petermorwood

Interesting times (argh!)

2012-01-14T23:45:52Z

A lot of you will have seen D's posts about what happened to our household account two days ago. Ouch, a lot!

We, however, have seen what happened in the Interwebs when Diane let people know about it, and...

And, well, thank you all. I thank you, D thanks you and Mr Goodman the White Cat thanks you. (Brush off the shed fur in your own time.)

It was a straight-up fraud, so we WILL be recompensed by the bank ("in due course", as they say, which could mean all sorts of things.) You helped, more than helped, to get us out of a potential yawning hole.

Appreciated. A lot.

More later, and if I can get Calibre working properly, a story. Meanwhile, a good night's sleep for the first time in three days.

G'night - and thank you all.

P

Anne McCaffrey, 1926-2011. RIP

2011-11-23T15:14:04Z

Hugo winner. Nebula winner. The first great female SF writer. SFWA Grand Master. Grand Dame. Grandmother. Mother. Horsewoman. Dragon Lady.

She was the first big name SF writer I ever met to talk to, rather than nod in awe at. It was my second, or maybe third, convention, a smallish affair in Hull. Anne McCaffrey was GoH, so I bought all her books from the Sign of the Dragon bookshop stall and asked her to sign them. I behaved like a fanboy. She bought a copy of The Horse Lord and asked me to sign it. She behaved like a professional.

She'd given me her address, one pro to another, so when The Demon Lord came out I sent her a copy. In her letter of thanks was an invitation to visit, with directions. Unfortunately they were directions for someone who already knew the area, and this was before GPS, or indeed sensibly-sized road signs in Dublin. Sometimes all you could see was the capital letter. That's why I wound up heading for Waterford, or it might be Wexford, rather than Wicklow...

By the time I got my bearings it was nudging midnight, and I couldn't call (this was also before cellphones) because rural phoneboxes were rare as hen's teeth. In addition I'd learned (this still happens) that out in the country late at night, if you don't have exact directions for someone's house then you won't get much help from the locals. "Sure, and if she'd wanted you to find her wouldn't she have told you how herself..."

Finally I realised that Dragonhold - the old one - was down a long driveway between high hedges that looked more like a lane. A lane I'd passed three or four times already. Annie's directions were just fine. My navigation, not so much. So I drove slowly down the lane, wheels crunching on gravel, a car with Northern Irish plates crawling up to an isolated Southern Irish farmhouse at past one in the morning. I got out, backlit by the headlights, one hand raised for a timid I'm-so-late knock.

That was when the door opened and the Dobermanns came out, making noises that suggested I might be crunchy and good with ketchup. Or even without ketchup. I don't usually ignore dogs like that, but this time I did, because I had something else to concentrate on. Have you any idea how big a shotgun looks from the wrong end at that hour of the morning? Like a matched pair of railway tunnels, that's how big.

But the railway tunnels were shaking a bit, because the dressing-gowned, benightied lady at the far end was trying not to laugh. "I wasn't expecting company any more," says Annie, "and since I'm an old lady living alone-" except for the shotgun and the Dobies "-you know how it is." Uh-huh. Yup. "You can put your hands down now." I don't remember them going up. "And come on in. I'm sure you'd like a cup of coffee." There's a twinkle in her eyes. "With a little something in it."

Half an hour later I'm snuggled down on the sofa-bed in the living-room, Saffy the female Dobie has decided to be my friend, there's a peat fire settling into ash behind the guard and I've been assured that the gun wasn't loaded. So what Annie took out of it when she thought I wasn't watching was probably lipstick. BigPaws the cat ambles by, gives me a look and goes about his business. And somewhere down the corridor, beyond two closed doors, I can hear Annie laughing.

I made her laugh a lot, sometimes deliberately, sometimes not. Like the time she persuaded me onto a horse for the first reluctant time in ten years, and I sat there feeling pleased with myself for about two seconds before sliding smooth as a pivot off the other side. Comedians and stuntmen practice that trick for ages. I got it right first time.

Or there was the time when I brought her my mum's Chocolate Gateau of Doom, a cake so alcoholic (the sponge, the cream filling and the dense chocolate icing use up an entire half-bottle of brandy) that it has to be kept in the fridge to prevent evaporation. This one had spent nearly 3 hours on the back seat of my car, sealed in a big round Cadbury's "Roses" tin... Annie's stable manager Derval ambled over and popped the lid in hopes of a nice choccy. The near-visible cloud of brandy vapour that jumped out at her provoked a memorable cry of "Jayzus, does your mammy own a feckin' distillery?" and if she'd been smoking her usual thin roll-up, we'd be looking for her eyebrows yet. But the only explosion that time came from Annie, who laughed until she nearly burst.

Then there was the time when she suggested I meet up with her at Albacon '86, the Easter Convention in Glasgow, where she was one of the guests. And the time after that when she suggested I go to a very small one-day event in London, run by Sign of the Dragon. The same person was there both times, a tall, slender American woman with big glasses and a bigger perm. I'd already bought one of her books. It was called The Door into Fire...

Other people might say that Annie threw Diane and me together until we stuck, but twice is not until. What she did was to put us in proximity and wait to see what happened - whether we would be poles apart and repel, or if she was right about an attraction she'd already noticed and I hadn't, at least not enough to recognise. I recognised it pretty soon, though, and just over a year later her son Todd was my best man. That'll be 25 years ago, come February. Perceptive lady, Anne McCaffrey.

And now you're gone. I'm honoured to say you were my friend. You wrote books that made a lot of people happy. But what you did for me was something special. You made two people happier than any book could do.

I'll never forget you, Annie Mac. Sleep well.

Creating Costume - words or pictures?

2011-10-06T05:10:32Z

I saw a sketch of Lady Sybil Ramkin-Vimes on Diane's Tumbler account last night, and for once it wasn't (much) influenced by a Paul Kidby drawing. That resurrected a thought I've often had: to what extent do costumers, cosplayers and fan-artists feel constrained by professional visualisations of written characters and regard them as the "official" version, no deviations allowed?

D's Star Trek Next Generation novel Dark Mirror originated from a discussion in Dublin's Gotham Cafe pizzeria (back in 1991 when it was still Independent Pizza South) over, as the book's acknowledgement puts it,

a large with extra cheese, extra sauce, pepperoni and hot chilies, and a medium with extra cheese, double garlic, hot chilies, and onions, along with two bottles of Orvieto Secco and a whole lot of Ballygowan water...

The discussion had nothing to do with pizza, or (originally) a novel, or even STNG; I was speculating over what the Mirror Universe version of the Wrath of Khan-period uniform (the maroon wrapover tunic one) would look like, since no such thing had ever been made "canonical" by appearance on-screen (the ONLY acceptable ST canon is TV and film; novels, comics, games etc. don't count, and as far as we knew, no Mirror uniform of the WoK style had appeared in any of those, either.)

I was holding out for all-black with silver insignia, prompting an inevitable "Black and silver; it's always black and silver with you, isn't it?" response. A couple of sketches on the back of a napkin showed that black WoK Starfleet uniforms would look more than a bit like German WW2 Panzer-crew kit, and it was later clear that I wasn't the only one thinking that way: the flight-crew uniforms in Starship Troopers were deliberately based on German WW2 self-propelled gun crew tunics; same design, grey instead of black.

Once D suggested piratical thigh-high boots instead of the "official" calf-high ones, we had started down the road that led to the Next Generation novel (my English Literature Honours Degree helped write the bit of very nasty Mirror Merchant of Venice, giving Shakespeare the lavish love for gore seen in Jacobean revenge tragedy. Diane re-wrote it, though I think mine was best.) :-) And we still haven't seen my take on the Mirror uniform, because late Classic Trek never went there…

Star Trek, Star Wars, StarGate and many other Star things, as well as Aliens, Pirates of the Caribbean etc. and lots and lots of anime are all visual inspiration came first, so costumers, cosplayers and the rest are in large part restricted, if that's the right word, to representing what's been shown on-screen with painstaking exactitude.

Sometimes it's so painstaking that the fan-made costumes are of infinitely higher quality than "the real thing" (by which I don't mean the imaginative stuff, that's not real at all, but what you'll find hanging up in the studio Wardrobe Department.) Anime and cartoon costumes seem to stretch a bit further: there are few things quite as dopey-looking as the "Clodbuster sword" (it's apparently a metal plank with a handle) taken from its cartoon and made (ahem) real. But there was also a bunch of very fetching young ladies dressed as the humanized (thankfully non-furry) form of the new-version My Little Pony. D, having written for the original series, was Much Amused by my never-seen-before interest. in this aspect of the show.. :-P

However, too often when it comes to costuming or drawing characters which were originally words on paper, there seems to be a lot of the same default-to-professional-visual-source. Discworld characters are based on Paul Kidby art - I can't recall any based on Josh Kirby's chaotic (my opinion) and inaccurate (Word of God aka Terry) covers - though there’s increasing influence from the Sky TV adaptations, even more steampunky and neo-Victorian. German fan "Otto Chriek" has built an incredible, fully-operational iconograph – wood and brass exterior, digicam and mini-printer interior; the only thing that doesn’t work is the imp! But even this looks based at least in part on one of the elaborate Kidby drawings. (Wenn ich falsch bin, Robert, entschuldigen Sie mich!)

The clothing and accessories of Harry Potter characters originate exclusively from the movie series (at least so it seems, because I haven't read any of the books, so must default here myself;) and of course the standard Lord of the Rings image isn't Tolkien but Jackson, despite years of art from other sources, some high-quality, others…not so much. Were there ever costumes based on the ridiculous Bakshi toon? If there were, and I saw them, my memory has purged itself and thankfully so. I'm fairly sure that needles and thread have already been busy on Game of Thrones costumes derived from the recent TV show, even though George R. R. Martin's own descriptions are more than adequate.

Certainly "representing the screen/cover/supplementary portfolio material" properly means that the costumer isn't relying on a masquerade audience (and judging panel) having read the appropriate paragraph from a big novel or long series before deciding if their work is accurate or not. But when it's a hall costume worn for fun rather than formal masquerade (which are often amazingly elaborate and complex) then I wonder why people don’t swing out more.

Is it (a) reticence: no matter how carefully the writer describes characters and clothing, is a costume or drawing that lacks "professional visual imprimatur" somehow incorrect?

Or is it (treading carefully here, masqueraders are my friends) (b) a subtle sort of laziness, skilfully recycling a pre-packaged image to avoid the work of visualising a writer’s words in your own way? (with a sizeable unadmitted dash of (a) lurking at the back as well?)

I have a feeling this will be discussed more thoroughly at the next convention I go to – and if the subject hasn't already been done to death somewhere, it strikes me as a good topic for a panel. Any con organiser who wants to use it can be my guest. I’d be curious to hear the result!

Choccies from long ago

2011-09-06T20:03:24Z

A long time ago, when my parents went "South of the Border," (from Northern Ireland to the Republic) they would always bring back Cadbury's "Rum and Butter" chocolate bars (and other stuff as well, obviously...) The odd thing is that this flavour of filled-caramel bar was - apparently - only available in Southern Ireland. It's one of those tastes that can flip you back years and years.

Looks like we've just discovered the secret of time travel, then.

Yesterday, EuropeanCuisineLady (aka Diane) made a bread-and-butter pudding so we could replace the PD place-holder photo with one of our own. It's seriously yummy (not like the one in my school dinners - ew!)

But when I said - to various "taste-tester" friends - "Now what about a chocolate custard and rum in the sauce instead of whiskey?" I got a yum! yes! go for it! enthusiasm well beyond just the fact it tastes good.

I think we may have discovered the flavour of being young and having no more to worry about than exams (rather than overdrafts, mortgages and other Grown Up problems.)

First, we need to find a good rum: D suggests Myer's Planter's Punch, I hold out for Pusser's Blue Label - but if we're stuck with Havana Gold, it'll do.

More info to follow...

An unsettling image

2011-09-05T11:45:24Z

I'VE never been disturbed by a delivery of milk before. This morning's is an exception.

That's creepy enough. The use-by date made it much worse.

Not shopped in any way. And no further comment required from me.

Posted via LiveJournal app for Android.

The only man on Earth who gives a (insert noun of choice) about this!

2011-06-16T13:43:59Z

That's how D just described me. :-)

The reason: satellite channel Yesterday is (re)showing the classic BBC POW series Colditz, something I last saw back in 1974, when I was still in Big School.

I've been watching it on and off, amused by the stiff upper lips (you could use SBO - Senior British Officer - Colonel Preston's upper lip as an ironing-board), pleased by how well the claustrophobic atmosphere stands up (there are very few scenes outside the castle walls), and delighted to find that even to this much older, more cynical viewer, bad guy Major Mohn (played with icy relish by Anthony Valentine) is as loathsome as ever.

But a flub of lines in last night's episode "Very Important Person" made me laugh out loud, and prompted D's comment.

I've mentioned before that I used to make model kits; I also painted the figures that went with them, which meant research (which is now being put to use in a new book.) I could geek out about vehicles painted the wrong colour, or uniforms with outdated rank tabs, both of which I saw, but what I heard was the funny.

An SS officer hands paperwork to a motorcycle despatch rider. "Give this to SS-Brigadeführer Schreck," he says. At least, that's what he was supposed to say. It came out as "Give this to Fifty-five Brigadeführer Schreck..."

Um. That's not just a geek error, it's a line error, and should have been spotted by whoever was script supervisor for that scene. ("It is a geek error," says D; "Only a geek would know what it was supposed to be." Like the original scriptwriter, then.) Anyway, in all the times it must have been reviewed before transmission in 1974, nobody - director, producer, editor, writer - caught it.

All right, I noticed it just last night, and maybe I am the only man on Earth who gives a whatnot (though historical and costume consultants get paid good money, as do continuity people) - but at least I don't feel so bad about the occasional typos in The Horse Lord any more! :-)

Oh, what a surprise - Not.

2011-06-14T19:41:24Z

Game of Thrones SPOILER below the cut.

(This warning wasn't in place earlier; the topic and response were high-profile enough I didn't think one was needed. Apologies to anyone affected.)

So Ned Stark got it in the neck (literally) in last night's episode of Game of Thrones, and D tells me it produced a chorus of outraged disbelief from many viewers. What? Didn't they see that one coming a long way off?

Neither of us have read the books, and decided to hold off until after the end of the series so we can judge the show not as an adaptation but on its own merits. Even so, I was still able to tell D about four episodes ago that Robert's drinking would do for him; that young Joffrey would turn out a nasty piece of work; and that honour-blinkered Ned would be the first to know about it. Joffrey is going to be a Bad Husband (cruel, not disinterested) to Sansa if that marriage ever happens, and his dear indulgent mummy will find last night's over-ruling of her wishes a dangerous precedent.

It's the Wars of the Roses, of course, as GRRM has said; something I slogged through at University but have had a fondness for once the need to pass exams was over. Though the parallels in the books may be different, here's how I interpret some of the characters:

Robert was Edward IV, once a great warrior but now more interested in beef, booze and broads (being killed by a boar has another resonance as well, suggesting that GRRM was thinking of Richard III's badge.) Cersei is a combination of Margaret of Anjou (vicious maternalism) and Elizabeth Woodville (devious nepotism.) Joffrey's a combination of Edward of Westminster and George of Clarence, wanting to prove he's not taking orders any more and using harsh justice to be feared by those who won't ever love him. Tywin Lannister seems a bit like Richard of Warwick, the Kingmaker*, though until the war started his means of control was more gold than force of arms. Sansa's a version of Anne Neville, one more pawn in the marriage stakes, and Ned is (or was) a less ambition-driven Richard of York, trying to do the right thing for the right reasons even though doing the wrong thing would be more sensible. All good convoluted stuff, and never a back that doesn't have a dagger ready to be stabbed in it.

*There was a board game called "Kingmaker". I don't know if it still exists, but it was most wonderfully convoluted. I used to play it with my best friend Charles and his two brothers, and each game was litigous ("show me in the rules where it says I can't do that...") treacherous and thoroughly entertaining.

Oh, and young Edward of Westminster's behaviour in malevolent youth is another reason why Richard III might have wanted rid of his deposed nephews (if he did it.) Edward was passing death sentences at the age of 7, and though that might have been at his mother Margaret's urging, a few years later a foreign ambassador (Milanese, I think) reported that he was talking about little else.

If Richard's nephew the ex-king Edward V (people with the same names infest this period: Edwards, Richards and Henrys are all over the place, and it's safer to go by title though you then get a railway-timetable effect: York, Gloucester, Somerset, and the every-popular saucy Worcester) ever got his throne back, I doubt he'd be very sympathetic to the uncle who proclaimed him a bastard in order to pinch it...

Using the blue pencil (and the red, and the green...)

2011-05-29T18:05:13Z

I've finally been able to confirm that the UK rights for the Horse Lord / Book of Years series have completely reverted to me (though not yet the US ones – or the Philippines; why there, I wonder, and not, say, Puerto Rico?) and I'm prepping them for release as e-books, as Diane has been doing with her Young Wizards. It's given me a chance – as the dead-tree versions never did – to do some re-working, because I doubt there's a writer on the planet who hasn't looked at their early work and thought "migod you didn't ort to write a sentence like that molesworth!"

Or several sentences. Or a paragraph. Or a continuity blunder.

I've always been good at spotting those, though it's a talent that's most useful before something appears in print; afterwards can be annoying, especially when (in a recent example) the writer's finished work has been through a series of test-readers, an editor, a copy-editor and a final check of the galleys.

So it's a bit embarrassing to find one that's been in every single edition of The Horse Lord, especially when it doesn't even have the excuse of a chapter or so of action between setup and dénouement. On p.90 (UK trade) p.91 (US mass)

Aldric nodded, but slung Widowmaker round his shoulder nonetheless.

Unfortunately on p.92 of both editions

The girl's sharp eyes had noticed a fine taiken racked on the bedroom wall…

And yes, the taiken longsword is Widowmaker. In two places at once. Oops. That's going to get fixed…

There won't be massive changes; this book's been popular for 28 years, and I had evidence of that popularity a couple of days back (for which many thanks, la_marquise_de_ - gosh, I'm mentioned in some impressive company!) so if ever there was a case of Si Non Confectvs Non Reficiat, this is it. But after those 28 years I can construct a better sentence than some of those from 1982, I can certainly write better dialogue, I know not to call mail "chainmail" any more – and I can remove my own guilty example of a pet peeve from fantasy that's started creeping into supposedly historical work as well.

It's the business of a sword slung over the owner's back and drawn from that position. The question kept coming up on Swordforum and NetSword, and nobody was able to offer any historical evidence, never mind pictorial proof, that carrying a sword that way ever happened in Europe. Seeing it done in Braveheart and King Arthur is neither evidence nor historical. But in 1982, what do we find Peter writing?

Aldric unhooked the longsword's scabbard from his weaponbelt and pulled its shoulder strap across so that the sheath rose slantwise to his back, well clear of his legs...then he gripped the long hilt rearing like an adder by his head, twisted it to loose the locking-collar and drew.

Once again, oops. That too is going to get fixed, because after experimenting with some of my own replicas (gosh, isn't Polyfilla spackle useful stuff?) it's clear that neither Aldric nor anyone else could perform this trick without arms like an orangutan or gibbon. What I did in later books was to have the across-the-back carry as a commonly-accepted "peace position", thus producing a useful bit of dramatic "business" where releasing the cross-strap so that it slides down to "ready position" for a fast draw is a direct threat, and possibly an insult as well.

Fast draw, with a sword? Yes indeed, like Japanese-style iaijutsu, because the first incarnation of Alban swords, culture and customs was very samurai-influenced. In the late '70s-early 80s it was unusual, and a change from the more usual Celtic/Viking/Medieval settings, which is why I did it, and there weren't many others. Without checking the bookshelves, I can think of Richard Lupoff's Sword of the Demon and Jessica Amanda Salmonson's Tomoe Gozen, C.J. Cherryh's superb Morgaine Cycle (especially Gate of Ivrel), a surprisingly small number of short stories, and of course me.

The fun part is to see how my fictional society evolved into something different; honourable suicide seems like a great device for dramatic tension. When you discover that it means your protagonist (all right, hero and favourite character) won't reach the end of the chapter, never mind the end of the book, it's not such a good idea, and you start looking for ways to keep him alive. When that attitude starts to influence the entire culture, soon you're dealing with people who've laid a thin veneer of lip-service honour over a bedrock of ruthless, scary pragmatism.

And that's much more interesting than ersatz samurai... :-)

petermorwood @ 2011-04-30T05:25:00

2011-04-30T04:25:42Z

I’ve been feeling pretty down, for two very good reasons, so today’s foofaraw left me colder than usual and I didn't watch it. Stuff to research, then stuff to write, and a quick Spellcheck correction to make sure there's always an umlaut in Obersturmbannführer and the other cumbersome SS ranks. I have my reasons... ;->

Diane recorded some of the material so I could examine Ruritanian ceremonial, uniforms and so on, though strictly ""Ruritanian" should read "Upper Saxon with a bit of Austro-Hungarian Bohemian", as pointed out by silverwhistle, one of the most intelligent and articulate analysts of the region's dodgy politics and dubious PR. All very nice, twinkly and shiny, but if TV commentators are going to use obscure terms, then they need to know that calling an "epaulette" a "shoulder-board" is forgiveable, but that an "aiguilette" is not just a different and more fancy word for the same thing.

In all the processional stuff, there were two images that made me smile: a close-up of The Littlest Bridesmaid, bored out of her tiny skull and not afraid to show it, and a shot of the groom going "phew" in a way I identified with, having done it myself in similar circumstances a bit longer ago than yesterday. (I'll try to screen-cap these and post them later.)

However, when I was in our local pub with Diane, cradling blisters from digging in ground that was a quarter rocks and glumly drinking to the memory of a fine cat, a very fine cat indeed, we heard someone make the waspish comment that England should send some of the Royal Wedding costs his way, because "I now pronounce you man and wife" would start the countdown to the next Royal divorce and a book should be opened forthwith.

We didn't think much of it at the time; west Co. Wicklow isn't a hotbed of Royalist sentiment at the best of times, but a look at Google suggests he's not the only one. Indeed, given the recent Royal record on Royal marriages that last (not many, and none of the high-profile ones at all) five quid each way would probably be a safe investment.

Mesdames et messieurs, faites vos jeux...

"You keep using that word..."

2011-04-24T23:35:24Z

"...I do not think it means what you think it means."

Decimate. Decimation. Decimated.

I've just watched a documentary in which that word was used to describe the effect of air raids on cities during WW2. Once is forgiveable, a slip of the narrator's tongue that nobody caught before transmission, but it came up repeatedly, almost monotonously, and suggested that the writer of the narration had fallen in love with the way it sounded, but never bothered to check what it meant.

I hadn't realised the bombing campaign was so ineffective that it left 90% of the targets undamaged, because to decimate something means to reduce it by 10%. It was a Roman Army punishment in which a unit guilty of some serious offence, usually mutiny or cowardice, would draw lots and then one man in every ten would be executed by his nine companions.

It's not just this particular documentary that's to blame; the misuse happens a lot, to the extent that Diane's heard me applaud when I hear it used correctly. (Pathetic, isn't it?) I wish I knew why this error has become so common, because clearly the assumption is that something decimated has been massively damaged - though I wouldn't credit anyone with thinking it means that only 10% remains. That would be giving credit where it probably isn't due. More likely, the word really intended is devastate and its variants.

Either way it's one of those niggling annoyances, like an itch you can't scratch.

Steampunk-style home heating

2011-04-12T21:25:15Z

While Sharper Image existed, I used to spend ~~too much~~ quite a lot of time with my nose in their catalogues. I can't recall ever buying anything, mind you, and often wondered why anyone would actually want some of the nonsense on offer. A bit like Skymall catalogues, in a way.

The various websites for Manufactum are a bit that way too, although with a lower "who'd want that?" response and a much higher rate of "I'd love that but ouch!", though NB the UK and International ones are very watered-down, a bit like US site ThinkGeek versus UK site I Want One of Those used to be. They've grown more similar, but there's still a caffeine-in-everything section in one and a bar-and-beer section in the other. Guess which? (The B&B features a Thing I have lusted after ever seeing one in the possession of Constable Haddock of the Ankh-Morpork Watch at last Discworld con: a sensibly-sized hip flask.. Tee hee.)

Lots of the stuff Manufactum sells is equally practical and handsomely designed, just very expensive. Anybody want to buy a Morgan 4/4 1600 sports car from an on-line catalogue store? Manufactum can accommodate you. (I thought it was a model at first, but the tag of €43,850.00 corrected this misapprehension.)

That's where I saw this amazing piece of stuff, which looks more like a movie prop than anything real. It could be at the back of a Titanic-era boiler-room set and not look out of place.

There are other variants, one where the burner is built into a cooktop, another which exchanges the upper oven for a stone-filled storage heater. An additional photo for that one shows it built into a wall-unit, but those who delight in rivets would just leave the works on display for all to admire.

I'd say it was cool, except that's hardly the right word for a heater. Don't park the Zeppelin too close...

Diana Wynne Jones, RIP

2011-03-26T20:05:08Z

In 1979 I wrote what later (much, much later) became The Horse Lord.

Since I was at university, reading English Lit., I asked a couple of my tutors to have a look at it. Apart from the usual vague encouragements nothing much happened: it was a bit too far removed from Shakespeare and Chaucer.

Then in 1981 I got a letter from Alastair Minnis, who'd moved to Bristol Uni (he's now a full Professor at Yale.) I'd been mentioned, Lord knows why, to his colleague's wife Mrs Burrow, who was a Real Writer, and she'd expressed interest in reading the stuff. So I sent it to Alastair, he passed it on, and a few weeks later I got a letter back.

That was the first time I realised that Mrs Burrow was also Diana Wynne Jones, and I'd already been reading her books; I remember Cart and Cwidder and Power of Three in particular.

She was witty, perceptive, insightful, helpful... If it's possible to hold someone's hand across the wet bit between Belfast and Bristol, then Diana held mine. "One gets so little chance," she wrote, "to talk to anyone about writing, at least of the making-things-up kind."

There were other letters, with advice, with gossip, with encouragement - I still have them all in my scrapbook - and then the phonecall that wasn't a long-range hand-hold but a long-range pat on the back when Horse Lord finally sold.

My favourite among all her books is The Tough Guide to Fantasyland - my copy is ragged, dog-eared and usually bristles with bookmarks - because it's so full of the funny, accurate comments I first saw in those letters. And there are a few that are more pointed than others; "Apostrophes" for instance, or "Names" (SWORDS...seem very proud of being known to be really Excalibur or Widowmaker.) Not an uncommon sword-name, in fantasy or folklore, but I always get the feeling of being twinkled at over the rim of a pair of specs...

And then today's news.

Not the jolting shock of something totally unexpected, but the sadness that it didn't happen later, whenever that might be. Yet today is later, if you look at it from yesterday, and much, much later than last year.

I'm glad Diana had some later.

I wish she could have had some more.

The Colour of Molesworth

2011-01-10T23:40:33Z

Diane spotted someone’s Twitter enquiry about the skool uniform colours of that admirable educational institution St Custard’s, but when she asked my advice, to mutual surprise I couldn't produce an answer straight away. So I went looking. Well, you do, don’t you?

It would seme that Skool uniform colours aren't described anywhere in the text, at least nowhere I spotted during an admittedly cursory flip through my copy of The Compleet Molesworth. The interior black and white line drawings by Ronald Searle most frequently show a light blazer with dark lapels, light piping and a badge on the breast pocket.

How to be Topp (Armada and Armada Lion, also Puffin, all early-1970s paperbacks) represent it as a yellow blazer with black piping, which is also the colour scheme used on at least one (the US?) version of Back in the Jug Agane, an edition of The Compleet Molesworth, (Pavilion 1985) and a retitled compilation simply called Molesworth (Penguin Modern Classics 2009.) The most common cover for Whizz for Atomms shows Molesworth 1 in a bubble-helmeted space-suit, though it does have a school badge on the chest, but lurking in the depths of Google Images (it was lurking, not me) I found a tiny cover image of an Atomms cover where once again he is clad in yellow-and-black. This colour scheme is not only the one most recently and frequently used, it's probably the most easily recognised, and also most closely represents the light-blazer-with-dark-piping of the monochrome drawings.

The above fakts are correkt for a change. I had all of the above books when I too was but a mere skoolboy, but after the passage of many years, had cause to check my recollections in the aforesaid Google Images. (Posh prose eh? Go it, Morwood.)

However Searle's drawings also show a light blazer with light lapels and dark piping, a dark blazer with dark lapels and light piping, and a "Henley Regatta" striped blazer suitable for both Fotherington-Thomas and that rather unsettling pupil whose "developing individual character" evidently includes Resurrection, and not the kind taught in Divinity. These are all in Down with Skool, so it's not a change of uniform between different books. Long trousis are usual, with shorts for new bugs. The school cap is always represented as being "hooped" – horizontally striped – light and dark, with a badge at the front.

The Down with School cover of the Armada and Armada Lion 1970s paperback shows a red blazer with yellow piping and a red and yellow hooped cap; these colours also appear on the cover of Back in the Jug again (same publisher, and when viewed alongside Down with Skool, very clearly the same cover designer.) The red blazer also appears on a reissue (or possibly US edition) of The Compleet Molesworth but when compared to the frequency of the yellow-and-black colour scheme, the red-and-yellow is no more than a temporary aberration.

Or hav I missed something…?

(And I note that miss_next is looking for some information about Radio Malt. I shall go looking for that, too. Funny that two questions about Molesworth would pop up on the same day... It must be an omen.)

The Škoda bites back...again.

2010-11-07T15:21:09Z

It's been a long time since the "I can’t believe it’s a Škoda" ads, as they tried to conquer an unenviable reputation, and now there's a new one. It's been out for about a week, but I've only just caught the new commercial for the hot hatchback iteration of the Škoda Fabia, and I like it (the ad, anyway. Carwise, the big Superb is more my style.)

First there was the sweetness and light car-made-of-cake ad from a couple of years back; now we've got its "darker and grittier" remake. "My Favourite Things" now has a hard-rock beat, but it would have been fun if they'd redone the lyrics while they were at it:

Gravemould on roses
And sharp fangs on kittens;
Rusting black cauldrons
And ice-cold iron mittens;
Brown paper packages
Oozing stale gore...
Let me go home!
I can’t take any more!

Though one brief shot puts that overhyped sushi knife the katana to the best use I've seen for a long time, I don't think it’s as good as the original: the CGI is OK and necessary, but the previous one used 'real stuff' (all that cakemaking was genuine) and that reality showed. If it wasn't an ad, I'd suspect a subtext about the unreality of giving Testarossaterone injections to a small family car, but maybe that's improbably subtle.

Your opinion - or mileage, appropriately for the subject - may vary... :-)

James Bond and the Mystery Meat

2010-10-22T06:10:24Z

Ian Fleming's story collection From a View to a Kill was published in 1960. Several of the stories – Risico, From a View to a Kill, and For Your Eyes Only originated as the outlines for a proposed CBS James Bond series. Risico places James Bond in Italy, going after the "big men" of a Communist-funded narcotics pipeline. Dinner with his contact, Signor Kristatos, sees Bond ordering

Tagliatelle Verdi with a Genoese sauce which Kristatos said was improbably concocted of basil, garlic and fir cones.

Fir cones, indeed! It's a bit surprising that Fleming had never heard of pesto alla Genovese, made with pine nuts (or pine kernels, if you prefer); Elizabeth David had brought out her book Italian Food in 1954, and Fleming himself was well-read, well travelled and had visited Italy at least once (though obviously that doesn't mean he encountered pesto...)

Getting information right seems to be something of a hiccup. I have a copy of wine-writer Cyril Ray's book In a Glass Lightly, published in 1967, where he has this to say about Fleming's wine expertise:

...Ian Fleming (who was once my immediate superior, when he was Foreign Manager for Kemsley Newspapers, and I was the Moscow correspondent of The Sunday Times) knew nothing about wine except what he was told when he rang up friends in the wine trade, and then usually got it wrong.

While visiting New York in Diamonds Are Forever, Bond again has dinner with a contact. This time it's Felix Leiter, and the venue is Sardi's restaurant, where Leiter does the ordering.

"… I've taken a chance and ordered you smoked salmon and Brizzola," said Leiter. "This is one of the best places in town for beef, and Brizzola's the best cut of that, straight cut across the bone. Roasted and then broiled. Suit you?"

When the food arrives, it's a bit of a curate's egg so far as Bond's concerned.

The smoked salmon was from Nova Scotia, and a poor substitute for the product of Scotland, but the Brizzola was all that Leiter said, so tender that Bond could cut it with a fork.

This treatment, however, is a bit of a mystery. Bond writer Raymond Benson, in The James Bond Bedside Companion describes it as a fictional invention by Fleming. One thing it certainly is not, was the only Italian form of meat with a similar name that I was able to find. Bresaola, though looking and sounding close to Brizzola, is neither roasted nor broiled but air dried and served in thin slices as an antipasto starter or snack.

This could have been on Sardi's menu along with some other beef main course, and Fleming mixed them up. He did that in several books, with food, wine and even guns (but carried off his mistakes with such verve that these are the Bondian aspects he's supposed to have been most knowledgeable about!) I suspect we're back to that fir-cone situation, where Fleming was told something he'd never heard of before, and described it in terms that seemed most familiar to him.

I'm a heathen so far as the American attitude towards steak is concerned: I like it well done, or at least well on the side of medium. This doesn't mean shoe leather, it just means I don't want my meat bleeding all over the plate. If I want blood, I'll cut myself; a rich beef jus is not blood.

At least one American I met was pretty rigid about what can and can't be done to beef. Diane and I went to dinner once with a business acquaintance who took us to "a great steakhouse," but when I requested mine "medium-well done" (or it might even have been "well-done") he actually got out of his seat and suggested, none too politely, that if I was going to ruin the meat, we should go somewhere cheaper... I was brought up to believe that it didn't matter what your guest wanted to do to their food, so long as it wasn't actively nauseating; this was your guest, and that should be enough. On that occasion, apparently not. But I wonder: might Fleming also have been taken aback by an excessively bloody piece of beef, sent it back for a bit more cooking, then adapted the whole thing into a "special?"

The Brizzola business of double-cooking made me think of that memorable dinner, not only roasting beef, but broiling it afterwards. One would think that would end up with seriously overcooked meat, but from Bond's reaction, it clearly did no such thing. More to the point, a consultation of our cookbooks – we have about 400, after the last cull – suggest that "broiling" isn't just a way to cook food, but also to finish it after another, longer cooking method. You can see the elements falling into place...

Then I encountered an Italian dish called Brasato di Manzo al Barolo, which is beef braised in (very good) red wine, then served in thick slices – tranches, to use the old term. The slices are thick enough to pass under a seriously-hot commercial broiler to produce a burnt, crunchy finish without actually cooking the slice of braised meat any further, and whether this was done to the proper recipe or not, it sounded like a feasible way for a restaurant to put its individual spin on the dish.

Besides describing unfamiliar things in familiar terms, Ian Fleming, bless his little cotton socks, had (according to at least a couple of observers) no head for drink, and as a result his "research meals" for James Bond novels were often something of a mishmash of incorrect or illegible notes. I've even seen one source suggesting that Bond's famous "shaken not stirred" Martini – which apparently contradicts the way in which every martini was made prior to that – was a result of Fleming sampling far too many martinis, getting the method wrong, and then sticking to his guns afterwards. It doesn't hurt that in his essay How to Write a Thriller he elaborates on how someone going against the grain like that makes for a more interesting character, which works for me. The only place it doesn't work is that such behaviour makes said character stand out and become memorable – both characteristics that a spy would do well to avoid.

It seemed to me that we'd found at least one likely candidate for "Brizzola." Diane had other suggestions; that it might originally have been a deliberately-underdone rib roast cut between the ribs into individual portions like really large T-bone steaks, and finished on or under a grill. Alternately, it could have been a London broil sliced and finished in the same way, which is what I did to a fine piece of rump steak the other night, for my birthday dinner.

The meat had been marinating since Monday in olive oil, red wine, red wine vinegar, oregano, cracked pepper and crushed garlic. It was then slow roasted, frequently basted with the marinade, then cut into four thick slices and whizzed under the grill. Luckily our kitchen cooker has a very enthusiastic grill, if it's allowed to preheat properly, so the end result was delicious.

And yes, you can cut it with a fork...!

New e-book: Prince Ivan (Tales of Old Russia 1)

2010-09-24T20:10:41Z

It's about time Prince Ivan (Tales of Old Russia #1) was available again; I keep getting asked about it!

For those interested, I've corrected the Russian - there's not much, it's a novel not a language lesson, but I had a crib. A publisher in Moscow brought it out in "pravil'no russkiy," real Russian, not dictionary crossed with phrasebook (the reviews were uniformly good, and occasionally very complimentary about how "the foreigner" handled THEIR history and folklore.)

So in exchange I did a word-hunt to make sure the bits of "local flavour" were correctly spelt. This is Very Interesting in an alien alphabet. There were a couple of nights when I was dreaming about Cyrillic (though if I'd been dreaming in Cyrillic, it would have been even stranger.)

So here you are. A story that started out with me telling the story to Diane, in a pub, with aeroplane noises. Pub? Plane noises? So what's new about that? But in a Russian folktale? It can be done. (So can a very nasty Transporter accident, but that's in Book 2.)

The Falcon swooped down, struck three times upon the ground and became a fine young man who bowed to the Princess...

turned into something like...Neeyyowww scree-scree-scree (then in a Terry-Thomas voice) "Well, hello..."

Hardly surprising that she turned it into a comic strip for The Dreamery later on. The reprint is coming out in February, with its never-before-seen sequel.

Later for that.

CSI Ankh-Morpork (not the one you think.)

2010-09-19T00:45:49Z

THE SEVEN-SHOT SIX-SHOOTER
In
MEN AT ARMS

A small mystery from the files of
CSI* Ankh-Morpork
SCRVTATIO PLVS DILIGENS
(We Look Harder)

(*Not a Watch department: the Copyedit Slip-up Inspectors work for The Times)

Page numbers from first-edition 1993 Gollancz hardback.

I completely forgot to mention this to anyone during the recent UK Discworld Convention, but it's perhaps the geekiest thing I've ever done. I checked the annotations at AFP just before clicking "Post" and there's no reference to any of what follows. The Gonne's six-shot capacity is mentioned so often that the error described here is an itch I want to scratch.

(If you're interested, there was a real firearm that worked this way, called a "harmonica gun." I showed pictures to Terry at last year's Irish DWCon and he confirmed that this was indeed what he had in mind. Impressively, Josh Kirby did the back-cover illustration - compare it to the real thing - just from text description.)

[p.60] Hammerhock, the soon-to-be-late dwarf weaponsmith, remarks on the six chambers of the thing he's inspecting.

[p.116] Vimes stared at his reflection – something (1) stung his ear and smashed the glass...There was another tinkle and a half bottle of Bearhugger's exploded (2) on the desk...He hit the floor at the same time as a pock coincided with a hole (3) punched through the wall on one side of the window.

[p.117] Pock. Splinters flew up from a point on the floor (4) where it would undoubtedly have severely inconvenienced anyone lying on the boards cautiously raising a decoy helmet on a stick...Something smashed (5) into the doorframe as the door swung to behind him.

[p.122] Vimes finds a metallic object discarded on the roof of the opera house, from which the five described shots at him have been fired.

[p.126] Carrot finds that Lettice Knibbs has been shot from the same place. Though it was probably the first shot fired, I'm counting this as shot (6) to justify the empty clip (or is it a magazine?) found by Vimes.

[p.133] Vimes examines the object: It looked like a short set of Pan pipes, provided Pan was restricted to six notes, all of them the same.

[p.135] Vimes reiterates his thoughts about the six-shot nature of the weapon and recalls how the shooter got off six shots, even though only five were aimed and described as being at him. (He's obviously counting the one that killed Lettice Knibbs.)

[p.138] The distant figure raised what looked like a stick, holding it like a crossbow. And fired. The first shot (1) zinged off Cuddy's helmet... Detritus blinked. Five more shots, (2, 3, 4, 5, 6) one after the other, punctured his breastplate.

[p.251] Lord Vetinari stood up as he saw the Watch running towards him. That was why the first shot (1) went through his thigh, instead of his chest. Then Carrot cleared the door of the carriage and flung himself across the man, which is why the next shot (2) went through Carrot...A third shot (3) knocked a chip out of Detritus, who slammed into the carriage, knocking it on its side and severing the traces...Vimes slid to a halt behind the overturned carriage. Another shot (4) spanged off the cobbles near his arm.

[p.252] A shot (5) hit the carriage wheel above Vimes' head, making it spin... "We wait for one more shot," (Vimes) said. "And then we run for proper cover." Vimes visualises the gonne, once more emphasising its six-shot nature and wondering how fast it can reload.

[p.258] (Colon) didn't even look around, which saved his life. His dive for the floor and the explosion (6) of the gonne behind him happened at exactly the same time. This is the sixth shot, and from Vimes' subsequent actions, he heard it clearly.

There isn't another shot at Colon (because the gonne is empty) and instead Cruces hits him before his escape. But he has clearly reloaded by the time Vimes catches up with him.

[p.264] "Captain Vimes? One thing a good Assassin learns is—" There was a thunderous explosion, (1) and the lamp disintegrated. "—never stand near the light." Vimes hit the floor and rolled. Another shot (2) hit a foot away, and he felt the splash of cold water.

[p.266] The gun jerked and fired (3?) at the same moment as Carrot leapt sideways...The gonne fired four times. (3?, 4, 5, 6) It didn’t miss once. She hit the man heavily, knocking him backwards. Vimes rose in an explosion of spray. "Six shots! That's six shots, you bastard! I’ve got you now!"

(This is one of possibly two very distant references to the first James Bond film, Dr. No. A Bad Guy empties his revolver into a sheet-covered fake Bond. Real Bond then confronts him and orders him to drop the gun, which he does. Bond then seems to allow the Bad Guy (who thinks he's being subtle) to pick up the gun again, but this time he gets nothing but a click. Whereupon Bond says, "That's a Smith & Wesson, and you've had your six," and shoots the Bad Guy. In fact he shoots him twice (though I've seen one TV showing where this is cut) and the second shot is a coldly deliberate 'execution' shot. This made it memorable, because examples of screen Bond being as nasty as his book counterpart are rare (deliberately not saving Bad Guys from the consequences of their own Badness doesn’t count) and I can think of only two: "I never miss" in The World is Not Enough and "Yes, considerably," in the reboot Casino Royale.)

I'm taking shot (3?) apparently at Carrot to also be the first of the four shots at Angua, making Vimes' total a correct one. He pursues Cruces and catches up as

[p.268] Cruces was lying a few feet away, fighting for breath and hammering another rack of pipes into the gonne. Vimes grapples with him and

Now we’ll start to count:

[p.268] The gonne exploded. (1)There was a tongue of red fire, a firework stink and a zing-zing noise from three walls. Something struck Vimes' helmet and zinged away towards the ceiling.

After which, Vimes has possession of the gonne...

[p.269] (Vimes) swore afterwards that he didn't pull the trigger. It moved of its own accord, pulling his finger with it. The gonne slammed into his shoulder (2) and a six-inch hole appeared in the wall by the Assassin's head, spraying him with plaster...He brought the gonne around, not aware of thinking, and let the trigger pull his finger again. (3) A large area of the door and frame became a splinter-bordered hole...Vimes managed to haul the barrel upwards just as it fired, (4) and the shot took away a lot of ceiling...Doors were opening. Doors closed again after the gonne fired again, (5) smashing a chandelier...Vimes shot the lock off, (6) kicked at the door and then fought the gonne long enough to duck.

Note that Vimes doesn't reload and, unlike Cruces after [p.264] he isn't 'off-camera' with an opportunity to do so at any time during the rest of the scene.

[p.272] Vimes drops the gonne. Fourteen lines later, Cruces picks it up. There's still no mention of reloading, but then Carrot runs Cruces through with his sword—

[p.273] And he died. The gonne fell from his hands, and fired at the floor. There was silence. (That makes 7)

Did I miscount somewhere along the line? I don't think so, but if I did – or if indeed this was an error since corrected, let me know!

One other question, and that possible second Dr. No reference: did Carrot hear and count those six shots, then – fully justified by Angua’s death – perform a Bond-style execution on another man with an empty gonne? Which then suggests, was the last shot and consequent miscount added at an editor's request, to prevent Carrot sullying his Nice reputation? (But remember that Good is not the same as Nice, and Personal is not the same as Important.)

There's only one person who can answer that, and I'm not asking, because he's got a sword too!

Star Wars the Saga (or, who needs Joseph Campbell anyway?)

2010-03-13T02:12:22Z

You've probably seen the Star Wars = Harry Potter post, which has gone on to become an internet meme. This rather different interpretation of Star Wars is just as funny, a touch less waspish for those offended by such things, and matches my previous Votan/The Long Ships post rather nicely.

I'm two weeks late on picking it up, but with something this good, better late than never.

If you know the slightest thing about Old Norse, Viking literature or our little-known but very exciting Icelandic saga (obligatory nod to M. Python) then unless a new keyboard and monitor are at the top of your shopping list, do not have a mouthful of mead - or anything else - while reading it...

A favourite old book renewed.

2010-02-25T20:01:27Z

Well, if you really want to know how it was I came to be chained to an oak tree, half-way up in the middle of nowhere, with wolves trying to eat me out of it, I'll tell you. Of course, it's not nearly as interesting as what happened afterwards, but you can piece that together yourself if you go down to any of the taverns around the Praetorian barracks and listen to what the soldiers sing. If you can understand German, of course. They sing things like:

High the Allfather
Hung in the hornbeam;
Nine days and no drinking,
Nine nights and no nurture...

or:

Alfege the Earl, Odin-born,
Great in guile, wise in war...

I often go down there and listen. It never crosses their minds that it was only me all the time...

Interested yet...?

You should be. That's the first couple of paragraphs from Votan, a historical novel by John James about how the crafty Greek merchant Photinus tries to buy the Baltic amber mines from dimwit natives who aren't as dim as he thinks, and ends up founding a mythological pantheon instead. As one does...

It's a tongue-in-cheek, witty first-person narrative, with little side-jokes that work even better if you know anything at all about Graeco-Roman history and/or Norse mythology. And sometimes it's surprisingly harsh, when that likeable (though not very trustworthy) chap Photinus gives a jolting reminder that his voice comes from the late first century, when life is cheaper than you think.

First published by Cassell in 1966, and found by me in Lisburn library around 1969 (officially I was too young for books from the Adult Library, but I was very persuasive when it came to "Viking stuff,") Votan was issued as a Tandem paperback in 1971 (owned it, loaned it, never got it back - I wasn't the only one in my form who was keen on Viking stuff, and Parky was bigger than me.) In 1987 Bantam brought out a unified-binding paperback "set" of this and James's two other historicals, Not for all the Gold in Ireland and Men Went To Cattraeth, which are the versions I now own. They went out of print in about 1990, and after that nothing for two decades.

Until now. Well, now-and-a-bit...

In Not for all the Gold in Ireland, Photinus tries to recover his family's Deed of Monopoly to the Wicklow goldmines, and ends up far too close to an Irishman called Setanta with a dislike for cattle-rustling... I started reading the book last night, in connection with another project entirely, and noticed it and Votan were getting a bit mangy. (Men Went To Cattraeth is almost mint; no Photinus, different style, different tone, unfamiliar mythology, not for me.) I started wondering if they were easy to replace, and idly looked up the titles earlier today.

That's when I discovered Neil Gaiman is bringing Votan back into print as Volume 2 of the Neil Gaiman Presents series from Dark Horse. (Thanks, Neil! Now, what about The Long Ships?))

Comixology give a publication date of 8 July 2009, while Amazon.co.uk claims 1 August, 2009; however, the absence of any actual book to buy, and the beginning-of-this-month post on Babylon Wales suggests that it'll be available sometime early this year instead. Second-hand (hardback) copies can be found in various places for various prices, from as low as $20.00 to as high as $350.00(!) but with the new edition listed at $13.00, nothing more need be said.

Here's Jo Walton's review, from the Tor Books website. My own review would be kinder, because I don't object to the humour as much as she does, but she hits all the main points.

When it comes out, get it and read it; I think you'll like it. I certainly do, and have done, for more than forty years...

Crunch crunch nom nom nom

2010-02-09T08:30:34Z

BBC4, a couple of years back, broadcast Who Killed Mrs De Ropp? a dramatization of three of Saki's delicately vicious Edwardian short stories, The Storyteller, The Lumber-Room and, of course, Sredni Vashtar.

I hunted them down on the Net, not difficult since they're all PD, and saved them as a .DOC file which I've just finished re-reading. Well, not quite "just." The re-reading was ten minutes ago, because as usual after finishing Sredni Vashtar with its final line

...Conradin made himself another piece of toast...

I ended up in the kitchen, feeding slices of Stafford's Crusty Farmhouse White into the Dualit and then, buttered with much butter, into me.

Since it happens nearly every time, I wondered: has anyone else this sort of automatic response to improbable stimuli?

Not smell, that's too easy unless the scent of coffee makes you want cornflakes (not so improbable at breakfast, but after dinner rather more so) and even sound, especially something frying, can have a Pied Piper effect. However, being enticed to eat toast by the last sentence of a story almost a century old is a bit odd because – as you'll discover if you haven't read it before - Sredni Vashtar is mostly about matters more macabre than that.

Another Word on Adam Diment...

2010-01-16T23:08:21Z

That word is "alive." Apparently.

I just discovered this on my website (yes, just... I really must start paying more attention to it, he said, not for the first time.)

Submitted by nickdiment on October 21, 2009 - 09:25.

Dear Mr Wormwood

I was interested to see your comments concerning my brother, Adam, on the link from Wikipedia which are, to be honest, verging on the libelous. Not that he would give a damn.

Adam was never in trouble with the Treasury. This is an accusation whipped up, we can only imagine, by the only person who might stand to gain in the unlikely event of McAlpine ever coming to the screen.

Succumbed to drugs! Really, why do you make this sort of guff up? Adam is well and lives in Kent.

Personally I think his books are crap and have not stood the test of time at all well. But then I'm not a author so what would I know?

Sincerely - Nicholas Diment

That's an interesting misspelling of my surname: shades of The Screwtape Letters and The Eiger Sanction, though not a major character in either.

The comment refers to my post last year (indeed linked on the Adam Diment Wikipedia page,) posted about a week before this follow-up.

Tonight I've taken another look at the entry on Another Nickel in the Machine; there are more comments since the last time, one that he's living in the Far East (which contradicts "Nicholas Diment", though Kent does get several mentions, so which of these authorities on Diment's whereabouts is the right one?) and a couple referring to marriage and children.

Getting away from the personal stuff to a topic I find more interesting, there are also suggestions about how to bring the books back through Print On Demand. This would be just the ticket, if the rights can get sorted out, because a lot of people besides myself seem to think they're not crap at all: here's one who not only enjoys them, but explains why. If PoD does happen, I'll definitely buy a set: my paperbacks are now better described as tatterbacks, and books don't get that way by being ignored.

Another First Discworld Con...

2009-11-13T01:33:14Z

...The Irish one this time, and just as good in its own way as the USDWCon at the beginning of September. One was big, the other was small; one was far away, the other was relatively speaking in our own back yard, one was hot and dry, the other was intermittently but impressively - Hollywood special effects impressively - wet.

And then the sun would come out :-)

D and I had a great time - including one especial benefit, being able to sit and speak to Terry for the first time in too long. We didn't have any opportunity to chat with him at all during the Tempe convention, so really enjoyed being able to just talk: about knightly things like spurs (we gave him a pair, since HM didn't) and swords (he's making one, since HM overlooked that, too) and the leverage being a Sir can give against the more annoyingly petty bureaucracies; about writery things like DragonDictate, which can now be trained to recognise the vocabulary of a complete backlist; and about stuff we weren't allowed to mention till the banquet - the Scottish BAFTA award for Living With Alzheimer's. I'm happy the documentary won, but at the same time I wish it had never needed made.

We had the chance for a natter with Jack Cohen and Bernard Pearson as well. Jack is as wise as ever, and added some interesting comments to our impromptu, five-minutes-warning Folklore panel (the original panellist didn't show) that gave people second thoughts about having furry slippers in their bedrooms, never mind on their feet. Bernard is his usual ebullient self - has anyone ever thought of bottling that man's laugh as an anti-depressant? If an audible dictionary needs to define guffaw, that's what to use.

Much beer was consumed over the weekend (of course) and I'm not the only one to think that Sir T. Pratchett, all in black with a white beard, looked very well matched by the pint of Guinness in his hand. He also seemed very at ease, so much so that he decided to extend his stay at the hotel. And There Was Much Rejoicing.

We weren't the only ones who got plenty of Terry-time beyond the programme items (where there were a few moved or cancelled events, but nothing earthshaking that a glance at the Voodoo Board couldn't fix.) The Falls Hotel and the convention numbers were both cosy enough that he was able to sit in one place and let the con come to him - which it did, with great enthusiasm. As he said at the closing ceremony, IDWCon gave him fond recollections of other early conventions, and he even used the word "relaxacon."

Though fortunately not the word "custard." :-D

History Programmes: colour, taste and texture...

2009-11-04T20:50:02Z

...but not much more. A bit like candy-floss or cotton-candy – there's not much substance and I wouldn't like to over-indulge. Britain’s Real Monarch is an example. It's been on before, but last night was the first time I've actually watched it with any care. After it was over, I realized why...

The premise put forward by Tony Robinson (Blackadder's Baldrick, and Time Team's long-time presenter) is that Edward IV, King of England near the end of the Wars of the Roses, was illegitimate, thus not "the real King." Because of this, the present royal descent through his daughter Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII, is also "not real" and the genuine Monarch of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and its Commonwealth is a chap living in Australia. It's an amusing theory, but I can't see Elizabeth II vacating Buckingham Palace on the strength of something with enough holes in it to drive several coronation coaches through without touching the sides.

The right-to-rule of medieval monarchs had as much to do with who had the biggest army and the most support, as it did with what side of the blanket he was born. It didn't concern William I very much: he was known as The Bastard before he was The Conqueror, and by all accounts continued to be a right bastard afterwards. Like William and Edward, Henry VII gained the crown by force of arms; in fact his very dodgy claim to the throne (he was descended from Edward III by an extremely distant illegitimate line) was also straightforwardly based on de jure belli: the right of conquest.

He was a Lancastrian, and his marriage to Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth, a Yorkist, was a peacemaking gesture, a demonstration that the old wars were over, not something to make his own claim to the throne any more secure. After all, he was already sitting on it, the previous occupant had died in open battle, and he had the support of any number of important nobles who were just happy that the country seemed to be stable again.

Incidentally, Elizabeth herself had been declared illegitimate a few years earlier, during the same business that removed her brother Edward V in favour of Richard III. If Elizabeth was re-legitimized to make her a suitable wife for the new King Henry, it also applied to young Edward. Just as well for Henry that the lad and his young brother were both dead, murdered in the Tower by their wicked uncle Richard. He must have been really, really certain of that, because otherwise reversing the illegitimacy in order to marry Elizabeth would have put Edward V back on the throne. Given that their deaths never had solid proof, just gossip and rumour, I’ve often wondered how Henry knew for sure...

(Which prompts another documentary idea, based on Josephine Tey's 1951 novel The Daughter of Time - thoroughly dated, but a fun read for all that. It would show how Richard III was innocent of his most famous crime, how Henry VII was the actual murderer of the "Princes in the Tower" and how the commonest proofs of Richard's guilt – Shakespeare's play and Thomas More's "history" – were propaganda fabrications. Processed footage of re-enactor groups, sound-bites from favourable historians, judicious editing of anything else (I wonder if it's possible to edit something said by Alison Weir so it had a pro-Richard slant? Now that would be a challenge...) and there you go. In terms of accuracy, just the ticket for Histovery Channel - or, from the look of Britain’s Real Monarch, Channel 4.)

Robinson's show claims that the "real" Royal line of England descends through Margaret Pole, daughter of Edward's brother George, the Duke of Clarence who, "it is said" (or "according to legend" – two phrases common in this sort of documentary before a recitation of dodgy factoids) was famously drowned in a butt of wine. Never mind the method, he was definitely executed for High Treason, and the Bill of Attainder that comes with a treason verdict barred his descendants from the succession. That's just the succession to his noble title – it went double for any hope of succeeding to the throne. There’s no mention if that Attainder was ever reversed, but a potential threat that was merely barred from the succession was never enough for a Tudor monarch. Margaret's brother, the last legitimate male Yorkist heir, was beheaded at the orders of Henry VII, and his son Henry VIII cleaned up the last loose end by doing the same to her.

The documentary also ignores other blips that mean "descent by Blood Royal" is hypothetical at best. When the last crowned Tudor died, she was replaced by a Stuart from Scotland; when the last crowned Stuart's religious views became a problem, he was replaced by an Orange from Holland. When the Orange produced no seedlings, and his successor Queen Anne left little but furniture, the German state of Hanover supplied the next King of England. Despite some dilution over the years, the Royal Family got a new injection of German genes when Albert von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha married Victoria, and has remained quite German ever since. Diplomatic name-changes at the start of the 20th century didn't mean a thing. Calling a Battenburg a Mountbatten or a Saxe-Coburg a Windsor is like deeming a cat to be a firearm. It’s just a convenient label.

Which means that two World Wars – the first one in particular – began as something of a family squabble. Not much change from the Wars of the Roses, then. Better to stay in Australia.

Adam (a)Diment Lives...perhaps.

2009-10-30T19:38:00Z

It's been a year (to the day!) since anyone posted a comment here.

Last time I thought to check on Diment information, I read a suggestion that he had settled in "rural England." Since his family were in farming (as were his hero Philip McAlpine's: certainly Think Inc. Chapter 2 hints at a rural background) I thought nothing more of it.

But now this:

Adam, now 66, is happy and well and living life to the full in far off places.

It's the only thing so far posted from an LJ account opened just today, an extract from a slightly fuller version of the same thing on the "Nickel" post shown below. According to the LJ Profile the poster is located in Thailand, so "far off places" indeed!

I wonder who huchi really is...

My immediate response was to put "Adam Diment" into Google in case there was anything more than the sparse information of last year. Not much more information, admittedly, but since January 11 of this year Diment at least has a Wikipedia entry (which lists this blog as one of its few external links...)

It also needs to link this, which fleshes out the rather skeletal information in my own post last year. Posted on August 1, I'm coming to it a bit late, but better later than never. The article includes photos which I've seen before - Philip McAlpine was Diment's Marty Stu, no doubt about it, and the one where he's in bed with a girl and a "Schmeisser" submachine-gun is an incident (and a paperback cover) from The Dolly Dolly Spy.

There are also facsimiles of two anonymous letters tipping off the Bank of England's Exchange Control Department about the currency swindle I mentioned. It's interesting that the typeface looks like both letters came from the same machine, and thus the same person - so was the swindle real and being reported by a "concerned citizen," or was it something more malicious? I find these more unpleasant than the two quoted examples of "sexism in writing," which (IMO, YMMV) are just the usual observations of a young man who appreciates good-looking girls with not much on. (There are entire industries based on that sort of appreciation...)

The comments include reminiscences from people who actually knew the man and confirm, unless you want to disbelieve them, that he was real, not a pseudonym or house-name. I've heard that before, and never gave it much credence for a reason obvious if you think about it. If "Adam Diment" was the house-name author for an ongoing series of Swinging-London spy thrillers, the series - still successful at the time, I believe - wouldn't have stopped so abruptly with Think Inc., especially with such an obvious hook for a sequel. The publisher would have assigned another writer to produce the next "Adam Diment" book at once.

If there really was a big fuss about his disappearance in 1971, then one comment's opinion that it was just a publicity stunt might bear consideration, but my memory (I was 15 at the time and may have missed something) was that Diment just stopped writing. After a couple more years I concluded there would be no more McAlpine books, and that was that. I just remain curious as to why.

As for A Nickel in the Machine, I didn't know it existed until today: a fascinating blog about the social history of 20th-century London. After seeing the Diment entry, and others which mention "Brilliant" Chang (see Watson's Snobbery With Violence) and that eerie, melancholy film The London Nobody Knows, I think it's something I'll enjoy.

Gramophone? Is that when you call someone who's won a Grammy?

2009-10-11T21:21:38Z

BBC-4 is currently running their Electronic Revolution season of documentaries (and the drama Micro Men) about design and technology development over the past 40-odd years: interesting, sometimes fascinating, and occasionally able to make a viewer (me!) feel really old!

Take Upgrade Me, for instance, where writer, poet and gadget-fan Simon Armitage is trying to understand why the camera, phone, MP3 player and/or laptop you bought in February and still works perfectly is now not only out of date, but why your life won't be complete until you've replaced it with a new one. (He doesn't come up with an answer, by the way, apart from the obvious ad manipulation and Need to Shift Product.)

During the show he presented a class of tech-savvy (or at least gadget-canny, as in owning all the usual stuff and knowing newer is better, never mind why) 12-year-olds with a 1960s-era portable record-player, to see what they made of it. I wonder if he expecting the result - which was that they didn't even know what it was...

"Is it the first-ever portable computer?" asked one. Good guess: it looked a bit like Diane's ancient Osborne 1, but I'd have thought 21st-century British schoolkids, or late 20th-century ones, come to that, would have seen even fewer luggable computers than record-players.

"Is it a radio you sit on?" ventured another: again, fair enough, because like the one my parents had (and which was still in Mum's sitting-room last time I saw it, a couple of years back) this had a padded vinyl leatherette lid. Once that lid was opened and they could see the turntable, things became clearer since DJs still use turntables - but I think the record-stack changer still baffled them a bit.

It made me wonder: do sound effects (SFX now, but long ago, GRAMS) still use clichéd audio shorthand even though the listeners increasingly don't know what those sounds mean any more?

You've all heard them: the screech of a needle pulled across a record as inappropriate speech or music comes to an abrupt stop; the windinng dowwwn noiiizzzze of an unpowered turntable as a drug or time dilation takes effect; the tick "a few words" tick "a few words" tick "a few words" of a broken record after a character forgets something or has been hit on the head...

Does anyone still say "You're like a broken record" if you repeat something too many times? "You were vaccinated with a gramophone needle" if you talk too much?

Or will anyone saying that get "What's a broken record?" back at them, or "What's a gramophone needle?" - or even "What's vaccination?"