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Hmm. I did promise to say something about my holiday, didn’t I? A post of sorts exists in notebook form, but looking over it, it’s a rather dull effort so I’m probably going to consign it to the ether. The short version is I went walking in the Lake District towards the end of October, and had a very nice time. There’re pictures and everything.
At the start of the year, I had the goal of doing a minimum of a blog post a month, which obviously I didn’t stick to, and then after my personal life imploded I assumed I’d have a lot more time on my hands and thought hey – maybe I can manage two or three a month – but that didn’t happen either. To be honest, I’ve thrown myself into my day job a bit over the last eight months, and haven’t felt I’ve had a lot to write about (although 15 posts is slightly better than what you would have got in the original plan…). I have to rethink what I want to use this place for again, I think. Most of the blogs I’ve followed over the years have abandoned news/links/micro-posts because there are better outlets for that sort of thing now. The trend seems to be for longer essays, which of course takes time and effort. And if I was going to go down that route, I’d like to do something that might actually be of interest to anyone apart from immediate friends and family – as I’ve pretty much done everything a blogger could do to drive casual traffic away from this site over the last few years, it might be nice to come up with something that might conceivably attract an audience for a change. Less prattling about meeeeeeee next year whatever happens, I reckon.
Creatively, as ever, I need to get more writing done. I’m also getting a bit hacked off with stuff I actually make the effort to finish and place ending up with publications that subsequently crash or disappear without trace. I’m hardly prolific, and the fact the one or two pieces I’m proudest of have effectively been in limbo – in some cases for years – is pretty sickening. I recently found out my major completed project of last year, for a book that was supposed to be out last January, probably now isn’t going to be in the book at all, and will likely end up as a promotional pdf. All very demoralising, and I certainly need to rethink my focus next year.
I’d thought about doing a separate best of the year post, but I think I’ll just blurt it all out here: Book: Bad Vibes, Music: St Vincent – Actor, Film: Moon, TV: Err, The Inbetweeners? Was that this year? It was for me, Comic: Batman: RIP – fuck you internet, I loved it.
See you next year, unless I get chatty between now and new year. Have a good one.
A few weekends ago, I made the trip up North to become Godparent to my nephew. Fortunately, my brother and his wife don’t take the massive responsibilities they’ve asked me to accept too seriously, so mainly this meant going into a Church for an hour and then onto an afternoon do at a local public house, where said nephew regularly admonished me for spending too much time at the bar and not enough time at his party. I’m pleased to report he’s developed a keen fascination with trains, and can now readily discern between an electrically powered Pendelino and a regular diesel train (both pass through his local station regularly). Whilst there is something impressive about the speed of the Pendelino trains that run up and down that west coast line, not to mention the engineering that allows them to do it, I hope he doesn’t become too disillusioned when he travels on one and finds they’re hideously cramped, uncomfortable, and always ludicrously overbooked coming out of London. Branson, if you allow that to happen to my young charge, they’ll be Hell to pay.
After the main party I continued drinking in town with my brother and Terry Christian, which was unexpected, where they attempted to convince me Bramhall, Cheshire was a better place to be single than London.
Meanwhile, been to the cinema recently:
Moon – reservations about how much you’d actually save, economically speaking, by establishing the kind of set-up that serves as the the film’s premise aside, I really enjoyed Bowie Jnr’s directorial debut. Was pleased the much talked about twist was actually the premise, and that it turned out to be a rather touching, thought-provoking movie about alienation, identity and compassion. A great performance from Sam Rockwell also cements his place as one of the best actors of his generation.
District 9 – This, on the other hand, was just silly and tedious. Tonally it veered all over the place, from humourous to horrific to po-faced cod-meaningful, and never in a particularly entertaining way. I also think if you’re going to make a film about the evils of racism, then making the ‘others’ part of a caste system in which the entirety of the lower-caste act throughout the film exactly as the human racists describe them as acting, probably isn’t a particularly smart decision.
Generally speaking, my experience of trains involves daily commutes on our increasingly dilapidated underground system or else impossibly crammed Friday afternoon virgin train carriages heading northwards, so it’s easy to forget they’re actually my preferred form of transportation. When it works it’s relaxed, comfortable, even dignified, and allows time and opportunity to lose one self in the scenery. It helps that I usually take long trips for good reasons. Last month, trains took me to Bristol to see an old friend, and this month they took me to Exeter to see an entirely different old friend.
Travelling west always feels peculiar. I lived for a long time in the M3/M4 corridor of course, so there’s plenty of personal memories and genera life detritus associated with that particular, most Ballardian of landscapes, however over the years a number of my oldest friends have, through chance rather than choice, drifted westwards and the act of visiting them – reconnecting with good times past – has lent the journey a slightly unreal, almost mystical feeling of going back in time, a feeling the landscape of rolling hills, fairy mounds and standing stones only serves to accentuate. Like I say, peculiar.
Anyway, my point is long train rides through the country, weekends with good company, sunshine and the seaside rock.
Also on the train, I read Michael Pollan’s In Defence of Food, a short eating manifesto preceeded by 200-odd pages of argument as to why you should adopt it. It offers much food (haha) for thought. At times Pollan seems to be adopting a mildly anti-science, preachy new-agey tone of which I’m instinctively sceptical, however his argument is more broadly anti-bad science, in particular science he believes is biased or outright compromised by food manufacturers. His main target is ‘nutritionism’ – the reductionist view that the value of food is entirely derived from the sum of its nutritional components, and the only value of eating is to promote bodily health. Pollan provides many examples of just how tenuous that argument is, and exposes the health claims of many food manufacturers as at best a quasi-science ill-supported by real research. The manifesto itself is delightfully simple and revolves around advice like: eat with company; avoid anything with more than five ingredients on the label; cook; and the book’s core message, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants”. Pollan makes a convincing argument and offers workable solutions. I’m already finding myself trying to follow some of his advice, checking food labels, going all-organic, and generally worrying myself about becoming too middle-class. As someone who’s general diet has gone completely to pot over the last few months though, this feels like a very positive step in the right direction. Cheers, Michael.
I’ve been following Harper’s Island on iPlayer. It’s advertised as a mystery thriller, the novelty being a character gets killed off every episode, with even the cast none the wiser as to what order they were going to be offed in until the day of shooting where their number gets called. Nice idea, except it really isn’t all that suspenseful waiting to see which muppet gets to die, and the killings themselves feel a bit tagged on to the end of every episode. It’s essentially a slasher film dragged out to thirteen-odd episodes, but I have a weakness for slashers, and whist the characters are every bit as inept and uncurious as their big screen counterparts, I’m finding it oddly compelling viewing.
It’s been a mad few weeks at work, where I’ve been involved in launching some fairly major sites, all within a few days of each other. Stressful, but ultimately rewarding, and now it’s all over I have a bit of breathing space to consider things, and take a more thoughtful approach to what direction I want life to go in moving forward. For starters, I’m thinking I need a holiday now…
After celebrating a friend’s birthday a few weeks ago, and leaving the public house in which said celebration took place slightly on the inebriated side, I had the misfortune to leave my rucksack on the tube on the way home. Whilst it didn’t have my laptop or any other high value items in it, it did contain a lot of personal items that would have been difficult to replace, such as Patrick Harpur’s OOP Daimonic Reality, which I was halfway through reading. Feeling like a bit of a tit, I filled in TfL’s lost property form with little hope of ever being reunited with Harpur’s revelatory work, but lo, they got back to me in just four days to say my treasured possessions were safely ensconced at their office in Baker Street. Fellas, as far as I’m concerned you can strike anytime you want from now on.
Last Friday I attended dConstruct, which is still a great conference in terms of pricing, venue and (generally) speakers, however it’s gotten increasingly ‘big picture’ over the years, to the point where no one is really saying anything anyone could possibly disagree with anymore. You almost want someone to step up with a keynote entitled ‘Welcome back to tables’, or somesuch. Still, it’s always good to hear the likes of Adam Greenfield speak, and Russell Davies wrapped things up in a masterly fashion. Throw in fish and chips on Brighton beach and after-con pintage and you had all the makings of a great day out.
The Hangover is gloriously stupid and mostly hilarious, the latest in a string of Hollywood comedies that remove or else sideline the obligatory romantic subplot and concentrate on the business of actually being funny. See also anything by Ferrell/McKay, Superbad, 40-Year Old Virgin, Tropic Thunder et al. I saw it in the incongruous environs of the Tricycle Cinema, which I can get to from my front door in about three minutes and costs only a fiver, so there is the plus of easier access to cool stuff to mitigate the minuses of tides of insatiable vermin and casual street crime here in Kilburn.
Been keeping my weekends busy of late; firstly, had the family down to the big smoke for a couple of days, leading to many touristy things being done, such as paddling in Hyde Park, heckling people on the Plinth and pretending to be pirates on the Golden Hinde. Revelation of the weekend was that the Original and Big Bus companies’ employees really hate each other, and bad-mouth their competitors at every opportunity. Glorious visions of the two uniformed tribes engaged in pitched pub battles ensued. Also, ate at Planet Hollywood for the first time and was seated beside Bruce Willis’s vest from Die Hard with a Vengeance and one of Freddy Kreuger’s gloves, which went some way towards making up for a disappointing steak dinner.
Then last weekend I ventured out to Bristol to meet up with old chum Andy, and we went drinking on the Whiteladies Road. Our evening culminated in the Victoria pub and an increasingly dark conversation (”what this country needs is a dictator”) with an old boy who eventually announced he’d voted for the BNP in the last election (in his defence, he had nothing kind to say about Hitler). After a leisurely start the following morning, we went for a walk along the Downs, taking in Clifton and the Avon gorge, which was nice.
Rattled through Sarah Pinborough’s The Taken last week, which was a solid, enjoyable mass-market horror novel concerning a remote English village under siege by a multitude of evil ghost children rather than the traditional solitary apparition. Liked it enough to pre-order Feeding Ground, at any rate.
For those not following my epic struggle with the forces of pestilence and decay on Twitter, it transpires that the block containing my new flat has a rat infestation – the result of a lack of decent refuse collection facilities and some of my fellow tenants’ rather relaxed attitude to rubbish disposal. Traps have been prepared, poison has been purchased, but so far non-violent solutions – ensuring no food or rubbish is left out during the night – have been the most effective. Or at least I’ve stopped hearing them. It’s good to know sometimes an accommodation can be reached with even the most implacable of foes. More as the situation progresses.
Saw the new production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia at the Duke of York’s Theatre last week. Great show, with great performances, sets, lighting, all of which the play thoroughly deserved. I hadn’t seen it before and have somehow managed to avoid reading it, but it’s easy to see why many consider it Stoppard’s best, and possibly most representative work.
There are two types of post-apocalyptic novel, it would seem – the ones where the survivors gamely struggle against the harsh realities of their new environment, perhaps discovering or re-discovering new skills and attitudes, and eventually succeeding in re-establishing some sort of civilization. Occasionally there’s even the suggestion that the apocalypse might have been a good thing – the survivors are able to re-connect with certain core human values now that the flab of contemporary civilization has been cut away. And then there’re the others – of which the first half of Conrad Williams’ One is as extreme an example you could hope to find. The catastrophe – a massive gamma ray burst which kills everything on the surface of the planet suddenly, painfully, and in the case of humans, graphically – and the protagonist’s awful journey, motivated by an irrational unwillingness to accept his five-year old son is dead, is simply unrelentingly horrible and refuses to give even the slightest conciliatory offering. It’s among the bleakest things I’ve ever read; a truly awful end-of-the-world scenario and portrayal of survival as something only the hopelessly insane would be even remotely interested in. Unfortunately, I thought the second half of the book lacked some of the first half’s intensity, and the introduction of more survivors, a half-hearted crack at re-establishing a modicum of civilization, and a rather unlikely-sounding extraterrestrial threat didn’t really add anything IMHO. It’s still worth persevering with, however, and Williams has firmly established himself as one of my favourite writers in the genre.
RIP Captain Britain & MI:13, which I enthused about back in the day. Like so many new titles, it faced the insurmountable challenge of building an audience in a market notoriously apathetic to the new and/or different, and was found wanting. It won’t have done Paul Cornell any harm, as pretty much everyone who read it loved it, and whilst his take on Brian Braddock was a little bit too jingoistic for my liking at times, the image of Captain Britain killing a vampire by punching its heart right out of its chest has comfortably eased itself into a respectable position on my favourite comics moments ever chart.
Spent the weekend up North, chilling with the parents. Went for a walk in the Lakes, ate a lot of good food, and broke the back of Iain M Banks’ Matter, which I’ve been struggling to get to grips with in tube journey sized chunks. It’s my first Culture novel in maybe… ten years? Nice to be reminded why I pray for Contact to show up each and every day. I started wanting to read it after enjoying the R4 adaptation of The State of the Art, in which the Culture consider assimilating the Earth but are driven off by the sheer awfulness of the 1970s. That bastard decade has a lot to answer for.
Not really warming to Psychoville. It feels very much like LoG-lite, and the fairly lifeless direction only serves to remind how important Steve Bendelack was to the success of the League. I also – God help me – watched Torchwood on the strength of various Twitterfolks’ ravings whilst it was on. Well, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, but all in all I think I much preferred it the first time round. I am, however, really enjoying the latest series of Mitchell & Webb, which has really come into its own this season.
Discovered Sarah Pinborough whilst roaming on Twitter. I actually met her at Fantasycon in… 2002? Had no idea she was a published writer though. JT and I were really quite drunk and talked to her and friends about Milton Keynes and other topics for what I remember as being quite some time before they politely excused themselves and went off to hear the no doubt more eloquent and inspiring Graham Joyce speak. Anyway, the following morning I awoke to find an answerphone message on my mobile from an unfamiliar female voice thanking me for a great time and asking when we could get together again. I was in a relationship at the time, and not really going out a lot, so naturally I not unreasonably assumed it must be the people I’d been talking to the previous evening. I remember being utterly horrified (and yet quietly intrigued and a little bit impressed) as to how I’d managed to chat someone up, give them my phone number and been so charming I’d merited an almost immediate follow-up call – and yet had no memory of it whatsover. As it turned out, it was an entirely unrelated practical joke by another mate’s girlfriend, who bizarrely chose the only evening that month I’d been talking to single women outside of a work situation to make her opening gambit. Who says the universe has no sense of humour. Anyway, that’s my (sort of) Sarah Pinborough story. Now I know she has five well-reviewed novels to her name, I have ordered one and will let you know how that works out for me in due course.
Otherwise, it’s turning out too be a quiet week in which I endeavor to not spend any cash. Have to decide whether or not to play football in the park this evening. It’s exercise – good – but it also means inevitable pubage afterwards, which is a considerably greyer area.
So as you may have noticed (both of you) I couldn’t even keep up on the monthly update thing. In my defence, my comfortable, sedentary South London existence came to an abrupt end in May, necessitating an unwanted move and downsizing which sees me in Kilburn, which everybody seems to think is a step-up, until I tell them it’s a studio, there are rats, and the landlord is essentially uncontactable.
But enough about that.
I’m quite warming to Kilburn, actually. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel the same level as affection as I did for my former digs, which for much of the time I was there felt like the first proper home I’d had since leaving the parents, but I appreciate its liveliness at the moment, and it’s great having so many things to do on my doorstep. Caught Richard Herring at the Good Ship last Monday, which was great, although I think I preferred his last act. Or maybe that’s just because I had a girlfriend then. Lots of good, cheap places to eat as well – many thanks to David Southwell for blogging about the Vijay in his Black Box Recorder post, I live round the corner and checked it out last Saturday. I sense they will be enjoying my custom for some time to come.
Celebrated my newly-found singledom by getting the DVD box-set of The Shield’s last season – ha! take that you harpy – and oh my. I knew things were going to go really badly for Shane just as soon as they started lingering on the family a little too much, but just watching his hopes wink out one by one was physically hard to watch. And Vic – they finally got you to hate him, and gave him an ending he deserved. Ultimately it was probably a season or two too long, but it was fun whilst it lasted and the ending is as powerful a piece of television as I’ve seen in quite a while.
Probably not going to continue the book log thing, although I’ll continue to update the Now reading plugin I’m using in case anyone cares. Didn’t really read a lot during my forced relocation, but Giles bought me The Unblemished by Conrad Williams, and I burnt through that in a week during which I practically turned vegetarian. Great re-imagining of the trashy 80s horror novel, and better than any book that can be described as a ‘cannibal apocalypse’ has any right to be.
Life upheavals dominated last month, and may continue to do so for the forseeable future. Rather than go on about that, however, I did want to take the time mark the real tragedy of April ‘09, namely the passing of James Graham Ballard, a writer who’s had a profound and lasting effect on me. The quality and character of the tributes he’s received in the mainstream press are their own testament. In Ballard we lose not just a great writer, but a truly visionary thinker whose influence extends far beyond the medium in which he worked. Normally I’d be slightly cynical about and dismissive of the mass media coverage that accompanies the death of a famous writer, even in the case of a personal favourite (perhaps especially so), but quite frankly, Ballard’s ideas and insights are always worthy of wider discussion, and I applaud the recognition of that.
Nothing quite on the Ballardian level of course. Stand-out read was probably Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly’s Local, a handsome hardcover collection of their 12 issue series from Oni. Touchingly poignant and meticulously constructed, it’s a fantastic achievement that beautifully marries craft and concept. That Vandermeer bloke is bloody good too mind.
