dimanche 28 septembre 2003

The famous once-in-a-lifetime dress (Updated: adds link on designer.) The focus here is mainly on what Michelle's wearing. 'MK', as I vaguely recall saying at the time, left the English Desk at the Factory while this site was still but a baby and headed off for a month to California. Where she got married in a very international way. Now it seems that the gown, along with other wedding dresses and kimonos by Munehiro Nomura goes on show in Paris, for a week from Wednesday. Before she disappeared at the end of ... March, she was so full of news about her specially made wedding dress that I promised to show all on the 'blog. Certainly she was also bubbling about Max, the French scientist feller who snagged her, but the juicier bits have evaporated from my retrievable circuits. When I caught up with Michelle again during my visit to AFP, my timing was so brilliant that she gave me a card to photocopy with details about the fashion designer on it. And a website. In the turmoil of some of the rest of the week, I lost this, but Michelle has sent a rescue mail. Nomura came to France in his early 20s in 1993 and founded Fresque Blanche almost two years ago, after working as an assistant costume designer for mainly European opera houses. The coming show, part of a Franco-Japanese programme, is at his central Paris workshop (Fr; attention, pop-ups!). The wedding was in San Diego and I didn't know who anybody else in the pictures was until last week, but now MK has told me where to find them on the Net and given me the key, I'm posting a selection without further ado. Blame the Kid for the choices here (and me for for the tweaking in a bid to bring out the details). It's either her judgement or that of the Wildcat I count on when it's matter of fashion. "Magnificent!" Marianne said, looking at a pre-selection. "It's a wonderful dress. Who's Michelle? Who's Max?" Well, the Kid knows who MK is, being an occasional visitor to the factory herself, but of Max I still know little, apart from the fact that he looks as happy as he does elegant. 9:12:57 PM  link   your views? []

samedi 27 septembre 2003

'Underworld': an impressively disappointing confrontation The arrival of three big movies in a week at the Gaumont Parnasse multiplex made it hard to move inside tonight for people. I doubt many in the queues stretching far out into Odessa Street got seats at all. The Kid and I instead entered the 'Underworld' in the late afternoon, our usual strategy when a lot of publicity heralds such films. Straight off afterwards, she suprised me by giving it it 9/10 (her second "great film" of the year). Not me! Kate Beckinsale (Selene) looks fine in leather and proves as handy with a high-tech automatic pistol and assorted other weapons as Trinity, taking on the Lycans, to whom she's a hardened death dealer, and some of her own vampire kind alike. She's swiftly enamoured of Scott Speedman as Michael Corvin, the surgeon with a secret he knows nothing about, which has him wanted, alive or dead, by both sides in a war between werewolves and vampires dating back to the Middle Ages. Advance hype sold the Gothic action film as a 'Romeo and Juliet' variation in the world of the undead, but 'West Side Story' stuck a darned sight closer to Shakespeare than this violent yarn, which begs the inevitable comparisons with the 'Matrix' suite. Were the likeness to be pursued, Selene has less in common with Trinity than with Neo, not being short on style and self-confidence when needed in the face of hair-raising odds. What 'Underworld' lacks in the sexual charge and currents more or less explicit in Dracula stories, it amply makes up for with a breathless and outrageous plot, blood by the skinful, hypodermic syringes in diabolical close-up, some terrific special effects and as darkly atmospheric a setting, lighting and costumes as any movie made so far this century. Len Wiseman filmed much of his first feature as director in Budapest with many a Hungarian in the crew, particularly in the art direction and make-up departments. His old central European capital remains oppressive, it's raining most of the time and nearly everything happens in strong shades of the post-industrial blues, with lashings of Burgundy or body-bit red. The soundtrack is a phenomenal racket of battles, metal and techno, roars and gore, with no room for urbane chat or indeed any dialogue apart from what's absolutely indispensable to a plot. The main villain may be obvious from the outset -- Shane Brolly in a mediocre performance as an aspiring and unconvincing chief vamp -- but other characters get a chance to introduce enough new slants on the millennial war to jolt the plot into some unpredictable twists. Especially when they get woken up before their time. Kevin Grevioux (iMDB bio), who co-wrote 'Underworld' and appears in one of the more ferocious manifestations of lycanthropy, conceivably takes most of the credit for holding the story together at all. It comes as no surprise to learn that Wiseman has made more than half a dozen music videos, since the all-action set pieces and flashbacks in this venture could be a string of them: an impressive but disappointing failure to make a whole greater than the sum of some of its parts. I enjoyed 'Underworld' well enough, my senses being sufficiently bludgeoned for all two hours of it to stave off boredom, and appreciated Selene's straightforward approach to foes and doors, which she considers best dealt with by a mighty kick or a hail of chemico-magical bullets, sometimes both. But not even an unexpected side to Kate Beckinsale will make this a happily see-it again movie. 'Underworld' leaves the door wide open to a sequel, but it's not one I'd hasten to see unless somebody tells me that if Wiseman makes it, he's bothered much more about character development, which leaves holes in the film as frequent as the ones Selene keeps on having to jump through. While the Kid had no such objection, it would be nice if he also occasionally remembered that average loud to ear-splitting aren't the only volume levels available. Maybe she was more in the mood. She'd spent part of the afternoon telling me about the joys of Gothic metal, dosed here with deadly seriousness. This 'Underworld' is no laughing matter. Except, I fear, when the jokes are unintended. A 6/10 would be pushing it. The photos are pinched from Sony Pictures promotional material, via Allociné (Fr.) 11:50:46 PM  link   your views? []

mercredi 24 septembre 2003

Overload. Off-line. Optimise. Overhaul or 'A short-lived shutdown for maintenance' [The morning brought a rewrite to this long entry, though it's probably of no interest to anybody but close friends. It was a little tricky to write, and certainly needed illustrating...] "When from our better selves we have too long Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop, Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, How gracious, how benign, is Solitude." Wordsworth, in 'Summer Vacation (Bartleby text)' Monday took me north of the Seine for only the second time since May and that month's onset of the Condition. To the factory, no less. While the three-hour visit involved a good deal of paperwork, I enjoyed it very much, particularly the fond welcome I received on the English Desk, where it turns out that I'm not yet forgotten. Something I appreciate about AFP is that since it constantly sees comings and goings, you can walk in after almost five months' absence and many people neither know nor even care where you've been. So I only had to sum up my medical adventures about half a dozen times. And used really foul language just the once, when a techie told me he knew my forgotten log-in code but wasn't authorised to tell me what it was. That outburst showed them I haven't changed all that much. But something I've noticed about life is that, often, when one's feeling gruesome but really prefers not to show it, many people say "You look well!" Jo, the desk chief, was the only one to temper the observation in detail, remarking on the weight loss, the grey pockets under the eyes and other small signs of fatigue. But then Jo and I were face to face for longer. With the first day of Autumn, however, came trouble. Again. I put the computer out of service for more than 24 hours. It was time to optimise the hard disk, which I did more thoroughly than planned. On tackling one partition, Micromat's Drive 10, which I've never quite trusted but used anyway, froze up. After waiting more than an hour, the only way out was to shut down the computer the worst way, by switching it off in mid-process. More than 10 Go of data got hosed. Even DiskWarrior couldn't recover it or rebuild a directory. I guess I could get it back, but have decided that this partition probably deserved wiping anyway and can soon be put to better use. So that's not the problem. Where I really wrote myself deep into one or two bad books was by going off-line myself an hour before the AFP trip and then afterwards. Without warning, once I realised how drained I was. I simply stopped answering the 'phone for almost a day. I know this was uncharitable and mean, but I need the rest. (The rest is elsewhere...) 1:14:45 AM  link   your views? []

dimanche 21 septembre 2003

'Pashazade: The First Arabesk': heat, handled with flair "Lunch was in the qaa, at an oval table cast from marble dust and inlaid along the top with swirling Persian-blue tesserae arranged as a peacock displaying its tail. Matching benches curved down both sides of the table. Only Lady Nafisa had a chair. (...) Food as politics and food as blackmail: both theories had been regurgitated more times than anyone could remember. But food as an elaborate dance, somewhere between etiquette and preening display, that was new to Raf. Though not to Isk, where the conspicuous consumption -- not of rich or rare ingredients, though both were there -- but of time itself was as ancient as the elaborate laws governing hospitality. Time given was what was on display. In Isk, just as in Tunis, Marrakesh or Fez, ceremonial food required preparation: the more preparation, the greater the respect being offered to guests. Tradition also demanded that the ingredients be divided into small portions, wrapped in filo or hidden beneath pastry in pies, rolled in crushed nuts or stuffed into vegetables that had been lovingly hollowed out or cored. Food bought at a stall or fast-food joint was different. Nobody expected Burger King to be anything other than cheap, swift and anodyne. But in the home, it was almost an insult to offer guests food that looked as if preparing it took anything less than total commitment. Served with the roast kid was a silver-edged clay bowl of saffron rice, plus a dish of red couscous, a chicken tajine where the juices had been sweetened with honey and reduced to a sticky syrup, fried red mullet with marjoram and fresh matlou bread, which Lady Nafisa asked Raf to break and portion out in order of precedence. Hani got her chunk last, being both female and a child." Isk. Welcome to El Iskandryia. And watch your back! In a culinary passage which takes a tale of murder, hatred and love, and multi-layered intrigue on apace, Jon Courtenay Grimwood presents but a few facets of the free city on Egypt's Mediterranean shore, built and rebuilt "on the rubble of its own history". "Venerable and elegant, with a taste for fresh blood," the sweltering metropolis in an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire is as vital a character in 'Pashazade: The First Arabesk' as any of the people who inhabit its numerous worlds. Before he's cast into the seething snake-pit of Iskandryian affairs when his Aunt Nafisa springs him from a Seattle prison, ZeeZee has no idea that he was fathered by a man of prominence and power. Awaiting him are a potential wife, a murder riddle, sudden violence -- and a new identity and social standing as Ashraf Bey. The pashazade soon finds that his life depends on his wits, an aptitude for combat and the unravelling of a mystery where the bodies begin to mount up. And the reader gradually learns of the twisted, troubled trail that brings Raf to mid-21st century Isk from the America that brokered a settlement in 1916 between London and Berlin, victorious in the Great World War. Five years after Woodrow Wilson cut the deal, the Prussian empire collapsed, leaving chunks of Europe and the Near East in the hands of the Austro-Hungarians and the Sublime Porte in Stambul. Isk is more than ever a marketplace of cultures, a free port whose relative independence and religious tolerance under Egypt's Khedive and his powerful German advisor, General Saeed Koenig Pasha, is sustained because of its importance to the world's trade in commodities and information. Trouble starts with a corpse and a meticulous, hot but ruinously alcoholic onetime Los Angeles cop, Felix Abrinsky, the city's Chief of Detectives. There are faint echoes of Raymond Chandler in the tale, along with classic 'Casablanca (iMDB)' and, of course, Lawrence Durrell, who made the city such a living, heaving part of his 'Alexandria Quartet'. Some of the critics who showered Grimwood with glory when 'Pashazade' came out in 2001, the first part of an Ashraf Bey trilogy, made much of perceived parallels with Durrell's work. This writer, however, has become very much his own man. His French and his Brits have second-bit parts, mainly as tourists. "File under Science Fiction" the publisher orders on the back of the book, but what on earth for? 'Pashazade' sits just as well on quality crime thriller shelves and is also a strong contribution to mainstream modern literature. The style is sometimes leisurely with evocative detail, sometimes as swift as the bloodshed and betrayal that stain the city's concealed foundations and ZeeZee's life. Ashraf Bey gets little time to dig into his own origins and mature to handle some almost unprecedented emotions -- such as love -- if he and anybody he learns to care about are to survive. Acts of brutality are unsparingly recounted by an author who last month told SF Crowsnest that "I hate sanitised violence. It's morally and intellectually dishonest to have somebody stand back up after getting coshed or shot. Violence hurts, it breaks things and it wrecks families and destroys communities." That's a good interview and Grimwood's an interesting man, with a slick "official site", as deftly constructed as his prose. The cyber-punk label slapped on his pre-trilogy work has gone unmentioned here because while the technology in 'Pashazade' is clever, convincing and essential to the story, it's simply slipped in with the same cunning hand that reveals just enough of the pasts of his cast to flesh them out without treading on the reader's imagination. Hani, the kid, couldn't do without Ali-Din, an unusually gifted puppy who keeps her informed as well as sane, though Aunt Nafisa is much irritated by this pet and the puddles it leaves in the nursery... As to the reader, you get snatches of what existed in the last century and what didn't. Music by Gorecki, the composer who became super-trendy in the 1990s, does passing service as tasteful wallpaper, but the Holocaust that was the seed for his best-selling Third Symphony is not one of the crimes evoked to haunt this parallel future. Grimwood teases and surprises you, stimulating the neurons like a rich dark cup of Arabica with the scent and flavour of the setting steaming off the pages. Satirical? Yes, he can be when he wants to. Sexy too. Isk wouldn't be what it is without plenty of that and the mess it can make for people. [Next off the review shelf here (and for Blogcritics) is not the sequel this time, though I'll undoubtedly get to 'Effendi' and 'Felaheen'. The extract -- this seems to have become a habit, but I like to let writers speak for themselves -- and the comments will be a matter of another near future, but with the focus on hard science again. Like the late Carl Sagan in 'Contact', Gregory Benford takes on astrophysics and what could be "out there". The latter is intelligent and seems rather alarming. I've begun chewing on 'Eater' (HarperCollins/Eos, first published in 2000). So far, so good.] 8:41:04 PM  link   your views? []

vendredi 19 septembre 2003

A gratuitous and offensive billet d'a.... Jacques lives directly above the Canteen. He made this totally clear throughout the week by tearing up the floor in his place and otherwise making one hell of a men-at-work noise at peak eating times (mine, anyway, which are later than most). Underneath, he found another floor. Sadly, these old wooden beams were about it. Nothing of interest like a skeleton or two. Now he's finished and we can talk again, Sam said: "Isn't she gorgeous?" He was talking about a young woman who'd just bought a take-away pizza off him. "I was most struck by the big tattoo on her ankle," I replied, not having very often seen such designs on long black legs. "Me, it was the balcony!" said our Sam, which I attributed to his retarded development, though I'm fond of an attractive balcony myself, so he returned the compliment. Afterwards, I saw bloghero Yang for a routine medical update, but not the Apprentice Dragon, so I have no more to say about legs. But specially for Sam -- and by way of saying thanks for the free lunch -- here's a stirring if scarcely Net-exclusive glimpse over a fine piece of architecture. It belongs, like the angel face above it, to German supermodel (Showcase) Manon von Gerkan. What's that, Sam? "Vertigo??" If Manon can also sing like an angel, or at least like Carla Bruni, what a team they'd make! I'm sure the Wildcat would agree. Do I have your ear now, mon petit chou? But no, I misheard the man. He craves more. OK. What about Amber Valletta of Tucson, Arizona, put on the catwalk by her very own "Mom"? But no, o thief of my heart, it's the towel she's advertising. Isn't that obvious? Don't be obtuse. And up goes my Feedster score by another point, even if I've lost a reader or two. 9:36:47 PM  link   your views? [] RB and the art of making tricky things easy and fun This Apple Expo week's final entry about matters Mac -- unless I get to unpacking the new iPod and find novel things to say -- mainly concerns design, arising from chat over crêpes in Odessa Street with Mr B. The man gave us two useful contributions to Mac OS X, X-Ray (one of the best of the improvements to the 'Get Info' function at the generous shareware price of 10 bucks) and Zingg (a free must for people like me who pack their "contextual menus" with all kinds of shortcut extras). Rainer first came to my notice through enthusiasm about his work at TS, notably from Marcel, whose site in Belgium is ever growing. I hope my friend (about RB) from the mountain city of Belo Horizonte will forgive me for reporting that even such gifted geeks as himself suffer sometimes from what he bluntly described as "writer's block". There's a subject the Wildcat might be interested in: an equally gifted Wildcat, in her own way, to whom I owe an apology for yesterday's filthy mood, provoked in part by a total misunderstanding of something she was saying before my 'phone battery went dead. Rainer is now inspired anew with Panther on the horizon. What I won't do is reveal what the clever chap has in mind, which is a great idea, but his own to divulge. What I will do is give him, as requested, and others the name of the remarkable tool that has made my life with reclassifying large batches of photos so much easier. Though mentioned before, maybe I'd forgotten because Renamer4Mac, by Werner Freytag, was too obvious! Design, I said. Rainer came to Paris with pals from Macmania magazine (Portuguese), where he serves on the editorial board and sometimes writes. Any Mac mag that sometimes puts pretty women on its cover is, of course, bound to catch my eye (and nearly all of those models are happy to do this for free, given the attention it gives them and their portfolios). The contents are a joy to read. Read them I can, to my surprise. My bizarre brain seems to have picked up some grasp of Portuguese through past encounters, though I can't understand it all and wouldn't dare try to speak it. I've scanned some pages from the back issues Rainer brought me because I agree with the scores of "gurus" he enjoyed a Geek Cruise with in May-June last year. This, Macmania was proud to announce, is "the way all Mac magazines should be!" Judge for yourselves. An eye-catching typeface. Pictures everywhere. Clear, concise text. And that's the start of an article on shareware mainly for news-reading of the kind I use a lot! With one or two which are new to me. Rainer's report on the Geek Cruise -- I shall have to stop being cheeky about them now, since spending days on a boat with nearly 200 other maniacs, many of whom Mac addicts know only by name, drove him neither insane nor incomprehensible to ordinary mortals -- was given a more sober presentation. That's Rainer on the right in the picture of "the Battle of the (OS X) Permission Diddlers" (and it's a good job the roll-mouse-over captions I give 'blog pics don't show up in all browsers): "Text! Look at it, so much text, text, text," was RB's reproach for the copy of a French Mac mag I had in my bag. And on the whole, he's right, it makes them hard to digest, though the two main ones have improved in their latest issues. I forgot, though, to speak up in defence of 'AvosMac!', which he's probably never seen and is the nearest thing we have to 'Macmania' -- with puns aplenty and fun writing. Here's a typical page from this home-grown monthly (their own brand of very un-PC female body flaunting is scarcely visible in this scan, bottom left): Finally, like the good French mags but not the English-language ones I've slammed for thin content and irritating ads as intrusive as they are on too much US telly, 'Macmania' packages the necessary advertising in sensible batches that don't interrupt the read. Every month, moreover, it publishes a good idea I've not seen much of elsewhere, a page on Macs in the media (and yes, there have been male models too): You know what I suspect? Maybe it mostly takes a Mediterranean mindset, or at least a regular acquaintance with the sun, the heat, a riot of colour and a certain joie de vivre to come up with such a fiesta of a publication. What's more, like 'AvosMac!', the Brazilian mag is on the ball in its reviews, shining a torch into good developers' corners to write up software many wider-circulation Apple publications often omit to shed light on. I half-heartedly prompted RB for a word or two on the secret workings of a developer's mind, but didn't push it. The fellow was tired and even had he lifted the veil, I'm not sure I would have understood the mystery. I can scarcely wait to take the Wildcat, and maybe the Kid if she wants to come, to Brazil. Once I've paid off the still unopened iPod, we have a treatment for the Condition, and the cash reserves are restored. For a long time I've wanted to visit that country. Rainer's trip here has pushed that dream much higher up the agenda. 1:26:18 PM  link   your views? []

jeudi 18 septembre 2003

A rewarding trip to Apple Expo At the risk of boring at least 1 ½ of the Faithful Four, this year's Apple Expo was the first I really enjoyed visiting -- and well worth it despite the absence of any stunning announcements. (Updated Friday for one bad typo -- a missing link -- and to add more points about Panther.) Late on a quiet afternoon proved a good time to go and by sheer luck I met, in different parts of the vast hall, more than half a dozen people in the French Mac world I've wanted to say "Hallo" to for some time. François introduced me to 'Soif': also a François and "the founder, the administrator, the web designer, the moderator, the sleepless, the sweeper" at MacMusic. 'Soif' omits to add in his little tale about MacMusic that he's an entertaining teacher, with colleagues who make difficult things clear. He reminded me that their help site celebrates its sixth anniversary on September 29. (And TechSurvivors fêted its third yesterday, and is running a particularly clever banner right now.) There are one or two things English-speaking musicians who find the bilingual MacMusic useful may not know. The editor explained that they'd turned the site into "shareware" (I've previously commended the admirable way they did it) with "heavy hearts", but can now hope to cover costs as best may and also, importantly, "remain independent from advertisers". If anybody out there is able and willing to help with French to English translations, the team would be delighted to hear from them, since they currently do most of this themselves, with a handful of volunteers. It's becoming a workload which needs spreading out more. While the software pages are apparently the most popular among anglophones, 'MacMusic' would readily publish many more small ads in English. 'Soif' was surprised "they currently make up only a very tiny percentage of the total", but suspects this may be because people see the ones in French and imagine it's "not for them". On the contrary, those columns are open to all comers. I saw some of a music-making demo at the stand, where 'Soif' played an active keyboard part, and the nice thing was that I even understood what was going on with the computer. Then my buddy and I split up again, and I last saw him clutching a glass of champagne with the 'Musicrun' (Fr) people, where what was going on was well above my head. Apple products? Yes, there were quite a lot of those, which have been so widely covered elsewhere than I've little to add apart from personal impressions. The essence of Steve's keynote address has been on the Apple Hot News site for a day. It was mercifully brief, apparently. Yes, the already famed, very functional looking Power Mac G5, with its 64-bit IBM processor, is one amazing beast to see in action. Its phenomenal performance is really far more than anybody but the greediest home user could want! The Apple-IBM partnership will go places. I know what Maya's for and even have a copy of the Personal Learning Edition' sensibly given away for free with some design magazines, but to watch this highly praised, heavy-duty 3D graphics software producing fine work in the hands of an expert with a G5 was a remarkable sight. I also saw why Rainer said over a most enjoyable dinner last night that after getting his clutches on Panther betas, he returned to Mac OS X 10.2.x Jaguar with some reluctance! (More on that meeting tomorrow.) Panther looks fast, and I've had no major complaints about Jaguar as it is. I kept returning from the various stands round the edges to keep an eye on a 'X 10.3 for Dummies' presentation on the "main square", which only scratched the surface of the new operating system, but sufficiently so to convince me that one of these days, I want that! Novelties I saw the most of were Exposé, a major improvement along with the more user-friendly Finder, and some of the subtle changes that will make the Mail application better. (Update:) The much revised 'Preview' application is also great news, opening very swiftly even with PDF files, faster it would seem than Acrobat. And I learned, from people who've been able to try it, that Panther is worth bringing to older Macs. If you're running at least a G3 with USB ports and don't really fancy upgrading your whole machine or can't afford it, laying down about $150 dollars (euros) for Panther could be a viable proposition. Something, I'd think, to keep an eye on Mac forums and comments for once Apple releases the cat. I asked Rainer about a kind of "secure delete" trashing feature I'd seen illustrated in one of the betas by France's Univers MacWorld, but this came and went and may or may not be in the public release. In any event, there's the new File Vault for security freaks, which is far from proof against hardened hackers, but would still take some cracking. A woman from SVMMac, often mentioned here, took one look at the press badge I'd asked for, since I didn't want to pay to get in, and said: "I thought you were on strike!" "Sorry," I replied. "To be honest, I don't know whether AFP is right now or not, but if they are, then I'm on both sick leave and strike." For which she rewarded me with an attractive big coffee mug. Most of the other people I sought out came from various software companies I've had dealings with on the 'phone. It was good to put faces to the names and to find that I can now give a passable impression of speaking geek and understanding it. I had a quick chat with Yves Cornil (home page), one of the finest French advocates and historians of the Mac and a key player in this country's Apple User Group community. Mainly, I wanted to thank him for an invaluable list of French Mac sites I must have recommended to dozens of people for their bookmarks. A bigwig from the French branch of O'Reilly was free for a chat and gave me some useful tips on where best to read up Unix and Open Source systems, principles and software further. So the sometimes severe unpleasantness of the Condition has had its benefits, allowing me swiftly to make the most of this year's show after a summer of learning. It was the Condition and exhaustion that took me away rather sooner than I would have left, but that was a wise move in another respect since I failed to leave my Visa card at home. I bought two things. I told the French Intego developers that I'd have liked to update their NetBarrier firewall to version 10.3, but the upgrade itself was "too expensive for me", despite the new features. "Not here at the Expo it isn't," I was told, and when they knocked off the cost of a meal at the Canteen, out came the card. And now I confess. The "need" that had returned to "want" status turned into desire at the FNAC stand. I learned that September's special offer to members had been revised to five more gigabytes than announced. It could also be repaid over 10 months -- "or even 20 months if you want!" "No thanks, I do try to avoid credit these days" -- at an interest rate which may explain why people on the Beeb were saying nasty things about the French (and German) economy this morning. The iPod -- oh yeah! -- is still in its sealed box, to be explored and played with tomorrow. I walked away with the 20 GB model and now have no excuse for failing to back up all of my data, not just the essentials. After all, even Wagner's 'Ring' cycle, in high-quality AAC format, would only take up a 10th of the space. And they threw in a free extra or two for the music machine. All in all, a thoroughly profitable three hours or so, without the horrible crowds of previous such visits. Why was spending money so absurdly good for the mood? 11:57:11 PM  link   your views? [] In a foul mood, with thanks Now that Augustine has given me "carte blanche" to pinch whatever I like from Natalie's site, along with a pointer or two, I'm delighted to reproduce a smaller version of 'For a Song Three', mainly, but not entirely, for the benefit of the Wildcat. (That particular feline scratched me last night for no reason I could understand, except that I was the nearest available object for the sharpening of claws. Rather as the cat the Kid has disowned will suddenly turn and draw blood for the fun of it within a nanosecond of purring for the right kind of caress behind the ears. But that's by the by...) This morning begun at 7:00 am with another utterly pointless but long cacaphony of car horns when a delivery lorry jammed the street, then on the dot of eight a man took a phenomenally noisy motor mower to the lawn out the back, and a quarter of an hour later one of the neighbours slammed the door and the other immediately put on her breakfast-time techno. Neither a long soak nor a perfectly good pizza have improved my mood an iota, so if François will put up with it, I plan to accompany him to Apple Expo. Natalie's artwork, generously put up on the Net, seems to have distracted Augustine from her duties of late. If I were able to commission her next interview (which I'm not), instead of sending the cartoon back for another chat with Tony Blair or another of those ailing world leader fellows, I'd be most interested to know what Augustine makes of Hans Blix. On the 'Today' programme, between this morning's combine harvester and the mindless electronic tub-bashing, I could half hear him telling 'Harrumph' Humphrys all about those weapons that weren't. That 13-minute interview (direct link to the RealPlayer clip) has to be my 'Listen Again' choice of the week. Not that it restored my good humour. 4:21:07 PM  link   your views? []

mercredi 17 septembre 2003

Itsy-bitsy pieces. A fine developer on the horizon Well, in the absence of further gripping news from the factory, and because a sudden change in the three-day pattern of the Condition made me decide to steer clear of Apple Expo this afternoon, I'm going to meet an exhausted Rainer. In Odessa Street, where better? Junction of our Métro lines... Perhaps he'll be the witness to my eating of the page where I proved wrong in predicting the release of Mac OS X Panther at the expo. Rainer may well correct me, but I have the impression that nothing really new is on show. Even the G5 Macs have been known about for a while now. The most interesting thing I've seen on the Net so far is an interview with Apple's Ken Bereskin for Your Mac Life (direct link to 17 MB QuickTime video). Far less interesting at that site is a caption competition including one of those photos suggesting that Americans quite erroneously imagine that most French lavatories are the "Turkish" squat-holes you still find in some of the older cafés. Other minor news of the day is that I've done most of the long-planned changes to the blogroll ... and that the Apprentice Dragon, far from slapping me for telling people on four continents more about her legs, put up a good show of being delighted by the attention. 7:11:33 PM  link   your views? [] Deep trouble down at 'the factory' "Selling off the silver?" "Well, that's what most people here seem to be saying," a fellow AFP hack told me from the factory this morning. AFP's Board of Governors is considering a proposal to sell off the news agency's Paris headquarters building -- with the idea that AFP remains in the premises and would buy it back in 12 to 18 years' time. Why? Because AFP, whose board consists of French government representatives, the country's media barons and a couple of people elected by the journalists and other employees, desperately needs the cash. For a four-year development plan, as the current big boss, Bertrand Eveno, presents it. Today's 'Libération' (Fr) tells a part of the story. If I were there, among the other union leaders (though my role now is less prominent than of yore) meeting to decide on the precise response, I'd be expressing strong opposition to such a deal. Update: They did. Along with a "large majority" of the staff at HQ, who have ceased work. A union buddy in the thick of it tells me he hasn't seen such an impressive general meeting on the main news floor of the building in a "long, long while." Time after time, this season of the year has seen the presentation successive "plans to save AFP", which have been thrown out after tough action, sometimes strikes, by the journalists. Yes, the factory is in trouble. It has been for a while. We people who work there are, on the whole, deeply committed to both its survival and its development as one of the world's top three news agencies. The same can't be said of all the members of the board. AFP will survive this crisis as it has many others since it was founded anew after World War II (the official AFP potted history), but the long-term solution has to be a far more imaginative one than staking everything on the concrete assets, leaving us with very little set in stone. I've long reckoned (and argued in many a meeting with management) that the French need to look across the Channel for models as to how it might better be done. 2:04:38 PM  link   your views? []

mardi 16 septembre 2003

Of memory, mice and men ... and those fine Frog's legs Before a 'blogbit about memory, I've another quick private word for the Wildcat. Nobody else needs to know that the Apprentice Dragon is called Ariane, has done very well so far in her psychology exams, and was this afternoon once more showing off two of the prettiest legs I've ever seen. How she's managed to combine her studies with her new job at the surgery round the corner and keep a commendable non-artificial tan, I have yet to ask. But she knows I'm impressed by these limbs, because she now makes a habit of coming out from behind the reception desk to give me a better look. Today's skirt was real leather, but without stripes, glossy boots -- or the unmade bed. (Yes, the pic's quite uncalled for, but my "score" at Feedster took a nosedive after I stopped posting ... well, you know. Unless it goes up again, I'll have to be less PC than ever.) The AD has taken to first names and "tu-toying" me even in front of the Expert Dragon, so I guess I'll know more of her secrets soon enough... She won't have got the tan where she lives, since Ariane has the good taste also to be a resident of the XIVth, with a launch-pad not far away at all, near an excellent market and in the very street where Tony does most of his shopping. During our flirting session fixing up of a medical rendez-vous, she said: "Ooh, could you lend me that when you're done with it?" Ariane was interested -- as Tony certainly will be -- in a find explained in the latest issue of Science & Vie. A young Franco-Swiss team in Zurich has been researching an enzyme called PPI (Protein Phosphatase 1), to learn that it works, in mice anyway, as the "molecule of forgetfulness". This discovery, technically summed up at PubMed, means that where a certain Freud once saw an instinctive unconscious defensive mechanism for forgetting things, PP1 serves as a biological way of doing it, neutralising other enzymes which would normally cause changes in the synapses of our brains... I knew that they were small, those junctions between neurons called synapses (good Georgia Medical College site linked to the Human Brain Project; Neuroinformatics). But a research programme into things which make up 15 nanometres (15 billionths of a metre) still boggles my mind. How the mice felt about it isn't reported. What's most intriguing about the Zurich work is that it's complementary to the great bulk of such research, which concentrates on the mechanisms of learning and remembering rather than forgetting. The team chief, Isabelle Mansuy, tells 'Science & Vie' that to study a phosphatate seemed "'counter-intuitive'. But we chose this path nonetheless, and that's how we discovered the role of PP1." All this may seem far more abstruse than the shortness of the Apprentice Dragon's skirt, but the magazine's special feature contains much of considerable interest and relevance particularly to the many elderly people with pressing memory problems. There's no immediate hope in some other research under way at the University of Southern California. But that's where Theodore Berger, professor of biological engineering, is busy on a programme which could, a decade hence, put some of my regular science fiction food for thought directly on the plates of ethical committees. Professor Berger's own memory research has taken him and his colleagues in the direction of artificial hippocampus implants. 'Science & Vie' reckons it might be difficult to find volunteers. I'm less sure. I'll probably need one myself by then. (No disrespect was intended, in the writing of this entry, to: - the Wildcat's own wonderful legs, which just happen to be too far out of reach right now; - Ariane, who is rocketing her way towards Full Dragon status. If she wants to slap one of her Earl Grey labels on me for describing her as a frog, I'll happily take the 'T'; - the lady who got an earful when she became the fifth caller since la rentrée to try to sell me double-glazing over the 'phone, thus making me forget where I was.) 7:18:22 PM  link   your views? [] How the Wildcat quite ruined my morning Ah lordy-lord!! Là, là, là... The things I will take from the Wildcat. Not once, but twice in recent days, she's dared to 'phone me long before the 'Today' programme's over; that's to say before 10:00 am this side of the Channel, keen to take a trowel to the mental compost when I'm far from compos mentis. Were it anybody else -- and most of them have learned this the hard way -- this would almost be a capital offence, pardoned only in instances such as an inconsiderately ill-timed death, fire in the building, plague or the outbreak of war. But. Because it wasn't anybody else and since she's every bit as lovely as Julia Ormond, quite a wildcat herself in one of my very favourite films, I didn't suggest that she spend the rest of the morning with a mop and bucket. 'Sibirskij tsiryulnik,' O thief of my heart, is one the Kid and I must have seen three times on the big, big screen, all three hours of it. It's far too romantic and unrealistic for some of the critics at the iMBD, which is one of many reasons it's among my top five. The floor-scrubbing scene for the officer cadets in the twilight of imperial Russia is among the funniest I've ever seen. But in 'The Barber of Siberia' (1998) Nikita Mikhailkov "wanted to make a historical drama, an adventure film, a business thriller and a grand love story." So he told 'Studio Magazine' in the booklet the pictures come from. Oh, and the ending, darling: it's every bit as tragic as you could want. Like that best-seller you're living writing to beat even the gloomiest of French novelists! Except that it's Russian... Now I'm not sure I got the idea in the first place. But you said you wanted to pick your own plant. Well. That does make a challenging task easier. Though it's not quite what I had in mind, with a shrug of the shoulders I give you the one from the very top of your list. "Voluptuous," was that the word? This isn't a Russian cabbage, love; it came from Alabama, along with all kinds of educational vegetable information which says nowhere why I'm not supposed to eat such things any more. I hope I got it right, but when you leap into my peaceful morning with another bunch of imponderables of the 2:00 am kind, it almost mashes that pea brain of mine. Stirring the soup, I seem to recall that a "dashing" young lad came into it all somewhere too. And that, sweet hijacker, was what made me think of Mikhailkov in the first place. Something along these lines? Perhaps not as handsome -- who knows? -- but all gallantry as they can be at that age when they want to turn it on. Poor Augustine. Her alter ego must be doing her nut by now, wondering what on earth all this is about. But there's nothing like a little mystery to spice the day, is there, Natalie? And poor Oleg, not quite yet on his knees as Cadet Andrei Tolstoi before Ms Ormond. He comes to an awfully sad end, you know. Trouble is, he knows no better than to mean every word he says. Heart right out there on the sleeve, the unfortunate boy... Even the splendidly soused General Radlov (Aleksei Petrenko) can't get him out of the pickle. Hang on. That picture reminds me. Cabbage was but an adjective. I remember what you wanted now. This one is growing in fine French soil, like me. What's more, it's even got the right message for the day. Like Andrei, I think I'd have picked something more richly red myself. But this variety doesn't appear to come like that. Sometimes, you really have to make do with what you've got, n'est-ce pas? Oh. The Kid sends a kiss. Know what colour she's wearing today? Black. I don't doubt it. It scarcely shows the grease when one jumps the gun. 1:22:06 PM  link   your views? [] What's going down, Doc? 'Twas J.-C. who told me about Geekcruises, a very expensive-looking way for IT wizards to talk their heads off and relax at the same time. Probably jealousy. I'd bet he'd give most of his teeth to be on the Linux Lunacy one. But as Doc Searls tells it, with a picture to illustrate what nearly rolled him out of bed, smooth sailing it isn't. I'm struck by the notion of turning on a telly just to find out what's happening outside. 12:08:33 AM  link   your views? []

lundi 15 septembre 2003

Noisy place, outer space! It's been known for a while that there's a darned great hole in the middle of the Milky Way. But now, it seems there's quite a song and dance about it too: "For the first time, astronomers have detected the infrared cries of hot plasma falling toward the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. The observations show that the plasma is not going down peacefully but is putting up a boisterous fight, dispatching a desperate and erratic barrage of infrared signals into space." Almost as hot off the sky-watching press is the revelation that black holes sing. In B-flat: "Well, 'bellow' might be a better term. The tune sounded by a supermassive black hole 250 million light-years away is actually a steady bass note like that of a cosmic fog horn warning surrounding material of the dangers of coming too close" (both from my occasional look-in at Astronomy.com). Not that this is much use to mere mortals. We can't hear a note 57 octaves below middle C. 11:43:59 PM  link   your views? [] Last pre-Apple Expo post Wicked it may be, but just this once I'm stealing today's cartoon (©2003 Geek Culture ®) from the Joy of Tech. After today's exertions, I reluctantly shelved the plan to meet up with Rainer tonight, while tomorrow will be a day to take it easy, but we'll get it together on Wednesday. It would be stupid to miss the Expo altogether, when it's really just down the road. The man from South America is among several developers who've sent mail my way ahead of the event, and this might be the first year I could get to such a thing and know just what I'm seeing... For those who care, there's a new round-up of tomorrow's possible news at MacRumors, while those who really care get a whole batch of pics of what's under guard tonight at 99mac. I won't repeat a certain forecast I risked, since I'd prefer to have to eat my words of August 10 only the once. I'd still put odds on the hot young cat in being somewhere in the "secret" crates pictured on the Swedish site. Harv, at TS, has started what he calls a 'Panther factoids' thread with a list of what he's determined will be in the new OS X and what won't (that odd word "factoid" seems trendy these days in some trans-Atlantic circles). Regardless of whether Steve unveils it, this time round I won't be rushing into an upgrade. The new cat may well outpace the Jaguar, but I've been bitten too many times to be among the first to write up what might go wrong with it. The new system will certainly also require undoing some of the hacks I've been enjoying of late. Whatever, my prediction may be wrong, as MacRumors suggests, but I'll be disappointed -- and surprised -- if Apple doesn't pull something really new out of the bag this week. 11:19:45 PM  link   your views? [] High time for a fresh foray into design Heavens, the long morning of medical exams was arduous! It beat my record to date for the number of tubes filled with blood. But they left me plenty to be able to write about a far more challenging test which took place this year and to return to the long-neglected subject of great graphic artists and animation wizards. Back in May, in a suburb of Paris, France saw its first day-long contest among a small host of designers, in a match sponsored by a web-design community site, Praktica (Fr). Together with Adobe and Iiyama, who offered some highly desirable prizes, and NEO agence, an agency for professionals. Almost 200 competitors took part in the event, which led at around 11:00 in the evening to the final, won by the work illustrated here by freelance Stéphane Tartelin, to be found at the 'boz (BOMB) gallery'. A much better and bigger picture of Stéphane's design, along with the others, all well worth a look, is at the finalists' page on Praktica. The text is in French, far too detailed to translate, but the competition had two particularly interesting features. Jurists for each round included a random one, selected to join the expert team from the public watching the event, while a part of the challenge was for participants to interact -- each using similar machines and tools -- on the basis of designs produced by their fellow competitors. Five other outstanding French sites I've come across in the summer's reading and subsequent browsing are: | | | DQ | | |, a rich online magazine (two issues so far and no problem with language -- there's scarcely no text!); several of the movies featured in the International Animated Film Festival at Annecy. There are links from the home page; the staggering, occasionally enjoyably disturbing, metal outlook -- man and machine -- of David Vinéis at :: sub88 :: (Flash, remarkable site); the wide-ranging work of the independent entertainment UZIK agency (Flash again; warning: noisy gateway); the mainly musical, but again varied, output of self-professed "web alchemists" at the SOLEIL NOIR studio. This is only scratching the surface of discoveries I've made via the design magazines I devour and link to here sometimes and I've focussed, this time, on home ground. If, like me, you're into absurdity and some occasionally pretty black humour, you could do worse than spend an hour jumping off from the Night of Numeric Arts. 1:46:04 PM  link   your views? []

dimanche 14 septembre 2003

Apple bites, frank views and a flower for my favourite feline A "long and winding road of litigation". That's how Forbes.com sees the new Apple vs. Apple twist in a musical saga which has been running for more decades. This time, as Mac news addicts will most likely already know, it's la Pomme selling music via iTunes and the store which has "yet again raised the ire of Apple (Records), the Beatle's label, as this edging into the music industry (...) may be in violation of an early-80's agreement between the two companies which stated that Apple (Computer) would not create products that could be considered particularly music-related," iPodHacks succinctly explains today. As ever, MacRumors is on to it, along with other like-minded sites. The English side of MacBidouille is meanwhile crawling all over tomorrow's niouz from Apple Expo here, the event which has brought Rainer all the way from Brazil to the city of light. I won't be at the "keynote", otherwise known as the High Mass, broadcast or not, since tomorrow sees some lengthy medical goings-on (and even if I could be as rosy-cheeked as Apple top execs first thing in the morning), but look forward -- "God willing," as he put it on the 'phone, to meeting Rainer, the first real-life first time encounter "Made by taliesin's log" with a noble fellow 'blogger ("live from Paris"). MacBidouille says French TV has been on today about Apple and file-sharing, raising the piracy issue where debate has resumed at 'Blogcritics' ('BC') since BHW posted a long and well-argued case to say that the "RIAA is R-I-G-H-T". I seem to have sparked something of a debate myself when I heeded a friend and posted my perspective on "9/11" there. In particular, Al Barger couldn't agree with me less, every inch of the way, which is how it should be. Al's own eloquence has its roots at 'more things', but I can only send you his way for a good read without being able myself, at this particular moment, to conjure up the front door. It won't load. The Forbes entry where I started was pointed out by Eric Olsen, the fellow who does an admirable job of editing BC, where I spent a good part of a quietly very busy weekend, while Marianne did her worst, including hunting down computer desktops so "utterly shocking" that even I would think twice about posting them here. This is in tune with the prolonged heavy-metal, blood-and-guts teenage thing under way, with interruptions for well-behaved meals with Dad. The acquaintance I've begun to make with fellow BC contributors is among things that will this week lead to changes in the blogroll, where I've regretfully already pruned a number of places which seem to have forever faded away. The Wildcat has had an eventful and not so quiet weekend herself, this I know. However, if I told you anything about it, the rest of my life wouldn't be worth living, so discretion must be the better part of adventures of the heart. She certainly deserves a flower, though. We're planting it on dangerous ground here tonight, but she's left me with no choice and deserves a bunch of them: jonquils. I can't credit the photographer (a 404 from Google), but if I credit my ears with correctly hearing something said tonight, which I most certainly do, then -- wow, is this old grey wolf in trouble now! Suffice to add that it's exactly the kind of hot water I'm very happy to be in. Better for the soul even than a "frank exchange of views" at BC. On which note I'll call it a day, because I've got to be bushy-tailed rather too early tomorrow morning for my liking... 11:30:36 PM  link   your views? []

vendredi 12 septembre 2003

Of 'the Two Towers' and some who dared to think different: an essay Today brings yet another regrettable "friendly fire (AFP)" incident involving US troops, more of whom have also lost their lives in the almighty mess that is Iraq. It scarcely took much intelligence, political astuteness or insight into world affairs to know and to say, well before it happened, that sending the world's most powerful army and an ally or two into that country would have appalling long-term consequences. The surprise is that anybody might be genuinely surprised to see the latest thread in the tissue of lies about the war unravelled this week, with the news that Tony B "ignored warnings from British intelligence that a war on Iraq would make it easier for terrorists to get hold of weapons of mass destruction" (again from 'the factory'). AFP calls this a "revelation"! A revelation not to be confused with the others to have come, separately, out of the Hutton Inquiry, which has yet to finish its work. I've laid off on recent variations on the theme of Pandora's Box of late (Lara Croft's absurd adventures apart), not because I've lost interest but mainly out of such disgust as I can still muster and partly because it does nobody any good to join the "I told you so" chorus. In a trip round the blogosphere yesterday, I noticed that a number of like-minded people, including some who are far more regular political animals than I am, thought it best to let pass the second anniversary of the atrocities in the United States in silence. When the attacks came, I was as dismayed and aghast as everybody else in the newsroom, watching the tragedy unfold. Two years on, my admiration for the bravery and self-sacrifice that characterised so much of the disaster response goes undimmed. My feelings for the families of those who died and for everybody whose lives were forever changed through injury and loss are as strong as ever. But the outrages perpetrated since by some of the world's political leaders, in the name of a nebulous "war on terror" where the goalposts move so fast not even Beckham could kick straight -- not to speak of the sometimes self-imposed muzzling of an American mass media once widely admired for its readiness to dig deep and wide in pursuit of the truth -- have coloured my outlook on "9/11" far too profoundly to avoid a complex emotional response. "WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is so used to drawing rhetorical links between the war against Iraq and Sept 11, 2001, that nearly 70 per cent of Americans think Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks, public opinion analysts say. A Washington Post poll last week showed that 69 per cent of Americans thought it at least likely that Saddam was involved, although there was no evidence to support that belief. Professor Pippa Norris, an expert on public opinion at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, said this misconception 'comes partly from President George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld drawing these links to justify US intervention in Iraq'. 'Now that there actually is terrorism in Iraq, they can retrospectively justify their action there'," the 'Straits Times' reminds us today. In the face of credulous imbecility which almost beggars belief -- the brainwashing of more than two-thirds of a nation if this figure is to be trusted -- is it any surprise that after more than four months' forced leave of absence from the heat of the newsroom, where such statistics are a routine part of the daily threats to sense and sensibility, my broadening interests have largely been elsewhere? Thus it was that yesterday, while the large majority of bloggers who did anything at all to mark the anniversary mainly did so by an appropriate laying of wreaths, I went in search of the few writers and webmasters who ventured to take a different perspective. At Privilogic, a visual design site, there was a timely reminder, using nothing but pictures, that though "America's friendships throughout the world have been strained to the breaking point" in the past couple of years, "it's important to remember, no matter what has happened since, how the world shared our grief and wept with us on that day." Whoever put up those pictures, and stuck in Capra's famous Iwo Jima flag shot while they were about it, made no mention of the misguided, dangerous policies in Washington that have caused such strains to those friendships and widespread ill-feeling and resentment towards Americans. At 'Scrappleface', Scott Ott (perhaps like me) thought it wisest not to tackle "9/11" head on until today, reserving yesterday's satire for another Mideast politico-military disaster zone -- Palestine -- and the shortcomings of US security screeners: (2003-09-11) -- ABC News will televise an investigative report tonight showing how its reporters smuggled -- from North Carolina to Pennsylvania -- 65 cartons of deadly menthol cigarettes and a 'trunkload' of dangerous bottle rockets and roman candles." That inveterate and ever-entertaining media watcher J.D. Lasica spent most of his day elsewhere, including the Beeb's "lessons for the US media" -- I didn't know the battered Auntie had any right now -- but not without turning up one excellent read: a veritable essay on fears of 'The End of the World'. "Two years later I take a certain grim comfort in some people's disinterest in the war; if you'd told me two years ago that people would be piling on the President and bitching about slow progress in Iraq, I would have known in a second that the nation hadn't suffered another attack. When the precise location of Madonna's tongue is big news, you can bet the hospitals aren't full of smallpox victims. Of course some people are impatient with those who still recall the shock of 9/11; the same people were crowding the message boards of internet sites on the afternoon of the attacks, eager to blame everyone but the hijackers. They hate this nation. In their hearts, they hate humanity," opines James Lilek. James. Apart from the fact that your 'Bleats and Blather' are forthwith on a blogroll where an overhaul's overdue, know that it's not your nation, far less humanity, that many of the rest of us loathe and fear. It's the liars, partners in corporate crime and scoundrels you may or may not have elected into office. As one Dennis Garwitz perhaps exaggerated to 'Pravda' a few days before "9/11", "this man [George Bush] spends more time posing for pictures than Bill Clinton ever did having sex". In a completely different part of the spectrum, W. decided he had "no time to waste on the French", not even to denounce them again, and thought instead of the victims. He'd seen enough 'Merde in France' the previous day in the "newspaper of record" (unreadability, I think they mean) and had already purloined a Plantu cartoon I steal from him in turn: "Let there be no more 9/11s. That would be too unfair!" (OMC: World Trade Organisation) In W's eyes, that discourtesy earned the "intelligentsia's" rag ('Le Monde') the title-for-a-day of "Al-Jazeera on the Seine". In conclusion, I only came across one columnist who took some of the hostility US policies have aroused straight to the White House lawn on the day itself: "The surprise resignation of the forty-third President of the United States, George W. Bush, on the second anniversary of the terrorist attack on America, was hailed by chiefs of state throughout the world. Mr. Bush announced that after, 'two years of bloodshed, economic devastation, and spreading fear in America and abroad,' he saw no choice but to accept that, 'I have held a title which I did not win, and for which I have proven unqualified.'" This article, 'Bush Resignation Hailed by World Leaders,' was by Greg Palast at the 'Common Dreams Newscenter' and came as the most welcome real surprise of the day in my little if-only world (via the observant Chris at 'one good move'). As a rule, the whole bunch of politicians now revolt me so much, whichever country they're in, that I'll happily leave most necessary comment to my good friend, the ever-vigilant Augustine, who can often be relied upon to say almost all that needs saying with commendable brevity. There are, and I hope always will be, exceptions. I've long had time for Tony Benn, one of Britain's most loathed or liked politicians and a man still a scapegoat among the country's so-called left for an unswerving career which they claim helped ruin the Labour Party and open the way for that frightful messiah, Margaret Thatcher. I don't think they'll be there for ever, so catch the two RealPlayer audio extracts from this morning's 'Today' programme, when we were treated to Benn speeches turned into reggae, while you can. For me, this manic discussion -- 'listen again' 1 and here's part two -- was the broadcast gem of the week! 7:06:58 PM  link   your views? []

jeudi 11 septembre 2003

Princess. Dress. Distress. Before this, I checked e-mail to make sure the wrath of MKH won't descend upon me. Quite yet. "Weddings have never been my favorite type of event, but I do like this site: The Cavalcade of Bad Bridal Fashion. It's basically a good collection of photos that show brides who look ridiculous -- but think they're beautiful," we learn at J-Walk Blog. Sheer booty! Via the Net Baron in Brazil (but currently en route this way). I seem to be one of the few in the blogosphere to be unaware of the J-Walk. I'm glad it was back before I knew it had disappeared. (Never mind the reference to MK. She knows what remains to be done...) 10:18:21 PM  link   your views? [] 'Probability Sun': bending the chances for survival Even when it comes to fighting a genocidal enemy making relentless gains in a campaign to destroy humanity, scientists and the armed forces have a hard time seeing eye to eye, let alone working shoulder to shoulder. A conflict of interests between the military and the brains they need to beat back the alien Fallers is among the main themes Nancy Kress develops in 'Probability Sun', the sequel to 'Probability Moon' (Tor Books, 2000; reviewed at Blogcritics and here on September 1). To a prudent reception from the peaceable natives of World, two of the scientists Kress introduces in the first part of her trilogy return three years later to this planet remote in the inhabited space known to humankind, again aboard a vessel of the Solar Alliance navy. The military aim of the mission, once more, is to learn whether an alien artefact left by a vanished race can help win the war against the Fallers. Now the team includes the most brilliant physicist of the day, Dr Tom Capelo, whose scientific gift is matched only by an angry, embittered outlook on life which makes him singularly difficult for anybody else to get along with, apart from his beloved daughters. Other new characters include Lyle Kaufman, the reluctant career soldier tasked with keeping the mission together to fulfil its task, and the gene-modified Marbet Grant, often shunned by ordinary people because as a 'Sensitive', she can read too much from minute facial details and body language for comfort. Marbet's needed to ensure good relations with the locals, given the real purpose of the team's visit to the radioactive Neury Mountains where the artifact lies, which are sacred to Worlders. Or so she thinks. Because once again, the military is playing its cards very close to its chest. While scientists and soldiers have a hard enough time agreeing on anything, the civilians themselves fall out as the tale unfolds. Major Kaufman is forced to resort to ever more desperate measures in an impossible bid to reconcile his military duty of overseeing the understanding and potential use of the artifact, which may yet be a doomsday weapon, with the threat his mission poses to Worlders, championed by one of the few caring individuals in the novel, xeno-anthropologist Ann Sikorski. Contact between our own race and Worlders has already had a lasting impact (and not all to her benefit) on Enli, the former outcast of 'Probability Moon', condemned to serve as a spy to atone for the crime of breaching the natives' "shared reality", which is both a genetic difference and a social code inaccessible to the visitors. has to read 'Probability Moon' before taking on the complexities of this next taut-wired part of the trilogy. Kress spells out the essential in just a few pages. But to miss out would be a pity. One of the strongest features of the first book was the depth and development of character. While this is by no means lacking here, especially regarding the new ones, the third strong strand in 'Probability Sun' is a gripping scientific conundrum. When I reviewed its predecessor, I realised neither that the author's husband Charles Sheffield had been a trained physicist as well as a science fiction writer ('Dark as Day') in his own right, nor that, sadly, he died last year (obituary at SFWA). It's in this part of the series, dedicated to Dr Sheffield, that Nancy Kress challenges the reader to follow her and Capelo deep into the domain of quantum physics that gives the trilogy part of its name. Herein lies one of the novel's several paradoxes. If there's one thing Tom Capelo finds it hard to stomach, it's a non-physicist laying claim to understanding what he's about or over-simplifying difficult concepts. This is almost as bad in his eyes as the "soft science" he dismisses as "unmeasurable subjective feely-squirmy stuff" during one of his many rows with his fellows. But just as the tetchy genius develops a grudging respect for Major Kaufman's attempt to come to grips with the science, Kress pulls off the achievement of taking concepts right out in the front of the field and flattering her readers that they've not only grasped some of the most intriguing ideas of our times, but also somehow understood where a Capelo might take them more than a century hence. As merely a fascinated non-physicist, I was convinced. If this is where "superstring" and "probability theory" may be taking our leading scientific minds, it's a path I'm interested in pursuing as best I can. To reveal how Capelo gets to the breakthrough that comes close to the climax of 'Probability Sun' would be to reveal a major spoiler about insights into alien intelligence. Let's just say that unknown to most people on board, the warship is carrying a dangerous passenger. Very few of the people in this novel are likeable. Their gripes, their secret ambitions, their sometimes childish behaviour and their increasingly heated conflicts are irritating, amusing and important by turns. But they're all too human. While it's not the immediate next on my list, I certainly plan to read 'Probability Space' (2002; paperback out next January) and get to the root of the several mysteries still outstanding. [Instead, the next title for review brings me back to earth for the first of another set of novels, this time by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. When I'm done, I'll let you know what I thought of 'Pashazade: The First Arabesk.' I've been spoiled, several times in a row, by first-rate writing. Grimwood gets off to a good start with a man in a room with a corpse, and an original line in alternative history. A man in a room with a corpse is exactly how the other book I'd next considered for review began. But 11 pages in, despite a gushing blurb about "knife-edge action" and a "powerful vision" of how we might all be plunged into the first environmental world war, I let it fall to the floor. The writing was cliché-ridden and pedestrian beyond patience, however good the story may be. It would be uncharitable to identify title and author, to whom I can only wish better luck next time. Just beware at the airport bookstall.] There are dozens of pages about award-winning Nancy at SFF Net, along with a most relaxed picture of a formidable writer. 7:59:27 PM  link   your views? [] Money, the lack of, and the cartoon A special offer this month for FNAC members on the famous iPod has nagged me cruelly. I'd already decided that a second hard disk was becoming a necessity and this would be a nice way to do it. But this morning I brought my accounts up to date. Common sense must prevail. Strike out "need". Confess it's mere lust! Moments after I was done, the Wildcat called. After 10 years' loyal service, her washing machine chose last night to die. Priorities, priorities... I've only just got to Augustine's views on money, though she made a comment here on September 7. Take a look, love, at her entry for that date. May it cheer you up as much as it did me! 1:10:45 PM  link   your views? []

mercredi 10 septembre 2003

Of a choice for the Wildcat (and the Condition) Before producing a flower for the Wildcat, I regret that once again, for the benefit of the Loyal Four (progress!) and colleagues who claim to be missing me, I must tidy up last night's hasty summary of developments regarding the Condition. Yesterday was devoted mainly, like Monday, to the arduous business of sorting out a comprehensive timetable for the battery of further medical tests I must take. This feat has now been accomplished. Even if all goes well, I no longer see myself back at the factory before mid-October. I'd hoped to be done with the tests inside a fortnight, while blog-hero Yang reckons that once we have a diagnosis and treatment can start, it'll take two to three weeks to get me in shape for AFP. He expressed that cautiously as "the time it might take for you to become sufficiently not tired to resume work there." One of the main examinations, a set of X-rays, won't happen before September 25, since Dr de P (the specialist Vincent of occasional entries) would like it to be done by one man and no other, at the Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou. I discovered yesterday that there is a switchboard in France more incompetent even than that of AFP at certain times of day. It's at the Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, where the operator managed to give me three different wrong services. That was after rudely asking "Who sent you?" and "Why?", but the latter she must have regretted. I was unsparing in my determination to talk to the right people. Had I not imposed a temporary ban on scatological matters, I would tell you the full story -- since the Wildcat enjoyed part of it and I know Tony will want details -- of a delightful afternoon spent in part at the Hôpital Saint-Joseph. Only one person there left the biological analysis lab in disgust during the conversation forced upon me by a zealous and pleasant nurse. She brought me some large tubs which had once contained cream cheese, then paused: "These might not be big enough." "If you like," I answered. "I can buy some more buckets. "And I promise you, over four days I can give you any colour and consistency you may wish for. Would you prefer the mostly liquid variety or something rather more solid when I can manage it?" The big "if" in that timetable obviously lies in the diagnosis, once done, since there's no way of knowing what it will be and what treatment will be required. But, though the tests look far and wide, we're back with the hypothesis that it's Crohn's or some similar disease. On to more elevated matter: I thank the Wildcat for an introduction to a supermodel turned artist. And I offer her a rose by another name. She revealed to me a side of Carla Bruni which I'd never come across. Last month, RFI made 'Quelqu'un m'a dit' (Amazon Fr) one of its CDs of the week and added to an interesting pile of interviews. Of the music, I've still only heard extracts on the Web, but I'm grateful to the Wildcat for drawing my ears to a woman who has disclosed some of what lies behind appearances in a record certainly remarkable for its poetry and, as best I can judge, performed with considerable talent and discretion. The eglantine pictured here comes from Colorado, and it's Cheryl Netter I'll be thanking for it as well as a reminder of a famous appearance in Shakespeare. Closer to home, a French person I know only as Gourdeau, since a whole site is being reconstructed, tells us that the bloom itself could easily be confused with the purple flowering rasperry (rubus odoratus), until you look at the leaves. I will refrain from adding anything about raspberries in this neck of the woods, since the last words should go to William: "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight..." from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' 6:22:14 PM  link   your views? [] Gore bore Eyes right for Austria's abominable Arnie. Unmasked. Star of course, if that's the word, of 'T3'. Next comes a cheerful moment from 'Monster Man' (iMDB), directed by Michael Davis. The only review I've yet spotted is in German at Fantasy FilmFest. The chap who follows (below) is from Len Wiseman's 'Underworld', out next month, where Kate Beckinsale plays Juliet to Scott Speedman's vampire Romeo. He bears a strong resemblance to one of the characters in the already much-hyped and imminent release, 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' (at end). The magnificent seven will be unleashed in Paris on October 3, a week after 'Underworld' here. Leafing through the latest 'Mad Movies' (Fr), on the newstands today, it strikes me that gore is more of a bore than ever. When you think of the millions these films cost in special effects, movie-makers might do well to remember that "however many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead!" So says Richard Dawkins, in 'The Blind Watchmaker' and an essay released on an unofficial site about his world. I merely ask for a little originality... 5:45:12 PM  link   your views? []

mardi 9 septembre 2003

'Software locks stifle creativity,' Daniel warns Daniel Ichbiah, an entertaining French technology writer and musician, dreams of a day artists might get their act together in protest at software protection of a kind which threatens the long-term future of their work. When I read his cri de coeur in the September issue of the excellent monthly 'SVMMac' (Fr), I decided it merited an ever wider audience. Ichbiah, whose name first became familiar to English-speakers when he told much of the story of the rise and rise of Bill Gates for the first time in 'The Making of Microsoft' (with Susan Knepper, 1989) is among people I've long wanted to meet. His prose is prolific, clear, sometimes vitriolic, very often amusing. So I was delighted when he proved happy to see some of it translated and posted at Blogcritics, which I've just done, with the benediction of Laurent Clause, a chief editor at the Mac monthly. I had no hesitation about "tu-toying" Daniel in my e-mail: his monthly columns are the work of a feller often on own my wavelength, including a splendid dig at some of the more sublime idiocies of the website run by the French state rail company SNCF. Myself, I've thought that this place was designed by people determined to make sure you miss the very train you're desperate to get a seat aboard and end up with some package hotel deal in Brussels. In speed and efficiency, it is to many airline reservation sites what Stephenson's Rocket (pictured at Pixel Pot) was to the TGV (Clem Tillier and Yann Nottara run a worship site). On the 'phone, my worst suspicions about Mr Ichbiah were confirmed. He speaks good English himself, has a wicked sense of humour, and is one of those fortunate writers tucked away with his family in a "very little village" safely out of spitting distance of Paris. I also accidentally told him a fib, because the Kid and I do have one of his books, 'Le guide stratégique Myst III : Exile'. It's the first Myst we get stuck on sometimes. Computer games and their history, however, are only one string to Ichbiah's bow: his most recent publication came out in March and is a practical guide to setting up your Home Studio. Apart, however, from making sure that I'd correctly grasped the notion of "dongles" -- since I've never seen one until this week and don't have to wade through a heap of them and waste precious USB sockets on the computer when I want to do something creative -- Daniel and I talked surprisingly little of what he wrote. That speaks for itself. We opted for the more enjoyable subject of nothing and everything, as the French put it, which ranges wide. I was particularly interested to hear the first-hand opinion of a Frenchman who has recently visited the United States, a country Daniel has long liked, and been on the sharp end of the treatment I mentioned back in April. He didn't actually say: "It pissed me off!" But he came close. As I noted in that entry, 'Behind enemy lines?', the sour feeling often became mutual. It's a pity that many people adopt such attitudes because of the stupidities of their governments. It's a bigger pity, as I think Daniel would agree in these insane times, that the rest of us have to put up with the stupidity of people who believe their governments. 11:07:33 PM  link   your views? []

dimanche 7 septembre 2003

Dead meat. I'm going to become a lesbian Brian Flemming may chastise me, but I've been every bit as "obsessed with body parts" of late as the annoying Arnold, at whom, with the help of Code Pink," he levels another well-aimed shot or two in a little list of Those Who Rock -- and don't. So obsessed, indeed, that had you not already been subjected to more than you could reasonably be asked to stomach, I'd post a picture of even more bits. I'd kill two birds with one stone by satisfying one of the Loyal 3 ¾ who is almost as immature as me and wants more naked women, while giving the Wildcat a better idea of, more or less, what the Apprentice Dragon looks like. I'm told that my verbal description was woefully inadequate. But this would be equally problematic, since the AD is far too busy completing her studies in psychology right now to oblige -- imagining for a moment that she should she be so inclined. Most unlikely. And even if she did, darling, then it would only be fair to put you here as well... It's safer to return for a moment to Brian, with relief that his withdrawal from the race in California has given him time to concern himself with more important things, like the Gender Genie. On the strength of this entry so far, the genie considers that I, like Brian, am a woman. We'll see if it's changed it's mind by the end, but should the Bane of Your Life get you as heated today, Wildcat, as the asshole did yesterday, you might divert yourself by running the acid test on some work of your own... The permanent demise of the male of our species has been forecast in research at Oxford University, says iMakeContent ('RIP Man'). Pity that the Reverse Cowgirl also appears to have taken her final bow. Let's hope that Susannah Breslin and her porn collection, among the pearls of many a blogroll, are well and happy wherever they've gone. One version of her remarkable tale was told last year at identity theory. Decidedly not for Susannah, the likes of the "Anna Kournikova Impact Level Multiple Shock-Absorber Bra" (a week old, the entry at Mirandala, but have mercy: it takes a while for a feller to adapt to both the end of things as he knew them and a sex-change). Should these portents signify that I'll have to become a lesbian, then I have nothing to learn from young Britney, who told CNN that when it comes to French kissing another woman again, "'I would not do it,' but then added, 'Maybe with Madonna.'" Given her avowed faith in George Bush, the kid might not be as well-advised to follow Madonna to London as she thinks (via Daypop's Top 40, which offers nothing else today to make me regret not having a television, though I might buy one to watch that asteroid hurtle in to wipe out a whole continent's worth of both sexes on March 21, 2014. We're safe enough in France, which will simply veto any part in the mess and then tender the first reconstruction bids). Britney's a guest writer at the Blue Brick, but while my gender remains undetermined, I preferred the reassurance offered by a report that "British men [will be] most likely beneficiaries of frustrated women's affection". Me, me! After all, football of any kind, not just American football, leaves me cold, while I am not indifferent to women of any nationality yet encountered. Cats are evolving too: "I in vain dig myself the head, I still do not know what could arrive, but a summary investigation lets to us believe that the cat would have made the blow. It has hell of a lot of in the toilet. (...) I do not return from there." That's what Dale's Google translator made of Wonder Cat (Brunmarde). And an example of why I took a translator off this site and why even men can do a better job, though destined for obsolescence. What Dale was all excited about was that, by sheer powers of observation, his cat has "shit in the toilet. [...] I can't get over it." Nothing I can write has given me back my manhood. Either the genie changes its algorithm or you'll have to move over, darling. Kiss me curvy. 2:00:34 AM  link   your views? []

samedi 6 septembre 2003

Tough writing for hard-wired times "We live in a very strange society in which it is considered more dangerous to display an erect penis on television than it is to show, for example, someone having his throat cut. This is just one symptom of the strange disease that afflicts the so-called great and the good, bringing about in them a myopia in which they come to see sex as somehow a more heinous sin than violence. Certain words are not allowed because of their shocking sexual connotations, yet it is alright to show people being shot and knifed. The sex act itself must be ridiculously disguised, yet the scene in which someone is burnt to death is as realistic as possible. "This is just one of the crazy inconsistencies of this madness called censorship. If we are to suppose that films on TV cause children and the weak of mind (neither of which are likely to pay licence fees) to emulate them, this begs the question: which of the above would you want your children to emulate?" When I reviewed Neal Asher's 'Gridlinked', I took a quick look to see if he had a site of his own. And completely missed the one right at the top of the list. The usual links to a bio, novels and short stories apart, his pages offer a selection of unpublished writings and some punchy essays. The above extract is the start of a call to 'Censor Censorship' at 'Neal Asher's Space (Needs it for his head)'. I dropped by this afternoon, prompted by a brief note -- he'd spotted the review and wrote to say "thanks" -- and found myself lingering. Well worth a visit. zzz Some equally forceful writing on the "dangerous delusions of modern American culture" -- and not just American, I'd contend -- has just been published by Richard Forno. I first came across this IT security specialist by way of a book he wrote with Ronal Baklarz on 'The Art of Information Warfare'. I found this a sometimes disturbing and chilling introduction to a world I knew nothing about when I was investigating InterNIC, one of the "Big Brothers" of the Internet. Forno, who was in the late '90s security chief at the powerful Network Solutions, has expressed strong political views I didn't expect from the man in his new book, 'Weapons of Mass Delusion', where he comes over as what his compatriots label a "libertarian". This week he explained how the 'Matrix' had served as his "wake-up call". "I left the theater in a daze, not because of seeing Trinity's tight leather pants -- although they were a definite plus -- but because of the sad social commentary the movie presented to those who saw past the special effects, and the eerie reflection of modern reality it presented. "After Sept. 11, the illusion quickly became an easy way to get people and lawmakers to roll over and support any number of controversial proposals that were masked in the feel-good guise of patriotism to ensure their passage, including laws that may sound patriotic, but are anything but. The book just grew from there," Forno told Wired in an interview. A one-time Republican, the security geek today refers to Bush's gang as the "GOP, (the Greed, Oil and Power party)." A chapter of his book on what looks remarkably like a road to Damascus can be read on the Net: "I don’t believe that declaring a 'war' on an intangible concept such as terrorism, AIDS, poverty, or drugs is anything other than a political publicity stunt, and that we certainly won’t ever 'win' against whatever it is we’re allegedly 'fighting' for. However, I do believe that declaring a 'war' on a tangible target such as al-Qaeda or the Taliban is an achievable (and necessary) goal, provided it is conducted in a direct, effective manner by those assets most qualified to achieve victory." He calls such statements a "Realist Manifesto". Several aspects of that manifesto I'd take issue with, strongly, since I lean far further left than Forno does, but I'll be giving this one a read. If these hard-hitting writers have anything in common, it's an avowed aversion to "spin" and the wayward ways of the media. And I have a feeling that like Asher, Forno would put "political correctness" right where it belongs. In the trash-can. 10:04:20 PM  link   your views? []

vendredi 5 septembre 2003

The Condition: the wait's over! At the end of what has mainly been a sod of a week, I remembered that I hadn't looked at my e-mail for a couple of days and even managed a dozen replies. Nothing went back to the spammers at Plump your Lips except perhaps a raspberry award for one which fell into the rare category of a previously unsighted variant on the double-the-size nonsense. To get to their site, you need to click on a link which enjoys a remarkable what-the-hell's-that? URL: "http://sobriety.bannersexchange.info/home-p.html" (don't bother, it's just a back door to wallets which should know better). zzz On other body bits, I finally have some news. The long-awaited appointment with Dr V., the tummy specialist, was lengthy and productive. And after a holiday, he was better at explaining complex medical terminology in layman's terms. He doesn't want me back in the operating theatre, not yet anyway. But only now do I learn that after weeks of telling people that the Condition isn't Crohn's Disease, despite many matching symptoms, the man said he still can't completely rule that out, though it hasn't shown up on the tests and probes to date. It's not that I want Crohn's Disease, of course, but at this point almost any diagnosis is better than remaining in the dark. To get one, I'm to begin another battery of tests in several different hospitals. I was reassured by Dr V.'s insistence that I take each of the prescriptions concerned to particular experts in their field, whose names and roles he told me. "If we don't get a definitive diagnosis from this lot," he said, "I'll be astounded!" So there we are. Progress! In timely fashion, an e-mail from Jean-Claude points me to an interesting article from the Beeb. "One truly amazing wireless device [displayed at a Las Vegas conference last year] was the M2A Camera Pill by Given Imaging. "A patient swallows the pill, and it takes two pictures per second for six hours. The images are transmitted to a recorder on a belt. "The pill is used to examine the inside of the small intestine to diagnose such disorders as irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease and iron-deficiency anaemia. Before the pill camera, exploratory surgery was required," Kevin Anderson reported in a BBC Business story. I won't be getting a camera pill myself, but J.-C. also kindly sent me a link to a recent Karl Minns column in 'Evening News24' of Norwich. Thanks for another welcome reminder that even some of the most grisly subjects are best tackled with a sense of humour. I try not to let it show, but mine has been wearing thin. And I'm still getting used to the post-summer return of the twice-daily slow-setting jam of internal combustion engines from one end of a long street to the other. How I regret having disposed of some very stale eggs by taking them down to the trash! From four floors up, they could be very effective hurtling down on the tin-can roof of the next impatient bastard who honks directly underneath my window. Most of them don't need the bloody cars in the first place. One day, I'll do it. I swear. 10:08:21 PM  link   your views? [] Of Dr Melinda and other 'accidents' Doctor Melinda. She was delectable enough to make even the lovely Wildcat jealous, almost (I should be so lucky...) Melinda B.'s but a memory now, from one of those tales that come into the category: one misadventure was unfortunate, two were carelessness, three were stupidity. I speak of thumps and cuts I have received in the Métro. The first time I should have seen the mugging coming, but I hadn't been in Paris long enough then to notice the warning signs. It left no lasting damage. But years later, bolstered by success in a previous such venture (and by alcohol-induced bravado), I decided to be knight in shining armour to an elderly lady who was being mugged herself as the few other people around played the three-monkey game. What I hadn't spotted that time was the mugger's accomplice, who must have been lurking just round a corner in the tunnel. The elderly woman ended up shaken but unscathed and calling the fire brigade, which is the most sensible thing to do here, before the police. And I came to my senses in one of the sapeurs-pompiers' red ambulances, klaxon wailing over my head and the fireman who gave me the first aid wanting to talk about bloody football... Melinda B. came for a chat at around two in the morning. An Australian intern, she was the doctor who had patched up a minor stab wound in my abdomen and a much more serious injury to my leg, which bears the long scar to this day. It really was a "chat" she wanted, as well as checking up on me in the single room they'd given me at Léopold Bellan, a hospital close to my flat. I was the excitement of an otherwise fairly quiet night. She was a little homesick, delighted to treat a native English-speaking emergency, and accepted my dinner invitation. I went briefly crazy about the pretty, auburn-haired Aussie when she took off the long white coat to reveal a pair of cut-off jeans and a T-shirt with I forget what provocative declaration printed on it ... and put on her roller-blades. Twice we went out together and she sped off on the blades for the night shift afterwards back at a time when that mode of transport was new to the French capital. Unconventional. Very. That was, and hopefully still is, Doctor Melinda... I think of her tonight because I'm a wee bit apprehensive about what may come of the meeting with the specialist in about 18 hours' time. I'd rather he doesn't decide that my tummy needs opening again, but this time rather more deeply than last and on an operating table, not in a squalid corridor. But my mind also turns back to that episode because something disgusting has just appeared on French newstands and having thoroughly enjoyed it myself, the least I can do is share. The mystery picture is part of one in the September issue of 'L'Echo des Savanes'. I have trimmed and tweaked it with the superb Graphic Converter (Lemke Software), but only in one respect. The rest is not for the front page, be warned! If you're squeamish or easily shocked, you're best advised to steer well clear of some scanned photos from of the most disgustingly funny articles to have come my way this year. (A translation of the key bits is generously provided on the story page). 12:25:43 AM  link   your views? []

mercredi 3 septembre 2003

Getting down to no good The noise and stench of four-wheeled, "want my big metal box all to myself" Parisians apart, I’m getting used to another forgotten but disagreeable feature of la rentrée: things can take twice as long as in the summer, from queues in the post office to a short Métro trip. There may be more trains, but at the wrong time of day, you can't always get on the first one on some lines unless you're small and have scales. Compensations include the return of often pretty young secretaries in small packs to the Canteen. The gaggle next to me at lunchtime was having such an interesting conversation about whether men ever could be trusted (the majority view being that they couldn't) that my burning ears gave me away. So when one of them gave me a sharp look, I said, "It's OK, I've switched the tape recorder off now." Fortunately, after a moment's hesitation, she didn't slap me, but grinned. For which I delivered their coffees. I don't go as far as a buddy of Baudier's, whose vitriolic work appears once a month in what is almost a printed 'blog. As far as I can tell, Philippe Person's sources of entertainment include many hours in the Cinémathèque Française (Fr. & Flash) and pulling up alongside unwary innocents on his bicycle to trigger risky conversations: "You're going the wrong way, Baghdad's in the other direction" (to a lorryload of French squaddies) or "How come you've got a man's bike and I've got a woman's?" (to a young lady who miraculously stopped at the lights). Thus far, he has apparently managed to keep most of his brains inside his skull to report the outcome. The big stings are reserved for anyone and anything Philippe and the friends whose outbursts he occasionally publishes dislikes, including entire swathes of French society and culture. There's particular venom for the politicians, writers, artists, media moguls and pundits who manned the barricades in May '68 and then sold out en masse. Since many such people now exercise considerable power and influence, Person has plenty of satirical axes to grind. He wields them with a cutting humour very much to my taste and also enjoys a keen sense of observation. I'm not sure I'd take out a subscription, since this kind of journalism is strictly for those with a deep interest in the seamy underside of France's governing classes, but I'd recommend at least a good look at 'Person Magazine' to anybody looking for an alternative insight into the largely unspoken aspects of this country's "management" (and, it has to be said, with a good grasp of the language). I should add that PP's view of France is not totally jaundiced. His film crits are good, sometimes even favourable, and he does very occasionally manage to wax enthusiastic about the world off-screen. zzz More routine rumblings against the regime were to be heard this afternoon in the newspaper shop, where Francis remarked on the enormous size of the blunt black "Smoking kills" and other warnings that have in the past week grown to take up much of the surface area of a packet of fags. In what will be good news to many an American and Brit who find the nicotine habit far more abhorrent than the average Frog -- but not to people in England who like me to take a carton across for them because they're so much cheaper -- one feller told us of a very steep increase in cigarette prices to be expected from October 1. This chap turned out to be a doctor, who added that his profession smoked more than any other in France -- whether that's true I don't know. He gave an astronomical assessment of how much money the state makes out of taxes on cigarettes. "Which makes tobacconists collabos?" I suggested. "No wonder so many of them can afford second houses in the country." Francis thought the government would do better to encourage people to smoke as much as possible, thereby slashing the considerable cost of state pensions. My own pipe dream is to see governments force the tobacco giants to make the kind of cigarettes people enjoy in one or two of the science fiction books I read: harmless and not a nuisance to others. zzz "Sam?" "Oui?" "If I were to make a cut-out coupon for the Canteen and bung it in the 'blog, would you give me a free meal for anybody who prints out the page and comes in with one?" "No chance! But I'd give you a free meal for every 10." "François, Jean-Claude, did you hear that? You're my witnesses!" No sooner said than done. Well, actually it took quite a long time. Sam hasn't seen the "free aperitif" bit. I judged it safer to leave that out. I think he'd do his nut if this offer were taken up by the regulars! Or rattle mine. But play it cool should you stroll in with a coupon. Sam's not there every day and his brother knows nothing about this capitalist venture at all. Yet... zzz Lee's got more sense than money. Having fled for much of the summer, she's now evaded the short, very sharp shock of la rentrée. My latest bid to find her back in residence round the corner tells me that she's still gallivanting around Spain. If "gallivanting" is the word for trouble with tampons (Odessa Street -- from Andalucia). She's been unheard from for five days since that painful little episode. Come on out, Lee! I don't think Philippe P. would have been so embarrassed. 9:02:24 PM  link   your views? []

mardi 2 septembre 2003

Settling in for the season? The Wildcat gets an overdue flower today, but so does Marianne's mum in challenging times. For Catherine, I've plucked a poinsettia from Initial Impressions, a floral embroidery webshop in Colorado Springs. Its message would sit well on the canapé, just as some rather beautiful north African embroidered cushions she brought back adorn my own. As to the Wildcat, but still I'd take her for a virtual stroll on the moors in Yorkshire, county where my parents have long since settled in a move north for the autumn of life. Here, the purple heather was just coming into bloom in a 10-mile, early August walk from Robin Hood's Bay to the "ghost town" of Ravenscar, says our gifted guide, Don Burluraux. I hope he will pardon me for the copyright breach with a detail from one of the many photos that make up his superb North York Moors site. I would like to say that the Kid has in the past enjoyed being wrenched out of the house by her Gran in York for the kind of exercise and brain refreshment Don recommends. It's only recently, however, that she has acquired any taste for such activity (provided the walkman goes with her) and this year, of course, crossing the Channel was struck right off the agenda. A brief trip to Versailles on Sunday was the furthest I've been able to go from Paris since May, but once this spell in limbo is over, I reckon the kind of air Don breathes would do both Wildcat and me a power of good... The Wildcat was in angry mood yesterday. Were she not still performing her duties incognito, I would almost blog a clue as to the identity of the person primarily responsible for making aspects of her life a misery. The feller's a disgrace to our shared profession and the kind of bully who alternately undermines and cajoles. It's of little consolation to the Wildcat to know that the guy is rather widely considered to be a shit when she has to put up with him on an almost daily basis. What I can do, love, is tell you from even all this distance that you're doing a fine job! How do I know? There are dozens of pieces of your work scattered across the WWW, far more than you'd imagine. All will come out, one of these years... Augustine's alter ego thinks this log has become in part the draft of the unwritten novel. Baudier, the local literary lion, knows better. But he is a novelist, finally making good progress now on his latest, so he says at the Canteen. I've still not finished 'L'odeur des casernes,' where some passages are such a firework display of experiment in novel forms of writing that I prefer to read chapters as the mood takes me, but not backwards as I once told André I thought I'd have to. He still prefers pen and paper to any thought of a word-processor, which sends a shudder down his spine. I last saw him on Sunday wielding a pen like a dagger to slash out passages in 'Libération' fustigating the current bunch of buffoons in power for their "capital errors" (Fr., till 'Libé' shifts it to the paying archives) in failing to act in time to prevent the "hecatomb" of the heatwave. Those black crosses whose appearance in some apartment buildings round here multiplied after I mentioned them. Last Friday, the government published its first provisional, official toll: 11,435 heatwave-related deaths nationwide. Baudier was also in wrathful mood. And nothing to do with Mars and the stars. zzz It alarms me, slightly, that yesterday I was on about l'Astrologue, though I have owned this remarkable piece of software for a while now and find it intriguing. I'm nearly ready for an hour or so with the I Ching, which as the Loyal 3 ¾ well know by now, is my own preferred means of opening my mind to a look at the State of Things. Not to mince words, I was decidedly on a downer by the time I went to see Yang this afternoon for a thorough assessment of the Condition. After all, that I've been laid off work by it for nearly four months now, with very little real prospect of being able to resume on Monday when the latest "arrêt de travail" expires. This, with the reluctant acknowledgement that the Wildcat is right and "the summer's over, Nick," has got to me at last, since I've always loathed winter as it is and certainly don't want to embark on the next one with neither diagnosis nor proper treatment. The doctor, excellent though he is, and I are both grasping at straws now ahead of my meeting with the specialist in three days. Echography, fibroscopy, colonoscopy: we've done the lot. I've lost count of the number of a whole range of blood tests and have another one coming up. Neither of us believe it's the thyroid gland, but we might as well look. I've cut down radically on the cigarettes, there's no booze and I've tried every diet variation I can imagine. All the African disease possibilities have been explored -- and ruled out. And all that remains is hospitalisation for that much closer look at the small intestine we envisage. So right now, I remain routinely tired and I've got a bout of the blues as well as the other symptoms already described in revolting detail. Hence, I'm only blogging a little until my mood improves and I get my sense of humour back. This place is not going to turn into a whine site. But at least that's off my chest. zzz Getting back to Baudier's blues, an occasional, uninvited accompaniment to his ire at whatever the outrage of the day might be, Sam has a good remedy for those. The devil has secret recipes. This I discovered in Sam's absence when something looking absolutely delicious came out of the kitchen and got plonked in front of André, who swiftly cheered up. So yesterday, I told Sam that whatever he had devised for Baudier would do me very nicely. "Ah," he said. "Might you mean the soufflé aux abricots?" It was absolutely delicious, an icy concoction of apricots, almonds and I know not what, with no resemblance to a soufflé but the shape, and lashings of hot chocolate sauce. And it did for me very nicely. I'd better not describe what happened within about 20 minutes, though I did tell Yang. I was, after all, at one long stage banned from eating apricots altogether. But sometimes it's worth taking the punishment for the pleasure of the transgression. Sam said that this and one or two other delights weren't on the menu because they were still "experiments". If that one was anything to go by, next time I take somebody to the Canteen I won't ask about the "plat du jour". I'll ask after the experiment of the week. By the way, Wildcat: you cheered me up a bit tonight. Thank you. 11:37:22 PM  link   your views? []

lundi 1 septembre 2003

Bad auspices for 'la rentrée' Every time a company called Algenib updates a natal chart software called L'Astrologue, it unleashes fury in the Mac columns of VersionTracker. Version 5.1 got one 'Pentium Bunny' worked up enough to warn that "pseudoscience loonies are certainly back with a vengence (sic). as if being scammed by miss cleo wasn't enough to teach them a lesson. the morons just keep coming back for more. Astrology is a 'science' for peasants. it's not harmless fun. it's a SCAM. you pay money. they laugh all the way to the bank. and Monsta mac... you really need help you poor sap". VT does ask for this and the counter-flak by listing L'Astrologue among its "math/scientific" applications, given a range of product categories leaving them little choice. In a speculative entry in June, I explained why astrology perturbs me far less than it does the Pentium Bunnies of this world. A friend was blunter last week. "When," she asked, "is Mars going to blank off out of it?" This outburst was provoked by an observation several of my family and friends have shared in the past few days: that people seem abnormally aggressive. But whether the current proximity of the Red Planet (Spacewatch) has anything to do with it remains, of course, highly questionable. One software firm, the late Lois Rodden's AstroDatabank, has no qualms in linking the closest encounter in nigh on 60,000 years to everything from the heatwave to the Blaster worm and sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic church! zzz I was simply glad last week to see the back of another new moon, never my favourite stretch of the month. Mars was spectacular, though my binoculars were not powerful enough to make out the icecaps. Even in Paris, city of far too much artificial night at light, it was a remarkable sight at two in the morning, the brightest celestial object to shine through the bedroom window. In this country, I'd put some of the prevailing bad humour down to "la rentrée", suddenly upon us along with a very steep drop in the temperature. Literally overnight, the capital has been reclaimed by Parisians, who returned in hordes over the weekend, suntanned and sour-faced. Traffic wardens are patrolling on the streets, happily slapping fines on windshields for anybody who has forgotten that the month of free and easy parking is over. Marianne's mother has just taken back the Kid, with school plans in hand and all thoughts of heavy metal, computer chat sites and carefully slashed clothes to be locked away for the duration. And Le Parisien (Fr), the city's main tabloid, takes a perverse pleasure in welcoming everybody back with front page news that the coming school year looks more troubled than ever. It publishes a poll finding that 75 percent of parents questioned fear that one of the first things teachers will do is go back on strike. zzz As for me, I'm still nourishing the hope that the week to come will bring some real progress in the diagnosis and even treatment of the Condition. For reasons that escape me, leaving the stars out of it, the past five days have seen several people all wanting to unburden heavy souls into my ears at once. I have no objection to this and feel flattered that they regard me as somebody they can turn to in tough times, but I also need to watch out to myself. The Kid's mum remarked tonight that I look singularly tired and have lost rather too much weight. The only real news I've got for blog-hero Yang comes with the results of the latest blood test, which told me today that only too little has changed since the end of July. The white blood cell count has declined a little, but remains disturbingly high. I see the specialist again, at last, on Friday, when it would be nice if he were to join the ranks of blog-heros himself. zzz In the category "it could be a lot worse", I'm still far happier being me than being say ... a politician. One of my favourite cartoons has been to have another chat with Tony Blair (Blaugustine, see the Aug 31 entry). I hesitate to post that on a day when tragic testimony to the Hutton Inquiry (BBC) from a courageous widow is no joking matter at all. But somewhere, I feel it would be even more dangerous to steer totally clear of jest than to risk one's mind by taking Blair and Dubya as seriously as their increasingly shaky positions should deserve. Harv, the "Pendragon" of TS, has e-mailed me some "Bushisms". The Net is already so full of these that while I'm most grateful for a repository of more than 350 of them, I've no plan to blog them. As the potty president reportedly said on April 20, "it'll take time to restore chaos and order order out of chaos. But we will." Heaven help us all while such people persist. 10:22:54 PM  link   your views? [] 'Probability Moon': an alien artefact to alter the odds? Note: I was unaware when I wrote this review that the English-born Charles Sheffield, both a physicist and a fiction writer himself, died in November last year, aged 67. Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. published a fine obituary, while a bibliography of Dr Sheffield's prolific work is at Fantastic Fiction (Sept 11, 2003). Nancy Kress dedicates 'Probability Sun' to "Charles Sheffield, founder, the Charitable Foundation for the Promotion of Scientific Literacy Among People Purporting to be Science Fiction Writers." Who happens to be her late husband. Then comes a potentially intimidating acknowledgement of "a large debt to Brian Greene's fascinating Elegant Universe [Vintage, 2000; Amazon UK*]. Greene's explanations of superstring theory provided the bases, both factual and speculative, for the even more speculative and eccentric theories of my character Dr. Thomas Capelo." Superstring theory? Maybe Kress's readers have reason to say thanks to Sheffield too, because she does a fine job with tough ideas. This is the branch of physics to which François gave me a long lunchtime introduction at the Canteen a while back with some dazzling designs on the tablecloth. But to begin at the beginning, it's probability theory which lays the groundwork in Nancy Kress's stunning first in a trilogy, 'Probability Moon' (2000, Tor Books; paperback since September last year). Kress's future is one where humanity, still divided among itself, has leapt into the far reaches of the universe not through any faster-than-light technology of our own devising, but the discovery of the first of a network of "tunnels", found beyond Neptune in the exploration of our solar system. In the half-century following the passage of a first ship through Space Tunnel #1, the scientists and the military have made use of this legacy from a mysterious, long-gone civilisation, but with no more than a speculative grasp of how it works. Humankind has found that it is far from alone in a universe home to more than 30 known races whose genetic make-up is very similar to our own. With one exception. We have been found by the Fallers and know little about them -- apart from the troublesome fact that this incommunicative alien race has just one goal regarding humanity: systematically to annihilate it. In 'Probability Moon', the human race is losing the war against genocide. Kress launches straight in with a paragraph which told me at once that this was going to be the next one to enjoy: "The aide materialized beside General Stefanek at a most inconvenient moment. The girl with him was too schooled to react; she had been with her company for two years now, and it was the most popular and discreet first-class company on Titan. The girl took no notice of the intrusion, but the general lost his erection. 'I'm so sorry, sir,' the holo said, averting Malone's eyes, 'but there is a level-one message.'" A message important enough to swing the Solar Alliance Defence Council into sending scientists to a remote, newly discovered planet on a mainly anthropological study. What the field researchers aren't told is that their trip is a cover for a military mission which could change the course of the war against the Fallers. The people of World have a peaceful, pre-industrial civilisation, and they enjoy an inexplicable common mindset they describe as "shared reality". More intriguing still, one of the seven moons of their distant planet is a remarkable artefact, probably made by the unknown designers of the space tunnels, and conceivably a weapon of immense power. The plot of this dense, compact novel is complex and clever. But where Kress is especially outstanding is in her gift for character. She populates 'Probability Moon' with a strong cast of humans and Worlders, ranging from Ahmed Bazargan, the Iranian scientist and lover of the Persian poets who heads the planet-side mission, to Enli, a highly intuitive Worlder who has been declared "unreal", an outcast among her own because of a murder, and must earn back her "reality" by serving as a government agent. The closely observed interaction among humans and Worlders and within each of their own cultures is one of the finest features of the book, making 'Probability Moon' as interesting an exercise in speculative social anthropology as it is an arresting thriller. Kress is equally good at tackling wrangles in the scientific community and between academics and the military, with an acute even-handedness which helps the tale ring true. These are issues evidently to be further probed in the sequel, which also gets off to a fine start, with more of the science that sometimes makes 'Probability Moon' a challenging read, stretching the mind of the layman with a keen interest in the sharp edges of physics. It's scarcely a spoiler to say that all hell breaks loose, with relations between humans and their Worlder hosts already sorely strained, once it's clear that the Fallers could prove as keen to find out what the artefact does as the soldiers. Plenty of the action takes place aboard the Zeus, the warship that carried the scientists to World. Kress explores the conflicts arising between the interests of Bazargan's mixed bag of researchers and the prerogatives of the mainly military team up in orbit. These people have little regard for the discoveries made by woolly "soft scientists" on the surface of what most see as a "gods-forsaken, three-miles-up-the-asshole-of-the world planet where nobody lived except a species whose main interest in life was growing flowers." Where probability theory and superstrings come into it is the sort of thing that happens when the people on the Zeus decide it might be a good idea to try to make off with Orbital Object #7... 'Probability Moon' is hard science fiction at its best. The science is essential to the fiction, but the artifices needed to get the key points across don't slow down the telling of a dangerous adventure, with characters who invite both interest and real involvement as they hurtle towards an explosive climax. It's rare that I head straight from a book to its sequel without a glance at somebody else on the review shelf. Kress, however, has carefully peppered 'Probability Moon' with unresolved questions and intriguing possibilities. You could leave it there. But she doesn't make it that easy. The sequel ('Probability Sun'; Tor, paperback February 2003) will thus be the next up for review. Then it'll be something completely different. ___________ *All book links are henceforth, unless otherwise indicated, to Amazon UK. At Blogcritics, the review links are to Amazon.com in the US. 6:02:24 PM  link   your views? []