Random Is the New Black

We have found more clay pipes by the Forth and Clyde Canal - here is one of the nicest pipes, if not exactly the most intact.. Notice also the rather interesting shards of china in the background. We've identified one piece with the Willow Pattern but the rest remain elusive. Interestingly we've found tiny bits with lettering (be still my beating heart!) and other bits with what looks like fishing huts.

Swine flu has been confirmed around 12 miles from us. I'm expecting an outbreak of panic here which will involve people looting tissue paper, tinned soup, hand soap and cans of lager from our local supermarket. In other words, I'm not worried, although my mother might be once she realises how close I live to Monklands Hospital (i.e. not very close but in the same country). As a Dane I feel obliged to inform you that pork products are perfectly safe to eat. Mmmm, bacon.

Only one random link today: Vidders Talk Back to their Pop-Culture Muses.

"For decades, Americans sat in front of their televisions and watched — just watched — their favorite shows. (..) But one group of fans has interacted with their favorite television shows for more than three decades. Vidders, as they're called, make unauthorized underground videos using clips from the shows. Each vid compiles dozens of clips from various episodes, all set to a song."

To be perfectly honest, I've seen a handful of these fanmade vids and most of them are .. not very good. The formula goes something like this: one plaintative love song - say, Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love". Then take the lyrics and pair with with your fandom of choice  - so, when Leona bleats "Time starts to pass.." you insert pictures of Captain Kirk/the Doctor/Six looking at a watch. Lather, rinse, repeat .. But unsurprisingly there are some mindblowingly good vids out there. This is the best I've seen.

PS. Happy birthday to regular commentator and offline compadre, Darth Ken. I love you, man.

R.I.P. JG Ballard

The author J.G. Ballard has passed away. More at BBC.

While JG Ballard's seeming obsession with technology, disaster, sex and violence was not to everyone's taste, there is no doubting the huge impact of his work. He was an original, a man who spent most of his life charting hopes and terrors, and trying to make sense of the 20th century.

And he wrote Running Wild which I read at school and still consider one of the worst books I have ever had the misfortune to read.

The Right Direction

Congratulations are long, long overdue to Francis and his husband. On a related note, this makes me very, very happy and hopeful for the US (via):

The times, they are a-changing.

Neverending Story

Suffice to say that I did not appreciate Let the Right One In. Despite liking little nasty books, I am definitely not a horror reader. It was also very, very wordy. From one of the programmers behind Etsy, I give you Orbital B. It is "a collection of particles operating on one simple rule: choose another particle in the system and orbit it with a fixed radius at a constant velocity." In other words: you get to play with little aplets and create really gorgeous art vaguely reminiscent of Umberto Boccioni (Italian Futurist whose artwork I admire).

If Orbital B isn't your thing, how about NewScan. You select your favourite newspapers and, hey presto, you get to read the news. It's pretty if a bit impractical.

Finally, some things once seen cannot be unseen; some things once heard cannot be unheard. So, keeping that in mind, here is Limahl and His Swing Orchestra. You can thank/threaten me later.

On Families and Books

Many years ago I read A.S. Byatt's The Game - a novel about two sisters and the rivalry between them. The book asked questions about the rights of a writer to blur the line between fact and fiction: when could you use your family in your book and when did you have to start inventing? I don't know if Julie Myerson has read A.S. Byatt, but I think she should rush out to buy The Game. Myerson is a British journalist, TV personality and novelist whose latest literary feat, The Lost Child, has been causing headlines this week.

Her book is about her son's addiction to cannabis and how this led to violent behaviour within the family. Myerson's son is angry at his mother for publishing a book about him against his wishes: "She's a writer and like a lot of writers she is wrapped up in her own world - even if the worlds they are creating aren't quite true, they become true to them anyway". Furthermore, it turns out that Julie Myerson has been writing anonymous (and intimate) columns about her children in the Guardian for years - without telling her children.

The Times has dubbed it "the chattering classes version of Heat Magazine". The Guardian is not sure Julie Myerson should have published the book. BBC's Jeremy Paxman interview with Myerson is perhaps the most damning: "You seriously thought you could publish a book detailing your son's drug use, and his identity wouldn't get out?" "Well...I may have been a bit naive about that..." Ouch.

Still, Julie Myerson has not written the worst book ever to come out of her household (maybe just the most thoughtless and self-indulgent) as her partner Jonathan Myerson wrote Noise which is one of the three worst books I have ever read in my entire life (and I have read Judith Krantz' Scruples; I liked Krantz better).

Speaking of books, I'm halfway through Anne Donovan's Being Emily. So far it is disappointing me somewhat.

"We encounter each other in words.."

Unsurprisingly the poetry reading was one of my favourite parts of the Obama inauguration ceremony (another being Aretha Franklin's awesome hat). You can read the entire poem by Elizabeth Alexander on the New York Times website right here.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.