Preferring not to

In rain-lush Winchester this afternoon to see my Mum, whose birthday it is. We'd talked about going to see a matinee of the Queen, but got to talking more generally and so couldn't really be bothered. Talked films and things with the wee brother (who could also show some clips), and marriage and inheritance with the elder folk.

By something of coincidence after yesterday's post, my Dad is about to go visit Dresden...

The Dr had asked me to collect some of my 19th century novels for something a bit gothic she's working on. So on the train home I reread Melville's "Bartleby".

It's told by the master of a law office with chambers at some number on Wall Street. We hear of the three amusingly grotesque copyists under his employ: "Turkey", who is quiet by morning by pugnacious after his presumably boozy lunches; "Nipper" who's the opposite and quietens down in the p.m.; and "Ginger nut", the 12 year-old runner nicknamed after the cakes he's sent out for.

They're an odd and unlikely bunch, amusingly Dickensian and bit sloppy in their works. You feel the narrator is a little too accommodating of their whims. And then along comes Bartleby.

He's immaculate in demeanour and his copying is exemplary. But every now and then he'll respond to some minor request with, "I'd prefer not to." And the narrator is completely unable to say, "Like bollocks!" or "You're fired!"

And then it turns out Bartleby doesn't go home and spends his whole life in the office, and as the narrator investigates further it turns out the scrivener doesn't have much of a life anyway...

"So true it is, and so terrible, too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succour, common sense bids the soul be rid of it."

Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street.

For all it now reads as a period piece, it's also suffused with modernity. Sherlock Holmes is "modern" because he embraces the new - bicycles and railway trains and fingerprints and science. But this is modern because it's caught up in the loss of old systems - beginning with the narrator's change in status because of the

"sudden and violent abrogation of the office of Master in Chancery, by the new Constitution,"

Ibid.

- and ending with the abolition of the "Dead Letter Office at Washington".

It's all built up on atmospherics and the narrator's own sense of strange impotence. I think it could be told more concisely - and suspect Melville might have been paid by the word. But it's a creepy story about eroded identity and how we decline to confront the abnormal.

jus in bello

Nearing the end of AC Grayling's "Among the Dead Cities", which comes very much recommended. He attempts - as objectively and rationally as possible - to examine the case for the carpet bombing of Germany and Japan by the Allies in World War Two.

Do the obliteration of Dresden and Hiroshima - to name but two notable cases - qualify as war crimes?

I've mentioned to a few people that this is what I've been reading, and none of them have yet come up with an argument or point of view not covered in the book, either for or against.

The arguments are expertly articulated and balanced against one another, and we hear not just from contemporary sources who bombed and were bombed themselves, but from legal documents, commentators on war like Grotius and Sun Tzu, and any number of wise persons.

It is a comprehensive and compelling case, and Grayling argues that whatever the barbarities of the Nazi and Japanese regimes, the indiscriminate and relentless programme of destruction was not necessary, was not proportionate and was not nearly as effective as it's proponents claimed.

A lesser wrong than that committed by the enemy is still a wrong. And what's more - as Grayling also shows - these lesser wrongs only complicate the aftermath of any victory. Which is not surprising, because if the victors cannot abide by the rule of law and human decency, why should anybody else?

Bombing people "back into the Stone Age" does not endear them to kindness and civility. I am reminded of Bruce Robinon speaking of his script for the Killing Fields:

"If I get incredibly uptight and frustrated, I get breathless because I'm asthmatic. The same chain reaction could very well happen inside a body to create a cancer: there's no other way out. The American war machine dumped eight billion - not million, billion - dollars worth of bombs on Cambodia, and that country had no protection against this and I think it turned back: 'If we can't destroy the enemy, we'll destroy ourselves.' That's virtually what happened in Cambodia: it went on a self-destruct."

Alistair Owen (ed.), "Smoking in Bed - Conversations with Bruce Robinson", p. 45.

But the most shocking thing about Grayling's book is not the accounts of what it did to people and their cities, and how it hampered the liberation of France and made things just ever more worse. It is to learn Area bombing was finally outlawed internationally in an additional protocol to the Geneva Convention - adopted only as late as 8 June 1977.

And, as you read through the list of things unequivocably banned for being such untennable savagery, to think, "But I've seen our side doing that on the news..."

Favourite with a u

Many are the things to be said of the legendary Ian J Farrington, evil overlord of the Short Trips of Dr Who. We applaud the same football team and drink the same beer...

But my spelling has never been described as sexy.

Things Bernice

Had a nice time in the pub last night catching up with folk I'd not seen in aaaages. Got to pay a favour back too, but we can't yet speak of what it was to do with...

Had a nice chat with D. about Benny things generally and will see what we can do about his thoughts on special offers. He enthused gratifyingly about "Genius Loci" and how much it was a pleasure to read...

My chum Alex has written a typically Wilcockian review of "Genius Loci", as well as a pros and cons of its author. I shall take great pleasure in introducing him to Ben tomorrow...

There's also a review by Richard McGinlay at Sci-fi Online. Since the wheeze is that you don't need to know anything about Benny to enjoy it, I'm working on getting it read by other luminaries of sf. More on that soon, I hope.

McGinlay has also reviewed the first two Benny CDs of my watch - The Tartarus Gate and Timeless Passages. He seems broadly happy - though no, we hadn't even a whiff of Impossible Planet as we went into the studio.

Our next Benny episodes - "The Worst Thing in the World" and the anthology "Collected Works" - hurry into being as I type. Glad to hear people are picking up on the unrunning plots...

And still we press on. More dates to be agreed around people's availability, and the final okay to use [spoiler]. I've a last edit of my own "Summer of Love" to sign off today, and have just seen Mr Salmon's glorious art for "Oracle of Delphi". He asks what sort of street violence I want for the next one.

But these things will have to wait. Off as soon as I have my shoes on to a very exciting meeting. And no, of course I'm not telling...

“I make it better”

Herculean tasks yesterday meant I didn’t trot out similar thoughts as Alex on the not-very-amazing Mrs Pritchard.

I like the idea of an unlikely political candidate getting past the hurdles by just being a bit nice, and am keen on utopia generally. But, as Alex says, Mrs Pritchard is not actually very nice. She’s dismissive of people around her – her husband in particular – and lacks anything new to say.

There was no attempt to engage with the sorts of concerns we have politicians for – economics, communities, health, education, the environment… She can merely repeat, again and again, that’s she better than her sorry rivals. Which is hardly better than the silly bickering staged between the other candidates.

It’s consumer politics, more about the packaging than any real difference. Note that her qualifications for being Prime Minister are how officiously she ran her supermarket, abusing the public address system to ensure that her staff all look tidy.

I can see that there’s space for the series to develop and that she’s set up for dramatic falls (her husband walking out, her daughter being naughty with someone else’s chap, etc.). One commentator on Alex’s post says Meera Syal is in it next week, and I assume she’ll be more than a token.

But that’s not enough, and the series feels terribly naïve. Alex says its gender politics are 30 years out of date, while its comedy-villain Tories are from at least a decade ago. (See also the movie version of V For Vendetta).

That said, I note Dave Balloon’s speech yesterday was modelled on riffs and slogans T. Blair came up with 10 years ago – how biting his riposte to education³ were it made in ’96.

Like the all-fur-coat Mrs Pritchard, Dave’s not big on how he’ll do anything. We don’t yet have any idea how he will sort out the NHS, but I’m guessing he won’t abolish spoils to the private sector.

It’s also interesting that his support for civil partnerships – which earned some sour looks from his crowd – is based on marriage being “something special”. That’s the argument that in 2004 I heard Tory Lords use for why civil partnerships were an abhorrence.

In all, this speech to party faithful was hailed as something new and funky and exciting (which is not, you know, very “conservative”) and not even they seemed convinced. The same old reactionary bollocks with some late-20th-century spin. In fact, “Plus ça change…” could be the motto of Dave’s “new” party.

To get back to the telly, my real dissatisfaction with Mrs Pritchard is that despite all her promises, she’s just as amorphous as the “real” politicians she finds so dispiriting herself. Defenders of the programme say it’s meant to be an “ideal” and just a bit of fun. But that’s a feeble excuse.

It really could be amazing if it dared brave the issues it raises – a popular tea-time utopia with gags that might make you think. At the moment, it’s got all the sophistication and girl-empowerment of ads which sell household cleaner and gravy on the basis of how Dad’s A Bit Rubbish.

As things are, Mrs P is only “amazing” because a few people who ought to know better tell us so. I found the fawning cameos from the BBC’s news teams really embarrassing. Where were the awkward questions about her actual policies, or her business relationship with her chief sponsor, or how her support seems entirely from white, middle-England women of a little-above middle-age? Would Paxman have been so deferent?

As it happens, we saw Robert McCrum interviewing Paxman last night about his new book, On Royalty. A staunch Republican, Paxman admitted that in researching and testing his assumptions for the book, he came to believe something new. All sorts of things to think about:

How would abolishing the monarchy make things any better? Isn’t it good to have a rank to which the ambitious can never reach? A written constitution might be a Good Thing, but who is it as gets to write it? Why is the Queen a bit scary?

Paxman was teased for being “co-opted”, but I felt there was something more profound going on to do with asking awkward questions (on which more posts to follow). Am keen to read the book as soon as the Dr can stop licking it.

It was funny how different the audience were to the recent Gaiman gig. Gaiman’s audience was geekier, freakier and more devoted to his works, while last night’s groupies seemed more respectably ordinary. Paxman is also a lot more intimidating. And yet those asking questions were much more informal and chatty with Paxman, as if they were all old mates. Guess this is ‘cos he’s on telly – and so frequently a guest in their living rooms.

Incidentally, the bloke I bought the book from recognised my name and asked if I’d written for Telos. Fraid not, they didn’t like what I sent them.

The Dr is of course appalled at my appeal to young, handsome and geeky fellas, but she gets recognised all the time for her history and educative things. Being the subject of enthusiasm can be a bit odd, and in her case it’s not just geeky blokes who approach her.

“It’s weird when they’re fanny,” she said. It took a moment to get what she meant.

Signature time

This coming Saturday I shall be at Doctor Who Day 2, alongside Adric and Alydon and Aaronovitch. It’s the first signing the latter has done in 10 years, so that’s all a bit exciting.

Why bother?

Sci-fi’s a cruel addiction, unforgiving on its saps. There are those of us hooked on the good stuff while still ignoring school. But after the delicious thrill of seeing Harrison Ford snogging a Replicant or being plunged into carbon freeze, the good stuff is all soon used up.

I cannot begin to list the sci-fi I’ve hoped would not be shitty. Films, books and television shows that all promised to amaze us and then turned out a bit dim. But you keep looking. You keep hoping. You don’t let the bad shit get you down.

It was this sort of thought lolling through my brain as we dared Children of Men last night. That and the frustration of dealing with First ScotRail and rain.

Every now and then, a whisper ploughs through the bandy-legged sci-fi community with the excitement and real horror of a wolf. It dares portend that some new endeavour might well be the next good thing. And I can’t put in words the joyous relief on finding the whispers are true.

Children of Men is gripping, engaging and relevant, and manages to tick all the myriad nerd boxes while appealing to a far broader audience. The Dr was entirely caught up in it, and had to have a quiet moment afterwards.

It is – and this should not be underestimated – a film that might even impress my parents. (That it’s based on a book by PD James obviously helps. The only time I’ve got them to see something they weren’t going to anyway was when I said "Crouching Monkey, Jumping Cheesecake" was a love story by the bloke as did "Sense and Senility"… I am sly.)

It’s 2027 and the last human baby was born 18 years ago. London is miserable and surly, violence barely concealed from the street, and yet the rest of the world fares much worse. With nothing for humanity to hold out for, Theo (Clive Owen) is barely keeping it together. And then his ex-wife and mother of his long-dead child comes to find him. Her revolutionary friends need his help…

As a thriller, it’s plotty and well-paced and keeps the shocks and thrills cummynatcha. It’s a busy and hand-held movie, the violence abrupt and sudden. Characters are killed off in an instant and there’s no time to reel from the shock.

The cast are all excellent, even in brief cameo (hello there, my friend Mr Barnaby). Sir Michael Caine ensures Jasper’s the right side of annoying and Peter Mullan is dead scary as Syd. And, as he did in Serenity, the great Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a clear-sighted and charismatic villain, with motives that make terrifying sense.

That said, I felt the conspiracy thing with him turning out to have killed [spoiler] the only wrong-footed element. It would feel much better were events unconnected, Theo leading Kee through jarring and random brutality to the faint promise of hope on the far side. This felt a bit too conveniently plotted…

But that is a very minor gripe.

To nerdily enthuse on the consummate world-building, it’s also packed to the gills with detail. Billboards for the Evening Standard digitally flick between headlines; the trains and cars are all suitably different while remaining recognisably the same; there’s an awful, brief hint as to why Caine’s wife remains silent.

The cities are restless and dirty, while the countryside seems plush and overgrown – if you’ll forgive the massed heaps of burning cow. The film taps into all sorts of current sensibilities: foot and mouth, immigration, even biologically sustainable fuels.

The Dr was a bit surprised by how much about ‘now’ it is. As if this is something revolutionary in the genre of sci-fi and not an inherent component.

For all it’s an unrelentingly brutal dystopia, there’s some deftly handled gags: the art collection held in Battersea Power Station looks out on an inflatable pig; and there’s a car chase in cars that won’t start. For all the depravity and despair, it’s a richly drawn and realised world.

With humanity to be extinct in a century, there’s a lot on the struggle to remain meaningfully alive. Without it ever being explicit, there’s a lot on hope versus despair. For all it underplays the messianic thing, it does leave us with several huge questions. Is the [spoiler] at the end all that has been promised, and can the new [spoiler] heal a sick world? Is Kee alone or are there others who can [spoiler]?

I suspect it's a personal thing. The Dr was bothered and teary as the credits rolled, but I was strangely elated. A good and proper sci-fi movie. There's hope for humanity yet...

Royale with cheese

The West Wing's President Bartlett has a rant about James Bond being a wuss for having his booze shaken not stirred, but I suspect this is in large part to do with him not having seen the recipe for what, for a whole evening, Bond calls a "Vesper":

"'Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?'

'Certainly, monsieur.' The barman seemed pleased with the idea.

'Gosh, that's certainly a drink,' saiod Leiter.

Bond laughed. 'When I'm... er... concentrating,' he explained, 'I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink's my own invention. I'm going to patent it when I can think of a good name.'"

Ian Fleming, Casino Royale, p. 51

Casino Royale is going to need quite a lot of work to make even a half decent film (I've never been persuaded that the Bond of the books is better than that chap on screen). For one thing, the main bulk of plot is over less than two-thirds in, and the remainder is Bond recovering in hospital, having nice dinners and lapsing into brutal mysoginy.

In the dour, post-war Europe of 1952, glamour and pizzazz are very hard to come by. But then the Secret Service come up with a crazy idea to ruin one of the Soviet's finest, who is playing Baccarat in a small town in France so as to win back the funds he "borrowed" from his masters and then subsequently lost. If only M can find an agent with some skill - and luck - they could really embarrass the commies.

So, 007 - given a licence to kill because he's killed two people since the end of the war - is sent out to play "nines". He's got an envelope full of money, two colleagues and a bloke from the CIA to assist him. But the baddies have gagdets and a carpet beater, and there's a final sting in the tale...

If you're more familiar with the suave and funny secret agent of the movies, the book-Bond is something of a shock. Many of the traits in this first book do appear in the films - using his own hair and some talcum powder to see if anyone's been in his room (pp. 12-13 and also the film Dr No), or introducing himself as, "Bond - James Bond" (p. 50). The women have silly names and can't help but shag him, and the villains are larger than life.

But Ian Fleming's Bond is a lot more of a bastard than even Connery or Dalton made him, and in the books he hardly ever gets the girl at the end. I was also surprised (though I'd read the book in my early teens) that in Casino Royale it's only the villains who have gadgets - an umbrella that shoots dum-dum bullets and a car that drops a blanket of spikes across the road. In the book such things are underhand cheating.

The Bond of the films is also something of a know-all on every subject except for diamonds. Book Bond has a keen eye for detail and admits his pleasure in food and drink is mostly to do with the loneliness of his job. Bless him. His perspective is coldly analytical, and by far the most effective bits of the book are when we see events and people through his eyes and with the "benefit" of his harsh understanding. When we jump to Vesper or Leiter's point of view, it's all a lot less exciting.

He's a nasty, scarred bloke who tested silencer guns for assassinations (p. 88) and admits the two people he killed to gain his Double-0 were "probably quite decent people" (p. 64). Part of the appeal - if not the charm - is this refusal to spare any punches. That's especially true of the infamous torture sequence, in which Bond spends an hour having his bollocks slapped with a carpet beater and then gets an "M' cut into the flesh of his hand. Unlike the films, this Bond bleeds pretty profusely.

The matter-of-fact prose and attention to detail reminded me in large part of The 39 Steps. Book Bond has more in common with that period piece than he does with today. But the violence is something else, vicious and unrelenting. It's this that marks it out as informed by the atrocities of World War 2.

It is odd to see Bond as a war veteran. He says he bought his Bentley "in 1933" (p. 36), at which point Fleming himself was only 25. If we assume Bond and Fleming are near contemporaries (and Bond can't really be very much younger), then 007 is just about 100 years old.

I think the great excitement about the book, though, is the thrill of such a vicious and experienced hardman getting it all a bit wrong. That's what really differentiates the Bond of the books from his big screen counterpart. He can be old and a dick and a clown and an arsehole, so long as he's never a loser.

Our friends in the North

Out first stop off was in Preston, where the Dr went to investigate the Harris Museum and I took Nimbos and K. to the Lamb and Packet, which was once something of a fixture in my life. Last time I was there was 9 years ago and I took my Mum. The town is the same only different in a bothersomely eerie way. Am a little shocked by how young the undergraduates appear, and they've also replaced with a snooker table the cosy snug where I'd wolf down roast beef in its own bowl of Yorkshire pudding.

Then on to Blackpool to spend a night with the outlaws, and we ventured out to enjoy the illuminations. At the Bispham end there was a particularly creepy group of smiley-eyed bears enjoying the swings and slides. The Dr also pointed out the Parthenon frieze on a gaudy Greek temple, but chickened out of asking in the Elgin hotel from whence they'd obtained their casts.

Next day to Lancashire where we met up with E. and C. in the Borough on Dalton Square. I had some nice local beer, but not enough to stop me getting some work done on the train up to Edinburgh.

There we met M. and Will and the Dr's old boss and supped beer in the Doric before going for big Chinese eats. Arrived in Dundee in the very small hours, and got a taxi out to M's new home. This is the most norf in Britain I've ever been, and I've only been in Scotchland the once before.

I have learnt some Doric, which as well as an Ancient Greek style is also the local dialect. "Press" means cupboard and "oxter" means "armpit", while "blaaderskite" is, broadly, bullshit.

Nimbos and I were sent away to explore the Discovery the next afternoon, which Scott captained on his first trip to the South Pole just over a century ago. The exhibition was very interesting, with Scott and Shackleton exploring together, and a good amount of detail on all they found out. Though the Discovery got caught in the ice and Scott wasn't very happy about being rescued, it was still a more successful trip than Scott's later one where he died, or Shackleton's one where his ship, Endurance, was lost. So this exhibition is more celebratory than I'd thought it would be.


The ship itself is fun to explore - and not quite so cramped or inaccessible to the tall as other vessels I've been aboard. I bought a big book on Scott, and then we had time to go see Dundee's statues of Desperate Dan and Minnie the Minx (who greatly resembles the Dr) before getting the bus back to Invergowrie.

Ladies had arrived by the time we got back, and feasting and fire and much pink fizz ensued. We were still going at half two this morning.


Got up slowly today, and this afternoon went for several hours walk up to Castle Huntly and back. Basked in the wintry sunshine and the Dr may even have tanned. Were back just in time to see the repeat of the Jane Eyre opener, and I have been allowed to blog in the difficult interegnum before episode two.

Food bubbles on the hearth behind me yummily. Stuffed vine leaves have just been mentioned. And all is rather well with the world.

The Highlanders

Off to Scotchland now for a few days to go see the second wife. Who we saw last night anyway to hand over her birthday present.

But it is an excuse to go more north of the border than I've ever been and to stop off and say hullo to people all along the way. Thrilling travelogue to follow...

Also saw other Scotch persons last night / this morning and discussed noise at full pelt. Am entertained by the notes I took. "Sonic or something," it says in red biro.

Most excellent canopy the air

It’s not guns that kill people, as the old proverb goes. It’s the pointy metal thumb in so much of a hurry that it will not stop for flesh.

Oh, and whoever it is pulling the trigger.

Proceeding logically from this, I endeavour to recall that my squawking fury is not caused by actual umbrellas. What follows is to save from murder the dim-witted dolts who will wield them:

1. Umbrellas don’t actually work
   Umbrellas keep the rain off your face and shoulders. A coat with a hood will do this too, and in a much more personal and unobtrusive manner.
   
   Some people say umbrella’s are practical, especially the folding-up-titchy ones. But that’s true of anoraks you can fold up, too, which also have useful pockets. And they don’t fold inside out in the wind.
   
   As Lee Evans has observed, the stem of an umbrella dangles down from the middle of the canopy, which is where you’d ideally be standing.



2. Umbrellas are bigger than you are
   Half the canopy goes unused on the far side of the stem (on a standard-sized brolly, not enough to share with someone else unless they stand directly in front of you). This is especially important to remember when somewhere densely populated – such as London or anywhere you’re not on your own.
   
   At least leave a bit more space around other people as you pass them. And remember that each corner of your canopy is tipped with a sharp little prong.
   
   People speak of it being unlucky to open an umbrella indoors, and this is not just superstition. Umbrellas are awkward and unwieldy and capable of doing much damage.
   
   If you should happen to plunge into someone else – by “if” of course I mean “when” – do try to remember you weren’t looking where you were going as your umbrella was obscuring your view. Assume the person you’ve just barged into has done their best to get round you.
   
   Unless, of course, they are blinded by a brolly of their own.
   
   Golfing umbrellas are especially entertaining. We shall leave “golf = evil” for another post.



3. Umbrellas are not worked with the feet
   Amazing, I know, but it’s perfectly possible to lower an umbrella at the same time as moving your legs. You do not need to stop just inside doorways.
   
   This is good because otherwise people behind you spend more time getting wet. And considering the ways you will die.

Secrets and lice

Took the Dr to see Neil Gaiman last night, in the same venue as we saw him last year. Rather than being interviewed by a sleb acquaintance, he cracked on with a reading from his new Fragile Things.

"The day the saucers came" is a fun little poem, while "How to talk to girls at parties" took me back to my own sorry soirees as a teen in Southampton and Romsey. Both are a bit weird (the stories that is, not the bastides of Hampshoire.)

Questions were then asked and we are sworn to secrecy on the details of his project with Penn Gillette. But cor and golly and woo.

There was also some good-natured stuff about how Gilliam can have the rights to Good Omens for a groat - because that's the smallest amount that allows a 10% agent's fee. They've already sourced a farthing from eBay.

Nina Sosanya was in the audience. The couple next to me haggled about what they had seen her in and concluded it was one of the Matrices.

Now I am going to shave my head, which is the nearest I can get to justifying today's headline.

Not-so-new romantics

The Dr kicked me out while Jane Eyre was on for fear I’d roll my eyes. It’s her favourite book, a comfort in dark times and she’s this thing about cross blokes on fire.

It also doesn’t help that she once saw my A-level copy, where the staid portrait on the cover has been coloured in with biro.

By the time I got home (from watching Mark of the Rani extras with Nimbos), she was absorbed in a trashy documentary about romantic fiction – “Reader, I Married Him”.

As well as chatting to writers of chick-lit about their wares, Daisy Goodwin did a “scientific” experiment to prove she enjoys the books she enjoys, while various marketeers explained at length how you should judge books by their covers.

One lady tried to argue that calling it all “chick-lit” is another example of evil male patriarchy, putting women back in their place. “What bollocks,” I thought. It’s no more sexist than assuming that sci-fi is the province of spotty boys.

Obviously I have a vested interest in this; as well as being a spotty boy, I write exploitative knock-off sci-fi with gratuitous girl-on-girl action. I’m not quite as bothered to be barred by sex as Ray Connolly writing in the Telegraph, but the documentary did miss something important more broadly about genres of writing.

Part of genre’s appeal (I’d argue) is we know more-or-less what we’re getting, familiar pieces and situations just in a new combination. As a result, we are comforted rather than challenged. Sometimes we don’t want to have our brains turned upside down and just want to read something fun.

By giving a kind of writing its own sub-category, you not only pigeon-hole the way that it’s marketed, you also cleave it from the rest of fiction and so imply it can't be as good.

(People struggle to describe what the rest of fiction might be called. “Literary fiction” is a common, snobbish term. “Mundane fiction” (i.e. stuff without spaceships) is the same kind of snobbery on its head.)

Generic fiction is seen to be derivative, predictable and lacking nuance. Sci-fi suffers from this a great deal. The monthly Ansible includes “As Others See Us”, in which the great and good deny peddling sci-fi. Their wares, they say, are about how technology can change our lives or about rethinking political systems. Whereas science-fiction is something less noble.

I’m not for a moment suggesting that sci-fi is all marvellous, or all operates as speculative philosophy. The great majority of it is a bit rubbish – but that’s no different from any other genre, or even of publishing as a whole.

The problem, I think, is that the genre gets judged by its lesser works, whereas anything of any merit transcends the genre label. So we tend not to think of “Nineteen-Eighty-Four” or “The Handmaid’s Tale” or “Cold Comfort Farm” as sci-fi. Despite the evident sf props and stylings, they’re too good to be lumped in with all that ray-gun shit.

“Generic” doesn’t just mean “of a genre”, it also means non-proprietary, common or in other ways undistinguishable. It has similar, derogatory connotations to “mediocre”, which would explain why, as in the Ansible column, some authors are keen to deny all hint of genre attaching to their serious literature.

It’s difficult to agree on what makes good fiction generally. It’s also difficult to discuss this sort of thing without resorting to personal anecdote. But when I find a Good Book I seize on it. Usually it’s all I buy for months of birthdays – until it’s superseded by the next exciting new find.

In some cases, the birthday message scrawled inside the cover says something like, “Don’t mind the cover!” (I’m thinking of you, Neal Stephenson). Covers may make a book stand out on a shelf but it’s the quality of the content that sells the second and third copies.

The packaging at best means an unheard of book declares, “I’m like that other thing you liked…” This is also the worth of endorsements from best-selling authors and peers.

There were people appalled on the documentary at Austen’s work under chick-lit covers because (again) Austen outstripped the genre. The documentary seemed to miss the difference between marketing a book so it’s prominent in bookshops and the innate quality of the writing itself.

As the Dr was saying last night, Janes Austen and Eyre aren’t just about snagging a stiff-collared Mr Right, who’s not so sulky when you get to know him. There’s something more socio-political going on, with stuff about education and history and warfare, and all kinds of insight and nuance.

So I think genre is a good way of selling more-of-the-same to people already converted, but it's a barrier to getting new blood in. It's not evil patriarchy, it's Catch-22.

What would David Niven do?

For as long as I can remember stalking secondhand bookshops, there have always been certain regulars. While scanning the shelves for the Target logo or works by Philip K Dick, I'd tick off the old Colemanballs, EC Tubb's skiffy and David Niven's autobiography.

"The Moon's A Balloon" also turned up on my grandfather's bookshelves, from which I'd been told to help myself. It was added to the Flashmans and Kiplings and histories of India, something to look into sometime. I picked it up last week while reading something else and rather got involved.

Niven's a stylised, old-school actor, at his steely cool best in "A Matter of Life and Death" and "The Pink Panther", and retaining his dignity amid celebrity car crashes like "Casino Royale" and "Escape to Athena".

He was also his pal Ian Fleming's first choice for playing the movie James Bond (you can see why Fleming was then a little nervous of the ungroomed, burly Scot they ended up casting).

The stylised manner encourages the stereotypes: A skinny weasel with a pencil-moustache that looks like he's drunk too much cocoa; A cad, a rake and an athletic boozer; The name-dropping pal to princesses and presidents.

The book does not exactly undercut this impression. Often Niven's memory of a film is to merely list the cast and say what he thought of the director. He's gushing of friends - whether Bogie or JFK - and the more famous ladies he dallianced with are deftly left unnamed.

"I apologise for the ensuing name dropping. It was hard to avoid it.

People in my profession, who, like myself, have the good fortune to parlay a minimal talent into a long career, find all sorts of doors opened that would otherwise have remained closed. Once behind those doors it makes little sense to write about the butler if Chairman Mao is sitting down to dinner."

David Niven, Introduction to "The Moon's a Balloon" (1971), p. 11.

That said, it's a lot ruder and more caddish than I'd expected, with intimate accounts of his teenage training under (or on top of) a prostitute and a later problem of frostbite of the cock. The stories are peppered with "fucks" and the odd "cunt" unbefitting a gentleman.

The stories are often very funny. At the outbreak of war, Niven - already the film star - decided to join up with the RAF. Despite his producers and managers and the British Consul advising otherwise, he travelled back to Europe. In Paris he was reunited with a fashion-house model, now living as the mistress of a "rich industrialist".

"Monsieur" has installed Claude in the apartment below his family, and so Niven's visit must be conducted in silence.

"If 'Monsieur' had had the foresight to install a pane of glass in his floor, he could have gazed down on the ridiculous spectacle of two people thrashing around below with handkerchiefs stuffed in their mouths. As it was, it was a miracle he didn't come down to investigate because Claude, towards the end of the evening, decided to freshen me up with an alcohol rub. She intimated this in sign language and fetched a large bottle of eau de Cologne. Unfortunately, as I turned over to have my back done, I knocked the bottle out of her hand with my elbow and most of its contents went straight up my behind. Shrieking agony in whispers is a difficult thing to accomplish."

Ibid, p. 206.

Reviews in the front of the book (and also on the Internet) speak of the book's witty charm. Yes, it is a merry read but for all Niven's light touch he comes across as quite a shit.

Petulant, silly antics verge on the monstrous. Expelled from school for posting dog shit to a friend, his early military career is full of daft pranks. When the RAF failed to hand him the top-job he wanted, he responds with a resolute "Then fuck you!"

"'Get out of my office,' he shouted. 'Get out!'

We were standing toe to toe when an inner door opened and an Air Commodore appeared.

'What the devil's going on in here?'

'And fuck you too!' I shouted unreasonably and made for the door and the giggling crowd outside it."

Ibid., p.209.

Even at the end of the book, he's still difficult to work with - leaving it until the last couple of minutes before a live TV play before getting into costume. And only then discovering he's locked himself out of his dressing room. This last-minute chaos clears the lines from his head, of course.

"I hate getting drunk," he protests on page 188 though eight pages later his home has been christened "Cirrhosis by the Sea" by Cary Grant. He has a surprise birthday party in a brothel and at a bash with the Kennedys ends up offering Senator Edward his trousers. We hear of friends and colleagues finished off by the booze, and Niven makes no bones about the kif and horse tranquilisers.

Which all means that when his first wife is killed playing Sardines at a party - falling down the stairs in the darkness - I wondered if he was holding back on the details. He's certainly very curt about the marital difficulties he had with his second wife - a brief mention of "another miscarriage" and a short "trial separation". Having been so articulate about his earlier revelry it feels like he's now clamming up. (Wikipedia suggests more of what was really going on...)

The book ends with Niven visited by a hippy goddaughter, who brings along a Lancashire hippy called Big Top because of his ginger Afro. Niven is sniffy about the man - who smells like "a haystack" - and about the party his goddaughter then takes him to. There's movie and live-action gayness above an antique shop, amid carriage lamps and blow-ups of Mao.

"This isn't your scene is it?" says the goddaughter and allows him to escape. We leave him alone in the night-time, panting for breath, gazing up at the moon and quoting hippy fantasy by EE Cummings.

It's a strange and bitter-sweet ending. With Niven's earlier rant about the sorry state of the film business, you feel the good times are ended. Like 007, he's of another era, a frantic-living playboy who didn't die young and so rather outstayed his welcome.

The invasion, part two

Said I'd paste up the sequel to my Dr Who tour of London. So here it be:

Start the day at St Paul's cathedral, again as early as possible. It's huge, and built to the classical Roman proportions of 1:1.6. This means it's a bit bloody sturdy – when a German was bomb was dropped right on top of it, it only ruined some furniture. (See The Time Travellers, chapter four).

Coming out of the main entrance of St Paul's, turn left and follow the building round until you can see the signs for the Millennium Bridge and Tate Modern.

Head that way. You're walking down the famous Cybermen steps from "The Invasion". Two things to note:

1. The pub on your right (which the Cyberman also troop past) is on Knightrider Passage.
2. The bridge across the river is only six years old. Where did the Cybermen think they were going?

Cross the bridge. It's cool. Tate Modern used to be Bankside Power Station, and is now a big art gallery. It and the bridge also feature prominently at the beginning of the (very good) Dr Who novel "The Tomorrow Windows" – it's inside Tate Modern we get the very first glimpse of Eccleston's Dr Who.

Head left along the river, past the modern reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare did his thing. "The Kingmaker" has at least two Drs Who in the original, and this new version was the pet project of The Lady Cassandra's dad, Sam.

(ETA: And the new series just filmed there for one of next year's episodes.)

Keep going along the river, and when you pass Vinopolis and the Clink prison, you're in the bit from the Talons of Weng Chiang. Filming in 1977, they asked residents to move the cars so as not to spoil the period setting. And some git parked a Porsche in the middle of the street. In the episode, it's what's under the Porsche-shaped horse poo.

Keep going, maybe having a peek into Southwark Cathedral which is pretty. Also the big church south of the river you'll see in anything set in Olde Londone (for example, the lovely model shot at the beginning of the Olivier "Henry V").

Next to Southwark Cathedral is a smallish covered area which hosts Borough Market on Saturdays. All sorts of very good food is here, though it's crowded and costly. You can celeb-spot. Apparently David Hasselhoff comes here to buy elk. Celeb-mail Popbitch reported once how someone had accosted the Hoff here with the words, "You're nothing without your robot car!"

Keep going. The river-crossing bridge up next is a bit dull, innit? That's London Bridge. There's been a bridge here since Roman times, and for many centuries the bridge had two rows of houses on it. The arches holding the bridge up were so close together that they slowed the Thames right down, which meant it froze in winter. They used to have festivals on the ice. There was so much traffic on the bridge that bits of it used to fall off into the river. Hence the song.

[ETA: See Nimbos's comments below.]

Until only a few decades ago, London Bridge looked a lot more impressive. But then some rich American bought it to put in a lake in Arizona, and this one's a quick replacement. The rich American's wife played Dr Who's niece Louise in the second Peter Cushing movie.

Cross over the road (still following the south side of the river) and head down the hill into Tooley Street. You pass by London Bridge station on your right. There'll be a big queue outside the London Dungeon, which has lots of waxwork recreations of various historical torturings, and a groovy mirror maze.

Keep going down Tooley Street. Soon after the mayor's new offices on your left, there's a bit of green space called Potter's Field. This is, importantly, where the opening moments of "The Coup" took place.

Potter's Field leads you up to Tower Bridge. Duck under Tower Bridge and go have a look at Shad Thames – the tall buildings on the other side. They're very smart and expensive now, but in 1984 were so run down no one minded if Peter Davison pushed a Dalek out the window.

Back on to Tower Bridge, then, and cross the river. The bridge was built in 1894 (so is a lot newer than most Londoners think). I recommend the museum, which lets you go up to the top. Top fact: Peter Cushing's last movie role was in "Biggles", when - for no very good reason - he lived inside one of the bridge's towers.

Head down the steps at the north end of the Bridge, and follow it round the back of the Tower of London, getting a look at the Roman remains they've dug up. As well as being the UNIT HQ in "Christmas Invasion", the Tower is a major setting in Big Finish's "Marian Conspiracy" and "Jubilee".

The square keep in the middle of the complex was built soon after the Norman conquest in 1066 (so is the earliest castle of it's type in the country), as part of the "harrowing" of anyone who didn't like French rule. Going in is expensive and involves lots of queuing, but is well worth the trouble. You also get to see the crown jewels - and thus what happened to that big diamond from "Tooth and Claw". The tea shop will also do you nicely for lunch.

When you're done with the Tower, head west along the riverbank, away from Tower Bridge. When you get to the north end of London Bridge, head away from the river for a look at the Monument. It's a whopping great pillar with a golden sculpture perched on top, and commemorates where they think the Great Fire of London began in 1666. Yes, you're in that little square from the end of "The Visitation".

From there, head up King William Street (north west, following signs for Bank station), and you'll get to the Bank of England – the first bank (as we understand the term) in the world. Here, in the age of Isaac Newton, some clever blokes worked out how to make two plus two equal eight.

(ETA: See Liadnan's comments, below.)

You'll notice that the entrances to Bank underground station (where yesterday's tour began) are all over everywhere round here. This is because the original main entrance had a bomb fall on it in January 1941 – which killed 56 people sheltering inside. The modern entrances are converted from the access shafts dug soon after the bombing.

Head down Cheapside towards St Paul's, but take a right onto King Street and make your way to the Guildhall. It's a pretty ugly, modern building, but they recently discovered that it's built on top of what used to be the Roman amphitheatre. Which is cool.

[ETA: Following Liadnan's comments below, thr Guildhall itself is medieval, but it's buttressed by ugly, modern building which is the bit Nimbos and I were unimpressed by in last year's London Open House.)

Head due west from there down Gresham street, and you'll emerge onto St Martin's, with the big cathedral to your left.

On your right (on the roundabout) is the Museum of London, which will tell you lots of top facts about all the places I've just had your traipse through. Just before you get to the museum, though, there's a cut-through on your left called "Little Britain", which is also the name of a TV show narrated by Tom Baker.

Little Britain is intersected by a main road, King Edward Street, and looking left down it you'll see a big statue of Rowland Hill, the top Victorian who – amongst other clever things – invented the postage stamp.

Carry on through Little Britain, passing St Bart's Hospital on your left. (It's obviously no relation to the St. Gart's Hospital where Dr Who's friend Hex works). Key scenes in my Dr Who book happened in this bit of alleyway. Look out for the small nook on your right leading to St Bart's chapel. It's beautiful.

The great big Smithfield meat market sits at the end of Little Britain. It was built here so that the juices of dead animals could flow into the nearby river Strand Fleet (I am an idiot). Which got so clogged with offal and nastiness that they built over the top of it. The meat market is also built on top of one of the city's old execution sites. Wander round the outside of the market until you find the commemoration to William Wallace (Mel Gibson in Braveheart. That's almost a Dr Who reference.)

Head through the market, passing the line of red telephone boxes which you might want to take pictures of if you're feeling touristy. Depending what day of the week you're doing this, there may be butchers in their white overalls wandering about, but the path through the market is a public right of way.

You're now in a little square with St John Street heading north. Follow it over the (busy) Clerkenwell Road, and then turn left into the pretty Clerkenwell Green, where there are nice little pubs, cafes and eateries. Pretty, isn't it? This is where Dogder taught Oliver Twist how to pick-a-pocket-or-two.

When you've had whatever refreshments you require, head west out of Clerkenwell Green, cross back over Clerkenwell Road, and head down Turnmill Street. At the end, turn left and you'll see Farringdon Tube Station. There are two very good bookshops just a minute's walk the far side of the station, if you've still got any give in your feet.

8 whole friends

Mighty Joe Lidster told me to set up a MySpace ages ago. I did and then did nothing about it because of spending all my time here.

But prompted by a chum saying I’d not replied to their missive, I have updated it today and now have 8 whole friends. Though some of these friends are strangers.

• http://www.myspace.com/simonguerrier

Nicolas Poussin clincher

Neil Gaiman villainously links to the YouTube posting of Monday's Mastermind, in which a chap called Nick Duffy answers questions on the Sandman and explains - in some detail - the appeal of lurid kiddie comicbooks.

Blimey. I was at university with Nick 10 years ago and fondly recall an evening spent conjuring names for imaginary indie bands. "Weirdshit Chronicle" was one of mine then. Came up with "Ginger Stepchild" more recently.

According to the super-soaraway Lanacashire Evening Post, Nick still lives in Preston. Ha.

Also, I beat him into the LEP and infamy with the 1997 headline, "Sci-fi Simon reaches for the sky by degrees" - in which I had lovely hair and a face writ over with innocence.

But he'd make the better Shane McGowan.

If you believe in prayer, pray

Several years ago, a wise old hermit who lived on the hill behind our house dared suggest that there are two types of lecture. There are those done with PowerPoint, he said, and there are those where you actually learn something.

I thought of him and his befuggled wisdom while watching “An Inconvenient Truth”, in which Albert Gore Jnr – who woulda, coulda, shoulda been president of the US of A – gives a slideshow on how we have to save the planet.He makes an interesting, terrifying and clearly and concisely argued case. It’s not just him on stage with a whole series of statistics, either. He includes silly cartoons about frogs and muggings to get the point across.

Admittedly, the cartoons aren’t quite as memorable as the history of guns in Bowling for Columbine (which is, I learn from Wikipedia, not the work of Matt Stone and Trey Parker). But they do show one thing: it’s not a complicated idea and the consequences are utterly appalling.

Gore apologises for explaining the science, and briefly explains that the more human behaviour clogs up the atmosphere the less heat can escape the planet. This is already happening at an unprecedented rate: the 10 hottest summers on record have all been since 1990, and the new rising tides, floods and hurricanes threaten the lives of millions.

It’s damning and evidential – the point about global warming being that it’s not proven by any one given statistic, but by the vast and ever-growing evidence that all points in one direction.

That said, Gore does tend to refer to what “scientists say” generally, rather than always providing specific sources. The peer-reviewed scientific community does, Gore says, agree unanimously on the reality of climate change, even if they argue about specifics. The conflict of opinion is in the non-peer-reviewed news media.

I’d have liked to have understood more of what scientists disagree on. Is it the conclusions we draw from data – that some top men think we’ve got five years of Greenland being icy, and others as much as 50? Or are there more fundamental differences about what the causes are and what can be done?

For all he’s on the side of the scientists, Gore does use terms that would appal scientists I know. He refers to earlier summers meaning baby caterpillars are born earlier than they used to be. This means they no longer dovetail with the births of baby birds, so the birds are going hungry. Gore calls this messing with “nature’s plan”.

This anthropomorphising carefully avoids having to talk about why the Earth’s creatures so well fit the conditions of the places they live in. We get no mention of why human beings suit a particular, small range of climatic, temperate and atmospheric conditions. Yes, he mentions ice ages from 10,000 years ago, but there is no hint of a whiff of a mention of the dreaded evolution.

The Dr cynically suggests that tying the need to adapt our behaviour to the environment to the way we’ve already adapted would be a turn off for too many people.

Evolution is about adapting to circumstance or dying out. Now we can see how things are going wrong – and how they’re going to get worse – we either adapt or die.

But that doesn’t contradict the firmly held beliefs of those who refute all the first principles. The way we live now is soiling God’s creation and we are already being visited by plagues and tornadoes of Biblical proportions. There is evidence all over the world that says in very big letters, “Don’t make me come down there!”

Gore is keen to engage with arguments against, and his point about the US car exports is fascinating. The industry argues that enforcing better fuel efficiency and lower emissions will damage their sales. But because US standards are so way behind China, Japan and Europe, US cars cannot be sold abroad. So the only way to up sales and so increase revenues and numbers of jobs is to, er, enforce these standards.

Gore also argues that global warming is not a (party) political issue but a moral one – we have to save our planet. He didn’t say, though he really have ought to, “Or we’re all going to die!”

For all it’s above party politics, the lecture was explicitly critical of the current US president and former Republican regimes. Gore is damning about conflicts of interest with lobbying groups, though it would have made a more balanced case if he’d shown where the Democrats got it wrong, too. That would also make it less easily dismissed as a party political tirade.

The film is aimed specifically at US audiences (we’re told to write to Congress rather than to our political leaders), and I can see why some have seen this as a prelude to a presidential campaign.

That feeling is not helped by Gore using the personal life of his family to get his point across: stuff about his dad’s farm, his son being hit by a car, his sister dying of lung cancer. Yes, it made things more personal and gave us an insight into the man, but – bar the parallels with the decades of denial from the tobacco lobby that cigarettes were carcinogenic – it felt like it was straying from the point.

So will it make a difference? The Dr and I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 in the US while on our honeymoon and were amazed by the audience’s reaction. We couldn’t possibly believe, after all the evidence on screen, that Bush could get re-elected. But he was.

I think Gore’s film is different, though. While challenging Bush to ratify the Kyoto agreement, he also lists the states and cities who have pledged their agreement – acting despite the president. The credits roll explaining what we can do – yes even us foreigners.

A good place to start is http://www.climatecrisis.net/.

"I’m pretty rubbish, now you point it out."

Have had a happy day's writing (plus a brief excursion to hand in a contract) and am onto Scene 10 of 47. The intrepid little brother is coming round tomorrow so we can go through it.

Also agreed a couple of exciting new things having met with a new editor yesterday. And 1,800 words of what might be a book is now a chapter-by-chapter breakdown with all sorts of viceral detail. Perhaps something will come of it.

Currently listening to the first episode of Mr J Lidster's "Reaping", and am delighted to hear Dr Who refer explicitly to the Mim. Hooray!

Our sponge-like chums put in a pretty thrilling appearance before the end of the year. Should have that to finish just tomorrow...

Straight bit

'Strain current affairs edutainment "60 Minutes" just ran The Overlanders, a 15-minute theeng on the younger brother's horseplay.

The theeng (which you can experience in real, live video) shows off footage from his forthcoming documentary, "One Straight Road". (No, not this one.)

Strangely I'm biased but it's all a bit impressive. Git. And about time we saw some of his moving pictures.

Still haven't seen the brother since he got back from the bush, what with his being so bustlingly showbiz. Though he is coming next week to tidy up the cat poo. Hope he doesn't want to film it.