The angels had the phone box

The Dr spotted these sneaky Weeping Angels in Kensal Green cemetery, London. There's a TARDIS-shaped gap in the midst of them, which can surely be no coincidence. Empirical proof that Doctor Who is real.

Atwood and definitions of science fiction

Margaret Atwood was in the Guardian again yesterday, explaining that her books are not science fiction because she doesn't have the skill set to write about Martians. Her “speculative fiction” is about stuff that could really happen, not lurid fantasy about monsters.

I find this kind of semantic argument about what is or isn't sci-fi a bit wearying – and have no problem with Star Wars, Cold Comfort Farm, Mars Attacks and Frankenstein all being part of the same gang. I've written stuff where I've tried to get the complex physics right, and stuff where I've completely body-swerved real science. I suspect a lot of these arguments are less about defining a genre as attributing value. I get the impression from Atwood's article that what she really means is her stuff is serious, with things to say. It can't be science fiction because that's a pejorative term.

(In responding to Mary Beard's lack of love for Cold Comfort Farm, people have explained it's a parody - as if that automatically makes it good.)

There are reasons why you wouldn't want your bestselling book to be labelled as sci-fi. That sci-fi shelves of a book shop are a special ghetto, where many shoppers will not venture. It's not just a value judgement: the definition also affects sales.

I do, though, think there's a way of reading science fiction. Like a murder mystery, you read the story looking for clues – not to spot the murderer, but to create the world in which the story's set. We're told that a door dilates rather than opens, and that vivid, odd detail is like an establishing CGI wideshot, framing the story in an eye-poppingly alien world. With a lot of sci-fi, we're asked to play an active part – which is what can make it so rewarding and immersive, but can also put off the newcomer. Those who've not learned to decode the clues – usually when they're about 12 – will say they just don't “get” sci-fi.

Oryx and Crake, one of the three books Atwood discusses in her article, I read in August, making notes which I never quite got round to writing up. There's no mention in the blurb that it's anything so crass and silly as sci-fi. Rather, it's “a less-than-brave new world”, “an outlandish yet wholly believable space”.

Which is odd, because it's not exactly believable. Smart, funny, insightful and full of quirky perspective, it's monstrously contrived. Crake, the villain, destroys the world to build a new utopia, and no one – not even those closest to him in this techno-future where everyone knows each other's secrets – ever suspect what he's up to.

I guess there's an argument that it's difficult to stop anyone determined to self-destruct – which reflected a post-9/11 worldview when it came out in 2003, but struck a chord with me as I read it because Amy Winehouse had just died. But there's no sense of how Crake's got away with what he's done. All too often his being autistic and into science effectively means that he's magic.

Snowman, our narrator, also just happens to be at the centre of these huge events – and never through any fault or effort of his own. Oryx, Crake and even Snowman's mother drive everything, and he coasts along in their wake. That he's had a ring-side seat through all the key bits of the plot, and is then the last man alive at the end is a convenience for the author. It's not wholly believable.

Rather than some realistic account of where science might take us, this is a parable, a fable. It feels a little mythic because it owes so much to stuff that's come before. There are parallels with the expulsion from the garden of Eden. There's Mary Shelley's The Last Man, while the end is a bit Robinson Crusoe. The Crakers reminded me of Hothouse.

The plot hinges on a classic love triangle – though, again, Snowman gets the girl because she thinks he looks unhappy, not because he does anything to win her heart. Events are contrived to allow discussion of how we escape the violence of our past: Oryx is reconciled with her abusive upbringing but Snowman can't let it go. That matches the efforts to remove violent instincts from the Crakers, though it looks like dreams, singing, art and religion are too much a part of us to be eradicated – and it's implied that means we'll never be free of the violence either.

There's some fun speculative stuff about sex drives, the Crakers' rude bits turning blue when they're in season. But less than a decade after the book came out, the details of its future make it feel parochially of its time. The dot com crash is referred to as if it were a major moment in history, and “Web site” is spelled with a capital letter because it's new and unusual.

Atwood argues in the Guardian that the book portrays a “ustopia” - her own ugly coinage for something that's a utopia (good) and a dystopia (bad) at the same time. I'm not sure what this new definition adds to discussions of utopian fiction. And I can't help feeling that this worry about definitions is missing the point. Books aren't good or bad because they're science fiction. There's good sf and bad. Definitions don't fix plot holes or poor writing, or change how we respond to a story. They're just a way of saying, "look how clever I am".

AAAGH! The Wedding of Mrs Tinkle

Another AAAGH!, this one from Doctor Who Adventures #238, published a few days after The Wedding of River Song.

As ever it's written by me, illustrated by the amazing Brian Williamson and edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes, who gave kind permission to post it here. Paul takes over the AAAGH! duties for the new weeks. But I shall return. Oh yes, I shall return.

In the meantime, you can read all the AAAGH!s I done wrote.

M1, NGC 2776 and NGC 4216

As part of my Astronomy GCSE course (which I did 2010-11 at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich), I took some photographs of celestial objects for my coursework.

I used the National Schools' Observatory's Liverpool Telescope on La Palma, using the website to tell it what to look at. I then used image editing software to make the most of the pictures. I had to write a full account of my efforts and an analysis of the images. (And I got an A*, so ner.)

Here are the pics and a few brief notes.

Here's the Crab nebula - or M1 in Messier's catalogue. It's an exploded star, and Chinese astronomers reported seeing the supernova in 1054 AD. At it's heart there's a small, very dense neutron star. I thought the tendrils of gas looked a bit like the insides of a heart.

The image was taken at 21:00:00 GMT on 20 February 2011, with an exposure of 120.00 seconds using filter HA. Temperature was 6.5C, humidity 23%, pressure 779 mBar. It was a dry night with a wind of 2.5 m/s in a SSW direction.

The galaxy NGC 2776 is a lot less famous - or studied - than M1. It's a spiral galaxy in the constellation of Lynx, which appears disc-on to us.

This image was take at 22:19:00 GMT on 28 February 2011, with an exposure of 120.00 seconds and using filter R. The temperature was 8.5C, humidity 9%, pressure 777 mBar. It was a dry night with a wind at 8.6 m/s in a SSW direction.


NGC 4216 is another spiral galaxy, but this time edge-on to us, giving a better sense of the bulge in the middle (containing a super-massive black hole). The dark bits round the edge are probably dust obscuring the stars. NGC 4216 is in the Virgo Cluster.

This image was taken at 04:16:00 GMT on 1 March 2011, with an exposure time of 120.00 seconds and using filter R. The temperature was 8C, humidity 7%, pressure 775 mBar. It was a dry night with a wind at 7.2 m/s in a SSW direction.

There's a more impressive image of NGC 4216 here.

How to write a speech about someone you know

I sometimes get asked to help my friends and family when they have to write things. In the last few months, I've offered more or less the same advice to a lady writing a eulogy and a gent stuck with a best man's speech. That advice seemed to work out okay, so here's what I said...

You've been chosen to write this because you know the person well.

Maybe you've not known them as long as other people who'll be there. That doesn't matter. You know them and I don't. If I asked you, "What are they like?", you could tell me.

And you probably wouldn't start by telling me how tall or old or fat they are, but the kind of person they are. To do that, you can probably think of something they once did that tells me exactly what they're like. You can probably think of three different things they once did that gives me a rounded picture.

A time that shows their sense of humour. A time that shows what they were especially good or bad at. A time they were kind or brave.

At least one of those stories should involve you. Another story might be one you've been told by someone else about the person. Something that when you heard it made you think, “Yes, that's exactly them”.

(When someone dies, their friends and family tend to tell stories about things they've done. Ask around.)

Write these stories down. Write them as if you're telling them to me over tea and biscuits. Keep things informal and simple.

Some people like to write the whole speech out in full. Some people just want bullet-points on note cards, so they can make it up as they go. If you're not sure which works best for you, write it out in full and then see how easy you find to read it out loud. You can always have notes on the day.

Put the best story last.

Then think about how you're going to start. It might be something as simple as: “What sort of person is X? Here are three examples...”. Or explain, briefly, how you knew the person and why (you think) you've been been chosen to speak.

If you're going to do jokes, put a first joke in early so people know what to expect.

Go over what you've written. Cut it down. Keep it short and to the point.

Read it out loud to yourself. It feels a bit weird but it really helps. Make sure you can read it without running out of breath or stumbling over the words. Time how long it takes - but make sure you're reading at the same speed you'll read it on the day. Don't rush.

Read your speech to someone you trust and who knows the person – and won't go telling people what you're about to say. Listen to what they say afterwards. More importantly, watch how they react while you're speaking. Rewrite the bits that need it.

Don't drink before you deliver it. Make sure someone else has a copy of the speech in case you lose yours.

Speak up, so people at the back can hear you. Don't rush.

Remember that the audience is on your side: they want you to do well.

Good luck.

AAAGH! and the Cybermats!

Another AAAGH!, this time from Doctor Who Adventures issues #237, published just a few days after the episode Closing Time, where the Doctor battled Cybermats in a department store.

In issue #238, out in all good shops today, Nervil is a guest at the wedding of Mrs Tinkle...

The script of this episode is by me, illustrated by Brian Williamson and edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes. All my AAAGH!s are posted here by kind permission.

Incidentally, there's a review of the event I did last week, discussing Cybermats, Doctor Who and Egyptian archaeology with Christopher Frayling and John J Johnston.

Doctor Who - The Age of Heroes

Here, for your entertainment and delight, is my first outline for what became the Doctor Who book The Slitheen Excursion. Big boss Justin Richards had asked me for something featuring the Slitheen and set in Earth's past.

We knocked this back and forth between us for a few days before agreeing a final outline, but this still contains spoilers if you've not read the book or heard the audio version read by Debbie Chazen.

Doctor Who – The Age of Heroes
Simon Guerrier
27 March 2008

June is 17 and not very confident about her forthcoming A-levels. She’s on a college trip to the Palace of Westminster (not, she has learnt that morning, the “Houses of Parliament”) when she spots the Doctor. He must be important because he doesn’t have a security pass – not even the pastel-coloured stickers that they give to the tourists – and yet the policemen with machine guns let him go where he likes.

June dares to follow him and saves his life when a monster jumps out on him. The Doctor stops the monster by talking nonsense. It feeds on nonsense and illogic – so the Palace is like a restaurant. The Doctor owes June a favour and she asks if he can help with her essay. She’s got to write about the history of democracy.

Chapter 1
The Doctor says he knows a thing or two about history. Seeing history live – touching it, smelling it, getting your fingers dirty – is more exciting than dusty old books. But as they set the coordinates for the golden age of ancient Athens, he picks up a signal from an alien spaceship that’s got into trouble. They’re going to have to make a quick detour.

They arrive in Athens, 1687 AD. The Venetians are at war with the Turks. There’s a Turkish garrison in the temple up on the rock overlooking the town – the Parthenon is pretty much complete and looking good for its 2,000 years. For a brief moment June and the Doctor are separated and June realises she could be stranded in the primitive past. There’s something odd about the war though; both sides accusing the other of using strange and magical weapons.

The Doctor and June are reunited. They get away from the fighting Turks and Venetians and investigate the distress signal. They soon discover a party of Slitheen.

Chapter 2
But it emerges that they’re not there to muck up the war. They just want to keep everyone away from a grotto of stalactites and stalagmites which they’re using for some nefarious purpose.

The Slitheen are, though, fascinated by the Doctor and June – who must, they think, be using some kind of warp-core technology to journey back in time. And even schoolkids know that warp-cores are dangerously unstable. So the Doctor finds himself arrested as a dangerous maniac, when that’s what he normally accuses the Slitheen of.

June helps the Doctor escape, but rather than running away the Doctor insists they find out what the Slitheen are up to. It turns out the stalactites are calcified Slitheen – these Slitheen’s ancestors who were on Earth thousands of years ago.

Chapter 3
As they get older, Slitheen suffer from hardening of their soft tissues – a bit like we suffer from hardening of the arteries. They slowly lose the moisture inside themselves, and mineral deposits build up until they can’t move. The early affects are like Calciphylaxis, with brittle skin etc. And then they harden out entirely and become like statues.

At first the Doctor assumes it is some kind of rescue operation. But the young Slitheen want to know what happened to all the loot they never inherited. When the older Slitheen won’t tell them, they throw tantrums and blow things up.

Chapter 4
The Doctor has to intercede. The Slitheen spaceship, hidden on the top of the Acropolis, explodes. This blows up the Parthenon – history will assume the Venetians did it.

Chapter 5
The ancient Slitheen will not survive long. But they recognise the Doctor and June, having met them thousands of years before. They’re dying, and realise the Doctor hasn’t met them yet. They say he’ll understand what happened to the loot when he goes back to meet them. And they die. June is upset by this, and the Doctor admits he’s not used to feeling sorry for Slitheen. They’re a very strange family.

But now it seems he and June have to go back in time to meet these Slitheen in the first place.

The Doctor looks through history for the Slitheen signals. He finds them – roughly the same place but about 3,000 years before. And that’s worrying because mankind is quite impressionable back then. Sophisticated, space-faring aliens mucking around with the ancient Greeks could do terrible things to the development of human history.

Having landed in about 1,500 BC, the Doctor does a scan for aliens. And there are nearly 2,000 of them in the area. They step out into a world where aliens are living amongst the humans quite openly. Spaceships and high technology can be seen everywhere.

Chapter 6
There’s a great tourist industry running to the place, all kinds of aliens getting to mix with humanity when it hasn’t even sussed out basic architectural stuff like the arch. These aliens aren’t changing history. They’ve always been there – they’re the Gods and monsters of Ancient Myth.

At first it seems fun, but June is horrified by how the aliens pretend to be Gods to the locals. And some aliens are very badly behaved, frying the humans with laser guns just for a bit of a laugh.

The Doctor just runs off. June tries to stop some aliens picking on the humans. The aliens turn on her. She is going to be fried.

Chapter 7
The Doctor arrives dragging some Slitheen with him, insisting he and his friend didn’t pay for their tickets expecting to get fried. He waves his psychic paper around and people assume he’s a tourist, too. And the Slitheen intercede: it’s not done to fry fellow holiday-makers.

June recognises these Slitheen. The ancient Slitheen they met in 1687 turn out to be running the tourism. They are young and sprightly hucksters, and don’t take kindly to the Doctor and June interfering.

They invite the Doctor and June back to their office for a glass of something to make up for the inconvenience. The Doctor is keen to find out more of what they’re up to so agrees to go along. On the way, the Slitheen explain the terrible complexities of this project – how they use accelerators to grow food very fast to feed the demands of the tourists, how the bookings system keeps breaking down… all the rigours of a small business.

But the invitation to drinks is really a trap. The Slitheen know psychic paper when they see it. And they assume the Doctor is some kind of anti-time-travel protestor, and the one who has been causing all the earthquakes. For the sake of saving humanity, the Slitheen will now execute him and June.

Chapter 8
The Doctor and June escape death at the hands of the Slitheen when a half-man, half-snake called Cecrops comes to complain about how some of the other tourists are treating the locals. The Slitheen insist they’ve got a contract with the local kings that strictly agrees the terms of tourists’ behaviour.

Humans are to be respected. The Doctor uses this point of law to get himself and June released. The Slitheen get very nervous the moment anyone mentions lawyers.

Cecrops is very embarrassed about the tourist trade. He is a real humanophile, though his enthusiasm for how the little ape people slowly puzzle out problems doesn’t go down very well with June who finds him patronising.

The Doctor asks about these anti-time-travel protests, which people assume are some sort of politically correct statement that humans should be left alone to develop. Cecrops explains that he’s got problems with that ethos, too – the humans’ lives are nasty, brutal and short. June is surprised to discover she would be considered in late middle-age by being 17.

But anyway, Cecrops hasn’t seen and sabotage. He’s seen natural phenonema – earthquakes and things. It’s just the earthquakes have been really bad recently. And, as if on cue, there’s a terrible earthquake.

Chapter 9
The Doctor, June and Cecrops try to help people. But the Doctor insists this isn’t any ordinary earthquake. It’s a warp shift; the side effect of unstable warp core technology. June remembers the seventeenth-century Slitheen saying even children knew that was dangerous.

They investigate. Yes, the Slitheen here are using some dodgily acquired warp core technology to bring their tourists here. And they’ve been greedy; the system is exhausted and sagging at the edges. There are earthquakes and other strange phenomena. The Doctor tries to fix things, but the Slitheen catch him and it’s them trying to stop him that pulls the plug on everything. There’s not an explosion; instead the whole world seems to be falling apart.

Chapter 10
A widescreen disaster movie. The huge explosion causes a massive flood right across the Mediterranean. As described in the Greek legend of Deucalion, the rivers swell over the coastal plains and engulf the foothills, washing everything clean (the legend might also be the same route as that of Noah and Utnapishtim, but we’ll skirt round saying so explicitly). From the Acropolis they watch the great tidal wave coming in, and thousands are killed.

(I’ll probably expand this action stuff; have June separated from the Doctor and having to be a bit of a heroine. Have the Slitheen show that, though they’re greedy and dangerous, they don’t actually mean any harm.)

Chapter 11
The floods pass; the climate and timeline just diffusing the kinks in the system. The warp core technology is wrecked so all the alien holiday makers who’ve survived now find that they are stranded. Facing this mob, and the thought of insurance claims etc., the surviving Slitheen throw themselves off the Acropolis into the receding waters – ostensibly to their deaths.

June can’t believe they wouldn’t have had an emergency escape plan, and the Doctor is delighted. He leads the aliens to the cave where, in 2,000 years, there’ll be Slitheen-shaped stalagmites. There is a small vortex pod hidden at the back of the cave. The Doctor messes with its dimensions until it’s big enough to carry everyone.

But Cecrops is one of a few aliens who want to stay. If they don’t help clear up some of this mess, he says, the humans here are all going to die.

Chapter 12
June is suspicious of the Doctor – he seems happy to let the aliens believe that if they don’t take the vortex pod they’ll be stranded here forever. Why won’t he mention the TARDIS? But she has come to know him and she supposes he must have a good reason. Anyway, it looks like the aliens could do these humans some good.

Cecrops adopts the daughters of the dead Athenian king Actaeus. (In legend, the half-man, half-fish Cecrops, first King of Athens, taught the Athenians marriage, reading, writing and ceremonial burial.)

But with the waters all round the Acropolis, how are humans going to survive? The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to draw water from the rocks – a spring of not very pleasant-tasting water, but water all the same. And June has seen how the Slitheen provided food for the tourists. She points their accelerator at the rock and up springs an olive tree. It’s not quite what she had in mind to feed everybody, but the olives will serve as an appetizer. (This makes the Doctor Poseidon and June Athene, I think.)

There’s a party later that evening. It looks like things are going to work out. With the loss of the aliens and creatures, a new age begins. One not of Gods and monsters but of extraordinary human beings. The age of heroes.

But the Doctor is still not content. He’s not sure history is quite on course as it should be. And anyway he promised June he’d show her real democracy at work.

Chapter 13
The TARDIS arrives in 480 BC to see the Parthenon being built and the golden age of Athens in full swing. June is appalled to discover that 17 is still considered quite old here. And that women aren’t going to get the vote until 1952 AD.

The Doctor and June soon get separated, but June has learnt a lot in her adventures thus far and is okay now to explore on her own. It seems the Gods and monsters are remembered as legends. But the town isn’t known as Athens – it’s called Cecropia.

She thinks the Doctor will make for the Acropolis to see the building work going on. And she’s curious to see the view of Cecropia up there. At first the male builders don’t see what business it is of hers, but their old, fat foreman seems pleased by June’s interest and offers to show her around.

But as soon as they’re on their own, the fat old man unzips his forehead. Creaky and old folk, it’s the last of the huckstering Slitheen – stranded on Earth for 1,000 years.

Chapter 14
The Slitheen have been hidden on Earth for 1,000 years. They had tried to get rescued at first, and then they’d seen the difference Cecrops was making with the primitive humans. They helped out – not pushing them or inventing anything for them, but getting them to write things down so the things humans learnt could be passed on. They’ve got people telling stories, sharing ideas.

And it’s hard work because humans keep having wars and things. The Parthenon is being built on the ruins of a previous one razed to the ground just a few years ago. And the Slitheen are running out of time. They’re calcifying, becoming the stalagmites June has seen in the future. If they could reach their people there are possible cures, but they’re just going to dry out.

June knows it has to be like this because she’s seen what happens. But the Slitheen are glad to have played their part, to have written themselves into history even if no one will ever know. They’re glad that June knows.

She leaves the grotto of dying Slitheen to find the Doctor waiting for her. He left her to discover the truth for herself – just as the aliens had let humans develop their own way. Now the lesson is over and its time for June to go back home.

The Doctor takes her back to the Palace of Westminster the same moment that she left. But she’s a different person now; better and wiser for what she’s seen.

Only when the Doctor’s gone does she realise she can’t use any of what she’s seen in her essay. She hurries off to rejoin her college mates.

AAAGH! and the Shining

Another AAAGH!, this one from Doctor Who Adventures issue #236, out a few days after the Doctor Who episode The God Complex. Issue #237, in shops from today, features Cybermen and Cybermats. I'll be wrestling with Cybermats live on stage tonight with Sir Christopher Frayling.

As ever, the above strip was written by me, illustrated by the amazing Brian Williamson and edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes - who also have kind permission for me to post it here. You can also read all my AAAGH!s.

Sayle

Stalin Ate My Homework is a smart, funny and self-effacing autobiography by Alexei Sayle. It covers the years 1952 (when Sayle was born, on the same day that eggs stopped being rationed) to 1969 (when he started at Southport College of Art – his mum having sat the interview for him). There’s lots of this kind of odd, engaging detail in the 53 short chapters, Sayle’s life and times sketched out in fleeting glimpses.

Sayle was named after Maxim Gorsky. His parents, Joe and Molly, were Communists – dedicated to the party, even after the brutal repression of the uprising in Hungary. Sayle’s good at explaining the different factions, the personalities and the culture of the left. I found his explanation for how his parents could condone events in Hungary (seeing it as a test of their faith in totalitarianism), and then his own leanings towards the Maoists in the 60s, really illuminating of the politics of the period – I’ve not seen it spelt out so simply before. He manages to address the theory and the personalities involved, and get some jokes in, too.

Joe worked for British Rail and used his free pass to take his family all across Europe, so it’s also a travel memoir. Again, the family’s visits to Communist countries – at the height of the Cold War – are fascinating. Sayle notes the irony of a family so dedicated to totalitarian equality lording it up as guests of the Party, and the pang of having to return to ordinary living when these holidays were over.

While there’s a passion for the politics, there’s also a delight in human frailty and life’s strangeness, and he’s good on acknowledging his own weaknesses, anger and stupidity. There's lots on the way that Liverpool changed after the war - linking the architecture to the communities living around and in it. He’s good at unpicking the hippy and peace movements – young guys who were terrible at organising anything and who seemed mostly in it for the sex. It’s all told with an endearing sense of his own envy and confusion, belying the usual cool shtick of the 60s.

The book is dedicated “to Molly”, and it’s as much Sayle’s parents’ story as his own. Molly is a perfect comic creation – argumentative, sweary and utterly adored by the writer. Joe has an easy, carefree faith in the Party ensuring everything will be all right in the end and seems to hold it as an article of that faith not to get on a train until it’s already moving. He and Molly cut sparks and are devoted to one another.

Another child might have resented his "famous" parents overshadowing his own identity - just as he starts going to pubs, so does Molly and she holds court there. I wondered if there might be a link between the nerdy, shy boy who is known because of his parents, and the bullshitting that seems to pervade his teens. Is it an effort to define himself on his own terms - to find a way to get attention for something he's doing himself? But perhaps that would only work if Sayle were more hostile or resentful.

The glowing affection for Molly and Joe makes hints about Joe’s declining health all the more powerful. It's what makes this such an absorbing and feel-good read. But the following passage is worth quoting in full for its mix of history, comedy and gut-wrenching pathos. I find it utterly haunting, and a sign that this isn't just a funny, daft book but something really special.

“The Bedfordshire CID had come to our house to interview my father about the murder of Michael Gregsten at Deadman's Hill on the A6 in Bedfordshire, on 22 August 1961, along with the rape and shooting of his lover, Valerie Storie. James Hanratty, a professional car thief, had been charged with the crimes. Hanratty's alibi was that at the time of the murder he had been in the Welsh seaside town of Rhyl, staying in a boarding house named Ingledene run by a woman called Mrs Jones, in the attic room, which had a green bath.

The police had discovered that Joe had stayed at Ingledene between 21 and 24 August, in the small front room on the first floor. He was there on behalf of the NUR, taking part in a recruitment drive. In his book Who Killed Hanratty? Paul Foot describes Joe as 'the most important witness from the prosecution point of view'. He says that Joe saw no sign of Hanratty, although he admits, 'he was out on union business from dawn to dusk'. Which sounds typical enough.

Hanratty's trial began at Bedfordshire Assizes on 22 January 1962. On 17 February he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Hanratty's appeal was dismissed on 9 March, and despite a petition signed by more than ninety thousand people he was hanged at Bedford on 4 April 1962, still protesting his innocence.

Joe was away for a week attending the trial in Bedford. One night Molly spoke to him on the phone, and when I asked how he was she replied that he had told her he was frightened. I asked her what my father was frightened of, and she said he was worried that Hanratty might have criminal friends who could harm him in some way.

When he returned from the trial Joe told us that what had upset him most was that he had been the final witness called in the trial. He realised that the last person Hanratty had heard testifying against him, the last person he had seen on the stand, the final person confirming his fate, was Joe Sayle. After that he was taken down, sentenced and hanged two months later. The last witness to testify against the last person executed in Britain was my father. Though he never talked about it, since he was such a good-natured man that must have been a heavy burden for him to bear.

Over the next few years the case did not go away: prosecution witnesses attempted or committed suicide and several books were written about the case, including one by Lord Russell of Liverpool. There were newspaper articles, radio and TV programmes, all of them contesting the soundness of Hanratty's conviction and reminding Joe that he might have taken part in the execution of an innocent man. When one of those programmes came on we did not shout at the TV as we usually did but simply changed the channel and said nothing. In 2002, the murder conviction of James Hanratty was upheld by the Court of Appeal which ruled that new DNA evidence established his guilt 'beyond doubt'. So the coppers got it right.”

Alexei Sayle, Stalin Ate My Homework, pp. 113-5.

(Wikipedia says Hanratty wasn't the last person executed in the country - I assume that's dramatic licence.)

The AAAGH! Who Waited

Here's the AAAGH! from Doctor Who Adventures #236, last week, nicked broadly from The Girl Who Waited but with a guest appearance by Prisoner Zero. The new issue, #237, is out today and features a homage to The Shining which I'm particularly proud of for a magazine aimed at 6-12 year-olds.

As always, script by me, art by the amazing Brian Williamson and edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes, who also gave kind permission to post this here. Why not read all my AAAGH!s so far?

Wheeler

“Archaeologist and Man of Action” says the back cover of Still Digging, the 1955 autobiography by archaeologist, soldier and “acclaimed Television Personality of the Year”, Mortimer Wheeler. Wheeler's something of a hero – Indiana Jones as played by Terry-Thomas, with moustache and twinkling mischief. This illustrated 2'6 paperback has been a joy to read.

Wheeler himself calls the book,

“an average life in one of the great formative periods of history”.

Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Still Digging – Adventures in Archaeology (1958 [55]), p 9.

He deftly brings to life service in two World Wars and the violence of the partitioning of India up close – there's a thrilling account of him rescuing a Muslim colleague's family from a siege only for them to tick him off for not bringing their luggage, too. All in all, it's a rather chappish rollick through his life, with excerpts from diaries and correspondence to add vivid contemporary detail. It's generally fun and good-humoured, with an eye for the absurd character or moment. At the same time, he's forthright in his opinions.

“The British Museum I abjured [as a young man] as I abjure it today, a place that suffers from a sort of spiritual cataract and out-stares the visitor with unseeing eyes.”

My 1958 edition adds a footnote to this view:

“I regret this remark. It was written before I became a Trustee of the British Museum and, had truth permitted, I should have deleted it.”

Ibid., p. 24.

That forthrightness is matched by an unapologetic vocabulary when speaking of other nations. There's plenty, for example, on the habits of “the Hun”. Yet for all the racial terminology, he's also strikingly tolerant for his time. The following passage is a typical mix:

“I have in mind the sixty-one students who flocked to me from the universities of India and from the archaeological departments of the Indian states: swarthy Muslims from the North-West Frontier and the Punjab, little round-faced talkative Bengalis, quick-witted Madrasis, dark southerners from Cochin and Travancore. Also, today – only a few years later – such an assemblage of races, tongues and creeds would no longer be feasible. Religious and political barriers have split asunder those who in 1944 worked together with single purpose and common understanding.”

Ibid., p. 174.

It's not just that he wished other races would bally well get along with one another. He's an enthusiastic participant in World War Two, but when the Eighth Army pushes the Germans out of Libya, he's happy to work with Italian – that is, enemy – and Libyan archaeologists, freely acknowledging their superior skill and expertise. He also readily credits the many women archaeologists he's worked with over the years, and is carefully to cite both their unmarried and married names. Foreigners, natives and ladies are treated as equals – all that matters is that they're up to the job.

Wheeler delights in archaeology as a proper, bona fide science, describing particularly fine discoveries or developments in method, and reporting with special glee when some new piece of evidence torpedoes a long-standing theory. He's surprisingly modest about his own contributions to the field – such as dividing digs into grids. Acutely aware that so many of his peers had been killed in the First World War, he concludes that his eminence in the profession,

“was the outcome of circumstance, not merit”.

Ibid., p. 206.

There's a shadow over much of his otherwise jolly outlook. As well as the wars, there's the death of Wheeler's first wife, Tessa, in 1936. Wheeler was away on a dig at the time. His account of learning the news while heading back to England and seeing it in the paper is told with exemplary restraint, which makes it all the more haunting.

He's quick to credit Tessa's contributions to several of his digs. But there's just a single, brief mention (on page 183) of Margaret, his wife at the time of writing, and no mention at all of the wife in between.

As I posted a few weeks back, Mavis was drawn and bedded by Augustus John – before and perhaps after her marriage to Wheeler. Wheeler divorced her in 1942 having caught her with another lover and excised her completely from his memoirs. John, though, gets a mention several times – and even gave the book it's title. (There's no mention of the duel.)

Wheeler is otherwise cagey on the subject of girls. Apart from Tessa, the only romantic entanglement is a newly liberated Italian contessa, who calls him “the General” before he escapes her advances. He's such an old rascal otherwise I suspect his private life might not have been nearly so tame as the book implies.

There are plenty of vignettes about the celebrities he encountered – such as eminent archaeologists Pitt-Rivers and Petrie. But Wheeler was also clearly interested in everyone, no matter their origin or status. The appeal here is as much his perspective as what he did or who he met. As an archaeologist and war-veteran, he takes the long view and sees his own insignificance in history.

“At its best, this book will be little more than a scrapbook: probably few lives are otherwise, save those of the very successful or the very humdrum.”

But there's also a compelling philosophy behind these rag-tag adventures. On the same page, he says,

“I do not believe in much except hard work, which serves as an antidote to disillusion and a substitute for faith.”
Ibid., p. 9.

He says, but for John and his publishers, he'd have called his book “Twenty Years Asleep” - based on the line in Don Juan that we miss a whole third of our lives. Wheeler is a fidget, too eager to get out and explore all the fascinating stuff. His enthusiasm engaged generations of young archaeologists all around the world, and then the TV-viewing public. That delight in rigorous investigation, and the wry, self-mocking twinkle in his eye, is just as arresting today.

“Whilst adoring luxury I abhor waste, and am firmly of the view that most of us are unconscionably wasteful in this matter of sleep. It must at the same time be added that I have been made aware of other opinions.”

Ibid., p. 205.

AAAGH! and Bernard

Here's the AAAGH! from issue #234 of Doctor Who Adventures, out a few days after the broadcast of Night Terrors (in which a small boy who is scared of Peg Dolls and a dog must overcome his fears). Issue #235 - out in all good shops today - features some timey-wimey issues that might just possibly be inspired by The Girl Who Waited.

As ever, the script is by me, the art is by Brian Williamson and the strip is edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes - and posted here by kind permission. You can also read all my AAAGH!s so far.

Plugs and plugs

Sorry - a pluggy post. I have a new CD out this month - Doctor Who and the Memory Cheats starring Wendy Padbury as Zoe Heriot and Charlie Hayes (Wendy's daughter) as Jen. The spooky cover is by clever Marcus at Amazing15 (who I also sometimes work with doing daftness for Doctor Who Adventures). Here is the blurb:

Zoe Heriot remembers everything. But she remembers nothing.

A genius with instant recall, Zoe’s mind has been purged of her memories of travelling with the Doctor and Jamie in the TARDIS. And years later she is in deep trouble – prosecuted by the mysterious company that has evidence that she has travelled in Space and Time.

Except Zoe knows they’re wrong.

Aren’t they?

But if that’s the case, why is there proof that Zoe was in Uzbekistan in 1919.

Can the memory cheat?

The story owes a bit to Col. Bailey's Mission to Tashkent, which I have blogged about before. I'm interviewed about the CD in the new issue of free Vortex magazine (issue #31). Look, my name is even on the cover, as if I am a draw.

My next CD is out in November. Doctor Who and the First Wave is the final part of my trilogy starring Peter Purves and Tom Allen. Me and Will Howells went to see Tom's show in as part of the Scipmylo festival in Shoreditch last night, a chat show with guests Stephen K Amos, Katherine Ryan, Ed Byrne and some bloke called Matt Smith.

Will, Nimbos and the Dr will be on Only Connect on BBC Four on Monday. Oh, and there is a Twitter competition to win tickets to the first screening of my short film Cleaning Up.

Think that's everything.

AAAGH! and the Teselecta

Another AAAGH!, this from last week's Doctor Who Adventures, issue #233. As always, the strip is illustrated by Brian Williamson and edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes - who gave kind permission for me to post it here.

Issue #234 - currently in all good shops - features another AAAGH! by me, with a Peg Doll and a dog called Bernard. You can also catch up on all my previous AAAGH!s.

Trailer and details for my short film, Cleaning Up

Cleaning Up - Official Trailer from Guerrier Brothers on Vimeo.

Full cast and crew for Cleaning Up - a short thriller starring Mark Gatiss and Louise Jameson - is now up on the spangly official Guerrier brothersTM webventure. Why not follow @cleaningup_film on Twitter and join the Facebook Cleaning Up experience journey thing.

Screenings start next week with a showing at the Cambridge Film Festival at 1pm on Saturday 17 September, followed by a screening at the Branchage Film Festival in Jersey at 1pm on Sunday 25 September. More screenings and things to come.

AAAGH! Let's Kill Litter

Another AAAGH! by me, this from #232 of Doctor Who Adventures - published two days before broadcast of the new Doctor Who episode Let's Kill Hitler. It's by me, illustrated by Brian Williamson and edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes - and posted her by kind permission. Have written a whole new run of AAAGH!s, so plenty more to come. Sorry.

Next time (or, in the shops from today): AAAGH! and the Teselecta.

John

Michael Holroyd's 600-page biography of the painter Augustus John (1878-1861) is a dense, detailed work that's taken me months to get through. I've stopped and started to move house, write my own stuff or read books on comedy or writing or for work. It’s not a book to dip into; for all the comic moments and celebrity cameos, this portrait merits time.

I loved the brooding power of John's portraits when I first saw them during my A-levels, then discovered the artist lurking in old photos of the Fitzroy Tavern (John first met Dylan Thomas there, says the book). I'd seen the book a few times in remainders and second-hand shops, but been scared off by the size and its strikingly ugly cover.

But John's name and work has continued to crop up in other things I've been reading, and when I was in Cardiff in March, his portrait of Mavis Wheeler at the National Museum Wales was the one that held me transfixed. In a few, simple lines – seemingly dashed off – he conveyed not just a beautiful woman but a tantalising sense of her character: thrilling, smart and naughty.

Mavis was wife of another hero of mine, the twinkly archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler. So I thumbed through the book to see if Mortimer got a mention. And bought the book on the basis of this single line:

“Wheeler, Sir Mortimer: challenged to a duel by AJ, 526-7”

Index to Michael Holroyd, Augustus John – The New Biography, p. 717.

Holroyd tells John's life broadly in chronological order, from his days in fear of a strict father in Tenby, through art school rebellion into established notoriety – as much for his private life as his work. John was fascinated by the gypsy life, learning their language, living among them, wearing big hoop ear-rings. And there's a constant wanderlust in the book; in his last few years he seems especially fidgety because he can't just climb into a young woman's bed or disappear off across the country. There’s the striking image of him, a month before he died, frail and ill, but taking part in an anti-bomb sit-in in Trafalgar Square.

John's the archetype of a particular kind of artist: a beardie, boozy, bombastic womaniser, father of too many children to keep track of, constantly getting into rages and fights. He's not a particularly likeable man – he treats his wife Ida particularly badly – but Holroyd mines his antics for detail, insight and comedy. There's a particular gem of rascally, drunk lechery on pages 289-91 that’s got the feel of Withnail. John sneaks round a friend's house at night in search of his two pretty “secretaries”, gets the wrong room and ends up in the nursery with the governess (a dwarf). In the scandal the next morning, he leaves in disgrace but is pursued by the friend who John takes to the pub to set things right, where they get into a boxing match with a complete stranger. As Holroyd says, the stories about John are much more fun to read than be a part of.

For all his unconventional ways, John mixed with key figures of the period, painting their portraits, getting them drunk and – if they were women – fucking them. Ian Fleming's mum, the wives of both Mortimer Wheeler and Dylan Thomas, his own son's girlfriends (and possibly, their wives) and any number of models are included in the list. This sexual appetite is mixed up with anecdotes about his friendships with Hardy, Bertrand Russell, Lawrence of Arabia, Prime Minister Asquith and the Queen.

The book is often engrossing because of other people's lives – John's wife Ida, his sort-of wife Dorelia and sister Gwen are as much part of the story. But even the smaller roles are vivid. Take the subject of the portrait that made me buy the book. Mavis – really Mabel – Wright had an affair with John before she married Mortimer Wheeler. And it looks like they overlapped long afterwards, too. The first mention of her reminded me of Sarah, Pauline Collins' character in the first series of Upstairs, Downstairs:

“About her background she was secretive, confiding only that her mother had been a child stolen by gypsies. In later years she varied this story to the extent of denying, in a manner challenging disbelief, that she was John's daughter by a gypsy. In fact she was the daughter of a grocer's assistant and had been at the age of sixteen a scullery maid. During the General Strike in 1926, she hitchhiked to London, clutching a golf club, and took a post as nursery governess to the children of a clergyman in Wimbledon. A year later she was a waitress at Veeraswamy's, the pioneer Indian restaurant in Swallow Street”.

Ibid., p. 524.

Holroyd uses these relationships to cast light on John's own work. But I found there was generally little analysis of John the painter. The book reproduces only a handful of his works and though we're told of fashions and fights in the art world, I didn't ever feel the book explained or grouped his work. His portraits are discussed in terms of how much they looked like or pleased the sitter:

“Men he was tempted to caricature, women to sentimentalize. For this reason, as the examples of Gerald du Maurier and Tallulah Bankhead suggest, his good portraits of men were less acceptable to their sitters than his weaker pictures of women.”

Ibid., p 469.

There's even less on the style or composition of his landscapes, and his still life work is almost dismissed out of hand. We’re told he only tried clay late in life.

John’s frustration with his own work is evident – a late anecdote has the old man crying in the street at his own lack of ability. Holroyd details him prevaricating for years over particular portraits, or painting over or destroying work he alone seemed not to like. Despite saying that he didn’t fulfil his potential, Holroyd tells us that John worked hard and continually – the cruel irony being that work wasn’t necessarily improved in proportion to the hours devoted.

I'd have liked more on the traditions he worked with in, the tools he used, the kind of brushwork and marks on the canvas. Holroyd seems to agree with critics who claim (and did so at the time) that John never quite realised the promise of his early work, but doesn't venture an opinion on why or what he should have done.

It's a rich and rewarding biography of the man but not the artist.

AAAGH! goes swimming

Another AAAGH!, this one from Doctor Who Adventures #230 and featuring Craig the Sea Devil, a cat nun, a Cheetah person and a Hath. Written by me, illustrated by Brian Williamson and edited by Natalie Barnes and Paul Lang - and reprinted here by kind permission. Next time: Let's kill litter!

"All you do is quote fact and figures..."

"'After all, we are in the entertainment business.'
- Ruper Murdoch on the Hitler diaries”

Quoted in Robert Harris, Selling Hitler, p. 293.

The Dr picked up Selling Hitler – The story of the Hitler diaries for 90p in a charity shop. The book was first published in 1986 and this battered paperback with Alexei Sayle mugging on the front was brought out in 1991, to coincide with, says the back cover, “the major five-part ITV drama series, starring Jonathan Pryce, Alan Bennett, Barry Humphries” and Sayle. Yet the true story of a huge publishing swindle seems particularly relevant now: how News International and other publishing companies were so consumed by commercial pressures that they, fatally, ran a major scoop despite serious questions about the source.

It's a fascinating story, Harris detailing the huge market in the 1970s for Nazi-related material. On telly there was Colditz and Secret Army, the papers were tracking down former SS officers to interview and/or bring to justice, and a trade in illicit knick-knacks that the Fuhrer might have touched was commanding ever higher prices – and ever more outlandish fakes. I was also struck by the context in which Hitler's diaries are set.

"It was clear that the only author who might remotely be compared Adolf Hitler was Henry Kissinger. His memoirs had been syndicated across the globe in 1979 in an intricate network of deals, simultaneous release dates and subsidiary rights, which was a wonder to behold. Hitler was probably bigger than Kissinger – 'hotter', as the Americans put it.”

Ibid., p. 210.

Forger Konrad Kujau produced a pile of diaries, hundreds of paintings, notes and manuscripts – most as if by Hitler, but also corroborating details from those in his inner circle. His previous forgeries had been already spotted by – or embarrassed – other historians and publishers. If the German magazine Stern and the other publishers had been more open with their haul and sought more opinions, the whole fraud would have collapsed much sooner.

Harris is good at explaining the slow erosion of the experts' doubts and hesitance. The reputation of Lord Dacre (Hugh Trevor-Roper) was seriously damaged by his authenticating the diaries as genuine, but we see how he was given little time and little access, and was apparently lied to. Those with the skills and experience to make judgments – scientists, historians, those who'd dealt with forgeries, journalists who'd seen this kind of thing before – were not let in on the secret or only in limited ways.

But even as the deals were being signed, on Wednesday, 20 April 1983, Philip Knightly at the Times listed his own concerns, based on having seen the costs incurred by faked Mussolini diaries in 1968. His concerns perfectly spell out the errors being made under commercial pressure to rush out the exclusive:

"Questions to consider:

1. What German academic experts have seen all the diaries? Has, for instance, the Institute of Contemporary History seen them?
2. What non-academic British experts have seen all the diaries? Has David Irving seen them?
3. How thoroughly has the vendor explained where the diaries have been all these years and why that have surfaced now: the fiftieth anniversary of Hitler's accession to power.

The crux of the matter is that secrecy and speed work for the con man. To mount a proper check would protect us but would not be acceptable to the vendor. We should insist on doing our own checks and not accept the checks of any other publishing organisation.”

Quoted in ibid., p. 290.

I've quoted Jacob Bronowski before describing Nazism as a faith not a science because it preferred certainty not awkward questions. The history of Agent Zigzag showed that the Nazi secret service were less effective than the British because the Nazis could not admit weaknesses of intelligence information. The same thing seems to be going on here – the various editors and management people were so keen on the publishing event of the century that they trapped themselves in the story. They wanted to believe so they ignored the doubts.

As it is, David Irving became the unlikely sceptic-hero who wouldn't stop asking awkward questions and pulled down the whole house of cards. A little like, I thought, Hugh Grant suddenly becoming the moral arbiter on phone-hacking, or John Prescott this week on Question Time being criticised for always bringing up “facts and figures” to support his case.

But I've also been fascinated by the insight into the culture at News International so soon after Murdoch had taken over the Times.

"In the spring of 1983 ... [Murdoch] ruled his empire in a manner not dissimilar to that which Hitler employed to run the Third Reich. His theory of management was Darwinian. His subordinates were left alone to run their various outposts of the company. Ruthlessness and drive were encouraged, slackness and inefficiency punished. Occasionally, Murdoch would swoop in to tackle a problem or exploit an opportunity; then he would disappear. He was, depending on your standing at any given moment, inspiring, friendly, disinterested or terrifying. He never tired of expansion, of pushing out the frontiers of his operation. 'Fundamentally,' Richard Searby, his closest adviser, was fond of remarking, 'Rupert's a fidget.'”

Ibid., pp. 263-4.

With publishing and broadcast subsidiaries, Murdoch was in prime position to fully exploit the diaries. Harris says Murdoch could be furious and sweary as well as ruthless. He was explosive when Stern reneged on a deal for the diaries after they'd shaken hands. And he refused to be played off against the buyers from Newsweek – instead, making a deal with Newsweek to buy the rights together and share them out to mutal advantage. When Stern tried again to bump up the price, Murdoch and Newsweek walked out – and Stern were forced to pursue them and offer a much lower price. It's an astonishing, shrewd and wily bit of dealing. And all, of course, in vain.

If there's one criticism of Harris' book, it's the lack of notes or references. A lot of his material comes from publicly accessible reports and inquiries that followed the swindle being exposed. But he also says in his acknowledgments that,

"Almost all this information came to me on the understanding that its various sources would not be identified publicly.”

Ibid., p. 9.

So we have to take his story on trust.

Events, dear boy, events

I've reviewed Project Nim for the Lancet. It's slightly informed by a post here a while back about Baboon Metaphysics.

Will resist the temptation to link ape behaviour to the events in London and round the country this week. On Monday, we could see the fire in Croydon from our house - smoke and helicopters in an otherwise clear and moonlit sky. We followed it on the news until the news stopped having anything new to say. Over the next couple of days we saw lots of police cars and vans whizzing about and my train was a bit delayed on Monday.

On Tuesday, we thought we get out of the house for lunch and wandered up the hill to the nice coffee shop. A small number of women and children were running towards us, terrified by reports of rioters coming our way. We turned round and walked back down the hill - and the reports turned out to be untrue. Tesco was busy with people as we bought lunch, with lots of people on the tills trying to serve customers quickly (truly a sign of the End of Times). The staff were also lining up trolleys in front of the shop windows, building a barricade. And there was a palpable sense of terror - all anticipating the worst.

And yet outside it was sunny and quiet and people were getting on with their lives. It was all a bit strange and surreal - and unsettling - but there's not a lot to report. Had to do some extra work yesterday as a result of the riots, but even that was pretty quiet.

So, other stuff...

I'll also be talking about the Tomb of the Cybermen and Tutankhamun with Christopher Frayling and John J Johnston at the free Cybertut event next month. Do come along. There will probably be wine.

And the new issue of Doctor Who Adventures (#230) features another AAAGH comic strip by me. I helped out at at a DWA event at the Doctor Who Experience last week - and got to sneak round the exhibition too. It is cool. There is a Zygon and an Ice Warrior and even, if you look for it, the swimming pool robot from Paradise Towers.

Otherwise, caught up in a bundle-load of writing, which I must get back to...