God Save Your Mad Parade

Suddenly you didn't have to be alone. You submerged. You had a good time by having a bad time. You were full of poison.

- Jon Savage, England's Dreaming (1991)

Yes, it's now 30 years since punk's high point - causing there to be no Number One single in the week of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, because the top selling single was the Sex Pistol's "God Save The Queen" and the BBC didn't want to cause offence. That week, the charts ended at Number 2.

Why my favourite musical era is one which happeded a few years before I was born is an interesting question. I suspect that Jon Savage nailed it with that quote, however.

Circular Chess

I really don't have a tactical brain. Therefore, no-one was more surprised than me when I won a game of "Cirondo" at RPG.soc yesterday. Cirondo is a sort of four-person circular chess with only three types of piece: pawns, bishops, and queens.

Admittedly, when two of the players had been eliminated, the third forgot one of the cardinal rules of the game: you lose when you have only one piece left. Still, a win's a win.

The Director Did It

"This film is based on actual case files."

Most of the problems with David Fincher's Zodiac can be traced back to that sentence, which opens the film. Zodiac is the story of the investigation into the "Zodiac killer" who operated in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The problem, however, is that having made the decision to be fairly factual with the case, Fincher is left with a standard police procedural story that wouldn't look too out of place on evening television. And as with real life, people fade in and out of the story. We are presented with four principle characters, two detectives and two journalists, but their narratives are insuficiently interlaced. It's almost as if two different films had been made and then cut together.

The attempt to stick to facts means that Fincher is unable to play to one of his strengths, the psychological aspects of the investigation. It's fairly obvious that Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a fairly creepy and obsessed individual, but, perhaps because the screenplay is based on Graysmith's book, this is glossed over, often being presented in comic terms.

Further problems are brought in when Fincher attempts to make the story more "Hollywood" bu introducing some standard thriller elements, which appear far-fetched and melodramatic.

The films strength is perhaps in giving a sense of time and place, with the fashions and soundtrack envoking the 1970s without descending into the over-the-top cliche version of the decade that we see all too often.

Overall, Zodiac isn't a bad film, it's just a solid, by-the-numbers film, but that's a disapointment, given the director and the subject matter.

South Atlantic Wind Blows/Ice From A Dying Creed

People who know me well may have heard me talk about how, a few years back, I worked with a formed skinhead. He'd been the stereotype, even down to a swastika tatoo on his shoulder. He was a big fan of skinhead films (Made In Britain, Romper Stomper. Also Scum because he'd been in Borstal, but that's another story). As such, I wondered what he'd make of This Is England, which I saw at the cinema only the other day.

The film focusses on a small group of skinheads in the north of England in 1983, and attempts to show how what was originally a non-racist movement (starting with white working class kids imitating the fashions of hard Jamaican lads in the 1960s) was infilitrated and overtaken by Neo-Nazis in the 1970s and 1980s. More than that, it tries to show why membership of a group (whether of a "gang" or a Fascist party) can become so central to someone's life. This is the most successful aspect of the film, helped greatly by some excellent performances, both from the young cast, and from Stephen Graham as the sympathetic-demon "Combo".

Where the film perhaps falls down is its attempts to use the early 1980s as an analogy for the current state of the nation. Skinheads as hoodies is perhaps appropriate, but the presented ideology of the National Front seems a little too contemporary. The analogy of the Falklands War (sorry, "Conflict") with Iraq seems strange, too. There's no doubt that nearly 1000 people dying for some rocks inthe South Atlantic was a terrible waste (Borges famously described it as "Two bald men figting over a comb"), but it was also a response to an unprovoked invasion by a military dictatorship with an appalling human right record. Iraq somehow manages to make the Falklands look good.

All in all, though, it's well worth seeing given the current debate about Britishness (and, by extension, Englishness), and I certainly can't fault it for trying to talk abotut he consequences of being socially end economically isolated from the rest of society.

Fire

Because far too many people are still unaware of Arrested Development, which might just be the funniest American sitcom ever:

This Machine Kills Icelandic Management Lecturers

Yesterday my arsehole of a housemate (see previous posts/e-mails) left the house for the last time. The landlord finally lost patience with him a month ago and suggested that it might be better if he left.

The landlord wants to sell the house, so I shall still be moving before September. However, this is a huge victory for me and the other people in the house.

Champaigne will be drunk.

In Your Face, Ahmadinejad!

I recently installed the free StatCounter software on my blog, so that I could see how popular it is, and where people are viewing it from. The results were surprising. I'm predictably popular in Britain, although I'm not sure who keeps viewing from Birmingham. I've had views from as far away as Brazil and Mexico, too. What pleased me most, however, was the two visits I'd had from the Islamic Republic of Iran. What they made of it is anyone's guess.

The software also allows me to see what search-engine keywords have brought people to the blog. My favourite was the person who was looking for "Ladyboys of Bangkok in Nottingham". I can only assume that they were disappointed with what they found.

The House That Jack Built

Battlecrease House, Aigburth

In many ways, it's amazing that it didn't occur to me sooner. Some of you may remember, about 15 years back, that a man in Liverpool claimed to have found Jack the Ripper's diary, implicating a Liverpool cotton merchant named James Maybrick as the murderer.

It occurred to me to wonder where Maybrick lived in 1888, and it turned out that it was at Battlecrease House, just up the road from where I live now. So on Saturday I went to take a look (Yes, I felt that finding the house of a possible Victorian serial killer was a perfectly normal way of spending a nice spring afternoon. Why do you ask?).

The diary, of course, is a fake. However, we can be certain that one Victorian murder case did involve Battlecrease: Maybrick's wife Florence was convicted of poisoning him with arsenic in May 1889, in one of the most famous murder trials of the era. As Alan Moore noted in From Hell, Maybrick being the Ripper would be like Sharon Tate turning out to be the Boston Strangler.

Of course, the diary being fake doesn't rule Maybrick out as a suspect, and while there's nothing to place him in London at the time of the murders, there's also nothing to establish that he wasn't. There are also a couple of curious details.

A few years back, interviews with elderly Liverpool residents indicated that, in the early years of the 20th Century, children used to run past Battlecrease and shout "Look out, look out, Jack the Ripper's about!". An urban legend about Maybrick may go back quite way.

There's also a detail of a letter that Florence Maybrick sent to her lover shortly before James' death, in which she reports that he is "Delirious...perfectly ignorant of everything", before going on to say that "The tale he told me was a pure fabrication and only intended to frighten the truth out of me."

There is, however, no indication as to what that tale was.

Buttle/Tuttle

So, a list of names of terrorist suspects is being used by banks and car-dealers to vet clients, and is causing problems for people who have names similar to those of terrorist suspects.

Look, having things from William Gibson novels come true is one thing, having things from Brazil come true is quite another.

Rage - Goddess, Sing...

Achilles. You're a good person to have around on the rare occasions you're ready to do some work, but you have volatility issues. Your willingness to enlist the help of your mum won't win you any friends, either

Which Homeric Hero Are You?

Crikey. I mean, it's accurate enough, but Achilles? Surely I should be someone who's more of a wuss, like Paris.

THIS! IS! sorry, which city am I king of again?

It was inevitable that I would go and see 300 with a group of archaeologists, so it was no surprise when that happened last night.

I was particularly interested in seeing it, because an epic battle has recently been waged in the pages of RPG.net over the question of subtext. On one side are those who think that, given the current world-political climate, making a film in which Resolutely Heterosexual Spartan Manly-Men Who Don’t Wear Armour (all played by actors of solidly north-European ancestry) slaughter countless thousands of the Faceless Asiatic Hordes Who Are Led By A Ten-Foot-Tall Effeminate Bisexual (all played by extras who are distinctly either black or brown of skin-tone) might just be a bit troubling.

The counterpoint made was that the subtext is actually critical of the Spartans, and that the battle is really presented as a suitably Frank Miller tale of anti-heroes against villains.

Having seen the film, I can now tell you that the latter argument is complete bollocks.

I promise you that I’m not using hyperbole, or just being a shrieking lefty arts-student, when I say that 300 reminds me of nothing so much as Nazi propaganda films. It’s all here: the worship of the leader figure, the elite of perfectly sculpted male warriors, the idea that the enemy may not actually be human at all, and, of course, the Dolchstoß by corrupt politicians and sub-human mutants. It all reminds me far too much of Spinrad’s novel The Iron Dream. And sadly, this isn’t a satire like that novel, or like Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers. You are quite explicitly supposed to identify with and admire this film’s Spartans.

Don’t get me wrong. If you’ve seen this film and liked it, I’m not saying that you’re a Nazi: the visuals are quite spectacular, although I’m not sure I liked them as much as the look and feel of something like Hero (another film with some troubling politics). It’s just that for me, the visuals don’t disguise what is, in fact, a very troubling subtext.

It will still be worth your while seeing it if you’re interested, if only so that you can e-mail me and tell me that I’m completely wrong. Of course, if I am wrong, then 300 is two hours of vacuous macho bullshit, nonetheless.

A Spectre Haunting Europe

What's a picklock compared to a share certificate?
What's robbing a bank compared to founding a bank?

- Bertolt Brecht, "Happy End" (1929)

Well, I now have an ISA, which I think makes me officially bourgeois. On the other hand, I was kind of born like that. Either way, Trotsky wouldn't be too pleased with me.

On a not-completely-unrelated point, I've recently been looking on ebay for a bust of Marx. I should be getting desk-space in an office next year, and I need something to mark my territory. The interesting thing is that Marx is pretty hard to find, and is much more expensive than either Lenin or Stalin. There's almost certainly an incredibly clever joke about the market in there, but I'll be blowed if I can put it together.

The question is, what will people think the meaning of a bust of Marx is when they see it? Am I referring to myself as a Marxist, and if so, what does that mean? I agree with large chunks of the Marxist critique of Capitalism, but generally disagree with the preposed solutions. I like the democratic process, for a start, and I'm not a utopian, so I don't think you'll ever achieve a perfectly equal society. But that doesn't mean I can't believe in a more equitable distribution of wealth, and be somewhat doubtful that Free-Market Capitalism is going to deliver a good standard of living on a global scale.

Of course, there's a good 150 years of evolving Marxist thought, some of which is more in line with my way of thinking. I've got a lot of reading still to do. I suppose the bust of Marx would be similar to a psychologist having a bust of Freud - it's recognition that he started something important, rather than complete agreement with everything he said. You can't rely on people to magically realise that, though.

Judge Judy And Executioner

With the enormous wave of goodwill that Shaun of the Dead generated, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have produced Hot Fuzz, another British comedy, this time spoofing the overblown cop-antics of Lethal Weapon et al. Will it live up to its predecessor?

The setup of Hot Fuzz is fairly simple, with Pegg playing a “supercop” in London who is posted to a small rural village because he makes all the other policemen look bad. While there he runs into a murder spree and mentors a bumbling rural police constable with dreams of being a proper cop (played by old Spaced and Shaun of the Dead stooge Nick Frost).

The interplay between Pegg and Frost is probably the film’s strongest point, as they use it to play up the homoerotic undertones that usually feature in buddy-cop films. Also good are the inevitable references to The Wicker Man, Straw Dogs, and Bergerac. I was the only person in my cinema who laughed at the Chinatown reference, which made me feel all special.

There is a feeling that the film is really just a build-up to the big action-sequence of the last half hour. This is pretty good, and you suspect that in many ways, this was the moment that Edgar Wright has been waiting for his whole life. Certainly it’s hard not to be carried along by the sheer exuberance with which Wright proceeds to fuck up rural England using automatic gunfire. There’s a nice subversion of the “cop as Fascist vigilante” archetype going on here, too.

The problem is that this build-up leaves the rest of the film a bit bereft of purpose. Also, the plot feels a little too over-egged, making the finale seem a bit too far-fetched even for a send-up of Jerry Bruckheimer. Having said that, you will laugh. I did. And those of us who remember the bad days of British comedy cinema (for my sins, I saw Guest House Paradiso at the cinema) will take that any time.

Vignette

Over at N.A.O.W.F.I.T. there's another snippet of writing by me, called "Hello, Goodbye, London". I'm pretty happy with it. Generally I always seem happier with the results from writing about stuff that's actually happended to me.

Made From Moulded Plastic

See them on the TV screen
Looking back with electric eyes,
Razorblades and Vaseline, what I see is synthesized
Photographs in magazines will accept no compromise
Refueled on nicotine, all of them are synthesized

- The Epoxies, “Synthesized”

It’s been far too long since I was last at a live gig, so last night I remedied this by going to see The Epoxies at Roadkill in Liverpool. As usual, I’ll start with the ritualised slaughter of the support acts. First up were The Exorsisters, who had the air of a sixth-form band who’d fancied dressing up as The Ramones for the night. Completely standard three-cord punk songs followed. The highlight of their set was, predictably enough, a cover of “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker”.

Much better were Liverpool’s own Zombina and the Skeletones: if “Undead New Wave cabaret” wasn’t a genre before, it is now. Plus they released a pack of tame zombies into the audience before their set, so what’s not to like? They’re supporting GWAR at the Academy next week, but even Zombina isn’t enough to make me put up with the main act there.

The main act are a band I picked up via the internet a few years ago. They seem to come from some sort of alternate-1984 in which punk didn’t die after 100 days in 1977, but instead took on board the emergent synthesizer technology of the day. The result is a sort of X-Ray Spex/DEVO/Sigue Sigue Sputnik mash up, and I mean that in a most positive way. Like those 80s electronic bands, they’re also unashamedly geeky, with plenty of songs having a science-fiction-y feel. Much like Zombina and the Skeletones, they get extra points because, during the encore, the keyboardist announced that he was quitting the band in order to join the mosh-pit (or to be more accurate, given Roadkill’s small size, the mosh square-metre).

They’re out and about around Britain this month, and I think you should go and see them, lest I come round your house and smite you, Old Testament-style.

I know I’d know the difference somehow
If I was being rearranged
I’m sure if I had been reprogrammed
Something somehow surely would seem strange

- The Epoxies, “Radiation”

"I'm BATMAN!" 'Yes, But Which One?'

You're Bob Kane's Batman. You're a dark, mysterious vigilante who often kills his villains, and uses a gun. Your girlfriend's Julie Madison, an aspiring actress who thinks you're nothing more than a playboy millionaire. At this stage, you're fighting foes such as Dr.Death and the Monk, but they're only the beginning.
Take this quiz!

I was hoping for either this or the Adam West Batman.

Gissa Job

It feels like getting ahead of myself, but I am starting to think about getting a job. And for the first time in years, I actually saw an advert today for a lectureship in Archaeology that I could apply for (Edinburgh University). I wouldn't get it, and the closing date is at least a year too early, but I still choose to take it as a positive sign.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

The fact that RPG.net is currently having an honest-to-god flamewar about the death of Anna Nicole Smith illustrates everything about why I read it. Particularly when it produced the following line:

"A fitting end to a life of extravagance"? Who the fuck are you, Martin Luther?

Anyway, thanks to those who posted titles for the thesis. The Surrealist Compliment Generator wants me to call it:

Optical Delusions Still Themselves When You Pass By in Convexing Pomp and Sacral Trance: Warfare and Society In Mycenaean Greece

Hmm. Might be a bit long. The Greeks don't appear to have had a god for society or anything, so that's out. I don't have access to cats, which is a pity, because the cat-selected version sounds fun.

I think I might go with :

Beyond The Sharp Bronze: Warfare and Society In Mycenaean Greece

Which is a bit Homeric and does actually represent what I'm trying to do. Failing that, there's always:

Who The Fuck Are You? Martin Luther?: Warfare and Society In Mycenaean Greece.

Titles Are Hard

Well, the thesis approaches 30, 000 words, and I'm starting to think about what to call it. My titles usually follow a set pattern with the set pattern being "Poncy Bit: What It's Actually About". I know that the "what it's actually about" bit will be "Warfare and Society in Mycenaean Greece", but a good poncy bit is hard to find.

Some ideas:

I'm Gonna Git You Sucka: Warfare and Society in Mycenaean Greece

"You know, like Kane in 'Kung Fu' ": Warfare and Society in Mycenaean Greece

This Is Not The Truth: Warfare and Society in Mycenaean Greece

Feel free to vote for these ideas, or suggest some of your own, in the comments section.

I Love The 70s

I've never seen the BBC series Life On Mars, although I'm reliably informed that I'd love it. Certainly, this promo video for the new series is brilliant in several ways.

The Secret Names Of Streets

Listening to Simon Mayo's show on Radio 5, there was some discussion of a new film called The Lives of the Saints, a "magical thriller" set in Green Lanes.

I'd suggest that the Duckett Road folk organise a reuninion where we go and see it, but it doesn't sound like it'll get much of a release.

"You’re terrified, but you feel for the characters, even though they are only sugar."

Sometimes what geeks are capable of surprises even me. Take this for example: a man who has re-created the battle of Helm's Deep from Lord of the Rings using confectionary. I suppose it counts as outsider art. Certainly it appeals to me, given that on one level it is quite brilliant, while on another, quite similar, level, it is a sure sign that its creator has Gone Wrong in a major way.

Mash-Up

Someone over at RPG.net has created a randomiser for game settings. The favourite ones I have had so far are:

Premise: Demonic penguins try to find true love in a transparent ripoff of/respectful homage to Tolkien's Middle-Earth.
Genre: Romance

Premise: Transhuman ducks kidnap hapless livestock on the high seas.
Genre: Romance

Premise: Odious angels fight crime in the ruins of post-apocalyptic New York.
Genre: Noir/Action

Premise: Rock star androids evolve beyond human limitations in Tokugawa-era Japan.
Genre: Horror/Alternative History

Premise: Cynical vikings try to get laid in the world of competitive cooking.
Genre: Cyberpunk/Dungeon Crawl/Drama

If you want a go, the generator can be found here (if you get a result including the phrase "fish out of water", it was included at my suggestion).

Mystery Archaeology Theater 3000

Well, it's been a while since I posted. This is because the normal post-Christmas depresion has been a bit compounded by the fact that I'll be moving house shortly. I don't really want to move, but one of my housemates is an arse and the landlord won't do anything about it, so I've not much choice.

But no-one comes here to hear about that stuff, so here's a film review of Apocalypto.

Apocalypto actually holds together very well on the level of an action film. As you might have guessed with a Mel Gibson film, however, once you get beyond that level things get quite problematic.

I'm fully aware that Apocalypto is in one sense not to be taken literally, as Gibson is using Mesoamerican history to offer a critique of contemporary western society. However, if you're going to use a historical allegory, you should do your best to get the history right, or your allegory will be pretty poor. This is actually the main problem with Apocalypto: it uses various features from over 1000 years of Maya society and throws them together into a pseudo-culture. The pyramid-building Classical Maya society was gone for a good 600 years prior to the arrival of Europeans in the area.

The portrayal of the pseudo-Maya is also a problem. To believe the film, the Maya were a society of bloodthirsty psychopaths who had no redeeming features. Is that a valid way to treat the ancestors of a group of people who are still very much with us (there are still 6 million Maya living in Mexico and Central America)? The Classic Maya did practice limited human sacrifice, but then so did the Romans, who tend to get a much more positive portrayal in film than the Maya do here.

The negativity of the human sacrifice in Apocalypto is ironic, given the manner in which Gibson's personal interpretation of Christianity seems to be all about the torture and sacrifice. The film is certainly heavily influenced by Gibson's beliefs, with the attempts to Christianise the beliefs of the hero's people also being somewhat jaring.

All in all, Apocalypto is interesting, possibly worth seeing, but ultimately badly flawed.

Idiot Savant

Well, the paper at Exeter went well. Extremely well, in fact. Several people came up to me and told me how much they enjoyed it. It being TAG, of course, they enjoyed it in ways I can barely comprehend, but that’s not so important, eh?

I was evidently on some sort of endorphin high, because that night I danced for the first time in about four years. And enjoyed it! The night ended with drinking Archer’s in a hall-room at Exeter University until 2 AM. We should make this a tradition.

The rest of the weekend I passed in a fairly relaxed manner, but not so relaxed that I fell asleep in anyone’s paper. In fact, I even managed to take in some papers that may help my thesis, so it counted as work. I failed to dance at the TAG party, so it seems that my fear is actually of dancing in large groups. I was put to shame by the 78-year-old Lord Renfrew, who could be seen jiving to “Johnny B. Goode” at one point.

I hope everyone’s having a good Christmas. See you next year!

Bond

So I got round to seeing Casino Royale, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it does live up to the hype. That's right, for the first time in about 30 years someone has made a James Bond film that's actually worth seeing.

The reason for this is that they were finally forced into taking a good, hard look at the genre in the aftermath of The Bourne Identity and Austin Powers. So gone are most of the camp elements, to be replaced by a more-or-less gadget-free Bond who succeeds through ingenuity and being a borderline psychopath.

Daniel Craig does pretty well, too, which is the advantage of giving the part to someone who can act a bit, as opposed to Pierce "Carved Out Of Stone" Brosnan. He looks suitably gritty, as well, which matches the tone of violence in the film: as Mark Kermode said on Radio 5, this is about as extreme as the 12A certificate is going to get. A scene with strong homoerotic BDSM undertones? Never would have happened with Roger Moore!

Actually, I think we're all pretty happy that it never happened with Roger Moore.

Honorable mention should also go to Mads Mikkelsen, who manages to rescue Bond-villany from the specter (ha!) of Doctor Evil. And manages to do it while looking like a sinister version of Antoine De Caunes, to boot.

If I have a complaint, it's that the running time is a bit too long - there are about 5 points at which the film appears to end, onlyto start up again. Aside from that, though, this one is well worth your money.

That Time of Year Again

Well, it transpires that the abstract I submitted to the TAG 2006 conference has been accepted, so I'll be in the plenary session on 15th December. The abstract is as follows:

Ex Machina: Archaeology In A Post-Human Future

Recent research in disciplines as varied as medicine, robotics, and artificial intelligence has raised the prospect that, during the 21 st Century, humans will be increasingly able to alter themselves physically, through both biological and mechanical means. The consequences of such alterations to humans may have serious implications for the study of humanity. Indeed, they have led to some researchers speculating that we may see the emergence of “post-humanity”, a development which has caused Francis Fukuyama to revise his previous assertion that human history essentially ended in 1989 (Fukuyama, 2002). The purpose of this paper, therefore, is twofold: to introduce some of the means by which humanity may become post-human, and to speculate as to how archaeology as a discipline might respond to the challenge of interpreting a human past from a post-human viewpoint.

I have to admit, when I first found out I'd made it in, I was terrified: the plenary session will be attended by just about everyone who's attending, which will include some very big names indeed. Then there's the fact that I'm not an expert in either posthuman or archaeological theory.

I've calmed down a bit now though. Thinking about it, they accepted the paper because they felt it was an interesting subject, and my main purpose is really just to raise the issue. Plus, being a plenary session, there's no Q&A, so no-one will be able to ask me a question I don't understand until I'm off-stage.

Full details on the TAg conference can be found here.

London Wants Me

I spent the weekend celebrating my Dad's 60th birthday in London. I went down on Friday morning so that I could have lunch with Emily in the resteraunt at the Sony building. It's very GATTACA-type minimalist, but the food was good ('though I do have some reservations about mushy peas mushed within an inch of their lives).

The main event was going with my parents and sister to the Fulham vs. Everton match on Saturday. The less said about the first half the better, but the highlight was undoubtedly the manner in which one Fulham fan decided to continually mock Joleon Lescott's hair (pictured below). Fortunately, Fulham had the decency to win the match with an excellent Claus Jensen goal in the second half, so we went away happy.



"Oo's your barber? Suuuuuuuuuuue your barber mate!"

I was going to go to the cinema on Saturday night, while my sister was at the Gogol Bordello gig, but there was nothing decent on at the Odeon Camden. I ended up watching Double Indemnity (which I'd surprisingly not seen before) on DVD. It's as good as they say it it - go and find it now!

The journey back on Sunday took 5 hours on a direct train, even though the journey down took 2. On the bright side, I did get to see bonfires and fireworks all across the country.

About As Accurate As It Could Be...

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Midland
Boston
The South
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

All These Things That I've Read

Bookmeme: Bold the ones you've read and add four to the bottom

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials Book 1)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6) - J.K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) - J.K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) - J.K. Rowling
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter 5) - J.K. Rowling
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Book 1) - J.K. Rowling
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) - J.K. Rowling
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Ender’s Game (The Ender Saga) - Orson Scott Card
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
Hey Nostradamus! - Douglas Coupland
The Nature of Blood - Caryl Phillips
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules -Ed. David Sedaris
Yarn Harlot by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
Spook by Mary Roach
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Suzanne Clarke
Marley and Me -- John Grogan
Gone to the Dogs - Emily Carmichael
Book the 11th: The Grim Grotto: The Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
State of Fear - Michael Crichton
The Speed of Dark -- Elizabeth Moon
Interview with the Vampire -- Anne Rice
The Vampire Lestat -- Anne Rice
The Snow Fox -- Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
Anansi Boys -- Neil Gaiman
The Princess Bride -- William Goldman
Luck in the Shadows -- Lynn Flewelling
Arthur & George -- Julian Barnes
The Seven Dials Mystery -- Agatha Christie
The Stupidest Angel -- Christopher Moore
Sabine's Notebook -- Nick Bantock
Strangers in the Night -- Linda Howard
Night Tales (v.1) -- Nora Roberts
Reunion -- Nora Roberts
White Lies -- Linda Howard
Fever Season (Merovingen Nights) -- CJ Cherryh
Divine Rite (Merovingen Nights) -- CJ Cherryh
Angel With a Sword (Merovingen Nights) CJ Cherryh
Mount Dragon -- Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Ella Enchanted -- Gail Carson Levine
Dreams Underfoot -- Charles de Lint
Settling Accounts: Return Engagement -- Harry Turtledove
In Cold Blood -- Truman Capote
Happy Hour at Casa Dracula -- Marta Acosta
Not in Kansas Anymore: The Curious Tale of How Magic is Transforming America -- Christine Wicker
Wicked -- Gregory Maguire
Holy Fools -- Joane Harris
Nikolai Gogol -- Vladimir Nabokov
The Picture of Dorian Gray -- Oscar Wilde
From a Buick 8 -- Stephen King
Half a Life -- V.S. Naipaul
Kafka on the Shore -- Haruki Murakami
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater -- Kurt Vonnegut
Naked Lunch -- William S. Burrough
The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
Fevre Dream -- George R.R. Martin
A Feast for Crows -- George R.R. Martin
The Burning -- Bentley Little
Men of Tomorrow -- Gerard Jones
Caucasia - Danzy Senna
Sacred Clowns - Tony Hillerman
Best American Mystery Stories 2005 - Various
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Sword of Truth series books 1 – 9 – Robert Jordan
Going Postal – Terry Pratchett
Tiger in the Shadows – I can’t remember who wrote this (Debra Wilson?)
Stagestruck Vampires – Suzy McKee Charnas
A Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin
The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
Cosmopolis – Don Delillo
The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde
Vellum - Hal Duncan
Illicit Passage - Alice Nunn
Zahrah the Windseeker - NNedi Okorafor-Mbachu
Men At Arms - Terry Pratchett
Hyperion Cantos - Dan Simmons
A Scanner Darkly - Phillip K Dick
At the Mountains of Madness - H.P. Lovecraft
Divine Invasions: A Life of Phillip K Dick - Lawrence Sutin
Tales Of H.P. Lovecraft
Voyage Of The Space Beagle - A.E. van Vogt
Coraline - Neil Gaiman
Snakes & Earrings - Hitomi Kanehara
The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
Lady of Avalon - MZB as above
Botany of Desire - Michael Pollan
Scaramouche - Rafael Sabatini
The Darkness That Comes Before - R. Scott Bakker
Humpty Dumpty: An Oval - Damon Knight
The Dictionary of the Khazars - Milorad Pavic
Le Ton Beau de Marot - Douglas Hofstadter
Viriconium Nights - MJ Harrison
Fremder - Russell Hoban
Box Nine - Jack O'Connell
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
American Pastoral - Philip Roth
A Very Profitable War - Didier Daeninckx
Carter Beats the Devil - Glen David Gold
Crime & Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Case of Comrade Tulayev - Victor Serge
The Sword of Honour Trilogy - Evelyn Waugh
The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler
Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley - Lawrence Sutin

"It's Such A Fine Line Between Stupid, And Clever."

There's nothing funnier than a band completely lacking self-awareness. Case in point: this video for Cathedral's song "Witchfinder General". It's a special feature on the DVD of the same name, but now, thanks to YouTube (a subsidiary of Google!), you can see it too.

Poor-quality metal? A random woman in leather? "Vampires" half-heartedly lezzing up? Lead singer an idiot? It's like Spinal Tap never happened.

William Gibson Overdrive

I just started reading Idoru, and the first 40 pages have already reminded me why I love Gibson's writing: unlike most SF writers (even the good ones), there's a sense of realism at work which draws you in. This, of course, is because most SF writers come from a science-y background, and will spend pages telling you how something would work. Gibson cheerfully knows nothing about how things work, but he's interested in how people use technology, the consequences of it. Hence the following passage:

He knew that she was screaming because her mouth was open, but the syllables of her rage couldn't penetrate the seamless hissing surf of the white-noise generator provided by his lawyers. He'd been advised to wear the generator at all times, during this last visit to the Slitscan offices. He'd been instructed to make no statements. Certainly he would hear none.

Ultimate Horror

The Just-Like-Me Doll

What response can I give, other than "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Students On A Plane

Yesterday I went to Manchester Airport to film a promotional video for the International Office at the University. The idea was to film the students being met at the airport bu Uni representatives, and taken back to their halls of residence. It went pretty well, despire me and Rik, who were doing the filming, being pretty inexperienced with the use of a semi-pro camera.

Also interesting was the point where we were hassled by a young asian man, who apparantly felt that Two White Guys Filming Asian Students Arriving = Agents Of The Vast Racist Conspiracy. Typically, the response he got from me was the short embarased/annoyed laugh that you give when you find yourself talking to an arse, rather than the sentence "Listen pal, why don't you go and vent your paranoid passive-aggression at that cop over there with the loaded MP5?"

You should eventually be able to see the film on the University of Liverpool website.

Normal Service Will Be Resumed

Well, I have returned from Greece. Hopefully you're reading this because I've fixed the problem with the blog, which meant that I couldn't blog from Greece. It's probably for the best - it would just have been a list of mior complaints and threats of extreme violence against a Frenchman who we laughingly refer to as an archaeologist.

Hot Hot Heat

A list of things which have struck me since I arrived in Greece:

• I really should have brought a hammock.
• Athens really is ugly, isn't it?
• Why are ants trying to eat my tent?
• "Hoovering a Neolithic floor" is an hilarious sentence, but not as funny as the activity itself.
• A pig-knuckle and a human finger-bone look really similar.

Hearing Music From Another Time

Members of the British Battalion in Barcelona, September 1936.

The System Of The World

I saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean film over the weekend. It's OK (mostly for Depp, again), but also quite disapointing in its own way.

The thing that I really liked about it, actually, was its use of the British East India Company as a villain: as someone on RPG.net commented, we are talking about the original country-owning megacorporation. The brief comment on Globalisation in an 18th Century context was easily the most interesting thing the script did.

It also got me thinking about the recent resurgence of interest in the 18th century in popular culture: that series the BBC is running about how the 18th Century created the modern world, the very modern-feeling Casanova series last year, and Neal Stephenson's trilogy of near future science fiction novels (which aren't science fiction and take place in the 18th century, if you see what I mean). Going back a bit further, there's the short story "Mozart In Mirrorshades", which is one of my favourite pieces of short fiction, and you should read it.

What this all actually means, I don't know. Are we becoming the new Georgians in preparation for Charles becoming George VII? Is it because we've spent the past century doing our best to get rid of Victorian morality? Maybe we just really like frilly shirts?

Now That's A Sport...

Just Another Country

So there we are. And at the end all I could think was "Why are they lying on the ground and crying like it was an act of God? They had the ability to change things, yet didn't." For the first time in my life I found myself admiring Phil Neville, as he stayed on his feet, not a tear in his eye, shaking hands with the Portugal players. Like you're supposed to. Like a man.

Quite frankly, Gerrard and Lampard shouldn't be considered world-class if tyey can't score from a free shot from 12 yards. Yet again the fans were great, and the team were shit.

All of which leads me to consider a new policy. When England reach a finals, I will not watch them until they make the semis. They have to prove that they are worthy of my time and effort.

Flow My Tears, The Viewer Said

Watching "Big Brother's Big Mouth" last night (yes, I know) I came across the final proof that human history and culture have reached their logical end-points. One of the studio audience was attempting to be Russell Brand.

I'll pause a moment to let the full horror of that sink in.

At some point there was a man, possibly a fairly normal man. One day, upon watching TV, he thought "I know what'll make me popular: becoming a less talented version of Russell Brand".

Nuclear war is our only hope.

The Street Finds Its Own Uses For Things

God I love this story:

This is one ringtone you've gotta hear

Enterprising teenagers have hijacked a high-pitched electronic blip which adults cannot hear and turned it into a stealth ringtone.

It is suitable for use in situations where grown ups aren't meant know there's an incoming call or text message.

The ringtone - which can be downloaded from the internet - is proving especially popular amongst school students in the US and UK who use it in classrooms.

With it, students can receive text message alerts on their mobile phones without the teacher knowing.

As people age, many develop what's known as presbycusis or aging ear - a loss of the ability to hear higher-frequency sounds.

The ringtone is a spin-off of technology that was originally meant to repel teenagers - not help them.

Last year, a Welsh security company developed the 17-kilohertz buzz to help shopkeepers disperse youngsters loitering in front of their stores.

Mr Howard Stapleton, the inventor of the "Mosquito", claims the high-frequency pulsing sound can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30.

Realising the commercial possibilities in the unintended use of the blip, Mr Stapleton's company has quickly produced it's own official version of the ringtone which they are calling the "the authentic Mosquito ring tone".

From The Sidney Morning Herald

Back Home

So, did we all enjoy the first weekend of the World Cup? My main enjoyment came from not having to apologise to my friends in Frankfurt for the England fans destroying the town center. Hopefully that'll continue.

As far as the football has gone, I'm very, very afraid of Argentina. They're certainly the first team to look capable of winning it. Germany seemed a bit too excited about scoring four against Costa Rica. Perhaps they were trying to blot out the memory of conceding two to Paulo Wanchope, a man famous to Premiership fans for playing like his legs belong to someone else, and have just been sown on to his hips.

England managed to provide the most boring match of the finals so far. This was doubtless part of Sven's master plan. Why else would he have taken off our actual fast striker, and left Peter Crouch on his own, heading the ball at nothing? The man's a genius, I tell you!

Today of course, we get to see Brazil, whom I hate with the fire of thousands of suns. Not for anything to do with them, but for every two-bit Nike-endorsed excitement-whore that they bring out of the woodwork at this point, claiming that thay love football. Face it Brazil, you're the Manchester United of world football, but with worse teeth.

"...*Steal* A Car..."

Probably my favourite of all the things Kids In The Hall ever did:


Get this video and more at MySpace.com

On Not Thinking Things Through

Yes, it is real, and it really was made.

WILL THE FRENCH DESTROY YOUR HOUSE?

Daily Mail-O-Matic

Genius. Pure genius.

“I’ve Got All Five Senses And I Slept Last Night: That Puts Me Six Up On You.”

A film noir in which the protagonist is the high school geek? Yeah, you knew this one was never going to score less than “average” with me.

But Brick is more than art-porn for lonely kids who’ve read too much Raymond Chandler. It’s the best film I’ve seen this year, and might even be the best film I’ve seen in rather a long time.

The idea of making a film noir set in a school seems ridiculous at first, but the more you see of it, the more it makes sense. In addition, the unusual setting allows the film to avoid and/or subvert the conventions of the genre. Indeed, the plot somehow manages to encompass everything you would expect to find in classic noir, and somehow manages to make you believe it. As always with noir, though, to concentrate on the plot is to miss the point entirely: this film is all about creating a mood.

Mood is perhaps where the film excels the most, with the cinematography picking out the menacing emptiness in the American landscape, in much the same way that Hopper paintings did. The soundtrack is suitably subdues as well, which is a welcome change after years of jock-rock in American school films.

Not everything in Brick is perfect. There are occasions when its desire to pastiche classic noir nearly crosses the line into parody, and there’s no question that the best moments of the film are when it is trying to play things relatively straight.

If you’ve read this far, you probably already know whether this sounds like your sort of thing or not. It certainly comes with my highest recommendation.

"Choke on 'em! Choke on 'em!"

It's about time I told the blog readers that I have a character in Urban Dead. Urban dead is a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) set in a city suffering from a zombie outbreak. You can play a survivor or a zombie, and will find yourself switching around as you get killed or "revivified". It's surprisingly fun for a browser-based game.

You can also see the current status of my character, Roy Allenson.

I'll see you behind the nearest barricade...

"Isn't He Beautiful?"

So what happens when the cyberpunk asthetic meets the rest of Eighties culture? The answer, should you be looking for one, is provided by this, the video to Sigue Sigue Sputnik's 1986 single "Love Missile F1-11" (you heard me).

Sad though it is, this actually sums up what I think a music video should be: equal parts cool and hilariously absurd.

Build My Gallows High, Baby.

The Movie Of Your Life Is Film Noir

So what if you're a little nihilistic at times? Life with meaning is highly over-rated. Your best movie matches: Sin City, L. A. Confidential, Blade Runner

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

21st Century Minimalist Rebellion

Over at Mind On The Run, Tom is talking about becoming Irish. I've asked him to keep me updated on the process. I don't want an ID card: it's no-one's business who I am, and I'm not here for the police's convenience.

I'm also not sure that I want to be part of a country which apparently thinks that the Geneva Convention should be altered to allow torture and the starting of wars of aggression.

Tom was amused by my use of the phrase "becoming Irish as a form of protest". Maybe we should co-author a book on the subject?

This Vicious Cabaret

Films of graphic novels do not have a good reputation. Films adapted from Alan Moore’s graphic novels have an even worse reputation. Nonetheless, I went to see V For Vendetta with some pretty high expectations.

By and large, I wasn’t let down.

The film takes place in a future authoritarian British state, in which a terrorist known only as “V”, and taking on the persona of Guy Fawkes, is conducting a war against the government. Perhaps the best aspect of the film is the highly convincing way in which this British fascism is portrayed. The low point is probably the usual Hollywood inanities regarding British culture. Yes, of course, we say “bollocks” every other word, and Benny Hill is regarded as cutting-edge satire.

There are also problems with the script. There are several places where the political points being made are as subtle as a tactical nuclear strike. Perhaps more damaging is the entry of V into the script: he comes across as a hammy eccentric rather than dangerously unstable individual, and the film takes quite a while to recover.

When it does recover, though, the results are excellent, helped along by a cast of quality British actors (Steven Fry steals just about every scene he’s in). While the film is nowhere near as clever as the graphic novel, and not as clever as it thinks it is, it’s certainly head-and-shoulders above most action films.

If you see it, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

I just got back from Worcester. My grandmother died yesterday evening. She was 95 years old, so this wasn't unexpected. It's still sad though.

On Archaeological Service East Of Constantinople

The Kocatepe Mosque, Ankara
I still find it remarkable that you can start a day in the north-west of England and be in central Anatolia by mid-afternoon. Never let it be said that archaeology doesn’t take you to interesting places.

Some places, however, are more interesting than others. The thing about Ankara is that there isn’t really much there. It’s only the capital because Mustafa Kemal (I refuse to use “Atatürk”: I don’t care if you did win a War of Independence, taking the title “Father of Turks” is the sure sign of an incorrigible twat) was based there during his war. So, apart from the Old Town, Citadel, and Museum of Anatolian Civilisation, the city is really just a bland administrative centre.

Turkey still made for a pretty interesting experience, though. It was the first time I’d been to a Muslim country, and it proved to be a cliché-defying experience: I never expected to hear the call to prayer coming from hundreds of mosques while simultaneously wading through snow. It did surprise me how much the city felt like the rest of south-eastern Europe. The other possible title for this blog entry was “Europe With Added Pointy Bits”.

The other thing that occurred to me was that this was really the first time I’ve travelled abroad alone, as before I’ve always been with family or friends. That being the case, things went remarkable well, although my usual mixture of incompetence, paranoia, and cowardice served to keep things interesting.

I’ve got this far without saying anything about the conference. My paper went well, and although there weren’t any questions, I had several people come up to me afterwards and tell me that they’d enjoyed it. There’s a very good chance that it’ll be published, too, so expect me to ask you to buy the volume at some point. The one downside was the slightly low attendance, which was probably down to the hard-to –reach location.

I was glad I went though. I must look for more conferences to go to.

Snakes On A Plane

Some of you will already have heard me talk about this, but soon we are to see the Samuel L. Jackson film Snakes On A Plane released.

Snakes On A Plane does exactly what it says on the tin: an assassin wants to kill someone in protective custody, so he resorts to the only foolproof method - releasing venomous snakes on the airliner which is transporting the target. Only Samuel L. Jackson can save the day.

Allegedly, the producers thought the title was stupid and wanted to change it, but Jackson stopped them, saying "The title's the only reason I agreed to do the film".

I predict hilarity. Who wouldn't want to see this?

The King Dances

Well, I've been tracking this for some time now, and it seems to have spread from America to our own shores. Forget Avian Flu, this is worse.

Much worse.

A Design For Life

I've never really had a "look", a cohesive style, but I would like one. This passage on mods from Dick Hebdige's Subculture: The Meaning Of Style, neatly sums up my thoughts:

Unlike the Defiantly obtrusive teddy boys, the mods were more subtle and subdued in appearance: they wore apparently conservative suits in subdued colours, they were fastidiously neat and tidy...The mods invented a style which enabled them to negotiate smoothly between school, work, and leisure, and which concealed as much as it stated. Quietly disrupting the orderly sequence which leads from signifier to signified, the mods undermined the conventional meaning of 'collar, suit and tie', pushing neatness to the point of absurdity. They made themselves like Ronald Blythe's discontented labourers into 'masterpieces': they were a little too smart, somewhat too alert, thanks to amphetamines.

Beyond The End Of History

I was suddenly struck by something that was said in an online forum today. In online RPGs such as World Of Warcraft, there is an increasing problem known as "gold farming".

"Gold farming" is when businesses are set up which employ people in poor parts of the world (China, etc.) and pay them a small amount to play the game, gathering in-game resources. The company then sells those resources online for real cash.

It's so post-modern it makes my head spin.

Damn You, Mustafa Kemal!

If you hadn't made Ankara the capital of Turkey, the SOMA conference would probably be in Istanbul, which costs significantly less than £300 to get to.

#8

More Conference Joy

Hot on the heels of TAG, I've had a paper accepted for the Symposium On Mediterranean Archaeology conference in Ankara on March 9-11. My chance to impress other Mediterranean archaeologists and/or contract Avian Flu. Here's the abstract for my paper:

Sackers Of Cities, Rowers of Ships: Eastern Mediterranean Naval Warfare

The importance of Mediterranean seafaring to the development of Bronze Age cultures around that seas shores has long been acknowledged, particularly in terms of trade and cultural contact. Discussion of the military uses of the sea in this ear, has, however, been limited, with the alleged scarcity of evidence often being put forward as an explanation. Indeed, scholars such as Starr (1994) have claimed that there was no such concept as “sea-power” prior to the rise of Athens in the 5th Century BC. Given the aforementioned importance of the sea, such claims must be investigated. This paper will examine the evidence for military uses of the sea in the eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age. It will demonstrate that not only is there a variety of evidence to suggest the use of sea-power in the Bronze Age, and will suggest the nature of war at sea in that era.

There should now be a comments feature on this blog, so you can tell me what you think.

Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned

So, the TAG presentation. Standing in a room full of people who knew more about archaeological theory than me, and talking about something that involved the Bronze Age and 1950s Japanese gangsters. It seemed to go off quite well: no-one threw anything at me, or stood up and denounced me as a charlatan.

One disappointing thing was that there was no question and answer session after my paper, due to almost everyone else overrunning by 10 minutes. On the one hand, this was a relief, but it also made it hard to gauge how my paper had gone down. Two people did, however, come up to me afterwards and tell me they’d enjoyed it, which was good. Even better was the mooted possibility of publishing the session, or at least making it available on the internet.

And I do love TAG: papers about Crowleyite occultism in a disused airbase in Surrey, the Minaret of Jam in Afghanistan, and archaeology on the moon. Plus meeting up with lots of people I hadn’t seen in a year.

Have a good Christmas! Hopefully it won’t be too long before I see you all.

Apply Some Pressure

The nerves about my presentation next Wednesday are starting to kick in. At least the presentation is 20 minutes long now. My only worry is that it's rubbish and people will think I'm an idiot.

Also problematic is the Q&A session which follows each paper. What do I do if someone asks me a question I don't understand? Which is to say: "Any question involving a word ending in -ism, or referencing a French philosopher."

On The Web

The other day I was watching the second Harry Potter film, and I noticed that it featured yet another Giant Spider Who Is Up To No Good.

It made me think that there should be a film about the prejudices faced by a giant spider in the world today. The protagonist would be a giant spider who wants to live a normal life, but because people have been told by storis that Giant Spiders Are Up To No Good, he can't. When he goes to the shops, people run screaming into the road. He can't visit a pub without people trying to trap him under an enormous glass, and so on.

The spider would, of course, have the voice of Eddie Izzard.

Never One To Ignore A Bandwagon

My blog is worth $2,822.70.
How much is your blog worth?

It appears that this blog is worth more than either Emily's or Jen's. Go me.

Not A Complete Idiot

Yesterday I had my upgrade meeting at the Uni. For those who don't know, the process of doing a PhD is an arcane one. When you register, you register as an MPhil student. After a certain period of time, you can try and upgrade to full-on PhD student. You do not, however, get the MPhil qualification.

Clear? No? Well, neither is anyone else.

The actual upgrade consists of a mini-viva, being questioned on my research by a panel of three experts. So yeah, Intimidating. I appear to have done all right, though, becuase they upgraded me with no real problems. Which is nice.

I also met up with Nick Gladden of the North West Film Archive, who was there to evaluate the film I found inthe BFU's basement room. Turns out it was some of the missing stuiff he was looking for.

All in all, a busy day.

Flicker

I don't think I mentioned it here, but I was asked a while back to locate some of the Basement Film Unit's films by the North-West film Archive and the Liverpool University Library. Most of the BFU film holdings went into the library archive a few years ago, but four reels, last seen in 1982, remain unaccounted for.

Tody I finally got round to doing it. In the Basement which gicves the BFU its name, I came across three reels. Two appear to be sound, and one colour film. I have no way of knowing what they are.

Also in the Basement is a locked door. It appears to lead into what used to be the projection room. I looked through the projection window by the light of my mobile-phone-torch, but couldn't see much. Then I had to stop doing that, because it was so creepy.

Damn horror films. Still, I left the basement without a zombie eating my face.

I'm Worth A Million In Prizes

I now have a pension.

So I think it's fair to say that my youth is officially dead.

Inside Stephen

Last night I had a dream. It was a long and complex dream, but today I can remember only one fragment: me saying the words "Well, that's what happens when you throw a grenade in someone's face."

Hmmmmmm.

Decisions, Decisions...

I've finally been assigned my student to work with. A Radiology student. And I haven't touched science since I was at school. He tells me I should probably gen up on physiology before I have to take notes on it. Looking at the library catalogue, I can't decide between:

Physiology at a glance
by Jeremy Ward, Roger Linden, Rob Clarke.
Oxford: Blackwell Pub., 2005.

or

The physiology coloring book
by Wynn Kapitt.
Cambridge: Harper-Collins., 1987.

Only Hats Can Save Us Now

From a 1950s leaflet on surviving nuclear attack. Seriously.

"So...You Pretend To Run Around Killing Goblins?"

And in the past, I was always able to say "no". But not anymore: as of Wednesday, I'm now running a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign at the Uni of Liverpool Gamesoc. So I'm probably slightly geekier than before, but what can I say? I really enjoy roleplaying, despite the social stigma and occasional sociopaths that inhabit the hobby.

Stephen Vs. Student Society Economics

There is, it turns out, nothing like Fresher's Fair to dispel those start-of-autumn blues. As President of the Basement Film Unit (which I don't think I've mentioned here before) I was manning our stall. And we had a very good day, signing up 16 paying memebers and making £51. That would be loads better if we hadn't started out £75 in debt, but at least we're within sight of paying it off.

Also present at Fresher's Fair were the RPG society, complete with one member in a long black trenchcoat and mirrored sunglasses. I'm not sure what's funnier: that he he thought he looked cool dressed like that, or that his sense of cool is stuck in 1985.

They Do It With Mirrors

In many ways Blow Up (which I saw last night at the FACT), is my perfect film, given that it's:

1. An investegative mystery
2. An Italian art film
3. Very, very pretentious

I enjoyed it greatly. It's tough to talk about the plot without spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, but I'll give the basics. David Hemmings is a photographer in 1960s London. Do his photographs show what he thinks they do? This fairly thin plot is padded out with often-hilarious "swinging London" interludes, and sequences of Hemmings driving around. The latter are particularly interesting, as the London that we know was at that time just being built.

Blow Up also gets extra points for confirming one of my long-held suspicions: women are prepared to get naked and wrestle for you, if only you'll provide them with an enormous roll of purple paper.

The film comes recommended to anyone who's read this far.

Students, Students, Everywhere...

The summer has ended, and I'm no longer the only person in the library. There are 18 year-olds all over the place. Coming at the start of Autumn, this can only herald the start of S.A.D. by reminding me of my own Fresher's Week, all of six years ago now. This has not been helped by the fact that I'm trying to put together a compilation of my favourite 1990s band at the moment.

Fresher's Week insanity does help liven things up though. Just now I was cornered in the library by an Indian Professor, who got me to help him out by pronouncing the English alphabet, and then insisted on exchanging addresses with me. What he wants to correspond with me about is anyone's guess.

To Hell With Poverty! We'll Get Drunk On Cheap Wine!

On Thursday morning, I woke up holding an imaginary phone. I'd just dreamed that I'd got a call from the Uni, telling me that I'd got the job I applied for. At the interview, they told me that if I was successful, I'd hear from them "early in the week". My subconscious was not happy.

On Friday I phoned up the Student Support Services to conform that I hadn't got it. They told me that I had, and that by "early in the week" they'd meant "The letters will be posted Thursday".

I was so relieved that I wasn't really happy. I am happy, though. At £10 an hour I can start making a real contribution to the funding of my degree. I'm a parasite that my parents love, but a parasite nonetheless.

We Can Build You

On Friday, my parents were in Liverpool, because my dad was giving a talk on Gabriel D'Annuzio to the Western Front Association. Beforehand, though, we paid a visit to Port Sunlight.

Port Sunlight is a model community constructed in the 1890s by Lord Leverhulme. There are wide, leafy streets, broad greens, red telephone boxes, and small boys playing with model boats on the pond.

It's as creepy as fuck.

Port Sunlight was built by Lord Leverhulme to house the workers for his soap factory. The corporation employed you and owned your house. Your leisure time was spent in the pub which Lord Leverhulme had had constructed, or in the art gallery which housed Lord Leverhulme's art collection. You worshipped at the church where Lord and Lady Leverhulme still take pride of place in thair massive neo-medieval stone tombs. When you got sent off to die in the First World War, your name was added to the Leverhulme corporation's war memorial.

It's also creepy becuase it's built as a model of an England which didn't exist then, doesn't exist now, and probably never existed at all. This is that England you see in Richard Curtis films, where everyone is middle class and no-one has the poor taste to be black or in favour of higher taxes.

If it ever catches fire, I think they should let it burn down.

Fair And Balanced

An Argument Of No Importance

It occurs to me that when I posted the link to my contribution to RPG.net's "Classic Tangnecy: The Cliffs Notes", none of you could read it because you aren't registered on RPG.net. So I have put it up over at N.A.O.W.F.I.T.:

Unhelig & The Nazi Playwrite

Tatterdemalion

If you get *any* of the elements of that joke, then I will love you forever.

We Live As We Dream, Alone

I phoned my new landlord yesterday, to find out when I was getting my keys. I should be getting them next week. Unfortunately, I'm currently the only person who'll be living there, as the other three students have decided to move somewhere else, one of them having dropped out and gotten a job.

So at the moment it seems I'll be living on my own, yet again. Is the universe trying to tell me something? And if so, why can't it e-mail me like everyone else?

Better news is provided by the fact that my TAG paper has been accepted. Commence rejoicing.

Because There Aren't Enough Nick Cave References In Professional Archaeology...

As you may know, I'm trying to submit my first paper, one for the Theroetical Archaeology Group 2005 conference in Sheffield. Below is the abstract for my paper, which is intended for the session "The fall from grace: archaeological approaches to human inhumanity". Enjoy.

Red Right Hand: The Benefits of Inhumanity

Inhumanity is, for obvious reasons, seen in negative terms. However, this should not blind us to the fact that inhuman behaviour can be to the advantage of those willing to utilise it. Any attempt to understand inhumanity must take this into account. Following the old police maxim “who profits from the crime?”, this paper seeks to provide a comparative analysis of the use of one particular kind of inhumanity – armed violence – and the purposes which it serves. With reference to the elites of the early Mycenaean period, and to more recent groups such as those participating in organised crime, the use of armed violence as a tool for the accumulation of wealth, power and status will be demonstrated.

A Gentleman Of Negotiable Honour

So, I have a job interview for the post of Study Assistant with the University's Disability Support Service.

I put this down to the fact that on the application form, where it asked "Why do you wish to apply for this post?" I said "Because I want to help my fellow man", and not "Because it pays £10 an hour".

8:15

First we got the bomb, and that was good,
'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that's okay,
'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way.
Who's next?

France got the bomb, but don't you grieve,
'Cause they're on our side (I believe).
China got the bomb, but have no fears,
They can't wipe us out for at least five years.
Who's next?

Then Indonesia claimed that they
Were gonna get one any day.
South Africa wants two, that's right:
One for the black and one for the white.
Who's next?

Egypt's gonna get one too,
Just to use on you know who.
So Israel's getting tense.
Wants one in self defense.
"The Lord's our shepherd," says the psalm,
But just in case, we better get a bomb.
Who's next?

Luxembourg is next to go,
And (who knows?) maybe Monaco.
We'll try to stay serene and calm
When Alabama gets the bomb.
Who's next?
Who's next?
Who's next?
Who's next?

- Tom Lehrer, "Who's Next" (1965)

#7

Very Remiss of Me

It occurs that I haven't plugged my new photogrpahy website on here yet. Let's rectify that now:

All This Useless Beauty

#6

Well, if Jen isn't going to be cheap or glib, then someone has to be.

In other news, Daily Telegraph music journalist Neil McCormick has written a "protest song" about the July 7th bombings, titled (hilariously) "People I Don't Know Are Trying To Kill Me". Sadly, it is not a spoof.

Back In The USSA

Boredom Is Counter-Revolutionary.

Improv Everywhere

Shadows & Fog

Those who are interested might want to go over to RPG.net, where my review of Cthulhu By Gaslight is now up.

Reflections

So, here we are. Yesterday provided a test of beliefs, now that I think about it. For the past four years of the “War On Terror”, there’s always been that thing at the back of my mind when I’ve expressed an opinion. The thing that says “Yes, but how would you feel if you’d been attacked?”

And now I know. And my opinions are no different. I’m not going to call for us to start dropping fuel-air bombs on, say, Algeria, because I still don’t think that would be a positive move. I still think that holding people indefinitely without trial, or detaining people because of what we think they might do is not a good idea.

There was also a feeling of togetherness I don’t think I’ve felt for a while. I was so relieved when all the London posters to RPG.net posted in to say that they were safe, when I got texts and e-mails from my friends to say they were OK, if scared. The advice to “have a cup of tea” was being freely bandied about. I did it myself. A half-joking reference to a dead idea of Britishness, brought up only in times of stress.

Sitting on the sofa, or in a computer-chair, letting the information wash over me. That statement on the Fundamentalist website was wrong: there wasn’t panic, either in London or elsewhere. We’re too used to things like that happening for panic. One RPG.net poster cycled 15 miles to work today, just so that things would continue as normal. Don’t mistake all this for a “stiff upper lip” or other clichés. This is a grim determination to go on living as normal.

And that’s victory. Nothing else.

Business As Usual

Everyone I know seems to be OK - still a couple I'd like to get in contact with.

And for some reason, all I can think of is " 'A' Bomb In Wardour Street".

#4 & #5

Digital Burn

There's always been that gap in my life that I thought was for a woman, but I think it might actually be for one of these:


I now have one. It's small and blue and curvy. If the law and a suitable socket allowed, I would take it as my wife.

Revolution Rock

After a suggestion by me, Tom's band will be playing their next gig in Beijing under the name "The Privileged Few" (or "享有特权" in Chinese. Apparently.) So that's my place in rock history taken care of.

I just hope Tom remembers me whan he enters the cocaine-and-hookers stage of rock-stardom.

Batman Begins! And Takes A While Doing It!

Batman Begins would be a great film if it wasn't so bloody long. It's got everything that a good Batman film should have, taking the character back to his 1930s pulp-hero roots. This is "Batman is a detective" rather than "Batman is a superhero".

Actually, the first half of the film is "Batman is a Ninja", which is tedious. Just because The Matrix had cod-Eastern philosophy and The Last Samurai had endless scenes of people being hit with sticks doesn't mean we needed them here.

After the Ninja wet-dream we get the technophile wet-dream. Look: no-one needs to know precisely what the origins of Batman's car are. All that we need to know is that Bruce Wayne is really rich, and can afford really cool gadgets. Even cooler than that pen with a clock in it that you want.

One the film manages to wade past all this, though, and Batman starts doing Batman-type things in Gotham (mostly standing of the edges of buildings looking all brooding and cool), then it becomes much more exciting and fun. Best of all though, is the mood and the (for once) deliberately muddled morality. Like a lot of 1930s pulp-heroes, Batman has a worryingly fascistic approach to the world. This slightly noirish Gotham is the only thing that can make you root for Batman: he's not good, he's just the least-bad force in the city.

The over-long running time is a consequence of a great cast, including Michael Caine (who seemed to be having tremendous fun), Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, and Rutger Hauer. All it needed was Elliot Gould and Michael Madsen, and I'd have been ecstatic. Christian Bale is a perfectly serviceable Bruce Wayne/Batman, although I'm not sure he was as good as Michael Keaton. At least he realised that Batman should probably have a different voice to Bruce Wayne, if he was going to be a secret identity.

So I'm saying go and see it, if superheroes are your thing. You might want to doze through the first half though.

Not So Much "Forgotten" As "Insignificant" History

As many of you will have realised, I'm a frequent visitor to the forums over at RPG.net. In the "Tangency" (genral discussion) area, there was recently a thread called "Classic Tangency: The Cliffs Notes", in which people wrote brief histories of particularly memorable arguments and events. The following was my own contribution:

Unhelig & The Nazi Playwrite

Liberty And Justice For All

I Should Send You Away
Where You Can't Kill Or Maim Us
But This Is L.A.
And You're Rich And Famous

- The Simpsons, "Checkin' In"

*Clenches Fist* NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

For six years, Lenton Lodge, Nottingham has been my dream home. Now it's on the market, and I am separated from it only by my lack of £750, 000.

Look upon it and weep.

Smart-Alec Kill

Sin City is probably the best-looking film that will be released this year. It’s also the most hard-boiled film to come out of Hollywood in quite a while.

Given those facts, I should love it, and be telling you to see it. Instead, I’m calling it an interesting failure. Why? A whole host of reasons.

Part of Sin City’s problem is that it’s too attached to its graphic novel roots. While the resulting stylisation can often be excellent, it can also be jarring and spoils the audience’s suspension of disbelief. The script lacks real finesse, too, with a lot of very stagy dialogue.

Maybe the biggest, problem, though, is the queasy mixture of cartoonishness and extremely graphic violence. They don’t sit well together, and one detracts from the other quite frequently. There’s also the question of the female characters: at what point does referencing the misogyny of classic film noir turn into just being really misogynistic? Don’t even get me started on the “Oriental Ninja/Whore” archetype.

But for all that, there is a lot still to like about Sin City. There are places where the script is suitably Chandleresque, and there isn’t a bad performance in the film: Clive Owen, Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke are superb, especially Rourke. The visuals are good, and the film’s cynical attitude is very refreshing after endless clean-cut action films.

So I can’t unequivocally recommend this one. Don’t go and see it if you aren’t OK with film violence, but do see it if you’re a fan of hard-boiled crime drama, or just want to see an interesting experiment in bringing graphic novels to the screen.

#3