From the Heart of Europe

• Judgement on Fermanagh and South Tyrone election
  Michelle Gildernew still wins.
  (tags: northernireland)
• Heather Hurlburt: Wikileaks: War Is (Misbegotten) Hell
  (tags: waronterror)

24 October 2005: death of Robert Sloman, who co-wrote The Dæmons (1971), and was credited as sole author of The Time Monster (1972), The Green Death (1973), and Planet of the Spiders (1974) - the season finales for all but the first of the Pertwee years.

24 October: This is the last date with no broadcast Whoniversaries until 20 December.

Maybe it's a mistake to try reading stream-of-consciousness literature while on a transatlantic flight and over the subsequent days of jetlag (which has hit me much worse than usual on this trip), but I almost completely bounced off this book about a decaying family of the Old South (apart from the third of the four sections, the one narrated by the cynical and self-centred Jason).

In particular, the first section, whose narrator is the severely disabled Benjy, failed to ring true for me. It seemed to me to repeat the fatal problem of The Red Badge of Courage, in that the writer's voice is far more sophisticated than his character's thinking could possibly be. Very specifically, I observe from my own daughters that they are much more interested in their own emotional state than in observing what other people are saying or doing around them; Benjy, as portrayed by Faulkner, is completely the opposite, and I found that so contrary to my own experience that I could not engage with the story at all.

(I also didn't really like the racism of his characters being displayed but not really interrogated, but I'm also reading Huckleberry Finn at the moment which is rather worse in that regard.)

Another in the series of graphic novels about Scott Pilgrim's battles with Ramona's seven evil ex-boyfriends - though in this case the evil Todd shows up dating Scott's own evil ex-girlfriend, Natalie aka Envy. As usual, an entertaining combination of youthful angst with the fantasy of computer games; Scott's extra life, and Todd being robbed of his powers due to being insufficiently vegan, are highlights.