Category: Blog

Halloween Humbug

I’m with the ghosties and ghoulies and two-headed beasties and things that go bump in the night when it comes to Halloween. They stay out of the way every October 31st to let the foolish mortals muck around with pumpkins and sexy witch outfits.

I’m sure it’s just that I find any kind of commercially-driven mass hysteria (assorted parent’s days, any number of quasi-religious holidays, royal weddings etc) deeply tiresome, but for some reason Halloween really grinds my gears. The prospect of having to buy Haribo and then give it away to a bunch of kids in sheets or cheap masks seems to be against nature to me. Somehow, I feel that my passions are devalued. It’s like a ghost dies every time a trick-or-treater eggs a house.

The element of coercion involved also honks me off. If I don’t give you sugar you’ll vandalise my gaff? How intriguing. First up, Fat Casper, the last thing you need is more sweeties. Second of all, give me a minute while I switch on the hose.

That being said, our road, despite it’s name, is generally quiet on All Hallow’s Eve. Maybe the cemetery at the end has something to do with it. It’s nothing to do with the road being creepy. I think it has more to do with respect. After all, let’s face it, Halloween is not the most dignified of festivities. I refer you back to the sexy pumpkin.

Did I say sexy? I meant, erm...

In fact, Halloween seems to be the one time of the year when I really go off the idea of horror. It never lasts, and by the first of November I’m back to my happy evil self again. And as I’m not doing Nanowrimo this year, I can really concentrate on getting some scary stuff written. Kinda looking forward to that.

However, if you really must do something scary tomorrow, can I recommend the brilliant Trick ‘R’ Treat, a seriously under-rated gem of an anthology horror? It’s available to stream from Lovefilm, and I can’t think of a better movie for the season.

I, meanwhile, will be keeping a low profile. Go ahead, amateurs, have your fun. On Tusday, the professionals get back to doing what we do best.

No, I meant BOO, not… oh, never mind.

Joy Unconfined

I love a wedding. Any excuse to get dressed up and drink too much and dance like a fool. Friday saw us at a lovely hotel in the heartlands of the country, at the nuptials of TLC’s mum and her long-time beau.

It was one of the most joyful occasions I’ve ever been to, and I’ve not laughed so hard or so freely at a social occasion in a long time. The bride was consumed in fits of giggles through the ceremony, and I’m still not convinced that she repeated all the vows. Once the papers were signed, the bride and groom danced back down the aisle (I’m taking the blame for that; I did, after all, show them the JK Wedding Dance). The first dance was livened up by the bride going a-over-t during an attempt at a pirhouette. And I don’t even think she’d been drinking that much up to that point.
And yes we danced and yes we drank and yes we laughed. And yes we chased off a bunch of wedding crashers and yes we all had headaches the next morning. But oh my word, you want something like that to be memorable, and this is a wedding that will live on for quite some time. You sometimes forget that a solemn occasion doesn’t have to be without joy.

Pam, Joe, the future is yours. That’s one hell of a way to kick it off.

A Couple Of Random Thoughts On Siri

The Voice Control on the iPhone has been broken for as long as I’ve tried to use it. There’s an entertaining random element to what happens when you ask it to dial a number, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that you will not be getting the call you need.* If Siri fixes that problem then there’s a step forward right off the bat. If Siri works as well as Apple claim, then we have a genuine game-changer in all kinds of ways.

My sis-in-law Sandi is blind, and has become an Apple fan over the past year or so on the strength of the accessibility that’s baked into OSX at a core level. She’s excited about Siri for the same reason. A phone that you can use effectively without the need to look at the screen is a pretty big deal. Paired with a Bluetooth headset, there’s no reason for it to ever leave her handbag or pocket. This is a step towards the idea of the hardware vanishing into the cloud. If you can order your phone around, then the barrier between interface and user pretty much disappears, especially if, like Sandi, that barrier has prevented you from using the phone in the first place.

Although, as numerous wags on Twitter have pointed out this week, if the Siri developers don’t put an April 1st eater egg in where Siri will, just once, respond to a query with “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” then they’re missing a trick.

*TRUSTOREE: I once asked VC to phone home, and it responded by playing the Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Equal parts hilarity to creepiness.

Opportunities

Much as I admire and base my actions on Master Lao Tzu, there’s only so much banging on about life in a Taoist stylee you can do before you start to repeat yourself. I’ve decided to open up my Sunday thread, which will henceforth be retitled The Sunday Spiritual, to other voices, opinions and philosophies. Possibly even some I don’t agree with, so that you can have the edifying experience of watching Yours Truly arguing with himself.

Meanwhile, the last couple of weekends have been spent with the extended family, celebrating birthdays and generally enjoying the rare occasion of everyone getting together. Both sides of our clan are equidistant, meaning that visits are bookended with two-hour car rides. Another reason, I guess, for the rarity of family reunions. There are only so many Saturday mornings that you can spend on motorways.

The meet-ups have had a couple of unexpected benefits. I have an evil plan that may turn into an biography, and another that is likely to lead to a regular blogging gig separate from X&HT. Neither of which I can really talk about yet.

Meanwhile, I and another group of friends that don’t get together often enough will be meeting tomorrow, following which there may be more news. And it looks as if another piece written a while back will be making an appearance in print very soon. But again, I can’t really talk about these yet either.

In other words, although I’m bubbling over with excitement about events in the latter half of the year, I can’t do more than hint and tease. Which makes this whole post a bit redundant, really.

Oh well. Dance me off, Mulder and Scully…

They're doing the twist to the theme from "The Munsters", you know.

Those In Peril

I live on an island nation, a tiny scrap of land off the western coast of Europe. My life is comfortable, secure. I don’t think twice about where my morning coffee comes from, or the sugar I use to sweeten it. I don’t think about the petrol that drives the train that gets me to work in the morning. I simply assume that they will always be there.

But, as I’ve just said, I live on an island. And a lot of the goods and materials I depend on to get me through my day have to be imported. And as I live on an island, it makes sense for those goods to come in by sea.

In fact, 90% of all our imports come in via Britain’s ports. What, then, would happen if the ships and all the people on them suddenly … disappeared?

This powerful dystopian vision of a country rapidly starving to death comes from my good friend and long-time X&HTeam-mate Clive Ashenden. He’s no Leading Man here (although if you look carefully you’ll spot his cameo – just remember he has a thing for police uniforms). He wrote and directed this one. He’s done a great job.

The Vanished was made to help publicise Seafarers Awareness Week. Seafarers UK is the leading charity for the maritime community, and this event is designed to help raise awareness of everyone who earns their living from the sea. It’s a chance for us to learn more about their everyday challenges and risks, their welfare needs, and the vital work they do to keep this country going. They help members of the Royal Navy, Merchant Navy and fishing fleets and their families in times of trouble.

Seafarers Awareness Week is on from 6-12 June, and it’s worth your time to check out the events and donate to a very worthy cause.

We are a seafaring nation. Our strength, influence, and wealth has always been based on the sea. I think it’s worth remembering that for week in every year, and take the time to celebrate our maritime heritage, and those who risk their lives every day to keep us fed, warm and content.

The Minor Fall, The Major Lift: 5 Soundtracks That Transcend Their Movies

These are good times for film soundtracks. Reputable dance acts are now willing to work with a director and come up with music that complements and adds to the visuals, rather than simply licensing a couple of songs to play over the end credits. Instead of a duff compilation or an orchestral suite, soundtrack albums are becoming sharp experimental works with a proper narrative flow.

The big beat boys of the nineties make music that has always had a cinematic edge, and the addition of an orchestral edge to the bounce really opens out the sound. Basement Jaxx’s work on Attack The Block adds theremin to the mix, accentuating the sci-fi. The Chemical Brothers created a jagged, jittery soundscape for Hanna that seems to have influenced Joe Wright’s cutting style.

Then of course, there’s the epic score to Tron: Legacy, which has frankly raised the bar for electronic soundtrack work. The scale and sweep of Daft Punk’s work made the album one of my favourites of last year.

A decent soundtrack album can be a sheer joy, mixing great songs with massive instrumentals and moments of mood and drama. Some don’t work at album length. I’m thinking specifically of John Carpenter’s Assault On Precinct 13, which is simply the same cues played over and over again at different track lengths. Or, sadly, Clint Mansell’s music to Moon, which I love to bits, but is stretched uncomfortably thinly over 75 minutes. The final ten-minute piece Welcome To Lunar Industries (Three Years) gives you everything you need. Tellingly, it’s the one track not available on Spotify.

There are certain soundtrack albums that have managed to find an identity above and beyond their origins, becoming works of art in their own right. Here are my top five. I’m sure there are more. I’m sure you’ll let me know.

Continue reading The Minor Fall, The Major Lift: 5 Soundtracks That Transcend Their Movies

It’s The End Of The World Again, Almost Definitely This Time, Really, Honest.

Well, I hope you’re all packed and ready. According to Christian radio show host Harold Camping, 3% of the world’s population will be gathered up to Heaven in some sort of holy Hoovering tomorrow morning. The rest of us will then have five months to wait until God draws the curtains and shuts off the lights for good on October 21st. The fact that most churches have scheduled regular services for Sunday shows how seriously Mr Camping is being taken by the religious community at large.

In eschatological circles, Harold is a bit of a pipsqueak. He’s predicted the Rapture four times thus far, giving up (or rather, diving back into the books for a bit more of a considered approach into the numbers) in 1995. This is small potatoes. Fire and brimstone preacher Charles Taylor saw the end coming 12 times between 1972 and 1992. That’s got to put a crimp into your long-term savings plans.

The end-of-the-world racket is a fascinating subject for study, and stuffed to the brim with nutballs, loonbags and conmen of all stripes. It’s surprisingly easy to pick a date for the Four Horsemen to gallop over the horizon and then backtrack when the sun sets when nary a hint of apocolypic hoof beats. For example, Edgar Whisenant wrote a best-selling book 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be in 1988. His prediction: final trump to sound between September 11th and 13th. When those dates turned out to be trumpet-free he pushed the date forward, first to the 15th, then October 3rd. Still nothing. This didn’t deflate Whisenant, though, who released another book the following year, The Final Shout: Rapture Report 1989, and would continue to release updates until 1993.

Predictions of the end time are born out of intense, numerology-heavy readings of the Bible, and as reactions to ongoing world events. The recent triple-whammy of disaster landing on Japan has, as you’d expect, sent the scene into a tizzy. But events as varied as the Rodney King shooting, the founding of the state of Israel and any manner of celestial objects getting within astronomical spitting distance have all sparked doomy predictions. As for the close-study readings, Camping’s method is an exemplar of clarity and logic compared to some I can mention. Dan Brown’s got a lot to answer for…

None of this would be a bother if it didn’t involve hucksters conning gullible rubes out of their hard-earned, and self-styled prophets setting themselves up as cult leaders. End of the world predictions can mean exactly that. Suicide cults like Heaven’s Gate and the followers of messianic maniacs David Koresh, Jim Jones and Joseph Kibweteere are all evidence that apocalypses can and do happen, and are events that we cannot see coming, and have no way to prepare for.

As for Camping and his Rapture? Well, his past record isn’t encouraging, and frankly his methodology has holes wide enough to steer the Halle-Bopp comet through. I’m not convinced. And anyway, aren’t we supposed to have until December 2012, when the Mayan calendar runs out?

Tell you what, while we’re waiting, let’s have a little dance, shall we?

This post would not have been possible without reference to Chris Nelson’s extraordinary Brief History of The Apocalypse, which is anything but brief and will eat your day if you let it.

Why I Blog

X&HTeam-mate Rob May asked me one of those questions last night.

http://twitter.com/robwmay/status/70598204093235200

I replied with a flippant fob-off, but my blood ran cold. It was too closely related to one of The Big Two Questions That All Writers Hate. One of which is “Where do you get your ideas from?” (stock answer for that one – “there used to be a guy operating out of a lock up under the rail bridge by St James St station in Walthamstow, but now I just do what everyone else does and get them online, ideas4u.ru). The big one is “Why do you write?” And there is never  an answer to that one that won’t make you sound like a self-absorbed arsehole. “I knew when I was a child.” “I had to find somewhere to put all the stories.” “It’s a calling.”

The swine of it is, all of these are true to a greater or lesser extent. I’ve written since I was a scrawny, speccy runt. I was always good at it, and I always enjoyed it. Even now, drifting into the fugue state where a tale just seems to present itself and all I have to do is write it down is one of my greatest pleasures. I must have been put on this earth to tell these stories. It’s my mission in life.

See. Told you. Cain’t hep masel. Self-absorbed arsehole.

Of course, understanding the grunt work that comes out of polishing and repolishing my words until they shine is another story, There is a world of difference between the first draft that can be banged out in a six-week period if you’re disciplined (braces for howls of outrage from the Nanowrimo crowd) and making something that people would actually want  to read. A story without plot holes, clunky dialogue, cookie-cutter characters, screeds of needless exposition and the hundred thousand little details that can derail a tale if you don’t get them right. Changing eye colour is a good one. Or everyone having the same eye colour. I’ve had heroines that change their age from page to page. The basic misunderstanding of Newtonian physics that sends the engine of your plot off-track and into the trees. I’m writing this on a train, you can see where the metaphors are coming from.

None of which answers Rob’s question. Bear with me.

The thing with writing is that it’s a monstrous, time-eating task that will gobble years like a sugar-starved tween presented with a handful of Haribo. Blogging is very much the opposite. It’s a quick, sharp hit, an espresso instead of a venti moccochoccolattechino with extra whipped cream and sprinkles and three flakes. It’s first draft, front-lobe spillage. It’s 4-track demo, rough sketch, workshop level output. It’s also pragmatic. I can clear out brain cruft that needs to go somewhere, I can work up ideas, try things out. It’s a place to react, to rage, to vent, to roar. It’s the mouth of the gushing hose. Twitter’s great for a lot of things, but it doesn’t let me bend the language in the way that I like. I can’t roll out a run-on sentence in 140 characters. And I LOVE run-on sentences. Blogging is as close to I get to an honest, true immediate response to the world and everyone in it. (As close as I get? Well, take a look at the title of the blog you’re reading…) Broadcasting at the click of a trackpad.

And of course, it’s an exercise in vanity. How could it be otherwise? I’m labouring under the assumption that there are people out there that want to read my views on the AV referendum, on horror, on comics, on beer, on food, on every little thing that pops into my tiny head and gets me to fire up Marsedit. Writers are egoists. They have to be. How else could you blare your opinions at the world if you didn’t think they were worth the world’s attention? Why do it if you didn’t think someone was listening? The blogger that doesn’t check their stats after every post isn’t really a blogger at all.

Rob, I’m sorry, I’m still not sure that i’ve answered the question. X&HT is a huge part of my writing life. It’s a home, a platform, potentially a shop window, a shelter, a stage. It’s me, in some ways, and a weird simulacrum of me in others. It’s a distraction and a workspace. It’s me and the cartoon rabbit-eared, fluff-tailed version of me all at one.  It’s an excuse, Rob. It’s a half-truth.

Why do I blog, Rob? Because I can. Because I must. Because.