I took these photos on Sunday afternoon (Remembrance Day.) The wreaths from the morning’s memorial service are prominent. Among the wreaths from the local Council and councillor and various military and civilian organisations there was one from the US Marine Corps.

The central memorial pillar has bronzes on it displaying soldiers, seamen and airmen, ships, aircraft, airships etc. In this respect it resembles larger memorials I have seen such as the one in Plymouth (which is mainly dedicated to naval personnel.)

The building beyond the memorial contains Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery and was built with money donated from the linoleum manufacturer family Nairn as part of the memorial to the dead of WW1.

This is to the right of the WW2 memorial and is a relatively recent addition. It provides a place for individual memorial poppies, as you can see, and also for commemoration of those who have died on active service since WW2. One time I looked there a poppy had been placed in memory of someone who had been killed in Basra.

Some years ago, when skateboarding was a newish fad and before special areas for it had been built in parks etc skateboarders used to use the tarred area in front of the memorial to do their thing. There were several letters to the local paper objecting to this as a mark of disrespect in part disguised by concern that they might be damaging the memorial itself.

I never saw it as disrespect. After all, wasn’t it precisely so that people could go about doing whatever they enjoyed within the law that those commemorated had given their lives for?

I also never noted any damage, even to the tarmac.

It’s mostly quiet these days of course.

Jacqui Janes, mother of a British soldier killed in Afghanistan, has been in the news because a letter she received from Gordon Brown apparently misspelled her dead son’s name and, she is quoted as saying, was, “hastily scrawled,” forbye.

Just one thought. Who does she think she is?

She received a letter of condolence from the Prime Minister. Hand written, no less.

I appreciate that in her grief she may not have been in an accommodating frame of mind. But…..

The letter wasn’t delegated to a minion. It wasn’t typed or word processed.

Does she imagine for a moment that Lloyd George or Winston Churchill personally wrote a letter of condolence to every member of the armed forces killed on their watches? I very much doubt Margaret Thatcher did so for each soldier, sailor or airman killed in the Falklands.

So who exactly is disrespecting whom? Whatever anyone thinks of Gordon Brown as PM the man is in an exacting job with many demands on his time.

If I had received such a letter I’d be grateful that he’d taken time from his schedule to even think to do so. The mere fact he wrote it shows he was thinking about her loss.

Btw: If I had a penny for every time my name had been misspelled – or mispronounced – I would be a very rich man indeed. I’m sure the same could be said for Ms Janes.

I almost feel like enjoining her to grow up.

It is desperately sad that her personal tragedy has been diminished by a sordid descent into PM bashing.

As it is, I cannot escape the notion that she has been used. And that is the real disgrace. A gross disrespect to her son by those who used her, much more so than a mere misspelling of his name.

Despite being on the North side of the Forth estuary Kirkcaldy promenade is aligned almost North-South as the coastline takes a sharp bend northwards after Kinghorn. This is a photo of the prom from the north end (looking south-westish.)

Boring isn’t it?

There is a dual carriageway road which goes along the whole frontage just to the right of this picture. Perfect for boy racers. They put in one of those “Your Speed Is …. mph” displays a few years ago. Nothing like encouraging them!

I noticed on Saturday, though, that a couple of pedestrian crossings have been erected on the first third which could break up the flow.

There is not a shop on the whole front. (Well, there’s a funeral director’s beside the car park over the road about halfway along. Also a pet shop [now closed] which used to be a sports shop, and before that an ironmonger’s, but that’s really in Tollbooth Street not on the prom.)

The sea wall was built in the 1920s to relieve unemployment. They could be doing with renewing it and for the same reason.

Here’s the plaque commemoraring it.

For a bit of relief, though, here’s proof that Kirkcaldy is, after all, a Fife seaside town.

Malcolm’s Wynd, with its steep steps, is more typical of somewhere like Pittenweem or Crail. You can imagine sailors in olden days rolling down towards the harbour to catch their sailing.

Ochilview, 7/11/09

It looks convincing and in the end it was, but I wouldn’t have believed this at the break as Stenhousemuir – wearing a peculiarly washed-out maroon, I thought – had much the better of the first half; though without troubling Dr Jan in goal very much.

Three minutes into the second half Roddy Hunter fashioned an opportunity for himself to shoot from outside the box and Stenny’s keeper didnt get down at all well. So much for Roddy being a penalty box player!

The second was a beauty of a move: a brilliant Stevie Murray back heel flick to Mick Dunlop whose sweet cross was headed almost perfectly by Roddy Hunter only to be parried by the keeper and Scott Chaplain was first to react to sweep it in.

We never looked in trouble after that and the third was fine too. Derek Carcary fended off a physical challenge by the defender, outpaced him and chipped the ball to Ross O’Donoghue’s head from where it met the pokey.

Roddy Hunter must like Ochilview. (At least this time he didn’t get sent off for nowt like in the Stirlingshire Cup final.)

Man of the match? Hard to choose. They all did well. The defence in first half, the whole team second. Chris Craig and Chissie just ran and ran and challenged all game. Chissie was booked for his challenge only because the ref had just yellow-carded a Stenny player for persistent fouling but nearly talked himself into a second yellow in the second half. The ref could have sent off Chris Smith and a Stenny player for a bit of handbags in the first half but kept the heid, gave them a talking to and so didn’t ruin the game.

Praise for a ref! What next?

Four away league games won on the trot! This is getting to be like the back end of last season. But we’re at the table toppers next.

Still, there’s daylight between us and seventh place now.

It’s getting scary. Like Onebrow (see comment here) I think we need to consolidate in this division before contemplating anything else.

Orion, 2006, 364p

Voices is the second of the Annals Of The Western Shore, the first volume of which, Gifts, I reviewed for Infinity plus.

For a children’s book, Voices mentions surprisingly adult material very early. Our narrator, Memer, of the House of Galva, is revealed to be the child by rape, by invading soldiery named Alds, of a citizen of Ansul. The city was once called Ansul the Wise and Beautiful for its University, Library and architecture but under occupation has remained in ruins, its citizens hungry and fearful.

The Alds, from Asudar in the eastern desert, have a harsh religion which proscribes books. Galvamond, the house where Memer has been brought up, was ransacked repeatedly by the Alds in an effort to find and destroy any books and also the entrance to their version of hell which they believe is concealed there.

Memer’s mother has subsequently died. This is an unusual twist on the absent parents scenario as her father is one of Memer’s hated Alds and is probably still alive (though we never meet him.)

Her first memory is of writing her way into a secret room in the house; a room which contains a host of books – some of which groan or bleed when she touches them – along with other, stranger, manifestations. Galvamond also has in its courtyard an oracular fountain which has not flowed for two hundred years. The house’s patriarch, Sulter Galva, known as The Waylord, was tortured by the city’s occupiers to reveal the house’s secrets but told them nothing. He is the only other person with access to the secret room but does not realise Memer’s knowledge of it until one day she enters while he is there. He teaches her to read.

Orrec and Gry from Gifts arrive in Ansul. He is now a famous travelling poet/storyteller. They have a halflion as a pet. As a result of it spooking one of the Alds’ horses Gry befriends Memer and they come to live in Galvamond for the duration of their stay. Orrec’s presence is later crucial to the unravelling of the plot and the conflict, as is Memer’s role as messenger. Le Guin’s approach to her resolution is again refreshingly out of the ordinary.

All this is conveyed in a clear, liquid prose which flows like a river; everything necessary is there, all the inlets it laps into bear meaning and purpose. The excursions into magic realist territory are not overdone. Le Guin’s assured touch means the book is a delight. Despite being intended for young teenagers Voices is worth reading for anyone who relishes an intriguing story well told, with added insights into the human condition for good measure.

Yesterday for the first time in ages I caught Countdown on Channel 4.

Jeff Stelling doesn’t seem right to me (but a lot better than Des O’Connor anyway.)

But the numbers game! The replacement for Carol Vorderman said “times it by.” Times it by!

She’s a grown woman, presumably with a Maths degree or something involving Maths at least.

She should know there is no such verb as “times it by.” It’s multiply.

Susie Dent in dictionary corner ought to be correcting her.

[Carol Vorderman also annoyed me with the way she set out the arithmetic as she would write things like:-
100/50 = 2 x 6 = (12 + 1) x 25 = 325. The "new" woman (I'm sorry, I don't know her name) did this sort of thing too.

Now, 100/50 = 2. It does not equal 2 x 6.
2 x 6 = 12; not (12 + 1) x 25.

It might seem like a little thing .......
but I get faced with such arithmetical rubbish on almost a daily basis in my day job.

Don't give the pupils any excuse, please.]

The day I photographed the heron in Edinburgh the good lady and I also passed St Bernard’s Well.

This is the well that the former Scottish football team, St Bernards, was named after. (See my first post on eccentric names of Scottish football teams.)

The well is beside the Water of Leith in Edinburgh, near Stockbridge.

This is the door. You can just make out the writing “St Bernard’s Mineral Well” on the lintel.

This statue of a classically dressed female is in the centre of the eight pillars which hold up the superstructure.

Here she is in close-up. No doubt the snake is an allusion or allegory of some sort but my knowledge of such things is not extensive.

Tor, 2009, 435p

See my review of Campbell’s Scar Night for the usual caveat.

This is volume 2 of The Deepgate Codex and features characters from that book – some of whom are dead. It is in three parts which at first seem totally unrelated but do begin to interweave.

There are some startling images within its pages. A giant skyship pulled along on a rope tether by a man named John Anchor. The Iron Angel of the title, a vast mechanical construct driven by the soul of one of the characters (inspired perhaps by the Angel Of The North?) A hell where characters inhabit themselves – embodied as walls, floor and ceiling.

It was here I began to lose interest a little as the characters could manipulate “reality” at will and generate objects out of thin air. This is one of my quibbles with utter fantasy. When anything is possible how much actually has any meaning? And what jeopardy is present when people are already dead? (OK, there is, perhaps, eternal torment to avoid but is this sufficient to carry us through?) Hence my preference for SF.

The Deepgate of Scar Night, while refreshingly post-mediæval, was pre-mass industrial; yet here we have battleships, locomotives and steamboats. We also have the intrusion of a plethora of gods and their adherents. The more focused vision of Scar Night has become somewhat diffused.

What made that earlier book so memorable and distinctive was the city of Deepgate itself, a gloomy, brooding presence, hanging over an abyss from a network of chains, and the complex interactions of the characters who lived there. Since, towards the end of Scar Night, most of Deepgate fell into the chasm over which it was suspended we no longer have that unique vision to bolster the narrative. A whiff of contractual obligation hangs over proceedings.

Yet Campbell can write. Some of his descriptions are excellent and he has an eye/ear for portraying character with subtlety and a few telling phrases.

Personally I’d have liked him to try his hand at another scenario but I suspect the commercial imperative to follow Scar Night with something similar in order to please its fans weighed too heavily in the construction of Iron Angel. And, disappointingly, despite a climactic battle, this novel is not truly rounded off. The ending here is something of a cliffhanger, probably to set up the third Deepgate Codex volume God Of Clocks. (Which does have an excellent prologue. It’s printed at the back of this edition; a practice by publishers which is rather naff. I read it earlier – as a writers’ group submission. On the basis of that alone I will read God Of Clocks.)

This will probably be of most interest to any Chemists reading it but others may find it a bit mind-boggling too.

One of the blogs I look at regularly is Charles Stross’s. (Click this link or see it on my side-bar.)

Charlie used to be in my writers’ group but is now a full-time writer so can’t attend very often, if at all.

On October 28^th Charlie posted an item about someone very stupid indeed.

That’s not all. The comments section includes some incidents which frankly make you wonder how the human race got to be spread all over the planet.

I particularly appreciated comment no. 29, about selenium azide.

The Rock, 31/10/09

Two home games in a row without losing a goal! Is it time to recalibrate the goals against predictor?

Pity we only scored the once in those 180 minutes, though.

From the BBC report we might have won this.

There’s now distance between us and second bottom place.

End of October and up to sixth. I’d have taken that at season’s start.

I’ll take it for the end of the season right now.