Bloody offal...



Got an email from a publisher at work today extolling the virtues of their new cookbook which covers a - so they say - neglected area of the culinary arts but one in which interest is rapidly growing: offal. Yes, you read that right, cooking offal. The PR blurb said:



"A book destined to become an instant classic. The Fifth Quarter is the only book dedicated exclusively to the subject of offal. A book dedicated to offal ­ currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity and fashion ­ in all its many and surprising forms. Neatly categorised, stylishly designed and of interest to any offal eater ­ from the tame and curious to the daring and decadent. From foie gras and cod's roe to sheep's head and testicles, this book draws on recipes and traditions from all over the world."



You know, between this and watching Supersize Me this weekend I've not been so happy to be a vegetarian since the Mad Cow outbreak. But on thinking about the subject of offal cooking I can't help but reflect that perhaps many people already do regularly dine on cooked offal - think on that next time you bite into a fast-food burger (no brand names, don't want to get sued!) or cheap sausages or a 'meat' pie at a footie match... Yeuch.

The starship now departing platform three...



Yep, the bearded gnome that is Richard Branson has announced Virgin's plans for spaceflight, using the same X-Prize technology I discussed here a few weeks ago. Embarrasingly this came on the same day that Virgin's intercity train service launched it's brand new tilting-train, high-speed service from Glasgow to Edinburgh, except it broke down short of Carlisle... Not unfamilair to those of us of a certai age who recall the old APT - Advanced Passenger Train from what was then British Rail which also had huge technical problems (eventually solved buyt by then no-one wanted it). Welcome to Britian - we invented railways, perfected the steam engine and designed the modern System of the World. We're planning spaceflights - for the super-rich anyway - but our trains still break down all the time, even the most advanced ones... It's as well we have a good sense of humour in these isles.

Book of the week

I consider it part of my professional bookselling duties to bring fine new literature to the attention of the Woolamaloo audience. This week I think I need to point you towards this fine literary gem:

How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: a Cautionary Tale, by the great porno legend, Jenna Jameson. Free kleenex with each book from a lady who really puts the 'hard' into 'hardback'.

We believe in the finest literature in our bookstore you know. Well, it’s better than reading Kitty bloody Kelly or Tom Clancy.

Switchblade

Caught the somewhat inappropriately titled Switchblade Romance this afternoon; inappropriate since there are numerous weapons in this French thriller-horror movie, but I don’t recall seeing a switchblade, so why the English title was given thus from the French Haute Tension I don’t know. This was a European horror which rumour has it even gave some of the seasoned gore hounds at this year’s annual (and rather good) Dead by Dawn horror film festival at the Edinburgh Film Filmhouse. Speaking as a seasoned horror fiend myself I have to say it was pretty damned good. There were elements obvious from other horror flicks, such as Children of the Corn, Hitcher, Halloween and, worryingly, the dreadfully dire Jeepers Creepers (one of the few films I have walked out of it was so bad). Two female students head into the countryside of France to stay at the isolated rural home of one of them. Hmmmm, very isolated rural location, surrounded by cornfields – don’t city people know never to go to these places???

A shocking and seemingly motiveless series of atrocities is visited upon the peaceful scene, resulting in a prolonged game of cat and mouse. The tension is almost unbearable at some points, often by substituting the terrified reaction of one character to the dreadful sounds coming from the next room rather than witnessing the deeds, although there are also plenty of wonderful gore-filled scenes and even a few humorous ones thrown in, such as the inventive spin on the idea of ‘getting head’ early on. Damned good nasty horror although the ‘twist’ was rather predictable, at least to me, but that may be because I’m pretty fluent in the language of gory horror flicks. It’s still one of the better horror films I’ve seen for a long time.

Mapping the body

Among the many random thoughts which crossed my mind this week was how women could use modern technology to improve their sex life. No, I’m not talking about your battery-operated toys – stop giggling in the back there, Lili – but how modern technology could be used to help train their man to give a better performance. One of the principal complaints most (straight) women have is that their partners don’t know how to find the clitoris. Indeed many men are of the opinion that it is a semi-mythical creature, probably from Greek Mythology.

Women have tried telling men where to find it, but often to little effect since men famously Don’t Listen. They could draw a map but of course Women Can’t Read Maps, so presumably cannot draw them either (at least according to those dreadful cheap psychobabble self-help books out there). But there is a modern technological aid to this problem. Ladies, you all know that men love to play with gadgets – indeed this is second to playing with their favourite toy, but we shan’t go into that here. So with Xmas approaching why not consider getting your man a Global Positioning System (GPS) and the GPS co-ordinates for your clit and there you go.

Zhang me!



Found a site with some rather lovely pictures of the utterly delicious Zhang Ziyi from Hero, 2046 and Crouching Tiger (amongst others) . Yummy! And yes, before Adrock corrects me I know 'Zhang me' doesn't work as well if you pronounce her name correctly, but hey, some artistic license as I am bringing you pictures of one of the most lovely actresses around!

And now to fulfill our civic duty we bring you a public service announcement:



FLORIDA HURRICANE PREPARATION



You all should be aware of hurricane preparations, but in case you need a refresher course: We're about to enter the peak of the hurricane season. Any minute now, you're going to turn on the TV and see a weather person pointing to some radar blob out in the Atlantic Ocean and making two basic meteorological points.



(1) There is no need to panic.

(2) We could all be killed.



Yes, hurricane season is an exciting time to be in Florida. If you're new to the area, you're probably wondering what you need to do to prepare for the possibility that we'll get hit by "the big one."



Based on our insurance industry experiences, we recommend that you follow this simple three-step hurricane preparedness plan:



STEP 1: Buy enough food and bottled water to last your family for at

least three days.



STEP 2: Put these supplies into your car.



STEP 3: Drive to Nebraska and remain there until Halloween.



Unfortunately, statistics show that most people will not follow this sensible plan. Most people will foolishly stay here in Florida. We'll start with one of the most important hurricane preparedness items:



HOMEOWNERS' INSURANCE: If you own a home, you must have hurricane insurance. Fortunately, this insurance is cheap and easy to get, as long as your home meets two basic requirements:



(1) It is reasonably well-built, and

(2) It is located in Wisconsin



Unfortunately, if your home is located in Florida, or any other area that might actually be hit by a hurricane, most insurance companies would prefer not to sell you hurricane insurance, because then they might be required to pay YOU money, and that is certainly not why they got into the insurance business in the first place. So you'll have to scrounge around for an insurance company, which will charge you an annual premium roughly equal to the replacement value of your house. At any moment, this company can drop you like used dental floss.



SHUTTERS:



Your house should have hurricane shutters on all the windows, all the doors. There are several types of shutters, with advantages and

disadvantages:



Plywood shutters: The advantage is that, because you make them yourself, they're cheap.



Sheet-metal shutters: The advantage is that these work well, once you get them all up. The disadvantage is that once you get them all up, your hands will be useless bleeding stumps, and it will be December.



Roll-down shutters: The advantages are that they're very easy to use, and will definitely protect your house. The disadvantage is that you will have to sell your house to pay for them.



Hurricane-proof windows: These are the newest wrinkle in hurricane protection: They look like ordinary windows, but they can withstand hurricane winds! You can be sure of this, because the salesman says so. He lives in Nebraska.



Hurricane Proofing your property: As the hurricane approaches, check your yard for movable objects like barbecue grills, planters, patio furniture, visiting relatives, etc... you should, as a precaution, throw these items into your swimming pool (if you don't have a swimming pool, you should have one built immediately). Otherwise, the hurricane winds will turn these objects into deadly missiles.



EVACUATION ROUTE:



If you live in a low-lying area, you should have an evacuation route planned out. (To determine whether you live in a low-lying area, look at your driver's license; if it says "Florida," you live in a low-lying area.) The purpose of having an evacuation route is to avoid being trapped in your home when a major storm hits. Instead, you will be trapped in a gigantic traffic jam several miles from your home, along with two hundred thousand other evacuees. So, as a bonus, you will not be lonely.



HURRICANE SUPPLIES:



If you don't evacuate, you will need a mess of supplies. Do not buy them now! Florida tradition requires that you wait until the last possible minute, then go to the supermarket and get into vicious fights with strangers over who gets the last can of cat food. In addition to food and water, you will need the following supplies: 23 flashlights. At least $167 worth of batteries that turn out,

when the power goes off, to be the wrong size for the flashlights.



Bleach. (No, I don't know what the bleach is for. NOBODY knows what the bleach is for, but it's traditional, so GET some!)



A big knife that you can strap to your leg. (This will be useless in a hurricane, but it looks cool.)



A large quantity of raw chicken, to placate the alligators. (Ask anybody who went through Andrew; after the hurricane, there WILL be irate alligators.) $35,000 in cash or diamonds so that, after the hurricane passes, you can buy a generator from a man with no discernible teeth.



Of course these are just basic precautions. As the hurricane draws near, it is vitally important that you keep abreast of the situation by turning on your television if you have a generator that's working to keep the TV going and watching TV reporters in rain slickers stand right next to the ocean and tell you over and over how vitally important it is for everybody to stay away from the ocean. Good luck and remember: It's great living in Paradise.



Hey! It was important, I thought we may all need a laugh.



Brought to y'all courtesey of my storm-battered dear chum Stephanie in Orlando.

morning sky



8 am, Princes Street, Edinburgh. Crisp, cool, clear autumnal morning. The sun is bright but lower in the sky every day, casting long shadows over the sculptures of the Scott Monument, contrasting with the warm, golden glow of great blocks of sandstone warmed by early morning light and glittering through the leaves of trees which are now beginning to turn and fall. The sky... The sky was perfect, one of those sights you just stop in the middle of the rush hour rat race and take a brief minute to drink in. A beautiful shade of light blue, bright and clear in the light of the rising sun and dappled only with a few randomly placed clouds which are cotton-wool white. The colours of the Scottish flag above the ancient stones of the capital, as if some artist had created an Impressionist painting of the Saltire on a vast canvas; a fresco painted by nature on the Sistine Chapel ceiling of the sky.



I know, I've said it many times before, but truly Autumn in Scotland is simply the most beautiful time and place in the world.

Somewhere over the rainbow...











Sun, rain, sun, rain - yep the schizo Scottish weather where you can be putting on your shades then putting up a brolly minutes later... Still, down at North Berwick again with Gordon and his four-legged chum Bruce the bright side of the rapidly changing weather meant we had this gorgeous but brief rainbow appear. I couldn't fit it all in I'm afraid, but this was the first time in I don't know how long that either of us had seen a full arch rainbow rather than just a fragment of arc. It rose up out of the whitecap waves in front of the rocky island and arcing over our heads to land down somewhere behind the trees. Utterly gorgeous, brief and ephemeral, like the best parts of life. Unfortunately wasted on poor Bruce who , being a dog, isn't able to groove on the colours.



Naturally we thought on getting out the spade and looking for our pot of gold. This then lead us to the discussion that folklore says there is Faery gold at the end of a rainbow, while science, drawing from Newton's work with prisms, tells us that it is a visual phenomena caused by refraction and reflections. However as no-one can get to the end of a rainbow to dig it up then the folkloric hypothesis is actually still valid according to scientific methodology, i.e. in order to properly disprove it we require solid proof (and in an easily repeatable fashion). And anyway the folkloric version sounds better!

Alice in Virtual Land



A programme called Alice has won the latest round of competitions to produce a software system capable of holding a conversation with a human. Drawing inspiration from British mathematical genius Aln Turing's hypothesis - the Turing Test - that if a conversation with a machine fooled a human into believing he/she was talking to another human then that machine was effectively 'intelligent'. No-one has yet won the Gold or Silver awards but the Bronze is given out to the best attempt each year.



I've always thought the Turing Test was rather simplistic myself and argued as much in an essay on AI and cognitive psychology back in college. Conversational ability does not prove sentience: George Bush can talk (sort of, not very well, but does better when prompted - or is he merely repeating a script like a trained parrot and therefore not exhibiting any intelligent behaviour? Discuss) but would we class him as sentient? Besides it is a long way from mimicking a human skill to having actual AI. Most programmes until reasonably recently have often taken the root of pretending to be mentally impaired patients in a hospital, such as ELIZA and others. This means when the software is unable to give a convincing response to a question it can be interpreted as a result of the impairment. In fact I recall playing a home computer game based on this idea many years ago - back in the old Sinclair ZX Spectrum days in fact. It was a game called ID - you held long 'conversations' with the personality who had amnesia and possibly other impairments such as verbal aphasia and tried to ascertain who and what they were and had been. Anyone else remember that one?



Even if we do have software which can talk to us as easily as say HAL 9000 and understands natural language input it is merely another, albeit more sophisticated, form of interface with our machinery. It does not prove intelligence - we need a lot more to argue for that in a machine, not least sense of self-awareness. Although how you ever prove that I do not know - I can't prove I have such a faculty really (shut up in the back Descartes, your idea is rather simplistic and proves nothing). And even if we can create a real AI and prove that it is sentient many people will refuse to believe it for religious reasons or simple stupidity or bigotry. And how will we react to such a creation if we make it? I suspect that will be a huge moral quandry for humanity. If we recognise an AI as sentient then we can no longer class it as a mere device there to serve us, can we? That would be tantamount to creating a new form of slavery. But could we bring ourselves to see an AI as equal in rights to a human? Would the AI see us as equal? And would it sound like Majel Barret Rodenberry in Star Trek or HAL 9000?

Collateral

I’ve been awaiting this – Joe waiting for a movie, gasp of surprise! – for a while, as much for director Michael Mann as to see Tom Cruise playing a bad guy. For anyone who doesn’t know, the basic plot is Tom Cruise’s Vincent (looking quite good in his grey hair/beard combo) hiring Jamie Foxx’s cab driver, Max, to drive him around night-time LA for several meetings then out to LAX for his early flight. Except Vincent, it transpires, is a hitman and his business meetings involve whacking witnesses to a major trial.

So much for the story – it is pretty basic and frankly I saw the ending coming pretty early on in the movie (which is probably as much to do with the number of films I watch as it is the predictable ending). It is still a good film – although not great – with some excellent character interaction between Foxx’s Max and Cruise’s Vincent, neither perfect and strangely warming to each other in a bizarre way. However, the principal area to relish in Collateral (Mann showing once more his favouritism for single-word titles for his urban outings) is the visual; the film is a visual feast of urban landscapes. Using the available light – streetlamps, headlights etc – instead of normal movie lighting (thank gods, none of the usual cliché of driving with the internal light on to see the actors) means that the ambient light available is extremely low, with Cruise and Foxx both commenting that they often couldn’t see more than a few feet. So celluloid was out and in came an extremely high-definition digital video system.

This gives Collateral a fascinating look; the lack of movie lighting means that we get an image pretty similar to what you see on the street of a big city by night, giving a realism to it. At the same time the extreme low light levels in some scene means that you have a distinctive ‘grainy’ quality to the imagery. The few scenes in brightly lit areas, such as a subway are again shot using the real light sources rather than movie spots, giving a cool, sterile, flat look. The other scenes are steeped in shadow with the only real colours being grey, cool blue shades and bursts of dirty orange from the streetlights of LA reflecting from the clouds. Mann paints with this limited palette and creates a fantastic image of the vast urban space as familiar and yet alien, part of a whole and yet made of separate areas and buildings with thousands passing through it in vehicles, inside the city and at the same time not really a part. An image of Cruise outlined against the large window of a train with LA behind him is pure Mann, reminiscent of De Niro in Mann’s Heat, standing on a hill at night with LA behind him, an orange haze of flickering lights, both real and seemingly illusory, or De Niro again in Heat standing before the picture window of his LA home with the Pacific beyond. All images representing both reality and a form of illusion and an overwhelming sense of alienation and solitary nature, socially, architecturally, spiritually and personally.

All cities wear a different face by night – it’s one of the aspects I love about living in a city, I love the night which is never true darkness but instead a neon night of sodium yellow and flickering, moving headlamps, illuminated signs and windows. Deep shadows seem deeper for the spots of bright illumination and you feel anything can happen; you can be anyone in the magical, electrical gloom. Night in a city is both a liberating experience of freedom you cannot have in the garish light of day and a sense of fear as to what can happen after hours. The familiar becomes new, simultaneously fresh and intoxicating but also menacing; here smooth drinks and smooth thighs, there sharp teeth and warm blood. I love it – daylight is for wimps! And with autumn rushing in it’s soon going to be time for those wonderful long, long nights.

Autumn comes with early sunsets,

And an ever-shortening day,

And in the gathering neon shadows,

All the freaks come out to play.

Pussy poetry

Feed me, feed me now!

Says the little cat

With a plaintive meow.

Give me chicken, turkey

Or some yummy little fish.

Or smoked ham would be nice,

In my little moggy dish.

e.g. thribb, aged 73 & 3/4

Poetry in motion

National Poetry Day approaches once more – October 7t^h – and I thought I would once more organise some special staff recommends by getting colleagues to pick favourite bards so we could have a couple of shelves of our staff recommends filled with poetry reviews. And once more I got the same handful of people who contributed last year and the year before that… And a whole pile of people muttering pathetic excuses such as ‘I haven’t read poetry since school’ or ‘I don’t like poetry’. Don’t like poetry? That’s like saying ‘I don’t like music’ – how can you honestly say you dislike every type of poetry and every poet? There must be something you find to your taste; it’s the widest church of literature in every culture in the world. To find this sort of attitude in a bookstore is so depressing and reinforces the fact that we need events like National Poetry Day to raise awareness of verse.

Poetry is our oldest form of story-telling (at least word-based stories – cave paintings may precede them); we’ve been composing, speaking and singing verse for literally thousands of years, through the rise and fall of entire civilizations, from elegant short Chinese poems to epics such as the Iliad or Beowulf. Before the spread of the written word, before the media and easy communications there were wandering poets. Crafting often well-known tales into a verse structure made it easier for the bard to memorise enormous chunks of narrative – they held quite astonishing numbers of data in their head, something few modern humans can match because we rely on exo-somatic memory (memory outside of the brain which held them, from a paper-note to a book to a digital database).

But you want to know something? Poetry is everywhere. I mean that literally. It’s in sunlight sparkling on water, the rhythmic sound of car wheels going over bumps, the purrs of a cat, the breathing of a loved one. And for those who told me ‘they don’t like poetry’ I say OPEN YOUR BLOODY EYES AND SOUL! And if that’s getting to metaphysical for you – pardon me, it’s the poet in me (or perhaps the peyote in me?) – then here’s one for you: if you genuinely don’t like poetry then take every good album you have in your collection and burn it. Burn your Beatles, your Hendrix, set your Suzanne Vega alight and incinerate your Mozart, because they are all poetry. Don’t believe me? Then I feel sorry for you because you truly don’t get the music in your collection and you really don’t get the world.

Escort



I had a nice email from Alexa a few days ago and have point you towards her rather excellent bare-it blog, A New York Escorts Confessions. Love the bit about the extra business she had while the Republican conference was in town! Nothing like those god-fearin', family-values rich gits for a bit of illicit rumpy pumpy, eh? Read it and like me you'll be thinking two things: I bet most of these guys are married (and pay for adverts to hound Democratic politicians caught philandering) and secondly that Alex had to work bloody hard for payday there :-). Oh well, as these politicians are always screwing us you may as well make something from the buggers.



I'm sure my dear chum Lili will approve heartily of this blog - unless her recent marriage has made her into a new woman, dropping the sweaty sex for baking applie pies for the church group, swapping rolling pin for leather whip... Ah, who am I kidding?!?!?!? She's more likely to do good by teaching the women in the church group about advanced oral techniques, bless her. Big congrats to her and Mr C (who I suspect will need a lot of vitamins in his diet but seems happy to rise - so to speak - to the challenge).





a little example of why you should go and read Alexa's NY Escort Confessions

More movies

Went to see a mystery movie on Tuesday with my chum Melanie. The UGC gives out a pair of free tickets to pass holders from time to time to see a mystery film, then fill in a rating card afterwards. Films which get the stamp of approval from viewers go on into their audience recommended strand. So, with no idea what we were going to see, we settled down in a busy theatre. One-off showing, so no tedious adverts or trailers, just right into the movie. And it turned out to be one I was eager to see – the Life and Death of Peter Sellers. The incomparable Geoffrey Rush plays the British comic legend, both young and old Sellers, which is unusual in a biopic, but then this is an unusual movie about a very unusual man.

The opening credits were animated in a style deliberately reminiscent of the Pink Panther films, before the film launches into the arena which first made Sellers famous: the marvellous Goon Show with Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe. Moving through Sellers’ personal and professional life the film eschews the predictable route of either fly-on-the-wall documentary style or the cliché-ridden funny-man who was tragically depressed route. It’s incredibly inventive, playing with – and sometimes breaking – cinematic norms, occasionally breaking through the celluloid equivalent of the Proscenium Arch. Rush is simply fabulous (as he always is, whether he is in Pirates of the Caribbean or Shine) and has a great supporting cast, including Charlize Theron, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, Emily Watson, Stephen Fry and Miriam Margolyes. It is realistic and also surrealistic, incredibly funny (Sellers trying out his various characters for Dr. Strangelove) and yet so sad and tragic (his child-like inability to hold together adult relationships, his desperate efforts to film Being There, a story about a man who has no real personality except the roles he plays, obviously a meaningful story for the chameleonic Sellers); it is a fabulous movie in my (not very) humble opinion. If, like me, you are a huge fan of Sellers and the Goons then that’s a bonus, but you don’t need to be to enjoy it.

Watching it made me want to go back and re-visit a lot of Sellers’ work. It also brought back some warm memories for me: performing a Goon Show with my friends for school concerts (ying-tong-iddle-i-po!); seeing my first Pink Panther film. I still remember that so well, although I was still only a very young boy at the time, perhaps 8 or 9. A wet night on holiday so my parents and I went to the movies. I got to pick and wanted to see the Pink Panther. My parents are worried – they explain to me that this isn’t the same as the TV Pink Panther cartoons (have you ever seen a panther who was pink? Think! A panther who was positively pink.). Me being me (even at that age) I told them I know what it is, so in we go, with my parents fully expecting me to be bored soon and wanting to leave. Instead of which the three of us had the most wonderful night. I sat there, 8 years old, laughing and laughing, sitting between my mum and my dad and everything else in the world didn’t matter except I had them on either side of me and pure magic on a glowing screen in front of me. That was one of the many gifts Peter Sellers gave to me. It is a shame that often comedians never receive the respect for their work that more dramatic actors will garner. I suspect most critics simply don’t appreciate how enormously difficult it is to make comedy and how hard it is psychologically to sustain the comedy, not to mention the burden of people then expecting for the funny man to always be the funny man, which I can appreciate on a certain level. Anyway, it is an amazing film and I really do recommend it to one and all.

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

As anyone who normally reads the Woolamaloo knows I generally abhor reality shows. In point of fact I hold shows like Big Brother, Temptation Island and vacant celebrity magazines like Heat to be one of the causes and symptoms of the Decline of Western Civilisation. But I kind of had to watch Mad, Mad House on Sci-Fi tonight. A bunch of contestants attempting to be the one who is left in the titular house and win the money. Except here the house has residents – a vampire, a witch, a ‘modern primitive’ (isn’t that a contradiction in terms?), a naturist, and a voodoo priestess. Still wasn’t convinced as I generally despise this far-too prevalent format, but when the contestants arrive I was more interested. Especially since most of them were a bunch of stupid, God-fearin’, Republican-voting Christians. And I like scaring Christians; it is one of my hobbies. One woman claimed to be a devout Christian, still a virgin and lived in a convent. Of course, this may all be bollocks for the series since most ‘reality’ shows tend to be full of contestants who are full of it. Still, it was fun to see their reactions to the residents since the contestants were all such squares. Naturally, in the spirit of bloodsucking brotherhood, I approve of the vampire (wonderful clothes). And the pervert in me can only hope that the witch, author Fiona Horne, will do what she does so often in the pictures in her witchcraft books and get her kit off. She has a very biteable neck.

Spirit of ‘77

1977 that is. The Punk era – an era that left a lasting cultural impression (check out that DIY attitude to guerrilla film-making, the web etc – that is pure Punk) and lead me personally into the arms of the Holy Trinity: Drums, Bass and Electric Geetar holding services in the Church of Rock. It saved the world from the dreadfulness that was disco, for which the world should forever be grateful. And that period gave us the two and a half minute glories of the great Ramones. And now another member of that band has followed his fellows, Dee-Dee and Joey Ramone to a far-too-premature grave with the news that Johnny Ramone succumbed to cancer in his early fifties today. To many this won’t mean much – to those of us old rockers it means mountains. To those folk, my brother and sisters in loud, thrashing music and ear damage, I say let us join together in a chorus of Sheena is a Punk Rocker and pogo up and down before observing a two and a half minute silence as another little piece of our youth is taken from us. Then put some Ramones one the stereo, turn it up and tell the neighbours to go fuck themselves.

Yes, those of you who don’t remember the era are saying, hey, Joe, where you going with that punk album in your hand? It was just some old band, forget about it. Well, I know it’s only rock’n’roll. But I like it. Gods but I love it. Some of us Sold Our Souls for Rock and Roll and For Those About To Rock, We Salute You. We’re heartbroken today, but we will be Back In Black and when the mourning is over we will once more pick up our axes and have some Crazy, Crazy Nights. And for those who still wonder what the fuss is about then just get your ignorant ass over to any book on popular music and read that the Ramones are one of the few bands who changed the artistic and cultural landscape. Few have redefined popular tastes, but the Ramones did.

End of an era

I reached the end of a long and winding road this week. I finished my proof copy of the third and final volume of Neal Stephenson’s astonishing Baroque Cycle, The System of the World (published soon). That’s nearly three thousand pages of Stephenson I’ve read in these last twelve months and I have been so utterly entranced and absorbed by these books that now it is all done I feel like I just saw some good friends off to another country where I won’t get to see them again. I’ve read a hell of a lot of books of every conceivable type over the last three decades. I’ve reviewed many of them and I have sold many more in my eleven years in the book trade. So when I tell you that these books are some of the most remarkable I have ever read, that’s saying a lot. Don’t let the vast size of each volume put you off – this is a trilogy that anyone who loves books should look at. Not to read it would be like saying you are a book lover but you have never read Dickens, or Cervantes or Homer. There simply are some books that those who enter the wondrous realm of words must read.

Scumbags



Not realising there was a home game this afternoon at Tynecastle Stadium I nipped out of my flat to the shops. Straight into thousands of the Great Unwashed. Now, much as I despire football (I went to a rugby school where we were encouraged to look down upon the game. Thank god for good schools) I can't in all fairness tar all footie fans with the same brush. However, it is equally fair to say that the Jambo (Hearts=Tarts=Jam Tarts=Jambos) crowd harbours more than a fair amount of Scum of the Earth within the general fan ranks. These are the ones throwing fast food litter and beer bottles away in the street right next to my home - they don't give a shit that people live there. They jeer, they sing hate-filled sectarian songs they generally act in threatening manners as ordinary folk who live there try to go around their business.



For those who don't know Hearts may be moving from their stadium to to poverty and relocating to nearby Murrayfield. This has created great uproar amongst the fans, understandably. Personally I hope the buggers go so I and everyone else around here has a better quality of life. One of the few local merchants who hasn't put up a 'save hearts' sign in his window told me that he thought them going would improve the area immeasurably. The police have been called to protests both outside Tynecastle (on my doorstep, thank you very much) and to the homes of club officials who have had threatening mail, calls etc. And today the Scum section of the crowd sank to an all-time low. What bottom-feeding scumbuckets always pop-up around masses of uneducated people who are full of anger to fuel and feed it? Why the BNP of course. Waving large Union Jacks, shaved heads, handing out their despicable 'political' tracts. I heard one in a UJ t-shirt complaining that he wasn't allowed in to the stadium wearing it. So good for the Tynecastle official who lept these Nazi-wannabes out. I'm sure they ended up at the nearby pub which always seems to be full of these sorts of creeps. Went home feeling unsafe and dirty. My, what a credit to the sport. Creeps. Hunger politics is alive and well and still stoking the fires of hostility and hate.

Cassie enjoying the sudden burst of glorious blue skies and sunlight we had for a couple of days.

Raiment of quality

Finally it is here – my Hellboy symbols T-shirt, which is now Officially one of my coolest Tees. Now I just need to avoid dribbling curry and beer on it. And dissuading the cats from sleeping on it. In fact, perhaps I’ll just keep it wrapped up safely…

Hurricane retribution

My poor chum Stephanie and her girlfriend in Florida are beginning to get a little paranoid (welcome to my world) – third hurricane warning in as many weeks. I can see why that would really start to get at you, especially when one is rated a class 5, which is a technical way of saying ‘wrath of god’ I reckon. They’re still putting together the mess made from the last two hurricanes. Florida – hot sunshine, great amusement parks, amazing wildlife, great clubs. And hurricanes, sheriffs who wear mirror sunglasses and the normal compliment of gang-bangers (remember when that term used to mean something much nicer, like multiple shagging? Now it means a crew of disaffected Latinos fighting disaffected groups of inner-city coloured kids while the middle classes go and hide in gated communities). Makes you nostalgiac for dear old blighty, doesn’t it?

Anyway, we at the Gazette have been putting some thought into why Florida is being hit so much and we think we know why – it is punishment. The State of Florida is being punished by the universe/god/Fate (delete as applicable) for the karmic disaster which befell the world four years ago when Brother Jeb and that nice, unbiased Harris woman made sure Florida went Dubyah’s way. It’s karmic payback – you think it’s coincidence this is all happening only weeks from the presidential election? So, Floridians listen to us – to save yourselves and appease the Storm Gods you must take George and Jeb Bush and manacle them to the southernmost of the Keys at low tide and sacrifice them to return the cosmic balance they so badly upset. Come to think of it maybe you should throw in the rest of the Bush clan too. It will be kind of like the finale to Clash of the Titans, but not as cool and with no rescue. And if it doesn’t work and appease the Storm Gods at least it will give us all a laugh. Or you could try chucking Limbaugh after them. See if sharks can get high cholesterol from devouring a right-wing fat-arse.

And I need hardly remind you all that if Americans had taken the sensible course of action I advised them to four years ago during the whole chad-voting debacle and just got rid of both candidates and made me Emperor none of this would be happening. So there.

New blog



Haven't had much time to blog this last week or so, but will soon. In the meantime I have been busy writing up a roundup of the fantastic genre movies at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival and also working on a small (still rather basic) blog for the Edinburgh SF Book Group that Alex (now departed to London) and I started up just about a year ago. Contact details for the store, the current month's meeting and the following month's and a brief outline (in reverse order) of the previous meetings. Hopefully as we go along some of the regualr group members will contribute write-ups of the books and the suggested 'if you liked this why not try' readings.