T h e Woolamaloo Gazette

2008-04-09T21:45:00.003Z

what happened?

I know I haven't posted for a while, folks, but I'm afraid my world has been turned upside down and pulled inside out and I feel like my heart has been too. I went to bed on Sunday 30th of March content after a pleasant late afternoon chatting to friends over drinks in my favoured haunt of the Caley Sample Room. And in the small, dark hours of the following morning a phone call, a sinking feeling because no-one phones at 3am for good news. Stagger out of bed, grab phone, its my dad. Its my dad more disraught than I've ever known him and through tears he's telling me we just lost my mum. I don't understand what's going on - I'm half asleep, mum wasn't in the pink but nothing serious that we knew of, what's going on, what does he mean. I'm still in shock shortly after as my cousin and uncle arrive to take me home to Glasgow, driving through the dark and I'm praying please let this be a bad dream, please let me wake up, please let me wake up, please let me wake up. It wasn't. We just buried my beautiful, warm, loving mother a couple of days ago and I feel like someone's ripped a chunk of my soul out.

I came home to Edinburgh today for the first time in over a week and when I checked my emails there was one from my mum, sent on that Sunday, which I hadn't seen because I had been out all day and because I never checked the following day because I was sitting back in Glasgow in shock with my dad wondering how this had happened to us so shockingly suddenly and why was it happening to us. She just got online a few weeks ago and was so proud about emailing the relatives in Canada and elsewhere. It was just one, short line, asking how I was and telling me her and dad had just booked their summer holidays - in fact there are two new cases they bought on Saturday lying unused in my room back home. It finishes 'see you Wednesday' - they were coming through to visit their wee boy and drop off his Easter egg. I didn't get to see her. Instead I saw her in the hospital and the spark that made her my mum was gone from her. And its not bloody fair, she was 61, her and dad retired only a year and I want to scream at the world for taking her from us. I wanted her to get up so badly, I touched her beautiful red hair and kissed her and she didn't get up and we had to leave her in that place. It feels like we've lived a year in the last nine or ten days, so damned hard and more than anything I need a cuddle from my mum and I can't have it and that's breaking my heart. I can't write anymore just now, its too raw and everytime I think I'm getting a grip something else will set me off again, I feel like my heart's made of glass. I wanted to write, to let some of it out but its just too hard right now.

2008-03-30T01:27:00.003Z

La Tour Eiffel - view from the top

Still processing pictures and some video from the brilliant Paris trip; there's about 300-odd pictures up on the Woolamaloo Flickr already (there you can click on the 'all sizes' button to see the full size versions, handy for detail on some of the aerial shots of the city) and I still have a number to sort and upload. Today though I uploaded some video clips I shot from the top of the Eiffel Tower. We walked up the first two levels - you can take stairs or the lift up the legs, so we opted to walk up just because hey, we can say we did! Final segment is by lift only and they run up the main central spire of the tower. The views, as you can imagine, are amazing - the whole of the City of Light spread out below you. The first one, looking north, is more than a little windy!

When we got to the west facing side we noticed a football match going on at a sports ground below - from this height it looked like a Subutteo game! Talk about grandstand seating...

Out of the wind on the south facing side looking down into the Parc des Champs and the Ecole Militaire with the Montparnasse Tower in the distance (an ugly modern building which most Parisians hate, but apparently gives great views of the Eiffel Tower from the top of it and if you are in it you don't see the ugliness of the modern tower, which is very out of keeping with the rest of its area), then pan round towards the Latin Quarter and Les Jardins de Luxembourg (which our hotel was next to) and the Pantheon (which has more than a passing resemblance to the front of St Paul's):

And of course a quick view looking Eastwards along the Seine towards Les Invalides and further in the distance Notre Dame:

2008-03-29T23:58:00.003Z

Seal clubbers drowned

I see news reports of a group of seal hunters (Canada's great shameful annual bloodfest) drowning after their ship overturns among the ice and frigid waters of northern Canada. And I have to admit it makes me feel a bit conflicted - on the one hand I feel awful that people died but on the other hand as these are folks who jump off a boat, run up to seals, club them violently over the head then drag them back to their ship leaving a long trail of bright, crimson blood on the snow as they do its also a bit hard to feel sympathetic to them (especially as they do this to thousands of animals and monitoring groups have found that often the animals are not killed outright, some escape but seriously injured to die slowly in agony, others are dragged on board semi-conscious where they start skinning them dead or otherwise). Like I say, leaves me feeling conflicted - I hate the idea of people drowning in those frozen waters but I also despise what they do by the thousand every single year. I suspect the seals have a different perspective on it.

2008-03-25T20:50:00.004Z

Random book meme

Yvonne tagged me for a random book meme. I don't often follow up on memes, but since this was a book based one I couldn't resist, so here's how it works:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

I'm guessing that to do it properly you have to indeed pick up the nearest book and not go rummaging for something you think will give you a cool quote; I picked up Bryan Talbot's excellent graphic novel Alice in Sunderland and page 123 just happens to be a page executed in a 19th century style of illustration quoting from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky:

"Beware the jubjub bird and shun the frumious Bandersnatch! He took his vorpal sword in hand: longtime the manxmome foe he sought. So rested he by the Tumtum tree and stood awhile in thought."

And I hereby tag Ariel, Jeff VanderMeer, Padraig, Richard Bruton and George Wakley: let me know in the comments if you decide to follow up on it, geezers. And if any of the rest of you fancy trying it, go ahead!

2008-03-24T21:04:00.003Z

Easter pic

Saint John's church at the corner of Princes Street in Edinburgh, below the Castle, has appeared on here a number of times over the years because of the always interesting painting which the minister and some artists often put up on a board by the side of the church; often they comment on current events and morality and I always find it heartening to see them so prominently displayed so everyone travelling along Princes Street sees them. I was in town with Mel this afternoon when I noticed this one they had created for Easter; given the news today about the ceremony for the lighting of the Olympic torch it became doubly appropriate.

In case you missed it, as the head of the Beijing Olympic committee rose to make his speech at the traditional lighting of the Olympic torch before it is carried through various nations before going to China some pro-Tibet protestors got through the security. Sadly the television cameras rapidly panned away from the scene until they had been removed, which I consider to be utterly shameful, craven and cowardly. If China doesn't like it, cobblers to them, but don't censor such a broadcast to the rest of the world you spineless cretins. Further protests took part along the route as the first runner carried the torch, with local Greeks apparently being somewhat surprised and bemused by cries of Free Tibet, which strikes me as rather odd - considering Greece was under the dictatorial rule of the Ottoman Turks for centuries, fighting for its freedom you'd think the Greeks would have been applauding the pro-Tibetan supporters.

Personally I hope the progress of the torch around the globe continues to attract these kinds of protests - I'm tired of people making excuses about keeping politics out of this and how it detracts from the Games and from the symbol of the international spirit of co-operation and peace the torch symbolises. Let's be honest, the minute it was decided it was okay to host the Games in a country with an appalling human rights record, a country which keeps down another culture by force, which restricts its own citizens, stifles freedom of speech (often with the help of major web companies, to their shame) and even harvests the organs of executed criminals (and in a state like China do you want to bet all those executed were vicious criminals or just people they wanted rid of?). A country who, when their leader visited London complained to the Prime Minister that people were 'allowed' to protest his country's policies in public on his route in. Bollocks to them. Humiliate and embarrass the totalitarian sods at every single public venue while the world's media eye is focussed on them. They wanted the Games for international recognition, they have to take the flipside of that which is increased visibility of the shortcomings of their country's vicious policies too.

And if any Olympians are still whining about it all detracting from the games then to hell with them - human rights are more important than some numpty in shorts running round a track and rather than attacking demonstrators they should perhaps be questioning their own morality in taking part in games held in such a land.

2008-03-23T23:34:00.003Z

Arthur C Clarke laid to rest

While I was off the air last week we lost Sir Arthur C Clarke, one of the few authors to cross out of his genre to become a cultural icon recognised by millions, including those who never picked up a science fiction book in their life. Sadly he passed away at the age of 90 just weeks before the annual Arthur C Clarke awards are due to be announced. I've been reading Arthur's books and short tales since before my voice broke; basically I have been picking up books of his for over thirty of my forty years on Planet Earth and apart from some wonderfully imaginative fiction (which still usually remained grounded in some real science) I think the quality I most loved in his work over the decades was the optimism. Here was a man born as the slaughter of the War to End All Wars was being fought and who played his part working in radar in the war that came after that, who saw the many atrocities that marked the last century and yet still his stories had this optimism, this belief not that the future would turn out alright but that we could make it better if we tried, if we really wanted to make it that way, to evolve our minds and our morality both. While darker edged fiction often satisfies me more dramatically I need that does of hope and optimism sometimes.

And like many best writers his books made me want to go and read more books; I'd read the story then need to investigate some of the actual science which was used in the tale (my favourite reading is always the book which makes me want to read more, learn more; good books are like brain cells, they work best when creating more links). Reading his collection of non fiction essays a few years back, Greetings, Carbon-based Lifeforms, was also fascinating - because of the reputation he earned worldwide Arthur met just about everyone, from hanging out with Ginsberg at the Hotel Chelsea to presidents and kings, working with Kubrick of course and even during the animosity of the Cold War he was so respected by both superpowers he was one of the few men who shook hands with both Soviet cosmonauts and NASA astronauts. Its not been the best of recent weeks for book people - we just lost Arthur, Terry Pratchett is facing the spectre of Alzheimer's, Steve Gerber left us... At least we always have the books. Sadly we're all mortal, but the printed word, that magical, alchemical fusion of human imagination, paper, ink and technology is immortal.

Arthur's final interview, recorded for IEEE Spectrum in January from his hospital bed, can be found online here. I leave you with Clarke's Laws:

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

You know, of the three I think I am most fond of the second; I like to think the impossible rarely remains impossible forever. Perhaps some of his optimism has rubbed off on my cynical mind over the years... The people of Sri Lanka, where this Somerset-born lad had made his home for decades, showed their respect for their adopted son with a national moment's silence to coincide with the funeral service. His gravestone will read "Here lies Arthur C Clarke. He never grew up and did not stop growing," in line with his own wishes. I've met a lot of brilliant science fiction writers over my career in books (including two of this year's Arthur C Clarke Awards nominees), but I never met Arthur. And yet I feel as if I have known him most of my life and I'm going to miss him, especially that wonderful human quality of hope he always seemed to summon forth.

2008-03-23T20:59:00.004Z

Easter at the beach

Finally back on the air after most of a week without broadband - when I got home from work on Monday I noticed my cable TV was out and reported it. After dinner I tried to log on with plans to try and do some extra work from home because there was a ton on at work, only to find out my broadband was also out. Since both services come in through the same junction box I was wondering if there was a common fault. Phoned Virgin (who took over from Telewest and haven't really impressed me since they have) to try and report the second fault and this was the start of almost two hours of being pissed around, put on hold, transferred, lost, having to phone again, on hold, lost, told to call a different number for broadband problems which turns out to be a premium rate number so you have to pay Virgin to tell them the service you pay them for isn't sodding working. No, not impressed with that at all, how utterly crap is their customer service?

In the end the engineer who came out wasn't told of the second fault - again how crap are Virgin at looking after customers? - but was happy enough to look at both. Thursday evening was the earliest they could send someone (which didn't make me any happier, 4 days with no service), they were supposed to come after six so I could get home from work but the eejits at the help desk never bothered to pass this on to the poor engineer who rings my mobile at 4pm to say he is outside my flat. I was obviously still at work. He has more appointments later and can't come back. Now being without cable is annoying, but I have already been most of a working week without broadband and a week when I had more on than I could deal with at work and needed to try and do a bit extra but couldn't because of this. And now I'm thinking when the hell will they next get out? Luckily the engineer who is used to this sort of problem - they rarely pass on time requests to them - phoned his boss direct and arranged someone to call over the holiday weekend and its all sorted, but I'm inclined to write a stinker to Virgin, assuming they bothered to read it since I have emailed them before about parts of the way service has changed since they took over and they never bothered to reply. This is the same company who wants to offer space flights in a few years? Richard Branson, you are an arse and you should sort out the customer care for your terrestrial companies first.

Anyway, back on the air, catching up on a week of missed emails - including first pics of my new wee cousin just born in Canada last week - and getting round to sorting more Paris pictures for my Flickr, but before I put up some more Paris pics and video, something a little closer to home:

Spring has sprung and the locals flock to the sun-kissed beaches of Portobello, Edinburgh's Rivieria :-). In true British fashion we have had some mild spells during the winter which means flowers were starting to grow in early February then as we hit the Easter holiday weekend we get snow, hailstones, rain and driving, bitterly cold, icy wind. My friend was taking his dog (Bruce the greyhound, who has graced these pages before) for a walk but with the weather so changeable we just went down to Porty to let Bruce gallop along the beach. It was one of those days of rapidly alternating dull, overcast weather as large gray clouds came over, only to scud away just as rapidly with the high winds to leave you in sunshine, then back to cloud, sun, cloud...

Through it all the howling, cold wind which cut through you and drove the sea into foamy gray-green wildness. Especially further down where the good beach at Porty gives way to stone steps and a sea wall, where the waves were crashing into it then rebounding back outwards with undiminished ferocity to hit the incoming waves, resulting in huge explosions of foaming water, often coming up high enough to soak the promenade where I was filming from, a good 8 or 10 feet above the water. Welcome to the Scottish spring!

I was attempting to supply a little commentary on this video, but I think the wind drowns out most of it. In case you are wondering I was basically doing my bit for the tourism industry and advising anyone watching this who was thinking on visiting our beautiful land to bring something warm. And waterproof. Still, although the beach was almost deserted despite the school holidays (a small blessing of the weather, less screaming kids to deal with) some folks didn't seem to be put off by the weather, happily out playing in the waves with their jetski:

2008-03-16T22:37:00.005Z

Continental Comics

While I was in Paris I took the opportunity of browsing in some bookstores and bouquinistes (the rare and second hand booksellers with the lockups by the Seine) for some bandes dessinée (French comics, basically). Unlike the English language book world comics and graphic novels are taken more seriously as culture and art; we cover a tiny bit of the European scene on the FPI blog but what gets translated into English and republished for the UK and US markets is pretty limited compared to what actually gets published in Europe so I decided I would have a look at some BD while I was there, my basic and rusty French not withstanding and ended up writing an article out of it for the FPI blog last weekend, which I'm repeating below:

Apologies to Wim for appropriating his usual title for this post (normal continental correspondent service from Belgium will be resumed shortly), but I’m just back from a terrific break in Paris where, as well as the usual tourist pastimes of marvelling at the motoring madness that is the Circus Maximus around the Arc de Triomphe (the greatest free show in the City of Light) or wondering if it was permissible to push very loud and irritating backpackers off the Eiffel Tower, I managed to have a couple of little browses through some bandes dessinée. Sadly the first dedicated comics shop - Super Hero Libraire - was closed when we passed it (unlike the UK French shops don’t always stick to the regular 9 to 6 sort of hours every day, but many are open into the evening, so its worth checking hours if there is a specific store you want to catch) and it was too far from our hotel to make a return visit feasible.

(French one volume edition of V For Vendetta and a big dollop of Wolverine - did you know Logan spoke French?)

But this is France and unlike Britain you can find BD pretty much wherever books are sold - even the famous bouquinistes with their distinctive green lock-ups along the banks of the Seine often feature both BD albums and old comics issues, although since some of these may be rare rather than simply second hand you have to watch the prices. I came across a multi-volume series collecting V for Vendetta en Français and was quite tempted to pick them up, but at just shy of 20 Euros per volume it was just too pricey.

(one of the windows of the Super Hero Librairie; in the bottom left shelf you can see Chroniques Birmanes which Wim reviewed here last week)

Still, the bouquinistes are something any book lover will want to enjoy, whether you are looking for BD, paperback novels or any other literature; actually on a spring day simply browsing among them as the barges move along the Seine, the simple pleasure of rummaging through used books combined with being outdoors and sightseeing. One stand in particular had an interesting mix of French BD and English language titles, so you’d see second-hand Bilal albums next to a rack of old Daredevil issues. As with second hand and antiquarian bookstore here though, the bouquinistes choose their opening hours according to arcane signs among the stars and from a formula calculated using an ancient equation worked out by Diderot, so it is pure luck which ones will be open or closed when you go past at any time of day or evening, but hey, if you’re there its as good as an excuse as any for a walk long the banks of the Seine without feeling like a total tourist.

(some of the bouquinistes by the Seine, near Notre Dame)

In the bouquiniste stands, the comics stores and the mainstream bookshops it is also common to come across English language titles translated into French - the aforementioned V Pour Vendetta, of course, but quite a diverse selection, even in mainstream bookstores (some of which had graphic novel sections almost half as big as you’d find in specialist comics stores here, and that’s just adult BD, not counting the younger reader’s material). Even in the land where comics are considered the Ninth Art you’re still going to find the ‘underwear perverts’ as Boing Boing refers to superheroes, translated and nestling among the slimmer, hardback BD albums - as with any comics store its hard not to spot some X-Men titles.

Kirkman and Adlard’s excellent, Romero-influenced zombie series The Walking Dead seemed popular too and I spotted several large paperback translated collections cropping up in a number of places. There’s something fascinating about leafing through the pages of something you’ve read but now in another language (and this seems universal - plenty of the many tourists who come to Edinburgh like to pick up Tolkien in bookstores here, for example, to read in English having read it in French, German etc). In one of the many bookstores between the Saint Michel and Latin Quarter areas I also came across a very handsome, thick collection of Eddie Campbell’s early work. You’ll appreciate the irony that if I want to track down most of that work by an acclaimed British artist at home I’d have to go second hand because it’s currently out of print, yet in France I can find a very fine-looking collection in an ordinary bookstore. Then again the French probably appreciate it more; “Monsieur Campbell, sacre bleu, ‘e is a true artiste de BD.” (and of course, they are right). And I noticed quite a few artists familiar to me via their translated works which have come out from Top Shelf, Drawn & Quarterly, NBM, First Second and Fantagraphics over the years, from Trondheim to Zograf.

(just some of the BD on offer in Gibert Jeune in the Saint Michel area of Paris)

Of course while you’re there you want to have a look at some European titles. Now my French is pretty basic and those school lessons seem a long time ago, but one of the advantages the comics form offers is (usually) less actual text to comprehend (or not!) and the visual aide of sequential pictures, so even when your command of French is less than stellar there’s a lot of extra context to give you a hand. It doesn’t make the medium completely accessible and bypass the linguistic barriers (unless it is a ‘silent’ strip), but if you have even a small grasp of the language a comic is going to be a much easier way to try and interact a bit more with another tongue.

That shouldn’t be surprising to us; after all we first encourage the comprehension of written language and structure in children using picture books. And living as I do in Edinburgh, as awash with visitors as Paris, I’ve seen a number of adult tourists deliberately picking up Asterix and Tintin in English to take home because it is a great way to try and get more into another language, so I thought I’d take a similar tact and ended up coming home with some Jodorowsky - Les Technopères, with fabulous science fiction art from Zoran Janjetov which made it worth picking up just to admire - and on spotting a recent collection (just published by Air Libre/Dupuis in January) by this year’s Grand Prix winners at Angoulême, Dupuy and Berberain, Un Peau Avant la Fortune, I thought that would be worth a bash too.

(cover to Dupuy and Berberian’s recently published Un Peau Avant la Fortune, published Air Libre/Dupuis and (c) Dupuy and Berberian)

To be honest I could easily have blown more money picking up several more, but since I don’t know how well I will cope with them it seemed prudent to limit myself (and spend the remaining money on wine). But language aside it is hard to resist when you are faced with shelf upon shelf of BD, everything from the funny books to tales of daring Resistance heroines in wartime Paris (one book I randomly picked up had a scene with the Resistance heroine set on one of the Seine bridges I had just passed over to get to that very bookstore, sadly I can’t remember the title now), science fiction, biographical… Even if you aren’t going to buy yourself some, if you find yourself visiting France its still enjoyable for any comics fan to have a good browse through the BD section; its always good to try something different in your reading, as we’ve said here on more than one occasion (and will doubtless say again, because its true and there is so much out there just waiting to be read).

There is another way for those of us with only a limited grasp of the language to buy into the French BD experience a little more though, and it is much cheaper than buying new hardback albums - the journals. Paris is awash with newsstands and as in any city the railway and metro stations and the airports also have plenty of stores where among the newspapers, movie mags and copies of Elle (I was vaguely disappointed the French version of Elle wasn’t called ‘her’) you are likely to find several magazines and journals dedicated to BD and some specialising in manga. Of course the language barrier is still there, but if you are interested but wary because of the language a mag is a lot cheaper to buy and try than books - it’s also a good way of introducing yourself to different comics creators.

I settled on BoDoï - “explorateur de bandes dessinées” - which has a special edition celebrating 35 years of the Grands Prix at Angoulême. For 7.50 Euros (about five pounds, slightly pricey for a mag, but it does have a lot of colour art) I got a special edition which offered up some 40 artists, with two or three pages each of art and a short bio/interview (in French, naturellement). And just check some of the artists covered here - Robert Crumb, Enki Bilal, Morris, José Muñoz, François Schuiten, Trondheim, Hugo Pratt, Moebius, Will Eisner, Jaques Tardi, Jean-Claude Forest, Jaques Lob, Neal Adams, Max Cabanes, Uderzo… That has to be worth a fiver of any comics fan’s money, surely?

(an excerpt from Mister I, (c) Lewis Trondheim)

The art and themes on offer are as varied as the artists - Philippe Vuillemin riffs nicely on the old joke - old jokes seem to be universal, I’m pleased to note - about the young polar bear (I won’t ruin the punchline in case you’ve never heard it), Georges Wolinski offers up a take on psychotherapy which would work in almost any Western culture (especially if you’re a Woody Allen fan), Lewis Trondheim’s Mister I makes a welcome appearance with a wordless tale (so it was only the bio/interview I had to struggle to read!) and we get a quick visit to Eisner’s Dropsie Avenue.

(Rendezvous a Paris by the one and only Enki Bilal)

Personal standouts for me came from Bilal, who I’ve always admired for his beautiful, imaginative science-fiction artwork. In this case it is just a couple of wordless pages, including one spectacular full page splash set above the Eiffel Tower. Jaques Tardi has four pages first created for the magazine L’Aisne set during the carnage of the Great War which are highly effective and moving. Even if you don’t speak word one of French I think you would still grasp the scenes of French infantrymen suffering and the word “boucherie!” repeated, larger and bolder each time until it is screaming “BOUCHERIE!” at the reader while below a smug General Nivelle stands in front of a charnel house of bones of fallen soldiers. Actually looking at a couple of the frames in Tardi’s piece I’m moved to wonder if they influenced the trench scenes in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s A Very Long Engagement.

(two pages from Jaques Tardi’s segment, these are from “la BD du Avril 16″ and although very different in style seem to me to be every bit as powerful and moving as the superb art Joe Colquhoun created for Charley’s War; originally published in L’Aisne magazine and (c) Jacque Tardi)

Max Cabanes’ Francis Cabrel, les Beaux Dessins, inspired by a song by Francis Cabrel, showcases some beautiful artwork; again, if you can’t read the language you can just admire the luscious art of two lovers amid the trees. François Schuiten (with Benoît Peeters) has two utterly gorgeous pages, Hommage à Winsor McCay (I think you can translate the meaning of that yourselves!), paying tribute to the immortal Little Nemo (I just keep turning back to those pages and looking at the, superb), while back in the world of black and white there’s a great extract from Superdupont by Jacques Lob with artwork by the great Neal Adams; you just have to love the Superman clone meeting his French counterpart Superdupont in his vest, paunch and beret, a Reagan-esque president and something spooky going on at a vineyard (hence the need for the French hero).

So, if you are lucky enough to be going to France on holiday, keep your eyes open - even if you only have basic French there are still comics delights to be had; as a wise comics character once declared, “there’s treasure everywhere!” There are a number of comics jewels in this special issue and I will try to share some more scans from it over the coming days because they are too good to keep to myself.

2008-03-11T19:21:00.004Z

More of the Louvre

Since blogger is grudgingly and slowly letting me upload some pics tonight, some more pics from Paris, still sticking with the Louvre theme:

I.M. Pei's glass pyramid which now functions as the entrance to the Louvre, descending down into the pyramid to a vast space with the ticket desks, information and entrances to the various wings of what is probably the world's most famous museum. Turn the other way and walk through the Jardin de Tuileries and you come out into a square leading your eyes up a line straight to the Champs Elysees and L'Arc de Triomphe.

heading into one of the wings with some of the Louvre's astonishing amount of Classical material

Which includes the world's original supermodel, The Venus de Milo. Who I believe is now romantically linked with Paul McCartney :-)

La Joconde - the Mona Lisa, smiling for the many tourists. While photography seemed to be fine in most of the Louvre they did ask - as is the usual case in any gallery - not to use cameras in the rooms with the paintings, probably because so many idiots don't know how to switch off their flash which damages them. Despite the fact I rarely use the flash I still kept my camera in my pocket for this wing, despite masses of tourists - especially the many Japanese - merrily ignoring the rule and firing camera flashes off right in front of the paintings which made me want to slap them round the head, bloody idiots. There were so many the curators didn't even try to stop them. I broke my rule and did take one painting pic for this (no flash so I don't feel to guilty) as people were standing right there in front of curators snapping away.

One of the things I really liked in the wings with the paintings was the fact that several artists had been allowed to set up their easels to paint their own versions of some of the works, something I found to be rather satisfying to see. Actually La Joconde wasn't the most impressive painting there, famous as she is - the best work I saw (and there were many we didn't have time to see properly, it is vast) was one that annoyingly I can't remember the name of, but it reminded me of one of the Venetian paintings I raved about on here a few years back when there was an exhibition on at the Royal Scottish Academy. I wish I could remember the name or artist, but like a couple of the works I saw there it leapt out the frame at me, the colours, especially the blues, so amazingly bright and vibrant it was like the artist had painted Mediterannean sunlight right into the canvas, still pouring out of the painting centuries later.

In the Richelieu wing there was this terrific open space, essentially a sculpture garden indoors, with this amazing glass and steel roof (like a smaller version of the brilliant one now on top of the British Museum in London) shielding us from the elements so it felt like being outside but sheltered. Natural light floods this space and its twin further along the wing (these are the ones in the video clips from the other day) and a lot of artists were making the most of the light to sketch some of the friezes and sculptures; I'd imagine the statues would afford a great class in how to portray human anatomy and form and what a terrific space to draw in. Or take pictures in.

I love this space, I think I could sit here for ages

Inside the glass pyramid - I love the spiral staircase with no visible means of support (not even thin suspended wires); the column it is wrapped round is actually a lift. Its open at the top and the entire column sinks down - it doesn't telescope down, the entire structure actually slides down into the floor, very cool!

As usual click the pics to see the larger version on the Woolamaloo Flickr stream (only 184 in the Paris set so far, still a ton to add; no doubt many more Paris pics and vids to come!)

2008-03-11T00:07:00.000Z

And more Paris

I'm still beavering away processing and uploading pics of the Paris trip to my Flickr site - 184 up and I still have a ton to go, not even got as far as the Eiffel Tower pics yet. I was going to post a few of the ones I had one on here but blogger is arseing around and for some reason just not uploading images, although it seems happy to post video... So until it lets me put some more pics up and I get round to doing more pics on Flickr, here's another short video panorama of the Louvre, this time taken from the gardens between the wings and the famous Tullieres. As it turns round you get to see the Eiffel Tower in the distance over the top of one wing of the Louvre.

Darn it, I miss Paris, although it has to be said when you live in a city like Edinburgh having to leave Paris to go home isn't quite such a blow. I was suffering some withdrawal pangs though so towards the end of last week I wandered down to Haymarket not too far from me and into La March Francais, a French deli/cafe which fills up wine bottle right from the barrels and corks them then and there for a very reasonable rate and then parked my Magnificent Celtic Arse - or perhaps Le Derriere Celtic tre Magnifique - down for coffee and a read of my BD (Bandes Dessinee, basically comics and graphic novels) journal and felt much better. Why aren't I extremely rich so I could just keep an apartment in Paris and flit back and forth between there and Edinburgh whenever I felt like it? Real life, pah! Mind you, if I did I would need to import some Linda McCartney's since trying to eat veggie in Paris is a nightmare...

2008-03-10T19:56:00.002Z

This time last week...

... I was walking round the Louvre... sigh...

2008-03-04T22:40:00.006Z

Spring time in Paris

Just back from the most fantastic long weekend in the City of Light, a place I've known in literature, art, photography and cinema for years but never actually been to. Standing on the Pont Neuf, the location for Les Amants de Pont Neuf, the French film where I first saw (and fell in love with) Juliette Binoche gave me such a rush (just the first of many French film actresses I've fallen in love with, French cinema has a habit of producing the most engaging leading ladies, from Catherine Deneuve to Audrey Tautou). Turning round as I walked along the Seine past all the little green lock-ups of the bouquinistes selling rare and second hand books, art prints and bande dessinee right there in the open air I can see the towers of Notre Dame, the edge of the Ile de la Cite, the Louvre and then suddenly a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. And for some reason it isn't until you finally see the Tower that you really, really feel like your are in Paris. And its a wonderful feeling. You're in Paris, its spring time and the sun is out and suddenly life is good...

More to come on Paris soon, I'm still kind of processing it all; late yesterday night I saw my last glimpse of the city from the air as we took off, the whole of Paris sparkling in the night and there was the Eiffel Tower, seen from the plane as we soared up into the night above France, glowing in the Parisian skyline, the great searchlight rotating on the top. An hour and a half later (and some nice red wine, merci Air France) descending through some clouds which clear to show the dark, night-time waters of the Forth and on the left Edinburgh lit up in the night and the Castle from the air, seemingly floating with the dark Castle Rock invisible from our height at night, only the floodlit battlements visible. I flew over the Eiffel Tower and Edinburgh Castle all lit up in the darkness within an hour and a half or so, even the simple act of the flight home was brilliant.

Two of the most beautiful cities in the world and I'm lucky enough that one of them is my home... More later and pics and vid to come, but I've only just started working on those and realised I took more than 2 gigs of images... Well, wouldn't you? And now I'm trying to get out of the habit of saying 'bonjour', 'merci' and 'au revoir' in any shop or bar I walk into... Missing Paris already...

2008-02-24T10:46:00.000Z

Birds and lighthouses...

... down on the beach near Yellowcraig, as dusk falls and a flock of birds fly over and the Fidra Lighthouse comes to life...

2008-02-23T20:31:00.002Z

Eagle Awards - a shameless plea for votes!

The first ballot form for voting in the annual Eagle Awards, the UK's major comics and graphic novel awards, opened the other week online - anyone can cast their votes and eventually the nominees will be narrowed down to a final shortlist with the winners revealed at the Bristol International Comics Expo in May. There are a number of categories - writers, artists, newcomers, series, best original graphic novel (that basically means one which first came out as a graphic novel rather than a book collecting a story previously issued in weekly or monthly comics form) and also favourite comics related website in which you can (if you so wish) vote for the Forbidden Planet Blog which I set up just under three years ago and work on alongside my duties on the main FPI webstore, posting comics and SF news, reviews and interviews and generally trying to draw attention to some good writers and artists. Yes, this is a shameless plea for votes!

2008-02-21T21:45:00.003Z

Stephen Fry's Podgrams

The national treasure we call Stephen Fry has progressed from starting his own blog to now doing a Podgram - essentially a podcast in MPEG-4 format as opposed to an MP3 so there is video as well.

2008-02-20T22:10:00.002Z

Lego Indy!!!

Via Michael Moran at the Times comes a link to this - a groovy Lego Indiana Jones online game! yay!

2008-02-20T22:00:00.003Z

Situations Vacant

Due to recent personnel changes and a retirement we are looking to recruit a new chief executive. Must posses exceedingly fine leadership qualities, charisma, vision and the ability to communicate in ten hour public speeches; experience of communist ideology and smoking large cigars preferable but not essential. Salary negotiable, relocation may be required but location is in beautiful part of the world which enjoys high levels of sunshine; full medical benefits included. Apply the Cuban government, Havana.

2008-02-19T00:02:00.001Z

"Cities are like volcanoes, they always have to move. If they don't they're dead."

This rather peculiar and somewhat nonsensical comment comes from Allan Murray, one of the architects behind the highly controversial 'Caltongate' scheme proposed for Edinburgh, which would see a major redevelopment of the Old Town leading to the Royal Mile, including demolishing some listed buildings (which also happen to be home to people as well as listed). Strangely enough the company behind this attempt to dump a pile of bland, featureless architecture in a historic World Heritage site has attacked the people opposing this ill-conceived plan as 'thoughtless', while commenting that it is right for democracy to have a say while then dismissing some 2, 000 complaints against them, from private individuals and from important heritage groups. Democracy obviously suits the developers only when it agrees with them, otherwise you are just being 'thoughtless' and emotional (gee, some folks will lose their homes, imagine being emotional over that?!?! Eejits).

The architect who came up with this strange 'argument' in favour of his development (which he obviously has a huge vested interest in) above is also responsible for incredibly dull, featureless modern creations in the city already, which have nothing in common with the city environment or any distinguishing features that would make them stand out from a hundred other developments anywhere else in the modern world, exactly the sort of boring design that makes our cities look so dull and repetitive, and which in a historic city like Edinburgh is worse than dull, it is cultural vandalism. We've had, huge, ill-advised developments dumped on us before and they still blight the city, it is completely right that people are wary of them, especially in an area like the Old Town. That caution doesn't mean the city can't continue to evolve and develop, just that we should be very, very careful how and where we do it and I get the impression the developers are more interested in money than protecting the community in that area and our historical nature. I'm not Prince Charles and have no wish to see only more Neo-Classical architecture, but in World Heritage sites like the Old Town and New Town it is always advisable to err on the side of caution. If a developer wishes to work in that area they should expect that, it shouldn't be a surprise to them.

Oh and Mr Murray, volcanoes don't so much move as erupt and explode. The ground around them may move as a result of their eruptions but the volcanoes themselves not so much (other than the ground moving by floating over the hot liquid rock below, but all ground does that). And I don't think you want to include cities and active volcanoes in the same sentence because that's a scenario which doesn't raise connotations of flourishing life, rather images of destruction, so I'm not sure what point you were making there. Unless it was a Freudian slip acknowledging your oversized development in a sensitive area will be destructive and leave scars on the city for years, just like a volcanic eruption would. Quite why the council approved this in the face of mass rejection by affected citizens and heritage groups I have no idea; if I was a cynic I'd be checking for brown envelopes slipped under doors...

2008-02-18T22:20:00.002Z

McCartney Mills settlement

A high court judge has ruled in the divorce proceedings between Heather Mills and Paul McCartney; Macca has to buy the failed Northern Rock bank and give it to Heather as her part of the divorce settlement. And then she has to stop whining about the media portrayal of her when she's been out on a constant media campaign in the first place (or 'doing a Diana' as it is known in PR circles).

2008-02-16T15:50:00.003Z

On the BBC

The photograph I posted here last weekend of the new moon hanging over a twilight street of Victorian tenements has been put up by the BBC on their website in their weekly 'your pictures' section of the Scottish news part of the BBC site (it's the fourth one in). I was quite surprised this shot came out at all, actually, it was my usual gonzo photography, spur of the moment, see a scene, try and snap it - no kit, just my small compact digital that lives in my bag, a tiny 3-inch mini tripod meant for table top use that I sometimes have in the bag and a handy gatepost to sit it on - and a lot of luck. I'm pretty chuffed that it worked and even more chuffed that the Beeb picked it for this week's crop of images from round Scotland, especially given how good some of the pictures in that feature are each week (click to see the larger image on my Flickr).

Since I started posting digital photos I've had some borrowed for articles, for teaching guides and other uses (and that's not counting ones I've taken at comics conventions for the work blog) - doesn't pay anything but it does give a damned big feel-good factor. And being an old web-hand I still have that old-fashioned belief that the web is meant to allow us to share a bit ( a lot of us who started online in the early 90s still feel that, I think), so I kind of like the fact that a number of different folks have asked to use some of my pics on occasion.

2008-02-15T00:01:00.000Z

Hypocritical bastard

George Bush asked in a BBC interview if America still held the moral high ground after scandals of violated civil liberties, civilian deaths, tortures and Abu Ghraib: "Absolutely. We believe in human rights and human dignity. We believe in the human condition. We believe in freedom." This from a man who is trying to veto a bill from the US Senate (how very democratic of him) which makes the use of water boarding illegal for the purposes of interrogation. In other words he is trying to make the use of torture legal. How this fits in with his previous statement is beyond me. How this retarded monkey can say things like this then apparently believe he is on the side of Good is beyond me. And just how so many fucking idiots can go along with it, vote for it and support it is utterly beyond me.

The fact that the Senate had to even pass a law declaring this process illegal to begin with speaks volumes - most civilised countries would consider such torture utterly illegal to begin with and not need to pass extra laws. This is how the self proclaimed good guys fight the good fight. No wonder the world is such a bloody mess. Neitzche's cautionary passages on fighting monsters and becoming a monster in the process was obviously not on the reading curriculum for Bush or his supporters. Although since the brain-dead numpty seems to have difficulties with the fairly simple task of putting words together for coherent speech it shouldn't be a surprise that he isn't well educated or well read.

2008-02-14T22:11:00.002Z

Primeval

The penultimate episode of ITV's Primeval comes up this Saturday and its penned by the very fine novelist, screenwriter and comics scribe Paul Cornell, who was also responsible for some of the finest episodes of the new Doctor Who - "Father's Day" and "Human Nature". We were lacking time for a full-length interview but I couldn't let it go past without marking it and Paul kindly took some time out to answer a few questions for the Forbidden Planet blog, should you fancy a read before the episode airs on Saturday evening.

2008-02-10T16:15:00.000Z

Shag for health

Apparently the National Health Service is promoting regular shagging as good for your health - not just in terms of mental wellbeing but that 'sexcersise' can also promote physical health. Sadly they don't seem to be backing up this claim with treatment - it appears we aren't going to get a prescription from our doctors to visit a sexual therapist for a quick bonk, which is a shame as I'd imagine that would be a great boost to national morale and health. Suffering Seasonal Affected Disorder? Here, take this prescription to the Sex Nurse in room five for a quick shag... Oh well, guess we will have to take responsibility for our own well-being, eh? Anyone fancy getting healthy then drop me a line and bring a bottle of hot oil...

2008-02-10T14:54:00.000Z

British Olympic Association climbs down on censorship claim

There had been worries recently that the contract British athletes being included in the national team for the Bejing Olympics had been reworded to censor what those athletes may say publicly about the dire state of human rights or politics in the host nation China. The BOA has now apparently clarified this position saying that while it is normal Olympic practise to inform competing athletes that they cannot use the Games as a political platform neither is the BOA in the business of trying to censor what its athletes speak about - they can talk to journalists, answer questions and so on, just not decide to use their position at the Games to stage a protest or demonstration, something which comes from the International Olympic rules. The British Athletes Commission seems to accept this adding that it is the sport which is paramount and that they are going to compete, not to demonstrate.

Which is fair enough, as far as it goes, since that is indeed what they are supposed to do. But I can't help but wonder if the Games weren't being held in a nation with an appalling record in human rights abuses, lack of civil liberties, environmental pillaging and few freedoms then this wouldn't be an issue to begin with. Part of the argument for having the Games there though is that somehow it will magically make the Chinese government more accountable, allowing more freedoms and liberties - the same argument is used by giant corporations like Google and Microsoft for working with the Chinese government, then self-censoring to suit that totalitarian regime and even, allegedly, giving access to web records to track down and silence those bloggers who post opinions considered 'dissident'. Yay for the spread of freedom by example!!!

Its an old refrain of capitalism that it promotes freedom because those are the circumstances it flourishes best in and where political argument fails to persuade those in power money and successful business might. But that's an experiment we're still waiting to see a definitive result on - there may be some more freedoms in China today but equally there are a lot of repressive measures, so the jury is well out on how successfully the market and giving them the Games has worked - it may have helped a bit, but it certainly hasn't transformed the country to a land of freedom. On the Olympians front though, if an athlete does feel very strongly that an international coming together of nations shouldn't be staged in a country where the regime denies basic freedoms, liberties and human rights then perhaps they should consider if they should take part in the Games being held there?

Because I doubt the Games will magically make things better - we're talking about a regime, after all, who when visiting London criticised their UK government hosts for 'allowing' people to protest their visit, that's the attitude they have - they think democratic countries should muzzle free speech critical of them. So I am left wondering if athletics organisations saying that the staging of the Games in China will somehow help improve that country's lamentable record is less wishful thinking than a fig leaf to their own conscience to justify going there - honest I am not just going because I want to take part in the Olympics regardless, I really believe being there will help the people of China. Honest. Okay, perhaps that is pretty cynical, but I find it is hard not to be cynical about the whole thing. (source: the BBC)

2008-02-10T14:31:00.000Z

Neil's blog is nine

Neil Gaiman's blog celebrated its ninth anniversary yesterday, I notice - that's quite a long time in blogging terms and in terms of author's sites is even more impressive. Many authors and artists and bands these days have their own sites and blogs (some designed and maintained by my good mate Ariel, in fact) but Neil's been doing it longer than most (actually I am trying to think which published author has been blogging publicly the longest now - anyone know?). To celebrate the anniversary he and his web elves are going to make one of his books free to read online for a month - and they are asking fans to pick it out. Neil being Neil he has thought about it and offers up some advice for picking one from the four on offer (the brilliant American Gods, the very funny Anansi Boys, the recent Fragile Things and the far-too-good to be just for kids Coraline):

"What I want you to do is think -- not about which of the books below is your favourite, but if you were giving one away to a friend who had never read anything of mine, what would it be? Where would you want them to start?"

One of the things I like about writers blogging - and Neil's web journal in particular - is the way it allows them to interact with readers and I like the fact this interaction is being celebrated by asking those readers to pick a book of his that might get others to look at his work. Its an interesting move because it will generate a lot of online discussion and linkage for his site and interest in his books, it might introduce new readers to his material in a painlessly free manner and, as Cory Doctorow, Charlie Stross and others have proven, putting up free digital version of your work (they have done it under the Creative Commons license), far from harming traditional sales seems to work to boost reader awareness and interest in your work and so help sales.

I'm not sure which of the four on offer I'd choose myself - I think American Gods is a splendid story with some great use of myth, a book which could work for readers who don't normally go for science fiction and fantasy novels in the same way his Sandman series worked for people who normally didn't buy comics (and my signed copy of American Gods is one of the prizes gems of my collection). But it is very long and that might make it hard to read on a screen. Anansi Boys is very funny and a bit shorter while Coraline is deliciously creepy in places and there is the movie version coming up and - oh smeg, I can't decide! But it is still a good idea.

And on a personal note I'm still indebted to Neil as one of the writers who spoke up for me on their blogs back when I was going through the whole Waterstone's firing thing a few years back; he said something like if he had his own bookstore he'd like me working in it, which is one of the nicest compliments a bookseller can get and that I was 'opinionated but in the good way' which seems like a reasonable description. Anyway, happy ninth anniversary to Neil and his web elves.