the corner office

Well, that's 2007 then. What a year it's been for us. We started out as nervous foreigners, still making sense of a new country and Christmas in winter (wtf, where's the swimming pool?), Ronwen expecting, me expecting in a different way but not knowing what to expect, and neither of us really quite sure what the year would bring for us.

Since then? Well... we got to soak up more of Oxfordshire - how beautiful it is. I got to work in Oxford for over 9 months, what an experience. I'm working in London now, slowly feeling like a city slicker again, and we'll be moving some time in Jan, but we're lucky to have been able to experience living in the 'country' for a while. We've done and seen only a fraction of the things we wanted to do, but my sister and brother in law still live out here, and we'll be back regularly.

Of course, the most magical aspect of 2007 has been the birth of our son. Leo's been an absolute blessing. Goes without saying it's been a shock to the system, a learning experience of the highest order, and the latter half of the year seems to have gone by in a blur. But our child is just so beautiful, so loving, so adorable, so special, and such a joy, that I can't imagine a life without him.

So, 2007 gets a thumbs up from me. 2008 is yet another year of unknowns and new experiences, and I'm looking forward to it. I hope 2008 is prosperous and bountiful for you. Happy New Year!

Some more books while I'm at it:

Lost City, by Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos

So there's handsome hero Kurt Austin, and there's pretty French heroine, and there's a dude who died in a plane crash before World War I, and there's a rich French family of arms dealers, and Kurt Austin is on some or other escapade to do something or the other while dodging bullets and doing underwater stuff and charming the lady. Oh, and there's a whole bunch of weird mutants and killer seaweed clogging the oceans. Yawn.

I gather that Clive Cussler novels are quite popular. I gather he's cashed in on the franchise because his name is in big lights on the cover and his shadow writer's name is obscured by the cover art. Regardless of who actually wrote the book, this was my first and last Clive Cussler novel. I just couldn't wait to get to end - not because I was dying to find out what happened in the story, but because I just couldn't wait to get through the book and find something else to read (*). By the end I was rooting for the bad guys.

A good rule of thumb, I learned from this book, is to avoid novels where every major character is described in some way as 'looking like X', where X is a movie or rock star or celebrity. Dreadful.

Black Notice, by Patricia Cornwell

My first Kay Scarpetta novel. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it, feeling somewhat ambivalent about a Kathy Reichs novel earlier in the year, and me being the world's greatest squeam (ie. one who is very squeamish). I was pleasantly surprised.

Story starts off with Kay Scarpetta getting a letter from beyond the grave - her dead boyfriend having arranged before his demise for Kay to get a letter saying, basically, 'get over it!' Scarpetta's grieving has left her blind to developments in her life - someone in her department trying to ruin her career, a new police chief who's out to get her, etc. Of course, there must be Dead People. In this novel, a corpse in a crate from a ship arriving from Europe. Cue werewolves, more dead people in Scarpetta's hometown, showdown with the police chief (hot sexually deviant brunette career woman police chief as counterfoil to hot blonde coroner, yerrrsss), some interaction with Interpol, some love-makin', some intrigue and revenge.

Scarpetta may be a bit of an emotional basket case, but she's believable and I ended up liking her. Chauvanist pig sidekick copper Marino was good fun, too. Niece Lucy, the hot blonde lesbian genius with a black belt and a death wish, umm... not so convincing. Also, as each chapter progresses, and Scarpetta ponces about with a killer on the loose, you find yourself wanting to shout 'he's coming to get you, you stupid woman!'. Of course, he does come to get her and of course she gets away. All in all, good stuff though.

The Last Precinct, by Patricia Cornwell

As soon as I finished Black Notice, I moved onto the next Cornwell novel on our bookshelf. Somewhat serendipitously, it turned out to be the follow-on from Black Notice.

So, the baddie from the last book is a French psychopath afflicted with a disorder which leaves him deformed and covered in hair, like a werewolf. He's been nicked, but instead of going quietly to jail, he says that Scarpetta was trying to kill him, and for some obscure reason, a DA in Virginia wants to prosecute Scarpetta for the murder of the hot sexually deviant brunette police chief Dianne Bray, who was out to ruin Scarpetta in Black Notice. Scarpetta allegedly offed Bray and just made it look like it was done by the crazy-assed werewolf. Hmm, not so plausible, but hey. Is Kay Scarpetta Going To Jail? You know the answer but of course you read on through murder and intrigue and betrayal and deep psychological shit to find out what happens.

Oh yes, and the Last Precinct of the title is a super-executive private detective agency that Lucy the hot lesbian genius niece with a death wish has created because she's insanely wealthy from some software she wrote and sold. Since Lucy got a bit trigger-happy on a drug bust she's lost her job in law enforcement and now the Last Precinct will allow her to go all Robin Hood to right the wrongs of the world. Yet again, some suspension of disbelief required, but hey. Still enjoyed it.

Blow Fly, by Patricia Cornwell

While I was finishing off The Last Precinct, Ronwen tootled off and bought another Cornwell novel at a local book sale. In an uber-serendipitous twist of fate, it turned out to be Blow Fly, which follows the Last Precinct.

* Spoilers ahead *

The narrative style changes in this book, shifting away from Scarpetta's first person narrative to a third person narrative, meaning that for the first time you also get to see into the heads of some of the nutters and killers. So, what nutters are there? First, there's werewolf boy, now on death row, sending out letters and still fscking with Scarpetta's mind. There's Jay Talley, the Interpol dude whom Scarpetta boinked in Black Notice who turned out to be a homocidal maniac in The Last Precinct, and, by the way, werewolf boy's twin brother. Hey, you can't make this stuff up. Jay Talley is in hiding, holed up in the Lousiana swamps with his ugly hag sidekick Bev (from the Last Precinct), and torturing and bumping off blonde women because he hates Scarpetta so. No, really.

In the meantime, we have plot developments. Scarpetta's given up her job in Virginia, moved to Florida and eking out a living doing private consulting. Lucy's off doing Last Precinct stuff, which turns into a bit of an obscure and morally disturbing sub-plot. Oh yes, and Benton Wesley, who supposedly died a few novels back, was actually just in witness protection, and he's been orchestrating revenge against the evil French underworld Chandonne family ever since. Lucy and Marino both knew about it, so the emotional trauma and loss that Scarpetta's been seeing over the past few novels is actually just them angry and confused because Kay Mustn't Know that Benton is alive. No, really.

You may gather that I found Blow Fly a little less enjoyable than the previous two books. A little too busy, a little too disjointed. The book feels like Cornwell is just trying too hard. The Benton Wesley thing really didn't do it for me - it devalues a lot of what you see Marino and Lucy go through in the earlier novels, and I wasn't convinced that they knew all along. I can't help but suspect that Cornwell decided after disappointing reviews of her previous books, that she needed to resurrect Benton in order to jazz things up a little. On top of that, the ending was flat, and left a few too many loose ends.

I'll get my hands on more Scarpetta novels and keep reading, but I'm in no rush.

(*) I'm not sure why, but I have a really hard time giving up on a book or movie, once I start reading/watching it, no matter how bad or boring it is. Probably a psychological crossed wire after a childhood of being taught to finish everything on my plate at dinner time.

Oh man, a good Christmas. I'm oozing gammon from my pores. I'll take this opportunity to write up a few more books I've recently read (working more or less backwards):

Scipio: a novel, by Ross Leckie

A friend loaned this to Ronwen, but I nabbed it off the bookshelf before she could get to it. Tells the story of Publius Cornelius Scipio, aka Scipio Africanus - famous Roman general who revolutionised how the Romans fought and whupped Hannibal's ass and saved Rome from near-certain annihilation. Told as a memoir of Scipio's youth and coming of age as Hannibal's armies defeated the Roman army in a series of devastating battles. As an old Scipio dictates to his scribe, the scribe (a character from Leckie's novel Hannibal, apparently) adds his own notes and adds colour to the narrative. The story gains some urgency because the memoirs are occasioned by a looming court verdict for certain charges brought against Scipio by his enemies.

Good read, the war and pillaging all a bit gruesome though, and after reading more about Scipio on Wikipedia (so it must be true), it seems Leckie has taken some liberties with Scipio as a historic figure. Still, a good read.

Stonehenge, by Bernard Cornwell

Historic fiction about how Stonehenge might have come to be. The book tells the tale of three brothers, sons of a chieftain, one who becomes a tyrant, one who becomes a magician/shaman, and one who gets lumped with the job of orchestrating the building of Stonehenge. Seeding the narrative with events suggested by actual archeological discoveries, Cornwell speculates how our prehistoric ancestors might have gotten it into their heads that a big-ass temple like Stonehenge was a good idea, and what they'd need to have done to make it happen.

Interesting read, but a bit disturbing in places - fairly gruesome, human sacrifice, et al. The constant superstition and notions of sacrifice might seem laughable, but then you realise that modern religions are still quite strongly based on the notion of sacrifice - only now it's a bull or a goat or the son of God that gets done in, and our virgins, children and cripples are (fortunately for them) let off the hook.

The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova

Modern-day Dracula tale, taking some (as I came to discover) stylistic cues from the original Dracula novel. A young girl discovers a book in her father's library. The book is empty, save for the middle of the book, which says 'Drakulya' (or somesuch). Dad hesitantly starts telling his daugher the story, which includes how girl's mother came to die, and the novel takes the form of his recollections, his research, letters he's written and letters he received from his own mentor and professor, who'd also gotten the 'Dracula' book. They are not alone - others have gotten the books, others help and hinder them.

All a bit confusing? That's partly the point. The overall theme of the book is one of historical discovery, as a scholar might learn of Dracula - research, old documents, dusty archives, etc etc. Lots of travel and really appealing locations in Eastern Europe. All of this makes for good reading, but I found the ending a bit flat, and Kostova's Dracula a less than convincing hardcore mofo.

Dracula, by Bram Stoker

After reading The Historian, I was rather keen to read the original Dracula story, and we just so happened to have a copy which Ronwen had bought earlier this year. I'd seen one or two Dracula movies many many years ago, and the plotline was vaguely familiar. Without getting too bogged down in detail, it boils down to: Dracula is mean-ass vampire who sucks the blood of beautiful young women while Van Helsing and his cuzzies do their best to stop him. Eventually they do in climactic showdown. The end.

First published 110 years ago, the novel's structure came as a bit of a surprise. The story consists entirely of excerpts from letters and journal entries from various characters in the story, interspersed with newspaper cuttings and the like. It's a bit dated, naturally, and Van Helsing's broken English gets plain annoying soon enough, but all in all, a very enjoyable read.

The Borgia Bride, by Jeanne Kalogridis

All I ever knew about Lucrezia Borgia was that she was a bit of a hectic aunty and referred to in the Sisters of Mercy song 'Lucretia My Reflection'. Or something. The novel tells the story of a young noblewoman from Naples who gets hitched to one of the Borgia sons and befriends Lucrezia Borgia, whose daddy, Rodrigo, is Pope Alexander VI. The pope in the novel is a severely unwholesome individual, with equally severely unwholesome children. Let's just say that the Borgia family tree is disinclined to fork.

That's the gist of the story, really. Court intrigues and politics and webs of deceit and love affairs and blahdy blahdy incest murder blahdy incest murder etc. Most striking, how the Church of Renaissance times, being so powerful, attracted people interested in secular power and earthly wealth, as much as it attracted those inspired by divine calling. Have things changed much in the 500 years since?

Ten o'clock on Christmas Eve: "oh shit, have we got AA batteries..."

So, Father Christmas is done wrapping, got his VPN connection working 'cause he's on call tomorrow, done the Cabernet Sauvignon justice, and it's time for bed. Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays, or enjoy the day off; whatever does it for you. Cheers!

Jacob Zuma was voted president of the ANC today and the actual president of the country, Thabo Mbeki, basically got told to get stuffed by his own party. A great many people have said that if Zuma came to power that would be the end for South Africa, and today may yet be marked as a milestone on a slow road to Zimbabwefication. Then again, maybe not. I don't know.

The reality is that the country's leading party decided to vote a crook into power. A moronic crook who thought that having a shower after having sex with an HIV-infected woman would prevent him from being infected. A moronic crook, democratically elected. It's hard to feel positive about a country where such a thing can happen. But you don't see things quite the same way as affluent middle class whites and blacks when you're jobless, constantly hungry and struggling and not seeing your life get any better 13 years after the end of apartheid rule.

Farrel Lifson has a good overview of it all. The reality is that Mbeki himself is the primary architect for any Zimbabwefication South Africa has gone through. He's been a joke, his AIDS and health and diplomatic policies an embarassment, and he's not even managed to keep his constituents happy. Zuma is popular because people believe he's of the people and that he'll change things. He won't - but truth is, he might not flush the country any faster down the toilet than Mbeki's done - sure, he'll pander to interest groups and spew out rhetoric, but chances are he'll allow himself to be paid off by vested corporate interests, and the country will plod along mostly poor, crime-ridden, AIDS-riddled, and full of wasted potential, just like it is now.

The sad thing is that a day like today makes it very stark that that would be considered a relatively good outcome, all things considered.

I love sci fi, but I don't read much of it, because being a cheapskate, I don't buy a lot of new books, and at the charity shops and second hand book stores, you only ever get Volume IX of the Granthor Cycle and Book 4 of the Swinging Nut Trilogy and the like, which is pointless if you're not lucky enough to find Book One and have dim prospects of getting your hands on the remaining books in sequence.

Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed is a standalone book, and so I bought a dusty old copy, and read it, and here's the review.

The problem with Sci Fi written in 1976 is that lots of things have happened in 30 years. Some indulgence is required when scientists a thousand years hence are still holding on to their prized slide rules. Nonetheless, the point about a good book is that context is secondary to the story, and this is an interesting story. The gist of it there's a moon to which a colony of humans exiled themselves 160 years ago and who now live in a functioning anarcho-communist society. They've had minimal contact with the statist capitalists back on the mother planet, and the society is almost completely insular. Shevek, a brilliant scientist, decides the society need a kick in the pants and combined with professional jealousy and some such grist for the story mill, somehow ends up returning to the main planet. Cue interesting experiences trying to make sense of a world totally different to his own. Turns into getting caught up in politics and a rebellion by the poor masses, turns into fleeing for his life and then going home to anarcho-communist heaven and his wife and kids, and being happy about it. The end.

A good read, most interesting for the comparisons drawn between the two societies. Imagine a world of no government, no laws, no possessions, and stretch the thinking to no possessive pronouns, no ego, an incredibly open-minded and enlightened approach to sex and interpersonal relationships, and your name cranked out by a computer when you're born. (No ego, remember?) No poverty, no opression, no greed. What's left? What matters? Would it work? Le Guin's thought experiment dwells on how desirable and how practical such a society would be, what the problems might be.

An interesting intellectual journey, but the one drawback is that anarcho-communism strains modern credulity. It might have been more relevant to 1970's society, but feels less so in the 21st century. In practice, absolute freedom with communism versus economic freedom under the yoke of an oppressive state? We have examples of the latter, and plenty of them, but they're hardly models for real economic success (no matter what the Income Statements say), and we have none of the former. The cookie just doesn't crumble that way. And besides, neither of these systems appeals to me.

The book isn't about political evangelism, though, it's about a world where things are different, and inspecting those differences helps to put our own into better perspective. I give it three stars, but I'm not sure out of how many.

I got back to Wallingford tonight, and walked home through the Medieval Christmas festival. By the time I got there, it was a bit of a desultory affair, with few people out braving the rain. The knights in rusting armour were there, looking a little drenched, and the Hog Roast was top notch as always. It was a reminder that we've been living in Wallingford for over a year (hard to believe), and it was also a reminder that we won't be living in this character-filled town for much longer.

A lot of shops were open though, including the local Oxfam. This was a blessing, because I'd run out of books to read - the only things unread in our flat, apart from boring textbooks (that's another story), are a Wilbur Smith and something by Umberto Eco - neither of which fill me with any excitement at present.

I've given some thought to reviewing the books I read - it'd give me something to write about - but I've never found writing reviews easy - I have difficulty finding the right balance between just jabbering about what the book is about (which isn't generally interesting) and offering meaningful opinion about the book other than 'yeah alright' or 'damn good' or 'fukken boring' or the like. We shall see.

It goes without saying that it is utterly ridiculous and contemptible that a woman has been jailed for calling a teddy bear Mohammed. Devout Muslims are entitled to be pissed off about it, but that's all. It's sad and frightening that in the 21st century huge swathes of humanity are still backwards enough to demand the taking of human life in punishment for giving a toy the wrong name.

Having gotten issues of right and wrong out the way, let's get down to common sense though: what was this woman thinking? How much of a death wish do you have to have to name a teddy bear Mohammed in a nut-job infested shithole like the Sudan?