Daughter of Eden

Daughter of Eden, Chris Beckett

An unfaultable return to Dark Eden by Chris Beckett. Revisiting richly-drawn characters from Mother of Eden, and playing up the role of storytelling in building the social fabrics of the Davidfolk and Johnfolk, Daughter of Eden is a worthy successor to its predecessor novels. Remarkable both for its presentation of a neo-stone age society and an exceptionally thought-through alien ecology. Highly recommended, though I fear it's the last visit to the remote, alien Eden and its band of displaced and struggling characters.

Annihilation

Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer

My second book from @mrbsemporium and what a good book it was. I don't usually go for psychological horror or distorted reality, but this book held me from the get-go. In part because it played its mystery well (easy when the Southern Reach sequels bear that load), in part because its protagonist was a biologist, but mostly because it's just so well written. As well as handling its weirdness with aplomb, it realistically fleshes out its protagonist's reflections on her predicament and how she came to be there. I'll definitely be seeking out its successor volumes.

The Collapsing Empire

The Collapsing Empire, John Scalzi

A fast, fun read set in a vast trading empire reliant on a cosmological force known as the Flow. As the Flow shifts and cuts off whole solar systems, the empire, and its squabbling guilds, belatedly face down the barrel of calamity. It can easily be read as a fable about climate change, but the author - a new one to me - is mostly having fun with an amiable cast in an imperial setting. I'll definitely be following him up.

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, Brady Udall

Rambling, quirky to a fault, massively overlong - but not much of a miracle. It's a seemingly ambitious tale of an Apache child runover by a postal worker, abandoned by his parents, and consigned to abusive health- and social-care authorities. But its incoherence, mishandling of characters, overconfident stylistic florishes, and unjustified length just make it a big old slog. It's not terrible, but it's not an orphan I'd recommend making space in your home for.

Icehenge

Icehenge, Kim Stanley Robinson

A great triptych of linked novellas telling the stories of doomed revolution on Mars, a break for interstellar space, archaeology in ruined Martian cities, an enigmatic monument on Pluto (the eponymous Icehenge), and unravelling the secrets of a reclusive Saturnian businesswoman. Refracted nicely through the prism of autobiography and the limits of memory.

Mr. B's Emporium

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, Brady Udall

My @mrbsemporium reading subscription starts here ... with a book I've (very pleasingly) never heard of!

Revenger

Revenger, Alastair Reynolds

A welcome, if unexpected, return to form for Alastair Reynolds. A whole new story, in a whole new subgenre (pirate-SF fusion), set in a whole new universe (and what a universe!), and all wrapping up sufficiently in one volume. I expect he'll be back to raid it again (appropriately enough), but as this is his best in several years, it deserves it.

Virtual Light

Virtual Light, William Gibson

An ostensible classic, but one whose great ideas get lost at times in Gibson's deliberately obscurantist prose. Even by the end, the full nature of the MacGuffin was a bit hazy - and what I could see of it didn't seem to justify the events it set moving.

This Is How You Lose Her

This Is How You Lose Her, Junot Díaz

This Is How You Lose Her, a most excellent - if philandering - read

Poseidon's Wake

Poseidon's Wake, Alastair Reynolds

A disappointing conclusion to a minor trilogy by Reynolds. Stuffed full of boring or annoying characters, dulled by long-winded step-by-step plotting, and rendered immediately forgettable by the squandering of its own mysteries. None of which is helped by its packaging up of a basic fact of life ( = the universe is meaningless and finite) as a much-talked-about plot device, The Terror. Douglas Adams did that much better - and much funnier - with his Total Perspective Vortex.

The Twentieth Day Of January

The Twentieth Day Of January, Ted Allbeury

A trashy - but surprisingly Trump-prescient - 1980s spy thriller. Eminently quotable at the moment - though, compared to the book, the ending in reality is proving a lot less satisfying ...

War Factory

War Factory, Neal Asher

Trashy sci-fi - what I've come to expect (and secretly enjoy) from Asher.

Mother Of Eden

Mother Of Eden, Chris Beckett

A birthday book ticked off - "Mother of Eden". The best kind of science fiction - compelling, allegorical, credible but boundlessly imaginative.

I Capture The Castle

I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith

Finally finished this gem after having it for 4 years (a World Book Night present from my old Warwick friend, Ruth). Really enjoyable, and difficult not to fall in love with its lead, Cassandra (as I'm sure its writer, Dodie Smith, intended).

Dear Jeremy

[Sent in response to a rallying "united we stand ..." missive from JC]

Dear Jeremy,

Thank you for your message. I agree strongly with the sentiment – we do need to be united. However, being united needs to apply more broadly than the Labour Party’s base. And appealing to the wider British public requires a recognition and engagement with the issues that they – rightly or wrongly – consider serious. In the recent referendum that you mention, your leadership of the Labour Party ignored this engagement. It preferred instead to focus on a message that clearly had no traction with the wider public and with, in particular, the Party’s historic base. With such a narrow loss of the referendum (a less than 5% swing of Leavers would have done it), it is difficult not to conclude that your leadership – or the lack thereof – is, at least in part, a contributing factor. For an issue as central to the progressive cause as EU membership this is completely unacceptable. Your leadership at this time has helped undercut the very livelihood and future of our young – among whom are the core constituents of the Momentum organisation that supports you. While you may very well be successful at rallying these very people, you should reflect on how your actions have helped to disenfranchise them. Being united means reaching out beyond the base, and you are doing nothing to achieve this. Again, please reflect on your actions.

[signed]

A new toy

[A posted review of my new toy]

This is my third Windows Phone (Lumia 800 to Lumia 925 to Lumia 950), and each iteration has - in my experience - been better than the last.

I delayed upgrading from my Lumia 925 because there appeared to be some downsides with Windows 10 Mobile (namely that it seemed to be a work-in-progress), but in the end I needn't have worried. While it's not perfect, it's a solid step upwards with only a few deficiencies relative to Windows Phone 8.1. The only noticeable glitches I've seen so far are occasional - and temporary - freezes, where it feels like the phone may be waking up (a legacy of W10M's origin with W10 on desktop PCs?), and the app-killing interface being slow - though this has the feel of being designed-in (= a future fix?) rather than an actual glitch. In any case, as W10M shares the kernal of W10, I would expect that Microsoft will be giving W10M much better and more consistent support than it did WP8.1 (which was still a pretty great OS).

As for the phone itself, the only downside is that its body - wholly plastic rather than part metal - is a little less premium, though I was well aware of this aspect before purchasing. The rest of the hardware is great, with a great screen (including Glance and fantastically dark blacks), an excellent camera (though this has been the case with Lumias since the start), a replacable battery (no equivalent in Lumia 925), an expansion slot (no equivalent in Lumia 925) and a much zippier GPS sensor (judging from the performance of the sat-nav app). As the camera has also been slightly repositioned, it's also nice to finally be able to use some little lenses that I've got with it (and, finally, a selfie stick).

One brand new feature worth a mention is so-called Continuum. This lets you plug the phone into a small dock and then connect it to a monitor or TV (e.g. via HDMI), and then use it as if it was a PC. While not all of the apps work in this framework, a lot do, and it has potential if you don't want to lump around a laptop or tablet computer. One of the most convincing things I've done with this is access and interact my desktop computer via the TeamViewer app - this works just brilliantly. If you're a business user, it's worth seeking out a demonstration of this feature, as it's really quite unique. (I should quickly add that the dock isn't free - unless, that is, you're able to take advantage of the same Microsoft deal that I was!)

While the app gap remains (if this bothers you; it probably doesn't by now if you're with Windows), it feels slightly narrower with W10M, and I've noticed upgrades with certain apps that never made it to my Lumia 925 (e.g. Instagram, sat-nav). Most of the apps that I used on WP8.1 on my Lumia 925 seem to have transitioned well to W10M, and I've found a few nice new ones to fill some minor gaps. The only omission I've felt so far is that the post-Nokia sat-nav app - while great, and much faster than before - doesn't appear to have the traffic function of its Nokia precursor.

Anyway, overall, I'd really rate this phone. It's not perfect, but no phone I've used is. And the unique interface that attracted me to Windows in the first place still stands out (and is pretty much better than ever). But be aware that the body isn't quite so premium as earlier models, and that the app gap hasn't much changed. But if you can overlook these relatively minor downsides, it's a definite step up from previous models.

Is it just me, or are there a lot of dead celebrities at the moment?

If nothing else, 2016 is shaping up as a bumper year for dead celebrities. At the moment, it feels like you can't listen to the radio or turn on the television without hearing of the death of some luminary. It probably started with Bowie. Unexpected both because of his relatively slight age (69) as well as his then-recent album release. But since then a litany of famous figures have popped their clogs. Earlier this week, we had a double whammy, with Ronnie Corbett and Zaha Hadid joining the choir invisible on the same day.

So, is this a real thing? Or is it just my perception and bad memory that make it feel like there are a lot more famous dead people right about now? And leaving aside this first order question by assuming the affirmative, what could explain the seeming upswing in reported mortality of musicians, artists, comedians, architects, and so on?

There is obviously a sensible, analytical route to the answer based on careful study of media reporting of expired stars in previous years. But I'm too lazy for that, so am going to stick to baseless speculation and armchair argument. To wit, I'm assuming that I'm right about the numbers - and why wouldn't I do that? - and focusing instead on what's behind it all. Or what could be behind it all if I'm honest.

The simplest explanation is that, as time passes, we should expect to hear of more celebrity deaths simply because the human population of Earth - and, presumably, that of human celebrities (we don't know any alien ones yet) - is still very much on the up.

A more conspiratorial explanation is that the contrasting costs of proper journalism and lazy, echo chamber journalism, mean that when filling a news schedule, the temptation is focus on easily-assembled items on dead famous people. Go to the clips archive, ring a few of their upset friends, job done. However, I'm going to discount this one since - being a BBC fanboy - I'm pretty sure that this can't cover all the bases (although I'm still suspicious of how the media picks topics to cover).

A further explanation - and my favourite - is that the dominant factor is that we now have many more celebrities per head of population than we did in the past, and that we should expect this to occur. Essentially, with the advents of mass publishing, radio, cinema, television and now the internet, there are now far more routes by which everyday people can be elevated to the realms of celebrity. That is, to have some sort of following beyond that of the people they know and interact with (let's not get sniffy about "celebrity"). And then, ipso facto, the population of people in the public consciousness - and that of their obituaries - will inevitably rise.

In essence, this is a corollary of Andy Warhol's famous / infamous statement concerning "15 minutes of fame".

Of course, all of this is wholly based on idle speculation on my part, and I certainly won't be following it up to work out how wrong I am - and why would I do that? But I am still interesting in knowing if this really is "a thing", or if it really is "just me".

The BBC respondeth ...

Further to an earlier rant, I actually got a response from the BBC. And one where they actually half-agreed with me - which is more than I got when I complained about the excreable ''The Great Global Warming Swindle''. As they say, it's true that the BBC does "stick to the script" on climate change almost all of the time, but they overlook how damaging it is to go "off piste". Both to general public understanding of the non-debate that is climate science (actually, there's no shortage of debate - just not of the baseless "sceptic" sort), and to their reputation as factual broadcasters. Yes, there's a superficial sense in which it's "balanced" to present climate sceptic views, but only when the nature of that balance is plain. One doesn't see many science programmes that counter geologists with creationists, or medical scientists with HIV-deniers, or even historians with holocaust-deniers, but somehow climate change is fair game for this sort of treatment - despite both its science base and its potentially disastrous implications the world over. Anyhow, this is what they had to say ...

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Dear Andrew

Reference CAS-3433921-5SPGSZ

Thanks for contacting us about What’s the Point of...The Met Office? broadcast on 5 August.

In What's the Point of ...?, Daily Mail columnist Quentin Letts questions the continued relevance of British traditions and institutions, with an irreverent approach offering alternatives to well-established views. There is a long tradition on Radio 4 of columnists having licence to explore controversial subjects from a personal viewpoint and the light hearted tone of this series allows Quentin Letts to question even the most admired of organisations. Nevertheless we accept that in this episode about the Met Office, while there are legitimate questions to be raised about the accuracy of long-term predictions over the past 10-15 years and funding, the programme should have been more clear about where the balance of the argument currently lies on climate change and, in particular, would have benefitted from clarifying that the Met Office’s underlying views are in line with the scientific consensus.

The omission on these points is regrettable. Climate change is a recurrent theme on Radio 4 programmes and more mainstream views have been, and will continue to be, properly reflected in our output - for example, the following day’s BBC Inside Science included an interview referring to how the release of carbon dioxide may have had a significant effect on the atmosphere and this week’s Fry’s English Delight on weather also reflects the scientific consensus.

We do appreciate this feedback and your concerns have been sent to the programme team, and senior BBC management via our daily report, which means they have been seen by the right people.

Thank you for taking the time to bring this matter to our attention and giving us the opportunity to review it.

Kind regards

Ciaran Hanna

BBC Complaints www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

Yours, Seething in Southampton ...

While I've come to expect misrepresentation of science from the likes of Channel 4, the BBC is typically the sanest of media commentators. So it was something of a surprise when one of their long-running (but, hitherto, unlistened to by me) programmes took unwarranted pot shots at that bastion of UK climate science, the Met Office. The programme, "What is the point of ...?", ostensibly takes to task long-standing and seemingly venerable institutions, with the aim of cutting to the core of whether they're out of touch or even a nuisance. While there are many reasons to ponder how the Met Office fits into the modern world, what the programme served up did nothing to address this. Cue a "Seething from Southampton" shot across the BBC's bows ...

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Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to complain about the Radio 4 broadcast “What is the Point of the Met Office?” (5th August 2015).

As a long-standing part of the British establishment, one whose work features in both our daily lives (the weather) and the longer-term fate of the Earth (climate change), the Met Office is ripe for an evaluation of both its role and its performance in this role, and I tuned in to the programme hoping for such an appraisal. However, rather than investigating how well the Met Office actually performs in its role (e.g. how accurate it is, whether this accuracy has improved with time, is this level of accuracy cost-effective), the programme makers instead chose the lazy journalism route of setting “climate sceptic” cranks onto meek and mild Met Office spokespeople.

We first had an amateur meteorologist who, while noting the complexity of climate science, seemed inexplicably interested in replacing computers with humans in matters of weather prediction. Next up was Piers Corbyn, brother of the currently newsworthy Jeremy, a fellow of the not-showing-my-working school of weather prediction, and a long-term opponent of non-sunspot-related climate change. This was all topped off by the Rt. Hon. Peter Lilley, spouting as fact the ridiculous claim that climate change stopped in 2004 – something that would come as a surprise to all of the jobbing scientists far outside the Met Office who make it their job to measure and analyse the Earth’s climate.

There are plenty of reasons to wonder whether a large, centralised and bureaucratic “weather service” still has a place in the modern world, but these simply weren’t touched on in this programme. When privatisation was raised, it was less in the context of whether it could actually work, and more in the service of a threat to rein in the Met Office’s climate projection work. But rather than investigate whether said projections were outlandish as claimed, the programme boiled down to the usual climate sceptic bluster which any fact-checker could easily have punctured. Did it not, for instance, even occur to the programme makers to check whether the Met Office’s climate projections lie outside the range of those of their international peer organisations? (They don’t – as recent IPCC reports show.)

By way of summary, “What is the Point of ‘What is the Point of …?’” was my final thought about this programme. This edition was my first time with this programme, and will doubtless be my last. A listener hitherto unaware of what the Met Office did, or how well it did it, would most likely exit the programme with the view that it (a) blows money on seemingly expensive computers, and (b) produces extreme “doomsday” predictions to justify its continued existence. As such, it left me thinking that, if one can’t trust the programme on institutions which deal with scientific matters that can easily be fact-checked, how can one possibly trust it on those where the arguments for and against are more qualitative and open to interpretation.

Yours faithfully ...

Please note: For full disclosure, while I do not work at or for the Met Office, my work as a professional oceanographer does involve periodic collaboration with fellow researchers there, including with climate projection.

Referendum 2014, #indyref

Or: A southern Northerner looks north

In just a week's time, my home for the first half of my life will be voting on whether it should secede from my home for the second half of my life. Before the result is known, I thought that it might be a useful exercise for me to record my views on such a momentous subject. In no small part so that I can't rewrite my personal history in the future to suit the outcome of the referendum vote. But also because it's a subject that's probably exercised most Scots across most of their lives to some degree. As such, opinionated I most certainly am.

So, where to start? I suppose the obvious place is "which way would I vote?". Which is perhaps not-so-obvious since, as a long-time resident of England, I don't actually have a vote [*1]. But glossing over this mere technical detail, what's my overall take on the question at the heart of the rapidly-approaching referendum: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" I'd like to be able to say that I'm somewhat ambiguous on the subject, that I can see and appreciate that it's not a simple question, but, quibbles asides, I'm firmly in the "No, thanks" camp.

A big part of this for me is that my gut reaction to expressions of nationalism of any stripe is to suspect (and usually find) bigoted small-mindedness. Or, worse, malevolent insularity and racism. This is exactly how I feel about English nationalism - that has always struck me as a veil shielding underlying National Front-esque racism. I don't see Scottish nationalism in anywhere near the same way [*2], but I do still find that this is often cloaked (credit where credit's due: it's not hidden) in transparently ridiculous anti-English sentiments. Either way, nationalism for me is always to be treated suspiciously.

A larger part can simply be bracketed under the heading "Identity". When I was young, Scotland's relative insularity and resulting homogeneity meant that it was actually difficult for me to identify what being Scottish actually meant - I was simply constantly awash in it. By the time I was old enough to see further afield, all I could see of Scottish identity was an anti-English, chip-on-its-shoulder attitude that was pretty far from progressive (though some of this was understandable under the evil Iron Lady). Going first to university in Scotland, and then to England itself (by way of a formative stint in Los Angeles), exposed me to much more diversity and gave me more perspective, as well as the realisation (rightly or wrongly) that my values were more broad British than provincial Scots [*3]. And down the years this has stuck - quite possibly in no small measure because I've been south of Hadrian's Wall for so long.

By "identity" here, I'm thinking of the whole gamut, rather than the minutiae. So cultural touchstones like literature, cinema and art, in which I discern variability but certain common threads across the United Kingdom. The BBC, as a specific example, looms large on this front (melodramatically, I might even say I'd die for this National Treasure were it not for the likes of Strictly). But I'd also include the gloomy, sarcastic, ironic sense of humour of the UK - again, it varies, but it also unifies (even if the Scottish variety can be a bit more sweary). There's simply something reassuring to me that two people from opposite ends of Britain can agreeably moan on about the Tories, the trains or how the former is running the latter (not to mention the NHS) into the ground [*4].

A deeper part of this - again, for me, your mileage may vary - is what we think of when we think of "history". More or less everything that I think of under this is the modern history of the UK as a whole. And I'm not just thinking of the "admirable" bits like WW2 - to me, Britain's malign history as an imperial power is at least as an important part of things too [*5]. All of it binds the whole of the United Kingdom together, and it's not possible (for me, at least) to credibly think of separate pasts for England and Scotland. True, there's what I call "Braveheart history", over-emphasised in high school [*6], but it relates to a past that's simply too remote and too alien relative to the present-day to have any real meaning for it. In short, when I think of national history, I think of British history, for better and for worse.

A more minor part of my "Better Together" [*7] sentiments stems from the fact that I simply abhor secessionism. In a world blithely walking into a climatically-compromised Anthropocene age, few organisational things strike me as more stupid than having to put more chairs around the table when things are getting sorted out. As such, the proposed secession of Scotland from the United Kingdom seems unlikely to facilitate any efforts in global governance. Not, of course, fatally (splitting the UK isn't like splitting the US would be), but a complication that the world would arguably be better off without [*8]. This is, of course, allied to my unfashionable One World State views, so can be discounted as such.

A related reductio ad absurdum I'd make is why not continue seceding all the way down to the region, town, family, individual? Take Thatcher at her word, decry "Society", and continue devolving further. Of which, I can't help but raise an eyebrow at the stifling - by no less than the Scottish Parliament itself - of an attempt (admittedly by some cranks) for a further referendum aimed at separating (oil-rich) Orkney and Shetland from the Scottish mainland. What's good enough for the goose ...

Leaving aside these mere feelings about the place of Scotland within the United Kingdom, I'm sure most of us with a dog in this race have also considered practicalities. As reports on the news (the BBC, naturally) have been constantly been reporting, it is, however, difficult to work out how these stack up. There are simply too many if ... then ... else loops in the wider economy for anyone to be sure. Chances are, Scotland can almost certainly make a good fist of it - plenty of other similarly-sized countries do. But, equally, it's difficult not to see dark clouds such as demography, currency confusion [*9], stranded assets and nervous investors as being at least on the horizon. And just because there are already successful countries of the same size, it doesn't follow that Scotland can immediately transition into one of them. What if it takes decades? Anyway, where people fall on the hope-fear axis is liable to steer their decisions on this score. And I do think it would be wrong to focus too much on the fear side - always leaning this way would stop one getting out of bed in the morning.

Anyway, this is rambling on far too long (no change there then ...). I've other, lesser grumbles, not to mention some bitterness at the thought of my fellow Scots cutting and running and leaving us stuck with harder-to-dislodge Tories (on which particular point, I think Irvine Welsh's excellent essay puts me in my place), but it's hardly helpful discussion or constructive criticism. In a week the truth will out. If "no", then I'll be a little bit relieved, and will be hoping that the nationalists take defeat gracefully and wait a generation before revisiting secession again. If "yes", well, things will be interesting. But it's not for nothing that the saying "May you live in interesting times" is viewed as a curse.

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[*1]: Which I'm totally OK about - I haven't lived in Scotland for more than 20 years now (though have probably racked up more than 6 months there in that time). But there's a little bit of me niggled at the possibility of having my nationality changed underneath me.

[*2]: In part, I suspect that the key difference here is that Scottish nationalism is not a minority pursuit. As such, its racists (and there are some) are completely diluted out. Meanwhile, English nationalism has been associated with racists for so long (decades?) that it's at the point that racism is basically assumed (English Defence League anyone?), and it thankfully languishes as a niche pursuit.

[*3]: Which is not to say that England doesn't have its own provincialism to deal with, or that Britain is necessarily always broad in its outlook. There are plenty of recent and not-so-recent examples to the contrary.

[*4]: The NHS itself is highly symbolic of unity across Britain. For most people, much more so than the BBC. And the attitude that accompanies the NHS, namely that only nations of savages would do without such a shining beacon (that, to be fair, occasionally requires polishing), is also - for me - a hallmark of national unity.

[*5]: Skeletons in our national closet, while embarrassing to say the least, are useful reminders of the limits and follies of national pride. There's something dislikeable about cultures that gloss over their shortcomings, that prize a muscular patriotism over the harbouring of occasional self-doubts. Scotland, if it does become independent, needs to be wary of this. The campaign has, at times, brought out a lot of alpha-male posturing on the assumed magnificence and exceptionalism of Scotland.

[*6]: Of Braveheart itself, well, I can't let this pass by unremarked. Less so, because of its ghastly (and intermittently inaccurate) hagiography of the life and times of William Wallace, but more because the film has become a grubby touchstone for a particularly unthinking form of nationalism. Without wishing to be rude about Scotland's heroes, I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't recognise the modern nations of Scotland or England, or empathise with the disgruntlement of contemporary nationalists. They'd probably mostly be wondering about where their servants were. Much as England is about the Magna Carta, there's a lot of weight put on history that has only a tangential bearing on our world today.

[*7]: Who came up with this? Admittedly, selling the status quo is difficult at the best of times (hope beats fear), but this just sounds crass.

[*8]: I will, of course, draw a veil over Scotland's role in future climate change measures when its balance book appears to be relying on oil money to keep on an even tiller, and when its nationalist demagogues decry nuclear power.

[*9]: This seems a tricky one to me. Sure, Scotland can keep the pound, but what's the point of being independent if your economy is at the mercy of decisions made elsewhere? Admittedly, this is arguably not dissimilar to the situation Scotland's in now anyway, but there'd be little incentive in the future for said decisions-made-elsewhere to factor it in at all after independence. Plus, how wise is it to use the same currency as your much larger neighbour that you've possibly just pissed off?