Trying to catch up (1): Iain M Banks

Alice keeps putting off writing this post, because she knows she'll have to say something about the death of Iain Banks from cancer on June 9th, last Sunday. She was really quite upset (I say no more, to spare her embarrassment.) And so were thousands of others, too. See all the comments posted by fans and well wishers.

We thought he was going to have just a bit longer, before the big C finally ran its course. His latest and last novel, The Quarry, was brought forward for early publication, but not officially until June 20th. Still, he did get to see a preview copy. Even though the central character is a man dying of cancer, our novelist didn't actually know he himself had the disease until the whole book had already been fully planned and he was nine tenths of the way through the actual typing. His widow, Adele, pointed this out clearly on the Banksophilia website on June 14th. Early reviews are positive: see The Independent and The Guardian for example. Even though the book isn't by her favourite Iain M (Sci-fi) Banks, Alice will read it eventually, when it gets to be available in the Library, and / or comes out in paperback.

Iain Banks gave an amazing last TV interview to Kirsty Wark on BBC2. See quotes from it on the BBC News site. We watched it, tissues at the ready, and he seemed to us to be just the same old character we remembered from Edinburgh Book Festival events - with a fierce political stance (left, of course!) an atheist but optimistically humanist viewpoint (despite the despair of the Culture agent Diziet Sma in State of the Art) plus a naughty sense of humour and that familiar abrupt laugh.

The same characteristics come through in a final print interview with Stuart Kelly.

Some recent articles have focussed on the non-M mainstream novels, especially the brilliant and shocking Wasp Factory (Warning: there are spoilers on Wikipedia!) which was his publishing debut. However, Ken MacLeod, a friend and fellow Scottish writer of SciFi (whose novels Alice has also much enjoyed reading, by the way) has written an appreciation of his with-an-M work, and his supremely wonderful creation of the world of The Culture. Apparently IMB likened writing literary fiction to playing a piano, and writing SF to playing a vast church organ. Yes, sir! says I. [And Alice concurs, if not in bold...]

MacLeod also said: The personality that his fans can see through his writings is very as he was. He was exuberant, curious, compassionate and questioning. That's what he was like. (See the Scotsman article for quotes from other writers too.)

This uniquely talented writer will be sorely missed - but his books will continue to provoke and provide pleasure. See also our post below on 11th April, and the note at the end of  25th April.

Very belated indeed

Oh deary me, you must all be wondering what's happened to us lately.

To tell the truth, Alice has been mired down, she says - No Monkey, not in the mud, but metaphorically! - trying to help someone she knows get through a bureaucratic nightmare: one which isn't a fit topic for this blog. If I just say it's the dreaded ESA50, those in the know will know...

Meanwhile we have passed our First Birthday, having set up this blog on May 13th 2012, though I didn't actually write anything worth reading until the 21st. Hence the single candle here. And the little figure on my knee is  Ganesha, who is reputed to help remove obstacles, so we're honouring him right now. (Right click and open in a new tab for a better view.)

We'll bring you up to date later, when the crisis is passed.

Window box watch & Iain Banks update


One of my recent jobs has been to report on the progress of Alice's bulbs in the window boxes.

On the 21st March, Spring Equinox (here, anyway) the tulips were doing their best, and a few were in bud in each box.

She's got three boxes altogether...

But on the 27th of March it snowed and froze! 

I was glad Alice lent me her hat to keep my ears warm during the inspection. 

There's a white hyacinth in each box, replanted from indoors last year.

At least nothing had died.

This picture was taken on April the 3rd.

That's more like it!

Click on any photo to see a bigger image.
Right click and open in new tab for the full glory!

By the very next day they we were all opening out in the sunshine together.

I felt like staying there even longer, just to feel the warmth on my face.

April the 15th saw them fully open. Gorgeous.

Just as well, since next day the tulip petals had fallen and the gales arrived - so they were overblown and blown over.

Alice was too upset to take a picture of the carnage. She pretended it was just the light was poor, but I know her so well I could tell.

She cheered up on April 23rd, because the Narcissi (that's mini daffodils to you and me) were now in flower. So I was all smiles again as well! Yes, I know what you're going to say, but I was smiling inside, as well.

The (indoor) geraniums are coming out too. 

Never mind that there was wind and rain only ten minutes later...

Today she's just put some Nasturtium seeds to soak. Last year they didn't do too well, so she's going to start them off indoors this time. Those of you blessed with fingers, please cross them.

The wonderful Iain M Banks is back home now, "after a basically brilliant honeymoon / holiday". He says:

Discovering the sheer extent and depth of the feelings people have expressed on the message board over the past two weeks has been truly astounding. I feel treasured, I feel loved, I feel I’ve done more than just pursue the craft I adore and make a living from it, and more than just fulfil the only real ambition I’ve ever had – of becoming a professional writer. I am deeply flattered and touched, and I can’t deny I’ve been made to feel very special indeed.    [And more...]

If you haven't posted a message for him yet, you can still do so. See below for Alice's appreciation.

Iain Banks: officially Very Poorly
[UPDATED 13 APRIL 2013]

No tears have been shed in this household over the death of Margaret Thatcher. I say no more right now, but see the end of this blog below.

Alice, however, has been terribly upset to hear the news that one of her very favourite writers, the inimitable Iain (sometimes with an M) Banks has terminal cancer, and is unlikely to live more than "several months". He announced this on his official website on April 3rd. With a typical wry note, he added, I asked my partner Adele if she will do me the honour of becoming my widow (sorry - but we find ghoulish humour helps).

There is now a special site, Banksophilia: Friends of Iain Banks where one can leave comments, appreciation, good wishes etc. Alice did. On the Updates page, his newly wedded partner told us he is reading them all. She signed off by saying, After Iain proposed, I was referred to as Mrs-B-To-Be. Now that we’re married, I’m Mrs-B-To-Be-As-Was. They sound well matched indeed.

Alice says the reading public is losing a writer of great imagination, wit, humour, integrity and passion. She's read all his Iain M Banks books (the sci-fi ones) and most of the others, with great pleasure - several at least twice, or more.

Her absolute favourite is Use of Weapons, which introduced her to The Culture (a wonderfully envisioned post-scarcity utopia) and boasts what Alice calls a fiendishly brilliant structure. Not one a poor soul like me could hope to follow! Even she admits being somewhat confused at her first reading. There's a thorough discussion of that book in four parts (one by IMB himself) by the Guardian Book Club. If, and only if, you've already read it, there's an interesting review here - but be warned - it reveals the twist at the end, which will spoil your delight if you haven't. That's why these things are called "Spoilers".

We could go on and on about the Culture, the Minds, the inventive lengthy names, the cheeky Drones, the bizarre aliens, the fiendish schemes - but we'll leave you to discover it all for yourself.  Like other contributors to the Guestbook, Alice would have loved the Culture to be true, but the cynic in her was not surprised that they had found us, on Earth, past redemption, and decided to leave us to our own devices. This (not so well-known?) notion is found in a novella, The State of the Art, in the volume of the same name.

Of the more mainstream novels, she particularly enjoyed Steep Approach to Garbadale, a Scottish tale both hilarious and moving. There are some touching parts about the trials and tribulations of being a teenaged male, about which the author writes with great honesty and sympathy both here and elsewhere.

Alice has heard him at a number of Edinburgh International Book Festival events: most memorable being two "double acts" - one with a fellow Scottish sci-fi writer Ken MacLeod, the other with the ebullient Alex Salmond. She usually managed to find a good question to ask, and keep the discussion going. Not "Why the M?" which he's answered so many times.

If you've not read anything by him yet - give it a go!

Monkey and Alice send their love to this amazing man.

As for Thatcher's death and the varying responses, Alice found this striking slogan pictured in The Metro, which she likes to pick up on the bus and browse over a cup of tea. It also featured a few quotes from Glenda Jackson's scathing speech about the political and social legacy of the Thatcher era. You can watch the erstwhile actress turned MP give her passionate delivery on YouTube, or read it in full in Hansard. She was unrepentant, despite later criticism. Good on her, say I.

New Title! And it's Easter!

Vera                                            Alice

As you may have noticed, we've changed the title of the blog so, hopefully, there's less confusion about Vera and Alice.

If you want to check out the story of their relationship with me, and with each-other, it's in this post here.

The address is still the same, that's "http://veras-monkey.blogspot.co.uk" - but if you've got us on a bookmark (or favourite) you won't need to type all of that in.

Some of Google's "tubes"

Did you know that the "http" stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol? It tells your browser (Firefox, or Internet Explorer, or whatever) that it's to translate the file it finds, at the rest of the address, into a web page, 'cause it's written in "html", which is Hypertext Markup Language.

And if you want to know what that looks like, take any web page, and right click on anything that's not a link or image, and select "View Page Source." Looks like a load of old goobledygook? Well, it will, if you've not learnt how to write it. But the magic thing is that it's all in unformatted text, which takes up hardly any room at all in the "tubes" (actually wires and cables) of the internet, so it travels nice and fast between one server and another. Images, however, are a whole other kettle of fish. . . Alice wrote a "technical digression" about such stuff in this post here.

And now it's Easter! Alice says it's vulgar to use so many exclamation marks - in the heading too - but I think it fits the feeling. My feeling, anyway. I love the fun, the eggs, the chocolate bunnies, the flowers.

Of course if you're a Christian, then Easter is about Jesus rising from the dead - as several other gods are reported to have done, by the way.

But for an atheist, like Alice (though she believes some quite way-out stuff too) or a bit of a pagan like me, it's a very ancient feastival [that was a typo, but I think it should stand!] about the goddess Oestre, fertility, the Spring, and new life of all sorts. Hence the various celebrations.

Equinox, was it?

Well, it was supposed to be the first day of Spring here on the 21st of March.

I was fooled in the morning, as you can see, because the sun was shining and the tulips in our window boxes were actually starting to open - well, most of them, a few are clearly past all revival.

But it's been bitterly cold since, with yet more snow in lots of places. Not to mention the "wind chill" factor!

Alice says that astronomically speaking it is the start of a new season, because this is the Equinox. That means "equal night", when the hours of day and night are equal. It's all to do with the tilt of the earth's axis relative to its orbit round the sun. She found a diagram to make it clearer. I think it does, if you imagine you're looking down on the earth from somewhere over the north pole, with the two extra globes seen from the side, as it were.

Open the image in a new tab to see it properly. Or try this article if you're still puzzled.

Astrologically, Alice points out, we're into the first sign of the Zodiac. That's because the sun appears to be in the 30 degrees of the sky assigned to Aries. [Yes, yes, we know that the actual constellation is no longer in that relative position, but that's not the point!]  

Drawing up a horoscope is a Science, which is why it can now be done by computers, rather than by working out on paper lots of complicated sums based on the Ephemeris (a kind of railway timetable of the planets). It's the interpretation that's an Art. The question of whether it works is based on thousands of years of observed correlations! See also this response to the scoffers and sceptics.
 
How it works is the question for Philosophy.

See a fascinating article on this $64,000 question by the great modern astrologer Robert Hand, and follow the links to his others, if you're curious. We do like to be provocative!

Winter is coming ... back

No, we don't mean the current weather in Scotland, even though the forecasts have been for yet more snow, and it's not at all Spring-like. Alice had some brave bulbs sprouting in her window boxes, but they all got buried and almost frozen to death. Happily, when it thawed, most of them seem to have recovered and are still doing their best to come into flower. Brrrrr... It's been right old two-hot-water-bottle nights for us lately! As you can see, I've got my furs ready too...

No, we're talking about the return of HBO's marvellous Game of Thrones, a superbly produced serialisation of G R R Martin's fantasy epic, A Song of Ice and Fire. In all senses of epic, too, at five books in seven volumes, with another one or two still to be written! We've mentioned it before, as we're both great fans.

Series Three is about to hit the TV screens accross the globe.  That's if you've got yourself a satellite dish and subscription to Sky, of course. We don't, but rely on babysitting the grandchildren in a fully equipped household. (The haunting background music to the trailer above is Bones by MS MR.)

Winter is Coming is the motto (or "Words") of House Stark, and the winter they're talking about might last for more than a generation. Jon Snow (right), a bastard Stark, is properly kitted out as a member of the Night's Watch in the far North - filmed in Iceland. HBO spares no expense!

King Monkey on the Iron Throne

The series is all about seven rival Houses warring for the Iron Throne. A bit like Wars of the Roses, but with magic involved as well. It's a terrific story, full of twists and turns, with fascinating characters who are all complex in their own way. (Just like me!)

If you Google it, you'll find umpteen more sites and videos to give you the idea.

Alice lent her box set of Season One to a friend, who was so taken with it she watched it twice over, and then sent off for her own copy, plus Season Two. We're catching up on that one now, in preparation. So watch out, you might get hooked too.

Don't forget to click on the images to see larger, or open in a new tab for full size.