PETRONA

Housekeeping note: archive complete, but for how long?

I think that I have now completed the installation of my old Vox blog (a.k.a. my book review archive) onto this blog, now that Vox has closed its doors and will indeed be disappearing from Thursday. 

My book review archive is now here. You can get to it by clicking on the appropriate link at the top of this blog (just under the header) or at the sidebar. 

What took the time was not exporting the blog itself but re-categorising all the posts. I've now completed this task so you can read book reviews by region (country or continent), genre, and other categories of interest, such as whether the book is translated, or won an award.  You can receive any of these as an RSS feed by clicking on the icon on the top of the category archive you have chosen. A full archive of all my reviews, by date and category, is here.

While slogging through this work, I learned that Six Apart, the company that makes Typepad (this blog platform) and Vox (the defunct one) has been acquired by SAY media. Although the old and new owners assure Typepad bloggers that the service will continue (I hope it does as we pay for it), the emphasis of the new company will be on monetisation, that is, people who want to put ads on their blogs in the hope of making money out of them. As this isn't my cup of tea, I am now seriously considering a back-up blog on Blogger (I have a couple of old blogs there that I could revive). There are only so many back-up archives one can have, though, and retain a modicum of sanity.

Vague attempt to answer eight questions

A propos of my previous post, because it has taken me all week to read Three Seconds by Roslund and Hellstrom (a three-hour, never mind second,  reading blitz this afternoon, Saturday, has put it to bed but the review has yet to be written), I am a bit short of subject-matter for this blog's usual daily post right now. Never fear, Jose Ignacio, whose excellent blog is called The Game's Afoot,  has come to the rescue with a meme that I think I may be able to do, called Eight Questions.  I am currently a refugee from the X-Factor, banished from the room I was quietly reading in earlier, so I will have a go at answering the octet:

1. If you could have any superpower, what would you have? Why?

I would like a pair of boots with an engine that would let me fly. Or, just to be able to fly without the boots, if we are talking superpowers.

2. Who is your style icon?

Is this a person whose style I admire? Hmmm.....J. K. Rowling.  She's intelligent, successful, kind, talented, individual, has thought-through (processed) opinions and is "unspun". And, of course, she is a mother.

3. What is your favourite quote?

It is a tie.

John Lennon: Life is what happens while you are making other plans. 

Kenny Dalgliesh: This is as good as it gets. 

4. What is the best compliment you’ve ever received?

I am always surprised and delighted when people at work pay me compliments of various kinds. I also very much value people who compliment my book reviews and/or blog posts, by their kind comments. Occasionally I hear a compliment from one of my daughters and I think these rare treats probably mean the most.

5. What playlist/cd is in your CD player right now?

None. But I seem to be listening to a lot of other people's Muse just at the moment, not unrelated to their recent gig.

6. Are you a night owl or a morning person?

I have to be a morning person whether I like it or not. But if I did not have to be, I'd be a night owl.

7. Do you prefer dogs or cats?

Cats, though I cannot have one because of others in the house who are allergic to animal hairs. This is a great pity as I am very fond of cats and admire the species and its values.

8. What is the meaning behind your blog name.

A female version of "Patronus", from J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels. (Though the eagle-eyed will spot a typo.) A Patronus is one's mystical alter-ego. Harry's was, of course, a stag.

Sometimes I wonder.......

....why I bother.

One of my hundreds of (work) emails today (in toto):

Message: "Frankly speaking your 'nature' is the stangest thing on this
earth. I have been trying to communicate theory of everything but nobody
seems to bothered. Please do not take it a joke.
I almost failed to submit the manuscript through the online process of
your worthless website. Kindly communicate with me so that I could
submit the theory of everything."

Why are people like this, I wonder? This combination of insult and "begging letter" is so common, but I have given up smiling, over the years.

A picture for Petrona

My daughter Cathy was sorting out her computer and came across this picture, which she says she made for Petrona a few years ago but never finished or sent to me at the time. I asked her to send it to me now, and so here it is. 

Ercument Buyuksumnulu

This is my new name. Not seriously, I could not possibly remember it. At work I am testing a new system out, which automatically generates "pretend" users for the purposes of testing. Ercument Buyuksumnulu is the name the system has given me. It's growing on me.... And look what happens when I do a Google search for my new name. I have a LinkedIn account, a profile at Amazon.ca and Amazon.com, and can query the RIPE database, whatever that is. What do I look like? This, according to Google image search:

Sexism, yards and Tim

Browsing through my RSS reader after two or three days "off" leads to some interesting snippets.

Women bloggers face a sexist atmosphere online, apparently. At a meeting in Austen, Texas, Rebecca Fox, a blogger and managing editor of mediabistro.com said "Name-calling and denigrating outspoken women creates a sexist climate online". Robert Scoble, another scion of the internet, said  "…Whenever I post a video of a female technologist there invariably are snide remarks about body parts and other things that simply wouldn't happen if the interviewee were a man." The Times AlphaMummy blog asks its readers whether they think women are criticised more harshly for their opinions online. A man called Kentucky responds: "Sounds like a bunch of dimb tarts who couldn't hold their own." A woman respondent replies: "Kentucky you spelt dim wrong!" This is a perfect example of a brilliant non-aggressive, total obliteration, put-down which I find it hard to imagine a man would have managed - or me, I would probably have risen to Kentucky's bait. (I'm learning, slowly).

On to more profound matters. I could not agree more with Dave Knadler when he writes: "Blogging is no piece of cake, what with the need to motivate the research staff, root out cliches and watch the profanity, but after all is said and done at the end of the day, it's as simple as pie compared to yard work." Although I have only a tiny garden, each time I look out of the window I feel the guilt-burden of lack of essential maintenance. Why don't I just do it? I don't know, but I don't.

And this thought is worryingly perceptive: there is something about being called Tim.

By the way, if you think this blog is not much about crime fiction these days, it is because a lot of the discussion is going on at Friend Feed - please join us, and the fun, there.

Manners and mores

I always wondered about the intelligence of politicians. My suspicions are confirmed by a story I read today in the Times in which a Conservative parliamentary candidate passed off a criticism of Labour policies as his own work - but the article he copied was in the Sun. He might at least have copied something from the FT or the Economist. What made me smile is that he didn't even write the article in question - but does not seem to have any problem with that. From the Times article: Mr Rees-Mogg, 40, son of the Times columnist and former Editor Lord Rees-Mogg, blamed a member of his staff. “Though the piece expresses my views, I didn’t specifically write it, although I agree with the points made,” he said. “Plagiarism is a bad thing and I will drop a note to Mr Kavanagh apologising. We won’t ask the person who did write this to write for us again.”  Do you think he realises that this is double the fault? Or does he genuinely think it is fine to have a staffer write an article and put your name on it, so long as the staffer's article is not copied from somewhere else?

Never mind throwing green custard over Lord Mandelson and getting away with it (story, and video, here) - Gordon Brown and the police saw the joke; Jonathan Porrit did not - Cadbury's chocolate has gone Fair Trade. Not only that, but it has got a blog, which "only took a matter of days" to put together. The staff of the company are busy dressing up as, and eating, bananas for some strange reason only known to PR departments. It's synchroblogging, guys, not synchrobananas. The blog is here, with pictures, if you are desperate to find out more, including where to go to eat your piece of fruit before noon tomorrow (Sat). Or is that a vegetable? Not a bar of chocolate, anyway.

Bouncing back and spin, with interest

Zavvi has been reborn, with a "bounce back" sale, I learn via an email alert, of books, CDs, games et al., special discount prices and all of that. According to the Bookseller.com, the company was bought by the Hut group last week. They've lost no time in setting up their stall, but what I, and more particularly my younger daughter want to know, is will she get her £20 back from her useless voucher? We don't even have the voucher any more to try to spend it at the new site, because the auditors advised creditors to send their vouchers in to them in January with a claim for a refund. Of course, we have heard nothing, not even a receipt. Interesting that the new company has retained my email address in order to suggest I spend more money on its goods, but has not written to say what is going to happen about the sum they owe us. I suppose it is a bit like my "bank". When I log on to my account now, I have to click through an interposed web page that suggests I take out a credit card with them. They did not think instead to write an apology page for all the money customers like me (taxpayers) are having to give them to bail them out. Maybe I should start charging them interest at their credit card rates?

Daniel Finkelstein reveals spin cycles of at least two kinds. Alistair Campbell publishes his diaries, including accounts of tensions in his domestic life. His partner retaliates with complaints on BBC radio about how he can't load the dishwasher properly. Now he has written a counter-attack to her on his blog. I ask you, could you make this up? Do Mr and Mrs Campbell-Millar think people can't see that this unsubtle public airing of the dirty laundry is simply to boost sales of both their books?

Princess Alice Hospice

For very many years now, ever since I left home in fact, I have been regularly taking carrier bags full of books, clothes, "stuff" and "bric-a-brac" down to various libraries, charity shops and hospitals. Funnily enough my place of residence never gets any emptier, but I do try to stop it getting fuller.

After many years of this Sisyphean activity, I was accosted last month (in my post-Christmas clear out mode)  in the Princess Alice Hospice shop in Kingston, when dropping off a bag of (what I thought to be) a rather saleable suit, some books, a pair of shoes and some outgrown children's cardigans. "Ah, rumbled", I thought - as the shop is always groaningly full, and I'm surprised that they seem grateful for my humble offerings.  "They are going to say they aren't taking more donations. I'll have to walk round to Oxfam or the Romanians round the corner instead."

To the contrary, the gentle older man in the shop asked me if I was a taxpayer, then provided me with a gift-aid form for my donation, which I duly filled in. He then gave me a card with a bar code on it, and asked me to show it if I made any future donations. I've made two more carrier-bag drops since then, as a matter of fact, each time digging out my card from my purse and seeing it scanned in.

Thinking no more of this, I came home from work today to receive a letter from the "Retail Director" of the Princess Alice Hospice. In it, he tells me that my recent donations have raised £104.00 for the hospice, which with gift aid is increased by 28 per cent. Obviously for bureaucratic reasons, he has to suggest that I donate this money to his hospice. If I don't respond to his letter within 21 days, that's what he will do, and claim his extra 28 per cent. I do not plan to respond.

Isn't that marvellous? Three carrier bags of not-very-useful to me, but perfectly clean and serviceable household items, have gained this worthy local organisation £130. If I manage to keep up my average throughout the year, I'll have made them £780. Great stuff - this can actually make a difference to their work, and I feel that is is actually worth scouring the house for things people have not used for a few weeks, in the secure knowledge that they will be put to good use and go to a good cause, rather than my previous sneaking suspicion that they would end up as landfill.

Reacting to what is not there

Over and over again, you see people reacting to a title or a cartoon, and getting it wrong because they have not read the article under the title or that the cartoon illustrates. I've done it myself on occasion, to my chagrin, and am seeing it fairly often at Friend Feed, where only the title of an article is shown and a discussion develops underneath it - not, it has to be said, in the book-associated rooms I am in, but in some of the others. I assume one is meant to read the linked article before commenting, but others don't share my assumption and get het up about an article that is itself getting het up about exactly the same thing, and so on. The Internet is not exactly renowned for self-control and reflection before expounding.

Michael Hann at the Guardian makes fun of himself in this regard, in an article about how surprised he was to find that Clint Eastwood's latest film, Gran Torino, is not in fact a mature, reflective elegy about a grandmother in Turin, but instead tells of a crotchety old racist and a car. He goes on to describe some other films that weren't what he expected based on their titles, for example Kiss of the Spider Woman, and invites readers to nominate their own choices. There are quite a few funny responses which don't answer the question asked, but of the on-topic ones my favourites are the person disappointed that Miami Vice wasn't about woodworking and those who thought Wizard of Oz was a biopic of Don Bradman. (Tell that to Sean Connery.)

This topic isn't always amusing, of course. In the past couple of days I have seen several prominent blogs attack a cartoon in the New York Post that appeared to be a racist, violent attack on Barack Obama. (I won't reproduce or link to the cartoon here, but it should not be hard to find if you haven't seen it and are inclined to do so.) It has taken Scott Adams, veteran of more Dilbert cartoons than you and I have had Fried Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, to explain the difference between what is really there, and what it "remindsmeof".

Twitterings, layoffs and output of gorillas

My brain is blank and I have nothing of interest to write, so I'll mention a few items that caught my eye:

James Long reveals that Twitter has become mainstream. He knows this not only because use of the platform grew by 752 per cent last year, but because "Internet darling" Gwynneth Paltrow is reportedly considering using it to start a book reading group "with her famous pals like Madonna". Cue sarcastic comment about how convenient to choose a format that allows only 140 characters per post? (or "tweet"). You don't seem to be able to search Bryan Appleyard's Thought Experiments blog so I cannot provide a direct link to the matter, but if you go there you will find plenty of inside stories about Bryan and his soul-mate Gwynneth which explain the "Internet darling" label. Even if you don't find them, its a provocatively interesting place to spend a bit of time in any event.

There is an amazing graph at the Official Google Enterprise blog (new blog to me - is it a spin-off of Star Trek?) showing spam trends in 2008 - and most amazingly, what happened to those trends after one day in November when the McColo network was taken offline. The day of 2008 with the highest volume of spam was 23 April, a date that sticks in my mind as the shared birthday between Shakespeare and Hitler - and the day widely considered to be the day Shakespeare died, though without much evidence - and St George's day. Also my paternal grandfather's birthday. I wrote the birthday part without checking, so I am prepared to stand contradicted (apart from the bit about my grandfather, which I defy anyone to know better than I do).

And a bit of book news from the blogosphere today: Amazon has announced it is to stop offering e-books in the Adobe and Microsoft Reader formats. Martyn Daniels of the Booksellers' Association explains what it all means. And perhaps more shockingly, Sara Nelson, the editor-in-chief of Publishers' Weekly, has been laid off, says Sarah Weinman. What a pity. I rarely see a printed copy of the magazine in the office any more, sadly, but when I do I am usually favourably impressed by her column and by her editorship of the publication. One reaction: "it's a bit like firing John Lennon (and only John Lennon) from the Beatles". Sarah, inevitably, has all the links in her post.

Finally, I was shocked and saddened today to learn that naturalist David Attenborough has been receiving hate mail. (Will they turn on David Bellamy next?) Henry Gee picks up the baton in a characteristically excellent, trenchant and funny post: Let us all throw used gorilla poo at creationists.

Buzzwords and films of 2008

Holiday season is a time for lists, of course. Here are a couple of non-book-related ones that caught my interest:

Buzzwords of 2008 (New York Times). "The lifespan of Hillary Clinton’s campaign “meta-narrative” could be charted entirely in buzzwords and catch-phrases — “inevitability” to “Clinton fatigue” to “Obamamania” to “he can’t win” to “team of rivals.” Same with Sarah Palin — the “hockey mom” who “Geritoled” (or Viagra’d) John McCain’s campaign back to life and threatened to supplant Mrs. Clinton as the new face of American “femocracy.” That is, until she started palling around with Katie Couric and her Joe Six-Pack bona fides got lost in the aisles of Nordstrom and a string of off-message headlines. Ms. Palin was ultimately dubbed a “whack job” by a (rogue) McCainiac, and many have dismissed her efforts at image rehab as akin to putting lipstick on something or other, we forgot."

And A Year of Films by Stephen Lang of Booked Out - from No Country for Old Men to Madagascar 2. I have actually seen three of the nineteen films on the list. As one of them features Viggo Mortensen, I don't need to say which was my favourite.

Too strong to translate

The Times has finally caught up with the rest of us and from Monday of this week (1 December) has begun to call Mumbai Mumbai instead of Bombay. Cue the inevitable trickle of letters to the editor on place-names and associated matters. My favourite so far is by the author Anthony Powell, in today's paper (3 December, p. 33):

Sir, I was interested to read your reasons for choosing to use Mumbai rather than Bombay.
Nevertheless, having been born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, I was taken aback to read in the biography of me printed in the programme of the Paris Opera that "Monsieur Powell était né a Chorlton-cum-Robuste".
ANTHONY POWELL
London SE3

Background reading: rather old-fashioned article about why the Times has decided to change their house style - could and should have been written several years ago.

[Correction: I have misidentifed Mr Powell. Please see comments for details. Thanks to Philip Amos for pointing out my error.]

The first day of December

So it is now December. Calendars have been turned over to reveal a final, snow-draped scene. The first Advent chocolates have finally been consumed. Three weeks left of school before the holiday. Christmas lists have been made - in one case, "version 1.0" has emerged, beautifully turquoise, from a computer in an ordered collection, containing this gem:

8. Money and vouchers

        (a) Money

        (b) Vouchers

Christmas came early for me today, in the shape of an idyllic lunch away from the office with Karen - who arrived bearing two review copies, one of The Minds Eye by Hakan Nesser (appropriately wintery cover), and the other of A Lonely Place by Mari Jungstedt (a rather similar cover which you can imagine as being wintery if you squint at it). Thanks, Karen! I hope your journey home was pleasant and that the train was driven carefully;-)

Scandinavia getting everywhere

An event occurred today that I had predicted would never happen. Of course, I know that one should never say never, but this time I thought I was safe. I was wrong.

Tonight, my husband told me he had started reading a blog.

I was not sure he even knew what a blog is, but he's reading one. So I took a look at it (in fact, I subscribed, sight unseen). Here is what I read:

"Tonight, the British economy has taken on a Scandinavian, left-wing tinge."

Well, it isn't quite my scene to read about such matters but Scandinavia is quite fashionable at the moment on this blog, so I'll give it a chance. (Even though its author seems over-fond of one-sentence paragraphs.)

In the meantime, if Scandinavia is more your scene than the economy, Karen Meek of Euro Crime is continuing her one-woman speed takeover of Facebook by discovering a group called 'Fans of Scandinavian crime novels', so feel free to join that. (If the direct link doesn't work, you can find me, Karen or Norman Price on Facebook and join from there.)

(More Scandinavian crime fiction.)

Unanswerable questions

After my unsuccessful attempt to try out the (broken) Sony e-reader on display in my local Waterstones at the weekend* and observing the notice on it to the effect that you might as well not bother ordering one as they are backed up for the next decade or so with requests, I am moved to ask:

Is the Sony e-reader the new Wii Fit?

Although my question is made with the availability issue in my mind, I also wonder I have another subconscious agenda, to do with the relationship of these "tools" with the real world. You don't need an electronic device to read any more than you need an automated weighing machine hooked up to your TV to do exercise.

Yes I know that there are lots of good uses of an e-reader in terms of storage capacity, baggage restrictions, sheer tonnage of printed books, sample chapters and so on. And I know that it might be more fun watching your Mii overtake Harry, Ron, Hermione, Voldemort and Dork's (don't ask) Miis than getting muddy on a lonely circuit of the local park. On the other hand, couldn't we have an accessible new technology that is so popular you can't buy it but also that does something you couldn't do before? Teleport you to work in the morning and back at night, for example?

And here is another question:

Is the "bag for life" the new plastic carrier bag?

I have lost count of the number of tasteful hessian bags I have generously been given in the past year or so. None of them has handles long enough to carry on a bike (with drop handlebars and no basket). What can I do with them all that is ecologically acceptable? At the moment they are all in a cupboard with hundreds of plastic carrier bags (which arrive in the house at a rate of knots despite my never using one when I go shopping, armed with my ancient canvas long-handled bag or a rucksack).

*Footnote: I have had a generous offer to try out a friend's Sony e-reader, by the way, so my curiosity will soon be satisfied. On the basis of the broken one in Waterstones, I suspect I shall continue to observe vicariously rather than to attempt to purchase and participate.

A little bit of Latin

Via the Book Depository August newsletter and applied language, some Latin terms explained (but not translated):

Ad infinitum -- without end or limit
Ad nauseam -- to a sickening or excessive degree
Carpe diem -- the enjoyment of the pleasures of the moment without concern for the future
Caveat -- an explanation to prevent misinterpretation
De facto -- in reality; actually
Dictum -- a noteworthy statement
Et cetera -- and others esp. of the same kind: and so forth; abbreviated as etc
Ipso facto -- by that very fact or act; as an inevitable result
Magnum opus -- a great work, the greatest achievement of an artist or writer
Memento -- something that serves to warn or remind
Non sequitur -- statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from anything previously said
Nota bene -- used to call attention to something important
Per capita -- equally to each individual
Persona non grata -- personally unacceptable or unwelcome
Post mortem -- occurring or done after death
Prima facie --at first view: on the first appearance
Pro forma -- made or carried out in a perfunctory manner or as a formality
Quod erat demonstrandum -- which was to be proved
RIP -- abbreviation, may he rest in peace

A matter of taste

So you thought the parents of Sunday Rose and Apple didn't show much sympathy for the person being so named? According to a post on the Times Alpha Mummy blog, these are the ten strangest baby monikers that the authors of a new book on the subject could find:

10: Fat Meat Fields

9: Geography Bryan

8: Zero Pie

7: Cylinder Klinefelter

6: Nice Veal

5: Cylclops Walthour

4: Envy Burger

3: Cancer Grindstaff

2: Young Boozer

1: Dracula Taylor

Bad Baby Names by Michael Sherrod and Matthew Rayback is published by Ancestry.co.uk, priced £4.99

I don't know if I can honestly believe that people would call their children by these names. I hope, for the sake of the innocent, that the book is a joke. However, the day after this Times post, the same blog reported that a nine-year-old girl called Talula does the Hula from Hawaii was made a ward of court so she could change her name, apparently to "K". The judge said "The court is profoundly concerned about the very poor judgment which this child's parents have show in choosing this name...It makes a fool of the child and set her up with a social disability..." The judge also attacked other strange names, such as Number 16 Bus Shelter, Violence, and Benson and Hedges (the last two for a pair of twins). Dilbert's take on this particular story is here.

If you like weird lists, Alpha Mummy provides links to some of its past triumphs:

12 most expensive celebrity baby pictures

5 tips for a streamlined life

5 reasons why maternity leave is bad for women

90 best classic children's books

7 worst sexy toys for kids.

 

Top ten failed intellectuals

Prospect magazine has an utterly risible list of "top 100" intellectuals (via Bryan Appleyard and Frank Wilson, both of whom offer their opinions at the links provided). Like Susan Baleé (see comments at Bryan's blog), I have heard of only one out of the first ten named people, and I've only heard of him because he got a Nobel prize for literature recently (I hadn't heard of him before that). I have, however, heard of numbers 11 and 12, Noam Chomsky and Al Gore. I would call Noam Chomsky an intellectual (whether or not one agrees with him) but I would not call Al Gore one. I would also call Richard Dawkins (who features in the list) an intellectual. Although it is fashionable to despise him, one does not have to agree with someone's views for that person to be considered an intellectual, and Richard Dawkins surely qualifies on the basis of a superb body of work.

However, returning to the main point, Frank Wilson and Bryan Appleyard are, of course, founder members of the Failed Intellectuals Society. I don't make it into that exalted group, but here are my top ten Failed Intellectuals (in no particular order), all of whom I can recommend highly:

Frank (link above)

Bryan (link above)

Susan Baleé

Nigel Beale

Clare Dudman

Henry Gee

Dave Lull

Ian McEwan (not a popular choice among some fellow FIs, I realise)

Mary Beard

Patrick Kurp.

There, you can't do better than that -- you read it here first.

Ute fiction, Holden style

As part of a discussion about How To Reduce Your Petrol Spend To Zero Overnight, a post at Henry Gee's blog The End of the Pier Show, I commented:

"All good Australian crime fiction has a ute in it somwhere." (Thinking, Peter Temple, Adrian Hyland, etc). To which Henry replied: 

"The Ute must be the updated version of the Holden Pickup (unless the two are consanguineous simultaneous the same thing), as in this extract:

Bruce Strayne walked into the bar. There she was—Sheila—the girl of his dreams, the mata hari of Wagga Wagga, looking like a million dollars. “What kept you, Richard Bruce?” she said. Her teeth were like stars (they came out at night). She had the voice of a buzz-saw and the smoker’s cough of a ‘57 Holden Pickup.

From Picnic at Hanging Participle by Adelaide Brisbane, reproduced without permission."

Just as well I didn't mention the footy, then.

Memes, history and crowd control

Apologies to those who have kindly nominated me for two recent memes - I am not a very meme-y person and I am afraid I could not write a list of things about myself in an interesting form however hard I tried. I hope that you won't mind, therefore, if I default to Brian McGilloway, who is a jolly good writer, and who has posted in fascinating vein six random facts about himself. I couldn't come close. There is another review of his latest book, Gallows Lane, at International Noir Fiction, by the way.
While on the topic of books and reading, Sharon Wheeler asks for recommendations of good historical crime fiction, to "lure her to that side of the genre". She writes that she does not usually like historical crime fiction, but enjoyed "RS Downie's delightful Medicus series, where a beleaguered Roman quack finds the Brits more than a tad troublesome, and CJ Sansom's dark, intense books set during Henry VIII's tumultuous reign and featuring lawyer Matthew Shardlake." I haven't read these two authors, or come to think of it, very much historical (by which I mean pre-1900) crime fiction. Name of the Rose, Daughter of Time (which doesn't really count);one or two Brother Cadafel books, probably a few others that I can't call to mind just now. So I must check back to see if Sharon received some appealing recommendations. (There are already some for Denise Mina's Paddy Meehan series but someone of my age does not call the 1980s "historical").
What is of interest historically (if local to the UK) is what the Romans would have done about the congestion charge, information conveyed by the peerless Mary Beard. Their solution would not have worked for Kings Cross underground station, which in terms of (pedestrian) crowd control is truly dreadful, and evidence of a total absence of planning, care or thought about what would happen to this already overstretched venue when the St Pancras International Eurostar terminal opened. Make passengers' daily life a serious form of torture, that's what.

Make your nominations for Crimefest awards

If you are attending Crimefest this year, and I hope you are because I shall be there, you can now vote for the Crimefest awards. Until 25 April you can send in nominations for the Last Laugh award for the best British humorous crime novel published in 2007; and, on the same deadline, you can vote from a longlist for the Audible Sounds of Crime award. (Details for both available at this link.)

More from a magpie

I will give you an insight into my sad, magpie-like brain via a post of some links of what caught my interest on the blogs in the past couple of days (no crime fiction):

Lyn Gardner asks on the Guardian arts blog whether peer-review can work for the performing arts. The process works pretty well in various academic spheres: publication of articles in journals and funding projects, for example. I like the idea of peer-review for Euan McGregor in Othello or Suzanne Shaw in Dancing on Ice.

Inky Circus profiles Olivia Judson, daughter of Horace Freeland (author of The Eighth Day of Creation) and herself author of Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation and much more besides. I never knew before what OJ looks like: she is highly photogenic, in a rather different way to the T. Rex unmentionable (on this blog) body part discussed in the article - rather more Keira Knightley or Keeley Hawes in style, I'd say.

For St Patrick's Day (yesterday in case you hadn't noticed), Mark Thwaite at the Book Depository lists the ten greatest Irish novels in the past 30 years. Genre is out and I promised no crime fiction, so all I will say is that I don't think the Roddy Doyle on there is his best.

Thirty-six comments so far on Jenny Geras's Picador blog post on the controversial Orange prize for fiction. For some reason this year, everyone is taking polarised positions on whether it is a good thing, or not, to have a women-only book prize. Predictably, the Telegraph leads the anti-women pack, and Jenny features some choice comments from the Telegraph online comments which she guesses will have been removed from the site itself -- and which she thinks show inadvertently why the prize is needed. Me? I am out of my depth on it, but.....

Here is Female Science Professor (FSP) on being introduced before giving a talk: "here is my top-3 list of most loathed introductory remarks, with #1 being the one I have hated the most:
3. FSP killed her advisor.
2. FSP is The Best Woman scientist in her narrow sub-discipline of Science.
1. FSP is The Wife of Brilliant Professor X."
One is tempted to write QED for the pro-Orange prize lot on reading the FSP. In her regular and telling blog posts, she epitomises how far we have to go before we, as a race, can call ourselves civilized.

OK, my brain is tired and that's it....apart from to thank Dave Knadler, who does not blog often enough, for posting about the Onion's article on Novelists' Strike Fails to Affect Nation Whatsoever. Cue wry smile.

Don't call me doctor, and other oddities

If you are in Germany and have a PhD, you can be charged with a criminal offence for calling yourself "doctor", according to The Great Beyond. Apparently seven scientists from the country's most prestigious academic organisation, the Max Planck Society, are facing charges of impersonation. As Daniel Cressey, Great Beyond blogger, points out, Italians planning to holiday in Germany should exercise special caution, as there, the title "Dottore" is frequently given to people who hold mere undergraduate degrees.

Via Frank Wilson at Books, Inq., here is a hilarious account of Karen Heller's terrible life. "My story is especially compelling as a former gang member, not only of the Bloods in Los Angeles...but also Baader-Meinhof in West Germany and Shining Path in Peru. Name a group of thugs, I ran with them. Against my will, mind you, but I ran." Read on, read on. As Frank writes, to think he sat next to Karen for so many years, and never knew a thing.

John Battelle (king of search) links to a TV download of The True Story of the Internet, a documentary by John Heileman. The series is "about a revolution -- the technological, cultural, commercial and social revolution that has radically changed our lives. And for the first time on television, we hear how it happened from the men and women who made it possible." If you prefer book form, I can recommend A Brief History of the Internet: Origins of the Future, by John Naughton, whose approach is probably more historical than the TV programme (which I haven't seen).

And finally, for this post, how many hours a week do you work? Female Science Professor asks how "we accomplish anything (or, at least, enough) in a job that could take infinite time, even if we didn't do anything else"? Among other points, she writes about her "family system (instituted when the offspring appeared) in which I get 3 nights/week to do whatever I want (work, not work, do errands, sit in a cafe and compose haiku, make cat videos for posting on YouTube etc.), and my husband gets 3 nights/week to do whatever he wants (work)." 

April fools' day arrives early

So, today is 29 February. A lot of people have been arguing for a day's holiday today, on the grounds that they are providing a day of unpaid work for their employer. And some organisations are even going along with this, on somewhat pious grounds of "saving the environment". Of course, these employers cannot know if they are saving the environment or not, because they don't know what their employees are going to do on their day off. For example they could charter a private jet and take a round trip to a distant country (especially this year, when 29 February conveniently falls on a Friday).

Be that as it may, I don't agree with the premise that one works "for free" on 29 February, as the "day" is an artificial unit created by us. It does not properly fit reality (the natural world), hence the need for the four-yearly correction. An employee could just as easily think of it as receiving an extra quarter of a day's pay for nothing every three years, in preparation for the fourth year when she or he works the "extra" day.

Six-word stories, cont

Back in late October 2006, I wrote a brief post: Six-word biography challenge, a pastime in which one is allowed three lines of six words each to write a short autobiography (or biography). There were lots of good suggestions in the comments, which dried up, as is the wont of comment threads, in December (2006). Suddenly, on 8 February this year (2008 in case you hadn't noticed), two more comments were appended to that post. How strange.

Dave Lull then added another: "Nicholas Lezard says that "Six words can't tell good stories. It's just not enough to plumb any kind of depth. Discuss. At length" (Guardian article). Curious, I scanned the Guardian article whose link Dave supplied, and got it: Mr Lezard's piece, rehashing the story of the six-word game, had presumably caused the old Petrona post to show up in Guardian readers' search returns. Or something along those lines.

Mr Lezard's article contains a quote from the New York Times: "Of last year's 10 bestselling novels [in Japan], five were originally cellphone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels." Mr Lezard's point is that six-word novels aren't literature, they are advertisements ("Never knowingly undersold", for example, the slogan of my favourite shop, John Lewis). But I don't think anyone ever thought otherwise, did they? Or, to put it in six words: "Bestseller equals literature? Ain't necessarily so."

Early February blog reading

Mary Beard of A Don's Life (at the TLS) writes amusingly about how the National Geographic has confused her with an encyclopaedia. Oh, I know the syndrome all too well; being on the receiving end of an email sent blind to me and 10, 100 or 1,000 other "experts", with a one-line question that would require about half a day of work. Usually it is from a "student" or other scholar who has an assignment to write about a particular topic, and rather likes the idea of getting you to do their work for them.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Susan Hill writes cogently and correctly about a ludicrous situation by which people in young offenders' institutions are not allowed books, whether sent to them or via the prison library. Sheer madness, for all the reasons Susan writes. If you agree, please join her Facebook group (via the link at the start of this paragraph).

The deviously convoluted mind of Uriah Robinson, inspired, apparently, by the "Round Britain" radio quiz, has come up with a set of questions so fiendish (and he's been called worse than that, he says) that one can only read the answers in utter amazement -- an amazement that is increased when one reads that somebody in the world was able to score 80 per cent. We are assured that an easier version is in the works for the Spring. These retired dentists!

In all the immense verbiage about the US elections, you may have missed two pertinent posts: Improbable Research reports an exclusive on the cost per page of books by US presidential candidates; and the difficulty of labelling Barak Obama, Dilbert-style.

Bring out your dead

At last! Via Annie Mole of London Underground blog, the pest level of London's free "newspapers" is finally being realised. Nine and a half tons of the pesky things are left behind every day on the tube trains alone; add the amount that must be abandoned on the much more extensive suburban train lines and you begin to get the picture. Ever since the IRA bombs of 20 or so years ago, litter bins on stations or trains (tube or overground variety) are hard to come by, so passengers just leave these horrid parasitic publications wherever they finish with them, rather than taking them away and disposing of them in a responsible fashion. I find the sociology interesting in a repellent kind of way, because you hardly ever see paid-for papers left on the train or tube, only these awful travesties. Will the bins make a difference to behaviour patterns, I wonder?

To return to the news: according to Annie's post, the publishers, under threat of council fines, are underwriting the installation of 35 recycling bins outside central London stations at a cost of £500 each. These papers even plague us in Kingston, at the outer reaches of zone 6 beyond even the reach of Oyster cards, but we've had a recycling bin outside our station for a while now - so although we are in the styx, we are ahead of our metropolitan neighbours in at least this sense.

I hope phase 2 of the paper clean-up project is to ban the distributors of the rag sheets jumping up and waving them in your face, times three, at every station entrance and exit on your journey to and from work. Otherwise, innovative uses of the recycling bins might begin to come to mind.

Describe yourself in one word

So writes Scott Adams (Dilbert). "Suppose you had to pick one word to describe yourself. Your first reaction, I assume, is that it is impossible. You are so many different things, in so many different contexts. No one word can capture more than a tiny slice. Now suppose I ask you to think of people you know, and see how many of them you can describe in one word. Suddenly it gets a lot easier. He’s a jerk, she’s hot, he’s a loser, she’s a nerd, etc."

Scott's readers, and there are a lot of them, most commonly described themselves as: complicated, curious, eccentric, flexible, misunderstood, determined, inscrutable, fabulous, eclectic, oblivious, moist, provocateur, skeptical [sic], awesome, enigmatic or clever. Scott finds it "fascinating" that few if any of these adjectives are on a list of "positive personality attributes" that he found on the Internet. ("Fascinating" was another word his readers did not use to describe themselves.) He does not, however, reveal the word that was most commonly used by his readers to describe him: maybe that is for a future post, or maybe you have to dig around in his comments and find out for yourself. Me, I think I can resist the temptation to describe myself in one word, but don't let me stop you.

It's an ing mystery

Link: Language Log: A new way of 寫ing Mandarin.

It seems from the post above that the Chinese mystery and thriller magazine is among the leaders in language evolution. Language Log links to an article in Pinyin News discussing how frequent it is now for Mandarin publications and informal writers to add .."ing" to the Mandarin -- to look "cool and modern". From the comments to that article:

"For example, the Mystery and Thrillers magazine cover here has a cover line reading “《天机》第二季火热连载ing ” (and I think they’ve used the same wording ever since the magazine launched mid-year). My guess is that it started online (or close to it, like in cutesy IM language), similar to other grammatical borrowings (的说 being another prominent example)."

You can see more examples at the Language Log post, including an election poster.

Pastimes for enforced idleness

Via Light Reading and The New Yorker, I read in this article: Dept. of Labor: Strike Beards that growing beards has become a pastime, or even fashion, among those unable to ply their more usual trade of scripting films. One such, Conan O'Brien, is quoted as saying: “Literally, it’s something to do. You can check on the progress of your beard.”  I wonder if this means a surge in the number of bearded leading men once the wordsmiths return to work? Viggo, George and co should be first in line for these parts, of course.

From the New Yorker article: “I don’t want to overanalyze my own beard, but, I mean, Trotsky had a beard,” Rob Dubbin, a writer for “The Colbert Report” and an admirer, from his Harvard days, of the “thesis beard,” said. (A mutant cousin of the thesis beard, Jost pointed out, is the “neck beard,” grown sometimes during final exams.) “When you see someone else with a beard on the line, it resonates with the idea of lean times.”

The pain of chocolate

From End of the Pier Show (Henry Gee at Nature Network):

".....In the office I googled ‘pain au chocolate’ and instead of receiving the usual error – ‘Did you mean “pain au chocolat”?’ – I got scads of recipes for the fictitious pastry with the extra ‘e’. Had the world gone mad? To check, I bearded my colleague Oliver Morton, Nature’s respected Chief News and Features Editor, a man who combines wit, a forthright manner and urban sophistication with an ability to spell. He reasured me that, no, I hadn’t gone mad, and that the superfluous ‘e’ was (and I quote) “a sad reflection on the world in which we live”.... "

Read on for thoughts on spelling, careers and the fragility of trust -- not to mention train journeys even more insanely early than mine. Though my train doesn't have a buffet. Hence no hurtful product of the cocoa bean, no "almost coffee", and no excuse for a blog post. (Debra, if you are reading, please note with, I hope, approval, the last comma in that list in the previous sentence.)

Time waits for everyone

There are pianos everywhere, there for the playing, there for the sound of places, to turn the soil, to uncover the roots of things, as roadmaps to our true motives, instructing, retelling, drawing from us -- with a patience and sincerity we may not always manage on our own -- what is essential about breathing and dreaming, what may really be happening as we run blood through ourselves, share or take it from others, passing into Autumn, only just aware of the trees.
-piano improvisations found in Hungary, Germany, Poland, Russia, and in rememberance of things past. Played by Viggo Mortensen, recorded by Travis Dickerson.

Venting one's spleen

Sometimes one receives some really rather inventive insults. This is the best I've seen for a long time, so I thought you might like it too. Rather handy for that special occasion when one is so cross that one is lost for words:

“a lack-luster pedantic me-too character based on following the stampede”.

Sad questions; indigestible answers

I've read a few sad stories recently --- sad for different reasons.

Should I add fake comments to my blog?, asks a Problogger reader. Well, I'm aware of some skullduggery and deception that go on in the blogosphere, but the idea of fake comments is somewhat breathtaking.  Reminds me a bit of those agony aunts who make up the problems.

Here is a genuinely sad story: the admirable and worthy librarian and queen of the wikis Meredith Farkas asks Is my book out? Good question. She's having a raw deal, made more poignant if you've been following the gestation and progress of her book via her blog over the past year or more.

Indigestible reading for libraries. Yes, Tim Coates is at it again, telling tales out of school and making everyone sad or cross (or both). There seems to be no way out of this one, a sort of mass paralysis on all sides.

That's it from me for tonight, I will return with some happier content.....sometime.

Columns and fonts

The editor of the Times books supplement is obviously a reader of Petrona, because in the "hot type" industry column this week are two stories you read here first: the woman who was rude about bloggers as book reviewers while her publicist was asking them to review her latest book; and the Harry Potter bookshelf poetry competition. (I myself have the Grumpy Old Bookman to thank for the former, and Dave Lull for the latter.)

I mention this because another entry in the column, about which naturally I'd already read about on various blogs, is about writers' favourite fonts -- a question being asked of them at Hay. Apparently the inelegant (in my opinion) Courier is a hot favourite, said to be a reassuring reminder of the old typewriter. Nicholson Baker is quoted as stating: "You need the sentences to look their worst until the dress rehearsal of the galleys, when all the serifs come out dancing".

I rather like Garamond, myself, but you don't see it much these Minion days.

Eggcorn of the week?

I came across a good eggcorn at work the other day. A colleague had sent an email to a couple of scientists to ask them to be interviewed for an article. The scientists replied that they would be happy to do so, but they were copying in an administrative assistant to the email exchange because she "keeps us on a tight lease".

The mind boggles (either way, actually).

Do you have any good examples of eggcorns?

Fine cheeses online

An elegant postcard came through our door yesterday, for the Norbiton Fine Cheese co -- black design, tempting photos of cheese, etc.  "Experience Europe's finest farmhouse and artisan cheeses delivered to your door.....over one hundred types of French, British and other European cheeses." I've never heard of this outfit before, which is odd as I have lived at the Norbiton end of Kingston for 16 years now. (Though it doesn't feel like it.)  The NFCC are a bit shy about their street address on their website, though they provide email, phone number and order form. Here is how they describe themselves (their capitals):

The Norbiton Fine Cheese Co is all about good food. We have a passion for fresh natural produce, especially cheese and we are dedicated to providing only the finest British, French, Irish and other European cheeses. We also have a wide range of wonderful Pickles, Chutneys and Crackers, and to help you display and enjoy your cheeses to the fullest we have created a range of hand crafted cheese Larders, Knives, Boards and other fine accessories.
Why buy cheese from us online? Because all our cheeses are sold perfectly ripened for consumption, so you always get the freshest produce, and almost always delivered within 24 hours of ordering. Our selection of cheeses is second to none and from the best small farmhouse producers across Europe. You really will notice a difference in taste and quality.

At the prices they charge for delivery outside the UK, you might think twice before ordering cheese from them, especially if you are Susan and order something that is likely to go runny -- would her postman retain his polite demeanour under such trying circumstances? -- but even if you aren't buying, there is lots of fascinating information on the site, for example "eating cheese" (yes, there are rules and tips) and "cheese recipes". If you are in the UK and want to find out about the upcoming cheese news (yes, really, there are events), order from the impressive collection available or find out any piece of information about cheese you can dream up, this is the site for you. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye out for the premises on my wanderings round the borough. Norm/Uriah of Crime Scraps, resident emeritus, did tell me that the area is going upmarket: first the fish shop has turned into a quasi-restaurant, and now this.

1,000 mile summer

Today I learned that a most amusing and talented colleague is about to leave Nature for a Great Adventure: walking the Appalachian Trail - and blogging about it en route. Billy Goat and Little Pony's blog, 1,000 mile summer (in Jenny's favourite Blogger design template, appropriately woodsy) states:

Join us as we leave behind our 9to5 Washington, DC lives for a 3 month journey on the Appalachian Trail from West Virginia to Maine. Can a couple make it in the woods, alone, with little showering, and dehydrated foods and twigs as substance? Stay tuned and find out.

I recommend staying in touch, it will be an exhilerating ride (or tramp).  Here's a sample post:

When I told my mom our plans for our AT trek, she joked that Polina should start in Maine, I should start in Georgia and we could finish together at the Harper’s Ferry halfway point. My mom, like most of our friends and family, probably picked up on the Billy Goat’s and Little Pony’s shared personality traits: passion mixed with a little bit of stubbornness—and extreme sensitivity, despite our semi-tough exteriors. My mom’s implicit message was that two people with these same qualities spending that much time over that much distance over such conditions were due for a relationship meltdown--and we haven't even married two years, much less reproduced.

Shots in the dark

Someone or some people broke into the building where I work last night. Nothing (apparently) was taken, but I did not know what to make of the email bringing the news to us this morning:

Intruders managed to enter the xxxxxx building, on the 3rd floor level, at 1.00am this morning.  A security guard sighted one of the intruders and telephoned the Police.  The Police response was rapid, with several sniffer dogs and a helicopter involved in the search.

Should I be impressed at the rapid and comprehensive response, or should I consider it an over-reaction and a waste of taxpayers' money?