28 June, 2010
Denise's anniversary flowers
22 June, 2010
Good day yesterday
Got all the weeds cleared from the patios; started clearing the broken glass from the gravel on the greenhouse base; the electrician came & installed power & lights in my new BIG shed, and I had a nice few holes of golf with Alan from next door. I even hit a few good shots!
Another new toy!
20 June, 2010
7.25 miles on a bike
Well, with a bit of a break in the middle, when we took our reward in the form of a pint at the Elm Tree pub in Livingston village. I'm using a cleated shoe on my false leg, which holds my foot in place brilliantly. I'd been using toe-clips, but they don't stop my foot from twisting on the pedal so that my heel catches on the pedal crank, which in turn knocks my foot out of the toe-clips & off the pedal. Cleats hold my foot in line as well as on the pedal, and these are "multi-release" ones, which means you can release your foot by twisting it EITHER inwards OR outwards, rather than outwards only, like conventional cleats. Twisting outwards is very difficult with the artificial leg, so this system makes life very much easier. Another step forwards! Just need to sort out my fitness now ...
17 June, 2010
Denise on her way to a Personal Best in the Peebles Triathlon
This posting just proves how useless I'd be on Twitter: it's now Thursday and I'm just posting this from last Sunday ...
What I'm reading now (amended)
As always I have several things on the go, and despite not working, don't give myself a lot of time to read. There's always stuff going on! OK, ok, mainly flight simming, which can suck up hours from your day, and watching films I've recorded.
For the moment, I don’t have any history books on the go, but I have a few unread volumes in the bookcase that I’m looking forward to reading. Mostly gloomy stuff, so that’s quite appropriate right now. To cheer myself up, I’m also slowly working my way through Pete McCarthy’s McCarthy’s Bar, about trying to recapture the atmosphere of family visits to Ireland as a young lad growing up in Warrington, Cheshire. Claims of “I’m Irish, you know” are met with scepticism: “well, you don’t sound Irish.” Another Englishman, ashamed of his heritage, trying to claim a more acceptable Celtic one, methinks. The book’s about 10 years old, now, and I don’t know if it’s still available, but I think Denise bought it, and I never got round to reading it until I was rooting around for something to read and spotted it in the bookcase. I’m finding it very enjoyable, but I maybe should have read it a while ago, when I could remember what it was like in 1999 …
The other thing I’m reading is My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. Not read any Wodehouse before, but it was a free download on one of the electronic book websites, so I thought I’d have a go. Quite amusing collection of short stories, but they do get a bit repetitive. Not all the stories feature Jeeves and Wooster, but that doesn’t seem to bother the TV companies. I read one of the non-Jeeves and Wooster stories in the book, and remembered seeing it on TV with Jeeves and Wooster (played by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie) replacing the characters as written.
I've always read science fiction. As a kid I got bored with children's fiction, and ironically, couldn't stretch my credulity enough to believe that four kids and a dog could outwit a gang of international art thieves, etc. etc. My first introduction to 'speculative fiction' was The Hobbit dramatised on the radio, and from there went on to reading the book, and The Lord of the Rings. Although I enjoyed LOTR, and still do (I re-read it every couple of years or so), I pretty soon realised that I wasn’t all that interested in the Fantasy end of the genre, and moved on to‘hard’ science fiction, having discovered two very different masters in Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke. Current favourite authors are Iain M. Banks (still going strong!) and Charles Stross. I've just realised that both these guys are Scots! Well, well!
Bookshops like WH Smith, and Waterstone always lump science fiction and fantasy together in a single section, and sometimes throw horror in for good (or bad) measure. This is annoying to me, not only because they are very different genres (and you might as well throw detective fiction in there as well, as another form of speculative fiction), but also because I have to wade through all the stuff I’m not interested in to find something to read. It’s not as if any of the fantasy stuff is any good. As a rule it is formulaic sword and sorcery, which, at best, passes the time. As a result, I long ago took to reading the short form for preference, through periodicals such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (which at least tended to steer clear of Sword & Sorcery in the favour of some much more thoughtful and thought provoking work), Analog and Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. As these became very difficult to get hold of on the magazine stall, even through a regular order, I started downloading them in electronic book form to read on my pocket PC. It seemed appropriate to read science fiction on a pocket PC – a bit Star Trekky (not that Star Trek is science fiction).
Which brings me back to the topic of this piece: what I am reading now. I had been subscribing to the electronic version of Asimov’s, but there are a couple of issues around reading from an electronic device: the screen is all but unreadable in full sunlight (usually OK on a typical overcast day, but not in the sun), and the problem of battery life. Of course, the printed page also has problems around lighting: you can’t read in the dark! Because of the nature of my eyesight (keratoconus, if you want to know), I find it hard to read unless the page is lit with just the right intensity of light: I just can’t focus in low light levels, and in full sunlight, reading from the printed page is just as difficult for me as reading from an electronic screen.
The titles I referred to above are all American publications, and are difficult to obtain in their print editions in this country without taking out a subscription, which includes a hideously expensive postage fee from the country of origin. So I had a look around for something better. Years ago I had read and enjoyed an anthology of stories published in a British magazine called Interzone; so remembering this, last year I tried to see if it was still going, and if I could get hold of it. Following an internet search, I tracked it down and subscribed to it for a year’s issues.
I was surprised to see, when it arrived, that it was in a standard magazine format (albeit rather slim). Most of the magazines I’ve had were about the format of a hardback or trade paperback book, with about half the number of pages. The exception was the New English Library’s Science Fiction Monthly from the mid 1970s, which was about the format of a tabloid newspaper and had as much emphasis on the artwork as the fiction. The pages were large enough to be put on the wall as posters. I remember having one from Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers showing a huge starship trailing hundreds of marines in their drop-suits (half space-suit, half landing-ship!) as they dropped to the ground to fight the aliens. The story was loosely adapted to make the blockbuster movie of the same name in 1997.
Looking at the stories in Interzone, I thought they must be very short: but not a bit of it. The word count is the same as in the other magazines, with just as many stories. Although there are a few overseas writers, the majority of them are British, which is good, because the science fiction scene here is very strong indeed at the moment, and a lot of British writers are getting published by the big American mags. I was worried that the American money might limit which writers Interzone could attract, but I needn’t have been worried: the writing is of the very highest standard. Interzone also publishes reviews of book, TV, film and Blu-ray / DVD releases, and the good thing about this is that they are all relevant to the UK market, which is a breath of fresh air after reading reviews in the American mags for items that I couldn’t get hold of. I really enjoy the stories published in Interzone, and it's nice to have a printed page in my hand after all that digital stuff for years. Not that I've changed my mind about digital publishing. I still think that it's a tremendous way to access literature, but sometimes, for relaxation, it's nice to turn a for-real page. Asimov's was going downhill since Sheila Williams took over as editor anyway: only one issue in three was any good all the way through. Change is good, anyway.
For the moment, I don’t have any history books on the go, but I have a few unread volumes in the bookcase that I’m looking forward to reading. Mostly gloomy stuff, so that’s quite appropriate right now. To cheer myself up, I’m also slowly working my way through Pete McCarthy’s McCarthy’s Bar, about trying to recapture the atmosphere of family visits to Ireland as a young lad growing up in Warrington, Cheshire. Claims of “I’m Irish, you know” are met with scepticism: “well, you don’t sound Irish.” Another Englishman, ashamed of his heritage, trying to claim a more acceptable Celtic one, methinks. The book’s about 10 years old, now, and I don’t know if it’s still available, but I think Denise bought it, and I never got round to reading it until I was rooting around for something to read and spotted it in the bookcase. I’m finding it very enjoyable, but I maybe should have read it a while ago, when I could remember what it was like in 1999 …
The other thing I’m reading is My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. Not read any Wodehouse before, but it was a free download on one of the electronic book websites, so I thought I’d have a go. Quite amusing collection of short stories, but they do get a bit repetitive. Not all the stories feature Jeeves and Wooster, but that doesn’t seem to bother the TV companies. I read one of the non-Jeeves and Wooster stories in the book, and remembered seeing it on TV with Jeeves and Wooster (played by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie) replacing the characters as written.
I've always read science fiction. As a kid I got bored with children's fiction, and ironically, couldn't stretch my credulity enough to believe that four kids and a dog could outwit a gang of international art thieves, etc. etc. My first introduction to 'speculative fiction' was The Hobbit dramatised on the radio, and from there went on to reading the book, and The Lord of the Rings. Although I enjoyed LOTR, and still do (I re-read it every couple of years or so), I pretty soon realised that I wasn’t all that interested in the Fantasy end of the genre, and moved on to‘hard’ science fiction, having discovered two very different masters in Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke. Current favourite authors are Iain M. Banks (still going strong!) and Charles Stross. I've just realised that both these guys are Scots! Well, well!
Bookshops like WH Smith, and Waterstone always lump science fiction and fantasy together in a single section, and sometimes throw horror in for good (or bad) measure. This is annoying to me, not only because they are very different genres (and you might as well throw detective fiction in there as well, as another form of speculative fiction), but also because I have to wade through all the stuff I’m not interested in to find something to read. It’s not as if any of the fantasy stuff is any good. As a rule it is formulaic sword and sorcery, which, at best, passes the time. As a result, I long ago took to reading the short form for preference, through periodicals such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (which at least tended to steer clear of Sword & Sorcery in the favour of some much more thoughtful and thought provoking work), Analog and Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. As these became very difficult to get hold of on the magazine stall, even through a regular order, I started downloading them in electronic book form to read on my pocket PC. It seemed appropriate to read science fiction on a pocket PC – a bit Star Trekky (not that Star Trek is science fiction).
Which brings me back to the topic of this piece: what I am reading now. I had been subscribing to the electronic version of Asimov’s, but there are a couple of issues around reading from an electronic device: the screen is all but unreadable in full sunlight (usually OK on a typical overcast day, but not in the sun), and the problem of battery life. Of course, the printed page also has problems around lighting: you can’t read in the dark! Because of the nature of my eyesight (keratoconus, if you want to know), I find it hard to read unless the page is lit with just the right intensity of light: I just can’t focus in low light levels, and in full sunlight, reading from the printed page is just as difficult for me as reading from an electronic screen.
The titles I referred to above are all American publications, and are difficult to obtain in their print editions in this country without taking out a subscription, which includes a hideously expensive postage fee from the country of origin. So I had a look around for something better. Years ago I had read and enjoyed an anthology of stories published in a British magazine called Interzone; so remembering this, last year I tried to see if it was still going, and if I could get hold of it. Following an internet search, I tracked it down and subscribed to it for a year’s issues.
I was surprised to see, when it arrived, that it was in a standard magazine format (albeit rather slim). Most of the magazines I’ve had were about the format of a hardback or trade paperback book, with about half the number of pages. The exception was the New English Library’s Science Fiction Monthly from the mid 1970s, which was about the format of a tabloid newspaper and had as much emphasis on the artwork as the fiction. The pages were large enough to be put on the wall as posters. I remember having one from Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers showing a huge starship trailing hundreds of marines in their drop-suits (half space-suit, half landing-ship!) as they dropped to the ground to fight the aliens. The story was loosely adapted to make the blockbuster movie of the same name in 1997.
Looking at the stories in Interzone, I thought they must be very short: but not a bit of it. The word count is the same as in the other magazines, with just as many stories. Although there are a few overseas writers, the majority of them are British, which is good, because the science fiction scene here is very strong indeed at the moment, and a lot of British writers are getting published by the big American mags. I was worried that the American money might limit which writers Interzone could attract, but I needn’t have been worried: the writing is of the very highest standard. Interzone also publishes reviews of book, TV, film and Blu-ray / DVD releases, and the good thing about this is that they are all relevant to the UK market, which is a breath of fresh air after reading reviews in the American mags for items that I couldn’t get hold of. I really enjoy the stories published in Interzone, and it's nice to have a printed page in my hand after all that digital stuff for years. Not that I've changed my mind about digital publishing. I still think that it's a tremendous way to access literature, but sometimes, for relaxation, it's nice to turn a for-real page. Asimov's was going downhill since Sheila Williams took over as editor anyway: only one issue in three was any good all the way through. Change is good, anyway.
10 June, 2010
New flight sim toys!
07 June, 2010
Schumacher at Monaco
I have to get this off my chest, and prove to you all that I'm not just a brainless Schumi hater. MS was badly done by at Monaco, when he was penalised 20 seconds after the race for overtaking Alonso on the last corner as the Safety Car went into the pits. The evidence was all there on screen from the on-board footage that he should have been allowed to race: green flags and light were clearly displayed. It wasn't his fault that Alonso had been told that no overtaking would be allowed before the finish line. Alonso may have been told that, as might MS, but the fact is that the race officials showed a green light and flag before the last corner, which means, 'track is clear. Go ahead boys, and race'.
Having shown the green signal, the officials cannot then say, 'Ah, well, yes we did show that signal, but we didn't mean to,' and penalise anyone who adhered to the signal given. Talented though the drivers are, they're not mind readers, and no-one is going to think, 'Ooh, I wonder if that's a mistake. After all, they did say that the race would be ended under the safety car and so there would be no overtaking. Is it a mistake, or did they change their minds?' The drivers have to go by what's in front of their eyes: there simply isn't time for wondering.
As an error by the marshals or race director, the only penalty they should have given was to give Alonso his position back: the 20 seconds penalty given MS was far too draconian. Even the reversal of positions seems unfair to me. The driver should not be penalised for an error made by the race officials.
Now, Damon Hill was the Stewards' Driving Advisor, and given the relationship he had with MS, I just wonder ... surely not!
Having shown the green signal, the officials cannot then say, 'Ah, well, yes we did show that signal, but we didn't mean to,' and penalise anyone who adhered to the signal given. Talented though the drivers are, they're not mind readers, and no-one is going to think, 'Ooh, I wonder if that's a mistake. After all, they did say that the race would be ended under the safety car and so there would be no overtaking. Is it a mistake, or did they change their minds?' The drivers have to go by what's in front of their eyes: there simply isn't time for wondering.
As an error by the marshals or race director, the only penalty they should have given was to give Alonso his position back: the 20 seconds penalty given MS was far too draconian. Even the reversal of positions seems unfair to me. The driver should not be penalised for an error made by the race officials.
Now, Damon Hill was the Stewards' Driving Advisor, and given the relationship he had with MS, I just wonder ... surely not!
Ronnie James Dio 1942 – 2010
I’ve always been a fan of rock music in its various forms, as long as those forms included guitars, from Chuck Berry onwards. I love British Rock/Blues in particular, from Eric Clapton, Rory Gallagher, Deep Purple and so on. I craved, however, something heavier, harder, but I could find nothing in the local record shops or on the radio, until I tuned into Radio 1’s Alan Freeman show. Freeman (a.k.a “Fluff”) had a rock show on Saturdays, which was where you could hear something that wasn’t pop or dance. One day he played Tarot Woman by Rainbow. I worked out that the guitarist was Richie Blackmore from Deep Purple, but the things that really struck me about this band was firstly, that they were using a wonderful sweeping synthesizer (played by Tony Carey) and secondly, the tremendously powerful vocals from one Ronnie James Dio – even more powerful than Ian Gillan.
Dio’s bombastic operatic style was later targeted as one of the worst examples of the excesses of Heavy Metal and Progressive Rock, but I didn’t care. It was more than just rhythmic shouting and growling, found in some Heavy Metal singers’ styles, but with melodies that you just couldn’t get out of your head (Children of the Sea, Rainbow in the Dark, Don’t talk to Strangers, etc., etc.) Quite a few Metal bands tried to follow the operatic, melodic route (Uriah Heep, Saxon, Iron Maiden) but their vocalists just didn’t have the combination of range and power that Dio had, and brought to every band he fronted.
It wasn’t only his vocals that he brought to those bands. He also wrote songs with fantastical lyrics that obviously had great appeal to the hoards of fantasy literature fans, who were, of course, in the same demographic as Metal fans. While steering clear of direct Tolkien references, the songs were often fantasy stories, relating a snapshot from the history of an evil regime, or from epic journeys or other such fantasy tropes. The stories in the songs are often cleverly open-ended, giving you a glimpse into a world and it's occupants that makes you want to carry the story on in your head after the song is over, like many good short works of fiction do. Together with the melodies that went with the usually driving rhythms (though he wasn't averse to writing the odd ballad) this made the songs all the more memorable. Some are ringing round my head right now as I write this.
He joined and left existing bands (Black Sabbath, Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow), as well as forming his own (Elf, Dio) and the albums released during his tenure as vocalist are often regarded as the best in the bands’ back catalogue. He had a lot to live up to with Black Sabbath, and who thought that anyone could have followed Ozzy Ozbourne with his sneaky evil voice? Nevertheless, Heaven and Hell, on which he sang, is regarded as one of Black Sabbath’s best albums since We Sold our Souls for Rock ‘n’ Roll, with such classics as the title track Heaven and Hell, the aforementioned Children of the Sea, and the driving Neon Nights. The only Rainbow albums I really like are the two he was on: Rising, and Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll.
From Tarot Woman I discovered Dio’s other enterprises, with the only disappointment being his latest collaboration with Black Sabbath’s Toni Iommi and Geezer Butler. For some reason they didn’t call themselves Black Sabbath, but took their name from the title of their last success together: Heaven and Hell. Listening to the samples on iTunes, this is very standard Heavy Metal, and though Dio’s voice was as strong as ever (not bad for a bloke in his 60s!) the material just didn’t have the old spark for me. Ah well, it’s a shame not to go out on a high note, and I might just get the Heaven and Hell album out of respect for the single strongest influence in turning me into a ‘metal head’. Do you think they play Dio’s music in Heaven and Hell? All I know is that he'll be missed down / up here, and we'll never hold it against him that he was an American in the British New Wave Metal scene.
Dio’s bombastic operatic style was later targeted as one of the worst examples of the excesses of Heavy Metal and Progressive Rock, but I didn’t care. It was more than just rhythmic shouting and growling, found in some Heavy Metal singers’ styles, but with melodies that you just couldn’t get out of your head (Children of the Sea, Rainbow in the Dark, Don’t talk to Strangers, etc., etc.) Quite a few Metal bands tried to follow the operatic, melodic route (Uriah Heep, Saxon, Iron Maiden) but their vocalists just didn’t have the combination of range and power that Dio had, and brought to every band he fronted.
It wasn’t only his vocals that he brought to those bands. He also wrote songs with fantastical lyrics that obviously had great appeal to the hoards of fantasy literature fans, who were, of course, in the same demographic as Metal fans. While steering clear of direct Tolkien references, the songs were often fantasy stories, relating a snapshot from the history of an evil regime, or from epic journeys or other such fantasy tropes. The stories in the songs are often cleverly open-ended, giving you a glimpse into a world and it's occupants that makes you want to carry the story on in your head after the song is over, like many good short works of fiction do. Together with the melodies that went with the usually driving rhythms (though he wasn't averse to writing the odd ballad) this made the songs all the more memorable. Some are ringing round my head right now as I write this.
He joined and left existing bands (Black Sabbath, Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow), as well as forming his own (Elf, Dio) and the albums released during his tenure as vocalist are often regarded as the best in the bands’ back catalogue. He had a lot to live up to with Black Sabbath, and who thought that anyone could have followed Ozzy Ozbourne with his sneaky evil voice? Nevertheless, Heaven and Hell, on which he sang, is regarded as one of Black Sabbath’s best albums since We Sold our Souls for Rock ‘n’ Roll, with such classics as the title track Heaven and Hell, the aforementioned Children of the Sea, and the driving Neon Nights. The only Rainbow albums I really like are the two he was on: Rising, and Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll.
From Tarot Woman I discovered Dio’s other enterprises, with the only disappointment being his latest collaboration with Black Sabbath’s Toni Iommi and Geezer Butler. For some reason they didn’t call themselves Black Sabbath, but took their name from the title of their last success together: Heaven and Hell. Listening to the samples on iTunes, this is very standard Heavy Metal, and though Dio’s voice was as strong as ever (not bad for a bloke in his 60s!) the material just didn’t have the old spark for me. Ah well, it’s a shame not to go out on a high note, and I might just get the Heaven and Hell album out of respect for the single strongest influence in turning me into a ‘metal head’. Do you think they play Dio’s music in Heaven and Hell? All I know is that he'll be missed down / up here, and we'll never hold it against him that he was an American in the British New Wave Metal scene.
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