Win signed books!

I used my book wheedling and scrounging skills (if I were in the Great Escape I'd be James Garner's character) to procure a couple of the latest graphic novels from Rebellion, home of 2000AD for prizes for a competition at work. Rebellion started a new series last year collecting classic material with the Complete Judge Dredd Case Files, which collect all of Dredd's adventures into chronological order, volume by volume, starting right back in 1977 (yes, I do have every volume so far - can't help it, I grew up with 2000AD from the first issue - or 'prog' as they call them - and am a total fanboy still). They've been hugely successful, I'm glad to say and on the back of this they have launched new series doing the same for other classic 2000AD characters, in the same format so they will all build into a classic library of Brit comics on your shelves. Jon at Rebellion not only obtained the Judge Dredd Complete Case Files Volume 5 for us, he got it signed by John Wagner and Alan Grant, two of the biggest names in British comics and the Complete Nemesis the Warlock Volume 1 signed by the equally legendary Pat Mills.



Incredibly collectible volumes for any fan to have on their shelves - I'm a bit jealous as I have these books myself but not signed! Anyway, with the 30th anniversary of 2000AD coming up in a couple of weeks (yes, it really is 30 years old) we have the competition to win these signed graphic novels running - details can be found on the (freshly made-over) FPI blog and the entry form (with oh-so-easy question to answer) is on the main FPI webstore; get those entries in by Wednesday 21st to be in with a chance of winning!

Channel Frederator

Posting on the Black Horse animation reminded me that I had forgotten to mention the recent Channel Frederator awards here. Frederator was set up to encourage animators and video makers; there's been a ton of interesting material on there and the recent awards page has links to the winners so not only can you read about them you can see them (too many to link to here, so just follow this main link). I wish the Academy would do something like this for the short animated movie nominees in the running for Oscars this year, since otherwise most of us will never get to see them. Some SF awards like the Hugos have done this with some tales in the short story awards nominations, making them available online so more people can get to read them and I think short animations could benefit from this in the same way, especially now it is so easy to upload short videos for mass viewing online.

Black Horse

I love the animation in this advert for Lloyds TSB bank (not that it makes me want to bank with them but the animation is nice), which is based around a train ride which also incorporates a couple's journey through life. The animation in it is lovely and is it just me or does a lot of the style in this advert look like it has been cribbed Les Triplettes de Belleville (probably better known here as Bellville Rendevous)? The faces of the characters (especially the long noses), the elevated train track and the style of the tall, skinny house all look like they've been borrowed from Belleville (perhaps another reason I like it since I thought Belleville was a great little movie with some brilliant animation and some almost Gerald Scarfe-like characters here and there).

Make believers

I came across this article the other day because of its mention of Jedis - it proves to be the most hilariously stupid and self-contradicting piece I've read all week. Don Walton, an evangelical Christian minister attacking others for their ridiculous 'made up' beliefs:

"In this day of rampant relativism, when everyone is encouraged to make up their own truth and no one is permitted to criticize another's concocted convictions, feelings have replaced facts as the foundation of faith. In other words, whatever you feel good about believing is "truth" enough, regardless of whether or not it flies in the face of facts and logic. Everyone is now free to make up their own beliefs, as well as their own "facts" in support of them. Consequently, today's world is becoming increasingly populated by "make-believers"; that is, people who believe what they or others have made-up. On the other hand, real believers — people who believe in real things — are becoming increasingly scarce."

What he was talking about was the SF fans in Britain who put 'Jedi' down on the last national census for the part asking about religious affiliation, as well as having a snigger at Tom Cruise and the Scientology malarkey thought up by a second rate SF writer. He totally misses the point that most fans in the UK put 'Jedi' on their census because it was a joke - it went round the web as a suggestion before the census and many fans put it on because if a certain amount of respondents had that the government statistics folks have to create an official category for it in the records (which doesn't make it an officially recognised religion able to make charity status for tax relief etc, just makes it funny because the grey suits in the statistic departments of government have to add 'Jedi' in as a category in official figures). So he starts from a flawed basis and displays not only ignorance of what he is talking about but also a lack of understanding of the humour fans were showing by making this their answer on their census forms (yeah, Don, it was a joke - most Brit Star Wars fans aren't seriously devoted to the Jedi belief system).

Now as for having a dig at the Scientologists, fair enough, they and their celebrity adherents do rather set themselves up as easy targets and it doesn't help that L Ron Hubbard just made it all up a few decades ago (Larry Niven took the mickey out of this in Inferno, his take on Dante in which he has an SF author go to Hell after dying at a convention; he is sentenced to Hell for the blasphemy of making up his own religion. It's a hilarious read). But whacky as Scientology seems to me I don't see anything weirder in it than believing in Virgin births, resurrecting the dead, burning bushes, women being turned into pillars of salt, humans being made out of dust (or a rib for that matter).

And I love the way he talks about 'real' believers and 'make believers' and how the former have religion based on logic and facts! I mean come on, are you at all familiar with the concept of irony, Don? Your religious cult differs in no way from these others you are bashing - it recognises no logic and picks and chooses what 'facts' it will accept and which it will ignore, even in the face of overwhelming evidence (like, for example, the evolution subject, where many of your fellow believers choose which 'facts' make them feel good - so much for logic and truth) so for an evangelist to invoke 'facts' and 'logic' is laughable and exposes your system for the ridicule it richly deserves. But you did make me laugh with your ignorant and self-contradictory statements (bit like the Old and New Testaments now I come to think of it, never seem to be very compatible). Just a shame some weak-minded numpties unable to think for themselves will blindly believe you and go along with what you say. Oh and one more thing, but after seeing your picture on this article I can only add "should have gone to spec savers."

The Borders

My mate Gordon wanted to give his old MG a decent run so at the weekend we headed off south of Edinburgh and down through the lovely rolling hills of the Scottish Borders. We even had the roof down, although it was a little chilly for that, but it was too much fun not too, before stopping for a break in Peebles and being astonished when we looked in an estate agent's window and saw the size of house you could buy for the same as a small flat in Edinburgh.


Peebles has an awful lot of kirks for such a wee town
A view from near the river


Church spire - stupidly I forgot to note the name of the church
As we passed this church I noticed the doors were open and the stained glass caught my eye; I was wary of going in on a Sunday - not just in case I burst into flames but in case there was a service, but there wasn't another soul there and I had it to myself for a few moments. There's always something peaceful about a quiet, stone church.


If you look to the lower left panel in this one you can see a stained glass image of the actual church the window itself is in (you can compare it to the spire in the earlier pics - I noticed the spire has a 'crown'-like top similar to the one on St Giles in Edinburgh)



And back home in Edinburgh this was the view this evening after a sunny but cold winter's day, just after the sun had dipped below the western horizon. I snapped this through the window of the bus as it passed over North Bridge (surprised it worked), which strides over the valley between the Old Town and the New Town. This is looking west over the Waverly train station, with the Bank of Scotland building and the Castle up on the left, the National Gallery and Royal Scottish Academy in the centre and the Gothic rocket of the Scott Monument standing proud on the right. And that's a view that gets even my head up out of my book as I make my way home.

Dig that Castle

Interesting article in the Evening News today of an archaeological dig by Historic Scotland which has been going on underneath Edinburgh Castle, where they have been surprised by finding part of a two-metre thick defensive wall added after the attacks by the Covenanters and then that barrel of laughs that was Oliver Cromwell in the 1600s. The access tunnel used to explore this find under the Castle is, coincidentally, pretty much under where I stood on the Esplanade (where the Tattoo is held in August) to take the photos of the Castle by night a couple of weeks back with my new camera. Fascinating to think that with all of that history right in front of me there was even more hidden history a few feet below my boots.

Of course, with Edinburgh being built on a number of hills (which terrifies many an American tourist - walking around town is a shock to most of them, walking up and down hills is their nightmare) it means that much of what you see if built atop older structures. Recent relaying of cobbles on the Royal Mile (which runs from the Castle gates down the ridge to Holyrood Palace at the other end) revealed more bits and pieces from the 18th and 18th century (what passes for modern or recent history to us) and, famously, Mary Kings Close is an old street built over after plague and then rediscovered and now open to visit beneath the City Chambers.

Who knows how many other layers of deeper history lie below the Castle though? There is a reason why such a massive castle is built where it is, rising out of the volcanic rock, man-made structure and the hand of nature combining to create something which dominates the city (I love passing it every day to go to work - beats the hell out of passing high rise offices on your commute, doesn't it?) and it is thought that some forms of fortified dwellings would have been there pretty much since people have lived in the land after the great glaciers retreated, carving out the hills and mountains that shape that land and the people; literally thousands of years of history beneath us, sleeping in the native earth, the ancient structures we see, old as they are, only the surface of a history stretching back millennia, through Scots, Celtic tribes, Roman visitors (who didn't stay long) and back and back before even the Celts. Were there small groups fortifying that impressive rock back when the Callanish Standing Stones were being raised on the opposite coast? And if we consider the geological events which shaped these landforms we find we're walking through not mere millennia, which flit past swiftly like birds, but the deep, deep time of the Earth itself; almost inconceivable timsescales we attach numbers to as if we really can understand a concept such as millions or billions of years. All of that comes together in what I see every day as I go past. I like that.

Factional struggle

The violent struggle in the Middle East has taken a turn for the worse as followers of the Humus faction clash with the supporters of the Fatter Party; fundamentalist dietary Muslims, who knew it would come to this? Meanwhile the flames have been fanned still further from Europe as a Danish pastry in the shape of the Prophet Mo'Betta Blues went on sale causing outrage among the fundamentalist confectionery and bakery wing of Islam. Has the world gone mad? Still, most haven't tumbled to the fact that the humble croissant is actually shaped so Westerners can celebrate defeating the Ottoman Muslim hordes by eating the symbol of their land. Phew, thank goodness they haven't cottoned to that one yet. Welcome to the next phase of the War on Terror - now even food isn't safe...