Nerd love

Click here for a larger image, and move your mouse over it for a hidden message. Rather poignantly, it reads 'You know what really helps an existential crisis? Wondering how much shelf space to leave for a Terry Pratchett collection'.

It's sad because it's true. I genuinely believe that if, in 15 years, we have an enlightened young government which believes in public services, kindness, quality of life, basic decency and the value of nerds, it will be because those people have grown up, as have millions, on Pratchett's books. His last ten or fifteen novels have all been witty, fantastic expositions of liberal-left values - and they've sold millions of copies.

Now he has a variant of Alzheimer's disease, and we don't know how much more he can write. I think of him sitting in his bizarre study, pulsing with intelligence and yet feeling it all gradually slip away from him. Which is kind of selfish - his life matters, not the fans who just want more of his work.

Ever read 'Flowers for Algernon'?

Halfords: liars

A few days ago, I wrote about how friendly and helpful Halfords were when I took my bike in for the brake and gear cables to be changed. I didn't mind having to wait ten days because they were busy. I was pleased when the guy said he'd be able to do it 'today or tomorrow at the latest'.

I was less pleased but still fine when I called four days later to be told that the bike was 'half done' and it would be ready the next day.

I was downright annoyed when I called in today, assuming I could collect it, only to find that, far from being 'half done', it was completely untouched. A simple phone call to apologise for the delay would have kept me happy. Being blatantly lied to, on the other hand, just makes me angry.

So angry that I'm going to spend the day buying books. Oh, and looking at a flat.

Hello again!

How are you all? I had a wonderful few days, and loved travelling through four countries (Britain, France, Belgium and Germany) by train on a single day. Old friendships were re-established, beer was drunk, books were discussed and Vole felt rather inelegant surrounded by willowy, stylish Germans.

And now, thanks to a madcap plan by James, we're going to Oslo from Thursday to Saturday! How cosmopolitan am I?

More tomorrow - haven't been home yet, just straight to the office.

Just plain nuts

This picture of an interloper at Lake Minnewanka (no sniggering) has been round the world this week - the lil' fella was investigating the sound of the camera's autofocus.

Little known fact: grey squirrel is delicious, a little like rabbit. Neal furnished a fat one last autumn, stuffed with nuts. We roasted it with salt and pepper. Free-range, organic and in this country, unwanted. I bet red squirrel is tender though. Rare…

"This must be Thursday," said Arthur musing to himself, sinking low over his beer, "I never could get the hang of Thursdays."

I am forsaking you, leaving you to wander the streets clutching bottles of Mad Dog 20/20 (great website, by the way), staring with mute desperation at passers-by, imploring them to pretend to be Plashing Vole for just a few seconds.

In other words, I'm having a long weekend, returning to my keyboard on Tuesday afternoon, probably.

Which means you'll be needing a Friday conundrum to keep you going.

What snippets of high or popular culture summarise your understanding of the world?

There are so many for me. I loved Marvin the Paranoid Android's observation that 'the dew has fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning', and the talkshow host's claim on The Simpsons that 'your tears say more than real evidence ever could'. Arthur Dent is quite a hero, and I'm just not getting into the Peep Show debate. Chris Morris has a peculiarly accurate though misanthropic approach to life.

Arthur Dent (from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series:

I seem to be having this tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle. As soon as I reach some kind of definite policy about what is my kind of music and my kind of restaurant and my kind of overdraft, people start blowing up my kind of planet and throwing me out of their kind of spaceships!

"This Arthur Dent," comes the cry from the farthest reaches of the galaxy, and has even now been found inscribed on a deep space probe thought to originate from an alien galaxy at a distance too hideous to contemplate, "what is he, man or mouse? Is he interested in nothing more than tea and the wider issues of life? Has he no spirit? Has he no passion? Does he not, to put it in a nutshell, fuck?"

The regular early morning yell of horror was the sound of Arthur Dent waking up and suddenly remembering where he was.
Those who wish to know should read on. Others may wish to skip on to the last chapter which is a good bit and has Marvin in it.

Marvin:

Wearily I sit here, pain and misery my only companions. And vast intelligence, of course. And infinite sorrow.

Why stop now just when I'm hating it?

Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it.

Douglas Adams:

I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

George Eliot:

The world outside the books is not a happy one, Maggie felt (from The Mill on the Floss).

Meanwhile, here are a few lines from Iain Sinclair's Downriver, just because I like them:

A shifty unshaven polymath nebbish, with a cocky drone, and a patter so tedious it could have been marketed as a blood-coagulant, was lecturing a dangerously healthy-looking Californian couple. They were shrink-wrapped, sterile, irradiated like a pair of Death Valley grapes. They socked vitamin-enhanced aerobic vitality at you, so hard you could wish on them nothing but a catalogue of all the most repellent diseases of skin and bone and tissue; all the worst back numbers from the cursing books of Ur, Uruk and Kish. You were obliged to super-impose on their boastful skeletons the historic treasures of old London: growths, malignancies, rickets, nose-warts, furry haemorrhoids, palsies, fevers, sweats, bubos, wens, mouth-fungus, trembles, and pox scabs.

It's a great book - much more wordy, as you can see from this excerpt, than my usual taste, but it's got breadth of imagination and a real nasty swipe at the wideboys, bankers, property developers and all that crew who happily demolished old London to build poxy designer flats for yuppies. It's therefore a very good book to be reading in the midst of our current situation.

Oh Lauren

Yet again, Lauren Laverne proves that she should be the national Maximum Leader. Without even mentioning Kenickie.

Healthcare coverage = Holocaust. Discuss.

Yet again, the American healthcare 'debate' reaches a new low. You wouldn't think that Obama won an election and a mandate handsomely…

On the plus side, this definitively proves that the anti-Obama crowd have lost the argument, according to Godwin's law.

Here's one for you doubting Thomases

Sorry for the rubbish film quality, but this is the USB humping dog Pritpal presented me with on my birthday, humping Neal's laptop into eternity (somewhere in China there's a confused and revolted factory worker). It's become a kind of philosophical totem to me: its pointless existence and activity reminds me of my own situation.

In many ways, it's like Martin Blank's conversation with Dr. Oatman about his Duracell bunny dream in that wonderful film Grosse Point Blank (around 3 minutes into the clip).

Brotherly love and the cuckoo clock

Welcome to a site that's going to become a favourite of mine: Awful Library Books.

Emma, Gary and I went to see The Third Man at the Light House last night. I can't add anything to the superlatives already applied to this film, so I won't. It was great to see a lot of people there, one or two dressed in what they fondly and mistakenly thought was 1940s style. No trailers, no special effects, no stunts - just people acting, rather than mugging and emoting for the camera. It was such pleasure to be treated by a director like an adult for a couple of hours.

It's also the origin of this bleak little aperçu:

Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

None of this stopped Emma describing the movie as 'the original bromance'.

This is really starting to grind my gears

Courtesy of the Guardian's Diary.

US Investor's Business Daily:

"The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof, are legendary. The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror script … People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

Stephen Hawking after treatment at Addenbrooke's NHS hospital:

"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS… I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

Motor Neurone Disease life expectancy: 2-5 years after diagnosis.

Stephen Hawking's diagnosis: 1963 (aged 21). Age now: 67.

So, Investor's Business Daily, you're a lying sack of shit.

Manichaean…

As told by Alex Ross in The New Yorker this month, the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein was believed to be a Communist by the secret services - leading to spies trying to analyze his music for subversive material.

How very reductive. Like most artistic people of the time, Bernstein was of the left (it was, after all, the period of McCarthy and then Nixon) but the idea that musical notes are politically charged is exactly what the Soviets thought in the very depths of their most Philistine period, the Proletkult (late 1920s-1930s). It's just such a facile argument and shows how plain dumb our superiors were, whichever side they were on. Also, artists just aren't that bright. They have their peculiar skills and are usually happy to side with whoever will let them exercise their talents. Rarely has a composer had the intellectual ability to discuss the dialectic, let alone encode it into his or her music (which doesn't stop people endlessly analyzing Shostakovich's music for anti-Stalinist attitudes).

Bernstein was on Hoover's 'Security Index', a list of 12,000 Americans he thought were so dangerous that they should be arrested in the event of a Soviet invasion. Because fat conductors are always the shock troops of the occupation. I'd love to get a copy of it.

On a more enlightened level, I'd recommend Who Paid the Piper?, Frances Stonor Saunders' excellent book on the US secret service's attempts to control the worlds of literature, art and music.

Here's alleged Communist Bernstein conducting alleged anti-Communist Shostakovich's allegedly anti-Communist 5th symphony. Oooh, feel the confusing subversion. After that, the Latvian State Choir singing the Mass that the FBI thought was Communist (like all Catholic masses written by Jewish composers are secretly communist).

Things I've learned from the cleaners while they borrowed a pen

First in an occasional series.

1. If you start urinating through your belly-button, you'll need a big operation and a month in hospital.

Keep the Torch burning

Here's one of my favourite tracks of all time, Dobie Gray's 'Out on the Floor'. It's Northern Soul, of which you may have heard. If not - DJs in Stoke (Golden Torch), Wigan (Casino) and Blackpool competed to import the most obscure soul records they could find. The movement developed its own fashions, dance moves and drug habits - it was a solid working-class culture which transcended race and place.

This track epitomises Northern Soul - it's ridiculously catchy and it captures perfectly the freedom and power available on the dance floor, away from work and all the other things dragging people down. The second clip is some classic dancing from Wigan Casino, though the film's a bit slow and doesn't reflect the stunning athleticism of the real thing.

Wolves or Hull (this is not a football-related article)

Make sure you watch Channel 4 News tomorrow - noon or evening. Wolverhampton's academic redundancies will feature as part of a piece on whether this fair city has really become the worst city in Britain, taking the crown from Hull on a number of indices.

Me? I'm stunned it's not my beloved Stoke.

Books books books… yn Gymraeg

It's not often that I'm moved to buy a book by someone of whom I've never heard, on the strength of an academic article.

Er, OK, it is often. But I thought I'd share this one with you in the (vain?) hope that you'd go with me on this one. I've been reading Almanac (no working website), the Association for Welsh Writing in English's yearbook of essays. Amongst the many genuinely fascinating pieces is Rob Gossedge's attempt to revive the reputation of Nigel Heseltine, who I hope isn't related to the evil Tory bastard Michael.

Anyway, Heseltine was the son of monstrous Peter Warlock, an interesting composer who died early, and a difficult mother. They were the rag-ends of the Welsh squirearchy, a particularly obtuse, moronic, traitorous and unsympathetic bunch of wastrels, and its this class which Heseltine satirised in Tales of the Squirearchy, before he became a prolific translator, travel author and literary commentator.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I've just spent £25 on one of only three copies available on the web, all in the US. What an undignified end to what seems like a talented life.

OK, if satirical short stories about the vanishing aristocracy aren't your thing, this might be: Fflur Dafydd's Y Llyfrgell has won the Daniel Owen Prize at the Eisteddfod. This is seriously prestigious.

The plot and setting are utterly up my street so I'll be breaking out the dictionary for this one:

a controversial novel that takes a peep into one of the major institutions of Wales, the National Library. Set in the year 2020, the novel follows a cast of characters during one dramatic day when two armed lady librarians occupy the Library.

This is a satirical novel, with a large dose of black humour, which lampoons librarians, academicians, civil servants, politicians and janitors, and throws them mercilessly together in a sinister and bizarre crisis. The novel also deals with a number of topical themes – digitisation, post-feminism, literary criticism and, most importantly, a nation’s memory and identity. The novel is an alternative view of the nation’s future, a future where women will govern; politicians overly influence the arts, and the book – and the author – are things that have been forgotten as the new technology takes their place. This is undoubtedly a challenging novel that will upset many a reader – particularly the male critic – and is certain to stimulate debate.

Like Fflur Dafydd’s other works, such as her novel about Bardsey, the novel is an amusing analysis of one of the icons of Wales, with the location itself turning into a major character during the course of the novel, as the reader sees this institution in a new and thrilling light.

Arma virumque cano

We whinge and protest about the NHS a lot - and it certainly gets things wrong - but virtually everyone outside the New Labour bubble and Tory Central Office thinks that a tax-funded, not-for-profit, state-run health service is the only way to provide high quality care fairly to everyone.

It's different in the US. Obama wants to introduce insurance cover so that the 46 MILLION Americans who aren't covered can access healthcare. He isn't (unfortunately) proposing a national health service which would treat everybody - the proposal is to retain private hospitals and reform the insurance system which funds them.

So from this side of the pond, this looks like a slightly kinder version of the capitalist model which has served the US so well (ho ho ho). To many Americans, however, this is communism. Death threats are being made, supporters of healthcare are being beaten up, and now anti-healthcare activists are calling on meeting attendees to bring their guns. What a grown-up way to respond to a weak proposal from a massively endorsed president.

Update:

This is all getting very nasty. American conservatives are spreading lies about the NHS to scare Americans, such as the claim that people over 59 don't get cardiac care, and that Ted Kennedy's brain tumour wouldn't be treated here because he's 77 (well done, Senator Chuck Grassley). Add to this Sarah Palin's description of Obama as 'evil' and her claim that her Down's Syndrome child would face a 'death panel' and we have the makings of a lynch mob. And yes, I'm well aware that that term is racially aligned. There's a nasty undercurrent swirling around Obama which runs 'socialist'-'UnAmerican'-'not born in the US' (untrue)-Muslim (untrue, and who cares anyway)-black-shouldn't be President.

Speak up for the NHS. As Neal points out in the comments, the UK spends less, but spends it better and more fairly. Lots of American pensioners take coach trips to Canada to buy their prescription drugs - pensioners here don't pay a penny (until the Tories get in again) and so don't have to go over to France, Ireland or wherever.

Sartorial crisis

Here's a little task for you.

I looked at my clothes yesterday, and realised that I'm in a bind. Most of my clothes would suit an accountant in his forties, apart from a smattering of t-shirts which announce my love of various obscure defunct bands, or fencing competitions I've competed in or refereed. I need casual clothes, avoiding both Alan Partridge and the billboard look, appropriate to a 34-year old lecturer about town.

I went out in search of clothing yesterday and came back angry and empty-handed. The shirts I have with text on them usually relate to an activity or group with which I have some connection. What happened to our culture? All the shops aren't just selling clothes festooned with the maker's names: most of them 'advertise' imaginary products or companies, as though being a walking billboard is the absolute pinnacle of style. I remove identifying marks from clothes - why on earth is it cool to proclaim labels, real or fictional?

So tell me - where the hell can I find some relaxed t-shirts lacking such things? Abstract designs, if muted, are fine.

Keep on Ripping

Do you drink Relentless? It's one of those horrible energy drinks. I've always thought that there's a dark undertow to the name: there aren't many positive actions to which the adjective is attached. Relentless warfare? Relentless struggle? Above all, relentless stalking, rapist or serial killer. It just screams Travis Bickle.

I'm vindicated by the world view of these people. Own-brand versions of products can't afford to sit round thinking of euphemisms - they need to appeal directly to potential purchasers, and so often cut through the marketing guff to the heart of the product's selling point.

Asda's versions are Monster and Ripper. Are these positive? Do they bring to mind images of students consuming the product while the revise through the night? Or DJs spinning discs for an ecstatic, demanding public? Not to me they don't. They remind me of CIA torturers in Guantanamo Bay taking a break from extreme manicure, Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper and the Yorkshire Ripper. It's always possible that 'Ripper' signifies a return to Enid Blyton's world of lashings of ginger beer and 'ripping' picnics - but it's rather a stretch.

Energy drinks - unleash your hidden rapist.

My sister, the author

It turns out that I'm not the only member of my family desperate to inflict his or her views on an unsuspecting public. My Dublin sister has been moonlighting as a journalist for a few years, and now she's had a personal column published in the Irish Sunday Independent, detailing her sense of liberation and discovery of a new set of values after living as a classic Irish materialist hedonist for most of the last decade. She quit her job in the middle of Ireland's massive economic collapse and looks forward to a simpler life (funded by either unemployment benefit, cheques from the media, or possibly by her bloke, who is one of the loveliest blokes with whome you could ever down a pint).

How do I feel about this? Simple things first - I'm far from being a fan of that particular paper, and this kind of column isn't what I naturally turn to. Most of all though, I'm proud: the girl can write.

It does, however, raise some interesting points. Reading about someone I think I know so well is bound to be unsettling. It's like seeing a painting through an opaque window: the general outline is what you expect, but the details are unrecognisable. Why? Firstly, because we never truly know each other, whatever the relationship. How siblings (or friends) understand each other is shaped by the dynamics of our shared past - Maura and I are 4 years and a sibling apart (I have four sisters and a brother). We got on well as younger kids, then lost shared interests in the ensuing years, before rediscovering commonalities in the more recent past, despite - or because - not seeing each other very often. My memories and understanding of her, and hers of mine, can never fit the way we understand ourselves. Part of becoming an adult is letting go of these fixed prospects, of encountering our loved ones as they wish to present themselves, or as they are. The loss of shared experience is replaced by the richness of our separate lives - there's always something new to learn when we meet again, unencumbered (hopefully) by distant rivalries and resentments. Refounding a blood relationship in friendship is surely a significant moment.

Added to this, of course, is the plain fact that we edit ourselves for public consumption: the Maura Byrne bylined in this piece is a fictional construct, just as the Plashing Vole you see in the lecture hall, the pub or on a blog is merely a facet of a shifting collection of attitudes, beliefs, positions and cells. This isn't criticism, merely observation: the concept of the individual as a stable, discrete unit is a product of western rationalist capitalism - my take on it is simple poststructuralism. 'Maura Byrne' the journalist is no more and no less true than Maura Byrne my sister - and the demands on the columnist is that the art is closer to the surface.

The result is that, ten years ago, the Vole who read of his sister's 'voracious' consumption of culture and art would have scoffed and sarcastically offered an alternative narrative. The Vole of now accepts that these claims reflect a life I haven't recently shared, an interpretation equally, if not more, valid than mine, which of course reflects the tensions and experiences of childhood.

So - to my sister the author: congratulations and admiration.

Square Eyes

If anyone's in Wolverhampton tomorrow, The Light House cinema is showing The Third Man, one of the best films of the 20th-century - a great British noir-thriller starring Orson Welles. See you there?

Also, Moon, a return to 1970s philosophical science fiction is on next week. There's a clip here.