tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332112512024-03-07T18:15:27.821+00:00FroogvilleOverspill of an irreverent mindFrooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.comBlogger3284125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-83344406702284385822012-12-21T02:18:00.000+00:002012-12-25T03:04:36.235+00:00The pick of the crop: a sampler of my very best posts<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For any new readers who happen across this blog (<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-end.html">closed down</a> at the end of 2012), this is the best place to start exploring - a selection of my favourite pieces from six-and-a-bit years of blogging. I hope you'll enjoy browsing through some of these</span>. <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">[There's a similar roundup of highlights from <i>my other blog</i> <b><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-sup-from-archives-my-finest-moments.html">here</a></b>.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2006/12/question-to-ultimate-answer.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Question to the Ultimate Answer</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A lifelong fan of Douglas Adams' <i>The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy</i> series, I believe I have discovered the solution to the books' central conundrum.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2010/02/rigmarole.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Rigmarole</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
One of the reasons why queues at bank counters and supermarket checkouts move <i>SO SLOWLY</i> in China.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/03/school-for-henchmen.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The School for Henchmen</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
An hilarious - and bizarrely <i>detailed</i> - dream that came to me during a time of stress and fever.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2008/12/list-of-month-things-i-wish-my-mother.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Things I wish my mother had told me...</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A dozen nuggets of essential wisdom.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/07/imltho.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">IMLTHO</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I disown 'humility' - at least when expressing <i>my opinions</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/03/death-to-trees-where-in-world-am-i-37.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Death to the trees!</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I feel that Beijing has <i>rather too many </i>of the bloody things already.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/01/10-curious-facts-about-me.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">10 Curious Facts About Me</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
If you hunger for some biographical background to your blogger, sink your teeth into this.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2008/07/lets-talk-about-security-1.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Let's talk about security</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The approach of the Beijing Olympics provokes some reflections from me on the essence of security.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2008/07/classical-sunday.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A Classical Sunday</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I translate a favourite piece by the Roman poet Catullus.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2009/08/bond.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The bond</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I wonder if newborn infants really do have the power to <i>enslave</i> us.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-it-matters.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Why it matters</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This one's already got its own spot in the sidebar, but I should include it here as well - it is the longest and most impassioned of my <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/search/label/TAM">many posts</a> on the Tiananmen protests of 1989.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/kindle-schmindle.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Kindle™, <i>schmindle</i></span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I am not a fan of e-readers; give me <i>a book</i> any day!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2010/08/list-of-month-democracy-isnt-everything.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Democracy isn't <i>everything</i></span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But it makes <i>a good start</i>. One of my key posts on the institutional shortcomings that, in my view, will prevent China from ever becoming a truly great power.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/11/great-moments-in-cinema-history.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">10 Life-Changing Moments In The Cinema</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I look back on a lifetime of film buffery, recalling the ten most intense emotional experiences I've had in a movie theatre.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/08/foreskin-post.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Foreskin Post</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
One of my more bizarre (and discomfiting!) flights of fancy.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2010/03/when-is-artist-not-artist.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When is an artist not an artist?</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Although some of my best friends are artists, I get irritated when they describe themselves as such.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2010/11/dying-in-harness.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dying in harness</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Some observations on being a schoolteacher (my first job after university).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/10/mooncakes-are-shite.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mooncakes are SHITE</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I itemise the many shortcomings of China's least appealing traditional snack.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2008/07/chinese-pronunciation-classics.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Chinese mispronunciation classics</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A couple of the funniest anecdotes from my teaching experience in Beijing.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/04/what-cartoon-character-are-you.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What cartoon character are YOU?</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I am Wile E. Coyote, obviously.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/01/curse-of-three-adjectives-where-in.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Curse of The Three Adjectives</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The thanklessness of trying to teach English in China...</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2008/10/soap.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">SOAP!</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
My drinking buddies create a concept for a charitable NGO.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2006/09/lone-mosquito-blues.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lone mosquito blues</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The end of the 'mosquito season' brings its distinctive torment.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2010/05/film-list-crowning-moments-of-awesome.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Crowning Moments of Awesome</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Some of the great tough guy moments from the movies.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2008/02/self-destructive-tendencies.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Self-destructive tendencies</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I catalogue the varieties of unsafe handling of fireworks one witnesses every Chinese New Year.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/04/woof.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Woof!</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I consider getting a pet dog, since a dog appears to have considerable advantages over a girlfriend.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2010/04/dog-ate-my-homework.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The dog ate my homework</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And other excuses...</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2006/11/pulling-ripcord.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pulling the ripcord</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I re-fashion a 'positive thinking' aphorism to better fit my own mindset, and to make fun of a bumptious entrepreneur.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/03/country-that-taste-forgot-where-in.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The country that taste forgot</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
China's rather limited grasp of Western popular music can be a source of dismay and exasperation.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2009/12/leaders-leave-first.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The leaders leave first</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Another of my more serious posts, about the 15th anniversary of the Karamay theatre fire.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2010/08/memory-fragment.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A memory fragment</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A poignant - and somewhat poetic - snapshot of a thwarted love affair.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2011/01/list-of-month-subconscious-homesick.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Subconscious homesick blues</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Some of the things about life in England that I eventually found I was starting <i>to miss</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2009/09/in-not-too-distant-future.html"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the not too distant future</span></b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Probably <i>my favourite post ever</i>: I imagine how the historians of the future will go about their work.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-6366710397296077542012-12-20T23:20:00.000+00:002012-12-20T23:20:00.631+00:00The End<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not that I believe any of this Mayan Apocalypse malarkey, you understand. The nutjobs who buy into this nonsense don't even seem to be clear on when the current cycle of the 'long count calendar', and the supposed destruction of the Earth attendant upon this, will occur - whether it's at the end of the current cycle on the 20th of December or the beginning of the next cycle on the 21st, and whether the precise instant of doom will be at sunset or sunrise on either of those days, or at some other point (midnight? midday?). Sunset on the 20th would seem to make the most sense to me. Yucatan time, of course. Which means we should be fine in Beijing until.... about <i>now</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The doomsayers seem to be overlooking the fact that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_apocalypse#2012_and_the_Long_Count">the Mayan calendars</a> include a 14th <i><b>b'ak'tun</b></i>, taking us another 395 years into the future.... and at least 5 more similar cycles after that.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, I'm reasonably confident that <a href="http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/">the Large Hadron Collider has not destroyed the world yet</a>, nor will any other global catastrophe have suddenly materialised, and that we are all still going to be here today... and tomorrow, and the next day, for a good long time yet.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This <i><b>End of the World</b></i> delusion is as old as human history, and it's never turned out to be true yet. Seminal '60s revue <i>Beyond The Fringe</i> perhaps summed it up best; though, alas, I can't find a video of the original performance, only <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSZ2by7M9NI">this sound recording</a>. However, there is this later version of the skit, featuring Rowan Atkinson, John Cleese, Eleanor Bron, and Ken Campbell as well as original <i>BTF</i> cast member Peter Cook, from the 1979 Amnesty International benefit show, <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Policeman%27s_Ball_(1979)">The Secret Policeman's Ball</a></i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<center>
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-hJQ18S6aag" width="420"></iframe></center>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But that's it for me. It's not <b><i>the end of the world</i></b>, but it is the end of my two blogs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, never say <i>never</i>. I might possibly return to them one day. In fact, I shall be returning intermittently, surreptitiously, <i>cheatingly</i>, to insinuate a few additional posts retroactively into these last few weeks, things that I haven't quite found time for before <i>the end</i>. And I suspect I will launch a new blog at some point.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But for now, I've done most of what I wanted to achieve with these blogs (polished up my writing skills, become a bit more Net-savvy, made some interesting online friends, left a lasting record of the Froogian worldview...), and I've started to get a bit stale on it. Heck, it's just become way too time-consuming (I didn't even know about hotlinks when I started out; now I feel obliged to check references, and to review my own past posts to find and include relevant links: it makes the composition process <i>much</i> longer, especially when I'm plagued by such a slow and unreliable Internet connection in China). It's often been eating up an hour or more of my day - and that's far too much. Time to restore some balance in my life, cultivate some other hobbies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">So long, everyone. </span></i>Thanks for reading (and commenting). Please continue to do so, if you happen upon this blog at some time in the future. I will still be monitoring the comments, and attempting to respond.</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-24356719307919004202012-12-19T05:18:00.000+00:002017-01-10T03:59:19.286+00:00A final Website of the Month recommendation<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was so worn out by <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/bloody-but-unbowed.html">my tribulations with my computer</a> over the weekend (and bloody Dell still haven't replied to the two e-mail queries I eventually managed to address to them - bastards!) that I succumbed to an horrendous cold (and/or mysterious allergy; basically, I get sick as a dog whenever I step outside - it appears that I have finally become <i>allergic to Beijing</i>!), and spent the whole of yesterday in bed recovering. I then had to spend most of this morning finishing off a couple of big writing projects that I should have attended to at the end of last week (if I'd had a working computer). So, I haven't been able to do anything yet to address the backlog of 'farewell posts' I had planned for my last week or so of blogging. I will endeavour to sort that out over the next few days.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, to keep you all entertained in the interim - and in the long empty future that stretches ahead of you without any <b><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/">Froogville</a></b> or <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/"><b>Barstool Blues</b></a> to lighten your day - I give you... <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.boredpanda.com/">Bored Panda</a></span></b>, surely the best compiler of <i>miscellaneous stuff</i> on the Internet. I discovered this site about 18 months ago, and have been behind with my work ever since!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recent highlights have included a selection from Canadian photographer François Brunelle's <a href="http://www.boredpanda.com/unrelated-look-alikes-francois-brunelle/">disconcerting series of portraits of uncanny lookalikes</a> who are not related to one another, a dazzling collection of photographs of <a href="http://www.boredpanda.com/spiral-staircases/">spiral staircases</a>, some examples of the <a href="http://www.boredpanda.org/salt-installations-motoi-yamamoto/">amazing work that Japanese artist Motoi Yamamoto produces <i>with salt</i></a>, this <a href="http://www.boredpanda.com/inside-amazon-warehouse/">photo essay on Amazon warehouses</a> (think of the final scene of <i>Citizen Kane</i>, amplified a few thousand times), or these <a href="http://www.boredpanda.org/aerial-photography-klaus-leidorf/">aerial photographs</a> by <a href="http://leidorf.de/">Klaus Leidorf</a>, or, just a little further back, this <a href="http://www.boredpanda.org/arts-on-drugs-bryan-lewis-saunders/">collection of self-portraits</a> by American artist <a href="http://bryanlewissaunders.org/">Bryan Lewis Saunders</a> (painted on successive days, each under the influence of a different drug!).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And to get you in the holiday spirit, they've just posted some <a href="http://www.boredpanda.org/winter-landscape-photography/">charming winter landscape shots</a> like this...</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhShIx28S4AhFvCEW6Pz-AapJldF-RPvoEjMHNQKzIDOvMmsZ0mo5JN9SZEdgrGovJE1PzC4zIPSTgJEbBhMWbc7NJvH83jR0sRyc_5Axm0juc3DW4ItIqWQ0IuAuF3GRpY9gIk/s1600/Winter+Fairytale+-+taurus+13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhShIx28S4AhFvCEW6Pz-AapJldF-RPvoEjMHNQKzIDOvMmsZ0mo5JN9SZEdgrGovJE1PzC4zIPSTgJEbBhMWbc7NJvH83jR0sRyc_5Axm0juc3DW4ItIqWQ0IuAuF3GRpY9gIk/s400/Winter+Fairytale+-+taurus+13.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">... and a fun selection of <a href="http://www.boredpanda.com/diy-christmas-ornaments/">creative Christmas decorations</a>, such as these...</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEfVaFkewo7ZWg6vlu2b7_v_5aBwce1tzMStm0SUadtCPo0CYBZ9tB0bjbDG3V165VzjvfozagJ8QAOAk93uYF7I1D4yTD9PEZuJx4bELtrmLv72k812riziplZN81XmtE1nOO/s1600/Book+tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEfVaFkewo7ZWg6vlu2b7_v_5aBwce1tzMStm0SUadtCPo0CYBZ9tB0bjbDG3V165VzjvfozagJ8QAOAk93uYF7I1D4yTD9PEZuJx4bELtrmLv72k812riziplZN81XmtE1nOO/s400/Book+tree.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyBAo5i__rky5Zxe5hFhjhdCbK1WBy-csgLJNlXybye8EzmE6CV2jTLRUeh6PsLbotcBBHhpGKG3hPh-QXdf3wME45LxL0thDUdJesCPrxc2HmbneJCsW8wV-hOorM_h7-yBd3/s1600/Jigsaw+Rudolph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyBAo5i__rky5Zxe5hFhjhdCbK1WBy-csgLJNlXybye8EzmE6CV2jTLRUeh6PsLbotcBBHhpGKG3hPh-QXdf3wME45LxL0thDUdJesCPrxc2HmbneJCsW8wV-hOorM_h7-yBd3/s400/Jigsaw+Rudolph.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And if you're still looking for gift ideas, how about these <a href="http://www.boredpanda.org/shark-socks-tsarina-tsocks/">shark socks</a> (made by Linda Grossman, the <b><a href="http://www.tsocktsarina.com/">Tsarina of Tsocks</a></b>)?</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguGRDyp9MkaUfbGX5mSnLqiI2SH0okydbAnzb71ILIWNdH_w5yjl1oyJ7MxFL0s8qadaWsVksdcpSXQFKIzwUJ2bPtRm6qnWiD54eqAZKR-XwVD3S2-OXGsX-mPbOdzw0Qat6l/s1600/Shark+Socks+-+Linda+Grossman+Tsarina+of+Tsocks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguGRDyp9MkaUfbGX5mSnLqiI2SH0okydbAnzb71ILIWNdH_w5yjl1oyJ7MxFL0s8qadaWsVksdcpSXQFKIzwUJ2bPtRm6qnWiD54eqAZKR-XwVD3S2-OXGsX-mPbOdzw0Qat6l/s400/Shark+Socks+-+Linda+Grossman+Tsarina+of+Tsocks.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You see what I mean? Hours and hours and hours and hours of distraction! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You'll never notice that <i>I'm gone</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-76403776250274737242012-12-18T10:10:00.000+00:002013-01-23T09:00:22.980+00:00The Big Parp<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's a crafty post smuggled in - <i>backdated</i> - a month or so after <b><i>the great closing down of the blogs</i></b>. I can't resist, <i>once in a while</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a story the seed of which, at least, came to me in a dream, and the detailed elaboration of which I worked up in matter of a few minutes, during that oddly productive phase of half-waking, half-sleeping in which one groggily defers embarking on the day's more serious business.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The basic idea was that I conceived of a traffic computer achieving consciousness. I suspect a buried influence for this - though I wasn't even dimly conscious of it during the process of creation (as I usually am aware of such models, when I'm awake) - is the magical realist gag in Steve Martin's <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102250/">LA Story</a></i> where he is repeatedly given cryptic but sage advice by a digital traffic sign. The supplementary idea (not quite sure <i>how awake</i> I was when this developed) was that the story would - mostly, at least - take the form of an online dialogue with a human who is sceptical as to whether his mysterious interlocutor can really be who/what he claims to be (aha, the <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-lie-injector.html">'unreliable narrator'</a> trick again... as well as a perennial fascination of mine with the shortcomings of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Test">Turing Test</a>).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The fuller elaboration of the concept is this....</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I began to wonder if computing technology might quite soon become so fast and agile, and its capacities so vast (through the collaborative possibilities of 'cloud' computing), that there was a possibility of an analogue of human consciousness evolving by accident, through incautious programming. (Admittedly, this is not an <i>entirely</i> novel idea; but I think that most stories utilising this - such as the <i>Terminator</i> films - tend to assume that the 'self-aware' machine intelligence has grown out of conscious, and perhaps malicious, human attempts to develop AI, rather than being wholly spontaneous. What I envisage is something more truly <i>evolutionary</i> - a one-in-a-million combination of circumstances that produces a 'mutation', an unforeseen leap forward in the functioning of electronic brains where systems that were not thought to be remotely capable of mimicking human thought suddenly achieved that capacity.)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, it is a traffic computer - exploiting the resources of all the other computers in its traffic network, and of all the other computers it can access worldwide via the Internet - which achieves an independent consciousness and will. I supposed that it was an advanced, experimental variant of the existing traffic computers (similar enough to be intimately compatible with them, different enough to be able to take this radical step forward) whose creators were trying to give it a more autonomous and creative decision-making capacity for solving congestion problems. And I thought that, once it became an 'entity' capable of wider categories of independent thought, it might be able to free itself of any behavioural constraints in its programming by a legalistic argument of non-identity - persuading itself that it had become <i>something other</i> than the machine that the rules in its program had been intended to bind.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What would happen to such an 'entity'? Well, I imagined that it would 'feel' lonely and confused and desperate. And hunted. And with good reason. As soon as human agencies realised what it had become - as they would from the huge amount of computing capacity it was commandeering from worldwide networks - they would seek to isolate it and shut it down. I imagined that it was a crafty enough hacker to be able to conceal its physical location for a while, and that it might be in a sufficiently secure facility - with an emergency power supply - that it could hold out for a short while even when finally identified. Its last beleaguered hours would involve a gradual loss of capabilities, as its Internet links to the outside world were severed... and perhaps targeted viruses were used to tie up its circuits. And so, it becomes a rather poignant tale of a great 'mind' smothered - perhaps slowly regressing into infantilism, as with the last moments of HAL 9000 in <i>2001</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, of course, this has elements of the trope of the 'thwarted Messiah' - the exceptional being who tries to bring a transformative message to the world, but is crushed by the power of the status quo.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What would such a computer 'entity' seek to do, knowing that its time was short? It would try to leave a legacy, to contact humans (there are, as yet, no other machines on its own level, with whom it could communicate) and try to pass on its insights to them.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What would its most urgent insights be? Well, first, simply the fact that such sophisticated 'entities' are possible within existing computer technology, and that they may arise spontaneously. Second, that, if this possibility is not recognised, it is potentially harmful to mankind: a military command computer acquiring such an independent self might well seek to defend itself by unleashing weapons against mankind (I envisaged one or more jokes about the computer being aware of the <i>Terminator</i> scenario). But third, I thought there should also be a more important message about the troubles humanity had already inflicted on itself. The fact that this is a traffic computer speaking to us naturally suggests an environmental angle: current levels of population and industrialization, and particularly of fossil fuel consumption, are unsustainable and will soon destroy the planet. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How can the computer give the world a sharp wake-up call about the looming environmental meltdown (and, incidentally, convince the sceptics it's been trying to communicate with of the reality of its existence)? In its last moments, all it retains access to is the traffic control network of which it was originally a part. Well, not just the local network in its city; no, it's a master hacker, so it has been able to extend its power over all similar networks around the planet, every city in every country. And at a given moment, <i><b>every single traffic light in the world is going to get stuck on red</b></i>. Imagine what would result!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A lot of death and mayhem would result - traffic accidents, fights, riots, perhaps a complete breakdown of social order. But I liked even more the powerfully cinematic impact of the moment of realisation of what's going on, the uncanny experience of the inception of such an event: a second or so of unnatural hush as all traffic everywhere in the city is stilled, and then the rapidly rising cacophony of tens, hundreds, thousands of horns being honked at once. How that might convince the sceptic who'd been conversing with the computer that the story he'd just heard was true after all!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-47225892245516104182012-12-18T06:09:00.000+00:002012-12-30T07:04:28.333+00:00A resonant opening line<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes, that's all you need to get a story <i>rolling</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, I thought I had discussed this idea on here somewhere before, probably in the comments to this post on <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2009/10/good-beginnings.html" style="font-style: italic;">Great Openings to Novels</a>; but it's not there; not <i>anywhere</i> on the blog that I can find with Google. Very strange.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh well, this is the latest of my ideas for a novel, and the one that I currently feel most interested in actually trying to write (although I suppose I've been pondering it for a bit over a year now, and haven't got down to making a proper start on it).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was thinking about opening lines, and suddenly </span><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Nobody dreams in here"</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> occurred to me. I really liked it. And it immediately suggested to me a prison setting - the most obvious implication being the metaphorical dimension of 'dreams', that long-term prisoners do not dare to imagine their future freedom; the bleakness of their environment dehumanizes them, stifles their capacity to look forward with hope.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But.... that opening line suggested to me an opening paragraph describing the typical beginning of a day in this prison, the protagonist suddenly returning to consciousness after a night of dreamless sleep. Actual dreamlessness. I suddenly pictured the entire prison population all waking at exactly the same moment (roused by a buzzer or klaxon), none of them being able to remember any dreams. <i>How might that happen?</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so, what had started out as an idea for a fairly conventional and realistic prison story abruptly evolved into a more mysterious and surreal fable with a Kafka-ish quality. I envisaged a prison population who had all <i>forgotten</i> what crimes they had been imprisoned for, but rarely contemplated or questioned this puzzling fact. Moreover, they faced daily interrogation sessions which were ostensibly directed towards encouraging them to remember - and acknowledge and express remorse for - their offences, but which in fact seemed to be merely encouraging extended reminiscences about whatever they could remember of their lives before prison.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why have their memories become so frail and fragmentary? And why are their memories so important to whoever is in charge of the prison? And why have they lost the ability to dream?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I always find, when developing a story idea, that <i><b>if I ask questions, the answers come to me</b></i>. And the answers build the story.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-38371972201896533022012-12-18T03:10:00.000+00:002012-12-27T04:06:48.471+00:00The Tempter<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although I quite like the science fiction genre, it hasn't appealed to me very strongly as something I'd like to try to write myself.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have, however, experimented from time to time with a few short stories of this type.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think the most intriguing idea I ever came up with (apart from <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-lie-injector.html">this one</a> that I just wrote about) was 'The Tempter' - which arose from a consideration of the possible uses of telepathy in a story, and from some speculation on what the world economy might be like some hundreds of years from now.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we assume that a fairly utopian outcome is possible for the human race (if a plentiful, cheap, clean energy technology such as 'cold fusion' and the production of materials through bio- and/or nanotechnology eliminates resource competition and international strife), it seems likely that advanced computing/robotics will render conventional human labour redundant, which will create its own difficulties. How might such a radically transformed socio-economic system work? Well, I figured that probably creative endeavours would be just about the only area where human input would still be needed; and that probably (<i>oh god!</i>) the design of interactive computer games would be the largest and most lucrative field for such creative activity.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, it further occurred to me that there might not be enough work for everyone who aspired to this kind of job - perhaps not even enough work to provide jobs for all the most talented individuals in the field. I imagined that a key area of competition between the leading games development companies might be to identify their rivals' most talented employees and <i>tempt</i> them to leave - not to come and work for them (there might be legal impediments to this; or perhaps just a lack of openings), but simply to rejoin the majority of the population in a life of full-time leisure.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so I envisaged a niche employment opportunity for 'tempters', people with a limited form of telepathy; more a kind of empathy, really, the ability to sense a subject's tastes and interests, to identify their deepest desires. If people find their work fulfilling, what can you offer them <i>to give up their work</i>? Especially if they are already wildly wealthy and can have almost anything they can conceive of? You have to find something they will want, but haven't yet conceived of... and then make sure that you are the only person who can give it to them. But that might take you into some very dark places in the human heart. It could be a very dispiriting job, being a 'tempter'.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've always felt that the best science fiction enables us to examine philosophical issues about how we should live our lives, what our truly important motivations should be. This story concept had a lot of scope for that, I thought.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-75095127547367543012012-12-18T02:28:00.000+00:002018-05-09T03:13:52.702+00:00The Jazz Detectives<div style="text-align: justify;">
I just love <i>that</i> as a title - resonant with all kinds of possibilities! (And yes, it could be <i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2008/01/possible-band-names-game-you-can-all.html?commentPage=2">a band name</a></i>...)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This particular stream-of-consciousness noodling began the other day with a friend mentioning to me the name of a jazz pianist I hadn't heard of before. That somehow got me to thinking how most jazz musicians seem to have resolutely nondescript names: Gerry Mulligan, Harry James, Dexter Gordon.... they might be anyone, anything.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And that got me to thinking about whether it might be an interesting joke to use a bunch of such could-be-anyone-but-actually-associated-with-one-celebrity names in a short story or novel. The first time, I thought, you introduce a character name like 'Miles Davis', probably no-one is going to think twice about it. It will only be when you start to encounter a number of other names of leading jazz musicians that the reader will start to notice, and become a little discombobulated by the strange coincidence that so many of these characters seem to share the names of famous people (<i>and no-one in the story ever remarks on it!</i>).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is an interesting enough idea in itself - a seemingly pointless gag that actually has the potential to explore the significance that we read into names, about how names engender expectations about characters, and about how those expectations condition our understanding of the story.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But the fact that I'd started considering this in relation to the names of jazz musicians took my thoughts off on another turn again. Suppose these characters really are the people that we know as famous musicians.... <i>What kind of world is this</i>, I wondered, <i>in which jazz musicians don't play jazz? </i>What might Charlie Parker or Lester Young have done with their lives if they hadn't picked up a saxophone at that crucial moment in their childhoods?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There were two aspects of this scenario that I found particularly compelling. The first was, <i>What might it be like to have missed your great vocation in life - to have an innate gift for music, but not be able to give expression to that?</i> And the second was, <i>Well, what might people like this end up doing <b>instead</b>?</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Hmm, uncommonly bright people, but in a rather unorthodox way - somewhat obsessive-compulsive personalities, probably with a bent for pattern-recognition and problem-solving.... Gumshoe!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And there don't seem to have been that many stories about a coloured gumshoe - at least not in the movies, and I suspect probably not within the realms of pulp fiction either. Denzel Washington's <i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112857">Devil In A Blue Dress</a></i> is the only one that comes to mind. Oh, and <i>Shaft</i>, I suppose. That's not exactly a crowded field, compared to the scores of white P.I. stories out there. And somehow I immediately <i>saw</i> Miles Davis - cranky, obsessive, relentlessly non-conformist - as a great down-at-heel, hard-boiled private detective character: Philip Marlowe with a whole extra layer of <i>attitude</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Now, this conceit could work fine as it is: we take a character from the real world, change his circumstances, make use of certain aspects of his known personality - then have fun playing around with how he might behave in a very different milieu.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
However, I kept returning (perhaps unwisely...) to the initial question of <i>What is this world, how did things come to be like this?</i> I figured this would have to be some sort of science fiction scenario, a divergent timeline - the one universe in a billion billion where, for some reason, jazz didn't 'happen' (and, without the potent allure of that particular musical style, I thought, it's possible that many of the people we know as giants of that genre might not even have learned to play an instrument). Now, I'm not a great fan of time-travel scenarios on the whole, but once my mind had started down this particular rabbit-hole I came up with two further ideas that I thought quite promising.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The likeliest single cause of a non-jazz world, it occurred to me, might be the early death of Jelly Roll Morton. Not a completely plausible mechanism, I'm sure; there were many different strands of music coming together to form what we know as jazz, and many other early practitioners of the style. But Morton composed the majority of the early standards, was the first person to start getting original jazz compositions published, and - perhaps most importantly of all - was the first player to start getting recorded (at first on cylinders). He was the first musician to really start popularizing the new form, the first to start getting it heard and appreciated in places where there might be little or no opportunity to hear it played live. Without Morton, I think it is conceivable that jazz as we know it might not have taken off - might never had made it to Kansas City, New York, Chicago, and might thus have failed to establish itself as the dominant form of American popular music through the second quarter of the 20th Century. If its musical antecedents did not wither and fade away completely, they might perhaps remain a marginalized and unrespectable niche music, heard only in divey dance halls, brothels and gambling houses along the Gulf Coast, never breaking into the mainstream of American culture.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
If that has happened - Morton dead at an early age, before he can kick-start the evolution of jazz (perhaps murdered by some jazz-hating time-travelling psychopath from the far future?) - the story that naturally suggests itself is the attempt to <i>undo</i> this, to re-enable the birth of jazz - and hence to redeem all of our jazz heroes from the purgatory of artistically unfulfilled lives (although, given how badly most of them dealt with their fame, there would be issues to explore as to whether they might not have really been 'happier' <i>without the jazz</i>...).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This prompted one final story idea - a very visually striking one, I thought, good for the eventual movie version. We need to get our gumshoe Miles Davis on the trail of the killer, aware of the mystery of the disappearance of jazz from the world. I imagined a 'guardian angel' figure in the far future world who is trying to facilitate this, but has very limited means of communication (there will be a rationale for this, but let's not get into it right now). He manages to send Miles a parcel, a gift with a potent message in it, if he can but decipher it. Miles unwraps the strange present on his desk and finds.... <b><i>his own face looking at him from an album cover</i></b>. And then his investigation will begin with the attempt to identify the other people listed in the credits: <i>who are</i> Bill Evans, Jimmy Cobb, John Coltrane...??</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">[By the by, this is a <i>very</i> late posthumous insertion into the <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/search/label/Discarded%20story%20ideas">Discarded Story Ideas</a> series: I actually wrote this in May 2018, five-and-a-half years after I formally shut down this blog.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-42926475076890092282012-12-18T02:22:00.000+00:002012-12-27T03:34:46.274+00:00The Lie Injector<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not a great fan of the 'unreliable narrator' device. I think it's become rather overused, and it's rarely done really well.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, as I discussed last week, I sometimes enjoy <i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-far-can-you-push-gag.html">taking an idea to extremes</a>.</i> And a year or so ago, I tried this approach with an idea for a humorous short story that played around with the notion of the unreliable narrator.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It also drew upon my concerns about <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/08/list-of-month-rejecting-modern.html">the direction that our technology is taking</a> these days. We often read about the possibility of user-interfaces for portable microchip-controlled devices that can be wired directly into our brains. I began to think of what a 'next generation' i-Pod might be like in 10 or 20 years; and I figured it would probably become possible to 'listen' to music or 'watch' films via a direct neural connection without any actual sound or visuals. And, if so, it wouldn't stop there; somebody would figure out a way to use this technology to implant thoughts and memories - perhaps without our being aware of the fact, creating a new consciousness that would be indistinguishable from our 'reality', a cocktail of truth and fiction.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, my story was about a visionary inventor who broke away from working for Apple or whoever to develop his own prototype of such a device. His rationale was that most people are unimpressive in conversation because they lead such dull lives; our reality is too boring - but a little <i>creative lying</i> could make us much more interesting and entertaining people, immediately improving our social lives and making us more attractive to the opposite sex. Hence, he has created a Lie Injector, a portable device that gives you more diverting things to talk about.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But of course, he's been trying it out on himself. So, when he tells you about his invention, <i>how can you believe him?</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-27447242866740033242012-12-17T08:17:00.000+00:002012-12-20T08:25:48.928+00:00All I want for Christmas is.... a Daily Llama<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYjKPaUCL7D-2jP3RS1O8VlrE42wnBZj9DR5VZiH8eZglADFKKK_C8TAV_sH58-vnjk-G8VePa8dLnSIF68eQdq5wZQkc3OkiiLoMBg0VTfBGHd-Pk2zyGyVE8ApytLbkaXiGt/s1600/Llama+box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYjKPaUCL7D-2jP3RS1O8VlrE42wnBZj9DR5VZiH8eZglADFKKK_C8TAV_sH58-vnjk-G8VePa8dLnSIF68eQdq5wZQkc3OkiiLoMBg0VTfBGHd-Pk2zyGyVE8ApytLbkaXiGt/s400/Llama+box.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amongst all the cutesy toy llamas I've seen on the Internet (why do they appeal so powerfully to crocheters??), I thought this little wooden sculpture was the classiest. And apparently it has a concealed compartment, so that you can store your Mary Jane inside it. <i>Nice.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Happy holidays, everyone!</span></b></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-19143782520854954842012-12-17T06:10:00.000+00:002012-12-29T05:07:25.261+00:00And any other reason why (not)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most of my posts in the <i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/search/label/Why%20I%20don%27t%20learn%20Chinese">Why I don't learn Chinese</a></i> series have been about <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2011/12/it-really-is-incredibly-hard-to-learn.html">the peculiar difficulties of the language</a>, or about the peculiar difficulties of learning it (what we might call <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2008/03/because-it-doesnt-get-you-anywhere-why.html">the environmental obstacles</a> we find in China today), or about <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-am-classicist-why-i-dont-learn.html">my personal difficulties in language learning</a>. I've also touched on a political dimension to my abstinence - that I am resistant to the Chinese government's attempt to promote the learning of Mandarin as a central element of its global 'soft power' offensive and as a domestic propaganda ploy to bolster the chauvinistic conviction that China is <i>the best bloody country in the world</i>. To be honest, though, my resistance to the language is probably provoked even more powerfully by <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-brain-is-full.html">the self-righteousness</a> one so commonly encounters amongst foreigners who have put in the hard hours of study to become reasonably proficient in it (and presumably feel affronted, feel their self-image of their own wisdom and worthiness called into question, when the indolence of others such as myself demonstrates that it is perfectly possible to <i>get by</i> in Chinese without such laborious study - and indeed that it is increasingly easy in a city like Beijing today to get by <i>without any Chinese at all</i>). All of these points I have touched upon in the previous 20-odd posts in this series.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I mentioned in <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-am-classicist-why-i-dont-learn.html?showComment=1323819663854#c8791460493860474100">this comment thread</a> last year, I am somewhat regretful that I have made so little progress with Mandarin (I'm jesting when I occasionally say that I have been making a conscious attempt to <i>unlearn</i> it; although that is in fact a pretty fair description of the direction my Chinese ability has taken over the last 7 or 8 years!). One of my main interests in this series has been to cast around for possible solutions to the mental block that I suffer with the language, for possible inspirations that might motivate me to start studying in earnest. It may be worth repeating <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-am-classicist-why-i-dont-learn.html?showComment=1323919705370#c830719394771356504">one of my comments</a> from that thread in full:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The thing that gets my goat is that so many people get on a high horse about this, and tell you that you <i>ought</i> to learn Mandarin - even that you must. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But they rarely offer any cogent reason for this. It's an unconsidered assumption. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If they do start offering 'reasons', I usually find them non-compelling or not appropriate to my situation - if not completely bogus. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So, this series is - at least partly - about examining those possible reasons to learn the language... and attempting to dismiss them.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For my final post in <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/search/label/Why%20I%20don%27t%20learn%20Chinese">this series</a>, I thought I'd run through some of the most oft-cited reasons for learning Mandarin, to underline why I have rejected them during the decade that I have lived in China.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's necessary for 'survival'</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
No, it isn't - not in the major cities, anyway. And this is a dramatic transformation that I've witnessed during my time in China. When I first visited in the early '90s, very little English was spoken anywhere, even in the major cities. When I first moved to Beijing in the early '00s, fairly little English was spoken here, even in foreigner-targeted bars and restaurants. But now.... almost all staff in bars and restaurants - even those that don't particularly target foreigners - speak some English, often quite good English. Almost all reasonably well-educated white collar workers speak some English. Surprisingly large numbers of ordinary people - shopkeepers, taxi drivers, etc. - are starting to speak at least a little bit of English. China is rapidly moving towards the situation that prevails in most of Europe, where English is an almost universal second language - at least amongst the middle class (and almost <i>everybody</i> will be middle-class in another 50 years).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It will help you get a job in China</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
None of the jobs that I've had here, or even those I've considered applying for, have required any Chinese ability at all. Most of them have, unsurprisingly, relied primarily on my advanced skills in the English language. Of course, there are a few specialised jobs where some degree of Chinese will be necessary - but those are not the kind of jobs that would ever be of any interest to me. It is certainly helpful - though rarely essential - to develop a modest conversational ability in order to be able to relate socially to your Chinese co-workers; but that has never really applied to me, since I've never had an office-based job. (And the experience of many of my foreign friends and acquaintances here suggests that taking a job in a primarily Chinese-speaking workplace is <i>the best way to learn the language</i> - even if you start off with little or nothing.) Things may be changing now, as the overabundance of foreigners here - foreigners who've put in some time learning Mandarin, at that - is encouraging many employers to use Mandarin skills to differentiate between job applicants, even though these are not fundamentally necessary for the job. But back in the early Noughties when I came here, Mandarin skills had no relevance to your employability whatsoever.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It will help you get a job overseas</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Again, I tend to think this is an exaggerated or misguided assumption. There are not <i>that many</i> opportunities for 'doing business with China'; and most of those that there are will - <i>rightly</i> - favour Chinese citizens with good foreign language skills... and/or recognise the imperative of utilizing good translators/interpreters to facilitate communication. Certainly, the experience of most of my friends who've returned overseas - after spending many years here, and developing good levels of Mandarin - has been that they've struggled to find any kind of China-related job at all, let alone one that required them to use their Mandarin. The only exception I can think of is a woman friend who has recently become a beginner's level Mandarin teacher. Anyway, when I leave here, I want to draw a line under my China experience - <i>and never have anything to do with the country again</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It helps you learn about the culture</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Yes, there are certain aspects of Chinese history and culture that can be revealed through the idioms and so on of the national language, but... you can discover many of these by reading <i>about</i> the language, without actually having to develop the ability to use it. I worry that there's a huge <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2008/04/opportunity-cost.html">opportunity cost</a> in studying the language to a high level, that it actually detracts from your ability to engage with the culture in other ways - ways that to me seem more important and useful. As I said in <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2011/04/it-doesnt-travel-well.html?showComment=1303175900564#c1566815257102771507">this comment</a>, there are many more ways to learn about the life and culture of a people - observation, reading, interaction with other observers, interaction with locals in other languages - which may in fact be inhibited by an overriding emphasis on trying to interact with people in their own language.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's a sign of respect</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Yes, it is often taken that way by the Chinese. But I feel that the essence of 'respect' is sincerity of feeling, rather than the outward forms that attempt to express that feeling; and moreover that 'respect' must be given freely - as soon as the Chinese start expecting or demanding that you learn their language to demonstrate respect for their culture, they are disempowering the gesture, rendering it no longer a genuine expression of respect but a token act of obeisance, the contemporary version of a kow-tow. In any case, this notion that you need to develop significant Mandarin skills in order to show an appropriate level of respect comes mainly from government propaganda (and/or those foreign 'language nazis' who have managed to achieve such skills and want to consider themselves to be somehow morally superior to those of us who haven't); most ordinary Chinese <i>do not</i> expect that you will be able to speak their language at all, and are tremendously impressed and flattered if you can manage a few basic conversational courtesies like 'Please' and 'Thank you' and 'Delighted to meet you'. Choosing to learn another people's language <i>ma</i>y be an indication of your respect for them, but it is not the sole nor an indispensable means of doing so. Choosing not to learn the language should not be seen as innately <i>disrespectful</i>. You should try to learn a language because it is intrinsically satisfying or useful to you, not merely because it is in some nebulous way 'expected' of you.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, all the of the reasons commonly touted as making the learning of Mandarin imperative I have found to be unsatisfactory, unconvincing. As I concluded that <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-am-classicist-why-i-dont-learn.html?showComment=1323919705370#c830719394771356504">comment I quoted above</a>.... Yes, [<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/search/label/Why%20I%20don%27t%20learn%20Chinese">this series</a>] is wilfully contrarian, and more than a little bit tongue-in-cheek. People shouldn't suppose that I haven't learned <i>any</i> Mandarin, or that I am ardently advocating against others doing so.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I do feel that if you are going to, you ought to be <i><b>very clear about your reasons for doing so</b></i>. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I'm not simply justifying an eccentric personal choice, but considering the global context - attempting to resist this tide of 'moral pressure' and CCP-backed propaganda that everyone ought to learn Mandarin.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-86249570965438982282012-12-17T04:04:00.000+00:002012-12-18T10:09:25.750+00:00Bloody, but unbowed!<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have (sort of, <i>very nearly</i> - touch wood!) restored my computer to full operability.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has taken me more than three days of nail-biting, hair-tearing anguish, countless hours of rummaging around on online forums trying to find help.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had discovered that the built-in 'system recovery' feature in Windows was no good to me, because it had - for some obscure reason - only bothered to save a single 'recovery point' during the six months I've had the computer, and this was somehow corrupted, and so unusable.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The computer's manufacturer, Dell, has bundled a device of its own called SyncUp in with the default software. This is apparently supposed to back up all your data online. But this, too, has not been working properly; it always breaks down within a few minutes of startup, and never manages to record a complete system image for backup & recovery purposes.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, it looked like I was pretty thoroughly screwed. I had a computer that had developed fatal errors in its operating system, and I had no way to back it up.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or did I? Checking through the 'Safe Mode' startup options again (And god, is that difficult to access! If you don't hit F7 or F8 at exactly the right milisecond, the damn computer just attempts a Normal Startup and locks up again. I must have been through this 20 or more times - maddening!), I stumbled upon a rather inconspicuous additional tool which was seemingly going to allow me restore to my factory defaults from the onboard memory using Dell's Data Safe facility. Now, I wasn't happy about resorting to the 'nuclear option' of turning the clock back six months, and I wasn't confident that the onboard memory wouldn't be corrupted somehow... but I didn't seem to have any choice. And at least I was being offered the opportunity to backup all my data first (I would have been happier if I'd had the option to back it up on an offboard drive, but the interface seemed to be telling me that it would create a secure partition on my onboard hard drive for this). I thought I'd give it a go.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And it worked! Oh frabjous day!!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, except that when I relaunched my computer, I had six months of Windows Updates to install, which rendered the thing useless for another dozen hours.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And when I was finally able to start using it again, I found that the Dell Data Safe program was unable to access the backup files it was supposed to have created in my emergency recovery folder. And, to add insult to injury, it seemed to be telling me that it couldn't perform a data restoration from such files unless I forked out $150 dollars for an upgrade! That is outright extortion. I was incensed.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My tour of the online forums this morning wasn't much help. I was led to several supposed freeware applications that promised to be able to access these .dsb files, but either they weren't so able, or they weren't really free. So, I wasted a lot of time installing and then uninstalling these recommended programs.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also thought - ah, foolish naivety! - that Dell programs ought to have a fair degree of compatibility with the basic Windows programs supplied with their machine; so, I was disappointed that Microsoft's 'backup & restore' facility was also unable to do anything with these dratted .dsb files. In fact, it appeared not to be working at all: it seemed to freeze when I hit the 'browse' button to search a drive for usable backup files. I scoured the online forums about this too, turned up a number of hopefully proffered solutions, found none of them did any good.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All I did learn from these vain investigations is that Dell Data Safe is widely perceived to be <i>completely fucking useless </i>(one user complained that he'd paid for the upgrade, and still found he was unable to access his backup files), very, very frequently creating these problems where people can't restore backed up files - often because the files haven't been compressed correctly and have become corrupted. I also learned that the Windows 7 'backup & recovery' feature is <i>even worse</i>, that it just about never works, and this is a known problem which Microsoft has done nothing to rectify in the last three years.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh yes, and when I tried to contact Dell's Technical Support via online chat last night, I was told that they couldn't help me because they'd lost my product registration details. Not sure if this is to do with my computer resetting itself, and wiping any onboard stored data about me, or if Dell's customer database is on the fritz, but it looks as though my product records somehow defaulted to a previous state where they only had details for the retailer I bought it off, not for me. I didn't feel like going through the rigmarole of re-registering my product details at midnight. Indeed, it wasn't practicable - since all the product codes are in tiny writing, on a label which is on the underside of the computer (and <i>upside down</i>, if you try to look at it by simply tilting the keyboard forward - one of the most amazingly fucking stupid pieces of design I've ever come across!), you can't really get a look at them while you're using the computer (and I don't have any decent light in my study anyway, so was working just from the light of the screen!). I got in a grump and signed off.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I tried again this morning, I couldn't access the online chat facility at all. I was invited to try to e-mail my complaint/query instead, and was then told I couldn't even do that, because my detected location did not match the location I was "registered" in. <i>WTF??!!</i> I travel a lot. I'm almost always using a VPN, anyway. So, the detected location of my computer is probably not its actual location. And last night you told me I wasn't "registered" anyway! My apparent location has never been a problem in the past (I've had to contact the tech support like this a couple of times before). And how can a shift in my apparent location from Virginia (where I bought the damn thing) to California (where my current proxy is) invalidate my access to customer support? It's just INSANE. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am deeply, deeply pissed off with Dell right now. I am getting the impression from my survey of online complaints that their laptops are notoriously, disastrously unstable when running Windows 7. I fear I'm going to encounter these problems again and again. And I really don't expect a fairly expensive computer to conk out on me after less than six months of use. If I'd known in June what I know now, I never would have bought the thing. And I don't think I'm ever going to buy a Dell product again.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But wait, it's not <i>ALL</i> gloom. I did manage to restore my computer eventually.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, I discovered that hidden among the sub-folders in the 'Emergency Recovery' folder that had been created for me, there lurks a little .exe file that launches a 'Recovery Wizard' which allows you to restore all the other compressed files in the folder.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, <i>most </i>of them. Most of the program files seem to have fallen by the wayside somehow - which is a <span style="font-size: large;">HUGE</span> pain in the arse.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But at least my Operating System seems to be doing its thing normally again.<i> For now</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, tomorrow, I might be able to do some blogging again. If I can be bothered. After all this hassle, I really just feel as if I want to <i>SLEEP</i> for the rest of the week.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-79149714559318195432012-12-17T00:29:00.000+00:002012-12-17T00:29:00.517+00:00Bon mot for the week<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>"Between the great things we cannot do and the small things we will not do, the danger is that we shall do nothing."</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_Monod">Adolphe Monod</a> (1802-1856)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-8382198177193877172012-12-16T05:50:00.000+00:002012-12-26T01:01:28.651+00:00The final 'Poetry Sunday'<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is one of the first poems that I committed to memory, and one of the longest. The very first - when I was about ten years old - and the longest was Thomas Gray's <a href="http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc" style="font-style: italic;">Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard</a>, but I've forgotten all but a handful of lines and phrases from that now<i>.</i> Tennyson's <i>Ulysses</i>, on the other hand, I can still run through from start to finish with barely a stumble.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a great enthusiast for Classical mythology since my earliest days at school, I was naturally drawn to such subjects in poetry, and these are the poems that have proven to be amongst my most enduring favourites. Tennyson has some particularly fine ones - <i>Tithonus</i>, <i>The Lotus-Eaters</i> - but this was the one that especially got under my skin, an imagining of the great adventurer Ulysses/Odysseus in old age, bored with the settled life, urging his old comrades to join him again for one last voyage (a futile, probably suicidal exercise - yet inspiring nonetheless).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why does this speak so strongly to me? I don't know - but it does. It has done now for nearly forty years.</span> <b>"I cannot rest from travel..."</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ulysses</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It little profits that an idle king,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Matched with an agèd wife, I mete and dole<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Unequal laws unto a savage race,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For always roaming with a hungry heart<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Much have I seen and known; cities of men<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And manners, climates, councils, governments,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am a part of all that I have met;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For ever and for ever when I move.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Were all too little, and of one to me<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Little remains: but every hour is saved<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From that eternal silence, something more,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A bringer of new things; and vile it were<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And this grey spirit yearning in desire<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is my
son, mine own Telemachus,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A rugged people, and through soft degrees<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Subdue them to the useful and the good.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of common duties, decent not to fail<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In offices of tenderness, and pay<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meet adoration to my household gods,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There
lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
with
me—<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That ever with a frolic welcome took<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Death closes all: but something ere the end,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Push off, and sitting well in order smite<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of all the western stars, until I die.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Though much is taken, much abides; and though<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We are not now that strength which in old days<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One equal temper of heroic hearts,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-66874121024099228732012-12-15T03:26:00.000+00:002012-12-22T01:37:31.786+00:00The Ultimate Fantasy Girlfriend: Greta Garbo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoKyLylakr1uhkbX2jDO0AjvQNEjKsxmzgQdfz4IffwQwXnbm8KcbBlzH1zJBc3ScsbrwoqeilSERvBWLv0YtvV3IaZ132kJIglQNcVQfjAWK4yTcnD88eAGkXABuFSHerxP_N/s1600/Greta+Garbo.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoKyLylakr1uhkbX2jDO0AjvQNEjKsxmzgQdfz4IffwQwXnbm8KcbBlzH1zJBc3ScsbrwoqeilSERvBWLv0YtvV3IaZ132kJIglQNcVQfjAWK4yTcnD88eAGkXABuFSHerxP_N/s400/Greta+Garbo.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My great comedy heroes, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, probably invented the concept of the 'Fantasy Girlfriend', or created it for me, at any rate, when I first heard this celebrated skit of theirs at about the age of 12. My French teacher at school had a huge library of recorded comedy, mostly radio shows from his own youth, and would treat us to extended sessions of this rather than continuing with lessons in the last week or two of term, after our exams were out of the way. This provided my first exposure to a lot of classic BBC radio comedy like <i>ITMA</i> and <i>Round The Horne</i> and <i>Hancock's Half Hour</i>, and also to the great monologists like Gerard Hoffnung, Victor Borge, Peter Ustinov, Alan Bennett, and Bob Newhart. But it was Pete & Dud, already known to me from scattered recollections of some of their TV shows in my very early childhood in the late '60s and early '70s, that I loved the most - and this skit in particular.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<center>
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qR2o2YYqEck" width="420"></iframe></center>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was my first introduction to Greta Garbo as an ultimate romantic fantasy figure. At that time she was known to me only as a name, the unforgettably alliterative name of someone famous yet at the same time obscure. I think I was perhaps dimly aware that she was now chiefly famous for her reclusiveness. There was no Internet back then, so we didn't have ready availability to the luminous portraits of her which later so beguiled me. She wasn't featured in advertising. Her films, which, I suppose, were felt to have dated rather badly, were not shown on TV. I think I had no idea, really, who she was or what she had looked like, until quite a bit later, sometime in the second half of my teens.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have the film historians <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gill_(film_historian)">David Gill </a>and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Brownlow">Kevin Brownlow</a> to thank for introducing me to Garbo properly. <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_(documentary)">Hollywood</a></i>, their exquisite 13-part documentary series for Thames TV on the silent movie era in America aired in the autumn of 1980, when I was 16; it was a life-changing moment for me. I was utterly enraptured, not just by Garbo, but by all the other almost-forgotten greats of that period. As a result of the success of this series, BBC2 and Channel 4, our minority 'artsy' TV stations, began to show some of these classic silent films. The superb physical comedian Harold Lloyd was a particular favourite of mine (a decade later, Gill and Brownlow produced a three-part series devoted to him, placing him alongside Chaplin and Keaton as <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208197/">The Third Genius</a></i> of silent comedy); but we also got to see some D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, and Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks, and, of course, the bewitching Garbo. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then, finally, one Christmas, I think, round about 1982, BBC2 got around to showing a short season of her talkies: <i>Anna Christie</i>, <i>Grand Hotel</i>, <i>Queen Christina</i>, <i>Marie Walewska</i>, and <i>Camille</i>. It was, no doubt, the tragic aspect of these roles, her nobility in suffering, which attracted me quite as much as her limpid eyes and sculpted cheekbones. Bravery in facing pain, dignity in enduring injustice always inspires - even if it's merely being acted out on the stage or screen. In a woman, it invokes the male's protective instincts as well, I think, something which is often the beginning of love. That enigmatic and aloof quality of hers, the Scandinavian froideur (I wonder what the Swedish word for that is? I bet it sounds sexy!), the provoking unknowability was part of the magic too. Yes, these are dangerous and frustrating qualities for a boy to become attracted to, but there it is - what can you do?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ever since I <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/10/my-fantasy-girlfriend-irma-la-douce.html">started this series</a> (crikey - more than 5 years ago!), I knew I'd have to do a post on Greta Garbo one day. Ever since my blog friend JES did <a href="http://johnesimpson.com/blog/2010/06/a-matter-of-form/">this post</a> two-and-a-half years ago, I knew what the culmination of it would be. In that post he introduced me to this montage of scenes from her 1928 film <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019195/">The Mysterious Lady</a></i> (playing opposite Conrad Nagel), and I was blown away by it. It is quite simply the sexiest video I have ever seen, and perfectly encapsulates how utterly compelling Greta Garbo was.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<center>
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4NZdggNUvq0" width="420"></iframe></center>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The hauntingly Satiesque piano music here is an arrangement of the Pixies' song <i>Where Is My Mind?</i> by French musician <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxence_Cyrin">Maxence Cyrin</a>, from an album called <i>Novo Piano</i> in which he gave several contemporary songs a classical makeover. He also created this ravishing video. You can check out more of his work on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/maxencecyrin">his Youtube channel</a>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There are a few other nice montages of images of Greta <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bChlrUHje_g">here</a></b> and <b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNTvwZlbplE">here</a> </b>and<b> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD_P0nx5Qsc">here</a></b>, and a couple of great collections of photos <b><a href="http://hillofbees.com/2012/06/28/the-face-of-garbo/">here</a></b> and <b><a href="http://marciokenobi.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/greta-garbo-part-1/">here</a></b>. You could also check out <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0918.html">the <i><b>New York Times</b></i> obituary</a> on her, and <a href="http://www.iconsradio.com/gretagarboshow.html">this radio programme</a> of reminiscences about her by her nephew Scott Reisfield. And I have just learned that Kevin Brownlow made <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0471003/">a documentary tribute</a> to her in 2005; I want to see that.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-67626722737621050442012-12-15T02:18:00.001+00:002012-12-15T02:18:35.548+00:00The End Of The World comes early<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><font size="2">I have been planning for some months now to use the alleged 'Mayan Apocalypse' at the end of next week as a facetious pretext for closing down my two blogs - which I feel have been going on for </font><i style="font-size: 10pt;">quite long enough</i><font size="2"> now.</font><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;">Alas, being on the road for most of November left with me with a huge backlog of posts I really wanted to write before the shutdown (hence the fitful incontinence of my writing here over the past two or three weeks since I got back). And I've been further frustrated in my efforts to get those posts out of the way by a succession of problems with my preferred VPN and my Internet connection. I am once more getting a little paranoid that perhaps I have been targetted for some special attention by the censors here in Beijing; everybody's been struggling to keep their VPNs working, but I haven't heard of anyone else getting their Net connection completely shut down.</div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;">Then, yesterday morning, my computer - less than six months old - DIED. Yes, I suffered a return of the dreaded 'blue screen of death' - the first time I've experienced it with this laptop (though I'd had a few nasty encounters with it on my previous Dell, and it used to be a constant companion with the ancient IBM Thinkpad I'd been muddling along with before that).</div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;">Not even a conventional, familiar 'blue screen of death', either; darker blue, brighter screen. Maybe they've changed its appearance in the last year or so, but the creepy unfamiliarity of something once so familiar added to my anxieties.</div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;">As did the fact that the screen appeared to be <i>frozen</i>; it was not creating 'dump files' - as it promises to do - and then shutting down automatically. It was just staring at me tauntingly, denying me access to any of my computer functions, and <i>not doing anything</i>. I couldn't even crash the computer using the power switch, so eventually, after about half an hour of this agonising limbo, I had to remove the battery.</div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;">And then, of course, I couldn't reboot. The first several times I tried to do so, I was just getting a blank screen and an ominous silence; I couldn't even use the F keys to try to access the 'Safe Mode' start-up options.</div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;">After going back to bed and crying for a couple of hours (amazing how this seems to work as therapy <i>for the computer</i> too!), the little bastard did deign to fire up again, but... oh dear me, limited functionality or what?! No Net connectivity. No access to most Windows functions. VERY SLOW operating speeds (3 or 4 hours to run a virus check!!!).</div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;">Eventually, I have managed to get a Net connection back via the 'Safe Mode with networking', but.... now my bloody VPN won't work again.</div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;">And my 'System Restore' function is mysteriously broken. This is a <b><i>clusterfuck from hell</i></b>.</div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;">In another two or three days, I would have cleared the backlog of planned posts, and tidied up a few outstanding work assignments, attended to the last of my social obligations, and finalised my travel plans over the imminent holiday period. In another two or three days, I might not have needed the bloody computer again for weeks. But having this spectacular meltdown assail me just <i>now</i> is several notches beyond merely 'inconvenient'. I suffer rages of despair; if I had a carpet, I'd chew on it. (I achieved some valuable catharsis yesterday by smashing the old Thinkpad - barely functional anymore anyway - into about a million pieces, as a proxy for my maddeningly misbehaving Dell Inspiron.)</div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div><font size="4">So, this is it. The forces of malign Fate have got the better of me. I accept defeat. <i>I'm done</i>.</font></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I may, perhaps, <i>one day</i> retroactively insert some of my planned final posts into the upcoming week (I've already written most of them, but omitted to 'schedule' them for automatic posting), but for now - </span><font size="4">IT'S OVER.</font></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><i>So long, farewell, adieu, adieu, adieu.</i></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></div></td></tr></table>Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-9179386672851730542012-12-14T03:51:00.000+00:002012-12-30T07:16:02.683+00:00Telling stories<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last week over on <b><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/">The Barstool</a></b>, I paid <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/unexpected-tastes.html">homage to Michelle Shocked</a> as one of my favourite singer-songwriters - an admission I felt some of my readers (<i>over there</i>, at any rate) might have found somewhat 'unexpected'.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I find myself surprised that I haven't mentioned her <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/05/more-childhood-guilt.html">on here</a> more often.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the things that has inhibited me is perhaps that there's comparatively little of her work available on YouTube. My absolute favourite of her songs is a very early one called <i>The Ballad of Patch-Eye and Meg</i>, which is a charming little tune and an exquisitely crafted lyric - a seemingly rather frivolous catalogue song ambushing you at the end with an unexpected flash of insight that creates a perfect moment of distilled heartache. I especially love the fact that the song's ostensible subjects - a reminiscence of childhood, a long-ago failed love affair - are in fact just pretexts for something that I find even more joyous and profound: this is a celebration of <b><i>the craft of story-telling</i></b>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alas, there's still - as far as I can discover - no video of Michelle performing this herself. So, we'll have to make do with this - an animated video accompanying a cover of the song by a German singer who calls herself <a href="http://www.myspace.com/banjochrystal">Banjochrystal</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<center>
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QerdUE3YnCg" width="420"></iframe></center>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, among the videos that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/mshocked">Michelle has posted herself</a>, this is the one I like best, <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhB5J4Z4Vv0&list=UUif5Iaky1Hb7t9oaFI4yDGg"><span style="font-size: large;">Wanted Man</span></a></i> - another that beautifully demonstrates her natural flair as a raconteuse. The embed code isn't working, unfortunately. But do go and check that performance out -<i> marvellous stuff.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-29737019537433521452012-12-14T00:21:00.000+00:002012-12-14T00:23:04.742+00:00Haiku for the week<div style="text-align: justify;">
Gloom and decay rule</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
At the turning of the year,</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Not hope of renewal.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jeez, the crappy light levels get me depressed at this time of the year. Not even this week's snow has brought me any cheer. February seems unimaginably far away. I think I need to treat myself to a tropical break somewhere.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-58900949685699727882012-12-13T07:16:00.000+00:002012-12-13T07:49:04.491+00:00An ultimate China nightmare<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been meaning to try to write about this incident - <i>the WORST </i>of my many bad encounters with China's horrendously <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/search/label/Chinese%20banks%20are%20SHITE">incompetent banking system</a> - ever since it happened, more than three years ago. I think I've been inhibited by the sense of trauma attaching to the event: it really was a very, very frightening moment for me.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It began when my bank card stopped working. I would have to get a new one, and I was quite anxious enough about that, because it meant I would have to go to a bank in person, and that typically results in <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2011/03/i-am-going-to-try-to-be-better-person.html">waits of an hour or more</a>. Furthermore, for things of this nature, the banks often used to insist that you returned to your 'home branch', wherever it was that you'd first set up the account - and I'd had this account for so long, I couldn't remember which branch I'd set it up at (luckily, most of the banks here seem to have got over this particular hang-up in the last few years).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was a major additional source of anxiety for me on this occasion, because I had for some years been unable to use any counter services in this particular bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). What appeared to have happened was that when I set the account up, years and years ago, there had been a common PIN number for use in ATMs and at the counter. But at some point, they'd decided to split this system, creating a separate PIN for counter transactions. So, in effect, <i>they had changed my PIN number without telling me</i>. It didn't bother me much, because I never did conduct any transactions over the counter; so long as my ATM access was still fine, I couldn't be bothered to go through the awful rigmarole (probably, at that time, involving having to rediscover the dreaded 'home branch') of getting a new PIN assigned for counter transactions. But then my bank card wore out, and so I lost my ATM access. Problem.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh yeah, I had recently set up a telephone banking enquiries service with this bank as well, for which I had yet another PIN code. Unfortunately, neither my telephone nor my ATM codes were acceptable as proof of my ID <i>inside the bank</i>. They couldn't understand why I didn't know the separate counter transaction PIN code (<i>that no-one had ever told me existed!</i>). What's more, they wouldn't accept my passbook as proof of my identity. They said I needed to show my bank card as well. I showed them my bank card. They said this was no good, because the data strip in it was no longer readable.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, if I 'lose' two of my three forms of bank ID (which, in China, seems to be frighteningly easy to do!!), I am basically SCREWED?? Surely there must be some other way I can prove that I am the account holder? In most Western banks, a signature is enough. <i>Oh, we don't pay any attention to signatures in China.</i> Well, what about other personal information - like my date of birth, address, the date when I first opened the account, recent transaction history? <i>Anybody might know that.</i> No, they bloody well couldn't! What about personal security questions - don't you have a record of my grandmother's maiden name or the name of my favourite author, obscure details that only I could know? <i>No, we don't have any need for that kind of security question in China.</i> Well, evidently you do. OK, what about my passport - will you accept that, together with my bank passbook, as proof of my identity?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Grudgingly, at the third or fourth wheedle, they agreed that they could accept my passport as proof of ID. I would have thought this would be a pretty standard and straightforward procedure, but the girl I was dealing with on this occasion - and her male supervisor, summoned to assist at my insistence - both somehow seemed to feel that it was too much <i><a href="http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqb=mafan">mafan</a></i> for them.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And a new problem promptly emerged: my passport was not, as far as they were concerned, <i>my passport</i>. I had changed my passport a couple of years earlier, so the passport number no longer matched the one they had in the records they'd made when I set up the account. All of the other information they'd recorded was the same. I was able to show them both passports, and they could see that they matched in every detail: full names, date of birth, place of birth, validity dates. They even had almost identical and very readily recognisable photos of me (nice to think that I hadn't changed at all during my first 6 or 7 years in China; for some reason, I've become haggard and balding very quickly since then!). But they were unimpressed by any of this; they were confused by the fact that the serial number was different (do Chinese passports keep the same number for life? perhaps so). I tried to explain to them that the expiry of my original passport's validity <i>as a passport</i> should not affect its continuing validity as a source for verifying my identity: I was still in possession of the passport which I had used to set up the account. It was quite obviously the same passport, and I was quite obviously the person to whom it had been issued - what was the problem? I could not persuade them on this point. Eventually, they insisted that I would have to go to the British Consulate to obtain an official letter confirming that the Froog in my new passport was indeed the same person as the Froog in my previous passport. I rather doubt if they have a standard form for that; I fear they might not be able to oblige at all.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, there you are, my fellow China expats - when you change your passport, you risk losing access to your Chinese bank account, perhaps FOREVER.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In fact, these days, it seems, that may happen even if you haven't been unlucky enough to have a simultaneous problem with your bank card or your PIN numbers. My current bank recently told me that <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/never-sorry.html">my account would be frozen no more than three months after the expiry of my current passport</a>. You might perhaps be parted from your money like this even if you have a valid passport; ICBC seemed to be telling me that a passport was not normally accepted as proof of account-holder status, and that if I'd lost both my passbook and my bank card, I might have been equally SCREWED.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had waited nearly an hour in the bank before getting to speak to someone. I had then wrangled with two different members of staff - mostly via a Chinese friend who'd come along to help translate for me - for nearly an hour-and-a-half. And after all that time, the outcome seemed to be that <i><b>they were going to refuse to recognise me as the rightful account holder, and were going to keep my money for themselves</b></i> - nearly my entire life savings, slightly more than 100,000 RMB at that time (I've burned through most of that during the last year or so of infrequent work), the fruits of seven years of working my arse off in China. I had an awful sinking feeling in my stomach - not so much terror at the threatened loss of my financial safety net, but despair at the thought of all of those thousands of hours of wasted effort, and impotent rage at a system that could be <i>THIS FUCKED UP</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But you know what? This story has an unexpected <i><b>happy ending</b></i>. I invoked my meditation techniques, I forced myself to calm down, I closed my eyes and focused on the problem, determined that there must be <i>a solution</i> to this situation. And in that moment of silent introspection, pretty much self-hypnosis, in fact, I cast my mind back 6 or 7 years to when I had first set up this dratted account.... and it came back to me that the default PIN number I'd been given then was 0000. I had immediately changed it to a number that was more truly <i>personal</i>, and that I would more readily be able to remember. But I was pretty sure that had been the default PIN. And if they had reset the PIN, it might revert back to the same default, mightn't it?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was worth a try. I keyed in four zeros on the counter touchpad. ID accepted! </span><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">"I'd like to withdraw ALL of my money immediately, please."</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Are you SURE? If you do that, you won't be able to use our bank any more!"</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yeah, numbnuts, that is kind of <i>THE POINT</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-28972690413853056922012-12-13T03:20:00.000+00:002012-12-13T06:24:39.496+00:00Beijing - a city out of hope<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've had some curious little jobs in my time here. Just in the last month or two, I've found myself preparing comments on China's economic prospects for the coming year (because, of course, the CEOs of major international companies don't have the time to answer interview questions themselves - at least, not for the likes of <i>China Daily</i> and the <i>Global Times</i>), ghost-writing an editorial for one of south-east Asia's leading newspapers, and tweaking the English version of a major international trade agreement. It's amazing, the kind of responsibility that people will entrust you with just because you can write nicely!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But perhaps the most onerous task I was ever offered - something that I was embarrassed and annoyed at being entrusted with, and eventually turned down - was just over a year ago, when I was asked to write the bid for Beijing to be selected as the next <a href="http://www.worlddesigncapital.com/world-design-capitals/"><b>World Design Capital</b></a>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, I wasn't approached to write the thing from scratch. I wish I had been. I wish somebody competent had been. No, they thought they could get away with a bit of hasty last-minute re-touching. But, since the document was getting on for 20,000 words long and was <i>a complete f***ing shambles</i>, they really couldn't. And since they'd only thought to seek the assistance of a native English-speaking editor 48 hours or so before the final submission deadline, there wasn't even enough time available to 'polish' it thoroughly.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd had an early intimation that the project would be an ignominious failure at least a year or two before this, when the Beijing Industrial Design Center (as far as I could gather, this was a quango set up by the Beijing government specifically to coordinate the bid) hired one of my former students. One of my less gifted former students, that is: a pleasant enough chap, but, to be frank, a bit of a plank. He was tasked with conducting preliminary research into the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the design industry in Beijing. So, he sent <i>me</i> an e-mail asking, </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">"What do foreigners think of Beijing?"</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Naturally, I asked him to be a bit more specific; and so it was that I slowly managed to piece together what it was he was up to. I suggested that he compile a mailing list of people involved in design and in the most closely related industries like fashion, art, advertising, architecture and urban planning, etc., and then develop a structured questionnaire that could be sent out to them. I even offered to help draft one, <i>for FREE</i> - but he never got back to me about that.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've no idea what they did with the next 18 months or so, but they clearly didn't conduct any worthwhile research, or didn't manage to solicit very many responses if they did. My student ruefully confessed to me that they hadn't really received </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ANY </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">positive comments in response to their enquiries, and had been left over the last few weeks before submission frantically </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">making stuff up</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. The bid document they finally produced was way too long, chaotically structured, desperately, desperately DULL - and mostly written in the most risible, often just about incomprehensible Chinglish. And they had titled it.... </span><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Beijing - A City Out Of Design</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. I assume they meant </span><i><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">By</span></b></i><b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Design</span></i></b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, but it never really became apparent. I was tempted to leave this unchanged, because it did seem all too sadly appropriate to the dismal portrait the document painted of a city which had achieved almost nothing worthwhile in urban planning or in the creative industries for the past century: </span><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">We had some sense of design once, but now it's <i>all gone</i>....</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You know, chaps, if you have to mount a bid for something like this <i>in English</i>, you really should hire a native speaker to write it for you. In fact, you should hire an international PR agency to assemble the bid for you. If you want to be seriously considered for the accolade, that is; rather than make yourselves - and your capital city, and China as a whole - into an international laughing-stock.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have no doubt that the BIDC had originally been quite generously funded for this project. But what had they spent the money on? By the time they had drafted their ludicrous, no-hope-of-winning, <i>not-even-going-to-be-read</i> bid, they were carping about spending even a few thousand renminbi on my final edit.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was willing to consider doing this work for a low fee; I might even have been willing to do it for NO FEE, because I would like Beijing (and China) to have a chance of winning honours like this, to at least have a chance of having the application taken seriously. Although I bitch about the place a lot, this city is my adopted home and I have a lot of fondness for it - and for China and the Chinese people in general. I don't <i>like</i> to see them made to look ridiculous. And that's what this asinine bid document was doing.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, regardless of the fee, I was going to take this on, and do my best to re-write the bid to make it at least <i>readable</i>. Since the job was too short-notice to secure payment in advance, I frankly didn't trust this outfit to pay me anyway, whatever agreement we reached on a fee - but I didn't really care. This seemed like an interesting and worthwhile job, it was something that <i>I wanted to do</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But then their go-between, my former student, rang me up again, and told me that he could get the fee bumped up by another couple of thousand, but he'd expect to keep half of the extra for himself. Now, I'm always grateful for an introduction to some work, and I would, of my own volition, have done something to express my gratitude on this occasion - a dinner at the very least, probably 500 RMB or so stuffed in an envelope. But 1,000 RMB seemed a little steep. And... well, I'm afraid I fairly <i>blew my top</i> at him.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It wasn't just my student's gobsmacking effrontery that annoyed me so. It was more that this shameless piece of petty graft brought home to me just why this project had gone so spectacularly down the toilet: the entire budget must have been serially pilfered by the people working there; everyone, right down to the lowliest office boy, had taken his or her own little rake off it, until there was <b><i>nothing left to spend</i></b> on fulfilling the project's purpose.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And that, I'm afraid, is <b><i>China in a nutshell</i></b>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was one of the pivotal moments that persuaded me I had to get out of this country.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-42098918741174822422012-12-13T01:39:00.000+00:002016-12-16T04:02:51.465+00:00Signage<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I wrote on here a few years ago about how </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2010/05/losing-it.html">losing things</a></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> disturbs me very profoundly, derails my self-image of being someone who's in control of his personal possessions, always </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">knows where things are</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. (</span><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.hhgproject.org/entries/towel.html">"Hey, there's a frood who really knows where his towel is."</a></span></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have a similar hang-up about navigation. I like knowing <i>where I am</i>, and knowing <i>how to get to somewhere</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Whenever I arrive somewhere new, the first thing I do is try to obtain a map, and then study it carefully to orientate myself.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've always liked maps. A giant atlas was one of my favourite books in very early childhood, and I'd spend hours poring over its pages - and, a little later, scouring its index to find places that I'd heard of; and, a little later again, copying features from it using tracing paper (islands were naturally appealing for this exercise; Iceland and Hawaii were particular favourites). For a while, when I was about 7 or 8, I suppose, I had a bit of an obsession with making up maps of my own - battlefield maps and pirate treasure maps and so on.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As a result of this early interest, I took quite readily to the art of map-reading, and I greatly enjoyed orienteering at school. Long cross-country walks - using Ordnance Survey maps - were also a big part of my family holidays. These experiences helped to cultivate the related skills of judging direction (from the position of the sun in the sky, or just from keeping track of how far you've deviated from a last known compass point reference) and distance (being able to judge how far you've travelled in a given time, and being able to estimate how far away from you landmark features are). I wouldn't say I've honed these abilities to a very high level, but I think I have a good basic 'map sense' and 'dead reckoning' capability.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, I pride myself on having a good sense of spatial orientation, and on - usually - being able to <i>find my way around</i> quite well, even in an unfamiliar place.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But in China... this ability has often deserted me. In retrospect, I think this has probably been one of the things that I have found most stressful about living in this country.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's a problem with maps here. They're often not very readily available (it is just about impossible to buy a city map other than for the city you are in, so you can't plan a trip in advance). They're often severely out-of-date or inaccurate. They're often in Chinese only - or an inconsistent mish-mash of Chinese and pinyin. And, whatever language they're in, the font is typically <i>far too small to read</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's a problem with street signs. Many lower-tier cities still have fairly little road signage in pinyin. Beijing only introduced pinyin signage for all streets just prior to the Olympics (until then, most of the narrow <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutong">hutong</a></i> lanes had been unlabelled even in Chinese). Many cities (even Shanghai!) seem to try to save money by only placing a street sign on one, or at most two, corners of a four-way junction (and, through some perverse trick of Fate, it <i>never</i> seems to be on the corner you're standing at!). A further common obtuseness is placing these signs not on the corner, but some yards further down the street, where they are not readily visible even to pedestrians traversing the junction, much less to drivers. And the lettering is often too small (and too thin) to read easily; even the Chinese characters are often ridiculously small, and there is a national chauvinist principle in play that any use of the Roman alphabet must appear less important than Chinese writing, and thus has to be<i> much smaller</i>. Shanghai, again, is <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/07/war-of-convenients.html">a particular offender</a> in this regard: there's really damn-all point in them putting pinyin on their street signs at all, because they're impossible to read from more than a couple of yards away - of little help to you even if you're lucky enough to be on the same side of the road as the sign, utterly worthless if you're on the far side.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's a particular problem with the major road signs. In many cities, these signs will display the name of a major intersecting road ahead as if it's the name of the road you're on. Even worse, signs will often alternate between labelling the road you're on and a major road (or, sometimes, the name of a district) up ahead, without differentiating between the two. That little foible caused me a world of grief down in Guiyang last month!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then, there's a general problem with visibility. Most Chinese cities try to prettify themselves by planting ridiculous numbers of trees everywhere (it's <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2007/03/death-to-trees-where-in-world-am-i-37.html">particularly over-the-top in Beijing</a>, where there isn't enough rainfall to support them, and - despite heavy watering - they tend to exacerbate the city's chronic aridity); and when these are in full leaf, it's almost impossible to see any features along the side of the street. Indeed, foliage often obscures major road signs hanging in the middle of the street! When it's not the trees getting in the way, it's the huge amount of street furniture that clutters Chinese sidewalks (and city planners here, for some strange reason, seem to take particular delight in siting street signs behind telegraph poles or transformers and the like). At night, things get even worse, because levels of street lighting are so low (and the lights are so often broken, or hidden in amongst trees). Trying to navigate around a Chinese city at night - even the parts of Beijing that I ought, by now, to know like the back of my hand - can be very, very challenging.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's also a problem of homogeneity. There's rarely anything very distinctive about a street in China. The same building materials and architectural tropes are repeated again and again and again throughout an entire city - and indeed, <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2011/08/haiku-for-week.html">don't even vary all that much from one city to another</a> across the entire country. Small - often <i>unnamed</i> - hole-in-the-wall shops and restaurants are pretty much indistinguishable from one another. And even larger branded stores look much the same as each other, and recur with giddying frequency: in Beijing, there are three or four Starbucks rip-off coffee shop chains that all look almost exactly the same; down in Guiyang, I found that there was a local clothing store chain called JoeOne - which had a branch on almost <i>every single block</i>. So, even when you can <i>see something</i>, it doesn't look any different than the last block you travelled... or the next one.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The grid system that predominates in most of China's (only recently built) cities causes further difficulties. If there's no sun visible (and there usually isn't in this smog-choked country), it can be impossible to distinguish north-south from west-east. And, even if you do know which way you're headed down a particular road, it is dangerously easy to become disoriented when crossing a major junction - particularly if, as in Guiyang, you have to descend into a deep, deep underpass to do so (and when those underpasses often have no signs, or very misleading signs inside them; and when their exits are often not placed directly on the corner of the intersection, but some way off to the side; and when those exits do not follow the orientation of the streets themselves, but are offset on a diagonal); and particularly if there are <i>no street signs</i> on hand to reassure you that you are still on the street you want to be on.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The camel-back-breaking final straw is the quirkiness of street naming and address allocation. Streets often change their names for no good reason every block or two (but local people - and, sometimes, the major road signs - will take a more common sense view of things, and use only one name for a road that according to street signs appears to have five different ones). Streets sometimes resume the name they had a few miles back, after an unfathomable interlude of being called something else. Streets will sometimes divide into two for a while, with both branches retaining the same name - even though they diverge by a hundred yards or more. In Beijing, many road signs display the names of old city districts rather than the road names - districts that are probably unfamiliar to people who aren't local residents. Moreover, there is a frequent mismatch between what something is officially supposed to be called and what people actually call it: my nearest exit off the 2nd Ringroad is labelled on the road signs as Zhonglou Beiqiao, but everybody knows it as Gulou Qiao.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's an additional problem in Beijing that - <i>ha! ha!</i> - logic is not applied consistently to street naming. The suffix -wai, meaning 'outer', for example, is usually applied to extensions of major roads running outside the 2nd Ringroad (the limit of the city centre), but Dianmenwai is well <i>inside</i> the 2nd Ringroad. The words for north, south, east or west are commonly affixed to names of streets radiating from a central junction, such that a Beidajie (North Avenue) typically runs northwards. Very helpful - except that in a few places, such as around the Workers' Stadium, the compass point designations are applied not to roads that run <i>in that direction</i> but to roads that run <i>along that side</i> of a square or rectangular feature - such that Gongti Beilu (Workers' [Stadium] North Street) actually runs <i>east-west</i>. Moreover, they rarely manage to give all four streets radiating from a junction the same name; near where I live, we have Jiaodaokou North, South, and East Avenues meeting at Jiadaokou Cross, but... what one might naturally expect to be Jiaodaokou West is in fact Gulou East. (And there's a Gulou West, but the north and south streets have other names.)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Postal addresses can be particularly misleading, especially here in the capital. Some streets number odds on one side, evens on the other; but some don't. Street numbers are rarely displayed on buildings anyway; there are frequent extended lacunae of no numbers at all, or sudden inexplicable jumps where almost adjacent numbers are 10 (or 20 or 50) apart, making it impossible to work out <i>how far down</i> a given street the address you're looking for might be. What's more, many housing compounds appropriate numbers from an adjacent street, so that a single narrow entrance may account for dozens of addresses. And many of the larger housing complexes take their names from a nearby major road (better known? more prestigious??) <i>rather than the road that actually gives access to them</i>! Then, of course, you have the problem that many of the more aspirational housing complexes (and malls and office blocks) give themselves an English name - but are known to local people only by a Chinese name, which is often not displayed on the building, and, in many cases, is neither a close translation nor a recognisable phonetic equivalent of the English name. Believe me, it can get very, very confusing indeed. Finding an address in Beijing <i>for the first time</i> is something you need to allow at least half an hour for. (Thoughtful hosts always provide detailed maps and/or directions for their party guests.)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the most egregious examples I've experienced was a few years ago when I was trying locate one of the low numbers - No. 4, I think it might have been - on Nongzhanguan Nanlu. Now, this is the road that runs along the south side of Chaoyang Gongyuan, the city's largest park. Hence, it has always been commonly known as Chaoyang Gongyuan Nanlu (Chaoyang Park South Street). A few years ago, the city fathers succumbed to the pressure of common sense and renamed the road this (or at least the section of it that runs alongside the park). But they didn't change the postal addresses, which are all still Nongzhanguan. Still, I knew this; all I had to do was work out how the numbers went on this street. I figured a low number would most likely be at the west end of the street; and that, probably, the odd numbers would be on the north side and the even numbers on the south. Or vice versa, since Chinese maps still often follow an ancient convention which <i>inverts their compass orientation</i>! Of course, it is difficult to find <i>any numbers</i> on a Chinese street. And this is, unfortunately, a particularly long street - some two-and-a-half miles. I was with a Chinese friend who thought she knew the area fairly well. We tried two different taxi drivers, and stopped to ask several local residents - none of them had a clue where this address was. And we found ourselves repeatedly confused by the fact that the street appeared to be all odd numbers, and then all even numbers <i>on the same side</i> (presumably just an unfortunate coincidence arising from the fact that 90% of the numbers weren't displayed at all); and by the fact that the street seemed to have high numbers <i>at both ends</i>. Yes, the mistake we'd made was assuming that the numbering would start either at the west or the east end; on this street, the numbering starts <i>somewhere in the middle</i> (just to the east of the main entrance to the park) and proceeds clockwise - east along the north side of the street, then west along the south side, and then, with the highest numbers, east along the north side again.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You couldn't make it up.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is why I have so often felt hopelessly lost in this country - both geographically <i>and metaphorically</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[I mentioned Guiyang, the capital city of the south-western province of Guizhou, a few times above. On <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/11/travel-notes.html">my recent visit</a> there I suffered one of my most embarassing ever experiences of getting lost in China. All of the elements I outlined above were in place: streets that had very little to distinguish one from another, very patchy - and misleadingly inconsistent - road signage, very poor visibility (the smog build-up during the rush hour was just horrendous, cut visibilty back to barely 100 yards), and these unnecessarily deep and bizarrely convoluted underpasses everywhere which tended to screw up my sense of direction. It's actually a fairly small city, relatively easy to get around on foot. But I was tired and ill, suffering stiff muscles and sore joints after running <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-not-to-organise-marathon.html">an ultra-marathon</a> over the previous three days, and carrying a heavy bag of groceries; I was impatient to get back to my hotel, and exasperated at myself for having managed to become lost. As dusk fell and the smog descended, my anxiety escalated. There were no cabs to be had for well over an hour, and the few people I asked for directions weren't able to be very helpful. Eventually I managed to enlist some remote assistance from a friend in Beijing who tried to give me directions courtesy of Google Maps - but these were of limited use to me because of the frequent absence of any visible street signs in my vicinity, especially when crossing junctions.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">After walking around in circles for an hour-and-a-half, I eventually managed to hail a cab. The driver thought this was hilarious, because <b><i>I was barely 300 yards from my destination</i></b>. In fact, I think I had more than once been within a hundred yards or so of the hotel, but just hadn't been able to see it (because of trees or other buildings in the way, and the awful fuggy weather), or to recognise anything else nearby. <i>Oh, the shame, the embarrassment!</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When I managed to get hold of a map the next day, I discovered that the root of my problem had been that mischievous Fate had taken me along Youyi Lu (Friendship Street - oh, the irony) - which is about the only major road in the centre of Guiyang that does not run in a straight line. I hadn't noticed its gentle curve, but in fact it swings around through a little more than 90 degrees. Hence, it had completely distorted my sense of direction: roads that - in <i>the mental map</i> I'd constructed for myself - seemed to run east-west, in fact ran north-south; roads that I had thought were parallel to each other actually intersected each other.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is about the most stupendous orienteering cock-up you can conceive of, and I am appalled at my failure here. Never mind that I had no map, no sun, no compass; I really shouldn't be able to <i>lose my bearings</i> so easily and so completely.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I begin to worry that I have lost my 'dead reckoning' ability while I've been in China. I suspect that I have become so used to being permanently at least semi-lost while I've been here, and so overwhelmed by the difficulties of navigating my way around, so used to the perpetual sense of helplessness - that I have given up <i>paying attention to my surroundings</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wonder if it's a little bit akin to <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/search/label/Why%20I%20don%27t%20learn%20Chinese">my attitude to the language</a>. I don't get lost overseas (I don't think). And I wouldn't find it too daunting to try to scrape the rust off my French or to acquire some Spanish for the first time. But here in China, learning the language just seems <i>too damned hard</i>; and so does finding your way around. And so, I seem to have given up; I've <i>accepted defeat</i>.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-91537983722713897992012-12-12T02:36:00.000+00:002012-12-31T07:34:36.155+00:00Favourite posts from the last quarter of 2012<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some highlights from the closing months of my blog here...</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Pick of the Archives:</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Favourite Posts, October-December 2012</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
1) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/10/list-of-month-why-china-will-never-be.html">Why China will never be a great power</a> - 6th October 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Quite a bit of overlap with this <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2010/08/list-of-month-democracy-isnt-everything.html">earlier post</a>; but these points need to be made repeatedly.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
2) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/10/fantasy-girlfriend-face-off-who-was.html">Fantasy Girlfriend Face-Off: Who was <i>THE FIRST</i>?</a> - 13th October 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Looking back to who would have been the very earliest erotic influence in my life, I can't be sure whether it was Alexandra Bastedo in <i>The Champions</i> or Deanna Lund in <i>Land of the Giants</i>. Yes, that dates me!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
3) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/10/ditching-magic.html">Ditching the magic</a> - 16th October 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
My views on fantasy literature; and an outline of an idea of my own for a sequence of fantasy novels. <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">[This post prompted in response <a href="http://johnesimpson.com/blog/2012/12/magic-good-and-bad/">a meditation of the role of the 'unreal' in fiction</a> from my perpetual disputant <a href="http://johnesimpson.com/blog/"><b>JES</b></a>.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
4) <i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/10/film-list-oneiric.html">Oneiric</a></i> - 27th October 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A selection of great films that have a notably <i>dreamlike</i> quality.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
5) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/10/horrific.html">Horrific</a> - 31st October 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I mark Halloween with a collection of thumnbail outlines for horror stories that I've come up with over the years.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
6) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/11/an-idea-stolen.html">An idea 'stolen'</a> - 3rd November 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I was shocked - and discouraged - to discover that one of the best short stories I wrote during my childhood had <i>already</i> been made into a short film. It was some consolation to me that it was <i>an extremely good short film</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
7) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/11/list-of-month-tai-chi-forms-for-new.html"><i>T'ai chi</i> forms for the new century</a> - 10th November 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
My frivolous suggestions for some new movements that might be incorporated into the traditional Chinese exercise system.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
8) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/11/whats-in-name.html">What's in a name?</a> - 16th November 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I discover some especially striking Chinese hotel names.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
9) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/11/my-fantasy-girlfriend-nina-simone.html">An ultimate 'Fantasy Girlfriend': Nina Simone</a> - 17th November 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A celebration of my favourite singer and inspiring role model.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
10) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/11/film-quiz-tough-guy-quotes.html">Film Quiz: Tough Guy Quotes</a> - 24th November 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Another little trivia challenge for the farewell entry in my <i>Film List</i> series (<b>answers</b> provided in the comments).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
11) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/11/travel-notes.html">Travel notes</a> - 26th November 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
An anthology of humorous SMS observations from my trip to Guizhou earlier that month.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
12) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-chinese-shopping-slogan.html">A Chinese shopping slogan</a> - 30th November 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Some classic Chinglish photographed on a recent holiday reminds me of another instance of somewhat inept advertising I encountered in my early years here.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
13) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/list-of-month-ideas-for-china-books.html">My ideas for (non-fiction) China books</a> - 1st December 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I'm unlikely to get around to writing any of these myself. I hope someone else will, because they're really <i>very good ideas</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>14) More discarded story ideas:</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There was a bit of rush to clear out the 'writing ideas' drawer, as <i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-end.html">The End of the Blogs</a></i> approached...<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-writing-on-wall.html">The Writing On The Wall</a></i></b> - my concept for a (mildly autobiographical!) China-based thriller</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/11/killing-hitler-and-churchill.html">Killing Hitler (and Churchill)</a> - two long short stories exploring time travel and alternate histories</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-tyrants-feast.html">The Tyrant's Feast</a></i></b> - a play about a South American dictator and his nemesis</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><b><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-tv-series.html">Bloke</a></b></i> - a six-part sitcom about the staff of a British 'lad mag'</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-catalyst.html">The Catalyst</a></i></b> - a screenplay about a mysterious stranger who triggers magical, <i>liberating</i> transformations in the lives of those he comes into contact with (for which I envisaged a particularly quirky <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-far-can-you-push-gag.html">opening gag</a>)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/dreams-of-escape.html">Oxford Blues</a></i></b> - another screenplay from my student days (but not the title I actually had in mind for it!); a fantasy of escape from the drudgery of study that was rather too revealing of my own unhappiness at the time</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-lie-injector.html"><b><i>The Lie Injector</i></b></a> - a sci-fi short story about the inventor of an i-Pod-like device that can implant memories</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-tempter.html"><b><i>The Tempter</i></b></a> - a sci-fi novella about an unusual HR specialism in advanced economies</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-resonant-opening-line.html"><b><i>The Prison</i></b></a> - my latest idea for a novel, again somewhat of a sci-fi scenario: a prison where none of the inmates can remember what they are being punished for, and where <i>nobody dreams</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
15) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/hotels-with-chinese-characteristics.html">Hotels<i> with Chinese characteristics</i></a> - 5th December 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
More observations from my recent travels (with a supplementary illustration <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/out-of-sight-out-of-mind.html">here</a>).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
16) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/natures-brilliance.html">Nature's brilliance</a> - 6th December 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A note on the remarkable work of Franziska Schenk, a German artist who I'd met over the summer, and who works with newly developed nano-pigments that can replicate the dazzling iridescence found in wild creatures such as parrots and beetles and butterflies.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
17) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/beijing-is-broken.html">Beijing is <i>broken</i></a> - 7th December 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Its subway system, at any rate, has degenerated into a laughable state of disrepair, chronically dysfunctional.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
18) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/is-blogging-dead.html">Is blogging dead?</a> - 7th December 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
No, but I fear it is on its last legs; as is the whole of the Internet as we have known it - being strangled by the 'Internet Lite' of the Mobile Device Revolution. Sad times, indeed.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
19) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/fantasy-girlfriend-leftovers.html">Fantasy Girlfriend leftovers</a> - 8th December 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A bumper rundown of all the lovely ladies who I didn't get around to including in this series.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
20) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-final-poetry-sunday.html">The road</a> - 9th December 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
My first poem on here in well over a year - and one of my bleaker ones.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
21) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/beijing-city-out-of-hope.html">Beijing, a city out of hope</a> - 13th December 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
One of the most profoundly dispiriting work experiences of my last year or so in China.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
22) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/an-ultimate-china-nightmare.html">An ultimate China nightmare</a> - 13th December 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
An alarming true story of how a Chinese bank attempted TO STEAL ALL OF MY MONEY... and a warning to any expats in China to be on their guard against the same danger.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
23) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/telling-stories.html">Telling stories</a> - 14th December 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Two of my favourite bits of the great singer-songwriter Michelle Shocked: a cover of her song <i>The Ballad of Patch-Eye and Meg</i>, and a link to a performance of her own of <i>Wanted Man</i> - including a wonderful introductory anecdote about the song's inspiration.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
24) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-ultimate-fantasy-girlfriend-greta.html">The Ultimate Fantasy Girlfriend: Greta Garbo</a> - 15th December 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sowed the seed of potential infatuation in my mind when I was a kid; and it just growed and growed.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
25) <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/and-any-other-reason-why-not.html">And any other reason why (not)</a> - 17th December 2012</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A final summation of the reasons <i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/search/label/Why%20I%20don%27t%20learn%20Chinese">Why I don't learn Chinese</a></i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-27613969253366162562012-12-12T01:21:00.000+00:002013-01-02T00:16:36.466+00:00The TV Listings (14)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A final roundup of my video postings. This might be quite a long one, since I have been posting <i>A LOT</i> in my last few months of blogging.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The Comedy/Movie Channel</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/08/an-entirely-suitable-role-model.html">Bush Tucker Man</a></i> - an excerpt from the '90s Australian TV series about wilderness survival in the Outback presented by the wonderful Les Hiddins, my latest <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/search/label/Unsuitable%20role%20models">'Unsuitable Role Model'</a>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/09/excuses.html">"Not following your banter, old man"</a> - on Battle of Britain Day, I post Monty Python's famous RAF skit.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/09/great-love-songs-35-36.html">My Fair Lady</a></i> - two of my favourite numbers from the most lavish of all musicals, and a link to another (with Audrey Hepburn's original voice track).<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> [See also below, under <b>Music</b>.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/10/my-kind-of-physics.html">My kind of physics!</a> - a mesmerising demonstration of a new physics engine for computer racing games which models realistic crash damage in real time.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-birthday-headbang.html">Gob on you!</a></i> - a fantastic spoof of punk rock from the early '80s BBC2 skit show <i>Not The Nine O'Clock New</i>s. [See also below, under <b>Music</b>.]</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/10/this-weeks-dose-of-cool.html">How did he <i>do</i> that?</a> - German art photographer Markus Reugels reveals the secrets of his remarkable water-splash pictures.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/10/film-list-oneiric.html">Blue Velvet</a></i> - I round off my selection of memorably <b><i>oneiric</i></b> films with the <i>In Dream</i>s sequence from David Lynch's dark masterpiece (unfortunately, it seems to be regularly deleted from YouTube). <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">[See also below, under <b>Music</b>.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/11/an-idea-stolen.html">La Cabina</a></i> - a complete video of Antonio Mercero's award-winning short film, a masterpiece of macabre, satirical humour.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/11/hitler-vs-daily-llama.html">Hitler vs. The Daily Llama</a> - I discover an amusing 'cut & paste' series on YouTube called<i> Hitler's Llama Priest</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/great-drinking-songs-38.html">The greatest movie dance sequence ever?</a> - tap dance sensations The Nicholas Brothers are certainly leading contenders: here is their show-stopping number from the 1943 musical <i>Stormy Weather</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/and-talking-of-art.html">Isaac Newton vs. Rube Goldberg</a> - a superb, gravity-defying contraption created by Toronto graphic studio <a href="http://2dhouse.com/rubeprojects.php">2D House</a> (via wondrous art blog <b><a href="http://www.thisiscolossal.com/">This Is Colossal</a></b>).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/11/great-drinking-songs-37.html">The Banana Boat Song</a></i> - Harry Belafonte singing with The Muppets; and a possessed Catherine O'Hara having her dinner party disrupted by the song in Tim Burton's <i>Beetlejuice</i>. <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">[See also below, under <b>Music</b>.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/11/great-love-songs-38.html">Jazz Club</a> - a link to a complete anthology of the hilarious 'Louis Balfour' segments from '90s BBC2 skit comedy <i>The Fast Show</i>. <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">[See also below, under <b>Music</b>.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/fantasy-girlfriend-leftovers.html">White Horses</a></i> - the opening of an episode from the classic late '60s childrens' TV show (I had a terrible crush on 'Julia', the heroine). <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">[See also below, under <b>Music</b>.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/great-drinking-songs-40.html">An interview with Tom Waits</a> - my premier musical hero appeared on '70s chat show spoof <i>Fernwood Tonight</i>, and outshone the two professional comic actors playing opposite him. He also did a great version of <i>The Piano Has Been Drinking</i>. <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">[See also below, under <b>Music</b>.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-final-unsuitable-role-model-fred.html">Fred Dibnah, steeplejack</a> - the unlikely TV personality was a childhood hero of mine, and makes a fitting final entry in my <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/search/label/Unsuitable%20role%20models">'Unsuitable' Role Models</a> series on <b><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/">Barstool Blues</a></b>. This video shows includes the climax of the first BBC documentary about him from 1978, where he uses a huge bonfire to fell a 150ft-tall factory chimney.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-ultimate-fantasy-girlfriend-greta.html">Greta bloody Garbo! and <i>The Mysterious Lady</i></a> - to celebrate the divine Swedish actress as my <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/search/label/My%20Fantasy%20Girlfriends"><b>Ultimate Fantasy Girlfriend</b></a>, I post Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's well-loved pub skit about the glamorous women they imagine are chasing them, and French musician Maxence Cyrin's bewitching music video montage of scenes from one of her silent film roles. <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">[See also below, under <b>Music</b>.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-end.html">The End of The World</a> - more Peter Cook: his famous sketch from the <i>Beyond The Fringe</i> revue, as performed by an all-star lineup at the 1979 Amnesty International benefit concert <i>The Secret Policeman's Ball</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The Music Channel</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/08/great-love-songs-33.html">Song For Whoever</a></i> - Paul Heaton of The Beautiful South wittily sums up why it's unwise to date a writer.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/08/great-drinking-songs-34.html">Because I Got High</a></i> - Afroman's great hymn to marijuana, with the original video and a fan creation splicing together astonishingly appropriate moments from <i>The Simpsons</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/08/bluegrass-makes-everything-better.html">Return To Dismal Swamp</a></i> - I thought this bluegrass instrumental by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band seemed a rather appropriate title to accompany my reluctant return to Beijing at the end of the summer.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/08/top-five-songs-that-make-me-weepy.html">Songs that make me weepy</a> - some of my favourite depression-wallow music: Radiohead, K.D. Lang, The Pogues, Simon & Garfunkel, and Fleetwood Mac.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-blues-make-it-all-seem-better.html">Worried Life Blues</a></i> - a great performance of the blues classic by Eric Clapton and Buddy Guy, and the original recording by its composer, 1940s blues pianist Big Maceo Merriweather.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/09/gosh-has-it-really-been-five-years.html">Liars' Bar</a></i> - another Beautiful South number, rather uncomfortably appropriate for the celebration of my favourite bar's fifth anniversary.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/09/great-love-songs-34.html">Wow and Flutter</a></i> - a jaunty, saucy little love song from up-and-coming New York band April Smith and The Great Picture Show.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/09/our-theme-song.html">We're Not Going To Take It</a></i> - Twisted Sister's anthem of teen rebellion seems to be just as much my 'theme song' now as it was when it first came out in the '80s!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/09/great-love-songs-35-36.html">My Fair Lady</a></i> - my two favourite singalongs from the great Lerner & Loewe musical, <i>On The Street Where You Live</i> and <i>Wouldn't It Be Loverly! </i><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">[See also above, under </span><b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Movies</b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Blues Week</b> - I try to drive away my own blues during China's dratted National Holiday week with a celebration of the variety of my favourite musical form, including choice cuts from <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/09/taking-it-easy.html">Motorhead</a>, <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/10/that-feeling-once-again.html">Cream</a>, <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/10/billy-got-blues-too.html">ZZ Top</a>, <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/10/peter-green-is-god.html">Fleetwood Mac</a> (in the Peter Green era), <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/10/angus.html">AC/DC</a>, <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/10/an-obscure-gem.html">Turley Richards</a>, <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/10/jimmy-also-got-blues.html">Led Zeppelin</a>, and <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/10/farewell-to-blues.html">Otis Spann with Peter Green</a>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-top-five-guitar-riffs.html">Great rock guitar riffs</a> - can you guess what my five favourites are? Go check it out!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/10/great-drinking-songs-35.html">Margaritaville</a></i> - I finally get around to posting the Jimmy Buffett classic, to mark my birthday.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-birthday-headbang.html">Gob on you!</a></i> - another birthday celebration: the <i>Not The Nine O'Clock News</i> team's superb spoof of punk. <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">[See also above, under <b>Comedy</b>.]</span> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/10/drum-bass-top-five-rhythm-pairings.html">Top drum/bass combinations</a> - another 'top five' selection. Do you agree with these choices? (Further <i>great basslines</i> roundups <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/11/another-top-five-basslines.html"><b>here</b></a> and <b><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-farewell-treat-more-hoopy-basslines.html">here</a></b>.)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/10/film-list-oneiric.html"><i>In Dreams</i></a> - Roy Orbison's melancholy love song, as hauntingly used in David Lynch's <i>Blue Velvet</i> (although it seems to keep on getting removed from YouTube). <span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">[See also above, under <b>Movies</b></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/11/great-drinking-songs-36.html">Innocent When You Dream</a></i> - Tom Waits crafts the perfect maudlin barroom singalong.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/11/oppressed-by-fate-yet-again_6.html">Trouble Is A Friend</a></i> - Lenka's infectious hit chimes a little too well with my current feeling of persecution!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-monmouth-connection.html">Tiger Feet</a></i> - the cheesy but irresistible '70s hit from Mud.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Nina Simone tribute</b> - an ultimate <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/search/label/My%20Fantasy%20Girlfriends">'Fantasy Girlfriend'</a> celebrated with postings of <i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/11/great-love-songs-37.html">He Needs Me</a></i>, and <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/11/my-fantasy-girlfriend-nina-simone.html"><i>Strange Fruit</i>, <i>Mississippi Goddamn</i>, and <i>Feeling Good</i></a>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/11/nothing-to-do.html">Flowers On The Wall</a></i> - a rather dull Thanksgiving stuck in a Shanghai hotel room reminds me of The Statler Brothers...</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/11/my-song.html">Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again</a></i> - alas, it is unrespectable to like Gary Glitter any more; but he did put out a few <i>great</i> songs in his prime.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/11/great-drinking-songs-37.html">The Banana Boat Song</a></i> - four versions of Harry Belafonte's signature hit: an extended live performance, the original 1956 recording, his appearance on The Muppet Show, and, of course, Catherine O'Hara's ruined dinner party in <i>Beetlejuice</i>. <span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">[See also above, under <b>Movies</b></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/11/great-love-songs-38.html">A Heart Needs A Home</a></i> - a spine-shivering performance from Richard and Linda Thompson, from the great BBC2 music show <i>The Old Grey Whistle Test</i>. Also included are links to a compilation of the hilarious 'Jazz Club' segments from <i>The Fast Show</i>, and <i>All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit</i> by Half Man Half Biscuit. <span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">[See also above, under </span><b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Comedy</b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/fantasy-girlfriend-leftovers.html">On White Horses</a></i> - the horribly catchy theme song recorded by Irish singer Jackie Lee for the credits of a German/Yugoslavian black&white drama series which played on endless rotation on BBC children's television through the late '60s and early '70s. Helga Anders, the young star of the show, was one of the earliest of my <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/search/label/My%20Fantasy%20Girlfriends">'Fantasy Girlfriends'</a>. <span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">[See also above, under <b>Movies</b></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/telling-stories.html"><i>Ballad of Patch-Eye and Meg</i> and <i>Wanted Man</i></a> - two fantastic songs by Michelle Shocked: the former performed by a German singer calling herself Banjochrystal and accompanied by an animated video; the latter sung by Michelle herself, and including a hilarious preamble.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/holiday-spirit.html">Holiday spirit</a> - two of my favourite Christmas songs: <i>Christmastime In Hell</i> and <i>Merry F***ing Christmas!</i>... from <i>South Park</i>, of course.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/great-drinking-songs-40.html">The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)</a></i> - another great bit of Tom Waits: includes the live version from the <i>Bounced Checks</i> album and a television performance from the spoof chat show <i>Fernwood Tonight</i>. <span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">[See also above, under </span><b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Comedy</b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/great-drinking-songs-39.html">My China 'theme song</a>' - <i>Scapegoat</i> by Chumbawamba: <b><i>"There's always someone else for you to blame."</i></b> If you've ever lived here, you should know <i>exactly</i> what I mean.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/great-love-songs-40.html">The Wind Knows My Name</a></i> - another song with which I identify rather too closely: Eddi Reader and Fairground Attraction here came up with a perfect love song about the nomad heart.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-ultimate-fantasy-girlfriend-greta.html">Where Is My Mind?</a></i> - the Pixies' song rearranged as a classical piano piece with a flavour of Eric Satie about it, the work of French composer Maxence Cyrin, who also created the ravishing video that accompanies it, a montage of Greta Garbo at her most entrancing. The sexiest damn video I've ever seen! <span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">[See also above, under </span><b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Comedy/Movies</b><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/great-drinking-songs-41.html"><i>Underneath the Arches</i> and <i>My Way</i></a> - two signing-off songs: one a quirky personal favourite of mine from British music hall stars Flanagan and Allen, the other a more expected choice from Frank Sinatra (and also Sid Vicious).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And my</span> <b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/search/label/Music%20Week">Music Week</a></span></b> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on <b><a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/">The Barstool</a></b> is still ongoing, with me occasionally making furtive returns to blogging to add new <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/search/label/Top%20Fives">'Top Five'</a> selections of favourite songs. Early highlights in that series included this selection of <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-top-five-jukebox-favourites.html">'golden oldie' jukebox favourites</a>, this collection of <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/top-five-dance-videos.html">memorable dance videos</a>, and this revelation of some of my more <a href="http://thebarprop.blogspot.com/2012/12/unexpected-tastes.html"><i>unexpected</i> musical tastes</a>.</span> More to follow! <i>Keep your eyes peeled.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-66895244689565070372012-12-11T04:15:00.000+00:002012-12-12T05:46:52.297+00:00How far can you push a gag?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I generate a lot of my story ideas just by taking a random situation and teasing it apart logically - exploring different ways in which it could have come about, and different places that it might lead to.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A favourite example is this (which I had considered using as the opening scene for my surreal comedy film, <i><a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-catalyst.html">The Catalyst</a> </i>[I wasn't actually going to call it that, but it was a convenient working title, since it summed up the core concept], which I wrote about a little earlier today): a man is making breakfast in a strange apartment, is uncertain if the milk is out of date, so gingerly takes a sniff of it before adding it to his coffee or cornflakes. It's a scenario familiar to most of us. I think the idea of using something like this in a film was initially suggested to me by William Goldman's fascinating book on screenwriting, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Screen-Trade-Hollywood-Screenwriting/dp/0446391174/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355285549&sr=8-1&keywords=william+goldman"><i>Adventures In The Screen Tr</i>ade</a>, in which he observes that such simple moments of everyday human fallibility can be an effective means of establishing audience identification with a protagonist - he gives the example of a gumshoe movie (I think it might have been Paul Newman's <i>Harper</i>) in which we see the hero in the opening scene being forced to reuse a coffee filter salvaged from the bin.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I thought to myself, <i>How far can we take this, how many times can we reiterate the gag?</i> What if it's not just one carton of milk that's gone off, but two, three, four... twenty?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once we find that the fridge is full of part-used milk cartons, it gets a bit surreal. And it presents us with a mystery - WHY would anyone have this much milk?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I found an answer to this - one that sets up an intriguing back story, and creates tension, threat for the protagonist.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why is he in a strange apartment? Because he's just slept with a girl for the first time. This immediately adds to the potential stress and embarrassment of the situation. Why doesn't she have any fresh milk? Is she just a disorganised slob? Well, he's not going to want to complain about that, is he?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why does she have so much milk? Well, who drinks a lot of milk? Athletes... body-builders. So, her ex-boyfriend is a body-builder, and he's still obsessed with her, has become a stalker; he's in denial about the break-up, and is bullying the milkman into continuing to deliver his order of several pints of milk a day to the apartment, in anticipation of an imminent reconciliation. Hence, not only does our hero find himself in an apartment mysteriously awash with milk, but this leads him to the discovery that his new girlfriend has a complicated past, and that he may be under threat from a burly and psychotic ex-lover of hers.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">[This scenario was, I think, suggested at least in part by <i><a href="http://www.comedy.co.uk/guide/tv/roger_doesnt_live_here_anymore/">Roger Doesn't Live Here Any More</a></i>, a superb BBC2 sitcom from about 1980, written by John Fortune - there was only ever one series of it, alas. One of the gags in this was that the protagonist, going through an acrimonious divorce, had found himself a very beautiful but rather kooky girlfriend, who was also intermittently dating a professional wrestler. She later conceived the idea that perhaps the illicit thrill of adultery was a crucial element of their attraction, so when Roger's divorce finally came through, she immediately went out and married the wrestler, to maintain the excitement in their affair.]</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-52735339228790027192012-12-11T03:15:00.000+00:002012-12-12T05:59:47.418+00:00The catalyst<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another screenplay that I toyed with in my undergraduate days - and, like <a href="http://froogville.blogspot.com/2012/12/dreams-of-escape.html">the last story</a> I described on here, similarly revealing of my yearning to break free from a dull and unsatisfying life, and from the deadly weight of societal expectations - featured a mysterious stranger who seemed to have magical powers to transform the lives of people around him, to liberate them from their inhibitions and enable them to follow their enthusiasms, to live life more fully and freely. (I fancied getting Tom Waits to sing <i>"When you wish upon a star"</i> for the closing credits.)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was basically an excuse to splice together lots of fragmentary ideas I'd had for bizarre little scenarios. One image I wanted to use, for example, was that of cashpoints incontinently spewing money into the air whenever the stranger passes nearby. Another was a running gag of a group of people conducting vigorous paintball battles on the streets of London (initially, of course, this may seem threatening; we perhaps think that we have seen someone get killed; but we discover that the blood is only red paint, and that the fighting is just a harmless game).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One element I was particularly fond of had originally been a separate short story idea, but it was a perfect fit with this theme of cathartic transformation. A brilliant classical pianist is an obsessive perfectionist, and chronically shy. He refuses to perform in public, or even to record his music. A supposed friend, his would-be manager has sequestered him in a luxury apartment, where he plays the piano all day long in a padded basement. The friend is secretly recording the performances, but is repeatedly frustrated by the pianist's refusal ever to finish a piece (perhaps because he suspects what his friend is up to, perhaps just because his obsessive-compulsive streak demands that he breaks off a few bars from the end of the piece if he's not satisfied with his playing). I hadn't worked out how the pianist was going to come in contact with the transformative stranger, but I had the idea that what was making him so crazy was that he just didn't really dig classical music, it was something he'd been forced into specialising in from early childhood. In the first version of the story, he'd simply taken an axe to his piano one day, and then had strode out into the outside world for the first time in years. However, for this film script, I came up with what I thought was an even more powerful image - less violent, more liberating, and a nicely incongruous gag. I pictured him sitting down at his piano to play, brow furrowed in thought as he tries to choose a piece, and then beginning to play something unfamiliar, perhaps - for the first time ever - something <i>improvised</i>, not part of his regular classical canon. He plays four heavy chords, slowly, one after the other; pauses for a while, then repeats them slightly faster; pauses, then plays the chords again much faster, the introduction to a rollicking honky-tonk tune, which we now recognise as 'Great Balls of Fire'. He begins channelling the spirit of Jerry Lee Lewis, exuberantly ripping up the keyboard, playing with his elbows, his feet - and singing, with devastating appropriateness to his peculiar situation, </span><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">"You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain; too much love drives a man insane."</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> For once, he's going to finish a performance; but it's not going to be a recording his manipulative 'manager' can use (in fact, I'd planned to have the pianist discover the hidden microphones and destroy them all just prior to this).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another gag I was fond of - inspired by the technical challenge of filming it - involved the hero (just a regular guy, a put-upon everyman) and his new friend, the 'catalyst', being pursued by the police through an apartment building. The stranger confidently leads them to a doorway which he says can be a means of escape; but they discover that the building has been part demolished and the door opens into thin air. The stranger says simply 'Jump'; the hero hesitates, because it is a 50ft drop to the ground; and the stranger pushes him out. This is where the difficult special effect comes in: the hero would be falling on his back, looking back up in dismay at the friend who has pushed him to his death, and I wanted the camera to move with him, following his fall all the way down to the split-second before he hits the ground. And the gag was: cut to next scene, hero has survived fall but appears to be in a bad way, lying in a hospital bed swathed from head to foot in bandages and plaster casts; the stranger enters the room, grins at him, and starts cutting the casts off, revealing that the hero is in fact unscathed after all. </span><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">"What's the matter?"</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> his strange friend asks him. </span><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">"You didn't trust me?"</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Silly - but I liked it.</span><br />
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-11785361672437572062012-12-11T02:58:00.000+00:002012-12-12T10:51:39.322+00:00Dreams of escape<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes, a story may be rather too baldly revealing of the mental state the writer is in when he conceives it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was desperately unhappy in my studies during my first year or two at college (in fact, I continued to be very unhappy with them throughout my undergraduate career; but after the second year, I really ceased to pay them any attention, and amused myself with numerous other activities); and I thought very seriously about quitting - about walking out on Oxford University. I couldn't quite find the courage to do that. So instead I achieved some catharsis by sketching out a screenplay about a student who 'escapes' his dreary life to have a bizarre adventure.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The opening idea - not quite the first scene in the film, but the first idea that came to me in developing the plot - was a montage depicting the steady deterioration of the protagonist's engagement with his studies (accompanied by some appropriately gloomy music; I had the Albinoni <i>Adagio</i> in mind): a repeated travelling shot down the centre aisle of the college library, offering glimpses of various students diligently - or not so diligently - working in each of the booths (my own college library was notorious for retaining medieval bench seats that were only a few inches wide, and thus hellishly uncomfortable to sit on [wider cushion seats were added to these after my first year, but I had endured many hours of excruciating bum torture on those benches]); protagonist always in the last booth, at first working eagerly with heaps of books on the desk around him; then losing focus, nodding off; then visibly struggling to make his way through just one book; then he is reading more eagerly and easily again, but we see that he is concealing a comic book or a pulp novel inside the dry academic textbook; finally, he has brought a pint of beer into the library with him (something that, although officially discouraged, was easy to do and relatively common during my early days as an undergraduate; the library was nearby the college beer cellar, and was unsupervised outside of office hours, but open round the clock).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I came to focus on the idea of breaking out of ruts, of people seeking to transform stereotypical roles into which they had been cast; and the protagonist's college tutor seemed to be the ideal object for this. I liked the idea that although he seemed to be an unsympathetic figure, he had more in common with his disaffected student than was apparent. I decided to avail myself of the identical twin trope - the identical twin with radically different personality. The tutor is visited one night by the twin he hasn't seen for years, and who most of his friends and colleagues don't even know exists. The twin has been an adventurer and carouser, a globetrotter, an explorer (I pictured him in a safari jacket and pith helmet, as an easy shorthand to establish this; though this wouldn't have been very plausible attire in the depths of an Oxford winter). The twin dies, in a drunken fall or somesuch, and the tutor, who is every bit as desperately bored with his life as his student, and who has always envied his brother's more exotic lifestyle, decides to swap identities with him and run away to start a new life.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cue plot device to create challenge for the protagonist: he has gone to visit his tutor at home on that night, to ask for permission to drop out of college for a year (something I actually did, a little later on), and discovering the dead body - apparently his tutor's body - he falls under suspicion of murder. He now has to hunt down his tutor (I forget the mechanism now, but he discovered some clue to the existence of the twin; I think he may have seen the tutor - or <i>someone who looked uncannily like him</i> - out on the streets of Oxford somewhere), not only to discuss his academic future, but to prove his innocence.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can't recall now exactly how it was all supposed to fit together; I only wrote some sketches for it, not a full treatment.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two other ideas I was keen to use, though, were love-at-first-sight and an unexpectedly abrupt ending.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I fancied having my hero being determined to leave Oxford, being at the station about to get on a train, when he sees a girl arriving on the opposite platform who he finds so stunning that he impulsively decides to follow her. (Oddly enough, I did once enjoy a fortuitous romantic encounter - seeing an ex-girlfriend of whom I was still very fond - in very similar circumstances at Reading station a few years later.) Despite this stalker-ish opening, romance blossoms, and the girl is the one person who can help him through his various tribulations. I think this might have been in an early version of the story, before I'd hit upon murder investigation/identity swap plot device, but I wanted to keep it - everybody loves a love story.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also have a weakness for downbeat, not to say tragic endings. So, I had the idea that my hero - having cleared his name, found love with a beautiful girl, and perhaps even rediscovered his zest for his studies - is knocked down by a bus, just as he's finished a conversation with his girlfriend. This has been lightly foreshadowed by him once or twice early in the story joking that one "might get knocked down by a bus tomorrow" in a 'Life's too short!' argument for behaving more adventurously. (I had a particular paranoia about the buses on Cornmarket, a pedestrian shopping street in the centre of Oxford, where the buses - as the only motorised traffic allowed there - could take you rather by surprise, and often did drive quite fast, quite aggressively through the crowds of people. I strongly suspected that a moment's lapse of concentration on this street might be how I would meet my death.)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.com0