"A doubly powerful lodestone"

Got sent another review of Time Travellers, which scores an okay 7 out of 10:

"This parallel world story grips the reader’s attention [...]

After a while, however, the narrative strays over that fine [line] between 'intriguing' and 'confusing'. Complex theories about alternate branches of time are offered to explain the temporal duplications. Science teacher Ian Chesterton finds these difficult to grasp, so what hope does the reader have? [...]

Despite some temporal confusion, this book is an impressive debut novel and well worth your time."

Richard McGinlay, Review: the Time Travellers.

Been working away on the pile of Benny stuff needing doing - more of which soon, I promise.

This morning realised that two on-spec projects I've had various thoughts about should swap titles. And the bouncer should make him drink all the beer.

Also hired, I think, a man with a van for a bookcase and a half. Only taken me two days, and it's still not confirmed. This is my life.

Rubbish blokes

Long ago in the mists of time, I challenged a chef mate whose food I (and Big Finish) adore to outfeed me and the two younger brothers.

On Saturday, she won that contest hands down with a great vat of coc-au-vin, a sausage thing, veg and apple crumble. Still feel full and it's been two days, and the brothers were escorted home by Greenpeace. Hurrah!

Then it was off to the pub till 1 in the morning for B's birthday thing. A great deal of bollocks talked, of course, though I did agree some stylistic sound-things for Benny. Spent yesterday not feeling too chipper...

Got B Sideways, which an academic mate of the Dr's had recommended, and drew him a card making fun of his rubbish knees. The film's won various awards and is about two blokes (30-somethings, so the packaging says), off on a week's wine-tasting in California, 'cos one of them's about to get hitched.

They're both rubbish blokes, in different ways. One of them's a narcissistic actor who's never gonna make the big time, the other's a despressed, divorcee schoolteacher whose novel no one wants to publish.

They arse about, drink too much, meet some women, and it's an easy, hippy sort of comedy with some hippy sort of musings on life. In the vein, I guess of Hal Ashby, who did (my faves) Harold and Maude and Being There.

As well as very funny, it's also pretty damning of men's bullshitting, and the damage such fantasies do. Talking shit, it seems, can really hurt people - especially when the lies catch up with you. And as an adamant writer, boozer and bullshitter, it really struck a chord.

Also read books 3-6 of Y: The Last Man, which offers some chance that rubbish old Yorick is not the last, best hope for humanity. All-but-one of the men dying out is a cod-sf wheeze, done by everyone from Mary Shelley to soft-porn. And the comic acknowledges and plays with that. And though there's sex and violence and boy-comic tropes a-plenty, it's actually really good and quite bright.

Liked the shitty revelation why Yorick alone was spared, and it's full of near-credible details about the rest of the world, like the attacks on sperm banks and the nuclear meltdown abroad. Even the sea-bent sapphism of the rest of the population is not too exploitatively handled. There's a geeky gag about the Golden Gate Bridge which had me giggling, and the plot keeps coming with nice reveals and reversals.

Still, I'm feeling the same characters recur a little too often - especially when the thing's gone into such detail about the vastness of ground to be covered and the time taken in getting across America. It's that irritating feeling of plot convenience in something that's otherwise so deftly crafted.

One day I shall share with you my (brilliant) theory on the three kinds of bloke. In the meantime, it's fun to read something lefty that doesn't automatically assume the world is much better by getting shot of all the rubbish blokes. As a rubbish bloke myself, I'm grateful.

Back to the future

In September 2004, when commissioning the Time Travellers, the august J Richards said I had to explain the physics of my time machine or people would write in. So I read some stuff about quantum mechanics, and came up with a theory.

With whopping great SPOILERS for the book (which of course you've all now read), here's what I came up with. Bit in italics are comments from Dr "Beard" Kelly, a proper particle physicist.

"As threatened when I saw you in Bristol, I’d like to pick your brains for a Dr Who thing I am writing. It’s about time travel, and I need to make sure that what I’m saying isn’t picked to pieces by the [Nimboses] of this world. Pints will be bought for your assistance, oh yes.

The first principle of the story is that, concordant with Heisenberg, whenever the Doctor steps out of the TARDIS, he changes history. TARDISs are designed for observing, and can slip discreetly and unnoticed into any surrounding to watch what happens. But opening the doors and actually interacting with people alters things. Indeed, bringing down a government overnight alters things a lot. So, over the course of his adventures, the Doctor changes things a lot. He just doesn’t admit it.

The wheeze of my story is that the first Doctor, towards the end of his first year on telly, arrives in London 2006. Only it’s a London, 2006 where he hasn’t yet stopped all those alien invasions in the 70s and 80s, and where in 1966, WOTAN (the computer up in the Post Office Tower) was able to take over the world by (and yes, I know this is horrifying) being able to TALK TO OTHER COMPUTERS VIA THE TELEPHONE LINE.

Scary, huh?

So, the people of the Earth having defeated WOTAN, they now don’t have phones and televisions and broadcast media. But, in a secret laboratory at Canary Wharf, they have designed a time machine. It’s conveniently powered by the nuclear power station at the Millennium Dome. Yes, I’m afraid the story’s full of silly gags like that.

For story purposes, the time machine is a large metal hoop, stood upright from the floor. It’s big enough for people to step through, and wide enough for them to get the TARDIS through, too. That will be part of the story.

Oh no, not a big hoop thing like in the TimeCop film is it? Or are you ripping off the big metal hoop idea from Stargate?

As I see it, the ways it works is like this. Particle physicists have already sussed how to make a wormhole, by exploiting quarks that are inexplicably linked across space.

The old "Quantum entanglement". You can do it with any particle I think, on a basic level. Sounds an interesting idea, as quarks like to be bound with other quarks, one has (currently) never been seen on its own due to the weird effect of the strong nuclear force. It gets stronger the further you try to pull a quark from its partner, unlike any other known force...

Also, you get quarks in pairs (a normal + an antiquark) in the form of particles known as Mesons, these are kind of like light versions of protons and neutrons (who normally have 3 quarks). Mesons were known about i think from maybe the late 40's (The pion, the lightest of these was found at Bristol Uni in '47...)

My time machine exploits quarks inexplicably linked across time. Special conditioning equipment (left behind by the Daleks, as it happens) allowed you to create these special quarks in the lab. This you do at exactly 12:00, right at the centre of the metal hoop. At 13:00, you create another, identical quark at the centre of the hoop. This second quark in linked to the first, and in effect creates a wormhole back to the first one.

This takes a lot of energy (so they do it at night). A lot more energy allowed you to stretch the wormhole wider, so that it fills out to the metal sides of the hoop. Then you can step through it.

The 13:00 quark sees the 12:00 quark as an anchor, or lodestone. It actually seeks it to create the wormhole. The wormhole bridges the vortex of time and space, through which the TARDIS travels. And this is where things get complicated: the TARDIS has special properties to help it navigate time and space. And these properties also act like a lodestone. So, when the TARDIS materialises down the road from the metal hoop, the 13:00 quark doesn’t link to the 12:00 quark, it fixes on the TARDIS. So people stepping through the 13:00 hole end up strewn all the way down the street.

There are also some other effects which I won’t go in to now.

So, does that make sense? Is there anything I’ve got glaringly wrong? Is there anything I should specifically refer to?

No, seems rather good actually, the best thing with high energy physics is that you can do very weird things... and they are allowed! There are all kinds of weird particles in various theories, some that we can't detect, other we can't get the energy up to create yet.

Some things to be aware of:

1. The world completely changes from what we know in 1966, so they won’t even be called ‘quarks’ (which was coined in ’68). There will have been parallel scientific research, but they won’t necessarily know in this London, 2006 what we know.

I'm not sure, SLAC discovered the evidence for the quark conclusivly in 68, but the theory of their existance was there since about '63 by a various people like Murray Gell-Mann who thought that protons and mesons were made of smaller things. I don't know where or what the particles in their theories were called.

The earlist reference to "quarks" I can find in the journal database we use is 1964. There existed particle-physics machines around that era (1950s/60s) that had enough energy to make quarks (just that people of the time didn't detect them). You can make then in electron-antielectron collisons pretty easily. Well, easy if you have a large enough machine :)

In the 50's 60's the UK had the Rutherford Labs near Didcot doing that kind of madness, next door to the Harwell nuclear research labs. And frankly if you ever get the chance to visit the place you'll see it was MADE for a Dr Who connection, has plenty of buildings of dubious nature and various large earth mounds that cover other dubious things. I mean, look at the place.

2. The scientists get a headstart. The Daleks have a matter transmitter in London in 1963, and my idea is that it is this that kickstarted the research. The matter transmitter actually uses time technology, rather than breaking the subject up into little bits and then reassembling. However, the reason the subject appears to materialise from the inside out (you see wiggly Dalek innards, then the shell) is that you’re observing the materialisation in linear time, but the subject isn’t actually materialising in linear time. So you see through them to begin with.

Makes sense, you can get computer programs that do a simular thing and simulate what looking at a 4 dimentional object (usually a cube) would look like projected into our normal 3D space. Its kind of freaky. So that sounds like the same effect above, only with time not space being the weird dimension.

3. Essentials for the story:

• The time machine has to fit people and the TARDIS through it
• The subjects have to be drawn off course by the TARDIS being in the area
• It has to use nuclear power (allowing me to blow the power station up at the end)

Needless to say, the scientist in charge of the experiments is a beardie Dr Kelly, who dies before the end.

Pip pip,

Simon"

Before the fall

We tend to define ourselves by what we are not. Lifestyle mags, like Cosmo for example, define their idea of woman-ness by contrast to man-ness. They’re about how to get/keep/chuck Your Man, and so could be argued to bolster rather than break down gender stereotypes.

Lads mags, of course, do exactly the same in reverse – lots of stuff about birds, footie, gadgets and motors, and none of that girly, gay stuff.

There’s an argument that modern Western values – a rejection of anti-Semitism and racism in favour of human rights, democracy and, in this country at least, a caring welfare state for all – are the result of World War 2.

Certainly those values weren’t seen as intrinsically “right” in the 1930s. No, whatever the reasons for our going to war, by 1945 we were defining ourselves by what the Nazis were not. We fought Hitler together and, for the last 60 years, together we’ve opposed all he stood for.

But how we define ourselves is prone to change. Liadnan recently railed against Gordon Brown’s mission statement for Britain, and then yesterday there was this:

“There are concerns about how to strengthen a sense of shared national community in our younger generation, for whom the old national symbols of wartime solidarity are a distant story and among whom respect for cherished national traditions and social habits is limited. There is a recognition that we cannot go on living on the legend of the Second World War as our shared national experience now that no one under the age of 70 has direct experience of that war.”

Lord Wallace of Saltaire, House of Lords, 2 February 2006; col. 343.

The debate was about engendering pride in the nation and national identity. Pride, too, defines itself by its opposite. Gay pride is about there being nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about being gay. “I’m black and I’m proud,” is about not being kowtowed by the white folk.

But national pride is not quite the same. In a lot of ways being part of a particular nation is like supporting a particular football team. It is, actually, something we can change if we really want to, for example. And what nationality we are or what team we support is not the same as what we feel – good or bad – about that team or nation.

Pride is the feeling when our team does well. We might not have won the match, but we’re proud of how we played. We’re proud of how few bookings we’ve had, or how we’ve encouraged new players. Sometimes our team can play so badly (think Liverpool v Chelsea last October) that, though we’re adamant they’re still our team, pride’s the last thing we’re feeling.

Again, we define ourselves by opposition. So we’ll wear our team colours when there’s a match on, or in celebrating a particular victory. In the UK, the Jack and the George are, generally, for the Queen, public buildings and big sporting events.

When there’s opposition to be faced, we come together. So we still celebrate, as if they were yesterday, one football match from 40 years ago and wars won against the Germans and French from last century and the century before.

The English, of course, still have funny delusions of empire, of having some kind of say in the world. Yet we’re not any different to anyone else in viewing other nations inferior, whatever the evidence to the contrary. That’s dangerously close to pride in the Biblical sense – falsely so, and asking for fate to prove you wrong.

I’m less sure about flag-waving when there’s no clear opposition about because at best it’s unnecessary and at worst downright sinister. It’s more about uniformity of thought than solidarity. On my first trip to the States in 1999, the number of stars and stripes on display was amazing and, I felt, a bit alarming. Huge flags hanging from every porch, neighbours competing for who was most proud. With only each other to parade to, you wondered who they were trying to convince and of what.

Yes, I appreciate things have changed since 2001, and that the flags stand in defiance of terrorist aggression. But they were there before, and there does seem to be a “you’re either with us or against us” attitude to TWOT.

Part of me wonders, then, how America sees itself as a nation. Certainly not as an empire, though that’s what it quite clearly is. The rhetoric is all of the underdog, fighting the good fight against all the odds.

In some ways, its always been the country of the bullied kids – the French (who helped win its liberty) celebrated America’s call for the world’s “tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” You could probably argue that US foreign policy now has the mentality of a bullied kid who grew up bigger than the bullies.

National pride has to be earned. It’s not just enough to love England blindly because of being English. We should be proud of our country because of what it does, not just because we live here. We should be proud of what our country continues to do that’s good, not just celebrate old glories. We should certainly not let those old glories slip.

For all the gains made in this country since 1945 – gains we can be justly proud of – it’s still amazing that women get paid less than men for doing the same jobs, while many claim racism is still endemic (reactions to Sir Ian Blair’s comments last week and Nick Griffin’s victory yesterday are what got me thinking on this post).

Likewise, we should be proud of our army when it upholds people’s rights and the rule of law, and not merely because it’s being shot at. It’s not disloyal to question why troops are sent to war, and that the war’s legitimate. It’s more supportive of the troops themselves than endangering them needlessly.

Sometimes it’s right to be ashamed:

“Channel 4 News tonight reveals extraordinary details of George Bush and Tony Blair's pre-war meeting in January 2003 at which they discussed plans to begin military action on March 10th 2003, irrespective of whether the United Nations had passed a new resolution authorising the use of force […] President Bush said that:

’The US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would “twist arms” and “even threaten”. But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway.’

Prime Minister Blair responded that he was: ‘solidly with the President and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam.’

But Mr Blair said that: ‘a second Security Council resolution would provide an insurance policy against the unexpected, and international cover, including with the Arabs.’”

Gary Gibbon, "The White House memo", Channel 4 News, 2 February 2006.

Sons of the Spider-Man

"The important thing about songs is that they're just like stories. They don't mean a damn unless there's people listenin' to them."

Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys, p. 304.

Finished this on the nose of midnight last night, after a late finish at wurk. An easily embarrased young bloke (whose racial heritage is subtly played) discovers that his recently-deceased dad was more than he seemed. What's more, the e.e. bloke has a brother he never knew about. A cooler, spunkier brother who's about to take over his life...

In style, it reminded me a lot of Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (my favourite of Adams's fiction). There's a similar casual collapse of the solid world-as-you-know-it for the hapless, meaning-well chap caught up with old gods. That's not to accuse Gaiman of copying; the backgrounds of characters (both gods and monsters) are quite distinct, and the books are about different things.

Didn't feel it particularly horrifying, though, despite what Gaiman said about how the thing came about (Lenny Henry muttering that there b'ain't be black horror stuff). It's more strange and kooky, and though there are some violent and icky bits... it's not too scary, say, to be read by the timid wife. The problem is (if it is actually a problem) that the whole's things too charming, too pleasurable a read to horrify.

It's full of lovely incidents and gags, but it'd be spoiling the surprises to describe them here. No mention, though, of the old gag about special spider abilities; Peter Parker can never get out of the bath.

As I write this post, snow is swirling gently round one of the courtyards of the (aptly goth) Palace of Westminster. "It's ash," suggests m'colleague B. He should stop smoking on the roof.

"Yes, we discriminate"

The Dr is unwell today, and much-miffed to miss some drinkies tonight, upstairs in the Gherkin. Probably just as well, though. They can't have had time to fix the windows.

Her wellness was not helped by yesterday's feature on her old school in the lefty propaganda. The Dr is, of course, a passionate, academic and professional believer in inclusion and access, and not keeping "the wrong sorts" out. She's written in and everything.

I, too, went to a faith school, but one that was open to everyone. Was the only practicing Caff-lick in my year by the end. And did horrendously badly at Religion GCSE 'cos I pretty much assumed I already knew the stuff. Knew, yes; thought about, not really...

A concern with faith schools is that discriminating in favour of particular demographics isn't just about which flavour of God you believe in. The Guardian article makes it quite clear that the religion bracket overlaps with the region's economic and class divisions, and I'd be surprised if there wasn't also a case for it overlapping racial divides, too.

Of course, all this over-subscription and ability to choose stems from perceptions of school success. Which basically means exam results. And note that it's the school choosing the pupils, not the pupils/parents choosing which school best suits them.

The reason schools want to cherry-pick their pupils is it's not the school that is judged in exams, it's the pupils. So you want kids from middle-class backgrounds with pushy parents... and again I'd venture that the faith school's demographic also overlaps there.

Only the other week, I heard an alternative to listing schools by their highest achievers:

"I was engaged in writing a report for the government back in 1993, in which I advocated the argument that schools were there to add value, and that the best measure of performance was value added.

It would be helpful to the parents of kids who do not look like doing well if their school profiles could declare for, say, children who had not achieved level 1 in key stage 1, how they had improved in performance by the end of key stage 2, and similarly, for a secondary school, for those who have come in with, say, level 2 or less in English and maths, how they had done by the end of key stage 3. Parents could then look not at who is top of the GCSE league, but at which schools are good at caring for and helping kids like theirs."

Lord Dearing, House of Lords, 19 January 2006, Cols. 792-3.

See also the next speaker, Baroness Massey of Darwen, discussing a school's responsibilities to its local community - the complete antithesis of the faith school's approach.

My main objection, I think, is that the selection process does not fit the teachings of the faith that the school claims to profess. Imagine a church arguing that its focus was not the parish and community immediately around it (making links with other faiths, helping the homeless and poor, etc.), but attracting those from other parishes more likely to get into Heaven, and prepared to make the commute...

Enter Sydney Newman

Watched The Beginning’s various documentaries last night (“researched” the actual episodes this time last year, so in less of a rush). Lots of fab stuff and New Things To Learn despite how much of it's been told before.

The Corridor Sketch includes some alarmingly young (and slim) colleagues, which is probably the funniest thing about it. It’s not, with the best will in the world, that brilliant – a factor not helped by being in among the Gatiss/Walliams skits. But glad it’s included, just to laugh at my friends.

Really impressed by the Origins documentary, but the bit that most impressed was the visit to the Radiophonic Workshop. Can see why people who knew her so enthused about Delia Derbyshire. She really comes across as dedicated, talented and lovely.

Liked linking Edge of Destruction to stuff in New Show, and wonder if maybe Mr Rusty and the 10th Dr could do commentaries on Old Show they particularly like. Do we know what their favourites are, anyway?

Been sent a picture of something groovy you all have to wait a month for. And other fab announcements will be made around then, too. Aaaaaah.

And to be even more teasing, tonight I will be attempting to agree an important few words somebody else has to say.

How it all started

As a favour to a mate, I spent this morning at a primary school, working with three classes of Year 4 kids on creating their own Dr Who companions.

Started by reading them a bit of Time Travellers and showing a clip from the Christmas Invasion, and then answered some questions before they had to work.

Frightening how media savvy the kids are – and they had no shortage of questions to ask about the series (new and old), writing in general and the state of television today. They were extremely adept analysing stuff they’d seen (not just what I showed them), taking stories apart and rethinking them. Wish I’d been that bright at that age.

Or now, even.

One class really took to rearranging the letters of their friends' names to create something good for an alien. Another was much more interested in how the Doctor met these new friends. And the third wanted to make the weirdest companions possible - one made of fire, another a lemur, another a robotised dog...

I’d been told to expect short attention spans, but it seemed more that they just took in the details absurdly quickly, moving immediately on to the next cool thing. You just have to keep the cool things coming. Amazed watching the teachers – calm and encouraging when they could, terrifying and stern when they had to.

The kids agreed that Mr Hughes especially would make a really scary Dr Who monster. Yeah, New Show should do evil teachers…

Some highlights:

• One kid knew and could spell "Raxacoricofallapatorius", but got stuck spelling "his"
• I asked one girl what her companion was scared of and she replied, very carefully, "Looming over her is the fear of ice cream melting"
• A boy explained the plot of his treasured DVD - a gold man with funny eyes turns into evil spaghetti and the Doctor ties him up (I guessed correctly which one)
• And there was a fierce argument between two boys about whether “Who” is his surname...

Have donated a bag of old Target books, because the whole wheeze was to get the boys reading. (In between tasks, the girls were reading 500-page novels about fantasy ponies and magic, the boys mostly struggling to read the captions in a Shoot! annual).

Will check back in a few weeks and see how the book have gone down. But vividly recall my own great thrill of discovering The Invasion in the library, the joy of boning up on old show.

Knackered, got into town around oneish to resume a more grown-up freelancing gig. And to pick up The Beginning.

By the power of Grayskull

Did my first bit of direct commissioning today, following a nice lunch with my boss where he approved my Great Plans. Three splendid fellows should now find themselves writing me things for cash. I have that power...

We'll be making official announcements in about a month (giving me time to get something together to show people), but I am giddy and excitable about it all.

Oh, and someone we won't name has already referred in something we won't mention to my newly created Mim. Hooroo!

Predicting the future

Have been listening to Douglas Adams at the BBC, some of which is just brilliant.

Some of the sketches are not quite so brilliant, though I’m glad to have heard them all the same. But what really stands out is his insight into and clarity explaining some really very complicated stuff.

All kinds of very complicated stuff at that.

Yeah, it's the non-fiction that impresses the most (I think). It’s made me want to re-listen to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Future and track down the Radio 4 version of Last Chance To See…? For years the book has been an ideal present for anyone I’m stuck buying a present for.

I was going to talk more generally about Douglas and his influence on me – or rather, his influences (plural) – but kept getting a weird déjà vu. So checked some email archives, and sure enough:

From 8 May 2002:

“I'm 160 pages into Salmon of Doubt, and am really enjoying it. Agree with what you say about a CD-Rom being a more suitable record - especially in mind of what Adams says about printed matter and dead wood. Also, I've read an awful lot of this stuff before - great swathes is available on the Internet [such as here and here].

Which seems rather to be missing the point. And there's loads of things from various publications - magazines, books etc. that as an Adams fanboy I've tracked down already.

This isn't then ‘the best of Douglas's hard drive’. It's ‘the best of Douglas’. Though that's not necessarily a bad thing.

One of the things I find fascinating is how much the myriad works fit together. Sometimes he repeats himself - you certainly hear the same jokes reused (reminding me of Oscar Wilde in From Hell).

More importantly, his ideas fit into a consistent worldview - so his musing on Bali fits like sticklebricks to his ideas about language and identity. His reckoning about God fits his ideas about left-handed guitars.

At the same time, you get a sense of his thinking as work-in-progress. That's especially true of the stuff he was writing for MacUser in the late 80s. Much of what he said then is outdated now, and many of the issues have become irrelevant.

But, as he says in his Artificial God lecture, the whole point of science is that you put up a theory and see if other people can knock it down. He's quite prepared to go out on a limb and talk about irrational beliefs and evolutionary theory, and to have that attacked and questioned and jeered, but as part of a process.

What he's interested in is gedankenexperiment. And as his ideas get tested and questioned and pulled apart, he's emerging into something reasonably comprehensive.

Though this may be the result of the editing process on the book - consistency brought about on the material because of the way it was selected.

What this means is I really want more: to pick over the not-so-brilliant stuff, to see the bits of writing he didn't put much thought into, the whims he didn't finish.

And more than that, I want to talk to him. For ages. And have an argument.

And I’d always kidded myself that someday I would. Shit.”

Books of human folly

Ten years ago - give or take a week - I used Reading Week to go see my elder brother in Madrid. This was in the days when I was learning Spanish, so it counted as work.

As well as drinking drinks you had to set fire to, going to the "English" bars and discussing the collections of the Prado with the bro's non-English-speaking housemate, I also got taken to the cinema. The brother wanted me to see Smoke.

"It's like Pulp Fiction," he said as we took our seats, "but without the violence."

And it was: various people and bits of their stories interweaving and bouncing off each other. It's such a brilliant film, and was my first introduction to both Paul Auster and Tom Waits.

Auster's stuff I've now read most of - all his novels, his four films, most of his prose, almost none of his poetry and even his translation of a Frenchman's anthropoligical studies. Am currently two thirds through his latest, The Brooklyn Follies. And adoring it.

Like Smoke, it's pretty ambling, rambling and all over the place, with various kooky people bumping into each other, telling stories, doing odd stuff.

Funny and strange and sad, it's essentially the tale of a man dying of cancer, people-watching and trying to sort out the lives of two members of his family. And mostly that's by talking to them, and telling odd stories, and hatching odd plots. It means it's full of top facts and digressions: an image from Kafka's Amerika, the Statue of Liberty wielding a sword not a torch, leads into a story about Kafka writing letters to a small girl who'd lost her doll. And then that's picked up by our narrator "adopting" a runaway...

A fun bit: little Lucy doesn't want to be dumped at her auntie's, so when they stop off for petrol and something to eat, she sneaks off to the toilet. Nathan (the narrator) and Tom carry on chatting:

"Tom was still going at full verbal tilt, and I got so caught up in what he was saying that I lost track of Lucy. Little did we know at the time (the facts didn't come out until later) that our girl had left the restaurant through a rear door and was frantically feeding coins and dollar bills into the Coke machine outside. She bought at least twenty cans of that gooey, sugar-laden concoction, and one by one she poured the entire contents of each can into the gas tank of my once healthy Oldsmobile Cutlass. How could she have known that sugar was a deadly poison to internal combustion engines? How could the brat have been so damn clever? Not only did she bring our journey to an abrupt and conclusive halt, but she managed to do it in record time. Five minutes would be my guess, seven at the most. However long it was, we were still waiting for our food when she returned to the table. She was suddenly full of smiles again, but how could I have guessed the cause of her happiness? If I had bothered to think about it at all, I would have assumed it was because she had taken a good shit."

Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies, p. 159.

Languid and easy, there's not really a plot or purpose and it could be accused of being a bit indulgent. This and Auster's last were both heavilly criticised in Private Eye for being "easy". But it's far more frustrating than that - at least to me. It's seemingly effortless.

Auster recommendations:

1. Timbuktu
A shaggy dog story, told by the shaggy dog. This is the one I got the Dr to read and, like me, she cried.

2. Mr Veritgo
You'll believe an orphan can fly. Walt's apprenticeship to Master Yehudi is more than just becoming an illusionist.

3. In the country of last things
A haunting sci-fi type thing, with civilisation fading away whenever you're not looking. The sort of book that's good enough you have to point out to people afterwards that it is sci-fi. Like Cold Comfort Farm.

(Oh, but that's another post entirely...)

Nothing

Head full of bung, and fed up with being so cold. Nothing else to say. Nothing.

(Turn your speakers on.)

Any sweet jumps?

We’re getting double-glazing. Had the Man come round to explain it all yesterday and now it’s all booked. How grown up.

Also joined the Blockbuster in Penge, which just goes to show how plenty-domestic we’ve become.

The Dr watched Vanity Fair, but thought it a bit silly and Not Like The Book.

Napoleon Dynamite is not quite the work of genius I’d been led to expect, but is often very, very funny. Some of the dorkiness is especially cringe-worthy for being so well observed. I liked the cow-shooting and the world-weary sighing the best.

Can already hear the obvious comments from those who have experienced my clubbing / wedding disco form. You do not appreciate my Moves.

Still, overall it felt more like a sitcom-type thing than a movie. A good, kooky sitcom off of late-night E4. (Have also been enjoying My Name Is Earl, despite nagging doubts that I should know better. But Jason Lee is always fab.)

Also oddly not-a-movie is The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse, which felt more like a Christmas special than something you’d pay for. The po-mo premise (the fictional characters hunt down their creators) is grotesquely self-indulgent, but it more or less comes off.

Wished they could have resisted Royston Vasey. (And anyway, they’d already killed off Tubbs and Edward…)

Loved the C-plot film, with three diabolic Catholics trying to kill Theodon-King in the most fiendishly diabolic of ways. More of that sort of thing – and more David Warner, and Victoria Wood saying “cock”!

Again, there’s lots of very good stuff in the thing, but I’d much rather see the talented bunch play the whole cast of an entirely new story. Something grotesque and disgusting, with plenty of icky stuff going on. Something to give them new life.

The League of Gentlemen’s Renaissance, perhaps?

Cat test

 
Since Elephant's days are numbered, here's a test of free imaging wossanme Picasa. Hope it works. 

Hothouse

The great boiler saga drifts on. Not that it’s of any interesting to anyone else, but yesterday was also a rather expensive day. Paid my tax (twice what I’d expected, because they now want six months in advance) and the second instalment for the Clever Man who fixed the boiler.

He’s had fun today, drilling a waste-pipe into our cast-iron drains. The Victorians really built things to last, and it took about 20 minutes to cut a bit about the size of two £1 coins stuck together.

But the leak seems fixed, and things all approved and dandy. Just the electrics and windows and loft insulating to do now. And some re-pointing, and other odds and ends.

To celebrate this steady progress, the Dr took me out to the Comedy Caff on Rivington Street last night, with some friends and some friends of theirs. Marvellous night full of beer and good jokes, though I’d not heard of any of the acts before.

Not that this particularly signifies anything. But the line-up was Brendan Bourke (hawking his DVD afterwards), Stuart Hudson and Mickey Flanagan, with Drew Barr as MC. If that helps.

Bit pissed on the way home, and the Dr failed to recognise I. who was stood right next to her on the train. Even when he came up to say hello. And he was round at ours only last week…

She did, however, recognise S., though they’ve only met once before. Thing is, they’d talked that time about ancient Greeks.

Maybe if I slip in the word “Acropolis” now and then, she’ll listen to the important things that I’m telling her.

Among the important things discussed between comedy acts was the difference between teepees and wigwams. Wigwams are rounder-roofed, while teepees are conical, and built in the same sort of way as the cone of twigs you make when lighting a fire.

Something on the telly a while back looked at whether the Ancient British roundhouses (like the groovy remakes at Butser) had holes in the top of their roofs, as chimneys. Otherwise, wouldn’t the place fill with smoke and suffocate everyone?

A practical experiment, using state-of-the-art paper models, showed why not. The heat around the chimney – a heat-building cone – sets fire to the building.

Without a chimney though, smoke leaks gently through the thatching, and the carbon dioxide extinguishes any stray sparks.

So, I wonder, why doesn’t that happen with wigwams? They have fires in them (in the movies I've seen), and holes in the top of 'em that'd act like chimneys. And they don't burn down.

Hmm?

Got an eagerly awaited cheque through this morning which paying for the house a lot easier. And should have more monies soon, too.

Much work delivered this week. Done the requested rewrites on two unannounced things, totalling some 15,000 words. Edited something else and delivered it, and have just begun a new on-spec thing I’ve been meaning to get started for ages.

All this to stay warm. I will quote some Clements:

“There is still a perilously thin line that separates you from the hungry and the cold, and from the need to secure food and warmth. Few of us are more than a few months from bankruptcy […] While the Vikings are inhabitants of the past, the forces that created them are not.”

Jonathan Clements, A Brief History of the Vikings, p. 229.

To which I say, in my best Scandinavian accent, "Raaaaaahr!"

Vozravschayetes v Norwegioo s sakrovischem

Into the last straight on the big book of Vikings, which I heartily recommend. It's not an area I knew very well, but Jonathan Clements (admittedly, my chum) tells a compelling story, weaving together myriad sources from all over the place, and plenty of top-hole top facts.

Like the best detective he follows the money, so there's a fair amount on trade and its related migrations. I must admit my heart sank a bit when he brought up the economics, but it's sparingly used to give context and insight into why these burly blokes beat the shit out of everyone. Including each other.

The story of the Vikings also interweaves with the spread of Christianity in Europe - several Vikings get canonised - and the fortunes of the continent's royals. There's some good details on such famous folk as kings Arthur, Alfred, Canute, Macbeth and William the Conqueror (nee Bastard).

The chapter on Harald Hardraada is particularly exciting, with battles all over the world and more intrigue and familial back-stabbing than a whole week's EastEnders.

Starting as the Romans flee Britain, and ending with 1066, it nicely fills the gap in my schooling. And for all Jonathan gives broad context and specific motives to the various cast and crew, the Vikings remain to the core a vicious and brutal bunch of pirates. Right to the end, they're still going (a lovely phrase) a-viking.

Still, no mention of Vicky, Kirk Douglas or Tim Robbins - my Viking education till now. A shocking and uncharacteristic oversight, that.

Normally I'd quote a bit of the book for your pleasure and interest, but there's excerpts aplenty at Jonathan's own webthing.

So instead, here's some Sylvester:

"We hope to return to the North Way, carrying home the oriental treasures from the Silk Lands in the east, but the dark curse follows our dragonship.

Black fog turned day into night, and the fingers of death reached out from the waters to reclaim the treasure we have stolen. I carve these stones in memory of Asmund, Rognvald, Torkel, Halfdan, brave Viking warriors slain by the curse.

We sought haven in North Umbria, and took refuge at a place called Maidens' Bay, but the curse of the treasure has followed us to this place."

Ian Briggs, The Curse of Fenric, episode one.
(Transcript from the Dr Who scripts project.)

But what's it for?

Psychonomy's comments on Tuesday's post reminded me of something else we've haggled over: the question of why we are here.

His argument - I think, anyway, and he'll no doubt correct me - is that a Cartesian, evidence-based perspective of the world has to begin with "Because I am even thinking this, I must exist in the first place". Cartesius did put it a little simpler.

This, Psychonomy goes on, immediately brings into play questions about the nature of our existence, our perception, and our relationship to anything and anyone else.

The thing is, goes the argument, that science can tell us how we are here - and detail the mechanics and mechanisms - but it falls short of providing a reason.

I think the idea of there being a reason is misguided. "Why" means "for what purpose" - something more evident in the Latin-rooted "pourquoi" and "porqué" of French and Spanish. "Why?" means "What for?"

We can look for and find motives in human activity - to get the money; for revenge; so as to spread DNA meme - and we can also find reason in the actions of other living things. Animals and plants can have motives; though care's needed not to apply our own motives and morals to their activities.

But as to why space is like it is, or why there was a vacuum fluctuation and then a big explosion, we're a bit stuck. "It just happens," is about as far as we get.

Grasping for a reason, though - usually that "creation" is all part of someone's grand design - is anthropomorphising non-conscious events. The universe didn't start for a reason, any more than gravity gets something out of us not being able to fly.

Our existence just happens. Best just get on with it.

Monsters of Death

Still have to reply to Liadnan on his response to yesterday’s post, but will get there. I'm not beaten yet, oh no...

In the meantime, here’s a bit of fun from which I sent to a mate in late 2001. The idea was to write it up properly and send it to Big Finish, in the hope they might turn it into a CD. Some chance.

The mate – who'd also just leant me Sapphire and Steel, which I’d never encountered before – pointed out the rather awkward resemblance to Gaiman’s High Cost of Living. Which I’d not then read. Have done now. Damn.

I’m also told it’s similar to one of Terry Pratchett’s books – again one I’ve not read. And then there’s what Joe did in Master.

Like I said, damn. Anyway, here it is:

“Dr Who & the Monsters of Death

One of the things about Sapphire and Steel I've noticed already is the juxtaposition of these strange, incredibly powerful godly persons, who stalk the night and talk in riddles to each other, and the lowly, jumper-wearing, earnest British everyday folk who get caught up in the machinations of these gods and never quite understand what's going on. So that's the feel I'm going for. The companion (and I'm think 7th and Benny) spends her time with the humans, and she and the other cast, while being the 'focus' of the events, are actually just so much chaff.

The Doctor, meanwhile, is having talks with Death.

Death, you see, isn't that skeletal grim reaper, nor is he a teenage goth chick. Death is a craftsman, a farmer. Benny describes him as ‘having big, powerful hands... and eyes like the Doctor's.’ Death is a harvester of men – and, in fact, is known as The Harvester in the story - because the bit about him being Death isn't explicitly stated. He just gets on with his job, out in the open, reaping. And reaping is about life and feasting and progress, and it's all organic and environmental and natural, and part of the great cycle of life.

Except, like a farmer who starts to be bothered by the squealing of pigs at the abattoir, Death begins to wonder about this job of his. He watches humans throw everything they can to postpone or hide or beat the inevitable; all their clever technology, their ingenuity... and it's all entirely futile. And Death thinks that's terribly sad and misguided of them.

But he's curious. So he decides to try some time as a mortal. He sets up one of his trusted henchmen-monsters in his place, to run the shop while he's away. He tells the monster to come looking for him if he should be away too long, just to be on the safe side, and sets out. And then he disappears.

Because Death rather likes life. He finds delight in snow and sunflowers and bad jokes. He even falls in love.

However, he knows his monster will be looking for him. And he knows that his monster will be there when anyone dies. So Death has to avoid being near people who die. Which is harder than it sounds.

Especially when his beloved wife first mentions that she's ill. Death just walks away from her.

Anyway. The plot. The Doctor and Benny, perhaps by coincidence, find themselves in the middle of nowhere during a storm. They head to a house to shelter and call a taxi, with Benny muttering about living in Horror Movie clichés, and the fact that wherever the Doctor goes, something horrible always happens.

The old man who lets them in has already had unexpected guests that night, and insists they stay for dinner. The Doctor is taken by the old man somehow, and despite Benny's reservations they agree. The old man cooks beautifully - he is, of course, in love with the smells and textures of cooking, and could give up all his powers just for the smell and crackle of bacon on a grill.

Benny gets to know some of the other people who've turned up. One's an old friend of the old man's wife, who's finally tracked him down having nursed his wife to her grave. We later discover she's going to kill him, furious at the way he just walked out on the dying woman, gave up their love and left her to die slowly and miserably in despair. Another visitor is interested in the way that killings and unlikely deaths have followed this old man wherever he's been. Anyway, the humans are all sure that he's up to no good, and determined to unravel his secrets.

Death, meanwhile, is preoccupied. His monster is chasing him, and strange and unusual deaths are getting closer as the monster moves in.

Anyway. End of part three. The assassin attempts to kill Death, and Death, confronted, is appalled to be judged for the love of his wife. He kills the assassin, which obviously summons the monster. And, it turns out, Death's got just as inevitable and unavoidable an end as all the little people. He'll have to go back and do his job, his role.

Except, the Doctor isn't having that. He identifies with Death, and helps him escape. And the Doctor has a quiet word with the Monster - who's actually very affable - and asks him whether he's not due a promotion...”

Make the most of it

Watched the second part of Root of all Evil? last night. The Doctor arrived just in time for the chimps, and quickly ran away again.

There's an unbearable smugness about evangelical atheists, which I'm conscious of if myself. And I know Dawkins is constantly criticised for the same.

It's difficult, then, to know whether his programme impressed me for preaching to the choir. It seemed, quite fairly, to argue against "demonstrable falsehoods" and how they muddy our lives. There was good evidence of the downright pessimism of religion - that we can only behave ourselves if we live in fear of God.

While there was much made of the gays and abortionists going to Hell, it's not Jesus who talked of damnation. No, Hel was a Viking (thus pagan) god, part of their brutal, pillaging "morality".

The punishment of the wicked by some authoritarian power speaks of huge inadequacy - the equivalent of an child wailing, "I'm telling mum". We should do what's right because we should do what's right, not because some invisible Bogey Man will get us in the end.

The Dr points out that of course many Christians refute the idea of Hell. And, answering her criticism of the first episode, Dawkins did interview a moderate. While Dawkins found the Bishop of Oxford's arguments for tolerance and calm were "music to my ears", he then refuted the man for fence-sitting, for picking and choosing which bits of the Good Book to hold dear.

The need for the Bible to be literally true also speaks of inadequacy. Jesus taught by telling stories, so there's no reason at all the good book can't still hold moral worth while not being right about dinosaurs.

I always thought Jesus was a far more impressive figure without the God stuff. As the perfect son of an omniscient God, part of a divine trinity and blessed with special powers, he's amazing. But because he's got special powers, what he does isn't special.

As just a bloke who stood up to authority and said, "You could be nicer..." he's incredible. And imitable. He was the bastard son of a lowly carpenter, and look what he achieved... I note Dawkins quickly glossed over the not-easy-to-argue-with teaching of Jesus in favour of a pop at St Paul.

At the end, Dawkins was good on dealing with the real world and not seeing it as a test-run for the real thing. There's sheer wonder in what we do know - the hugeness of statistical probability against our very existence, the vastness of the universe, the complexity in the detail.

Yet, he's also keen to admit what we don't know, what we can't prove, what we haven't worked out yet. Which contrasts with the "easy truths" of religion: again that resolute need for certainty speaks of inadequacy. Like people who can't admit when they're lost.

And I couldn't help feeling that by exploring the world as it's given to us, striving never to bear false witness, to pursue truth and morality whatever the received wisdom from the leaders of church and state... Well, Dawkins is probably doing God proud.

Terms of endearment

Started a new freelance gig today, which involves much cutting a pasting.

Also discovered the wonderous term meat crime.