The Universal War

This is the cover of "The Universal War", which I wrote (and drew) when I was about ten. Happy birthday, Tom. Part one to follow. 
Part one
Part two

Good news and bad news

Good news first. Having blogged yesterday I popped to the shops for a copy of the Times - and was a bit surprised to find that the brother's jaunt occupies all of page 3. And he gets a credit for his precious photos.

He's on page 9 of today's Metro and all (I'm told - haven't seen a copy and it's not up on the site). Further media interest is due to follow...

As well as a paper, I also bought my first batch of Dr Who stickers, having been a bit late in the game. And I now have my first swapsies. The lucky numbers are: K; L; M; 65; and 184.

Suspect these might not be easy to get rid of as they're the ones free with Radio Times.

Have spent a day running about not buying a chair and trying to sort other things out. Full of adrenaline and sugar as things come together, so am a bit worried that it'll all fall to bits the moment the pressure's off, like the newly regenerated fifth Doctor delegating saving-everyone to K9, though the tin dog had left 10 episodes before...

I. has just texted to say that Syd Barrett has died, which makes me think of working into the evening on some meagre attempt at art, in a disused squash court with a wobbly tape of Relics playing over and over. And fellow (and more talented) artists squabbling about what they could put on instead that would be less weird, less funny and less unsettling.

Went to look at the obituary and what Bowie had to say, and see there's been more people blown up, and we're destined for more unclear power.

Hmm. Freudian typo there. I'll leave it. 

Quite right too

K.'s 39th birthday (you can trust me on this) went smashingly on Saturday, in a lovely little pub by Euston with a DJ and dancing and lots of talking rubbish.

K. had also organised big-screen Doomsday, punters assembled before a projector screen as if it were a new kind of England game. The sound popped and pixellated every now and again, but otherwise we were dumbstruck. Cor, that was a bit bloody good wasn't it? See right for one quarter of the verdict from the Time Team.

Some things do trouble me. Couldn't some Cybermen have held on to something? And anyway, Tracy-Ann Cyberman hadn't jumped between dimensions, so wouldn't be all sticky with void stuff. (I suppose, though, that she was built from spare parts that had been).

Like Charlie Brooker's not-a-review, this is not to criticise but borne out of love. Perhaps it's just the freelance hack in me looking for ways to cash in with merchandise, but I thought, "Ooh, there's another story there..."

I'd also come up with a completely different reason for how the Daleks came back: we see in Bad Wolf that their teleport-wossname leaves behind dust (so that Dr Who thinks Rose got disintegrated). And when Captain Jack wakes up again in Parting of the Ways, all that's left of his executors is the same sort of suspicious white powder...

But anyway, can't wait for Christmas.

Speaking of things in newspapers, the brother's wild adventure has made it into today's Times. 

Self improvement

Five things I have learned in the last couple of days:

• David Darlington is a hero.
• I., my evil overlord guv'nor, does not like pineapple.
• Dr Who does not wear pants or socks, the little scamp.
• Mandarin characters (I think they were Mandarin) don't copy and paste easily in Word.
• When texting someone, "I'm sending you a script!" predictive text wants to spell the last word as "rapist".

Deliverance

For the first time since I went freelance 47 months ago, I have missed a deadline. The particular boss has been terribly understanding and it's not been entirely my fault, but it's still something of a nuisance.

Still, the thing has been delivered five days late (or three if your weekends aren't working), and I am entirely in love with the pretty picture to go with it. You'll have to wait and see...

Other work has quietened down too - though I missed seeing Dr Who swotting West Wing on Tuesday due to pre-paid commitments in a house. The Doctor had fun, though admitted surprise at Mr Tennant's geekery, and again bewailed the socially inept demographic she and her girlfriends have all settled for.

There's plenty more on my slate but it's all rolling onward and we've overcome a plethora of last-minute hiccups. I repeat to myself the unofficial maxim of the modern NHS: if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. And I am not dead yet.

Nor is K, who is staying with us for the next couple of weeks. She survived a first night with the cat (there'd been some concern about allergies, but she thinks its only dogs now), and also the sight of me manfully topless.

This morning I climbed on a train with a reading book and not print-outs to red-pen. Am delighted by how The School turned out - and so is Tapeloop, which is nice. I have also bought flowers for another man's missus, and talked tracing with the far end of the Earth.

Off to the pub tonight as it is that time of the month again. May even have time tomorrow to shout lunch for the accommodating boss.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll write a post that's actually *about* something. Blimey.

Coterminosity

Is a word I learned today. Its the state of having shared geographical borders, so is a bit like "proximity" but a bit snugglier.

It has been swelteringly, tropically hot today, apart from the moment of sudden rain that caught my boss G. We think this might be the gods' response to years of tradition and wigs coming to an end this afternoon.

(Lords mostly cheered at her announcement, though I think there were cries of "Out of order" from the torier benches. And there was another big cheer when the Lord Chancellor whipped off his wig.)

Anyway, as well as cutting my way through the office with a machete, I have edged nearer to finishing something big (and approved a splendid picture for it), dealt with an embarrassing misunderstanding that almost dropped me right in it again, and had some notes on more things I must do. Also got a copy of my Sapphire and Steel play, though not had a chance to hear it.

If I were clever, I'd make some link to coterminosity with our American neighbours...

Two years ago we were in Livonia watching fireworks that went on for weeks. Recommend Alex's thought for the day.

Collapse at the coalface

Arg.

This is something of an understatement, but will have to suffice for this family blog.

On Saturday my already packed schedule got a little bit busier, later than "the last minute" by one month and one day. Though the extra straw has not (yet) broken this camel's well-exercised back, I did hurry home after tea and Dr Who with Nimbos, and was still typing away desperately at 3 in the morning.

The end is now thankfully in sight (well, in one of four current big projects), but being pre-booked with work today and tomorrow has not exactly eased the blood-pressure.

Also, yesterday my long-lost friend Daniel popped round, who I'd not seen in sevenish years. We took him (and Nimbos) to Crystal Palace's Victorian Fair, where we had a picnic and watched the Dr cavort on the not-too-scary carousel. Some very splendid pictures to follow, when Daniel's back in Sweden and can send me them.

The day seemed to be in part a celebration of IKB's 200th birthday, and 70 years since the Joe Paxton's enormous great greenhouse burnt down. There was wrestling and a ferris wheel and various stalls of knick-knacks, and the Dr got drawn in by the glossy pictures a chap from the Crystal Palace Foundation showed off. She was very good and ladylike, and didn't dispute his using the word "Italianate" when describing the Greek stuff.

We wended round by the monsters again, feeding ducks with our rich, new-fangled bread, and ended up in the pub for a pint or four. Then we headed back through the park, showing Daniel how the ruins look like Greek stuff.

Being of an archaeolgical bent, he was delighted to see "modern" ruins - and we discussed how apocalyptically sci-fi a Victorian would find the state of such an icon. Like the overgrown Washington DC in Logan's Run, said Nimbos - though we don't talk about 30 being past it just now. I was also minded of Shelley's Ozymandias, king of kings, the ruin of whose works should make the mighty despair.

Yes, I have read another poem.

Anyway, hot and slightly tipsy we headed home for tea, and I got the washing up done just in time for Dr Who. Daniel coped with not having seen any of the rest of New Show, though he did pick up on the Egyptian Mummy, which shows he paid attention when I educated him in our cultural heritage all those years ago.

We discussed the apolyptically sci-fi icons New Show has bumped off in the captial: they've broken the clocktower at the Palace of Westminster and shattered the glass in the Gherkin. And now the big tower at Canary Wharf turns out to house scientists making jumps to alternate universes, and all because of things left by the Daleks.

That's a neat idea, isn't it? But if they're going to blow it up, they'll be late by two weeks.

I don't absolutely talk about boils

Have just finished Right ho, Jeeves, in which Bertram Wooster finds himself in tricky circs. as he struggles to help out his chums.

Newting teetotaller Gussie Fink-Nottle is too timid to chat up his beloved Madeline Basset; Tuppy Glossop has fallen out with his finance Angela after pooh-poohing her shark; Bertie’s Aunt Agatha has yet to come clean about all the cash she gambled away in Cannes; and Anatole, Aunt Agatha’s highly strung chef, is threatening to resign.

Worst of all, Jeeves seems to have lost his usually brilliant psychological insight. At least, that’s what Bertie’s insisting…

It’s probably little surprise that I pictured this all the way through starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, with ad breaks between every chapter. I’d watched their telly version avidly, but this is the first time I’ve tried one of the novels.

Had tried Wodehouse before but was irritated by the posh fripperies of life at Blandings and put off his golfing short stories by their being about golf. This, though, proved something else – funny, fizzy and delicious, and a right old pleasure to read. I’m told it’s one of the better ones, and it felt like sipping Champagne.

There’s some wonderful wordplay and turns of phrase, giddily narrated by Bertie, who only just follows what’s going on himself.

That said, the book was written in 1934 and I couldn’t help think of Roosevelt’s New Deal and what Mr Hitler was up to by that point, and of the ominous Things To Come.

(Oddly, no one seems to be selling the Region 2 DVD version of that which I've got.)

There’s just one aside about the real world:

“I was reading in the paper the other day bout those birds who are trying to split the atom, the nub being that they haven’t the foggiest as to what will happen if they do. It may be all right. On the other hand, it may not be all right. And pretty silly a chap would feel, no doubt, if having split the atom, he suddenly found the house going up in smoke and himself torn limb from limb.”

PG Wodehouse, Right ho, Jeeves, pp. 170-171.

This reminds me of Chaplin’s Great Dictator, in which there’s some silly mucking about in a concentration camp, an astonishingly misjudged laugh. Chaplin later said that he regretted these scenes, and would never have dreamt of doing them had he known what the camps really involved. Though there’s arguments about what people would and should have known at the time, it now plays as woefully crass.

Wodehouse is even more overshadowed by our knowledge of later events because of accusations that he collaborated with the Nazis. I’m aware it’s complicated, and McCrum’s Wodehouse biography awaits me next (the far side of some urgent writing of my own). Am very interested to see what he makes of that. Have an idea for a story…

Last year, before researching Cromwell’s campaign in Ireland, I listed what I thought I already knew. What follows is more of the same – me throwing down my current position to see how far it’s wrong.

Right ho, Jeeves gives an insight into a long-lost and idealised world of servants’ balls and school prize-givings, where English society revolved entirely round the authority of landed gentry. We watch the bored, silly lives of the rich with their expensive hobbies, vanity publishing and horrendous taste in fashion.

There are a few other historical observations, such as Agatha muttering about the poor quality of whisky since the (first world) war. We’re also treated to the kinds of car and hat and holiday destination thought topping at the time.

It’s an "idyllic world" says to Evelyn Waugh on the back cover, one that "will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own."

It’s written as if thus will it ever be, the young things trapped in one eternal summer. Bertie’s chums are always getting engaged and never married, and he himself ever evades ladies’ snares. It cannot last, surely – unless Bertie ends up as a lonely old bachelor shuffling alone round the Drones – but it’s a happy make-believe.

I can see that later books, written after the Second World War pulled the Empire apart, can be seen to hark back to a golden age of economic inequality. But you could argue, just, in this one that it subverts the class hierarchy of its time. Jeeves playing the toffs off against one another, and sending his master on an 18-mile goose chase, is of the same class of subversion as the Marriage of Figaro. That’s what makes it funny.

Does comedy have a duty to deal with contemporary issues? The appeal of Wooster is his refusal to take responsibility. His only desires are to eat, drink and be merry – and wear his ridiculous clothes. He’s not a mean person, though, forever causing trouble because he wants to help.

The problem is that ignoring the nasty realities seems less acceptable when the author then writes similarly witty accounts of having tea and cakes with Nazis.

I’m reminded of the end to Goggle-eyes by Anne Fine. One of the characters explains that life is difficult and stories can help. Some give you tips on how to cope with the difficulties, and others just give you a break from them. The best do both at the same time.

So a clever, witty and enjoyable book, but I’d have liked a bit more depth and texture Champagne, Bertie, is all very well but is better with Rich Tea biscuits.

Back and forwards

Spent some of today ringing round people trying to make something happen. Fingers crossed it will all go swimmingly, but there's something unnerving about calling people you've never spoken to before and asking them when they are free.

It must in turn be a challenge to sound both keen and wary...

Also been trawling through old emails for the purposes of research. Odd to find email from a me aged 24.5, discussing books I don't remember having read. And the young scamp's so enthusiastic.

He also seems desperate to be writing things and bored by his current job. Poor lamb's still got 18 months to go before he makes the leap that'll transform his life...

His girlfriend sounds quite nice though. And patient.

Had a nice long chat with the sister this morning, who becomes an Australian on Tuesday. She doesn't think that she'll have to do national service. Note to self: go out to see her.

And an email from the youngest brother, at the other end of Oz, to see if I've done the homework he'd set me. Ha! I've 300,000 words of things to get through first. But these things creep ever onward.

Hello to the elder me looking back on this post, recalling all this bustle with affection. Up yours, granddad.

The Library of St John the Birthdayed

Some of my more bookish correspondents complain that I did not include full details of the volumes received on Saturday. Having counted again, I also realise there are 20 of the blighters - and that's not including the collected "Gifted" which my boss Joe sent just because he's so nice.

So, in alphabetical order:

1. Baker, Tom, "The Boy Who Kicked Pigs", Faber & Faber, London, 1999.
   A grotesque and grisly story about a very naughty boy, and very funny it is too.
2. Banksy, "Wall and Piece", Century, London, 2005.
   Had bought this for M. and was terribly envious. Used to love seeing Banksy's stuff as I passed through Southwark, though I gather art galleries and museums are a bit fed up with his rubbish, teenage imitators.
3. Beresford, Kevin, "Roundabouts from the Air (ish)", New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd, London, 2005.
   A collection of snaps of favourite 'bouts, include two shots of Pierre Vivant's glorious traffic-light tree sculpture I pinched for the front of a book.
4. Carey, David, "How it works - Television", Ladybird Books Ltd., Loughborough, 1968.
   Includes beautiful illustrations by BH Robinson, including Daleks on page 21, and a diagram showing how the Black and White Minstrels get into your house.
5. Fromkin, David, "A Peace to End All Peace - the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the Modern Middle East", Phoenix Press, London, 1989.
   Or, "How the Middle East ended up in such a godawful mess," as Liadnan wrote in it. "Perhaps somewhat harsh to the Palestinians, but nevertheless I find it a fascinating read. Hope you do too."
6. Gathorne-Hardy, Edward, "An Adult's Garden of Bloomers - Uprotted from the works of several eminent authors", The Bodley Head, London, 1966.
   21 pages of brief snippets from famous books which sound a bit rude. Such as this from Eliot's The Mill on the Floss, cited on page 13: "Mrs Glegg had doubtless the glossiest and crispest brown curls in her drawers, as well as curls in various degrees of fizzy laxness."
7. Gatiss, Mark, "The Vesuvius Club", Simon & Schuster UK Ltd., 2004.
   Some wild and wildean Victoriana from the author of "Nightshade" and "The Idiot's Lantern", starring a gent called Lucifer Box.
8. Grayling, AC, "Among the Dead Cities - was the Allied bombing of civilians in WWII a necessity or a crime?", Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, 2006.
   Was meant to go see Grayling speak earlier this year, and am looking forward to this a great deal.
9. Cole, Stephen, "Dr Who - The Feast of the Drowned", BBC Books, London, 2006.
   I've met Steve once, in 1997, when I interrupted an interview with him to ask my own questions. Got credited as "others". Ho hum.
10. Iggulden, Conn, and Iggulden, Hal, "The Dangerous Book for Boys", HarperCollins Publishers, London, 2006.
    Just full of spendid stuff I wish I'd been told betwen 10 and 13. Trip wires, grammar, the different kinds of tree - even how to talk to the female.
11. Low, George (ed.), "The Dirty Dozen - the best 12 Commando comic books ever", Carlton Books Ltd., London, 2005.
    A fat brick of a compendium in which war is hard but the British are plucky, and the Nazis are always evil and ghastly. Have read the first one already. Wished it included credits for the writers and artists.
12. McCrum, Robert, "Wodehouse - A Life", Viking, London, 2004.
    Wanted this especially as research for something I'm writing later this year, but N. tells me it's a great read once you get past Wodehouse's childhood. Am currently reading "Right ho, Jeeves" and will report on that soon.
13. Morrison, Grant and McKean, Dave, "Arkham Asylum - 15th anniversary edition", DC Comics, New York, 2004.
    Luscious, extravagent, slef-indulgent adventure for Batman which I'd loved when it first came out. I interviewed McKean earlier this year, too, which was nice.
14. Nobbs, David, "The Reginald Perrin Omnibus", Arrow Books, London, 1999.
    B. (who bought me this and really adores Nobbs) had been enthusing about Perrin only last week. Apparently the second book got written because Leonard Rossiter would only do a second series on the telly if it were based on a book.
15. Paterson, Don, "The Book of Shadows", Picador, 2005.
    A collection of brief observations and thoughts, sometimes terribly pretentious and uber-poet, and sometimes beautifully profound. And there are quite a few rude ones, too. This is from page 73: "I read a definition of the word 'solid': something which retains its shape; and find myself immediately terrified by the wilfullness of objects."
16. Rayner, Jacqueline, "Dr Who - The Stone Rose", BBC Books, London, 2006. Includes carefully researched British Museum action. On the way back from Jac's house I was amused by the Third, Second and First Avenues nearby, leafy no-through-roads a universe away from the gird-system, New Town and American model I assume they were based on.
17. Richards, Justin, "Dr Who - The Resurrection Casket", BBC Books, London, 2006.
    Justin told me I couldn't kill Ian Chesteron, and though we've stood in the same room a couple of times before, I actually meet him for real on Friday.
18. Roberts, Gareth, "Dr Who - I Am a Dalek", BBC Books, London, 2006.
    A glimpse of a paperback for the Quick Reads scheme, which opens with a lovely scene of the Doctor and Rose practicing being weightless inside the TARDIS.
19. Robinson, Tony, and Aston, Mick, "Archaeology is Rubbish - a beginner's guide", Channel 4 Books, London, 2002.
    A couple of the Amazon reviewers seem very cross about this book, but I've found the first half very entertaining, and full of little things that I really didn't know.
20. Shapiro, James, "1599 - A year in the life of William Shakespeare", Faber & Faber, London, 2005.
    Had read good things about this in the Dr's erduite press, and it will count as homework for next year's Dr Who.

So all in all I shall be busy for the next few weeks. Have yet to attempt the making of bread or afixing my shiny new monitor. Been a bit caught up with other pressing bits of work.

Oh, and Millennium asks (on his Day MM), after pictures of me looking... sleepy, that I look after Minimum.

Too late! The little fellow has been claimed for the Beast. 

Argentees and sparklers

A bread-maker, a zippy remote-control K9, lots of fine booze (including – hurrah! – some Bolly), a chair-to-come, a Dalek cake with genuine pyrotechnics, some Flaming Lips, a robot, a screen, a Minimum Elephant, 19 lovely, lovely books and a right old sod of a hangover…

Yeah, a rather splendid haul this year and the Dr surpassed herself with the party. As did my second wife, who should drink pink fizz more often.

Had a splendid time with lots of splendid friends, though the last hour or so is a tad blurry. Probably for the best, as some former colleagues of the Dr were discovering that it is unwise to call the bluff of a drunk.

M. says it’s a different experience watching Droo while standing up, and I loved Rose having to watch out for the Doctor’s eating jam and being weird at people. Is she also responsible for his knowing Eastenders and Kylie and the shenanigans at Club Med?

Others seemed less impressed, finding it all too girlie about the love and/or too boysie being nice about sport. I can all too believe that the tribal excitement of a big sporting event could generate sufficient power. Have fond memories of Burnley vs. Sheffield United in November 2000, and the contagious thrill surging round the stadium as the home team realised they’d won…

Hadn’t seen some people in ages and folk had come from far and wide; Bristol, Macclesfield, Brighton, Margate… Liadnan looked bronzed and handsome like he’d just wandered in from the Aegean. He’d bought me the Fromkin book he spoke about here which the Dr was a bit miffed about: she’s the one who reads the serious, clever stuff. I might let her have a lend, and will report back here on all the other reading. But I am a bit slow, so be patient.

Bernice Summerfield herself bought me “Archaeology is Rubbish” which I’m already 70 pages through. Know my spoil heaps from my robber trenches, and all sorts of other top facts which will generally improve my dating. The book is fun and engaging, using the second-person to draw the reader in, but it does rather assume you have a garden.

Apparently got to bed about three-ish. Remember it getting to one. Remember making R. laugh without meaning to, and being cunningly stood by the lashings of wine…

H. and J. couldn’t make it ‘cos they were watching posh singing but turned up yesterday for a picnic. Had not been very brilliant up to that point, but a walk, some champagne and some ice cream brought me round. We admired the monsters and then ambled home.

Caught the end of the football – and felt better for seeing Beckham spitting out a tiger. The play wasn’t brilliant and I’m more annoyed by the wobbles there than in the previous night’s Droo. Feel someone needs to take them aside and politely chide, “Now do come along, Ingerlund.”

Listened to Cantus, finally, and watched telly about museums, then French spirals, then spitting image. And at last sleep…

Fab weekend then, but I wouldn’t wanted to be 30 all the time.

Hello, old boy

Had lunch with the parents yesterday, at which my Mum told me a top fact: between three and three-thirty in the afternoon thirty years ago, I slippped out into the world. At quarter to four I had my first ever bath.

This was of especial interest to the Dr, who in our bathless abode misses a good long soak. No, I don't just mean me.

She was careful to look for differences between me last night in the winter of my 20s, and me this morning as a crusty old man. And claimed she could see no great different, though she may have been sparing the truth.

Have done rather well on the presents front already: a bread-maker and some suitable reading from the wife; a bag full of Dr Who Adventureses (including free gifts) from one of her henchwomen; and a spiff-tastic book from Nimbos explaining how to make trip-wires and treehouses. Hoorah!

The Dr has also turfed me out of the house for the afternoon while she prepares for this evening's festivities. Am a bit scared about what surprises she has in store. Have spent a nice time drinking tea and watching telly with Nimbos, not playing in the sunshine.

And must shortly head back home to the nice mrs, to drink and eat. And fear her.

Smiley happy people holding hands

“Some people act a memory, the Superintendent thought, noticing his concentration, others have one. In the Superintendent’s book, memory was the better half of intelligence, he prized it highest of all mental accomplishments; and Smiley, he knew, possessed it.”

John le Carre, Smiley’s People, p. 43.

And so my hunt for Karla comes to an end (having previously read Tinker, Tailor and the Honourable Schoolboy).

This would constitute quite a hefty spoiler were Karla’s presence not signposted in the blurb - and in the only clip of the telly version they ever seem to show. Which is a shame, as it would have been a corking great surprise to realise only late into the book why Smiley’s so excited.

It’s been a while since Smiley’s last work for the Circus (the officious and inelegant British secret service). But his paymasters want him to tidy up after the brutal murder of one of his old agents. Could he be a good fellow and ensure there’s no fuss?

But as old George walks his old haunts and catches up with his old (and peculiar) chums, he gets the sniff of a much greater intrigue. Retired, jaded, and estranged from his wife, old George may just have the nounce left to win one last, glorious battle…

It’s a gripping read, and like Tinker, Tailor navigates a treacherous path through unreliable memories and differing perspectives. You spend most of it lagging some steps behind Smiley, not quite making the connections that he can and hoping he’ll stop to explain.

It really gets across the slow-trudging monotony of cold war spy-work, tawdry and unglamorous, and very not James Bond. (The telly version boasts a brilliant cast including three Bond villains – two of them consecutive – as well as Maureen Lipman, Alan Rickman, Ingrid Pitt, Gatherer Hade and Lou Beale.)

I’m still a bit confused about some elements. Codename “Karla” (we’re never told his name) can’t have been Ostrakov because Mrs O. saw her husband die of cancer. So is Karla really Glickman, the lover she’s long-assumed dead? Does that play, or am I missing something obvious with my paltry dimness of brain?

The book makes a few things more explicit than the TV version – stating as fact (eventually) what Alexandria’s relationship is to Karla, and why that’d matter.

The TV version likewise provides stuff we don’t get in the book, such as the contents of Smiley’s letter to his caught-out Moriarty (reminding me of S Moffat on why he felt we should know what Reinette wrote). There’s also more to Smiley’s meeting with his estranged wife, Ann. Karla had previously used the Smileys’ problematic marriage to his own advantage, and in the telly version Smiley tries to protect her from any further danger.

In the book, though, he’s colder and more aloof – ending things between them without saying why. The implication (that I saw, anyway) is that he’s cutting himself off from weakness, rather than worrying for her safety. So Karla and he swap places – Karla showing human frailties and concern for family, Smiley coldly using this against him. As Smiley himself says:

“I have destroyed him with the weapons I abhorred, and they are his.”

Ibid, p. 391.

We’re kept guessing right up to the end about whether it’s going to all work out or implode into some grisly snafu. That uncertainty is helped by knowing that le Carre stories so often end with someone’s sudden and miserable death.

But whatever the outcome, it can’t be a full victory. Smiley’s people are used, abused and left strewn behind him.

Clever by mistake

'Scuse the inordinant boasting, but somewhat to my amazement people like me. Last year they really didn't, which just adds to the surprise. Cor and golly.

Today's Dr Who Magazine includes the "Off the Shelf Awards" results, as voted for by its many discerning readers. "The Time Travellers" has won the "Other Doctor Who fiction" category (i.e. them books that don't have Eccles on the cover), with a rather smashing average of 8.06 out of 10. Which makes me feel better about snittier reviews like this one.

"History of Christmas" came fourth with an average 7.61, just below "Fear Itself" and "Gallifrey Chronicles" - the two books I expected to be trounced by. And "Lost Museum" came third in the "Other Big Finish audios" category, the one I'd come almost bottom in last time. I were beaten by the Cybermen, which was always an ambition.

Hearty congratulation to fellow winners Gareth, Joe, Nick, Johnny, Mike Collins (who I've only met once, when he advised me to add guns and robots) and "The War Games".

There's also a generally positive review of something else of mine which concludes, "Whether or not this is intentional, the Settling is a refreshingly intelligent, layered play."

Yes, I know that's taking the Mr Michael out of context, but it still made me laugh.

Know your limits

Went to the opera yesterday, darlings, to see Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. “That was simply lovely,” said the bloke next to me as it finished, which made me wonder if we’d seen the same show. He’d also been humming along and air-conducting, bless him.

Yes, it was jolly, lively and expertly staged and performed. The lead blokes looked strapping in breeches (I’m told), and the ladies were rather yummy too. It zipped along, directed with pace and excitement. But there’s something troubling about the story itself, something subversive – even sinister, as the Dr said.

Two Italian chums are dating pretty sisters and everything in their lives is just peachy. But the chums’ mate knows that women are fickle, unfaithful and devilbitchwhores, and bets the chums he can prove it.

Under the terms of the wager, the chums tell their girlfriends they have to go off to war, then return later in the day in different clothes and fiendishly good moustaches and pretend to be lusty Albanians. With poetry and flowers and the feigned taking of poison, they try to make their own birds unfaithful.

The women resist piously into the second act, but pushed by their slutty maid they ultimately give in to some naughties. And the wearing of another man’s pendant. To make things all the more galling for the chums, they’re bedding each other’s missuses.

For such a wild comedy, it ends on quite a lot of questions: will the couples stay together? What have they learnt? Can they be happy? And, depending how it’s staged, who ended up with who anyway?

The men, of course, are just as badly depraved as the ladies – testing them so duplicitously in the first place, and for a wager, and then doing the dirty with their best friend's lady, just to make some kind of point. This irony is not exactly acknowledged in the words of the singing.

Also, that they protest so strongly about female inferiority and sinfulness immediately makes you suspicious about who really ruled the roost when Mr Mozart was writing. You wouldn’t have to insist that women know their place if they were already meekly obedient.

(Sometimes I gaze wistfully at the Dr and pray the words “meekly obedient”…)

By protesting too much, the opera implies the weakness of patriarchy. It confounds the usual guff about universal and transcendant love, and the “happy” ending denies real closure. It may seem silly and giddy, but there’s something vicious and political in its underbelly.

Mozart got in trouble for writing stuff that upset the dignified courts of his day. In another one of his, a working class hero runs rings around his master, just prior to real working class heroes lopping their masters’ heads off. Not exactly the most tactful thing to set before the Austrian king.

Now I know there are lots of people who don’t “get” opera, let alone like it. But I think that’s a question of not knowing where to start with it – a bit like girls and science-fiction. (Yes, there are wondrous and pretty girls who know their Alan Moore and Akira. But these are – in my paltry experience, anyway – a terribly rare, terribly precious sub-species, who must be treasured, protected, cultivated and encouraged to breed.)

This may well be to do with reading strategies – of the kind I’ve gone on about before. Opera is usually a century or two old, with in-jokes about people who’ve been dead nearly as long. It helps to have an idea how to engage with the stuff.

This is not as difficult as it sounds, and can consist of three easy steps:

1. What’s Opera, Doc?
   Yes, the Bugs Bunny cartoon. If you are unmoved by this, give up now. Not just opera, give up the whole breathing thing, too.
2. Frasier: Out With Dad
   It starts with Frasier’s dad muttering that opera is all so improbable and silly, and develops into glorious farce as Martin tries to help out with his son’s love-life.
3. The Marriage of Figaro
   Don’t bother with what it’s about, just get the CD and have it on in the background. Don’t pay attention too closely, but play it through a few times. Do the washing up, or some typing.

No, that’s all you have to do.

Nice, isn’t it?

Balls to the dressing up posh to go hear it live – though that can be fun too. (Yesterday was chilly, especially after I’d given up my dinner jacket to the frail princess.) It’s just tunes and a bit of a silly story that’s good to listen to, and which can have something a bit more to it if you’re looking.

"There’s only so much you can do with a teenage girl"

Busy, busy, busy. Written up half an interview from last night, done even more research, started a story (which also involved some investigation), and now got to put my posh togs on and go to the opera.

Honestly.

Cider inside her insides

A hot, sticky day and I've spent all of it cooped up in doors, going through cardboard boxes of old Droo's magazine. Am amassing a huge amount on the history of one Bernice S. Summerfield, who was born in 2540 and also 2472, who starting her diary when she was very young and also when she was 22.

The first time we see her (in a preview) she's singing soulfully to mushrooms, and the first person we see her kiss is Paul Magrs. And this is merely the tip of the Benny-shaped iceberg.

We have a wordcount for the thing, and I'm not yet halfway. But the interviews start in earnest on Monday, and there's a wealth of things to cover.

Tired now. Need love. And monsters.

Unmentionables

M’learned colleague Ebb of Weevil has posted a fine list of terms deemed unsavoury by the Speaker of the House of Commons. For example, it is considered unparliamentary and unbefitting of good gentlefolk to speak of “clowns” and “piddling”.

Once, long ago, I took pieces of silver full-time from Sutekh known as Seth. My job – as well as making chains for when I hung alongside the late Jacob Marley – was to load crap on a website each week and then report on how it sold. (Answer most often: “badly”.)

Every now and then the system cocked up, spitting out something we’d loaded. No error message, no morsel of clue, it just didn’t put the thing out there on the interweb.

As this only ever happened when we described computer stuff, I was (like a second-rate Miss Marple) able to discern a pattern. There were some words you couldn’t use in the descriptions field.

(By “field” I mean a box for writing inside, usually a white box on a grey computer screen. And not a large, agrarian space in which foodstuffs grow organically, a home to owls and butterflies. The Register has written more on the balls of hexadecimal coinage.)

Through a process of elimination we worked out what some of the naughty words were: HTML; OEM; .com; that kind of lickspittle technicalia. Nothing to bring the whole house down.

The helpful IT team explained how you could get round this by substituting individual letters for code – an ampersand, the right number, and then a semi-colon. Sometimes the system was foxed by this intellectual chicanery, and sometimes it still sprang an error.

Since this was getting us more nowhere than we usually managed on our own, I batted an email to the company what made our loading system. I listed the disreputable words we’d worked out for ourselves, and asked what there was we could do.

Also, lambishly innocent, I enquired what other terms we ought to steer clear of…

They sent me a list. 1,000s of terms and phrases on it, and none of them to do with computers.

Permutations of f-words and c-words you’d not even dreamt of. Euphemisms far more piquant and vivid than merely “blinking like a gormless alien”. Terms drawn from medical dictionaries centuries out of print. And delights like “winkie-wee-wee” and “poo-hole”.

Dutifully and respectfully, I sent this round the office so everyone would know what we must never do. The IT team soon digested the banned vocab.

And some slippery customers swiftly offered some 100 terms the no-no file had missed.

Hypergraphia

24 hours after landing at Gatwick and it's like we were never away. A long day's editorial at the office - reviewing the efforts of other freelance sense-makers and ploughing on with my own - followed by editing things sent in for something as yet unannounced and chasing what remains undelivered.

Thought the trip home from work would be quiet if I left the office just as the football began. Couldn't see any difference, though, so perhaps everyone else was heading home to catch the end (wisely, as it turned out), or thought a battle 'gainst Trinidad and Tobago would be a foregone conclusion.

Or maybe - whisper it - they just didn't care.

Am not sure quiet what to hope for this year. Have got Mexico in a work sweepstake, but win cash even if we're the first to lose on penalties. The Dr drew Togo, poor lamb.

She has exciting publications news, and we have marvelled at some shiny PDF proofs. This afternoon she was being interviewed by Radio 4 (for something to be recorded later). Think I'm going to be the poorer, more plebian mercenary hack in our household. Though that's hardly a surprise.

A great raft of things I'm producing has been announced: Season 7 of Bernice Summerfield.

I love the new logo by the talented Simon Holub, and Stuart Manning has again dazzled with our groovy, new design. Clever fellows. Now go buy this nice stuff!

There are some broadly top reviews of both The Settling and Time Travellers on the lovely OG. Nice to know people like me. Although Finn Clark's review of the latter does seem very cross that I've been consistent with the rest of the range. Oh well.

Been sent all sorts of general comment on the week's events - governments on both sides of the pond trying to find excuses for terrible things they've done. I said terrible. Do you see?

Enjoyed Fafblog's insightful insight, of course, and impressed by Ben Metcalf's piece on simple human decency in Harper's. Bit surprised to find nothing softie-leftie from my softie-leftie friends, but they may still be wringing their hands and so are unable to type.

Fechez le vache

It seems a lifetime ago now, but after scary-cool Droo on Saturday we jumped into the car with my parents and drove down to Portsmouth, in such good time we had to wait an hour to be allowed on the ferry.

There were lots of some flavour of classic car about, with smartish people driving. By the time we got aboard and up into the bar, these smart types had morphed into fat, smoking people in England tops. Such is the reliance these days on CGI.

Arrived at something ungodly in Caen next morning, woken to classical music which got ever more insistent. With time just to wolf a coffee, we found the car again and rode out on the D84 (also, I explained to my delighted fellow passengers, the name of a nifty robot in Old School Dr Who).

Took all day driving, with lots of chatter in the car, some expert navigating and spying along the roadside the yellow broom flowers that gave the Kings Plantagenet their name. Via the ring-roads of Nantes, Rennes, Noites and Bordeaux we made our way to the small town of Allemans-du-Dropt, where my great-auntie lives.

I’ve not been back since my early teens, so it was odd how much the town was in two-thirds scale of my memory. It was at once familiar and entirely foreign. Took the Dr into the church to see the frescoes, which include devils eating what look like children because they’d got funny ideas about perspective. After lashings of red wine we were dead asleep by ten.

Our first port of call early next morning was to a local winery where the Dr was brave before a wolf-like dog, and I got teased for having shivers whenever local cocks crew. Think I have an excuse what with being attacked by the ghastly things at the age of three.

Made up for this horror with a sampling of the booze – red going down a little heavy in that heat and so early. Offered to help carry the booze-cruise purchases back to the car, which really just gave me the excuse to see the cellars, the bottles of lovely stuff disappearing off into the dark, and to stroke fondly at the great oak barrels of the next batch.

Having dropped off this first instalment, we pootled up to the pretty 12th century church at Monteton, built incorporating the few bits of stone they found around the place that suggest much earlier Christians. The place seems mostly run (and kept going) by the local English community.

Then it was into Eymet for lunch, and a look round the rather lovely bastide (a fortified town in the middle ages, which served the French well during the 100 Years War). I suddenly had a flash of memory, being made to have icecream there in the street, so a picture could be taken. There were picturesque turrets and a cloistered market with places to eat in the shade. The Dr had nettle pasta.

Our next stop was the chateau at Duras (fab pictures at the site) which I remembered so fondly. It’s been much done up since my last visit, but the smoke-stack tower was just as commanding as ever. I don’t remember the staircase up to the 360° view being so steep, so narrow, or going on so long. But I remember scraping my knees to sit up on the ledge in the guard room, half of the way up. Which made me realise what a different size I must be these days.

We took photos of the long-pegged-together timber roof to impress a friend into that sort of thing, and marvelled at the sign which told of a 14th century owner who’d married the Marchioness of Goth. We spoke filth to each other in the whispering gallery, amid hordes of screaming schoolkids who’d rather missed the point.

The Dr was again appalled at the state of original objects on display, suffering in the sunlight, warped under the drawing pins that held them up. We moved swiftly on, and in the bar across the square had beer and gossip and Japan 1-nil up.

We were back in time for dinner with some of the great-aunt’s friends, and retired late. Pottered round to one of the friends next morning to use their pool while they did the gardening. Normally, we’d have gone swimming in the Castelgaillard lake near Duras, but run-off from the local farms has stopped the swimming on pain on nasty skin problems. Am rather bothered about that: having happy memories of failing to windsurf, and of meeting a bloke I’d later see in the background of Silver Nemesis, and of being told off for not looking after the baby brother.

Then to the Chateau at Biron, which was on an even grander, madder scale than Duras, and we struggled to imagine its grand, terraced garden which would have been raised at least 100 feet from the ground and stretched for miles, had the revolution not got in the way. The family’s coat of arms and the faces on the tombs had been chiselled off, suggesting what the locals thought. The gory torture chamber is not original, but leftover from the filming of Les Visiteurs. Or possibly, since I thought I would have remembered such grisly fun from last time, the more recent English-language remake.

The Dr liked the cheery skulls on one tomb in the chapel, which also boasted a very fine carving of Lazarus being raised from the dead. She also found a black and white cat to play with – although it promptly had a poo at us, and was then careering about the roof chasing lizards.

Then to Montpazier for ice creams, and to explore another bastide with shops under the market’s cloisters. I bought a hat which the Dr said was very hippy. Think this is a good thing.

Arrived back at Allemans to change, and to take the auntie out for authentic French nosh in Miramont. There was a lot of it; I couldn’t finish the fourth course. Learnt to eat soup the French way: grating a clump of garlic into roasted bread – which has a surface like sandpaper if cooked the right way. Then, drop the bread into the soup and cover in grated cheese. And eat.

Also had brie, and then a pruney coq au vin – to serve the scrawny, vicious buggers right. Had to go for a walk later to see off some of the corpulence.

This morning we bought more wine – and watched the local postman helping himself to a good glass in exchange for a letter. The first white we tried at the Domaine de Laulan was sharp and uninspiring – not a patch on the previous year’s vintage which my parents have been drinking since their last trip. The bloke selling it explained the bottle had come straight from the fridge and was too cold. And sure enough, a minute’s breathing later it tasted like nectar. Again I played mule and helped load up the car.

And that was it. A bit of lunch and long, hot journey into Bordeaux for our flight back (the Dr and my seats in the car will be taken up by the booze). A couple of tips for Bordeaux airport: there’s only one shop on the far side of the handbag scanners, and the coffee bar doesn’t sell wine.

Quick flight, quick train journey and home to the cat, and post, and work, and all the new stuff about Benny.