York & Durham
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21:27, July 22nd 2005
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The sixth book in the Potter series. In which, as usual, stubborn Harry finds himself in mortal danger because he doesn’t ask the right questions at the right time, lets his paranoia run deep, starts dating his best friend’s sister and Dumbledore gets killed. By Snape (The Half Blood Prince in question). Hm. The last book will be interesting I can already see some things that will happen, I think.
It’s far from a masterpiece, but it is a real page turner. I think it took me about six hours to read!
I’d be deluding myself to offer a recommendation for this book – people will either read it or they won’t.
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22:11, July 16th 2005
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The sixth book in the Potter series. In which, as usual, stubborn Harry finds himself in mortal danger because he doesn’t ask the right questions at the right time, lets his paranoia run deep, starts dating his best friend’s sister and Dumbledore gets killed. By Snape (The Half Blood Prince in question). Hm. The last book will be interesting I can already see some things that will happen, I think.
It’s far from a masterpiece, but it is a real page turner. I think it took me about six hours to read!
I’d be deluding myself to offer a recommendation for this book – people will either read it or they won’t.
B+, Books, Junior Fiction, Rated, fantasy
B+, Books, Junior Fiction, Rated, fantasy
08:23, July 16th 2005
This post is in memory of Liz.
She was a regular on my favourite online haunt, ILX.
It was confirmed this evening that she was murdered in one of the tube blasts in London on the 7th of July.
I never met her and I couldn’t say I knew her but I enjoyed her presence on ILX.
My deepest condolences go to her boyfriend Rob and her family.
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21:02, July 15th 2005
Tony & Me by Georg Bush as told to Dr. Parsons
Taking the form of childlike drawings drawn by ‘Georg Bush’ as part of psychiatric treatment by ‘Dr Parsons’.
Short, sick and satirical. Took me two minutes to read.
The worrying thing is that some of the images are all too plausible as representations of what’s going through Bush’s mind.
Only recommended for those people who dislike President Bush, especially recommended to people who have a very dark sense of humour.
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13:04, July 8th 2005
Riot Police in Edinburgh.
Yesterday proved to be an eventful day in Edinburgh. I work right by the Meadows where the big march started on Saturday. I came into work as usual and all that was different was a very large amount of fresh graffiti on the walls of the buildings around George Square.
All seemed normal until lunchtime when we were advised that access in and out of the library was being controlled under police advice. Apparently the police had contained a number of the clown army in crichton street car park and searched the people and their vehicles for weapons, etc. I saw a couple of clowns myself as I headed out for food. They were causing no disruption whatsoever.
Then in the afternoon we were getting news relayed from the radio about the skirmishes in the west end and in princes street. It seemed bizarre to think that this sort of thing could happen in Edinburgh in the height of tourist season.
Eventually news came that the police had restricted access to Waverley station, so I headed off to catch my train home while I still could. The streets were busy, but pretty normal, until I reached the bottom of cockburn street, where I could see a group of sixty or so police in full riot gear walking slowly south along waverley bridge. This is a extremely strange sight. It was all a bit surreal. Luckily the station was open, just with access limited to the north ramp entrance on waverley bridge. I got my train home fine.
Being nosy I spent some time looking at various news sources when I got home. From what I can tell, and reading between the lines, there was a very small number of activists (20 – 50?) intent on direct action yesterday. Their plan seems to have been to occupy and/or damage the offices of one of the big financial institutions in the west end of edinburgh. The vast majority of the roughly 1000 protestors were not involved in this at all. In all honestly I think they were being used as a distraction by the direct action groups.
The police tactics seem to have been to contain the entire group of protestors in a confined area until they were too tired/hungry/thirsty to continue with the protest.
Bear in mind that I have no particular love for the police (I’ve not forgotten what they were willing to do during the miner’s strike) and I think that flooding the city centre with imported men in riot gear was an overreaction considering the numbers of protestors they were dealing with, but what else did anyone think they were going to do? At least the policy of containment didn’t lead to an all out riot.
It’s obvious that things didn’t remain entirely calm but I can’t get a clear picture on who was responsible for things breaking down into skirmishes yesterday afternoon. Probably a combination of frustrated & anxious protesters and twitchy, nervous police setting each other off. Then again, maybe I’m too willing to be even handed?
When I came in this morning I noticed that various closes and steps up to the high street were closed off and I saw a very large amount of new graffiti around chambers street, potterow and teviot. At potterow union some of the boards protecting the shop windows had been half prised off.
Some of the graffiti is quite entertaining (my favourite so far is ‘make popstars, politicians and the police history’) and I’m hoping to get some photos before it’s removed.
I think I’ll be glad when this G8 nonsense and the related protests are all over. I like an easy uncomplicated life, me.
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07:33, July 5th 2005
Accelerando
All kudos to Mr Stross with this one. I read it as an ebook released under Creative Commons. I’m looking forward to buying it in paperback.
This is the story of three generations of a family called Macx.
Manfred is an concept hustler in a vaguely recognizable near future where money is becoming an increasingly nebulous concept and AI is approaching viability. He’s in a confusing relationship with Pamela, his dominatrix. They have a child, Amber, but she’s only brought to term after the couple divorce. Amber has a tortuous relationship with Pamela who can’t handle the speed of social change in a world where computing is ubiquitous and reputation matters more than wealth. With her father’s help Amber escapes to Jupiter, before going on a sublight journey as an upload to a universal router. Coming back from her journey Amber discovers that her original self (now dead) had a child called Sirhan who is a conservative in league with the aged Pamela to intercept Amber’s return.
The cat’s role in all this is very important.
This is a thought-provoking, witty book. It originally appeared as a series of novellas in a science fiction magazine, and is very well pulled together into one volume. It’s only weakness is the denouement. Which I thought was rather weak.
I recommend this to anyone who enjoys top notch science fiction, especially to anyone who likes Vernor Vinge or Neal Stephenson.
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19:32, July 4th 2005