Category Archives: lj

For the LiveJournal crosspost plugin. I’ll set this one on for anything I want crossposted.

British Summer Time, by Paul Cornell (Books 2008, 4)

Paul Cornell wrote some of my favourite episodes of Doctor Who’s recent years: ‘Father’s Day’, and the ‘Human Nature’/’Family of Blood’ two-parter. After the latter, I downloaded and read the ebook of his original novel (on which the episodes were based). So I came to this with some knowledge of his writing.
But not [...]

Time for writing crosses in booths, folks

You know what’s coming. It’s nearly the 1st of May, and that means elections. An all-too-infrequent chance to exercise our fundamental democratic right and duty. Always important, even when you’re quite happy with how things are. Somebody else won’t be, and you don’t want them to change things.
Of course, that’s not [...]

That ‘reporting back from Eastercon’ business

I realise that I said I would report back from Eastercon. It already seems like quite a long time ago. I had a great time, though I missed out on the Saturday night and Sunday morning and early afternoon, as I went to collect my son from his grandparents’.
It was his first convention, [...]

Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi (Books 2008, 3)

I’ve been reading Scalzi’s blog on and off for a few years, and he comes across as one of the good guys: certainly on the side of light, a good laugh, and someone you imagine would be fun to meet. So I’ve been meaning to read his SF for a while.
My thanks to [...]

Easter Weekend plans

Off to the exciting, glamorous Heathrow area tomorrow, for Orbital, the 2008 Eastercon. It’ll be the first convention I’ve been to for about ten years, so it should be quite fun.
When I was last at the hotel in question, it had a swimming pool. That has since been filled in, sadly. Then [...]

The Hidden Family, by Charles Stross (Books 2008, 2)

Volume 2 (or the second half of volume 1, depending on how you look at it) of Charlie’s ‘Merchant Princes’ series.
It continues the story of Miriam Beckstein and her recently-discovered alternative-universe family of ‘world-walkers’. In this one, Miriam discovers that (not surprisingly) there is more than one alternative Earth, and takes advantage of that [...]

On secondary school selection and the myth of choice

My son will be starting secondary school in September this year. So towards the end of last year we spent a lot of time reading up on the policies of our and adjoining London boroughs, visiting schools, and finally applying.
The application works like this. You can name up to six “preferences” (not “choices”, [...]

Matter, by Iain M Banks (Books 2008, 1)

So, the latest Banksie. Always a treat, of course, and especially so when it’s a novel of The Culture. This one, though, is slightly disappointing.
It’s not actually bad—certainly not badly written (though he does overuse the phrases “appeared to be”, and “looked like”, when describing things; I was told off years ago (by [...]

Eee! PC.

My new Eee PC relaxes on the bed:

A photo of one of my recent technological acquisitions, as taken by the other. It’s hard to take a photo of a new camera, unless you have another. And since this Canon Powershot G9 is the first digital camera I’ve had…
Both of them are fabulous. [...]

Human rights and human gains

It is a tragedy that a member of the public, when interviewed on the radio, should say, when the phrase “human rights” comes up, “Oh, bloody hell, human rights, suffin fussin wussin mumble grumble,” in a tone of disgust.
The subject being discussed was the call to ban this “Mosquito” device, which is intended to stop [...]