Category: blog

General blog posts.

  • A philanderer’s tie, a murderer’s shoe

    A philanderer’s tie, a murderer’s shoe

    I’ve successfully avoided seeing Rise of Skywalker at the cinema. After the mediocre Force Awakens and the positively insulting Last Jedi, I know it’s not for me and I count Episodes VII-IX is an Elseworlds in my personal Star Wars universe. It sounds ridiculous (and trivial). And, of course, it is. What I have read, though, is the new Star Wars #1 from Marvel written by Charles Soule and drawn by Jesus Saiz. It’s set at the end of Empire – wow, Empire was 40 years ago! – and shows what happened immediately afterwards. It seemed to capture the tone of the original trilogy which suits my nostalgic self perfectly. Enjoyed it very much.

    Moment of nostalgia: I can vividly remember sitting in front of the tv in my pyjamas watching a BBC (?) documentary about the making of Empire before its release (I guess in 1980). I’d talked my mum into letting me stay up late as I’m sure it was shown on a Sunday night about 9 or 10p.m. and I had school the next day and I was incredibly excited to see clips from the upcoming sequel. In those days I relied on Star Wars Weekly comics and Starburst magazines for news. While I was watching I drew a snow speeder on a page in a reporter’s notebook from what I briefly saw on the screen. It was the first time I saw a snowspeeder and gave it a background full of stars as if it was flying through space. I can still see that blue biro drawing in my memory. I remember being amazed at the scenes of Dagobah and the steps where Vader and Luke cross lightsabers.

    Finished Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey. It’s a well-plotted space opera combined with a detective story and a little horror thrown in. Undoubtedly, I would have enjoyed it far more if I hadn’t seen the tv series, which is pretty faithful in its adaptation. I’m going to try to read all The Expanse short stories and novels over the next month or so.

    It’s back to work tomorrow. For one day! I’m having abdominal surgery on Tuesday which will put me out of action for at least a week or two. I haven’t thought about going into hospital at all and it still seems something that isn’t really going to happen or is going to happen to someone else.

  • There’s a splinter in your eye and it reads “react”

    There’s a splinter in your eye and it reads “react”

    Appropriately, during “Veganuary”, ethical veganism has been recognised by British courts as a philosophical belief and is protected under law against discrimination. Hopefully, this ruling will help Jordi Casamitjana’s unfair dismissal legal action. I’m not sure what I think of the term ethical vegan, though. As a vegan without the need for a preceding adjective, I don’t actually think of people who don’t eat meat or dairy for dietry reasons as actually being vegans. They’re people who currently eat a plant-based diet for their own (cough… selfish) reasons. Veganism is a compassionate belief that animals should not be exploited in any way by humans (the Vegan Society defines it: “Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.“) So, I’m not someone who uses the term dietry vegan at all. But I guess the plant-based dieters are helping us get more vegan food. When I popped into M&S in town they’ve got a large end-of-aisle chiller full of interesting vegan foods. Shame they’re no longer selling the vegan lasagne or their vegan ice-creams any more.

    I doubt the legal ruling will have any impact on the terrible “vegetarian” food that’s served up on teacher training days. I’ll still bring a packed lunch to work, thanks.

    Finished watching Season 2 of Lost in Space this afternoon (Jan’s been under the weather so we didn’t go to Brighton as expected). I’ve enjoyed it, despite the couple of middle episodes that didn’t seem to move the plot on that much. Some of the action sequences have been gripping. I’m still not that keen on the design of the robot and much prefer the one from the classic sixties series. I really do like junk SF far too much.

  • My pockets are out and running about and barking in the street

    My pockets are out and running about and barking in the street

    Fairly productive day overshadowed by the killing of Qassem Suleimani.

    Much brighter day. The local council seem to have abandoned their responsibility in cleaning streets and the pavement outside out how has been carpeted with wet, decomposing leaves for months. Of course, we pay taxes for the council to encourage us to clean our own roads.

    Maybe I’m naive, but I thought it was the villains who went about assassinating their enemies. Terrorists. I thought the good guys were the ones who abide by the rule of law (or at least the pretense of it). If the media’s response is a gauge of how significant the killing of Suleimani seems to be, then there’s going to be trouble. When Johnson’s government is equivocal about the attack and calls for de-escalation then you know that this hasn’t been well-received by the powers that be. Though Trump’s supporters in the US seem to be enthusiastically flag waving.

    At least it took the interminable LBC discussions about Corbyn and the Labour Party off the air today. LBC is a Labour-basher but can be entertaining – in the way that people used to visit Bedlam – in hearing nutty right-wingers phone in. Moderates don’t seem to get much call time. The presenters are excellent as portraying themselves as being even-handed and simply expressing the commonsense of reasonable people. They are, however, incredibly skilled in how they manipulate language. (I’d be interesting to see if anyone does linguistic analyses of the differences in the way that the media reported in the election. We already know that the Tories were reported far more positively than other parties.)

    We have a great little Oxfam bookshop in town that often has some brilliant books. There’s something serendipitous about browsing in a charity bookshop. It doesn’t have the restricted organisation of a bookshop like Waterstones. The books are far more random. I don’t go all the time. Once or twice a month. Today I bought Soren a couple of novels to read (Young Dracula by Michael Lawrence and – what looks like something I’d probably like reading – Tales of Terror from the Black Ship by Chris Priestley) and, for myself, a copy of The Mythology of the British Islands by Charles Squire. I know VERY little about Celtic mythology and it seems to be a pretty good introduction.

    The serendipitous part is that I’m writing a story that needs “fleshing out”. I’ve got the skeleton of the plot and ending more or less figured and just need the “colouring”. I’m not sure I can explain it any better than that. I tend to use Oblique Strategies when I’m writing creatively. “Consult other sources – promising -unpromising” the card told me. Although celtic mythology has absolutely nothing to do with what I’m writing, I have a “sense” that I can use something from the mythology in there somewhere. The story’s set in Britain and needs something mythic going on in the background. Subtly, though. I have a tendency to “sprawl” ideas when I plan and then lose interest. Subtle and simple.

    I read X-men #4 today. It’s definitely an odd comic at the moment. What used to be mutant superheroes punching mutant supervillains when I was a kid, is now characters describing in detail how they will subvert the capitalist world order at the Davos World Economic Forum. Of COURSE it appeals to me – but I’m not sure it’s going to attract the Marvel Cinematic Universes teenage fanboys. Or maybe it is and I’m just being too cynical. Anyhow, Professor X did turn out to be Professor X when he took off the mask. And he was killed. And resurrected.

  • Hey, Captain, don’t you want to buy some bone chains and toothpicks, night wings, or hair chains?

    Hey, Captain, don’t you want to buy some bone chains and toothpicks, night wings, or hair chains?

    Today’s been a comic-reading day mostly.

    Over the Christmas break I’ve been re-reading comics that tie into the recent Doomsday Clock by Johns and Frank. As I always do – it’s a curse – I go back too far, really and also spend too much time reading criticism and interviews. Where I was reading Flashpoint (2011) a few days ago, I’ve now moved further back to DC Universe #0 where Barry Allen returns after a twenty-two year death and will work my way through Final Crisis (2008) and Flash: Rebirth (2008). Eventually I’ll have read up to Doomsday Clock and by then should have a better understanding of it. Or, by then, be completely fed up with it.

    We watched the new Doctor Who episode tonight. It was better than I expected. No, not the story (though I did like the sequences in the alien forest or whatever it was) which stank. It was Sacha Dhawan’s Master who stole the episode. You could tell his character, O, wasn’t the endearing geek he presented himself. He had a full set of Fortean Times after all, which was a dead giveaway. When he revealed himself and showed off the real tissue compressioned O who he carried around in a matchbox, I thought it was great. The last couple of minutes made up for the tedious hour or so that preceded it.

    Doctor Who just needs some good science fiction writers, that’s all. Or horror writers. I’d die for a Ramsey Campbell episode. I really would.

    When you consider how inadequate Doctor Who looks alongside a programme like Lost in Space, you realise how badly the British show needs good scriptwriters. It’s obvious that Lost in Space has a much bigger budget. I don’t think money is the determining factor here, though. There are lots of expensive programmes that are just junk. Lost in Space is, like Doctor Who, character-driven. But it’s been written by people who can actually construct an engaging plot. Yes, there are dull moments in Lost in Space, but it never descends into the silliness Doctor Who gets caught up in. Maybe it’s British mainstream comedy. I’m not sure. Certainly, I’m enjoying the American series far more than any season of new Dr Who.

    Alice worries we spend too long in front of screens. I’m not sure.

    At the moment I’m trying to read 10% of a novel and 10% of a non-fiction book a day. Perhaps I should add that to my New Year’s resolutions. Last year I didn’t read nearly as much as I wanted to. I used to read quickly, but now seem to take ages reading. I wonder if it’s anything to do with my eyesight?

    I also found out that Syd Mead, the futuristic designer of worlds like Blade Runner and Tron, has died. When I was a child, his visions of vehicles of the future and their environments was what I expected to drive and live in. I’ve never understood why cars look so boring when they could so easily look like a Syd Mead vehicle.

  • Fly to carry each his burden, we are young despite the years

    Fly to carry each his burden, we are young despite the years

    So, it’s the first of January. Another new year.

    2020 begins with me reading trash science fiction and listening to some presenter on the radio go on about how terrible the Labour Party is. You’d have thought that the media would have moved on to other things, but no. Looks like they’re going to kick and kick at Labour until they get a moderate leadership with centrist policies. Can’t let the general public start thinking that there are other ways of living other than in an unfair, unequal Britain.

    It’s murky outside. Dark and misty. Christmas and the New Year celebrations are over. Streets are empty. Silent. It’s the day after.

    We watched Out of Blue, an adaptation of Amis’ Night Train. I read the novel about 20 years ago and can’t really remember it. I’m sure it wasn’t as dull as this movie. Seemed like a straight-to-VHS 1980s movie.

    Over the last few days I’ve thought about New Year’s resolutions. So far, I’ve only got one. I really need to have better New Year’s resolutions.

  • William Blake at Tate Britain

    William Blake at Tate Britain

    As soon as I heard that the Tate was exhibiting a “once in a generation” collection of William Blake’s work, I knew it was an event I simply couldn’t miss. I’ve read a great deal of Blake’s poetry and taught Songs of Innocence and Experience a couple of times – but I’m sure I’ve never actually seen any actual art. It’s always been reproductions.

    While Blake’s art certainly didn’t disappoint, the exhibition itself was a little… flat… and somewhat dull. While you get a good sense of Blake’s growth as an artist – the exhibition is set out chronologically (with a recreation of his 1807 one-room exhibition as well as a huge digital display) – what you don’t get is any sense of attempting to interpret his poetic vision or any sense (other than a passing reference to his concerns about slavery and ambiguous comments about Pitt and Nelson). There’s neither sense of Blake’s politics presented at all (bear in mind was involved in the Gordon Riots, supported the French Revolution and was prosecuted for sedition) nor in his innovations in printing. Aside from Blake’s mythologising and obsucre symbolism, I’ve become incredibly interested in how Blake engraved and printed. Nothing at all about the process of engraving. Not even a video played in a cubby-hole. Maybe I expect too much. After all, Jerusalem has quite a complex relationship with English people. In the Age of Brexit maybe it’s less controversial to simply appeal to an audience looking for Tyger Tyger, Jerusalem and old English stuff. Among the books sold in the extensive exhibition shop were works by Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Philip K Dick, which I understand, but find odd being sold in such a thoughtless, visionariless, prosaic (here I’m struggling for better adjectives) exhibition.

    What I found most striking about Blake’s work was the size of the pieces. The pages of Songs of Innocence and Experience, for example, were tiny: smaller than postcard size. To view the exhibition took two hours and felt like a slow-moving Post Office queue. Only one person at a time could really look at each piece. I was also struck by how Blake’s personal style of engraving (which often seems quite primitive and rough) was put into sharp relief by his few incredibly detailed commercial pieces. Blake’s colouring also left an impression: the dark tones and rich reddy hues particularly.

    The final piece of the exhibition was Europe: A Prophecy. It’s the central image of the exhibition and used on the Tate’s publicity material. I’m not sure if it was placed at the end as some odd Brexit comment. It was a very small work and left me bemused about what the curator/s wanted to say about Blake.

  • Today, are we all Young Werthers?

    Before the rise of modern information technology, the shaping of a person would have likely happened through the local community – parents, elders, priest, officials – and I wonder if the culture was relatively static. Of course, there would have been fashions in culture but I get the impression these gradually spread and were longer-lasting. Picture it this way: La Roman de la Rose, most likely based on earlier oral stories is written by Guillaume de Lorris in the early 1200s. It spreads through France and abroad over the next 100 years. It’s translated into other languages, notably by Chaucer in around 1360, possibly Dante and van Aken as well. It’s popularity is maintained throughout Europe for at least another 100 years. So, too, spreads and transforms the conception of courtly love. There’s no doubt that La Roman de la Rose influenced how men and women behaved in love. I also wonder whether this even spread the idea of romantic love itself as an aspect of a person’s individuality?

    Progress in transport and – above all – the printing press enabled culture to be spread faster and, perhaps, the shaping of people’s beliefs and their self-identity. Remember, the printing press – much like the internet today – was seen as allowing people access to potentially dangerous ideas. The faster the transmission of ideas (printed) the easier it is to share ideas, stories, music that create a cultural sensibility that affects how people think and behave.

    I’m writing this sitting in a Starbucks listening to the music they play that sets the mood. Some teenage girls have been sitting near me looking at their phones and chattering about Love Island (which “boy” they like most) and this is what’s making me reflect on the effect of that certain combination of mood-music, social media and the presentation of romantic love for these teenagers. Where conceptions of courtly love took hundreds of years to spread through European society, the romance presented by Love Island seems relatively new and has got its claws itself into British youth culture rapidly.

    I’m not saying that this sort of “influencing” or “shaping” of the way in which people behave is anything new. It’s how total it is.

    In 1774, Goethe famously published The Sorrows of Young Werther, a fictional account of a sensitive young man who – unable to have the woman he loves and is rejected by German aristocratic society – shoots himself. It was an immediate sensation and led to the “Wether Effect” throughout Europe: men dressing like Werther, products sold as tie-ins to the Werther craze and even an epidemic of suicides in the fashion of Wether with a copy of the book beside the bodies (it’s claimed nowadays that the suicides were an early example of a media moral panic).

    Even the “Werther Effect” – and its melancholic sensibility – took several years to spread through and influence European young men. And I’m sure that the numbers of men involved were relatively small. It’s the way that men’s (romantic) identities were influences that interests me.

    Also, I think the post-World War Two sub-cultural groups (mods, rockers, glams, teddies, punks) are somehow linked to this developing cultural influencing of an individual’s identity. The groups that I came into contact when I was a youth (goths, New Romantics, indie kids) didn’t seem to get replaced as the internet came on the scene. Cinema, TV, radio, magazines, comic books and records no doubt created people through the hegemony of mainstream culture – but there was an identifiable presence of “outsiders” who thought and behaved beyond the mainstream. They were genuinely different. From the 1990s onwards – and it seems to me to be the technology of the internet assisted this – these types of “outsider” groups disappeared somehow or seemed assimilated directly into mainstream culture. Look at how quickly – within two or three years – hipster culture became a defining cultural phenomena in the mainstream. It’s as if everything is mainstream now.

    It could be that I’m getting old. Looking at the Top 40 UK Singles Chart, which is where you’d find something that would register as sub-cultural, its completely full of pop (singers like Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Drake, Lewis Capaldi as well as dance music and rnb). There doesn’t seem to be anything different from 10 or 20 years ago and certainly nothing that would make your dad shout at the tv: “What is this rubbish? It’s not music!” Lots of people have commented on the strangeness of hearing a pop song for the first time and having that impression that you’ve heard it before.

    It’s almost like there’s a consensus in culture that’s existed for the last 20-30 years of which Love Island is the latest manifestation. I wonder whether (to get political) whether it accompanies the Age of Neoliberalism in which we seem to be living. It influences totally.

    I’m rambling now. So I’ll stop.

  • It’s Starting Again!

    Time to get my web site up and running once more.

    Here’s my new blog. Hosted by HostKoala.

    Over the last year or so I’d let my web host go mainly because the cost far outweighed what I was actually using it for (they were ripping me off for sure and it’s ended up with my old domain being lost – so I’ve just set up a new one). I’d used micro.blog as a substitute and tried using sites like Medium but missed keeping a decent blog site for all the random stuff I was keeping. HostKoala seems incredibly good value for money and – so far – seems a much better experience than my old hosts.

    So its Year Zero again. A very long time since I’ve had to start from scratch. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to migrate anything from the old blog or not. I’ve had a presence on the web from around 2000 and I must have lost hundreds of pieces of writing to the digital ether.

  • Thursday 25th of April 2019

    Just finished reading “Riding the White Bull” by Caitlin Kiernan. Initially disorienting, it’s a SF detective story with Lovecraftian undertones. I’m shocked someone in Hollywood hasn’t got hold of this as it would make a fantastic movie. #ss365

  • Monday 22nd of April 2019

    Set up an Acer R13 Chromebook for a relative. I’m so impressed by the build quality and how user-friendly it is for non-techie users. I’m more or less convinced that at some point in the future when my Macbook needs replacing I’ll get a Chromebook.