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Let it snow
Woke this morning to Christmas Day 2012, in L’Escala, Spain. Bon Nadal.
Wherever you are and whatever you are celebrating, may it be a good one.
Donde es?
Where are you, Patricia? Is all well in Arizona?
Brave choice
Sally Nugent’s on ‘Breakfast’. I like her, not least for having the courage to wear **** me shoes at that time of the morning.
Happy Christmas in Ventallo
We had the great pleasure of attending the ‘Caga Tió’ event at our Mia’s nursery on Friday. I could put subtitles on the following video, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that as they hit the logs, the children are asking it to produce presents.
Crackers
I’ve just read a newspaper account of a press conference given by Wayne LaPierre, executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association, at which he is said to have given that body’s first meaningful reaction to the horrific Newtown school shooting, America’s Dunblane. Most non-Americans don’t understand the complexities of the Second Amendment, so I’m not going to comment on Mr LaPierre’s proposal that armed guards be posted in every school in the nation, or on his comment that the only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
Instead I’ll leave it to the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, who said, ‘Instead of offering solutions to a problem they have helped create, they offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe.’
I’m saying nothing either about the Association’s criticism of video games either, because I reckon they may have a point.
However when it comes to Mr LaPierre’s crackpot call for a national database of the mentally ill, I will not hold my fire. That is one of the most dangerous, evil and fascistic ideas I have ever heard, and yet it comes from a body that is said to have made campaign donations to half the members of the US Congress.
Noises off
I hear what you say, Gillian. The decision to use several readers was taken by Isis because of the structure of the book, and I was consulted on certain aspects of the casting. It was a brave call, given that it was always going to be impossible to please all of the people all of the time, and possibly any of them. For example, so far I haven’t got past the first section, because whoever else that guy is meant to sound like, he isn’t a ferocious Leither of Irish/Italian descent.
But I promise, it was a one-off. Pray for the Dying is third person, and my expectation is that Jim will be back.
Christmas cheer
I am indebted to the Herald, one of my morning newspaper reads, for the following,
‘BRUSSELS sprouts should come with a health warning after a Scot was taken to hospital when he ate too many last Christmas, it has been claimed.
The vegetable contains vitamin K, which aids blood clotting in humans but counteracts the effects of blood thinning medication.
The man from Ayrshire was prescribed anticoagulants after suffering heart failure, but doctors were mystified when he was admitted to the Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, with clotting.
They could not work out why the medication did not work until they discovered he had eaten too many sprouts, according to an Australian medical journal.
Consultant cardiologist Dr Roy Gardner said: “Patients taking anticoagulants are advised not to eat too many green leafy vegetables, as they are full of vitamin K.”’
They also make one fart.
Wow
Twelve years late, I’ve just got round to watching a movie called ‘Amores Perros‘. Breathtaking.
TV or not TV
Every time I do a gig, the TV question comes up, one way or another. There’s a widespread assumption among readers that authors are keen to be snapped up for telly, 1) for the screen-time money, and 2) for the extra book sales it will generate. Yes, for a while I was that masked author, until I had first hand experience of the impact that a screen-writer can have on the characters that you created and hold dear to your heart.
I was reminded of this when I watched the Sky adaptation of Robert Wilson’s first two ‘Falcón‘ novels, under that title. My thoughts went straight to the Skinner script that was handed to me a few years back, and prompted me to buy and read the adapted works in their original form, to see how different the stories are. Currently, I am half way through the last of the quartet. They are gobsmackingly good. If you have seen the TV version and want to grasp the true meaning of the word ‘superficial’, my advice is to follow my example and read the works in their original form. If you haven’t seen the TV adaptation, don’t bother, just buy the books.
Thanks . . .
. . . to Andy Nimmo for that speedy comment. No, Andy, I was not washed anywhere by the recent North Berwick storm. In fact I wasn’t within a thousand miles of it, as we’ve been in Spain for the last week.
Things you forget: latest on the list is this . . . do not head north on the Ronda de Dalt through Barcelona at around 6:30pm on weekdays. It took us the best part of an hour to clear the city, all of it nose to tail. It was worth it in the end though,
as the weather’s been pretty decent ever since. Coffee time looms, so we’ll be heading down there again.
Mhairi Tierney
You don’t tell me who you suspect, so I can’t comment . . . not that I would, anyway.
I’ve missed me from the blog as well, but sometimes it’s good to take a break.
Allan Ramsden
Well, Homer it’s like this. They’re listed in order on my website and on this blog.
Mistake
I’m posting this just before the long-awaited Leveson Report hits the fan and splashes all over David Cameron, the man who was silly enough to commission it.
I’m sure that when our Prime Minister let it loose, he expected and anticipated that it would be a serious and meaningful investigation of journalistic standards in the UK. Major public inquiries are meant to give a voice to the voiceless, to victims of abuse or injustice, and to consider any wrongs done to them in a sober, responsible manner. They are not meant, at least I hope they aren’t, to evolve into video-boxes for B and C list celebrities, anxious to show the world that in days past they were important or interesting enough to have their voicemail hacked, but diluting the focus on the most serious media abuses.
Leveson has been criticised for this, and accused of exceeding his remit. Take the time to read the brief he was given and you may conclude that it is so wide ranging and imprecise that it could not be misinterpreted. Nevertheless, he went along with it, and as a result invited submissions from everyone under the Sun, and the News of the World and the Mirror, etc. The flaw in this is that the can he opened held so many worms that many were shoved backin there again, as the media, itself under investigation, focused attention on the trivial and away from the truly contentious. As an example, the written evidence of Deborah Grobbelaar, is well worth reading, but never will be other than by those people in the future who seek to gain PhDs, or sit in the Mastermind chair, specialist subject ‘The Leveson Inquiry’. You won’t find it reported in the Sun, that’s for sure.
I believe that most of those future doctorate theses will argue that Leveson did more harm than he did good. I believe also that Dave set the whole thing up off the cuff and that now he is regretting it. Well he may, as he struggles to stay afloat in the torrent that is flooding through his friend Charlie’s Augean stables, and many other places.
It may well bring him down. Will it also signal the end of a truly free British media? No. Why not? Because the media won’t let it.
Queen
Another one bites the dust. Yesterday, I delivered the manuscript of the fifth Primavera novel to my friends at Headline, two months before P4, Deadly Business, hits the shops and e-stores. The current production schedule means that it won’t be published until the beginning of 2014, but it’s off my desktop. Now I can turn my attention to the new Rebus. John has been waiting patiently at the top of my reading pile for a few weeks. Almost ready, mate; soon as I finish The Blind Man of Seville.
Honouring John
http://www.scottishreview.net/GaryDickson38.shtml
This is a good idea; I’ll second this proposal, but any Bellany Gallery has to be in Port Seton, surely.
Your DL-tea is out
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20358716
Presumption of innocence has no meaning for Bauer Media, it seems. They don’t care much about local radio either, judging by the job they’ve done in Scotland of cheapening the content of our stations and emasculating their news coverage.
March?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20349305
I’m sorry if I seem xenophobic here, but who is this man Regan, and how did he come to be running Scottish football? He was recruited from Yorkshire County Cricket Club, never famous for its exemplary management, he has no background in football, and very little in Scotland, other than the short period when he worked for Coors. A background in brewing may seem relevant to the beautiful game, but only on the terraces, not on the field. There were calls for his head during the Rangers affair. Now, as he scrambles around for a manager to replace Craig Levein, currently engaged in a legal dispute over the manner of his sacking, supervised by Regan, the feeling is growing that the chief executive doesn’t really know what he’s doing. As witness, we have the continuing speculation that Joe Jordan might get the job. Big Joe’s a legend, for sure, and a good club coach, but I know a couple of guys who would be unlikely to give him a reference for any management post, least of all the one currently vacant at Hampden.
If Craig had to go, and I still believe that was a mistake, in spite of Scotland’s heroic 2 — 1 victory in ******* Luxembourg, the SFA would have been better advised to move him into the Chief Executive’s chair, for I’m in no doubt that he is far better suited to the role than the current incumbent.
Wow
For those who haven’t seen it; for example much of the population of Scotland:
http://www.itv.com/sport/football/update/2012-11-14/replay-ibra-does-something-special/
Quintin Jardine's blog 