Well, since I’m often putting up post here ranting about something I haven’t liked either on TV or in the cinema, perhaps it’s time to talk about something I do like. The Victorian Farm is a delightful, informative and absolutely addictive program, each episode packed with fascinating details about how country folk way back then used to live. It certainly shows that they were also a hardier breed than us, and opens ones eyes to just how soft and cosseted are our present lives.
The program also brings home how those who really improve people’s lives are inventors. The guy who invented the washing machine did more to negate the drudgery of day-to-day life than any number of politicians, and the guy who invented the tractor fed more of the starving than any charity you care to name.
And apparently, there’s plenty who agree with me about this program, since its viewing figures have exceeded those of the execrable Big Brother. A victory of substance over junk. It’s on tonight at 9.00 on BBC2, so screw Piers Morgan or that crappy Hustle, turn over and watch something worth your time.
Author: Neal Asher
It's Not Easy Being Green.
I caught part of a program last night filled with ageing hippies and the young open-faced naïve believers like you’ll find in new churches in Bible Belt America, but who in this case have been indoctrinated into the eco-church. It was called ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’ and most of the program was about building houses with straw bales – the kind of thing you can do if you’ve plenty of time, money and space (since your wall will end up being a couple of feet thick), and is therefore probably only the province of the champagne eco-warrior who can afford to eat organic and probably drive a brand new Prius.
The hectoring eco-bullshit was bad enough but, having worked some of this stuff out myself, the financial figures were highly questionable. I have, for example, doubts that changing about five light-bulbs for the mercury version will save anyone £100 a year.
Having looked at buying a solar panel and then worked out the costs involved, I was interested to watch the bit about a woman who had a ‘green’ heating system installed in her house, including solar panels. In my case the panel would have cost £3,000+, and I worked out that the savings wouldn’t cover the interest at the time if I were to take that money and stick it in an ISA. I would just be making a loss on it, forever.
The entire cost of this woman’s ‘green’ system was £9,000, whereas a conventional system would have cost her £3,500. Apparently, since the system would save £500 a year, the difference of £5,500 would be paid off in 11 years. Now, I have to wonder just what kind of house is being run here that costs over £500 a year to heat – I’m guessing the kind of house owned only by the residents of TV-land. But that aside, haven’t these crusties heard of interest?
Take that £5,500 and stick it in an account and even today you’ll get over £100 back each year. A few years ago and that would have been £300+ and, supposing the British economy doesn’t crash and burn (or should I say continue to crash and burn), that’ll be the interest you’ll get in a few years time.
So, with cumulative interest, that 11 years can be extended to over 30 years, by which time you’ll doubtless be adding to it the cost of maintenance. And of course, if you had to borrow the money to pay for such a central heating system, the period would be even longer – probably the length of a working life time. These twats really need to try living in the real world.
Book Cases Two
Here have two book cases of ‘Afront’s’ collection, thoough there’s more over here on his blog. I have to say I’d be quite happy ensconced in an armchair next to that lot for a month or two.
A Rural Story.
Thanks to Shaun for this one:
A Lancashire Farmer is overseeing his animals in a remote part of the County when suddenly a brand-new BMW advances out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a designer suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the farmer, ‘If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?’
The Farmer looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, ‘Reet, why not?’
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel Spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the farmer and says, ‘You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.’
‘Wow That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,’ says the Farmer. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the boot of his car. Then the farmer says to the young man, ‘Ey Up!, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?’
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, ‘Okay, why not?’
‘You work for the British Government’, says the farmer.
‘Wow! That’s correct,’ says the yuppie, ‘but how did you guess that?’
‘No guessing required,’ answers the farmer. ‘You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used all kinds of expensive equipment that clearly somebody else paid for, you tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don’t know a thing about cows ……. this is a flock of sheep. Now give me back my dog.’
Book Case.
Now, I’m always interested in other people’s book shelves. If I’m around someone’s house I like to check out what they read and, more importantly, what they keep on their shelves. This interest extends to when I pick up one of the crap lifestyle/celebrity/woman’s magazines (usually in a dentist’s) and flick through it. I’m not looking at the people, or most of their furnishings, I’m looking for books. This is usually a disappointment because, if you pick up one of the celebrity lifestyle magazines like Hello, on the rare occasions you see a room with a book shelf in it, the books arrayed there are usually for appearance sake. Often you’ll see the beautifully-bound collected works of Shakespeare which you know for damned certain have never been opened. Sometimes I wonder if the book spines might be some decorative plastic moulding that came with the set of shelves. A sad reflection on those ‘celebs’ that demonstrates the victory of appearance over substance. Anyway, getting to the point, all this is why I like to see pictures like this one of Pekka Jonsson’s book case in Italy, tagged for me on Facebook. Pay special attention to the bottom righthand corner.
Shadow Review.
A very nice review here of The Shadow of the Scorpion by John Markley. Obviously this is of the Night Shade version since the Macmillan one isn’t out yet. Here’s a sample:
I really liked this book. It provides plenty of the intense action Asher is known for, and continues to explore the setting of Asher’s future history. On a purely action/adventure level, the book definitely delivers, with Asher’s usual talent for excitement, description, and visceral power brought to the forefront. It also gave me what were probably the two things I most wanted from Asher: more information about the character Ian Cormac, and a closer look at the society of the Polity itself.
Orbus Edit.
Okay, I’m now about halfway through the Peter Lavery edited typescript of Orbus. Though this is a thoroughly necessary part of the process, it is also a chore. Yeah, you guys haven’t read it yet so will hopefully enjoy the process. I, however, have read this in part and total and even backwards more times than I care to count. It’s engraved on the inside of my skull and actually trying to detect errors now requires an effort of will – I must read what’s written in front of me rather than the engraving.
Another problem – something to do with posture – is that after a few hours of this editing I end up with my neck stiff and burning. It was worse when I used to refer to sheets stacked beside me, improved when I affixed them to a piece of card positioned below my screen, but is still a pain.
But I can of course understand how many reading this will wonder, “What the hell has he got to complain about?” Yeah, I don’t have to get up to drive to work, clock in, avoid colleagues with BO or have to put up with a boss with the brains of a worm and personality to match. The dirtiest I get is when refilling printer cartridges and, as yet I am in no danger of losing my job … or my house. Really, I’m just trying to give readers a look at some of what’s involved in putting that book in front of them.
Once I’ve finished this particular batch of editing and return it to Macmillan, I later get it back from the copy editor, and must check through it again. It then comes back a third time for me to check the finished product. Still, doubtless, there will be mistakes for which I can only apologise, and put down to having been pushed beyond my boredom threshold. The glamorous life a writer, eh?
Flood Warning
Ach, despite my resolution not to rant so much in here, I’m going to have to have a rant right now. Okay, it’s raining very heavily here today, there are pools across the fields, dikes overflowing and pools spreading across the roads. Because I had a dental appointment this morning I braved these conditions to get there – gosh I’m such a hero.
At the end of Latching High Street there was a fire engine parked off-road pumping out water perhaps to prevent someone’s house turning into an indoor swimming pool, which is fair enough. I drove through about an inch of water and turned right heading towards Maldon whereupon I came upon police vehicles parked around a flood across the road and extending about fifty feet. That they were there I assumed was because there had been some sort of accident, but no, they were turning drivers around, not allowing them to drive through about six inches of water. I thought this ludicrous, but obeyed these officers of the law who were obviously lacking something better to do with their time.
Heading on another route into Maldon I drove through a similar flood, you know, low gear and high revs, just chug through – it’s not going to be a problem unless you’re an idiot. After the dental appointment I avoided the police road block and found myself in a slow moving queue into Latchingdon. What now? Well, it seemed the police or the fire service had blocked off one lane of the road to prevent people driving through about four inches of water.
I despair of this pathetic molly-coddling. Are the British public such wimps and inadequate they must be protected from puddles?
Eric Hoffer
Interesting insight in this article by Thomas Sowell, here’s a sample:
Hoffer said: “The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.”
People who are fulfilled in their own lives and careers are not the ones attracted to mass movements: “A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding,” Hoffer said. “When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.”
What Hoffer was describing was the political busybody, the zealot for a cause — the “true believer,” who filled the ranks of ideological movements that created the totalitarian tyrannies of the 20th century.
Well, I wonder who those people who mind other people’s business might be? I declare the comment section open.
Here’s a further quote by Hoffer: “Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.”
Frederick Pohl Blog.
You might like to know that at 89 years old one of the greats of SF has now got a blog. Just read his post about his collaboration with Arthur C Clarke. Good on yer Mr Pohl!
Here’s a little snippet from Wikipedia:
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. (born November 26, 1919) is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy magazine and its sister magazine if, winning the Hugo for if three years in a row. His writing also won him three Hugos and multiple Nebula Awards. He became a Nebula Grand Master in 1993.