Jul
23

Amy

Over the years have blogging I have, on occasion, poked fun at the late Amy Winehouse.

In view of today’s sad news, I have removed those posts from the archive of the old blog and any references here. I have not done this to hide those posts but because the context in which they were written has now changed forcibly and permanently to the point where they no longer seem appropriate or funny.

I have not always agreed with how the people around Amy Winehouse chose to promote, look after and other wise conduct themselves in relation to her well being. As inevitable as today’s events may have seemed on occasion, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone whatever the circumstances turn out to be. My thoughts are with her family and loved ones.

Addiction is a disease not a choice.

May
20

Degrees of separation

Social media bleeds into meatspace far too often in London.

Try as I do, I still fall foul of the repeated error, usually on my way into work half asleep, of seeing people I know through either twitter or blogging and reacting as if I know them in the real world when this is clearly not the case.

Picture the scene:

Crisp Tuesday morning, I have just cycled the whole way in, I’m sweaty, puffed out and still wearing my only-just-get-away-with-it cycling top trying to get to my other office as I walk passed a well known London comic shop (not FP). Pausing at the doorway is a blogger I read, whose stuff is really snort-your-tea-across-the-room funny, and I give a little smile of recognition.

Key point: She does not know me.

And I look like some kind of hippy hobbit who has just run a marathon resulting in clothes that came out of the wash one size too small. The crushing sense of social faux pas kicked in about two microseconds after the smile as I threw my eyes desperately for the floor and tried to walk on without tripping over my own feet.

Fortunately for me, said person is quite tall (I am not) and so hopefully I didn’t actually register on her sight line. Perhaps I just imagined the rapid eye movement and lip pursing.

Actually, it’s just me…

It’s not the first time I have fallen foul of this false sense of this false sense of proximity that social media tends to create but perhaps I am being unfair. Perhaps it’s just a natural progression of my total inability to remain calm around famous people whose stuff I admire as evidenced by pretty much any entry on this blog where I run into such people.

I’m not really convinced though because if, say for example, I run into Anthony Stewart Head on a side street in SoHo I know that he is the guy of Buffy, Merlin and a bunch of other stuff, he knows that he’s likely to be recognised and we are engaged in a two way exchange where both parties know their role.

In the social media world, just because you gather a small gathering online, doesn’t mean it translates to real world knowledge and so you’re not necessarily expecting recognition. Such incidents are kind of strange, even when you explicitly invite them such as at conferences where I do try to encourage people who know me on twitter and the like to come over and say hello.

What about you? Any amusing social media/meat space incidents?

May
06

Predictable

No one likes a predictable narrative, it’s a bit disappointing – if not unsurprising – that yesterday’s votes seem to have produced exactly what most of us expected: Lib Dems punished for cuts, Tory side-stepping of responsibility, a lack lustre response from Labour and a probably No to AV. It’s a shame.

The shame is not the result (though I was a Yes guy on AV and I rarely agree with Tories). Rather the whole quality of debate between the professional politicians on both sides was witheringly pathetic for a parliament that is supposed to recognise the need for change in how politics are conducted. From the non-entity that is Ed Miliband through to the utter upper class nonsense espoused by David Cameron or the ineffective whining of the increasingly Gollum like Clegg. The best, most good natured, debate I saw was amongst high profile, non-politician, supporters on both sides and within the genre community who are both groups more likely to have trawled more of the argument than the majority. However, I did expect politicians to present more eloquent arguments than thumbing their noses at each other across the tabloids.

I’m wary of the golden years, hindsight based, view of the world where people bemoan the state of the modern day.

But…

It does seem to me that we’re rather overdue for a great reforming political voice. A politician who sees the real potential in improving the lives of everyone not just a minority. Equally, it seems that as a society we’ve done everything to prevent such a person getting into power by refusing to foot the bill for education that increases social mobility, confusing freedom of press with toxic tabloids, a hypersensitivity to offense that discourages robust debate and a lack of willingness to engage with the political debate unless it’s presented as reality TV. Maybe it was always this way. Certainly, I could spin some of the less attractive habits of great historical politicians including Churchill that would chime with modern day behaviour and yet I can point to things they did that, frankly, are lacking in the last four prime Ministers at least.

Perhaps, I’m getting old or just cynical. What do you reckon? Was it always this way or is it a recent change?

May
02

Transient

In the flurry of things we had on I’d planned my next post to be a short, throwaway post showing the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy In The UK to mark Friday’s events. It wasn’t big or clever. But it seemed a good antidote to the uncomfortable Royalist chest thumping going on.

I was too busy as it transpired, running around doing things with family. It can wait, I told myself, it will still be funny on Monday.

I had not gambled on the speed of the international media narrative, the ever grinding wheel on which our sense of the world (in the west) is shaped. Overnight it was confirmed Osama Bin Laden was killed by the US (although evidence has been notable in its absence so far) and suddenly the post seems out of date.

It has got me thinking about the transient nature of most of this stuff, particularly the media narrative. No conclusions, but watching the coverage is as interesting as it is depressing in places: very little reflection on how our reaction will play in other countries.

It will be interesting to see how this story develops. What was it the Chinese say…?

 

Apr
20

Lis

Sad news doing the rounds on Twitter and the blogosphere: Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane on Doctor Who and the Sarah Jane Adventures, has passed away at age 63 from cancer.

I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who since I was very small. Some of my earliest memories are of watching the show at home with my brother, though he’ll deny it now :) . Being the right age as the earlier series were first released on video I devoured her episodes. In my early to mid teens I attended some of the convention circuit, meeting a range of former stars of the show. I met Lis once during this time, as I tend to do with people whose work I admire: I was effusive in my praise and enthusiastic about wanting to write on the show should it ever return. I cringe when I remember my half of the conversation.

She was very kind, when she really didn’t have to be, and I’ve never forgotten that.

63 seems quite young these days, especially for her poor family.

Dec
31

Top five books 2010

This is the first Christmas for the self hosted version of my blog. As was customary on my old internet home, I’d like to take some time to draw your attention to the books I particularly enjoyed reading this year and, looking back, I’m surprised how much I got through this year. Anyway, I’ve whittled it down to five (books not yet published aren’t included because that seems like wasting the kudos, rest assured I’ll plug them when they are available to everyone).

Remember this is just my reading NOT a top five of books released this year. Here goes:

5. New Model Army by Adam Roberts – Long term readers of my blog will know I was an effusive supporter of Adam’s 2009 release Yellow Blue Tibia which, in any other year, would have walked away with the Arthur C Clarke award but had the misfortune to be up against China Miéville’s The City & The City. New Model Army is one of the best examples of Roberts’s penchant for stretching the fabric of the novel to the limits and I wasn’t sure in the beginning if I could stick with it. Stick with it I did and I wasn’t sorry: it’s really very clever. I didn’t, however, expect it to be as prescient as it proved to be only a few months later as the student protests formed using social media to co-ordinate the leaderless demos sprinkled with direct action (they weren’t real riots scoffs the Bradford Alumni) that the Police struggled to deal with. That’s without the follow on which looks likely to lead to even wider disparity between Scotland, England and Wales. Read this clever book. (Note: The book isn’t about tuition fees, it’s conceit is based around armies run on a literal interpretation of democracy enabled through social media type networks.)

4. The Course of The Heart by M John Harrison – I’m *very* late to the party with Harrison’s work but this was the year I read three of his books in close succession and while everyone from raves about Light (it is good) personally the book I enjoyed the most was The Course of the Heart. This novel that explores themes around love and relationship and image and obsession is – as is all his work – beautifully written and cleverly crafted with lightly woven genre elements repleat with symbolism without spilling into allegory. That Harrison is not more widely known outside of genre is a crime. Beautiful novel.

3. Horns by Joe Hill – Long term readers will know I am an unashamed Joe Hill fan boy. Hill’s debut novel, Heart Shaped Box, was a skillful and enjoyable riff on a classic ghost story that employed a 21st century twist. It did very well and expectations were high for his second book but I didn’t expect such a clever employment of real world characters within a conceit that really shouldn’t work but somehow does. Exploring heavyweight themes around love, guilt and the nature of evil within a ripping yarn is the kind of fiction I live for. Better than his dad. Read his stuff.

2. The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar – I picked this book up because a) the title kicks arse; b) Neil Gaiman said Millar had good chops; c) any book that opens with drunk punk fairies is alright with me. This slim volume is wonderful weaving of character driven story about love, loneliness in a melting pot of a city and the little slices of our ancestral homes we bring with us to such places. It’s told in the kind of sparse beautiful prose that is the mark of master writers like Cormac McCarthy but with a generous humour and I urge you to pick up a copy. You don’t have to believe me: Neil Gaiman agrees.

1. Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist – Vampires are ubiquitous these days. You can watch gothed up pretty boys and girls wander around looking mournful, and having dull predictable love stories that – if you switched the costumes – could be turned into bodice rippers without too much trouble, to your heart’s content. If you want proper horror, a true reminder of just why you should be afraid of the dark, then Lindqvist is where it’s at. Lindqvist’s beautiful and disturbing tale of a child vampire is such a masterful meditation on the nature of evil, love, horror and rage that I find it hard not to sing the praises to everyone I meet. Like the smartest writers Lindqvist has taken a cliche that has become so over-used it’s hackneyed and reminded us why you should cross the street to avoid the fangs. This book is not for the faint hearted but well worth the effort for it is very nearly the perfect horror novel.

What were your picks?

Dec
20

Ghost town

The snow has ripped a hole through the last full working week of the year in London. Trains, planes and roads are all messed up with the end result that the great Christmas exodus from the capital seems to have started early.

Every year, the last two or three days before Christmas mean the capital is much quieter, and those commuters working up to the bitter end get the fringe benefit of empty trains and streets. It’s a great time where you can witness that rarest of creatures: relaxed Londoners. This year the emptiness in the city has started early but the commute in is not empty because the trains are so messed up, and those people who have made it in have a tired wraith like look about them. It’s an urban wasteland straight out of Ballard.

London is a ghost town.

Nov
08

Bristolcon

I spent Saturday legging it down to Bristol and back again.

No, I haven’t gone mad. I was attending the second annual Bristolcon but with a somewhat tighter schedule this year I decided to opt for the train reasoning this would allow me to not worry about tiredness, it was in no way prompted by a desire to drink. *Coughs*

Anyway…

It was great to see this small event effectively triple in size from last year. Smaller cons are often more pleasant – I think – than larger ones because you are in much closer proximity to the guests, it’s far less intimidating to talk to people than at a larger event where you can be overwhelmed by the numbers* and you don’t run into inevitable scheduling clashes that plague larger events. The panels themselves were nicely judged topics with a good range of panelists that provided entertaining discussion and got good audience involvement. I particularly enjoyed the Future Science and Fantastic worlds discussions.

Big thumbs up to the whole team at Bristolcon. Nice one.

It was great to catch up with friends like Gareth L Powell, Becky Powell, Gareth D Jones, Colin Harvey**, Sharon Kae Raemer and others. Murky Depths had a very good showing, and I had a chance to catch up with Terry before I shot off on the train back to London, a brief wave at Danie Ware on the Forbidden Planet stand, and have a chat with Kim Lakin-Smith (who was really nice, given I was probably quite quiet). Yes, I think we can count my first solo con as a success.

Now, if I can just get myself bold enough to put myself forward for a panel…

*I am quite shy in person.

** Colin has a new anthology out that launched at Bristolcon. It’s called Dark Spires and features work from the likes of Colin, Gareth L Powell, Roz Clarke and art work from Andy Bigwood.

Oct
29

ARV

Why ARV treatment is important. And why it should be provided to those who need it.

Think it may have been knocking around for a while. But still: important.

Aug
16

Missing the point

I took the unusual step of reporting a fellow Twitterer the other day.

I reported them because they were sending threatening messages of vile and violent manner to another user, who I follow, and who has had problems – I believe – with these kind of users in the past. I do not and did not follow the person who was creating the abuse but the tweets were public.

I was a bit shocked by the response from twitter.

I’m not going to go into the detail of the threats but they were full on and nasty. There was no framing it as part of a heated debate, it was an out and out threat. Twitter’s response was that they couldn’t comment on accounts that aren’t your own and to get the abused user to log a ticket. I was and am bewildered.

I didn’t ask for information on any user. I just asked them to take action. I couldn’t see any privacy issues because all I wanted to hear was: we’re investigating or – at a push – action is being taken. That’s it.

I understood twitter was a community, that it was best practice to assume a human being was at the end of each twitter handle – even when blatantly it’s often a Bot – and that you should look out for other users. I didn’t see much spirit of community from twitter in that response and I really hope they revised their manner for handling such reports. For the sake of the site – which is generally a lot of fun – and – more importantly – for the sake of its users.

Go back to top