Loved this decaying, dancing Death figure, right on the wall of the Kirk itself, just a few feet from the burial plot of Greyfriar's Bobby (which was surrounded by Japanese tourists with massive cameras bigger than their heads).

This was one of the crumbling mausoleums I photographed in Greyfriars today. I was playing with it in Photoshop and gave it this over-contrasted and false colour enhancement which I thought looked cool. And I just loved this - one of many little skull and bones sculptures dotted around the boneyard.

Virtual Vamps

Cool! Good news item from our news editor Sandy (does she stand in front of her desk when doing the news like the trendy TV newsfolk?) about a new page on the BBC's BBCI for Vampire material. Cool! Can never get enough of that Gothic neck-biting action - thanks for the link, Sandy.

I hate everything about...

Watching the Kerrang channel while typing away here and on came a blast from my past: Ugly Kid Joe and Everything About You. By the great grizzled gods of heavy rock, I ain't heard that one in ages. Instant nostalgia trip as I used to dance my heavy metal socks off to that one regularly with my college chum Metal Mel (who had pics of herself abckstage with just about everyone in rock and roll). We used to headbang till the sun came up every weekend at Madison's in Edinburgh (alas now a bloody restaurant!) back in our student days in the 90s. Earsplitting fun as we'd rock our hearts out together in biker boots, leathers and bandanas (so not a big style change for me today really, eh?), long hair flying to Ugly Kid Joe, Nirvanna, Pearl Jam, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Rage Against the Machine... Soooo much fun, best club I ever visited, we had so many good nights there with the metal and Goth crowds, stomped and moshed at rock gigs then reviewed them for the college rag (yes, reviewing is something I've done in one form or another for a long time - one day some bugger will pay me for it - I can do it better than most of the divits in half the newspapers and mags I read, he said modestly (but it's true)). Ah, back when life was carefree and fun and I had long flowing locks and there were no problems that couldn't be alleviated by a good doobie and a headbanging dance with a hot rock babe.

And yes, before you ask, I did dance around the flat to it, much to the amusement of the cats. Fortunately for my downstairs neighbour I didn't have my cowboy boots on - those Cuban heels on a wooden floor; noisy! Ah, sweet nostalgia. What was it dear old Spike Milligan once said of nostalgia? With the present so disturbing, the future so unsure and frightening no wonder the past often looks so inviting to us. Nice memories of those times, but the me of that time would be looking at the me of today and thinking, fuck, this isn't where you're supposed to be, what happened? Good question - I don't know and have even less idea how to change it. Like Homer once said "I used to rock and roll every night and part every day. Now I'm lucky if I can find half an hour a week in which to get funky."

Still, right after that was the new video from the Offpsring, with digital animation over the faces of the lead singer and his dog - totally fucking cool song and superb video. Moral to this tale: ignore the real world and live in books, films and rock and roll fantasy land. Peter Pan with thrash guitar and pounding drums (and lots of alcohol and doing rude things to Wendy after our dance, oh yeah, baby).

Book clubbing

The March meeting of the SF Book Group went very well, with a bigger turnout. I think word is getting round - new faces there and we’re acquiring a good number of regular participants which is great. Everyone seems happy to participate - no-one just sitting there too shy to have at least a little say, which is terrific ‘coz Alex and I don’t want to do all the talking.

Last night was the turn of the great Alfred Bester and the Stars My Destination (originally published as Tiger!Tiger!) and was the choice of Fiona, our Geeklette who has since escaped the evil tentacles of Waterstone‘s (everyone gets out but me, I get Steve McQueened on the barbed wire each time I try). I was very glad I had to re-read this _ I last read it nearly 20 years ago and only recalled a few broad strokes and none of the wonderful detail. Despite being written mid-50s it’s still a very fresh and relevant read. In the Orion SF Masterworks edition (a damned good series of classic SF re-issues) Neil Gaiman writes an introduction, noting how influential this book had been especially on the 80s Cyberpunk generation of writers such as Bill Gibson, especially with it’s corporate-run future.

Actually there were so many little details that been mined (or reworked as a homage or just plain ripped off) by other works over the decades since its publication. The starship which smuggles illegal immigrants for a huge fee then dumps them out of the airlock was reused as Chump Dumping by perps in Judge Dredd’s Mega City One. The blind woman who sees in infra-red and sonar seems a little too close to the way Daredevil ‘sees’ for comfort. The central character, Gully Foyle is a real anti-hero with pretty much no moral compulsions, just his burning desire for revenge (which makes the finale all the more unexpected and fascinating) - obviously a character distilled from the violent anti-heroes of 40 and 50s noir detective fiction (hell, he makes Richard Morgan’s Kovacs look like a softie). One of the few places Bester (who is honoured by having Walter Koenig’s character named after him in Babylon 5) got his very believable future society wrong is in the plastic surgeon’s reaction to Foyle’s facial tattoos - he has heard of such things but never seen them. No body art of augmentation? Boy, he got that one wrong, big time! But I guess we can let him go for that since an American author writing such a critical novel of arch-capitalist society in the 1950s is pretty amazing (no wonder he wrote it in the UK, probably worried McCarthy would have had him up in front of the House Un-American Committee - today we are far more civilised and would Ashcroft would just arrest him without charge). Followed by a few jars with some of the group in the enjoyable Victorian environs of the Guildford Arms sipping Bitter and Twisted.

Burning Bush

Which brings me neatly to the latest book which arrived in the mail from me from Granta - the Bush Hater’s Handbook (he says lovely things about that warm and fuzzy man Ashcroft too). Jack Huberman has thoughtfully arranged his compendium of reasons why Bush is evil in a handy A-Z order, so you can pick a subject to rant about easily (obviously he had to select subject areas or it could have been a book the size of the Paris telephone directory). Started reading it this afternoon while munching some lunch al-fresco in front of an 18th century crumbling tomb in Greyfriar’s Kirkyard.

I was having some fun wandering around one of my favourite Boneyards (sorry just read and reviewed volume two of the wonderful Boneyard graphic novel and am in humorous gothic mode) and taking pictures of some of the excellent - and macabre - carvings on some of the larger tombs and monuments. Dancing skeletons, skulls, angels - no I am still describing the funerary carvings, not the tattoos on a biker’s arm. Most of them crumbling away which makes them all the more atmospheric.

Greyfriars is, of course, home to the Mackenzie poltergeist, situated around the tomb of ‘bluidy MacKenzie’, which is ironically next to the Covenanter’s Prison, a group he persecuted mercilessly, earning his sobriquet. I noticed the gleaming new padlock on the doors to his family tomb after the theft of a skull last week (see earlier blog) which lead to two kids being charged (and now found guilty) with a law not used in over a century - violating a sepulchre. Cool. I also passed the family tomb of the great architectural family of the Adams (Adams Family, geddit?) before paying my respects to the much simpler tomb of Hutton, the Scottish Enlightenment scientist and father of modern geology. I removed no body parts from anyone present, living, dead or in-between. Not that anyone can prove anyway, moo hoo hah hah. Then off to visually catalogue more pubs of Edinburgh with my digital camera (work in progress, not just a pub crawl).

Sleep of the just

What smegging sadist decided to hold National Sleep Week at the same time as the bloody clocks went forward for British Summer Time and we all lost an hour in bed? That's just sick! Well, I have a week off and I will do my national duty and have nice, long snoozes until the cats insist that I get up to feed them and pay attention to them (before they go back to sleep of course).

Went off this afternoon to watch the remake of Dawn of the Dead. Enjoyable enough bit of old-fashioned horror, but added nothing new whatsoever to the original story or the genre - in other words a remake for the sake of a remake. Sure there is an implied criticism of capitalism and of suburbia as another form of voluntary zombie-ism, but not as much as the original contained. The only new thing is the zombies being speeded up - fast, ferocious and dangerous. But Danny Boyle already did this a few years back with 28 Days, so... Still, the rapid - and unxeplained, like the original - collapse of normal life into utter chaos is well done. Being a horror purist I obviously prefer the original Romero version, but this was diverting enough for a couple of hours and will kill some time for me until Shaun of the Dead comes out. Coming from the team behind the fantastic Spaced series it promises much more than this remake offered. A trailer for it this afternoon was fun - Simon Pegg arguing over which of his vinyl albums could be used as a deadly frisby to slice through zombie heads. No, not that one! Oh, it looks great!

The trailer for Van Helsing looked good too - very silly but enjoyable stuff by the sound of it. Big feature in Empire this month although I think Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing looks far more like Quincey Morris than Van Helsing. But it has Dracula, the WolfMan and the Frankenstein monster plus Kate Beckinsale in tight corsets (killing rather than playing vampires this time round after the limp Underworld). The pictures of Dracula showed Frears using someof his imagery from The Mummy in respect of the jaw opening the mouth far wider than a human should be able to. Since his Dracula has a whole row of big, sharp teeth and not just fangs this makes him look like a shark. Or, pretty much like the vampires in the stonkingly good 30 Days of Night graphic novel.

Anyway, midly entertained by the chainsawing of appendages, shooting of skulls and general cannibalism I toddled off for a long, slow couple of pints (guest ale: Rocketeer - how could a geek resist and ale with that kind of name?), feet up, watching the world go by and reading (or re-reading actually, but it was 20 years ago) Alfred Bester's classic Stars my Destination (published under the name Tiger! Tiger! years back) for this month's SF Book Group tomorrow night at work.

Mad lady

Mrs Mad, who is the most frequent of our alarmingly large number of loony visitors to our bookstore (for some reason our bookstore attracts a lot of rather mad people. Not just eccentric, plain fruit and nut. As if the mad staff weren't enough). Her latest little outburst was "can someone please switch me off? I don't want to be a Boer's wife with no money." Well, quite - I mean who would? She paid a return visit later in the day. She walks slowly up to the desk where I am working and stops in front of me. She produces a chocolate bar and unwraps it with slow deliberation, looking at me all the time, rustling the wrapper loudly. "Tell me you can't eat in the shop and I'll leave,"she tells me. Okay, you can't. She turns around and leaves. Last week she didn't even speak - she came in, looked at me then performed a small jig then left without a word.

SHAKEN, NOT STIRRED

Following on the heels of miscarriages of justice where so-called expert testimony lead to the imprisonment of a number of mothers charged with infanticide when their babies had actually suffered cot-death syndrome this week has seen a new blow to the British legal system over shaken baby cases. Once again it appears so-called expert testimony which is often offered in lieu of actual witnesses or evidence may have lead to a strong off wrongful convictions.

We at the Gazette can now reveal that a little-discussed but widespread crime is about to cause further embarrassment to the judicial system. Domestic abuse is all too widespread, hidden behind closed doors. Even more widespread is Domestic Appliance Abuse and Mis-use (or DAAM as social psychologists refer to it). Many home appliances are tormented and abused by their owners, of this there is little doubt. Newspapers have all too often carried distressing photographs of the battered bodies of fridges and washing machines lying abandoned in some anonymous lay-by. Most likely to be abused however are humble vacuum cleaners. Stressed from a long day of work normally placid homeowners take our frustrations on their Hoovers when they fail to work properly. This has become known as Shaken Vac Syndrome.

I am a mole and I live in a hole

The mole in question was disturbed however by the presence of several members of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in a bloody big hole in Mexico. And then the Mexican police, soldiers, rescue teams and immigration officials. And a lot of media. First it was a group of British scientists trapped by rising waters in a cave. Then suddenly it was armed forces personnel.

Then not only was it soldiers but it was admitted they had not informed the Mexican government that they had British soldiers training in their country. Then they refused a Mexican rescue team and instead waited for British rescue cave divers to be flown half way round the world.

Bit, no, they insist, there's nothing fishy going on, honest. I mean, would the British authorities lie to us or our allies?

Does Pinnochio have a big nose?

The dog and the cat
Had a wee pet bat
They used to let it out
To flutter round the flat.

It would fly by night
Until it hit the light
And landed stone dead
On the mat.

e.g. thribb, aged 73 & 3/4

"I'm just a bloke who works in a bookshop and spends his nights eating cereal."

Manny (Bill Bailey) in Black Books.

I love Black Books

Quick as silver

After being diverted by Peter F Hamilton’s great block of a book, Pandora’s Star - an excellent read as ever; a real slow powder-burn building to a really nail-biting and (almost literal) cliff-hanger - I returned this week to the literary delights of Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver. Yes, two 900-page tomes back-to-back, I am a literary masochist, but they are both bloody brilliant books. And The Confusion, the sequel to Quicksilver is next on my list - I’ll get my vamp fangs into that on my week off (with the second Sookie Stackhouse Vampire Mystery, the Living Dead in Dallas, for a little fun Gothic diversion on the side).

For anyone who doesn’t know about it, Quicksilver is set mostly during the Restoration period. Stewart politics, revolution in society, religion and the birth of Western science. Isaac Newton, Charles II, William of Orange, Robert Hooke. Escaped Turkish harem slaves who carve out lives as Mata-Hari spies between protestant and Catholic powers while dabbling in Amsterdam stock markets and befriending Huygens and von Liebniz and a picaroon (ain’t that a marvellous word?), king of the vagabonds involved in all sorts of scrapes. Natural philosophers and power politics. Hell, there are even Barbary Coast pirates thrown in for good measure! Add to this All of this told in luscious details with wonderfully fluid prose which manages the astonishing trick of giving often enormous amounts of rich detail to create a vibrant world which you are IN while not compromising the narrative. There are even sections performed as plays of the period and Stephenson’s disclaimer at the end that any readers who posses a time machine and travel back to the period should not totally rely on the information contained in the novel is delicious (there is a fine vein of humour running through the entire massive edifice - a construct Wren would be proud of - of the book).

Then this afternoon I was working on the upper floor of the bookstore. A customer asked me if I could recommend a good science-history, preferably in HB for a birthday present for her friend, who is eccentric, intelligent and quirky. Hmmm - well, what about this nice hardback biography of Robert Hooke? Perfect. Two hours later an elderly gentleman asks if we have any books on someone I may not have heard of - Robert Hooke? I present him with two books to choose from and discuss Stewart period science with him. Reading - truly the key to knowledge! And all knowledge is useful, as these small examples illustrate to any silly enough to doubt it.

But it wasn’t over yet - in another little coincidence I was watching the always enjoyable and ebullient Adam Hart-Davis on a documentary channel. It was an episode of What the Stuarts Did For Us (bah humbug, that Anglicised spelling of Stewart - pah!) and what did we have tonight? Well, Robert Hooke and his magnifying lenses, using the first microscopes to examine a whole new world no human eyes had ever seen… I love it went life throws up lots of little coincidences like these. The latter half of the show described how the early telescopes allowed the Stuart scientists to see that the moon was not a smooth globe but a world itself. And if it was another world, could they not voyage to it?

Knowing their elementary science was not up to such a fantastic voyage they did something we’ve been doing for centuries now - they explored it in their imagination, with some of the earliest science fiction. My beloved Cyrano de Bergerac travelled through the ether of course, but so did many others of the period. Even the great Johannes Keppler, the apostle of the legendary astronomer Tycho Brahe used his mind not only to calculate that the orbits of the planets were elliptical and not circular (and like his near-contemporary Newton his laws still stand up pretty well centuries later even under the scrutiny of space-age technological probing) but also to voyage to the moon, long before dear old Jules Verne fired his cannon at the glowing face of Diana.

“Therefore it happeneth commonly, that such as value themselves by the greatness of their wealth, adventure on crimes, upon hope of escaping punishment, by corrupting public justice, or obtaining pardon by money, or other rewards.”

Hobbes, Leviathan

Doesn’t this describe Bush and most of his cronies with eerie accuracy? The more things change, the more they stay the same…

2-D

Caught a new episode of 2DTV this week. For those who haven't seen it, it's a short 20 minutes set of animated comedy sketches, riffing mostly on the week's news items, as well as celeb gossip and entertainment. They've been doing a great Bush as an excited imbecile child-man before but now they've teamed him up in his sketches with Arnold Schwarzenneger it's even funnier.

Especially good this week was the Sex in the City sketch - Jane Austen style. Oh my, Lord Bigsworth has written me another letter! Another one? That's the 3rd in four years, the man is a brute! Well, I was getting out of the carriage and my ankle showed the other day... All of this genteel discussion was brought to a halt by Lady Samantha telling her gentle lady friends that she was with the Horse Guards and fucked all of htem all night, including the horses... This was far more entertaining to me than the real Sex and the City show. Yes, I know my dear SweetRouge will bristle, as will Melanie and most of my other female chums who adore this odd show. But I never got into it. I tried, but I think you have to be a girl, it's as simple as that! I found all of the characters terribly shallow - a woman whose main worry in life is the right man and the right pair of expensive shoes (not necessarily in that order) holds little interest for me and even the frequent nudity was not enough to get me watching, and it's rarely I pass up some gratutious nudity! However, forget this girly show - Black Books has returned to Channel Four! Oh, if only we could run our boosktore like that...

Knit one, purl two, bitch three

Isn't this the greatest title? It'a a knitting book for 'a new generation' called Stich'n'Bitch!!! Heheheheheh

Thought this might be fun - what sexy woman am I test!!! Good grief, it's almost kind of accurate...


You are smart and sexy!


Which Ultimate Beautiful Woman are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Out of his skull

A fantastically bizarre tale which could have come from a macabre and phantasmagorical 19th century Gothic novel. Two young ne’er do wells have become the first criminals in over 100 years to be charged with disturbing a sepulchre. A tour guide spotted them running from Greyfriars Kirkyard in the middle of Edinburgh’s Old Town. It turned out they had broken into the MacKenzie tomb, broken open the coffina nd taken a skull. Known as ‘bloody MacKenzie’ because of his vicious enthusiasm in dealing with covenanters, the occupant of the tomb was not a terribly nice man. The tale has wonderful overtones of other Boneyard visitors in Edinburgh’s foggy past - the Resurrectionists, also known as body snatchers. A dead body is not property under law and so cannot legally be stolen. However centuries ago to combat such problems it was made illegal to disturb a properly sealed tomb or interfere with a correctly interred corpse, hence this old charge being dusted down from the statute books to charge these little hooligans. No doubt it will eventually become a part of the tales told by the ghost walk guides and be absorbed into the city’s mythos. I rather like that.

This area is also now infamous for the alleged MacKenzie Poltergeist which is reputed to attack tourists being taken round the anicent Kirkyard. Greyfriars is one of my favourite spots in Edinburgh. It’s steeped in Scottish history, large and small events. Much of the National Deed of Covenant was signed here by simple farmers, wealthy merchants, practical engineers, doctors of the university and lords and ladies. It’s also home to the famous Greyfriars Bobby, the loyal dog who sat watch each day on his master’s grave and whose statues is surrounded by small armies of American and Japanese tourists daily taking snaps. Part of the Flodden Wall is here - hastily built fortifications for the city after a terrible defeat brought the threat of invasion and sacking, as is the covenanter’s prison. Many of the tombs are magnificent examples of Gothic carving, with skulls and dancing skeletons making mockeries of human mortality, now crumbling in their turn like the bodies they cover. I spent many happy hours using these for my student photography work (followed by visit to Greyfriars pub afterwards of course) - these tombs look fabulous blown up on grainy black and white. I must go and play there with my new digital camera this spring. I took my dear chum Jan there when she was over from the US staying with me - I knew she had the right Gothicky-vampish sensibilities to enjoy it. I also knew she’d enjoy the nearby pubs afterwards too, of course. An ancient, mouldering graveyard and then a nice pint of ale - do I know how to show a girl a good time or what?

Bad year

So far this year has pretty much been a lousy one. Someone I really liked and thought liked me stamped all over my feelings and left me utterly crushed and depressed. The bastards who call themselves Edinburgh City Council are trying to take me to court for money the claim I owe them for repairs to my block of flats which the rpevious resident was suppsoed to pay. They very nicely shoved a court summons through my door (not even in an envelope, sticking out for anyone passing to pick up and read). DOn't bother phoning me or sending a letter, just take him to court like he's a common fucking criminal. Nice treatment, huh? One of my dearest friends is terribly ill and having to undergo an awful lot of seriously nasty treatment to ger her better (and she will get better or I'll find God ro whoever runs the universe and ram a Claymore right up their arse - sideways). And as if this isn't enough - and the year is only three months old so far - a big old chunk of filling and tooth just broke off today (I know, mild by the standards of the first three troubles, but just seems to be a general pattern of lots of crap things happening to me but never good things right now) and, after this weekend an even more depressing humiliation - Scotland getting totally buggered 31-nil by France. Not a single point while playing on their own home ground in Murrayfield rugby stadium in Edinburgh. How crap is that? Scotland's rugby team have hit a new low... Sigh, I remember the glory days of only a few years ago when we beat everyone and took the Grand Slam, utterly unstoppable... Now I suspect my old school's First XV could crush them. The other blows this year were terrible, but this feels like a stake in my cold, black heart ....

Thank goodness for cats and chocolate...

On which note Gordon and I took my chum Melanie to the Royal Museum last weekend, It was Mel's birthday and she's an even bigger cat person than I am. By which I mean she loves cats not that she turns into a jaguar or leopard when sexually aroused like the protagonist of Val lewton's Cat People. Unless there's something she's not telling me and htose claw marks on her once pristine Habitat sofas wer enot caused by Zag and Dizzy at all... Anyway, we went to the Cats: a History of predators exhibition at the museum. Excellent stuff, although obviously aimed as much at kids as adults, so we had to negotiate our way through lots of toddlers running around. I found one cat which is called a Gordon Cat - hey my very own Clan Cat!!!! Coooollllll! In fact it's cool for cats... Next to a display explaining why cats from domestic to lions sleep so much of the day (because they can) they had a huge cat-basket, full of giants cushions for kids to take a catnap! Even had little tiger suits to wear (they didn't fit me, alas).

Great fun but more than a little worrying just how many of the creatures featured were on the endangered list. And not just big cats in Africa or Asia, even here in Europe. The Iberian Lynx is thought to be down to about 150 animals on the Spanish peninsula. They live often among trees from which cork is harvested. You'd think now more plastic caps are used for wine bottle they would be safer, right? Wrong - when they harvested cork they had to replant to keep up supplies. Now they don't need them they don't replant and farmers are clearing the land for agriculture, decimating the habitat of the lynx. Fortunately my moggies suffer no such intrusion into their habitat.

After sampling some more exhibits in the musuem we headed off to the nearby Elephant House (one of several cafes in Edinburgh which is claimed as the one where JK Rowling famously wrote her first Harry Potter novel) and enjoyed a nice chat over good coffee and even better chocolate cake with marshmallow bits in it. Mel scandalsied me by asking for a low-cal cake. There is no such thing, I told her. And if there were I would hunt down the chef responsible and impale him on a sharp stake just like Uncle Vlad used to do, cover him in whipped cream and let hungry cats loose on him. Low-cal cake indeed! And on her birthday??? Needless to say Doctor Joe's wisdom prevailed and much yummier cake was consumed by all, after which we went for a wander, got some nice CDs for a bargain in good old Fopp then some booze. Pretty good day really. Oh, wait, maybe good things do happen occassionally :-)!

Clarke

Quite amusing to watch the reports of Richard Clarke, a former advisor to no less than four presidential administrations (including three Republican presidents) sticking the boot into Bush, Chenyney, Rice et al. However, to those of us who have read up on these things these allegations that Bush ignored his own 'terrorism Czar's' warnings over an imminent Al-Queda attack until it was too late, then decided to bomb Iraq even although they knew it had nothing to do with 9-11 are not new. They have been reported quite a lot, just not terribly loudly and certainly not by most of the US media who are still largely running scared and mostly failing to live up to their role as the fourth estate. In particular reports that the outgoing Clinton administration team were desperately trying to pass on intelligence warnings to Bush's teams as they took over but were rebuffed have been common in some areas - Al Franken covered it pretty well in the excellent Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them - but not as often as the outright lies the incoming administration was spreading, such as claiming the offices of the White House had been trashed by petulant Democrats before they left. Gee, this fantasy muckspreading must have taken up soooo much time and left none for checking up on the safety of the nation...

Of course they are all rounding on him, claiming it's just to raise the profile of his new book, Against All Enemies. Now I am sure he is raising his book's profile, but that doesn't lessen these charges. And frankly trying to rubbish him now is rather pathetic considering no less than three Republican presidents - Reagan, Bush Snr and Jnr were all happy to use his services. In short he is as establishemnt as they come. Condoleeza Rice tried to practically blame him for 9-11 happening on the new today, facing the camera with her cold, soulless stare (doesn't she have cold, dead eyes like the zombies of a Romero film?). Wow, convincing damage control their from the Queen Bitch of the WHite House. I'm sure Rush Limbaugh and other lard-assed right-wingers with a bigger bigot-gland than brain will be thumping out imaginative rebuttals all week on talk radio.

This week's word association from Subliminal:

1. Wife:: strife
   
2. Criminal:: fun-lovin'
   
3. Campaign:: circus
   
4. Infection:: yeuch
   
5. Portland:: where bottles of port come from
   
6. NASCAR:: give me a decent motorbike anyday
   
7. IMAX:: BIG SCREEN!!!!
   
8. Martian:: Uuuuuu-llllllll-aaaaaaa!!!!
   
9. Nike:: exploiters of stupid customers and 3rd world children
   
10. Trial:: Kafka
    

Guinness is good for you

Okay, a day late for Saint Pat's Day, but loved this article where scientists have proved that in some beers the bubbles do indeed flow downwards. It had been thought this may be an optical illusion, especially given the fact the people who reported observing this bizarre phenomena were all utterly pissed at the time. In some groundbreaking research the cause of scientific knowledge was furthered once more as state-of-the-art digital camera technology found that the bubbles did flow down as well as up and the effect was most marked in heavy ales, stouts and, naturally Guinness.

I recall introducing my dear friend from Michigan, Jan, to Guinness (and Caley 80 shilling and many other fine ales). I told her to watch the waves of bubbles undulating sensously in the Guinness as it slowly settled and told her in a couple of minutes it would magically settle into clear-cut jet-black and white pint. She was most impressed by this Celtic alchemy and more impressed by the beer itself and sought it out on a later visit to Dublin (that's my girl, she was well-trained). My non-beer drinking chum Stephanie in Florida however had to have the concept of Guinness explained to her. When the World Cup was on in the US a few years back one of the Eire games was in Orlando. Steph noticed some of her local pubs had put up lots of green like Saint Pat's Day and were now serving some 'weird beer and this shit was like, black!'. Naturally I used my cosmopolitan knowledge to explain to her what she had just seen.

Well, despite the chill winds from the Forth it looked like spring was really on the way, as these prety (and brave) flowers sticking their heads up show (right in front of the White Tree of Gondor no less)



but by today at the (empty) beach on North Berwick taking Bruce for a walk we were back to more normal slate-grey clouds coming in over the Forth from the North Sea and past the Bass Rock, now a seabird sanctuary but once a monastic retreat way back in the 8th and 9th centuries, then later a prison and fortress (in fact the fortress was taken over by Jacobite prisoners and held for several years until their impressed opponents negotiated an 'honourable' surrender). You can check a webcam from the island here.

New dog, old tricks?

Finally, months and months of canine withdrawal ended for my mate Gordon as he finally gave in and got a new dog. He's been volunteering to walk various hounds at the weekend in the oprhaned doggy home and pondering which one he would give in and want to take home. We were heading off for a drive on my day off today and I spotted a four-legged lifeform in the car when he pulled up. Introducing Bruce the greyhound, a very friendly and loveable pooch, but alas he doesn't do the chasing sticks thing on the beach. He adores sticking his head out of the car window (and tough luck if your head is in the way, you end up with a moist ear as his snout snorts right next to your skull). He also has an endearing habit of sticking his head over your shoulder in the car - he obviously wants to sit up front and see what's happening, as you can see here as Gordon attempts to drive with a large dog head resting on his arm. Still, given what Bruce is like with an open window I dread to think what happens when Gordon takes him out in his MG with the hood down, heh heh.

Hmmmmm

indulged in a little psych-nonsense with this test. Like most of them it's mostly bollocks with the ocassionally more-or-less accurate part, but what do you expect. I'm not sure they've created a psych test that could really deal with me! heh. And as a note to Matthew, it says I am not very aggressive, so he needn't fear too much beard-pulling. Then again, maybe that was one of the sections that wasn't very accurate, mooh hooh ha ha... Guess it depends on which of my personalities took the test, doesn't it?

Big Five Test Results

Extroversion (58%) moderately high which suggests you are talkative, optimistic, sociable and affectionate but possibly not very reflective. Friendliness (64%) moderately high which suggests you are good natured, trusting, and helpful but possibly too much of a follower Orderliness (52%) medium which suggests you are moderately organized, reliable, neat, and ambitious. Emotional Stability (48%) medium which suggests you are moderately worrying, insecure, emotional, and nervous. Openmindedness (82%) high which suggests you are very intellectual, curious, imaginative but possibly not very practical.

Take Free Big Five Personality Test
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Anyway, for psych profiles, Aerosmith figured me out way better - as the song said, I am F.I.N.E. fine. Fucked-up Neurotic Insecure and Emotional. However for beard pulling one has to leave glam rockers Aerosmith and go to ZZ Top...

Death and taxes

At least that used to be the only two things that pessimists said were inevitable in this life. Now, according to many of those who are charged with our safety, so is a successfull major attack on the UK. Gee, so nice to know all the pain and suffering we've endured and caused in Iraq to help free the world of the terrorist threat (aren't we so utterly selfless?) was worth it to secure a more stable and safer world... The people in Iraq are left with a chaotic mess with the threat of a religious/civil war hanging over their heads instead of the much-vaunted liberation Bush and Blair promised and - imagine this - we're not any safer, boys and girls. In fact they're telling us to pretty much expect carnage on a British street soon.

As with almost every conflict in history both side are full of it. The Muslim fundamentalists are fucking nutters, no doubt about it. Our poltiicians are duplcitous, lying fiends who use the carnage as a way to increase their own power, keep us civilains in line and don't get the bitter irony of supposedly fighting those who wage violence against civilians by bombing the hell out of another group of civilians... And what the smegging hell had Iraq to do with Bin-Liner and his psychotic shagwits anyway? If anything we gave the fundamentalist a huge opening in Iraq and just made ourselves a bigger target. Oops. If only, in all conflicts, we could get the leaders of both groups together. No, not to talk or negotiate - thrown the C*nts into a pit and make THEM fight it out to the death and leave the civilians around the world out of it for once. Think Bush would be more careful about military action if he had to fly the bomber over hostile terrain? Well, we already know the answer to that, we can look at his military record (or lack of it) from Vietnam... And as for Osam, the devout man on a religious crusade against the infidels... Well, for a man so committed to the Cause I haven't seent hat mad-bearded twat strapping on some plastic explosve and walking into an Israeli diner or European trian station (or other viable military target). Happy to encourage lots of young, stupid guys to do it though... So fuck it, put htem all in a big pit, make them fight to the death. Then afterwards fill the pit in with concrete, regardless of who wins - we're better off without them all.

And dreadful as Madrid was you just know that it was good for someone - our politicians. They can browbeat the wavering elements of Europe and say, look they are going to go after us all. Today's news that France is a target confirms its, stop wavering and get macho with me and my cowboy mate says Tony, donning a stetson and playing a the Alamo. Well, guess what happened at the Alamo, twatface? I'm sure some conspiracy pages are already alleging the CIA set up the whole thing to get the Europeans in line - I mean a bomb in Madrid instead of London? A bomb on mainland Europe is more effective at scaring the wavering Euros; after all they all expect a bomb in London, don't they?

However, once again Bush and Blair send mixed signals. We all have to be ever so tough and keep going for freedom and safety etc, etc. And yet they are also telling us no matter how hard we try a lot of innocent citizens are going to be minced. Inspired.

It does have an affect though - just this week a colleague talked about how she sometimes thinks she should work closer to her home outside of Edinburgh, pondering where they would strike if they hit the city. The Castle? The new parliament? Would anyone notice if they hit the parliament? It would just be even more over-budget and over-schedule, something we're used to - no bugger would pay any attention! It does make me wonder - if I were a terrorist and everyone is geared up for a strike on London, wouldn't I hit somewhere else? Some other British town or city, for surprise, increased shock and to show that nowhere was safe? After all the IRA didn't hesitate to blow the hell out of a Manchester shopping centre, did they? Isn't this what they want? That we're all going to be thinking this way all the time? What's in that gap-year student's huge rucksack on the crowded train? Wasn't that a big box that Asian looking bloke just shoved into a bin on Princes Street? Is my cat getting fat or has some mad fundamentalist hidden some semxtex under her fur to get me? Well, maybe it is inevitable, but I have enough paranoia in my life as it is and I ain't changing my life for these bastards. I will, in my patriotic fervour, continue to go to my local pub and drink fearlessly and will not let the possibility of a booby-trapped ale pump stop me.

The only good thing to come from this was not only the massive demonstrations from the people of Spain but also today of ordinary Muslim folk in Morocco, praying for those killed and as horrifed as the rest of us at humanity's seemingly eternal capacity to act inhumanly.

Tenth planet

NASA has announced that a new celestial object has been found out in the cold, dark shadows of the edge of our own solar system. A tiny, new world, far beyond even tiny, frozen Pluto and its moon Charon, named for characters from the Classical afterlife because they inhabit a truly twilight realm, cold and distant where the light of the sun is but a distant flicker. It has been named Sedna after the Inuit goddess of the oceans.

Back in the 1930s the hunt was on for Planet X - astronomers and cosmologists knew there had to be another planet beyond the ocean-blue glory of Neptune (not that they knew how glorious Neptune really looked - we had to wait decades until the fantastic triumph of the Voyager missions to see fabulous, glowing images beamed back to us over billions of miles). From estimates of mass and the orbits of the known planets it was concluded another world had to exist. In the 30s Clyde Tombaugh found it using an old-fashioned Blink Comparator, which, as the name suggests, allowed astronomers to rapidly compare two plates (taken a few days apart) to spot if there were any movement of celestial objects - primitive but effective).

But Pluto as it became known was far too small to account for the missing mass. Then again, modern cosmology is convinced there isn’t enough mass in the entire universe mathematically speaking, so either a lot is hidden as exotic material like the so-called dark matter or perhaps they are just plain wrong (or simply that their mathematics is too primitive to understand and describe the universe, just as Newtonian maths and physics, normally excellent, fall apart when faced with FTL distortions or Einstein when dealing with quantum mechanics).

It’s quite sobering to think that after centuries if astronomy - millennia if we count our ancestors who observed the heavens from their pyramids, ziggurats or, in our own islands, great standing stones arranged with enormous precision. And yet we didn’t even know Pluto was there until 60 years ago. And now, after half a century of space flight we have only now found another little world. The galaxy is vast on a scale we cannot really comprehend, our little solar system tiny by comparison - while this is an astonishing find it is also truly humbling; just how much we don’t know, how much there is to explore. I guess sometimes we really do get to go where no-one has gone before.

However, this amazing discovery will come as no great shock to those British SF fans of a certain age. We always knew there was a Tenth Planet. It’s Mondas, lost sister of the Earth and the pesky Cyber men (for those too young to know, a Cyberman is what the Star Trek producers ripped off to create the idea of the Borg, but Doctor Who beat them to it by decades) are coming on it to do something rather nasty to us, unless a certain wanderer in time and space can foil their dastardly plans once more.

Bizarrley on a Google search for Mondas as well as the above link for Doctor Who there were several companies who came up called Mondas. Are these human fronts for the devious Cybermen?????

You look like
A perfect fit
for a girl in need
Of a tourniquet
But can you save me
Come one and save me
If you could save me
From the ranks
Of the freaks
Who suspect
They could never love anyone

‘Cause I can tell
You know what it’s like
The long goodbye
Of the hunger strike
But can you save me
Come on and save me
If you could save me
from the ranks
Of the freaks
Who suspect
They could never love anyone

Aimee Mann, Save me

Safety blanket

It's taken him months and a lot of prodding (indeed my prodding stick is worn down to a nub and I shall have to procure a new one) but Alex has finally written a rather good review of Blankets, something he's been threatening for months and months now - lovely looking autobiographical graphic novel, have a look. For those who don't know, Alex is a small cycling Manga character who escaped from Studio Ghibli's advanced 3-D animation research unit and currently is hiding from them in Edinburgh.

Gap years

No, not the sort wealthy middle class kids have between college and work (coming in to our boosktore, buying a travel book on exotic destinations like Australia or Brazil and then having the cheek to ask for a student discount! If you can afford to go on holiday for months halfway round the world you don't need a discount, bugger off!). No, the sort of gap between rich and poor. New research shows the gap in life expectancy between poorer Scots and the nation's wealthier citizens is now almost 20 years. So much for equality.

For the blood is the life

Just finished writing and submitting a review of the first of the Sookie Stackhouse Vampire Mysteries, Dead Until Dark, which was highly enjoyable (read the review on the Alien when it goes up if you want to know more). With the vampires in this series living openly in society there are hotels, airports and bars all catering for them, serving up synthetic blood (although vamp groupies or fangbangers as they are called sometimes donate the real stuff). Then in a little bit of synchronicity I get my New Scientist email digest with a story about a promising attempt to create successful synthetic blood by scientists at the Unversity of California.

Welcome to my nightmare

I think you’re going to like it here. I think you’ll feel like you belong…Yep, been listening to my old Uncle Alice again. Actually to a somewhat spiffing box set my mate Gordon picked up and I’ve bummed off him for a listen: the Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper. Cool long, thin 4-CD slipcase with a book inside edited by Brian Nelson, a lifelong fan of Alice who finally became his musical hero’s PA. Three decades of music from the early days through to Alice’s collaboration with Neil Gaiman in the 90s and then beyond.

The book, with an introduction by another lifelong Cooper fan - no less than John Lydon, Johnny Rotten of the Pistols (and far more controversially, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, which was in far worse taste than any charges levelled at the Pistols by the squares at the time) - is a great bonus for long term fans like myself and Gordon. As well as interesting facts and quotes - the sorts of things you’d expect - there piles of images, many from Nelson’s own collection, including images from the album covers of three decades of changing styles, plus some I hadn’t seen such as foreign covers (bit like Hy Bender’s excellent Sandman Companion where there were images from the cover art of foreign editions of the Sandman - ha, worked in another Gaiman reference!). Best of all are song-by-song remembrances and comments by Alice, friends, producers, writers and band members. Mostly short, only a few liens for each of the songs represented on the collection, but fascinating to see a little of what they thought then/now think about some of their songs.

I’ve listened to a hell of a lot of Alice Cooper over the years and stomped my way through a number of live gigs - goddamn good rock and roll plus he strangles his own nurse with his straight jacket then decapitates himself on the guillotine afterwards; now that’s entertainment! However, it’s not often I’d sit and listen to any artist’s output in chronological order like this back to back. Interesting to listen to the changes as the years rolled past. Equally interesting to listen for what doesn’t change: macabre yet funny, Edgar Alan Poe writing the Addams Family, always good rock and usually a dark mirror of American society. The shocked parents and teachers and ministers railed against him (now they mostly roast Manson, who couldn’t exist without Alice), but like those who encourage the burning of books instead of reading them (and my do they get a good comeuppance in Bradbury’s Usher II story in the Illustrated Man) they missed the point because the condemned without listening. In Alice’s world there are consequences for the demonic behaviour. He comments on teen suicide, lack of educational opportunities, outlets for disaffected youth, crime, drugs - all the ills of American society and indeed of youth (and those of us who didn’t grow up). Society seen through a glass darkly - Alice, of course, sent this all up himself in Go To Hell, where a performer is condemned to Hell for his corruption of youth with his music.

Yeah, I know some of you are nodding here but more of you - especially the younger ones - are thinking, old, crusty rockers with boring old dinosaur music (you know, the type of music that actually requires a singer and a band who can play instruments). Well screw you, you don’t get it either - you never listened and as Zaphod put it, boy, did you miss out! Try listening to Lost in America from his collaboration with Neil Gaiman, The Last Temptation (comlete with comic books) - funny social commentary allied to good rockin’. Eighteen still kicks ass (although Alice now performs this on crutches!) and School’s Out has to be one of the best youth rebellion songs ever, while Department of Youth is soooo much fun (and the Donny Osmond comment at the end? Perfection). Cold Ethyl is a wicked slice of fun necrophilia (making love by the refrigerator light) while Dead Babies (for which the band were roasted by the Christian right) is, if you take the time to listen to it, actually a condemnation of neglectful parents, not a call for Greek Tragedy style infanticide. And the Black Widow with the wonderful Vincent Price’s priceless introduction is a fabulous piece of Grand Guingol theatre (now the pride of my collection, the Black Widow spider. After mating she kills and eats the weaker male. Isn’t she delicious? And I hope he was…). Anyway, I don’t care what anyone else thinks - I’m a firm believer in the Holy Trinity: Drums, Bass and Electric Geetar.

Besides, how can anyone mock or otherwise disparage an artist who has worked with Vincent Price and Neil Gaiman?

Speculation

Alex reads me a section from the print version of the damned fine Locus magazine where Booker-winning author Margaret Atwood finally admitted she kind of did occasionally dabble in SF. You’ll recall how outraged she was when some suggested her last book (and her earlier work the Handmaid’s Tale) were SF. SF was about robots and rocket ships she retorted, she wrote ‘speculative fiction’. My arse in parsley sauce, hen! Set in a dystopian future with a world wrecked by environmental carelessness and genetic manipulation run wild. Hmm, kind of sounds like SF to me… Still, on the SF front I had a nice freebie gift from our head office. They’ve started giving a book for the best book suggestion in each week’s bulletin - Alex won the fab Earth natural history book a while back. Well, I won a signed and limited slipcase edition of Peter F Hamilton’s new book, Pandora’s Star. Which is great, except I’m about 700 pages through the same book right now!!! And naturally I got my copy signed by Peter at the recent event. So perhaps I’ll keep this limited edition sealed up for a few years then talk to nice Mr Ebay (unless anyone wants to make me an offer now? Also going a signed first edition hardback of Gaiman’s American Gods and a signed, limited edition slipcase of Tim Burton’s Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy. It’s a Joe Sales Event).


Also in the post this week the second Sookie Stackhouse vampire mystery from Orbit. Just as I finished book one, Dead Untill Dark, so great timing (expect reviews on the Alien in the near future). Not so sure about the premise for book two though - I mean vampires in Dallas? Hell, what sort of self respecting nightwalker hangs out anywhere in the Lone Star State, let alone somewhere as tasteless as Dallas? I mean, really? I can only suspend my disbelief so far you know, heh. Cool covers so far too - stylish and modern without sacrificing the genre look. In fact Orbit have been revamping much of their range, old and new recently with some rather good covers which is great since far too many SF&F and Horror titles often have dreadfully generic covers which put many people off trying them. Alas the book I’m most eagerly awaiting, Love All the People, the complete Bill Hicks, ain’t turned up yet.

Attenborough

Sir David Attenborough, one of the most famous naturalists in the world through his decades of ground-breaking BBC documentaries, has finally broken his long self-imposed ban on commenting on political matters by taking a stance against whale hunting. Since the whales cannot be killed swiftly even the most strident meat-eater has to acknowledge that it is incredibly inhumane to slaughter them. Even those who enjoy eating meat generally don’t want the animals to suffer a prolonged or painful demise. Indeed we have stringent rules on those matters in the UK. Not so at sea where Japanese and Norwegian whalers kill whales which can take from two minutes to half an hour to die. Assuming they kill it - some manage to get away but are maimed or will die later in the depths. As Attenborough points out these creatures, which include the biggest animals who have ever lived in the entire long history of our world, provide nothing which we cannot make for ourselves these days so there is no need to kill them, except human cruelty and stupidity. Alas, those are qualities our species seems to have an inexhaustible source of.

CELEB IN SLAMMER

Shockwaves ran through the American middle classes this week, causing net curtains to twitch violently as the darling of the aspirational classes, Barfa Whoreit, was found guilty of dealing in insider flares. Despite an outwardly staid appearance which would make a Laura Ashley girl proud, Barfa Whoreit was secretly dressing up in 60s and 70s fashions and slumming it in retro discos. One piece of evidence the Fashion Police displayed in the court case were a pair of flares measuring a staggering 23 inches in diameter. Lurid purple was often matched up with fluorescent orange clothing. Barfa Whoreit, the upright symbol of middle-class America was found guilty of hypocrisy, extreme poor taste, exposing middle class aspirations for the hollow sham they really are (a state secret since this dream helps keep the population in line) and for dealing in insider flares. It also emerged that Ms. Whoreit covertly ran another magazine, funded by profits from her mainstream journal Superduperliving. This magazine, called BadassUnliving dealt exclusively with dark S&M bondage and neck biting fetishisms. It seems the mistress of clean living had more than one dark side to her squeaky clean life: florid disco dancing one weekend, whipping amd biting the next then back to chintz curtains. I know which of those I consider most evil.

Fact on film

Just watched an interesting episode of Fact on Film on National Geographic discussing Lord of the Rings. For the most part it took themes and characters from the films and compared them with historical events and persons. Some comparisons worked, others, I felt, didn’t - for instance comparing Gandalf to Ben Franklin. While it’s true both were very wise and often planned for the greater good and not for personal gain it was stretching it a bit.

Most of the other comparisons were ones which I’ve commented on before myself and I’m sure other have too, such as Helm’s Deep recalling other desperate battles against the odds such as the Battle of Britain or Agincourt.

One which I had not considered drew on the greatest mytho-historical (for he is both now) characters from the history of my own land: William Wallace. The programme discussed comparisons between Aragon and Wallace - both men fighting a desperate battle, attempting to rally and inspire their men to win their freedom while neither was seeking personal power or reward. Aragon shuns the kingship although he knows he must ultimately embrace it, while Wallace, knighted and made Guardian of the realm fights in the name of the exiled king, with no intention of using his abilities to take power for himself. Of course, it’s not an entirely successful analogy since Wallace’s war ends, regrettably, in betrayal and a torturous death, while Aragon’s is rather more successful. Although since Wallace’s battles would lay the ground for the Bruce - who like Aragon spent time exiled in the wilds - who would displace the disgraced king Balliol (known as Toom Tabard or empty coat after his insignia was ripped off by Edward I) who died in exile and claim the throne for himself you could argue that he indirectly does provide for the return of the king, after a fashion.

Books with Bite

Sticking with the literary theme, I've been feeling pretty vampish recently and somewhat more gothic than even usual. Probably a reaction to too many crap things in my life right now bringing me down - the vamp stuff is comforting. Okay,candelit neck biting and hanging out in crumbling boneyards may not work for you lot of normals, but it works for me! Anyway, just started reading the Dead Until Dark, the first of the Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels which has been pretty enjoyable and quirky so far. I like the idea of a vampire returning to his small town after a century and a half and giving the genteel elderly ladies in the history society a lecture on what the Civil War was really like, lol. Another publisher has promised me a copy of a new factual book on the real Vlad Dracul, which should be a light and enjoyable read (for me anyway; dear old Uncle Vlad). Nothing like reading a few pages of mass torment and impalings before turning off the lights and going to sleep.

On a related topic, as I was digging in the darker recesses of the web wear mortals fear to tread (probably because of people like me with big teeth lurking there) I found this page from the University of Virginia which has the entire text of Rymer's marathon penny-dreadful shocker from the mid-1800s, Varney the Vampyre (also known as the Feast of Blood - which gives you an idea of what to expect really) so you can read the entire thing.

The latest artwork from the always thought-provoking display outside the Saint John's Church in Edinburgh's West End. Gee, I wonder what they could be getting at? ......

Book event

a couple of pictures from the double-author event Alex and I hosted at the bookstore this week with two bloody great writers, Peter F Hamilton (Peter, I forgive you for ruining my wrists with those enormous tomes of yours) and our own local Ken MacLeod. As is customary we all decamped to the pub after a very good evening's readings and a Q&A and some signing (naturally got my hardbacks fo both books signed for the collection) where an excited Charlie Stross insisted on showing me a few paragraphs of something he was working on (let's just say it had to do with marital relations and robots) to see if it was working, which was fun. Our ocmpany has become very much a dreadful chain bookstore and not the unique place it once was, but every now and then we get to host a good book event and go drinking with some of our favourite authors and to push good new writers through our support. Reviews of both author's latest already on the mighty Alien for your perusal (Ken's by your humble Woolamaloo editor, Peter's by George Walkley)

World Book Day

Yes, once more it is World Book Day. Being a professional bookseller and a lifelong reader (I demanded entry to the big people’s part of the library at the age of five after exhausting the children’s books, precocious little tyke that I was) pretty much every day is book day for me. There is almost literally no day where I will not read at least a few pages of one of the several books I have on the go at any one time. Too many worlds to explore to stick to just one!

Books, of course, are not a new idea and have been around in one form or another for millennia. They really came of age when Gutenberg perfected moveable typefaces however. For the first time in human history books could be reproduced perfectly an almost infinite number of times. What had been rare objects accessible to only a few became commonplace. Literacy grew, so did the number of books. With the growth of both came more and more ideas, taking a candle and stoking it into the bonfire of the Enlightenment as people geographically removed - and temporally too as books cross time as well as space - could exchange ideas and build on them (would we have our advanced science without this ability? No). The web page you are reading wouldn’t exist without this idea.

Humans are hardwired for language; it’s in the very structure of our brains. Deaf children denied being taught sign language have often invented their own, it’s a genetic impulse. Who knows how many millennia of human pre-history passed before writing evolved from earlier systems of simple record keeping? Writing gave to humanity a form of exo-somatic memory; that is the ability to store knowledge and experience outside of the mind. Thus when the elders of the society died their knowledge was not necessarily lost with them. This is how the giants of the Classical period have been preserved for us and passed down through thousands of years. Mass printing and finally the information age made this system of knowledge preservation and access open to most people. It literally - do excuse the pun - changed the world. Think about it next time you hold a book; we’re so used to them we don’t often spare a thought for how marvellous an invention they truly are. Indeed just how wonderfully remarkable the gift of writing and language are.

So much for the big worldview. What have books done for me on a personal note, if I may so indulge myself for a moment? There are things I have never done and places I have never been and yet I have done them all and a great deal more through the written word. I have walked the stone halls of the great library of Alexandria, past rows of scrolls lit by flickering oil lamps. I have sat on the sun-warmed steps of the Academy listening to Plato and Socrates discourse on a warm Athenian afternoon. I walked beside Gilgamesh and sailed with Captain Cook. I’ve watched the earliest humans struggle to master writing. Before humans I ran alongside a Tyrannosaur and patted the head of a friendly stegosaurus. Before that I played bowls with newly formed planets by the light of a newborn sun.

I was watching when the Wright Brothers made their first spluttering flight at Kittyhawk. I trudged through the mud and blood of the Somme and watched Custer at Little Big Horn. I’ve flown on bat wings from the parapets of Transylvanian castles and on supersonic wings on an X-craft, faster than a speeding bullet. The oceans have given up their mysteries to me as Nemo guide me beneath the waves. I’ve walked beneath alien suns and turned up the collar of my raincoat against the grim, city rain as I followed Sam Spade. The howl of the hound of the Baskervilles has sent thrills down my nerves; I‘ve heard the Call of the Wild.

I have been both Jekyll and Hyde, a samurai and a knight, a cop and a robber a cowboy and an indian, god and the devil. I’ve thrown apples at Newton and slid down the helter-skelter of the double helix. I dared the gods and created life. I charged the field of Bannockburn and sat in the first audiences in Paris as the Lumieres showed their films. I’ve examined the artwork on cave walls and in Egyptian tombs. I’ve crossed the burning sands of the desert by day and haunted the dark mists of old graveyards by night. I’ve defended virtuous maidens from dragons and bitten other maidens on their necks by the light of the moon. I’ve flowed in prose and rhythmic rhyme, sailing across thousands of years; time, history, culture, life and love and death are no barrier. I was there when Adam woke in the Garden. I saw Lucifer fall. I've seen empires rise and universes end.

Sometimes through my life silly people have asked me why I read so much. I feel sorry for them, small beings with weak vision, lost in the dark without a lamp and they don’t even know it. Enjoy a few paragraphs before sleeping tonight. And think on me running through the lines and slinking around your verbs, dancing with the nouns and joking with the adjectives. Happy book day.

Oscar

At last the Academy has agreed with the rest of the planet that the Lord of the Rings was a remarkable filmic event. Most pundits tipped the Return of the King to take several major awards this year and not just the usual technical ones (not to belittle the massive amount of work and dedication put in by the folks who won those awards for the film). But in the event the movie (or let's be frank, this was really for the entire trilogy) took no less than eleven Oscars, making it equal with Ben Hur, a stunning achievement. Just had to dash off a quick news item for the Alien once I finished work tonight to celebrate.

Coming so soon after the BBC's Big Read polled the Lord of the Rings as the nation's favourite novel this has been a good time for those of us who love fantasy. To those literati who bemoan it I say, take notice; these films and books win awards constantly because there is something good there which speaks to people time after time, so stop being so dismissive of it. As a professional bookseller, a book reviewer, a cinephile and a person with an honours degree in film and media I think I can say with at least as much authority as those revered - by themselves anyway - literati and art critics and I say these are damned good and we should enjoy them. Even for thsoe who didn't find it their cup of tea can surely acknowledge the enormous effort and love and dedication poured into the making of this astonishing series.

The awards taken home to Hobbiton were:

Best Picture
Best Director
Best Costume Design
Best Make Up
Best Film Editing
Best Art Direction
Best Visual Effects
Best Sound
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Score
Best Song (for Into the West, sung by Annie Lennox)