31/05/2014
Reading - May 2014
03/05/2014
Drive On
A Social History Of The Motor Car
L.J.K. Setright
2002
Loose ragbag of prejudices and post hoc reasoning masquerades as academic rigor.
Everyone must have at least one friend like L.J.K. Setright. Possessed of a disconcerting number of outré opinions, steadfast in their rejection of alternatives (or indeed logic), they are resolutely convinced of their own correctness. I was talking with one recently, and he was insisting that recent studies show that if you stop training for a mere two weeks, then all your fitness is lost. So presumably if Mo Farrah misses a fortnight, I'll be able to run 5K faster than him. Of course.
As frustrating as these people are in person, it turns out they are more so in book form, where you are deprived of the option of attempting to argue with them. I suppose you can put the book down but it's not the same. Setright (he always refers to himself, pompously, in the third person, using just his surname) had a number of signature opinions which in his head were, I'm sure, entirely rational, and this book provides him with another opportunity to air them again, like a greatest hits album.
What are they? The Honda Prelude, or possibly the NSX, is the greatest car ever made. Front wheel drive is an abomination forced on us by sheep-like manufacturers copying VW. Rolls Royces are wildly overrated and have been since about 1920. Most car manufacturers apart from Bristol and Honda are ruining cars. Diesels are evil. And so on.
Setright clearly knows his stuff and is passionate about the subject, which ensures the book is often interesting. For some reason, however, he seems to harbour a deep sense of injustice and resentment on behalf of the motor car itself, directed at, variously, the avaricious manufacturers intent on making money (how dare they), the vulgar and stupid public who asked for and paid money for all the wrong things, and the weak designers who resorted to giving the public what they asked for and should have known better.
If only all of them had asked Setright who, you could be forgiven for thinking, had been there all of the time advising of the correct route, instead of ranting from the sidelines of a magazine column with the full benefit of hindsight. After a while this becomes wearing, when reading for the fifth time how, say, Ford shunned the right thing ("right" according to Setright, judging them thirty years after the fact) in favour of the popular, money-making thing.
Setright has his fans still (he died a while ago now) but it's an acquired taste. I probably won't bother again.
L.J.K. Setright
2002
Loose ragbag of prejudices and post hoc reasoning masquerades as academic rigor.
As frustrating as these people are in person, it turns out they are more so in book form, where you are deprived of the option of attempting to argue with them. I suppose you can put the book down but it's not the same. Setright (he always refers to himself, pompously, in the third person, using just his surname) had a number of signature opinions which in his head were, I'm sure, entirely rational, and this book provides him with another opportunity to air them again, like a greatest hits album.
What are they? The Honda Prelude, or possibly the NSX, is the greatest car ever made. Front wheel drive is an abomination forced on us by sheep-like manufacturers copying VW. Rolls Royces are wildly overrated and have been since about 1920. Most car manufacturers apart from Bristol and Honda are ruining cars. Diesels are evil. And so on.
Setright clearly knows his stuff and is passionate about the subject, which ensures the book is often interesting. For some reason, however, he seems to harbour a deep sense of injustice and resentment on behalf of the motor car itself, directed at, variously, the avaricious manufacturers intent on making money (how dare they), the vulgar and stupid public who asked for and paid money for all the wrong things, and the weak designers who resorted to giving the public what they asked for and should have known better.
If only all of them had asked Setright who, you could be forgiven for thinking, had been there all of the time advising of the correct route, instead of ranting from the sidelines of a magazine column with the full benefit of hindsight. After a while this becomes wearing, when reading for the fifth time how, say, Ford shunned the right thing ("right" according to Setright, judging them thirty years after the fact) in favour of the popular, money-making thing.
Setright has his fans still (he died a while ago now) but it's an acquired taste. I probably won't bother again.
30/04/2014
Reading - April 2014
- Guitarist (May 2014 / Issue 380)
- Fugitive From The Cubicle Police by Scott Adams (1996)
- As far as I can tell this is just all of the Dilbert strips from late '93 to early '95, packaged up in a book, and so as hit-and-miss as the strip itself. When Adams hits the nail on the head, it encapsulates the corporate experience perfectly. Sometimes it's just a little dull though.
- Michael Schumacher: The Edge Of Greatness by James Allen (2007)
- Released to capitalise on Schumacher's first retirement and hence not including his later stint at Mercedes. A balanced view on his controversial career and the man himself.
- The Secret History Of Entertainment by David Hepworth (2004)
- Not at all what I was expecting. Despite the grandiose title, this slim volume is a mildly diverting collection of showbiz factoids; reading for the littlest room. I think David Hepworth has a better book in him than this.
- The Week (5 April 2014 / Issue 965)
- The Week (12 April 2014 / Issue 966)
- Bedlam by Christopher Brookmyre (2013)
- Average Brookmyre (which is to say, still good), average SF.
- The Week (19 April 2014 / Issue 967)
- The Runaway Actress by Victoria Connelly (2012)
- Pleasant, boilerplate chick-lit. Nice enough plot but not enough romance and a small twist that was telegraphed way ahead.
- The Week (26 April 2014 / Issue 968)
- Drive On by L.J.K. Setright (2002)
- Informative but ludicrously opinionated and far too pleased with itself.
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (2011)
- Highly enjoyable but a little shallow. Retro themes good fun.
27/04/2014
Bedlam
Christopher Brookmyre
2013
Brookmyre vs SF. Let's call it a draw
Isaac Asimov observed that to include science fiction in a list of specialized literary genres, such as westerns, adventure, thrillers, sports stories or romance, is to miss the point somewhat. Science fiction can be any and all of these things. Since it must first be a story (at least to be worth reading), it might be a western, like much early SF, or it could be a mystery such as Asimov's own ground-breaking novels The Caves Of Steel and The Naked Sun.
What makes it science fiction is not the type of story but the setting; to quote the good doctor again, that it "includes events played out against a social or physical background significantly different from our own". Anyone who reads SF knows that there's a lot of variety covered by this definition. Some books are really close to our own reality while some are vastly different. Some are more about the science than the fiction, others just the opposite.
Brookmyre says in his bio (presumably he writes it himself) that he "has established himself as one of Britain's leading crime novelists. This hasn't stopped people from nagging him to write SF instead." It's interesting, by the way, that he classifies himself as a crime novelist. Recent novels from "Chris" Brookmyre notwithstanding, I would have said that most of his output belongs in the "thriller" category, and that's exactly where Bedlam fits too. What we have here is not really a massive departure for him. It is easily identifiable as a Christopher Brookmyre novel in both style and substance. It's just set somewhere else that doesn't exist (yet) and so is SF too.
Unfortunately, as science fiction, it's fairly derivative. The notion of virtual worlds indistinguishable from the real world isn't new; the key texts here are William Gibson's astonishing Neuromancer (1982) and Neal Stephenson's wonderful Snow Crash (1992). The notion of multiple virtual worlds isn't original either: Ernest Cline's Ready Player One (2011) springs to mind (mainly because I'm reading it right now), but I'm sure there are others.
Also unfortunately, as a Brookmyre novel, it's average. This needs to be considered in context though - it's still good. The notion of all the virtual worlds being versions of old PC games is quite nice (and is very consistent with previous novels' obsession with first and second generation FPS games like Doom and Quake), the overall story hangs together and the characters are well drawn. It's as highly readable as ever.
I just feel that, in attempting to write SF, he's lost some of the essence of Brookmyre, but as SF it's not as detailed as I'd like. Still better than those dreary "Chris" Brookmyre crime novels though.
Update (2018): I've since re-read this book at least four times and thoroughly enjoyed it each time. I'm not quite sure why I was so underwhelmed the first time - maybe because the aforementioned Ready Player One was so good - but it's definitely worth noting that it's improved with age.
2013
Brookmyre vs SF. Let's call it a draw
What makes it science fiction is not the type of story but the setting; to quote the good doctor again, that it "includes events played out against a social or physical background significantly different from our own". Anyone who reads SF knows that there's a lot of variety covered by this definition. Some books are really close to our own reality while some are vastly different. Some are more about the science than the fiction, others just the opposite.
Brookmyre says in his bio (presumably he writes it himself) that he "has established himself as one of Britain's leading crime novelists. This hasn't stopped people from nagging him to write SF instead." It's interesting, by the way, that he classifies himself as a crime novelist. Recent novels from "Chris" Brookmyre notwithstanding, I would have said that most of his output belongs in the "thriller" category, and that's exactly where Bedlam fits too. What we have here is not really a massive departure for him. It is easily identifiable as a Christopher Brookmyre novel in both style and substance. It's just set somewhere else that doesn't exist (yet) and so is SF too.
Unfortunately, as science fiction, it's fairly derivative. The notion of virtual worlds indistinguishable from the real world isn't new; the key texts here are William Gibson's astonishing Neuromancer (1982) and Neal Stephenson's wonderful Snow Crash (1992). The notion of multiple virtual worlds isn't original either: Ernest Cline's Ready Player One (2011) springs to mind (mainly because I'm reading it right now), but I'm sure there are others.
Also unfortunately, as a Brookmyre novel, it's average. This needs to be considered in context though - it's still good. The notion of all the virtual worlds being versions of old PC games is quite nice (and is very consistent with previous novels' obsession with first and second generation FPS games like Doom and Quake), the overall story hangs together and the characters are well drawn. It's as highly readable as ever.
I just feel that, in attempting to write SF, he's lost some of the essence of Brookmyre, but as SF it's not as detailed as I'd like. Still better than those dreary "Chris" Brookmyre crime novels though.
Update (2018): I've since re-read this book at least four times and thoroughly enjoyed it each time. I'm not quite sure why I was so underwhelmed the first time - maybe because the aforementioned Ready Player One was so good - but it's definitely worth noting that it's improved with age.
05/04/2014
Eliminator
ZZ Top
1983
Machine metal music
To the average rock fan, Billy Gibbons probably isn't a name that rings any bells. To the pop anorak, he's the guitar player and lead singer in ZZ Top, a Texas bar band who achieved a remarkably sudden commercial breakthrough with this album, Eliminator, its singles and the three made-for-MTV videos that went with them. But in rock guitarist circles, Billy Gibbons is, simply, a legend, known for his creamy tones and the fact that he (and his Les Paul) inspired one of the first artist-endorsed after market pickups (Seymour Duncan's "Pearly Gates").
I guess I need to hand my rock guitarist badge back then, because this is the first ZZ Top album I have ever listened to, and that only in the last few months. It's not quite what I expected. From a guitar perspective, there is some excellent playing and some fantastic tones, but what's really taken me by surprise is that this is, fundamentally, a pop album. Shorn of the rock colouring, most of these songs would have served perfectly well on any contemporary pop album.
In fact, in some respects they are fairly ground-breaking - for pop. There's clearly some early computer-based tools involved here; the music is too clean and too precise, the repeated riffs too identical, to be anything else. You could replace the guitar with keyboards and not lose the essence of the song. Yet the best of them have clearly grown out of the bar-boogie ZZ Top were known for.
The singles - "Gimme All Your Lovin'", "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Legs" - are classics and the best tracks here, of course, but I also rather like "I Need You Tonight", which has a wonderfully liquid guitar tone, heavy on the echo, effortlessly sustaining and fading into upper harmonics. It's the tone I aspire to when I play. The song is OK. The other album tracks kind of blend into one - good music, but not standing out much. Interestingly, possibly of most influence was the kind of guitar tone we hear on "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Dirty Dog", a heavily distorted, heavily phased sound much imitated through the 80s.
1983
Machine metal music
I guess I need to hand my rock guitarist badge back then, because this is the first ZZ Top album I have ever listened to, and that only in the last few months. It's not quite what I expected. From a guitar perspective, there is some excellent playing and some fantastic tones, but what's really taken me by surprise is that this is, fundamentally, a pop album. Shorn of the rock colouring, most of these songs would have served perfectly well on any contemporary pop album.
In fact, in some respects they are fairly ground-breaking - for pop. There's clearly some early computer-based tools involved here; the music is too clean and too precise, the repeated riffs too identical, to be anything else. You could replace the guitar with keyboards and not lose the essence of the song. Yet the best of them have clearly grown out of the bar-boogie ZZ Top were known for.
The singles - "Gimme All Your Lovin'", "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Legs" - are classics and the best tracks here, of course, but I also rather like "I Need You Tonight", which has a wonderfully liquid guitar tone, heavy on the echo, effortlessly sustaining and fading into upper harmonics. It's the tone I aspire to when I play. The song is OK. The other album tracks kind of blend into one - good music, but not standing out much. Interestingly, possibly of most influence was the kind of guitar tone we hear on "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Dirty Dog", a heavily distorted, heavily phased sound much imitated through the 80s.
31/03/2014
Reading - March 2014
- God Explained In A Taxi Ride by Paul Arden (2007)
- Where the greatest minds of history have failed, a former advertising executive unsurprisingly also fails.
- The Week (22 February 2014 / Issue 959)
- The Week (1 March 2014 / Issue 960)
- Guitarist (April 2014 / Issue 379)
- Crosstown Traffic by Charles Shaar Murray (1989)
- I'm not a big fan of biographies, but although this has some of Jimi Hendrix's life history, it's primarily a cultural analysis of his influences and influence on rock music. Inspired and interesting enough to forgive the occasional lapses into NME style inky-speak (which, to be fair, Shaar Murray did help create). Full of wonderful little insights and easily fulfilling the basic requirement of any book about music: it made me want to go and listen to Hendrix's albums again.
- Pandaemonium by Christopher Brookmyre (2009)
- Darker and with a higher body count (particularly of the good guys) that usual. Big target: organised religion and what it will do to protect its own hegemony. Compelling as ever, some nicely drawn characters, as ever, but a little less satisfying that some of his other books.
- Running For Peak Performance by Frank Shorter (2005)
- Concise but informative book about running. Contains some useful information about training that isn't running (weight training and so on), but generally no new info over other books I have read.
- The Week (8 March 2014 / Issue 961)
- The Week (15 March 2014 / Issue 962)
- The Week (22 March 2014 / Issue 963)
- The Making Of Pride And Prejudice by Sue Birtwhistle & Susie Conklin (1995)
- This isn't just an enjoyable behind-the-scenes look at the classic 1995 BBC costume drama, but an insightful, er, insight into just what it takes to make such things. The first thing that strikes me is just how many people are involved - something that should be obvious to anyone who spends more than ten seconds considering the matter, but nevertheless easy to forget. The second is the sheer scale of effort involved in making it. Some poor soul has to note every single action and prop for continuity purposes. Now that's a job for someone with an eye for detail.
- Can You Keep A Secret? by Sophie Kinsella (2005)
- Sophie Kinsella's more famous "Shopaholic" series fails to strike a chord with me but this is a very funny romcom. It's firmly in the Bridget Jones vein of hapless woman caught in misunderstandings and mishaps partly of her own making, but all working out for the best in the end, and I could easily see it being made into a film. I enjoyed it very much.
- The Week (29 March 2014 / Issue 964)
- Make Room For Daddy by Andrea Edwards (1990)
- The title Make Room For Daddy is one of the worst I know of, but that aside, this is one of my favourite romance novels, a sweet, gentle story set in Chicago about a baker and the man who moves in next door.
12/03/2014
You And Me Both
Yazoo
1983
Vince Clarke does what Vince Clarke does.
Formative, influential synth-pop ... yadda yadda yadda. Listening to this now, what strikes me most is the minimalism. Perhaps this was imposed by the technology of the day - and many of the synth sounds are classic, tinkly, early digital settings - but it makes for some very clean arrangements. Nothing superfluous, just a drum machine, a couple of Vince Clarke tracks, and Alison Moyet singing over the top.
When you get a song of the quality of "Nobody's Diary", which towers over everything else here, the stripped down arrangement sounds fantastic; the combination of Moyet's soul vocals and Clarke's electonics really gels. On my first few listens I thought that perhaps it didn't work for the other tracks on the album, but now I've got to know it there are some other good tracks. I particularly like "Walk Away From Love", a cousin (unsurprisingly) of early Depeche Mode singles "I Just Can't Get Enough" and "New Life", all jolly, chirpy keyboard riffs. I also enjoy "Happy People", featuring Clarke's rather sweetly adequate vocals.
Ultimately, although there is one really good song and some perfectly acceptable ones, it's the quality and simplicity of the arrangements that shines through and makes work. Why I didn't listen to it at the time, I don't know - it's right in my era. At the time I bought albums by Depeche Mode, Howard Jones and Tears For Fears, all similar in many ways. Oh well, at least I've caught up now.
1983
Vince Clarke does what Vince Clarke does.
When you get a song of the quality of "Nobody's Diary", which towers over everything else here, the stripped down arrangement sounds fantastic; the combination of Moyet's soul vocals and Clarke's electonics really gels. On my first few listens I thought that perhaps it didn't work for the other tracks on the album, but now I've got to know it there are some other good tracks. I particularly like "Walk Away From Love", a cousin (unsurprisingly) of early Depeche Mode singles "I Just Can't Get Enough" and "New Life", all jolly, chirpy keyboard riffs. I also enjoy "Happy People", featuring Clarke's rather sweetly adequate vocals.
Ultimately, although there is one really good song and some perfectly acceptable ones, it's the quality and simplicity of the arrangements that shines through and makes work. Why I didn't listen to it at the time, I don't know - it's right in my era. At the time I bought albums by Depeche Mode, Howard Jones and Tears For Fears, all similar in many ways. Oh well, at least I've caught up now.
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