Party on Princes Street

Dark and very wet in Edinburgh as they are doing the final preparations for tonight's Hogmanay bash - maybe not the best weather for standing outside for a huge open-air party. I'm giving it a miss - been there and done that many times (was there right at the very first one) and now at my age can't be bothered freezing outside for hours, queuing ages for the loo etc, better at my age to retire to the billiards room of my Gentlemen's Club with the port and (chocolate) cigars... The traffic was utterly fubared by the closure of Princes Street for the party, an endless line of cars and buses all the way back past Haymarket (I decided to walk, rain or not, it was quicker), which makes me worry how bad my daily trip to work will be when the stupid tram roadworks hit Princes St soon - wouldn't mind if it was useful, but the line won't go near 4/5 of homes so its bugger all use to most Edinburgh folks... Anyway, shot a quick panorama just after sunset; you can see a camera crew setting up on a platform to cover it, the lights of the fair in front of the illuminated Bank of Scotland Building over on the left, the stage almost ready in the Gardens and the Castle above it all.

Hogmanay

And so we click over to the final day of the year and also my fortieth birthday. Soundtrack for today: Clare Grogan (fworrr) and Altered Images with "Happy Birthday", Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen" ("got a baby's brain and an old man's heart... I'm a man and I'm a boy..."), The Cure's "In-Between Days" ("yesterdayI got so old, I felt like I could die, yesterday I got so old it made me want to cry"), Queen's "Who Wants To Live Forever?" and then nothing to do with age or birthdays I'm sticking on my namesake the jazz musician Joe Gordon.

Here lies Joe Gordon; no, he's not dead, just full of champagne... Born at the height of the Swinging Sixties and the Space Age; unsurprisingly he has a soft spot for the Beatles and still at 40 harbours a great desire to be an astronaut when he grows up. 1967. Britain wasn't even on the decimal system back then - I don't remember the old money as it changed when I was very small, but I still have my first bank savings book, opened by relatives when I was born, and the entries are all in pounds, shilling and pence which I don't actually understand. According to a card my mum and dad gave me in 1967 a pack of crisps would cost 1 shilling and 3 pence (about 6p modern style), a gallon of petrol 5 shillings and 5 pence, around 27 p modern (now the old money and the gallon are gone) and a pint of Guinness would have set you back 2 shillings and sixpence, or around 12 and 1/2 pence modern (and the half pence is long gone now too, of course).

Sandie Shaw won the Eurovision Song Contest in '67 with "Puppet on a String", the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released (still one of my favourite albums of all time and also one of the best cover designs ever), "In the Heat of the Night" won an Oscar ("they call me Mister Tibbs"), Elvis married Priscilla, Francis Chichester completed the first solo voyage around the globe and the QEII was launched. Louis Leakey announced the finding of ancient, pre-human fossils in Kenya, still one of the great sources of knowledge painfully peiced together on the very earliest days of humans and the species which lead to us back in the dawn days (there's nothing like reading about a 600, 000 year old proto-human fossil to make you feel younger on your 40th). Jimi Hendrix releases "Are You Experienced?" Yes, Jimi, I am and thanks for giving me my theme tune, "hey, Joe, where you goin' with that blog in yore hand?"

The Russians postured, telling their allied (actually controlled) states not to have full diplomatic links to what we used to call West Germany, while Israel went into the Six Days War and the US was embroiled in Vietnam. Of course aggression in the Middle East, Russian leaders posturing against the West and Americans getting themselves into the quagmire of an unwinnable war in a country that has nothing to do with them for dodgy political ideology are all mistakes we have learned from in 2007 and would never allow to happen today... Oh, hold on... Martin Luther King denounces the war (and of course he gets villified an killed) and Muhammad Ali refuses the military draft. They villify him too, but today who remembers the politicians who postured about, calling him names? But they remember Ali. Che Guevara meets his end but in doing so becomes immortal.

Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions was published, collecting some brilliant writing by Philip K Dick, Samuel Delany, Fritz Leiber and others. Ah, the days when Harlan was pioneering some great writing; sadly in 2007 he seems to be mentioned more regularly in connections with legal cases... The first colour broadcasts began in the UK (on some BBC2 programmes); I'm old enough to remember TV's used to have little badges on them proudly proclaiming 'colour' (usually each letter in different colours in case you were especially thick and didn't quite get it) and so did station idents. Today they all say 'HD' instead. Plus ca change.

The Summer Of Love year was also an apex in humanity's drive to the stars - both NASA and the Soviet Union (another name gone since I was younger) were sending probes to Venus and the magnificently daring Apollo programme was literally going 'where no man has gone before'. Jocelyn Bell and her colleagues using a new-fangled radio telescope discover a regular extra-terrestrial signal from the depths of space. Regular signal? Artificial? Alien life? Sadly it wasn't ET calling but it was the discovery of the bizarre stellar phenomenon of the Pulsar. Her colleagues later shared a Nobel Prize (the discovery was written up in 68) but not Bell, a controversial move. She is now a Dame. The drive to the stars seems to have faded away and I'm looking at another year where I am unlikely to have a holiday on the Moon, dammit. In other scientific advances '67 also saw Barnard perform the first heart transplant and the gloriously beautiful Concorde took her bow. Same age as me, but she's gone from the skies; luckily I am still flying, albeit rather more slowly and with a much smaller nose. Moves to have me preserved for the nation in a museum have so far come to nothing.

1967, seems worlds away now, doesn't it? And yet it was full of events still influencing 2007. Let's hope 2008 gets more of the better influences from the past and not the negative. Sadly my birthday didn't begin with me waking up sandwhiched between Monica Belluci and Winona Ryder, waiting for Nigella Lawson, clad only in a maid's apron, to bring us breakfast in bed. Then again I did wake up knowing my family are healthy and with me, I've got friends and a decent roof over my head while there's still millions who can't say that. That injustice infuriated me as a kid and a younger man and it really makes me incandescent that in 2007 we still spend more killing people than we do trying to help those who need it. I dearly wish some of our so-called leaders would read more history and learn from it. 2008 will probably bring more mistakes repeated from the past, but let's hope - let's hope it gets better. Happy New Year to you all and Peace Out, y'all.

Dusk at Fidra

Burned off a little of the constant over-feeding from the Festive period by going for a good two-hour walk on the beach with my mate Gordon when he took his dog for a decent run (Bruce does enjoy a good run on the beach although I think he enjoys all the other dogs he meets more, all those bums to sniff). On the way back the daylight was fading rapidly and the Forth was full of the noise of the many birds making last forays into the wet sand for food or flocking through the air while the lamp came on in the Fidra lighthouse.

One hour to go

One single hour to go before I am no longer a thirtysomething. End of the year and end of my thirties, hello being a funky fortysomething. Thank goodness for my creamy Celtic complexion and youthful exuberance - with those most folks think I look only 39 and a bit... Nah, that's not true, it seems to surprise a lot of folks who didn't think I was that age yet, although of course they may all just be being polite, but frankly I'm taking it the positive way. Bottle of champers chilling nicely for the birthday breakfast as we speak, any excuse... Anyway, champagne for breakfast is something everyone should indulge themselves in from time to time and if you can't do it on your birthday then when the hell can you? First time I ever had champagne at breakfast was way back in the mid 1980s in a hotel in Aachen in Germany and its kind of become a birthday ritual these days and why not? Got to live a little, especially at my age :-)

Dad continues to be on the mend - he seems a bit more tired than before, but that's pretty understandable between the lethargy having to spend several days in a hospital bed can impart and the shock to the old system. He's pretty upbeat and the final scans were clear (although he will go back in sometime in the next month or two for some routine further checks to make sure) but I think it has rattled him a little more than he lets on. We had a good Christmas together, the pair of us took every excuse to sit and watch the Wallace and Gromit repeats on the BBC while my mum tutted at us about enjoy cartoons at 'our ages', although by the time they were halfway through we heard barely suppressed sniggers coming from her direction, then out and out laughs from the woman who claims animation is for kids and not funny... Mind you that's not bad going, it took us from the early video days (Betamax no less) to just a few years back to persuade her that Blazing Saddles was a comedy masterpiece (she finally gets it).

Ton of food was guzzled of course, all homemade - can't beat yer mum's cooking! My veggie main course this year was a delicious herb-stuffed pinenut roast in red wine sauce (again homemade). Mum's meringue nests, cream, fresh fruit and some ice cream from the bloody excellent Equi's (one of the best ice cream emporiums in Scotland) for dessert (although my cousins opted for the traditional Christmas pudding instead), all washed down with a bottle of Saint Joe. My mum couldn't resist buying this bottle when she saw the name on it, although I don't actually answer to that name to anyone except her and a couple of family members as I have hated my full name for as long as I can remember and prefer just Joe; anyone else using the full name will find themselves being ignored...


(Saint Joseph, the patron saint of mixing good chocolate and red wine)

As ever we all collapsed after dinner feeling as if we had swallowed a (delicious) cannonball, full, full, full... I always look forward to enjoying mum's cooking at Christmas, but getting dad home on Christmas Eve made it particularly special. I could see him through a window as I was walking up to the house and boy was that a nice sight. We're still trying to get him to take it easy, but mum and dad have been out a bit in the last few days and in fact they took me out for an early birthday treat lunch this weekend, which was good, off to the Bridge Inn at Ratho, which is a spot I first found years back when I used to cycle a lot and Brendan and I cycled out the canal towpath several miles out of Edinburgh, saw the village, the old humpbacked bridge and the canalside pub and thought we had earned a pint, found out they did food and that was it (incidentally Brendan's 40th was a couple of weeks back - the party had a loose theme of dead rock stars and one guy came as Kurt Cobain; when he turned round he had fake blood and brains on the back of his head).

The menu was a bit disappointing - the veggie options were extremely poor which was annoying as we've eaten there many times and they usually had a number of options (I once had gorgeous hot peppers stuffed with fresh cream cheese from one of the local farms, shame they don't do it anymore) so it was irritating to see a new menu that was so limited on the veggie front - most places tend to add more vegetarian options rather than reducing them. Still, I picked out a couple of simple items and enjoyed them with a decent beer from the Atlas brewery and it meant having more time to spend with the folks which is never bad.

Dad's home

Great news this afternoon, a nice early Christmas present - my dad's been released from hospital after his tests proved okay and he's home. I'm just about to catch a train back through again myself shortly and as you can imagine the sense of relief is enormous. The medical staff seemed pretty confident on Saturday when I spoke with them, but there's always that niggling worry that at the last minute they might decide he had to stay in for something else, but nope, he's home and we're bloody happy. Many thanks to the folks who sent me positive wishes, much appreciated. I've got a huge desire to stick on the Tom and Jerry set I got dad a couple of years back and sit down with him to watch the 'Twas the night before Christmas' one from the 40s. I might just do that. Now, folks, if you'll excuse me its time to click my ruby red Doc Martens together and repeat "there's no place like home, there's no place like home..." Have a good Christmas, everybody.

Family crisis

I've not blogged for a while partly because I was busy trying to meet friends and catch up before the holidays last week. But sadly also because at the end of the week we were hit by a sudden family emergency when my mum phoned to say my dad had been taken into hospital back home in Glasgow. He had been feeling peculiar, on and off, and mum had forced him to go to his doctor. Typically the day of the appointment he felt fine, but she made him go (this is the woman we practically have to tie up and drag to the doctor's practise when she feels off) and it turned out to be a good thing she did. Although he felt fine his GP was a bit worried at a heart murmur combined with some dark flecks on his nails which can be indicative of Endocarditis, where an infection enters the body and, as you might infer from the name, attacks the heart, especially the heart valves which is an area of that extraordinary muscle where our white blood cells which fight infections can't go. When the heat of the surgery made him feel faint she decided not to bother booking him in for a visit in the New Year and just sent him directly to hospital then and there.

We were told not to worry unduly, that he wasn't in danger, but when a doctor starts talking about possible damage to heart valves it is pretty bloody hard not to worry and I don't mind admitting I felt physically sick with fear, as if I had swallowed a bar of lead, a heavy, nauseous feeling inside just worrying about anything happening to my dad. I was due to finish on Friday for the Christmas holidays and fortunately my boss told me just to leave now (thanks, Kenny), so after a quick stop to leave some extra food for the kitties I was straight home so I could go into hospital to see him and so I could stay over with my poor mum who is putting on a brave face but is obviously worried and scared too (and I wanted to be home for her as much as for my dad, think that did help her. She said she's made up by old bed before I phoned to say I was on the way because she just knew I'd be there). The rest of the family have been great too, offering lifts in and out (even my wee cousin who just passed her test days ago, bless her, phoned to offer a ride in if needed - naturally using her mum's car and petrol). I don't have any brothers and sisters, but I have a legion of cousins and aunts and uncles and count myself very, very lucky.

I hate even visiting in hospitals - I hate the smell and feel of the places and I hate seeing someone I love in one, but I had to see my dad. He had been a bit tetchy earlier, I heard, mostly because he hated being in there and wanted home (and this is a man who is almost never rude or tetchy) but he was in better spirits when I went in and the nurses on his ward were very nice and friendly. Much as he wanted to go home the doctor had made clear to him if it was Endocarditis then he had to be treated now; if not treated early it is a condition which could potentially hospitalise a patient for months and be dangerous. You just can't take chances with infections, especially one that can damage the heart, especially as at dad's age he is out of manufacturer's warranty. The doctor also told him he had a bloody good GP to pick up on these signs and send him in promptly, so good call there, Doc.

The bad news: he's still in there. The good news: he had an echocardiogram - essentially like an ultrasound scan but on the heart - which showed no trace of infection on the organ. Second doctor also joins in for a look and they pronounce what they are looking for isn't there and he's not showing other symptoms of this nasty infection such as pains, marks on the palms of the hand etc. Blood and urine tests look clear too, although they put him on an antibiotic drip as a precaution while cultures are grown from the blood for a final check, which takes a couple of days (the senior ward nurse was very helpful when I asked her for the name of the condition so I could look it up, talking over his results, the tests and what they were checking for). If everything continues to be clear, as they seem fairly confident it will (in fact they took him off the antibiotics yesterday, so they must be pretty confident), then his principal doctor will have another look at the blood cultures on Monday and if they too are good then we should hopefully be allowed to take him home. On Christmas Eve. That would be the best Christmas present we could ever have. Although I'm not sure if that would mean we would have to leave him wrapped under the tree till Christmas morning...

Small world: in the bed nearest to my dad was an elderly gentleman who turned out to be from the same part of town as some of my dad's older relatives from many years ago and who remembered some of them. He was having a slow blood transfusion, the drip feed bag connected to him. He'd asked how long it took and they nurse said about four hours, so he said what if I need to go the loo in that time? Few minutes later several of the nurses come back with those long-necked bottles for patients who can't leave their beds and they pile a dozen next to him, laughing - nice to see they can joke with the patients and keep their spirits up. I told him if any of the blood they were giving him had a peaty aftertaste to it then it might be some of mine (its all the single malts, good for the blood flow, you know) - it was interesting to see someone benefiting from a blood donation.

You know when you give it that it will help someone, but you don't normally see it in action. Of course, dad didn't need a transfusion himself, but he might well have done and frankly that's another bloody good reason to be a regular donor - you never know when something might happen to the people who matter to you and how they might depend on those donations, so again I'd say to everyone who has thought about but never done it, please, please go in and start donating; you might help a perfect stranger, you might be helping someone at the centre of your world. And it feels good to do something positive for life when there's too many bad things in the world. And if you find one of your loved ones in hospital (and sadly at some point in our lives that's likely to happen to all of us at some point) you'll be bloody glad folks do give blood, so don't just assume other will do it, go out there and do it yourself.

So fingers crossed we get my dad home tomorrow and we get our family Christmas together. We're feeling more positive than we were at the end of last week, but obviously we're still concerned and we're eager to have him home and worried that some last minute thing will crop up to get in the way, so think positive thoughts for us and if I don't get a chance to post again before the big day then peace and love to you all. We've just passed the Longest Night of the year; slowly, almost imperceptibly the long, dark nights of our northern kingdom will grow shorter and the days longer. Maybe that's a good omen for us. And after two days of mist and freezing fog today the sun rose bright and clear. I hope that's another one.

Government loses more records

The wonderfully efficient government here has managed to lose even more confidential data on citizens, just weeks after losing sensitive information on some 25 million people (and taking quite some time for Alistair Darling to actually get round to telling citizens and the House) - now they've admitted losing a hard drive with information on some three million candidates for the driving theory test. While not as potentially sensitive as the HMCR balls-up (which included losing data such as children's details, bank accounts and national insurance numbers) it is astonishing that civil service departments can continue to be so bloody incompetent. Sure, mistakes always happen, but repeated mistakes of such magnitude?

If any of us in a private sector job screwed up on that scale repeatedly we'd be fired. Unlike in the civil service or government - the HMCR head Paul Gray who resigned over his department's almighty screw-up was back working in a government post - the Cabinet Office no less - a few weeks after resigning at a salary in excess of £200, 000. That's 200K paid from our taxes, boys and girls, so we work away in jobs where our bosses would fire us for this level of ineptitude (and rightly so) yet folk earning many times more than us (with far better pension and holiday rights as well, plus Honours thrown in regularly) get another extremely well paid job as a reward for mismanaging a major public service. And naturally no politicians are resigning or taking the rap for it, despite the fact their reforms of the civil service contributed in part to the system failing in the first place (and repeatedly). And then our 'leaders' wonder why increasingly we are a nation of people who seem selfish and unwilling to accept personal responsibility when they set these kinds of examples time and again...

Two sides of the Castle

Going to work a few days ago, south side of the Castle as the bus goes through the Grassmarket, home to old inns where Burns once stayed. At this time of year in Scotland the sun is so low in the sky it doesn't clear Castle Ridge in the early morning, so from the New Town side on the north it is silhouetted with the rising sun behind it. But from the southern view that same low sun, stretched out to a golden copper as warm as the morning air is frigid, washes across the ancient wall and makes the native stone glow with life against a clear, pale blue sky.

This morning, the north side of the Castle, looking from Princes Street, the battlements in shadow as the low sun hides behind the Ridge. Everything is covered in hard frost, from the plants in the valley of the Gardens below the volcanic mount to the walls of the Castle, glittering in morning light, sparkling as if millions of tiny diamonds had been dusted over the city. Beautiful.

Whoo
Originally uploaded by Beckbecky

Courtesy of BeckyBecky, one of my Flickr and Fotolog chums, comes this scene from SantaCon which is both funny and disturbing at the same time! If this is Santa I hate to think what state Rudolf and his red nose are in...

Terry Pratchett has bad news

Awful news from Terry Pratchett confirming on Paul Kidby's Discworld News that he is suffering from early on-set Alzheimer's. Terry's not just one of the biggest (and most consistently enjoyable, smart and funny) fantasy authors, he's one of those rare bestsellers who appeals way beyond the genre, making him one of the most popular writers on our wee planet. I've seen lines of fans at Terry's signings stretch round the store, out the doors, down the street and round the block; I've also seen him sit there and sign for each one of those folks and chat to each of them too, occasionally taking a moment to rest his wrist in some iced water then start signing more books. As Cory Doctorow notes in Boing Boing though, Terry is employing his humour, trying to stay positive and encouraging readers to do the same:

" I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer's, which lay behind this year's phantom "stroke".

We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism. For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. All other things being equal, I expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers. Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there's time for at least a few more books yet :o)

PS I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as 'I am not dead'. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think - it's too soon to tell. I know it's a very human thing to say "Is there anything I can do", but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry."

Creationist whackos get science teacher fired

Yup, once more the intellectually feeble throwbacks who constantly espouse 'intelligent design' (which is basically the utterly discredited Creationism dressed up in laughably bad science clothes) have made a move to decrease the IQ of the world a bit more: they used a flimsy excuse to get a science education officer in Texas fired. Christine Castillo Comer's crime? She forwarded an email as an FYI which she had received from one science educational professional to some interested groups about a talk by an author in the area, an author who has looked into the fake 'science' these Intelligent Design wankers keep trying to sneak into school curriculums while also trying to have evolutionary teaching curtailed (no, they haven't realised the 19th century is over).

Her boss's boss dropped her in it claiming simply forwarding this message was tantamount to the education board endorsing it, which is ridiculous since she didn't express an opinion, simply passed on details of a scientific talk to science professionals. Besides which anyone who works for a government department or large corporation knows full well their emails are usually issued under a 'the ideas expressed in this email do not necessarily promote the ideals of the blankety blank department'. Interestingly enough this boss is a political appointee - a Bush-loving one. And the head of the board openly endorses Creationist nonsense and talks yet hangs out one of his science professionals for simply passing on details of a talk involving scientific matters to other scientific professionals.

Sadly this sort of attack on actually using our brains to logically interpret massive amounts of careful scientific date amassed over many decades by many people from paleontologists to genetic researchers is not confined to a few religious crackpots in Jesusland (as Richard Morgan terms the Texas area in his recent novel Black Man) since there have been attempts to push this nonsense in schools in the UK too. This really does infuriate me - NPR has a radio interview with Christine on their site and the whole thing stinks of a political-religious set-up for these right wing fundamentalist eejits to shove someone out the way so they can then install a new person who will agree with their retarded ideology. And if you are a Creationist don't bother explaining to me why your view point is valid, because it just isn't. You're entitled to hold your view but please feck off and don't inflict it on others much less try to infect schoolkids with your idiocy. If you believe this crap you are an anti-intellectual moron brain-washed by fundamentalists who like using their religion as a way to gain more control over people and what they can say or think - and that's the nub of it, these idiots don't just believe this fairy tale nonsense themselves, they demand it be taught to the rest of us. Thankfully the few attempts here have been laughed at in much the same way as trying to each that the Earth is flat would be, but these idiots keep trying... (link via Boing Boing)

How to spot a Cylon

Adam Levermore-Rich, the guy who designed the really cool Serenity Blue Sun Travel Posters (which used some neat retro styling to make adverts for tourist destinations in the universe of Joss Whedon's Firefly/Serenity - unusual and very cool) has produced what I think is the first in a new line of 'propaganda' posters from the universe of another cult science fiction show, this time the brilliant Battlestar Galactica with the How To Spot A Cylon Poster. Since there are now human-looking Cylons as well as the old toasters this guide could save your life!

Yanks to the world - fuck you all, we can do what we want

The Times reports on a rather chilling legal message (and I use the term 'legal' quite wrongly) from the Home of the Free - America claims that it is perfectly legal under their barbarous legal system to kidnap foreign citizens in any country, even kidnapping citizens of allied countries such as British citizens in their own country. Bad enough the extremely dodgy and morally bankrupt practise of extraordinary rendition but now they claim this highly immoral and illegal (at least in any civilised country which has actual rule of law) is perfectly acceptable according to their own legal standards.

Well, what laws they set in their own borders is up to them, of course, but to act in this arrogant, cavalier manner in other countries, breaking the laws of those nations, is normally what we would refer to as the actions of a 'rogue state'. And since that's a rogue state who ignores international law and has weapons of mass destruction then by the warped logic of their own retard monkey president then surely they should invade themselves and impose a regime change? I mean we all know the current administration is of the opinion it can do whatever it wants anywhere and get away with it, but it is chilling to see such a barbarous set of actions given official blessing by the judiciary of a supposedly civilised democratic society. (link via Boing Boing and Warren Ellis)

Now that's what I call a rare book

The BBC has details of a book coming up at auction - nothing unusual there, obviously. Except this 1605 book "A True and Perfect Relation of The Whole Proceedings against the Late most barbarous Traitors, Garnet a Jesuit and his Confederats" is thought to be bound in human skin - specifically the skin of Henry Garnet, a Jesuit priest caught up in the Gunpowder Plot (although he was widely held not be an actual part of it, wanting nothing to do with such a violent act). Even more macabre, the wrinkles on the cover allegedly give the impression of a human face, a human face with large eyes, just like Henry was said to possess... Cue Twilight Zone music! Man, I've sold a lot of very specially bound editions over the years in the trade (and have a few myself) but that's taking it a bit too far... I wonder if some anti-aging cosmetic cream companies will consider it for their next beauty books...

New Dan Dare

This weekend I sat down with a mixture of excitement and trepidation to read the latest attempt to resurrect one of the most famous characters in British comics history (and also a lifelong favourite of both me and my dad, incidentally), Dan Dare. Garth Ennis and Gary Erskine's first issue of the new Dan Dare from Virgin Comics just came out and I had to read it. Then I had to write a bit about it and ended up doing a review for the Forbidden Planet International blog, which I am also going to reproduce below:

Dan Dare #1
Written by Garth Ennis, art by Gary Erskine

As regular readers will know I’m a huge fan of the original Dan Dare; back in 1977 it was the then-new kid on the block, 2000 AD, which introduced me to the character (along with Massimo Belardinelli’s stunning artwork). My dad, reading my progs after me, mentioned reading the original Dan Dare when he was a boy and how much better it had been (he was right, it was). Original Dan Dare? What was this Eagle comic he spoke of to my young ears? What was this radio series of the Pilot of the Future he used to listen to? I didn’t know it then, but I was slowly becoming aware of a piece of British comics history and a character that would go on to be one of my favourites of all time, Colonel Daniel McGregor Dare (and getting to share it with my dad makes it more special). I remember buying the over-sized Hawk Books reprints in the 90s for my dad and I’ve got a shelf full of the handsome Titan Classic Dan Dare volumes myself (a great range, which I always recommend).

So you can imagine I’ve been suffering a mixture of excitement for the latest attempt to resurrect Dan Dare along with a nagging worry that it will fall flat on its face. Much as I want to see Dan brought back with new adventures there are always two main problems to be faced: if you make it too similar to the original then you are being faithful to the characters but you run the risk of offering reheated leftovers with nothing new. On the other hand if you offer something new and different then fans (like me) will ask why you put Dan’s name on it since it has very little to do with him. So with these ambivalent feelings I picked up the first issue of Virgin’s Dan Dare - naturally the fine Bryan Talbot cover version which uses elements of the classic, including Dan’s helmet (Greg Horn is an artist I like but his style is totally unsuited to Dan; my advice, avoid the variant cover). And here’s the thing: I liked it.

In fact I really, really liked it. I enjoyed it; I liked Ennis’ take on him, I like the way he has set it years after Dan and Digby’s ‘glory days’ as the prime minister refers to them so we can maintain links to the original but still have something new, I like the space opera set-up of old-fashioned space battle cruisers, the promise of a threat from the past and a call to an old Hero which comes right out of Joseph Campbell. And no matter how sophisticated and postmodern we like to think our tastes have become, at the end of the day pretty much everyone of us at some point just wants a Hero; we want someone who will stand up and do the Right Thing, not for personal gain, not for political gain, not for glory, but because it is the Right Thing. The more troubled our times, the more we yearn for such a Hero and Ennis handles this especially well in my opinion.

(opening page of Garth Ennis new Dan Dare issue 1, art by Gary Erskine, published Virgin Comics)

We have the British prime minister visiting Dan in his retirement; prior to this the chaps’ old sidekick and their scientific advisor Professor Jocelyn Peabody is seen meeting a retired Digby in orbit at Space Fleet’s Gibraltar station, where we pick up a few details of the way the world has changed from the classic era and find that Britain is the leading power following a Chinese-American conflict (the panel showing modern America from orbit was simple but highly effective). We’re also clued in to the fact that the prime minister may not be the best man in the world; not actually malignant or evil, but a man who can make decisions he thinks are for the Greater Good regardless of actual morality. Something that sounds awfully familiar to anyone who follows contemporary British politics, as does references to him having been in power too long and never resigning despite often saying he plans to (gee, who could Garth be referring to?).

So by the time the meeting of the prime minister and Dan arrives we’ve already had some insights into his character and recent history (and in well-handled small bursts, no huge ‘info dump’ to bring us up to speed). And if we’re in any doubt then his interaction with Dan reinforces the earlier impressions - the prime minister admires the pictures on Dan’s wall and remarks on a particularly pretty aircraft.

(the present meets the past; the prime minister calls on a retired Dan Dare)

“A Spitfire,” replies Dan, “my grandfather flew one in the Battle of Britain.”

“I wasn’t aware there’d been a battle of…”

“Small matter of saving the country and Western civilisation along with it. Why don’t you have a seat?”

Its one of those exchanges which conveys simply but effectively contempt for much of political ‘leadership’ and the way in which our leaders are happy to associate themselves with our Great History and our Heroic Armed Forces for media-friendly appearances, yet they often have a complete ignorance of our actual history and they end up committing similar mistakes to the past because of it. They represent spin and image, all surface, while Dan, for all his quietness, represents that which they pretend to. It isn’t as biting as Grant Morrison and Rian Hughes’ Thatcher-era Dan Dare (reproduced recently in the splendid Yesterday’s Tomorrows) and yet it clearly tips its hat to that tale while also serving to establish the current set-up of Dan’s world in this new version.

It isn’t all just a slightly melancholic, wistful longing for the Good Old Days when things were simpler and men were Real Men though, we’re treated to big space cruisers, gloriously old-fashioned, right down to gun turrets like an old naval warship and a crew who use terms like ‘fish in the water’ when they detect incoming fire. Cue a sudden attack and we’re treated to dirty, big spaceships blasting away at each other; it is wonderfully old-fashioned, pure space opera stuff and gods but its great! Older Digby, Jocelyn and Dan re-introduced, small but sufficient glimpses of the way the world has changed since Dan’s original day with the promise of more to come, a threat hinted at - could it be the Mekon, back again? - then sudden, awful confirmation with a spectacular space battle (Gary’s art is clear and unfussy throughout, quite suitable to Dan I thought) and Dan’s call back to action and that’s just the first issue. Will I be picking up the second issue now? Oh, hell, yes!

(it isn’t just juxtaposing old values against the modern, we also get some cracking, old-fashioned space battles)

You can enjoy the allusions to our contemporary world, the parallels and comments on politics and national leaders, the seeming lack of a moral compass in modern society, the rose-tinted view of the Good Old Days and references to the original Frank Hampson work (who I am glad to see name-checked inside) and the Morrison-Hughes Dare, or you can laugh at the back page advert for Virgin Galactic. But mostly you can also just simply allow yourself to indulge in a really enjoyable read and look forward to the promise of good, old-fashioned, square-jawed British heroics, and god knows with all that’s going on in our troubled world it feels good to have that kind of real Hero again, even if he is fictional. it’s a form of heroism the prime minister clearly doesn’t get, even as he appeals to it, but the readers get it and they love Dan for it:

“There’s one thing that puzzles me, Mister Dare.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but you obviously want no part of what Britain is today or you wouldn’t be living all the way out here, would you? So I simply don’t understand why you’re still willing to fight for it…”

“No, prime minister, I don’t imagine you do.”

There’s the proper Dan Dare in a nutshell and that’s what I want; I’m looking forward to Ennis and Erskine building on this first issue.