Goodbye McNulty

Turns out I was really attached to that hamster. I keep choking up today.
McNulty went to sleep yesterday evening for the last time, in my hand. The vet said we could wait outside, but two days before she had refused several times to go back to her cage after feeding, and kept crawling up my arms, the way she used to run along them when she was still a baby.

Then the next day, when she couldn't do even that, she still climbed onto my hand when I tried to put her back, and spread out for a snooze - I suppose because she felt safe there, and warm.
So she went to sleep that way yesterday too.

My journey home from work was grimly ironic. The vets' last appointment time is 6.30pm, so I had left the office early and was hurrying home so that I could be on time for the last appointment I really wanted to have. I had hoped, a little bit, that we might wake up one morning to find that McNulty hadn't, and then the decision would be out of our hands. That didn't happen, so we took her to the vet on Second Street, still in her big cage. Possibly over the top, but we wanted her to be as stress-free as possible.


McNulty was adventurous and playful, not afraid to lick your nose or grab your fingers, though she never bit, and she used to pin her ears back against her head so it looked like she didn't have any ears at all.
She could jump six inches from a standing start if there was something that far away that she felt like chewing, and she had her own theme tune.

Went on the annual charity-related company trip last Friday. This year's event was a visit to Dialogue in the Dark, an experience in total darkness where, led by blind guides, you get a taste of what it's like to live without eyesight. The pitch-black walk recreates a number of everyday Hong Kong scenarios, including a walk in the park, a ferry journey and a trip to the market.

It was fairly fun, and interesting - one of the chief lessons I drew from the experience (and I think one you are supposed to get) is that in a lot of ways being blind isn't that big a deal. Sure, not being blind is a bit better, but it's not the end of the world.

Towards the end they sit you down in the pitch dark and play a suite of chill-out sounds and music. Sitting in a darkened room, chewing gum and listening to chilled trance with my pupils dilated - it really took me back to my university days.

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Went to the Sai Ying Pun public clinic yesterday evening. Nice enough, as clincs go - fairly standard 1980s issue NHS style building, friendly enough staff.
The downside to the visit is the doctor suspects I may have diabetes.
Annoying if true. Let's see what the blood test reveals.

This is mainly a test post for an Android app. Here is a picture of a dinosaur.

In other news

I just greeted a Chinese colleague - surnamed So - by the water machine, saying "ah... So."


Now I am worried that might have been racist.
 
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It's a Small, Odd World

Thanks to work I got two free tickets to Hong Kong Disneyland for last weekend, and entry to the preview of the new Toy Story Land area. It was OK, but I am glad I didn't pay $400 for the privilege. Definitely not worth it.

On the other hand I am glad I have now been, because it now makes sense of a lot of things Americans mention off-hand, and references in their TV shows. For one thing, the "It's A Small World" exhibit, which you can google for yourself, and which is downright odd. "I'm not sure what I just witnessed," I said to the wife as we dismembarked from the little boat. The ride gets bonus points for featuring Don Quixote in its steretyped Spain, and loses points for having Ireland consist entirely of leprechauns, shamrocks and the colour green. And a big harp.

The rest of the attractions are all very child focused, which is as it should be, but I feel Disneyland lacks the interest for the adult visitor that, say, Ocean Park has (for half the price and closer to most of Hong Kong).
Then again, the missus and I have determined that basically we are not very interested in theme parks, so there's really no pleasing us on this point.

I quite liked Tarzan's treehouse and the jungle riverboat ride.

Tarzan's treehouse was where I was asked by a passing American fellow - and I never thought anyone would say this to me seriously - "How do I get to Toyland?"

Head towards Fantasyland and it's the first turning on your left.
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Don't worry. You got away with it.

My Halloween costume was Donnie Darko. I think I overestimated the number of people who would remember the film, which in fairness did come out ten years ago.
Apart from the people I was with, only one guy recognised it, and even he said "What about the rabbit suit?"

"That was a different character," I said.

"Oh," he said. "Oh yeah."
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Music news

I am playing with my confederate Darren in this concert tonight:

We are the last act on the bill (name dreamt up at short notice). Should be fun, title of the concert notwithstanding. We'll be digging out three numbers from our Beijing back catalogue, and adding a new thing that I half wrote a couple of years ago but only really finished in rehearsals last week - took about 5 minutes to get the arrangment, so that was a decent bit of work.
And of course we'll be padding things out with a couple of covers. Two Nick Cave songs, in this case, "Red Right Hand" and "The Mercy Seat".

Another 1st of October holiday, another edition of the Anfield 12th Cup.
Last year we won it but this year came out second best to the Liverpool supporters' team.

We beat the Chelsea and South China teams 1-0 (goal against Chelsea pictured above), but drew 0-0 with Liverpool.
They won the shoot-out, so got 2 points where we got 1.

Still, a fun day out on a ridiculously muddy pitch.

Too few classic ballets feature mad inventors and slapstick comedy, that's what I say.

We went to see the Hong Kong Ballet's production of Coppelia on Saturday evening, way out in the wilds of Sha Tin.

This was our attempt to see something more traditionally 'classical' after our first ballet trip to Snow White a few months ago (or possibly last year, even - I forget). I was a little wary at the phrase 'comic ballet', but indeed the funny bits were funny, and the dancing was excellent, and I found I enjoyed it a bit more than Snow White. I think in part this was because it was music composed specifically for ballet, rather than the ballet being, as in Snow White, tacked on to an existing composition.

Would recommend to a friend.

Did I do the right thing?

My Tiny Niece was complaining, on a recent visit ot Jakarta, that her cousins (offspring of Liverpool-obsessed dad, and slgihtly named after Reds players) had neat football gear but she didn't.

CK and I went to Bali for a few days after that and saw a tiny Spurs kit for sale in a shop in Legian, so naturally I had to get it for her.

It seems to have taken.


Today I learnt via FB messages from her that my brother in law has been teasing Tiny Niece about Tottenham's poor start to season, and saying that Liverpool are top. The meanie. She said she 'didn't know the truth', the poor moppet.

I told her not to worry about it, Spurs haven't played as many games and anyway Liverpool are 3rd.
But I wonder what I've let her in for - well, I kind of know. A lifetime of dizzying highs and stomach-lurchign lows, mainly.
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Stranger in the Roda


I've occasionally daydreamed about how cool it would be to be in, say, England on a visit and happen across a capoeira roda in progress, join the game and play with complete strangers, unannounced and unexpected (on both sides).
That actually happened with some guy on Monday night, when we had our class down by the Star Ferry pier.

I bought the game with him, being the second or third person he played in a row, not to be annoying or tire him out, which is sometimes the motivation as people try to 'beat' the outsider. This happens particularly when the outsider is not a newcomer but a known member of another group.
Instead, it was because I wanted the chance to play with someone I absolutely don't know.

In his book The Joy of Capoeira (the title of which was, coincidentally, also his nickname), Mestre Canjiquinha says that "capoeira is the worst fight in the world", in response to the suggestion that capoeira isn't  a 'real fight'. (The sort of people who say this are usually arguing that a no-holds-barred MMA fight in a ring with referees and safety crew, and with an enforced rounds system is 'real'.)
This, I think, is what he means.
When you get into a boxing ring, or into a bar fight perhaps, you have certain expectations of what will happen. The framework has been laid out. In boxing, the fight goes to the guy with the most points or who doesn't wind up counted out. In a bar fight, the victory conditions and the consequences of failure are usually implied by whatever events led up to it.

But to play capoeira, you don't know what will happen. It may just be a game; it might even just be a show, where neither player tries very hard to interrupt the other, in order to let onlookers see some impressive or graceful movements. It might get rough, with both players going for takedowns or violent kicks to put the other guy on the floor. And at the upper end of the violence scale, a traditional escalation of a capoeira game was for one or both players to pull out a straight razor, although I'm glad to say that's vanishingly rare nowadays, and to my knowledge certainly hasn't happened in Hong Kong.

When I play with my group, with people I know quite well, there's a certain dynamic, and one that is fun, but not the same as with a stranger. I know that if one person has a close call or takes a fall, she'll get riled and go seriously on the offensive to get revenge. I know that if another is playing, he'll pull off showy moves and attacks but not move too much within the space available. I know that one guy has perhaps the most complete game of any of us students, and he won't usually go for a rough game, but if I give him the chance he'll knock me down if he feels like it. And when others play me, they know I will play a certain way too, probably going to the ground quite often to look for movement, rather than pressing an offensive advantage (this is a problem with my game that I'm trying to rectify).

Playing against this chap on Monday was great because I didn't know what to expect. With the other students, it's a case of working with what you know about them, and of course trying to surprise them by breaking your own patterns.
What about this guy, though? Well, it turned out he was fond of closing in, going for grab and counter-attack if he got the chance, so after a little while in the game, I was keeping my distance and moving around a lot so as not to get boxed in.
Happily, the guy on Monday was the kind of player who keeps in good spirits and didn't play too aggressively nor without developing the game. And after the roda he asked when classes are, so that's good. But he could have been like anything. Some players come along and try to 'win', playing hard to show they're better than the local group or whatever. Some are focused on their own movements and ignore the game. Whatever happens, you have to adapt. Play too soft and you might get whacked. Play too hard and you're basically the bad guy. Play not hard enough and they might be lulling you into a false sense of security.

Worst fight in the world.

Yesterday was our capoeira teacher's last class in Hong Kong before she goes to Brazil for 2 months.
It will be difficult to keep the momentum going with classes led by the more senior students, even though we'll have help in August form graduados of another group, so I expect a few students to disappear.

On the other hand, when the teacher's away it's possible people will feel under a bit less pressure during classes and experiment more, and there's also the deadline of her return in September. Personally I'm aiming to work on some handstand-based things in that time: be able to do a piao de mao, get more control over bananeiras and so on.

Last night's roda was good, with a big turnout for the class. I even executed a au sem mao mid-game which was good even though I slightly stuffed the landing - hooray! I did it without thinking, really, or I don't know what the thought process would have been. "I couldn't do this in practice earlier so let's give it a whirl," possibly.
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Rhythm and Stealth

Thanks to having a new laptop and thus being able to use iTunes with my iPod, I've been taking advantage of the option to fill up the MP3 player with songs after the items you specify.
The good thing about how iTunes does this is that it tries to put in complete albums at first, which means that lately I have been listening to albums I haven't thought about in a while, to and from work.

One such is Leftfield's Rhythm & Stealth. You know, the one with the samurai armour on the cover. Mostly this evokes the same reaction it did when it came out. It's a good soundtrack to walking around a city.
However, one track stands out as not having aged well -- "Double Flash".
This song sounds exactly like the noises people make when they're doing an impression of ridiculously pounding dance music. DOOF -Tissss DOOF-Tissss DOOF-Tisss it goes, with the compression way up so there's no getting away from it. This goes on for two minutes, then there's a quieter breakdown bit. The traditional 90s 'wait for it, wait for it' rising tension then leads back into... exactly the same beat.

It reminds me of the episode of Father Ted where Fr Jack is sent away and in his place they get that priest who's really into jungle music in the parochial house.
I can imagine "Double Flash" being in a sitcom scenario involving noisy neighbours with little or no change made to the song.

DOOF -Tissss DOOF -Tissss DOOF -Tissss DOOF -Tissss
"This is insufferable! I should go round and say something. Shall I go round and say something? Oh, thank the Lord, it's stopped."
(There is silence for a few moments. The couple turn off the bedside light.)
DOOF -Tissss DOOF -Tissss DOOF -Tissss DOOF -Tissss DOOF -Tissss

I guess it seemed like a good idea in 1999.

Still, like I say, the rest of the album is quite enjoyable and walking around listening to it is like being back in the early 2000s again, only everyone has smaller phones.

Possibly misplaced loyalty

Back in March, I turned down the chance to interview for the position of chief English editor at the HK tourist board. I wanted to complete our current Chinese language project, but they wanted the position to start too early. 

The same headhunter later approached our flatmate, who now has taken the job. I wouldn't mind about that, except JW, our Xi'an native editor, has resigned. Which puts levels 3 and 4 of the series on hold until we can replace her, which will take a pretty long time. 

So now the CLT project has been pretty effectively derailed, and I feel pretty foolish for hanging on here when I could have gone and done arguably more interesting work, for better money. 

On the other hand, said flatmate's company are now hiring to replace him....

What I did on my holidays
Day 6 - 27 April


I just noticed that the timestamps on our photos are out by a day. One for future biographers to puzzle over, no doubt. 


We set out a little late, and ended up at a beach on Bali's southern peninsula. This was after some to and fro wherein I said I'd like to go sailing if possible. I was offered jet-skiing or being dragged around on something inflatable. I said jet-skiing would be OK but I wasn't interested in the others. 


We ended up at some beach where the latter two options only were available. I pointed out that "water sports" generally involved doing something, e.g. sailing, windsurfing - not holding on to an inflatable sausage while someone else does something. Neither, in my opinion, did sitting on a jet ski while someone else sits behind you and leans over your shoulders to steer constitute "jet skiing". apparently they'd had too many accidents with idiots to hire them out like normal. 
I muttered something about Malaysia being way better than Indo, and we left. 


The beach was down a long set of steps carved into a cliff, and through a cleft in the rock - very Famous Five - and something of a surf beach, like most seem to be on Bali. Quite nice though, and decent for swimming.







From there we went to Garuda Wisnu Kencana, a "cultural park" noted for having a massive statue of Vishnu - and one of Garuda, though we didn't see that. According to Wikipedia, "Currently, the statue of Vishnu is 23 m high, although the original plan was for a 146 meter gold plated Vishnu riding Garuda on top of an 11 storey entertainment complex." Tasteful. 
Sadly we got there too late to have a go on the quad bikes or Segways offered at the park. Both vital elements of Balinese culture. 


What we did do was watch a kecak performance. I was keen to do this because a) it's more or less mandatory if you go to Bali and b) it had turned up a lot in my ethnomusicology classes at uni, particularly as an example of hocketting. Well, that and spurious tradition. 
CK reckoned it wasn't 'traditional' because it had pantomime elements, but given that kecak was invented by a Dutchman in the 1920s on the basis that the Balinese should be able to make some tourist cash out of their traditional music and dance, I don't know how important tradition is on this one. 


Below: kecak, and massive statue of Vishnu. 

Now, where was I?
Ah, yes.

What I did on my holidays
Day 5 - 26 April


Now, one good/annoying thing about our trip to Bali was that the in-laws had arranged a car and driver for us, for most of the duration of our stay. This was rather luxury, and our driver was a very nice guy by the name of Budi, but it did mean we felt compelled to be going somewhere and doing something all the time. On our next visit (and we have decided there shall be one), we intend to take the more relaxed option of hiring a scooter and pootling about rather more aimlessly. 


Budi was relentlessly polite, which was a little off-putting. Maybe we're just getting in the age bracket where you're old enough for that to happen. It will take a bit of getting used to. CK was mildly upset when I told her a market stallholder had called her "Ibu" ("Madam", more or less, but literally 'mother'). 


Anyway, , stopping off at a batik factor-cum-tourist trap on the way, we went to the Goa Gajah (Elephant Caves - named for Ganesha), notable for having both Hindu and Buddhist temples, at least until the Buddhist one collapsed in an earthquake:



Thence to a temple at Tampaksiring, where they were doing some renovations:


We went up then to Mount Agung, Bali's noted volcano. The mountains are, as you might expect, noticeably cooler than the coasts, and I slightly regretted my choice of shorts as we sat at an open balcony overlooking the mountain for an overpriced, not very good lunch.


Finally, we headed towards Ubud to check out some monkeys. They were reasonably interesting.



After that, we found a drum shop near the monkey forest, and CK insisted on buying one to practise for capoeira. It was a pretty good drum and she got a good price, but it was arguably more luggage than we needed.
We had dinner at popular Ubud duck restaurant Bebek Bengli. Over-rated, sadly. It might be better for lunchtimes, though, as the pitch-black fields beyond the restaurant gave the impression they might afford a good view if you could see them.
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What I did on my holidays
Day 4 - 25 April

We set off for Bali in the morning, happy in the knowledge that we had only carry-on luggage, truly the best way to fly. But we were on the same flight as one of CK's aunts, who lives in Denpasar, so we had to wait for her cases at the tiny luggage carousel when we got there anyway.
Still, never mind. We met up with the attached uncle (whom I'd met at our wedding reception) and a cousin or two, and had lunch at a restaurant near Kuta before heading to the hotel.

Kuta is the famous surfing and boozy Aussie holiday area, about ten minutes' walk from where we stayed, the Legian Paradiso. Pretty nice, actually. The room was spartan but the grounds were quite lovely, all colonial architecture (built in the 1990s), palm trees and a swimming pool with a bar in it - you know the ones whe you swim up to the bar, and they have seats in the water.
We immediately decided that, at some point before we went back, we had to have a cocktail there.



The hotel

Having checked in we went for a wander westward down some narrow streets to the beach, and I texted my contact for the local capoeira group. Having decided we probably wouldn't go that evening, I had a large meal at an okay-quality Brazilian restaurant.
This was a mistake, as the reply was enthusiastic - we have class tonight, come along! In two minds, I said we'd need a lift. Apparently this was no problem.
So we went back to the hotel and I got all my gear, CK being unable to join in due to an ankle injury.

Little did I realise that our lift would turn up in the form of two motorbikes. And so we went to the class down bumpy narrow roads, the wind in my hair etc etc. Did I mention I had never been on a motorbike before? My driver noticed at one point - "are you shaking?"

Still, now I have been on one, and I can see the attraction. CK and I have decided that next time we go to Bali we'll have to hire one instead of a car a driver (about which more anon). Of course, first I have to have a go on the family scooter in Jakarta to learn how to ride one.

Capoeira was with Escola Zungu, taught by Graduado Noko. Good class, although I'd eaten way too much to do any good. Also, if anything it's hotter in Bali than Hong Kong, although less humid.
After class we hung out with the Zungu-ites at a juice stand nearby, before taking a taxi home.

Well, I'm 30.


It happened on Saturday. I'm in my thirties and there's no going back now.
Mind you, my mum said that her thirties were some of the best years of her life, when she phoned to say happy birthday. Apparently it was when "people finally acknowledged I might have some opinions". So there's that.
It would perhaps have been more comforting if she hadn't kicked off with "it is funny to think how... no, not how old you are. I mean to think of your age." Thanks, Mum.

It's also possible she mainly enjoyed her thirties because the 80s were mankind's golden era.

Being now an old guy, I celebrated in a relatively sedate fashion. Went out for dinner at Ivan the Kozak with the wife. Met up with some friends and watched the FA Cup final while sitting in a leather armchair. Went to a bar and drank something that was on fire. You know.

What I did on my holidays

Day three, 24 April

Up early for Mass at St Yohannes Bosco.
In the afternoon we met up with a bunch of CK's schoolfriends at an overpriced steak restaurant in Grand Indonesia mall, an overpriced shopping centre. Nice, though.

Then back home to pack for Bali... 

What I did on my holidays.

Day Two.
23 April

We awoke rather late on account of having stayed up too late the night before.
Shortly before noon we repaired to Mangga Dua mall, where we got haircuts. CK had a 'hair spa'.
While this was going on I received an upper-body massage in the adjacent seat from a woman with extraordinarily powerful thumbs.
We then had to return home rather sooner than expected, as CK's dad had got back and it's important to say hello. He'd been at a funeral or something.
In the evening a family excursion was had to a sushi restaurant in Kelapa Gading.

Yes, I know this holiday diary is going anywhere so far, but it does get better. Probably.
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What I did on my holidays, April 2011

Day One.

22 April.
We got the 4.30pm China Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Jakarta. The trip was uneventful. I watched a couple of films, although I now can't remember which. Airborne reading matter: "An International Episode" by Henry James.
On arrival in Jakarta, we were picked up by CK's brother and sister and went straight to the family home.
Invited out "for a quick coffee", at about 11pm, we ended up staying up far too late, as this turned out to involve driving to a number of locations picking up some friends before spending about 2 hours sitting in a 24hour McCafe. On the plus side, someone had a newly-acquired iPad 2 so I got to have a play on the new Garageband software. 

Another busyish weekend just gone.
More rehearsals for me and Leo's jazz/funk project on Saturday-- we've got about 20 minutes' worth of original material now, and I have some bits and pieces in my lyrics book.
The next step is to track down a rhythm section.
Then we went to the Spurs-Stoke game together, where I forced Leo to wear a hat I had made him. It was one of those baseball caps with a blank white front, on which I had written in red marker "I'm really STOKED... about football!"
He's a Stoke supporter, you see. I hadn't been able to find a replica Potters shirt for him.

Stoke's mascot, I discovered, is a hippo called Pottermus. This is excellent and much better than Spurs' mascot Chirpy, about whom the less said the better.

Played football at Happy Valley for my first league game this season on Sunday. It's officially getting hot now - about 28 degrees on the day. We were the better team for most of the match but lost 2-1 thanks to a wrongly awarded penalty and a lapse of concentration by the back four. I only played half of the second half, didn't exactly impose myself on the game. Oh well.

LRB · Perry Anderson · Lula’s Brazil

Interesting bit on Lula from the London Review of Books:

LRB · Perry Anderson · Lula’s Brazil

Good roda of the month last weekend. Probably the last one to be held at the Discovery Bay pier in Central. This is probably a Good Thing. The space is nice but part of the point of having an outdoor roda is to attract onlookers - you know, marketing - and the number of passers-by could be multiplied by ten if we just move a few hundred yards down to pier 7, or any of a number of public spaces in Hong Kong.

We played the training game where you're forced to stay low by cordas held taut over the roda to form a ceiling. I've always been fond of that one, though I'm not sure why. Not that I'm particularly good at it. I had to do push-ups a couple of times as a forfeit for touching the ropes.
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Indonesian celebrity

Last night I went round to Leo's place for music practice - we're up to four or five original songs for our jazz/funk project. It's an exciting time to be alive. 

As I left with my guitar and mini-amp and all my gear, a woman in her late twenties, of apparently ASEAN extraction, came out of another flat on the same floor. She held the lift door for me. 

"Thanks," I said as the door closed. 

She saw me in the reflection on the doors and turned her head. 

"Oh," she said. "You!"

I didn't really know how to respond to that, so I just smiled politely. 

All I can assume is that she recognised me from one of the local Indo-shops, where I often go to buy various bits and pieces. 

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Played my first football in about a month, on Sunday night in a friendly against a certain EUFC (no idea what that stands for). There seems to be a conspiracy against me getting anything in the Assists column -- three or four Perfectly Weighted crosses, either blazed over the bar or passed tamely to the keeper at chest height. I ask you!

Played my first football in about a month, on Sunday night in a friendly against a certain EUFC (no idea what that stands for). There seems to be a conspiracy against me getting anything in the Assists column -- three or four Perfectly Weighted crosses, either blazed over the bar or passed tamely to the keeper at chest height. I ask you!

A demanding audience


Other things what I have been doing lately. On Saturday, CK and I went down to Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Park (turns out it's actually quite easy to get to from our place, only being five minutes away, but over a footbridge to cross a busy dual carriageway).

We went there to glue gourds, as one does. The cabaca is a core component of the berimbau, the stringed instrument used in capoeira. It's used as the soundbox. A few of ours had cracks in them that needed gluing, so we needed fresh air.

We also had a new arame - the wire bit - given to us by our teacher, so while CK was gluing some of the cabacas I tried my hand at making the wire loops that go at each end to secure the arame to the verga (that's the big stick bit). I'd not tried it before, but it worked out fine.

It was also a good chance for me to practise setting up the berimbau. This is an important skill for a capoeirista because berimbaus are taken apart after use for transportation and because the arame puts a lot of pressure on the verga when it's on. So you need to put them together every time you want to play.

I used to struggle to bend the verga enough and not let it slip while I was winding the arame round the top and tying off the bit of string on the end, so that the end result would have enough tension. This time even the relatively stiff verga which was the first one we got, from Mestre Falcao, was no problem. In fact, I now have the opposite problem -- I was bending them too much and had to loosen the arame to reduce the tension.

Our brand new verga from Indonesia is still rather on the rigid side (and very thick at the bottom end) so I'll have to work on that a bit.

I practised playing the berimbau a bit, and attracted occasional onlookers. Despite me being quite terrible at it, I suppose the average passerby wouldn't know any better. One six/seven-year-old girl started dancing along. And when I stopped she demanded "More! More!"
Which was jolly charitable of her, I thought.

Pictures of hamsters

Bubbles:

McNulty:

I received a Facebook message just now, asking in all seriousness, "Do you know martial arts and how to handle a gun?" My life is sometimes quite interesting.

Books I read in 2010 -- part 2

On Literature, Umberto Eco
Pretty much what you'd expect. The James Joyce essay was good, had to skip the one about Sylvie because I am yet to read it once, let alone be in a position to "re-read it before you continue with this essay" as Eco recommends.


The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Finished this on a plane back from Singapore.
Very good, which is sad because with a bit more work it could have been a Great Book.
However, more edits were not on the cards for obvious reasons, so it's stuck with a grand finale preceded by a first half more info-dump heavy than anything I've seen since Hitler's Peace.

It actually made me think it would be a good, or at least unusual, alternative way to present a mystery -- print the second half as a novel, but replace the first half with a dossier of character profiles and evidence sources for the readers to sift through themselves.
This is almost what Larsson did, but the presentation would be more fun.


Seven Up by Janet Evanovich *
Absolute rubbish. I don't know why I bothered going all the way to the end, although there was one good joke about Art Garfunkel. At least it was free.


Trullion: Alastor 2262 by Jack Vance
I tore through  this in just a couple of days. It's classic Vance, with somewhat better characterisation than he often manages. Luckily I didn't bother reading the blurb before buying it from the second hand shop, because although everything it says is technically true, it bears little resemblance to the actual story.

It's a wry but not comic mystery story, about a guy who comes back to his idyllic home planet to find his father dead, his older brother missing and part of the family land sold off by his twin brother, who has joined a weird cult dedicated to achieving things (the society of Trullion reckons idleness is the best path as far as possible).
To try and reclaim the land he needs lot, and ends up playing professional 'hussade', a combat game played on a grid of paths suspended over a water tank into which one shoves the opposing team -- the aim of the game (and this is the bit that really proves it was written in the 70s) is to reach the platform where the opposing team's lovely female mascot stands and pull a ring that makes all her clothes fall off. This would be an excellent variant game of Blood Bowl.
Also, there are space pirates. 


A Case of Two Cities by Qiu Xiaolong * 
A worthy but dull detective novel set in 1990s Shanghai. The interesting thing about it was how I was reading for a while thinking the translator wasn't very good because many turns of phrase really need the reader to know Chinese to follow them clearly. But when I checked the imprint page I realised there wasn't one -- Qiu is a non-native author in English.
I'm not knocking this as a concept, of course. Nabokov and Conrad are the exemplars here. But Qiu needs more help from his editors. The book is full of malapropisms. On occasion there are bits of language that have the sound of a translated Chinese aphorism or catchphrase, but aren't -- I can't decide if this is Qiu doing it on purpose, or if the editor assumes it's a calque and leaves it alone.
Either way, the book is poorly written, didactic and - worst of all - achingly dull in its plot and characterisation.


Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser 
Not bad. Basically what the Bond novels would be like if they'd been written by a decent author.


The Man Who Saved Britain by Simon Winder * 
Observer review here


Life Class by Pat Barker *
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander *
Special Assignment by Boris Akunin *
The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl *




.... and a whole bunch of others. I forget. 

Books I read in 2010 -- part 1

Frankly I've forgotten a lot of them, but here are a few I noted at the time - with brief reviews if I did one. Asterisks indicate freebies I got from the office, if you're wondering why on earth I acquired them.

Elmore Leonard, The Big Bounce  - "it's okay". 

The Bronte Project by Sarah Vandever 
This was something my wife picked up in a liquidation sale some time last year, and from the jacket and blurb is ostensibly chick-lit. It's pretty good, although suffers from the staginess of a lot of chick lit, and suffers further from the fact that it probably isn't really chick lit, so the target audience might not like it that much. Hard to say which genre market you would pitch it at, though, so from a marketing standpoint it makes a reasonable amount of sense.

The characters were a bit arch for me, but I liked it enough to finish. The plot, about a Bronte scholar left behind in New York by a long-term boyfriend, is a modern American satire type thing, sort of Tom Wolfe lite. She ends up travelling to Italy to sleep in a bed that gives you prophetic dreams. Very odd, in that it's hard to know what kind of book it's supposed to be, but some entertaining bits here and there. 


White Noise by Don de Lillo 
I'd put it aside halfway through and the break has done me good. I'm now through the "Toxic Airborne Event" section and into the bit about the the drug that suppresses fear of death.
Some may argue this is even more heavy-handed than The Bronte Project, but Don de Lillo can get away with that kind of thing. Just as you're about to consciously register the artifice, he distracts you with a Lebanese wedding party on the back of a tank, or similar. Actually, White Noise isn't as good as his later work like Underworldor even MAO II, but it's still very good. 


Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett 
A more interesting scenario that some of the recent Discworld books such as Monstrous Regiment, but overall rather blah. Stylistically, this needed a few more go-rounds in editing. There are a lot of places where characters repeat themselves -- in one instance, it really seems as if the writer did two versions of an exchange and then forgot to delete one of them.
The characters are OK but the whole book is more heavy-handed and didactic than usual. Too much telling, not enough showing. Granted, Pratchett has never been exactly Hemingway when it comes to character through action, but still.
Readable though not much fun. 


State of Change by Patrick Hudson
(Downloadably free at: http://stateofchangebypatrickhudson.blogspot.com/)

An SF celeb memoir in the vein of Bret Easton Ellis if he did science fiction. Actually, Ellis would go a bit heavier on the violence, probably. Not going into gory detail was, I think, the right decision in State of change, since what makes the protagonist compelling is that he's so callous - he doesn't dwell on the occasional (and they are occasional) bursts of random violence, because he just doesn't care.

This side of the character, Arlo Makepeace Dylan (I wrote that name from memory, a good sign) works well and works several good reverses and emotional moments.

The pacing works well, particularly because what the Big Event is (the transfer of the human mind into digital form) gets posted up early on, but until the end you don't know how or, more importantly, why it happens. What seems to be a throwaway joke character turns out to be more important, too.

It's not perfect, though. Patrick described parts of the novel as 'youthful', and I can see what he means. There are a fair few bits that get overexplained, a common trait of the worldbuilder. Dylan is bored by the news going on about the breakup of the US, yet we still get to hear details -- it would have been better to scrap this. Dylan finds it boring, the US is an irrelevance (this trope in itself is a bit overdone nowadays, even), and skipping over the fate of the US in the text would prove it.

In the same way, something "all seems so quaint now" -- we then spend a paragraph or two on the wonders of modern life. We don't need this. If the alternative seems amazing, then the original can't really be that quaint, yet.
Of course it later turns out that Dylan is bluffing a bit here, but it's something of a false note.

Other good bits:
- the satire and the straight-out gags are funny
- the technology and the questions about it are handled well
- the ending is pleasantly ambiguous, although not in the sense that you don't know what happened
- the fashion notes are perfect

If anything, I think it needed to be longer. We need more time to see Dylan's natural milieu before he starts dismantling it. But as it is, it's certainly worth a read.