Second coming

The new issue of DWM includes the results of the 2004 readers' poll. It's the first time I've ever had something of mine in the running (well, I've been in anthologies that did good, but that's someone else's glory).

Anyway. The Coup came second last in a group of 17. Ho hum.

"At least I can only get better," I told the Doctor, with my usual, tough resolve.

"Or," she replied, "next year you could come last."

Hello there

There's been a couple of occasions in recent weeks when I've had to remind people that blogs, newsgroups and mailing lists don't count as private conversations. Nor are they conversations-in-public that others might accidentally eavesdrop, like something overheard on a train journey. No, they're readily accessible and searchable, and stored for posterity. You can't really get more public, as conversations go.

In fact, email should probably come with the same kind of warning. It's so easily forwarded to the wrong people (and accessed by IT and management at work) that numerous mates have been stung by blowing-off-steam messages and bitchy one-liners getting sent to the people they're sniping at. I once had a brilliant dinner where people compared catastrophies having hit REPLY instead of FORWARD, or where things they'd emailed months ago suddenly being sent round the office.

So, a rule of thumb: these things get read, and they're likely to get read by the people you're talking about.

Still, I've been surprised by the numbers of people who mention this 'ere blog to me - either taking me to task for things they don't agree with, or wanting to know more about things I've mentioned fleetingly, or wanting to know why I even bother. Blimey, these things really do get read.

Oh, and incidentally: tough, patience, and not really sure yet.

Let meaning choose

Writers can be very, very dull on the subject of writing. There are myriad books, websites and blogs detailing aspects of The Craft, debating the use of the serial comma, or ranting against particular phrases, quirks of punctuation and things-they-should-still-teach-in-schools. There's an awful lot of smug, not actually practical, no-you're-wronging involved.

As I often have to explain as part of my job, there's no general consensus on style. Really. While correct spelling has been agreed for hundreds of years, punctuation is still largely a matter of taste. For every style guru who'll insist on one rule, there’s another expert who'll vehemently disagree.

Kingsley Amis put it very nicely: there are those to be scorned because they know/care less about punctuation and grammar than you do, and those to be scorned because they know/care more; that is, there are berks and there are wankers.

I've just been sent this link to Orwell's "Politics and the English Language", which feels disturbingly topical for something sixty years old. It's a manifesto for clarity in writing and thinking, and everyone should read it. You don't need to know the difference between a noun and an adjective, nor why the split infinitive is perfectly acceptable English, nor any rules for hyphens, semi-colons and commas. These will all come, of their own accord, just so long as your meaning is clear.

"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:

• What am I trying to say?
• What words will express it?
• What image or idiom will make it clearer?
• Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

And he will probably ask himself two more:

• Could I put it more shortly?
• Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"

Recent reads

Didn't get very far with Albion before giving up, I'm afraid. Which is a shame, because since the end of For Tomorrow, I've been looking for a comic to follow. Or, more accurately, borrow. By the end of issue 2 of Albion, I was just left feeling I'd missed something, and couldn't be arsed to wonder what.

So, since I was helping myself to someone else's bookshelf anyway, I picked up We3 because it had a cool cover. Blimey. That was a bit good - even the Doctor was hooked, getting cross over my shoulder 'cos she was reading faster than me. Hooray for a good comic! Seems like ages since I last read something that wasn't, ultimately, a disappointment.

Am now reading The Men Who Stare At Goats. Loved Ronson's Them, and again this manages to mix the geekily-observed funny with the liberally-minded terrifying. It can be funny, with Prudence Calabrese explaining how she got into psychic "remote viewing" and appeared on TV to reveal details of the Martian satellite flying alongside the Hale-Bopp comet, and then terrifying when Prudence discovers that her and her colleagues' predictions may have influenced the 39 people who killed themselves to join the said alien vessel.

"'It's kind of stressful to talk about,' she said. 'I don't really know what to say.'
'I guess you weren't to know that all the excitement would, uh, lead to a mass suicide,' I said.
'You'd think that if you were a remote viewer you should have been able to figure that out ahead of time,' said Prudence."

Jon Ronson, The Men Who Stare At Goats, p. 121.

Of course, Prudence is also revealed (on page 97, and then again on page 100) to have been a big fan of Dr Who...

Just getting to the stuff about the torturing of Iraqi prisoners, which is even more weird and awful all at once. Still, it's so full of weird stories, I can't help wondering it's not a massive exercise in counter-intelligence.

Thinking of that, a few chums outside of the Smoke continue to ask the same questions: What is London like since the bombings? Or, What's changed? Or, Do you feel like you're living under siege?

Well no, not really. It's not that different, though there are a lot more police around. I've seen people having their bags searched as I've walked to work, and I've had to open my bag a few times for security people to peer in to. But, well, for all this talk of there being another one due any time, I think there was more grim anticipation before July 7th. No, things are just carrying on...

Hmm. I was going to type something about "things carrying on as if normal", but that reminds me of Salam Pax from ages ago:

"A BBC reporter walking thru the Mutanabi Friday book market (again) ends his report with :
'It looks like Iraqis are putting on an air of normality'
Look, what are you supposed to do then? Run around in the streets wailing? War is at the door eeeeeeeeeeeee!"

It wouldn't be very British, would it?

And to finish, another chum has started a blog, it's hardly rocket science, which promises to deal with the challanges of the Brit surviving abroad. Already it has made me laugh, especially this bit:

"The thing is, I come from England. Although we have very poor weather, and our teeth can be pretty gross, termites don't figure in our indigenous fauna."

Right. Off to the pub.

If you are wise you'll listen to me

Back from a long weekend across the border in Cornwall. Had a great time, though I am entirely knackered out. Hate the fact I can’t sleep on trains, and – as discussed before – driving is not my idea of a laugh.

Hired a fat-arsed little Meganne at Plymouth, which really wasn’t built with a gallumphing six foot three me in mind. Kept knocking the windscreen-wipers into action with my knee, and clutch control is a sod when you have to twist your ankle round to reach the pedals. The laughably steep West Looe Hill - with cars parked all up what’s barely a single lane and vans bombing down towards you - was Not Fun.

Have dreamt three nights running of being packed into a box I don’t fit, with the lid being pressed shut over my protruding ankles and feet. Can’t imagine why.

Still, all worthwhile. Wedding on Saturday was shockingly good, with fireworks and bands, and scallops-wrapped-in-bacon. We have also made some new friends. Felt overly sober, though, having Behaved 'cos of driving duties. As a result, my "dancing" was, I’m told, worse than usual. That’s quite an achievement, actually.

On Sunday we were off to chums in a converted mill (well, a converting mill, since there's still work to be done) just outside Bodmin, where there were more pals and Pimms and a feast. Around midnight, those who were staying had to contend with a bat who wanted to join the party. Eerie, sweet things, bats, utterly silent as they zip about overhead. Eventually directed the thing in the direction of an open window, and retired about oneish.

The pals who'd left, it turned out, fared worse – their car broke down and they didn't see home till gone five. As I said, cars can pretty much sod off.

The Doctor, meanwhile, performed wonders as an ace navigator all weekend – especially clever since she’s not a driver herself – and ensured there were beers and wines waiting when driving chores had been done.

In an effort to stretch my twisted limbs, on Monday we went for a two-hour walk with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory waiting at the end of it. Really enjoyed the film. A clever chum had pointed out the worlds of Dr Who represented by (the utterly fantastic) Deep Roy, James Fox and Annette Badland. I also wonder whether Grandpa George was specifically cast to look like Roald Dahl... Not so upset by the Christopher Lee segments as others (such as Gaiman) have been. Felt it gave the film some depth – and made it more than just some lurid, occasionally sickly, eye-candy.

Anyway. Back home last night to cat-sick and house chores and work. Got quite a lot done of the stuff I took away with me. Had taken Time Travellers proofs to read on the train, and sadly kept laughing at my own jokes – and worse, at my own turns-of-phrase. Think it all hangs together, though.

A world of secret projects still needs battling, though. Best get on with it.

You can believe he has secrets

Off to the pub tonight, with lots of things I can't talk about. Like the new Dr Who, I tell myself.

Since getting back from Bristol I've begun writing up something I can't talk about, started a big, new project I can't talk about, been okayed for something I can't talk about, and invoiced for something I can't talk about. Yet. And there's a whole load of stuff of mine coming out in the next few months, and I shouldn't be talking about any of that yet, either.

This, of course, is where the Internet is a dangerous temptation. And having a blog even worse. I have to content myself with sharing my secrets with the wife and cat. Lucky them.

At least I'm not alone in this. I guess it's a Writer Thing that you only talk about Old Stuff, while anything you're actually doing (and interested in) is embargoed until months after you've handed it in and forgotten all about it.

Sharing details of these top secret projects with those in the same boat doesn't lighten the load, either. Oh no. It's not just that it means shouldering more salacious details that can't be passed on, I'm also terribly envious of what they've got out in the world just now...

Eddie Robson, for example, is similarly writing things he can't talk about yet. Still, I found out today he has his own blog, which is typically brilliant, sharp and better-than-what-I-do. And I should be collecting his new book on Film Noir tonight, which I did proofing duties on and so have already read. And it's brilliant, sharp and better-than-what-I-do, too. Damn him.

Matthew Sweet is also writing something he can't talk about yet. But he's on the telly next week dishing dirt. And in the Times today, and all that sort of thing. Gah!

And Joe Lidster is writing things not to be spoken of, and said he'd kill me even for the merest mentioning. So that's just between you and me, eh?

Did I really write that?

Just back from Bristol, where the Doctor and I looked in on friends' new babies. Got a bit drunk last night, which was fun, and also went to the obligatory museums. The Doctor liked the slavery stuff at the Industrial Museum, and the Georgian House was cool, too, though had an awful lot of steps when you're lugging a heavy bag. Both museums were nicely free.

Have been reading Tom Reilly's revisionist history of Cromwell in Ireland, for reasons which may one day come to light. Lots of detail, though it's sometimes quite repetitive. I can also see where the Amazon reviewer is coming from about the Reilly favouring secondary sources over primary... but there's really no need for how savage that review is. Academics, eh?

Popped in to the Big Finish offices on Friday and got to hear the first few minutes of Lost Museum. Golly. Had a Ron Grainer moment. Oh, and Christmas is in - I think it works. And proofs of Time Travellers are in the post.

Lost in his own museum

Adrian Salmon's characteristically splendid cover for my Benny play has now been released into the interweb. Woo!

The play features a number of rabbiting Aliens* played by m'self and my wee brother. I can exclusively reveal that the the small, bald, purple, pointy-eared Alien in the foreground of the cover was performed by my brother.

Our director was keen afterwards to point out that Tom was the better actor. Grr!

Or perhaps that should that be Ang!

[* Though, in the script, they were described as "locals" not aliens. It's Benny and Jason who are the aliens.]

Some humbugs

"The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime from out of the ground where it had been safely hidden out of harm's way, turning it into tar to cover the land with, smoke to fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from one place to another - particularly when the place you arrived at had probably become, as a result of this, very similar to the place you had left, i.e. covered with tar, full of smoke and short of fish."

Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, p. 134.

I've been slowly rereading the Hitch Hikers books (whenever there aren't the Doctor's newspapers about for taking to the loo) and the above bit really struck a cord.

I don't like driving. I can drive, and not too badly, neither. But it's like washing up, or proofing technical and policy documents. I'd just rather not, if that's all right. It's tedious, repetitive and it's not often I fit around the steering wheel anyway. And I hate the attitude - especially in London - that driving's a war of attrition, where you try and out-do as many other road-users as you can, without letting them nip in front. Me, I'm quite content to sit on a slow wending bus, reading or daydreaming silly titbits for stories, or even just staring out the window...

Of course, keen-driving pals and family members have already explained - and in depth - why I Am Wrong on this, too. And in the manner they also sometimes explain that, 'Simon, quite a lot of Dr Who is not very good...'.

Yes. I know. But I reckon they'd still agree that the whole driving experience would be a lot more agreeable if not so many people were utterly sold to it. Drive when you have to, not when you can.

Anyway, for going to a chum's wedding in a few weeks' time, I've just had to hire a car. Had to apply for a credit card, too, because (unlike the last time I did this, two years ago), you can't hire a car without one.

Credit cards, and their whole mantra of "Hey! You, lucky fellow, could owe us lots of money!', can sod off too. Not had a credit card since my earliest days as a student - a period with an inevitable moral lesson on the virtues of self-will. Which has all been paid off, what with it having been - Christ - a decade ago.

One of the security questions on ringing to activate the card (which a cynic might view as an underhand method of attempting to sell more product to someone who's just signed up to your services, and getting them to pay for the call while they're at it) was age next birthday. Not 'How old are you?' but 'How much worse is it going to get?'

Cheers for that. Almost a year to go, and I'm already dwelling on it. Humbug 3: Cannot be arsed with birthdays either.

Any colour you like

Some pontificating, when I should be doing writing I was meant to have finished on Friday.

Had a very nice day at a wedding yesterday, chatting to people I've not seen in ages and people I'd not met before. There was some excitement at Baker Street on the way, though, with the police trying to keep people out of the way as they dealt with a group of violent, shouty blokes. We assumed BNP - though comparing notes with other likewise delayed wedding guests, it wasn't an exclusively white group. There's something particularly brilliant about the BNP being a multi-cultural organisation...

But just why? As the Doctor said, this is hardly what the police or London in general needs just now. Assuming it was all some sort of response to terrorist bombings... Well, what is it we call people whose sole purpose is to spread a little more misery and fear?

What makes me most angry about this and all the shit over the last few weeks is that it's easy to make things worse. Any fucker can hit out, smash stuff, damage other people. Mending them again takes years of dedication and exams and long hours doing shitty placements as a junior doctor. Making things better needs effort and brains and compassion and all the kinds of virtue you'd think were essential to anyone's utopian vision. But bollocks to the idea that al-Queda and the BNP are working for a better world. Vicious tantrums yes, practicable ethical framwork? No, it seems it's always the easy option.

It's no show of strength to break things, it's a sign of weakness.

Bah.

Lemon Avenue flying straightly

Went to the Nelson and Napoleon exhibition on Wednesday, and met up with some old chums me and the Doctor hadn't seen in ages. The exhibition is fun - with some great and violent Gillray prints, recruitment posters exorting all good Englishfolk to "hate the French, damn the Pope", and even the underpants Nelson was wearing when he got shot. There's also a rather groovy interactive tabletop wossname, where as a digital map shows the battle in progress, you can touch the screen with your finger for more information on each of the boats.

Still, it's all rather "clean" and serious, with very little of the bloody misery of ship-life and war on show. There's little of what the Doctor refers to as "social history" (which, I think, means that it would have been better and more vivid if it could have been more like the excellent Master and Commander).

Yesterday, oblivious to bombings, we went to see Henry IV part 2. Although excellently staged and performed, it's not as exciting or engaging as part 1 - a bit like Kill Bill, I said in the pub afterwards. We're going to watch the third part of the trilogy on Sunday, care of the DVD of Olivier's Henry V that my in-laws got me for my birthday.

Speaking of DVDs, Jonathan Clements passed this on.

We are history

The fab new issue of Dr Who's Magazine has details of authors and stories for History of Christmas.

You can get yourself a copy of the very-spiff-indeed magazine from Panini's website.

Some titles have changed since DWM went to press, and I've still got the running order to work out. So here's details as they currently stand:

• "The Anchorite's Echo" by Scott Andrews
• "Presence" by Peter Anghelides
• "Set in Stone" by Charles Auchterlonie and John Isles
• "Be Good For Goodness' Sake" by Samantha Baker
• "Home Fires" by Jon Blum
• "Danse Macabre" by Joff Brown
• "The Thousand Years of Christmas" by Simon Bucher-Jones
• "St Nicholas's Bones" by Xanna Eve Chown
• "Ode to Joy" by Jonathan Clements
• "The Gift" by Robert Dick
• "The Revolutionarries" by John S Drew
• "Rome" by Marcus Flavin
• "The Prodigal Sun" by Matthew Griffiths
• "Christmas on the Moon" by me
• "Comforts of Home" by Pete Kempshall
• "She Won't Be Home" by Joseph Lidster
• "Nobody's Gift" by Kate Orman
• "The Innocents" by Marc Platt
• "The Long Midwinter" by Phillip Purser-Hallard
• "Not In My Back Yard" by Eddie Robson
• "Callahuanca" by Richard Salter
• "The Feast" by Stewart Sheargold
• "The Church of Saint Sebastian" by Robert Smith
• "The Lampblack Wars" by Matthew Sweet
• "Faithless" by Ben Woodhams

Mooning

36 years ago today, Neil Armstrong clambered down from the lunar module of Apollo 11 and fluffed his lines. Google Moon - brother to the quite astonishing Google Earth - is celebrating this anniversary in style. Check out the extreme zoom, and I especially like the news (in the FAQs) of the forthcoming Copernicus initiative.

I am writing about Apollo 17 at the moment, as it happens. The last two blokes to stand on the moon's surface blasted off back home on 14 December 1972. And nobody's been back since. It's odd that by the time I got born a few years later, people had stopped going to the moon.

Other odd stuff, and yesterday I had to explain to m'colleagues the difference between a wiki and a Wookiee.

Humphrey Belcher's cheese cauldron

Spent a fine and chappish weekend in Brighton doing stag things, where I was Not Good at both raft-building and croquet. The latter was not assisted by the state of the pitch, which was dry and ungrassy and too fast.

I'd expected much teasing on this expertise yesterday, as I detailed my adventures to the Doctor - she after all calls me 'Shire boy' at the best of times. But I'm assured me she's quite the croquist (if that's not the word, it should be). It's an elementary skill of the vicar's daughter, I guess - along with topping up drinks and making canapes. She is a good wife, and I have made sacrifice of household chores today in her honour.

Caught the sun quite nicely, too: there's a satisfying, high contrast arc of white on the fleshy bit between my thumbs and forefingers.

I'm just 100 pages from the end of Harry Potter, having fallen into it by accident last night. Best one since Azkaban, I think - tighter written, better plotted and generally just funnier and scarier by turns... I love the feeling of haring through a book because you can't put it down, while at the same time not wanting it ever to end. The heading for this post, incidentally, is from page 187.

Good things happening on my own writing front, too. An email today confirmed things are all go on.... something exciting that will be announced in due course. And, on the train down to Brighton while chatting to a chum, the line, 'Well, I saw a light on...' popped into my brain unbidden. Not the most awe-inspriring revelation, I know, but it perfectly clears up all the bother I'd been having with something I'm working on, so yay. Explained what it's for to the Doctor last night as we meandered to last orders up the road. When it got to that line, she laughed. So that's all okay then.

Well, anyway. This isn't working, is it?

And nor would be sneaking off now for another chapter of Potter. But...

Cover up

Amazon are boasting the cover to fellow first-timer Nick Wallace's Fear Itself.

It's beautiful, and I am sorely envious.

Picked up the lovely-looking DWM special today. And a card for Joseph Lidster, who is apparently quite old. Amazingly enough, there's going to be a little drinking tonight to celebrate.

Oh, and I also bought a sandwich and a rhubarb yoghurt which was nice, too.

Toxteth O'Grady

I have a horrible bloody cold. It just isn't right when it's so hot and sunny and lovely outside.

Years ago, I asked the old man (who knows such things) why we even have snot:

Well, it is a long story, but in essence, this is how it goes: the nose is the air contioning unit for the lungs. It works a bit like a Dyson vacuum cleaner. When you breath in, the nose spins the air into a spiral as it goes down the nose. All the bits of dust, earwigs, germs etc get spun by centrifugal force to the edge and become stuck to the mucus lining the nose. The mucus, with its trapped bits, is moved from the front to the back of the nose by thousands of tiny whiskers, which are beating together all the time. The whole thing behaving like moving fly-paper. The central core of clean air goes down to the lungs, while the mucus goes down to the stomach. There, the bugs and bits are destroyed, and the mucus broken down into glucose, and transfered back to the nose by the blood, where it is turned back to mucus again.

Sometimes the system doesn't work. Allergy makes little white blood cells diffuse into the mucus, and this can make it turn yellow or even pale green. The cells are not really white, just whiter than the red ones. Some germs excrete coloured dyes, mostly green, and these can poison the little whiskers, so they won't beat. The mucus doesn't move along; the water in it evaporates, and it gets very sticky and snotty. If it gets snotty enough, germs can even grow in it. So it all get a bit complicated, especially as acid in the air, and other pollutions, can damage the little whiskers too.

So now you know! A potent source of acid in the air is from exhaust fumes of cars and lorries and so on. There is a hole in the ozone layer over Switzerland. If you are south of about Birmingham, you are under this hole. The hole allows ultra-violet light through, and this light reacts with the exhaust fumes to make them more toxic to the nose. So London is a good place to live!

Even sitting out in the sun for hours on hasn't sorted it out. Bleurgh. Was picnicing at posh opera, thanks to some well-connected chums. Lovely day - though getting home turned into a bit of a faff, and only possible due to great kindness of other people.

Somewhat to my surprise, though, I managed to tie proper bow-ties. Blimey. And despite the raw, red nose, the Doctor seemed to approve of the outfit. She, of course, looked quite brilliant.

Back to work yesterday after some days of due to head being full of snot. Almost through all the Christmas stories. Oh, and I'm being interviewed on Friday about UNIT. Then off to a stag weeked for, by complete coincidence, one of the cast members.

Top hat

More lyrics from Great, which I am now writing a full, proper feature about. One day it will be available on DVD. Yes, one day...

Get a big top hat if you want to get ahead,
It doesn't really matter if you're not at all well-bred.
You're certain to be treated as a great success,
By adopting an inordinately tall head dress.

As the Queen once said to Albert,
'We are not amused by that.
But one thing tickles my fancy -
That's Brunel's big... top hat.'

Get a big top hat if you want to get ahead,
He always has it off when he's lying in bed.
He wears it to the opera and the London zoo,
And he'd feel undressed without it sitting on the loo.

He went to the Crimea,
The guns went rattatat.
They shot off all the Balaclava helmets,
But they couldn't hit his big... top hat.

Get a big top hat if you want to get ahead.
He wore it on the happy day he first got wed.
He wore it on the honeymoon day and night,
And he asked her if it fitted and she said, 'Just right'.

His wife, she was delighted.
He said, 'I'm glad of that.
I wouldn't like a woman who said "No, no"
To my bloody great big... top hat.'

Get a big top hat if you want to get ahead,
It doesn't really matter if you're not at all well-bred.
You're certain to be treated as a great success,
By adopting an inordinately tall head dress.

Keeping buggering on

As Liadnan says:

Screw you, whoever you are. London's still standing. And if it burns to the ground, we'll just build it again. We've done it before.

Coke and aspirins

I am hungover as a bastard, and don't quite remember all of last night.

The Doctor took me to the World's Most Photographed exhibition, and there was a pint of beer and quite a lot of wine and even a vodka martini involved. Really am getting too old for this. Hangovers should not last into the afternoon. Though I have somehow acquired an umbrella.

There were lots of interesting snaps - including one of Adolf Hitler looking a bit of a knob in his lederhosen, and an extraordinary one of Muhammad Ali as St Sebastian. That said, the Greta Garbo ones all looked much of a muchness to a philistine like me, and all from one brief period at the height of her career.

The cat has been sympathising with my delicate state this morning. Just a moment ago he snuck in from the garden with another toad. The little sod.

I am now halfway through a bottle of coke and in the midst of some Christmas stories. The authors should get announced in the next issue of Dr Who Magazine - in about a fortnight - so I'll not name names just yet. Though I notice there's a blog or two dropping the subtlest of hints. Tut.

Oh, and blimey, London is going to host the Olympics. Bugger. Probably means lots of work for me to do tomorrow.

Design by Beethoven

BBC News is reporting on the logo for the UK's presidency of the EU. It's an odd sort of non-story, where some people like it, some people don't, some people couldn't care less.

I especially like the last line:

But John Williamson of brand consultants Wolff Olins was scathing about what he said was a sugarcoated image of countries "flying in harmony, shoulder to shoulder".

"This presidency is about re-writing the rules of Europe," he said.

"The difficult decisions that have to be made, the tension, the debate - that's what has to be symbolised somehow.

"Picasso and Beethoven must be turning in their graves."