Reminiscing about The Owls (Sheffield Wednesday)

The past is always with us. Even though I’ve exceeded my allotted biblical span, it’s still quite easy for me to see in my mind’s eye a playback of Alan Finney making Roma’s international right back look clumsy, or Don Megson depositing both the ball and some nippy right winger along with it into the advertising hoardings. We were League runners-up behind a double winning Spurs team when achieving the double was something almost unheard of.

At the time I was a half-decent athlete myself. I was rowing at Henley before the end of the decade. Now I have arthritis in my wrists and a shoulder that constantly reminds me of all the falls I took when I changed sports and became a steeplechase amateur jockey.

My best Wednesday memories date back the best part of a lifetime. You have to be my age to remember it, and most people, fortunately for them, are not my age.

My own sporting career is similarly a thing of the past. But that doesn’t mean I can’t turn to something else. You work with what you have, you try coming at life from a different direction. I discovered I can write and people want to publish what I write. (Some of the time – you can’t win ‘em all.)

Like me, Wednesday are not what they were. But most of the things that matter are still here. The heart’s still beating; the supporters still believe; the team still matters because it’s a collective focus of potential achievement for a city population and diaspora that have had at least their fair share of hard knocks, if not more.

As I said, you work with what you have. You will find you still have a lot that’s worthwhile. Just don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Alternative War

 

I don't know why, but Amazon has a recurring problem with including my name in lists of contributing authors.  

So, despite the fact that I'm once again not listed, I have indeed got a story in Alternative War, the new release from B Cubed Press.

'AWOL' is the story of a marine sergeant who has the misfortune to be elsewhere, sleeping off a bender, when her base is suddenly evacuated as the enemy advance gets too close.  

So what's new, you say?  Common enough difficulty; could happen to anyone.  

True, but not everyone was already particularly unpopular on all sides for smuggling in bootleg whisky within the president's personal supplies.  

Hardly anyone managed to combine that little misdemeanour with being a member of the presidential bodyguard.

And absolutely no-one else packaged both of these mistakes with being part of the Earth garrison on the planet Kyron.

This is the story of Jackie Carnegie, the only Earth soldier left on a planet being invaded by a cruel and relentless race of aliens when the planetary defence forces surrender. She can't get off the planet. Should she run away and hide? Should she embark on a foolhardy one woman war? Does she have any choice?

Well, you'll need to read the book to find out, won't you?

Coming soon - Fourth and Starlight

 

I'm very pleased to announce that my story 'The Long Con' will appear in the new Starlight anthology, Fourth and Starlight, edited by Elizabeth Ticknor, who has also produced the cover art (left).

I'm really fond of this story, which marked a considerable step forward for me as a writer.  It was the first time I'd attempted to write a story about a female protagonist who suffered discrimination on account of being female.

The woman in question is a con artist from a family of con artists.  So far, so good, but the family happen to consider that only men can be proficient in their trade.  Our heroine is determined to prove them wrong, no matter what low tricks she has to stoop to!

According to the PR blurb, this book will be "An illustrated anthology featuring compelling new voices and rising stars in the genres of science fiction and fantasy." And me, I suppose, since I'm not exactly either a new voice nor a rising star.  But you never know, do you.

Anyway the Kickstarter page is here, so you can sign up to be notified when it launches, if you like.

Planting and Preparation Prevents Perverse Parsley Paucity

I read that posh people cannot find parsley or peppers in the shops. It took me a little while to figure out why they were going to the shops for things like these. 

To get peppers, I have to go to our conservatory (I know, delusions of grandeur or what?) where I have three pepper plants currently fruiting away merrily in pots. To get parsley I have to go as far as the cold frame in my garden, where I have far more than we can eat growing in a 12-inch by 18- inch box.

A little forethought, some compost and a packet of seeds, folks. I mean, if I can do it at 600 feet above sea level in cold, wet Scotland, anybody can.

Instead, the MSM will probably start another panic, just as they did with petrol. It’s becoming a little annoying how easily the Great British Public can be stampeded these days. Whatever happened to the stiff upper lip?

If you wanted to set yourself up as a prophet today, you’d have no need to do a complete Mother Shipton. Just start a scare story that there’s going to be a shortage of mince pies at Christmas and watch the self-fulfilling prediction unfold.

Why do we need to use standard English and bias-free language in writing? (Quora)

If you want to write fiction, you can only use standard bias-free English all the time if all your characters are standard bias-free English-speaking persons.

You will find this difficult, because although quite a few people speak standard English, the only people who are bias-free are dead. Though many people may try to be, anyone claiming to be actually bias-free is either a fool or a liar.

All human beings are influenced by their upbringing and personal experience to see the world in a way that is peculiar to themselves, and that is assuming they all start with relatively similar perceptual apparatus. (Obviously if you have unusually good, unusually poor, or just different sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell or ESP, your perception of the world will differ from standard). This doesn’t mean your way of viewing the word is right or wrong, or even that there is a right and wrong, it just makes you honest when you acknowledge that it’s your way.

In addition, our senses are not set up to show us how the world is, but to show us how the world is in relation to ourselves. As an example, both the timing and the volume of a sound will differ according to how close you are to its origin, whilst if a light is associated with the sound, the light will reach a distant observer first. I well remember, on my first visit to a cricket match as a child, how puzzled I was by the delay between my seeing the batsman striking the ball and my hearing it. We simply do not possess and cannot acquire omniscience.

Particular care needs to be taken when dealing with the self-professed unbiased, who include some of the most biased and intolerant people you will ever meet.

As a writer of fiction, you can only be true to yourself. If you try to fit your writing around somebody else’s prejudices, you are likely to render it insipid and bland at best. I remember one writer who contrived to render a story quite unintelligible by substituting ‘they’ and ‘their’ for every masculine or feminine pronoun. Which is fine if you want to be insipid or unintelligible, but otherwise not.

A writer in a dictatorship or living under a totalitarian regime may not have this choice, but I still believe a writer in the free world should be able to choose to go full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes!

How should the old Brexit Slogans be Updated for 2021? (Quora)

I hesitated to answer this question, since the five-year-old ashes of the referendum campaign are stone-cold and blown away by a great wind called Covid that neither side foresaw.

In the wake of the genuinely catastrophic damage done to the world by that wind, the hyperbolic 2016 claims of Brexit catastrophe should ideally be quietly forgotten and the widely-foreseen adjustment problems of leaving the EU pale into insignificance. I don’t think efforts to blame Brexit for worldwide phenomena reflect much credit on those concerned.

Suffice it to say that nearly all Remain slogans should today be amended by the addition of a single word. The word in question is ‘not’. I’m sure you can work out for yourselves where it needs to be added in each case.

There really was only one important Leave slogan: ‘Take back control’. No-one seriously expected British politicians overnight to become hugely efficient paragons of virtue. In fact, we expected it to be quite tricky to take over from the remote pilot that had been charting our course for so long. But the crucial thing is, if British governments mess up, we can get rid of them.

As it happened, the first result of taking back control was the UK’s much-condemned, but in the event astute, decision to go it alone on the development and distribution of Covid vaccines. This led to an early start to the recovery of economic growth that outpaced the rest of the EU.

Major economic changes, like any long-term investment, usually have their costs front-loaded and benefits delayed. In the circumstances, the UK has been fortunate to see some early benefits. Before the pandemic, Leave-favouring economists tended to estimate five years or thereabouts to break-even. It may turn out to be slightly less; we’ll see.

But for better or worse, it’s done. What on earth is the point of seizing upon every piece of news that, unremarkably, tells us there are costs as well as benefits?

We need to go forward, not keep looking back to the road not taken.

On Receiving Political Advice from Celebrities

Let’s face it, the problem with most 'celebrities' these days is that you’ve never heard of them. They’re not even famous for being famous. This means they are probably actors in TV soap operas that you don’t watch.

Last I heard, you did not need a degree in politics or economics to get into acting school. Mind you, if you had a degree in politics or economics, you’d be even less famous, like me. I read PPE.

But since nobody listens to me, why should anyone listen to them? See? Nobody can remember who we are, because they never knew in the first place. That’s called logic, that is.

Or, as the man said in the film, ‘I’ll never forget what’s’isname.’

A strange hobby for a heatwave

Leucozona lucorum

 Mad dogs and dipterists go out in the midday sun

A trait you’d be quite soppy to copy

Bloodsucking flies they roll their eyes

And say we’ll have such fun

The cleggs are all quite hateful, but grateful.

 

 

Myathropa florea

Down by the stream the sun’s bright beam

Falls where tall grasses wave

They gather there and then declare

That fool’s uncommon brave

It must be something humans eat

That makes their blood so nice and sweet

It’s like a currant bun

When mad dogs and dipterists go out in the midday sun.

 

Eristalis horticola

 They say the camera never lies

But he only sees the view

The dipterist’s eyes are on the prize

He won’t see me nor you

I’ll take his hand, you and the band

Can check his open neck

We’ll lose a few but most get through

So fire the starting gun

'Cause mad dogs and dipterists are out in the midday sun!

Who is the greatest Scottish composer?

I am not often inclined to call an individual ‘the greatest’. As an unqualified term, it tends to mean whatever the speaker or writer wants it to mean, and there is no practical way of comparing one composer with another.

When I think of the greatest Scottish composer, I want to know whether the emphasis should be placed on the Scottish nature of a composer’s output, or upon internationally accepted genres in which a Scot has excelled.

I suspect that Niel Gow (1727–1807) is thought of by many as the archetypal Scottish fiddler and the composer of many tunes that have become modern Scottish dance band standards. I tend to think of this as important because folk and dance music forms such an important part of Scottish culture. Of course, many have followed in his musical footsteps, and some will have written very popular tunes, but Niel is still the one who made the the critical transition between the music of the people and the music of the salon.

Some, of course, will consider that only classical music, or only pop music, should be taken into account. Scotland has no Beethovens. It does have composers called Robert Bruce and William Wallace, not to be confused with the medieval warriors of the same names. But as a general rule, Scottish classical composers are not household names. Those who know them will take up the cause of, say, Alexander Mackenzie, Learmont Drysdale, Erik Chisholm and many others, but we cannot claim that anyone has earned worldwide renown.

Scottish pop stars are often better known abroad, but I doubt many of them would claim the title of our greatest composer. Roy Williamson of The Corries wrote ‘Flower of Scotland’, but it is possible that few outside Scotland appreciate that achievement.

It is entirely possible that the greatest Scottish composer wrote for his sweetheart an air that has come down through history, even though the composer’s name has not.

The upsides of lockdown in Scotland

 

I have repeatedly thought how blessed I am to live on a smallholding in pleasant rural surroundings. If I’d been through lockdown in a town flat, I’d probably have gone stir crazy.

Being obliged to remain in one place rather than ranging far and wide, especially at holiday time, persuaded me to take a more detailed interest in my immediate surroundings.

For no very obvious reason, I settled on hoverflies, joined the reporting group on Facebook and learned enough to identify thirty-seven local species. Then, of course, I forgot a lot of what I’d learned over four winter months when there were none at all to be seen. It’s beginning to come back to me now we’re well into Spring.

I spent more time gardening, with mixed results. I suppose I learned more about what won’t grow at this altitude and latitude, and at last got time to experiment with a few plants I’ve long wanted to try, particularly Lychnis chalcedonica, also known as Maltese Cross, which tradition says was brought to Europe by the Knights of Malta. My squash has not been a huge success though. I really suspect the growing season up here (at 600 feet) is just too short for it.


I also decided to learn Italian on Duolingo. I’m not sure when, or even if, I’ll have the opportunity to use this new skill, but I have usually found learning something new to be a pleasure, and this has been no exception.

Not strictly a consequence of lockdown, but the imposition of high US tariffs on imported Scotch seems to have diverted quite a few nice single malts on to the domestic market at discounted prices. I still can’t afford a lot, which is just as well, but I can’t say that the odd sip of an evening hasn’t helped lockdown pass more easily.

The EU, The Vaccine, and Exports

If the EU had gone down the UK route they would have financed both vaccine development and factory construction in their own countries with a capacity sufficient for their own needs. This is not a matter of the UK forcing it’s way to the front of the queue; the UK is creating the supply that others then queue up for!

Because the UK does not have the capacity to supply others at present, it licenses other countries to produce the AZ vaccine on condition that, like the UK, they produce and sell at cost. To look at physical exports and ignore this licensing programme is highly misleading.

The AZ vaccine exists because of the UK government. Philanthropic we may be, but we not unreasonably thought that, having paid for its development as well as its production, the UK taxpayers should get it first.

The UK actually brought AZ into production partnership with Oxford, where the vaccine was developed, precisely because of fears of vaccine nationalism. They reached a production understanding long before the vaccine passed its clinical trials, the government accepting all the risks involved.

Oddly enough, the anticipated nationalism was from Trump's USA, which was why the UK didn’t want Oxford going into partnership with a US firm as originally intended. Obviously, AZ is part Swedish and some of its production is in the EU. As it turns out, maybe we should have expected nationalism from the EU too.

At the same time the UK ordered several other vaccines from various different sources, including some in the EU, gambling that these vaccines would succeed. Any EU country or the EU Commission could have placed similar orders at the same time, but for whatever reasons they decided not to. Once those EU firms had accepted UK contracts they would not expect to be prevented from fulfilling them, any more than AZ expected the EU to try to prevent them fulfilling their contract with the UK.

The EU meanwhile spent a couple of months beating down AZ’s already cost-based price and finally placed its order, if I recall correctly, when the vaccine was already in third phase trials, nevertheless still forcing risk responsibility on to the firm. This meant they got a ‘best efforts’ contract because no company managers in their right mind would definitively guarantee supplies when they were bearing all the risk as well as not making a profit.

We are now witnessing the unedifying spectacle of the EU refusing to admit its own incompetence and seeking to deflect blame on to an external ‘enemy’ who happens to have produced the vaccine in the first place.

Some want to consider financing development of the Oxford vaccine ‘getting lucky’. That is up to them, I suppose. Some people would call it a sound investment of public funds. No risk, no reward. What prevented EU countries doing the same?

It should however be obvious even to an EU supporter that the UK’s involvement in the AZ vaccine is a lot more more than just a contractual arrangement. The UK would hardly have spent all that money in order to export the vaccine at cost before UK needs were met.

Is the EU supposed to have been unaware of this history? Did they not read the contract they signed with AZ? Did they not know that the UK plant had gone through the same production difficulties as the EU plant, just three months earlier?

I’m sorry, but the Commission are negligent, incompetent or both and behaving in their usual belligerent and litigious manner as soon as their failings are exposed. It would never, I suppose, occur to them to say, “I’m sorry, we screwed up, can you help us out?”

Why do so many people (on Quora) get offended when Americans want to identify with the countries of their ancestors when it was not their own choice that their ancestors left their home country?

The Capitol, Washington D.C.

Identification by Americans with countries of ancestral origin can be a perfectly harmless eccentricity or it can be a menace.

I don’t see any problem with an American of Italian descent calling himself an Italian-American, running an Italian restaurant or singing Verdi for fun.

The problem arises when he not only calls himself an Italian but thinks this entitles him to some sort of status in respect of modern Italian social, cultural or particularly political questions. If he has any knowledge of Italy at all it is most likely to be a traditional family perspective or a romantic myth that may never have reflected reality, let alone have relevance to Italian reality today.

He may even go so far as to preserve inherited hostile attitudes towards those held responsible for pressuring his ancestors to emigrate, and apply these attitudes towards these people’s descendants even though the descendants bear no guilt for their ancestors’ behaviour and may never had any issues with the descendants of the long-ago emigrant’s neighbours who did not emigrate. You can’t sort out today problems that used to exist centuries ago, but you sure can create new ones.

For example, when we speak of expatriate Scots being ‘more Scottish than the the Scots’, we mean their perspective involves looking back through very rose-tinted spectacles at a largely fictional past. Yet they sometimes seem to think think this gives them a right to pontificate upon the present. If they are influential, they can make big waves in ‘the old country’ despite their ignorance of its current state.

So when, for example, a ‘Scottish’ POTUS is followed by an ‘Irish’ POTUS, it naturally worries those who have to live in or alongside the country claimed by these powerful, but misinformed, people. How great is the danger that, in seeking to confirm the support of some similarly misguided American voters’ lobby, a president may turn his inherited prejudice into current international policy?

If matters should reach that stage, being offended is going to be the least of our problems.