The British Science Fiction Association is carrying out a survey of British science fiction and fantasy writers "to get a handle on the state of British sf". I see no reason why everyone shouldn't get to share my insights. So:
1. Do you consider yourself a writer of science fiction and/or fantasy?
I consider what I write to be science fiction and/or fantasy, and in my writing I try to contribute some new idea or concept to the field with each story or novel. However, not every idea that comes to me is necessarily science fiction or fantasy and it’s not impossible that one day I'll get round to writing something in another genre.
2. What is it about your work that makes it fit into these categories?
The fact it contains concepts that are either presently impossible or not yet possible given our current understanding of the way the world works. To wit: alien life forms, starships, faster than light travel, time travel, technologically advanced Neanderthals.
3. Why have you chosen to write science fiction or fantasy?
It has always been my favourite genre, for the possibilities it offers: the outsider view of humanity; geeky fun with technological and/or philosophical concepts; and big explosions.
4. Do you consider there is anything distinctively British about your work, and if so what is it?
Two of my novels have been predicated on the idea of the British monarchy still being around, in recognisable form, in the 23rd century. I don't think an American author would think twice about his nation's way of life still being around 200 years from now, or there being a US Space Force: he might wonder how it came about but wouldn't be surprised to learn it existed. As a matter of national pride I wanted to perpetuate some of the things I consider good about the UK: we are far from perfect but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. So, that is probably distinctively British.
5. Do British settings play a major part in your work, and if so, why (or why not)?
Only one novel has been physically located in the British Isles, but as it dealt with the English Civil War that's not really surprising. Despite my answer to question 4, I try to make my futures as multinational as possible, in terms of setting and characters. Characters are generally multi-ethnic with names meant to imply mixed race ancestry. Why? Because my dream future would be like Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Man: all of us quite unmistakably one race, with no superiors or inferiors, but at the same time able to draw on the marvellous riches of our many cultural heritages.
6. What do you consider are the major influences on your work?
I don't consciously set out to imitate anyone but I suppose I have been influenced by any writer who has given me a sense of joy and / or wonder in reading their work. Conversely, I do consciously set out not to imitate writers / TV shows / movies that get it wrong. Sometimes I actively try to correct the error (e.g. putting seatbelts in my starships …).
7. Do you detect a different response to your science fiction/fantasy between publishers in Britain and America (or elsewhere)?
I have a YA publisher so it's hard to say: my editors don't base their actions on the science fiction content. Scholastic Inc. in the US apparently had no difficulty with a novel about the Royal Space Fleet per se, but bafflingly renamed His Majesty's Starship as The Ark. However, this latter decision has also baffled other American YA editors I have spoken to so it could just be a Scholastic thing.
8. Do you detect a different response to your science fiction/fantasy between the public in Britain and America (or elsewhere)?
Not really, no. Based on reviews I've read and mail I’ve received, audiences on both sides of the Atlantic have similar proportions of those who get it and those who don't.
9. What effect should good science fiction or fantasy have upon the reader?
The sense of wonder! The reader should close the book with the feeling that they have been somewhere they could never have got on their own. New thought processes or neurons should have connected that mean they will never see the world quite the same way again.
10. What do you consider the most significant weakness in science fiction and fantasy as a genre?
More than any other genre? There is often the risk of everyone trying to put on the Emperor's New Clothes, maybe not realising the Emperor actually knew he wasn't wearing anything all along. I will stop stretching the metaphor before it breaks.
For example, someone coins the phrase "New Weird". Suddenly everything is New Weird – until it isn't, or people just get fed up with New Weird and move on to something new on principle, leaving all the official New Weird authors stranded.
11. What do you think have been the most significant developments in British science fiction and fantasy over the past twenty years?
The explosion in TV sf has been a significant development but not a particularly good one. We don't have any TV executives who are particularly aware of what constitutes good sf. Therefore they scramble to imitate either Joss Whedon or Russell T Davies, not realising that Joss Whedon has a very wide-ranging understanding of sf&f (so trying to imitate Buffy kind of misses the point) and RTD doesn't (so trying to imitate Dr Who will get you nowhere: the strengths of the series predate RTD by a long way).
On the plus side, the crop of authors who came up through Interzone are flourishing, and more power to them. Twenty years ago would a very good but not particularly famous sf author have got a £1m, 10 book deal? I think not.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
If I'm getting swine flu I want it NOW
Not that I think I am getting it, but that's what worries me. If I can have it now, it should be out of my system this time next Monday: when, if all goes to plan, I should be at or at least near Heathrow for my flight to Montreal ... Whereas if I start sniffling and aching around Thursday or Friday, that could really screw up a decent holiday.
Yes, it's that time of year again. Worldcon here I come. H1N1 permitting.
Proof of what a civilised people the Canadians are lies in the timing of flights. Previous flights to North America have all involved getting up at oh-my-god-o'clock and perhaps watching the sun rise over the M25. Next Monday's flight is at 15.30. How did that happen?
The programme has been published and looks pretty good. And unlike last year, when they put me on two items and cancelled one, this year I feel quite decently used. As well as a reading and signing session (expected attendance ... well, who knows):
Yes, it's that time of year again. Worldcon here I come. H1N1 permitting.
Proof of what a civilised people the Canadians are lies in the timing of flights. Previous flights to North America have all involved getting up at oh-my-god-o'clock and perhaps watching the sun rise over the M25. Next Monday's flight is at 15.30. How did that happen?
The programme has been published and looks pretty good. And unlike last year, when they put me on two items and cancelled one, this year I feel quite decently used. As well as a reading and signing session (expected attendance ... well, who knows):
- When: Fri 11:00
- Title: The Golden Duck Awards for Children's and YA Science Fiction
- All Participants: Ben Jeapes, Cathy Petrini, Helen Gbala, Henry Melton, Janet McNaughton, S.C. Butler, Michèle Laframboise, Jean-Pierre Guillet, Lindalee Stuckley
- Description: For picture books, the Eleanor Cameron Award for middle grade books and the Hal Clement Award books for young adults, this award is designed to encourage the people to write those books that capture future SF fans. Lindalee Stuckey introduces the award, and is joined by a number of current authors for children and young adults for discussion.
- When: Fri 21:00
- Title: Just A Minute
- All Participants: Ben Jeapes, David Clements, Pat Cadigan, Paul Cornell, Steve Green, Tom Galloway
- Moderator: Paul Cornell
- Description: Only sf/fantasy panelists in this Worldcon version of the venerable British quiz show, in which panelists must extemporize for a minute on a given topic without hesitation, repetition or deviation.
- When: Sat 10:00
- Title: Archetypes Without Stereotypes
- All Participants: Ben Jeapes, Pat Rothfuss, Nalo Hopkinson, Doselle Young
- Moderator: Pat Rothfuss
- Description: Thanks to culture and convention, every reader carries a built-in cast of characters requiring little or no explanation. Is there a way to use this built-in knowledge without writing stereotypes or poorly-defined stock characters? What happens when readers don't share those assumptions?
- When: Sat 20:00
- Title: Size Doesn't Matter
- All Participants: Ben Jeapes, Bob Neilson, delphyne woods, Karen Haber, Jacob Weisman
- Moderator: me!
- Description: Design in SF&F publishing is often better in books produced by the smaller presses, which have fewer resources than their larger counterparts. Is the small press the last refuge of beautifully designed books?
- When: Sun 11:00
- Title: Writing for Teens
- All Participants: Anne Harris, Ben Jeapes, Fiona Patton, Eoin Colfer
- Moderator: me again!
- Description: How is writing for YA/teens different? Do you just leave out the sex and long exposition, or is there more to it?
- When: Sun 15:30
- Title: The Napoleonic War from Both Sides
- All Participants: Ben Jeapes, Melinda Snodgrass, Walter Jon Williams
- Moderator: Walter Jon Williams
- Description: One of the most important, worldshaping conflicts. A rich source for both fantasy and science fiction. Our panellists try to explain it to you.
- When: Sun 17:00
- Title: Science Blogging - The New Science Journalism?
- All Participants: Ben Jeapes, Daniel P. Dern, Mur Lafferty, Sumitra Rajagopalan
- Moderator: Daniel P. Dern
- Description: Touted as a new way of reaching the public, has science blogging matched its initial promise? Has it caused more problems than it solves? [Hell if I know ...]
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Nice day for a Wycliffe wedding
Before today I don't think I had ever actually heard the wedding march played at a wedding, outside episodes of Friends. The groom was a Brit, the bride was American and the service was a cultural hybrid. Apparently a key part of American weddings is the Installation Seating of the Mothers, which I also haven't seen before, not even in episodes of Friends. Maybe it's just a Baptist thing. They send the bridesmaids down the aisle, one at a time, like a couple of practice shots. Then the mothers are escorted in to take their places at the front, in case they are unable to do so themselves. Best Beloved murmured that it will never catch on over here.
Nor have I seen the bride holding her hands up in praise during a hymn before. But this was a Wycliffe wedding so it may be normal.
I always favour smaller weddings over large ones, because I know from experience that the smaller the possible guest list, the more attention you pay to inviting exactly the right people. You want them there. (Even if I did deduce we were on the B-list, only getting the invitation a fortnight ago, but obviously we were at the wanted end of the B-list.) Half the congregation were recently graduated students, suddenly finding an excuse for a reunion. People were happy, and the expression on the groom's face when his intended appeared at the end of the aisle would have lit up the whole place on its own, with a little left over to power the microphones.
The bride's brother delivered the address. I tried to picture my sister's reaction if I had offered to do the same, and delivered a lengthy exposition of the various theological points contained within the reading. Actually, best left unpictured.
The service was in the college chapel and was the first wedding to be held there for six or seven years. The entrance to the chapel is officially through a pair of double doors leading in from the outside. They hadn't been opened since the last wedding, and the Academic Administrator plus groom had to rugby charge to get them to shift.
Inside these doors is a space of a couple of feet, and then a pair of interior doors. These open easily, because during the last six or seven years this space has been used to store equipment. It had all been cleared away, so only the cognoscenti - i.e. most of the congregation, and me because my wife told me - knew the bride was making her entrance out of the A/V cupboard. And why not? She was a sound vision, ba-boom.
Nor have I seen the bride holding her hands up in praise during a hymn before. But this was a Wycliffe wedding so it may be normal.
I always favour smaller weddings over large ones, because I know from experience that the smaller the possible guest list, the more attention you pay to inviting exactly the right people. You want them there. (Even if I did deduce we were on the B-list, only getting the invitation a fortnight ago, but obviously we were at the wanted end of the B-list.) Half the congregation were recently graduated students, suddenly finding an excuse for a reunion. People were happy, and the expression on the groom's face when his intended appeared at the end of the aisle would have lit up the whole place on its own, with a little left over to power the microphones.
The bride's brother delivered the address. I tried to picture my sister's reaction if I had offered to do the same, and delivered a lengthy exposition of the various theological points contained within the reading. Actually, best left unpictured.
The service was in the college chapel and was the first wedding to be held there for six or seven years. The entrance to the chapel is officially through a pair of double doors leading in from the outside. They hadn't been opened since the last wedding, and the Academic Administrator plus groom had to rugby charge to get them to shift.
Inside these doors is a space of a couple of feet, and then a pair of interior doors. These open easily, because during the last six or seven years this space has been used to store equipment. It had all been cleared away, so only the cognoscenti - i.e. most of the congregation, and me because my wife told me - knew the bride was making her entrance out of the A/V cupboard. And why not? She was a sound vision, ba-boom.
Friday, July 24, 2009
100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About
There's an elegiac little list with this title over at Wired.com: experiences, generally technological, that you may have had but your children haven't and won't. I remember far too much of it.
So, I will just mention the things on the list that I never experienced either:
Even so, that's 12 items out of 100. My time may be passing.
So, I will just mention the things on the list that I never experienced either:
- Super-8 movies and cine film of all kinds
- 8-track cartridges
- Betamax tapes
- MiniDisc
- Laserdisc
- Shortwave radio
- Using jumpers to set IRQs [not even sure what this means]
- Tweaking the volume setting on your tape deck to get a computer game to load, and waiting ages for it to actually do it
- Daisy chaining your SCSI devices and making sure they’ve all got a different ID
- Blowing the dust out of a NES cartridge in the hopes that it’ll load this time
- Turning a PlayStation on its end to try and get a game to load
- CB radios
Even so, that's 12 items out of 100. My time may be passing.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Three down ...
I always associate Gloucester with Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells II. I think of one, I start to hum the other. It may be where I bought my copy. The album certainly came out in 1992, the year of Bonusbarn's birth, and that was my first summer in Abingdon. I took a week off work and a day trip to Gloucester was my first major venture out of my new home. I felt quite the explorer, navigating the diabolical Marcham S-bend for the first time in my trusty Renault 4.
So yesterday, our third anniversary and the day after Bonusbarn's 17th birthday, that was where we went.
Pleasant place. Nice, wide, pedestrianised city centre; good range of shops; and a cathedral, which was of course the purpose of the visit. It achieves the effect managed by all good Perpendicular Gothic cathedrals of making several thousand tons of stone look delicate and lace-like.
The western half, up to the choir screen, is strangely sparse with little ornamentation on walls, floor or ceiling.
From the choir onwards is where all the ornamentation is. Tombs, side chapels, ornate fan vaulting, beautiful tiled floors.
We nearly doubled the congregation of a quickie lunchtime communion service in the Lady Chapel (the celebrant told us our anniversary is also the feast day of St Mary Magdalene; Best Beloved knew this, I either didn't or had forgotten). Three modern screens behind the altar here give the Saviour a definite hint of pubic hair (left) and a pair of muscular buttocks (right). Not areas traditionally associated with veneration, but the church must move with the times.
Then we went exploring. The cathedral scores especially high in its nook-and-cranny quota by letting the public up to the next level – the galleries set into the walls behind the arches on either side of the choir (at £2 a head, which I don't remember being the case in 1992). Up there you get a good close-up view of east window, and the Whispering Gallery. The latter really is a surprising feature. Before they put the east window in, you could get all round the east end of the building at that level. Then the window cut one side off from the other. So, they built a free-standing enclosed stone passageway outside the walls – you can see it from the outside – that goes around behind the window. If someone standing at one end whispers, someone at the other can hear it quite plainly. I was standing at one end of the gallery; Best Beloved, in the red coat, indicates the other.
I like the way this side chapel refuses to let anything as plebian as an important support buttress get in its way. It just quietly gets on with its life and pretends the buttress isn't there.
I got the feeling of the cathedral being a physical part of the city, much more than Salisbury where my (still favourite) cathedral sits in aloof dignity in the middle of a neatly mowed lawn. Buildings on the north side of the cathedral start to accrete onto the cathedral itself – you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. It actually is a complex.
We went through the gate at the west end of the cathedral precinct, looking for somewhere to sit and have lunch. This turned out to be the site of the martyrdom of John Hooper, of whom I hadn't heard before yesterday but now probably approve, and I got the distinct feeling Gloucester had stopped trying. The fronts of the houses that look onto the precinct are immaculate, but the back sides really are the backsides. It was like the precinct was mooning us. The rear of the precinct forms one side of a square of 60s or 70s houses and flats that could be in Milton Keynes for all their sense of history. Bit of a letdown.
But, nothing daunted. Outside, when it wasn't raining I found a real seaside feel to the city, without a sea. Something in the air and light tells you you're close to a large body of water, i.e. the River Severn. The calling of the seagulls adds to it. And so we went looking for the Historic Docks (which we knew to be Historic because the signs said so). These have been very nicely done up, either converting the old warehouses or adding new buildings in a recognisably related style. Mind you, actually go into the buildings and you enter Retail Hell – it's a retail outlet centre, like Bicester Village, utterly dry and soulless until you step outside again. We went mad, drunk with retail intoxication, and bought some socks at Marks & Spencer. Oh yes, three years of marriage has taught us how to splurge.
And so home, and a delicious anniversary dinner at Kitsons, which is under new management that doesn't yet have a credit rating and so only takes cash or cheques. But, as the waitress helpfully pointed out before forgetting to bring the bread I ordered, there's a Nationwide with a cashpoint opposite.
Tentative plans are now being drawn up for a raid on Worcester (after which we will have done the Three Choirs without any of that tedious singing stuff); or even for a long weekend taking in Worcester and Tewkesbury. Watch this space.
So yesterday, our third anniversary and the day after Bonusbarn's 17th birthday, that was where we went.
Pleasant place. Nice, wide, pedestrianised city centre; good range of shops; and a cathedral, which was of course the purpose of the visit. It achieves the effect managed by all good Perpendicular Gothic cathedrals of making several thousand tons of stone look delicate and lace-like.
The western half, up to the choir screen, is strangely sparse with little ornamentation on walls, floor or ceiling.
From the choir onwards is where all the ornamentation is. Tombs, side chapels, ornate fan vaulting, beautiful tiled floors.
We nearly doubled the congregation of a quickie lunchtime communion service in the Lady Chapel (the celebrant told us our anniversary is also the feast day of St Mary Magdalene; Best Beloved knew this, I either didn't or had forgotten). Three modern screens behind the altar here give the Saviour a definite hint of pubic hair (left) and a pair of muscular buttocks (right). Not areas traditionally associated with veneration, but the church must move with the times.
Then we went exploring. The cathedral scores especially high in its nook-and-cranny quota by letting the public up to the next level – the galleries set into the walls behind the arches on either side of the choir (at £2 a head, which I don't remember being the case in 1992). Up there you get a good close-up view of east window, and the Whispering Gallery. The latter really is a surprising feature. Before they put the east window in, you could get all round the east end of the building at that level. Then the window cut one side off from the other. So, they built a free-standing enclosed stone passageway outside the walls – you can see it from the outside – that goes around behind the window. If someone standing at one end whispers, someone at the other can hear it quite plainly. I was standing at one end of the gallery; Best Beloved, in the red coat, indicates the other.
I like the way this side chapel refuses to let anything as plebian as an important support buttress get in its way. It just quietly gets on with its life and pretends the buttress isn't there.
I got the feeling of the cathedral being a physical part of the city, much more than Salisbury where my (still favourite) cathedral sits in aloof dignity in the middle of a neatly mowed lawn. Buildings on the north side of the cathedral start to accrete onto the cathedral itself – you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. It actually is a complex.We went through the gate at the west end of the cathedral precinct, looking for somewhere to sit and have lunch. This turned out to be the site of the martyrdom of John Hooper, of whom I hadn't heard before yesterday but now probably approve, and I got the distinct feeling Gloucester had stopped trying. The fronts of the houses that look onto the precinct are immaculate, but the back sides really are the backsides. It was like the precinct was mooning us. The rear of the precinct forms one side of a square of 60s or 70s houses and flats that could be in Milton Keynes for all their sense of history. Bit of a letdown.
But, nothing daunted. Outside, when it wasn't raining I found a real seaside feel to the city, without a sea. Something in the air and light tells you you're close to a large body of water, i.e. the River Severn. The calling of the seagulls adds to it. And so we went looking for the Historic Docks (which we knew to be Historic because the signs said so). These have been very nicely done up, either converting the old warehouses or adding new buildings in a recognisably related style. Mind you, actually go into the buildings and you enter Retail Hell – it's a retail outlet centre, like Bicester Village, utterly dry and soulless until you step outside again. We went mad, drunk with retail intoxication, and bought some socks at Marks & Spencer. Oh yes, three years of marriage has taught us how to splurge.
And so home, and a delicious anniversary dinner at Kitsons, which is under new management that doesn't yet have a credit rating and so only takes cash or cheques. But, as the waitress helpfully pointed out before forgetting to bring the bread I ordered, there's a Nationwide with a cashpoint opposite.
Tentative plans are now being drawn up for a raid on Worcester (after which we will have done the Three Choirs without any of that tedious singing stuff); or even for a long weekend taking in Worcester and Tewkesbury. Watch this space.
Monday, July 20, 2009
If you believed they put a man on the moon ...
Through some superhuman effort I managed not to cut my throat whilst shaving, though it wasn't easy. The Today Programme was talking to one of those tedious idiots who continue to believe the moon landings didn't. It didn't help that the guy sounded a little like Tony Benn, though I am coming to respect Mr B in my old age. Considerably more than this fool, anyway. "I don't see the evidence," he bleated over and again.
I suppose we should consider his point of view. So, apart from the fact that: hundreds of thousands of people were complicit in the hoax; the moon shots were tracked by countless disinterested independent parties (plus the Soviets, who were extremely interested and would have screamed at the slightest hint of a doubt); the instruments left behind by the astronauts are still there and working; the NASA probe now orbiting the moon has sent back shots of the landing sites that show the abandoned descent stages and the footprints left by the astronauts ... apart from all that, what evidence is there? And while we're at it, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Anyway, today's the day, 40 years ago, when it all happened. I wish I could say I remember it - I was all of four years old - but I don't. My mother's main memory is of trying to pay attention to the news while her oblivious inlaws fussed over a road map, trying to work out the best route from Hereford back to New Malden. I don't even remember that.
I do remember the last Apollo landing, Apollo 17, though I didn't know it was that at the time: Gene Cernan (I think) singing "I was walking on the moon one day / in the merry merry month of ... December", and the discovery of orange soil. I even remember telling my teacher at school about the orange soil, so it must have struck some kind of chord. And I remember having a cutaway diagram book all about Skylab, and I remember the Apollo-Soyuz linkup that was essentially meant to use up the last of the Saturn Vs ... but I don't remember the first landing.
But to any nutjobs who still insist there was nothing to remember, I say only this.
I suppose we should consider his point of view. So, apart from the fact that: hundreds of thousands of people were complicit in the hoax; the moon shots were tracked by countless disinterested independent parties (plus the Soviets, who were extremely interested and would have screamed at the slightest hint of a doubt); the instruments left behind by the astronauts are still there and working; the NASA probe now orbiting the moon has sent back shots of the landing sites that show the abandoned descent stages and the footprints left by the astronauts ... apart from all that, what evidence is there? And while we're at it, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Anyway, today's the day, 40 years ago, when it all happened. I wish I could say I remember it - I was all of four years old - but I don't. My mother's main memory is of trying to pay attention to the news while her oblivious inlaws fussed over a road map, trying to work out the best route from Hereford back to New Malden. I don't even remember that.
I do remember the last Apollo landing, Apollo 17, though I didn't know it was that at the time: Gene Cernan (I think) singing "I was walking on the moon one day / in the merry merry month of ... December", and the discovery of orange soil. I even remember telling my teacher at school about the orange soil, so it must have struck some kind of chord. And I remember having a cutaway diagram book all about Skylab, and I remember the Apollo-Soyuz linkup that was essentially meant to use up the last of the Saturn Vs ... but I don't remember the first landing.
But to any nutjobs who still insist there was nothing to remember, I say only this.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
New Roof of the World Order
A friend recently returned from trekking in the Himalayas tells me that a copy of The New World Order was in his rucksack as he looked down on the Everest base camp.
You may now resume your lives.
You may now resume your lives.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Occasional recipes: Flying Jacob
Flying who?
I know, I know. Sometimes I wonder whether Swedish cuisine is in fact a very clever, straight-faced joke on the rest of the world. Do our Volvo-driving, Abba-crooning cousins really tuck in regularly to pickled herring with creme fraiche, boiled potatoes and lingonberry sauce? Or do they just wait until one of them brings home a Brit who wants to marry her and really, really wants to impress his prospective inlaws?
Anyway, Flying Jacob/Flygande Jakob is a dish that includes those traditional Swedish food items bananas, chili, peanuts and rice. Oh, and chicken and bacon. We got the recipe from Swedish Mike, an exiled Swede who lives in Abingdon and blogs strange recipes at www.freestylecookery.com. I won't steal a fellow blogger's thunder, so here I'll just list the ingredients with our variations. To serve four:
I know, I know. Sometimes I wonder whether Swedish cuisine is in fact a very clever, straight-faced joke on the rest of the world. Do our Volvo-driving, Abba-crooning cousins really tuck in regularly to pickled herring with creme fraiche, boiled potatoes and lingonberry sauce? Or do they just wait until one of them brings home a Brit who wants to marry her and really, really wants to impress his prospective inlaws?
Anyway, Flying Jacob/Flygande Jakob is a dish that includes those traditional Swedish food items bananas, chili, peanuts and rice. Oh, and chicken and bacon. We got the recipe from Swedish Mike, an exiled Swede who lives in Abingdon and blogs strange recipes at www.freestylecookery.com. I won't steal a fellow blogger's thunder, so here I'll just list the ingredients with our variations. To serve four:
- 4 portions cooked white rice
- 6 - 8 rashers of smoked streaky bacon
- 4 skin- and boneless chicken breasts, cut into bitesized pieces
- 3 ripe bananas, sliced
- 125 ml chili sauce (or spicy ketchup) [we used chili & garlic sauce from Tesco: strong but worth it]
- 350 ml single cream [cream was left off the shopping list to an administrative error: we made up the fluid difference with a 50/50 mix of milk and natural yoghurt. In my opinion this worked perfectly: I wouldn't want it to be richer/creamier than it was.]
- Peanuts [regular salted]
Friday, July 17, 2009
CRBeebies
The CRB system was set up in the wake of the Soham murders, committed by Ian Huntley. Huntley had been able to get a job at a school despite some previous by using his mother's maiden name. The CRB system checks, amongst other things, that you have always been who you say you are. Therefore it could probably catch another Ian Huntley. It couldn't catch, say, another Gary Glitter, who was only found out when an engineer at PC World found pictures on the computer he had taken in for repairs. Muppet.
It certainly wouldn't and couldn't catch the family members or long-standing acquaintances of children who are the most likely to commit any form of abuse. But still, the grasp of the CRB spreads and spreads, instilling a sense of false bureaucratic security in the brains of politicians and tabloids but absolutely no one else, and now it has reached the realm of famous authors.
Fortunately things aren't quite as bad as they're being painted. Yes, authors who visit schools more than once a month will have to apply for a CRB (and representatives of other trades too, presumably, but authors are a large subset of the whole). And yes, that does include people like Philip Pullman, Michael Morpurgo, Anthony Horowitz, Quentin Blake … And yes, it costs £64 to prove they're not paedophiles. BUT, in the case of authors, that will be apparently be paid for anyway, and those of us who visit schools less than once a month won't be required to register. (This assumes the teachers in charge of visits to be fully au fait with the regulations and not insist on CRBs for everyone, regardless, which is by no means a given.) So the situation hasn't really changed. That much.
It remains utterly ludicrous, as Mr Pullman points out: in 20 years of visiting schools, he has never been left alone with kids. Ever. But the logic of applying the rule to the once-a-month-or-more brigade is precisely that: prolonged and repeated exposure allegedly increases the chances of grooming the kids for Unspeakable Acts. How you do this when faced with a baying mob of 50 year 9s and 10s, I have no idea. I doubt anyone does. But that's the roolz.
Once, on a school visit, I was asked to wait in the staff room for a while, and then a single solitary boy, aged 13ish, was sent to get me when everyone was ready. So I suppose I was technically alone with a child, for about 5 seconds. The staff room had a glass wall looking onto a main corridor, but still I suppose that if I was a really, really determined, cunning and persuasive paedo – and if the young man was brain dead, dumb and physically handicapped – then I could have got lucky. We really are pushing the bounds of probability here.
Some further reading on the subject:
Meanwhile Pullman et al will have to decide what matters more to them – the grind and, yes, the insult of being required to register, or the thought of the kids who would greatly value their visits being deprived of same. And Anthony Horowitz has nothing to fear: the CRB form is extremely unlikely to have a question saying "Are you now or have you ever been the perpetrator of Crime Traveller" so his secret is safe.
It certainly wouldn't and couldn't catch the family members or long-standing acquaintances of children who are the most likely to commit any form of abuse. But still, the grasp of the CRB spreads and spreads, instilling a sense of false bureaucratic security in the brains of politicians and tabloids but absolutely no one else, and now it has reached the realm of famous authors.
Fortunately things aren't quite as bad as they're being painted. Yes, authors who visit schools more than once a month will have to apply for a CRB (and representatives of other trades too, presumably, but authors are a large subset of the whole). And yes, that does include people like Philip Pullman, Michael Morpurgo, Anthony Horowitz, Quentin Blake … And yes, it costs £64 to prove they're not paedophiles. BUT, in the case of authors, that will be apparently be paid for anyway, and those of us who visit schools less than once a month won't be required to register. (This assumes the teachers in charge of visits to be fully au fait with the regulations and not insist on CRBs for everyone, regardless, which is by no means a given.) So the situation hasn't really changed. That much.
It remains utterly ludicrous, as Mr Pullman points out: in 20 years of visiting schools, he has never been left alone with kids. Ever. But the logic of applying the rule to the once-a-month-or-more brigade is precisely that: prolonged and repeated exposure allegedly increases the chances of grooming the kids for Unspeakable Acts. How you do this when faced with a baying mob of 50 year 9s and 10s, I have no idea. I doubt anyone does. But that's the roolz.
Once, on a school visit, I was asked to wait in the staff room for a while, and then a single solitary boy, aged 13ish, was sent to get me when everyone was ready. So I suppose I was technically alone with a child, for about 5 seconds. The staff room had a glass wall looking onto a main corridor, but still I suppose that if I was a really, really determined, cunning and persuasive paedo – and if the young man was brain dead, dumb and physically handicapped – then I could have got lucky. We really are pushing the bounds of probability here.
Some further reading on the subject:
- A handy lesson on false positives. Take home statistic: you are scanning 3000 people with a system that gets it 90% right. One person fails the test. How likely is he to be guilty? Answer: 0.3%.
- Charlie Stross on why he doesn't intend ever to apply for a CRB – not that he does school talks anyway, and not that he would need because of the less-than-monthly rule.
- Juliet McKenna gently poking at the flaws in the system.
Meanwhile Pullman et al will have to decide what matters more to them – the grind and, yes, the insult of being required to register, or the thought of the kids who would greatly value their visits being deprived of same. And Anthony Horowitz has nothing to fear: the CRB form is extremely unlikely to have a question saying "Are you now or have you ever been the perpetrator of Crime Traveller" so his secret is safe.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Always shoot hovering litter with a bow and arrow
At least, that's the only interpretation we could come up with for this rather strange little graphic on the label of a bottle of Tango.Or maybe it's "Wait until it's hovering over a bin, then shoot it with a bow and arrow." Yes, that would be tidier. That must be it.
Said bottle was consumed at our table at the reception following the wedding of Best Man's Ex in Swanage, which is really what this post is about. The weather was an extremely wet dry run for next month's holiday in Ireland, but that doesn't really matter when the proceedings were mostly indoors. Mostly. A brave attempt was made to congregate on the lawn outside the church where five or six gazebos had been pushed together. The problem with gazebos is that their sides slope and so they don't really tile. Everyone was clustered into neat little squares and you couldn't get from one to the other without another split-second drenching.
But, a lovely day with the children of both parties being especially supportive. Junior Godson proudly explained to us that now he has two step-parents and two real ones, which I think pleases his sense of symmetry (he was always the artistic one). I got a little irritated at constant references to how BME had raised two boys on her own ... Her ex is quite a good friend (as you might gather) and I know for a fact that he's been as involved as he possibly can be. But it wasn't actually her making these claims, just relatives/other guests, and anything that helps close that particular chapter and open a new one is just fine by me.
None of this silly giving away business, either: bride and groom entered by different and opposite doors, met at the foot of the aisle and walked up together. As it should be.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
My life measured against the Commitments
I first saw The Commitments when it came out in 1991, and I enjoyed it. At the time I lived in Basingstoke, but someone has to and we shall speak no more of that.
I next saw it last night and enjoyed it even more. What's changed in my life, apart from an extra 18 years maturity? Well, somewhere along the line I've picked up a nodding acquaintance with a lot more music. I'm not sure how, from someone who still listens to Classic FM more than any other radio station (with Radio 4 a close second), but it's happened. Part of it certainly comes down to former colleagues and associates forming The Limitations in the 1990s. That was eye and ear opening, and I owe them the thrill of recognition that I finally got at the intros to all the old soul classics.
The rest of it is just being alive, I suppose, and keeping an ear to the ground, and developing as Me. When I moved here I knew that if I could possibly afford it, I wanted to live on my own because I had never quite managed that before. I wanted to find out what I was like, without outside interference, and develop any areas that needed developing. It meant going short on stuff for a few years but it was worth it. I just hadn't realised how worth it it was.
On to the film and, okay, the plot of The Commitments could be written on the back of an envelope: band starts up, personal differences emerge, band collapses on the brink of greatness. But (as I endlessly explain to our resident Media student, but he insists on ignoring my wisdom), it's not what it's about that matters in a film but how it's about it. One of the joys of The Commitments is its sheer Irishness.
I'm sure I didn't recognise Procul Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale back in 1991, so I completely missed the joke of it being belted out on a church organ during practice by the band's keyboard player, together with the in-depth discussions (and the movie's punchline) as to what the lyrics actually mean. And I certainly didn't get the irony of playing 24 hours from Tulsa at a wedding reception. ("I hate to do this to you / But I love somebody new ...")
The keyboard player mentions in the confessional that where he used to sing hymns to himself, now he just hums "When A Man Loves A Woman" by Marvin Gaye. The priest's voice corrects him through the grill: "Percy Sledge". Our heroes play their first gig as part of the vicar's anti-drugs campaign, under a banner saying "Heroine kills" (sic) with the second e mostly blanked out. At another gig an accidental collision of mike stand and bass guitar makes the bass player the earth for the entire electrical system.
The band plays soul because "the Irish are the blacks of Europe, and Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland, and Northsiders are the blacks of Dublin". And they are good. The cast were chosen for their musical ability before their acting (though neither is bad). And after two hours we get their last and best gig, where you just want to get up there and dance with them as they pound out "Try a little tenderness" and "Take me to the river" and "In the midnight hour". As the last note plays they are glowing. They know they work as a band. They have achieved something marvellous. Then they go off stage and effortlessly self-destruct.
There is no deep message to the film, but there is poetry, as is pointed out by one of the most engaging characters, Joey "The Lips" Fagan, who may or may not have played with Wilson Pickett and Little Richard and Elvis and all the greats, but who effortlessly works his way through the backing singers. Sure, they could have got famous and made lots of money ... but where would be the artistry in that?
At one point the manager, Jimmy, is waiting for the lift in a tower block and finds himself standing next to a boy and a horse.
"You're not taking him up in there?"
"I have to," the boy replies. "The stairs'd kill him ..."
And that's all Jimmy, and us, need to know.
I next saw it last night and enjoyed it even more. What's changed in my life, apart from an extra 18 years maturity? Well, somewhere along the line I've picked up a nodding acquaintance with a lot more music. I'm not sure how, from someone who still listens to Classic FM more than any other radio station (with Radio 4 a close second), but it's happened. Part of it certainly comes down to former colleagues and associates forming The Limitations in the 1990s. That was eye and ear opening, and I owe them the thrill of recognition that I finally got at the intros to all the old soul classics.
The rest of it is just being alive, I suppose, and keeping an ear to the ground, and developing as Me. When I moved here I knew that if I could possibly afford it, I wanted to live on my own because I had never quite managed that before. I wanted to find out what I was like, without outside interference, and develop any areas that needed developing. It meant going short on stuff for a few years but it was worth it. I just hadn't realised how worth it it was.
On to the film and, okay, the plot of The Commitments could be written on the back of an envelope: band starts up, personal differences emerge, band collapses on the brink of greatness. But (as I endlessly explain to our resident Media student, but he insists on ignoring my wisdom), it's not what it's about that matters in a film but how it's about it. One of the joys of The Commitments is its sheer Irishness.
I'm sure I didn't recognise Procul Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale back in 1991, so I completely missed the joke of it being belted out on a church organ during practice by the band's keyboard player, together with the in-depth discussions (and the movie's punchline) as to what the lyrics actually mean. And I certainly didn't get the irony of playing 24 hours from Tulsa at a wedding reception. ("I hate to do this to you / But I love somebody new ...")
The keyboard player mentions in the confessional that where he used to sing hymns to himself, now he just hums "When A Man Loves A Woman" by Marvin Gaye. The priest's voice corrects him through the grill: "Percy Sledge". Our heroes play their first gig as part of the vicar's anti-drugs campaign, under a banner saying "Heroine kills" (sic) with the second e mostly blanked out. At another gig an accidental collision of mike stand and bass guitar makes the bass player the earth for the entire electrical system.
The band plays soul because "the Irish are the blacks of Europe, and Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland, and Northsiders are the blacks of Dublin". And they are good. The cast were chosen for their musical ability before their acting (though neither is bad). And after two hours we get their last and best gig, where you just want to get up there and dance with them as they pound out "Try a little tenderness" and "Take me to the river" and "In the midnight hour". As the last note plays they are glowing. They know they work as a band. They have achieved something marvellous. Then they go off stage and effortlessly self-destruct.
There is no deep message to the film, but there is poetry, as is pointed out by one of the most engaging characters, Joey "The Lips" Fagan, who may or may not have played with Wilson Pickett and Little Richard and Elvis and all the greats, but who effortlessly works his way through the backing singers. Sure, they could have got famous and made lots of money ... but where would be the artistry in that?
At one point the manager, Jimmy, is waiting for the lift in a tower block and finds himself standing next to a boy and a horse.
"You're not taking him up in there?"
"I have to," the boy replies. "The stairs'd kill him ..."
And that's all Jimmy, and us, need to know.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Oink
Only kidding. I'm reasonably certain that I just have a typical summer cold, nothing worse. Grounds for this are the regular metronomic progression of symptoms – a sore throat earlier this week, a day or so of no discernible symptoms and then yesterday the awareness that I was sneezing more than usual. Then I woke up at 2.30 this morning with a blocked/runny nose, one of the most irritating symptom combinations ever devised, and thereafter it was a couple of minutes sleep maximum, clutching a Kleenex, each time waiting for the next sudden gush of snot. Lovely.
But it meant that come 6am I was pretty certain I should be staying in bed, and so I did. This meant that when the heavens broke round about 7am, I was lying in a comfortable warm bed in a cool, shaded room listening to them. This is an experience everyone should have. Pause to think how rarely it happens. Torrential rain like that itself is rare. If you're in bed when it comes then you're probably asleep, or have been woken up in the small hours so are grumpy and resentful, or you're trying to get to sleep in the first place. But to lie there, awake, with a totally clear conscience and to hear it tipping down all around you is an awesome, near religious feeling.
Once it had stopped – which it did all at once, like turning off a tap – I realised the sash windows had all been open top and bottom so all the windowsills needed mopping down. Meh. Worth it.
Best Beloved was on her way to work when the rain hit and got totally drenched. There are plus sides to working in a theological college, and one of them is that she could simply proceed on into work and borrow a surplus surplice and robe. Apparently the robe gaped a little so the surplice was used as an undergarment. Part of her job is to greet visitors and I wish I had been there to see it.
Now tired, headachey ... the cold progresses as normal. Should be done by the end of the weekend. Unless it is something worse. Again I say, oink.
But it meant that come 6am I was pretty certain I should be staying in bed, and so I did. This meant that when the heavens broke round about 7am, I was lying in a comfortable warm bed in a cool, shaded room listening to them. This is an experience everyone should have. Pause to think how rarely it happens. Torrential rain like that itself is rare. If you're in bed when it comes then you're probably asleep, or have been woken up in the small hours so are grumpy and resentful, or you're trying to get to sleep in the first place. But to lie there, awake, with a totally clear conscience and to hear it tipping down all around you is an awesome, near religious feeling.
Once it had stopped – which it did all at once, like turning off a tap – I realised the sash windows had all been open top and bottom so all the windowsills needed mopping down. Meh. Worth it.
Best Beloved was on her way to work when the rain hit and got totally drenched. There are plus sides to working in a theological college, and one of them is that she could simply proceed on into work and borrow a surplus surplice and robe. Apparently the robe gaped a little so the surplice was used as an undergarment. Part of her job is to greet visitors and I wish I had been there to see it.
Now tired, headachey ... the cold progresses as normal. Should be done by the end of the weekend. Unless it is something worse. Again I say, oink.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Corporate and bilingual
Just been doing some web surfing to see if I need a visa for Canada next month. (I was pretty sure I didn't, and I was right, but you know how these panic attacks can be ...)
I'm pleased to be able to report that the Canada Border Services Agency "delivers innovative border management". Or, if you like (this is Canada) L'Agence des services frontaliers du Canada "assure une gestion novatrice de la frontière". Which means pretty much the same thing.
I personally wouldn't want my border services agency to be innovative. I would want them to keep the bad guys out and let the good guys in, which as far as I'm aware is a quite traditional interpretation of the role. Any development thereon may not be such a good thing.
I await the innovativity both with interest and avec l'intérêt.
I'm pleased to be able to report that the Canada Border Services Agency "delivers innovative border management". Or, if you like (this is Canada) L'Agence des services frontaliers du Canada "assure une gestion novatrice de la frontière". Which means pretty much the same thing.
I personally wouldn't want my border services agency to be innovative. I would want them to keep the bad guys out and let the good guys in, which as far as I'm aware is a quite traditional interpretation of the role. Any development thereon may not be such a good thing.
I await the innovativity both with interest and avec l'intérêt.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Separated at birth
 |  |
I know which I'd rather be right now.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Alpha beater
Just watched Channel 4's Revelations: How to Find God, which this week was a documentary about the Alpha course as run by St Aldates. Interestingly it highlighted several of the reasons why I am no great fan of the course ... and threw up some problems that I hope are unique to St Aldates.
I myself have Done Alpha. I held out for a long time but eventually I cracked, and I enjoyed it. I had no great revelations myself but then I was already about as committed a Christian as I will ever be. I met some nice people. My group leader was one of the saintliest, wisest, most head-screwed-on people I know. My problems?
Well, even Richard Dawkins couldn't argue with the idea of Alpha. A simple, straightforward presentation of Christian belief, in a friendly, non-threatening setting. Something to counter all the misconceptions the average bod is likely to pick up through a lifetime of half-heard truths and strawman targets and the Vicar of Dibley. What could go wrong? Show them the facts and let them draw their own conclusions.
I don't know if this is how all churches do it, or just us - but the first thing our meetings kick off with is a couple of choruses. Now, to the people running the thing this may be as natural as breathing and it wouldn't occur to them to do otherwise, any more than they would set off in a car without putting on their seatbelt. However, my most positive feeling towards those songs is grudging tolerance, and that's when I'm in a good mood. I go to my church for the fellowship and the friends that I love. I don't go for the singing. And so I honestly couldn't invite someone to Alpha with a straight face, telling them it's all a simple, straightforward presentation etc. but knowing they'd be singing "Hungry I come to you" before anything else.
Second is the content itself. It'll be no surprise to anyone that I fully agree with all the main conclusions of the arguments ... just not always the route taken to get there.
Example: in the session on Sin, the official Alpha coursebook contains a handy little story about Arthur Conan Doyle sending telegrams to a certain number of friends saying "flee, all is discovered", whereupon most or all of them cleared straight out of town. The point is meant to be that we all have a guilty conscience, or something. But the number of friends varies from telling to telling, I'm sure I've heard exactly the same story told about Mark Twain (in whose case it sounds much more likely), and this very day I came across this handy little thread that seems to conclude the tale is apocryphal.
Again, to some people it's completely natural to trot out a half-understood urban legend in the genuine and sincere belief that it's just as good as hard, solid fact. There is no intention to deceive. But it isn't as good as hard solid fact and that's all there is to it. Give me citations, or leave it out. I have ranted about this before. If a speaker demonstrates that he's a very nice bloke but will uncritically receive any pile of tosh that comes to him from another Christian, why should anyone believe what he has to say on ... I dunno ... Jesus?
(I've also read the Christianity Explored coursebook, which is for people who find Alpha too liberal and non-commital (a bit like actuaries being people who find accountancy too exciting). But whatever your views on it, the content is based squarely on direct anecdotes from the author's life, or illustrations drawn from movies that everyone will have seen. In that respect, Christianity Explored is streets ahead.)
And then there's the old CS Lewis chestnut about Jesus being "just a good teacher". No one, he said, could make the claims he did and just be a good teacher. He was God, or he was a deluded lunatic, with no middle ground. Well, this is one of the few times I have to say that old CS was talking cobblers. Mother Teresa is a perfect example of the contradiction CS Lewis says is impossible. The love and devotion she showed the poor of Calcutta was exemplary. Her teachings on contraception verged on criminal irresponsibility. Of course you can have both those extremes in one human being. We are complex people.
Again, no surprise to regular readers to know that along with Lewis I also believe Jesus was God. But I don't believe it for that argument, not least because that argument doesn't work. It is illogical. It should not be used.
It is used.
The content that works best in Alpha is never intended to be a show-stopping argument, but still it tends to get used as such. There is an answer to every objection I have ever heard raised, both at my own sessions and on the TV show, but these are not absolute arguments designed to sweep away all doubt. They are simply counter-arguments that take the game back to 15-all. There is no other way to do it. Yet, they are used as absolute arguments, and the Alpha leaders seem strangely confused and upset when doubts remain in the mind of the questioner.
To the TV programme, and the specific St Aldates thing I really disliked was the matter of Tongues. It may just the editing, but it looked horribly like speaking in Tongues at St Aldates is the indicator of success for the Alpha weekend away. And again I say unto you: cobblers.
Two of the participants walked out during the Holy Spirit session on their weekend away, and my heart went with them. One of them said straight out that if he had known, if he had realised it would be like this ...
Meanwhile the Reverend quotes the first half of 1 Corinthians 5, in which Paul states: "I would like every one of you to speak in tongues ..." But you can't have the first half of that verse without the second: "... but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified."
Not every Christian speaks in Tongues. Not every one has to. A Christian message that says otherwise is just Wrong.
Overall, Alpha - at least, as practiced as Christ Church in Abingdon and apparently at St Aldates - starts off as the presentation thing, but it tries just a little too hard to make you click into one particular slot and it doesn't make it clear that there are many, many, many slots available. And if you don't make that slot, yet you conclude on the evidence presented that this is all that's available ... well, then, obviously you decide you're not going to be a Christian and according to official Alpha doctrine you're destined for Hell.
Fortunately I don't believe that either.
Let's not diss it. The Spirit works wherever he is given the opportunity and that includes Alpha, including the Wrong bits. I can say this because he works in all of us, including the Wrong bits, because he has to: down here on Earth there are no bits that are wholly Right. Alpha does great things. I will gladly help set up and deliver puddings for the meals. I even have that sticker in the back of my car of Bear Grylls on top of a mountain with his arms held out. I do all this because I want Alpha to succeed, which means giving the Spirit a chance to act and overcome the foibles of his human servants.
But I'm not of the Alpha slot.
I myself have Done Alpha. I held out for a long time but eventually I cracked, and I enjoyed it. I had no great revelations myself but then I was already about as committed a Christian as I will ever be. I met some nice people. My group leader was one of the saintliest, wisest, most head-screwed-on people I know. My problems?
Well, even Richard Dawkins couldn't argue with the idea of Alpha. A simple, straightforward presentation of Christian belief, in a friendly, non-threatening setting. Something to counter all the misconceptions the average bod is likely to pick up through a lifetime of half-heard truths and strawman targets and the Vicar of Dibley. What could go wrong? Show them the facts and let them draw their own conclusions.
I don't know if this is how all churches do it, or just us - but the first thing our meetings kick off with is a couple of choruses. Now, to the people running the thing this may be as natural as breathing and it wouldn't occur to them to do otherwise, any more than they would set off in a car without putting on their seatbelt. However, my most positive feeling towards those songs is grudging tolerance, and that's when I'm in a good mood. I go to my church for the fellowship and the friends that I love. I don't go for the singing. And so I honestly couldn't invite someone to Alpha with a straight face, telling them it's all a simple, straightforward presentation etc. but knowing they'd be singing "Hungry I come to you" before anything else.
Second is the content itself. It'll be no surprise to anyone that I fully agree with all the main conclusions of the arguments ... just not always the route taken to get there.
Example: in the session on Sin, the official Alpha coursebook contains a handy little story about Arthur Conan Doyle sending telegrams to a certain number of friends saying "flee, all is discovered", whereupon most or all of them cleared straight out of town. The point is meant to be that we all have a guilty conscience, or something. But the number of friends varies from telling to telling, I'm sure I've heard exactly the same story told about Mark Twain (in whose case it sounds much more likely), and this very day I came across this handy little thread that seems to conclude the tale is apocryphal.
Again, to some people it's completely natural to trot out a half-understood urban legend in the genuine and sincere belief that it's just as good as hard, solid fact. There is no intention to deceive. But it isn't as good as hard solid fact and that's all there is to it. Give me citations, or leave it out. I have ranted about this before. If a speaker demonstrates that he's a very nice bloke but will uncritically receive any pile of tosh that comes to him from another Christian, why should anyone believe what he has to say on ... I dunno ... Jesus?
(I've also read the Christianity Explored coursebook, which is for people who find Alpha too liberal and non-commital (a bit like actuaries being people who find accountancy too exciting). But whatever your views on it, the content is based squarely on direct anecdotes from the author's life, or illustrations drawn from movies that everyone will have seen. In that respect, Christianity Explored is streets ahead.)
And then there's the old CS Lewis chestnut about Jesus being "just a good teacher". No one, he said, could make the claims he did and just be a good teacher. He was God, or he was a deluded lunatic, with no middle ground. Well, this is one of the few times I have to say that old CS was talking cobblers. Mother Teresa is a perfect example of the contradiction CS Lewis says is impossible. The love and devotion she showed the poor of Calcutta was exemplary. Her teachings on contraception verged on criminal irresponsibility. Of course you can have both those extremes in one human being. We are complex people.
Again, no surprise to regular readers to know that along with Lewis I also believe Jesus was God. But I don't believe it for that argument, not least because that argument doesn't work. It is illogical. It should not be used.
It is used.
The content that works best in Alpha is never intended to be a show-stopping argument, but still it tends to get used as such. There is an answer to every objection I have ever heard raised, both at my own sessions and on the TV show, but these are not absolute arguments designed to sweep away all doubt. They are simply counter-arguments that take the game back to 15-all. There is no other way to do it. Yet, they are used as absolute arguments, and the Alpha leaders seem strangely confused and upset when doubts remain in the mind of the questioner.
To the TV programme, and the specific St Aldates thing I really disliked was the matter of Tongues. It may just the editing, but it looked horribly like speaking in Tongues at St Aldates is the indicator of success for the Alpha weekend away. And again I say unto you: cobblers.
Two of the participants walked out during the Holy Spirit session on their weekend away, and my heart went with them. One of them said straight out that if he had known, if he had realised it would be like this ...
Meanwhile the Reverend quotes the first half of 1 Corinthians 5, in which Paul states: "I would like every one of you to speak in tongues ..." But you can't have the first half of that verse without the second: "... but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified."
Not every Christian speaks in Tongues. Not every one has to. A Christian message that says otherwise is just Wrong.
Overall, Alpha - at least, as practiced as Christ Church in Abingdon and apparently at St Aldates - starts off as the presentation thing, but it tries just a little too hard to make you click into one particular slot and it doesn't make it clear that there are many, many, many slots available. And if you don't make that slot, yet you conclude on the evidence presented that this is all that's available ... well, then, obviously you decide you're not going to be a Christian and according to official Alpha doctrine you're destined for Hell.
Fortunately I don't believe that either.
Let's not diss it. The Spirit works wherever he is given the opportunity and that includes Alpha, including the Wrong bits. I can say this because he works in all of us, including the Wrong bits, because he has to: down here on Earth there are no bits that are wholly Right. Alpha does great things. I will gladly help set up and deliver puddings for the meals. I even have that sticker in the back of my car of Bear Grylls on top of a mountain with his arms held out. I do all this because I want Alpha to succeed, which means giving the Spirit a chance to act and overcome the foibles of his human servants.
But I'm not of the Alpha slot.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
A whole in my mind
I have fragmented knowledge of bits of Oxford. The Wycliffe area. St Giles. Broad Street, the High Street ... I very rarely travel from one to the other, though. I make each one my destination for whatever purpose, and go there and back again. So, how do all those fragments fit together?
I could look at a map, or, I could walk it.
Park the car at Wycliffe. Along Norham Gardens and then down through the University Parks to the High Street, via St Cross Road - a handy back-alley route I didn't know and the first of the threads to link the different bits together. Past Magdalen and over the bridge, hanging a left to St Clements and the Islamic Centre, looking suitably Islamic as it towers over the leafy green trees.
Then turn left just before the Magdalen Sports Ground and you're in Mesopotamia - a shaded walk between two streams of the Cherwell, a mill stream and the natural channel, named with impeccably accurate Oxonian clever-gitness as Mesopotamia means "between rivers". The walk is along a concrete causeway with overgrown banks on either side. You join at the point where the two streams merge again and the upper one pours down in a weir, so the air blowing at you down the alley is cool and moist. After that, though, you begin to see that it rained quite heavily earlier in the weekend - not a sign of it now, but it's all evaporating and the air hemmed in by the overhanging undergrowth is humid.
You follow this as far as the point where the two streams diverge in the first place. The slipway with rollers at top left is presumably for getting punts between the two levels, but to my fevered imagination I could see it being an emergency punt launching device, for those occasions when the punt has to be in the water now.
And then you're back in the University Parks again, walking up the Cherwell, and a couple more fragments have been sewn together. But you're only just starting the trip into terra incognita because now you cross the river again and strike out for points east, or Marston, whichever comes sooner. This is the flood plain of the Cherwell, completely flat, immaculate sports ground on one side and overgrown grazing-and-hay-making-meadow on the other. You cross fields and go down more leafy tracks, and even though it's completely unknown you see things like the minarets and a cluster of trees in the middle of the sports ground and the roof of the JR - each line of sight a further thread to bind the whole. Then through Marston itself, deciding not to look at the inside of the 12th century church, round in a big anticlockwise circle via the Victoria Arms on the Cherwell, which you do decide to look inside. Oh, so that's what this place is. I punted here on a company social once, but obviously I came by river. Anyway. Now you're heading back down the Cherwell again and suddenly, presto, you're back in the University Parks and on the way back to the car.
Then home, via Summertown and Wolvercote. A final binding thread around the top of the town.
Six miles, apart from the driving bit, according to the book of walks; lovely weather; and not one hayfevery sniffle. How a Sunday afternoon should be.
I could look at a map, or, I could walk it.
Park the car at Wycliffe. Along Norham Gardens and then down through the University Parks to the High Street, via St Cross Road - a handy back-alley route I didn't know and the first of the threads to link the different bits together. Past Magdalen and over the bridge, hanging a left to St Clements and the Islamic Centre, looking suitably Islamic as it towers over the leafy green trees.
Then turn left just before the Magdalen Sports Ground and you're in Mesopotamia - a shaded walk between two streams of the Cherwell, a mill stream and the natural channel, named with impeccably accurate Oxonian clever-gitness as Mesopotamia means "between rivers". The walk is along a concrete causeway with overgrown banks on either side. You join at the point where the two streams merge again and the upper one pours down in a weir, so the air blowing at you down the alley is cool and moist. After that, though, you begin to see that it rained quite heavily earlier in the weekend - not a sign of it now, but it's all evaporating and the air hemmed in by the overhanging undergrowth is humid.You follow this as far as the point where the two streams diverge in the first place. The slipway with rollers at top left is presumably for getting punts between the two levels, but to my fevered imagination I could see it being an emergency punt launching device, for those occasions when the punt has to be in the water now.
And then you're back in the University Parks again, walking up the Cherwell, and a couple more fragments have been sewn together. But you're only just starting the trip into terra incognita because now you cross the river again and strike out for points east, or Marston, whichever comes sooner. This is the flood plain of the Cherwell, completely flat, immaculate sports ground on one side and overgrown grazing-and-hay-making-meadow on the other. You cross fields and go down more leafy tracks, and even though it's completely unknown you see things like the minarets and a cluster of trees in the middle of the sports ground and the roof of the JR - each line of sight a further thread to bind the whole. Then through Marston itself, deciding not to look at the inside of the 12th century church, round in a big anticlockwise circle via the Victoria Arms on the Cherwell, which you do decide to look inside. Oh, so that's what this place is. I punted here on a company social once, but obviously I came by river. Anyway. Now you're heading back down the Cherwell again and suddenly, presto, you're back in the University Parks and on the way back to the car.
Then home, via Summertown and Wolvercote. A final binding thread around the top of the town.
Six miles, apart from the driving bit, according to the book of walks; lovely weather; and not one hayfevery sniffle. How a Sunday afternoon should be.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Misplaced childhood
It's lunchtime and the BBC newsfeed in the lobby still says "Breaking news: Michael Jackson is dead". Well, it's hardly going to change, is it? The news reveals the astonishing facts that (a) he's dead and (b) his friends miss him. Well, did you ever.
Today I leaned a new word: Huxleyed. It means, roughly, to be reasonably famous such that your death should generate a few column inches, and then have that completely swamped by someone even more famous dying at the same time. The word originates from Aldous Huxley who carelessly died on 22 November 1963 shortly before JFK was shot. With slightly fewer knock-on effects for the future of planet Earth, Farrah Fawcett today found herself completely Huxleyed by the weird non-black guy.
I love the British sense of humour. During WW2, official Nazi news channels ranted about the alleged Jewishness and degeneracy of the royal family and Churchill. We retaliated by singing "Hitler has only got one ball". We won. So it came as no surprise at all to log on first thing this morning and find a bulletin board already posting Jacko jokes. Now is not the time to repeat any, but some are quite funny.
What isn't funny at all - in fact, heartbreakingly sad, once you're past the vomiting - is this collection of memorabilia that he was selling off to pay his bills. A common theme, apart from the gag-retching awfulness of it all, is children having fun - rather, Jackson's idea of what constituted children having fun, which isn't necessarily the same thing at all. And it's obvious he never had any at all. Fun, that is. Other interpretations will be up for discussion for a long time to come.
It's not often you can genuinely say "I hope he's at peace" but in this case I'll give it a go. He was a hugely unhappy guy and the only people he really made happy himself were the ones who couldn't get enough of him and therefore fed his unhappiness. I can't say anything for his legacy, apart from making the Today programme presenters talk about him as if they cared and bringing high production values to the world of music videos. That latter is frankly a dead-end alley as far as the evolution of civilisation goes. All those videos today of hundreds of people dancing exactly the same way with joyless robotic precision probably come down to him. As for the actual music ... well, "Billie Jean" had a certain toe-tapping something. I never could see the big deal about "Thriller", and Lenny Henry's version was much better.
Today I leaned a new word: Huxleyed. It means, roughly, to be reasonably famous such that your death should generate a few column inches, and then have that completely swamped by someone even more famous dying at the same time. The word originates from Aldous Huxley who carelessly died on 22 November 1963 shortly before JFK was shot. With slightly fewer knock-on effects for the future of planet Earth, Farrah Fawcett today found herself completely Huxleyed by the weird non-black guy.
I love the British sense of humour. During WW2, official Nazi news channels ranted about the alleged Jewishness and degeneracy of the royal family and Churchill. We retaliated by singing "Hitler has only got one ball". We won. So it came as no surprise at all to log on first thing this morning and find a bulletin board already posting Jacko jokes. Now is not the time to repeat any, but some are quite funny.
What isn't funny at all - in fact, heartbreakingly sad, once you're past the vomiting - is this collection of memorabilia that he was selling off to pay his bills. A common theme, apart from the gag-retching awfulness of it all, is children having fun - rather, Jackson's idea of what constituted children having fun, which isn't necessarily the same thing at all. And it's obvious he never had any at all. Fun, that is. Other interpretations will be up for discussion for a long time to come.
It's not often you can genuinely say "I hope he's at peace" but in this case I'll give it a go. He was a hugely unhappy guy and the only people he really made happy himself were the ones who couldn't get enough of him and therefore fed his unhappiness. I can't say anything for his legacy, apart from making the Today programme presenters talk about him as if they cared and bringing high production values to the world of music videos. That latter is frankly a dead-end alley as far as the evolution of civilisation goes. All those videos today of hundreds of people dancing exactly the same way with joyless robotic precision probably come down to him. As for the actual music ... well, "Billie Jean" had a certain toe-tapping something. I never could see the big deal about "Thriller", and Lenny Henry's version was much better.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Fulminate Against Chiropractic Twaddle
I love FACTS. Not the Federation Against Copyright Theft (though I don't dislike it, apart from its irritatingly obtrusive and unavoidable adverts on my legally acquired DVDs) but actual facts. I love the presentation of information that is clearly, unavoidably and sometimes interestingly true.
Part of this I might put down to the headmaster I had at a formative age, and the hurt and misery oft caused by his fantasised, evidence-free declarations of reality. But most of it is just who I am. It's why I like quizzes. It's why I have been known to play Trivial Pursuit. It's why I'm not a Creationist and believe in democracy and freedom of speech and have always preferred working in some form of scientific publishing. Science is the ultimate playground of fact. If something is true then scientific method and experimentation will show it to be so. It's inevitable. It can't help it.
Hold that thought.
I can personally testify to the purely physical benefits of chiropractic treatment, i.e. adjustment to the spine, curing backache, aiding posture etc. If however my chiropractor told me it could also cure my asthma, I'd demand proof. Okay, I don't have asthma anyway. Hayfever? Yes. So if someone made the same claim about hayfever, I might ask why I've been having the treatment for over 7 years now and, while my back is fine, I still get the odd itchy sniffle. Does my back need adjusting in a different way? Surely a reasonable question to ask.
Hold that thought too, and combine it with the first one.
So when journalist Simon Singh cast doubt on the ability of chiropractic treatment to cure childhood diseases such as asthma, the British Chiropractic Association surely just had to wheel out the results of a few double blind trials to prove him wrong. No?
No. They took him to court for libel, and it's still rumbling on.
Read Singh's account here. Read much more authoritative accounts than I can give here and here. None of it is happy reading.
Why? Well, reading this lot, I've learnt interesting things about English libel law. Libel is the only kind of court case where the burden of proof is reversed – the defendant is guilty until proven innocent. The plaintiff has to convince the court they have a reputation to defend in the UK, but then simply say that X has sullied that reputation. X then has to prove that no, he hasn't. Further, preliminary hearings can define the scope of the actual trial way beyond the original cause. In this case, the preliminary hearing by Mr Justice Eady has decided Singh was maliciously accusing the BCA of deliberate falsehood – which he wasn't, but suddenly that is what he has to prove he wasn't doing, rather than stand by his simple original assertion that there is no direct evidence for the BCA's claims. To use a complex legal term coined by one of my godsons, Mr Eady is a poo-poo head (capitus excretus excretus).
I've also learnt from today's reading that "chiropractic" is an anagram of "critic - oh, crap".
I confess I'm still not entirely certain why the case can't simply run as follows: chairman of BCA put on the stand; given copy of article to read out with instructions to put his hand up when he gets to the bit where he's called a liar; gets to the end without putting his hand up; judge throws the case out. It's all more complex than that. Apparently.
But that is grounds for a separate rant. Grounds for this one are as follows. Facts are facts. Dogma is dogma. The two are irreconcilable. When a fact contradicts dogma it is the dogma that is at fault. There is no reputation at stake. There is no libel to be had. And libel laws should not be used to suppress science.
Sense About Science has published a statement to this effect, to which all sorts of famous and non-famous (like me) people have added their signatures. Go thou and do likewise.
Let's give the last word to Stephen Fry, another signatory:
Part of this I might put down to the headmaster I had at a formative age, and the hurt and misery oft caused by his fantasised, evidence-free declarations of reality. But most of it is just who I am. It's why I like quizzes. It's why I have been known to play Trivial Pursuit. It's why I'm not a Creationist and believe in democracy and freedom of speech and have always preferred working in some form of scientific publishing. Science is the ultimate playground of fact. If something is true then scientific method and experimentation will show it to be so. It's inevitable. It can't help it.
Hold that thought.
I can personally testify to the purely physical benefits of chiropractic treatment, i.e. adjustment to the spine, curing backache, aiding posture etc. If however my chiropractor told me it could also cure my asthma, I'd demand proof. Okay, I don't have asthma anyway. Hayfever? Yes. So if someone made the same claim about hayfever, I might ask why I've been having the treatment for over 7 years now and, while my back is fine, I still get the odd itchy sniffle. Does my back need adjusting in a different way? Surely a reasonable question to ask.
Hold that thought too, and combine it with the first one.
So when journalist Simon Singh cast doubt on the ability of chiropractic treatment to cure childhood diseases such as asthma, the British Chiropractic Association surely just had to wheel out the results of a few double blind trials to prove him wrong. No?
No. They took him to court for libel, and it's still rumbling on.
Read Singh's account here. Read much more authoritative accounts than I can give here and here. None of it is happy reading.
Why? Well, reading this lot, I've learnt interesting things about English libel law. Libel is the only kind of court case where the burden of proof is reversed – the defendant is guilty until proven innocent. The plaintiff has to convince the court they have a reputation to defend in the UK, but then simply say that X has sullied that reputation. X then has to prove that no, he hasn't. Further, preliminary hearings can define the scope of the actual trial way beyond the original cause. In this case, the preliminary hearing by Mr Justice Eady has decided Singh was maliciously accusing the BCA of deliberate falsehood – which he wasn't, but suddenly that is what he has to prove he wasn't doing, rather than stand by his simple original assertion that there is no direct evidence for the BCA's claims. To use a complex legal term coined by one of my godsons, Mr Eady is a poo-poo head (capitus excretus excretus).
I've also learnt from today's reading that "chiropractic" is an anagram of "critic - oh, crap".
I confess I'm still not entirely certain why the case can't simply run as follows: chairman of BCA put on the stand; given copy of article to read out with instructions to put his hand up when he gets to the bit where he's called a liar; gets to the end without putting his hand up; judge throws the case out. It's all more complex than that. Apparently.
But that is grounds for a separate rant. Grounds for this one are as follows. Facts are facts. Dogma is dogma. The two are irreconcilable. When a fact contradicts dogma it is the dogma that is at fault. There is no reputation at stake. There is no libel to be had. And libel laws should not be used to suppress science.
Sense About Science has published a statement to this effect, to which all sorts of famous and non-famous (like me) people have added their signatures. Go thou and do likewise.
Let's give the last word to Stephen Fry, another signatory:
"It may seem like a small thing to some when claims are made without evidence, but there are those of us who take this kind of thing very seriously because we believe that repeatable evidence-based science is the very foundation of our civilisation. Freedom in politics, in thought and in speech followed the rise of empirical science which refused to take anything on trust, on faith, on hope or even on reason. The simplicity and purity of evidence is all that stands between us and the wildest kinds of tyranny, superstition and fraudulent nonsense. When a powerful organisation tries to silence a man of Simon Singh's reputation then anyone who believes in science, fairness and the truth should rise in indignation. All we ask for is proof. Reasoned proof according to the established protocols of medicine and science everywhere. It is not science that is arrogant: science can be defined as 'humility before the facts' - it is those who refuse to submit to testing and make unsubstantiated claims that are arrogant. Arrogant and unjust."
Thursday, June 18, 2009
How would I feel being outed (as a blogger)?
Well, first of all I would congratulate the outer on their hard work. My name is embedded in the URL of this blog, I never fail to plug my books where the possibility arises, and the column on the left contains a link to www.benjeapes.com, which itself has a headline feed from this blog. So, it would be good to know the art of investigative journalism wasn't completely dead.
If I was Detective Constable Richard Horton of the Lancashire Constabulary, I might feel differently. He anonymously created the Night Jack blogger, giving an insider's view of the workings of Her Majesty's Northern Plod. It garnered awards and has been turned into a series. He took the Times to court to try and stop them revealing his identity, and failed. Now identified, he has been given a written warning, the blog has been deleted and no further action will be taken. I surprise myself to find my sympathies are with the police, in this instance.
Yes, bloggers should have a right to be anonymous, if that is their choice. If they commit libel, or the public interest or national security are adversely affected, a court should then be able to order their identity to be revealed. (Public interest and national security <> sparing the blushes of the powers that be or catering to the public taste for titillation – but that too is for the courts to decide.) It's also up to them to make a reasonable effort, however. Horton wasn't so much leaving a trail of breadcrumbs behind him as several unsliced loaves. For instance, mentioning his jiu-jitsu activities, when the Lancashire Constabulary jiu-jitsu club only one lists member who is a detective. I have my suspicions as to why, after 17 years on the force, he's still only a constable.
Under those circumstances, pleading a right to anonymity is just silly. Note that in this case it wasn't the repressive forces of law and order that tracked Horton down – it was the Times, following a perfectly reasonable line of enquiry now that his blog had made the big time. I would guess Lancashire Constabulary was quietly ignoring the matter, until it became unavoidable.
So, why the reprimand? It's a question of balance. I rarely name my friends or even family, though it's no secret I live in Abingdon. I don't deliver the juicy gossip from work or reveal stories about my colleagues – but I don't hide the nature of my employer's business or its geographical location, so Woodward & Bernstein would track it down in about 30 seconds (the Abingdon Herald, maybe a minute). Horton, apparently, was not only giving hints on how to act when arrested (not such a bad thing) but giving out information that could affect cases in progress (very bad indeed). Your work is your work, it's not your hobby or your life; but even then, an employer can reasonably assume a reasonable degree of loyalty from its staff. 17 years on the force, remember – it's not as if he was suffering in a hellhole with his blog the only outlet for his righteous resentment.
How could he have played it safer? Easy. Make up names for everything, including Lancashire. Leave out the links to the jiu-jitsu and anything else associated with him. Make it impossible to pinpoint himself or his activities. As long as the made-up names were consistent, the truth of his posts would be unaffected. Has Belle du Jour been positively identified? (No, she's not Billie Piper.) I don't think so. Does her discreet use of pseudonyms affect her veracity? Not at all. See, easy.
If I was Detective Constable Richard Horton of the Lancashire Constabulary, I might feel differently. He anonymously created the Night Jack blogger, giving an insider's view of the workings of Her Majesty's Northern Plod. It garnered awards and has been turned into a series. He took the Times to court to try and stop them revealing his identity, and failed. Now identified, he has been given a written warning, the blog has been deleted and no further action will be taken. I surprise myself to find my sympathies are with the police, in this instance.
Yes, bloggers should have a right to be anonymous, if that is their choice. If they commit libel, or the public interest or national security are adversely affected, a court should then be able to order their identity to be revealed. (Public interest and national security <> sparing the blushes of the powers that be or catering to the public taste for titillation – but that too is for the courts to decide.) It's also up to them to make a reasonable effort, however. Horton wasn't so much leaving a trail of breadcrumbs behind him as several unsliced loaves. For instance, mentioning his jiu-jitsu activities, when the Lancashire Constabulary jiu-jitsu club only one lists member who is a detective. I have my suspicions as to why, after 17 years on the force, he's still only a constable.
Under those circumstances, pleading a right to anonymity is just silly. Note that in this case it wasn't the repressive forces of law and order that tracked Horton down – it was the Times, following a perfectly reasonable line of enquiry now that his blog had made the big time. I would guess Lancashire Constabulary was quietly ignoring the matter, until it became unavoidable.
So, why the reprimand? It's a question of balance. I rarely name my friends or even family, though it's no secret I live in Abingdon. I don't deliver the juicy gossip from work or reveal stories about my colleagues – but I don't hide the nature of my employer's business or its geographical location, so Woodward & Bernstein would track it down in about 30 seconds (the Abingdon Herald, maybe a minute). Horton, apparently, was not only giving hints on how to act when arrested (not such a bad thing) but giving out information that could affect cases in progress (very bad indeed). Your work is your work, it's not your hobby or your life; but even then, an employer can reasonably assume a reasonable degree of loyalty from its staff. 17 years on the force, remember – it's not as if he was suffering in a hellhole with his blog the only outlet for his righteous resentment.
How could he have played it safer? Easy. Make up names for everything, including Lancashire. Leave out the links to the jiu-jitsu and anything else associated with him. Make it impossible to pinpoint himself or his activities. As long as the made-up names were consistent, the truth of his posts would be unaffected. Has Belle du Jour been positively identified? (No, she's not Billie Piper.) I don't think so. Does her discreet use of pseudonyms affect her veracity? Not at all. See, easy.
Monday, June 15, 2009
50 not out, and Biblical hit jobs
If either of us makes it to our 50th wedding anniversary we will be in our nineties. My parents are a little younger but then they started earlier. Still, 50 years, eh? The oldest friends I am still in touch with, I will have known for 31 years this September - I met them upon starting at a new school in September 1978. That's still not 50.
So, a weekend given over to due celebration of the Big Gold, and quite right too, in far better weather than we had any right to hope for. Mostly shirtsleeve order, with just the occasional sprinkling of a few molecules of water to remind us we were having the weather by special dispensation of grace only.
Saturday saw two dozen friends and family converging on the parental home, the criterion for non-family being that they (or at least a spousal partner) had to have been at the wedding itself. I asked one of the former bridesmaids if she was retired now.
"Yes, thanks. Fifty years, remember?!"
Well, okay, point taken but she was quite a young bridesmaid.
The one of my father's close army pals who isn't one of my godfathers, i.e. the one who became a multi-millionaire, remarked that he had been married for a total of 45 years. "To four different women, of course ..."
As well as hundredth birthdays, the Queen will apparently send congratulations to long-lasting couples ... but only starting at the 60th anniversary, so the Aged Ps will have to stick with each other for a while longer.
For Sunday we (family only) gatecrashed what used to be my grandmother's local church and was the one where the ceremony had taken place, 50 years and 24 hours earlier. I'm delighted to see it now has a lady vicar and what looks like a really thriving all-age congregation, and all that without going all ghastly and modern. Good on them.
It's a very pictureskew little village south of Salisbury but I had always thought of it as a rather staid retirement community. In my thirties, to my surprise, I met a retired Spitfire pilot who during the War had been shot down by Adolf Galland. Blimey, someone interesting! Where had he been all my life?
And yesterday I had someone pointed out to me: "He designed part of the Eurofighter ..."
And in my grandmother's former local, where we had lunch, there was a poster with photo in support of the village's team entry into the Spire FM Naked Gardener competition. (Apparently they won, too.)
Eurofighter gent also drew my attention to the legend inscribed around the pulpit: "I have a message from God unto thee." Even though I spent probably about half my Sunday mornings between the ages of 8-13 in that church, and many more before and after, I had never really noticed it and it would certainly never have occurred to me to look it up. Now I was gleefully told it is from Judges 3:
So, a weekend given over to due celebration of the Big Gold, and quite right too, in far better weather than we had any right to hope for. Mostly shirtsleeve order, with just the occasional sprinkling of a few molecules of water to remind us we were having the weather by special dispensation of grace only.
Saturday saw two dozen friends and family converging on the parental home, the criterion for non-family being that they (or at least a spousal partner) had to have been at the wedding itself. I asked one of the former bridesmaids if she was retired now.
"Yes, thanks. Fifty years, remember?!"
Well, okay, point taken but she was quite a young bridesmaid.
The one of my father's close army pals who isn't one of my godfathers, i.e. the one who became a multi-millionaire, remarked that he had been married for a total of 45 years. "To four different women, of course ..."
As well as hundredth birthdays, the Queen will apparently send congratulations to long-lasting couples ... but only starting at the 60th anniversary, so the Aged Ps will have to stick with each other for a while longer.
For Sunday we (family only) gatecrashed what used to be my grandmother's local church and was the one where the ceremony had taken place, 50 years and 24 hours earlier. I'm delighted to see it now has a lady vicar and what looks like a really thriving all-age congregation, and all that without going all ghastly and modern. Good on them.
It's a very pictureskew little village south of Salisbury but I had always thought of it as a rather staid retirement community. In my thirties, to my surprise, I met a retired Spitfire pilot who during the War had been shot down by Adolf Galland. Blimey, someone interesting! Where had he been all my life?
And yesterday I had someone pointed out to me: "He designed part of the Eurofighter ..."
And in my grandmother's former local, where we had lunch, there was a poster with photo in support of the village's team entry into the Spire FM Naked Gardener competition. (Apparently they won, too.)
Eurofighter gent also drew my attention to the legend inscribed around the pulpit: "I have a message from God unto thee." Even though I spent probably about half my Sunday mornings between the ages of 8-13 in that church, and many more before and after, I had never really noticed it and it would certainly never have occurred to me to look it up. Now I was gleefully told it is from Judges 3:
"... And Ehud said, I have a message from God unto thee. And he arose out of his seat.
21And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly:
22And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly; and the dirt came out."
There's lovely. I hope that's the kind of Bible reading they still do in their Sunday School.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Days the Earth Stood Still, as a game of tennis
The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur: the two exceptions I will allow to the golden rule of Do Not Make Remakes.
Case in point: The Day the Earth Stood Still. The classic 1951 original gave us a film that can still hold its head up with pride today: good acting; properly thought out science fiction; a clever story; a ground breaking, eerie theremin score; Gort; and a b&w 1950s movie that wasn't about Commies in disguise. The 2008 remake gives us … a wonderfully snarky review by Roger Ebert (Keanu Reeves "makes Mr Spock look like Hunter S. Thompson at closing time").
1951 serves.
Case in point: The Day the Earth Stood Still. The classic 1951 original gave us a film that can still hold its head up with pride today: good acting; properly thought out science fiction; a clever story; a ground breaking, eerie theremin score; Gort; and a b&w 1950s movie that wasn't about Commies in disguise. The 2008 remake gives us … a wonderfully snarky review by Roger Ebert (Keanu Reeves "makes Mr Spock look like Hunter S. Thompson at closing time").
1951 serves.
- 1951: gets straight into the action.
- 2008: utterly missable prologue set in 1928, in which a lone mountaineer (Keanu Reeves plus a beard) encounters a strange glowing sphere which, presumably, takes a DNA sample so that he can be recreated later, though why anyone would want to recreate Keanu is a problem not tackled.
- Score: this is a bit of a cheat but the alternative would be to give 2008 minus points from the off. So, by sheer virtue of doing nothing, 1951 leads 15-love.
- 1951: flying saucer lands in the national mall, Washington DC and is immediately surrounded by troops.
- 2008: big glowing sphere lands in Central Park, New York and is immediately surrounded by troops.
- Score: 1951 let itself down a little by jumping on the flying saucer bandwagon, though what we saw was impressive. It was blank and featureless; when it opens and closes it does so without even leaving a seam behind. But it is still obviously a flying saucer. What the 2008 sphere is and how it works is anyone's guess. Utterly alien technology, totally unlike anything seen on Earth. 15-all.
- 1951: spaceman Klaatu emerges and is shot by a panicking serviceman. Gort emerges behind him and destroys a couple of tanks before Klaatu tells him to stop. After which, he just stands there.
- 2008: as above, though Gort doesn't at this point cause any destruction and just looks scary.
- Score: new-Gort looks scary because he's a 50' tall CGI robot. Old-Gort was a mere 7' man in a shiny suit - in fact two shiny suits, one with the zip in front and one behind, so that it could be filmed from any angle and appear seamless. Both have the same basic humanoid layout, with a single beam weapon hidden behind a visor in the head area, but old-Gort comes across as much more menacing because he's there and doesn't look like something off a Playstation. 30-15.
- 1951: in hospital, Klaatu is revealed to be Michael Rennie. His default expression throughout the movie is a slightly quirked smile, like a parent so totally in control of his toddler that he will let the kid think he's the one in charge. When that smile vanishes - and it does - you know you're in trouble.
- 2008: Klaatu eventually becomes Keanu Reeves, a man who we know from Bill & Ted and Parenthood can in fact laugh and smile and have fun, until 10 years ago he got typecast in The Matrix and hasn't cracked a smile since.
- Score: On that basis alone I would make this 40-15. However, whereas old-Klaatu wore a (fairly futuristic looking) spacesuit, new-Klaatu is clad in an organic false skin akin to a placenta that everyone at first assumes is his natural form. This nicely follows the philosophy of his sphere - it's so advanced it doesn't resemble anything we have, and is therefore nicely sfnal. So, 30-all.
- 1951: Klaatu has a conversation with a bone-headed government functionary, is told it will be impossible for him to address the UN, and is put under lock and key from which he effortlessly escapes - though we never see how.
- 2008: as above, though this time we do see how he escapes and for the first time get an inkling of just how unstoppably powerful this man is.
- Score: Very nice. The functionary is slightly more sympathetic, but whereas the 1951 version could never have seen ET, she must have so her actions are even more inexcusable. 30-40.
- 1951: Klaatu, now in civvies, finds lodgings at a Washington guest house with a diverse mixture of fellow guests, including war-widow Helen Benson and her son Bobby. As plan A, address the world leaders, isn't working, Bobby fairly plausibly sets up a meeting with Einstein-alike Dr Barnhardt, world-famous scientist and thinker who happens to live in a quiet DC suburb.
- 2008: Klaatu goes on the run. We have already met Helen because here she is one of the scientists drafted in to handle him, and one of the few to be sympathetic towards him. He gets in touch with her and uses her help to meet up with - um - one of his own race who has been here for the last 70 years. Here we learn that the plan is to exterminate humanity to save the other forms of life on the planet. Smaller spheres start emerging all around the world - presumably they were here all along, or had slipped past our defences - and creatures of all kinds start heading into them. Watching human scientists deduce: "it's an ark!" Helen then sets up said meeting with Dr Barnhardt.
- Score: this is where the 2008 story breaks down. So they've been here all along? So they intend to exterminate us anyway: it's a foregone conclusion? So what possible purpose does Klaatu's public arrival in Central Park serve? Deuce.
- 1951: Klaatu meets Barnhardt, points out the errors in his life's work and agrees on plan B - he will address a meeting a world scientists and thinkers.
- 2008: Klaatu meets Barnhardt, points out the errors in his life's work and agrees that maybe humanity deserves a second chance - he will call off the extermination, if he can.
- Score: here the new version actually improves on the original. Part of that is the surprise choice of actor for Barnhardt who plays the role completely straight; part of it is the convincing meeting of minds; part of it is that some shots and dialogue are lifted directly from 1951, but reworked. The ease with which Klaatu is persuaded to call of the extermination, however, robs it of a point. It would have been a pretty weighty, well-thought-out decision in the first place and so not something to be randomly overthrown by a field worker. So, score steady at deuce.
- 1951: Klaatu is betrayed to the authorities by Helen's irritating boyfriend. Shot and killed, but not before giving Helen the famous instruction that should Gort go on the rampage, the words “Klaatu barada nikto” will calm him down again.
- 2008: Klaatu is betrayed by Helen's even more irritating stepson. Nice one!
- Score: Advantage 2008.
- 1951: Gort goes on the rampage. Helen calms him down with the safe phrase. He retrieves Klaatu's body and, back in the ship, manages to bring him back to life.
- 2008: Gort goes on the rampage and begins the extermination, for no particular reason except perhaps irritation with the humans who keep trying to blow him up or take samples out of him.
- Score: Nice visuals - new-Gort dissolves into a storm of nanobots that destroy anything artificial, and which goes on a rampage across the US. But it still raises the question - why now? Why not the moment he landed? Deuce.
- 1951: Klaatu addresses his meeting. We're under observation, and the powers that be are worried about us. If we keep on as we're going, they'll step in and destroy us. Oh, and Gort, who we've all assumed is Klaatu's servant? Actually it's the other way round. He's one of a corps of galactic peacekeepers. Don't make them angry. Bye!
- 2008: Klaatu's human body is destroyed getting back to his sphere, a victim of the nanobots, but he still manages to call off the attack. The sphere takes off. It's all over.
- Score: Pathetic ending. Advantage 1951.
- 1951: The Day the Earth Stood Still: this actually occurs earlier, but I put it here for ease of comparison. Barnhardt persuades Klaatu that we could do with a demo of his power, so he arranges for (almost) every electrical device on the face of the planet to come to a halt. For 30 minutes, 12-12.30 eastern seaboard time. Crucially, that "almost" does not include hospitals, aircraft in flight … it's a benign but terrifying demonstration of his total superiority, and of course it just convinces certain parties that he Must Be Destroyed.
- 2008: The Day the Earth Stood Still: the price for humanity's continued existence is that the EMP that disables the Gort-swarm also disables all electrical devices on the face of the planet, presumably for good.
- Score: So, hundreds of thousands have already been killed by Gort, millions more will die of starvation and humanity is knocked back to the Stone Age. But look on the bright side - the race survives, Earth abides, and bratty stepson finally accepts stepmother as his new mum! Gee, thanks so much. Game very definitely 1951.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
A vampire that doesn't suck
I could never be or have been J.K. Rowling or Stephanie Meyer, because it honestly would never occur to me to write a novel about teenage wizards or vampires. Not having completely sold out on my early ideals (yet, give it time) I try to make each novel different, and as far as I'm concerned everything that can be said or done about either genre has been said and done. What I've read of Rowling and heard of Meyer only confirms this opinion.
I will admit this could potentially backfire because it means I could never have written John Ajvide Lindqvist's Låt Den Rätte Komma In / Let the Right One In either, which is a vampire novel and a bloody good one and everyone ought to read it. Or failing that, watch the movie, which I've just done and which sticks pretty close to the book though loses some of the subplots and depth.
Not that it particularly says anything new - it owes too much to Interview with the Vampire for that - but it says it very well. Much more Ingmar Bergman than Neil Jordan. That novel featured Claudia, a little girl who was vampirised at an early age and thus fated to be a child-shaped immortal with a taste for blood. It followed the consequences of this idea through with remorseless logic. Similar set-up here, except that even as a human Claudia was a brat, and Eli is actually quite pleasant. Yes, innocent people must die to feed Eli's unfortunate habit, because if s/he (the gender is ambiguous in the novel, less so in the movie) takes any nutrition from source then the source must be killed or become vampirised themselves. Eli didn't ask to be made into a blood sucking monster, but since that is the hand that fate has dealt ... The logic is followed through just as remorselessly, but because Eli is fundamentally sympathetic, the triumph of the novel and film is that we understand. We're rooting for Eli.
It's satisfyingly bleak and Swedish and so we can thank our lucky stars Hollywood never picked it up. In fact, Hollywood couldn't pick it up. Hollywood simply could not produce a movie which climaxes with a gang of twelve-year-old bullies being dismembered. The vampire would have to pay for it. Or, the bullies would have had to have done something truly evil to deserve their fate. Or at the very least, make them older. No, they're just bullies, faces cherubic and voices unbroken, and no, the vampire doesn't pay for it.
Eli does it because she's protecting her friend, Oskar, a lonely, alienated boy of 12. And Oskar would rather go along with a creature who can't help the fact that people must die for her to live, rather than the human bullies who may be small children but were there entirely by choice.
And, being 12, Oskar can't help pushing his luck, like deliberately making Eli demonstrate exactly what happens if you do enter without permission.
I've barely begun to scratch the surface. Read Roger Ebert's review, and either watch the movie for the story-lite (e.g. missing out on exactly how Eli became a vampire, and her relationship with the man she lives with who gets her blood) or, best of all, read the book.
I will admit this could potentially backfire because it means I could never have written John Ajvide Lindqvist's Låt Den Rätte Komma In / Let the Right One In either, which is a vampire novel and a bloody good one and everyone ought to read it. Or failing that, watch the movie, which I've just done and which sticks pretty close to the book though loses some of the subplots and depth.
Not that it particularly says anything new - it owes too much to Interview with the Vampire for that - but it says it very well. Much more Ingmar Bergman than Neil Jordan. That novel featured Claudia, a little girl who was vampirised at an early age and thus fated to be a child-shaped immortal with a taste for blood. It followed the consequences of this idea through with remorseless logic. Similar set-up here, except that even as a human Claudia was a brat, and Eli is actually quite pleasant. Yes, innocent people must die to feed Eli's unfortunate habit, because if s/he (the gender is ambiguous in the novel, less so in the movie) takes any nutrition from source then the source must be killed or become vampirised themselves. Eli didn't ask to be made into a blood sucking monster, but since that is the hand that fate has dealt ... The logic is followed through just as remorselessly, but because Eli is fundamentally sympathetic, the triumph of the novel and film is that we understand. We're rooting for Eli.
It's satisfyingly bleak and Swedish and so we can thank our lucky stars Hollywood never picked it up. In fact, Hollywood couldn't pick it up. Hollywood simply could not produce a movie which climaxes with a gang of twelve-year-old bullies being dismembered. The vampire would have to pay for it. Or, the bullies would have had to have done something truly evil to deserve their fate. Or at the very least, make them older. No, they're just bullies, faces cherubic and voices unbroken, and no, the vampire doesn't pay for it.
Eli does it because she's protecting her friend, Oskar, a lonely, alienated boy of 12. And Oskar would rather go along with a creature who can't help the fact that people must die for her to live, rather than the human bullies who may be small children but were there entirely by choice.
And, being 12, Oskar can't help pushing his luck, like deliberately making Eli demonstrate exactly what happens if you do enter without permission.
I've barely begun to scratch the surface. Read Roger Ebert's review, and either watch the movie for the story-lite (e.g. missing out on exactly how Eli became a vampire, and her relationship with the man she lives with who gets her blood) or, best of all, read the book.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Requiem in Pisces
Jimmy, the fish who brought love and laughter into the hearts of literally some, passed away quietly during the night. He (we presume he was a he) was thought to be about 5 but his precise date of birth was never known. His owner, Bonusbarn, was described as "consolable".
Jimmy is known originally to have been part of a pair, but the other half died very soon after moving into Bonusbarn's bedroom at his old house, under circumstances that were never fully explained. When asked for his reaction, Jimmy's mouth was seen to open and close a few times but no words came out, so overcome was he with emotion.
Soon after moving in with his owner's stepfather, Jimmy moved into enlarged premises of his own, which themselves were placed in the main living room so that all his new family could enjoy his wit and wisdom, though they soon got bored waiting and went away. He spent the rest of his days quietly swimming around his bowl, being constantly amazed whenever he swam past the toy sign saying "no swimming" and composing his memoirs.
A telling tribute to his character was paid by the friends who looked after him while his adopted family went to Sweden earlier this year. At the same time his hosts were also looking after another friend's hamster, which they discovered to have a habit of horizontal projectile urination, such that they had to surround the entire cage with newspapers. "Jimmy was a much better house guest," they were heard to say.
He will lie in state until this evening, his bowl covered with clingfilm to
Monday, June 01, 2009
I will wear the green willow
Sometimes I think my childhood was just too innocent.
For instance, it was only a couple of days ago that I was listening to Steeleye Span's "All around my hat", a song about a girl staying faithful to her far, far away true love despite the attentions of a much nearer poor, deluded young man. And it contains this line:
Then I whiled away a large part of a gloriously sunny afternoon yesterday re-reading Alan Garner's Elidor. I want to get into the zone of writing children's fantasy and it's a classic, though one that left me stranded at about the age of 10. I remembered the gist of it – three brothers and a sister from sixties Manchester have to preserve the four treasures of the land of Elidor from the encroaching darkness. The darkness will only be banished for good when the Song of Findhorn, whatever or whoever that is, is heard.
It could so easily nowadays be derivative fantasy pap, but what makes it is the relationship between the kids, with their simultaneous love and bickering; the depictions of bombed out Manchester matching the desolate, blasted Elidor; and the resolutely respectable middle class Watson family, at a time when families would plan their evening TV viewing together. I remember our TV misbehaving in exactly that way, though probably not for the same reasons.
And then there is the weird stuff as Elidor starts to encroach on the Greater Manchester urban area. Trinkets in Christmas crackers bear a strange resemblance to the treasures. Household appliances start to switch themselves on, energised by the treasures' energy field (reading it now, I see that Garner brings a very scientific sensibility to his fantasy, which is added points). And two shadows on the wall gradually take on the form of armoured men, the more you look at them, and you can't help not looking at them …
Meanwhile the sister, Helen, finds a broken pot depicting a unicorn and the legend:
Oh, so that's what makeless means. Not that Garner spells it out, and I'm betting at the age of 10 I still wasn't certain. But I do wonder how many 10 year old kids in class demanded to know. "Are you makeless, Miss?"
Next stop, Garner's The Owl Service, which again left me stranded as a kid because it turned out not to be about a service either run by or providing owls.
For instance, it was only a couple of days ago that I was listening to Steeleye Span's "All around my hat", a song about a girl staying faithful to her far, far away true love despite the attentions of a much nearer poor, deluded young man. And it contains this line:
"the other night he brought me a fine diamond ringI looked at that for a while, and thought, crikey, they sung that on Crackerjack.
but he thought to have deprived me of a far better thing"
Then I whiled away a large part of a gloriously sunny afternoon yesterday re-reading Alan Garner's Elidor. I want to get into the zone of writing children's fantasy and it's a classic, though one that left me stranded at about the age of 10. I remembered the gist of it – three brothers and a sister from sixties Manchester have to preserve the four treasures of the land of Elidor from the encroaching darkness. The darkness will only be banished for good when the Song of Findhorn, whatever or whoever that is, is heard.
It could so easily nowadays be derivative fantasy pap, but what makes it is the relationship between the kids, with their simultaneous love and bickering; the depictions of bombed out Manchester matching the desolate, blasted Elidor; and the resolutely respectable middle class Watson family, at a time when families would plan their evening TV viewing together. I remember our TV misbehaving in exactly that way, though probably not for the same reasons.
And then there is the weird stuff as Elidor starts to encroach on the Greater Manchester urban area. Trinkets in Christmas crackers bear a strange resemblance to the treasures. Household appliances start to switch themselves on, energised by the treasures' energy field (reading it now, I see that Garner brings a very scientific sensibility to his fantasy, which is added points). And two shadows on the wall gradually take on the form of armoured men, the more you look at them, and you can't help not looking at them …
Meanwhile the sister, Helen, finds a broken pot depicting a unicorn and the legend:
"Save maid that is makeless no man with me mell."The kids scratch their heads over what this can mean, and get on with their lives. Then we learn that Findhorn is in fact a unicorn (not much of a surprise in my edition which showed a rearing unicorn on the cover, towering over young Roland). There is a certain minimum qualification for unicorn whispering and Helen has it.
Oh, so that's what makeless means. Not that Garner spells it out, and I'm betting at the age of 10 I still wasn't certain. But I do wonder how many 10 year old kids in class demanded to know. "Are you makeless, Miss?"
Next stop, Garner's The Owl Service, which again left me stranded as a kid because it turned out not to be about a service either run by or providing owls.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Why does "weedy" imply puny?
Anyone know what one of these is? We have several ...
I do know they propagate like anything, they have a propensity for growing in stonework, and they grow out of massive woody clusters of roots - so much so that I was very wary of pulling them out in case I brought the walls down. Seriously. So I had to make do with breaking the stems.
"On Saturday," I said carelessly to Best Beloved, "let's blitz the garden."
"Okay," she said with a confident and knowing smile. I was thinking: pull up the tall weeds, cut the grass, rake it all up. Easy.
You know our garden needs work when I, of all people, feel moved to do some, even in this kind of weather. That's the problem with shared gardens, especially ones in properties that only have 50% owner-occupance and 50% of them are probably moving soon.
I started on the taller weeds and moved down. Our garden only currently rates about 4 or 5 deciHeligans so I'm sure it could have been much worse. It also became clear it needs more than an afternoon. It's been mowed before but rarely raked. So it needs raking. Then it needs the weeds I didn't do today being pulled up. Then and only then can it be mowed, and raked again. It's going to look scrappy, but it will be short and honour will be satisfied.
I also came across this little chap nestling beneath a leaf. Not the glove, that's for scale, but what's on the glove. Perfect and untouched.
I'm not aware of any ground-nesting birds in the area, so it probably fell from a tree or got carried there. I'm reasonably sure it won't be hatching, anyway. I'm guess pigeon. Again, anyone?
I do know they propagate like anything, they have a propensity for growing in stonework, and they grow out of massive woody clusters of roots - so much so that I was very wary of pulling them out in case I brought the walls down. Seriously. So I had to make do with breaking the stems.
"On Saturday," I said carelessly to Best Beloved, "let's blitz the garden."
"Okay," she said with a confident and knowing smile. I was thinking: pull up the tall weeds, cut the grass, rake it all up. Easy.
You know our garden needs work when I, of all people, feel moved to do some, even in this kind of weather. That's the problem with shared gardens, especially ones in properties that only have 50% owner-occupance and 50% of them are probably moving soon.
I started on the taller weeds and moved down. Our garden only currently rates about 4 or 5 deciHeligans so I'm sure it could have been much worse. It also became clear it needs more than an afternoon. It's been mowed before but rarely raked. So it needs raking. Then it needs the weeds I didn't do today being pulled up. Then and only then can it be mowed, and raked again. It's going to look scrappy, but it will be short and honour will be satisfied.
I also came across this little chap nestling beneath a leaf. Not the glove, that's for scale, but what's on the glove. Perfect and untouched.
I'm not aware of any ground-nesting birds in the area, so it probably fell from a tree or got carried there. I'm reasonably sure it won't be hatching, anyway. I'm guess pigeon. Again, anyone?
Occasional recipes: fish with a chorizo crust
Originally from The Hairy Bikers, whence this is lifted with my annotations. Very rich and of course totally missing the point about eating on fish on Friday to be penitential. Anyway:
Ingredients
Ingredients
- ½ lime, juice only [half a Tesco lime produces about 3 microns of fluid. A whole lime. Much better.]
- 4 firm white fish fillets (not steaks) such as haddock, monkfish or cod
- 150g/5½oz day-old white bread, crusts removed
- 250g/9oz cured chorizo, skinned and chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, finely sliced [as usual they totally underestimate. I used 4. Minimum.]
- 1 unwaxed lime, zest only
- 2 tbsp flatleaf parsley
- 2 tbsp parmesan cheese
- ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 50g/2oz butter
- lime wedges, to serve [put another way, you need at least two limes, one to juice and zest, one to get the wedges from. I forgot this last night and only got one lime, so sacrificed the wedges. Not such a big deal, except that the bread/chorizo crust is very rich and you really need the extra lime juice to cut through it.]
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
- For the fish, pour the lime juice over the fish fillets. Leave for half an hour while you prepare the crust.
- For the crust, cut the bread into chunks and place in a roasting tin. Place the chorizo on top of the bread.
- Transfer to the oven and cook for 15 minutes. As the heat increases, the fat from the sausage will run into the bread chunks. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
- Once cool, place the bread and sausage into a blender or food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles fine crumbs [whee! They go round and round! Again!]. Add the garlic, lime zest, parsley, parmesan and freshly ground black pepper. Process again to combine the ingredients.
- Place the fish, along with the juices, skin-side down in a roasting tin. Press on a thick layer, about 0.5cm, of the crust.
- Cut the butter into small cubes and dot over the crust.
- Tightly cover the roasting tin with foil and bake the fish in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes.
- Serve with
chips or[barbarians] new potatoes and a rocket salad, and the lime wedges.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
C.S.I. Cumnor
Only 10 miles walked this weekend - we must be slipping. 4 around Watlington on Saturday to demonstrate the red kites to my parents, and 6 around Cumnor on Sunday, finishing to gaze in awe at a stone fireplace in a churchyard.
The kites obligingly went through their paces, swooping and diving and soaring like they were being paid for it. Go up Watlington Hill and you can look down on them swooping and diving etc, which is even more fun. Beautiful, fantastic birds, and even though I had exactly nothing to do with their extinction, reintroduction or subsequent success I do feel immensely proud of them.
The Cumnor fireplace is an Elizabethan crime scene, the site of a scandal that rocked England at the time. Amy Robsart, wife of the Queen's favourite Robert Dudley, fell mysteriously to her death down a staircase in Cumnor Place, after which he was not perceived to act as a grieving husband ought. Cumnor Place was pulled down in 1810 and its site is now an overflow graveyard next to the church. The fireplace is set into a bank and is all that's left of the building.
Robert may not have valued his wife that much. At the top of Watlington Hill we unexpectedly encountered what I'm guessing was a local mosque picnic, 10 or so families with the girl children already sporting headscarves on top of the usual kid attire and the women utterly featureless in full hijab. Some at least allowed to show faces, some with just the eyeslits. What the kites made of all the penguins, I don't know. Left wondering exactly what kind of culture regards women as irresistably tempting, wanton, slutty etc if they don't have everything but the eyes covered up. You can value your wife too much, too.
The kites obligingly went through their paces, swooping and diving and soaring like they were being paid for it. Go up Watlington Hill and you can look down on them swooping and diving etc, which is even more fun. Beautiful, fantastic birds, and even though I had exactly nothing to do with their extinction, reintroduction or subsequent success I do feel immensely proud of them.
The Cumnor fireplace is an Elizabethan crime scene, the site of a scandal that rocked England at the time. Amy Robsart, wife of the Queen's favourite Robert Dudley, fell mysteriously to her death down a staircase in Cumnor Place, after which he was not perceived to act as a grieving husband ought. Cumnor Place was pulled down in 1810 and its site is now an overflow graveyard next to the church. The fireplace is set into a bank and is all that's left of the building.
Robert may not have valued his wife that much. At the top of Watlington Hill we unexpectedly encountered what I'm guessing was a local mosque picnic, 10 or so families with the girl children already sporting headscarves on top of the usual kid attire and the women utterly featureless in full hijab. Some at least allowed to show faces, some with just the eyeslits. What the kites made of all the penguins, I don't know. Left wondering exactly what kind of culture regards women as irresistably tempting, wanton, slutty etc if they don't have everything but the eyes covered up. You can value your wife too much, too.
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