Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 113
How do you pronounce the consonant in the middle of the word "Asia", when speaking English?
View Answers
like "s" in "sugar" [ʃ]
12 (10.6%)
like "s" in "leisure" [ʒ] 98 (86.7%)
like "s" in "stop" [s] 0 (0.0%)
like "s" in "bugs" [z] 1 (0.9%)
I don't know 0 (0.0%)
Other which I will explain in comments 2 (1.8%)
A chapter full of thrilling incident. The catastrophic Gallienus is replaced by Claudius II, and he in turn very quickly by Aurelian, who conducts a series of successful military campaigns - against the Goths, reconquering Gaul and then also defeating the fascinating Zenobia of Palmyra - before being in turn assassinated.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jekesta I lasted only 20 minutes.)So in a spirit of sientific enquiry I obtained and watched all six episodes of Kröd Mändoon, to assess whether SFX's ratings were reliable. My mature judgement: SFX are probably right. Kröd Mändoon is rubbish, desperately trying to be funny but basically running through adolescent jokes about sex while waving swords about. At least the episodes are only twenty minutes long, and it filled a few commutes nicely.
But never mind what I thought; what do you think?
Poll #1494823
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 97
Hex (2004-05), about a remote English country school that becomes the battleground between a demonic entity and the witches who oppose it:
View Answers
Never heard of it 36 (37.5%)
Heard of it but didn't watch any of it 35 (36.5%)
Saw some of it, thought it was rubbish 11 (11.5%)
Watched all of it, thought it was rubbish 2 (2.1%)
Actually I rather liked it 9 (9.4%)
Other, which I shall explain in comments 3 (3.1%)
Hyperdrive (2006-07), following the crew of HMS Camden Lock as they stumble through their heroic mission to protect British interests in a changing galaxy in the year 2151:
View Answers
Never heard of it 40 (43.0%)
Heard of it but didn't watch any of it 20 (21.5%)
Saw some of it, thought it was rubbish 21 (22.6%)
Watched all of it, thought it was rubbish 2 (2.2%)
Actually I rather liked it 7 (7.5%)
Other, which I shall explain in comments 3 (3.2%)
Jericho (2006-08), about the residents of the fictional town of Jericho, Kansas in the aftermath of nuclear attacks on 23 major cities in the contiguous United States:
View Answers
Never heard of it 16 (16.8%)
Heard of it but didn't watch any of it 50 (52.6%)
Saw some of it, thought it was rubbish 16 (16.8%)
Watched all of it, thought it was rubbish 0 (0.0%)
Actually I rather liked it 8 (8.4%)
Other, which I shall explain in comments 5 (5.3%)
The Listener (2009), about a young Toronto paramedic named Toby Logan (Craig Olejnik) with the ability to listen to people's most intimate thoughts:
View Answers
Never heard of it 72 (75.0%)
Heard of it but didn't watch any of it 18 (18.8%)
Saw some of it, thought it was rubbish 3 (3.1%)
Watched all of it, thought it was rubbish 0 (0.0%)
Actually I rather liked it 3 (3.1%)
Other, which I shall explain in comments 0 (0.0%)
Blade: The Series (2006), based on the Marvel Comics character and starring Sticky Fingaz:
View Answers
Never heard of either the comic or the TV series 22 (23.4%)
I have heard of the comic but not of the TV series 28 (29.8%)
Heard of the TV series but didn't watch any of it 32 (34.0%)
Saw some of it, thought it was rubbish 7 (7.4%)
Watched all of it, thought it was rubbish 1 (1.1%)
Actually I rather liked it 2 (2.1%)
Other, which I shall explain in comments 2 (2.1%)
Masters of Science Fiction (2007), an anthology series dramatising "A Clean Escape" by John Kessel, "The Awakening" by Howard Fast, "Jerry Was a Man" by Robert A. Heinlein, "The Discarded" by Harlan Ellison, "Little Brother" by Walter Mosley and "Watchbird" by Robert Sheckley:
View Answers
Never heard of it 62 (65.3%)
Heard of it but didn't watch any of it 20 (21.1%)
Saw some of it, thought it was rubbish 3 (3.2%)
Watched all of it, thought it was rubbish 2 (2.1%)
Actually I rather liked it 6 (6.3%)
Other, which I shall explain in comments 2 (2.1%)
Painkiller Jane (2007), another comics adaptation starring Kristanna Loken as the eponymous indestructible undercover cop:
View Answers
Never heard of either the comic or the TV series 66 (68.8%)
I have heard of the comic but not of the TV series 7 (7.3%)
Heard of the TV series but didn't watch any of it 15 (15.6%)
Saw some of it, thought it was rubbish 7 (7.3%)
Watched all of it, thought it was rubbish 0 (0.0%)
Actually I rather liked it 1 (1.0%)
Other, which I shall explain in comments 0 (0.0%)
Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire (2009), about the struggle between reluctant hero Kröd Mändoon (Sean Maguire), and the evil ruler, Chancellor Dongalor (Matt Lucas):
View Answers
Never heard of it 52 (54.7%)
Heard of it but didn't watch any of it 21 (22.1%)
Saw some of it, thought it was rubbish 9 (9.5%)
Watched all of it, thought it was rubbish 2 (2.1%)
Actually I rather liked it 9 (9.5%)
Other, which I shall explain in comments 2 (2.1%)
Demons (2009), about London teenager Luke Rutherford (Christian Cooke), who learns that he is the last descendant of the Van Helsing line by the sudden arrival of his American godfather Rupert Galvin (Philip Glenister):
View Answers
Never heard of it 43 (45.3%)
Heard of it but didn't watch any of it 21 (22.1%)
Saw some of it, thought it was rubbish 15 (15.8%)
Watched all of it, thought it was rubbish 8 (8.4%)
Actually I rather liked it 5 (5.3%)
Other, which I shall explain in comments 3 (3.2%)
Flash Gordon (2007-08), starring Eric Johnson and Gina Holden:
View Answers
Never heard of Flash Gordon 1 (1.0%)
I have heard of Flash Gordon somehow hadn't heard of this version 48 (49.5%)
Heard of it but didn't watch any of it 29 (29.9%)
Saw some of it, thought it was rubbish 17 (17.5%)
Watched all of it, thought it was rubbish 0 (0.0%)
Actually I rather liked it 1 (1.0%)
Other, which I shall explain in comments 1 (1.0%)
With any multi-Doctor story, you have to assess the writer's success in characterising each Doctor (and companions), and with comics you have to grade the artists' ability to depict the actors' faces as well. The Forgotten scrapes a pass mark on both counts. There are some seriously jarring notes in both the One/Ian and Three/Brigadier scenes, which suggests that Tony Lee doesn't quite get the male companions (Jack Harkness is in the vicinity but unseen at a later point in the narrative). And unfortunately Stefano Martino, the artist for issue 3, is rather awful at portraying Ten, Four and Five. (Pia Guerra and Kelly Yates are at least adequate for the other five issues.)
At the same time there is definitely cause for fannish glee. There are an awful lot of companions featured here (in order: Susan, Ian, Barbara, Steven, Jamie, Zoe, the Brigadier, Jo, Sarah, Harry, Leela, Romana II, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, Kamelion [!], Peri, Mel, Ace, Rose and Martha) and most of them are at least half-decently done. Putting aside my whining about the recognisability of the faces, the art is excellent. The story has a certain internal integrity and ties in rather well (as it turns out) to New Who's Season Four, though with a decent number of continuity references to the whole of the series. Thoroughly good fun.
I do remember starting to read it as a child, and being deterred by the grim first couple of chapters, where Mary's parents die and she is sent to her uncle's isolated Yorkshire home where she is insufferably unpleasant. I wish I had kept going. It is a lovely story of psychological and physical healing through close encounters with the regenerative forces of the natural world and also, y'know, just being nice to people.
The wind must have been worse than I realised today, because I found I had something in my eye a couple of times as I read the last chapters. Perhaps the plotline of a disabled child whose condition markedly improves resonates more with me these days than it would have thirty-four years ago.
( The Crusade: 'How did I get myself involved in this?' )
( The Space Museum: 'If you want to save yourself, you'd better bring him back to life.' )
( The Chase: 'Well, you must admit it was funny.' 'Really? I haven't seen the joke yet, I must say.' )
( Ian and Barbara )
( The Time Meddler: 'That is the dematerializing control. And that, over yonder, is the horizontal hold. Up there is the scanner, those are the doors, that is a chair with a panda on it. Sheer poetry, dear boy!' )
( Galaxy 4: 'We are strange beings to you. You've never met anything like us.' )
( Read more... )
All trace of the old station has now gone. ( Read more... )
But we can get an idea of what it might have looked like ( Read more... )
I am left with one rather minor nagging mystery. ( Read more... )
( November Books 23) A History of the Middle East, by Peter Mansfield )
( November Books 24) Islam: A Short History, by Karen Armstrong )
Almost entirely about the barbarians - mainly the Goths - with the deadly succession of shortlived emperors mere background detail. And this seems right - the real story is not the politics of the Empire's leadership, but the story of how the empire catastrophically failed to maintain the physical security of its inhabitants, the first duty of any state, as the eastern defences crumbled both north and south. It seems to me almost as if the Roman Empire collapsed at this point, the middle of the third century.
http://www.rathmorereunion2010.co.u
But it could never have been made. It's not because of the numerous hostages to continuity offered by Farhi's script - language-teaching machine in the Tardis, the Doctor's belief in God, Susan's statements about their home time - these would have been weeded out in the editorial process. It is not even that the Tardis crew don't really impact events (though that is a weakness of the story). It is simply that it is too sad: Alexander's three closest friends all fall victims to the conspirators, followed by Alexander himself, leaving his realm to be divided between the complicit Seleucus and the loyal Ptolemy. As one of the commentaries in this edition puts it, Barbara and Susan shed more tears in this script than Rose Tyler does in her entire career.
We also have a bonus here, a single episode story (or perhaps the last episode of an unwritten longer story), The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance, in which the Tardis crew visits a planet where one of the locals literally dies of love for Barbara. It is also too sad to ever have been turned into a broadcast story, but I think that today's fanficcers would love it - it's totally in tune with the idea of takiing the show's characters to places that the show's writers never could.
So this is strongly recommended, though for slightly different reasons than I though it might be: good emotional character-driven writing, and a glimpse of how Doctor Who mght have been.
There is no explanation in the article of why she is depicted in this way, so a lot of European Voice readers will be mildly puzzled.
Moorcock describes this as a "funny, futuristic" book, but it is really a parody of the invasion scare sub-genre. I have read a few other books in that genre - The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, When William Came by Saki, and a collection edited by I.F. Clarke.
Moorcock is, however, correct to describe it as funny, despite the incomprehensible contemporary cultural references and unpleasant racial stereotypes (which as far as I remember are largely absent from later Wodehouse). England is invaded by nine different armies, ranging from the Germans and Russians down to the forces of Monaco and the Mad Mullah of Somaliland (the latter driven to further derangement by a meeting with Irish Nationalist leader John Dillon). The occupied English grumble about the disruption to cricket and the theatre caused by the invaders, but this is resolved when the German and Russian commanders agree to appear as music-hall acts.
Clarence Chugwater, the somewhat nerdy Boy Scout who is Wodehouse's comic hero, manages to sow dissension between the German and Russian leaders by way of his day-job at an entertainment weekly. The two armies come close to wiping each other out, the Boy Scouts capture the survivors, and England is saved. Hurrah! (In the unlikely event that anyone feels I have spoiled the ending for them, I would point out that all is revealed in the very first chapter.)
This is not a good starting place for reading Wodehouse's works. (Indeed, it wasn't even a very good starting place foir writing Wodehouse's works.) But it is an interesting intersection of the fringes of the sf genre with his rather different genius when both were at an early stage of development.
( The ending, and the Doctor )
I got home to find The Circus of Doom, episode three of the new The Hornet's Nest series, with Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, waiting for me. A half-day in Paris on Thursday gave me time to listen to it as I walked from the Gare du Nord to my meeting at the Tuileries and back. Unfortunately I wasn't wildly impressed; it seemed to me too similar to the second episode, The Dead Shoes, with the added demerit of a comedy foreign disabled character (played very well by Stephen Thorne, but that doesn't really help). I do hope that the fourth and fifth episodes, due out at the start of next month, are an improvement.
As I drove across Connecticut last weekend, I was listening to The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel, one of the Bernice Summerfield plays released just over a year ago. It is a sequel to my favourite New Adventure, All-Consuming Fire, and features two brilliant actors, David Warner playing Mycroft Holmes and Peter "Nyder" Miles as the evil alien, as well as of course Lisa Bowerman herself. It would alas be slightly incomprehensible to those who don't know All-Consuming Fire but was great fun and consoled me for missing the broadcast on the other side of the Atlantic.
( pictures )
Hope I go back some day.
This chapter does what it says in the title, giving us an account of the Germans largely (and occasionally critically) based on Tacitus, and ending by wondering why they did not make more effort to attack Rome between Varus [9 AD] and Decius [251 AD] (the explanations given being lack of metal technology, and too much internal dissent). But Gibbon also uses it to attach a lot of other philosophical speculation, in particular about the politics, social life and culture of the German tribes as precursors of the civilisation of Western Europe (in particular of course England).
( November Books 18) Millennial Rites, by Craig Hinton )
( November Books 19) Spiral Scratch, by Gary Russell )
In summary, both Time Of Your Life and Millennial Rites are rather good, and Spiral Scratch improves after a weak start.
- Fair comment
- Couldn't agree more!
Hochschild's subtitle is "A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa". The heroism described is mostly that of the few investigators who dared to tell the truth of the mutilations, murders and slavery that characterised Leopold's Congo, the likes of E.D. Morel and Roger Casement. Hochschild regrets that there are very few accounts available from the African perspective. Conrad's Heart of Darkness is about the destructive moral effect of the Congo experience on Europeans like Kurtz; the Africans in the story do not speak, and they were rarely allowed to tell their story in real life either.
My office is a stone's throw from the Parc du Cinquantenaire / Jubelpark, created in the suburb beyond Etterbeek by Leopold II from his vast Congolese profits. It contains a rather disturbing monument to the Congo enterprise, as well as the pretentious archway which frames the end of the Rue de la Loi / Wetstraat. A favourite excursion for the children is to the Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren, where the stuffed animals are cute but the historical record is, in more than one sense of the word, whitewashed. As Hochschild points out, the legacy of the colonial enterprise is visible in the streets of Belgium today, if you know where to look, or indeed if you just look with your eyes open.
I had been looking forward tothis, but it sounds like it was pretty terrible. One comment that caught my eye:
"A few days ago, I would have been willing to watch Sir Ian McKellen read the phonebook in a genial but vaguely menacing manner. Now I feel like I already have."
"It is hard to convey to outsiders the narcissistic parochialism of Brussels at the moment."
It was well worth it. Several of the speakers quoted from Nicholas White's correspondence; several more are working him into their current research projects; and only one person gave me a funny look when I explained my interest. I came away very motivated to pursue further research on my 9xgreat-grandfather, and with numerous leads to follow up. Also, and this is not a negligible point, the Nathan Hale Inn on the university campus was by far the most comfortable of the five hotels I stayed in at various points over the last two weeks. (The fire alarm that went off at 2.15 am on the last night was probably not their fault.)
I was struck, not for the first time, about the difference between panels at this sort of conference and at sf cons. Everyone here had carefully compiled papers (in a couple of cases, rather too long for the time available), all decently footnoted, which one can (and does) request copies of by email afterwards. Just a bit different from the fandom panel where the people up front get to burble about whatever they like, and the anarchic culture of fandom is if anything rather prejudiced against structured presentations. The conferences I attend in my professional capacity tend to be halfway in between, in that speakers are not normally expected to have a written presentation of academic quality, but the speaking order and Q&A are usually fairly tightly structured. (Looking for an example of this, I found this event which I spoke at some years back, where in fact most of the speakers did have prepared statements, and the whole thing was correspondingly less enjoyable.)
I must say that the more thought given to the structure of such an event, and the greater the level of shared expectations between organisers and participants about what will happen, the more everyone will get out of it, and the Elizabeth I and Ireland conference was an excellent example of that coming together. Kudos to Brendan Kane, the main organiser, who also took the trouble to help me sort out my accommodation once I arrived.
(No love to the traffic in south-eastern Connecticut, however. When I drove from NY to Boston back in 2005 I swore I would never do that again, and now I remember why.)
Syndicate
