8/7/10-11/7/10
Phoenix, 2007, 329p.

This is an odd artefact. It depicts an attempt to introduce salmon to rivers in the Yemeni Highlands via the largesse of a local sheikh and the expertise of a UK government agency.

The book – it can scarcely be described as a novel – is constructed from supposed diary entries, letters, emails, extracts from Hansard, fragments of autobiography, a TV game show script, transcripts of television and press interviews, Select Committee Report conclusions and interrogations of the various participants in this madcap scheme. All have differing viewpoints and narrators. As such the whole becomes diffuse and bitty.

While there is an overall narrative thread the disparate voices too often fail to suspend disbelief. Instead of being presented with a convincing rendering of a diary extract or interview transcript we are given novelistic embellishments. The diary extracts contain information that we as readers ought to have but a diarist would not find it necessary to include. In one of the interviews a respondent states a person spoke mildly when surely they would report only the relevant conversation’s content, in another there is an (uncredited) interruption which reads, “The witness became emotional after the consumption of custard creams and was incoherent. The interview was resumed after a break of four hours.” This authorial interpolation is, I suppose, intended humorously but is, instead, bathetic, if not pathetic. The Hansard extracts do not quite reflect accurately the format of Prime Minister’s Questions. While it might be said that this is a comic novel and some licence is allowable, to get details such as this last example wrong detracts from the intended effect. Infelicities such as those above totally fail to create the necessary degree of verisimilitude. The name dropping of real people as interviewers – Andrew Marr, Boris Johnson – while the politicians and aides are fictional (yet recognisable) is also a mistake.

The book is obviously meant to be a satire but its approach is so scattershot that it is difficult to tell exactly what or whom is the intended target. Is it the workings of bureaucracies, office politics, communications directors/spin doctors, career women, politicians, even Islamic terrorists? All are featured, but the focus never stays in one place for long. The only character who has any semblance of solidity is the supposedly mad sheikh; and he has no viewpoint narrative.

After the novel’s end we also have “Reading Group Notes” containing items “for discussion.” Some may find this condescending.

Salmon Fishing In The Yemen has its moments; but they are few.

Just a reminder that the latest Writers’ Bloc reading is this Wdnesday.

At the Ghillie Dhu, 2-6 Rutland Place, Edinburgh, 8 pm. Entry £4 (£2 concessions.)

When in the old town last week I took a few pictures of deco influenced buildings. This one, in South Street, was once John Menzies and is now a Smith’s.

This close-up shows more detail of the Saltire below the roof line and the coat of arms.

Rollo, Davidson, McFarlane’s lawyers is in Bell Street.

The street known as The Links runs right by the Old Course’s 18th fairway and green. You may have spotted this house in the TV coverage of the Open. It’s a strange mixture of deco and Scottish vernacular.

This is from The Links itself. The roof steps are very deco.

Abacus, 2007, 373p.

I’ve not read them in order of publication but it’s possible to discern a recurring pattern in Brookmyre’s novels, apart from the obvious humour and violence. A bunch of bad guys (mercenaries/terrorists here) interrupts the daily business of some ordinary punters (in this one it’s a school reunion.) Add in too a denouement in an isolated setting (a converted oil rig.) There may also be passing reference to someone living in, or a citizen of, the US.

The more interesting parts of One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night are based on the interactions of the former schoolmates. Brookmyre manages to convey the excruciating nature such reunions surely entail. That scenario might have been enough to carry a novel on its own without the intrusion of the thriller elements (which admittedly would have been a different kind of book.) Here, while the comedy terrorists are necessary for the book’s plot, they are too unconvincing to suspend disbelief.

I note that schooldays have also figured strongly in the pasts of other Brookmyre protagonists, particularly Angelique Di Xavia.

One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night might be a good enough introduction to Brookmyre’s oeuvre but I didn’t find it as satisfying a read as A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away nor The Sacred Art Of Stealing.

Over at Ian Sales’s blog he has mentioned a meme that seems to come from the SF and Fantasy Masterworks Reading Project.

There seems to be a few more books on Ian’s list than on the Reading Project’s site, in all nearly a hundred. Some appear twice because there are two lists, one in Roman numerals and the other in Arabic.

I suppose the reason that not many of these are recent publications is that it takes time for a book to be appreciated as a masterwork.

The ones in bold I have read. For those starred (*) I have read the short story from which the novel was developed. Those with double stars I believe I read many moons ago but do not now have a copy. The italicised one is in the TBR pile (and has been for donkey’s ages.)

SF Masterworks Index:-

I – Dune – Frank Herbert
II – The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin
III – The Man in the High Castle – Philip K. Dick
IV – The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester
V – A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller, Jr.
VI – Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clarke
VII – The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
VIII – Ringworld – Larry Niven
IX – The Forever War – Joe Haldeman
X – The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham

1 – The Forever War – Joe Haldeman
2 – I Am Legend – Richard Matheson
3 – Cities in Flight – James Blish
4 – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
5 – The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester
6 – Babel-17 – Samuel R. Delany
7 – Lord of Light – Roger Zelazny
8 – The Fifth Head of Cerberus – Gene Wolfe
9 – Gateway – Frederik Pohl
10 – The Rediscovery of Man – Cordwainer Smith

11 – Last and First Men – Olaf Stapledon
12 – Earth Abides – George R. Stewart
13 – Martian Time-Slip – Philip K. Dick
14 – The Demolished Man – Alfred Bester
15 – Stand on Zanzibar – John Brunner
16 – The Dispossessed – Ursula K. Le Guin
17 – The Drowned World – J. G. Ballard
18 – The Sirens of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut
19 – Emphyrio – Jack Vance
20 – A Scanner Darkly – Philip K. Dick

21 – Star Maker – Olaf Stapledon
22 – Behold the Man – Michael Moorcock
23 – The Book of Skulls – Robert Silverberg
24 – The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells
25 – Flowers for Algernon* – Daniel Keyes
26 – Ubik – Philip K. Dick
27 – Timescape – Gregory Benford
28 – More Than Human – Theodore Sturgeon
29 – Man Plus – Frederik Pohl
30 – A Case of Conscience – James Blish

41 – Jem – Frederik Pohl
42 – Bring the Jubilee – Ward Moore
43 – VALIS – Philip K. Dick
44 – The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K. Le Guin
45 – The Complete Roderick – John Sladek
46 – Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said – Philip K. Dick
47 – The Invisible Man – H. G. Wells
48 – Grass – Sheri S. Tepper
49 – A Fall of Moondust – Arthur C. Clarke
50 – Eon – Greg Bear

51 – The Shrinking Man – Richard Matheson
52 – The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch – Philip K. Dick
53 – The Dancers at the End of Time – Michael Moorcock
54 – The Space Merchants** – Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth
55 – Time Out of Joint – Philip K. Dick
56 – Downward to the Earth – Robert Silverberg
57 – The Simulacra – Philip K. Dick
58 – The Penultimate Truth – Philip K. Dick
59 – Dying Inside – Robert Silverberg
60 – Ringworld – Larry Niven

61 – The Child Garden* – Geoff Ryman
62 – Mission of Gravity – Hal Clement
63 – A Maze of Death – Philip K. Dick
64 – Tau Zero** – Poul Anderson
65 – Rendezvous with Rama – Arthur C. Clarke
66 – Life During Wartime – Lucius Shepard
67 – Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang – Kate Wilhelm
68 – Roadside Picnic – Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
69 – Dark Benediction – Walter M. Miller, Jr.
70 – Mockingbird – Walter Tevis

71 – Dune – Frank Herbert
72 – The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
73 – The Man in the High Castle – Philip K. Dick
74 – Inverted World, Christopher Priest
75 – Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
76 – The Island of Dr Moreau, HG Wells
77 – Childhood’s End, Arthur C Clarke
78 – The Time Machine, HG Wells
79 – Dhalgren, Samuel R Delany
80 – Helliconia, Brian Aldiss
81 – Food of the Gods, HG Wells
82 – The Body Snatchers, Jack Finney
83 – The Female Man*, Joanna Russ (Edited to add; I have now read this.)
84 – Arslan, MJ Engh

I’m not a golfer, but it’s impossible to live in Scotland and not be aware of the sport. Even more so in Fife where every wee town seems to have its own course. Lundin Links – barely a blink as you drive through it – has two; one which is usually used for Open qualifying and the other, Lundin Ladies’.

St Andrews, of course, is littered with them, demand for the Old Course being so great as to be unsatisfiable. So, in addition there are the New Course, the Eden Course, the Jubilee Course, the Castle Course, the Strathtyrum Course and the Balgove Course – and those are only the ones run by the St Andrews Links Trust.

The Open Championship – if you’re being parochial you’d call it the British Open – is underway at the moment and so the place is transformed. You can’t move in the town normally for golf shops etc. so goodness knows what it is like at the moment. So much of a distraction is the tournament that St Andrews’s other modern attraction – the University – shuts down for the duration.

Myself and the good lady caught the preparations last week. A small army of mowers was shaving the first fairway.

On the sand just where the Swilken Burn finally flows into the North Sea there was a spectacular piece of driftwood. It almost looked like it had been sculpted.

From the links it looked like a sculpture of a cow but closer in more resembled a dinosaur.

You can see bits of the tented village in the second photo. It wasn’t quite in readiness but there were signs for banks and “Fish and Chips” and other stuff which I forget. It must be a huge money spinner – not all of it going to the town, sadly.

When the open is at Muirfield you can see the tented village from Kirkcaldy, gleaming whitely across miles of Forth estuary. The proprietors there call themselves “the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers” but I believe they don’t allow women to be members – which may not be quite so honourable in this day and age.

Of course in central Scotland you are never far away from a course on the Open rota. Carnoustie is only across the Tay estuary from Fife and both Troon and Turnberry are on the Ayrshire coast, no more than a couple of hours drive away. (You just can’t avoid golfing puns in a piece like this.)

St Andrews is a favourite place for myself and the good lady but we’ll be giving it a miss this week. I’m sure you see more of the action on the TV anyway. I’ve caught some of yesterday’s and today’s play and I’ll be watching the climax on Sunday. At least I’ll be out of any wind and rain.

Every time I hear this song it takes me back to the Church Hall in Dumbarton and the youth club I used to go to.

I suggested it to the guy in charge of putting the records on. He asked if it was any good. It was.

It is.

The guitar riff at the start of the break is similar to the one in You Never Give Me Your Money (repeated in Carry That Weight) from that great medley of songs on side two of The Beatles’ Abbey Road. Not surprising since George Harrison had a hand in Badge’s conception and he and Eric Clapton often worked together.

Cream: Badge

Later edited to add: the line about “the swans that they live in the park” was apparently thought up by one Ringo Starr.

Last week the good lady and I took another stroll along the Water of Leith.

No herons this time, and we didn’t tarry by Dean Village, the Dene Bridge nor St Bernards Well but since the last time we were there, there have been a few additions to the water in the shape of Antony Gormley sculptures. This is the one nearest Stockbridge.

Gormley is most famous for the Angel Of The North but has also placed figures on Crosby Beach near Liverpool and on roofs in New York and London.

The Water of Leith seems an appropriate location for these new emplacements as it flows past the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, albeit out of sight in a valley.

We had a look around Stockbridge, the good lady loading up on books from the charity shops and a great second-hand book shop that we hadn’t gone into before.

I liked the look of this one as the facade is Decoish:-

I suspect the projecting frontage may have started life as a bank.

There is some nice detailing on the door surround too.

On its left as you look at it in the photo stands the former Woolworths shop (which wasn’t ever Art Deco) and is now a Scotmid.

On the way back I photographed the bridge which carries Belford Road over the river.

I’ve no idea whether this is one of Thomas Telford’s (as the Dene Bridge is) but it looks of an age to me.

This is the detail up on the right in close up:-

I believe it depicts the Arms of Edinburgh.

Pan, 1989, 241p.

In the part of the galaxy known as the Tzist Arm, a human culture known as Caean has perfected the art of clothes making. The suits their sartorialists make change the behaviour of their wearers in all sorts of ways and influence those they meet. The government of the Ziode Cluster sees this as a form of attack but a black market exists for the products. A Caean freighter has crashed on an isolated planet and an expedition has been mounted to secure samples. One of its members, Peder Forbarth, gains for himself the ultimate expression of the sartorialists’€™ art, a Frachonard Suit. The novel mainly consists of the subsequent adventures into which Forbarth is drawn as a result of the influence of the suit and the material Prossim from which it is made.

The sartorialist concept is another typically bizarre piece of Bayley imagining, which, however, means the characterisation is made rudimentary by it. The notion barely stands up to a moment’s scrutiny yet somehow, in the novel, has a perverse logic of its own. Bayley can do that to your brain.

Not vintage stuff, then; but diverting.

The cover shown above is from the 1978 Fontana edition.

World Cup. Final. Soccer City, Johannesburg, 11/7/10. aet 0-1.

Not a classic. Again, finals are usually far too nervy affairs for the football to be flowing.

Here it was the Dutch who were more nervous about losing than the Spanish, yet they could have won it if Arjen Robben had put their best chance away.

They were lucky to have eleven men still on the pitch after the first half which featured mostly anti-football. What a comedown from the days of Total Football.

Spain could bury teams if they had a taller forward line, got width and delivered accurate crosses. As it is they seem content to win 1-0. That’s four of those in a row now.

A sideline to the Spanish win is that Scotland once again have the opportunity to be crowned Unofficial World Champions when we play them during the next Euro qualifiers.

That is if someone else doesn’t beat them first.

And pigs fly.