Not again

Temporarily boring:
Links to one of my old blog posts from 23 February 2006 have just appeared online as 'evidence' of, er, something or other. My post, from almost five years ago to the day, considered whether the author of the Temporary Hoarding blog had a bad memory or was just making stuff up in response to my blog. By reading other autobiographical material on his blog and elsewhere, it became clear that he was claiming to have been in two places at once, among other things. (Bear with me on this, reader.) Soon a reply to me appeared, now dated "4/8 March" (2006); the date indicates that two versions of the post existed, with some clean-up done on the first entry in the intervening days before the 8 March version.

Much silliness survives in the new edit, casting doubt on its reliability. For instance, there's an alleged screening of Gone with the Wind in Sheffield which I am supposed to have organised but which DID NOT HAPPEN. Full stop. It's a lie or a hallucination. Anyone who can prove I staged this event and that my memory is playing up or that I am lying wins a cash prize. 

Full disclosure from South Beach

It's all starting to make sense now. According to David Buxton in From the Avengers to Miami Vice: Form and Ideology in the Television Series, 'Vice was the first series to make use of neurophysiological research on the viewing process: research carried out in the Communication Technology Laboratory of the University of Michigan has shown that (American) viewers tend to become impatient with overly elaborate stories or characterisations. In an attempt to maintain constant visual and sound excitement, the series uses aesthetic devices from the clip (aggressive camera movements, "unnatural" colour schemes and mood music) to fill out the story rather than resorting to "irrelevant" complications of plot and dialogue, both reduced to a minimum' (p.140).* With hindsight, it's clear the 2006 big-screen adaptation took these traits to a greater level of abstraction.




* Manchester University Press, 1990.

Send her Victorian

I was tickled to read a recent report in the Independent about the decline of British stag weekends in Riga, Latvia. "I imagined that Englishmen would all be real gentlemen, like Sherlock Holmes," said 21 year-old student Marika. Unfortunately, "they are little more than animals."

Which nationalities have most disappointed you by not resembling fictional characters in late Victorian fiction? Perhaps Chinese men are insufficiently like Fu Manchu? Romanians who differ from Count Dracula? Mark your entry "modern nationalities which differ from their fictitious counterparts" and send answers on a postcard to ...

The Russian Royals

For a disturbing 20 per cent of my working life I have been passing the Royals Business Park on the way to work, and for most of that time it has been empty. "That's obscene", as an ex-girlfriend used to say. Why is the Royals like an astronomy student at Imperial College? Because it's taking up space in London.

In keeping with this spirit, the news page on the Royals' website does not appear to have been updated since 2004, and Ken Livingstone is still mayor there.

In fairness to this glass tomb of regeneration, it has seen a bit of activity in the last few months. Last night the Spooks season finale aired, and I finally got to see what the Royals Business Park has been used for. The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) houses its UK death squad there.

Another mystery solved then.

Cross words

My review of the new Neil Cross novel appears above (I'll add the link when the 7 Days website is a bit more stable). Despite some of the griping about Cross's writing in the Times -- at least he can spell the word "night" -- and in the Guardian, not getting the author's technique for elevating a sense of domestic menace, Human Nature is a very good book (hat tip to Chris -- pictured -- for delivering me a copy).