Short story time

Firstly, sorry for neglecting the site.
Real-life's intruded over the last few months.

So, folks who follow me on Twitter may recall that I was lucky enough to get past the first round on NYC Midnight.

Here's the story.
It's all copyright me, so no re-posting, re-distribution, submissions or anything like that or I'll send the boys round.

Regina v Humphreys

Outside the provincial courthouse, winds scattered autumnal leaves and crisp packets.

A lot of crisp packets, Karen Sinclair noted from the boxy office.

On the train, she had been reading again through the paperwork. It was pro bono and so her Chambers regarded this as a blooding experience. They wouldn’t mind a defeat as long as it wasn’t embarrassing.

This case wasn’t what she had hoped for. Her goal was media law. Not magic.

The weekend had been spent, clawing her way through case law. Thank God Deepak was so tolerant.

As she put the white wig on, that ridiculous belch from British legal history, there was a tap at the door. Nudging his way in cautiously, the grave dodging clerk made some disparaging remark to the accused about the youth of his barrister.

And then in walked Mr. Humphreys.

Karen had seen the man’s photo before but the skin still surprised her. He was scalier than she had expected. And the tongue, not fully forked but close enough.

He emitted a sad sigh, as he folded himself into the seat, dwarfed by his tweed suit and that somewhat ludicrous Panama hat. One key part of her job was presentation and, frankly, a reptilian-like man was always going to be a hard sell but this attire…. They simply did not have the time alas to replenish his wardrobe with clothes not sourced from charity shops.

She noted that he stared at the wall, empty space between the bookshelves. Avoiding both looking out the window and having any sort of eye contact with her. How old was he? Late twenties perhaps?

“They tried Oscar Wilde here. I read that on Wikipedia.” That wasn’t the opening gambit she expected from him. Thank God, the voice sounded normal. A slight Westcountry burr and a deeper tone than she had feared.

“That may be the case but.” She paused. No speech about tolerance coming from her could play well here. Especially given the sorrow in those eyes. “The Crown’s alledging that you used magic recklessly on Saturday the 11^th of July. There’s a Mrs. Harris”. The client grimaced at the mention of the name. “She claims that you cast a spell that caused both her and her son John to experience frostbite. So let’s talk about that day.”

Reticence.

“You were acting as John’s maths tutor.”

Further silence. Despite the possibility of at least a thousand pound fine and even maybe six months jail time.

“You have to open up. I’ve read your case but this isn’t a world I know. The prosecution have an expert witness from the Institute of Magicks, an organisation that I had never heard of before today. In fact, all I could tell you a week ago about magic was that it wasn’t real.”

He stood up. “It is real. Magic is real. Magic did this!” he gesticulated at his face.

Good, she thought. They were finally getting somewhere.

“So, magic is risky. Why would you do it? You must have had a reason.”

“It was just a cloaking spell.”

“To make yourself invisible?”

“No, to make me look.” He stammered. “More human. It’s the kids. This face. It throws them.”

“Does it scare them?”

“And they’re shits. And some of them are shits and they don’t mean to be. They ask where you’re from and you say Bristol, instead of the cave system they’re clearly expecting. And they just pause and after a minute they say that they’ve never seen anyone like you in Bristol.”

“The spell. You’ve cast it before?”

“For the last year or so. Since I moved to London.”

“And there are no, ahem, weird ingredients? I’ve got the list here. It all seems kosher. But are any of these euphemisms for anything that will put off a juror unaccustomed to magic? Angel wings? Fairy thoraxes?”

“No, just conventional flowers and spices.”

There was a knock on the door. Mr. Humphreys’s police escort had arrived. It was time.

Karen stepped into the court room. The same oak panelled walls as everywhere else on the judicial circuit. But here scattered at seemingly random intervals were poles mounted glass cases housing three foot yellow crystals. Those were Cassandra crystals, somewhat larger than she had expected.

Her court briefs indicated that they were installed specifically due to their tendency to change blue if any spells are cast which are level two or greater on the Smeaton scale. It was partly to prevent barristers taking shortcuts by literally enchanting the jury. And also partly to prevent repetition of whatever had happened during Regina v Logan and Carruthers to cause the courtroom and adjacent church to catch alight in Daventry in 1852. That incident also vindicated the judiciary’s decision to move magical trials outside London. And while there were media blackouts on all such trials, this travelling legal circus was unlikely to get attention from scurrilous bloggers. Especially as each week it would reconvene in a different courthouse in southern England. Or Wales. They had a big witchcraft problem in Wales, especially in the former colliery towns.

This was even more intimidating than the narcotics trial she had been involved with last year. But back then she was only taking notes and being a general dogsbody. Here she was defending a client’s liberty in an area of the law that had not been hinted at in her four years of courses.

A giant of a man, but not literally a giant, marched the short distance from the prosecution bench. “Oliver Proudfoot” he said, rather curtly and then wished her good luck, mostly for form’s sake. She did the same. He was old enough to have been doing this game long enough that he could have been a Queen’s Counsel however his robes were the standard black. Interesting.

 A family of four marched in, the mother indignant and sporting some feather-studded millinery more suited for a day at the races. Her son, the eldest one, was clearly John Harris. His infamously frostbitten right hand was encased in a glove. The Harrises alleged that this may well have curtailed a promising tennis career. There was written testimony to that from the local club coach in amongst the medical paperwork. It cited second degree frostbite, equivalent to standing in the Arctic for two days without proper equipment. But it wasn’t the medical evidence that was going to win this case for her. A point of law? A sympathy vote? As she often did when the odds seemed against her, she reminded herself that in her first year at university she had managed to argue successfully in a debate that the European Union was a properly democratic organisation. She can achieve anything.

The jury shuffled in. She watched them as they took to their seats. The man with multiple piercings might be sympathetic. Her heart sank a little to see a retired military type, judging from his posture and facial hair, and two women entering their winter years. But you never know with old ladies.

Her eyes were fixed on them as the defendant entered the dock. A gasp from the gallery. A young female juror squirmed.

The usher shouted “All rise” in a heavy Scottish accent. As the court duly arose, Judge Jonathan Sekibo entered from a small door and strode to the raised central bench. Karen’s butterflies started in earnest, that exhilarating blend of excitement and fear.

Mr. Proudfoot delivered his opening statement. “This is a most unusual case. It may touch upon magic but this is not a work of fantasy. At its heart is a question of negligence on behalf of the defendant.” He then incorporated some spiel that jurors need to set aside any sympathy for the unusual appearance of Mr. Humphreys but instead focus on the law as written in the statute books. Was the man negligent? At which point, Karen finally found her strategy.

It was now her turn. She started by again instructing the jurors to put aside the defendant’s unusual appearance, for he would want them to ignore it too. He did use magic, as do a surprising number of people according to the Oxford School of Applied Philosophy’s 2003 study that found that one in seven hundred people had practised at least once. (Though, to be honest, she hoped that the prosecution would not notice the survey’s sample size.) The first question to consider, she put to the jury, was whether he had taken proper care in his use of magic. If he had, there was no case to be found. As she sat down, she hoped to God that he had been careful.

The first witness was Mrs. Pamela Harris. As she was the prosecution’s witness, Mr. Proudfoot started. “On the 11^th of July, when temperatures were on average 80 degrees Farenheit, you and your son John attended Charing Cross Hospital reporting that you were suffering from frostbite. Is this true?”

“We weren’t just reporting. That frostbite was so damaging that neither of us were able to use our mobile phones. I had trouble getting out our bus passes.” She had an indignant shriek about her, the sort which could play either way with the jury in Karen’s judgement.

“It was a typical warm summer’s day. So where did you develop frostbite?”

“At that thing’s flat!  Erm, Mr. Humphrey’s flat.”

“And had you been anywhere else earlier? An ice rink perhaps? Or maybe sat in a walk-in freezer?”

Mrs Harris bristled at this. “We had had breakfast as normal, dropped off my youngest at football as normal and then went to Mr. Humphrey’s.”

“For what purpose?”

“Maths tuition. We are trying to get John a scholarship to Moorhampton, it’s the only way we can afford the fees. Stephen, my husband, had found an apparently good tutor on some website or other. More fool us.”

“Was this your first visit?”

“Stephen and I had met him there a week before. He looked normal then. Young. White. Completely normal. We wouldn’t have agreed to use him if he were a monster.” She was now addressing the jury.

“For clarity, are you saying he looked different then to how he is today?”

“Completely. He also looked normal at the start of the lesson. It was only as we were shivering and complaining of the cold that he went and fiddled with a candle on the table and then we saw him as he is.”

“You saw him change?”

“Yes, in seconds. It really hurt the eyes I can tell you. I hate candles anyway so I had been meaning to ask him to put it out.”

In a spot of theatre, the usher brought in a candle, which she duly recognised as the offending one.

“Had that been burning throughout?” It had. “Your witness.”

Karen had decided to eschew the bigot line of attack. “How are you in cold temperatures?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you cope well in the cold?”

“Look, Miss, we put the heating on. We wear warm clothes. We’re not rich but we’ve got enough. We take precautions.”

“So might it be that the room was unusually cold for us but set to a desired temperature for Mr. Humphrey?”

“Miss, when we entered his study, he made an incantation. I can’t tell you the exact words but I heard him say things that were not English!” Which was all Karen needed. “And don’t say I misheard or it was the pipes gurgling. It was words from his mouth, I know that much.”

Next was Sir Oswald Shah from the Institute of Magicks. Karen was relieved to note that Proudfoot was just as unfamiliar with magic as her, stumbling through questions about the power of spells.

“Can candles cast a spell?”

“Only if treated in the appropriate manner. For a clandidus aroximus, one would need to marinate the candle in a herb blend.”

“How long should this take?”

“Studies have found it to be most effective when done overnight.”

“And if it had not marinated enough, could there be side effects?”

“It’s like cooking. If you just throw some curry sauce on the meat in the wok, it won’t work as well but it wouldn’t start tasting of pizza.”

“Perhaps the incantation that Mrs. Harris heard…”

“Maybe but, alas, the woman does not recall the precise wording.”

“But it is possible that magic can affect the temperature of the room so dramatically?”

“Undoubtedly.”

There was an ostentatious wave from Proudfoot as he sat down.

Karen began. “You have seen the defendant’s written statement of the ingredients he used. Could any of those in excess cause such a side-effect?”

“Copious amounts of marjoram could give a blue tint to the atmosphere but otherwise no.”

“So there is no reason to believe that the defendant was neglectful in preparing the candle?”

“Given the list, no”

“Where would one typically buy these items?”

“Garden centres, supermarkets for most of this.  Yarchagumba and Silajeet would have to be bought from a specialist.”

“And if a specialist substituted one of these on the quiet?”

Up jumped Proudfoot objecting wildly to pure speculation, as she knew he would. The jury was instructed to ignore the question but the seed was planted.

She had no further questions.

The final witness was the defendant, left hand visibly shaking. Proudfoot smiled. Karen felt it was hard to tell who was more reptilian.

Proudfoot teased out that he had ten year’s magic experience without incident. He then made heavy weather of emphasising that it was a chef’s responsibility to ensure the quality of his ingredients and did the defendant agree. “Yes but my usual supplier was on retreat.”

Proudfoot sat down, shaking his head theatrically.

Karen rose. “You were not born this way, were you?”

“Correct. At university, I volunteered for a magical trial. I saw the paperwork. I knew the risks”

“So why do you practise magic?”

“Purely to look normal.”

“Did you use an incantation?”

“No. I quoted Genesis as I turned the light on fiat lux et lux erat. An atheist’s private joke.”

“How often do you cast this cloaking spell?”

“For every lesson. I didn’t use to in Bristol but business dried up and I ended up moving here.”

“And is tuition your sole source of income?”

“Yes”

“So, this spell is part of ensuring your livelihood, to which you are entitled to under the Human Rights Act. And your new supplier, was he registered?”

“No, none of them are. You have to rely on word of mouth or Google.”

“Your honour, the defence rests.”

And on that the jury retired.

There was an interminable wait, two hours, until the jury returned.

Two hours of pacing corridors and mainlining Starbucks.

The foreman cleared his throat and delivered the verdict.

Guilty.

She slumped to her desk and then looked up at Mr. Humphreys, who shrugged.

It was clearly what he expected, but that made it hurt her even more.

Magic, like life, wasn’t happy endings. Magic was real.

Copyright : Christopher Hawton 2012

Doctor Who : Closing Time

And so, after the intensity of pretty much the rest of this semi-season so far, we needed a calmer episode.
This was an hilarious change in pace.
Just like last year, I warmed to James Corden's character, despite the fact that I don't seem to enjoy his performances in anything else I've seen him in bar The History Boys.
It makes delicious sense that the 11th Doctor would, in this time of crisis, call in on his only other new friend this regeneration.  (Yeah, the inner geek would think he would probably really try to see if Susan, his granddaughter, was really alive but also this Doctor is trying to avoid the guilt, which would preclude visiting pretty much any of his travelling companions. And he's never shown any indication of trying to track down his cloned daughter Jenny from the 10th Doctor's era - curiously wiki suggests that Steven Moffatt requested that Jenny survive her episode so maybe she may reappear yet.)

Matt Smith does odd so very well. And Corden plays a wonderful straight man (in every sense as it turns out).
Yes, the story's not the most substantial.
However we see the Doctor grieving for himself and preparing to meet his death, which prepares us nicely for the finale.
And also I think this is easily the best use of the Cybermen since the revival.

So, erm, next week.
How unearth can the Doctor's death arc get resolved satisfactorially after all this build-up?
I'll be somewhat disappointed if they get out of it using a Ganger.
I wonder if maybe just maybe we see the Tardis sacrifice herself to revive him. We've seen the Doctor leave Colchester in a Tardis but I don't think we see that Doctor's Tardis in The Impossible Astronaut. So back in April, did we see the Tardis be killed instead?
And we could then have a year sans Tardis until the 50th anniversary in 2013 when he recovers/regrows the old girl.
It's a theory anyway....

Doctor Who : The Book of Shadows

As mentioned in my review, The Girl Who Waited reminded me of Jim Mortimore's The Book Of Shadows, a 1st Doctor short story published in Decalog, Virgin's inaugural Dr Who short story collection.
And whilst pottering about today, I stumbled across my copy. (Somewhat depressingly, it is now of driving age).
So I dove in.
And The Book Of Shadows still is a brilliant time-travel story about a couple divided by fate.
In those days, the Doctor travelled with Susan, his granddaughter (how true that is depends upon your views), and two of her teachers, Ian and Barbara. The latter over time become a couple (though this is more clearly stated in the spin-off books than the show ever did).
The story starts with Ian the wrong side of a cave-in in ancient Egypt.
And two Barbaras, one eight years further back in the past.
This isn't so much an exploration of Ian and Barbara's relationship as The Girl Who Waited (but there is a bit of that and exclusively from Barbara's point of view).
Instead it looks at the rules of interference in time, as well as showing the havoc and horror that the Doctor can unwittingly cause.
Seeing Barbara become married to Ptolemy and become queen and a mother is a shock.
We know that it'll be undone by timey-wimey but, as well as the strength of writing, it's the richness of the historical backdrop that lifts this, certainly in comparison to The Girl Who Waited IMHO.

DC : thoughts on the first full week of the new 52

As mentioned elsewhere the real star was Animal Man, very low-key heroics combined with horror.
The other horror title Swamp Thing suffered a little from having to explain the exact status quo of Swampy. And also it features Batman and Superman. Ok, I know Swamp Thing has been away from mainstream comics for a couple of decades and so it pleases some of his fanbase to see him mixing with the big guns but for me I find their presence snaps me out. Scott Snyder is an excellent author though so no doubt we will go interesting places.

Action Comics is the latest rework of Superman. I thought he had been changed a lot in the 80s after the first major revamp.
This Supes though is dressed in jeans and shirt, living in the rough part of town and fighting a war against corporate corruption.
Yeah, the plot isn't complex but it's exciting. And Luthor is uber-cunning.

Men of War was surprisingly good, depicting a troop of humans in super powered conflicts. It is an interesting premise well-executed.

The first Batgirl issue struggles from having to explain (or at least acknowledge) the fact that Barbara has regained control of her legs.

Gren Arrow has had just as dramatic changes to his status quo. He is now seeinbgly Mark Zuckerberg but fighting crime in-between or during board meetings. This character always needs differentiating from Batman and as he has been on Smallville as a young man, it does make sense. That said even as a kid I enjoyed this book's political dimensions which are now absent.

Detective Comics gave us the first look at a Batnan title in this brave new world. It us a feast of unsubtle imagery. And that cliffhanger annoys me because we all know it isn't going to stick.

So all told, a mixed bag but there are some definite nuggets of awesomeness.

Animal Man 1

For me this was the stand-out of the first full week of DC's new 52.
Decidedly off-kilter, it shows a C-list hero living his life in the burbs with his family.
The only other Animal Man issues I have read have been Grant Morrison ones and this reminds me enormously of Morrison's first issue.
Showing us the family. Weirdness in a hospital. Super-heroics kept firmly in check.
However Morrison's first story arc feigns horror before becoming a battle with z-lister B'wana-Beast.
Jeff Lemire though steers this incarnation into creepy horror. Nightmare visions. Grieving father holding a children's ward hostage because his daughter had died of cancer.

And an incredibly sinister last page.
Yeah, he lays on the foreboding and foreshadowing something chronic but it's amazingly atmospheric and should attract people new to comics or lure the Sandman crowd back.
Which was the point of this whole new 52 malarkey....

Doctor Who : The Girl Who Waited

A real mixed bag this one.
That first ten minutes is, well, dull is one word for it.
It reminded me of Terminus, Nyssa's exit story in which she finds herself in a space leper colony and that experience was as painful for the audience as it was for her.

Whilst the ending of this one is powerful, it reminds me too much of other things without especially entertaining. Jim Mortimore's The Book Of Shadows did a fairly similar story (first Doctor companions Ian and Barbara are separated in ancient Efypt and Ian finds her ten years older). Though that had the benefit of an interesting setting, which this didn't.
Thank goodness, Karen Gillan can act as she really sells Amy's fate.
But yeah, not the strongest episode for me.

Doctor Who : Night Terrors

The late Jon Pertwee once said that there's nothing more scary than coming home and finding a yeti sitting on your loo in Tooting Bec.
Which, whilst quite the mental image, is true and so therefore it's a bit of a shame that televised Doctor Who has only in this millenium got round to spending serious energy in showing the fantastical in recogonisable real-life settings. (Yeah, I know 7th Doctor companion Ace was grittier but in a middle-class-writer's view of grittiness)
And Night Terrors is a very solid example of how effective the show can be when things are pared down and it's just the Tardis crew in our world.


Yeah, you can predict the twists. A fellow Caravanner worked out where Rory and Amy were pretty quickly.
But it was the humour (Rory wondering if he was dead again) and the strength of the acting that really made this.
It reminded me an AWFUL lot of RTD's Dr Who novel Damaged Goods, set on a Thatcherian council estate beset with drug-dealers. Which is a compliment.

There was much brow-beating about things being hidden in plain sight. And before we get too excited about that as any kind of clue to this year's story-arc, we need to remember that this was originally going to be shown in the first half of the season when Amy was a Ganger.

All told, rather good, which is what we've come to expect from writer Mark Gatiss.

Doctor Who - Let's Kill Hitler

Upon rewatch, this stands up so much better than I had imagined.
You see, with any program, big event episodes tend to crumble a bit once you know what's coming.
Take 5th Doctor story Earthshock. When that was first broadcast, apparently there was no advance publicity that there were Cybermen involved and certainly no hint that companion Adric was about to snuff it. With that knowledge it is a lot of grim action in search of a plot. (though it can still shock as I found out when a casual fan I know watching on UKGold decades afterward berated me for not warning him that Adric dies)
So, yeah, Let's Kill Hitler is none of that.
While it does resolve the River mystery once and for all, there is much joy to be had, especially in the flashbacks to Amy, Rory and Mels.
The plot itself is a tad slight though it allows Alex Kingston to have a whale of a time. And Matt Smith to produce one of his most stunning performances as a dying Doctor.
But yeah, River. I do kind of think we need to rest this one a bit however we know from the midseason trailer that she will pop up again soon, this time with eyepatch.

Some folks don't care for the overly cryptic arc-plotting of the 11th Doctor's tenure but I do kind of enjoy the mysteries (even if they're not subtly presented at all).
Mewonders if the question that when asked dooms everything has nothing to do with the Doctor's name or lineage. And possibly everything to do with what exactly Rory is.

Time will tell. It usually does....

Justice League 1

I remember as a teenager going somewhat out of my way to get my hands on JLA 1 (Grant Morrison edition) at the height of my Morrison obession and being thorougly entertained by a) the storyline and b) the notion that DC's premier team actually had the company's iconic characters in it. Don't get me wrong I loved the JLI bunch of also-rans and the humour that emerged.
But it felt proper that the League had the big stars in it.

Which brings us onto this week's relaunch of not just this title but the entire DC comics universe.
I am not a huge fan of Jim Lee's art and it did kind of prompt memories of the horrors of Heroes Reborn, Marvel's mid 90s small-scale precusor to what DC are now doing.
And like, the HR characters, I do find it hard to like the new younger "edgier" heroes. Hal Jordan comes off as too much of a cocky sod.
Batman's greener than normal but entertaining enough. And Supes is barely in it.

I know this is relaunching the DCU and comics as a medium but personally I would hope that out of seven coverstars we get more than four in the actual book.
Going from the preview I have seen of Morrison's edgier man-of-the-people take on Superman maybe DC should have started with that. Or at least shown more than a page of him in this issue of Justice League. When Marvel started the New Avengers seven years or so ago, the first issue had the full roster. They weren't a team as yet but they were all in the book and it was a stronger story than this...

'Tis selling well though and it's available for download on Comixology so it's giving a shot in the arm to the industry. Time will tell if it succeeds.

Doctor Who - Lets Kill Hitler prelude

Usually the preludes give an indication of the plot but this, well this doesn't tell us much about what is likely to happen in the mid-season opener.
Though the mood....

It's almost like the search for Melody's taken a tragic turn.
Or Amy's dead / made a desperate but bad decision.

Which brings me onto my suspicions that, comics style, we're going to have a major shock to the status quo which will be restored just in time for 2013 and the big 5-0 anniversary.
Or a war with the Timelords (who might well be Madame Kovarian's backers - certainly it's got to be someone worth all this build-up).

Bring on the second half of the season....

Ben Folds - an appreciation

'Twas recently announced that Ben Folds is going to release a retrospective album in the autumn.
Note retrospective rather than hits album as, in the UK at least, he's always been a bit of a cult figure only really troubling the charts in the late 90s with Battle of Who Could Care Less.

Here in Britain it was probably a case of bad timing. Ben Folds Five were competing with Britpop, which obsessed the media so.
Also, whilst they were championed by Simon Mayo on Radio 1, I think today's Radio 2 and 6Music would have allowed BFF to make more of an impact.

So, why is Ben so great?
He's an excellent pianist. There isn't enough indie-piano.
The lyrics are offbeat as well as incredibly sad (witness ballad Brick - about an abortion, such an emotional start to an emotional song).  There's also Army, the upbeat music underlying a bleak song about crushed ambitions.

There's an emotional core to his work as well as a playfulness. Few other performers would do improv songs to strangers on Chatroulette (and in the unlikely event that it's starting to get samey, stick with it to the 3:30 mark when it becomes AWESOME).

When last we saw him play in London, on his Lonely Avenue tour, he vowed to do a cover of the at-the-time iTunes #1 song... it happened to be a Ke$ha track. He made it wonderful.
Epic sing-a-longs like Annie Waits, moving expressions of love like The Luckiest and wonderful-ness like Adelaide : Ben Folds has a great range. It is for that reason, he is awesome.

Latitude Thoughts : all 80s special

There was a noticeable skew to more mature fare at this year's Latitude, possibly to ward off the criminal elements that cast a shadow over the 2010 edition.
And this was somewhat underlined by booking Adam Ant and OMD.
Me, I am just too young to remember these acts the first time round. Sometimes this can feel like you're intruding on a private party.
Which was emphatically not the case with either act.
Firstly, we will touch on OMD. For their first UK festival show in 25 years, they were clearly moved by the crowd's love. And wonderfully self-deprecating. Brilliant versions of their classics and bravely opening with uber-hit Enola Gay, which had the crowds racing in.
Next: Prince Charming. Adam Ant clearly relished being back. His energy was infectious and this was the biggest crowd we saw in the tent all festival long (though 'twere lunchtime and wet).
My personal theory is that without Adam Ant we wouldn't have had a Jarvis. Here was a man standing up for the geeks, the outcasts. Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.
And given what the papers have said about his mental health, there is an extra poignancy.
Now, having seemingly emerged victorious, he is a hero twice over. Bless you Adam Ant.

Latitude Thoughts : They Might Be Giants

On these shores They Might Be Giants (TMBG) are kinda thought of as one-hit wonders due to the mega-success of Birdhouse In Your Soul (possibly one of the best songs by anyone in the 90s).
Despite the worst rain of the festival punctuating their set, TMBG showed why they're so much more than that.
They are one of the funniest live acts I've seen of any genre.
The set started with a song dedicated to an "absent friend", the sun.
And after a bravely early airing of Birdhouse we were introduced to the awesomely crazy edutainment tunes including the Alphabet of Nations which is simple in concept but wonderfully entertaining even in midsummer downpours.
Also as well as the best ever song about city nomenclature there was a duet by sock puppets claiming to be Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks and nobody else at Latitude came anywhere close to that level of crazy (and this includes KT Tunstall having an interpretative dancer providing sign language).
There was a real warmth and humour to their banter. So much so I found myself drifting into a lovely little NYC fantasy in which we would all meet up at Casa TMBG's local pizzeria, get involved in Seinfeld-ian escapades and then together with Spidey writer Dan Slott we would go watch some off-Broadway gem.
Which is an odd way of saying to hear these guys is to fall ever so slightly in love with them even in bad weather.

Latitude thoughts : The Vaccines

The caravan has been doing its' summer tour of festivals and general awesomeness.
To catch up, we'll do a few posts on acts wot caught our eyes.

So, The Vaccines.
I have a slightly complicated relationship with these guys as I ADORED Jay Jay Pistolet (frontman Justin Young's previous venture).  Jay Jay Pistolet is very folksy and the tunes are stunning in a nu-folk Noah and The Whale or Johnny Flynn way.
The music's thoughtful but not navel-gazing.
And, well, The Vaccines are closer to The Strokes (or actually The Ramones). Listen to this - it's great but utterly unrecognisable from the Pistolet material.
Which means Justin Young's a very talented man (even if I don't care for the ubiquitous Post Break-up Sex).

Live, though, they won me over.
There was incredible excitement in the audience (the most we'd seen at a fairly laidback and wet Latitude).
And an understated cockiness to the band (it's like they think "Yeah, we're awesome, we don't have to prove anything") but not a laziness. The tunes back this up.
For the next week, we woke up with The Vaccines providing our internal soundtrack.
Which isn't bad seeing we saw them on the first day of a three day festival.

Mass Effect

Last week I finished the first Mass Effect.
It was brilliantly absorbing, strong plot, well paced.

There was one thing that bugged me. The side-missions would often take you to research labs on planets and they were all kinda samey.
I thought it was slightly lazy design but understandable given the scale of the game.
Until I was finding myself walking down the stairs at Bank tube station. In the staircase there are at least five separate sections, all clearly numbered and assembled in some kind of train station Ikea style.

And I thought maybe those identikit research stations on Mass Effect aren't as unrealistic as all that.

Eden sessions : Flaming Lips

The Eden project is a wonderful place.
Biodomes containing tropical rainforests. Statues made out of recycled waste. Giant bees.
All very trippy and very fitting for Wayne Coyne et al.
In fact this is probably the best marriage of performer and venue.
And Coyne certainly seemed to agree.
Yeah, the Lips didn't play all of their wellknown songs. No "The Test" or "Waiting for a Superman".
But I really didn't care.
It was the first time I'd seen them and as first support act OK Go had warned, my brain burst out of its brain socket.
We managed to find ourselves against the barrier and, erm, I did kind of get carried away with punching giant balloons back into the crowd.
All the dancing  Dorothys were excited, as were the security guards, one of whom was giddily talking about what was to happen.
Also, most crucially, the Lips were so thrilled to be there. Wayne Coyne had clearly fallen for the place (and rightly so because Eden is magical and inspiring).

This was an absolute coup for the Eden project. I remember being a teenager in Plymouth and, INXS and Oasis aside, we didn't get big acts. In 1997 the biggest was The Lighthouse Family and, well, that's wrong and a quick Google suggests things haven't changed too much.
So I felt a bit sad for the region's indie kids that Morrisey was making his Plymouth debut that night.

A brief bit on the supports. We saw a surprise (to us) appearance by Badly Drawn Boy (saw but didn't hear as his sound check took forever and OK Go were about to go onto the main stage). One of the nice things about the sessions is that even Eden visitors without concert tickets can watch the performances that aren't on the main stage (and there were a lot of acts on the two non-main stages), as it acted as tasters for not only the acts concerned but also the sessions as a whole.
And OK Go were fantastic. I'd loved their videos (if unfamiliar, try this, this and this and we'll see you when emerge from your YouTube black hole) and I wondered how they were going to be live.
Their version of White Knuckles was brilliant and the handbell edition of Return is stunning, both moving and entertaining.

All told, it was a fantastic evening.
And you MUST see this image of Wayne and the bubble and the bubbles

The thousand autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (not that one)

I had read Cloud Atlas, an earlier Booker-nominated novel by Mitchell.
Though I was slightly anxious about this book.
For starters, Cloud Atlas was a series of stories of a variety of genres and while Mitchell was clearly able to capture a variety of styles, at times they bordered on pastiches. And I seldom warmed to the characters.
But, no, this is an extraordinary book.
It depicts a Dutch East India Company settlement on the island of Dejima off Nagasaki, with the Dutch folk forbidden to step foot on any other Japanese land.
We see the culture clashes. Humorous misunderstandings as well as attempts to screw each other over.
We have seemingly ill-starred romance.
But it's fresh.
While the story is rooted in history and is inspired by real events, it almost feels like a fantasy novel, so alien does Dejima feel. This is meant as a compliment. And it's backed up that wonderfully mysterious title.
The title character, Jacob de Zoet, is a pastor's son and has been told by his fiancee's father to go and make his fortune in the east. So, unlike most of his compatriots on Dejima, he is not an out-and-out mercenary. He can be a bit holier-than-thou but he is a very sympathetic character to modern audiences. And, there is a rebellious streak as evidenced even in the early chapters by his smuggling scripture for his own personal use onto the island, in a time when Christianity was outlawed in Japan. That helps make him feel more human.

In many ways, it's a trilogy in one book with a strong story arc. An arc that twists and turns.
Also it's refreshing that the novel focuses on Dutch colonists. I've found myself reading too much historical fiction focussing on dodgy British colonial adventures, even if they're excellent like English Passengers.
We see the savagery and cruelty of the Dutch and Japanese and you know we'll go dark places though these are stunningly dark.
And yet, it's a very easy read. There's a lightness of touch but, good god, is it gripping.

Revamp : Thor

J. Michael Straczynski (JMS) has received a fair old amount of stick lately, particularly for starting two epic DC storylines and then bailing. I haven't read Grounded but the idea of a non-flying Superman reconnecting with America by walking across it reminds me very much of the crazy conditions imposed on Kevin Smith when he was working on a Superman film script in the 90s.

But JMS can create likeable characters that you can relate to as well as stories with depth.
Look at the start of his Amazing Spiderman run. It is a class above preceding writer Howard Mackie's material (though I also get the sense that JMS wasn't having to shoehorn in editorially mandated references to other characters/storylines)

When JMS took over Thor, the character had been out of use for three years, killed in the fan-fic-esque Norse god slaughter-thon that was Ragnarok.
Instead of just reviving all the gods and Asgard, JMS has Thor reappear in the sleepy town of Broxton, Oklahoma. This cuts away at some of the aloofness of the deity concept. Through vignettes we see the long-term residents' sense of wonder as they encounter the gods in town, especially when local lad Bill meets the enchanting Kelda in a run-down carpark. It also doesn't cheapen the Norse gods. We do see them in townhall meetings but we don't see them, say, take human jobs. When we see Hogun walking back from Texas, boar on his back, he refuses lifts as he tries to be Asgardian in this new framework.
There is almost a lyrical quality. (And a debt to Neil Gaiman's Sandman superficially at least)
Yes, there are pacing issues. That first issue has Thor in limbo wrestling with demons and not an awful lot happens. I bought it at the time but was underimpressed until reading the following issues a while later.
There is also litle interaction with the rest of the Marvel world in the first few issues bar a very personal fight with Iron Man. Whilst other characters' fans won't be brought into the book, this is wise as it enables Thor's new readers to learn their way through all the new (to them) characters as well as get to know the locals.
It is a refreshing more poetic take. I was particularly moved by the story of Thor's father Odin and its' theme of paternal responsibility, especially when you see the flashbacks to Odin succeeding his own father Bor.
JMS's dialogue is also mercifully free of the cod-Shakespeare that Thor has been associated with.
All told, it's a solid reimagining.

Revamp : Doctor Who

Ninth Doctor 

Eighth Doctor and Grace in
a cathedral-esque Tardis

I do love Doctor Who.
From reading this blog, you may have noticed this.
So with all the revamping elsewhere, I thought I would cast my mind back to the two relaunches of the show.
As much as I adore all the mythology, continuity and campness, I kind of knew they would have to strip back. You don't want to swamp the audience.
This is what the 1996 Paul McGann TV movie ends up doing but in the wrong moments. Leaving aside the inherent risk of Fox deciding on commissioning a series based purely on ratings for a pilot (and therefore relying on the strength of marketing rather than audience reaction once they had seen the actual product), the show needed to hook in anyone who had channel surfed. So starting it by focussing on the outgoing middle aged Doctor in the Tardis - not a great choice. The interior looks lavish but we need to explore the Doctor from a newcomer's perspective. It would make more sense to introduce your actual lead actor. Which is one of the smart moves of the 2005 relaunch, featuring a Doctor who has just regenerated off screen.
Another oddity of Who 96 is how it shows (in shadow) the Master being executed for his crimes by the Daleks. We don't know what the crimes are or, crucially, how come the Daleks seem to have evolved legal structures of any sort. This not only disorientates fans, it'll throw casual viewers as well especially as the tinpots and their genocidal rampages are part of popular culture in their own right.
Compare to the 2005 episode Dalek in which we see just the one Dalek. We feel, wonderfully, pity for it as it is tied up in an underground base, the last of its kind. And we also feel fear as we see it take on Henry van Statten's private army, especially the scene in which it electrocutes a squad using sprinklers.
This wonderfully sells the menace of Daleks to the new audience. And we learn more about the Time War and why this Doctor seems so grim in comparison to most other regenerations.
The show needed to have a slight departure from the upper-middle class eccentricity associated with the Doctor. What made sense in the 60s and 70s would have seemed very out of place in 05, especially coming out of Eccleston's mouth. The ninth also looks hard and street-wise with his close cropped hair and leather jacket. It doesn't take too long to get used to, mostly because it suits the character.
McGann's Doctor though is a Greatest Hits, but with a tendency towards Tom Baker, jelly babies, big hair and all. He's charming but not distinctive. Maybe that would have come in time.
However, one crucial mis-step of Who 96 isn't the Doctor kissing or single-serving companion Grace swearing but the revelation that his mother is human. Me, I don't have a HUGE problem with it but I just feel that we don't need it to relate to the character. Nor does it help the greater mythology any. (I adored all the Gallifreyan-ness of the novels, especially the time-looms from which Time Lords were grown. I didn't expect it to be referenced on-air but some wiggle room would have been nice.) Tony Lee, in his Doctor Who : The Forgotten story for IDW, rather wonderfully has the tenth Doctor pass all this off as a practical joke his eighth incarnation played on the Master.
Which is something that actually the TV Movie gets to work. I loved Eric Roberts's portrayal. Very High Gallifrey and very evil. Desperate to survive. Though it's a shame that the story descends to having two aliens wrestling with each other.
For all the talk of the Doctor's half-human side, this isn't a very human production. You don't get much of a flavour of Grace or of the threat.
Whereas Rose's focus is, well, it's there in the title. We meet her loved ones, explore her world first. It's this that the original show needed at times not car chases through the streets of San Francisco.
It also helps that Rose (pays homage to /rips-off ) the Auton invasion of Ealing Broadway, one of the more iconic moments of early 70s Who. It tells the older/more knowledgeable members of the audience that the production crew know the show's history, how it works and that there'll be more of this. (It's also good that the program doesn't continue re-telling classic stories though bar those that originally appeared in audio/novel form).
Crucially that first season is written by fans, who gave their a-game. Who knew that if this failed, the show would be dead forever.
So slowly introduce us to your lead. And re-think. Give an edge by all means (the loss of Gallifrey and the Time War was a shock but explains the dourness - and most rumoured revivals had involved Gallifrey's destruction so it was nothing that new to fans and, besides, the novels had alreaady done it).
Though make sure you're adding, not subtracting from the franchise's appeal (hello 80s Biggles time-travel movie). Yes, you need to pick up new fans but don't assume that you'll forever have the good will of the old ones.

Revamp : the late 80s Superman

So, those of us that care (and some that don't) know that in September DC is relaunching their universe.
Books by new creative teams (mostly) and a general desire to freshen things up.
Clearly it's too early to tell if it'll be any good. Whether we have Heroes Reborn (dire) or Ultimates (somewhat better but not flawless).
Though it's made me think back to the DC of the late 80s. In the UK, London Editions reprinted recent DC stories, often with articles explaining characters and storylines. It was through these that I first learnt of Crisis On Infinite Earths. Crisis (just in case you didn't know) was an epic story arc that allowed DC to tweak characters and their history in an effort to make the comic universe more accessible.
And few were more tweaked about with than Superman.
You know what? It excited me to know that I was reading about a fairly new Superman. (I did find myself looking down the nose at some pre-Crisis material as, for Supes, most of that stuff now hadn't happened.)
DC had entrusted John Byrne with reinventing the Man of Steel. And his version was very much of its time. Luthor was a corporate crook with underworld connections as opposed to a mad scientist. The sillier trappings like the Fortress of Solitude and Krypto the superdog were gone. And Supes was not all powerful. Also stripped back was a lot of the Kryptonianess. Supergirl no longer existed. Clark was on his own. And all the various different non-green colours of Kryptonite (and their different effects) were gone too.
Probably one of the strongest ideas was the doing away with Clark's time as Superboy (seriously, any crook with a brain would compare Smallville phonebooks of the Superboy era with those from Metropolis - yeah, it would take a while then but the rewards would pay dividends.)
Another strong idea was having Superman and Batman not get on. The grudging respect they showed made more sense given their vastly different attitudes and approaches.
But possibly the most crucial change was the overall grounding of Clark in his humanity. Ma and Pa Kent were now still alive, allowing us to see his human side. (Some of my favourite scenes were Clark hanging out back home.) Yes, this was a powerful being but he was relatable. See the issue of Man Of Steel when Clark comes home after his first heroic feat, saving a space-plane. He is overcome by the public reaction. "They all wanted a piece of me, Ma".
Byrne and fellow writer Marv Wolfman had modelled a fair bit on the Christopher Reeves films, to be sure. Though the paring back paid dividends. We were allowed to discover a hero who whilst morally strong could fail. And that could make for interesting reading.
The first issue of anything that I definitely remember having is Superman 9. It features the Joker attacking Metropolis. The Joker-smiles on his gassed victims scared my 8 year-old self but what really terrified me was the Joker's response when ultimately asked why he'd attacked another city. "Why ever not?"
That isn't the best part of that issue. The best part is a back-up story featuring Luthor appearing in a diner 900 miles from Metropolis. This is small-scale evil. He asks his waitress if she wants to give up her life, her husband and come with him for a month. She has ten minutes to decide.
There's no super-heroics at all. Just a moral dilemma and a great character-piece.
It's the characterisation that makes this era.
At the same time, over in Adventures of Superman, Marv Wolfman and Jerry Ordway created two of the more interesting recent additions to the supporting cast. Cat Grant (a bolshy single mother colleague of Clark's, who had designs on him) and Jose Delgado. Yeah, Jose's got a bit of a stereotypical name but his introductory storyline was great. Gang Wars focussed on turf wars between gangs and Superman's realisation that this was a problem that couldn't be punched into submission. Jose eventually becomes Gangbuster in an effort to help police his neighbourhood. Which led to another issue that I adored, Adventures of Superman 437. There are two narrators, on facing pages. Lois Lane and Luthor. Lois is discussing her date with Jose and how it is interrupted by a hired thug called Combattor. Luthor (who has funded said thug) tells his dinner-date of a hypothetical fight between Combattor and Superman and how neither are really the good guys. It's narratively daring (for a comic) and I remember being shocked that Combattor crippled Jose. It also made me hate Luthor even more.
To conclude, yes, this brave new world of 1986 had a few mis-steps in its first 2-3 years but it entertained the hell out of my kiddy self. And took risks when doing it.