I Shall Wear Midnight

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The arrival of a new Pratchett is always a big deal here in our tiny refuge within the hellish suburbian post-industrial wastelands that they call South-East Essex. It pretty much means that I will not be available for any chores within the house, including picking up the phone, answer emails or at all rise from the sofa. After me finishing The Book, it’s the best girlfriend’s ever turn to take over the tome and to indulge in a brief spell of escapism full of politically incorrect witches, moronic right wing types, ghosts with OCD and anarchic gnomes. So this time it was the teenage witch Tiffany to take over the helm in the protagonist’s chair and as before she seems to bring out Pratchett’s more introspective side. Why this book is labelled ‘for young adults’ (like the previous Tiffany novels) is beyond me. First, you could very well argue that all of Pratchett’s books appeal to young adults (and middle aged adults and older adults and decrepit old fogies like myself). Second, Tiffany always seems to bring out Prattchett’s philosophical side, making the books arguably more attractive to an older audience. Third, the distiction is completely arbitrary.

Anyway, the book is (as usual) a cracker. It covers all the usual, recurring issues that Pratchett (understandably) has been grappling with repeatedly in his last novels: Hate, tolerance, feminism, death, pre- and postmarital sex are all covered with Pratchett’s usual deftness and it’s hard not to feel both elated and shed a tear at the end of the novel.

I remain convinced that if more people would read Pratchett (especially Teaparty conservatives), the world would surely a better place, but that remains a pipe dream as he is surely blacklisted for these guys, just like that dangerous indoctrinator J.K. Rowling.

Opentech

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Yesterday UKUUG and the government (in form of data.gov.uk) held Opentech 2010. It was the usual mixture of very thin hirsute and bald overweight (that would be me) men and a suprisingly respectable amount of respectable women. The nutter index was unusually low and the questions asked during the Q&A session were all exceedingly sensible.

Highlight of the day was without question a joint session with my favourite media geek, the indomitable Bill Thompson and the CEO of environmental consultancy AMEE. Unsurprisngly, the chap from AMEE wanted us to do something to preserve the future, while Uncle Bill (who, btw, does his best work for the best podcast on the web, Radio New Zealand’s ‘This way up‘) wanted us to lobby the media to preserve the the slowly decaying content of their archives. Fair enough.

OpenTech resembled your typical male geek: excellent intellectual content with a shambolic exterior. The cafe didn’t deliver, people didn’t get their food, the place looked like a bomb exploded and there were no facilities (apart from a nearby pub) to make oneself comfy and discuss php with one’s peers.

If they could that right, I am sure the guest list might look even better, and the attendance would go up as well. Nevertheless, Opentech delivered. A bit like a slightly smelly IT-chap in a dirty thinkgeek t-shirt popping around your workplace and fixing your printer, while making surprisingly intelligent conversation about data mining and role playing games.

Walking around Basildon?

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If you – like me – live in the postindustrial wastelands that is modern day South – East Essex, you will be delighted if you get out of the concrete desert from time to time and get some fresh air and get away from the NEETs.  Surprisingly, this is actually not that, hard, as the County and District Councils run a surprisingly large and diverse collection of country parks. To find the best ones, may I recommend the following little tome:

‘Secret Basildon’ by Sue Ranford is a little gem of a book with 15 medium and short range walks around some of the nicest nature reserves you would hope to find. Sue makes the walks easy to find and to navigate, adds helpful little maps and gives you even a little hint or two on what to look out for.

Today we walked around the lovely Northlands Wood Country Reserve which is literally 5 minutes by car from Basildon proper and (apart from the constant din from the A13) lets you forget that you live in one of the most unappealing places in England. Quite a feat.

Just around the corner from Basildon. Really?

The Style Council. Uncool Geniuses.

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"Yes, I know. I didn't know they would allow vegetarian chavs on this picture"

It’s quite astonishing how I was being drawn as a teenager to bands that were terribly uncool in their native Britain. Matt Bianco, after the Saturday Superstore disaster, were suddenly far too embarassing to be listened to, while Paul Weller and Mick Talbot’s Style Council were shunned for their strong opinions on vegetarianism, socialism and pretty much every -ism that was out there. Even though both bands had strong songwriters and arrangers, their respective problems (being called Wanker on air and being outspoken lefties) meant that their respective later albums tanked in the UK. The Style Council disbanded in 1989 while Matt Bianco was a little wiser and just shunned the British market and continued to publish their albums where nobody knew what a Wanker was. So the Style Council’s legacy was always a mixed one. For the majority of young, unruly guitarpop fans, the demise of ‘The Clash” was one of the biggest tragedies ever and they never forgave Weller that he would start dressing like a middle class posh boy (although as the picture on the left shows, he didn’t quite get the look at first) and have strings and percussionist on his records. Or Lenny Henry. Nevertheless, in my (then) native Germany we embraced both bands, blissfully ignorant of the bad press they were getting in the UK. A little bit of ignorance sometimes is a good thing. I of course had no clue that Weller once used to be in a band that was perceived to be the best post punk thing evah(!), but even if I’d known, I couldn’t have cared less. I liked the percussion and the brass on ‘Have you ever had it blue’, the uplifting ‘Shout to the top’ (and completely oblivious to the Socialist undertorrent) and the bleak but groovy ‘It didn’t matter’. Their biggest moment (and ultimatively downfall) nevertheless came with their last album, ‘Confessions Of A Pop Group‘. Well, not quite their last album, but their truly last album was actually not released for 10 years until Polydor decided to let the masses have it in a lovely boxset. Anyway, ‘Confessions of a Pop Group’ was a deeply unusual album that threw the music press into a bit of a tizzy. What was it? Classic? Jazz? Pretentious Tosh? Well, it was one of those concept albums, with each side (remember sides? Side A? Side B? No? Well, then you’re obviously too young to read this blog. Sod off.) featuring a completely different approach to modern music. Side A (the first five tracks on your CD) is devoid of electric instruments (and guitars, as far as I remember) but instead tickles our fancy with a mix of King Singers and Debussy, with some of the Weller’s bleakest lyrics. The other side is full of electro funk. Yup. There’s also one of their funniest songs, the cynical “Life At A Top Peoples Health Farm”, an ode to the perversions of Thatcherite Britain.

As you can tell, I’m a fan.

And if you don’t want to buy it for its brillance, it’s also excellent to read to with a glass of Chablis. Which really tells you what The Style Council was all about. A band that wanted to turn the world into a socialist, vegan paradise but in the end produced music that you would have with cheese, nibbles and a glass of Chardonnay .

I find that ironic.