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Captain Jack’s Back!
I see that Torchwood, the BBC’s spinoff from Doctor Who, starts tomorrow night on BBC Three with two full episodes. And sexy Captain Jack Harkness is back with it. He was last seen being vapourised by a Dalek, so I’m intrigued as to what the scriptwriters have come up with to rescue him. It had better be better than the TV equivalent of "with one bound he was free"…Trivia alert: Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who.Oh, and note that Torchwood is after the 9pm watershed, so that it will have "adult" levels of sex and violence. For an example of the latter look here. You have been warned.Leave a comment
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The Prestige
Ooh, my interest is definitely piqued. This sounds like a film to watch out for…Leave a comment
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Losing Liberty, Drip By Drip
There’s the transcript of an excellent speech by Henry Porter reprinted in yesterday’s Independent. His theme is his concern that the current British government is mounting a sustained attack on civil liberties. I must say, when I listen to, or read, the twaddle that Tony Blair comes out with on the subject, that I think Porter puts forward a very good case.(hat tip to CuriousHamster over at A Big Stick and a Small Carrot for the link)Leave a comment
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A Gorey Death
Another quiz:
What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?
You will be smothered under a rug. You’re a little anti-social, and may want to start gaining new social skills by making prank phone calls.My result from the What Horrible Edward Gorey Death Will You Die? quiz, found via Lost in Books
3 responses to “A Gorey Death”
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I adore Edward Gorey – I have ‘The Object lesson’ and ‘The other statue’ and ‘Amphigorey’ which contains the compilation of 15 books now hard to get hold of. The drawings are superb, but I also love his lines – ‘Emily, helping her brother look for his twisby, saw a candlestick mounted on a horse’s hoof thrown from a limousine as it drove away’ and ‘As the party was about to retire for the night Fenks announced that the Lisping Elbow was not in its case’.. I mean, I thought it was only I who had such bizaare thoughts, but this guy puts them down in ink. As to the death – I love ‘X is for Xerxes devoured by mice’ but the picture that goes with Neville (who died of ennui) is tragic! Personally I think I’ll go with Z for Zillah who drank too much gin.
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And Lo and behold, when I did the test, Gin is exactly what I got! sheesh.
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Gelert, yes, that’s it – it’s not just the wonderful pen and ink etchings (that scratch away at one’s life), but those wonderful lines. Alas, I only have The Dwindling Party – but, in my defence, it is a pop-up book, and of some dusty distinction, I feel…
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Darwin Online
The Guardian reports today that Cambridge University has put a microfilm copy of a notebook of Charles Darwin onto the web. The original has gone missing, presumed stolen. Cambridge University is putting the complete works of Darwin onto the web for free access to everyone. To date there are a staggering 50,000 pages of searchable text and 40,000 scanned images of Darwins writings and illustrations. This is only 50% of the material that is still to be published.Leave a comment
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When Worlds Collide
There’s a lovely little article in today’s Guardian that illustrates the phenomenon of colliding worlds perfectly. The worlds are that of rock stardom and astronomy, and the epicentre of the collision is in the totally unexpected figure of Brian May, guitarist of Queen. He has just co-authored a book on astronomy with Patrick Moore, renowned astronomer and eccentric, and Moore’s co-presenter on the BBC’s astronomy programme, Chris Lintott.The article is a delight, with some wonderful images, like the occasion when May was visiting an observatory on the Canary Islands, and a bunch of world-class astronomers shuffled up to him, produced their guitars and asked him to sign them…Leave a comment
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The Lady Is For Turning
Some good news today. The Dutch newspapers are reporting that Rita Verdonk, the hardline minister for immigration and integration has done an about face on her position regarding Iranian gays who seek asylum in The Netherlands. She was on record earlier this year as saying that Iranian gays should not be granted asylum, and should be deported back to Iran. This caused heated discussion in the Dutch parliament at the time.Now it appears as though she has seen reason and reversed the decision.Leave a comment
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Will You Help?
Doug Ireland posts a plea for help for an Iranian gay man who has had to flee the country. Check it out, and help if you can.Leave a comment
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Makeup or Makeover
Zephoria, over at Apophenia, draws our attention to a video that highlights the manipulations that are done in the name of beauty. Surprisingly, the video was made by a cosmetics firm. Perhaps they are having twinges of a guilty conscience. Unlikely, I know, but one lives in hope.Leave a comment
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The Comic Book As Biography
There’s a good article in today’s Guardian about Fun Home, the graphic novel written and drawn by Alison Bechdel. The tagline to the title is "A Family Tragicomic" – a punningly apt description, for it’s a biography of her family, in particular her father – dead by age 44, done in the form of a graphic novel.It turns out, according to the Guardian article, that the success of the book has been something of a mixed blessing to Bechdel, who created the book almost as a way to write about issues beneath the surface in her childhood. She, and her family, was totally unprepared for the level of attention that the book has created. I found the book surprisingly moving. It is certainly worth getting hold of a copy. Fun Home takes its place on my bookshelves alongside three other examples of this genre, biography told via the format of the graphic novel. Art Speigelman’s Maus I and Maus II, and Raymond Briggs’ Ethel and Ernest. The two Maus books deal with the life of Speigelman’s father, Vladek, and his life as a Jew under the Nazi regime. They are, as you can imagine, quite harrowing to read, but worth it. Briggs’ Ethel and Ernest spans almost the same period as Maus, but this time we are far away from the death camps of Auschwitz. Briggs tells the story of his parents, a pair of decent, ordinary people. This book is the one that invariably brings tears to my eyes each time I read it. An apparently simple tale about simple folk, told by a master storyteller and illustrator. The result is almost unbearably moving. My favourite of the bunch.Leave a comment
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Thinking On Your Feet
Lateral thinking is a useful skill to have. The Times reports that would-be entrants to Oxford and Cambridge are asked apparently bizarre questions by tutors to test their ability to think on their feet. One question that came up last year was:If there were three beautiful, naked women standing in front of you, which one would you pick? Does this have any relevance to economics?Stumbling and Mumbling provides a particularly good answer to this tricky little poser. One would hope that the tutor asking that question didn’t think this answer was given by a tricky little poseur.Leave a comment
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All Things Must Pass
Today, I was pottering about, as is my wont, when I got a telephone call. "Clare? – Well, how lovely to hear from you". "I have some very bad news, I’m afraid. Mum has died". And with those words, the world changes in an instant. Clare’s mother is (was…) my oldest friend. Sue and I had known each other since we were children, forty-five years ago, back on the Isle of Man.She was two years older than me – a huge gap when we first met. She seemed then like someone impossibly worldly wise, and when she left the island to go to university, I longed to hear what it was like, because that was what I wanted to do as well. It seemed to me like an avenue of escape from a society that I instinctively knew would not be one that I would feel at ease in. She was the first person, apart from myself, to whom I admitted I was gay. It seemed like such a burden back then in those times. Sue helped me see that I should just be myself, and not be imprisoned by the homophobic attitudes of the time and place.Sue was diagnosed as having MS, and it was a cruel blow. But she made the best of it, and I never heard her complain, although of course she had regrets at losing her independence. We all watched the disease gradually build its bars of immobility around her. She became a prisoner in her own body, but she kept her spirits high. The thing that she feared most was to lose the keen edge of her mind. For her, the saying that "a mind is a terrible thing to waste" was absolutely her view, both for her and for those around her.I’ve lost a good person whom I was privileged to have as a friend. She’s gone far too soon, but at least the bars imprison her no longer. Her memory remains.
2 responses to “All Things Must Pass”
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This woman’s face just glows with so many good things Geoff.
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Yes, Sue was special. I took this photo in July 2005, in her garden on the Isle of Man. It was to be the last time that we would see each other and talk face to face, but of course we didn’t know it then.
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Nature’s Beauty
Who says a godless universe can’t be beautiful? These images from the Cassini spacecraft of Saturn and its rings are magnificent.(hat tip to the Bad Astronomer)Leave a comment
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Calling Time
I see that BBC Four starts a new four part documentary on the nature of time tonight. It has Michio Kaku as the anchorman. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Whenever I’ve seen him in the past, it has been on BBC’s Horizon programmes, where frankly, the production values of the programme makers made me want to throw things at him. Heavy objects, not plaudits.Leave a comment
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Imagine Earth Without People
New Scientist has an interesting article that imagines how difficult it might be for future non-human archeologists to establish human presence on the earth. I can readily accept that our current levels of "civilisation" are a fragile thing, and will wither away very quickly in less than geological timescales. But fossil evidence will persist for a while, even though those future archeologists will have no comprehension of what drove our lives. I’m reminded of Arthur C. Clarke’s short story "History Lesson" published in 1949.But one thing is certain, the title of the New Scientist article is wrong. Give it long enough and you won’t have to imagine earth without people – it will be a plain fact.Leave a comment
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Sita Sings The Blues
I’ve mentioned her before, but once again, I’ll draw your attention to Nina Paley and her charming animations. The occasion is that the fifth episode of the Sitayana is now online. You can link to the other episodes via this page, and Nina’s main web site and blog is here.Leave a comment
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O Superman
Diamond Geezer reminds us that it’s 25 years ago this month that Laurie Anderson’s O Superman became an unlikely hit. It’s a work of art.Leave a comment
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Yet More Fun With Software
I see that I’m not the only person who would like to line up certain software developers against a wall and execute them. Diamond Geezer is having some trouble with software that won’t take no for an answer. Been there, done that, nearly took an axe to the system…Leave a comment
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