The Writer's Times

Don't Mention The War

2008-05-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

Battle-scarred and shell shocked: how else to describe my condition after 460 pages of blood, sweat and tanks? Antony Beevor’s book documenting the siege of Stalingrad is not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. What with bombing raids, grenade attacks, hand-to-hand combat — to say nothing of frostbite, typhoid and malnutrition — I’m lucky to have escaped with my life.

It’s received a crouching ovation from critics and sold half million in the UK alone. But although there’s no doubting its colossal impact, I have two big problems with Stalingrad.

First, it’s unrelentingly grim. You wouldn’t expect many laughs in a war history, but Stalingrad stands out as one of the most depressing books I’ve ever read. Death stalks every page. Yet even the grim reaper seems preferable to the appalling conditions endured by troops and civilians. If it’s not starvation it’s dehydration; if it’s not infestation it’s amputation. This is war in the raw, where no-one is spared: deserters are shot, women are raped, children are massacred, horses are eaten. It’s not the author’s fault; he’s only recording how inhuman humans can be. But it’s still heavy going.

Then there’s the overwhelming technical and military detail. Of course, for battle buffs this is paradise alley. Tank spotters will salivate at the description of panzers trundling triumphantly across the steppe, while armchair strategists will relish every bomb and bullet. But, just like the Germans, I got bogged down. Encircled by tanks and bombarded by planes, on more than one occasion I had to bail out before sinking in military minutiae.

Keeping up with the cast of characters in the theatre of war was another challenge (the index names over 70 generals). And it didn’t help that both Hitler and Stalin kept replacing officers who were foolish enough to tell them unpalatable truths.

Amidst the doom and detail, the book has some absorbing sections, notably the chapter on the enemy within. Fighting the invaders was challenging enough, but the Russian forces also had to contend with Stalin’s secret police in their midst. The slightest whimper amounted to treachery, and at Stalingrad 13,500 paid the price of doubt with their lives. Well, they did if the firing squad wasn’t incompetent or drunk. Stories of soldiers getting up and scarpering after being executed are not as incredible as they might seem.

Eyewitness accounts and soldiers’ letters vividly capture the mood swings on both sides. These testimonies are never more powerful than in the final weeks of the siege. While expressing confidence in the face of encircling Soviets, between the lines the German troops prepared their loved ones for the worst.

But as the days turned into weeks, the mood of these starving, exhausted, diseased and demoralised men changed. If the early letters home were defiant, the last ones were desperate. As they prepared to face the final Russian onslaught, a few still clung to the hope their Führer would send help. Hitler acknowledged their plight by abstaining from champagne at dinner.

The author uses unemotive language in his assessments of Hitler and Stalin, but it’s obvious that he thinks both were utter nutters. Before a single Nazi jackboot crossed the Russian frontier, a paranoid Stalin had already done away with the cream of his general staff.

Meanwhile, Hitler’s management skills shouldn’t have got him further than running a bratwurst stall in Mönchengladbach. Certain of a swift victory in the Russian campaign, he refused to provide winter clothing for his own troops. We’re left to contemplate the pride of the Reich going into battle wearing fur coats and woolly hats donated by the German public.

The book concludes with a chapter on the aftermath of the siege, but I could have done with more about Stalingrad beyond the bombing, and something of its pre-battle history. And yes, I know Stalingrad was primarily about the clash of two armed forces, but surely some of the finer points of military strategy could have been sacrificed for more on the civilians? A thousand of them, mostly women and children, somehow survived the siege of Stalingrad, and their stories will have been every bit as gripping as those on the front line.

Long before the term was coined, Stalingrad defined “shock and awe”. It was a turning point that saved Stalin’s bacon at home and earned him new respect abroad, with far-reaching consequences for us all. Over a million of the 26 million Soviets killed in the Second World War died at Stalingrad. The staggering scale of the loss gave the Soviet leader an emotional blackmail card to play when it came to dividing up the spoils of war in 1945.

As a battle, Stalingrad left its mark on the world. As a book, Stalingrad had a similar effect on me. Battle-weary and out of ammo, I’ve had to surrender this review and concede defeat. I’ve got post-war fatigue.

Stalingrad: the fateful siege: 1942-1943

by Antony Beevor

Publisher: Penguin, 1999
ISBN-10: 0140284583
ISBN-13: 978-0140284584

When Flemish Eyes Are Smiling

2008-04-26T10:28:00.000-07:00

Last year I spent a relaxing weekend in Belgium. What’s that you say? Relaxing? In Belgium? Surely that’s an oxymoron! Like mountain climbing in Holland, or doing anything remotely interesting in Luxembourg.

But, no. It was nice. Brussels was brilliant, Antwerp was amazing, and Zaventem was, well, where they put the airport. And then there was Bruges.

Heavy with history, but easy on the eye, Bruges was my kind of town. The gothic buildings were strewn with Christmas lights, and snow covered the canal bridges like a light dusting of icing sugar. Which was strange, because this was at the end of an especially mild February.

Turns out director Martin McDonagh was making a movie in the city, with the head-smackingly original title of In Bruges. I’m guessing that the lights and fake snow were to enhance the fairy tale atmosphere of the city, although it hardly needed that sort of tarting up.

So, a syopsis: Ken and Ray (Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell), two Irish hit men, flee London after a murder goes terribly wrong. Harry, their gangster boss (Ralph Fiennes), despatches them to Bruges to await further instructions. Meantime, they do the tourist things. Ken is entranced by the fairtytale town, but Ray is more interested in using his weapons of crass seduction on local beauty, Chloe (Clemence Poesy).

There’s a lot of laugh-out-loud comedy, and a fair amount of politically incorrect humour, mostly aimed at Americans. But while Ray is getting to know Chloe better, and simultaneously encountering the darker side of Bruges, Harry is giving Ken the awful truth of why they’re in Bruges.

The three principals - Gleeson, Farrell, and Fiennes - act their socks off. And there’s more than a hint of a Father Ted vibe going on between Gleeson and Farrell. For those not in the know, Father Ted was a ludicrous sit-com set on a remote Irish island, where a priest and his gormless curate got into the most preposterous of scrapes. Certainly, Farrell seemed to adopt some of the more clueless expressions of the dim-witted Father Dougal, which lightened the movie's more brutal aspects.

And there is graphic violence aplenty. But you’ll be pleased to learn that no Belgians were hurt in the making of this movie, so you can sit back and enjoy the bloodfest. Enjoy the acting, too, and the dialogue (the screenplay is written by McDonagh), and the music, and the cinematography. And enjoy it in the cinema rather than waiting for the DVD. Because In Bruges is a piece of theatre. It’s an experience best enjoyed while laughing and gasping in the company of strangers in a darkened room.

And it’s not often you can say that about Belgium..

The In Crowd

2008-04-23T15:26:00.000-07:00

Fucking in fiction: are you for or against? I only ask because Roddy Doyle's frequent use of the F-word might cause even Gordon Ramsay to turn salmon-pink. Bad language as a shock tactic often falls flat, but sometimes profanity signals credibility. So thumbs up for The Deportees; If you're looking for the real Dublin, forget Bono, Riverdance and Dustin the Turkey, Doyle has the Irish capital to a T. And an F.

The Deportees is a compilation of short stories written by Doyle for Dublin's first multicultural daily newspaper. These tales of the uninvited show what happened when a small nation suddenly became a honey pot for the world's dispossessed.

It was during the 1990s that Ireland started booming. The Celtic Tiger roared, and from Lagos to Latvia, they responded. Ireland experienced a greater percentage increase in immigration in a single decade than Britain had experienced in half a century. As Doyle himself observes, "I went to bed in one country and woke up in another."

The book is about encounters between immigrants and home-grown Dubliners. Humour is never far away, even in the darker stories, and there's a liberal helping of the craic.

In "I Understand," a Dublin waiter gives the kitchen help a masterclass in the gentle art of Irish cursing.

"I have a new one for you, he says - Ready?"
"Yes."
I take my hands from the water.
"Me bollix," he says. "Repeat."
"My.."
"No. Me."
"Me. Bollix."
"Together.""Me bollix."
"Excellent," says Kevin, "Top man."

Meanwhile, in "75% Irish," a graduate student hits upon a novel test of citizenship. His device records the user’s response to a replay of Robbie Keane's goal against Germany in the World Cup. For a government minister scrambling to defuse the political impact of a demographic time bomb, it’s a gift.

Preposterous? Of course. But let's remember the Tory Party chairman, who contended that Britishness could be determined by which cricket team you supported when England played the West Indies. Under those criteria, I'm 100% Antiguan.

Pride and prejudice, stereotype and stigma loom large in "Home to Harlem." Declan, a black Irish student, hopes a literature course in New York will resolve his identity crisis. Explaining his quest to an unsympathetic professor, Declan is both eloquent and to the point.

"He tells her about first reading The Souls of Black Folk, about the question repeated in the first paragraph of the first chapter: "How does it feel to be a problem?" "The problem is, he says, "I'm black and Irish, and that's two fuckin' problems."

Back in Dublin, the immigrants have problems aplenty. An African boy is bullied at school, an illegal immigrant is the victim of blackmail; and a Polish childminder is spooked by the unlikeliest of ghosts.

The centrepiece of the book resurrects Jimmy Rabbitte, erstwhile godfather of The Commitments. This time, he's putting together a new band, with assorted imports from Romania, New York and Nigeria, plus a couple of Dubliners. After a shaky start, The Deportees find their feet and harmony reigns.

But just when we’re starting to view things through emerald-tinted glasses, the author brings us back to reality. There's enough menace in Roddy Doyle's stories to show that behind the alive, alive-oh of Dublin's fair city, there's a rattle and hum of racism

The Deportees
by Roddy Doyle

Publisher: Viking Adult (January 10, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0670018457

Fully Booked

2008-04-12T08:11:00.000-07:00

While the rest of the world blogs about what they had for breakfast, book lovers have other fish to fry. Covering everything from crime to horror, Henry James to Harry Potter, bibliophiles are producing some of the most stimulating and entertaining work on the web. Not incidentally, they're at the forefront of the forces revolutionising the publishing industry. From Web sites to Weblogs, podcasting to social networking, book lovers have shown there's more to the internet than a dancing dog on YouTube.

The Bookaholics' Guide to Book Blogs celebrates the individuals who have taken their shared love of literature into cyberspace. Authors, booksellers, publishers and reviewers are feted, while the big corporations seeking control of the written word are confronted. Little-reported issues are addressed, such as the radical writers, disillusioned with mainstream publishing, who have found outlets for their work on the web. There's also an absorbing piece on the brewing civil war between newspaper critics and book bloggers. The book's upbeat, informal style captures the spirit of these exciting times.

Sadly, the message is obscured by the medium. Throughout the book, typographical errors keep stubbornly appearing. It's nothing dramatic, but just enough to irritate. Even the final sentence can't escape a distracting typo.

Misplaced letters aren't the only problem. Rebecca Gillieron's sixty, seventy, and (in a couple of horrific instances) ninety-word sentences make some passages heavy going. The book’s usefulness as a reference work is limited by an inconsistent use of web addresses and the absence of an index.

What rescues the book are the extracts from literary blogs themselves. Knowledgeable, witty and wordy-wise, book bloggers are clearly a talented bunch. Some may be brutally honest, but most are as ready to shower roses on writers they like as they are to deliver raspberries to those they don't. I especially enjoyed the plain-speaking Dovegreyreader and the entertaining book/daddy, but all of the bloggers featured in the book deserve to be there.

Voices from the web are welcome distractions from this book's shortcomings. Yet even here, the authors can't help meddling. A Finnish blogger's exuberant post about one of his favourite horror authors is reproduced. His enthusiasm is infectious, even for those who may not be fans of the genre. Why the authors feel the need to reprint part of his blog in the original Finnish is one of this book's enduring mysteries, another is the decision to reprint nine consecutive pages from Toby Litt's blog. I'm all for giving readers a taste of the author, but this takes spoon feeding a ladle too far.

Why make so much of so little? What's a misplaced letter here, an elongated sentence there? Perhaps it's the old "if a job's worth doing..." mentality. But more than that, the authors of this book should know better. The opening page trumpets their credentials as industry insiders, as experienced in editing as they are in typesetting. And if attention to detail does justice to a book's subject and signals respect for its readers, the opposite is also true.

The publishing house which produced this book is a small, independent press, and it gives me no pleasure to decry their work. If it weren't for the flaws, I'd have no hesitation in recommending it. As it is, the best investment of any revenue generated by this project would be the employment of a sharp-eyed proof reader for the next one.

A New Leaf

2008-04-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

Let me just get this right: a tree was chopped down to make a bookshelf in the shape of a tree to hold books made from chopped down trees. It comes from a website that wasn't made from chopped down anything.

Monetary Madness

2008-04-07T06:07:00.000-07:00

"A year ago I agreed to give a lucrative speech and, once the date was booked, I felt rich and spent the fee. On delivering the speech, I felt I had actually earned it, so spent it again. Subsequently the company got into financial difficulty and failed to pay me, which was a shame as I had already spent the money twice. Six months later, out of the blue, the money arrived. As I had mentally written it off, this counted as a windfall, so I spent it all over again."

Lucy Kellaway on the monetary madness that visits her personal finances.

Strangers on a Train

2008-02-16T05:10:00.000-08:00

To pass the time on the long train journey back from London this week, I listened to a double bill of plays by Alan Bennett.

"Forty Years On" is set in an English public school, with John Gielguid the very pith and sinew of an old style headmaster. During the school play, he's outraged by his students' use of improvisation: "I'm all for free expression," he says, "but only if it's rigidly controlled." It's a fine reflection on an age that was already passing into history when it first appeared in 1968.

The other performance on the CD was a monolgue titled "A Woman of No Importance". Patricia Routledge plays Miss Margaret Schofield, an office worker whose only ambition is to reach the canteen before the lunchtime rush. Her futile, boring life is described in mind-numbing detail. But, this being Bennett and Routledge, magnificence is wrought from the mundane. Taken into hospital for a stomach complaint, her inevitable decline fails to dim her own sense of self-importance. Even the most tenuous connections to the great and the good are sucked into her maw: "This is the bed that Princess Alexandra stopped at when she came here, apparently."

In such good company, it's hardly surprising that, before I knew it, the train was drawing into the station.

Wise Words

2008-02-12T01:43:00.000-08:00

Seven years after his death, his words still ring true:

I never give my work to somebody else and say, "What do you think about that?" I just don't trust anybody. If I think it's funny, or if I think it's silly, I send it in anyway because I'm just trying to please myself. I never try to please a certain audience. I think that's disastrous. There's no way in the world you can anticipate what your reader is going to like or dislike.
Charles Schulz

Book Now

2008-01-12T17:38:00.000-08:00

Among the top ten book shops in the world named by The Guardian is none other than Glasgow's city centre branch of Borders. Sean Dodson says few readers can fail to be beguiled by its neo-classical facade. "People reading on the steps outside have become as much a feature of Glasgow as the traffic cone on the head of Wellington's statue."

Not any more. Legions of Goths have been swept from the steps and security guards now patrol them to ensure that Borders is a Goth-free zone.

The other bookshops on the list are also worth a second look. Among them, the reconstituted church that is the Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen in Maastricht (above) and the majestic Livrario Lello in Porto.

You shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I'm pretty sure these magnificent bookshops live up to their first impressions.

Season's Readings

2008-01-06T02:59:00.000-08:00

As a coda to the festive season, here's my round-up of the books that accompanied me through the past twelve months.

2007 was the year I discovered Alan Bennett. I'd been aware of his work before, but it's only this year that I've come to explore and fully enjoy his writing. His short stories, monologues and plays have entertained and inspired me throughout the year, and I look forward to reading more from this brilliant writer in 2008.

But before closing the door on another year of reading, here, in reverse order of enjoyment, are my bite-sized book reviews of 2007.

Title: The Collectors
Author: David Baldacci
Review: A thriller that wasn't from a writer who couldn't. Awful.
Score: 1/10

Title: JPod
Author: Douglas Coupland
Review: Follies in geekland. Disappointing.
Score: 3/10

Title: This Book Will Save Your Life
Author: A. M. Homes
Review: Silly satire on Californian suburban life. Puzzling.
Score: 5/10

Title: The Edifice Complex
Author: Deyan Sudjic
Review: Deliciously gossipy insight into architecture as a weapon of mass seduction. Entertaining.
Score: 6/10

Title: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Review: A youngster unravels a mystery left behind by his father when the Twin Towers fell. Moving.
Score: 6/10

Title: The Outsider
Author: Albert Camus
Review: Bleak story of a man who appears indifferent to his fate. Depressing.
Score: 6/10

Title: Be Near Me
Author: Andrew O'Hagan
Review: A parish priest's ministry turns tragic in a decaying Ayrshire town. Poetic.
Score: 6/10

Title: In God's Name: an investigation into the murder of Pope John Paul I
Author: David Yallop
Review: Dodgy doings at the Vatican. Compelling.
Score: 6/10

Title: The Plague
Author: Albert Camus
Review: Thought-provoking story of human responses to a deadly threat. Contagious.
Score: 6/10

Title: The Weather Makers: how man is changing the planet and what it means for life on Earth
Author: Tim Flannery
Review: An SOS for Earth. Convincing.
Score: 6/10

Title: And Now on Radio 4
Author: Simon Elmes
Review: Celebrating 40 years of a jewel in the BBC crown. Cosy.
Score: 6/10

Title: Basil Hume, the Monk Cardinal
Author: Anthony Howard
Review: Eminently absorbing biography of a man whom the Queen called "my cardinal". Insightful.
Score: 7/10

Title: Hatless Jack: the president, the fedora and the history of American style
Author: Neil Steinberg
Review: How JFK didn't kill the American hat industry. Offbeat
Score: 7/10

Title: Life of Pi
Author: Yann Martel 7/10
Review: A boy, a boat, adrift, alive. And a tiger called Richard Parker. Surprising.
Score: 7/10

Title: The Interpretation of Murder
Author: Jeb Rubenfeld
Review: History and mystery with a dash of psychology and a ration of passion. Excellent.
Score: 8/10

Title: Beyond Words
Author: John Humphrys
Review: Incisive and entertaining look at how language is shaping our lives. Revealing.
Score: 8/10

Title: Seminary Boy: a memoir
Author: John Cornwell 8/10
Review: Reflections on life inside a boarding school for trainee priests. Evocative
Score: 8/10

Title: Perfect Hostage
Author: Justin Wintle
Review: Powerful biography of Burmese prisoner of conscience, Aung San Suu Kyi. Inspiring.
Score: 8/10

Title: The Berlin Wall: a world divided: 1961-1989
Author: Frederick Taylor
Review: Scholarly, but highly readable story of an icon of the Cold War. Gripping. Score: 9/10

Title: Nul Points
Author: Tim Moore
Review: Bellowing Balts and likeable Liverpudlians go to Eurovision with the highest of hopes and return with the lowest of scores. Winning.
Score: 9/10

Title: Martin Lukes: Who Moved My Blackberry?
Author: Lucy Kellaway
Review: Slick slice of office life, starring a sharp-suited bullshitter. Plausible
Score: 9/10

Title: Redemption Falls
Author: Joseph O'Connor
Review: Complex, confusing and utterly brilliant Civil War novel. Superb.
Score: 9/10

Title: Desperadoes
Author: Joseph O'Connor
Review: Drama on the road to Managua. Unputdownable.
Score: 10/10

Title: Four Stories
Author: Alan Bennett
Review: A funeral, a burglary, a hospital and a bag lady. Magnificence in the mundane. Outstanding.
Score: 10/10

Title: Talking Heads
Author: Alan Bennett
Review: Masterful monologues from the spectator of suburbia. Stunning.
Score: 10/10

As for 2008, I've already finished The Book Thief and a biography of Liberace, both excellent. Next stop is Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn - a very different kettle of fish.

Show and Tell

2008-01-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

It’s not often that Marlene Dietrich, Marcel Proust, Ronald Reagan and Dante appear in the same chapter, let alone the same book. But here they are, in Darden Asbury Pyron’s biography of Liberace. The book, part of my holiday reading this festive season, reaches into every nook and cranny of the showman’s life. But it also makes some interesting diversions, such as an exploration of homosexual culture and the history of Las Vegas.

What’s most striking is how polarising a figure Liberace was. The adulation he received from his fans was only equalled by the revulsion of his critics. After interviewing Liberace, Edward R. Murrow remarked: “In your whole life did you ever see anyone so obnoxious!” The great reporter, who covered the devastation of war and the horrors of the concentration camps, seemed to find an over-the-top entertainer far more offensive. He need three scotches before he could utter another word.

Neither hatchet job nor hagiography, Pyron’s book gives a balanced account of the entertainer’s improbable life. And given the nature of the subject, that's an achievement in itself.

Viennese Whirls

2008-01-01T05:04:00.000-08:00

A sublime start to 2008, watching the New Year's Concert from Vienna. The Vienna Philharmonic was in sparkling form, as was the golden hall of the Musikverein. Grinning from ear to ear, Georges Prêtre waved the baguette. At 83, he's the oldest person to preside over this special occasion, and the first Frenchman. With a twinkle in his eye, the masterful jockey guided the thoroughbred professionals over the hurdles, polkas and waltzes.

In tribute to the Beijing Olympics, a Chinese polka was played, while Austria's co-hosting of the European Football Championships this summer was celebrated with a sports polka. Red and yellow cards were exchanged between conductor and leader, and the ensemble donned Austria football scarves in a bit of undisguised patriotism.

As ever, the hall was clothed in floral splendour, with poinsettia, lilies and orchids from the city of San Remo. Austrian television excelled itself with pictures of dancers whirling their way across Vienna, with palaces and parks forming the perfect backdrop.

It all brought to mind a balmy September evening five years ago. On my fortieth birthday, I attended a concert by the Vienna Phil at the Musikverein. The first half was magical enough - Mozart performed in period costume. But after the interval, the Chancellor of Austria arrived, escorting a Chinese statesman for a little night music. At the end, the orchestra played the Blue Danube and the Radetzky March. I left the hall with a tear in my eye and a song in my heart.

And so, each January 1, when the conductor raises the baton in the golden hall, I always remember that golden night.

Prosit Neue Jahr!

The Year That Was

2007-12-29T07:01:00.000-08:00

So, as 2007 sputters its way to the finishing line, here are some of my favourite quotes from the past twelve months.

I'm a fairly wide guy... I tend to spread my legs when I lower my pants so they won't slide.
Senator Larry Craig

Welcome to Scotland
The exciting new slogan greeting visitors to Scottish airports, created at a cost of £125,000.

In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at Columbia University.

I want to be like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and John Lennon – but I want to stay alive.
Madonna

I've had worse press than a pedophile or a murderer and I've done nothing but charity for the last 20 years.
Heather Mills, Paul McCartney's former wife, attacks the news media.

The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton. We have to ask ourselves what is going on here?
Al Gore

Why don't you just shut up ?
— King Juan Carlos of Spain, to Hugo Chávez after the Venezuelan President called former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar a fascist.

I gave her my all-American smile, where I show wall-to-wall teeth and said, pathetically: 'Hope you like your trip to America'. I was quickly moved on like some old wilted tuna on the conveyer belt at Yo! Suchi.
Ruby Wax on her meeting with Britain's Queen Elizabeth.

This is Glasgow, we'll just set about you.
Airport worker John Smeaton, with a message for terrorists threatening Scotland.

Muslims know that if they attack a woman they will burn in hell.
Benazir Bhutto

Some people sing opera, Luciana Pavarotti was an opera.
Bono on death of the Italian tenor.

It wasn't a fortune. It cost me the price of one-and-a-half Hermes handbags.
Anne Robinson on her cosmetic surgery.

Today, society does not talk about hell. It's as if it did not exist, but it does.
Pope Benedict XVI

Less Dressy? What do you think this is?
Queen Elizabeth II after photographer Annie Leibovitz suggested she remove crown for photo shoot.

The guilt that we feel will never leave us.
Gerry McCann

When I'm looking for something I've dropped on the carpet, I have a bit of a problem.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying energy-saving light bulbs are not bright enough.

I used to act dumb. That act is no longer cute.
Paris Hilton

This House has noted the Prime Minister's remarkable transformation from Stalin to Mr Bean in the past few weeks.
Liberal Democrat stand-in leader, Vince Cable, turns the knife in Gordon Brown’s wounds.

Have you got anywhere with McDonald's? Have you tried getting it banned, that's the key. Prince Charles suggests cure for obesity on visit to United Arab Emirates.

We don't airbrush to that extent.
Hugh Hefner scuppers Kelly Osbourne's chances after she admits in an interview that she would like to be a nude Playboy pin-up.

Too Much Information

2007-12-21T09:57:00.000-08:00

"I met the Dalai Lama in my office but I meet everyone in my office. I don't know why I would sneak off to a hotel room just to meet the Dalai Lama. You know, he's not a call girl."

Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, showing why he didn't enter the diplomatic service.
From the New Zealand Herald.

Lab, Actually

2007-12-19T03:46:00.000-08:00

The words "science" and "humour" don't usually go hand in hand. But in a bit of festive frivolity, this week's New Scientist has published the results of a competition to find the best chat up lines for scientists.

The editors subjected the data to intense scrutiny, applied general principles, built prototypes, tested hunches and gathered evidence.

And the winners are:

Would there be any resistance if I asked to take you ohm?

Would kissing you increase global warming and damage the Arctic irreversibly, or is it just enough to break the ice?

I’ve had my ion you.

Hello, I’ve just taken part in a clinical trial of a new drug to help memory loss; could you tell me, do I come here often?

Your are definitely the woman of my REM phase.

Not much I can add to that. Apart from, of course: Is that a test tube in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?

The Spice Girls Cometh

2007-12-17T06:12:00.000-08:00

Apart from "Drain Trader", possibly the last place I would have expected to see a review of the Spice Girls' comeback tour is in the Financial Times. But here it is, composed by someone rejoicing in the decidely unpoptastic name of Ludovic Hunter-Tilney. Double-barrelled he may be, but spiced up he certainly ain't.

"...their glittery set left me feeling empty. In spite of the flashiness and energy, it lacked life."

Going on to describe each of them as "differently bad", he reserves his barbiest barb for Posh:

"Victoria Beckham, skeletal in voice and body, was cheered each time she sang. Perhaps intended as sisterly solidarity by fans, or appreciation of her will to fame, the cheers had the happy effect of drowning Posh out."

What with this and a weekend story suggesting the sub-prime mortgage crisis has parallels with the Harry Potter stories, it looks as if the FT is scrambling for a younger demographic.

What next, I wonder? A campaign to bring back the Teletubbies?

The White Collar Tramp

2007-12-17T05:39:00.000-08:00

In another life, he interviewed Margaret Thatcher and took holidays in Goa. Now, he sleeps on the street. Ed Mitchell, a former television journalist, has been homeless for the past year, after losing his £100,000 job at CNBC.

It's a sad tale of drink, debt and despair, but according to Mitchell, he's far from being the only "white collar tramp", and the worst may be yet to come:

"There is a tsunami of bad debt about to hit this economy," he said."Pandora's box has been opened."

In the meantime, Mitchell survives on the kindness of strangers and a philosophical outlook on his new life.

"Now I look at each day and think 'what is going to happen today?'," he said. "It is an existence that makes you appreciate small luxuries and kindnesses." On Thursday night he returned to his bench to find a wrapped Christmas present containing a bar of Dairy Milk, hat, gloves, a razor and deodorant."

Net Gains?

2007-12-15T11:42:00.001-08:00

Is the internet good for writers?

That's the question on webzine 10zenmonkeys. And answers came there many:

I'm really sick of opinions and of most of what passes for online debate. Even the more artful rhetorical elements of argument and debate are rarely seen amidst the food fights, the generic argumentative “moves,” the poor syntax, and the often lame attempts to bring a “fresh take” to a topic. This is not an encouraging environment from which to speak from the heart or the soul or whatever it is that makes living, breathing prose an actual source of sustenance and spiritual strength.

We're drowning in yak, and it's getting harder and harder to hear the insightful voices through all the media cacophony. Oscar Wilde would be just another forlorn blogger out on the media asteroid belt in our day, constantly checking his SiteMeter's Average Hits Per Day and Average Visit Length.

The web enables us to write in public and, maybe one day, strike off the shackles of cubicle hell and get rich living by our wits. Sometimes I think we're just about to turn that cultural corner. Then I step onto the New York subway, where most of the car is talking nonstop on cellphones. Time was when people would have occupied their idle hours between the covers of a book. No more. We've turned the psyche inside out, exteriorizing our egos, extruding our selves into public space and filling our inner vacuums with white noise.

The internet has made research much easier, which is both good and bad. It's good not to be forced to go libraries to fact check and throw together bibliographic references. But it's bad not to be forced to do this, since it diminishes the possibility of accidental discovery. Physically browsing on library stacks and at used bookstores can lead to extraordinary discoveries. One can also discover extraordinary things online, too, but the physical process of doing so is somehow more personally gratifying.

Used to be I sat at an alphabet keyboard (called typewriters in my day) when I had an assignment or inspiration. Now it's all I do. Go to a library? Why? You can get what you need on the internet. Which means I've been suffering from Acute Cabin Fever since 1999 (when I tragically signed up for internet access). Sure, I could get off my ass and go to a library, but the internet is like heroin. Why take a walk in the park when you can boot up and find beauty behind your eyelids or truth from the MacBook? (Interesting that the term 'boot-up' is junkie-speak.)

J.K. Rowling wrote her first manuscript on paper towels and napkins. You may as well ask the question “Is tissue paper good for writers?”. The answer is the same. Sure it is, if they can write and get it to their audience.

My own feeling is that while the internet offers a huge amount to the writer - especially in terms of fact checking and communicating with other writers - it is immensely distracting. And on that note, excuse me while I go and play online Scrabble.

Biblioblob

2007-12-14T04:04:00.000-08:00

There's been a right old stooshie in the Czech Republic over the design for the new National Library. The work of Jan Kaplicky and his London-based design team, it follows the new free-form style sometimes known as blobitechture. Not surprisingly, the radical design has ruffled some feathers in the baroque old city.

Many of the city councillors don't want it so close to the revered Prague Castle, preferring a site out in the suburbs. But others say the national library of a country should be close to the centre of the capital.

As is the way of these things, the decision's been outsourced to a committee of "experts". So, it will be a while before this blob on the landscape sees the light of day.

Phew, What A Scorcher!

2007-12-14T00:32:00.000-08:00

My current reading has taken me across the airwaves of Radio 4, one of the BBC's crown jewels. "And Now On Radio 4" celebrates 40 years of the channel, and includes some behind-the-scenes stories from its presenters.

In the early days of Radio 4's World at One programme, reporter Sue McGregor was asked by presenter Bill Hardcastle to do a story about the sizzling heat that had been enveloping Britain that summer. But he wanted a different angle for the story, and insisted she take some eggs out to Piccadilly Circus and attempt to fry them on the pavement. Of course, nothing happened, apart from a gloppy mess.

"So I nipped into Boots and bought a bottle of meths and lit it and then fried the egg. It made a splendid noise, and I remember at that point there were rather a lot of unwashed hippies gathered round the base of Eros and they got very interested in all these eggs and scooped them up and ate them. And when Bill discovered that I'd cheated he was furious. He reckoned we'd let the listeners down. I thought it was rather funny."

You can imagine the furore such subterfuge would cause now. The papers would be in uproar over the great fried egg cover-up. "Is this why we pay our licence fee?", Mr Angry from Tunbridge Wells would rant, while The Guardian would worry about the waste of food and the Financial Times about the waste of money. And I can just see the headline in The Sun: "You Must Be Yolking!"

Albright, All Right

2007-12-12T00:59:00.000-08:00

To many, Aung San Suu Kyi is a living saint. She’s certainly needed the patience of one. For the past two decades, she’s been waging war against the odious military regime in Burma. Most of that time has been spent under house arrest while hundreds of her supporters have been imprisoned, tortured or killed.

Her story is recounted in Justin Wintle’s book, “The Perfect Hostage”. It’s truly a tale of suffering and sacrifice. But her plight has not gone un-noticed in the outside world. The great and the good, from the Dalai Lama to Desmond Tutu have made continuous appeals for her release, and the book includes this quote from Madeleine Albright following her meeting with a SLORC (Burmese government) leader.

"Khin Nyunt expressed the belief that the SLORC had broad public support, and observed that the Burmese people smile a lot. I said that it has been my experience, in a lifetime of studying repressive societies, that dictators often delude themselves into believing they have popular support, but that people often smile not because they are happy, but because they are afraid."

Photo Opportunity

2007-12-09T12:05:00.001-08:00

Surprising news tonight:

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo has been selected for inclusion in the newly released fourth edition of our Schmap Copenhagen Guide

My first, and probably only, photographic prize. All the nicer because I'd forgotten all about it.

Tusind tak, København!

Reading Lessing

2007-12-09T10:00:00.000-08:00

Doris Lessing the 2007 Literature Nobel Laureate has lamented the death of reading among the young. In her acceptance speech to the Swedish Academy, she singled out the internet for special criticism:

“...it is common for young men and women who have had years of education to know nothing about the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some specialty or other, for instance computers...We never thought to ask how will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by the internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging."

She also noted how indifference towards writers in the developed world, contrasted with her native Zimbabwe, where she was met by hungry children clamouring for books. Referring to a pregnant mother of two “somewhere in southern Africa” who has to travel to procure scant water for her family and yet craves a copy of “Anna Karenina”, Ms. Lessing concluded:

“I think it is that girl and the women who were talking about books and an education when they had not eaten for three days, that may yet define us.”

I agree with her, up to a point, about the internet. I certainly wouldn't want to see books abandoned for the sake of a blog or an online story. But reading is reading, and if someone of any age finds it more comfortable and enriching to read on-screen rather than turning the pages of a book, who am I to deny them that pleasure?

Volcanic Activities

2007-12-09T03:07:00.001-08:00

I haven't read Phil Hogan before, but his Guardian piece on a walking holiday in Sicily will set me off on his trail. He's got that chatty, easy-going style - part Bryson, part Moore - that I enjoy so much:

Next morning we're up at 3am. Yes, three! How else are we to get down to the harbour in time to sit in the bus in the pouring rain without breakfast and wait till 7am for the first ferry to Stromboli? Ah, Stromboli is the mountain of God, Luca tells us, though he adds that because of the stormy conditions there's a slight chance we might end up in Naples. Not for nothing is the Aeolian Sea named after the god of preposterous winds. Sure enough, we are soon pitching and rolling and all the other descriptively colourful heaving movements that make you ill. Hours go by. Are we nearly there, yet? No, not until we've stopped off at every other island on the map.

Don't Panic!

2007-12-07T11:14:00.000-08:00

Asteroids, global warming, weapons of mass destruction. When should we start panicking about all of this? Never, say the authors of a new book called Panicology. The book, by two statisticians, Simon Briscoe and Hugh Aldersey-Williams, is reviewed in the latest London Review of Books by Andrew O'Hagan, who worries that we should be taking things like bird flu much more seriously:

Au contraire, say the incrementally annoying Briscoe and Aldersey-Williams, ‘while bird flu has yet to claim a single human victim in Europe or the Americas, and has killed fewer than 300 people worldwide, it is perhaps worth adding that the familiar winter flu that nobody panics about claims at least 30,000 American and 12,000 British lives each year.’

Hmmph. How about terrorism, then? It’s clear if you go in a plane there’s every chance you’ll end up dead. There are security alerts everywhere and our governments are spending millions in an uphill struggle against the certainty of terrorists murdering innocent millions. No, say the out of order authors of Panicology: ‘In England and Wales, annual deaths from terrorism have been much lower than deaths from transport accidents (3000), falls (3000), drowning (200), poisoning (900), and suicide (over 3000) . . . It is pretty clear that, so long as you stay away from the world’s insurgent hotspots, the chances of being caught up in a terrorist event are minuscule.’

Phew, so that's all right, then.

Maupin Island Discs

2007-12-02T02:43:00.001-08:00

Armistead Maupin

Armistead Maupin was a recent castaway on Desert Island Discs . Here are his choices.

1. Mockin’ Bird Hill
Performer Patti Page

2. Moon River
Performer Audrey Hepburn

3. Desperado
Performer The Eagles

4. Maybe This Time
Performer Liza Minnelli

5. You and Me from the musical Victor/Victoria
Performer Julie Andrews and Tony Roberts

6. Hallelujah
Performer K D Lang

7. The Heart of Life
Performer John Mayer

8. The reprise of Wicked Little Town
Performer Tommy Gnosis

Record: Wicked Little Town
Book: The Cole Porter Song Book
Luxury: Vaporiser

Actually, his chosen luxury was a cannabis plant, but Kirsty Young got all BBC about this, so he had to go for the vaporiser (with cannabis extract). Honestly, Kirst, lighten up! It's only a kid-on island.

Below the Belt

2007-11-28T13:11:00.000-08:00

"O glorious pubes! The ultimate triangle, whose angles delve to hell but point to paradise."

Not my words, you'll be relieved to know, but one of the contenders in this year's Bad Sex Writing competition. That one's from "Will" by Christopher Rush.

Other bad sexamples:

"She had on no knickers, and my heart went crash-bang-wallop and my eyes popped out. She hadn't shaved, and her fanny looked like a tropical fish or a bit of old carpet."
From Apples, by Richard Milward

"'You were built entirely for the space mission, right?' She nods and smiles. She is absurdly beautiful. I start to slip off my jeans and I feel her gaze as I stand in my bra and pants. Why am I embarrassed about taking off my clothes right in front of a robot? I pull the dress over my head like a schoolgirl, untie my hair, and sit down. She is smiling, just a little bit, as though she knows her effect.""
From The Stone Gods, by Jeanette Winterson

"That is to say, she rode me. It was all very classy and contemporary, like a modern-art survey course at NYU. I wanted to have the slogan I RODE MISHA VAINBERG imprinted on her T-shirt. "Yeah, do me," she kept saying, after issuing a few grunts so male and assertive they startled me into a brief homosexual fear, a fear compounded by one of her sharp nails digging into my tight rectum. "Do me, daddy," she said, her eyes closed, her thighs slapping against my upper and lower stomachs, my own tits making wet noises against my frame. "Just like that," she said, stealing a brief glance at me and then turning her head to the side so that I could lick her ear and plunge into her neck. "Just ... like ... that."
From Absurdistan, by Gary Shteyngart

"This is not pleasurable. How could anyone find having burning hot candle wax dripped onto the flesh of their belly pleasurable? But I don't want to tell her to stop cos the last time I told her to stop I got belted in the mouth. She wears an average of three rings on each finger. God, Mum was right, this lousy settee does stink. No wonder Dad's in hospital. I might well be joining him by the end of the night. I think I'm still inside her but, quite honestly, it's difficult to tell ..."
From The Late Hector Kipling, by David Thewlis"

But only one writer can cum first, and this year's winner is.....

Norman Mailer for this intimate moment from The Castle in the Forest:

"Then she was on him. She did not know if this would resuscitate him or end him, but the same spite, sharp as a needle, that had come to her after Fanni's death was in her again. Fanni had told her once what to do. So Klara turned head to foot, and put her most unmentionable part down on his hard-breathing nose and mouth, and took his old battering ram into her lips. Uncle was now as soft as a coil of excrement. She sucked on him nonetheless with an avidity that could come only from the Evil One - that she knew. From there, the impulse had come. So now they both had their heads at the wrong end, and the Evil One was there. He had never been so close before."

Screen Queen

2007-11-27T05:58:00.000-08:00

Last night, the most talked about television programme of the year finally hit the screens. Even before airing, “Monarchy: the Royal Family at Work” had already hit the headlines and resulted in the controller of BBC One losing his job. It was all because an out-of-sequence preview appeared to show the Queen storming out of a photo-shoot with Annie Leibovitz. In fact, the scene showed Her Majesty on the way into the session.

So, after all the fuss, we finally got to see the finished product. Overall, it was entertaining and interesting, although at an hour-and-a-half, a bit too long. Much of the focus was on the state visit by the Queen and Prince Philip to the United States, earlier this year. The Leibovitz session was arranged to provide the official pre-trip photographs, and appeared at the top of the show. The monarchical strop at being asked to remove her tiara to make the shot “less dressy” was the nearest we came to fireworks, but Leibovitz took it all in her stride. No doubt, she’s had more troublesome subjects than Her Majesty.

The rest of the programme showed the preparations for the state visit. Everyone, from the First Lady to the flower girls wanted to make sure everything was just perfect. At the Williamsburg Inn, where the Queen had stayed 50 years before, the chief housekeeper personally attended to the Egyptian cotton sheets, and rather unnecessarily pointed out that a new lavatory seat had been bought to accompany the royal flush.

George W. Bush was almost childlike in his anticipation of the visit, and hoped Her Majesty would ask to meet his mad Scottish terrier. Meanwhile, Laura Bush came across as an engaging, intelligent woman, concerned above all that her visitors should have time to relax and enjoy their time in the White House.

The most annoying aspect of the programme was the frequent references to Her Majesty’s realm. Or, as the Americans constantly called it: “England.” “It’s not every day you get to see the Queen of England”, gushed one woman, “I mean, dinner with the Queen of England has a certain ring to it”, burbled the President.

Meanwhile I’m throwing pop tarts at the screen and screeching “Britain, you cretins, it’s Britain!” Yes, yes, I know that England is often used as a shorthand term for Great Britain, and I also know that many Brits don’t know the difference between Washington, DC and Washington state. But for those of us living beyond the boundaries of perfidious Albion, every mention of the “E” word is like a mass scraping of nails across a blackboard. Even the woman at the bloody British Embassy coo-ed about creating a little bit of England in Washington. Everyone was at it, with one exception.

Along among all the characters great and small appearing in the programme, only Laura Bush referred to “Great Britain”. Laura, we love ya!

Trouble in the Troposphere

2007-11-25T02:35:00.000-08:00

Heatwaves, hurricanes, flooding, drought, extinction. No-one can accuse Tim Flannery of understating the effects of global warming. And there's no doubting his passion for the subject. Once sceptical about climate change, he's now a fully-paid up member of the global warming warning brigade. His chapter headings alone - "Peril at the Poles", "The Carbon Dictatorship", "Boiling the Abyss" - signal that he's nailed his colours to the mast. And those colours are all green.

Not so long ago, climate change was confined to the inner reaches of scientific journals. Now it’s front page news. Hardly a day passes without another instance of wild weather being blamed on global warming. Flannery believes the changes we’ve seen in weather patterns, seasons, biodiversity and, above all, rising global temperatures have a single, man-made cause. Fossil-fuelled industrial development is the villain of the piece - from coal-fired power stations to the infernal combustion engine. So busy have we been in pillaging the Earth‘s resources that it’s only when the planet started fighting back that we woke up to the terrible consequences.

Of course, he’s aware that not all agree with this argument, and so he sets out to support it with an avalanche of evidence. At times, the reader risks being engulfed by statistics, and some of the scientific vocabulary requires both a deep breath and a running jump. Even so, Flannery’s genuine concern for all forms of life on the planet shines through.

But he has to tread carefully. Scary talk about runaway warming, may lead his readers to conclude that it's too late to do anything. Or, as Irving Berlin didn't write: there may be trouble ahead, but let's face the music and turn up the heating. Flannery insists the problem is still soluble, but tackling it will take action by every government, every business and every gas-guzzling, trash-tipping, pollution-pumping one of us.

After braving 200 pages of bleak prognostications, it’s a relief to reach an environmental success story. Flannery calls the 1987 Montreal Protocol the world’s first victory over a global pollution problem, and without it life on Earth would have been in deep trouble. A hole in the planet’s ozone layer risked exposing us to dangerous ultra-violet rays from the sun. The Montreal agreement banned the fluorocarbons that were eating away at this layer, and there are now hopeful signs that the hole is healing.

Despite this good news, Flannery insists prevention is always better than cure, a view that’s reinforced when turning his fire on the energy sector. Just as the tobacco industry spent many decades in denial about the link between smoking and lung cancer, he says, energy companies have been similarly sluggish in facing up to the impact of fossil fuels on the environment. But while he’s scathing about the automobile, Flannery appears resigned to the increasing volume of air traffic and believes aircraft will continue to spew carbon into the atmosphere long after other forms of transport have gone green.

At one point in this book, Flannery speculates that researchers investigating the impact of climate change on mountain regions may have given up because it was all too depressing. It's an odd observation, but if true, who could blame them? Global warming may be a hot topic, but talk of imminent catastrophe is enough to send anyone running for the prozac.

Yet, far from being alarmist or defeatist, Flannery is a convincing advocate of the need for urgent action. Perhaps, if enough of us heed his warning, a Tim Flannery of the future might be able to write a book telling the story of how we saved the planet.

Title: The Weather Makers
Author: Tim Flannery
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New Ed edition (3 May 2007)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0141026278
ISBN-13: 978-0141026275

Pointless Pursuits

2007-11-24T07:33:00.000-08:00

To its aficionados, the annual Eurovision Song Contest is a marvellous melange that blends pop and politics, fashion faux pas and flag-waving. To everyone else, it's a showcase for shite.

Polarising it may be, but Eurovision has no shortage of performers beating a path to its tinsel-decked door. And although only ABBA and Celine Dion have achieved post-Eurovision mega-stardom, nearly every entrant sees the contest as a springboard to the stratosphere.

For most, barely have their feet left that springboard than they find themselves plummeting, belly-first towards the sea of oblivion. As Europe delivers its verdict, dreams of greatness are quietly snuffed out. But for an unlucky few, each set of results painfully and publicly signals that they’ll be ending the contest as they began: with no points. Rejected and dejected, they can only limp home to rebuild the wreckage of their career and hope that the worst night of their lives will soon be forgotten.

Fat chance. Not with Tim Moore shining his gazillion watt spotlight on their misfortunes. In Nul Points, Moore sets out to uncover the underachievers who went to Eurovision with the highest of hopes and returned with the lowest of scores.

Since 1975, the Eurovision voting system has made it harder to score zero. But it didn’t take long for Jahn Teigen to make it look easy. Representing Norway in 1978, Teigen assaulted an unsuspecting song and strangled it with his vocal cords before dealing the fatal blow from a shocking, splay-legged leap. Europe’s response was sadly predictable.

But, as Moore finds when he visits Teigen in Oslo, the reaction in his homeland was rather different. Norway put out the red carpet for its zero hero, and he went on to enjoy if not public adulation then certainly the affection of a loyal fan base. After a rough patch in the eighties, Teigen is still performing and still submitting entries for Eurovision.

But while Jahn Teigen merrily wears his zero as a halo, others see their nil as a noose. After Finn Kalvik failed to score for Norway in 1981, his countrymen, perhaps thinking the joke had been stretched to its outer limits, sent his career into meltdown. But worse was to come.

Targeted by Norwegian satirists, Kalvik was subjected to ridicule every week on national television. His response -- part Heather Mills, part Howard Hughes -- only exasperated the situation, driving him to the brink of suicide. Moore’s encounter with Kalvik on a sun-kissed beach in Thailand suggests the Norwegian is still running to escape his past.

At this point what Moore might have intended as a jolly jaunt through la-la-la land becomes something more of an exploration of the human psyche. Realising that he’s confronting human beings with their own failings, he abandons the idea of inviting them to reprise their losing songs. There’s only so much knife-turning a wound can take.

Initially, his subjects adopt an air of carefree insousiance. In Helsinki he meets an upbeat Kojo, who scored zero for Finland at the 1982 contest. These days Kojo manages a successful sports development company. But when the subject turns to that fateful night in Harrogate, storm clouds gather across Kojo’s face. “You know a sports match that finishes with no goals? You know what they call such a match here? A 'Kojo-Kojo'. This is what people say, even today, twenty-some years after."

No doubt, Gunvor Guggisberg harbours similar bitterness. In a classic tale of poppy-cropping, Moore charts Guggisberg's path from golden girl to national pariah. Even as it celebrated her selection as Switzerland’s 1998 Eurovision entrant, an unwholesome Swiss tabloid was preparing to dish the dirt on the singer’s past as a sex worker. A dismal result at Eurovision released a reservoir of revulsion, and subsequent attempts to rescue her sinking career have come to nothing.

Unsurprisingly, Guggisberg turns down Moore’s invitation to revisit her painful past. But even the no-shows can’t escape his Google-powered searchlight, and some thorough detective work reveals much about the post-zero lives of performers from Austria and Spain. There’s also the troubling suggestion that a Turkish singer’s failure to come to terms with failure may have led to his sudden death.

And so it continues: from Lisbon to Lithuania, Moore finds that scoring zero in Eurovision is rarely taken lightly. Even in the UK, which reserves special derision for Eurovision, Jemini’s point-less performance in 2003 provoked agonised hand-wringing. Meeting the likeable Liverpudlians, Moore learns that false economy, coupled with an anti-British backlash against the bombing of Iraq, sowed the seeds of a barren crop.

It’s not all gloom. Some artists, such as Iceland’s Daníel Ágúst and Tor Endresen from Norway (yes, again), have managed to airbrush Eurovision out of their biographies or to transcend defeat.

But for the most part, Nul Points is a catalogue of shattered dreams, failed relationships, boozing, bankruptcy and brothels. Amidst such a grim landscape, it’s a relief to find Moore’s customary sense of humour shining through, harnessed to his astounding way with words.

Towards the end, however, he does falter, inversing the running order of the UK and Icelandic entries in 1997 and incorrectly asserting that Switzerland have failed to qualify for every Eurovision final since 1998. But such lapses are not to be too harshly treated. After all, the oxygen-depleting experience of immersion in 50 years of Eurovision is enough to drain the most agile of brains.

Full marks for Nul Points.

Title: Nul Points
Author: Tim Moore
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Vintage Books; New Ed edition (June 5, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0099492970
ISBN-13: 978-0099492979

This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net , which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States, and to Boston.com.

Lists to Read Before You Die

2007-11-20T00:44:00.000-08:00

Charlie Brooker is The Guardian's very own grumpy old man. He's not very old, but he's very, very grumpy. This week's target is lists, especially those Lists of Things to Do Before You Die.

"The worst "before you die" lists, though, are the ones aimed at middle-class traveller types. These are infuriating for several reasons. First, the writers use them as an excuse to show off about how cultured and well-travelled they are, so there you get lots of entries like: "No 23: Eat Spicy Malaysian Street Food While Watching the Sun Set Over Tioman Island in the Company of Some of Your Brilliantly Successful Novelist Friends." The conceited worms are simply recounting incidents from their own cosseted, hateful little lives and holding them up as aspirational examples for us all. At first this strikes you as smug. Then you realise it's merely desperate. Who are they trying to impress, precisely? The Joneses? They're prancing around in front of an invisible mass of readers, nonchalantly cooing about how wonderful they are. It's 50 times more snivelling and undignified than any Z-list celebrity you care to mention stripping naked and inseminating a cow on a Bravo reality show. At least that's unpretentious."

I'm sure he feels the better for being able to offload his über-rants, and to be fair he does it really well. The feedback from his readers can be just as entertaining:

"So it's 'travellers' that get it on today's blog - Good!! What really narks me is when these people go on holiday (for a year) 'travelling' they come back like they are now a full Jedi Knight and they have seen things that only a few mere mortals get to see. My arguement is always the same - I HAVE A TELEVISION, I'VE SEEN THE PYRAMIDS, AND WITHOUT THE SMELL. I always ask whether they have been to Norwich, invariably they haven't, i then say well i've seen inside Norwich cathedral AND i've seen the pyramids on TV, so actually that makes me twice as cultured as you."

By coincidence, in Borders last night, I saw a book with a variation on this theme. With a cuddly panda and a majestic tiger on its cover, it's dedicated to endangered species. The title: 100 Animals To See Before They Die

Hard Times for the Hardback

2007-11-16T18:08:00.001-08:00

Picador has caused what some are calling a seismic change in the world of books. From next year, the UK's 8th largest book publisher will by-pass hardbacks and launch almost all of its new novels in paperback. Other publishers are expected to follow, although some aren't so sure:

"Kirsty Dunseath, publishing director of Weidenfield & Nicholson, said the move could lessen the prestige of the novels. "Coming out in hardback is a statement of confidence in a novel and gets the reviews," she said. "It doesn't say much for your confidence coming out in paperback. Anyway, £12.99 isn't such a high price to pay - you'd happily pay that for a CD."

My experience is that hardbacks are bulky, while paperbacks are a lot easier to carry round and to read on the move. And Dunseath's comment about price doesn't ring true with me. Most of the hardbacks I'd like to read are priced in the £15 - £20 range, and I'm usually happy to wait until the paperback version appears.

Of course, money is behind the move. Although booksellers have been discounting hardbacks, sales are still falling, while paperbacks continue to be best-sellers.

Dome Raider

2007-11-15T11:32:00.000-08:00

A much-hyped exhibition - Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs - opened this week at The O2 (formerly the ill-starred Millennium Dome) in London. But papier mache pillars and imposing muzak made Jonathan Jones wish he'd never bothered turning up.

This is a simulacrum of a serious exhibition. It makes real objects look and feel like fakes. It is artful in its meanness: there is just enough to silence complaint. There's an excellent choice of King Tut's jewellery, for example. But this is still just the garnish on the food. The food is not here. Art, as Ruskin said, should not be approached in dumb wonder - it is a human expression. The beauty of Tutankhamun's tomb does not consist in the sheer quantity of priceless items. It is about communicating with someone who died more than three millennia ago. The sadness, the loss of a young life, is so immediate. But here he becomes a lifeless nothing, a famous name. From his wooden statue you can almost hear him cry: "I'm the world's oldest celebrity -
get me out of here!"

Boris: Not Good Enough

2007-11-13T05:08:00.000-08:00

Boris Johnson has a new book of poetry out - The Perils of the Pushy Parents. I'd no intention of reading it, even before seeing this review by Stuart Jeffries.

The book concerns the Albacores, a family whose parents insist son and daughter should not watch telly. The da d, especially, is a crackpot who teaches his toddlers Zeno's paradox when they should be eating dirt and shanking each other with plastic cutlery. When Mr Albacore sees the pair watching TV, he takes action rendered thus by Johnson: "He'd zap the programme off and holler/ 'Go and read some Emile Zola.'" As you will notice, Johnson has a gift for assonance not heard since Alexander Pope wrote the Rape of the Lock (this will be the quote they use on the paperback edition - just see if it isn't). By which I mean, there are lots of duff rhymes.

And there's more:

You might well think I am being unfair and that, like Gordon Brown's loathing for David Cameron, there is an element of class hatred behind my bile. You got the second part right. I refuse to be charmed by this gaffe-prone berk (he lost his wedding ring within an hour of getting married), this inventor of quotations (for which he was fired from the Times), this witless calumniser of scousers, witless calumniser of Papua New Guineans, this bad novelist, this brazenly buffoonish poetic dabbler. It is important, as Byron recognised when he wrote English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (now that was a vibrant piece of satirical verse), that we castigate rubbish: "Degenerate Britons! Are ye dead to shame,/ Or, kind to dulness, do you fear to blame?" We deserve better than Johnson, certainly better than Johnson the oompa loompa, pouring his chocolatey goo into our Christmas stockings.

Norman Mailer: 1923-2007

2007-11-10T15:05:00.000-08:00

"He was a great American voice"
Joan Didion.

"He had such a compendious vision of what it meant to be alive. He had serious opinions of everything there was to have an opinion on and everything he said was so original."
William Kennedy

"He never thought the boundaries were restricted. He'd go anywhere and try anything. He was a courageous person, a great person, fully confident, with a great sense of optimism."
Gay Talese

"Each time he speaks he must become more bold, more loud, put on brighter motley and shake more foolish bells. Yet of all my contemporaries I retain the greatest affection for Norman as a force and as an artist. He is a man whose faults, though many, add to rather than subtract from the sum of his natural achievements.”
Gore Vidal

Mailer's greatest risk was to presume that writing — and writers — mattered. To argue with him was good sport. To dismiss him was to dismiss literature itself.
Hillel Italie, Associated Press.

Norman Mailer, Towering Writer With a Matching Ego, Dies at 84
New York Times

Katrina Recalled

2007-11-10T01:14:00.000-08:00

I haven't read any of James Lee Burke's books, yet. But I might take a look at his latest - The Tin Roof Blowdown, which is set in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina batters into the city.

On BBC Radio 4 this morning, Burke described Katrina as

"the worst scandal in American history....people drowned for three days while the most powerful men in this country were fishing." "There is no mystery to the human personality. Forget Freudian analysis, people are either what they do or what they don't do."

Burke's books reflect his native Louisiana,littered with corruption and
organised crime and set in its fevered climate and swamps. The state, he says, is a gift from God for a writer because the American past is replicated there as a microcosm.

"Look for the larger story in the smaller. Study one grain of sand to discover the nature of the coastline."

Banville as Black

2007-11-08T02:41:00.001-08:00

Interesting piece in today's Metro about John Banville's new novel. The Silver Swan is a break from his usual literary output. It's a thriller, based on something that happened in his local Dublin neighbourhood. Writing as Benjamin Black, Banville has set the novel in the 1950s, exposing the dark side of Ireland, where church and state ruled with a grimness rivalling regimes behind the Iron Curtain. Says Banville,

"Up until the mid-1950s, Ireland was absolutely lost in permafrost. We were ruled by an iron ideology and there were some utterly dreadful people in charge."

Adopting a different style seems to have helped Banville get back on track with the style which won him the Booker in 2005 for The Sea.

"...I wrote the Black books, which are all about character and plot, to give myself a bit of a kick. "
It seems to have worked - he's 6000 words into a new Banville novel, although he says that, for a writer, all that matters is writing the perfect line:

"Each time I sit down to write, I think of Bart Simpson inscribing on the blackboard "I must write a better sentence." And I'd sacrifice anything to get a sentence right."

The Thriller That Wasn't

2007-10-28T09:14:00.000-07:00

Before reading any of his books, I was all set to become a David Baldacci cheerleader. With twelve New York Times bestsellers to his name, 50 million books sold in 80 countries, plus glowing press and reader reviews, he seemed an ideal candidate to join my pantheon of favourite authors.

But then I read The Collectors

With a mixture of disappointment and disbelief, I ploughed through page after page, hoping that at some point it would turn into a thriller. But, far from the diamond-sharp dialogue and pacy plot I’d been expecting, the book turned out to be as thrilling as a damp dishcloth.

The main story surrounds an investigation by a group of conspiracy theorists into a death at the Library of Congress in Washington. Elsewhere, a gang of con-artists sets out to relieve a notorious mobster of his fortune. These plots intertwine and the rest of the book unravels the consequences.

So far, so good. But right from the start Baldacci’s clunky writing gets in the way of the story. In his world, people don’t just say things. They say them “bitterly” “solemnly“, “eagerly” “breathlessly“, or even “matter-of-factly”. This outbreak of adverbs is profoundly annoying, but it’s by no means the only problem with The Collectors.

The paper-thin characters are a mixture of the unremarkable and the unbelievable. Baldacci may have intended con-artiste Annabelle Conroy to come across as a clever and classy broad with a will of steel and a heart of gold. But before too long, I was tiring of this James Bond in tights. The reader is meant to gasp in wonder at her skulduggery and subterfuge as she takes the mean and the greedy for a ride. But how can we admire a character whose actions lead to the innocent getting killed? Or are we supposed to dismiss these casualties as collateral damage?

Meanwhile, the group of conspiracy theorists, known as the Camel Club, owe more to Hanna-Barbera than to Hitchcock. They’re not so much amateur detectives as shamateur defectives. Led by Oliver Stone (I kid you not), these misfits bumble their way across Washington with all the finesse of a herd of elephants on roller skates. Especially irritating is Caleb Shaw, the wimpy librarian. Baldacci gets exactly no prizes for fishing him out from the dressing-up box of tired old stereotypes.

As for the mobster, Jerry Bagger, he’s an unbelievably stupid pantomime villain. Far from masterminding his way to owning a string of casinos, a dodgy character like Bagger wouldn’t get past the doorman in my local Tesco.

With little of interest in terms of plot and character, the reader should at least have been able to admire the scenery. An attractively drawn map of Washington, D.C. on the first page suggests that this monumental city will play a significant part in the story. Yet, aside from passing references to the Mall and the White House, we might as well be in Grimsby. Even the magnificent Library of Congress, where much of the action (I use the word guardedly) takes place, is described in the most fleeting of terms.

Early on, we’re told that the Camel Club saved the world from Armageddon in a previous adventure. This incredible claim should have set alarm bells ringing, but I pressed on, expecting an eventual resolution to the story. But not in another book.

Baldacci couldn’t have been less subtle had he placed a photograph of a cash register on the final page, with a little banner declaring: “So long, suckers, see you in the sequel“. It was an appropriately fraudulent end to a so-called thriller that delivered not so much a tightness in my chest as a lightness in my wallet. Baldacci is on record as saying that he strongly identifies with Annabelle Conroy. Having conned me out of my hard-earned cash, I can say (truthfully, angrily, heatedly, furiously) that he’s well on the way to emulating his heroine.

Perhaps I was just unlucky. Other reviewers have claimed that this isn’t Baldacci at his best, and it could be this wasn't the right place to start on his books. But it’s definitely the right place to stop. Rather than risk another mugging, I’ll be steering clear of this particular author. From now on, my bookshelf is a Baldacci-free zone.

Title: The Collectors
Author: David Baldacci
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Pan Books; New Ed edition
Date: 2007
ISBN-10: 0330444085
ISBN-13: 978-0330444088

Up Against The Wall

2007-10-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

Nearly two decades since its demise, the Berlin Wall has largely faded from our thoughts. But Frederick Taylor's latest book revives memories of a time when it seemed the Wall would never fall. Much more than the biography of a barrier, Taylor's book profiles a structure that's had a lasting impact on individuals and families, statesmen and nations.

Taylor sets the scene with an invigorating sprint through Berlin's history, culminating in the defeat of the Nazis in 1945. With the Soviets occupying its eastern half, and American, French and British forces in the western sectors, Berlin was suddenly the embodiment of the post-war world's great divide. West Berliners had to come to terms with the additional shock of finding themselves on a capitalist island deep inside a Stalinist republic.

Before long, thousands of young East Berliners were streaming across the open border to take up better education and employment opportunities in West Germany. Watching with alarm, the über-zealous leader of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Walter Ulbricht, turned to Moscow for help. Compared to the sabre-rattling Ulbricht, Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev is depicted here as a model of restraint. Like John F. Kennedy, Khruschev was reluctant to see Berlin become a flashpoint for a third world war. But by 1961, two million East Germans had deserted their country and radical action was required.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in August 1961, East Germany suddenly closed its border with the West. In Berlin, first barbed wire and then concrete barriers appeared, prompting a wave of desperate escape attempts. It's here that Taylor's powers of narration come into their own as he relates the valiant and foolhardy bids for freedom. Some took to the icy waters of the river Spree, some crawled through sewer pipes, while others chose the no-less nerve-jangling route of crossing the frontier with forged papers. Moments of ingenuity are highlighted, such as the man who sped under the checkpoint barriers in a sports car. Others were not so lucky. After being shot by East German guards, eighteen-year-old Peter Fechter lay dying for an hour before his body was recovered just a wall's width from freedom.

Amid the tension and tragedy, there are some flashes of levity. Taylor recounts how Vice-President Lyndon Johnson arrived in West Berlin to boost morale in the days after the borders were closed. Following a hero's welcome and much pressing of the flesh, Johnson asked West Berlin Mayor, Willy Brandt about the possibility of shopping for some quality porcelain during his visit. Brandt apologetically explained that as it was a Sunday, the shops were closed. "Well, goddammit! What if they are closed", exclaimed the furious Texan. "You're the mayor, aren't you?" Johnson got his porcelain.

Despite public condemnation, the West privately acknowledged little could be done about the Berlin Wall. As mayor, Willy Brandt wrote an angry letter to Kennedy demanding a robust American response to the crisis. But as Chancellor of West Germany, Brandt adopted a more conciliatory stance with the GDR. Taylor observes that during the 1980s, even as a deep freeze set in between the superpowers, the thaw between the two Germanys continued. During a visit to West Germany in 1987, East German leader Erich Honecker allowed himself a rare moment of melancholy, suggesting the borders between the two countries were not as they should be. By this time, East and West Berlin were divided by a sophisticated system of barriers, traps and checkpoints of which "the Wall" formed only the final frontier. Escape attempts had dwindled, and it seemed as if the East Germans had finally come to terms with life under a grim, brutal regime. But something was stirring.

No-one was prepared for the speed with which events moved. On the night of November 9 1989. Mikhail Gorbachev, who had loosened Moscow's grip on its satellite states, slept soundly as thousands breached the Berlin Wall. Meanwhile, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, making a visit to Poland's new Solidarity government, discovered he was "dancing at the wrong wedding." Taylor's description of that night is enthralling. His minute-by-minute account captures the confusion surrounding a botched East German press conference and the subsequent euphoria at the newly-open border. Missing from this section, though, are the eyewitness accounts of ordinary Berliners which made the earlier chapters so vivid.

It might have been tempting for Taylor to end with jubilant Berliners dancing on territory where only hours earlier they would have risked being shot. But his final chapter, The Theft of Hope, examines the fallout from the Wall's fall. So successful had East Germany's ruling elite been in disguising the parlous state of their shambolic economy that Chancellor Kohl underestimated both the scale of reconstruction and the cost of making two Germanys one. East Germans themselves emerged blinking into the light of freedom, only to suffer effects familiar to the institutionalised. Cosseted by a cradle-to-grave welfare system, free education, full employment and little crime, they discovered the brave new world of capitalism had some nasty surprises in store.

However, Taylor finishes optimistically, noting that Berlin's city council is now governed by a coalition of reformed Communists and Social Democrats under the leadership of an openly gay mayor, while Germany itself is led by a Chancellor born in the GDR.

Taylor set himself a daunting task to follow his compelling book about the firebombing of Dresden. But, if anything, The Berlin Wall is even better. Gripping and authoritative, scholarly and highly readable, Taylor's latest work will appeal to all who enjoy a dose of drama with their history.

Title: The Berlin Wall
Author: Frederick Taylor
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; New Ed edition (3 Sep 2007)
Date: 2007
Language English
ISBN-10: 0747585547
ISBN-13: 978-0747585541

Multilingual Monday

2007-10-22T05:02:00.000-07:00

An article written entirely in Welsh appeared on The Guardian website last week, highlighting the decline of the language. Although the article had a link to the English version, it provoked some predictable ridicule.

"...wonder if Babelfish does Welsh"

"I doubt Babelfish could be bothered. I mean its not as if anything said in Welsh is likely to be important."

"Welsh? Oh, right. (puts away Klingon dictionary)"

"I once had a game of Scrabble where every set of letters I pulled from the bag looked like that."

But on a serious note:

"Most speakers are emotionally attached to their own language. The difference is that when your language is spoken by the majority, you don't need too much effort to "defend" it and therefore don't get angry about it very often. That's why it SEEMS that the English aren't that radical about English... As Artze, a Basque poet, once said:"Hizkuntza bat ez da galtzen ez dakitenek ikasten ez dutelako, dakitenek hitz egiten ez dutelako baizik"(A language is not lost because those that do not know how to speak it do not learn it, but because those that can speak it, do not use it). "

Polish Postings

2007-10-22T04:37:00.000-07:00

He’s off, again. Not content with spanning the globe, crossing the Sahara and scaling the Himalayas, Michael Palin’s on the road once more. This time, he’s in central and eastern Europe, travelling to places as diverse as Kiev and Kaliningrad.

Palin’s one of the jewels in the BBC crown. His engaging approach in these programmes – part innocent abroad, part have-a-go goon – has won him a following far beyond his native shores, and the accompanying books are instant best-sellers.

I've especially enjoyed this series because I've been to some of the places Palin visits - in recent weeks, he's been to Hungary and the Baltic republics. This week, the programme took him from the shores of northern Poland to the southern border with Slovakia and, like a Polish sausage, there was a lot squeezed into it. Palin makes it look easy, but it’s not every presenter who could carry off a show featuring an interview with Lech Walesa, a visit to Auschwitz and a walk-on part in a comedy cabaret. The Monty Python trouper took it all in his stride.

While thousands of people from Poland have travelled to find work in Britain in recent years, some Brits have made the journey in the opposite direction. In Warsaw, Palin met Kevin Aiston. Originally from London, Aiston moved to Poland in 1993 and is now a Warsaw firefighter. He’s also something of a local celebrity, regularly appearing on a morning tv show. The genial Londoner was generous in his description of his hosts and expressed the hope that Poles working in Great Britain might receive a similar welcome. Invited by Aiston to test his linguistic skills, Palin made a decent stab at the fiendishly difficult Polish language.

The lighter moments contrasted sharply with reminders of Poland’s tragic past. In Warsaw’s lovely old town square (completely rebuilt after 1945), Palin chatted with an attractive Polish journalist. She insisted that Poland was ever-conscious of history, but also keen to take its place in the modern world. Later, visiting Auschwitz, Palin was understandably low-key. Wisely, he let the piles of hair, suitcases and gas canisters speak for themselves.

After attending an exhilarating, exhausting village wedding, Palin sailed serenely out of Poland and into Slovakia, from where he will begin the final stage of his journey next week. In a weekend schedule dominated by sport and phone-in competitions, Michael Palin’s Polish passage was a horizon-broadening breath of fresh air.

Michael Palin's New Europe

Polish Postcript: 1

Palin’s meeting with Lech Walesa reminds me of a story about the former Polish president, which may or may not be true.

During a state visit to London, President Walesa was introduced to the Queen. Stumbling through his speech, he finally confessed, “I’m sorry, your majesty, I must polish my English. The Queen gave him a withering look. “No, Mr President. Your English is Polish enough.”

Polish Postcript: 2

Polish Prime Minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has lost today's general election. Having won a landslide victory, the Civic Platform Party will form the next government. Kaczynski's aggressive nationalism has been abrasive abroad and divisive at home. His twin brother, Lech, still has three years of his presidency to run, but may find it harder to deal with this muscular new government.

This Book Won't Save My Life

2007-10-21T07:44:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading A. M. Homes' This Book Will Save Your Life. Some of the reviews I've read about it are almost embarrassingly crouching in their adoration. "Funny and engaging... "packed with unexpected pleasures" says The Guardian, and, from what I can make out, The New York Times loved it too. Stephen King says "it could be come a generational touchstone, like Catch-22 or The Catcher in the Rye."

But The Washington Post seems more tuned into my way of thinking about it:

This tepid satire about modern America begins with Richard Novak, a wealthy day trader, having a panic attack and being rushed to the hospital with "incredible pain" all over his body: "He lay there realizing how thoroughly he'd removed himself from the world or obligations, how stupidly independent he'd become: he needed no one, knew no one, was not part of anyone's life. He'd so thoroughly removed himself from the world of dependencies and obligations, he wasn't sure he still existed."

That existential crisis could lead to great pathos or great comedy, but over the next 300 pages, Richard meanders through a series of chance encounters, reaching out with new interest and generosity to strangers who never become much more than their costumes. There's the Middle Eastern owner of a donut shop, the housewife crying in the grocery store, the handsome movie star, the reclusive '60s novelist. Richard befriends them all with low-key good cheer and somehow manages to change his life completely with about as much effort as I've expended switching shampoos.

I can only agree. If I'd bought a few of the delicious-looking donuts that appear on the book's cover, my money would have been better spent.

School Outing

2007-10-21T07:39:00.001-07:00

From New York comes the news that one of the characters in the Harry Potter books is gay. Responding to a question during a US book tour, JK Rowling revealed the sexuality of Dumbledore, the Hogwarts headmaster.

"Dumbledore is gay," she said, adding he was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, who he beat in a battle between good and bad wizards long ago. The audience gasped, then applauded. "I would have told you earlier if I knew it would make you so happy," she said."

A spokesman for gay rights group Stonewall said:

"It's great that JK has said this. It shows that there's no limit to what gay and lesbian people can do, even being a wizard headmaster."

Is it me, or is someone having a problem distinguishing fantasy from reality?

Alan Coren, RIP

2007-10-21T07:35:00.001-07:00

Alan Coren's passing on Friday has rightly been marked by many tributes. One of the nicest was from Eve Pollard:

"He was warm and funny; witty, clever, kind and a brilliant journalist," she said. "It's very hard to realise now how his earlier pieces caught the zeitgeist. He had a wonderful voice. "He was a dear friend. When you walked into a room and saw Alan, you'd immediately think 'this is not going to be boring'.He was a life-enhancer."

His son, Giles, once described his father's secret for good writing:

"When I was about 11, I would always go to my dad and say, 'What shall I write?' "He would always say,'Whatever the first thing that comes to your head, don't write that because that's what everyone will write. When the second idea comes into your head, don't write that either because that's what the bright kids will write. "Wait for the third idea, because that's the one that only you will do."