road, Swinburne Road, that sort of area.
Sadly not working or even moving, though apparently that will change after the forthcoming museum restoration. This was one of the few solid facts to pass the lips of the lady guide down there, who must have said variations on "I don't know how / why / if ..." more times per minute than any other guide I have ever met.
Onwards, and a more mobile relative of the water pump lurks beneath the Abbey archway. Anyone who knows me more than passingly well will detect another reason for photographing it. Anyone who doesn't will be left dangling in tantalising speculation.
The Abbey Baptist church is Tardis-like, much bigger inside than the exterior would suggest. The main doors rather appropriately follow the Tardis motif.
(Unfortunately, this visit meant I had a variant on a classic hymn going through my head for the rest of the day:
"On Jordan's bank the Baptists cry;If I were Baptist so would I.They do not drink, they have no fun,I'd rather be an Anglican.")
Behind the Abbey buildings and on the other side of the Long Gallery lurks this secluded little garden, backing onto the millstream which is far too dirty and obscured by overgrowth to be worth photographing.
An exhibition in the undercroft includes a vital reference map for any (alternative) historian of what the old Abbey layout might actually have looked like. I can see myself coming back to this.
Lunchtime beckoned and so we thought we would leave the attractions of East St Helens Street and the Long Alley Almshouse for the afternoon, which as it turns out with one thing and another will have to be another day in another year. Instead we wondered home via the Abingdon School chapel. Some quite attractive modern stained glass ...
... and an eagle lectern apparently modelled on Sam the American Eagle.
Don't say you can't see it.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?
My no. 1 favourite American clergyman of all time is our former vicar. My least favourite is still Fred Phelps, I think (hey, everyone should have a list like this) but pasta-brained Terry Jones has shot to the penultimate position. Both have a lot in common, not least a total absence of anything in their ministry that resembles something Jesus Christ would be proud to see his disciples doing. (Edited to add: this will change if TJ actually backs down, turns the other cheek etc. which actually would be vaguely Christlike.)
I confess I have now lost track as to whether or not Jones intends to proceed with his burn-a-Koran-day plan tomorrow. I think he has, too. Anyway, people seem to have forgotten, or probably not noticed, that Phred was apparently way ahead of him back in 2008 (there's a link on his, ahem, "church"'s site: if you're curious enough you can find it but I ain't putting it here) and intends to repeat the stunt himself. Never try to outshow a showman.
Back to Jonesy: what has been so repellent about the whole thing has been watching this vile little man - well, little in every conceivable way except for his moustache - relishing his position as the cameras of the world turn on him and even the President of the United States has to ask him not to, please. The scale of his self-delusion and aggrandisement is staggering, really; imagining that he is now a world player, able to affect the siting of the New York mosque at the cost of a few hundred ordinary lives - which won't be his fault, no sir, no. Even Phred isn't quite that big-headed, but only because he has officially given up on the entire world except for his congregation and has no intention of trying to influence anyone.
There is however a Facebook group apparently run by Muslims: INTERNATIONAL BURN A QUR'AN (onto a CD) DAY. Nice one.
Back to Jones again and, ooh, scripture: that reminds me. I can do that. 1 Corinthians 10.23. Also, Matthew 7.22-23, and since I'm in the zone a bit of Romans 12.17-21. So there.
Shame Obama couldn't just stand up and rattle those off. Bartlet would have. He's my no. 1 favourite American President, you know.
I confess I have now lost track as to whether or not Jones intends to proceed with his burn-a-Koran-day plan tomorrow. I think he has, too. Anyway, people seem to have forgotten, or probably not noticed, that Phred was apparently way ahead of him back in 2008 (there's a link on his, ahem, "church"'s site: if you're curious enough you can find it but I ain't putting it here) and intends to repeat the stunt himself. Never try to outshow a showman.
Back to Jonesy: what has been so repellent about the whole thing has been watching this vile little man - well, little in every conceivable way except for his moustache - relishing his position as the cameras of the world turn on him and even the President of the United States has to ask him not to, please. The scale of his self-delusion and aggrandisement is staggering, really; imagining that he is now a world player, able to affect the siting of the New York mosque at the cost of a few hundred ordinary lives - which won't be his fault, no sir, no. Even Phred isn't quite that big-headed, but only because he has officially given up on the entire world except for his congregation and has no intention of trying to influence anyone.
There is however a Facebook group apparently run by Muslims: INTERNATIONAL BURN A QUR'AN (onto a CD) DAY. Nice one.
Back to Jones again and, ooh, scripture: that reminds me. I can do that. 1 Corinthians 10.23. Also, Matthew 7.22-23, and since I'm in the zone a bit of Romans 12.17-21. So there.
Shame Obama couldn't just stand up and rattle those off. Bartlet would have. He's my no. 1 favourite American President, you know.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Guess who's back on Facebook?
I don't know how it happened. Well, okay, I do. A confluence of influences. Influence conflued.
Apart from the general grumpy old mannish acceptance that it really isn't going to go away no matter how hard I ignore it ...
So, here I am. It's a clean break with the past - a new account as opposed to reactivating my old one. I let the old one get out of control. This one I will keep a tighter grip on and just use as a means to guide people to more erudite pensées such as this. It means I'm no longer the first Ben Jeapes on Facebook ... well, technically I suppose I am since that account is still there, just dormant. But anyway. And any former Facebook friends - is there another way of saying this? ffriends, with a silent eff? Well there is now - any former ffriends who want to stay ffriends will have to renew the invite, though I won't just blindly accept invitations from anyone; there are people I can live without being ffriends with even if they happen to be friends. No offence, just ... you know. And if you don't know, learn.
Onwards with the big adventure ... and I'll try to ignore Twitter. Really, really hard.
Apart from the general grumpy old mannish acceptance that it really isn't going to go away no matter how hard I ignore it ...
- A friend (real-world meaning) whose blog I enjoyed reading, but which hasn't been updated for months, admitted he's pretty well given it up and now just uses Facebook. So if even intelligent people regard Facebook above all others, and there's a whole generation out there who wouldn't think of looking for me anywhere else, and I am (as ever) poised on the brink of worldwide fame ... that's where to be.
- And then another friend (also real-world meaning) tells me he's said something online that, from the nature of our real-world meaning friendship, I know I'll find interesting, but it's on Facebook ...
So, here I am. It's a clean break with the past - a new account as opposed to reactivating my old one. I let the old one get out of control. This one I will keep a tighter grip on and just use as a means to guide people to more erudite pensées such as this. It means I'm no longer the first Ben Jeapes on Facebook ... well, technically I suppose I am since that account is still there, just dormant. But anyway. And any former Facebook friends - is there another way of saying this? ffriends, with a silent eff? Well there is now - any former ffriends who want to stay ffriends will have to renew the invite, though I won't just blindly accept invitations from anyone; there are people I can live without being ffriends with even if they happen to be friends. No offence, just ... you know. And if you don't know, learn.
Onwards with the big adventure ... and I'll try to ignore Twitter. Really, really hard.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Palavers'R'Us
So we got a letter from persons acting on behalf of our electricity supplier, bzztpower PLC, saying they needed to replace our meter. I know from previous attempts to do this that our meter and the meters of our neighbours above and below are connected in a stack with ours at the top, so disconnecting us will also disconnect them. So, I let them know the work is going to happen: you're getting a 20 minute power cut on Wednesday morning. Any problems? Excellent.
Meter Man arrives. We turn off everything in the flat. He mounts his ladder. He gets to work on the collection of meters in the porch. He removes a very large fusey type thing. Downstairs Neighbour sticks his head out of the door and shouts that his equipment is smoking. I can't see his face in the gloom of the hall and assume he's joking.
He isn't ...
It's not only smoking, it's smoking quite excitingly: clouds of strangely clear white smoke as if someone inside is spraying out very fine talc. Playstation, TV, laptop all fritzed.
Supervisor is called, from Somerset via Reading so I'm impressed by how soon he arrives. Eventually establishes that not only are the meters wired up in series, they're also non-compliant. Rather than each having a neutral feed of their own, they share a single neutral feed that goes through all three meters. This is the kind of thing frowned upon by the better class of meter man, as disconnecting the neutral feed from our flat therefore also removed it from the other two flats and they got the full blast of 415 volts. Top flat has a breaker which immediately tripped (astonishing; last year's East European cowboys that caused us so much entertainment and diversion did something right) and so the flat was protected, but downstairs flat started tripping in quite another way. And if Meter Man had touched the end of the neutral feed, he too would have started smoking; at least, in the brief period of contact before he got thrown thirty feet away, but his passage through the air would probably have extinguished any flames.
NotNorthernLeccy, who supply the other two flats, are called as our guy isn't allowed to open up another supplier's meter and together they make a go at rewiring the whole meter caboodle, before working out that they're outclassed by the needs of the wiring. To cut a long story short, after much head scratching and discussion, we will need a local electrician to do quite a bit of rewiring (the meter guys only do meters), plus representatives from bzztpower and NotNorthernLeccy to rewire the meters, and this will all need to happen on the same day, starting quite early, if it's all going to be done during hours of warmth and daylight. Meanwhile the insurance companies of bzztpower and NotNorthernLeccy are expected to have a pleasant game of pingpong with Downstairs Neighbour's claim for the slagged gear. Fun, fun, fun.
It occurs to me that plumbers might get cold and wet sometimes, but they would have to try very hard to die just by touching the wrong pipe.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Giggle (okay, so I'm glad it wasn't a small child)
Driving home this evening: 4x4 driver in Drayton reverses into (I presume) his driveway and in the process runs over his green box which is out for collection.
Statement made?
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Quandary
A colleague has gone off to football practice in his lunch hour and has left what he is currently working on live on his screen. It's some kind of presentation and features the word "assesment" (sic) displayed very prominently.
Oh dear.
Do I correct it? Do I leave a post-it on his screen? Do I drop him a polite email?
There's nothing in Debrett's about this, probably because the kind of people who read Debrett's could not conceive of someone not being able to spell "assessment".
Oh dear.
Do I correct it? Do I leave a post-it on his screen? Do I drop him a polite email?
There's nothing in Debrett's about this, probably because the kind of people who read Debrett's could not conceive of someone not being able to spell "assessment".
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The Hunt for Red October: Beginner's Edition
Can you see it yet, children?
Red October, as any fule kno, was an Akula class ballistic missile submarine, NATO codename Typhoon: the largest and (to a certain mentality, such as mine) coolest such vessels ever built. And to such a mentality, the wealth of pictures on this site here verges on the fetishistic. Enjoy, boys. Lots of pictures of a Typhoon, inside and out. Some of the first interior ones are alarmingly damp and rusty, but I think they're from inside the sail, which floods when the boat is submerged, so they're meant to be like that.
The first picture is of a cat that obviously commands its very own Red October. All cats were born to command their very own Red Octobers.
Friday, August 20, 2010
70 years of Few and Phew
In Roald Dahl's autobiography Going Solo, one tale he tells is of going out by himself for a drink in wartime London. He was wearing his RAF uniform. He came across a gang of bruisers who had had a few too many and were all set to beat up someone, anyone in uniform. He was their next obvious target, until he turned round and they saw his pilot's wings. Then they left him alone.
That is how highly RAF pilots were respected during the Battle of Britain. Not that Dahl flew in that at all - rather ironically he had already been invalided out of flying duties due to a bad crash earlier. But anyway.
It's 70 years since Churchill's the Few speech, in case you hadn't heard. ("Excuse me, sir, I want to join the Few." / "Sorry, we've got too many" etc.) There's an interesting set of pages on the Beeb. This one describes why the other side came second: our side actually (despicably, if you ask me) used tactics and planning and good communication while Jerry was more of a "it's better to travel hopefully than arrive" disposition. There was also the simple fact that we were over home territory, so if our boys baled out they landed at home and could get back into another plane and take off again. For them, the war carried on. And such tactics as Goring had made the somewhat elementary error, when dealing with Britain, of requiring 4 consecutive days of blue skies. Is this where "blue sky thinking" comes from?
And then there's this one, which gives a day-by-day graphic of planes and men lost from 10 July-31 October 1940. And, wow. Take 15 August 1940, the Luftwaffe's worst day. Boys in blue, 35 aircraft and 11 men lost. Boys in grey: 76 aircraft, 128 men, the imbalance being because our planes were single seat fighters and theirs were both fighters and multi-crew bombers.
On the RAF's worst day, 31 August: 41 planes and 9 men on our side, 39 and 21 on theirs. Looking at the chart I don't think there's a single day when our losses outweighed theirs.
It's hard to talk about this and not sound like I'm gloating or discussing cricket scores. Whenever I catch myself heading in that direction I try to think of it in the terms of the time: the death columns in the papers, the telegrams from the War Office and all that.
Doesn't stop the warm glow, though. And if you should chance to meet a Battle of Britain veteran, take time to thank them.
That is how highly RAF pilots were respected during the Battle of Britain. Not that Dahl flew in that at all - rather ironically he had already been invalided out of flying duties due to a bad crash earlier. But anyway.
It's 70 years since Churchill's the Few speech, in case you hadn't heard. ("Excuse me, sir, I want to join the Few." / "Sorry, we've got too many" etc.) There's an interesting set of pages on the Beeb. This one describes why the other side came second: our side actually (despicably, if you ask me) used tactics and planning and good communication while Jerry was more of a "it's better to travel hopefully than arrive" disposition. There was also the simple fact that we were over home territory, so if our boys baled out they landed at home and could get back into another plane and take off again. For them, the war carried on. And such tactics as Goring had made the somewhat elementary error, when dealing with Britain, of requiring 4 consecutive days of blue skies. Is this where "blue sky thinking" comes from?
And then there's this one, which gives a day-by-day graphic of planes and men lost from 10 July-31 October 1940. And, wow. Take 15 August 1940, the Luftwaffe's worst day. Boys in blue, 35 aircraft and 11 men lost. Boys in grey: 76 aircraft, 128 men, the imbalance being because our planes were single seat fighters and theirs were both fighters and multi-crew bombers.
On the RAF's worst day, 31 August: 41 planes and 9 men on our side, 39 and 21 on theirs. Looking at the chart I don't think there's a single day when our losses outweighed theirs.
It's hard to talk about this and not sound like I'm gloating or discussing cricket scores. Whenever I catch myself heading in that direction I try to think of it in the terms of the time: the death columns in the papers, the telegrams from the War Office and all that.
Doesn't stop the warm glow, though. And if you should chance to meet a Battle of Britain veteran, take time to thank them.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Battleground God
Official: my religious views are mostly consistent. That's nice.
In fact, Battleground God is an enjoyable exercise to be undertaken vaguely seriously. You are taken through a perfectly reasonable progression of philosophical questions to rate as True, False or Don't Know: for instance, "If God does not exist then there is no basis for morality." (For the record, false: Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative immediately comes to my mind as just one example of a viable, non-deity-based moral framework.) The cumulative impact of your responses is used to judge the logical consistency of your position. If you bite a bullet then you have stuck to your logical guns even though this may have led you to a belief that "most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable". If you take a hit, that means they detect a logical self-contradiction. I took three.
My first hit:
In slightly more words: the Sainted Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker posits a computer-based model of evolution in which biomorphs, creatures existing only in a computer's memory, evolve characteristics over time. Let's get science fictional and assume that by some William Gibson / Neal Stephenson handwaving quirk of electronicness, the biomorphs actually start to evolve intelligence and end up with their own little ecosystem in the computer's RAM. They even develop their own philosophers and scientists, as well as myths and legends of the Great Old Biomorphs that will come again. One of these is NessieMorph, never seen, oft speculated about. The biomorph scientists will be able to make reasonable deductions, from the absence of evidence, as to the non-existence of NessieMorph. However, they will never be able to prove, or disprove, the existence of Richard Dawkins.
Moving on. My second hit:
Even in your own FAQ you even say "omnipotence isn't normally felt to require the ability to do the logically impossible". So there, as Wittgenstein might have said but probably didn't.
My third hit:
So there you have it. Ben: mostly logical. Not a Vulcan, not a Creationist either. I find this a good place to be and will gladly seek a definitive reconciliation of these remaining contradictions as soon as I've finished deciding whether light is a wave or a particle and which is right, quantum physics or general relativity.
In fact, Battleground God is an enjoyable exercise to be undertaken vaguely seriously. You are taken through a perfectly reasonable progression of philosophical questions to rate as True, False or Don't Know: for instance, "If God does not exist then there is no basis for morality." (For the record, false: Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative immediately comes to my mind as just one example of a viable, non-deity-based moral framework.) The cumulative impact of your responses is used to judge the logical consistency of your position. If you bite a bullet then you have stuck to your logical guns even though this may have led you to a belief that "most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable". If you take a hit, that means they detect a logical self-contradiction. I took three.
My first hit:
"You say that if there are no compelling arguments or evidence that show that God does not exist, then atheism is a matter of faith, not rationality. Therefore, it seems that you do not think that the mere absence of evidence for the existence of God is enough to justify believing that she does not exist. This view is also suggested by your earlier claim that it is not rational to believe that the Loch Ness monster does not exist even if, despite years of trying, no evidence has been presented to suggest that it does exist."One word: categories.
In slightly more words: the Sainted Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker posits a computer-based model of evolution in which biomorphs, creatures existing only in a computer's memory, evolve characteristics over time. Let's get science fictional and assume that by some William Gibson / Neal Stephenson handwaving quirk of electronicness, the biomorphs actually start to evolve intelligence and end up with their own little ecosystem in the computer's RAM. They even develop their own philosophers and scientists, as well as myths and legends of the Great Old Biomorphs that will come again. One of these is NessieMorph, never seen, oft speculated about. The biomorph scientists will be able to make reasonable deductions, from the absence of evidence, as to the non-existence of NessieMorph. However, they will never be able to prove, or disprove, the existence of Richard Dawkins.
Moving on. My second hit:
"You say that God does not have the freedom and power to do impossible things such as create square circles, but in an earlier answer you said that any being which it is right to call God must be free and have the power to do anything. So, on your view, God is not free and does not have the power to do what is impossible. This requires that you accept - in common with most theologians, but contrary to your earlier answer - that God's freedom and power are not unbounded. He does not have the freedom and power to do literally anything."Yes, but you didn't say "literally anything" in the earlier question, did you? The exact text of the question (no. 3) is "Any being which it is right to call God must be free to do anything". Debating whether God has the power to create square circles is meaningless; to answer your question I assumed meaning in it; therefore I assumed you did not mean "literally anything".
Even in your own FAQ you even say "omnipotence isn't normally felt to require the ability to do the logically impossible". So there, as Wittgenstein might have said but probably didn't.
My third hit:
"Earlier you said that it is not justifiable to base one's beliefs about the external world on a firm, inner conviction, paying no regard to the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity of this conviction, but now you say it's justifiable to believe in God on just these grounds. That's a flagrant contradiction!"No, the question was : "It is justifiable to base one's beliefs about the external world on a firm, inner conviction, even in the absence of any external evidence for the truth of these convictions." Sure it is - in the absence of external evidence. Those beliefs should change, however, if contradictory evidence comes along. But that, again, is something you didn't say originally.
So there you have it. Ben: mostly logical. Not a Vulcan, not a Creationist either. I find this a good place to be and will gladly seek a definitive reconciliation of these remaining contradictions as soon as I've finished deciding whether light is a wave or a particle and which is right, quantum physics or general relativity.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Vroom vroom bork bork bork
In Switzerland, apparently, speeding fines are determined by the speed you were doing and by your ability to pay. So, the Swedish gent who was clocked by Swiss police doing 290km/h or 180mph in a Mercedes sports car "could be given a world-record speeding fine of SFr1.08m ($1m; £656,000), prosecutors say."
This being Switzerland there will be four words for "schadenfreude", one of which is "schadenfreude".
And yet ...
This guy is Swedish, which I happen to know means he comes from a land where the average speed limit is 80 or 90km/h. Occasionally, just occasionally, a really good stretch of road will let you up to 100 and sometimes they go mad and let you do 110 for a stretch of about five miles before welcome sanity kicks in and they rope you back to 80 again.
For ease of reference, 8km = 5m. Do the maths.
Approaching a junction, even if you're in a 110 zone, the limit goes down to 70. And there are a lot of speed cameras. They're sign-posted but they're also unobtrusive - just slender little blue poles by the side of the road.
Not that most Swedes pay the limits the slightest attention, as far as I could see. We were rocking in the slipstream of Saabs and Volvos more times than I could remember. But even so, I do sympathise that this guy has probably wanted to go fast since he was born, and putting him a Merc in another country is just asking for trouble.
Should have been a fighter pilot, then ...
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Turkish delight (well, what else could I call this post?)
The Vampire Plagues has arrived in Turkey, or at least London, the first volume has. As you can see it continues the totally not being Twilight in any way shape or form vibe. I don't know whether "Vampir Alacakaranligi" means either "Vampire Plagues" or "Vampire Dusk" but I do know it's not something to say lightly. In fact a lot of Turkish seems to be made up of words that people forgot to stop spelling. Give or take an accent or two, "Jack Harkett lurked beside a pile of weathered tea crates from a Calcutta merchant ship" comes out as "Jack Harkett, Kalka’dan gelen bir ticaret gemisinden indirilen günes ve rüzgârdan yipranmis çay kasalarinin olusturdugu bir yiginin yaninda salaniyordu". And boutros boutros to you, too. "Goodbye, Father" is (rather sweetly) "Güle güle, baba". I'm very pleased with myself for tracking down a line in the mass of Turkish text without reference to the English at all: "Limon yemek istiyormus da limon onu yemis gibi görünüyor" ("She looks like she wanted to suck a lemon, only it sucked her instead".)
One day - one day, I promise - I will use my Swedish copy of Vampyrguden as a Rosetta Stone for learning my wife's mother tongue. Learning Turkish, for the time being, goes on the back burner.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Cathedral no. 3 and Mosque no. 1
Once upon a time I had an interview at Warwick University - which turned out quite well - which meant having to spend the previous night in Coventry. So I had an evening in a new town to myself, and did some wandering around, and came across the two cathedrals - the gleaming new post-war barn and the stone skeleton of the old one next to it, burned out by Luftwaffe incendiary bombs. And as I learned the story of the new cathedral, and how German volunteers helped with the work and how it has developed a worldwide ministry of reconciliation, I fell in love with it and decided I simply had to write a story about it.
It took a few years - had to become a writer, first - but I did write it, and it was awful, thrumming with love and Christianity and general goodness, and for sheer ickiness it broke all known records. Fortunately I could tell it icked and sat on it.
Many years after that, by a miracle, good friend Gus Smith (who writes as Gus Grenfell) suggested a way it could be de-icked, at least a little, and I’m eternally grateful to him for the suggestion, which a character takes up in the last few paragraphs. In fact I would go so far as to say atheist Gus (albeit with a Methodist minister father) came up with a much more Christian solution than I was managing: I love these little ironies. Residual ick may lurk in some sentences but overall it is much, much stronger than it used to be. The story finally got written, and published in Interzone, where it came 46th= in the annual readers’ poll, but what do they know? I called it "Cathedral No. 3", unaware (after three years living in Coventry) that in actual historical fact any new cathedral would be cathedral no. 4.
All this brought to mind by the move afoot in New York to build a mosque near to the Ground Zero site. "Near" is a relative term: one of the comments over at Making Light's take on the story reminds us that in a city anywhere is "near" somewhere else.
Not dismissing for one second the pain felt by those who lost loved ones on 9/11, it's this kind of spirit that always lets society move on and improve upon the past. Whenever dictatorships are replaced with stable democracies, or people of different races accept integration as the norm, or no one cares any longer if you're Protestant or Catholic, it's because people let go of the hurt. Or, failing that, just shut up and don't talk about it and go to their graves bitter and wizened but they keep it to themselves and the poison doesn't leak out into a new generation.
I think a mosque near Ground Zero would be a jolly good idea.
It took a few years - had to become a writer, first - but I did write it, and it was awful, thrumming with love and Christianity and general goodness, and for sheer ickiness it broke all known records. Fortunately I could tell it icked and sat on it.
Many years after that, by a miracle, good friend Gus Smith (who writes as Gus Grenfell) suggested a way it could be de-icked, at least a little, and I’m eternally grateful to him for the suggestion, which a character takes up in the last few paragraphs. In fact I would go so far as to say atheist Gus (albeit with a Methodist minister father) came up with a much more Christian solution than I was managing: I love these little ironies. Residual ick may lurk in some sentences but overall it is much, much stronger than it used to be. The story finally got written, and published in Interzone, where it came 46th= in the annual readers’ poll, but what do they know? I called it "Cathedral No. 3", unaware (after three years living in Coventry) that in actual historical fact any new cathedral would be cathedral no. 4.
All this brought to mind by the move afoot in New York to build a mosque near to the Ground Zero site. "Near" is a relative term: one of the comments over at Making Light's take on the story reminds us that in a city anywhere is "near" somewhere else.
Not dismissing for one second the pain felt by those who lost loved ones on 9/11, it's this kind of spirit that always lets society move on and improve upon the past. Whenever dictatorships are replaced with stable democracies, or people of different races accept integration as the norm, or no one cares any longer if you're Protestant or Catholic, it's because people let go of the hurt. Or, failing that, just shut up and don't talk about it and go to their graves bitter and wizened but they keep it to themselves and the poison doesn't leak out into a new generation.
I think a mosque near Ground Zero would be a jolly good idea.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
New computer
Is black and shiny. Lots of RAM. Is Windows 7. Is not a Mac. All these good.
It's been nearly 10 years since the last completely new computer, and that was bargain basement stuff that ran on Windows ME and got updated to Windows 2000 as soon as decently possible. For the last four years I've been using a secondhand Windows XP PC, which was the bee's knees when it arrived but since then the bee has grown steadily more arthritic. Upgrading is always at least mildly fraught and in this case it was hanging over me throughout our trip in Sweden, due to the computer arriving the day before we left.
In fact, it's been possibly the most minimally fraught upgrade yet. Everything important has been installed, a few little-used programs remaining to be added when and as. Documents, photos and music backups all just fell into place (even if I did have to reinstate the playlists manually in iTunes, as it couldn't read the library file "because it was created by an earlier version of iTunes". Well of course it was, you fool; you're the one asking me to upgrade by a decimal point every couple of weeks ...). Unlike the old machine, the new (22") screen can display a double page spread in InDesign CS4 of the Delightfully Dotty Car Club magazine that I design and edit, with fully legible text rather than grey blurs. I looked at the spread and felt that warm glow within that says there may be trouble ahead but it's dealable with; the worst is over. That was the primary objective: everything else is gravy.
I like the design of the interface. Of course, "pretty" <> necessarily "more functional" - the TARDIS console can't really travel in time, you know - and the computer would work equally well if the tops of the windows were solid and opaque so you can't see the desktop behind them, and if the close and minimise buttons didn't glow slightly as if lit from within - but it ties in well with what the machine actually does. For the first time ever I am forced to use the words "nice piece of design" in the context of Windows.
This is Windows, though, so obviously it can't do everything perfectly. It finds new ways to insist on being helpful: like when you call up Task Manager to kill a frozen programme (it still happens), it tries to diagnose the fault after you have told it you just want it to drop the programme where it is and walk away. It also keeps asking permission to install stuff, or rather, to make changes to the hard disk. Oh, come on! When did you ever ask that before? And when did I ever say no?
I've had to say goodbye to some old friends which are no longer compatible on a 64-bit system. My Windows Cardfile address book, which has been with me ever since Windows 3.1, couldn't hack the new oxygen-rich atmosphere and so perished. All the data was backed up and has been copied into Google Mail contacts, but even so. The principle. And some long cherished games have gone the way of all things, but I hadn't actually played any for a long time. They were just junk on the mantlepiece, tedious stuff that you have to move and dust around and never use but you don't throw them out because they're there.
I have previously ranted about Office 2007, and just because Office 2010 is three years older, don't think that changes anything. However, after careful consideration it didn't really seem uninstalling it just so I could install my comfortable familiar copy of Word 2000 (which came with the ME machine, if I remember correctly). Into every life a little clunky software must fall.
Further fraughtnesses arose in finding that I hadn't put the installation disc for the old Actiontec wireless router with all the other disks, and anyway the router was't compatible due to its desire to connect to the main computer by USB. The new router from Virgin (also shiny, also black) has two aerials and WPA2 encryption and four ethernet ports: in fact everything is done by ethernet rather than trying to be clever with USB ports. All of these are good things too. During the installation process, run off an .exe file rather than an .html file as advised in the documentation, I only had to guess (not being told) that I had to turn the modem off and on again twice.
Round about now someone always starts trying to extol the virtues of Macs or Linux because "they just work" or "they're modern technology" or some other equally vapid reason. What these people never get - are incapable of getting - is I don't care how it works. I don't care if a little goblin climbs up behind the screen every time I press a key and inks in my chosen letter (in reverse writing, obviously) on the glass while another follows behind it colouring in the pictures. And I don't care if this process is inevitably fatal, like a bee stinging, so that having performed this task the goblin then falls to its death and is blown away by the internal fan. It does what I want, when I want it.
So, looking forward to what 2020 might bring ...
It's been nearly 10 years since the last completely new computer, and that was bargain basement stuff that ran on Windows ME and got updated to Windows 2000 as soon as decently possible. For the last four years I've been using a secondhand Windows XP PC, which was the bee's knees when it arrived but since then the bee has grown steadily more arthritic. Upgrading is always at least mildly fraught and in this case it was hanging over me throughout our trip in Sweden, due to the computer arriving the day before we left.
In fact, it's been possibly the most minimally fraught upgrade yet. Everything important has been installed, a few little-used programs remaining to be added when and as. Documents, photos and music backups all just fell into place (even if I did have to reinstate the playlists manually in iTunes, as it couldn't read the library file "because it was created by an earlier version of iTunes". Well of course it was, you fool; you're the one asking me to upgrade by a decimal point every couple of weeks ...). Unlike the old machine, the new (22") screen can display a double page spread in InDesign CS4 of the Delightfully Dotty Car Club magazine that I design and edit, with fully legible text rather than grey blurs. I looked at the spread and felt that warm glow within that says there may be trouble ahead but it's dealable with; the worst is over. That was the primary objective: everything else is gravy.
I like the design of the interface. Of course, "pretty" <> necessarily "more functional" - the TARDIS console can't really travel in time, you know - and the computer would work equally well if the tops of the windows were solid and opaque so you can't see the desktop behind them, and if the close and minimise buttons didn't glow slightly as if lit from within - but it ties in well with what the machine actually does. For the first time ever I am forced to use the words "nice piece of design" in the context of Windows.
This is Windows, though, so obviously it can't do everything perfectly. It finds new ways to insist on being helpful: like when you call up Task Manager to kill a frozen programme (it still happens), it tries to diagnose the fault after you have told it you just want it to drop the programme where it is and walk away. It also keeps asking permission to install stuff, or rather, to make changes to the hard disk. Oh, come on! When did you ever ask that before? And when did I ever say no?
I've had to say goodbye to some old friends which are no longer compatible on a 64-bit system. My Windows Cardfile address book, which has been with me ever since Windows 3.1, couldn't hack the new oxygen-rich atmosphere and so perished. All the data was backed up and has been copied into Google Mail contacts, but even so. The principle. And some long cherished games have gone the way of all things, but I hadn't actually played any for a long time. They were just junk on the mantlepiece, tedious stuff that you have to move and dust around and never use but you don't throw them out because they're there.
I have previously ranted about Office 2007, and just because Office 2010 is three years older, don't think that changes anything. However, after careful consideration it didn't really seem uninstalling it just so I could install my comfortable familiar copy of Word 2000 (which came with the ME machine, if I remember correctly). Into every life a little clunky software must fall.
Further fraughtnesses arose in finding that I hadn't put the installation disc for the old Actiontec wireless router with all the other disks, and anyway the router was't compatible due to its desire to connect to the main computer by USB. The new router from Virgin (also shiny, also black) has two aerials and WPA2 encryption and four ethernet ports: in fact everything is done by ethernet rather than trying to be clever with USB ports. All of these are good things too. During the installation process, run off an .exe file rather than an .html file as advised in the documentation, I only had to guess (not being told) that I had to turn the modem off and on again twice.
Round about now someone always starts trying to extol the virtues of Macs or Linux because "they just work" or "they're modern technology" or some other equally vapid reason. What these people never get - are incapable of getting - is I don't care how it works. I don't care if a little goblin climbs up behind the screen every time I press a key and inks in my chosen letter (in reverse writing, obviously) on the glass while another follows behind it colouring in the pictures. And I don't care if this process is inevitably fatal, like a bee stinging, so that having performed this task the goblin then falls to its death and is blown away by the internal fan. It does what I want, when I want it.
So, looking forward to what 2020 might bring ...
Sunday, August 08, 2010
The murders are all in Ystad so it's quite safe
For anyone googling "good places to eat in Gothenberg", we recommend the Cafe Caprese on Kungsgatan. For anyone googling "places to stay in Gothenberg", the answer is the Best Western Hotell Göteborg. It's reasonably priced, clean and friendly, right on the waterfront and (most of) the rooms have astonishing views over the harbour. Bonusbarn's didn't but who cares, he was only there one night. We were there for four.
The squares are ideal for sitting in and partaking of coffee and sweet cardamom buns while you engage in a text conversation with your mother back in England. This being the southern end of Sweden, the ground is mostly successful at being completely flat, but here and there are outcroppings of smooth rock left behind by the glaciers. There's no doing anything with them except living with them, so they got built around or onto or into. So, you may turn a corner off a boulevard and suddenly find yourself facing a sheer rock face, or a ramp, or a vertiginous little stairway that goes up or down to somewhere, adding exciting new and random elements to your day. Meanwhile the whole city sparkles in the sunshine - in fact, weather was quite unreasonably good for somewhere the latitude of Inverness. Short sleeves every day, short trousers most days, every meal and snack other than breakfast was eaten outside somewhere. The first drops of rain fell literally as we got off the bus at the airport, which I think is good Swedish courtesy to a T.
From our room we could look right to the historic bit, or left to a still fully functioning modern shipyard.
For the culture, And There Was Light is a highly recommended experience, should it come to a city anywhere near you - a hightech, multimedia exhibition about Leonardo and Michelangelo and Raphael, put into the context of the times and politics of Rome and Florence and Milan: the things they did, the ways they overlapped. I had never realised, until seeing a lifesize replica (still haven't seen the original), why Michelangelo's David stands as he does in that slightly poncy pose. His left hand is holding his sling and his right hand, which you can't really see from the front, is holding the stone with which he's about to zot Goliath. He stands like that because he is thoughtfully sizing up Goliath across the valley, or possibly thinking "crikey, are other blokes' all that big?"
For those of a more traditional bent, this chap was moored opposite the hotel ...
I love Gothenburg and want to go back. Next year, the coast and islands ...
Last year it became clear that our annual in-law viewing pilgrimage to Sweden was approaching crisis point. My father-in-law was getting more and more frail, imposing social obligations upon himself that he was unable to meet, and we had seen every single thing worth seeing within a daytrip at least once before. Bonusbarn was on the point of open rebellion. So, this year it was different. First a brief, flying visit to the relatives, and as my father-in-law now lives in sheltered accommodation we stayed in my sister-in-law's apartment. TV! Internet! Water straight from the mains, not from a well and so laced with iron it tastes like blood! No sign of a mouse dropping anywhere near a food preparation area! (Or indeed, before my sister-in-law screams and comes over to kill me, anywhere else either.)
And then we went to stay in Gothenburg. I've only caught glimpses of this before now, en route to and from the airport. It looked like an exciting, historic, European town with a harbour and trams and long boulevards and wide, cobbled squares. And guess what, it's all of those.
The squares are ideal for sitting in and partaking of coffee and sweet cardamom buns while you engage in a text conversation with your mother back in England. This being the southern end of Sweden, the ground is mostly successful at being completely flat, but here and there are outcroppings of smooth rock left behind by the glaciers. There's no doing anything with them except living with them, so they got built around or onto or into. So, you may turn a corner off a boulevard and suddenly find yourself facing a sheer rock face, or a ramp, or a vertiginous little stairway that goes up or down to somewhere, adding exciting new and random elements to your day. Meanwhile the whole city sparkles in the sunshine - in fact, weather was quite unreasonably good for somewhere the latitude of Inverness. Short sleeves every day, short trousers most days, every meal and snack other than breakfast was eaten outside somewhere. The first drops of rain fell literally as we got off the bus at the airport, which I think is good Swedish courtesy to a T.
The harbour is in fact just a wide river, broad and sweeping and a beautiful thing to behold from ground level or a fifth floor hotel room or from the top of one of the aforesaid outcroppings.
From our room we could look right to the historic bit, or left to a still fully functioning modern shipyard.
For the culture, And There Was Light is a highly recommended experience, should it come to a city anywhere near you - a hightech, multimedia exhibition about Leonardo and Michelangelo and Raphael, put into the context of the times and politics of Rome and Florence and Milan: the things they did, the ways they overlapped. I had never realised, until seeing a lifesize replica (still haven't seen the original), why Michelangelo's David stands as he does in that slightly poncy pose. His left hand is holding his sling and his right hand, which you can't really see from the front, is holding the stone with which he's about to zot Goliath. He stands like that because he is thoughtfully sizing up Goliath across the valley, or possibly thinking "crikey, are other blokes' all that big?"(Un)fortunately a ticket into And There Was Light also gets you into the maritime museum, the city museum, the art museum ... we were pretty well museumed by the end of it. Even before getting to Gothenburg, we passed through the Aeroseum, an airforce museum inside an old nuclear bunker next to the City Airport. I got to sit in a Saab Draken.
On the harbour front there is also the Maritiman, a static display of ships that you can walk around and clamber over and explore. These include a destroyer (I much prefer the Swedish term "Jagaren" - Hunter!) and a Draken class submarine. So I did a lot of Drakening, one way or another.
On the harbour front there is also the Maritiman, a static display of ships that you can walk around and clamber over and explore. These include a destroyer (I much prefer the Swedish term "Jagaren" - Hunter!) and a Draken class submarine. So I did a lot of Drakening, one way or another.
For those of a more traditional bent, this chap was moored opposite the hotel ...
... A genuine reproduction East Indiaman. So, from now on, whenever CS Forester or Patrick O'Brien mentions an East Indiaman, I'll know what they're on about.
I love Gothenburg and want to go back. Next year, the coast and islands ...Saturday, August 07, 2010
Randomly seen in Sweden
Well, it says it like it is.
One church has a particular missionary focus on Japan. Here is one of its mission tools for younger readers.
This advert for a conference organiser translates as: "Mummy has gone to a conference where she can eat as much popcorn and icecream as she likes".
This restaurant could have put anything it liked on its wall ... so naturally it chose the Fibonacci sequence.
And finally: snigger.
This restaurant could have put anything it liked on its wall ... so naturally it chose the Fibonacci sequence.
And finally: snigger.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Heroic factasy
I don't read much heroic fantasy, for various reasons. A good one is that it all comes in such fat multi-volume series that I simply don't have the time. But a deeper, slightly more sneaking one is that, well, it's all a bit silly, isn't it? It's not real. Science fiction is generally set in present-day or future societies that could happen. Fantasy is based on past societies that didn't happen, or can't happen, so there.
This isn't entirely fair but it's always there. Good heroic fantasy gets around it by being good. I recently read Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself and enjoyed it a lot: for the characters, the world-building, the humour and the sheer enjoyment of the writing. But still I get this nagging feeling that tells me I should be reading something else, and it isn't at all helped by reading something like Jan Guillou's Templar Trilogy.
Guillou himself is an interesting character - an investigative journalist and spy writer who did time in jail for revealing that the land of cuddly Volvo-driving Abba fans has a secret intelligence agency that can match the CIA dirty trick for dirty trick. That's life on the front line of the Cold War. His character of Arn Magnusson is a local Swedish folk hero because Guillou cleverly takes Arn's fictitious life and wraps it into real history in the form of the birth of the modern kingdom of Sweden. (Where I happen to be right now, but that's for a later blog post.) For instance, with a bit of handwaving the fictitious Arn becomes the grandfather of the very real Birger Jarl, whose grave I have seen and once sort of wrote a poem about. All the locations are visitable, and most of them are within a few miles of my inlaws. One of life's innocent pleasures is to watch Bonusbarn's face when he asks with resignation why we're looking at yet another church and we say "This is where Arn ..."
I was introduced to Arn's adventures by my future wife several years ago, but it's taken till now to finish them because at first only the first two books were translated into English. After that the publisher pulled the plug ... until recently. Different publisher, different translator, still the third book. Finally I know how it ends! Though given that Sweden exists, I had a shrewd suspicion.
In the first book, The Road to Jerusalem, Arn is born into minor Swedish nobility and for various reasons spends most of his childhood raised by monks, including an ex-Templar who teaches him various extracurricular non-monkly fighting skills. This is handy because at the end of the book Arn inadvertently sleeps (consecutively) with two sisters (hey, it could happen to any innocent young lad from the monastery), one of whom is his true love and one of whom is a scheming minx. For this sin he must do 20 years penance as a crusader in the Holy Land.
This brings us to the second book, The Templar Knight, which switches between his story and the story of the second crusade, and his beloved Cecilia doing her own 20 years penance in a convent back home. From her perspective we see the birth pangs of the new Swedish nation, while Arn's purity of heart, nobility and Christian virtue earn him the respect of Christians and Muslims alike, and make him one of the few crusaders, and very few Templars, to make it out of the Holy Land alive after the disastrous Battle of Tiberias. And finally - finally! - in Birth of the Kingdom Arn returns home determined to use his military skills and considerable wealth to bring peace to his homeland and forge it into a new nation, the kingdom of the Sveas, or Svea Rige, as you might call it.
If you read heroic fantasy for the world-building then medieval Sweden is described in enough detail to suit your every need, with no feeling of anything being contrived just to get a little extra buzz or laugh. (Plucking just one example from the air, like Arn and Cecilia's wedding night being unable to commence until the archbishop has made it up the stairs to bless them in bed.) If you read it for the military clashing and banging then Arn has it in spades, and the version of Christianity practised by the Swedes - a mixture of literalism, ritual, pragmatism and Marian veneration, all with residual pagan overtones - presses all the right buttons for anyone expecting arcane religions and magic. It's exactly the same as reading heroic fantasy, except that it isn't and it's a guilt-free trip.
Next up: Robert Harris's Lustrum, follow-up to Imperium, which I have previously reviewed and which has a similar effect.
Note: nothing herein in any way precludes me trying to write heroic fantasy if I ever decide that's the direction my career should take.
This isn't entirely fair but it's always there. Good heroic fantasy gets around it by being good. I recently read Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself and enjoyed it a lot: for the characters, the world-building, the humour and the sheer enjoyment of the writing. But still I get this nagging feeling that tells me I should be reading something else, and it isn't at all helped by reading something like Jan Guillou's Templar Trilogy.
Guillou himself is an interesting character - an investigative journalist and spy writer who did time in jail for revealing that the land of cuddly Volvo-driving Abba fans has a secret intelligence agency that can match the CIA dirty trick for dirty trick. That's life on the front line of the Cold War. His character of Arn Magnusson is a local Swedish folk hero because Guillou cleverly takes Arn's fictitious life and wraps it into real history in the form of the birth of the modern kingdom of Sweden. (Where I happen to be right now, but that's for a later blog post.) For instance, with a bit of handwaving the fictitious Arn becomes the grandfather of the very real Birger Jarl, whose grave I have seen and once sort of wrote a poem about. All the locations are visitable, and most of them are within a few miles of my inlaws. One of life's innocent pleasures is to watch Bonusbarn's face when he asks with resignation why we're looking at yet another church and we say "This is where Arn ..."
I was introduced to Arn's adventures by my future wife several years ago, but it's taken till now to finish them because at first only the first two books were translated into English. After that the publisher pulled the plug ... until recently. Different publisher, different translator, still the third book. Finally I know how it ends! Though given that Sweden exists, I had a shrewd suspicion.
In the first book, The Road to Jerusalem, Arn is born into minor Swedish nobility and for various reasons spends most of his childhood raised by monks, including an ex-Templar who teaches him various extracurricular non-monkly fighting skills. This is handy because at the end of the book Arn inadvertently sleeps (consecutively) with two sisters (hey, it could happen to any innocent young lad from the monastery), one of whom is his true love and one of whom is a scheming minx. For this sin he must do 20 years penance as a crusader in the Holy Land.
This brings us to the second book, The Templar Knight, which switches between his story and the story of the second crusade, and his beloved Cecilia doing her own 20 years penance in a convent back home. From her perspective we see the birth pangs of the new Swedish nation, while Arn's purity of heart, nobility and Christian virtue earn him the respect of Christians and Muslims alike, and make him one of the few crusaders, and very few Templars, to make it out of the Holy Land alive after the disastrous Battle of Tiberias. And finally - finally! - in Birth of the Kingdom Arn returns home determined to use his military skills and considerable wealth to bring peace to his homeland and forge it into a new nation, the kingdom of the Sveas, or Svea Rige, as you might call it.
If you read heroic fantasy for the world-building then medieval Sweden is described in enough detail to suit your every need, with no feeling of anything being contrived just to get a little extra buzz or laugh. (Plucking just one example from the air, like Arn and Cecilia's wedding night being unable to commence until the archbishop has made it up the stairs to bless them in bed.) If you read it for the military clashing and banging then Arn has it in spades, and the version of Christianity practised by the Swedes - a mixture of literalism, ritual, pragmatism and Marian veneration, all with residual pagan overtones - presses all the right buttons for anyone expecting arcane religions and magic. It's exactly the same as reading heroic fantasy, except that it isn't and it's a guilt-free trip.
Next up: Robert Harris's Lustrum, follow-up to Imperium, which I have previously reviewed and which has a similar effect.
Note: nothing herein in any way precludes me trying to write heroic fantasy if I ever decide that's the direction my career should take.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Pulling off the Ritz
From the Beeb:
Quoth Det Sgt Ridler, the policeman who led the investigation: "It was well-planned, it was well thought out and there were victims [...] Reputations were ruined."
Yes indeed, people were revealed as immensely gullible and/or greedy. It was the kind of thing that was bound to come out eventually so he probably did them a favour.
A jobless lorry driver who pulled off an "elaborate and outrageous scam" to sell London's Ritz Hotel for £250m has been jailed for five years.Oh, come on! This story is hilarious. What happened to the good old British sense of humour? I mean, an unemployed lorry driver successfully passes himself off as a good friend of the Barclay brothers and people actually believe him. For this he is punished?
Quoth Det Sgt Ridler, the policeman who led the investigation: "It was well-planned, it was well thought out and there were victims [...] Reputations were ruined."
Yes indeed, people were revealed as immensely gullible and/or greedy. It was the kind of thing that was bound to come out eventually so he probably did them a favour.
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