Cape Wrath

...and you really don't wanna know where he keeps his supply of web fluid...

I’ve had it with superheroes. There, I said it. I’m sick of capes, bored with masks. I’ve had enough.

There’s no one event that has led me to this point. No real tipping point. Rather, it’s a feeling that’s developed gradually, as I flick through the rows of books in Forbidden Planet, then gently put them back and walk away, shaking my head. It’s a terrible thing for a comic fan like me to say, but I don’t think Marvel and DC have anything to offer me.

Superheroes are no fun anymore.

I’ll try to untangle the sick knot of dread I get when I pick up a mainstream superhero book. If I could quantify it into a sentence, it would probably be “Oh. More of the same, then.” This is not really the fault of the writers or artists, who in some cases are doing splendid work. No, it comes down to the nature of the superheroes themselves, and how little they can change.

Consider. Superman’s first appearance on the front cover of Action Comics was September 1938. Batman haunted Detective Comics not long afterwards. Most of the Marvel heroes we love came out of a massive bolt of creativity blasting out of Times Square in the early 60s, although Captain America and the Sub-Mariner can be traced back to dubyadubyatwo. A fledgeling comics writer coming to these characters is faced with at least 40 years of backstory, reinvention, retcon, downright oddness and ill-thought experimentation. All of which is canon. All of which, if misinterpreted or misread, will have fanboys on your back like a horde of ravening ferrets. The Batcave HAS to stay the Batcave. Superman will never move out of Metropolis, and Wonder Woman will never get out of that ridiculous bustier. There’s the chance for great opportunity there, but it’s constrained within the tropes and iconography of characters that haven’t changed in a real sense in decades. You can’t change the costume. Well, you can, but it’ll change back within the year. You can’t change the thin slick of motive that clings to the characters as closely as the spandex they wear. Batman will never get over the death of his parents. Supes will always be the immigrant made good.

Most importantly, you cannot kill them. As Si Spurrier put it most eloquently, superhero stories have beginnings and middles, but no end. The death of a character is simply a hook to hang a year or so of storyline from before you bring them back. Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, and Bruce Wayne are both about to reappear after a year dead for tax reasons.

Both these resurrections have taken place after massive multi-book, months-long events that have promised to completely redefine the universes in which they are set – which will do nothing of the sort. There will be a big bang, and when the dust has settled, the landscape will re-emerge without looking any different. These books, which I call Crisis storylines, are at best bloated and self-indulgent, and are blatant marketing exercises

A trope of the Crisis storyline is that they involve deep trawls through the archives to dredge up characters and situations that really should have remained buried. They are convoluted, arcane in detail and expensive to follow, requiring the hapless reader to buy not just the core book of the series, but the rags of the associated characters as well. They are certainly no good as entry-points to the genre. In fact, if I have to recommend comics to the beginner, the current raft of superhero books would be the last place to start.

These events are the point where I really lose patience with superhero comics. They’ve been a part of the Marvel and DC universes since the 80s, and have to my mind never been up to much. They involve characters that are at best second-stringers being pushed forward, messed about with and then shoved aside. Often they will be reintroduced and then despatched by the Big Bad of the story in a couple of pages.

The most horrible version of this in recent comics history occurred in the Identity Crisis storyline, when the wife of Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man was raped and murdered. Ralph and Sue were always light, funny characters – the Thin Man couple with superpowers. By putting them at the centre of a hamfisted attempt to bring Law And Order – SVU to DC, the writer Brad Meltzer managed to make the Dibnys both pathetic and vulnerable. And as a result, a lot less interesting. Identity Crisis ended up making me feel like I needed to wash my hands after reading.

The trouble with taking your average superhero into dark places is that it’s too easy for the whole enterprise to collapse into silliness. It takes a writer like Alan Moore or Frank Miller to be able to take the inherent ridiculousness of the superhero concept and place it into a slightly more realistic setting. Notice I say slightly more here: Watchmen and the Dark Knight books are both set in places that are absolutely not supposed to be the world we recognise. That’s how they get away with it. Without a careful approach, you end up with a book like Identity Crisis, that manages to be both horrible and stupid all at once. A fair old achievement.

Finally, though, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Marvel and DC are starting to twig that something ain’t right. Both publishers have run storylines where most of their characters have been resurrected as zombies, which shows at least an iota of irony and self-awareness. If you’re gonna bring someone back from the dead, do it right. There is also a move towards a lighter, more inclusive style of storytelling, breaking from the gloom and darkness that has settled over the books for an awfully long time. There are always exceptions, of course – Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Connor’s work on Power Girl has been a joy, with the right mix of exuberant storytelling, self-deprecating wit and just the right level of cheesecake. And you can’t go wrong with anything coming from the desks of Jeff Smith and Darwyn Cooke. These guys do work that has a retro sheen, but modern sensibilities. Solid storytelling and art that isn’t afraid to laugh at itself.

I would point at DCs Wednesday Comics experiment as a template to adopt or at least an idea that’s worth a second look. Rather than massive and confused webs of storytelling, the focus here was on weekly, single page shots. Espressos instead of venti moccochoccachinoes. Based on the Sunday newspaper foldouts that were a mainstay of American comics experimentation in the 50’s (the funny pages were where Will Eisner, one of the masters, learned his chops, after all) the Wednesday comics are big, cheap foldouts that are best read spread out on the floor, to be pored over with milk and cookies to hand. Imagine a Crisis storyline run through a couple of issues of something like that, where each page brings a new character, a new struggle. I’m reminded of Paul Grist’s work on Jack Staff, which took the multi-story, multi-character approach of British comics like Victor and my beloved 2000AD, and then weaved a single storyline through them. There’s less inclination to ramble when you only have six pages to get your characters in and out of trouble.

They were a revelation to me when they appeared last year, and I feel appropriately evangelical about this format that my next writing challenge will involve a story using those formats. Trust me, no capes involved.

More news on that in my next post. Stay strong, true believers…

Locked Up

As a postscript to my SF Door post, please enjoy Greg J. Smith’s post on The Airlock as seen on Serial Consign. It manages to squeeze in reference to the juicy set design of Danny Boyle’s “Sunshine”, too. Rob’s Recommended Read of the day.

YOU SUCK: An Airlock Lexicon.

For Your Consideration

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Oscar season is over for another year, the tents and awnings are coming down, the pretty dresses are, for the most part, going back to their designers.

What have we learnt this time around, Readership?

1. It is possible to be both Best and Worst Actress at the same time.

2. You can win a Best Cinematography Oscar even when your cameras were principally used as motion capture devices.

3. You will win an Oscar eventually, if you hang on in there for long enough. The Oscar will never be for your best work, but for the one that most accurately portrays your public image. For example, Jeff Bridges didn’t win the Oscar this year. The Dude did.

4. Oscar ❤ Pixar, unconditionally.

Every year I can depend on the Oscars being even more bloated, self-congratulatory and pointless. There were no major surprises, no astonishing turn arounds. I’m pleased Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker grabbed so many awards, but what does that prove?

5. Oscar ❤ war movies.

5a. Oscar hates SF. Avatar was there because Oscar is scared of James Cameron. District 9 was there because Oscar ❤ Peter Jackson.

The question we should be asking is why does it take until the second decade of the 21st century for a woman to win Best Direction Oscar?

Further, the illusion of choice in the Best Film shortlist drives me nuts. Expanding the list out to ten does not give us more choice. There’s still a shortlist of 5. It’s just been bloated out with a B-list that have no chance of getting the award. Oscar has been capable of some deeply eccentric choices over the years, but it was blatantly clear this year which movies were in with a shot. The football movie? Uh-uh. The harrowing race/abuse tale? I don’ sink so. The cartoon? Gimme a break. There’s already a slot for Best Pixar Movie of the year.

And then there’s the Moon debacle. The short, sharp debut of a bright new talent, featuring an astonishing, nuanced performance from one of the best actors of his generation was ignored by Oscar this year. It’s partially the fault of Sony, of course, who decided that the film was not worthy of consideration (way to back your creative teams, there, guys. Nice work.) Nonetheless, there should have been an inkling that the film was perhaps worth a look after it did so well at the Baftas. By then, it was probably too late. Another missed opportunity for Oscar to show that it had interest in a broader range of films. But no. Once again Oscar showed hisself to be old, slow and out of touch. It’s the awards show that’s just too easy a target, too bloated and dumb to actively hate. It’s just there, wheezing into view every March like a despised older relative, staying that little bit too long, before blubbering away again leaving nothing behind but a faint whiff of cabbage water and a couple of trinkets that’ll just gather dust on the sideboard.

Until a horror movie wins Best Movie, I shan’t be watching again.

How A Geek Rolls


There seems to be a visual shorthand that film-makers employ when they want the viewer to quickly get the idea that their lead character is something of a geek. Oh, sure, there’s the usual sartorial (glasses, trousers that run slightly too high above the ankle, slogan tees) and home furnishing cues (retro SF movie posters, computers front and centre, toys EVERYWHERE), but there’s another, slightly more subtle method.

The film geek will not go to work or school in the usual means of transportation. No, we’re looking at grown men on bikes. Or cars that are falling to bits, strangely decorated or just plain don’t fit the landscape.

The humble bicycle is a great way of letting your audience know that your character is a bit … well, different. You will see them on their contraption within the first ten minutes of the film, frequently within the title montage. If your protagonist lives in a college town, or god forbid Oxford or Cambridge, then it’s a cert that they will be cycling to work. Steve Carell’s character in the 40 Year Old Virgin hits all these notes, negotiating rush hour traffic with an aplomb that he simply can’t apply to his love life. The fact that he doesn’t drive actually becomes a plot point later in the film, but nevertheless he’s easy to pick out of a crowd.

This trope doesn’t just apply to the movies, of course. Uber-geek Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory hasn’t been behind a steering wheel since driver’s ed. This again becomes a plot point in the season three episode “The Adhesive Duck Deficiency” when he has to drive Penny to hospital after she slips and falls in the shower. Hilarity ensues.

There’s a message here, of course. Geeks ride bikes because the rest of us drive cars.* If you choose not to drive, then there is by pure deductive reasoning something a bit odd about you, and the writer can use that off-key note for comic or emotional effect. Just look at John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, reimagining the universe while spinning through Princeton on a Shwinn.

If the geek can pull him or herself together and get behind the wheel of a car, then [deity] forbid that they are put into a Ford Focus. No, although the cues are a little more subtle, the geek choice of ride will be either an old banger or a wilfully obscure choice of marque. Take, for example, the Ford Pacer that Wayne and Garth cram into in Wayne’s World. Molly Ringwald drives a beautiful, if somewhat battered, VW Karmann** Ghia in Pretty In Pink. And of course, let’s not forget the geekiest transport of all – Professor Emmett Brown’s time-travelling Delorean.

I watched Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Micmacs this week, and was heartened to see my theory in action. The circusy recyclers of the title use a fine array of old lorries and that peculiarly French method of transport, the lawnmower-engine powered truck-trike, to get around. It’s a neat juxtaposition with the villains of the piece, who smooth about in high-end Peugeot limousines. In fact, it seems to me that the quirkier the transport, the more heroic the driver. Their ride seems to reflect their personality. Just look at the Munstermobile.

But to my mind, there is one car that rules them all. The car that belongs to fiction’s alpha geek. The quintessential loner, a technological whizz who has trouble with girls and spends more time in front of a computer in his basement than he likes.

But MAN, does he ever have a sweet ride…

*I ride a bike. This has nothing to do with anything.

**Due to poor research, I initially had Andie’s ride down as a Carman Ghia. Cheers to Charlie, the Readership’s motoring correspondent for setting me right.

Food Hell

Let’s start with a song, shall we?

Amanda Palmer has, I think, nailed the experience of food hate. We all have one. That foodstuff that you don’t just dislike (sprouts), or refuse to have on your plate (sprouts) but will actively force you out of the room. Marmite have built an entire advertising strategy out of this, positioning their product as one that neatly divides the nation. I fall into the hater camp, I’m afraid. I will, on occasion, use it in a stew or casserole to give some of the deep, rich umami tang for which it’s rightly known. But spreading it on toast seems such a ridiculous concept to me. You may as well dollop gravy browning on your morning slice. Or a turd.

Marmite are now trying it on a bit, I think, by launching the Marmite Bar. This is a cereal bar, one of those sticky, oaty slabs that can sometimes do the job if you’re up late and don’t have time to put milk onto a bowl of cereal in the morning. Most cereal bars have some manner of fruit in them to lighten the mix. Marmite Bars, and my gorge is actively rising as I write this, remove the fruit, and replace it it with Marmite. It’s a savoury cereal bar. Just what you need to smack your tonsils awake on a Tuesday morning. It’s a product that Marmite are actually pitching as a dare. “Have we gone too far?”, the posters cry. It’s a bold move, but I can see it backfiring. I know I’m not the target market (probably the opposite, in fact) but I can’t see anyone wanting to buy the horrid things. I have trouble conjuring up a more revolting prospect.

Oh, who am I kidding? Let’s talk about my own personal food hell.

(Digression. I’m a fan of the BBC cookery show Saturday Kitchen Live, which shows archive food shows alongside live cookery skits and a spectacularly pointless omelette race. One silly feature is Food Heaven, Food Hell, in which the token celebrity of the day is quizzed on their favourite and least favourite food, and then subjected to a vote in which they will eat a dish based on either. No-one yet has dared to pull the bullshit alarm on this trite concept:

“So, (B-list celebrity with something to plug) , what is your Food Hell?”
“Well, (avuncular host) , my Food Hell is prawns.”
“Oh, really? (initiate flirt/banter mode, dependent on gender of guest) And why, pray tell, is that?”
“Because I’m violently allergic to them, and if I eat one I will go into toxic shock and die.”

It’d be nice to see that once. Don’t you think?)

Aaaanyway. My food hell. The humble egg is a cornerstone of world cuisine, a foodstuff as versatile as it is loved. Millions of people go to work on one every morning. They are cheap, nutritious and the foundation of the Great British Full English Breakfast.

Put a fried or lightly scrambled egg in front of me, and I will run out of the door. My lovely wife, my deary darling, will sometimes indulge in a breakfast of scrambled eggs soused in ketchup, which will send me to the bottom of the garden with my hand clamped firmly over my mouth. I have a friend that will send me photos of any particularly runny fried egg sandwiches he manages to get hold of. I’m not kidding here, the thought of it is making me feel a bit sick.

It’s partially a texture thing, partially a smell thing. I do have a problem with gelid foods, which I think is a common problem with Food Hell in general. Many people I know will cite tomatoes or mushrooms in their spit list, because of the squishy, half-set texture. It’s notable, I think, that I don’t have a problem with eggs per se. I’ll happily cook with them. I make a mean pancake, will happily eat a quiche or even a Spanish omelette, and will even whip a just cracked egg into fried rice. But the concept of runny yolk does not fit well in my gut. And I honestly have no idea where it’s come from. As far as I know, I have always hated eggs. There must be a memory I’ve blanked out somewhere, of a particularly runny soft-boiled egg and soldiers that just flipped a switch in my tiny head. In his memoir Toast, Nigel Slater writes of how his mother’s insistence of forcing him to eat runny egg put him off them for life. I think I’m the same.

This made me a particularly miserable vegetarian, of course. In fact, it was eggs that turned me away from the righteous path. On a driving holiday through France, it soon became clear that the only thing that was available for salad-huggers like me and TLC was omelettes. Even the salads had hard-boiled egg in them, which tainted them completely. I tried to man up, and ordered a cheese omelette one night. I managed one bite, and that tiny morsel ended up back on the plate. I spent a week eating bread and cheese, and the occasional bowl of frites. It was horrible.

Finally, on the last night of the trip, I cracked. We went to a seafood restaurant in Le Havre, and I ate cod with puy lentils. It was a magnificent, Proustian moment. I can still taste the meal now. It was back down the slippery slope for me from there. I lasted barely a year as a vegequarian, and am now a rabid, unapologetic carnivore.

Some years after that trip TLC and I went to Paris, and found a decent vegetarian restaurant. it was fantastic. The food was simple, pure and delicious. If there had been more places like that in Brittany in the spring of 1992, I’d probably still be a courgette-muncher today. (I still am, but not exclusively.)

So, let me know, Readership. I’m intrigued. What foods really don’t do it for you? Are you a Marmite lover or a hater? More to the point: would you eat a Marmite Bar?

In Defence Of The Thong Song

I am here to celebrate one of the more extraordinary moments in modern music of the last 10 years. A moment that marries head-wreckingly crass lyrics to music of astonishing grace and power. A moment that would redefine the way young men and women comported themselves on the dance floor. A moment that, for a fleeting instant, made platinum hair dye the thing.

You’ve got it. I’m talking about The Thong Song.

Monday night’s Glee (fantastic show. Are you watching it? Why aren’t you watching it? What are you, some kind of idiot? It’s got hotties of all kinds, musical numbers and Jane Goddamn Lynch. Go, hit a catch up service. This’ll wait.) featured an attempt to mash up My Fair Lady’s I could Have Danced All Night with the aforementioned Sisqo classic. The project was doomed to failure. Well, of course it was. The My Fair Lady song is trite, by the numbers Lerner/Loewe songcraft, designed to shunt the story of Eliza and Professor Higgins forward. The Thong Song is much, much more than that. Musically and lyrically, it’s on a completely different plane.

The dynamic way in which The Thong Song changes and mutates through it’s agreeably short running time means that you’re never more than a minute away from a new surprise, another revelation. The song starts simply, with a pretty string filigree. This is soon superseded (although never overwhelmed. This simple figure is the sinuous backbone of the track) by a lithe, bouncing backbeat, the
perfect accompaniment for Sisqo’s sing-rapping.

This in itself is a wonder, veering from clever wordplay and neat quotes from other songs (the “Living La Vida Loca” moment springs to mind strongly here) to sheer grunting neanderthal monosyllably. The prime example is the moment leading up to the chorus.

“She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck,
Thighs like whut, whut, whut,
Baby move your butt, butt, butt…”

Which would be bad enough, but he’s so pleased with that clanging chunk of proto-rhyme and rotten imagery that he repeats it. After telling us he’s going to repeat it.

“I think I’ll sing it again.”

Please don’t. Or if you do, at least, find something to compare your subject’s thighs to.

But even here, there’s a purpose. The delivery and repitition are entirely deliberate. Sisqo sounds breathless here, literally panting with lust. Of course he’s gonna sing it again. He wants to make sure we get it. By acting dumb, he’s playing clever.

The chorus is a different entity, taking our hero’s grunts and pants and transforming them in an instant into a thing of beauty. Two harmonies wind around and about each other like a pair of dancers. Sisqo is hollering at the top of the stack, giving the mix some fire.

The third verse is the point where I would argue that the video improves on the original mix of the song. Note here how during the dance on the beach Sisqo and his back-up dancers do a pronounced stomp that kicks up a little CGI shockwave. This shock is echoed with a heavy bass thud that hits on the offbeat and is perfectly in time every time. It’s a lovely addition, and one that means I find the standard mix of the Thong Song ever so slightly lacking.

(Caveat: the video is otherwise dreadful. You’re best bet is to run it in Youtube and tuck that tab away. Unless you like watching oiled-up girls in thongs, of course.)

After all this, the best is still to come. There has been a steady but stealthy build in the intensity of the track, but the gorgeous key change at (3:17) just kicks things up into orbit. Sisqo is in a state of glory here, transported to the point where he can barely string a coherent line together. It’s an orgiastic, euphonious peak to a song that interweaves the sacred and the profane in a way that only the best pop music, hell, the best music full stop, can do.

It’s poor and lazy of the Glee writers, who are normally spot on with their musical choices, to make the blunt assertion that the show tune is in any way superior to Sisqo’s masterpiece. Making it the favourite song of the brutish football coach Tanaka merely compounds the error, painting The Thong Song as a track that only jocks and lowbrows could love.

Well, sorry, I’m neither, and I think it’s the nuts. It’s a track that rewards repeated listens with new treats and flourishes. Also. it’s a hell of a lot more fun to dance to than anything from My Fair Lady.

Who’s with me? Let me see your booty go.

Coming up: Will Smith’s Boom! Shake The Room.

A (Quiet) Word In Your Ear


In the process of wandering the great and echoing halls of the interwebs over the past few days, I’ve come across several posts and a whole site dedicated to the subject of the introvert. You know the type. Shy, retiring. Doesn’t talk much. Bit of a downer. Clumsy in social settings. Keeps himself to himself.

Well, that’s the common conception, anyway. My reading on the subject have brought up a very different conclusion. One that had me bookmarking pages in delighted relief, as I recognised myself more and more in what was being said, and the discussions afterwards.

The epiphany came at the end of this post in The Atlantic by Johnathon Rauch. I realised that being an introvert was not a choice, but an orientation. This was simply who I was.

So, Readership, the time has come to out myself.

My name is Rob Wickings, and I am an introvert.

Let me explain myself. I came across the Atlantic post, and the astonishing reaction to it while I was at work. (ahem. On a lunch break, of course.) My job ensures that I spend large portions of the day alone, and in relative quiet. Visitors often wonder whether I have been driven mad by the isolated nature of the work. Not so. In fact, it’s very much the opposite. I’ve always been completely comfortable in my own company. I can think, perhaps play a little music. Mostly, though, I’m just happy to sit quietly and watch the images flow across my screen.

The good part of the job is it’s shift-based nature. I get time off in the week. This is a rare delight, padding around the house on my own, cooking, writing, maybe wandering into town to browse bookshops or catch a movie. I’ll chat amicably to shop assistants or passers-by if approached, but otherwise I’m fine just to be quiet and do my own thing.

This is starting to make me sound like a bit of a hermit, which could not be further from the truth. On a day off, I’m happiest at the moment that I hear the key in the door that tells me TLC is home. I have a tight circle of good friends, who I see regularly. I’ve even done karaoke, furfuxache. The one thing I am not, is shy. (OR entirely conversant with sentence construction, it would appear. Hi ho.)

But I’m not especially gregarious. Large parties bother and worry me. I’m terrible at small talk, lousy at gossip and a little bit deaf. This makes clubs and pubs with loud music a bit of a nightmare, unless I’m with a core of people I know and trust. I’ll do them, and can have a good time, but you’ll find I want to go sooner rather than later. Dinner parties, smaller gatherings, barbeques – yeah, fine, no problem. I love people … in small doses. Big gatherings just fluster and exhaust me.

My main bugbear is the telephone. I want to apologise to everyone I know who have ever felt that I have rushed or needlessly cut short a phone conversation. It’s not you. It’s the vector of communication. It cuts off at least half of my chatting skills. If I’m on the phone to you I can’t pull faces, flap my hands about, sketch in the air, shrug, flinch or mime. I tend to think before I speak, which means there’s usually quite a bit of dead air. I just can’t chat on the phone the way I can face-to-face, and it drives me nuts. It should not, then, be a surprise that my choice of phone is one that puts texting and email capabilities front and centre. In fact, the argument that the iPhone’s telephony is it’s weakest feature was just another plus for me.

And yes, I am embarrassed to say, I do screen my calls, and if I’m not in the mood to talk I will let that call drop to voicemail until I’m feeling more chatty. It’s nothing personal. Honestly, it’s not. I’d just rather talk to YOU, not some ghostly approximation. (There are exceptions, of course. Get me on the phone to my best mate from school, and I will happily yak for hours. I think that’s mostly because this is the only way we’re able to talk at length is on the phone. On the rare occasions we DO meet face-to-face, well, then it is kind of difficult to shut us up. And I don’t let calls from TLC purposefully ring out. That’s one voice I don’t tire of, ever.)

The internet has liberated the introvert. It shouldn’t be a surprise that I spend so much time on it. I can express myself in subtle, rich and expansive ways. I CAN SHOUT or whisper. You can always tell when I don’t really mean that insult ;-). Plus, I love to read, and I’m insatiably curious. Frequently I will have a laptop and a book open at the same time, and often the telly will be on as well. My headspace is the place where I feel most comfortable, and the web has given me access to the world and lots of new friends, meeting socially when I feel ready, and on my own terms. It’s a win-win for me, and for a lot of people out there just like me who have absolutely blossomed without all that tedious mucking about in clubs, bars and cafés. Does this make the introvert socially inept? No, of course not, and screw you if you think that. We simply socialise in a slightly different way.

So, what have we learnt? Well, we’ve learnt that I can’t shut up when I get the bit between my teeth, certainly. I’ve discovered that I’m not quite so much of a weirdo as I thought I was, and that’s incredibly liberating.

Your required reading for the day is The Introvert’s Corner, in which Sophia Dembling talks wittily and insightfully about living a quiet life in a noisy world. I can recommend the comments thread on each post, by the way. Typically for a site full of introverts, they tend to be erudite, clever and funny. Features of the persuasion in general, I have to say. We may not be loud, but we’re as sharp and bright as a box of new pins.

And the mailbox for Johnathon Rauch’s original article is well worth a look, too.

Thank you for listening. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need a little quiet time.

A Liddle Bit Of Good News

An image search for "Rod Liddle" brings up macros with a much more robust choice of language than this...

Columnist Rod Liddle now looks unlikely to be offered the position of editor at the Independent, following a groundswell of disapproval from staff and readers. This should universally be considered A Good Thing. Liddle would be a rotten fit for the paper. His views on women and minorities are well-known, thoroughly documented and utterly reprehensible. However, because the reader response was organised through Facebook and the campaign site 38 Degrees, some opinionistas in the press have taken the opportunity to tag public disapproval of the potential appointment as mob rule.
This is disingenuous, to put it mildly. So I won’t. It’s flipping ridiculous. Mob rule is a loaded and highly evocative phrase, which leads the reader to imagine that Liddle had been dragged out of town after being tarred and feathered (pause for a moment just to savour that image…) What actually happened was somewhat less dramatic. A highly paid journalist has not been ushered into an even more highly paid job, thanks in part to the efforts of concerned readers of the paper concerned. That’s it. It’s hardly bloody Salem, is it?
I will immediately state my interest in the affair. I joined the Facebook group, and signed the 38 Degrees petition. I don’t want an unmitigated shit like Liddle running a newspaper for which I have some measure of respect and affection. It is my right to inform the potential owner of that paper of my opinion. Did I gather with hundreds of other worried readers at the doors of the Independent’s offices, flaming torch in hand? Did I help to string up a gibbet at the door to Liddle’s flat? Have I in any way affected Liddle’s future earnings or his professional reputation?
No. No, I did not. I put my name to an internet petition and fired off an email to Simon Kelner and Alexander Lebedev. That’s all I have done. The fact that I was not alone in doing this seems to be the problem, and something that opinionistas are finding increasingly difficult to cope with. The idea that people can respond in their thousands to an article or story that they find objectionable, that somehow they can be held accountable for the things they write must scare them stool-less.
The angry letter to the editor is no longer the only option. The readership of our daily papers are more and more aware of their power, and ready to exercise it. If the chattering loudmouths that clog the opinion pages don’t like it, well, la-di-tough-shit. Guess what, passive consumption is a thing of the past, and about time. It’s easy now to show our disapproval of the badly-thought out, quickly dashed-off, lazily executed rubbish that passes as opinion in every paper on the news-stand.
In the face of public disapproval, all they can do, it seems, is call us either the thoughtless automatons of a liberal elite orchestrating our every move on Twitter (the Indie campaign was started by a reader, by the way, not a celebrity) or at worst a howling mob. Neither portrayal is likely to endear us to the writers that spawn this bollocks.
Liddle, as a columnist for the Times and The New Statesman, is just the latest and most obnoxious example of the problem. It’s interesting to note that as the campaign has unfolded, his complaints about social networking have become more hysterical. While trying not to paint himself as a victim, he has resorted to using ever more tenuous links to other, unrelated or outdated news stories to have a pop. It would be funny if it wasn’t so… oh, who am I kidding? It’s HILARIOUS.
To sum up, then. It would seem that public opinion becomes mob rule only when it isn’t working in your favour. And we are watching, opinionistas. Watching, and ready to call you out on your bullshit.

Hail To The Ale

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Ah, beer. Stuff of life. One of the first foods. Made from pretty much the same simple ingredients as bread, and it’s been with us for just as long. Grains, yeast, flavourings and time. That’s all there is to it. There is an argument in ecumenical circles that if Jesus Christ truly was of the working-class, then he would never have touched wine, and the Blood of Christ at Holy Communion should be a nice drop of IPA instead.

My enthusiasm for the holy brew knows no boundaries. A decent beer is one of life’s finest ingredients. It speaks to me of community, of friendship, of good times. Too much will give you problems, but that is an argument that can be levelled at … well, anything. If I was forced to choose, I mean, really gun-to-the-head-of-a-loved-one choose, I believe I would rather drink beer than anything else. OK, it’s not going to replace the first cup of tea in the morning, or the flat white served with a smile from one of the AMT girls at Reading station, but on the whole… Well, let’s just say I look at historical records that tell us that everyone drank beer instead of water up until the mid-nineteenth century because it was safer, and wish vaguely that I was a time-traveller.

Before this turns into the confessions of an alcoholic, a little bit of focus. My love of the saintly sup has turned me into an activist. I am a member of CAMRA, and have signed petitions and written to my local MP regarding the perilous state of Britain’s pubs. The pub should be a cornerstone of British society, up there with the red phone box and the double-decker bus.

Of course, both of those are extinct, and the humble British boozer is going the same way. A pub a day is closing. These are terrible times for a vital part of English culture, and I try in my little way to support and encourage the public house and everything about it.

Which leads to my arrival at Clapham Junction yesterday, to meet some friends and enjoy the Battersea Beer Festival. This was our second attempt. Last year we were unable to gain admittance, faced with massive queues that refused to subside even in the face of a vicious snowstorm blasting down Lavender Hill. That night we ended up in The Falcon on St John’s Hill, just down the way from the station. This is a beautiful pub-in-the-round, with a lovely long bar, a couple of snugs, pretty decent food and a fabulous selection of beers. We had our own mini-festival that night, and The Falcon seemed the ideal place for our little group to form before heading up to the BAC, home of the festival.

This was a very wise move. There was a CAMRA stall, and kegs had been set up in the back room to entice punters into trying some slightly more esoteric brews. That, along with the food that Nicholson’s pubs like the Falcon specialise in (very good pies and sausages, ideal for soaking up booze) meant that we headed up Lavender Hill in high spirits, and in the mood for more.

We got into the venue without problems, issues or any kind of a wait. A token entry fee and £2 dropped for a commemorative beer glass, and we were in.

Now, a word on the beer glasses. You buy one at the door, and hang onto it through the session. You can buy half and pint glasses, and these are oversized and lined in third, half and pint measures. We always drink halves in beer festivals. It seems pointless to bloat out with a full pint of something you might not like. Plus with halves, you get to try more over the course of a session. One trick is to order halves in a pint glass. Inevitably, you will get more than the measure, especially as the day wears on and the worthies behind the bar, volunteers and enthusiasts all, become more and more tipsy and loose-wristed at the kegs. For the most part, we were getting tooths (two-thirds of a pint) for the price of a half. At £1.50ish a shot, this represents VERY GOOD VALUE FOR MONEY.

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The venue is pretty impressive. The Great Hall at the BAC is a big old woody church hall, complete with high stained glass windows, and the booming echo of a decently crafted acoustic. That room, which must have been fifty feet long, is filled with a central, double-sided bar stacked high with kegs. By 6pm, that room will be stuffed to the gills with drinkers of all shapes, sizes and levels of beardiness. And that’s just the girls, kathudTISH.

I’m always surprised by how many females of the lady-type persuasion turn up to these gigs. Although the day is normally heavy on rotund hairy gentlemen of a certain age and the occasional dashing handsome interloper such as me and my crew, come hometime and whoops look out, it’s like a Boots advert in the Great Hall. Here come the girls, and they’re all after a half of insanely strong Belgian lambic, or a decent porter. They go for the strong dark stuff, ales with flavour, body and character. None of your cheap lager here. These are classy birds. Although they’d whop you one for telling them that. I am far too much of a gent/coward to try.

Eventually, we felt the urge for something different, and ventured downstairs to the cider and perry hall. This, we decide later, was a Big Mistake. The room is dingy and airless, and entirely populated by twats in stupid hats, urging each other on to ever more foolish feats of stunt alcoholism to the strains of (this is the godshonest truth) the refrain of Gary Glitter’s You Wanna Be In My Gang. We have a glass of something (Newton’s Hereford Perry, very nice) and do a runner before things turn nasty. C’mon, C’mon? No, f’anks.

After that, we took the advice of the marvellous Ciaran, who lives just round the corner from the BAC, and headed to another pub, The Eagle. This regularly wins awards, and no wonder. It’s a warm, cosy place, filled with locals, and the beer is clearly sourced, stored and served with care and pride. It’s a perfect place to finish the evening before the long drag home, and the pint of Loddon Hoppit that I sip is a clarion call back to the West. But I shall return.

So, recommendations. The Twitter stream I generated through the day is here. Yes, I tweeted the beer I drank. I’m 21st century, me. The hit of the fest for me was Black Hole Brewery’s RED DWARF, an unbelievably moreish toffee-flavoured treat. I was generally in the mood for milds, porters, stouts and other dark beers, so the list is by definition skewed that way. The Falcon is here. I’m not telling you where the Eagle is. I’d like to keep that one a little bit secret.