A rather good interview in the New York Times. It’s by Deborah Solomon, who interviews Lynne Truss, the author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, and now Talk To The Hand. I get the feeling that Ms Solomon didn’t quite know what to make of Ms. Truss; the feeling was probably mutual. The interview also contains an extraordinary anecdote about Michael Cunningham, and I don’t know quite what to make of that.
Year: 2005
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At Swim, Two Boys
We went to the local theatre last night. We had tickets to see "At Swim, Two Boys" – a dance work produced by Earthfall, in collaboration with Jamie O’Neill, who wrote the book of the same name. The book is huge and complex. It is set around the time of the Easter Uprising in Ireland (1916), and concerns the love emerging between two teenage boys, while reflecting that through the society, and in particular the character of Anthony MacMurrough, who is a less than disinterested observer.With such a scope, it was inevitable that the dance piece had to cleave to the central image of the book – two boys meeting on the shore and swimming – and ditch practically all of the rest. With just two dancers, how could it be otherwise. The Uprising was hinted at through the use of film, and formed the mainspring of the dance’s climax.The staging was very well done – there was real water, and plenty of it. We were in the front row, and got sprayed a number of times by the dancers. Music was provided by two musicians who created a sound palette worthy of an orchestra.This was not classical dance – this was grittily physical, acrobatic choreography, in the style of DV8. I enjoyed it, although it was less to Martin’s taste.The subject matter seemed to have attracted the attention of the local gay male population as well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite so many gay male couples sitting in an audience in Gouda before…After the performance, we got chatting to the director of the theatre (Martin knows her quite well, since he has had a number of performances of his ballet school held in the theatre). She invited us into the main auditorium of the theatre where the Nederlands Dans Theater were just about to perform their final piece in their programme: Chapeau. This was much more to Martin’s taste – a witty ballet celebrating Queen Beatrix’s well-known love of hats. I enjoyed it as well, the choreographer Jiri Kilian has produced a sugar and spice bonbon fit for a queen (and queens). -
Christmas Is Coming…
So here’s a gift idea for you. Tasteful, doncha think? I’m sure, as the blurb says, that it would be a conversation starter at any gathering – as in "who let that loon in here?" or "I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing a man like that".(hat tip – in more ways than one – to Twisty Faster) -
OLPC
That stands for One Laptop Per Child – a project aimed at providing a cheap and robust laptop to children in developing countries. It’s aimed at bridging the so-called Digital Divide.It’s certainly an ambitious project, and has caught the attention of both the UN and the geeks. And while I’m certainly not decrying the value of education alongside solving other problems like disease and hunger, I’m not convinced that this device will turn out to be the best solution. The phrase "cheap and robust" sounds too much like an oxymoron when applied to computers. Even when it’s "expensive and robust" it’s often the same – witness Apple’s problems with its iPOD Nano – they couldn’t make that robust, and it’s not even a proper computer, just a playback toy.Lee Felsenstein dissects the OLPC in greater depth, and the prognosis is not good. -
Allah’s Creatures
I see that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has finished the script of Submission II – the followup to the film that caused outrage in the Muslim community last year. She doesn’t seem to have relented in her efforts to point out what she views as failings in Islam, this time the script explores Islamic attitudes towards homosexuals. And they’re not a bundle of fun. Good luck to her, it will be interesting to see if she manages to get the film made. And if it is, doubtless it will act as a lightning rod in the same manner as the first. All the pus of anti-gay hatred will probably come to a head. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes boils are better lanced. -
How Much Time?
The shortfall in pensions continues to be an issue in the news. I see that the UK government is proposing to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67. I’m sure that some people might well think well, it’s only a couple more years… Maybe so, but data from the UK government’s own actuary department shows that one in five men and one in eight women who reach the age of 65 will die before they are 67. And that adds up to nearly a million people who will never be able to enjoy their retirement. A sobering thought, I feel. -
Reliving The Experience
There was a documentary on BBC this week about the London bombs of 7/7/2005. I didn’t see it. Rachel did though. She was caught up in the bombings, and watching the documentary made her relive the experience. Read it. -
One Down, Four To Go
Apparently, Osama bin Laden wants the United States to convert to Islam, ditch its constitution, abolish banks, jail homosexuals and sign the Kyoto climate change treaty. These are from his statements now gathered together in a book, according to this story in The Telegraph. Well, the shenanigans of the current US administration are doing their best to deal the Constitution a mortal blow, so that’s one down I suppose. And I’m sure many on the Christian Right would just lurve to return to the days of jailing us pesky homosexuals, so number two is not beyond the realms of possibility. But I’m not sure about signing the Kyoto treaty though. I suspect that before that gas-guzzling culture would sign, Hell would first have to freeze over, except it wouldn’t have a chance, if you see what I mean.Update: Ophelia nails the bastards. -
Almost Impossible
And talking of ID cards, I see that Dame Stella Rimington, ex-head of MI5, has let the cat out of the bag. She has made the obvious point that ID cards would "only be of some use if they could be made unforgeable – and all our other documentation is quite easy to forge".Quite. There is no such thing as a totally secure system. Still, that didn’t stop the UK minister for ID cards, Andy Burnham from popping up and dismissing Dame Stella’s observation. And how did he do this? He said: "the system will make it almost impossible to forge an identity". Er, tricky word that "almost", Andy. It actually negates the word "impossible". So in fact, Dame Stella’s right then… Clearly Andy, being the minister in charge of this scheme has to be gung-ho in favour of it, no matter how unworkable and expensive it will become. Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians were prepared to be honest, and recognise and speak the truth? As usual, CuriousHamster puts his finger squarely on the reasons why Andy Burnham is a twit. -
I Am Not A Number…
…I am a free man. If that phrase strikes you as a plea against ID cards, then you’re probably too young to have seen The Prisoner – one of the seminal TV series of the 1960s. The Guardian reports today that the series is to be remade. I hope it works out as well as the remake of Doctor Who, which has been an undoubted, and well-deserved, success. -
Those Crazy Swedes
These were created by a Swedish designer. They’ve sold out. It’s very much the sort of thing that would appeal to the Dutch, who tend to have a fairly earthy sense of humour. I fully expect to see serried ranks of the toys in Dutch stores in time for Sinterklaas. -
Excuse Me?
Sometimes I think that the human psyche can’t get any weirder. Then I read this. Oh well, at least he’s won some sort of Darwin award and taken himself out of the gene pool…(hat tip to Kameron at Brutal Women) -
Wine Tasteless
This is a wine that I don’t think I shall be buying. I’m all for interesting labels, but this is so wrong on so many levels – and a) I’m not religious and b) I think Michael Jackson is seriously deranged.Best laid down and avoided at all costs, I think. -
The Book as Cupid’s Arrow
Maciej Ceglowski, over at the Idle Words blog has a witty piece on the role that books play in courtship. I particularly like his take on Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being as "the sexually-transmitted book that this Czech-born author has inflicted on a generation of American youth". His alternative list of books looks most intriguing. -
This Bird Is No More…
… but rather than pushing up the daisies, it was blasted to smithereens. It was a sparrow – an endangered species here in The Netherlands. Its crime? It knocked over a domino, which in turn knocked over 22,999 others.The Dutch animal protection agency is investigating the crime. The execution of the sparrow, that is, not the pushing over of a domino. -
Cologne in 2010
Cologne will host the Gay Games in 2010. That’s good, by that time we’ll be living just over an hour’s drive away from the city… I hope it will be as good as Amsterdam was in 1998. -
Obituaries
As I get older I find myself reading obituaries more and more. Marking one’s time on the tree of life by seeing who’s fallen off the neighbouring branch, I suppose. Two obituaries in The Guardian today caught my eye.The first is for Gladys Tantaquidgeon (what a glorious name!) – a matriarch of the Mohegan tribe – who has died aged 106. Gladys obviously was able to cling to the branch for longer than most of us will ever be able to do. She sounds to have been quite a character.The second is for Eva Svankmajerova, wife of the filmmaker Jan Svankmajer, and an accomplished artist in her own right. She has died at 65 (only nine years older than me; damn, that branch is close!). I see that she was responsible in part for the animation and puppetry of Little Otik, a creepy little jewel of a film. -
50,000 Queer Couples in The Netherlands
The Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics reports today on the state of queer couples in The Netherlands. It states that, in The Netherlands, there are almost 53,000 couples of the same sex living together: 29,000 gay male couples and 24,000 lesbian couples.That 53,000, by the way, represents more than 1% of all couples living together in The Netherlands. Most of the couples simply live together (perhaps with some form of legal agreement, the research doesn’t make it clear). Just over 5,000 couples have a "registered partnership", while about 6,000 have a full civil marriage. Thus, taken together, the percentage that have entered into a partnership bound by civil law is almost a quarter.About 9 percent of gay couples have one or more children – often from a previous relationship. Just one percent of the gay male couples have children; 18 percent of the lesbian couples have children.About a quarter of the gay couples live in one of the four largest cities in The Netherlands (Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht). That still leaves 75% who live outside of these cities. We’ll be one of those, and even more so when we go to live in the middle of nowhere in Gelderland next April. -
Stick to the Day Job, Scott
Scott Adams is the creator of Dilbert, a comic strip that has, I freely admit, raised a few chuckles with me over the years. He also has a blog. A couple of days ago he opined on the topic of Intelligent Design versus Evolution. Oh dear, oh dear. A more perfect example of why he should stick to the day job of cartooning I have yet to see. Luckily, PZ Meyers of Pharyngula was on hand to dissect Scott’s ramblings piece by messy piece. Worryingly, Scott has titled his entry as "Intelligent Design part 1". One can only hope that part 2 is not the pile of dogs bollocks that part 1 turned out to be.Update: Well, he’s now posted part 2. It basically boils down to "yah, boo, sucks to you, PZ Meyers". An even bigger pile than part 1, I think. Feet of clay, and all that. Goodbye, Scott, don’t bother to close the door on your way out.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 