Peter Wilkinson's Journal

8:17pm: A fallback message arrangement
Since I'm intentionally not publishing an email address here at the moment and my current email setup doesn't seem to be 100% reliable for incoming mail, I'm creating this entry for people who don't have an email address for me or do have one but suspect that emails aren't getting through.

Comments to this entry will all be screened so that any private messages hopefully won't get released to the rest of the universe.

6:39pm: How (not) to vote against the BNP
I generally try not to deviate into politics in this LJ - so my apologies to anyone who wasn't expecting it and doesn't want to read this (very long) entry, or just has no interest in British or European politics.

( Declaration of interest )

( Some possibly boring details about the election in London )

( So how likely is the BNP getting a seat in London? )

So: vote - and vote for someone other than the BNP. But ( parties who have no chance of winning, mostly deservedly )

( Parties that are definitely better than the BNP and may improve their positions this time round - though I'd still prefer not )

( And the parties that I do hope do well )

But do vote - and do vote for some party, other than the BNP (and preferably UKIP), that has a chance of winning at least one seat in your area.

8:30pm: Remembering a vanished Caliphate
An anniversary has just gone by and, so far as I can see, almost nobody has noticed. A thousand years ago last Sunday night, a coup d'état took place in one of the main centres of civilisation in Europe. The results of the coup destroyed not only the people it had been launched against but the people who launched it and, over the next few years, the state for control of which the two groups were contending. The city in which the coup was launched would be left in ruins, and the civilisation of which it had been the centre had received a blow from which it would never recover - even though it lasted for several more centuries and had many of its greatest intellectual and artistic achievements to come.

The city was Cordoba, and the coup had two immediate results - the deposition of Caliph Hisham II by his cousin Muhammad, and the complete destruction of the Madinat al-Zahira, one of two large palace complexes just outside Cordoba (and not to be confused with the other, Madinat al-Zahra, which would also be destroyed a few years later but some remains of which still exist today). For anyone who knows Spanish (or, like me, can just about struggle with it), there is a fuller account of that night's events here - one of a series of blog posts that are apparently covering episodes of the story a millenium after they happened.

While the deposition of Hisham was important, it was actually almost a side-issue in terms of the real reasons for the coup - Hisham had reigned for over thirty years but never ruled. For most of this time, the actual ruler had been a man who had risen from a relatively humble background, Muhammad ibn Abi Aamir, better known as al-Mansur, who had died in 1002. al-Mansur had been succeeded in turn by two of his sons - al-Muzaffar who had died the previous October and now Abd al-Rahman, nicknamed Sanchuelo after his maternal grandfather, King Sancho II of Navarre. Since his succession, Sanchuelo had been busy - he had persuaded Hisham to proclaim him as heir apparent to the Caliphate and was now away on a mid-winter jihad against the Christian kingdom of Leon. The coup had been carefully timed to take place as he crossed into Leon - at least to Hisham's Ummayad relatives, the ostensible piety of the jihad was clearly invalidated by his all but blasphemous attempt to become Caliph.

The next post in the Spanish series I mentioned above will presumably appear the week after next - as Sanchuelo hurries back to Cordoba but never reaches it...

8:02pm: Just for the record...

6:52pm: American politics trivia question
Between 1801 and 1825, Presidents Jefferson, Madison and Monroe each served two full terms as President of the United States. Who were the next two consecutive Presidents each to serve two full terms?

(Yes, I've worked out the answer, but I was rather surprised.)

I'm screening comments until tomorrow, to give more than one person a chance to answer.

12:26am: Best wishes for the season...
however you choose to refer to it.

And also for 2009 (or an equivalent period in whichever calendar you would prefer to use).

7:32pm: Once (or twice) in a lifetime...
As a Brit, the last 24 hours have reminded me strongly of just one previous day in my life - 2 May 1997. The knowing that the party of which I was (and am still) a member was well ahead in the opinion polls but a total lack of trust that this would translate into victory - I recognised and, though this time rather at second hand, have felt that all that again.

And probably, over the next few years, Barack Obama will disappoint people just as Tony Blair did (if me somewhat less than a number of people on my flist - but there's a party I'd like to drop in on this evening, so I won't take that argument up now). But probably in rather different, and possibly lesser, ways. We will see.

But, on previous experience, while the memory of the past 48 hours may be tarnished by future events, it will not be destroyed. The world can genuinely change for the better once and for all.

6:32pm: Umm...
The first words I see below the headline in an article on the BBC website about the superiority of dead-tree books to electronic ones are:

"Cannot play media. You do not have the correct version of the flash player. Download the correct version"

True, as it happens - but not, I think, intentional.

6:53pm: Watching Denvention from a distance
As is becoming something of a tradition, I've set up a temporary friends group of LJers attending Denvention 3, and made it public.

While many of the LJs listed will already on my friends list, I am adding others who are posting from or about Denvention - though probably dropping most of them again in a few weeks once it has receded into the distance. However, if you are one of the new additions, friending me back or writing interestingly enough in your LJ that I have to keep reading it are probably good tactics for keeping you on my friends list.

If you spot any interesting LJs, LJ feeds - or indeed other web resources - about Denvention, please feel free to comment here to tell me about them.

7:56pm: Countries' rights to exist (according to Google hits)
Israel: 179,000
Palestine: 2,540
Iran: 767
Lebanon: 319
Northern Ireland: 307
America: 302
( The list continues... )
Cyprus: 0
Zimbabwe: 0

(figures obtained by entering "...'s right to exist" into the main Google search engine)

1:08am: Season's greetings
A happy Christmas (or suitable preferred equivalent) to all.

11:39pm: Ken Slater injured
mossfree has informed me that Ken Slater (for anyone who doesn't know, a very long-standing British SF fan) apparently had a fall on Thursday night, while attending Polcon in Warsaw. He was flown home on Friday night, and is likely to be in hospital for a while. While any fall at Ken's age is likely to be dangerous, the injuries are apparently painful but not life-threatening.

mossfree is currently in Poland, and I don't have any details of what hospital Ken will be in here in Britain.

EDIT (3 Sept): Message now slightly tidied up and unlocked (it was previously friends-only). And could anyone who's heard anything more about Ken since he got back to Britain please let mossfree know. Thanks.

6:05pm: Watching Nippon 2007 from a distance
As I did last year with L.A.Con IV, I've set up a temporary friends group of LJers attending Nippon 2007 - and again I've made it public.

Also as last year, while I'm starting with people already on my friends list, I will be adding others who are posting from or about Nippon 2007 - though probably dropping most of them again in a few weeks once Worldcon has receded into the distance. However, if you are one of the new additions, friending me back or writing interestingly enough in your LJ that I have to keep reading it are probably good tactics for keeping you on my friends list.

If you spot any interesting LJs, LJ feeds - or indeed other web resources - about Nippon 2007, please feel free to comment here to tell me about them.

11:51pm: Extreme journeys by Google Maps
As others have more or less said before me:

- Go to Google Maps
- Select "Get directions"
- Enter "Kapitan Andreevo" and "Chula Vista" as your start and end points and press "Get directions"
- Scroll down and read step 68

Oh, you already know what to expect? (If you don't, go and find out - it's worth it!)

Then now go and ask for directions from Kapitan Andreevo to Edirne. And from Chula Vista to Tijuana. Look at the maps, and note the contrast.

11:40pm: A happy whatever to everyone reading this
And, of course, a happy new year to follow it.

1:46am: Review: Ilario: the Lion's Eye by Mary Gentle
Try imagining a world with strong similarities to our own 15th century but also with many differences. Carthage and its Visigothic King-Caliph dominates the seas of the western Mediterranean and seeks to absorb the independent Visigothic kingdoms of Iberia. In Rome, there has been no Pope in the Empty Chair for six centuries. And while old Alexandria is ruled by the Turks, the Pharaoh-Queen still reigns in Alexandria-in-Exile (still usually referred to by Franks and Iberians as Constantinople).

However, Francesco Foscari is Doge of Venice, Philip the Good is Duke of Burgundy, and in Florence a few pioneers - Donatello, Brunelleschi, Masaccio - are creating the New Art.

We are in Mary Gentle's First History, the year is 1428 and Ilario - hermaphrodite, aspiring artist and ex-King's Freak - has fled to Carthage from the court of his native Taraconensis (one of the above-mentioned Iberian kingdoms) after an attempt on his/her life. But Carthage is no safer. What Ilario wants to do is to learn the New Art but life is just not that simple - and may not even be very long.

Mary Gentle gives us a story of over 600 pages of continually shifting intrigue, in what is probably her most accomplished novel yet (though not her most ambitious - that still has to be Ash). Her writing is both stylish, even brilliant, and readable. Her main characters are both very believable and sympathetic and while some of her settings (the story ranges round much of the Mediterranean) feel somewhat less real, they are still better and more originally imagined than those of even the best genre fantasy. The plot has all the repeated reversals of the reader's expectations that one has come to expect of a Mary Gentle novel - but they never violate those expectations as they have (at least in some readers' views) from time to time in her earlier works.

Except in one particular sense. Mary Gentle's hallmark mixture of unorthodox sex and violence, of dominance and submission, is certainly present in Ilario but less in the foreground than in any of her work since at least Rats and Gargoyles. And Ilario him/herself is the best adjusted and most fundamentally optimistic Gentle hero (of either sex or both) for at least 20 years. Be warned or encouraged.

Finally, yes, Ilario is a prequel to Ash. However it is very much a stand-alone novel, with only some largely inessential background material shared with Ash. If you have read neither novel, though, and intend to read both, read Ash first - the background material is both more fully detailed in Ash and something of a spoiler for it. But if you bounce on Ash, still try Ilario.

My advice? Buy and read Ilario. Enough other good SFF has been published this year that it will not necessarily be a scandal if Ilario does not get shortlisted for the various awards for this year - but equally it would be a deserving winner of any of them.

EDIT: A bibliographic note - at the front of the book, it says that Under the Penitence, a novella published by PS Publishing in 2004, constitutes part 1 of the book and that The Logistics of Carthage, a novella originally published in Worlds that Weren't in 2002 and reprinted in Cartomancy, also forms part of the story.

Part 1 of Ilario is indeed a slightly lengthened version of Under the Penitence (while there are small changes throughout, most of the new material is towards the end). However, The Logistics of Carthage does not form part of the novel in any form - and while it could be incorporated into a sequel, there's not the slightest indication that one is likely.

12:48am: The Pope's grasp of historical context
When I heard that the Pope had been quoting a 14th century emperor inveighing against Islam, I immediately wondered which one? Most Christian medieval emperors were in practice at least as hostile to the Papacy as they were to Islam - had the Pope left himself open to some juicy counter-quotations?

I now learn that the Pope was quoting a Byzantine emperor, Manuel II - and despite Manuel being a heretic in Catholic eyes, the counter-quotations probably don't exist. Manuel had some very strong reasons for not insulting the Papacy.

( But why quoting Manuel II was still a bad idea )

11:00pm: Rival Worldcons
I've decided to keep this separate from my L.A.con watching, but there seems to be at least one virtual Worldcon in full swing, with a strong bias towards filk.

6:11pm: Watching L.A.con IV from a distance
In order to find out what going on at Worldcon, I've set up a temporary friends group of LJers at L.A.con IV who are either already on my friends list or who look like posting from Anaheim - and I've made it public in case anyone else might find it useful.

This means that my friends list is likely to grow rapidly over the next three or four days, and - unlike previously - a number of the new friends will be people who I know scarcely or not at all. I'll therefore probably be defriending a number (though probably not all) of my new friends in two or three weeks' time, though there are one or two tactics that are likely to encourage me to keep them - like friending me back or writing interestingly enough that I want to keep in touch when life gets more mundane again.

If you spot any interesting LJs, LJ feeds - or indeed other web resources - about L.A.con, please feel free to comment here to tell me about them.

9:38pm: What does Six Apart mean by "nudity"?
Can anyone explain to me exactly what FAQ 111 is meant to prohibit? Pretty much every dictionary I can find seems to define nudity as "the state of being unclothed", or something very close to that - something I'd read as suggesting that the person depicted was wearing no clothes at all.

Clearly, though, Six Apart is using a wider definition than that - presumably what Wikipedia currently gives as a secondary definition: "wearing significantly less clothing than expected by the conventions of a particular culture and situation".

So - which culture? which situation? FAQ 111 certainly doesn't say - which presumably means that the only safe default userpics are ones which are not regarded as depicting nudity by any culture in any situation. And not only can't I think of a single part of the human body which this would safely allow - FAQ 111 does not use species-specific language, and neither do the various definitions I've come across. For that matter, FAQ 111 doesn't use gender-specific language either - though, strangely, the current crackdown does seem somewhat gender-specific. Odd.

1:57pm: Friending some more people
I've been doing some follow-up on my last entry here, adding a few more friends. There's some slight obfuscation in some of my remarks below, mainly because I suspect that one (at least) of the people I'm mentioning might prefer it that way:

bugshaw, of course - that's mostly a case of "why did't I do it earlier?", though there's also a bit of friending back people who friend me.

And a couple of others further down the list. In one case, someone I only knew very slightly a few months back when I found and identified her LJ but have got to know rather better over the past couple of months.

In another, a total coincidence. I'd learned several months back that the person concerned had an LJ, looked for it at the time and not spotted it. The LJ concerned appeared some distance down the list in my last entry and I recognised it as one I'd been intending to look at. Then I saw the biographical details and realised who it was. The coincidence, though, was the latest entry in the LJ concerned (no more details, even on request, except to the person concerned - who I expect will recognise the coincidence if they read this - or with their permission).

7:22pm: TrustFlow results for pwilkinson
I tried out TrustFlow II for LiveJournal. The following people not on the friends list for pwilkinson are close by:

• bugshaw, bohemiancoast, lproven (100 - 150)
• coalescent, grahamsleight, major_clanger, drplokta, sbisson, purplecthulhu, despotliz, ninebelow, purpletigron (150 - 200)
• the_magician, peake, headgardener, miramon, hawkida, ticking_fool, daveon, swisstone, the_gardener (200 - 250)

( More results below the cut... )

Created by ciphergoth; hosted by LShift.

TrustFlow II: Who is closest to your friends list?

( My reactions )

1:37am: So what do people nominate for the Hugos?
Just a week to go and I'm still thinking what to nominate for the Hugos, and which Hugos I feel in a position to nominate for. If I get the time, I'll discuss in a day or two what I myself am thinking of nominating - here, I'll concentrate on just what kinds of things people do, or don't, nominate in various categories.

So, to my main point here: what the Hugo rules literally say is eligible in a particular category and what people think the rules say is eligible in the category don't necessarily coincide. And what people actually nominate may be different again.
( And some examples of varying outrageousness )

7:10pm: Why I like the BSFA and Clarke shortlists
(Thanks to nwhyte for unintentionally reminding me to write this.)

I ended up not nominating for the BSFA awards because I forgot the deadline until a few days before and then caught a rather nasty cold (the second this month). ( But, taking the BSFA and Clarke shortlists together, other people did it all for me anyway )

And to finish with a comment I may return to - whatever differences there are between science fiction and fantasy, the shortlisted works (at least the ones I've read) would none of them be what they are without the heritage of both traditions.

7:34pm: If this is a journal, does it have issues?
And if so, is this part of issue 2006/01/12, as in:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/pwilkinson/2006/01/12/ ?

or the whole of issue 3732, as in:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/pwilkinson/3732.html ?

By the way, please do discuss this specific question here, but this is also intended as an example in a discussion of possible changes to Hugo award rules at http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/hugoweb - if you want to join in that discussion, please come along, set yourself up a Yahoo account if necessary, and join in.