Salvation through science

While researching some daftness for Horrible Histories Magazine, I read up on Franciscan monk and philosopher Roger Bacon (c. 1214-1294). That led me to James Blish's 1964 novel about Bacon's life, Doctor Mirabilis  - which was hard to resist at 64p on Abebooks.

Blish conjures a muddy, murky thirteenth century, full of injustice and cruelty. In the first chapter, young Roger is robbed of his inheritance and in the next he is set upon by robbers. There are plenty of dangers, too, in the politics of the age: the shadow cast by Magna Carta on Henry III, his negotiations with Simon de Montfort, and the power of the Catholic Church in England - waxing and waning through a series of popes.

Power is precarious - Roger and those around him fall in and out of favour, and at one point Roger's life seems ruined when a particular mentor dies. Blish is good at showing how even those in authority are constantly under threat. That's sometimes economics, such as this aside on castles:

"a work of Norman design cannot simply be maintained, it must be constantly under construction, otherwise it falls down almost at once."

James Blish,  Doctor Mirabilis, p. 166.

Along the way, there are plenty of fun historical references. For example, hearing of some "vanished" money, Roger sees that story-tellers are already embroidering the legend of a dead man:

"It's said this was more of Robin of Sherwood's doings; the harpers will not let that poor highwayman rest at his crossroads."

Ibid., p. 64.

Still, the historical setting is quite hard work to begin with. That's largely down to Blish's decision, discussed in his foreword, over how to depict the languages of the time:

"As for the English, I have followed two rules. (1) Where the characters are speaking Middle English, I have used a synthetic speech which roughly preserves Middle English syntax, one of its central glories, but makes little attempt to follow its metrics or its vocabulary (and certainly not its spelling, which was catch-as-catch-can). (2) Where they are speaking French or Latin, which is most of the time, I have used modern English, except to indicate whether the familiar or the polite form of 'you' is being employed, a system which cause no trouble."

Ibid., p. 16.

I'm not sure what suddenly made the going seem easier: that Roger starts to converse more in modern English or I just got used to the archaic bits. Worse, though, is Blish's decision to quote at length from the primary sources.

"The reader may wonder why I have resorted here and there to direct quotations in Latin ... The reason is that these exceptions, these ideas and opinions written down seven centuries ago, might otherwise have been suspected of being a twentieth-century author's interpolations."

Ibid., p. 15.

It's all very laudable to cite the sources faithfully, but it excluded me from what was being said. Ironically, in the novel one character notes the limits of Latin for sharing knowledge:

"That precisely is why Latin is only spuriously a universal language, friar Bacon. It is never spoken to women any more. Women are confined to the vernacular, whatever that may be. On this account alone, Latin is dying."

Ibid., p. 199.

Bacon - always a bit behind when it comes to women - fails to understand the point. I think Blish may miss it, too, as surely his readers are also confined to the vernacular.

The Latin is especially taxing in Chapters V and X, where Roger must defend his theories against rivals. For pages they bicker in bits of quoted Latin before Roger wins,  but without footnotes or translation, I couldn't follow the argument. That's fundamental, because the book is all about the importance of the argument reasoned from evidence, regardless of who "wins".

Blish says he based his account of Roger on Stewart C Easton's Roger Bacon and his Search for a Universal Science (Columbia, 1952), which he describes as,

"a guide to everything about Roger which pretends to be factual, even encyclopedia articles and the scrappiest of pamphlets."

Ibid., p. 318.

He also addresses the legend surrounding Bacon - which, he says, Easton ignores.

"Roger Bacon ... was a scientist in the primary sense of that word - he thought like one, and indeed defined this kind of thinking as we now understand it. It is of no importance that the long list of 'inventions' attributed to him by the legend - spectacles, the telescope, the diving bell, and half a hundred others - cannot be supported; this part of the legend, which is quite recent, evolves out of the notion that Roger could be made to seem more wonderful if he could be shown to be a thirteenth-century Edison or Luther Burbank, holding a flask up to the light and crying, 'Eureka!' This is precisely what he was not. Though he performed thousands of experiments, most of which he describes in detail, hardly any of them were original, and so far as we know he never invented a single gadget; his experiments were tests of principles, and as such were almost maddeningly repetitious, as significant experiments remain to this day - a fact always glossed over by popularizations of scientific method, in which the experiments, miraculously, always work the first time, and the importance of negative results is never even mentioned. There is, alas, nothing dramatic about patience, but it was Roger, not Sir Francis [Bacon] who erected it into a principle: 'Neither the voice of authority, nor the weight of reason and argument are as significant as experiment, for thence comes quiet to the mind.' (De erroribus medicorum.)"

Ibid., p. 315.

The old system that Roger was part of as a Franciscan monk and which he broke away from was neatly explained by James Burke in his 1985 series The Day the Universe Changed. He discussed how monks copied ancient texts - copying even the errors in typography rather than challenging the handed-down word. The works of Aristotle and other ancient philosophers, and the study of nature itself, were either proofs of a Christian order of being or strictly forbidden as heresy.

"The whole monastic experience was a bit like jumping into bed and pulling the blankets over your head. It was a mystic experience - unreal. And it all still, hundreds of years after the fall of Rome, looked back to an age of greatness that was gone for ever. Everything these people knew - and this is extraordinary for us to grasp in our world - everything they knew was old".

James Burke, "In the Light of Reason", The Day the Universe Changed, 20 October 1985.

A key moment in Blish's book is when Roger decides not to write an introduction or commentary on a pre-existing text, but a whole new book based on his own experiments. Later, he develops a theory of what is so often wrong with inherited knowledge:

"Since the days of revelation, in fact, the same four corrupting errors had been made over and over again: submission to faulty and unworthy authority; submission to what it was customary to believe; submission to the prejudices of the mob; and worst of all, concealment of ignorance by a false show of unheld knowledge, for no better reason than pride."

Blish, p. 246.

Doctor Mirabilis is, then, a novel about the struggle to make sound scientific progress. Amid the grumbles, there are complaints that seem familiar today. There's the battle over knowledge being used as a commodity to be bought and traded. One Italian laments the shortage of ancient texts available to buy because they're being bought up for private collections. He blames this on the Romans.

"Our imperial ancestors invented few new vices, but private art collecting seems to have been their own authentic discovery. It would hardly have been possible to the Greeks ... Why, it was the old Romans who wrote into law the principle that the man who owned a painting, for example, was the man who owned the board it was painted on, not the artist; and the same with manuscripts. Private collecting really began with that, because it made it possible for a man to become wealthy without having done any of the work involved, simply by saving the board until the painting on it became valuable."

Ibid., p. 196.

But while we might recognise much of Roger's struggles to produce good work under difficult circumstances, his is a very different world to ours. His adventures are bound in the struggles to find appropriate patrons and mentors, or with the difficulties of developing his ideas when he doesn't have enough parchment. So much of his work depends on permissions from people who can't understand his work, or the Catch-22 of needing his work copied but knowing the copyists will pirate it.

Four pages before the end, there's a revealing line about what the aged and exhausted Roger thinks his life's work has been about:

"the final statement of the case for salvation through science".

Ibid. p. 308.

Despite his revolution in thought, he's still a product of the theocracy of his time. In fact, the book often uses the fact that we're ahead of Roger in our scientific understanding.

For example, on page 86 Roger is in London staying in a foul-smelling room that makes him sick over the bedclothes. The candles burn with slightly blue flames - which he attributes to a demon, and wonders how a demon can appear without escaping from Hell. Having plugged the window with his dirty bedclothes so as to be rid of the smell, he goes off to court. When he comes back, he enters the sealed room with a lit torch - and there's an explosion. We understand what's happened: there's gas, in a contained environment. But Bacon struggles to make the cognitive leap as he thinks about repeating what happened:

"Perhaps, if he sealed the room... and thrust a torch in it after... Clearly there was some connection, but Roger could not grasp it."

Ibid., p. 92.

The court then tries to use the "earthquake" to suggest God is unhappy with what King Henry's up to. The embryonic science is quickly lost to the politics and the threat of revolt.

But this juxtaposition - the familiarity of the science, the strangeness of the world - is what makes the book work so well. Part of what makes Roger's efforts so compelling is the constant threat of torture or incarceration, and how much depends on the whims of those in power - and how long they remain there. But it's also more personal than that: Roger must wrestle with his own conscience, and with an inner voice that sometimes suggests he is a man possessed.

That Roger's is a true story means we don't expect it to end happily, but also makes what he did achieve all the more amazing. Blish says in his note at the end of the book that it,

"would be hard to find any branch of modern science which was not influenced by Roger's theoretical scheme",

but that its slow-working nature meant much it didn't fit the needs of a novel. He then cites some examples of things he couldn't include, such as that,

"the whole tissue of the space-time continuum of general relativity is a direct descendant of Roger's assumption, in De multiplicatione specierum and elsewhere, that the universe has a metrical frame, and that mathematics thus is in some important sense real, and not just a useful exercise."

A footnote explains this extraordinary claim at greater length:

"I have quoted part of Roger's reasoning on this point in Chapter XII, but there is really no way short of another book to convey the flamboyancy of this logical jump, which spans seven centuries without the faintest sign of effort. The most astonishing thing about it, perhaps, is its casualness; what Roger begins to talk about is the continuum of action, an Aristotle commonplace in his own time, but within a few sentences he has invented - purely for the sake of argument - the luminiferous ether which so embroiled the physics of the nineteenth century, and only a moment later throws the notion out in favour of the Einsteinean metrical frame, having in the process completely skipped over Galilean relativity and the inertial frames of Newton. Nothing in the tone of the discussion entitles the reader to imagine that Roger was here aware that he was making a revolution - or in fact creating a series of them; the whole performance is even-handed and sober, just one more logical outcome of the way he customarily thought. It was that way of thinking, not any specific theory, that he invented; the theory of theories as tools."

Ibid., p. 316.

One last point: Doctor Mirabilis is all set in the 13th century. There are no robots or spaceships, aliens or technology, and it's all based on historical sources. And yet on the back cover, just above the price, the book is marked "Science Fiction".

That seems odd - especially given that the back cover also quotes praise from the Sunday Telegraph for this "historical novel". So why the label of sci-fi?

The back cover also says that Doctor Mirabilis is part of a "thematic trilogy", with two books that seem more explicitly sci-fi (A Case of Conscience is about a priest visiting an alien world) or fantasy (in Black Easter, in which black magic summons Satan into the world. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction provides more information:

"After Such Knowledge poses a question once expressed by Blish as: 'Is the desire for secular knowledge, let alone the acquisition and use of it, a misuse of the mind, and perhaps even actively evil?' This is one of the fundamental themes of sf, and is painstakingly explored in Doctor Mirabilis, an historical novel which treats the life of the thirteenth-century scientist and theologian Roger Bacon. It deals with the archetypal sf theme of Conceptual Breakthrough from one intellectual model of the Universe to another, more sophisticated model."

Peter Nicholls, "Blish, James", The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 15 January 2014.

I think that's stretching definitions a bit far: surely a conceptual breakthrough is not exclusive to science-fiction. I don't think Doctor Mirabilis does count as sci-fi. I can see why its publishers thought it would appeal to fans of Blish's other, more sf books and fans of science-fiction more generally, but I suspect that a publisher wouldn't do that now. I can think of too many people who'd be intrigued by this novel but would never venture into dark corner of a bookshop where the fat books about robots are found.

Don't popular science and the history of scientific ideas have a much broader appeal today than they did in the 80s (when this edition was published)? And isn't that a sign of our own recent revolution of thought?

Poirot's first case

Tonight, ITV shows Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, bringing to an end the series of adaptations starring David Suchet. Until last month I'd never read any Agatha Christie, but – prompted by Lucy's Worsley's history of British murder – I got my wise chum Robert Dick to recommend some. He had me start at the very beginning...

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) was Christie's first published novel and marked the first appearance of Hercule Poirot.

“Poirot was an extraordinary-looking little man. He was hardly more than five feet four inches, but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on side. His moustache was very stiff and military. The neatness of his attire was almost as incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police. As a detective, his flair had been extraordinary, and he had achieved triumphs by unravelling some of the most baffling cases of the day.”

Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), p. 23.

For a character Christie would still have appearing in new adventures more than 50 years later, it's striking that in this first appearance he's already “old” (p.59). [By The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), Poirot has retired.]

The novel is set during World War One – so our first encounter with Poirot is soon after Sherlock Holmes' last bow. In fact, Poirot is compared to Holmes on page 11. Poirot is a refugee living with other Belgians in a small English village, but the story is narrated by another detective, Captain Hastings.

Hastings is an unreliable narrator, often wrong in judging character or making sense of clues – yet honest in his account about that wrongness. The effect of this dual assessment of each detail – by Hastings and by Poirot – is to encourage us as readers to play along. The text reproduces a map, a fragment of charred paper and a facsimile of the handwriting found on an envelope to help us play detective.

Just as in the Holmes stories, Poirot gives lessons in the deductive arts.

“Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.”

Ibid., p. 80. 

“Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory – let the theory go.”

Ibid., p. 82.

“Real evidence is usually vague and unsatisfactory. It has to be examined – sifted. But here the whole thing is cut and dried. No, my friend, this evidence has been very cleverly manufactured – so cleverly that it has defeated its own ends.”

Ibid., p. 103. 

He's a strange little man, fussy and fastidious, straightening other people's ties and tie pins. It's this attention to detail – and to tiny incongruities – that makes him so good at nabbing crooks. But Poirot is not entirely in control: as the tension of the case affects him, he builds houses from playing cards to steady his nerves (p. 178). Then, when given a last, essential piece of evidence, he kisses Hastings on the cheeks and rushes off - scandalously “hatless” (p. 179).

Though Hastings often has fun at Poirot's expense and describes him looking ridiculous, he also greatly respects him and his methods. For much of the book he – and we – struggle to keep up with Poirot's “little grey cells”. Poirot can also have fun Hastings' expense, too:

“'Yes, he is intelligent. But we must be more intelligent. We must be so intelligent that he does not suspect us of being intelligent at all.' ...

There had been times when when I hardly thought that Poirot appreciated me at my true worth.

'Yes,' he continued., staring at me thoughtfully, 'you will be invaluable.' This was naturally gratifying...”

Ibid., p. 124.

Towards the end, there's quite a surprise when Poirot becomes the man of action:

“A chair was overturned. Poirot skipped nimbly aside. A quick movement on his part, and his assailant fell with a crash.”

Ibid., p. 190.

Yet there's little depth to Poirot: he's a series of fussy ticks. We learn very little about him or his background other than that he's highly thought of by the police in his own country; we don't even know the names or relationships of the other Belgians he's living with. His mannerisms – his way of slipping into French mid-sentence – make him a caricature.

This is also true of the other characters populating the story – wild young things, maiden aunts and bounders, larking about round a stately home. In fact, with posh, hapless Hastings narrating it reminded me most of all of a Wodehouse farce, only with a murder. There's little sense of reality; the death doesn't seem to affect anyone more than being a interesting puzzle.

In some cases, that light caricature becomes more sinister. One red herring concerns a spy, who Poirot refers to as “a Jew of course” (p.147) – then defends him for being a “patriot”, because, the detective appears to think, though the man in question has been naturalised for 15 years he cannot really be an Englishman. The suggestion is not of one bad Jew; it's all of them.

The ending, neatly, comes as a surprise when the murderer is exposed as someone we thought had been ruled out earlier on. Poirot then delights in explaining how the puzzle fits together, and there's a light-hearted ending as he promises that Hastings might get the better of him next time. The parlour game is over, though the implication is that the murderer will now hang.

It's fun and ingenious but I felt a little unsatisfied – even a little disturbed – that that is all it is.

Robert's next recommendation was The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Dylan and Doyle

I had a lovely weekend in Swansea as the guest of the Dylan Thomas Centre for their Doctor Who Day on Saturday. Saw lots of chums, my friend Chris arrived with a huge box of tiffin, and I got to meet Annette Woollett - who played Adelaide in Horror of Fang Rock.

As well as getting us to witter on about our typing, event co-ordinator Leslie was keen to find a connection between Dylan (the locals all seem to call him "Dylan", not "Thomas", which I found shockingly over-familiar) and Doctor Who. We managed to argue that the series has plenty of poetic language and a poetic sensibility for seeing the everyday from a new perspective... Then there was pizza and whisky.

Despite knowing better than to attempt trains on a Sunday, I plodded slowly home yesterday via diversions and delays, but had a nice old natter with Matthew Kilburn and got some typing done. Then, because there were more diversions and delays in London, I took a scenic route and so passed the house in Tennison Road where Arthur Conan-Doyle lived at the time he killed Sherlock Holmes.

Arthur-Conan Doyle's house
in Tennison Road, south London

Blue plaque on Arthur Conan-Doyle's house

The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin

Years ago, Gareth Roberts recommended me The Moving Toyshop, written by Edmund Crispin in 1946; I've only just got round to reading it. As Gareth said, it's brilliant: a comic murder-mystery with the feel of The Avengers. I would not be surprised to discover that it was a huge influence on Douglas Adams (especially his Professor Chronotis stories) and Jonathan Creek.

Poet Richard Cadogan finds the dead body of a woman in a toyshop in Oxford, but when he returns with the police the toyshop is not there: instead, the building is a grocer's - and there is no sign of a body. The police assume Richard has made a mistake, so Richard calls his old friend Gervase Fen, Professor of English Language and Literature - and amateur sleuth. What follows is effectively a series of chases, with rich characters playing literary games as they dodge and weave through the arcane twists of the plot. It's a joyous, witty read and the wildest occurrences all turn out to have perfectly logical explanations.

At the end of the book, we learn that "the moving toyshop" is a term from The Rape of the Lock by Pope - a poet referred to earlier in the book in one of the many literary jokes. Rather than investigate the mystery, the police want to discuss Measure for Measure with Fen, who - whenever there's a pause - likes to play games listing unreadable books or bad plays. Crispin pokes fun at Philip Larkin (to whom the book is also dedicated), and even at himself and his chronicling of Fen's adventures.

The light humour neatly plays against moments of darkness and horror: the details of the murders, the shooting of a dog, even the jaded view of Oxford, full of arbitrary rules and abuses. The book's also packed with memorable set pieces: as well as the great gag of the moving toyshop itself, there are scenes in a dodgy old cinema, a college chapel where it's important that men and women use different doors, and a part of the river reserved for nude bathing. Wikipedia even claims - with little hard evidence - that,

"The book provided the source for the famous merry-go-round sequence at the climax of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. All the major elements of the scene — the two men struggling, the accidentally shot attendant, the out-of-control merry-go-round, the crawling under the moving merry-go-round to disable it — are present in Crispin's account, though Crispin received no screen credit for it."

"The Moving Toyshop", Wikipedia, retrieved 26 September 2013.

I had some quibbles: one character is dismissed as a suspect solely on the basis that she's a pretty young thing and not overly bright. She's one of only two women to have much of a speaking role in the whole book; another woman appears briefly being chatted up, and two other women are found dead.

Also striking is an archaic use of "slut". One character has:

"a daily slut who came to cook his meals and make a pretense of cleaning ... The slut, after a day occupied mainly with drinking stout and reading a novelette in the sitting-room, returned to her own house at eight o'clock."

Edmund Crispin, The Moving Toyshop (1946), p. 186.

But this is a delight of a book, and I'm thrilled to learn Fen has several more adventures...

Doctor Who: 1986

After episode 653 (The Trial of a Time Lord, part fourteen)
18 December 1986
<< back to 1985

The Doctor on trial again
Tomorrow's World, 18 December 1986

On 6 December 1986, the Doctor was found not-guilty by a jury of his peers in the final - and fourteenth - episode of The Trial of a Time Lord. Twelve days later he faced a new challenge on BBC One, the Tomorrow's World Christmas quiz.

Broadcast live in prime time, it pitted the Doctor, astronomer Heather Couper and Neil Cossons, then director of the Science Museum, against the studio audience, trying to guess the purpose of a bunch of new gadgets. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube but for a flavour of the tone, here's how presenter Howard Stableford introduced our hero:

HOWARD:
The nominated captain of our expert panel is Colin Baker, Doctor Who. Good of you to find the right time to join us.

DR. WHO:
It's nice to be back again because I was on the 50,000th edition when the TARDIS - the prototype - was shown.

HOWARD:
Was I still on the show?

DR. WHO:
No you were pensioned off.

HOWARD:
Replaced, was I?

This achingly BBC banter feels a bit odd when we know that Colin Baker was in the midst of being replaced. He'd been told that his contract as Doctor Who was not to be renewed some six weeks earlier on 29 October, between the broadcasts of parts eight and nine of Trial of a Time Lord. That news seems to have been reported in the press in early December, just before the quiz was broadcast (though I've not found a source).

Doctor Who's producer still hoped Baker would appear in one more story to hand over to his successor: four days after the Tomorrow's World quiz, he commissioned that story and the writers,

"were asked to write their scripts for the Sixth Doctor and include a climactic regeneration sequence ... Any hope of Colin Baker appearing in Strange Matter was lost on January 6th, 1987, when the first installment of an interview with the actor appeared in The Sun. In it, Baker expressed regret at his dismissal from Doctor Who, and spoke scathingly of BBC1 Controller Michael Grade."

Shannon Sullivan, A Brief History of Time (Travel) - Time and the Rani

The Tomorrow's World quiz was Colin's last appearance as the "current" Doctor.

Colin wasn't sacked but the decision not to renew his contract seems like a judgment on his time in the series. The show was in trouble - it had been taken off the air for 18 months in 1985, and then Trial was not brilliantly received by the public - but that was hardly his fault. As the star, he was just the most visible, recognisible person in the frame.

How much control or choice does a Doctor have over the show? We know David Tennant said no to a story set inside JK Rowling's head. Patrick Troughton battled the production team about the burden of the production schedule and got shorter episodes in his final season. Jon Pertwee had the original actress cast as Sarah Jane Smith replaced. In each case, that Doctor had been in the role for some years which gave their opinions more weight.

But generally, interviews with Doctors suggest that while they might have set the tone in the rehearsal rooms and while filming, and put cast and crew at ease, they didn't have the time or clout to affect the programme being made. They weren't involved in commissioning or editing scripts, or the tone or direction of the series. Perhaps their biggest say over their time in the progamme is what they wore as the Doctor; Colin didn't even have that. Few - the Second, Fifth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors - got to choose when they left the series.

That's not to say they were victims. The Doctors all clearly worked very hard to make the most of the material. Like most actors, they'd query their characters motives, reactions and dialogue. They might have rephrased lines, added jokes or asked what the emphasis should have been, or what their character knew or was thinking at a particular moment. Some incredible moments in the series are the result of an actor playing against the apparent meaning of the lines, or playing them in an unexpected way.

So I'm not arguing that actors should necessarily have more say and involvement in the material they appear in. It's not a bad thing in principle, just not always practical - or desired. Rather, I'm interested in the trust that has to exist between the lead actor(s) and those running a show. I've worked on productions where actors haven't liked or understood what we were making, but threw themselves into it anyway (usually after I'd listened to their doubts and tried to answer their questions). The key thing is the right kind of open, creative environment where people can ask questions and suggest improvements, but whoever's in charge has the final say and keeps everything on course.

That clearly wasn't happening at the end of Colin's time in the show: the producer and script-editor - the "showrunners" at the time - weren't talking, the latter left after an argument and the final episode he wrote was dumped in favour of something else. In the confusion, Colin was left asking fundamental questions about his final story - how much of what we see on screen is a lie, how much has the Doctor turned evil and is his companion really dead? It's bad enough that he had to ask, but I think the answers given in each case were the ones needing least effort to work in, not that made a better story.

All he could do - all any actor could do - was show willing and make the best of what he was handed. He did, and lost his job.

Doctor Who continued with a new actor in the lead, a new script-editor behind the scenes and a new, lighter touch. I've heard people wonder how the series might have been if Colin had stayed on. His work for Big Finish has been extraordinary, reinventing the Sixth Doctor, making him quite brilliant. But if he'd stayed in the role back then?

I think we can tell. Watch him in the Tomorrow's World quiz: smart, benign, trading terrible jokes with good humour. Making the best of it anyway.

Next episode: 1987

Doctor Who: 1985

Episode 630: Vengeance on Varos, part two
First broadcast: 5.20 pm, Saturday 26 January 1985
<< back to 1984

The Doctor rescues Peri - doesn't he?
Vengeance on Varos, part two

I used to be terrified of Doctor Who - or at least some of it. As I've said already, it was always (or always seemed) a serious, adult show full of things I didn't understand and content unsuitable for an impressionable small boy.

In 1982, after Kinda - and the Mara lurking in Tegan's dreams - I had nightmares. The following year, there were more, the result of the Mara returning in Snakedance and David Collings' chilling performance in Mawdryn Undead.

I didn't tell anyone: I feared if my parents knew they wouldn't let me watch the programme. And it wasn't that every story led to nightmares. Monsters, generally, didn't scare me - I've never been very squeamish. The death of Adric or the Black Guardian's control of Turlough were thrilling but not scary.

When I got through Season 21 (in 1984) without a sleepless night, I thought I'd achieved something, that I was growing up and out of nightmares. So it was a bit of a shock when the following year Vengeance on Varos utterly terrified me.

The whole story is deliciously horrid. Sil is a brilliantly grotesque creation, giggling as he orders yet more outlandish tortures. And yet the thing that really got in my head is the briefest moment.

Peri and Areta are subjected to an experimental process to amuse the viewing public. As Quillam is all too eager to explain:

QUILLAM:
The nuclear bombardment beams release all the power latent in the recipient's mind. If the changelings see themselves as unworthy, they can become serpentine or reptilian. [Peri], for instance, must wish to fly away from trouble as would a bird.

It's the word "unworthy" that really got me: as if transforming was the victim's fault. If you're not good enough, the machine finds your secret fears and then uses them to change what you look like.

But it wasn't the process that turned Peri into a bird that bothered me so much as the Doctor coming to her rescue. We see her change back to her human self and the Doctor rushes over:

DOCTOR:
I am the Doctor and you are Peri. Perpugilliam Brown.

PERI:
Peri.

DOCTOR:
It's a question of re-imprinting their identities, of establishing again who they are.

JONDAR:
Wake up, Areta. Come on!

DOCTOR:
Can you walk, Peri? Come on, try.

PERI:
I thought I could fly.

There's a hint that she's not back to normal, that for all it looks as if the process has been reversed, inside her head she's still a bird. That's what terrified me and led to nightmares - because the Doctor's too busy trying to escape to notice.

It was only when the story came out on video in 1993 that I saw it again and realised the moment that so terrified me, that I'd kept in my head for years, didn't really happen. Peri doesn't say "I can fly", only that she had thought that she could. She's fine, if confused and exhausted. There is no permanent damage.

I'd taken something in the story and spun it out into something of my own, as if just to scare myself further. The nightmares were a creative act. Once I realised that, I could see it was also true of the other stories that scared me. I'd invented new stories for the Mara, appearing in places I knew in real life such as my school and the fields where we walked our dog. With Mawdryn Undead, there's a brief time when Nyssa and Tegan think Mawdryn might be a regenerated Doctor and I fixed on the idea he had regenerated, in pain, on his own - something that's barely suggested in the episode.

I'm fascinated by how people respond to and take ownership of Doctor Who - telling their own stories, making films and documentaries, dressing up, or looking for work in the industry. David Tennant became an actor because of his love for Doctor Who. Though my favourite version of this is that Dr Marek Kukula pursued an academic career in astrophysics because he wanted to be Leela.

Oh, and that thing of Peri being transformed but the Doctor not noticing? In 2002 I used that as the basis for my first ever professionally published bit of fiction, a Doctor Who short story called "The Switching".

Next episode: 1986

Freedom, dignity and drones

I've been reading BF Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971), which argues for a "technology of behaviour" or "cultural engineering". That sounds like the sort of thing that might feature in a sci-fi dystopia - which is chiefly why I've been reading it.

In some ways, Skinner's book reads as a chillingly impersonal manifesto for more control by the state or scientific elite over how we're brought up, arguing that much of our behaviour is simply a response to the conditions around us. In the nature/nurture debate, such a hot topic at the time, it's firmly on the side of the nurture.

Yet it's less about what should actually be done than it is how we think about improving behaviour. If we can only get beyond outdated ideas such as "free will" and autonomy, Skinner argues, we might finally progress.

I've found it by turns fascinating and frustrating, and it's often hard to tell when Skinner's examples are the results of scientifically rigorous experiment or just things he thinks to be true. But every so often there's a passage that stands out, such as this on the conflict between dignity and freedom.

"From time to time, advances in physical and biological technology have seemed to threaten worth or dignity when Medical science has reduced the need to suffer in silence and the chance to be admired for doing so. Fireproof buildings leave no room for brave firemen, or safe ships for brave sailors, or safe airplanes for brave pilots. The modern dairy barn has no place for a Hercules. When exhausting and dangerous work is no longer required, those who are hard-working and brave seem merely foolish.

The literature of dignity conflicts here with the literature of freedom, which favors a reduction in aversive features of daily life, as by making behavior less arduous, dangerous, or painful, but a concern for personal worth sometimes triumphs over freedom from aversive stimulation - for example, when, quite apart from medicinal issues, painless childbirth is not as readily accepted as painless dentistry. A military expert, J.F.C. Fuller, has written: 'The highest military rewards are given for bravery and not for intelligence, and the introduction of any novel weapon which detracts from individual prowess is met with opposition'."

BF Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971), p. 56.
(Fuller is apparently from "an article on 'Tactics', Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th edn.")

I find myself instinctively wanting to counter this thesis. Yet surely that last point is at the heart of discussions about the morality of using the atomic bomb at the end of World World Two (see my post on Codename Downfall - The Secret Plan to Invade Japan). It might also help explain why the use of remote drones seems so particularly wrong. The argument is often used against them that they kill civilian women and children as much as they do enemy combatants, but that can also be true of using soldiers. Is the problem more that drones, by reducing risk to our soldiers, make it too distastefully easy?

I'm not convinced but I find myself puzzling over that when I should be building my dystopia. As so often, I post it here to clear it out of my head.

The Thin Man

This week, I finished Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man (1932), a gripping, twisty thriller in which a former detective comes back to New York and gets caught up in a murder investigation involving people he once worked for. It's a brilliant, clever and funny book - and though I saw the ending some miles off, the delight is as much in how Hammett gets there as what that ending is.

His is a broken world, where pretty much everyone is flawed and/or broken. Our hero, Nick Charles, is a hard-drinking cynic, who can spot the threads of the mystery only because he's got such a jaded view of humanity. He's usually one step ahead of the other reprobates in the story - the drunks and hoodlums, the bullying cops and wild children - and his only reward is to get roughed up and shot. Women can't help falling in love with him - or are they throwing themselves at him in exchange for something else?

Nick keeps telling people he's no longer a detective and that he's not taken the case, but the more he insists the less people believe him. Besides, his wife Nora is fascinated in the unravelling gossip and scandal, and it's Christmas - so they spend their whole time being invited to drinks with the people who are involved.

Nora's a fascinating character - the only nice person in the whole story. I absolutely love her reaction at the end as Nick finally spells out the mystery - she gets the last line of the book:

"'That may be,' Nora said, 'but it's all pretty unsatisfactory.'"

Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man (1932), p. 190.

There are all sorts of stylist flourishes. A lot of the time, Nick plays dumb, refusing to say what he thinks is going on or what he thinks of particular people - "I don't know" could be his catchphrase - which means we're all the more eager to get inside his head. The first few chapters are all very short - many no more than two pages - which really helps us get caught up in the story. The dialogue is sparky and sassy, and often gets interrupt-

Which makes the scenes feel frenetic. In some ways, the rickety-click of the dialogue and the revelations give it the feel of a bedroom farce, only with brutal murders and psychosis. It's easy to see why Hammett's work made such good movies. (As well as straight adaptations, his influence can be seen in films such as Yojimbo and Millers Crossing (one of my favourite ever films). My chum Eddie Robson writes about that in his excellent Coen brothers book.)

The Thin Man is not the best of Hammett's five novels - that, I think, is Red Harvest (1929), followed by The Maltese Falcon (1930). But it's clever, concise and compelling adventure - and a masterclass in writing a thriller.

The Wedding of James Bond

The tenth James Bond novel, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963) begins with Bond revisiting the scene of the first – the casino from Casino Royale. On a winning streak, he pays off the debt of a pretty girl, who then invites him up to her room. This is Tracy – soon to be Mrs James Bond.

Bond's first night with Tracy is not exactly romantic. She's cross and weird, telling him:

“Do anything you like. And tell me what you like and what you would like from me. Be rough with me. Treat me like the lowest whore in creation.”

Ian Fleming, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, p. 36. 

 Bond can see she's troubled and self-destructive, and she makes it explicit that she's shagging him because he paid her. So it's not exactly gallant that he doesn't walk away but instead gets his money's worth. Of course, it's been well established that Bond is an amazing lay. Later, Tracy tells him:

“'That was heaven, James. Will you please come back when you wake up? I must have it once more.' Then she had turned over on her side away from him and, without answering his last endearments, had gone to sleep – but not before he had heard that she was crying. 

What the hell? All cats are grey in the dark.”

Ibid., pp. 36-37.

It's hardly a great start to their relationship, but Bond then keeps his eye on Tracy and stops her when she tries to kill herself after a day on the beach. This rescue is interrupted by some hoodlums who take Tracy and Bond away to a Corsican gangster called Marc-Ange Draco – who turns out to be Tracy's dad.

So far, its a strange and exciting beginning. Draco and Bond quickly become friends – they might work on opposite sides of the law, but they're both rough diamonds with a liking for the finer things in life. The despairing dad explains Tracy's history, and again there's nothing very romantic about it.

“'I was married once only, to an English girl, an English governess. She was a romantic. She had come to Corsica to look for bandits' – he smiled – 'rather like some English women adventure into the desert to look for sheiks. She explained to me later that she must have been possessed by a subconscious desire to be raped. Well' – this time he didn't smile – 'she found me in the mountains and she was raped – by me. The police were after me at the time, they have been for most of my life, and the girl was a grave encumbrance. But for some reason she refused to leave me ... The result, my dear Commander, was Teresa, my only child.' 

So, thought Bond. That explained the curious mixture the girl was – the kind of wild 'lady' that was so puzzling in her.” 

Ibid., p. 46.

If this mix of glamour and abuse sits uncomfortably, Bond at leasts turns down Draco's offer of money to help straighten Tracy out, and instead recommends a clinic in Switzerland – which will be quite convenient later in the book. Bond returns to London, but he's smitten. Fleming doesn't exactly go overboard in schmaltz, using Bond's new secretary to show how much he's changed:

“Loelia Ponsoby had at last left to marry a dull, but worthy and rich member of the Baltic Exchange, and confined her contacts with her old job to rather yearning Christmas and birthday cards to the members of the Double-O Section. But the new one, Mary Goodnight, an ex-Wren with blue-black hair, blue eyes, and 37-22-35, was a honey and there was a private five-pound sweep in the Section as to who would get her first. Bond had been lying equal favourite with the ex-Royal Marine Commando who was 006 but, since Tracy, had dropped out of the field and now regarded himself as a rank outsider, though he still, rather bitchily, flirted with her.” 

Ibid., p. 57.

James Bond in love. What a dick.

And all this love stuff is just a side show anyway. Bond has also got an important lead from Draco on the whereabouts of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the super-villain whose SPECTRE organisation Bond has fought in the last two books. Bond hasn't met Blofeld, but a man who might be him, Monsieur le Comte de Bleuville, is living it up in a posh ski resort in Switzerland. And he seems rather pleased with his title, as he's been writing to the College of Arms to get it officially recognised.

The plot that follows is good fun, Bond posing as Sir Hilary Bray, an expert on heraldry who can help trace Blofeld's line. In doing so, he can also establish the man's history and link him to his crimes. But to do this, Bond has to go stay in Blofeld's luxury complex, high on the top of a Swiss mountain, without even packing a gun.

That's important. As always, the more the odds are stacked against Bond, and the more he must rely only on his wits rather than luck or clever gadgets, the better the adventure. Coincidences mount up against him – first a man who knows the real Sir Hilary is visiting, then one of Bond's own colleagues turns up. We hear the terrible scream of a man “accidentally” falling down the bob-sleigh run, and the threat of such a death hangs heavy over Bond. It all licks along quite nicely. Fleming nicely puts in brackets stuff Bond doesn't know, as Blofeld's henchpersons watch his every move, putting us in a privileged position that helps build suspense.

Also guests of the Count are a group of pretty girls from all round the UK – not from round the world as in the film. They're being treated for allergies to chickens and potatoes, and are all keen to get Bond into bed. He obliges one called Ruby – though we're told he's not forgotten Tracy, this is just him doing his job and getting information. Even so, it's odd to hear Bond call a girl “Baby” and there's something oddly prissy about what he gets up to:

“He gave her another long and, he admitted to himself, extremely splendid kiss, to which she responded with an animalism that slightly salved his conscience. 'Now then, baby.' His right hand ran down her back to the curve of her behind, to which he gave an encouraging and hastening pat.” 

Ibid., p. 122.

There's some fun stuff as he sneaks about, dodging the CCTV and opening locked doors to get into Ruby's room. Again, the details about smell make Bond seem weirdly OCD.

“Her hair smelt of new-mown summer grass, her mouth of Pepsodent, and her body of Mennen's Baby Powder. A small night wind rose up outside and moaned round the building, giving an extra sweetness, an extra warmth, even a certain friendship to what was no more than an act of physical passion. There was real pleasure in what they did to each other, and in the end, when it was over and they lay quietly in each other's arms, Bond knew, and knew that that the girl knew, that they had done nothing wrong, done no harm to each other.”

Ibid., p. 127.

This is all a little convenient. Bond – and Ruby - might feel entirely guiltless, but what would Tracy think? It's telling that he lies to her, says he never touched the girls – but tells the truth to her father, who accepts the fact without reproach. If the marriage had continued, how faithful might Bond have been?

As well as shagging the patients, Bond finally gets to meet Blofeld. Though this is the first time they meet, Bond has clearly gathered a lot of intelligence already:

“He knew what not to expect, the original Blofeld, last year's model – about twenty stone, tall, pale, bland face with black crew-cut, black eyes with the whites showing all round, like Mussolini's, ugly thin mouth, long pointed hands and feet – but he had no idea what alternations had been contrived on the envelope that contained the man.”

Ibid., pp.102-3.

Given the bald, Nehru-suited look of three Bond films (plus Charles Grey in Diamonds Are Forever and Max von Sydow in Never Say Never Again), it's striking how different the book Blofeld is:

“The man was tallish, yes, and, all right, his hands and naked feet were long and thin. But there the resemblance ended. The Count had longish, carefully tended, almost dandified hair that was a fine silvery white.” 

Ibid., p. 103.

Perhaps it's the “dandified”, but I imagined him played by Jon Pertwee. That Bond is able to catch this master criminal by playing to his vanity about a family title is really nicely done – a character flaw that makes a credible lure. Note also the book Blofeld is not accompanied by a white cat.

Speaking of the films, On Her Majesty's Secret Service also shows the influence of the film Doctor No. Fleming originally disliked the casting of Sean Connery but was soon won over – and here accommodates the accent into the canonical Bond:

“My father was a Scot and my mother was Swiss ... My father came from the Highlands, from near Glencoe.”

Ibid., p. 59.

Ursula Andress is also one of the celebs dining at Blofeld's restaurant (on page 114). I'm tempted to suggest that the exciting escape from the Swiss mountain in the midst of an avalanche is also a nod to the action set pieces of the films. Bond's mum being Swiss means he's an okay skier, though Fleming is keen to make his style basic and old-fashioned, which ensures it's not to easy and that the odds remain against him.

Amid Emma Coat's 22 rules of good storytelling compiled while working at Pixar, there is:

#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

Bond – desperate, exhausted and with baddies almost on him – bumping into Tracy feels like a cheat. Yes, Fleming has set this up and it was Bond himself who recommended that she go to Switzerland, but it still feels too easy. Tracy is good in a crisis and helps Bond escape. He needs to get back to London to report, so she drops him at the airport. And Bond suddenly gets all romantic.

“Bond suddenly thought, Hell! I'll never find another girl like this one. She's got everything I've looked for in a woman. She's beautiful, in bed and out. She's adventurous, brave, resourceful. She's exciting always. She seems to love me. She'd let me go on with my life. She's a lone girl, not cluttered up with friends, relations, belongings. Above all, she needs me. It'll be someone for me to look after. I'm fed up with all these untidy, casual affairs that leave me with a bad conscience. I wouldn't mind having children. I've got no social background into which she would or wouldn't fit. We're two of a pair, really. Why not make if for always?” 

Ibid., p. 172. 

This might seem a bit brutal and pragmatic, but it's perfectly in character. In context, it's even quite moving. Bond tells Tracy to meet him in Berlin, where they'll tie the knot.

Back in London on Christmas Day, Bond visits M's bizarre, nautically themed home to present all he's learned and work out what Blofeld is up to. There's something comic and late-60s The Avengers about M's house being based on his old ship, even down to his old staff now acting as a butler.

Experts arrive to confirm Bond's suspicions, and we get a full briefing on the new, deadly science of biological warfare. It all sounds credible, quoting a “United States Senate paper, Number 58991, dated August 29th 1960, prepared by 'The Sub-committee on Disarmament of the Committee on Foreign Relations'” (on page 191). Yet, as always, we need to take the things Fleming states as fact with a pinch of salt:

“Now there is plenty of medical evidence for the efficacy of hypnosis. There are well-authenticated cases of the successful treatment by these means of such stubborn disabilities as warts, certain types of asthma, bed-wetting, stammering, and even alcoholism,drug-taking and homosexual tendencies. Although the British Medical Association frowns officially on the practitioners of hypnosis, you would be surprised, sir, to know how many doctors themselves, as a last resort, particularly in cases of alcoholism, have private treatment from qualified hypnotists.”

Ibid., p. 187.

Having established what Blofeld's about, British intelligence is then rather hamstrung by tricky things like international law and the lack of help they can expect from the Swiss in extraditing Blofeld. Luckily, Bond is now owed a favour from Tracy's dad, and enlists the Corsican underground to lead an attack on Blofeld's base. Draco is only too pleased to help, seeing this as a sort of dowry. Tracy is less pleased:

“'All right. I won't ask questions. And I'm sorry I cried.' She added fiercely, 'But you are such an idiot! You don't seem to think it matters to anyone. The way you go on playing Red Indians. It's so – so selfish.'”

Ibid., p. 226.

The thing is that she's right. There's no reason for Bond to go, except his own macho nonsense. The attack is a bit of a disaster – despite an exciting chase down the bob sled run, Blofeld escapes and Bond is badly wounded. He heads to Berlin and to Tracy, where again it's not quite romantic:

“'What worries me is how we're going to make love. In the proper fashion, elbows are rather important for the man.' 

'Then we'll do it in an improper fashion. But not tonight., or tomorrow. Only when we're married. Till then I am going to pretend I'm a virgin.' She looked at him seriously. 'I wish I was, James. I am in a way, you know. People can make love without loving.' 

Ibid., p. 230.

Yes, the real tragedy is that they don't have a proper, loving shag before she snuffs it. A second bracketed section tells us that – in another coincidence - Bond has been spotted by his enemies. It's beautifully done – Bond's wedded bliss while we know something awful is coming, and then the simplicity with which he doesn't quite accept that Tracy is dead.

At the end of the fifth novel, Fleming killed Bond; at the end of the tenth* he kills his wife. I'd loved this book best of all when I originally read the novels in my teens. This time, I was struck by the fun and smart plot (especially after the awful The Spy Who Loved Me), how difficult things are made for Bond, and the striking “visuals” of the setting and action set pieces. The romance between Bond and Tracy is odd, unequal and often uncomfortable, and never quite convinces. She's yet another damaged girl “cured” by Bond having sex with her. Yet the ending is beautifully played and haunting, partly because of a tantalising glimpse of Bond being happy and putting someone else first.

(* For Your Eyes Only isn't a novel but a collection of short stories.)

Three Footnotes from Cosmos

Thanks to lovely Abebooks, I'm now the proud owner of a battered paperback of Carl Sagan's Cosmos and a battered hardback (without dust jacket) of James Burke's Connections – and both for less than a fiver, including P&P. Bargain.

I've been working my way through the TV version of Connections on Youtube and will blog about it more when I get to the end (at my current rate, sometime towards the end of the century). But for a flavour of its style and confidence, you can't beat this extraordinary piece to camera:



I've not seen all the TV version of Cosmos but a lot of the material was covered in my astronomy GCSE, so reading the book has been a bit of a refresher course. It's a history of science, similar to The Ascent of Man, but focusing on our knowledge of astronomy.

It's striking how much has been learned and achieved in the 30 years since the book came out. Sagan details Voyager's exciting new discoveries about the Galilean moons but can only guess at the nature of Titan. He enthuses about the possibility of sending roving machines to explore Mars. He speculates on the causes of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event (which wiped out the dinosaurs), but doesn't mention the possibility of a large meteorite hitting the Earth. That's especially odd given that elsewhere he talks about the probabilities of large meteorite impacts, such as in Tunguska in 1908.

Sagan packs in fascinating titbits and detail, such as Kepler's efforts to save his mum from being tried as a witch. Excitingly, it's got footnotes instead of endnotes (and an index – so top marks all round), which means plenty of extra nuggets of fact to explode your brain.

For example, Sagan talks at one point about the scale of the Solar System, reminding us that, in terms of our ability to traverse it, the Earth was once a much bigger place. And then he drops in another striking analogy:

“In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries you could travel from Holland to China in a year or two, the time it has taken Voyager to travel from Earth to Jupiter.* 

* Or, to make a different comparison, a fertilized egg takes as long to wander from the Fallopian tubes and implant itself in the uterus as Apollo 11 took to journey to the Moon; and as long to develop into a full-term infant as Viking took on its trip to Mars. The normal human lifetime is longer than Voyager will take to venture beyond the orbit of Pluto.”

Carl Sagan, Cosmos, p. 159. 

Like James Burke, Sagan is good at making a connection between two apparently disparate things to create a sense of wonder. But I like how the last sentence of the following footnote so lightly declines to impose or invent a reason:

“The sixth century B.C. was a time of remarkable intellectual and spiritual ferment across the planet. Not only was it the time of Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras and others in Ionia, but also the time of the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho who caused Africa to be circumnavigated, of Zoroaster in Persia, Confucius and Lao-tse in China, the Jewish prophets in Israel, Egypt and Babylon, and Gautama Buddha in India. It is hard to think these activities altogether unrelated.”  

Ibid., p. 206.

And, again like Burke, Sagan is good at accounting for chance and circumstance in the slow, steady progress of science through the ages. He uses a Tlingit (Native American) account of meeting the French explorer Count of La Pérouse when he “discovered” Alaska in the 1780s to discuss what first contact with an alien culture might be like. But, explaining that La Pérouse and all but one of his crew died in the South Pacific in 1788, Sagan notes:

“When La Pérouse was mustering the ship's company in France, there were many bright and eager young men who applied but were turned down. One of them was a Corsican artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte. It was an interesting branch point in the history of the world. If La Pérouse had accepted Bonaparte, the Rosetta stone might never have been found, Champollion might never have decrypted Egyptian hieroglyphics, and in many more important respects our recent history might have changed significantly.” 

Ibid. p 334. 

Three short asides, additional to the main narrative, and you could base a science-fiction novel on each of them. Yet the thing that's stayed with me most since I finished the book earlier this week is his reference to the 1975 paper “Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence” by James W Prescott:

“The neuropsychologist James W. Prescott has performed a startling cross-cultural statistical analysis of 400 preindustrial societies and found that cultures that lavish physical affection on infants tend to be disinclined to violence ... Prescott believes that cultures with a predisposition for violence are composed of individuals who have been deprived – during at least one or two critical stages in life, infancy and adolescence – of the pleasures of the body. Where physical affection is encouraged, theft, organized religion and invidious displays of wealth are inconspicuous; where infants are physically punished, there tends to be slavery, frequent killing, torturing and mutilation of enemies, a devotion to the inferiority of women, and a belief in one or more supernatural beings who intervene in daily life.” 

Ibid., p. 360.

I'm fascinated by this, but can't help wondering if that conclusion isn't too much what we'd like to believe to be true. There's something chilling, too, in the lightness with which he seems to suggest that organised religion is a symptom of childhood neglect.

LA story

A week ago, I was on Venice Beach in Los Angeles with the Dr. She took me to Small World Books - a cool little bookshop crammed with good stuff I'd never heard of, exactly my idea of a treat - and I looked for something with a link to LA. I found Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye.

It's been odd reading it this week and recognising street names and districts from our gadding about - places we went to, names I steered by on Googlemaps. I'd noticed the strange, uneasy mix of the very rich and the very poor, living side by side, that Chandler captures so perfectly. We'd gone to gawp at the Egyptian Theater because it's apparently based on Luxor - but the thing that was most like our recent trip to Egypt was the constant, desperate effort by hungry-looking guys to raise a smile or shock us so we'd buy their meagre tat. All this while Broadway hosed itself down in readiness for millionaires to present each other with golden statues.

But Chandler's tale of corruption circling seedy crime, and a newspaper mogul indirectly paying off the police and burying a story, has struck a chord this week.

Chandler's Marlowe is a cynical guy in a cynical world. And yet for all he's sarcastic to cops and hoodlums, millionaires and servants, and the more his story drips with weary resignation at the city-sized mess, Marlowe's revealed - like Rick at the end of Casablanca - to be a strong, moral character, doing the difficult, right thing for no reward and quite a lot of grief. For such a cynical story, it's an oddly uplifting read.

The book's at its best when the dialogue is short and crisp, the wise cracks sharp as a Mexian's throwing knife. It's slightly breaks the spell when characters rant at length about what's wrong with the modern life. And yet this from rich Harlan Potter (do his friends ever call him Harry?) seems especially timely - or depressingly timeless.

"We live in what is called am a democracy, rule by the majority of the people. A fine ideal if it could be made to work. The people elect, but the party machines dominate, and the party machines to be effective must spend a great deal of money. Somebody has to give it to them, and that somebody, whether it be an individual, a financial group, a trade union or what have you, expects some consideration in return. What I and people of my kind expect is to be allowed to live our lives in decent privacy. I own newspapers, but I don't like them. I regard them as a constant meance to whatever privacy we have left. Their constant yelping about a free press means, with a few honorable exceptions, freedom to peddle scandal, crime, sex, sensationalism, hate, innuendo, and the political and financial uses of propaganda. A newspaper is a business out to make money through advertising revenue. That is predicated on its circulation and you know what the circulation depends on."

Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, pp. 233-4.

Dennis Nilsen helped blind children read graphs in science textbooks

Yesterday, the House of Lords picked over the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. They got on to parole, and how it works an incentive for prisoners to behave well. But what of prisoners serving long sentences with little hope of parole? Lord Rambsotham, former Chief Inspector of Prisons, then offered this:

"Noble Lords may remember the name of Dennis Nilsen, who was awarded a natural life sentence for a series of perfectly dreadful crimes. Noble Lords may not know that one aspect of education denied to blind children is access to science textbooks because graphs cannot be read in Braille. One of the education officers in the prison, looking at Dennis Nilsen and his characteristics, reckoned that something there could be harnessed. Nilsen was taught to write in Braille. Then, over four years, he described graphs in a science textbook in a way that would be understood, and translated his descriptions into Braille. After four years, blind children had access to a science textbook, thanks to the activities of someone who, in theory, had been rejected by society. I talked with Nilsen and will not describe that. But I will never forget talking to the education officer who had had the wit to realise that there was something in Nilsen that could be harnessed to the public good. She used the word "hope", which was present at the time, and said how essential it was that she had hope that something could be achieved. I was enormously disturbed when that hope was removed by the 2003 Act. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to respond to this amendment".--[Official Report, 9/2/12; cols. 395-6.]