A few words

Rescued from Twitter-blivion

2011-04-13T21:20:00.001+01:00

I like Twitter as a way of pasting ephemeral jokes and comments, but the timeline having writ moves on and nobody ever sees them again, limiting the audience to those awke at the time.

So here's some old tweets:

English cricketers deny match-throwing allegations. "We really were that crap, honest" said the team spokesman.
Old HTML / coders never die: they just / degrade gracefully
Bob Dylan to publish second volume of autobiography as e-book: fans brand him Judas
every arts centre is the same arts centre
every local newspaper is the same local newspaper
The first rule of Mime Club is you don't talk
I'm trying to finish my study of the Moebius strip but it's never-ending.
PENSIONS MINISTER make the Pensions Time Bomb more interesting by calling it the pensions timey-wimey ball
My wardrobe is full of clothes waiting for them to get back in fashion and me to get back in shape. Not happening.
The emergence of evolutionary psychology as a specialism shows that at some point in the past making lazy generalisations was selected for.
Although olive oil spread brand-name Bertolli sounds Italian, it's actually named after the inventors, Bert and Ollie Baxter of Accrington.
I have to keep re-watching Memento because I can't remember how it ends.
Whoever decided to call a metal hair attachment a 'fascinator' must have a very low boredom threshold.

More at @mlocock

Fragment

2010-10-14T20:53:00.001+01:00

"I don't hear you," she said, her American syntax making it sound like a habit or policy.

The curious mathematics of professional poker and its application to poetry competitions

2010-10-01T21:56:00.001+01:00

The poker boom of the last couple of decades has led to the re-emergence of the stock Western character of the professional poker player, but this time relying on skill and mathematics rather than cheating. Thousands of pounds is won by the stars of the circuit. What is odd is that these players, who, by definition, are statistically expert, have not noticed the key point: that poker is a zero sum game. On balance, those involved in the circuit will break even, less their expenses - there is no extra money coming in. At best, then, this can only work as a system if money flows from the mediocre players (paying into the pot but not winning) to the better players. They may as well run it as a raffle. Still, it keeps them happy.

The business model has another application: that of the modern poetry competition, follwing the model of the Arvon competition. Typically, entrants are charged a modest fee (£5 or £10) with the prospect of a large prize, and perhaps more importantly fame, for the winner. Again, if those involved are happy this seems a reasonable scheme. However, this has become in many cases a money-making scheme (as with Arvon), where thousands of hopefuls submit their work. And like the poker games, this means that mediocre poets are effectively subsidising the good poets* and the host organisations. I believe it would be much healthier if competitions intended to broaden participation and raise awareness were run for free (or at least at cost), and those who wish to support poets and organisations should be encouraged to buy and subscribe to poetry publications.

That's just me, of course. But would-be competitors should ask themselves seriously whether they have heard of any past winners, if they are likely to come anywhere near winning, and whether there are better ways of spending their money. Good poems are published by publishers who pay their poets.

*Poets who write the sort of poems judges like, that is. See an interesting discussion of this here.http://www.academi.org/cipc/i/134400

My Top 10 Best Novels

2010-09-26T20:22:00.001+01:00

This is an idea that caught my fancy - mainly because the revelation of the lists seem to expose aspects of reader's histories and tastes that are surprising.

1. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

I often re-read this in times of stress - I remember the eve of one final exam at univeristy where I was unable to sleep and started to read it to calm me down. Unfortunately this led me to saty up until dawn racing the the end. When discussiing Lizzie witha froiend at teh time she said 'You sound half in love with yourself'. Being young and stupid, or younger and stupider, I deined this vehemently, rather than accpet this as simple fact.

2. Scoop, Evelyn Waugh

Henry Boot is an Everyman, plucked from a comfortable home life into unwanted adventure.

3. The Old Devils, Kingsley Amis

Almost any of his books would count, but this captures the trials of age and tricks of memory in a positive light.

4. Feet of Clay, Terry Pratchett

The start of the run of good form in the series, moving and profound as well as funny.

5. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams

A complex time travel plot, and more heart that the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (including a heartbreaking scene on Mauretania seeing the last dodo).

6. Towards the End of the Morning, Michael Frayn

Everday life in a newspaper office, standing for the world of pointless wok.

7. Fatherland, Robert Harris

Alternate history in which the Nazis are victorious and a detective uncovers eveidence of the Final Solution.

8. The Warden, Anthony Trollope

The first and best of the Barchester Chronicles - real people in moral dilemmas.

9. So Much Blood, Simon Brett

A Charles Paris murder mystery set in teh theatrical world.

10. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick

Another alternate history about the Second World War, Dick's most coherent novel.

Nearly made the cut: Martin Amis, David Lodge, Philip Roth, Joseph Heller, Barbara Pym

Six steps to surviving a bad review

2010-06-12T15:54:00.000+01:00

Everbody's a critic, but nobody like to be criticised. That's true of everyone - it's not surprising that the occasions people find most stressful and uncomfortable involve exposure to the judgement of others - job interviews and appraisals, marriage proposals, acting auditions. It's not something we get much better at over time - most of what we might consider to be maturity and contentment lies in gathering around ourselves sympathetic family and friends and avoiding challenges to our self-image and self-worth.

But with some activities, this exposure comes with the terrtitory -  publishing creative work is one of them: there will be reviews and comments, and these will be hard to deal with, since they may attack your core identity and beliefs. So what can you do?

1 Don't react

It is natural to feel hurt. And natural to want to retaliate. Literary history is strewn with the dead and wounded from intemperate responses to criticisms. Although theoretically there may come a time when you might be able to calmly and rationally debate the merits of the review with its author, that time is not now. Leave it.

2 Use the buzz

The emotional impact of being criticised can be devastating.  The urge to react arises from the complex mixture of energy, defensiveness and aggression - you want to prove them wrong. This is an opportunity, used well- an opportunity to get on with doing something else, something you had put to one side when you were feeling complacent. Success (at something else) is the best revenge.

3 Own the pain

Writers are often advised to ignore bad reviews. It's hard to do. There is no way to avoid the loss you have incurred - the fantasy that your work will be universally praised and admired has been brutally falsified. That's gotta hurt. Don't be surprised when it does. The pain will fade (the scars remain).

4 Respect the critic

Back at Stage 1, a typical response is to say that the reviewer knows nothing of your work, or the genre, or writing in general. How many books have they written? (annoyingly, the answer is usually 'several'). A test for whether you are ready to move on is to think about your critic. Is their judgement usually sound? If so, is it just because it affects you that you are discounting it? If you would have been glad to get their praise, you must credit them with some powers of discrimination.   So you should be open to the idea that they have a point.

5 Find the positives

We do not read carefully when we are reading reviews. The criticisms leap out of the page at us, while praise goes unnoticed or unremembered. Once you are ready to accept the critic's opinion, re-read the review. It may well be less damning than you had thought - it may even be, on balance, positive. In which case you should be glad you hadn't given in to the idea of sending them a death threat when you first read it.

6 Grow from the negatives

Praise tells us to keep on doing what we're doing. You can argue that it is therefore unnecessary - we would probably carry on anyway. What is hard is to be self-aware enough to recognise the need for change. Luckily, other people will tell us to change. Not in so many words, and not nicely. And maybe their advice is wrong - they may not know enough about you to devise a programme of improvement. But one thing is clear - negative criticism is a good cure for complacency. And pretty soon we'll be thinking about new stuff, the next book, rather than living off the glow from the last one.

And that's all there is to it. It may still sound a bit negative, but I hoep it is more useful than the conventional mantra of 'what do they know?', 'genius is never recognised', 'I'm in the wrong gang' with which writers seek to comfort themselves.

Martin Locock

Postscript

You're probably wondering. Yes, I had a bad review. It told me I needed to check and edit my work properly. I knew that already, but had forgotten.

TV Review - Watchdog (BBC1)

2010-05-14T22:59:00.000+01:00

The consumer journalism genre is a weird hybrid of camp, post-modern irony and quasi-legal case-studies. That's Life set the template and it has survived almost unchanged- and Watchdog's latest iteration breaks no new ground. Tortuous links to pop culture, bad puns, chummy presenters? Check. Disatisfied customers filmed in their own homes recounting their experiences at great length? Check.  Attempt to use the BBC's authority to force a response from the company? Check.

Not that this makes it bad, necessarily. But certainly stretched over an hour it seemed, well, stretched, jumping from story to story, delaying resolution of the individual strands as if forever fearful that once we'd seen the auctioneers emabnarssed we'd switch channel.   The lame humour is an overlay to conceal the fundamentally dull subject matter of customers not getting quite what they wanted.

But there are problems with this format. Companies are media savvy. They know that giving an interview is risky and a prepared statement is not, so there are few Frost/Nixon moments when the Midland Widgets spokesperson admits red-faced to extracting salt from the tears of orphans for use in the staff canteen.

Equally, the days when consumer were powerless innocents at the mercy of big corporations have gone. Anyone can email the company, chatter in forums, set up a 'sucks' website, stalk wikipedia. In many cases the 'victim' is shown to have actually entered willingly into a contract which they now find uncongenial - and to expect the law to support them in their wish to escape is to undermine the entire principle of commerce.   And of course there was a time when 'real people' would be invisible on screen - so That's Life tapped into the seam that later grew into docusoap and reality TV - unmediated (or apparently unmediated) platforms for the  excluded eccentrics, gurners, talking dogs and all-round characters. People Like Us are now only kept off screen because they're boring or mad.

Consumers have rights. The 'name and shame on TV' route is not, as it effectively once was, the only recourse for those without legal backing - now it is a bizarre nuclear option that may or may not actually improve things.

There is no space in the gladiatorial arena for nuance - epitomised last night at the end of an item of supermarket pricing (supermarkets change their prices, you know, not always downwards) - the supermarket explained that 'the cost of some items had been affected by changes in the £/euro exchange rate'. Rather than check to see whether this was a fair point, Anne Robinson (who was a career journalist until a decade ago) sneered and said 'whatever that means!' and the other journalist shrugged. Yes, because how could TWO JOURNALISTS working on a BBC FACTUAL PROGRAMME cope with a concept so arcane that everybody who has ever been abroad would have encountered? And even if it were obscure, perhaps it would have been interesting and actually, you know, helpful, to explore the issue, talk to an expert, leave the viewers a little better informed, rather than just basking in the rosy glow of comnfort having seen the BBC tell off those naughty capitalists.

It is possible that this genre has run its course - improved consumer protection and greater knowledge have removed the need for media champions. Here's hoping.

Poetry reading: Angela Gardner and Keri Finlayson, 10/11/09, National Library of Wales

2010-02-07T21:02:00.000Z

Keri Finlayson and Angela Gardner's poetry reading was held under the title 'Other places'.

Keri read poems from her collection Rooms, exploring an incident in her grandmother's past in which she had fallen in love with one of a visiting cinema crew. The poems are rooted firmly in the place and landscape of a Cornish fishing village, while playing with concepts of freedom, art and reality. The between poem narrative was simpler and clearer than the poems, which at times became exercises in polysyllabic reference.

Angela drew her poems from Views of the Hudson, and art gallery notes (from Foame ) and new poems from a recent stay in Ireland. Lacking the strong narrative of Keri's work, these proved more diffuse in effect although more perceptive and analytical. Her re-told fairy tales from Perrault are deeply troubling - a Freudian nightmare.

Poetry reading: Patrick Jones, 4/2/2010

2010-02-07T14:16:00.001Z

Patrick Jones is not T S Eliot, nor was meant to be. His forebears are the punk poets and ranters of the early 80s, bringing a passion a political agenda to their poetry, more suited, as Patrick said, to the pub than the National Library of Wales. There is little room for nuance in his work: his views are clear on his ex-partner (bad), current partner (good), religion (bad), tolerance (good) and Tony Blair (bad). One of the problems with this black-and-white approach is that if you don't agree with his stance there is little to enjoy in his words. Technically, he relies mainly on repetition and alliteration to elevate his words above prose. He has a tendency to use out-dated rhetoric - when he argues that we close hospitals but pay for wars, he echoes the Thatcherite era of major cuts in public services. Whatever New Labour has been guilty of (discuss), it must be admitted that the only reason it has closed hospitals is to open new PFI-financed ones down the road, and while this may not have been perfect it is not the attack on people's welfare he implies. His best poem by far was a simple, quiet poem about his father's shed, that managed to illuminate the man and the poet's relationship to him, in a moving way. As he rightly says, we modern fathers have done lots of things better than our elders, but we haven't got sheds.

His poetry collection Darkness Is Where the Stars Are achieved notoriety on publication as a result of extreme Christians (an oxymoron, as Patrick said) protesting against blasphemy. He noted the thorny question about freedom of speech; to me the best position is that people can say what they like, as long as their audience can say what they like too. The audience at the Library reading was good-natured and mainly positive, responding with greater warmth to the personal poems and story-telling than to the polemic. Poetry with strong politics is hard to get right, and it may be that his views (however strongly expressed) are no more coherent than mine, or anyone's. If he wants to say that Wales has a moral duty to welcome and care for refugees from torture and repression in their homeland, which needs little argument, does that not also imply endorsement of intervention in their homelands to protect the whole population? In which case shouldn't he be supporting action in Afghanistan? I don't have any simple answers, but then I don't make my political musings the core of my poetry.

How to name a poetry collection

2010-01-30T16:15:00.001Z

I've been thinking about marketing and poetry books, and was interested in monitoring my reaction recently browsing in a bookshop about what led me to pick one up and what didn't.

Vague names are useless

Titles like 'Poems' aren't helpful. This isn't really surprising - otherwise there would be a lot of novels called 'novel', 'story', or '50,000 words'. (examples: Dylan Thomas Six Poems, Philip Larkin XX Poems, T S Eliot Four Quartets)

Poem names may not help

Wendy Cope's collections 'If I don't know' and 'Serious concerns' are named after good poems which feature in them, but as something on the spine of the book they sound unappealing. (examples: Philip Larkin High Windows, The Whitsun Weddings)

Startling phrases are best

An unknown poet needs to demonstrate that they have some facility with words, so ideally you should choose a characteristic example. (examples: W H Auden Look, Stranger! Wendy Cope Making cocoa for Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin The Less Deceived). if the collction really doesn't contain one phrase which arouses curiosity, maybe there's something wrong.

Incidentally, price and cover art didn't figure as relevant - the one I bought was the one whose words seemed worth exploring.

Behind the scenes at the ad agency: the DVD piracy campaign

2009-12-02T21:45:00.000Z

"Okay, here's the idea-- [deep voice] You wouldn't lie on your tax return... "
"Sorry mate, I don't think that's going to work. What else could we say?"
"How about: You wouldn't take office stationery home for personal use"
"But they would, wouldn't they? Any more?"
"You wouldn't - um - you wouldn't take illegal drugs for recreational purposes?"
"Not every day, at least. "
"We could turn it around, though: You would bend the law and commit minor infringements when you can't be bothered about morality, but don't do that with DVDs, ok?"

New readers start here

2009-12-02T09:58:00.000Z

Welcome to A Few Words, a writing blog I have been maintaining since 2004, off and on. Most visitors end up here after searching for a Marks and Spencer food advert parody , analysis of Bob Dylan's Desolation Row, Highlands, or Blowin' in the wind, or background about Sandi Thom's mysterious rise to fame. None of which represent the best or most interesting of the material.

Good places to start are:

Change and Decay:
a long short story about an archivist's visit to a crumbling gentry estate (this was posted in chapters here but is presented in the right order in its own blog; it can aslo be downloaded as ae pdf, or bought on paper, in the volume File Under Fiction.
Written in your heart:
a radio play about Friends Reunited, old girlfriends, and midlife crises;

Dooced:
a radio play about an employment tribunal for an employee sacked for blogging about her work (life shortly therafter imitating Art, or at least artifice, in the form of Petite Anglaise);

Martin Amis criticism:
A long-term endeavour to cover all of his works, eventually, if I don't lose patience with his current rabble-rousing geopolitical insights first;

Stuff which won't be found here is poetry, which is at Complete and Utter Poetry, and archaeological project management, which is at 10 Simple Steps.

This post is a sticky and will stay at the top until I get bored with it.

Martin Amis: a guide for new readers

2009-11-25T22:19:00.000Z

Martin Amis [MA] has managed the difficult feat becoming a Grand Old Man of English letters without relinquishing his status as its enfant terrible. He ignites controversy on an equal opportunities basis, offending the right, the left, feminists, the religious, anti-War protestors; he has always felt that a writer's job was to be honest about his thoughts and emotions, without considering whether they are wise, popular or acceptable, based on his assumption that others secretly share his views, sometimes rightly, sometimes not. But the political froth of press coverage would not occur without the underlying awareness that he was a, if not the, great literary novelist of our days.

Such a reputation is a little hard to explain. He is usually considered to have written a maximum of three great books; his plots are makeshift, founded on melodramatic devises such as lost letters, misassigned parentage, coincidicne and motiveless malice, overlain by post-modern tricksiness; his characterisations are vague, arbitary and slapdash, his interest in psychology limited; his vocubulary wilfully obscure. But what he dos have is a voice. It is distinctive - ranging from high to low registers, from slang to literariness, with a complete assurance, almost an arrogance - a poet of the modern world, alive to the existential anxieties of urban living, and the helplessness of facing impending armageddon, nuclear, terrorist or natural.

What follows is an attempt to capture for new readers the merits and faults of his works, without becoming too embroiled in plot summaries. I have tried to avoid spoilers.

Where to start: Money, The Information, London Fields

NOVELS

The Rachel Papers

Attitudes to The Rachel Papers depend critically on the reader's opinion of Charles Highway, the upper middle class prig whose uneasy transition from schoolboy to student it follows. Many find his naivety, faux sophistitication and self-centredness repellent. But there are two aspects of the book that rescue it from being solely of biographical or period interest: the accurate depiction of how the adult world, with its baffling motives and petty crimes, appears monstrous to those in the process of joining it, and a running theme contrasting experience with expectations derived from literature, an implicit critique of the Great Tradition as a guide to life.

On returning home after three months:

"It seemed I'd been away for years. No, not years. Days? No, not days. It seemed I had been away for three months."

MA rebukes Literature for failing to reflect the reality of life, and implies a manifesto for greater honesty in fiction.

Dead Babies (aka Dark Secrets)

Dead Babies is an attempt at a rounded novel with multiple characters with names and back stories and motivations, and all that stuff, and real, however improbable, plot. The action follows housemates in the Oxfordshire countryside as, over the course of a sex- and drugs-filled weekend, their personal anxieties and conflicts reach a terrible climax, in a pattern familiar to any viewer of Big Brother. The characterisation is thin, especially of the women, who remain stubbornly lifeless; the show is stolen by the horrible Keith Whitehead, short, fat, horny and common, a fictional precursor to both Keith Talent in London Fields and Clint Smoker in Yellow Dog. MA's distinctive language shows through, in such coinings as street sadness and cancelled sex, and there are moments of profound emotion, such as the discovery of park bench graffiti where, partly erased by the latest 'K fucks J',   the earlier 'W loves M' survives. The fictional universe has moved on from The Rachel Papers: this is expliclitly set in the near-future, and there is a magic realist acceptance of the fantastical as normal.

Success

Success explores the role of nature and nurture in the development of character by contrasting the fortunes in adulthood of common Terry Service and his adopted brother Gregory in the social, sex and work lives. MA uses unreliable narrators to distort a narrative of the illusion and reality of success. Terry's deadening environment of office politics is well invoked, as is the paranoia of the late 70s hanuted by change and unemployment.

Other People

Other People: A mystery story follows an amnesiac, Mary Lamb, through a nightamre landscape in which she has to re-learn the function and import of everyday objects while dealing with sinister and oblique human contacts. Even after all this time and trouble, the book is considered by many to be MA's worst. As a technical exercise in Martian poetical imagination it has some merit, but it fails as an attempt to dramatise a moral tale.

Money

Money: A Suicide Note is MA's best novel. John Self's exploration of fleshly delights is unsullied by culture or civilisation until his attempt to become a film director provides an expensive education.

(longer account in prep)

London Fields

London Fields is a sprawling Dickensian description of modern London in the shadow of nuclear apocalypse, drawings its cast from the criminal underclass to the wealthy Clinches. The plot, like Dickens', tends to the programmatic, the absurd, and the coincidental, relying, at a critical point, on an educated and intelligent person's igorance of the significance of the name Enola Gay. A writer returns to London, his childhood home, to die, and intends to fulfil his destiny by observing a murder involving a willing murderee, a murderer and a foil. throughout the novel there are hints of an inevitable fatal confrontation in international politics. Keith Talent is a would-be darts champion, his desire to be 'onna TV' leading him to neglect his moe uual activities of petty theft, violence and indiscriminate sex. Nicola Six is, perhasp, the archetypical Amis woman, an unbelievable male fantasy of eroticism, dispassionate pragmatism, and the elaborate manipulation of her swains. Cultured, unsqueamish and determined, she plans to destroy Guy Clinch for the sake of it. Guy, meanwhile, rattles round his large house, and spends much of his time coping with his hideously demanding son whose destructive powers are beyond any defence. His beautiful wife, Hope, is helpless; her elegance and efficiency is completely unappealing to Guy, who prefers the prospect of sordor. The book is enjoyable as a series of vignettes although it lacks coherence and credibility as a whole; the style is crisp and lively urban poetry.

Time's Arrow

Time's Arrow is a technical tour de force, while also being something of a trial to read. Its narrative conceit is to tell the strory in reverse order, paragraph by paragraph, applaying a mirror reflection to morality, so that the Nazi doctor whose life it recounts starts in comfortable obscurity in an American hospital, making the well sick, before leading back to the Holocaust and the resurrection of the dead on an industrial scale. The weakest part is the early life- we are left little the wiser about what makes a monster.

The Information

See my account here.

Night Train

In Night Train , Mike Hoolihan is a police (she's also female, and a recovering alcoholic), investigating the murder of the astrophysicist daughter of the retired police chief. MA writing a pllice procedural set in America - if that sounds a bizarre prsopect, well, yes, you're right. MA seeks to submerge his distinctive style beneath an adopted narrative voice, but neither the mystery nor the treatment justify the attempt. Night Train is usually held to run Other People close for the title of worst MA novel.

Yellow Dog

Yellow Dog received a pasting from reviewers on publication, almost as if jealous rivals had been waiting for a chance to finally put the boot in. MA  confess that the novel represent a jittery attempt to respond to the fallout of 9/11 and what it ahd told us about violence. There are five strands to the story, varying in interest, complexity, and craftmanship.

The most perfunctory follows a widow and her husband's coffin on final flight home against the increasing malevolence of chance and weather. Others cover: a fictional version of the Royal family, capturing the surreal tedium of anachronistic feudal duty and  deference; Xan Meo, successful actor, whose head injury forces him to re-learn how to be a man, commenting on sex and social roles, to end preaching the feminist messge that men should 'give the girls a go', sufficiently patronising to annoy those who might agree with the sentiment; gangster Joseph Andrews, from retirement in las Vegas, hoping to return to the old country to die; and Clint Smoker- a journalist working at a tabloid newspaper completely cynical about its readers and the stories it invents to amuse them- sex-obsessed, impotent, ugly, endowed with miniscule genitalia, who develops a text message relationship with the mysterious k8.

Of these, the royals and Clint work; the others are let down by failures in tone and credibility.

House of Meetings

See my review here.

Coping with stress

2009-11-19T22:03:00.000Z

We were given stress card at work to monitor our stress level through the day. I used to get quite stressed, but not so much thse days: I waver between blue (calm) and black (cilinically dead).

Karen Carpenter and the Nick Drake effect

2009-11-15T20:57:00.000Z

The 40th anniversary of the start of The Carpenters' career has been marked by a publicity push, revining some ancient meoroies. Although their music is some distance from my usual fare, I could recognise the quaility of production, good choise of song, pop craftsmanship and, above all, Karen's warm and clear voice. However, there is a major challenge to fully enjoying the music now, as a result of an inversion of teh Nick Drake effect. Nick's death, as a result of an accidental or deliberate overdose on his depression medication, has cast a retrospective sincerity and dignity over his all too scanty recorded output, adding a layer of irony to his musings on confusion, isolation and world weariness. In contrast, the knowledge that Karen died of anorexia, anxious and unhappy, makes it hard, or indeed impossible, to enjoy the optimism and joie de vivre that marked the Carpenters' best work, often in tesnion with the lyrical content.

Overheard

2009-10-22T18:25:00.001+01:00

"Wait - you guys have got history?"
"History, biology, physical education - the whole curriculum!"
"What part did you fail on?"

Overheard at the gym

2009-10-22T18:23:00.000+01:00

"To tell the truth, I'm not that bothered about losing weight: I'm more interested in losing width."

Rock band name generator

2009-10-12T22:00:00.006+01:00

A few suggestions:
NSFW
lol
redlink
TB:DR
H1N1
Cervarix
The Moat Cleaners
Edit war
Special guests
Huggahoody
Stealth tax
Troper
BLIX
e:zing
What the thunder said

.. or is that the new music stage line-up for Glastonbury 2010?

Obscured by obscurity: La Vallee (review)

2009-10-10T22:54:00.003+01:00

The film La Vallee has intrigued me ever since seeing some stills on the cover of the Pink Floyd soundtrack album Obscured By Clouds, which I bought in 1974 or so on the grounds that it was cheaper than Dark Side of The Moon; it remains one of my favourite Floyd albums, partly because it retains a complexity and imprecision, recounting a narrative in verbal snapshots, interspersed with droning instrumentals.

It is hard for people nowadays to relaise just how obscure the obscure used to be. Even a film whose soundtrack was provided by one of the most famous groups in the world was almost impossible to access - it wasn't even shown in cinemas in the United States until 1978, and never made it onto VHS. It is easier these days to watch a celebrity sex tape than it used to be to watch a non-mainstream foreign film (or so I've heard). This is progress. A search result in You Tube suddenly reminded me that I could at last, with no expense and minimal effort, see the film in all its glory (La Vallee, I mean, not the sex tape). Although many clips have been posted on YouTube, most have been deleted for copyright reasons, but an apparently legitimate full version has been published on Google Video.

The film was directed by Barbet Schroeder, using a French cast (with some English dialogue), and was filmed in the mountains of Papua New Guinea, an area still remote and largely unexplored, and more so in 1973. The key character is Vivian (the beautiful Bulle Ogier) who travels (literally and metaphorically) from the unsatisfying materialistic world of a privileged Westerner to more primitive and simpler freedoms, in the company of a hippy gang and the natives they meet on the way to the mysterious valley whose location is unknown even to mapmakers since it is obscured by clouds.

Viewers should note that there some nudity and sex and some pigs being killed (less than these screenshots would imply - they have for some reason chosen the two most explicit parts of the whole film), but the main danger is that of boredom - its pace is slow and it adopts a documentary-style approach to both travel and encounters.

Is it any good? To me, there is strange culture historical shift in viewing a nearly-40-year-old film - the natives are still natives, but the colonials and the hippies are dinosaurs. The consistent moral contrast between white civilisation, violent, money-grubbing, exploitative and shallow, and primitive cultures which seemed happiest when far removed from contact, could be read as a critique of colonialism and cultural imperialism. But I don't think that Schroeder's intent is so political; he is more interested in the philosophical question of how we should live, and in particular, whether the path of Western consumerism and matrimony is a dead end as far as fulfilment is concerned.

For a long French film with an intellectual agenda, there is, in fact, remarkably little talking, let alone debate. Vivian's transformation is one of actions, not words. As ever with hippy films, the case for free love is unconvincingly made - here it appears to mean the freedom for women to spend time with a variety of selfish, lazy, pompous, arrogant, and sexist men (as someone once observed, free love was a godsend to ugly men because it made not sleeping with them seem uncool). But then, all of the hippies are shallow and feckless, keen on drugs, hugs and sex but little else; their intrinsic moral superiority to the colonial whites is pretty marginal. Unfortunately, the negative aspects of native culture are largely ignored, suggesting that moving closer to primitivism is a good thing, although, as one character says, they are just tourists, its lying to pretend you can fit in.

Not seeing the valley at the end frustrated some viewers, but unreasonably, I think. But this results from the more legitimate criticism, that having implied that modern and ancient culture and religion was lacking, there is no hint of what Schroeder feels should be put in their place.

So it's a bit boring. Any time Bulle is off-screen it drags; the plot is very literal, even if the filming is sumptuous. Perhaps the single biggest criticism is the poor use of the Pink Floyd soundtrack - apart from the credit sequences, most are used only in short segments, and they feel very much as an extraneous element to the film.

David Gilmour - Live in Gdansk (CD review)

2009-09-11T22:44:00.003+01:00

The packaging of the album reflects the contents quite well, in that one sticker calls him 'the voice and guitar of Pink Floyd' and the other highlights the inclusion of 'all the songs from the {solo) album On An Island', and two ost-Waters Pink Floyd songs (High Hopes and A Great Day for Freedom).

The Pink Floyd songs are well-chosen, including the first four tracks of Dark Side of the Moon and Shine On You Crazy Diamond. These are presented in almost precise replications of the record versions (assisted no doubt by the presence in the band of Richard Wright (keyboards) and Dick Parry (saxophone); in a way, this process is so accurate as to become pointless - why not listen to the original version? Echoes is stretched further by a long and meandering, almost jazz-style, keyboard / guitar work-out. 'Fat Old Sun' is rescued from the obscurity of Atom Heart Mother, and is better than the original mainly from improved vocals.

The solo material is worse, and it's hard to work out why. Partly, there is the obvious point that to choose ten Floyd songs from 15 or so albums is easier than all of the songs from one, so you would expect some drop in quality. But beyond that, the solo stuff suffers because the arrangements are guitar-heavy and lack the sophisticated interplay of a band where all the instrumentalists contribute. Finally, it must be said that Floyd's musical style, and Gilmour's guitar and voice, is prone to grandness and bombasticism, making them better suited to subjects like madness, war and death than seaside walks and being in love (this isn't quite true: the albums from 1968 to 1972 included a batch of touching whimsical murmured emotionally sincere tracks, but these have been largely overshadowed by the 'classic' (Waters-written) more popular work). As a result, the On An Island sequence comes across as strained and aimless, with nice (mainly instrumental) moments but no momentum.

So the album isn't bad, but hardly makes a case for being a necessary purchase for Floyd fans.

You CAN be too careful - when the Precautionary Principle doesn't apply

2009-08-26T21:05:00.002+01:00

The precautionary principle, that proposed changes should not be implemented unless it has been demonstrated that they will lead to improvement, has become a mantra of modern decision making, ranging from scientific and environmental developments to organisational management. In the context of climate change, Softest Pawn argues that it wrongly applied and flawed in any case. I don't agree in detail, but it has become such a commonplace that it is worth exploring some more conceptual aspects of the way it is used.

It assumes that the situation is stable

If the choice is change or no change, it is reasonable that the case for change should be robust. But in many contexts, this is not the choice being faced - rather it is change A or change B, or change a little or change a lot. The PP is no help here - the competing arguments must be considered on their merits.

It assumes that the current situation is acceptable

If the current solution is not resulting in the desired outcomes, then there is no reason to prefer it to changes which may offer better outcomes.

It assumes that timing is not critical

The PP is basically a holding position - the case for change requires more evidence or study, after which the question can be revisited. If the change is time-critical, the opportunity may have gone.

It assumes that the effects of both choices can be predicted
Sometimes they can't, or not accurately, in which case deciding which is 'safest' becomes problematic.

It places the burden of proof on change

A higher level of evidence may be demanded for change than for stability, illogically.

It arbitrarily favours the current situation

Because greater effort is required to initiate change A, judgement is balanced in favour of the status quo (B) - but if the situations were reversed, then option A would be preferred on the same evidence.

So the next time someone says 'better not do anything, to be on the safe side' you may well be able to argue that this is not the safe side at all.

Sinners, all: short story

2009-08-24T16:34:00.001+01:00

Kaz untied her apron and handed the till keys over to Tim.
‘It’s been quiet this afternoon,’ she said, nodding at the loners and couples scattered around the bar.
‘Maybe it’ll pick up,’ replied Tim in Antipodean optimism.
‘Maybe,’ said Kaz, doubtfully, ‘See ya!’
Tim wiped down the counter, glancing up at the TV screen showing a music video channel.

At a corner table, two men were drinking coffee. The tabletop’s accumulation of used crockery showed that they’d been there for a while. The two were of similar age: well-preserved late middle age, but were otherwise contrasted in appearance. One had a rosy face framed by bushy white hair and beard; the other was tanned, with a neat goatee beard, short black hair, and inquisitive eyes, the last effect heightened by a habitually-arched eyebrow.
‘What about sin, then, the Cardinal Sins?’ asked the man with the black beard, in the easy tone of a friendly argument long continued.
‘People get mixed up,’ replied the man with the white beard. ‘Cardinal Sin’s quite a precise and obscure theological concept. I don’t think anyone said they were supposed to be of universal application.’
‘But you’re cheating again – you always say things like that when you’re cornered.’
White Beard shook his head and wordlelly held up his empty cup.
‘More coffee?’ asked Black Beard. ‘Or is it time to move onto stringer stuff?’
‘Perhaps a malt whisky, thanks.’
Black Beard walked up to the bar. Tim was scowling up at the screen.
‘Shoulda been me!’ he said bitterly. ‘Anyway, what can I get you?’
Black Beard navigated the laden tray back to the table.
‘Envy’s still going strong,’ he said.
‘That’s not the point,’ said White Beard. ‘Sure, people commit sins, but they’re not defined by them. They can always choose to be better people.’
Black Beard surveyed the room. ‘What about this lot? I bet they’re all stuck by habit into selfishness.’
White Beard leaned forward. ‘I’ll take that bet.’
Black Beard offered his hand. ‘Shake on it, then.’
‘The usual stake?’ asked White Beard, solemnly.
‘It’s a deal.’
They sat sipping their drinks, waiting for something to happen.

The door was pushed open abruptly. A man in shirtsleeves rushed in breathlessly. ‘Can you help me?’ he asked the room generally, ‘there’s someone collapsed outside.’
A couple of the drinkers stood up and accompanied him out, returning a little later burdened by the body of a tramp, his clothes stained with mud and reeking of the street. They laid him on the floor, while onlookers cleared a space around him. Coats were offered as pillows or blankets.
‘I’m a taxi driver,’ the first man explained, ‘I saw him collapse on the pavement. Is anyone here a doctor?’
Heads were shaken firmly. After a pause, someone spoke up. ‘I’m a first aider,’ he said, coming forward and kneeling down to check the tramp’s pulse.
‘Hi. I’m Michael. Can you hear me? What’s your name?’
His eyes opened briefly. ‘Harry,’ he coughed.
Michael looked up. ‘Call an ambulance – he’s in a bad way.’ Mobile phones were brandished at once.
Harry’s eyes flickered and closed, and his breathing grew more laboured. ‘He’s arresting, I think,’ said Peter. ‘We’re going to need to do CPR.’
By now, most of the patrons had gathered round, offering help, advice, or just commentary. Peter recruited a couple of them to assist in the rotations of breathing and chest compressions.
When the ambulance arrived, the paramedic took over, efficiently collecting the victim.
‘Is there anything we can do?’ asked someone.
‘No thanks, we’ve got him now,’ the paramedic replied, closing the door and heading off, siren screaming.
Now that the drama was over, people seemed embarrassed, and soon most had gone.

‘All right, there’s quite a few helpful people here’, said Black Beard, ‘but what about the barman?’
‘Let’s go and see,’ said White Beard.
“What did you mean earlier,’ Black Bear asked Tim, ‘when you said it should have been you?’
Tim took some time to think back before the tramp’s intrusion.
‘Oh, that. That lucky bugger on the video was at school with me – now he’s a big star, rolling in money and girls, and I’m here, behind a bar. But back in the day, it was going to me who made it.’
He paused, tilting his head judiciously, then shrugged.
‘Still, he was the one who went for it, I guess. He put in the hours, practicing, extra classes, special courses, learning the instrument; I never had the patience. So good luck to him.’
White Beard smiled at Black Beard. ‘I win, I believe.’ Black Beard asked Tim for a packet of peanuts, then wordlessly handed them to White Beard.
‘It’s good to see that the Devil’s a man of his word,’ said God.
‘You know me of old,’ said the Devil, and they walked out into the night.

This story appears in File Under Fiction.

Street science: short story

2009-08-24T16:31:00.000+01:00

I met Carl in the city hospital's casualty department. He hobbled into the waiting area shortly after I had been abandoned by my wife to the mercies of the health professionals, such as they were.
I had broken my leg falling from a ladder while re-routing the satellite dish cable across the front wall of the house. Somehow this was my fault, she implied, forgetting that she had been the one who argued that me paying hard-earned cash to a spiv tradesman was a waste. She had her reasons, of course - if anyone was going to be spending my executive bonus on pointless fripperies it should be her. The house is one of the big ones on the hill, set back from the road with broad gravel drives. Apart from the cleaner and the gardener, we didn't mix with the lower orders on the sloping streets around us.
Carl was unexceptional in appearance at first glance, but something about him caught my eye - he was aware, watchful; his quick gaze around the room absorbed both geography and population; he headed over on his crutches and sat down next to me, groaning and tutting. He pointed at my leg.
'Snap! Or should I say snapped?'
I nodded silently.
'No worries,' he said, 'at least we'll jump the queue. Triage, you see.'
I was surprised by his elaborately French pronunciation of the word, and must have shown it, for he went on.
'I've knocked around Europe, all over. I can order a beer in ten languages, swear in more. Life skills.'
He sat back, grinning in pleasure. I realised he was cleverer, and more thoughtful, than he looked. I glanced at his injury. He shrugged.
'War wound. War of the bloody sexes, that is. Fell down the stairs while retreating under heavy fire - verbal mostly, a few shoes. Caught me off-guard. A shame to my profession.'
'Which is?'
'Bouncer, or bodyguard, depending. I'm useful.'
He emphasized the final word to imply some unstated code, somehow managing to convey his judgement that I was, in those terms, useless.
'You must make a bit,' he added.
'I do quite well, yes,' I replied coldly.
'I can tell, you see,' he continued, steadfastly ignoring my tone. 'It's my radar. A scientist of the street, that's me.' He looked me up and down. 'So: winter ski tan, expensive watch, casual clothes with ironed creases, deck shoes. Simple.'
'And my accent, of course.'
'You'd be surprised - accent's a difficult one. These days, especially. It's not so much deliberate gentrification, it's how we absorb what we hear - from kids, TV, music, mates. And in any case, accent is about class, where you came from; it's nothing to do with profession, or trade, or current status. Although,' he paused, considering, 'if your parents were poor, you'd have designer-label casuals, some gold rings or chains, maybe some tattoos.'
There followed a pause as we both looked around the room and silently classified its occupants.
The sign was still showing a three hour waiting time, but it wasn't long before I had been checked, X-rayed and partially encased in plaster. Carl followed me out, and when he herd me order a taxi, he asked to tag along. He only lived a couple of streets away, on the far side of the great social divide. It would have been rude to refuse, so we travelled home together, and I left him outside his house, tottering up the steps on his crutches.

The days that followed were a bit like Rear Window, as I was trapped upstairs with little to do. But it was more like watching Rear Window on continuous repeat. It is surprising how little there is on TV when it's your only option.
The practice nurse at the surgery pronounced herself happy with my progress, and a few days later an appointment card arrived from the physiotherapy department at the hospital.
When I arrived there, I saw Carl in the waiting room. A moment's reflection established that this was no more than logical - similar injuries, on the same date, would have treatment programmes that run in parallel.
He greeted me enthusiastically.
'I'm an old hand here,' he said with a hint of ownership. 'A regular, you might say. My body gets a bit of punishment, even when I'm dishing it out.' He cracked his knuckles. I asked how he as managing.
'I'm not working - I can't. You have to have at least the threat of force. I do some security work - watching the CCTV. Bores me rigid, though: I read a lot.'
We were called through to the clinic together, greeted by an impossibly young and petite nurse. We soon found that she was stronger and more forceful than she looked, as she took us through a long routine of exercises and performance measurements. Carl seemed to lose a little of his self-assurance, and retaliated by a stream of innuendo and banter that she steadfastly ignored. After half an hour we were exhausted, muscles aching.
'Now this is important,' she said. 'If you just sit around for the bones to heal, you'll be facing months before you rebuild your muscle tone. You need to keep active, even while the plaster's on - that way, you should be fully recovered in a matter of weeks.' She handed us a card. 'Here's an exercise schedule.'
As we hobbled out, Carl suggested we meet up to walk around the neighbourhood, and I agreed it sounded like a good plan.

We made an odd couple, as we circled the streets, clanking on our crutches. It was an eye-opener for me to explore the intimate geography of the housing estate, its passageways, lock-ups, desolate parks, and glass-strewn playgrounds.
'Look,' he said, in a back alley, pointing up at a row of high garden walls. 'You can tell when they were robbed by the age of the protection.'
I looked along the variegated barriers - barbed wire, anti-vandal paint, cameras, lights, locks and chains.
'It's defending your patch, see. Round here, the public spaces are no-man's-land - even villains have right of way. So all you can do is look after your own territory. It's something of an arms race, too - thieves are lazy bastards. You don't have to make your property completely secure - just harder work to break into than your neighbours.'

Over time, our walking speed increased, and Carl's commentary shifted to the people we saw. We developed a contest - he would spot a pedestrian, and I would try to work out how tough they were. He relished these opportunities to demonstrate his superior knowledge.
'Nah, not him. He's not ripped, just fat. No stamina, see. Keep him arguing for a couple of minutes and he'll be puffing for air.'
'What about him?'
'See how he's walking - rocking from foot to foot, with his upper body straight. Boxer. Yeah, I wouldn't fancy taking him on.'
I learned a lot about tattoos, too - prison, gang, sailor, biker, fashion.
'That's gone to pot. I tell you, there was a time when they were like a badge for hard men. These days any sulky teenager can get some Chinese gibberish on her arm. Ditto for piercings. That's without mentioning the gays.'
He spat the word out as if he'd never heard of diversity training, let alone had any. He wouldn't have lasted long in an office, as I realised when I returned to work on light duties. It was strange to contrast the dull complacency of my staff of middle-class graduates with his eager curiosity and energy. As I sat watching the rain spatter the window, the phone rang. To my surprise, it was Carl.
'Michael, mate, I need a favour,' he panted. 'I'm back at Casualty. Can you bring my bird in? She's stuck at home.'
I picked her up from outside their flat. Stella sat silent and prim in the passenger seat as I negotiated the streets and threaded through the traffic. I parked and she dashed ahead of me into the hospital. I followed after locking the car, and was directed through to the cubicles.
He looked terrible. He now had an arm in plaster, and his chest was dappled with purple and black bruises. His face was criss-crossed with black ridges of dried blood where cuts had been stitched. Carl nodded weakly to me, his movements restricted by a neck brace. Stella patted his healthy arm.
'Christ, love. What happened?'
'I'm alright,' he whispered, 'never you mind.'
After they had chatted for a while he sent her off to get a cup of tea.
'Cheers, mate,' he said.
'No problem. Someone caught you out?'
'Squaddies.' He winced. 'Three of 'em. You got to be careful with them - they know how to fight, and they don't hesitate.'
'What was the problem.'
'They didn't like my attitude,' he replied dismissively.
'Are you going to report them?'
'Nah, keep the filth out of it.'
'How bad is it?
'A few weeks off work again, I reckon. They keep saying that they're worried about my brain, but people have been telling me that for years!'
He chuckled softly. I heard the door open behind me. 'Nothing to her, mind,' he said, putting a finger to his lips.
Stella said she could get home under her own steam, and I left to return to work.

So I wasn't there to witness Carl's dramatic deterioration, the rush of the nurses, the clatter of equipment, the flimsy privacy of the screens, the bleeps and shocks, the 'bad news' and 'we did our best.'

I attended the funeral, feeling out of place in the swirling crowd of thick necks, shaved heads, and pumped-up limbs. There was some bitter amusement to be gleaned from the minister's awkward search for euphemism as he tried to summarise Carl's character. I hope I've done a better job here.

This story appears in File Under Fiction.

The price of everything: short story

2009-08-24T16:29:00.000+01:00

I’ve got a favourite spot, between the Lloyd’s cash machine and the newsagent. There’s a closed-down office with marble steps up to the doorway, and a portico provides some cover from the rain. I sit on cardboard to keep out the worst of the cold coming up from the underlying stone. There’s a lot of competition for this pitch – location, you see, location, location, location, as I used to say when I was an estate agent, before buy-to-let turned into a passport to debt, taking home, car, job and wife with it. Maybe you knew me then – good old Flash Harry, king of the property jungle. Maybe you owe me one. More likely, maybe I owe you one. Hard luck, if so.
Anyway, about my spot. Begging is all about traffic, throughput. There’s a fraction of people who will drop you a coin as they pass – one per hundred, one per thousand, whatever it is. So the more go pass, the more you make. They say it’s dying out, begging, killed by the credit card. You get them, sometimes, walking past you patting their pockets, pretending they’ve only got plastic and so can’t give you the cash they otherwise would. Makes all the difference, I don’t think. And of course, the cash machine’s customers really haven’t got any coins.
You could argue these days that the traditional ‘price of a cuppa’ could easily be a note, but that’s not what it’s about. You used to get those stories about how you could get rich from begging, but they were lies, or at least, unrepresentative. If begging was hard, beggars couldn't do it. These are people who find remembering their name a challenge, washing a distant utopian ambition. Begging is what you do when you've run out of options. Every day there's the struggle, the desperate hope, putting the hours in until you've earned your target. If all you're feeding is your stomach, that's not so bad - a long morning will set you up. I wouldn’t want to be an addict - waiting for the cash to match the cost of a fix, penny by penny.
There are some people who can get £5 at a time - the posh lot, the buskers, slumming classical violinist or under-employed folk guitarists, who rake it in at Christmas by making the crowds feel good. I don't do that, spread the warm feelings. The best I can hope for is to be a lucky charm - sometimes passers-by reckon that if they give me money, they won't end up like me. So for me it's coins, one here, one there, Thank you, sir, Thank you love, Thanks, kid, adding up through the day.
They say that begging is like selling: it makes you cynical, eyeing up everybody as a possible mark. Not that I wasn't cynical before, but it's true, I guess. A lot of waiting in both jobs, of course. It's fun here, sometimes, watching everyone come and go. Best of all is the parking meter. For a start, you get to spot the liars who walk past you saying they've got no change, and then feed some into the meter. But there's the next bit, too - the traffic warden solemnly photographing the cars, checking his watch, reading the meter, then taking out his ticket pad.

It happened today, for example. A new BMW roars into the space, the driver, all suit and sunglasses, sprints into the shop, and comes back to find the red package on the windscreen. Oh dear, oh dear; my heart bleeds. Now the warden's come back, and the driver's arguing. The warden keeps calm.
'Surely, sir, if you can afford such a fine vehicle as this, you can find the parking fee?'
This doesn't go down well. The driver starts shouting about appeals and lawyers and complaints, and doesn't notice that the warden's speaking on his radio.
'You there!' the driver says, pointing at me, 'You saw it all - I was only there half a minute.'
I stand up and walk towards them, my legs stiff.
'What did I see?'
'You saw me arrive.'
'Did I? I don't remember you passing. Did you give me any money?'
'No, I . . .' He pauses as my meaning sinks in. He gets his wallet out. 'I was in a hurry then, but now - ' He fingers a £20 note. I turn to the traffic warden.
'He wasn't here long, you know.'
The warden nods grimly.
'Must just be your unlucky day, then, sir.'
The driver starts to put the note back in the wallet.
'Oi,' I say, 'I think that's mine.'
He shakes his head. But he doesn't notice what's happening behind him - the tow truck's now blocked his car in, and the crew is getting out of the cab. He looks around and starts shouting again. The traffic warden retreats and calls the police.
The driver sags in defeat, gets out his cash, pays the clampers, pays the warden. He looks at me in disgust. The feeling's mutual, mate. In minutes, the street clears.
I spot a pound coin in the gutter - that's my tea sorted for today, I think, so I head back to the hostel, feeling relatively positive for a change.
Tonight, no doubt, in some leafy suburb, in a stunning domestic residence enjoying extensive views, the driver's telling his uninterested wife about his day in the City, and how it cost him a hundred quid, bitterness curdling his stomach.

This story appears in File Under Fiction.

The seducer's tale: flash fiction

2009-08-24T16:27:00.001+01:00

'Not bad, not bad,' Phil said out loud, looking at his reflection. Condensation from the shower framed his features. He worked his way through the tedious toolkit of body care - clippers, sprays, trimmers. He decided against shaving, the stubble serving to disguise the thickening of his chin. There was a touch of salt-and-pepper greyness coming through, he noted. Oh well, he'd have to face that soon.
Fresher's Balls had changed a lot over the years since Phil's first one. The days of wide-eyed ingénues overwhelmed by the heady mixture of freedom, alcohol, music, and social unease, ripe to be entranced and exploited, had gone. Nowadays the would-be squire needed a bit more on his side than age and wisdom - he had to differentiate himself from the young lads whose charmless innuendoes rolled off their tongues like football chants. Phil could usually count on finding some girl to inveigle into a quiet corner, where he provided mature advice and sympathy, a paternal voice . . . Phil shook himself. From his PhD research, he knew enough about Freud to want to avoid the whole question of why some men liked young women and women liked older men. It amazed him that the term 'Daddy's girl' was bandied around in polite society without raising any concerns. He thought for a second and shook his head. His motives were clear enough - it wasn't youth he wanted, just opportunity. For some reason, he found it difficult to sustain relationships with women of his own age - they seemed to find him safe and boring, and self-obsessed. 'Well, who else should I be interested in?' he had countered in one final row. 'Me!' she had answered.
He had hopes for tonight. He combed his hair, cleaned his teeth, and slid a condom packet into his pocket.

* * *

Kaz blinked at the brightness as the bathroom light flickered on. She swayed across the cool tiles, rested her hands on the sink, and stood, waiting for her head to clear. The E she'd taken before coming out was wearing off, leaving her feeling flat. She opened her clutch bag and took out a sachet. She expertly rolled a bank-note and sniffed up the coke. 'Just sprinkling some magic dust,' she thought to herself, 'I'll be a princess!'
Prince Charming left something to be desired, though. Paul or Pete or Phil or whatever his name was, was waiting in his bedroom. Oh well, she'd had worse, she thought, remembering wild antics in nightclub toilets, bus shelters, cars, parks, car parks, even beds, sometimes. Her new flatmate buddy had abandoned her earlier, gone off with some stud, leaving her alone until this chap had turned up. He seemed to think she was new to all this, and she hadn't corrected him. He'll be in for a shock when he discovers my metalwork down there, she thought. This struck her as funny, and set off a giggling fit. She subsided onto the floor.
As she moved, a cupboard door swung open, revealing a hot water bottle and a jar of liniment. She sobered up. What was she reminded of? That's right - her parents. He was old, too old.
Kaz considered her options, and decided to leave without explanation. That was best, she'd found - made her seem mysterious and willful. She smiled. Men are such dopes, she thought.

This story appears in File Under Fiction.

New expanded and improved version of File Under Fiction

2009-08-24T16:18:00.003+01:00

File Under Fiction is now completely re-formatted, expanded with six extra stories including A night like this, and parodies of Jane Austen and Thomas Boswell. See contents here.

The reality of the Self Help section

2009-07-31T20:13:00.001+01:00

Radio 4 comedy: no laughing matter

2009-06-18T23:31:00.002+01:00

The much-anticipated post-Huphrey Lyttleton series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue has now started, under the genial chairmanship of His Twittership Stephen Fry. I didn't think it worked very well. Even under Humphrey, the programme had become stretched and formulaic, giving increasing time over to rounds to allow bad singers to sing badly, at the expense of lively wit. But Fry didn't work very well, mainly because he followed so closely the phrasing and persona established by Humphrey. The same occurred when Angus Deayton was replaced on Have I Got News For You? : not only did his successors sound like ill-at-ease imitators, by demonstrating how much was scripted, it cast a retrospective pall over Deayton's talent by revealing its origins. It seemed to be a lack of confidence by the Clue producers: Samantha and Sven have been a running joke for 10 years or more - isn't it time to start a new one? And when Fry introduced Sound Charades with a reference to Give Us a Clue, last broadcsat in 1992, didn't someone pause to calculate how many people will never have seen it? It is a shame that the opportunity to introduce some new rounds or jokes was missed.

But it is still the best comedy on Radio 4, compared to the anaemic Hut 33, the bizarre and laughter-free WW2 Bletchley Park drama, in which the cast do what they can with funny accents and overacting to compensate for the lack of jokes, or Elvenquest, the Lord of the Rings parody. Successful parodies of fantasies have to be based on a credible sincerity about the world they inhabit: Elvenquest instead was a rag-bag of incongruous banter. This wouldn't matter so much if the elements had been original, but they included an evil master suffering disillusionment at his role and an incompetent sidekick (as in Old Harry's Game), a dog's view on human behaviour (as in About a Dog), and the central relationship between a dithering 'hero' and a strong and dismissive heroine (as in Hitchkiker's Guide to the Galaxy). This last comparison is fatal - at one point I thought to myslef 'that's nearly up to H2G2 standards' - in other words, the comdey had almost got as far as a programme made 30 years ago.

There appears to be a strangehlold of large-cast underwritten mediocrity at the moment, in which series like Claire in the Community and Old Harry's Game stand out like beacons of competence.

Nadine Dorries MP and her expenses: not good enough, would-be minister

2009-05-16T10:29:00.006+01:00

The great expenses saga has generated more heat than light, and enough hot air to threaten our climate change targets. A lot of people are outraged that MPs have two houses and buy expensive things, even though nobody would become an MP for the money (working barristers who become MPs suffer a dramatic drop in salary). It seems these days that we no longer hate the rich because they're rich: we are supposed to admire people like Richard Branson or Bill Gates. But we still feel an unease that other people may be getting an easy ride, while we don't. There is something appealingly anachronistic about someone claiming for cleaning out their moat or managing their mole problems, but the truth is that these would be counted as legitimiate business expenses by an estate, farm, or self-employed person.

However, MPs have been taken by surprise at the virulence of the hatred they have unleashed, because they misunderstand its underlying cause: what people care more about money is equitable treatment. Fairness is such a core principle in our psyche that we would prefer that nobody was given a prize rather than it should go to the wrong person. It's interesting in this context to consider the case of Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP, who is one of the few MPs so far to come out robustly defending her actions. Commenters have queried how many houses she has (and therefore the basis of her claim for an 'additional' house in her constinuency), and she responded with further clarification which sounds complicated but seems reasonable.

But in her response to the Daily Telegraph questions, she concedes the really damaging point. Their first question is:

1. In 2006 you claimed for the cost of a hotel stay on New Year's Eve and another just a few days before Christmas, when the House was not sitting. Please can you explain why you felt this was an appropriate use of public funds.

She responds:

I have never spent a New Years Eve away from my daughters and I have never spent it in a hotel, ever. In fact, New Years Eve 2006 is when I held a party and cooked a 12 bird roast and I blogged the entire evening. Anyone reading this can check it out.

The Telegraph has an invoice charged to MR N Dorries, which was submitted, but never paid. I don’t actually submit the invoices, my PA does, and that one may have been submitted in error, In error - because I never stayed at any hotel on New Years Eve ever if it had ever been paid it would have been refunded IMMEDIATLEY. What may have happened is that someone who is not a member of the Carlton Club may have booked a room in my name, friends do, however; my other point is that I am not even sure the Carlton Club is open over Xmas and New Year?

The fact is though that an invoice was submitted from my office, for a room I didn’t stay in, which is obviously an error and no money was paid to me for that invoice.

She implies it should have been obvious to anyone with any familiarity with her movements and lifestyle that the invoice submitted as a claim was not an expense she had any involvement with.

Which is true.

But what she has admitted is that the invoice which would have been totally out of character for her to have incurred, was submitted to the Fees Office by her PA, who would presumably have known what Dorries did that New Year's Eve. The fact that the claim was never paid does not alter the farudulent nature of that claim submitted on her behalf by her staff.

"Members must ensure that claims do not give rise to, or give the appearance of giving rise to, an improper personal financial benefit to themselves or anyone else."
(Green Book)

However steadfast she is in addressing the other concerns, she has conceded that:

her office is so chaotic she cannot keep irrelevant paperwork separated from her offical records
her staff prepare and submit claims on her behalf without her checking them (since she would have spotted at a glance that the invoice couldn't be right)
the claim made would, if paid, have been in breach of the Green Book rules since she would have been paid for an invoice which was not a legitiamte expense

On a personal level, and perhaps as an MP, maybe this IS a minor matter. But Dorries is touted as ministerial material for the next Conservative government, and one would hesitate to give her oversight of a department when she is transparently unable to run an efficient and honest staff.

Work in progress

2009-05-10T23:03:00.004+01:00

There is an interesting distinction between prose and poetry writers and their attitudes to ideas. Poets without inspiration can do nothing, but can pursue any idle thought without investing too much time; they therefore tend to be passive and, if uninspired, concerned. Prose writers will usually have more ideas than they have time to deal with, and therefore treat the writing process as more of a routine chore. This doesn't, however, make them any happier about talking about a work in progress.

For a start, there is the superstitious fear that saying out loud that it's going well will be the cue for it to stop. Then there is the more rational advice that if you tell somebody about how the story ends, you will lose all interest in typing it, since you have reached the conclusion. But the biggest stumbling block is trying to capture the nuances of the tale which reaches beyond bald plot summaries. I remember seeing a discussion about the value of writer's endorsements on the c0ver : 'I wished I'd written it!' - Dan Brown. The conclusion was that publishers are very keen on them but buyers aren't: they ignore them. What they want, and are often denied, is an idea of what the book is about.

I'm not sure, though, that this really helps. When I say on the back of File Under Fiction that it has a story about a gentry family living on a country estate, I presumably may arouse the interest of fans of Evelyn Waugh, Jilly Cooper, or Joanna Trollope, but most of them would be disappointed. The danger is that in the abstract most stories sound dull - imagine a novel about this big shark, that eats some swimmers, and then is caught; or, a whaling captain tries to catch a whale; or an old man tries to catch a big fish. None of them sound like winners, really. You really do need some sort of meta characterisation about pure plot, to give readers hints about the sort of book it is.

These days most of this information about style is provided typographically: chick lit books are instantly defined by the zany font and colour scheme, just as thrillers will have short titles in bold letters. Although this can be convenient, it does tend to ghetto-ize people's reading habits, so that they only read the sort of books they have read.

The reason I'm thinking about this is that the book is finished, and at 180 pages is something you could point at as something substantial, something that could be marketed. But who to? But another reason is that I feel I've reached a natural end-point; I have been working on and off on the long stories for five years or more, and now they're done I'm wondering what's next. I've got some ideas, but they would sound even stranger than the ones I've completed. But one thing I have noticed recently is that I really can sit down and write: the Dylan story was complete in outline in my head by the time I was back home from the gig, and complete on paper the next day. So whatever it is, it should go smoother.

A night like this (January 7th 1974): short story

2009-05-06T22:41:00.003+01:00

Phil awoke, cold and stiff. He was alone, still clothed. He must have dropped off where he sat. The scent of tobacco and dope smoke engrained in his crumpled clothes competed with the unfamiliar apartment's own odour of damp and decay.

From the stereo speakers in the corner came the repeating click and hiss as the needle followed the circling groove around the label; on the floor lay the shiny album sleeve, disfigured with stamped warnings: the review copy of Planet Waves which he'd picked up yesterday at the gig. It wouldn't be in stores for a few days. Outside, dogs barked in the street.

He patted his pockets for cigarettes, found none, and coughed instead. He looked around the room, taking in the glasses, ashtrays, and bottles. And books. His memory nagged at him; there was something important he'd found out last night.

He'd first noticed the chick in the crowd at the Maple Leaf Gardens arena, while standing in the darkness of the auditorium waiting for Bob Dylan and The Band to come on stage. She stood with her eyes closed, arms part raised, ringed fingers extended, rocking and swaying gently to some silent rhythm. As the concert started, she opened her eyes and stared at Bob intently, following his every move. As the crowd shifted over the next half hour, she ended up alongside Phil as he lit up a joint; in response to her questioning look he passed it to her.

Then, as Bob ended 'Just like a woman' with a magically inventive and expressive harmonica solo, their eyes locked and they nodded in recognition of the artistry they had witnessed. Putting his arm around her shoulders seems a natural response, and by the time the lights went out on the encore of 'Most likely you'll go your way and I'll go mine', they were kissing passionately. Things were looking good, he thought.

They stepped into the cold hard air of the night. Toronto was quiet to his ringing ears.

'Where do you live?' he asked.

'Not far, McGill Street,' she replied, 'although it's nothing much.'

They settled on her place; his was nothing much either. Being a music reviewer for a small alternative magazine wasn't a job for people interested in material success.

They crossed the street to the empty sidewalk and went down an alleyway between two tattered billboards, emerging in a back street. As they mounted the spidery lattice of the fire escape, she turned towards him.

'He's great, isn't he? Bob? So complex.'

I revealed the treasure in my bag.

'I know,' she said, 'I saw you get it at the gig: I can't wait to hear it!'

She squealed and ran up the steps.

They settled down on the sofa as the music started. She sat up with a start as 'Tough mama' began, shaking off his hand.

'Wait,' she said, 'I'm listening.' He listened too; it counted as work, after all. When the track finished, she stood up and repositioned the needle to start it again. She picked up a battered notebook, opened it to a fresh page, and wrote down notes as she picked out the key phrases. When the song ended, she let the album play on, but only because she was reaching up to a book shelf.

'New morning was about the Abrahamic God as Father,' she said over her shoulder, 'I think this is changing to the female principle - don't you see? Goddess - angel - beauty - mama.'

Phil nodded dejectedly. She took down a Bible, its pages interleaved with Tarot cards used as bookmarks.

'Cities of the plain,' she muttered.

Phil felt he should make some contribution, what with being an English major and professional critic and all.

'There's a Eugene O'Neill play about drug addiction - Long day's journey into night - I'm sure he's alluding to it with 'night's long journey',' he said.

'Of course,' she replied dismissively, 'or it's re-birth: that would fit better, wouldn't it?'

And so the night had gone - research, theory, listening, reading. He was eventually overcome by exhaustion and boredom.

He yawned, stretched, and stood up. He went to knock on the bedroom door, but it swung open to his pressure. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, still dressed; it was concealed benath a mat of paper, books lying open, and closely-written index cards.

'Oh, hi,' she said distractedly. 'You fell asleep. I feel like I'm getting somewhere.' She gestured at her notes. 'The number nineteen is the key, you see.'

The walls were covered with posters of Dylan, newspaper cuttings, occult symbols, and handwritten transcriptions of lyrics.

Now Phil remembered what it was. She was crazy. Not crazy like a crazy mama, or crazy like a fox. Call-the-nut-wagon, straitjacket, padded cell crazy. What were the chances of him picking up someone like that?

As he retrieved the album and crept out of the building, he realised that the chances were quite high, all things considered.

Author's note

A night like this was devised after seeing Dylan live for the first time recently. I had looked around the audience and noted the preponderance of male fans; most of the female fans had come as part of couple. 'What were the ones who came alone like?' I wondered, and realised that I knew, or could guess. The story's setting is as true as research can make it, although normally I wouldn't count that as a particularly important question: credibility is more vital than accuracy. Dylanologists will enjoy spotting references to songs in the text.

This story is included in the new edition of File under fiction.

Overheard

2009-05-01T14:02:00.002+01:00

marketeer #1 "How did the pitch for the animal hospice account go?"
marketeer #2 "Badly- they didn't like our strapline."
marketeer#1 "What was it?"
marketeer #2 "Die like the dog you are."

Q: What is the definition of surrealism?

2009-02-10T22:20:00.003Z

A: A fish.

Dreams are notoriously poorly drafted narratives, which is hardly surprising since they can abandon internal logic at any point. But I've had some strange ideas recently which may merit re-use at some time:

the Architectural Cheese Society what? well, yes, exactly

the Welsh Handshake Association dedicated to the study and practice of traditional and new techniques of hand-shaking

and strangest of all, the Sleeping Saints, a sect whose members say goodbye to their families and then lie face down on their bed, arms outstretched, until they die of starvation. Odd.

Atheist buses

2009-02-07T15:01:00.003Z

After all the row over the 'There's probably no God' adverts, there's a sign generator at
http://ruletheweb.co.uk/b3ta/bus/

Brinsley Schwarz is beautiful

2009-01-15T15:02:00.004Z

There isn't much rational about which bands or artists people latch onto as their favourites. Whenever I try to triangulate my tastes the results don't work: how can I like Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and Wishbone Ash but not Genesis, Led Zep and U2? I don't think that it is coincidental that my attachment to these bands was formed in the late 70s when I was a teenager. It's odd, now, looking back: when people talk about 1977, or 1976, as the year of punk, I remember it as the year that I bought Pink Floyd's 60s albums. Almost all of my listening was an exercise in rediscovery. Unlike the purist muso, who loves nothing better than knowing of some obscure work of which nobody else has heard, I have always felt isolated: surely I can't be the only one who likes Patrik Fitzgerald?

Brinsley Schwarz: Brinsley Schwarz (1970)

My interest in Brinsley Schwarz was first inspired by recognising that the guitarist in The Rumour used to have a band; when I found that it also contained Ian Gomm and Nick Lowe, both of whom I had heard and liked, it seemed likely that I would also like it. I did, I suppose, although it was a bit of a shock: 50s and 60s retro, country rock, reggae, all in a strange mix with sharp lyrics.

Listening now, what you notice is the super-abundance of talent: a Hammond organ riff is overlain by sparkling melodic guitar, punctuated by a bubbling bass line, creating a joyous noise packed full of grace notes. The group stands head and shoulders above their contemporaries.

You can see, though, why they never broke through. Quite apart from the early hostility of the music press, who felt they'd been hyped, the records they made weren't really pop, any more than Nick Lowe's work is now. Good, yes, pop, no. And there is a thinness to the writing: every album has a couple of fillers, and the reliance as a fall-back on good-time rock and roll cliches can get wearing. I guess I'm trying to justify my opinion that, as all muso purists say, the early stuff is the best:

"Warm summer morning with nothing to do
Over my shoulder there's a beautiful blue
Guess I'll walk the four miles to Ebury Down
Go to see my lady when there's noone around"

Ebury Down (Nick Lowe) from Despite It All

I find it impossible to listen to their music without smiling and thinking of summer.

The gift of the gab (short story)

2009-01-15T00:53:00.001Z

I suppose you're wondering how an innocent, or fairly innocent, PR guy from England ended up in the cellar of an Italian deli in Toronto waiting for the Mafia bosses upstairs to decide how they were going to 'take care of me', or take care of me. To tell the truth, so am I. The start of the slippery slope was a year ago, in the form of a coincidence or accident. Back then, I was still working for a big public relations agency - although these days they prefer to brand themselves as 'relationship managers' or 'image consultants'. Whatever. Anyway, I won't bother telling you their name: you won't have heard of them. Only in England, I used to say bitterly, would you get a PR company that prized modesty and self-deprecation. They managed to stay below everybody's radar, including that of their clients, and money was always tight.

The firm had a fixed rule about travel expenses: if the client is paying, go first class, if the company's paying, go coach. As a result, I had become wearily resigned to arriving at obscure little airfields, miles from the labeled destination, at the whim of inventive bargain airlines. I had argued in vain before that the cost in time and energy of dealing with the transit links outweighed any saving in the fare, and repeated this opinion at length while preparing for a trip to Stockholm for a client presentation. My tantrum extracted a vague promise from the office manager that they would have a go at organising a car to pick me up from the airport while I was in the air.

So when I arrived in the cold, dark, windswept, hangar and trudged through customs, I was pleased to see a smartly-dressed chauffeur at the barrier holding a sign for "Mr Wite". I was used to answering to multiple personalities thanks to the vagaries of phonetics and accents, so I greeted him, gave him my bag, and gratefully entered the cosy interior of the hotel's courtesy car. After a painless and worry-free half hour, we reached the hotel. The driver gave me my case on the steps and was hailed by a departing guest; within seconds he was off again, leaving me to walk to reception. The hotel seemed well above our usual budget, but I wasn't complaining. It was only when I came to register that things came unstuck: the booking wasn't for me, Dick Wright, but for a Gary White, who was presumably still standing at the airport. The staff apologized for the mistake, and directed me to a nearby hotel which had vacancies. I was happy: I had been spared a lot of hassle and some expense.

It was only later that I realized that this was a trick that could be used deliberately: whenever I didn't fancy using public transport, I could pick out a driver with a name sign (proving that they didn't know the person they were meeting) and be whisked away. I tried this a few times, with varying success: sometimes I found myself ensconced in a pre-paid luxury room, sometimes there was a long and loud exchange of views on the steps of a run-down hotel. But it wasn't dull, and it was free, and I could usually employ my eloquence to escape any consequences.

The cost became a significant factor for me when I started to work on my own, my employers having tired of my freely-imparted wisdom. Unfortunately, clients proved hard to find. When I heard that Deano Rosso, the film star, was in need of representation, I had little choice but to max out my credit card on a plane ticket to Toronto in the hope of signing him up. Deano liked to call himself the Italian Rapscallion, but he was more generally known in the industry at The Meathead. He was a jerk, more famous for his bizarre and outrageous off-screen behaviour than for his talent. But I wasn't a critic: somebody with a lot of negative press attention was somebody who needed a publicity handler. His previous spokesman, who had tipped me off, was entering witness protection, having testified to a grand jury about some of Deano's earlier exploits.

So I arrived at Toronto needing a cheap way to the city centre. My spirits also needed lifting after seven hours sitting between a loquacious woman from Yorkshire impervious to her audience's indifference and a teenager whose earphones leaked tinny rock music for the entire flight. I was on the look-out for a suitable ride; there wasn't a lot of choice, so I had to answer to a different surname: I selected the name 'Giorgio', held up by a thin man in his twenties wearing sunglasses, a dark tie and sharp suit. When I went up to him, he simply nodded and led me silently to an old-fashioned limo with tinted windows. The interior smelt of leather; I sank back into the seat and enjoyed the ride. After the freeway and main route, we dived off into a tangle of smaller streets and smoothly drew up outside an old-fashioned building festooned with Italian flags. It wasn't a hotel: it was a deli. That's odd, I thought, while mentally I started to prepare an exit line so I could walk off. Before I had a chance, the driver had opened the door and hustled me across the pavement, through the deserted shop, to a staircase behind the counter. Here two more men were standing, also dressed in suits and sunglasses. The straps of shoulder holsters were visible beneath their jackets. I started to speak but was silenced by their immediate response: raising a finger to their lips. One pointed up the stairs, so I started to climb. There was a wood-panelled door; I knocked and entered.

The room was set out for a formal function: a table ran the length of it; on the far side were sat a row of men, dressed in suits. In the centre was a white-haired man, his thick fingered hands resting on the white tablecloth in a gesture of welcome. An empty chair was in the centre of the room, facing him; I sat in it as instructed. A little light entered the room through the vertical blinds on the street frontage; there were no other windows.

'You're probably wondering why you're here,' he started, 'after all- Vince Bellow's been in charge of this town since whenever. For a hundred years we have looked after ourselves. We have strong family traditions, and loyalties, and of course we have our commercial operations, our funders, and our colleagues in uniform. We're proud of our record. But we must be realistic - we cannot live on our past glories. And we have a problem.'

The men seated at his sides, who had been nodding smugly, leaned forward with interest.

'Over the last few years, the police and the FBI have been chipping away at us, and since Peter Safowicz became DA, we can’t move. They seem to know every member, follow every automobile, they track emails, tap phones, and check bank accounts. And they're beginning to get somewhere - it's not just the foot soldiers any more. They're moving up the hierarchy. Some of the fall guys are making deals; the city has lost its respect for us. They ain't scared of us no more. Our old friends in the police force can't help. They can tell us what's going on, but they can't protect us. We need to roll this back. That's where you come in, Mr Giorgio.'

I had been listening to his speech with mounting horror, and at last had my chance to speak. Unfortunately, my mouth flapped wordlessly and so he continued.

'We got a plan, you see, a perfect plan. If we are too well-known to get away with anything like that, we'll bring in an outsider. That's why you're here. Next Saturday, my daughter is getting married in the cathedral. The entire organisation will be there. I've invited politicians, police and the media. We'll have the firmest alibis ever seen. And while we're there, you'll be doing your job: shooting Safowicz. That should stop the rot and get the FBI running scared.'

He paused to look at his colleagues, savouring their evident relief. He smiled a little until I spoke.

'I'm sorry,' I started, my voice coming out as a squeak, 'there's been a mistake. Your driver picked up the wrong man. I'm Dick Wright, from England.'

Bellow gestured to someone behind me. I was pushed back into the chair and patted.

'He's clean. No wires or weapons', the searcher reported. Bellow relaxed a little. A thought struck him, and he turned to his neighbour, who was looking worried.

'Well Michael, where the fuck is our man?' he asked.

Michael produced his cell phone and started to punch at the buttons. Others started to mutter, the mood of confidence evaporating in an instant. Bellow tapped the table. Silence fell obediently.

'The plan is still sound: we just gotta wait. Take this pansy downstairs. We'll decide what to do with him later.'

So there I was, unwontedly privy to Mafia secrets, the condemned man in a cell, as good as. No doubt their best approach would be to kill me and dump the body somewhere obscure. I wouldn't be missed for days. Self-pity washed over me.

But then I started to rally. Maybe I wasn't going to make a pitch to Rosso. From a management perspective, though, the Mafia sounded like a business in trouble, with major reputation problems. The big secret with good PR is understanding your client's psychology, and I could sense how Bellow was feeling.

If I begged for mercy, he'd crush me like a cockroach without a thought. But he was astute enough to recognize that his operation was in a difficult situation, where his old certainties no longer applied. He had to be a leader, but he had no real idea where he was going. That was his weakness, and maybe I could exploit it by showing him a way out. I'd have to be convincing, though - I'd be pitching for my life, literally. And to make any impression I'd have to transform myself in their eyes from a quivering effeminate wimp to a master of business. I started to smarten myself up, and paced up and down the room, rehearsing phrases in my head. Then I knocked on the door: the guard glanced in without interest.

'Tell your boss I've got a deal to make,' I said.

He shrugged and led me back upstairs. As we approached the room, raised voices could be heard, which continued as we entered.

Michael was staring at his phone in disbelief. 'Are you telling me he was here? He landed? But the Feds got him? Shit!'

A concerned murmur ran round the room. I stepped forward and spoke loudly.

'You've got a problem - I've got a solution.'

The room quietened a little. Bellow gestured for silence, then spoke.

'You -help us? How? Right now you ain't got much of a future. Unless you're a sharpshooter?'

'No. I am an expert, though, at what I do. Which is to help organizations. I tell you what: you give me ten minutes to make my case. If by the end you haven't got three new actions based on my advice, you can shoot me.'

'Thanks for the permission,' Bellow smirked, but I could tell he was interested.

'I'll start with the obvious. You seem to be surprised that the police can spot you. But I could spot you, just because of the way you dress. Wearing sunglasses indoors, cars with tinted windows: you might as well put up a sign saying Something illegal happening here. Why do you think rock starts go around like that: is it so nobody notices them? I don't think so.'

One of the men quietly removed his sunglasses, prompting sniggers from his neighbours, and from Bellow.

'More generally, though,' I continued, 'you wear a uniform. Nobody wears suits any more.'

I lost the room: they sat back, offended.

'No, come on. There was a time, a generation ago, when you'd be wearing the same sort of clothes as everyone else: a little sharper, a little better cut, but broadly comparable. You haven't moved on: everyone else has. Again, you're standing out from the crowd. I can see why you might want to, but it’s not helping you at the moment. You think you're the only people with this problem? Every family business runs into this: there comes a time when the traditions and skills can no longer help, and you risk losing out to newer firms who are better attuned to the new opportunities.'

I stepped across to the window and opened the blinds. Those sat nearest the window flinched a little, as if half expecting a sniper's bullet; they then attempted to look unruffled.

'Look out there: main street. Small shops, small businesses. I suppose you go round and pick up protection: bags of coins, some low-value bank notes. The city's moved on, leaving just the small change behind. And see that office block: International Trading Partners, it says. What do they do? I have no idea- nor do you, or anyone. It's just an office; I bet the police walk past that every day without ever going inside. They could be running complex currency fraud, for all we know. Electronic money. And the beauty of it is that they can look after themselves. Their security is tight: they've got CCTV, and they've got guards who wear weapons openly. Just think about it!'

It was clear that I was persuading them.

'But let's go back to basics. Your ancestors looked for the opportunities of the time, and took them. You need to do the same. Think big. You know these boiler rooms: rooms full of scammers chiselling a few hundred dollars from investors' savings. Hard work, for little gain, when you think abouyt something like Enron, or Madoff's hedge fund. Reputable people queuing up to hand over their cash, no questions asked: that's the way to go!'

'And here isn't really the place to do it; you're wide open to scrutiny. You should follow the legitimate businesses out of town: get your own building in the middle of nowhere, with a perimeter fence and secure parking.'

Suddenly, people's eyes widened. I'd done it. They started nodding.

'That's what I've been saying,' whined one.

'It would help with the commute: I spend goddam hours on the freeway,' said another.

'We could have a firing range in the basement.'

Bellow looked around at the buzzing room, approving. He clapped his hands for silence.

'I'm impressed. You're smarter than you look. But now you're solving our problems for us, what's your big plan? How do we change?'

'That's not really my area, but since you ask me, I'd say you need to reposition yourselves in the market. Your old operations are the ones that are generating all this police interest. You could close them down, but it might be better to sell them off to your competition: you get the cash, they get to deal with the law. If you felt like it, you might even drop a few hints to the police: you won't be needing to pay them off anymore. But that's up to you. The biggest problem you'd have left is that there will be a lot of loose ends, unsolved crimes. I'd suggest persuading a few people to confess to all of them, and that would be that. I think my time's up.'

Bellow stood up and extended his hand. I shook it as firmly as I could.

'So why are you in town?' he asked.

I explained about my quest for a client to represent.

A little later we parted on good times and I stumbled to a hotel. The next morning, I tracked down Rosso's apartment and arrived there. He seemed hungover and confused, but was happy enough to see me.

'Hiya,' he mumbled, 'I hear you're good.'

I wondered who might have praised me, before I remembered that the Italian community was probably quite well-connected.

'Well, you've got the job: you can start straight off.'

For the second time in two days, things were looking up.

'Now,' he continued, 'I've had some trouble, and the press are all over it again. What you gotta know to start with is, I swear I thought that sheep was female.'

THE END

Copyright Martin Locock

Overheard

2008-12-11T20:14:00.004Z

Image Wikimedia Author Sergiodarkblue

"I met Pink once at a party. I couldn't miss the chance, so I asked her if she wanted to go upstairs and make out.

She looked me up and down and said 'You wouldn't last five minutes!'

'That's all it takes, love,' I told her, 'that's all it takes'."

Belonging: author's notes

2008-12-08T22:38:00.004Z

My poem "Belonging" has been found by a string of students undertaking an assignment on, I guess, poetry and belonging, and I thought it might be helpful to them to expalin a bit about why and how I wrote it and what it means (or what I want it to mean, which may not be the same thing). If you are writing an assignment, before reading any further, check your instructions: you may find that you are forbidden from looking at any contextual information, in which case: stop now, you're on your own.

Still here? Ok. Although I had thought a bit about the nature of belonging, it was only when it was set as a subject for a competition that it crystallised into a poem. The competition was part of an eisteddfod (an annual literary and musical competition held in Wales); one of the best things about Welsh culture is its acceptance that poetry is a normal activity for normal people, devoid of the class warfare and exclusivity common in England, where I grew up. I predicted, pretty accurately, that such a topic would inspire a good deal of maundering about hwyl a hiraeth (joy and longing), on being at home or being away. But I was in a different situation. The whole question of Welshness has become politicised and polarised, with careful distinction between those Welsh by descent (Welsh parents, born in Wales or elsewhere), Welsh by birth (born in Wales, with non-Welsh parents), and Welsh by choice (incomers who considered themselves Welsh). I fall into the latter category: I had never been able to summon much enthusiasm for the land and folk of my birth. I remained interested, or perhaps fascinated, by those for whom nationality and loyalty had required no choice or thought. I explain this at some length to suggest where my sympathies may lie in the poem; the text is understated in the weight it places on each group.

The form of the poem is driven by two constraints: the abab rhyming pattern for each stanza, and the self-imposed rule that the word order should be natural and stresses should fall naturally at the end of lines. The technical skill involved is trying to seem as if the words were those that would be chosen in any case, but just happened to rhyme. There is one weak line which I dislike: the last line of the first stanza, where 'recedes' isn't quite the right action.

In the third stanza, the last line's 'shout' was suggested by the rhyme, but I'm happy enough with the opposition of love's seductive whisper and fame's more overt and aggressive shout.

The final stanza is intended to suggest the feeling of peace and calm that greets a restless traveller once they have found what they are looking for. There remains some ambivalence in the poem about the power and positive and negative effects of the feeling of belonging, a sense in that it is viewed from the outside, for better or worse.

Some people are born where they belong,
Their home and family supply all needs:
The glow of hearthlight waxes strong
The call of the wider world recedes.

And some search long but never find
A spot where they can set up base
At last they must become resigned
To moving on from place to place

And some again, the lucky few
Are urged to leave, and to seek out
An individual rendezvous
With love's whisper or fame's shout

Belonging is a state of mind
Tranquility its foremost fruit
Sought by all, but many find
It cannot grow without a root

Belonging is published in the collection Carefully Chosen Words published by Carreg Ffylfan Press.

How to beat writer's block

2008-11-07T19:07:00.002Z

There are two different types of writer's block:

when you know what you should be writing but cannot settle down to it;

and when you don't know what to do at all.

The second type is hard to address: where do ideas come from, after all? The best solution is avoidance: write down any ideas you might have as you go along. I've got a couple of things that have been on my to-do list for over a year now (Martin Amis book reviews); that's ok, they are there, not going anywhere, and I can move on to them if I finish or get fed up with the more active projects.

But the first type is the main one people mean. It seems so much more attractive to do anything but what you need to. I'm sure that one of the reasons that novelists these days go overboard on research, as if they were writing a text book rather than a work of fiction, is that it's a good way of putting off the fateful moment of having to put it down. From my experience, I think, much as stage fright for actors (which is perhaps a closely comparable phenomenon), writer's block is an expected, perhaps mandatory, element of the writing process; it is therefore not an admission of failure when it occurs. But it is a practical problem, and here are some tips that might help:

write the stuff you want to

I had planned out The Time Zone Rule for a long time but somehow couldn't face the task of scene setting, introducing the characters, and giving them their back-stories: the interesting bit of the story to me was the development of the central relationship from a sexual to a fraternal one. So I decided to start writing there and deal with the introductories later; as it turned out, I left the story in the order written, rather than in chronological order.

If what you're writing doesn't interest you, I don't think it will work for anyone else. One point I realised was that you can use the narrative freedom to describe what you want to: you could describe someone making a cup of tea, if you wanted to, or you could jump straight to the next incident.

switch projects
If you are inspired to work on something, go for it. I've had several ideas that have jumped the queue because I was ready to advance them. nThat's good, not bad.

plan
If you don't want to apply yourself to the grind of writing a scene or chapter, why not spend some time planning out the plot instead? Although I don't think you have to plan, it provides a great safety net for inspiration and allows you to start building in ironies and hints.

organise
There's a lot of tedious record-keeping, filing, proofreading etc hwich needs to be done; do that instead.

re-write
Go through the complete draft elements and see whether they can be improved: they probably can.

go for walk
Define your specific problem: is it a sentence? a character? a plot element?
Then go and do something else and come back with the best solution you have come up with.

Or, of course, you can write something else, like a blog post, rather than get the radio script written (it's a long story, but not yet long enough).

What music companies don't get about the web

2008-10-19T14:36:00.003+01:00

A lot of people writing on the web criticise music companies for their antiquated approach to managing digital rights, ie by trying to control them. 'Why can't it be free?' they ask, apparently unconcerned with the impact of such a change on the artists they profess to admire. Experiments in giving away material for free have had an uneven history: Prince is presumably happy to have sold out his O2 concerts on the back of handing out his CD, but Radiohead are less sure. But as long as music companies exist and artists hope to make a living from their creative content, making stuff free can only be a tactical gimmick rather than standard policy. So, perhaps against the conventional wisdom, I would say that music companies are right to be worried about copyright evasion on the internet, right to attempt to prevent it, and right to take action against those who facilitate it.

Which is not to say that I think they 'get' the web. They don't. Over the last year I have been looking at the online presence of a range of artists, from Kate Bush, superstar, Sandi Thom, contemporary minor chart artist, Nick Lowe, cult artist, to Roy Harper, forgotten cult artist. What they have in common is that in terms of the web they are spread all over the place: a My Space page, artist home page, record label page, wikipedia entry, YouTube videos, and fan sites, and they are represented inconsistently in each. For example, when Sandi Thom was promoting her last single on her website and MySpace page, the record label website didn't even mention it. Nick Lowe's latest release, At My Age, didn't have a wikipedia page until I created one. The only good examples of use of the web as a promotional and information tool were for Neil Young and Graham Parker.

But why is it so bad? Partly because looking after the web takes time: somebody has to sit down and update the pages, respond to queries, etc; it isn't clear whether this responsibility should fall on the artist, management, or label, and so in many cases it is done by nobody.

Underlying this is the more basic problem: music companies are used to a B2B (business-to-business) model, where they produced the physical product and handled promotion, but supplied the product to shops to sell to the consumer. Their 'audience' was therefore made up of retailers on the one hand and media on the other. They are completely unequipped for the activity of selling things direct to consumers: this is reflected in the reluctance of record companies to get involvced with selling digital downloads of their songs from their sites: usually, potential buyers are sent to itunes to buy it, letting them take a share of the revenue. Similarly, physical product is sold via Amazon.

Another result is a total focus on the new and exciting. In most businesses, it is much harder to reach new customers than to keep existing ones. The music business is obsessed with selling new artists to teenagers, generally through the singles chart. But that is only part of the market. Why not exploit the older consumer, with more time and money, who might be persuaded, fairly easily, to buy back-catalogue CDs, DVDs and books from an artist they like, or liked?; this is a market which has outgrown the need for things to be free: even a full-price CD is cheap cmpared to other expenses. A sensible music company would make damned sure that its artist profiles covered past as well as present and had links to sell things.

In the past the media, particularly radio, were the best way of reaching out to potential purchasers, but the web provides others. This should, eventaully, change the practices of the industry: it may become economically viable for some artists to sell very small numbers of tracks, as long as they don't cost much to produce and promote. The danger (from the companies' point of view) is that they may have little role, since the artists may be quite capable of handling it themselves.

But it is strange when audiences for broadcast media are declining and fragmenting, that there is a new audience on the web eager for information and opportunities to buy, and they are being ignored or left to the mercies of established players like itunes.

UPDATE
Holly A Hughes suggests, correctly, that artists should see this as an essential part of their brand. I'm not sure I agree about the fan forum, though: I've seen a lot of tumbleweed forums which make you feel that you are distrubing the dead (Sandi Thom's, for one, but even Kate Bush's has gone very quiet in last last year).

File under fiction: available now from Lulu.com

2008-10-18T19:55:00.010+01:00

This debut collection of short stories by Martin Locock ranges from the misadventures of an archivist dealing with a landed family to a solicitor's obsession with a perfect family seen through a window.

The stories are fast-paced, sexy and funny.

Published by Carreg Ffylfan Press.

Contents:

Change and Decay

An archivist meets a gentry family amid a decaying estate and reveals some family history they had wanted to conceal.

"The train muttered and grunted to a halt, and the doors hissed open. I stepped out onto the deserted platform- none of my fellow-passengers were inspired to alight. I walked through an archway, leaning to even out the weight of the laptop case and suitcase, past spare mail trolleys queued for an unexpected pre-Christmas rush. A bus timetable yellowed behind a cracked glass display, ready to be sold to some transport museum as a bygone."

Read it online.

Exchange Mechanism

Developing a telepathy machine presents an opportunity for misuse and manipulation.

"I had got used to the prevarications of a series of boyfriends who would drag out our vidchats interminably on the offchance of catching a glimpse of my roommate Kristin walking around in the background. Although I'd tell them at the earliest opportunity that they were wasting their time (Kristin was 100% lezz), that didn't stop them looking."

Read it online.

Candles on the Table

What looked like the perfect family hides a dark secret.

"Stephen looked to the far side of the road, and saw a small neat cottage; one of the downstairs rooms was lit, and he could make out, with intrusive clarity, a woman setting cutlery on the table. Two candles were already burning in elegant simple candlesticks. On the wall behind the table there were small framed pictures and blue-and-white plates. He was enchanted, as much by the room as the figure; he had once thought that he would occupy such a house, everything just so."

Read it online.

The Time Zone Rule

Two colleagues are sent at short notice to Morocco; they succumb to the romance of the situation but then have to deal with the consequences.

"Sue's people carrier circled the staff car park while she became increasingly frustrated. Her criteria for what constituted an adequate space dropped ever lower. Designated personal parking spaces had been abolished the year before in a fit of executive egalitarianism, on the advice of a touchy-feely consultancy brought in to make the company 'a happier place to work'. It wasn’t working for her today, she thought grimly, gritting her teeth."

Not available online.

A night like this

A music reviewer picks up a girl at a Dylan gig in 1974.

Read it online.

The Grand Tour

A tourist in Italy spends the perfect afternoon sitting in a station cafe watching the world go by.

The waitress brought the drinks over to our table. Mine was a cappucino; this was back in the 1980s, before real coffee became universally available, and it was therefore something of an exotic treat. My friends had chosen lemonade in deference to the shimmering heat of August.
Philip unzipped a side pocket of his backpack and brought out a notebook.
'We've got three hours here to wait until the express comes through to take us to Florence.'
He looked around the station café, finding little prospect of amusement.
'I could do with changing some more travellers' cheques,' he continued, 'we'd have to catch the bus up to the main town to find a bank.'
'I'd like to go too,' said Malcolm,' there's a church with a 15th-century pieta I'd like to see.' He paused and turned to me. 'What about you?'
'I think I'll stay here,' I said.

Not available online.

A place of learning

Newbury University's Religious Studies department is rife with internal politics, complacency and frustration, while outside the comfortable Anglican certainties crumble.

Morning. Penelope Zbigniev tilted her head back, wiped her eyes, and yawned. She refocused on the computer screen and continued typing.

'Definitions of prayer vary across the world. For this study, the phenomenological approach has been taken, hence covering all individual spiritual activity which includes both ritual and contemplative components.'

She paused. She knew that a PhD thesis wasn't supposed to be interesting, but she took it as a bad sign that hers bored even the author. She stretched again, the old wooden chair creaking as she shifted her negligible weight on it. The small room was packed with stuff: books, ornaments, cover throws. Her housemates slept; undergraduates kept later hours. She looked out into the yard below her window. An ugly tomcat stalked along the wall, peering suspiciously at the foliage in the overgrown garden. He did this every day. Penelope wondered whether there was a contemplative component to his spiritual activity.

Not available online.

The Austen correspondence

An undiscovered letter from Jane to Cassandra.

Read it online.

Boswell continued

Further adventures of Johnson and Boswell.

"Being an addition by Another Gentleman to James Boswell's celebrated Life of Johnson, in which is described a visit to Lichfield, with instances of the Doctor's wit and sagacity which arose in the course thereof."

Read it online.

Fidelity

'I've left him.'
Sheila opened the front door wider to allow the distraught figure of her sister to enter. In no time, Linda was sat at the kitchen table, alternatively sobbing, sniffing, and taking a tissue.
'Max [sniff] is [sob] having [blow] an affair.'
'Are you sure?' asked Sheila, doubtfully.
'Yes,' said Linda, nodding wordlessly, 'it's a bit out of character, I know, doing something imaginative. You're right about him being dull.'
'I don't think I ever said . . .'
'You didn't have to. But there you go, he is having an affair. Well, good luck to him.'

Not available online.

The seducer's tale

The Fresher's Ball ends unexpectedly.

Read it online.

The price of everything

A beggar recounts an eventful day.

Read it online.

Street science

An unlikely friendship grows from a chance meeting at the hospital.

Read it online.

Sinners, all

A quite night in a bar, an argument, a wager.

Read it online.

Author's Notes

"Change and decay owes its title only indirectly to the hymn 'Abide with me'. I first encountered the phrase when reading Scoop at an impressionable age in my teens: it seemed to me at the time to be most perfect novel ever written, an opinion I have had little reason to alter. Re-reading it recently I became aware of how much of the atmosphere of country house living I had imbibed, reflected in Change and decay."

Not available online

About the Author

"I was born in Barrow-in-Furness, a grim grey shipbuilding town on the north end
of Morecambe Bay, drenched in the drizzle of the Irish Sea. Terraces huddled
beneath the silhouettes of cranes; as the hooter sounded the streets would fill
with tired but boisterous riveters and boilermakers heading for pub, chip shop,
or home, as preference and finance dictated.I cannot claim, however, that I
absorbed much of this atmosphere into my personality. By the age of 6
months I had left forever."

Not available online

188pp, 6" x 9"

It can be ordered from Lulu.com as a book or digital download.

My first day as an atheist meme

2008-10-16T20:03:00.006+01:00

I saw this at Kafir Girl and thought it was in interesting set of questions, even if nobody has tagged me (sniff).

Can You Remember The Day That You Officially Became An Atheist?

I was at university and had a long debate with a Philosphy student friend in which I attempted to defend my belief at the time in a theist view that there was a prime mover god-type figure somewhere, albeit one which took no interest in what happened on Earth or anywhere else, or offered anybody eternal life. He asked the astute question why I believed this, since I had renounced any form of written or personal revelation on which to base it. By the next morning I had recognised that the belief was based on emotion not reason and I abandoned it; when I told him, I remember that he was surprised and impressed that I should actually alter my beliefs as a result of such a process.

Do you remember the day you officially became an agnostic?

Strangely enough, it was my confirmation (age 14). I had been going to church with my family for years without feeling that it applied to me; the course of confirmation classes had raised a series of moral conundrums without satisfactorily solving them (chief among them the purpose of pain and who goes to Heaven or Hell). But I was holding out in the expectation that once confirmed I would experience what otehr believers obviously did: some sense that there was something there that listened, and spoke to them. And after a grand service officiated at by a bishop I had thought, well, here goes. Nope, still nothing. It seemed obvious to me then that the whole structure was created by people, without any necessary input from God.

How about the last time you spoke or prayed to God with actual thought that someone was listening?

Never, not even at the level of wishing.

Did anger towards God or religion help cause you to be an atheist or agnostic?

Not at the time, although I find attempts to justify the Massacre of the Innocents make me cross now.

Were you agnostic towards ghosts, even after you became an atheist?

Yes. I took the view that at least ghosts have a long and varied tradition of people seeing them and writing about them, and I was at that time open-minded about the limits of consciousness, so I was happy to entertain the possibility of telepathy. The critical point from my point of view was that ghosts made no claim to scriptural authority: if they existed, they existed. It was some time later that I shifted to the view that people believe they see ghosts rather than people see ghosts.

Do you want to be wrong?

No. We ought to live this life as if it is all there is, doing the best we can. There is no framework for another life which can accommodate the principles of mercy, justice and partial revelation to the living which redounds any credit to God.

Sandi Thom: a last farewell

2008-10-13T22:02:00.003+01:00

I have been an accidental archivist of the Sandi Thom saga for four years now, fighting a guerilla war over her Wikipedia pages to correct the more extravagant and lazy claims of her PR company. In the course of doing so, I have learned a little of how conventional publicity works: the sudden stream of 'lifestyle' features that precede any new record release, the positive gloss on any events in which the start is involved, the attempt to promote controversy by being banned from YouTube or criticising Lily Allen, and , underlying it all, a deliberate vagueness about tour dates, audiences and record sales.

What is funny is that not long ago this could have gone on largely unnoticed: if the media picked up on it, it was true, if not, it was forgotten, consigned to wastepaper baskets overnight. But thanks to the Internet, nothing ever really goes away. This means that everything is potentially 'on the record', and potentially therefore a future embarassment.

Just in the last few weeks, Sandi has said that she is:

* writing songs for films
* moving to Brighton
* moving to New York
* planning to marry and have a baby
* concentrating on becoming established in America
* touring Europe
* releasing another single off the last album
* recording a new album
* undertaking a tour of small venues in Scotland

Well, that will keep her busy!

But I won't be watching. If I am going to spend some of my time in monitoring Internet activity relating to an artist, I think I'd rather it was someone whose work I admired. So long Sandi - it's been, well, you know.

The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse: boredom

2008-10-13T11:49:00.001+01:00

We are certainly living through interesting times.

It's a shame they're not more interesting interesting times, though.

Kate Bush: underrated genius?

2008-10-12T20:47:00.009+01:00

I must admit that Kate Bush is one of those artists that I have always quite liked but never got as far as buying any of their records. Partly I think that this was a reaction to the distrust of my motives: did I just like her because she was beautiful?

Having spent some time looking at YouTube clips and their comments, I see that I was unusual in worrying about this. No wonder she distanced herself from her fans: I would. Not that she really was a recluse. It's funny how easy it is these days to become a recluse: stop going to film premieres, refuse to appear on quiz shows, move outside the M25, and suddenly you'e Simeon Stylites living up a pole in the desert.

But as I say I mostly liked her work. Looking back now, you can see that the unusual side to it is not its variation in quality, but in its ambition. She avoids straightforward autobiographical narrative. You can argue whether she does manage to evoke Joyce's Ulysses in The Sensual World, but how many other artists would you even think of asking the question?

Which is not to say that great rock needs to have literary pretensions: but it does need to have some form of intellectual complexity if it aspires to be more than good time rock and roll. I like Oasis, me, but would be the first to admit that their lyrics are basically:

some stuff here
some stuff here
hoo-oo-oo-ook

In interviews she is eloquent and polite; this is enough of a rarity to make her sound like a genius in the context of music programmes. She might be a genius; but more to the point she is thoughtful. You can see how she reponds to questions: she thinks it over, then tries to get from a mundane fact 'You learned the violin, didn't you?' to something worth saying, like how this taught her music theory and discipline.

Listening to something like Aerial requires a degree of attention unusual these days, both in terms of the music and in the lyrics which are diffuse and referential; but it is precisely this complexity that provides the intrigue.

Perhaps it is a sign of genius that you are cleverer than your fans: certainly Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen are.

So are Metallica, but that's not quite the same thing.

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre: book review

2008-10-12T13:55:00.002+01:00

I have been following Goldacre's column in the Guardian and latterly his blog for a couple of years now, since it is usually the best source of sensible information on any news story that touches on science, technology or medicine. I was fearful that the book might have shared the blogs slightly smug and inward-looking style ('we're clever people and we know everything'), but in fact it is well-written, coherent, and engaging, written in a light and chatty style.

There are extended accounts of the bizarre history of some recent media panics (MRSA, MMR, Dore, and fish oil), but more importantly, the science and 'science' of these stories is examined forensically, so that the reader learns to interpret news stories critically: what does "50% reduction" mean in this situation, what's the sample size. This is worthy and important and should (in time) change the way that news media present their accounts (I have already noticed a survey fatigue, where all involved seem happy to accept their spurious basis).

Perhaps the two most interesting chapters, though, are those on the placebo effect and on our perception of risk. I hadn't known, for example, that painkillers work better if they are packaged better and have been advertised, but it is true. The moral and practical implications of trying to deliver Evidence Based Medicine when this sort of placebo effect can dictate success or failure are a challenge. The chapetr on risk demonstrates at length how bad people are at distinguishing between chance events and patterns, between causation, correlation and coincidence, and how unreliable their accounts of their experiences can be, thanks to selection bias. This important factor explains why people sincerely believe things in the absence, or the face, of objective evidence, whether it is the Bridgend suicide 'cluster', electromagnetic sensitivity, or the Loch Ness Monster.

It should be noted that Goldacre does not adopt a hectoring tone: he argues that these are universal, human, traits; he just wishes us to be aware of them so that we can monitor our belief formation. He notes, for example, the tendency of people to use the limited evidence that moderate drinking is better for your health than teetotalism as a justification for their immoderate drinking. This is why factoids like 'red wine is good for you' are so powerful: there is so much contradictory advice out there that, as Paul Simon said, 'a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest' (an observation, incidentally, that is so perceptive and well-expressed that on its own should preserve his reputation for millenia).

The most contentious part of the book deals with the media and how they report science stories; Goldacre tries to explain why nonsense science so often trumps proper science in media coverage. He suggests that the fault lies with humanities background of most journalists, who find the science impenetrable and feel free to choose the wildest and most exciting of the opinions they are offered. Here he may be wrong, insofar as he assumes that science suffers alone. The sad truth is that the media deals badly with all areas of specialist endeavour. An archaeologist told me recently about press coverage of a Neolithic find; it was dated to 3000 BC, 5000 years ago; in print it became 3000 years old. I wasn't surprised: to the non specialist, it was simply 'very old'. There is an interesting question about how far journalists are to blame in not understanding or whether they undertsand adequately but dumb stories down because their readers won't need or want accurate details. This pervades serious newspapers: strange health advice is dished out in the supplements while in the main paper things are more rational. But perhaps we get the news coverage we deserve: if you want to depress yourself, look at the 'most read stories' list on the BBC News pages.

Goldacre believes that all media, and especially serious newspapers, are engaged in a project to educate and inform their readers; but they aren't. They are there to entertain, mainly: hence the celebritisation of news, with the daily updates of Pete Docherty's battle with drugs, and battles with photographers. But even in the old days, there was a strong vein of cynicism and philistinism in journalism: the attitude that the contents didn't need to be true, just true enough.

Nevertheless, the book is enjoyable and inspiring: the way he benourages the reader to engage with the primary sources should be enough to balance the increasing inaccuracy of the media as reliable informants.

Work in progress

2008-10-11T09:02:00.002+01:00

I'm working on a long short story, The Time Zone Rule, which will be included in a collection of my fiction to be called File Under Fiction.

The Time Zone Rule is subtitled 'a modern romance' and is a obverse version of a romantic comedy: it starts with a one-night-stand between two colleagues who end up far away from home, and then explores how they ended up there and what the consequences are.

Fact and fiction

2008-09-23T20:15:00.004+01:00

[part of a series about the mechanics of writing fiction]

Will Self recently railed aghainst the classification of the roman a clef as fiction: he said that it should be treated as disguised memoir. I don't really see the point of writing about real people and events and lightly amending names. The drearily literal 'novel' in which everything is researched is a blight of modern times, of course. Don't the writers see that their job is to make stuff up?

Readers of course do like to try to search a text for patches where the writer is simply recounting their own experience unaltered (hence the problem with writing about sex); taken to an extreme this means that it becomes impossible for a writer to describe extreme opinions or actions without being suspected.

My view is that the real world is too dreary to merit inclusion in fiction. As Martin Amis said of his father's books, people spend too much time drinking tea. As a result, there isn't a superfluous adjective applied in my stories: the one thing the reader can be certain of is that a closely-described physical setting or person is completely fictional; the telling details are there to convince.

Having said that, there is a residual validity to the point that questions that interest writers imply something about their thoughts. I may or may not have a negative view of the role of the modern landed gentry in society (on balance yes, but mildly, would be my answer), but I'm intrigued enough by the issue to deal with at at some length in Change and Decay. But having such an interest is not the same thing as having a manifesto or a coherent body of thought around a topic.

Exchange mechanism

2008-08-13T19:57:00.003+01:00

[A science fiction story]

I

My office pod was in darkness, lit only by the vidscreen on the wall. I was arguing dejectedly with my boyfriend.

"I'm sorry, Cal: I won't be able to meet up tonight."

He frowned. "Oh come on, Lori, you can't work all the time, and I won't be planetside again for a week."

I explained that I had a research paper to finish, to be sent to Earth in the next transmission window. Eventually he gave in, sulkily blanking the screen.

I had got used to the prevarications of a a series of boyfriends who would drag out our vidchats interminably on the offchance of catching a glimpse of my roommate Kristin walking around in the background. Although I'd tell them at the earliest opportunity that they were wasting their time (Kristin was 100% lezz), that didn't stop them looking. And although I'm not lezz at all, I can see that she ticks all the right boxes for them. Unlike me. So it made me mad, having to compete for attention with someone who wasn't even interested.

I closed down the vidscreen and brought up my text on the viewplate. I was stuck. "The economics of choice" was my topic. I was trying to develop a macroeconomic model of rational consumer choice which allowed for the fact that individuals in the population made decisions on exchange value and price based on partial information about the overall market. If I could resolve it, it would be a major advance in the field, but the mathematics was proving intractable.

Kristin walked in a few minutes later; too late for Cal! I wondered sometimes if she did it on purpose, to cause trouble in my relationships, but why would she do that?

"How's it going?" she asked, "Still stuck?"

"Yeah, I'm afraid so."

"You know who could help? Professor Sandra Bloch - she's a genius. I've seen her at parties; she's even hit on me a few times. No chance; she's too old and ugly for me."

She wrinkled her nose in distaste. Tolerance wasn't Kristin's strongpoint.

"But whatever she looks like, her mind's a whiz- the most-published author in the whole uni, maybe the whole planet. She's co-written papers on everything from architecture to zoology; her main subject's psychology and neurology, though."

II

A little later, I had successfully navigated the virtual directory to locate Bloch's contact details. When she appeared on the vidscreen she seemed unsurprised but unenthusiastic at being called up by a mere research student; she looked me up and down before lapsing into disinterest. Only the mention of Kristin's name stayed her hand as she reached for the off button.

"How can I help?" she demanded.

I breathlessly explained the basics of my research and the difficulty I had encountered. She considered briefly, then nodded.

"You've probably not heard of my work with thought transfer? I have developed a sort of hypnosis which opens the subject's mind, and allows me to telepathically explore it. Often I can see solutions that the subject already has stored, deep in their subconcious, to which they have no access. I can raise them into the rational realm in a form ready to be communicated to the world. You see, great ideas are, in general, simple: most complexity is sheer noise. So you see, I can try this with you now, if you wish- engender the trance state and resolve the problem."

I had no wish to be hurried into volunteering, and stalled. "Are there any side effects?"

She waved her hand. "None at all, nothing. A temporary period of amnesia following the trance."

I nodded my consent, and followed her instructions, sitting in front of the vidscreen; my breathing slowed as I fell into a trance and then complete unconciousness.

III

I awoke with lifted spirits; I lay in bed, opening my eyes to see the pod ceiling. A rush of nested formulae ran through my mind, their interlinking creating the solution I had sought. The text of the paper arranged itself neatly in my head. Of course, I'd credit Sandra as joint author. It seemed the least I could do.

I licked my lips; they seemed puffy and slightly bruised. I felt a weight on my shoulder shift. I looked across to see Kristin's body next to mine, skin to skin. She yawned contentedly, then stretched to bring her face close to my ear.

"Wow," she whispered.

I lay completely still, working things out.

Sandra must have ...
Kristin must have ...
I must have ...

So everyone had got what they wanted.

Allowed lists (comedy script)

2008-08-13T19:46:00.004+01:00

I was talking to my wife* yesterday about allowed lists. You know- the lists of celebrities you're allowed to sleep with, should the chance occur, without any question. For a lot men, it's easy: their Allowed List is a Girls Aloud list. I'm a bit more sophisticated than that. I haven't really given it much thought, but my list would be: Kate Bush, then maybe Katherine Heigl, in fact any of the women off Grey's Anatomy, or better, all of the women off Grey's Anatomy ... sorry, just drifted off there. Anyway, the point is, it doesn't matter who's on my list, because it's not going to happen. It's not worth even thinking about. No, it isn't.

But all people, it seems, have these lists. And celebrities are people too, in a way. You can imagine Guy Ritchie asking Madonna one day who's on her list, and she says "Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Chris Martin". Next awards ceremony she goes to, she has the night of her life.

* My pretend wife, that is. My real wife has ticked the 'no publicity' box.

The Modern Dictionary

2008-08-05T23:12:00.001+01:00

Good writing and bad sex

2008-07-27T13:21:00.002+01:00

It has become a habit of lazy book reviewers to throw in a statement that some of the writing in the work under discussion would be a candidate for the Literary Review's Bad Sex In Literature award. What they often mean is that it is badly written from start to finish, including the sex bit, which isn't the same thing. But I'm not sure whether the criticism is entirely justified: there are good reasons why writing about is ~~hard~~ [hur hur hur] - difficult; unintentional humour is one of them.

More generally, though, there is the question of credibility. Novelists can tell me any sort of nonsense about the workings of the Moscow underground system or the administrative records of a police investigation and I will believe them as long as it sound as if they know hwat they are talking about. I've been told that Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a completely unreliable guide to motorcycle maintenance. But if someone is writing about an area of which I have experience, I can check whether they are not just plausible but authentic. So a different level of scrutiny is applied.

There is a problem here for the writer writing for the naive reader: it will be assumed that any experience described realistically must be real. Kingsley Amis admits to abandoning a novel with a first-person gay narrator because he didn't want his readers to speculate about the extent to which it was true. This seems a bit bizarre: one assumes that Thomas Harris is not suspected of being, or even wanting to be, a cannibal.

Then there is the question of language. Preferred terminology for body parts depends on the writer's (and reader's) age, gender, nationality, class, sexual orientation etc; use of what seems natural for the writer may have an adverse impact on some of his or her readers. For example, Martin Amis' reputation a a misogynist writer incapable of creating a convincing female character may be partly derived for his preference for terminology which is typically male (it is also partly derived from his inability to create convincing female characters: it is notable that the two most fully realised, Nicola Six in London Fields and Mike Hoolihan in Night Train, are cop-outs because Amis explicitly says that they are 'male' psychologically).

And there is the wider question of the extent to which one wishes to be seen to be writing pornography. Somewhat bizarrely, 40 years after the Chatterley trial, using Lawrence's terms in literature would be seen as rude if no longer shocking. To retreat into medical terminology runs the risk of making the act of love sound as exciting as a computer program. Since sex is 90% imagination and 10% friction [source unknown], most of the time writing is about the quality of the activity as it is experienced, and is as much about emotion and attitude as it is about mechanics. This is I think why so much writing about sex is flagged as being bad, in the sense of pretentious or over-ambitious. Even clever writers like Nick Hornby these days steer clear of anything hinting at high style: simple words in simple order are the norm. Purple prose is something of an endangered species in modern literature (with good reason, of course).

There is a danger, though, that being overcritical of the attempts to address the subject will lead to the easily-swayed from avoiding it altogether, leaving us with a mechanical prudishness at the core of fiction. Sex is important as a way of revealing character and a way of communicating mood, and on the whole writers should be encouraged to attempt its description, even if some are bound to fail.

The Modern Dictionary

2008-07-16T22:20:00.002+01:00

End of the road for Sandi Thom

2008-07-09T22:12:00.002+01:00

"Did you know that Sandi Thom is working at Abbey Road with Will Young, Michelle McManus and David Sneddon?"

"Are they recording?"

"No, they're the night shift at St John's Wood MacDonalds."

I have been following the story of Sandi Thom with, perhaps, more interest than it deserves, especially since I have no strong views on her music. It happened to be one of those news stories, like the WMD dodgy dossier, where it was obvious at the time that the media had been fed a line. At the time, those unfamiliar with the Web might believe that electronic word of mouth might increase nightly webcast audiences from zero to 40,000 in three weeks, but nobody else did. In the rush of skepticism that followed, many were left believing that the whole webcast thing was a stunt and that she had been signed to RCA/Sony beforehand, which isn't true (or at least is specifically denied by those who would be in a position to know).

It seems that the sands of time are running out on her career. The follow-up album charted for a single week, the single for two, despite media and personal appearances, interviews and advertising on YouTube. Any day now, RCA will surely pull the plug. It remains baffling that of the 300,000 people who were happy to buy the first album, only 1% wanted to buy the second (whatever its merits): she just seems to be one of those people who can sell large numbers of records without inspiring loyalty or affection from the purchasers. It looks as if "Punk rocker" will suffer the same fate as the Diana version of "Candle in the wind" as a record people are reluctant to admit having bought.

Tory boy

2008-07-09T22:05:00.002+01:00

David Cameron's policy on addressing the rise in the number of obese people is to tell them to help themselves. No David, that's not going to work: they're doing that already.

The Times Online have, alas, retitled their version of the story after spotting the potential for misunderstanding.

The commodification of exercise

2008-07-09T21:53:00.002+01:00

see more pwn and owned pictures

Of course, it is possible that the gym is being a responsible business and catering for its users who want to work out but cannot cope easily with climbing stairs (people needing physio, for example). But it doesn't look as if the people on the way in are in that category. One of the triumphs of modern culture is the packaging of exercise as a consumer activity that involves clothes, a venue, and money: you are offered the chance to effectively buy, or, perhaps, more accurately, rent, fitness at a rate of so much per hour. It is a triumph, because it works. I can remember thiking how handy it was that the gym is so close to work. It took a while to spot the flaw in the thinking. In how many lifts in how many office blocks around the world is someone saying at this moment as they step in "I won't get a chance to work out today".

Three stories about shoes

2008-06-24T22:54:00.004+01:00

As part of a leadership course I took part in a narrative leadership / corporate storytelling session where we were asked to tell a series of three stories about our shoes. (It made sense at the time).

The first story was factual, and mine was mundane, restricted to the explanation that I was wearing trainers rather than shoes because I was expecting to walk a fair distance, and then that the trainers were a cheap and generic brand because unlike my children I didn't care which make they are.

The second story was supposed to include a fictional element; mine turned out to be wholly fictional: although my trainers looked like a pair, I said, they were in fact the remaining halves of two pairs. My speciality in sports was doing marathons the hard way, that is, by hopping, and so I was always wearing out one shoe faster than the other. In order to ensure that my muscle development was kept symmetrical, I always alternated which leg I used for each marathon, so the next one would be my left leg.

The third story was supposed to be fantastic; mine was just a bit strange. Once upon a time I was getting ready for a job interview, when I realised that my shoes were too tatty, and I rushed into the shoe shop on the way to the office. I looked at the black shoes and the brown shoes but none of them looked smart enough to impress. I had resigned myself to wearing my old shoes when I noticed the rack of trainers, and decided I might as well buy some. When I got to the interview, the panel was composed of three men wearing suits and ties. I was surprised to see that they were all wearing trainers. I got the job.

I think what's interesting about this exercise (talking for a minute with no preparation) is that is demonstrates how commonplace and instinctive storymaking is: you often hear self-described creative types going on about the search for inspiration and the dullness of normal life, but the truth is that ideas are plentiful: it is time to document them that is short.

More error messages

2008-06-15T17:56:00.003+01:00

Created at AtomSmasher

Error message

2008-06-14T13:39:00.002+01:00

The Modern Dictionary

2008-06-14T12:24:00.003+01:00

Overheard

2008-05-15T20:09:00.001+01:00

"You know my philosophy- If life gives you lemons, make lemonade - it's just, sometimes, I get sick of lemonade."

Overheard

2008-05-15T10:43:00.003+01:00

"We aren't allowed to use negative words like 'problem' or 'failure', so I said we were up Issue Creek challenged by having no paddle."

Variation on a theme

2008-02-12T09:10:00.000Z

Why did Jim Morrison cross the road?

I don't know, why did Jim Morrison cross the road?

To break on through to the other side.

Government IT not fit for purpose?

2008-01-09T21:38:00.000Z

Joe Harley says only one third of government IT projects succeed.

"A DWP spokeswoman later played down Harley's comments. She said he was quoting from an independent report in which success was narrowly defined as the project being on time, to cost and meeting the specification exactly."

Perhaps the ones which weren't on time, budget and spec should have been called 'differently successful'.

An infinite progression

2008-01-09T21:14:00.000Z

For a while there was just confused.com if you wanted to compare insurance deals. But these days there are loads of different websites. If only there were a website called Confused about comparison sites.com.

Overheard

2008-01-09T21:11:00.000Z

Two men in a pub

Man 1: I don't think much of those new dating websites.

Man 2: Tried them , have you?

Man 1: Yes, last night. I put in my preferences: big tits, big bum, likes to party ...

Man 2: What did it say?

Man 1: Apparently my ideal partner is Johnny Vegas.

Fool me twice

2007-12-21T20:27:00.000Z

After the government apologises for losing another set of citizen's personal data, they have promised they will make sure it will never happen again. Again.

Notes from a poetry reading

2007-10-18T16:15:00.000+01:00

Although I have never attempted to hide the fact that I write poetry from my colleagues, their indifference and lack of curiosity had until recently kept work and poetry firmly separate. Things have changed now, and so when someone suggested holding a lunchtime poetry reading to celebrate National Poetry Day I was asked to take part. There is something quite special about working at an institution that can say 'some of its poets will be reading their work'. I gave some though to choosing poems, but it's hard to work out what would work. I have never been to a reading before and had little idea what to expect; in the event, there were 30 people in the audience. The pattern of the readings was that a poet read as many as he wanted (they were all male), and then the audience woudl applaud at the end. The quality of attention was astonishing; I suddenly realised how poorly most people listen.

I started with Mr Eliot's Saturday afternoon service. I think this is one of my best parodies, but it didn't seem to go down particularly well. Thinking about it, it's probably a mistake to start with a parody, since it relies on the audience knowing both that Eliot wrote like that and that I normally didn't. I also adopted something of Eliot's reading style (as shown on various recordings), with its changes in tempo and heavy dramatics, which again would only be appreciated by those familiar with him. Finally, the poem (apart from its last line) is not funny in itself; its only humour derives from how far it accurately reflects Eliot's style.

Next was Experience. This worked much better, partly because it has jokes; partly because I used a less mannered delivery; and partly because, especially in a live context, the recurrent lines and rhymes of the villanelle give a shape to the poem. Readers can see at a glance whether a poem is long or short, dense or spare; an audience can only hear it as they go along.

In comparison A poetry of place worked less well. Although the rhymes are not excessively forced, the poem's mysticalisation of place is not in fact something I approve of, and there are a couple of weak rhymes. My liking for the poem is based mainly on pleasure at having managed to include 'the archaeology of ideas' in verse, despite the rhythmic challenges this involves.

I deliberately said that Peterstone would be my last poem, just to warn the audience that they ought to clap at the end (there's nothing worse than a speaker stopping and the audience having to work out if this is a dramatic pause or the actual end). 'Peterstone' is perhaps a justification for the argument presented in 'A poetry of place' that

"there is a sense becomes attached to ground /
the grammar of thought has a locative case"

, in that most Welsh topographic poetry tends to be about mountains, valleys or rivers, rather than dismal plains. Inhabitants of low-lying coastal margins tend to a pessimistic outlook; their experience is that things happen to them more than they make things happen, and I think that

"the prospect of distant hills /
mocking our ambition for purely local victories."

is a more general human truth.

Nerves before and relief after meant that I was unable to form a view about the poems read by others, but the event certainly seemed to meet with enthusiasm; maybe next time I won't have to keep changing stance to stop my knees from comically trembling.

Review: Not Going Out (Series 2), The IT Crowd (Series 2) and Dog Face

2007-09-16T15:40:00.000+01:00

I wasn't sure about the first series of Not Going Out (BBC1); now it's back, and I'm becoming sure that it doesn't work. The loss of Megan Dodds left a major hole in the set-up that shoe-horning Sally Bretton into the flat as Tim's sister, Lucy, did not adequately fill. The process has exposed the interchangeability of Lee's sparring partners, and has done nothing to diminish the peripherality of Tim. The most surprising thing about the second series is a sad drop-off in the writing quality: in Series One, Lee's rants were clever and funny if rushed; now they are slower and less funny. The introduction of an incompetent Cockney cleaner smacks of desperation. This is not to say that it won't be popular, of course; just it won't stand out as deserving of it.

Another first series that promised more than it delivered was The IT Crowd (Channel 4), but this has matured into something very good, mainly because it is less interested in the rather cardboard corporate context and more interested in the interplay of Jen, Roy and Moss (and Richmond) as friends. Jen (Katherine Parkinson) has learned tounderplay her main face-twitching, so that all she needs to do is look blank as she finds the colleagues with whom she had started the evening have transformed themselves into a wheelchair-bound gay and a barman.

Dog Face (E4) explores the area of the comedy of embarassment mapped out by Little Britain. Ideas with potential, like the film subtitler who imports his personal vendettas into his work, are overplayed and rendered needlessly coarse, while others might have made a good single sketch but are repeated to the point of boredom, like the science teacher whose answer to difficult questions fromher class is to distract them by showing them her pants. I don't think they will be a second series to review; the debut episode was sneaked out without fanfare as if the broadcasters were unwilling to promote it.

Overheard in a gym changing room

2007-09-05T22:06:00.000+01:00

"I thought I was doing really well, getting through the wall, and then the instructor said 'That's the warm-up, then'."

FMD: no smoking gun, and who cares

2007-08-31T11:42:00.000+01:00

The Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak was an interesting test of newsgathering in the Internet age. In contrast to last time, when information dripped out from government spokesmen, the data was out there. In the early stages, the Bad Science forum's vets and scientists provided better and newer information than government or the news sites managed. And while on Tuesday 7th August we were awaiting Gordon Brown's statement on the HSE report, the PDF of the report itself had been published an hour earlier.

But perhaps all this emphasis on speed has a downside: the question of the moment, according to the media, throughout that Monday and Tuesday was whether the leak had come from the Institute for Animal Health or Merial. The HSE disappointed by making no accusations, but on page three of their report they say:

We have initiated further studies intended to provide additional molecular information
on the virus types in use at both organisations. This requires detailed technical
analysis and the results are not available for inclusion in this report but are expected
within a week.

Since then, silence. And not only silence from HSE and the government, who might have reasons to keep quiet: silence from the news media. Why is there no interest from them in who was responsible for this economic disaster? I can only assume that FMD is now old news, of no interest to anyone. This round-up article ends with questions, but even those are of 'how' not 'who'.

UPDATE

Well tomorrow's the big day when the HSE report is released. It now seems as if the virus strains were indistinguishable, the source was the Merial labs, but liability is disputed since the waste pipe maybe should have been maintained by IAR and was worked on by their contractors. The long silence was presumably broken by a rapid and extremely litigious exchange of letters between the two parties.

Second Life is rubbish

2007-08-31T10:31:00.000+01:00

Those who get excited about new stuff are getting excited about Second Life, the virtual world/game/thing. Gartner, Inc have reported that "80% of internet users will have a second life presence by 2011". It's worth looking at this report before running off to invest:

For a start, nowhere in the press release is any further information supplied that might justify the headline. Maybe they guessed. Maybe they asked their friends. Maybe they asked their kids. It is astonishing that this press release has been picked up around the world and quoted as if it were fact. Not that it means quite what it said. But Second Life has benefited, no doubt, as it has from the almost univerally uncritical media coverage it has received over the last year: "Reuters set up virtual news agency", "Big firms invest in Second Life" etc. With any social network tool, hype is vital: being hip and popular is what brings the users. And vital to business models too: behind every application there's a geek hoping to sell out to Google and retire.

The image has, however, become tarnished over the last few months, notably in Valleywag [one of the rare websites whose adverts make it NSFW], and it is worth looking at the figures in detail.

The total population of 9,201,273 sounds quite impressive. It is, in a way, quite impressive. However, since you have to register to visit Second Life, this is also the all-time count of visitors. The number of people online at any time is 20,000-40,000; less impressive. And using the standard metric of 'visitors in the last 30 days', the number of active accounts is only 979,488. There is something rather odd with the figures and their massive level of churn (turnover of old users leaving). The number of registrations has been increasing by about 15% month-on-month in 2007 (it was above 20% in 2006). This means (according to their stats), that of the 979,488 users in the last month, 973,936 of them are new registrations. leaving the core returning users numbering 5,552. All the rest come and see, wander around, and depart, never to return. No wonder businesses who do their sums have written it off, according to Wired.

But not everybody. The library world's Twopointopians have convinced themselves that they have seen the future and it is clumsily-moving avatar shaped.

The logic goes like this:

library services are threatened because people are using the Internet instead
let's follow them where they've gone to prove our relevance

Which makes sense, as far as it goes. However, this rush into SL is conflated with the more general, and laudable, aim of reach people who never used libraries in the first place. Most of those are on the wrong side of the digital divide; investing resources and real money in developing an SL presence which requires broadband, high-spec computers, and registration for users to reach is hard to justify; as someone has pointed out, putting the equivalent effort into leafleting and outreach talks would do much more good, if reaching the unreachable were the aim. And one might add that those relying on libraries to provide them with Internet access are likely to find that they are blocked from visiting SL anyway.

SL presences can only be considered successes for those with very low aspirations : the InfoIsland events (talks, art shows), reach as many as 50 or 80 people: good grief, more than a coachload! But even in terms of web presence, surely it makes more sense to invest in low-spec, accessible, open resources instead: if only there were some way of making data available over the Internet by, I dunno, putting it in web pages or something.

The lesser of two evils

2007-08-30T22:44:00.000+01:00

"I did my tax return last night."
"Don't you usually leave it to the last minute?"
"Yeah, but it was either that or watch the Steven Seagal film on TV."
"Enough said."

Overheard

2007-08-24T20:08:00.000+01:00

"And what are you working on at the moment?"
"A biography of Non Potabile, the infamous Italian poisoner."

Overheard

2007-07-25T18:48:00.001+01:00

Never mind, we all make mistakes. Even I do sometimes. 1989, I think it was.

Change and Decay: work no longer in progress

2007-07-11T22:41:00.000+01:00

After two years of intermittent progress towards being a novel, it is now finished, although it turned out to be a long short story (10,000 words). It is available in conventional (Chapter 1, Chapter 2) sequence at its blog, and can also be bought as a print-on-demand book from Lulu.com.

What the critics say:

"Change and Decay is easy to read, quick to grip interest (and good.)"

Change and Decay: Chapter 14

2007-07-03T22:42:00.000+01:00

UPDATE: Change and Decay now revised and complete at its new blog

Three months later, I was rattling through the puddles, left by fitful September showers, in a draughty hired van. The Sheldons had been flattered to hear how significant their papers were, and had agreed to deposit them with the County Archives for the benefit of researchers. Unable to devise a convincing excuse not to renew my acquaintance with the family, I had been deputed to drive over to collect them. I was alone; my absence from the office had required careful juggling of staff leave and meetings to ensure that the search room could stay open. Knowing the conditiosns of the storeroom at the Hall, I was dressed in overalls.

As I slowed the van and turned off into the drive, I was overwhelmed by memory- not long ago the place had been unknown to me, its secrets safely buried. My heart sank as I saw the cars lined up in the stable yard, suggesting that the family was present in force today.

My knock was answered, as before, by distant barking, but Margaret's subsequent apperarance at the door was heralded by a lone dog this time. She explained briefly that Rugger's legs had failed, not that this prevented him from eating or barking. Her manner was slightly confused, as if my arrival were unexpected; but she led me through to Charles' lair. Charles also seemed uneasy.

"I'm afraid we've brought you here on a wild goose chase - I had meant to write to explain, but you know how it is. You did a great job with our stuff, you know - we never realised how valuable it all was! If we had, we might have looked after it better."

"It'll be safe enough in our strongroom," I said.

"That's the thing, you see. The estate has a hard time breaking even these days - I don't have to tell you, you've heard about all this before. But I mentioned to Lord Durston that the papers were on their way to you, and he put me in touch with Crevitts - the dealers, you know."

Indeed I did know; they were renowned for splitting up archives into saleable chunks and auctioning them piecemeal. Archivists shared grim stories of wax seals being snipped off; postage stamps removed; unmarketable manuscripts thrown away.

"Robert Crevitt came up personally last week. He seemed most impressed. Made me an offer on the spot - took the whole lot. He said the Americans would lap it up."

There was little I could say. I toyed with the prospect of hinting at the difficulty of obtaining export licences, but I knew that unless we were prepared to match the price obtained by Clevitts this would delay the sale, not reverse it.

"Still," Charles continued, cheering up markedly now the awkwardness was out of the way, "I see it as a good turn from my ancestors - helping us out once more."

***

As I unlocked the van, Jeremy emerged from the estate office. He seemed to be in a good mood.

"Thanks for your help with the New Mill land- I've just been submitting the planning proposal."

My confusion must have shown, since he went on to explain.

"My big worry about the Council's housing plan was the infrastructure. They keep saying that the roads and sewers here couldn't cope with many more dwellings. If they'd gone ahead, there's no way we'd ever get permission for our prestige houses in Coppice Wood- and they're going to go for half a million pounds each, easy. And the beauty of it is that they're down by the road, so we won't even see them from the Hall."

He insisted on taking me into the office to show me the architect's drawings. The houses looked like brick shoeboxes, embellished with generic rusticana, indistinguishable from any other 'luxury' development. I was giving them some unenthusiastic praise when a tap on the door announced the arrival of Helen. She told Jeremy that he was wanted in the house, and then stood in the doorway, frowning.

"You don't like us much, do you? You're always judging us, measuring us up. What you don't understand is that a family like this does whatever it has to do to survive - we can't just sit there saying we're caring for the heritage. We have to make money - simple as that."

"But what is it for? Surely you do all that to keep things together, to preserve something? Otherwise you're no better than car salesmen or market traders."

"What you don't seem to get is that we - don't - care about what you think. You can tunr your nose up at use beacuse we sell our archives - but you haven't got anything to sell. Nobody wants what you've got; nobody wants you."

She paused; we stared at each other.

"You did", I said bitterly.

Her face reddened.

"Forget it," she said, "just forget it."

***

THE END

Change and Decay: Chapter 13

2007-07-03T22:01:00.001+01:00

In what seemed like no time, and was in fact relatively little time, I was on the train heading away from Durston. Parts of me were sore; my head was pounding; I felt as if I'd been at Littleworth for years. I couldn't resolve my emotions; all I could do was smile as I remembered what Bruce Dawkins, my boss, had told me when I started the project: it would be a mundane task with no surprises. He had been right, though, when he had gone on to say that tact would be needed.

***

Back at the archives, after a few days leave, I started to prepare my report on the Littleworth Papers. The factual part was straightforward - I listed the groups of material and date ranges; but I found it hard to determine its value for research. I checked through the Durston Council Records for possible overlaps and duplication, since uniqueness is a critical indicator. The catalogue highlighted a series of Public Assistance Committee files covering Littleworth parish, so I retrieved the relevant box from the shelves in the strongroom. It was a relief to be working with clean, labelled, sorted material; and it was a relief to keep busy.

The Committee was part of the Council that bridged the period between the Poor Law Unions and the welfare state: in the 1930s, it ran the workhouses and children's homes in the area. In this collection, as was typical, the records survived patchily, but there were admissions books for the workhouse and some related letters. The name William Jenkins on one of the bundles caught my eye. I unfolded it and laid the letters out flat on the desk.

The first was a standard printed form:

Application for indoor relief
I, William Jenkins, do hereby request assistance from Durston District Council, being without means or livelihood on account of my infirmity.

Signed William Jenkins 10th June 1939

Another hand had appended beneath the signature:

Inquired of Sheldon - J's former residence was provided as a staff member; he is no longer employable having lost his leg in a shooting accident. No pension payable by the estate. Ben Davies, Overseer of the Poor, Littleworth parish.

And finally it had been annotated:

Approved to enter workhouse, 17th June 1939.

The second was a small square of paper, not, it turned out, a letter, but rather a receipt, dated December 13th 1942, acknowledgeing the payment of £1 10s by Durston District Council to the Revd George Williams for "officiating at the pauper's funeral of William Jenkins".

***

I sent my draft report to Bruce, and the next day went to his office. I always felt that the chaos and clutter he permitted here reflected poorly on his claim to professional standing, but perhaps this was unfair; perhaps there are many dentists who don't clean their teeth, or plumbers with dripping taps at home. It would have to be admitted, though, that Bruce was exactly the sort of archivist the Sheldons had expected - old, shabby, and cheerfully disorganised. Our working relationship had taken some time to settle down; eventually we had reached the implicit understanding that he was willing to let me follow best modern practice in collection management, as long as it didn't apply to him or his favourite collections, the fastidious cataloguing of which had occupied the majority of his working life. His knowledge of these was intimate, and it was topped up with half a century's gossip with the gentry families of the area.

"I know that you and I differ on the question of relevance,' he said, but on this occasion I see that we agree. I would say that the Littleworth collection is important because of the light it sheds on the Sheldon family's stewardship of their lands - and you would say it's important too, but because of the evidence they contain of the family's faults."

"I suppose you're right," I replied. "Historians these days usually have strong political interests, and they will have a field day with this."

"Here's the report back- you'll see I've marked a few points." He handed me a printout obscured by neat emendations in pencil. "How did you find the Shedlons?"

I gave a noncommital answer.

Change and decay: Chapter 12

2007-07-02T21:54:00.000+01:00

Puzzled, I followed her out to the corridor. She stood in the doorway and beckoned, pausing to swap her high heeled shoes for trainers. She held my arm and, weaving slightly, led me around the side of the house. She seemed tipsy rather than drunk. Her face, its features softened by drink, was less forbidding. She refused to elaborate about the stone. We reached a stout wooden door built into the park wall. Helen took out a large bronze key and unlocked it.

We entered what proved to be a small stone room; the air was cool and still. The sounds of the party were blocked out completely. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could make out a rough stone cross, 2m high, standing in the centre of the flagged floor. Helen stepped forward and turned to face me.

"This is Saint Michael's cross," she recited. "It was found when the house was built. It's supposed to be quite old: the inscription's Celtic or something."

I went up to the cross, bending close to see the detail of the carving. Helenm, her supply of information exhausted, rested back against the stone, shivering as her bare shoulders touched the cold surface. I couldn't make out the weathered letters, and reached out to trace them with my fingers.

"This is amazing-" I started to say, but was interrupted by Helen's laugh.

"I didn't think you'd really do it - prefer to touch an old stone than a warm girl."

She took my hand in hers and placed it firmly on her breast. Through the thin cloth of the dress I could feel her flesh yield to my touch, and an answering pressure on my palm from her nipple. I stood up and kissed her. Her lips were surprisingly hard and dry: I had expected drunken slobber. I ran my hands over her arms, waist, thighs; she responded in kind, systematically tugging my shirt free at the waist. My psoe was uncomfortable and awkward, but I didn't want to break the mood by speaking to suggest a rearrangement. Instead, I crouched down to kiss her throat, while reaching up under her dress to remove her pants. After a short, hectic coupling, we stood there, panting. Helen psuhed me gently backwards, and stooped to retrieve her underwear.

"We'd better get back," she said brightly; I nodded in the gloom.

As we walked towards the house, she shook away my proferred hand. That was evidently that, whatever that was, or had been.

Change and decay: Chapter 11

2007-07-01T22:25:00.000+01:00

It was only now, because of the warmth with which I was greeted by the family as news of my discovery spread, that I realised how unwelcome I had been previously. When they heard that I was planning to leave shortly, I was urged to stay for their party- suddenly I was the guest of honour.

Whether as a result, or because she was involved in the party planning, I saw a lot more of Helen. It could not be said that she responded well to stress. The effort with which she shouted down the phone at recalcitrant suppliers might have been better directed at cleaning the house, since the casual staff they had hired in failed to meet her standards.

"God!", she said to me, as if I were a fellow-conspirator, "to think you used to be able to sack your staff!"

But it had to be said, whatever the cost in nervous energy, and indeed in money, the Hall was efficiently transformed. The public rooms were gleaming and elegant: the clutter had been transferred, and the dogs were rigorously excluded. Industrial heaters ran through the night, the warmth even working all the wat up to the attic.

***

It took little time to pack in the morning - my main concern was to ensure that my notes were complete. I stripped the sheets from the bed and left them crumpled on the floor. Already I could hear the urgent whine of vacuum cleaners from below, accompanied by the chink of arriving crockery. I laboured in the bathroom, soaping and shaving twice, knowing I would be on display. 'Smart enough for an archivist' wouldn't be smart enough today: I didn't want to feel like a crumpled yokel.

As noon approached and the family gathered, my fears were borne out. Margaret and Geoffrey were not just clean, they were almost chic, and completely free of dog hairs. Jeremy, Penny and the children looked like a model family from an upmarket catalogue. And Helen was stunning, in a short white dress, with her hair up in a bun and a black velvet choker around her neck. She looked me up and down and nodded: "Yes, you'll do", patting me lightly on the arm.

***

Gravel crunched; car doors slammed; greetings were shouted; hands shaken; drinks offered. Within minutes, the Hall was filled with well-dressed couples talking very loudly. I hung back, having little to contribute to discussions of milk quotas, EU subsidies, set-aside grants, tax, tax avoidance, tax evasion, and fraud.

To my surprise, those present varied in accent, occupation, and even ethnicity. Those in the Sheldons' sphere of influence were united solely by wealth and prestige, a sort of meritocracy, albeit with a debatable definition of merit.

Food followed drink, accompanied by more drink. Eventually, Geoffrey started rapping steadily on the tabletop, and the conversations slowly wound down. After a single final laugh from the corner, silence fell.

"I'm glad to see so many of our friends here today," Geoffrey said genially. "You would sometimes think that the forces of so-called progress were in the ascendant, in this precious country of ours. It seems as if every time we look around, some great tradition or landscape has succumbed."

He paused dramatically; he was exactly halfway between being a ham and a good actor. "Well, we suffer these losses, and I suppose we must accpet them. But we need not accept them silently, without a fight!"

There were murmurs of assent.

"And so, when we heard that Dursford Council has, in its wisdom, decided that it needs room for another estate to house its workshy, its criminals, its gypsies, its . . ." he glanced at the Indian couple in the audience and paused, "its undesirables of all sorts, we decided to put all our efforts into opposing them."

Applause rippled around the room.

"We have written letters; we have attended meetings; we have lobbied and protested without pause." He sighed, perhaps enervated by the extravagance of his exaggeration.

"Even so, we expected to lose- proudly, but inevitably. I'm glad to say, though, that we have a secret weapon- History. Perhaps our archivist here will explain?"

I stepped forward and haltingly summarised the New Mill saga. As I tailed off, Geoffrey clapped and assured everyone that the proposal was now dead.

More drinks were brought, and with the serious business successfully concluded, the working lunch turned first into simple lunch and then into a party. Ties were removed, collars loosened, jackets discarded; talk moved from money to sex.

Helen, drink in hand, swayed towards me with a crooked grin on her face.

"You can't go without seeing the stone- you'll like it."

Change and Decay Chapter 10

2007-06-23T11:24:00.000+01:00

By now, the records room was looking much more ordered. Piles of papers were arranged neatly on the table, spotted with fluorescent Post-It notes. Each pile had been skimmed and quickly characterised by date and content. Some gaps remained: documents which must once have existed but had since been lost, discarded or transfered elsewhere. But it consitituted a good representation if several centuries of estate management and industrial enterprise.

I had seen Jeremy passing the doorway a couple of times that morning, and now took the opportunity to introduce myself.

"I've nearly finished in here now- do you think I could see the current records?"

"Of course," he replied, "but I'm not sure they'll be worth your trouble."

"Some of the properties seem to be missing: I suppose your system is that the deeds bundles are kept with your working files."

"I'm not sure you'd call it a system as such," he said, laughing, "but come across now."

***

I followed him outside and into the stable yard; the estate office was based in an old tack room, supplied with telephone and power connections by a fragile tracery of overhead cables from the main house. Jeremy unlocked the door and lit a gas heater, clapping his hands for warmth.

"It's a bit basic, I'm afraid- not much better that the records store."

He lifted a stack of letters from an old wooden chair, adding it to a pile on top of the filing cabinet in the corner, its drawers rendered unclosable by excess files.

"We're a bit disorganised, so you'll have to wade through things. We used to put stuff away but these days we have to manage without a secretary."

"I thought Helen helped out?"

"Is that what she told you? I don't really count gossiping on the offcie phone with her friends and playing solitaire on the computer as helping. She doesn't understand the business side of the estate at all. I keep telling them there's no money, but they can't bring themselves to believe it. Not that we can afford outside staff either. Penny, my wife - you've met her, haven't you? - she had to do all the documentation when we sold some paintings last year. The research took her ages, trying to find evidence of ownership. Well, you've seen the paperwork!"

I was pleased to find that Jeremy had circled around closer to my professional interests. But before I could interrupt, he sat back and stared out of the window into the yard.

"It's a dispriting task, trying to keep it all together. It was easier in the past, when your land was on long leases and you just had to collect the rent each quarter-day. But you can't make enough money that way anymore- not with farming the way it is."

"I'm not sure your ancestors would agree: they certainly complained enough in their letters."

"Oh yes - I suppose you'll have seen all that. But anyway, whatever they used to say, these days land is pretty much worthless - farmland is, at least. That's why we need to diversify. I'm always trying to find ways to raise cash. But it's a long process- you can't do a thing without planning permission, and that process is a nightmare. I don't think our cities would ever have been built if they'd had the same system." Jeremy snorted.

"I suppose councils have to be careful about their decisions." I wasn't quite sure how I had ended up defending local government.

"Not if it's their own project. We're having a big row at the moment- have you heard? They're proposing to allow housing development on the New Mill fields."

"Didn't that used to be part of the Littleworth estate?"

"We sold it forty years ago, when the council was building up its land bank. we never thought they'd build on it, though - it'll ruin the character of the area. We're organising the opposition at the moment - a lot of people round here are very concerned. That's the file." He pointed at a large cardboard box, its sides bulging with the weight of paper.

"Oh, I was looking for the New Mill deeds: could I check through them?"

"Help yourself."

***

The papers were stratified chronologically, like a geological sequence. The top layer comprised recent Council feasibility studies, consultation letters, notes of telephone calls. Halfway down there was a more ordered sequence of legal correspondence about the purchase of the land; below that there were two thick bundles of deeds and leases.

To my surprise, the papers showed that the sale had been an amicable process, from an initial inquiry from the Clerk's Department whether the estate owned any land it might be willing to relinquish suitable for the Council's long-term plans to enlarge its housing stock. I wondered whether Jeremy was aware of this, and concluded he must have been. The actual negotiation of prices was also smooth enough: an independent valuation had been obtained, calculating the rate for prime farmland and multiplying by the area. The offer was accepted by the estate without a quibble, earning £800, a very substantial sum for the 1950s.

I expected little more than a simple sequence of earlier tenancies from the remaining bundles, but grew increasingly confused, and eventually leafed through to the earliest deed.

The New Mill was not, in fact, very new. In 1760, John Sheldon had exchanged 'the field next the stream' for another in the adjacent parish, and then commissioned a local builder to 'make a new mill with all necessary equipments and facilities'. After 50 years of silence, presumably reflecting work under the estate's control, the family lost interest in metalworking, and the site was leased to a succession of companies with closely-similar names and personnel. These were obviously unstable financially, since deafult on rents and references to 'the works, now idle' fomred a recurrent theme. By 1890 the mill was almost worthless, and the land was rented to the Durston Gas and Light Company. They gave up the lease in 1908, and the land returned to the control of the estate.

This sounded innocuous enough, if reflecting a depressing story of failed ventures. But I had encountered the early gas industry before, when I was working on another archive. The creation of Town Gas, as the predecessor to natural gas was called, was a hazardous and toxic process, generating large quantities of cyanide and arsenic waste.

I was shocked at Jeremy's reaction when I told him this. He laughed.

"That'll scupper their houses, won't it? Who wants to live on a chemical dump? You've made my day."

When I suggested that the estate might have acted in poor faith when selling the property as farmland suitable for development, he waved it away.

"Not our problem, not our problem."

The Queen's English, whatever the comedians say

2007-06-05T19:51:00.000+01:00

Seldom a week passes without a comedian raising a laugh by referring to the Royal Family as German (usually on the News Quiz or Have I Got News For You). It is notable, I think, that it is most popular with the generation of alternative comedians who at one stage were a bit edgy, daring and anti-Establishment; it is the last vestiage of the far-off days when hatred of Thatch and Tebbit was an essential qualificatiaon for success. The joke's fulklest form is found in Elton and Curtis' Blackadder Goes Forth, when Captain Darling, accused of being a spy, insists that he is as British as Queen Victoria ("You mean your father's half German, you're half German and you married a German" says Blackadder).

The odd thing is that these comedians would in normal circumstances distance themselves emphatically from lampooning a lifelong UK resident on the grounds that some of their ancestors were born abroad. Particularly Ben Elton, whose father was German, Curtis, who is from New Zealand, and David Baddiel (half German, quarter Russian).

My calculations are that Victoria was 1/4 British, since her mother was German and her father half-German; Edward VII was 1/8 British, George V 1/8 British, George VI 1/16 British; Elizabeth II is the first Windsor Royal to be more than half British (17/32 British).

The War of Wars by Robert Harvey (Constable): Book review

2007-06-02T23:00:00.000+01:00

This is an ambitious work of military and political history, recounting, as its subtitle says 'the epic struggle between Britain and France, 1793-1815'. But in addition to providing a narrative over its 800 pages, Harvey has an agenda: the resurrection of the style of historical analysis in which the determining role of inspirational leaders is acknowledged.

Harvey's canvas is broad, so that battles and whole campaigns have to be dealt with briefly. He is much more interested in the mechanics and social politics of naval warfare; Nelson is perhaps his favourite hero, and the book loses much of its impetus after Trafalgar had won the sea war. Minor land battles become a bare litany of x thousand lost, giving no feel for their significance or differentiation. Although writing for a general reader (p. 1), he assumes great familiarity with the participants; 'the most famous cavalry charge in history' (by Murat at Eylau) (p. 436) merits a single sentence. His account of the Russian campaign of 1812 is vastly inferior to Tolstoy's.

But it is the heroes that matter to Harvey. He attacks what he calls the 'Napoleon myths', that he was either a tyrant or a political genius; even his military skill is considered to be limited to movement and energy, and only consistently effective in his early career. But Wellington, Nelson, Sir John Moore and others are also treated in the same way: Harvey assumes that they are geniuses, and then turns to biography to explain their lapses of judgement, rather than allowing them to have good and bad days like the rest of us. He also expects that great leaders should be good people, and feels he must apologise for or excuse their political and personal failings, rather than treating them as irrelevant.

The book is hardly light reading; there is a lot of repetition (so that the comparison of the more sanguine actions with those of WW1 appears at least 5 times) and some irritating stylistic habits: he is clearly one of those who learned that split infinitive is a barbarism, but did not learn to avoid equally inelegant alternatives. There are also a surprising number of solecisms and typographic errors, such as 'rebounds to his credit'.

In the end, Harvey does not quite make his case: the book would have been better, and shorter, if he had restricted his scope to the key events and avoided the temptation to essay biographies of the principal players, tracking Napoleon's love life or the social difficulties of Nelson, which are tangential to the result.

Change and Decay work in progress Chapter 9

2007-05-29T09:59:00.000+01:00

Previous chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

So it wasn't until a couple of day later that I met Helen again. She breezed into the room at mid-morning, wearing a quilted jacket and jodphurs.

"Do you want to tour the estate?" she asked.

"Yes, that would be interesting - I've been reading about the various properties."

"OK - do you ride?"

She seemed neither surprised nor disappointed by my negative response, and went off to secure some spare boots and to gather the dogs.

* * *

It was a crisp Spring morning; the grass was heavy with dew. Plumes of vapour marked our breaths. As we crunched our way down the drive, Helen pointed out buildings near and far, with the complacency of ownership.

"That's Park Farm - the tenants there are the Edwards brothers. You can tell by the state of the fences that they're not very good caretakers. We keep telling them that binder twine isn't a fencing material, but it doesn't do any good."

Rugger waddled ahead of us, pausing to sniff occasionally. Birds chattered warnings of our approach from the trees. We reached the lodge at the end of the drive, where it met the public road. The small garden behind the lodge was largely filled by a rusting car beneath a tarpaulin.

"Disgraceful- we've asked them to get rid of it," Helen said crossly. "It's rented out now - it used used to be for one of the servants from the house."

"I know," I replied, glad to have something to contribute, "in the 1860s it's listed in the land terriers."

"At least when it was under our control we could insist on how it was looked after."

"I'd have thought the terms of the lease would still give you that?"

"Yes, in theory. But try evicting people- you'll end up paying a fortune in legal fees. It's hardly worth it. It bneats me why the nouveau riche are so keen on buy-to-let: they must be mad or stupid."

She walked up the short slabbed path and rang the doorbell twice. I stood back, noting the architectural deatils: Victorian Gothic, with elaborate decorative ridge tiles and terracotta brickwork. After half a minute's silence, Helen turned.

"They must be at work: both the Johnsons have jobs in the town."

"I suppose it must be strange now that so few people work on the estate?"

"I'm used to it - it was in Gramps' time that we lost them all - went to war and never came back."

I must have looked perplexed, since she went on to explain.

"Not dead - just never came back. They found other jobs, shorter hours, better pay. That's gratitude for you!"

I had always had some doubts whether noblesse does indeed oblige, and I wondered now why it obliged such arrogance. But equally, I could not deny the attraction I felt for her despite the horrible views she expressed with such conviction.

* * *

We reached the junction and turned to the right, the main road dropping to stone bridge over a stream. I knew a lot about this.

"This bridge is quite famous - or at least, well-represented in the records. In the 1820s there was a long legal dispute about who should pay for its repair. Thomas Sheldon argued that it was a county road, to be maintained from taxes, but the Court of Quarter Sessions said it was a parish road, so the rates should pay. Sheldon kicked up quite a fuss- he wrote letters all over the place."

Helen didn't know this; nor, to be honest, did she show much interest in the information now that she did. I peered at the weathered inscription on the parapet: "This bridge erected by Littleworth parish, 1831". "So Sheldon must have lost."

Helen frowned. "Didn't you know?"

"Not for sure," I explained, "The papers I saw were the initial negotiations and the proofs in evidence taken to court. The final judgment would be recorded in the Court Rolls, by the Clerk of the Peace, and there need have been little documentation sent to the parties."

Helen stopped and looked at me. "You are funny, you know. You've got all these little lectures in your head." I was unsure how to respond to her bantering tone.

We crossed the stream and followed the road up the valley side, then climbed over a stile in a thorn hedge. I was about to start talking about the Enclosure Act and its effect on field boundaries, but stopped myself when I recognised that this would constitute another lecture. I decided to take the offensive.

"Penny was telling me about the estate office - do you work there full-time?"

"Not as such - although for tax purposes I do. I help out when it gets busy- like next week, when we're having a party for objectors to a planning application."

"So, what - stuffing envelopes? That doesn't sound like much of a job."

"I don't know - I get a lot of free time to ride and so on. I did work in London last year, but didn't enjoy it. It's no fun living there unless you can afford to go out and can time off for holidays. Anyway, there isn't anything in particular I want to do."

"Did you go to university?"

"No, that was Jeremy- he's the one with the brains. My school focused on personal development, sports and life skills, rather than exams, and I didn't really fancy it."

"Don't you get bored, staying here all the time?"

"Not at all- you underestimate the value of being able to please yourself what you do every day."

"I suppose so. I find archives so interesting I'd probably work on them for free if I won the Lottery."

"Yes, I think you would."

* * *

We passed a patch of bloodstained fur on the path.

"Foxes are such nice animals," Helen sneered. "I used to love hunting - riding at will, as fast as I could, following the pack wherever it went."

"I thought the hunt still met?"

"Yes, but it's not the same. They have to be so careful about keeping the hounds in hand that you never get that wild feeling - it was so natural - you, the horse, the dogs, the fox - all running across the fields. That's the tradition that has gone."

"I'm not sure how ancient that tradition is: most of the trappings were invented by the Victorians. I suppose these days that counts as ancient. But at least you are arguing from experience- you enjoyed it. The rational arguments for hunting always seemed the weakest- that this was the most efficient and humane way to control the fox population, that it employed thousands of people, that people would get rid of their horses, that the foxes enjoyed it. It's never hard to come up with good reasons to preserve a situation that serves your own interests!"

"But we were sincere."

"I don't think that makes much difference."

An awkward silence fell and we walked on.

* * *

We crossed another stile and entered an ash copse.

"We had a den here, in a ruin."

"The gamekeeper's cottage?"

"How did you know that?", Helen asked, surprised.

"It's in the archives - the gamekeeper used to be listed as the occupier here."

Helen pointed out the site, overgrown with brambles. She shook herself.

"We used to scare each other silly with ghost stories. Supposedly the house was cursed by the last gamekeeper, Old Will. He had been injured in a shooting accident, and then one day just vanished. Jem would say he could hear him limping through the undergrowth while we hid."

A little further along the path, the trees opened out and we could the Hall, a couple of fields away. We climbed the slope, panting.

* * *

After washing and changing, I return to the archives, keen to check the personnel files. It didn't take long to find the one I wanted. Williams Jenkins had been born in 1892; in 1906 he wrote a letter of application for a job on the estate, and in 1908 he countersigned a tenancy agreement for the cottage. The final document was a doctor's bill from 1938, recording treatment for a gunshot wound to his leg. Then Old Will vanished from the paper trail just as he had from his home.

Overheard

2007-05-29T09:46:00.000+01:00

CHILD: Can I have an ice cream now?

PARENT: What's the magic word?

CHILD (puzzled): Um ... Abracadabra?

New word corner: Thermostat

2007-05-14T21:49:00.000+01:00

Thermostat: unwanted utensils that fill the shelves of kitchen cupboards. From 'thermos' + 'tat'.

Radio comedy sketch: Checklist

2007-05-13T12:37:00.000+01:00

FX: Aircraft noises

Captain: This is Alpha Tango 213 preparing to take off.

Control tower: This is control tower. Proceed with pre=flight checklist.

Captain: Roger. (to co-pilot) Ready?

Co-pilot: Check.

Captain: Fabric pattern made up of squares of alternating colour?

Co-pilot: Check

Captain: Means of payment?

Co-pilot: Cheque

Captain: Inhabitant of Central Europan country?

Co-pilot: Czech

Captain: Chess move threatening the king?

Co-pilot: Check

Captain: Checklist complete. (ON RADIO) Alpha Tango 123 proceeding to runway.

FX: Jet engine

Variations on a theme

2007-05-10T19:37:00.000+01:00

Old monetarist economic theorists never die, they just lose their currency.

Old fireworks manufacturers never die, they just light the blue touch paper and retire.

Change and Decay work in progress Chapter 8

2007-04-01T22:53:00.000+01:00

Previous chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

For the next few days, I was left largely to myself, disturbed only by the occasional visit from the dogs as they snuffled around myopically. I glimpsed the Sheldons as they followed their individual orbits- Margaret's from kitchen to conservatory, Charles' from study to dining room. Helen, in spite of her comment, was nowhere in evidence. Why did I mind that?

On Wednesday, my usually-solitary breakfast in the kitchen was varied by the presence of Margaret, assembling crockery and cutlery on a large tray.

"It's the estate meeting today", she explained, unbidden, "the family go through all the business matters- and you'll get to meet everyone, unless you'd rather not be disturbed?"

"Not at all", I replied emphatically, unsure of how to communicate my lack of enthusiasm for meeting new people politely. I remembered the time my careers master at school had asked if I'd like working with people, and his shock at the eloquent negative the question triggered.

I finished my coffee, washed my hands to clean off any grease or breadcrumbs, and went down the passage to the records store, closing the door on the bustle of arrivals in the distance. I worked through a bundle of letters, trying to establihs a date: 19th century from the handwriting, but hard to pin down, beacuse their authors had indicated only day and month. Soon enough, or perhaps only quite soon, a reference in the body of a letter to 'our new queen' fixed the timescale to the early 1840s. The correspondence was an indiscriminate mixture of family news and business, similar in all probability to the meeting running on next door. I reflded the letter, replaced it in the envelope, and re-tied the ribbon around the bundle, pausing to lightly pencil the date on the top. I rose to get a drink, as much from a desire to stretch and become mobile as from thirst.

To my surprise, the kitchen wasn't empty: a woman sat at the table, laboriously urging two small children to eat.

She said "Hello" brightly but with an interrogative inflexion.
"Hi - I'm Derek - looking at the archives."
"Yeah, Jeremy said you'd be around - have you seen him?"
"No, he's the son, isn't he?"
She grinned. "Son and heir, you mean."
"What about Helen?"
This time she smiled broadly and tutted. "Wrong sex, I'm afraid. It me a while to realise how it worked. I met Jeremy at uni- I was doing History of Art, he was doing Land Economy, whatever that is. I still don't know - I don't think he knows, either."
Penny paused, retrieving a juice cup from the floor and handing it back to its owner.

"I come from Yorkshire, from a big family. We're always doing things together- parties, outings, shopping. But this is different, more dynastic. You wouldn't believe just how interested Ma and Pa were in Jon and Emma here. They'd have come to the ultrasound scans if I'd let them. Now they're not too bothered about Emma - she can do what she likes. But Jon, he's the future: one day this will all be his. Won't it?"

She directed this last remark at the presumptive heir, who was currently reaching for a handful of dog biscuits from a bowl on the floor.

"I suppose they might say it's a responsibility, keeping the estate together", I suggested, without much conviction.

"Yes, that's just what they say. It's quite a handy argument, you know. When you want something new. Like this house- smart kitchen units, expensive, modern - that's investment. But everything esle is what they had already". She sighed.

I smiled at her eloquence. She glanced at the door.

"Not that I'm complaining, of course. But, Christ, it's nice to talk to someone who isn't on their side - you're not, are you?".

I shook my head. "It's not for me to judge - they seem nice enough, but that might just be politeness".

This earned a snort from Penny.

"Manners aren't everything, you know. I had a hard time when Jeremy first brought me here. The Spanish Inquisition has nothing on the treatment a prospective family member gets".

Emma methodically licked jam off her fingers.

"And that first Christmas - it's funny now to think of it. I thought - you know - garnd house, owns half a county, posh car, swish clothes. What can I buy them as presents? Jeremy kept saying not to worry, but I did, of course. In the end, he just told me he'd deal with it. Thirty minutes, it took him: a scarf each for the women, a tie each for the men."

"The difference between capital and revenue, I suppose."

"That's what he says. What they all say. You can't keep an estate together over the centuries unless you're careful about your balance. Not that it works these days. No matter how little they spend, it doesn't make enough. There's only so much money in farm rents. Every time we have a crisis, tax or whatever, it's something else sold off, which means less income." She sighed again. "But now I'm sounding like them."

Jon looked up at his mother. "Can we see Gramps now?"

"Not yet," she replied, tutting. "Little creeps. To be fair, they do like the kids."

Emma asked about Auntie Helen, echoing my thoughts.

"I don't think she's here today."

Diane Lazarus and the Suffolk murders: two stories are better than one

2007-02-25T13:59:00.000Z

Psychics recognise that the support of their believers does little to persuade the general population of the reality of their abilities, and they have often sought validation by associating themselves with police work and missing person cases. In the US, where psychics are fixtures of mainstream television, this has led to unedifying spectacle of Sylvia Browne telling Shaun Hornbeck’s parents that he was dead (see http://www.stopsylviabrowne.com/ ).

Little is said about this in the UK from the police side, although a recent FOI enquiry reported in the Skeptic Express found only one, unsolved case, where the police authority acknowledged the use of a psychic.

Diane Lazarus, winner of Channel Five’s Psychic Challenge, is keen to follow Browne’s example, and has claimed involvement in several cases, including Mark Green and Muriel Drinkwater (see Skeptic Express ), and most recently the Suffolk murders. Although she offered her help to the police, they did not take her up, and therefore she spoke to the press, leading to a story published in Wales on Sunday
Twist religious motive behind deaths 17th December, also
analysed in the Skeptic Express.

The only specific characteristics of the perpetrator were: “a young lad, a hoodie” and strong “religious” character.

Shortly afterwards, a suspect aged 38 was arrested on 18th December. He was then bailed and a second man, 48, was arrested on 19th December, and has now been charged with the murders. So not very young, then.

But in addition to the Wales on Sunday story, she had also spoken to the rival South Wales Guardian, who printed their story on 20th December.
Psychic senses profile of Suffolk strangler.
Since the South Wales Guardian is a weekly paper, it is not clear when the story was written (ie whether before the first arrest on the 18th). But what is clear is that the information provided by Lazarus differs considerably from that in the Echo:

She believes that the man - probably in his thirties - has large hands and is much stronger than he appears.

Nothing about religion there.
Lazarus has therefore covered the ground with the only specific information of which she is sure: that the murderer was a young lad, or in his thirties. If either of these choices had been correct, her powers would have been confirmed by incontrovertible evidence.

If the accused lawyer is smart, he will call Lazarus as a witness, in the hope that some members of the jury will believe in psychics, so that the following exchange can take place:
Lawyer: So you’ve helped the police in the past?
Lazarus: Oh yes, several times : Mark Green, etc etc
Lawyer: And you’re convinced that you can sense the true perpetrator
Lazarus: Yes
Lawyer: You sensed a young man with religious convictions was the murderer?
Lazarus: Yes
Lawyer: Would you describe the accused as such a man?
Lazarus: No, definitely not.
Lawyer: You sensed a man in his thirties with large hands. Is this the accused?
Lazarus: No, definitely not.
Lawyer: So you believe that the accused is not the man who is responsible for the murders?
Lazarus: Yes I do.

This should be enough to implant reasonable doubt in the jury and hence lead to his acquittal, guilty or not.

Kingsley and the Women: review of Zachary Leader's The Life of Kingsley Amis (Cape, 2006)

2007-02-05T20:01:00.000Z

Modern biographies thrive on revelation, but there is little that is new in Leader's monumental study. This is hardly surprising, since Amis's life has already been well documented in his 1200-page Letters, edited by Leader, Martin's Experience, his own Memoirs, Eric Jacob's biography, compiled shortly before Amis's death, and in various autobiographical articles, supplementing the fictionalised life traceable in the fiction. Leader discusses the problem, and concludes that there remains something to be said of man and works, mainly because it is now possible to fill out the partial views which KA stamped on accounts of his life.

Thus although in late Amis there is much allusion to Hilly or Hilly-type figures, it is refreshing to hear directly from her descriptions of the chaotic, energetic, doomed marriage of the 1950s (previously she was best represnted as a sort of voice off in the footnotes of the Letters). Similarly Elizabeth Jane Howard emerges with more credit here than Kingsley post-divorce ever allowed her, although Leader seems colder to her than to Hilly.

The book's chapter are arranged chronologically, although the works are dealt with out of sequence. The earliest chapters are the best, telling a relatively unknown story, and expertly sewn together from autobiography, letters, others' testimony, and the two fictional accounts of the period from The Riverside Villas Murder and You Can't Do Both. In later years, domestic drudgery and tedious infidelity takes over, interestingly paralleling the novels but otherwise sparse in incident. Although it is not intended as a critical study (Amis's claim to be a titan of 20th-century literature is assumed), there are perspicuous summaries of most of Amis's works (including a good account of the poetry and high praise for Take a Girl Like You, The Old Devils and The Alteration). At times the pace is breathless: the later years are padded out with accounts of sales fugures and advances, mainly of economic interest, and it is in general hard to establish how well Amis was appreciated by his reviewers and audience.

This breathlessness extends to the larger questions raised by Amis and his politics. Two pages are spent discussing Amis's views on race, which isn't much. It would have been more honest to set out clearly that Amis was, in public writing, anti-racist, outspokenly so, and that there was a tension between this and his views as expressed in conversation or correspondence with his cronies. Similarly, Amis's anti-semitism is shown as mild but definite, despite the fact that well into the 1960s he would treat the prejudice as a sure sign of dullness. Perhaps this is partly a reflection of his experience of ageing as the process by which we turn into our parents. But as Leader does point out on numerous occasions, Amis's political views were emotional and illinformed, unlike his views on literature. But there remains the truth that in later years Amis was as famous for his opinionated journalism as for his more nuanced fiction, and he can hardly complain that he is taken at his word. It is, though, hard to take too much notice of the late 60s hippy-hater who had turned his early 60s Cambridge house into a proto-squat of rolling bacchanalia of sex and drugs.

And what of feminism? Amis lived through the raging sex war of the 70s, taking much of it, with good reason, personally. Looking back now, it is notable that the virtues he praised in women: of straightforwardness, honesty, and disdain for conventional morality, were those advanced by his foes.

Leader's prose is serviceable but indistinctive, giving the frequent quotations from Amis and Larkin a shocking comparative verve. The sad theme running through the second half of the book is the problem of Sally: while Philip and Martin emerged from their disrupted and unconventional childhoods intact, she did not; it is hard to read of her alcoholism and death without asking (as Leader does) who is at fault. Not that this type of question is likely to lead to resolution. It seems hardly necessary to lay this at Amis's door, since Leader shows that he had alaready suffered fear, doubt and remorse about this as about much else. Amis was better at analysing his flaws in his fiction than in correcting them in his life, but that is hardly surprising.

This is not the place to start for those new to Amis: they should read his fiction first, then his Letters. But this account raises a series of questions about the novels, while also showing how the latterday Colonel Blimp had started as a radical who instinctively sided with the unprivileged, the dispossed and the powerless.

The Dagenham code*: review of Yehuda Berg's The Power of Kabbalah

2007-01-08T10:59:00.000Z

Some modern systems of belief are explicitly new: Scientology was created by L. Ron Hubbard; others claim continuity with past traditions, such as the wicce. Yehuda Berg places Kabbalah somewhere in between: he presents its teachings as a body a secret knowledge which has been the preserve of a tiny obscure and misunderstood Judaic sect for at least 2,000 years, but which has only recently been publicised to the wider world as a tool for personal growth, accompanied by the contemporary trappings of bookshops, specially endorsed substances and products, and celebrity advocates like Madonna, her husband Guy Ritchie and her onetime lover Sandra Bernhardt. The book is written in a lively and clear style, and starts with a section debunking the misconceptions that have accumulated about Kabbalah, before looking at the drivers of human behaviour. There follow sections on Kabbalist cosmology, cross-referenced to contemporary scientific theories which parallel or confirm its model, a section on meditation and the power and meaning of the Hebrew alphabet, and a series of appendixes including a history of Kabbalah. Although the book is probably not designed to produce this effect, it creates in the reader a shift from neutral acceptance towards increasing skepticism and irritation. The first principle he cites is that there should be no coercion in spirituality, and he hopes that the accuracy of his depiction of the world should convince the reader of the validity of the cosmological model underlying it, which is a good place to start, although this obscures the extent to which his views are reliant on authority and revelation as their source.

Understanding oneself
The key argument in Berg's analysis of behaviour is that most people live humdrum lives only rarely reaching transcendence: he argues that these moments of transcendence are a connection with another realm of being, and occur when we act in line with our core identity. He suggests that the reason many people feel dissatisfied is because they misunderstand their nature and desires, becoming focused on the wrong goals (for example stating their goal as "becoming a millionaire" rather than "being financially secure": the former becomes a treadmill, possibly doomed to unfulfilment; the latter is a state of mind and could be achieved by anyone). He gives some good advice here about how to achieve a better state of mind while living in the world by changing one's attitude. He firmly discourages the culture of blame or guilt: it is a person's own responsibility to sort out their life. More questionable is his attitude to rational thought: his advice is to go with intuitions and to distrust rationality. I am unconvinced that people in general, or particularly people with problems, are over-reliant on thought, and his testimony from scientists which is supposed to support his argument fails to do so, since what is recounted is a series of cases where the scientists, having rationally defined a problem, have then intuited a solution, subsequently confirmed by rational thought. This is not a transferable model for personal lives, whatever he says. Perhaps more dangerously, he also says that when in times of doubt, trust in the certainty of Kabbalah is the best response; he presents a complex and unconvincing example of a businessman who suspects he is being defrauded by one of his salesmen: he denies all the apparent evidence, and is rewarded by it not being as bad as others feared. The danger here is that Berg is giving licence to anyone who gets into a state of denial that they are right, not wrong.

Science proves Kabbalah right
Berg likes science, or at least he appeals to it often as a source of credibility, although he is sometimes naive, saying for example that "a burning candle emits no light against the backdrop of a brilliant sunlit day" (p. 68), a piece of reasoning on a par with the lodgings landlady who closed the curtains on bright winter days because the sunshine put the coal fire out. Similarly, he uses the term 'selfish gene' (p. 111) to mean a gene that makes people selfish, a complete misunderstanding of Dawkins' concept. This becomes a serious problem when he cherry-picks scintific theories to demonstrate that Kabbalah got it right:

he is happy to parallel Kaballah's creation with scientific Big Bang, although the newer concept of a steady state universe of cycles of Big Bangs and Big Crunches doesn't fit at all

he is happy to say that matter is of dual nature like electrons and protons, ignoring the existence of neutrons which undermine such an argument

he is happy to link the 10 'dimensions' of the Kabbalah universe with the 10-dimensional space of superstring theory, but igonres other string theory elements proposing 11 or 46 dimensions, or the metatheory M theory that proposes 4 branes and 11 dimensions (not that I'd claim to know what this means)

It would therefore be unwise to argue that modern science has confirmed Kabbalah's cosmology: the most that could be claimed is that some modern theories fit some interpretations of Kabbalah.

Meditation and the Hebrew alphabet
The recommendation of meditation as a way of improving one's sense of well-being is hardly revolutionary, any more than a doctor's prescription of more exercise and less alcohol. Clearly, the ritual of meditation (in the sense of the regular conscious application of time and thought to one's mental life) yields benefits to many. The approach recommended by Berg is in many ways simialr to the Taoist I Ching: to focus on the pictogram of a Hebrew name of God, related to a phrase or purpose, eg 'to remove egomania', with a short passage of advice. Berg might be expected to argue that such meditation makes people feel better, or perhaps evene changes them in some way to make them into better people. But he goes a step further, and argues that meditation can cause miracles. He relies on the evidence of Dr Spokojny, who recounts two cases where his use of Kabbalah has proved efficacious where his medicine hasn't. Dr Artur Spokojny is a Harvard-trained MD who now has his own Total Healing practice. He oversaw experiments on Kabbalah-blessed water:

'"We have reversed entropy and reversed the second law of thermodynamics," contended Dr. Artur Spokojny, a cardiologist who oversaw the independent lab tests [on behalf of the Kabbalah Center]'.

The full evidence for these claims, as for the ER miracles, has not yet been presented to the world.

Theology of Kabbalah
Although the 'theory' of Kabbalah is not presented clearly as a single body of belief by Berg, some elements stand out:

the key commandment that one should love thy neighbour as thyself

the 10 commandments, on the other hand, are a misunderstanding and do not apply

reincarnation and multiple lives happen

the Devil is real and the world is full of temptation and evil

History of Kabbalist thought
His brief summary of history starts with the 'Book of Abraham' written before most the Bible, a book known only to Kabbalists; Moses then wrote the Pentateuch, encoding within them Kabbalah knowledge. He then has Pythagoras as a Kabbalah devotee, although Josephus' version (97 AD) of what he says Hermippus of Smyrna says about Pythagoras is not so specific, and in general Pythagoras' number mysticism is different to that of Kabbalah and sourced from Egypt and Assyria, if anywhere. Plato and Aristotle are also roped in on the basis of what Dr Seth Pancoast says (this is the Seth Pancoast who

"extended this thinking in his Blue and Red Light: or, Light and its Rays as Medicine (1877), in which he cautioned against “light quacks” even as he claimed to have cured Master F., an eight-year-old paraplegic, after only a week under red glass, and Mrs. L., a 32-year-old widow suffering from severe sciatica, after only three sittings in a bath of blue light." (Cabinet Magazine).

The only surprising inclusion in later history is Isaac Newton, who again was interested in number mysticism and theology but is not normally included amongst followers of Kabbalah. The surprising omission is the tedious visionary Nostradamus, who Berg doesn't mention.

Authority and evidence

Regardless of the coherence of the body of belief that Berg presents, there remains a fundamental issue of epistemology. How can Berg know that there are 10 dimensions or that reincarnation happens? The answer has to be that for every belief not susceptible to direct verification by our senses or minds, we must rely on what we have been told. And so despite the initial gestures towards confirmation by experience, Kabbalah is reliant on two bodies of authority: written texts and interpretation.

As a result, Kabbalah is out of step with more modern cults, since it requires belief in Holy Writ. Berg makes many mentions of the Bible without gloss: his US readers probably read this as their Bible, although the Jewish Bible is meant; he argues against literalism in interpreting it, presumably expecting his audience to be of fundamentalist tendency. But in Kabbalah the Bible contains God's word, but encrypted. Kabbalah also requires the acceptance of two further holy works, the books of Abraham and Zohar, neither of which is known elsewhere.

Further than this, though, Kabbalah's validity relies on the work of its interpreters: if Berg and his father and their predecessors are wrong, their beliefs are wrong.

Thus the pantheistic almost godless cosmology with the individual's mind at its centre that Kabbalah appears to be at first glance is actually a scripture- and revelation-driven set of specific beliefs requiring faith in a Hebrew God and a complex interpretation of His works.

Further reading

In the course of researching this review, I came across various strange stories, including:

The Strange Case of Supernatural water (Kabbalah water proposed as a cure to citrus canker in Florida)
Red String to protect you from the evil eye
Psionic Kabbalah Manifesting Capsule
Madonna breaks bones in fall despite wearing Kabbalah bracelet
Jerry Hall renounces Kabbalah after pressure to fundraise
Celebrities linked to the Kabbalah Center

* 'Dagenham' is known to Londoners as the District Line underground station two stops beyond Barking.

The skin factor: X Factor and reality TV racism

2006-12-22T14:10:00.000Z

Leona Lewis is going to be the Christmas No. 1, and we have X Factor to thank for unearthing the new Maria Carey or Whitney Houston. I must admit I'm not sure we need a new Maria or Whitney, but then I'm not sure I needed the old ones. I don't watch X Factor- if I wanted to hear indifferent cover versions of 80s hits, I'd listen to Girls Aloud. But I would in any case be put off by the blatant manipulation of the ever-lengthening pause for the 'and the winner is...', a trend started by Davina and Ant&Dec, but now universal. I now avoid all results shows on principle. Imagine how fresh and shocking it would be if someone were to revert to saying simply 'hand up who's not been evicted - no, not you'. However, we also have the X factor to thank for killing off a tendentious strand of comment arguing that the UK public was too fundamentally racist to ever allow a black contestant to win a reality contest.

This view was first advanced by Faria Alam, philosopher, social commentator and person-famous-for-having-sex-with-slightly-more-famous-people to her Celebrity Big Brother housemates Dennis Rodman and Traci Bingham. She told them the British public would "never let a black or Asian win"; we were denied the opportunity to find out, since the public decided that it wouldn't let Americans or ex-PAs who they'd never heard of win, regardless of colour.

The Guardian's Comment is Free forums then spent the summer bickering about it: white liberals suggesting that the dismal record of non-white contestants was due to chance, their individual performance, or, perhaps, the tendency of the voting public (mainly the old and silly or the young and silly) to promote those who were most similar to themselves (although until BB6 I wouldn't have guessed there was such a large consituency of Portguese transsexuals in the UK). But now we can say straightforwardly that it is not true: the British public will vote for a black contestant. I never really accepted the argument: I think, and hope, that politeness and tolerance are virtues fostered here. I always feel a surge of pride when visiting London to see its astonishing casual cosmopolitanism (a word whose meaning is presumably being shifted towards 'very very interested in sex and make-up').

But what do we really think? The Freakonomics authors have looked at how people behave on the US version of the Weakest Link, to see who gets voted off despite scoring well. They conclude, perhaps surprisingly, that blacks are not discriminated against; the old and Hispanics are, though. There's all sorts of methodological pitfalls with studies of this kind: just how fixed are these racial categories? Are they self-descriptions, or based on the researcher's opinion? Is it based on skin colour, country of ancestry, language, name? But if they are describing a real phenomenon, I'm still not sure that their analysis is correct. They say that the reason that blacks are not discriminated against is because it is no longer socially acceptable to behave in an anti-black way. Why can't they accept that (white) people might not be anti-black?

Conversation in a hotel bedroom

2006-12-21T20:47:00.000Z

MAN: I had to use your razor: I've left mine at home.

WOMAN: Yuk- I hope you washed it!

MAN: Oh yes, of course ... beforehand.

Last thoughts on Sandi Thom

2006-12-09T16:09:00.000Z

Sandi's been down in Australia, which would account for the lack of promotion of her current UK single, 'Lonely Girl', which was scheduled for release last week. 'Punk rocker' is their song of the year, having sat for 14 weeks at No. 1. In an article in the Melbourne Age, the webcast myth is taken at face value:

But while her webcasts attract thousands, her popularity doesn't necessarily translate to the clubs. After details of a "secret show" in the city were released online on Tuesday, a crowd of only 25 turned up. The concert was then cancelled.

The article is respectfully titled "Very modern artist longs for age of innocence", but their web editor lets their feelings through by giving the page url as "that-blooming-punk-song".

Review: The Innocence Project

2006-12-09T08:53:00.000Z

Law works well on television, with its theatrical conflicts, alternation between exposition and rhetoric, rivalries, alliances and betrayals. It's not surprising that it has spawned a long line of iconic series: The Paper Chase, LA Law, Ally McBeal, Law and Order. The British roll-call is less long and distinguished: apart from Rumpole, which plays for laughs, there's what, Sutherland's Law, Crown Court, Kavanagh QC, and Judge John Deeds, which just aren't as good.

Nor is The Innocence Project. As a concept it might have worked: law lecturer helps his students hone their skills by taking on cases of alleged miscarriage of justice the professionals wouldn't touch. But the execution proved fatal (as executions do). The students were too samey, not in the way real students are samey (overweight, smoking and scruffy), but all earnest and moderately well-kempt and deeply dull (and, one might add, wooden: either they are good actors trying to sound ill-at-ease with the concept of speech, or bad ones). This needn't have proved disastrous (much the same could be said of Torchwood, which gets by on energy).

At the heart of the failure is the story-telling. The nitwits sit in the pub, or sit in a big room with a white board on which they try to puzzle out the details:
"If the cat was on the mat, then .. he ... must .. have been ... sitting"
"Omigod, the witness said he saw the victim draw his table leg and point it at the armed officer"
"Hey, maybe somebody was ... lying!"
Faced with quite simple brainteasers for these quite simple brains to unravel, tension has to be created by irritating obliqueness: so we see someone finding a file on Google - what is it? - we don't know, she just says 'yes' and prints it out, and we don't get to hear the answer until the enxt scene, where she says "I've just found this..."

But even with this, and the addition of extraneous sub-plots to show how each of the students is deeply troubled, sensitive or whatever, there isn't enough matter to fill the time. I was watching an episode without access to a clock, and when it finished I genuinely believed I had sat through a two-hour double episode, and doubted my sanity when I found out it was only 9 o'clock. The pace isn't just glacial (glacial in the global warming sense of moving backwards); every scene, every shot, is just a bit longer than necessary. Two of the team are talking as they walk through the campus; they finished their conversation and move out of shot, but the camera stays to show... nothing.

One can only conclude that the BBC decided to show the series at the moment to demostrate that Robin Hood isn't as bad as all that after all. They seem to have come to their senses, though: they are going to drop the last three episodes, presumably in favour of something better, like Eldorado.

Home life of the famous: Monica Lewinsky

2006-12-09T08:51:00.000Z

Monica returns after a date at the White House, wearing a stained black dress and an odd smile.

FLATMATE: "What's come over you tonight?"

News item: road pricing

2006-12-05T19:40:00.000Z

With the new road pricing scheme, the congestion charge for gridlocked London will rise to £12 per day- that's £2 mileage and £10 storage.

Radio comedy sketch: Marks and Spencer food advert parody

2006-11-20T20:15:00.000Z

MUSIC: 'Samba Pa Ti', Santana

VOICE: This isn't just a raspberry pavlova. This is a pavlova with a meringue base made from free-range eggs, separated, and then beaten ... beaten with birch twigs, until they bleed.

Topped with fresh cream, whipped, ... whipped while chained in a dungeon until it begs for mercy.

And raspberries, plucked by hand and pulped beneath the heel of an 8-inch stiletto.

This isn't just food - this is S & M food.

Desolation Row: Bob Dylan's wasteland

2006-11-17T22:17:00.001Z

Although he now disavows any studious intent in the construction his songs, Dylan's absorption of high and low culture and fashioning it into masterpieces of allusion is undeniable.

"You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images" Wasteland, line 21

I had always thought Desolation Row was his best song in its glorious Highway 61 version, delicately punctuated by acoustic guitar breaks. But now it is bookended by the earlier take, with electric guitar, on the No Direction Home soundtrack CD, and the strummed acoustic Live 1966 version; each is in its way nigh-perfect, but the minor changes in the lyrics emphasise just how precisely right the rest are.

It is a commonplace that the overall shape and structure of the song parallels that of T. S. Eliot's Wasteland, but as I looked at each line possible references came flooding in. This isn't to say that they were in Dylan's head when he wrote it; but they are there in mine when I hear it. I have marked the parallels with ** where I believe they are close enough to represent conscious references, and * the less definite ones.

Lyrics are copyright Bob Dylan.

I

They're selling postcards of the hanging

The bleak thrown-away horror here is masterful. Without the anger driving overt protest, it is as if the commercialisation and celebration of execution were too expected to be worthy of note.

Wasteland reference: line 55 'the Hanged man' [Tarot card reference: tarot=postcard] *

They're painting the passports brown

This line is less clear, although it is notable that the emphasis in this line is on the 'they' at the start: in line 1, it's almost lost, just syaing 'postcards are being sold', but here it is a They who is doing the painting. Brown is associated with soil, shit and death, and 'means noone no good'. My image of this is of visas or identity cards being stamped 'cancelled' before being returned to the now trapped citizens.

Wasteland: line 208 'under the brown fog of a winter noon' and line 211: 'documents at sight'

The beauty parlor is filled with sailors

What are the sailors doing there? Presumably being sexually transgressive. The world is turned upside down.

The circus is in town

I connect circus here with carnival and in turn to a feast of the senses, or debauchery, and with the 'freak show' cover photograph of the Basement Tapes.

Wasteland: line 56 "I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring" *

Here comes the blind commissioner

On first hearing, you automatically interpret this as a commissionaire, dressed up in hotel finery: a blind one might not be much good, but unworthy of note. Actually, thouygh, he quite definitely sings and writes 'commissioner', in which case he is presumably meaning some government official with quasi-judicial functions. The 'blind' then presumably relates to his powerlessness or unthinking fairness (blind justice with her scales).

Wasteland: line 46 "(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)" *

They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants

I connect this with walking the plank: justice is not only blind but imperilled. In the early take, his hand is 'nailed in his pants', perhaps a cricifixion reference, but in the final version it appears the commissioner is choose to keep his hand there, presumably masturbating. And you know that makes you go blind.

And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go

The 'mob' of riot police is another aspect of the overturning of authority, when those supposed to uphold the law are keen to breach it.

As the Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

Wasteland: lines 49/50 "Here is Belladona, the Lady of the Rocks, / The lady of situations" **

II

Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style

The narrative here starts in the midst of a scene: clearly the singer has just said something while flirting with her, and she appears to respond positively.

Wasteland: line 253 "When lovely woman stoops to folly and / Paces about her room again, alone, / She smooths her hair with automatic hand, / And puts a record on the gramaphone." *

And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong To Me I Believe"
And someone says, "You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave."

He's in the wrong place because love and sincerity of feeling do not operate on Desolation Row. The 'someone' who answers is presumably the singer.

And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go

Obviously Romeo declines to leave quietly, and a fight ensues.

Dylan, "Pledging My Time": "They called for an ambulance, and one was sent / Someone must've got lucky, but it was an accident"

Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row

Sweeping up the broken glass from the fight. No Prince Charmings on Desolation Row.

III

Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide

Hidden by gathering doom-laden clouds.

The fortunetelling lady

Wasteland: line 43 'Madam Sosostris, famous clairvoyante' *

Has even taken all her things inside

The time to worry is when psychics panic.

All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain

Cain and Abel are too busy fighting; Quasimodo knows his beloved is dead. But sort of rain can be expected from such an ominous cloud?

And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row

Charity and good fellowship have been replaced by cynicism and hedonism.

IV

Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid

Because she has gone to the Nunnery.

To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness

She chooses death rather than devotion only to God.

And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow

The rainbow is supposed to be a sign of God's ultimate forgiveness, so she hopes for redemption.

She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row

But she is too aware of reality to succumb.

V

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk

Einstein presumably regrets the consequences of his genius.

Wasteland: line 362 "There is always another one walking beside you/ Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded" **

He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet

Einstein is reduced to an idiot savant.

Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row

Fame is transient; nothing endures.

VI

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up

The doctor's name hardly inspires confidence, and neither does the reaction of his patients. He sounds like a Nazi doctor in the death camps.

Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole

The medicinal use of cyanide confirms the interpretation.

And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy On His Soul"

Wateland: line 52 "And this card, which is blank, is something he carries on his back, which I am forbidden to see". *

They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row

VII

Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast

The Last Supper.

The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest

Judas.

They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outta Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"

Casanova is being punished by being crucified.

VIII

Now at midnight all the agents

Wasteland: line 232 "A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare, One of the low on whom assurance sits"

W. H. Auden , 'The Fall of Rome': "Agents of the Fisc pursue/ Absconding tax defaulters"

And the superhuman crew

This wraps up Nietzsche's Superman and Shaw's 'Man and Superman', covering both left-and right-wing politics.

Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do

The hatred for educated people is a good indicator of tyranny, shared by the book-burning Nazis, Mao's Great Leap Forward, and the lunacy of Pol Pot's victimisation of anyone wearing glasses.

Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go

Industrial evil: death factories.
Kafka (the insurance clerk): the Castle, the tyranny of bureaucracy

Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

IX

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn

Wasteland: line 56 "Fear death by water" *

And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower

While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers

Wasteland: line 261 "The pleasant whining of a mandoline / And a clatter and a chatter from within / Where fishmen lounge at noon" *

Between the windows of the sea
Wasteland: line 47 "the drowned Phoenician sailor" *

Where lovely mermaids flow

Wasteland: line 96 "In which sad light a carved dolphin swam"
Prufrock: "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each" *

And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

X

Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)

Wasteland: line 411 "I have heard the key / Turn in the door once and turn once only / We think of the key, each in his prison" *

When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?

Wasteland: line 115 "I never know what you are thinking." *

All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name

My reality is unique to me and we can't even agree on what to call things that are 'out there'.

Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row

The letters here are a reference back to postcards at the start, making the song cyclical.

Luck, chance and the perception of coincidence

2006-11-17T21:25:00.000Z

I have read that it is still inconcievable that a robot can be designed to catch a thrown ball. The casual sophistication of human perception is enormous: to work out from limited sense data not only what is going on in terms of movement, but then to predict and act on it, moving the hand so it is in just the right place. Usually (insert joke about cricketers here). This is achieved by some very clever under-the-bonnet stuff to do with mental spatial models. The human mind is very good at discerning patterns in high-noise data. Sometimes this is meaningful, as when the Greeks observed the planets and calculated their orbits (wrongly, but still); and sometimes it isn't, as when they played joined-the-dots to create the constellations. But being good at making patterns means that we spot 'coincidences' very easily, and are poor at judging probability. That's what keeps astrologers in business: they don't have to be right very often to seem to be on to something. This can be queried: when you look at the people spread-betting on a football match, if 40% bet on each team to win, and 20% bet on a draw, then at least 20% are going to be 'strangely prescient' (this time). And there was also that triumphant moment on the National Lottery when Mystic Meg predicted that those wearing red would be in for a chance tonight etc, but her pyschic powers totally failed to infrom her that that week's draw would be cancelled because of techncial problems.

The reason I raise this is because of the continuing saga of CNPS : Consecutive Number Plate Spotting [up to 48 now- exciting, isn't it?]. And I have borne out Richard Herring's observations on the Gods of CNPS: they are fickle, and they are cruel.

That's the emotional reality of it. Some days, some numbers, they smile, and offer up the numbers like ducks in a row; other days, other numbers, they hide, they cheat, they lurk in shadows, they dive into sidestreets as I approach. And sometimes, to rub in the lack of progress, they arrange parades of the last number, or the one after next, time after time, before getting a glimpse of the right one.

So what's going on, if we start on the basis that the Gods of CNPS (whisper it) don't exist?

Fickleness is easy to explain. As I calculated before, the number of other numbers seen before the right one will vary between 1 and 1000. So some will be long, some short. The long ones of course (duh) last longer, so one's "hours of waiting a long time" seem worse, and so a more memorable. Beyond that, though, I wonder whether the nature of the distribution is disorientating. Most phenomena we experience are bell-curves, where most values occur near the mean (so that rainfall goes up a little, down a little, except this year). But the number-plate probability 'curve' is flat: the extremes are as likely as the mid-range values. This makes it seem even more aribtrary than it is.

The cruelty, the taunting, is even simpler. We are focused on looking for one number, y, but keep seeing the x's we no longer need, or the z's, that we will need next but don't need now. How the Halls of Valhalla must ring with laughter. But, looking at just those three numbers, the likelihood that we see y before z or x is only 1/3. We are more likely to see one of the others. We are just as likely (1/3) to see both of the others before y. No wonder it happens so often. And for repeated numbers: after we have seen an x, there is (again) a 1/3 chance of a y, a 1/3 chance of another x, and 1/3 chance of a z. So building up a conspiracy against me is simple.

I'm not sure how far this gets us, apart from explaining why people are so easily convinced of the workings of fate or luck, and the strength of their convictions, however misplaced.