How cool is this Family Guy Star Wars poster?
Monday, September 10, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Happy birthday to the Book Group
I just realised today that this month's meeting of the Edinburgh SF Book Group will mark the fourth birthday. My former colleague Alex and I thought it up back in the summer of 2003 and decided a good start date would be after the busy circus of the Festival left town, so we opted for September. And for our initial discussion it seemed fitting to pick a debut novel, so we opted for one of the best debuts novels of recent SF by one of our favourite writers, Glasgow-based Richard Morgan, the Philip K Dick award-winning Altered Carbon (which also introduced Richard's character Takeshi Kovacs and also made headlines when it was the subject of a large film rights deal via Joel Silver. I remember the Guardian running an article on that and unable to reach Richard who was on holiday at the time they nicely pilfered quotes from our interview on the Alien Online without asking or crediting the site).
The book group has gone on over those four years, surviving the debacle of the Bloggergate nonsense between me and my former employers at the Bookstore Who Shall Not Be Named (where it had driven sales of backlist titles and boosted the company's profile, but no more - that's their loss) and trying to find a new regular venue after that. We've got a good core of different folks who come regularly and we've had more folks join us since then. We take turn about getting to choose books for the month which means we get a good, diverse range of material.
We've taken in graphic novels like the Sandman, classic SF from Alfred Bester and HG Wells, contemporary political SF like Ken MacLeod, horror from James Herbert, fantasy like the Lies of Locke Lamora and also more mainstream material with touches of SF like David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas or Michel Faber's Under the Skin (which the literati can read, safe in the knowledge that they aren't really part of that 'SF nonsense', they're literature). Ursula le Guin has rubbed shoulders with Margaret Atwood, Charles Burns, Aldous Huxley, James Lovegrove, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jeff VanderMeer, Sheri S Tepper, Neal Stephenson and Robert Louis Stevenson among many others. Because each of us gets to take a turn picking a book we get exposed to more diverse material and so more to discuss, more to think about, more to enjoy. One of the few pleasures better than reading a good book is being able to share it with others and talk about it. And if that also means enjoying some trips to the pub too, so much the better (since there is a very welcome social aspect to the group too).
We started with an author who now lives in Glasgow and this fourth anniversary month sees us discussing a recent novel from an Edinburgh-based scribe, Charlie Stross as we discuss his novel Glasshouse. In a lovely bit of coincidence Glasshouse won the Prometheus award (given by the Libertarian SF group) last week just after it was picked for our September meeting, so congrats to Charlie. We normally meet on the last Tuesday of the month in Henderson's on Hanover Street and anyone is welcome to come along - meeting details usually go up on the Book Group blog.
I just realised today that this month's meeting of the Edinburgh SF Book Group will mark the fourth birthday. My former colleague Alex and I thought it up back in the summer of 2003 and decided a good start date would be after the busy circus of the Festival left town, so we opted for September. And for our initial discussion it seemed fitting to pick a debut novel, so we opted for one of the best debuts novels of recent SF by one of our favourite writers, Glasgow-based Richard Morgan, the Philip K Dick award-winning Altered Carbon (which also introduced Richard's character Takeshi Kovacs and also made headlines when it was the subject of a large film rights deal via Joel Silver. I remember the Guardian running an article on that and unable to reach Richard who was on holiday at the time they nicely pilfered quotes from our interview on the Alien Online without asking or crediting the site).
The book group has gone on over those four years, surviving the debacle of the Bloggergate nonsense between me and my former employers at the Bookstore Who Shall Not Be Named (where it had driven sales of backlist titles and boosted the company's profile, but no more - that's their loss) and trying to find a new regular venue after that. We've got a good core of different folks who come regularly and we've had more folks join us since then. We take turn about getting to choose books for the month which means we get a good, diverse range of material.
We've taken in graphic novels like the Sandman, classic SF from Alfred Bester and HG Wells, contemporary political SF like Ken MacLeod, horror from James Herbert, fantasy like the Lies of Locke Lamora and also more mainstream material with touches of SF like David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas or Michel Faber's Under the Skin (which the literati can read, safe in the knowledge that they aren't really part of that 'SF nonsense', they're literature). Ursula le Guin has rubbed shoulders with Margaret Atwood, Charles Burns, Aldous Huxley, James Lovegrove, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jeff VanderMeer, Sheri S Tepper, Neal Stephenson and Robert Louis Stevenson among many others. Because each of us gets to take a turn picking a book we get exposed to more diverse material and so more to discuss, more to think about, more to enjoy. One of the few pleasures better than reading a good book is being able to share it with others and talk about it. And if that also means enjoying some trips to the pub too, so much the better (since there is a very welcome social aspect to the group too).
We started with an author who now lives in Glasgow and this fourth anniversary month sees us discussing a recent novel from an Edinburgh-based scribe, Charlie Stross as we discuss his novel Glasshouse. In a lovely bit of coincidence Glasshouse won the Prometheus award (given by the Libertarian SF group) last week just after it was picked for our September meeting, so congrats to Charlie. We normally meet on the last Tuesday of the month in Henderson's on Hanover Street and anyone is welcome to come along - meeting details usually go up on the Book Group blog.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Comics Britannia
Next Monday (the tenth) sees the start of a season of programmes on BBC4 about comics, with the centrepiece being three one-hour programmes on British comics, from the launch of the Dandy and Beano in the late 1930s through to the present day, with a nice array of contributors from Leo Baxendale (creator of Minnie the Minx and the Bash Street Kids among others) to Bryan Talbot and Alan Moore, with the three programmes comprising The Fun Factory (which looks at the kid's comics), Boy and Girls (which looks at - well, comics for boys and girls like the Eagle, Bunty etc) and Anarchy in the UK where comics get nastier and grittier (and often ruder!) with 2000AD, Deadline, V For Vendetta and Viz.
(a panel of Leo Baxendale's Bash Street Kids, (c) DC Thomson)
I first heard about this last year when they were looking for suggestions for comics, characters and creators to try and include and in a stoke of luck I was offered preview discs of the series by the Beeb (and obviously I wasn't going to say no!). I've been looking forward to this for a fair while and was delighted to see that it was indeed excellent - and before you think oh, I'm not really a comics fan, you might want to take a look because it has been made to be accessible and enjoyable to anyone, not just comics geeks like me and there is also a nice wave of nostalgic pleasure to be had from it; after all just about everyone over the age of 30 in the UK would have read comics at some point growing up. I've posted a review (or preview, I suppose) up on the Forbidden Planet blog, along with a Q&A with Alastair Laurence, the series producer and director about the making of the series (Alastair also worked on the brilliant Animation Nation a couple of years back).
Next Monday (the tenth) sees the start of a season of programmes on BBC4 about comics, with the centrepiece being three one-hour programmes on British comics, from the launch of the Dandy and Beano in the late 1930s through to the present day, with a nice array of contributors from Leo Baxendale (creator of Minnie the Minx and the Bash Street Kids among others) to Bryan Talbot and Alan Moore, with the three programmes comprising The Fun Factory (which looks at the kid's comics), Boy and Girls (which looks at - well, comics for boys and girls like the Eagle, Bunty etc) and Anarchy in the UK where comics get nastier and grittier (and often ruder!) with 2000AD, Deadline, V For Vendetta and Viz.
(a panel of Leo Baxendale's Bash Street Kids, (c) DC Thomson)
I first heard about this last year when they were looking for suggestions for comics, characters and creators to try and include and in a stoke of luck I was offered preview discs of the series by the Beeb (and obviously I wasn't going to say no!). I've been looking forward to this for a fair while and was delighted to see that it was indeed excellent - and before you think oh, I'm not really a comics fan, you might want to take a look because it has been made to be accessible and enjoyable to anyone, not just comics geeks like me and there is also a nice wave of nostalgic pleasure to be had from it; after all just about everyone over the age of 30 in the UK would have read comics at some point growing up. I've posted a review (or preview, I suppose) up on the Forbidden Planet blog, along with a Q&A with Alastair Laurence, the series producer and director about the making of the series (Alastair also worked on the brilliant Animation Nation a couple of years back).
Monday, September 3, 2007
Out with a bang
And thus Edinburgh's Festival season, the world's biggest arts festival, comes to an end for another year with mighty explosions echoing across the city like the pounding of the Castle's cannons as the traditional classical music and fireworks concert took place. I was lucky enough to be invited to my friend's workplace which has a good view out towards the front of the Castle rather than standing with the 250, 000 others in the streets and hills of the city watching it all. It was a lovely late summer evening as we walked into the city centre, the last glow of the sun washing the stones of the Castle in a copper glow before finally fading into darkness, the stars beginning to appear in the sky above the floodlit fortress. An air of expectation from thousands of people waiting in the dark... The orchestra in the Gardens begins to play and suddenly the dark night explodes in light, colour and sound, incredibly ephemeral sculptures and flowers of light in the air, lasting only seconds.
I love fireworks - there are some things you never grow out of an a huge fireworks show is one of them. But fireworks launching into the sky from an ancient fortress atop a volcanic rock is something else again. I love living here. You can view the full set at larger sizes on my Flickr stream.
And thus Edinburgh's Festival season, the world's biggest arts festival, comes to an end for another year with mighty explosions echoing across the city like the pounding of the Castle's cannons as the traditional classical music and fireworks concert took place. I was lucky enough to be invited to my friend's workplace which has a good view out towards the front of the Castle rather than standing with the 250, 000 others in the streets and hills of the city watching it all. It was a lovely late summer evening as we walked into the city centre, the last glow of the sun washing the stones of the Castle in a copper glow before finally fading into darkness, the stars beginning to appear in the sky above the floodlit fortress. An air of expectation from thousands of people waiting in the dark... The orchestra in the Gardens begins to play and suddenly the dark night explodes in light, colour and sound, incredibly ephemeral sculptures and flowers of light in the air, lasting only seconds.
I love fireworks - there are some things you never grow out of an a huge fireworks show is one of them. But fireworks launching into the sky from an ancient fortress atop a volcanic rock is something else again. I love living here. You can view the full set at larger sizes on my Flickr stream.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Harvest time
(click for the larger image)
(click for the larger image)
Driving down the east coast from Edinburgh, down past North Berwick and all the fields either full of swaying, full, ripe crops, rippling like the sea in the breeze or already harvested like this one, all stacked and ready, the farmers making hay while the sun shines. Considering I shot this almost blind because there was a tall hedgerow in the way and I had to stand on tip-toes with the camera over my head I'm pleased it came out at all.
How not to park in Edinburgh
Someone filmed some parking attendants in Edinburgh at work using some unusual tactics near the Usher Hall, sitting waiting in a large, unmarked car and as soon as someone parks where they shouldn't nipping out and booking them as soon as they are out of sight (wouldn't it make more sense just to go up to them beforehand and say you can't park there or you will be fined? Then they won't be causing an obstruction? Oh yeah, then NCP who run the scheme for the corrupt council and the council themselves don't make money from it...). Even better the parking attendant's vehicle is parked on double yellow lines causing an obstruction itself! And there are no less than three of the buggers in it.
I've got no problem with them booking people parking illegally, but I'm wondering why they need three people in a large vehicle parked on double yellow lines and why they need such a large car to swan round town in (and park in stupid places with impunity)? Since attendants can't patrol every area isn't it more important they be spread around as much as possible and not just sitting on their arse picking off lame ducks like this? And for going round town (or for sitting in a vehicle like this) why not use something smaller and more appropriate for city driving? This might explain why the buggers are never to be seen making sure idiots don't block the green lane and cycle lane on the busy main route I take in and out of town to work, where ignorant sods regularly park on the lanes so they can go into a shop because they are too lazy to park elsewhere and walk more than a few feet (some of the gits even park on the pedestrian crossings to nip in for their crappy tabloid and pack of fags of a morning) and yet since the official police traffic wardens stopped going round our part of city I've almost never seen the council's own - I imagine this might explain why, they're all sitting in a large car making their targets.
Someone filmed some parking attendants in Edinburgh at work using some unusual tactics near the Usher Hall, sitting waiting in a large, unmarked car and as soon as someone parks where they shouldn't nipping out and booking them as soon as they are out of sight (wouldn't it make more sense just to go up to them beforehand and say you can't park there or you will be fined? Then they won't be causing an obstruction? Oh yeah, then NCP who run the scheme for the corrupt council and the council themselves don't make money from it...). Even better the parking attendant's vehicle is parked on double yellow lines causing an obstruction itself! And there are no less than three of the buggers in it.
I've got no problem with them booking people parking illegally, but I'm wondering why they need three people in a large vehicle parked on double yellow lines and why they need such a large car to swan round town in (and park in stupid places with impunity)? Since attendants can't patrol every area isn't it more important they be spread around as much as possible and not just sitting on their arse picking off lame ducks like this? And for going round town (or for sitting in a vehicle like this) why not use something smaller and more appropriate for city driving? This might explain why the buggers are never to be seen making sure idiots don't block the green lane and cycle lane on the busy main route I take in and out of town to work, where ignorant sods regularly park on the lanes so they can go into a shop because they are too lazy to park elsewhere and walk more than a few feet (some of the gits even park on the pedestrian crossings to nip in for their crappy tabloid and pack of fags of a morning) and yet since the official police traffic wardens stopped going round our part of city I've almost never seen the council's own - I imagine this might explain why, they're all sitting in a large car making their targets.
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