Brian Clegg's Blog, page 109

Read the words, guys!

No, not this Gravity.I was slightly disappointed though not at all surprised to see that the BBC has given the movie Gravity (no relation to the excellent book of that name) a plug by entering that hoary old debate, 'Can science fiction ever get the science right?'

The article points out that while 'many critics' (who, of course, are mostly scientists?!?) have praised the film for its scientific accuracy, US astronomer and science promoter Neil deGrasse Tyson has 'several issues with the accuracy of Gravity's portrayal of space.'

Frankly, most of the issues Tyson raises (satellites usually go west to east, but the debris goes east to west; Sandra Bullock's hair doesn't float around in microgravity - never heard of gel, Neil?) are trivial, though there is a more significant point that somehow you get the ISS (at 250 miles up) and Hubble (at 350 miles up) in line of sight of each other.

To be honest these issues are pretty trivial compared to what happens in many sci fi extravaganzas. The article refers to an asteroid in Armageddon that appears to have full Earth gravity, while one of my favourites is the Star Trek TNG movie (can't remember which) where the saucer section of the Enterprise crashes on a planet with no power. Now this thing weighing megatonnes would glide like a brick. Yet the structure remains in one piece, and all that happens to the crew is they get bounced around a bit (as they still hadn't seen the road safety film about wearing seatbelts). No metal structure like that could stay in one piece after a crash like - and they would all be splatted. End of story.

However, I don't generally moan about this (or the time travel issues in Looper ) because of a pretty obvious reason that I've mentioned before. Just read the words. 'Science fiction.' Get it? It's fiction. Made up. A story. Now it's perfectly reasonable to expect moviemakers and authors to do their best with the science. But there comes a point where the storytelling is more important. If the science gets in the way of the story, then it's fine to tweak reality, as long as you are then consistent with your tweaking. Story has to win over scientific accuracy in fiction.

Of course a lot of these errors aren't for the benefit of the story they are just laziness or bad research. And in that case it's really a matter of degree. It's reasonable to expect a basic consistency with reality, but you really can't expect moviemakers to get every last detail right. (The third nut from the left on the Hubble is gold, not silver!!!) Otherwise you become the nerdy person who points out that in the episode of Downton, the locomotive shown would never be seen in that part of Yorkshire (or whatever). Sorry, yawn, yawn, yawn. Don't care. It's not significant. Nothing to see here. Let's get on with the story...

It's on the cards

For a long time now, I've had a bit of a problem with credit (and debit) cards. Not mine, other people's. Before you call the police, I haven't been walking off with them, but I do want to be able to handle them. Because every now and then someone will ring me up, or approach me when I'm selling books, and say 'Do you take cards?' and I have to say 'No, just cash or cheques.'

Until recently the UK solutions for simple card acceptance have been decidedly second rate. As most of them don't accept chip and PIN, you can't use them with VISA. But now I've signed up for WorldPay Zinc which does all the main cards (except American Express), and so far I'm very impressed.

You can take cards over the phone via their website, and you can take cards on the spot using a little chip and PIN device that links to your smartphone by Bluetooth. There's a fee of £59.99 to buy the reader (but see below for a discount), but apart from that, all you pay is 2.75% of the transaction - there is no flat fee as with Paypal, and there is no monthly subscription.

They have a promotion on at the moment if you use this link to go to the WorldPay Zinc site and/or type in this promotional code: FR497816 when registering you will get £20 off the WorldPay Zinc keypad. (And I get a reward too.) Which can't be bad.

So far, very pleased with it.

Constellation upgrade

Every now and then astronomers moan about being mistaken for astrologers. But to be honest, it's not so surprising. Apart from the words sounding rather similar, until surprisingly recently most astronomers doubled as astrologers (even though they didn't believe in it), because that's where the money was. But the other reason the confusion occurs is that astronomers are a sentimental bunch, insisting on hanging onto things long past their sell-by date. You can see that with the reaction to the downgrading of Pluto, but the reason they get in a tangle with astrologers is the way they insist on referring to the ancient constellations.

Of course any astronomer worth his or her salt will point out that constellations have no significance in reality, they are just a pattern in the stars as seen from Earth, and the stars in a constellation are usually nowhere near each other. But the way they still keep using them is as if chemists insisted on putting the chemical elements into classes of earth, air, fire and water. Most of the old constellations have no value and just lend confusion to the science and credence to the woo that is astrology.

Of course, by now, were there an astronomer in the room, she would be piping up, 'Yes, but they are still useful as a reference framework and to help beginners locate stars.' But honestly most of them aren't. A handful are work keeping. The W of Cassiopeia, for instance, is easy to spot, as is Orion and the Plough. But almost all of the rest with their ludicrously badly fitted animal/human images? Total waste of time.

What we need is for someone to look at a good, clear night sky and identify other readily identifiable geometric patterns, like that W or the shape we see as Orion. Then give those nice memorable names, not that classical stuff. And then we would have constellations that do what they are supposed to do, act as visual pointers, while getting rid of the embarrassment of the association with astrologers and still having those 'twelve signs of the zodiac'. What about it, astronomers? Otherwise you are just encouraging this:

Answering big questions from little people

[image error] What do David Attenborough, Noam Chomsky, Derren Brown, Bear Grylls, Miranda Hart, Heston Blumenthal (oh, and me) all have in common? They've all contributed to a great little book where assorted folk give answers to questions about life, the universe and everything by young people aged 11 and under, pulled together to form a solid little hardback. And to make things even better, the profits from the book go to the NSPCC.

Opening it at random, I can discover:
What is DNA?How come planes don't crash in the sky?Why are bumble bees disappearing?Why do stars twinkle?andWho killed the last dodo?Although the answers are phrased to be suitable for primary school children, many of the questions will entertain and test any reader. (Speaking of tests, there are some fun little quizzes towards the back.) The topics aren't all science - Miranda Hart, for instance, answers Why is it funny when someone farts? (okay, that is probably psychology, but there are also, for instance, history questions) - but science does rather dominate, which apart from anything reflects how interested young people are in science. If only we could keep that interest alive.
The only real criticism I have is the deeply unsatisfying answer to 'What is the whole point of science?' given by biologist John Gurdon, whose entire reply (to a 7-year-old) is 'Science makes continuous advances in the quality of life.' That's really not good enough.
It's a great project that I'm proud to have been part of, and makes a lovely present for primary age children.
You can see more at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com (hardback and Kindle).

Bull fight

Because of taking another step in their ongoing legal battle, the former owners of the Chymorvah B&B in Cornwall, Peter and Hazelmary Bull, are once more in the news.

These are the people who refused to provide a double room to a pair of civil partners because they believe that sex outside marriage is a sin. I think there is a real problem with their position.

Leaving aside the fact that it seems ridiculous that anyone can impose their own religious rules on someone who is not a member of that religion (note the fuss in the news at the moment about a school allegedly imposing headscarves on non-muslim teachers), there seems to be a fundamental imbalance in the Bulls' position. Let's say, for argument, that they were right that sex outside marriage is a sin. I'd suggest that this is not a reason for refusing to let a room to someone.

After all, Christianity tells us that we are all sinners - so why pick on a very specific (and let's face it, relatively harmless) kind of sin? To pick a couple from the Ten Commandments, surely they should also be banning anyone who covets their neighbour's ass, or to bring it up to date, their neighbour's Porsche? (Carefully selected marque there to prevent myself from sinning, as I don't like Porsches. Now if my neighbour had an Aston Martin it would be a different story.) And how about honouring your father and mother? Shouldn't they be checking that everyone booking a room sends flowers on Mothering Sunday?

Alternatively, how about the good old seven deadly sins? Did they ensure that no one booking a room indulged in gluttony? Did they ban obese people, for instance? What about sloth? That rules out ever letting a room to a student.

This may seem to be trivialising the situation, but it really isn't. These are clear sins as far as the Christian faith is concerned. You can't pick and choose - it should be all or nothing. And as the Bulls seem to have ignored attempting to prevent every other sin, it is bizarre that they felt justified - and continue to this great length and expense - in trying to pre-empt the possibility that this one, particular sin be committed under their roof.

Replica shirt rant

Okay, I haven't had a good rant in a while, so batten down the hatches, me hearties.

I hate seeing men, especially paunchy middle-aged men, in replica football shirts. To me it is both incomprehensible and stomach-churning.

It's different with children. If we can accept seeing our children dressed up as Power Rangers, say (that's what it was in my children's day - substitute current alternative), there's no reason why they shouldn't also dress up as football players. But grown men do not have the excuse of fantasy play.

Why on earth do they shell out as much as £50 for a shiny replica of a match shirt, and then wear it to go shopping at the supermarket, or for a pint down the pub? It looks hideous. This is a uniform, designed for a specific purpose - it simply doesn't work as a casual shirt. And they don't make it any better by either having a real player's name or their own on the back of the shirt.

I also question why they feel the need to wear these things. I admit I have a disadvantage in trying to understand this as I have absolutely no interest in watching sport, and none of the tribal togetherness that would make me want to join in by wearing my team's fancy dress costume. I simply don't get it. But I appreciate that lots of people do - even so, it's hard to see what they feel they are getting out of wearing their wannabe shirts, apart from looking an absolute prat. Surely, I can but hope, they don't think that somehow it gives them some of the player's athleticism and vigour. Watching the shirt slither its way over their pot-bellies really doesn't give this effect.

These shirts are naff, over-priced and pointless. Instead of buying next season's shirt, they should get themselves a decent bit of casual wear and give the remaining 50% of what otherwise would have been profit for the money grubbing companies to charity. Or stick it on the lottery. Or in a savings account. Anything, in fact, rather than wearing that ridiculous tat.

Rant over. Sigh.

About About Time

At the weekend we went to see About Time, the latest rom-com from Richard Curtis. Not my typical movie fare, but it did involve time travel in what was, in a very subtle way, a remake of Four Weddings and a Funeral. There will be spoilers, but I will give plenty of warning of their arrival if you haven't seen it.

I'm quite happy to watch this kind of thing as brainless entertainment, but when it enters my territory I expect a little rigour in the time travel, which wasn't entirely present. Even so, I recognize this is fiction, and at that it is fantasy, not science fiction, so I am prepared to give it more leeway than, say, Looper . True science fiction time travel, using technology, started with H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, but About Time belongs to an older tradition, where the trip takes place effectively by magic, whether it's as a dream or, as in Mark Twain's famous time travel book, by being hit on the head.

In About Time, the magic is achieved by going into a cupboard, clenching the fists, and thinking of a time and place. Fair enough, I say - I'm quite happy to watch a fantasy movie, as long as the plot is consistent, and that's where I think Curtis falls down a little. I'll explain why after the spoiler break, but before I do, I ought to say there's a reason I call it a remake of Four Weddings and a Funeral. It's not just that it has a tongue-tied middle class British male main character (who sounds remarkably similar to Hugh Grant in the voice-over narration, but thankfully comes across as less of a twit in his character) and a more together American female main character. There actually are four weddings and a funeral - though the weddings are subtly concealed.



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SPOILER ALERT

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Don't read any further if you haven't seen the film and want to see it

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SPOILER COMING UP

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The problem I have with the time travel is that even fantasy should be logically consistent. Curtis sets up the very clever dilemma of 'have another child or be able to visit your late father', but then totally demolishes the reasoning for there being a dilemma. Supposedly the idea is that when the MC went back and fixed his sister's life, his baby changed from a girl to a boy, because it only takes subtle differences in the environment to result in a different sperm getting through. So he goes back and unfixes things for his sister and low and behold his child is back to the way she was. But actually the influence of any surrounding action like the sister business would be far lower than the simple subtle difference in physical conditions at the moment the egg was fertilised. He still wouldn't get the same combo. It couldn't be fixed.

Because of this, his last trip back, with his father to his childhood, would have resulted in the same issue with both his existing children. They would have been changed. It simply doesn't make any sense.

If, on the other hand, we accept it was ok for him to go back to his boyhood, because the episode was so isolated that it wouldn't change anything later, it totally takes away the threat attached to visiting his father after his father's death/birth of a later child, because he could simply go back to one of the many times his father was locked away reading and would have no influence on the future. He could visit his father as often as he liked.

I admit there is an element of breaking a butterfly on the wheel here, worrying about this level of detail, but fantasy should work within the confines of its own rules. Once it starts breaking those rules, it doesn't even work as fantasy any more, it is just a mess.

Death of a colony

It's fashionable to criticize friendships made online as second rate, but as my friend Henry Gee (met via Nature Network) has pointed out, in reality it often leads to 'real world' events and encounters that make it every bit as rich as going down the pub. Personally I have only ever been members of three online communities - Nature Network, a blogging/social network set up by the journal Nature; BWBD, a forum for bloggers with book deals; and Litopia. As it happens all three are now defunct or nearly so, but the one I particularly wanted to mourn here is Litopia.

Litopia was by far the biggest of the three and was set up by my former agent, Peter Cox, as a kind of extension of his agency, but interfacing to the world through an open (and very large) forum for writers published and hopeful to get together, compare notes and generally support each other. As such, for several years it worked very well, and there are a range of writerly people around the world I now count as friends who I would not have met without it.
Unfortunately Litopia suffered from regular upheavals, some due to personality clashes with large egos involved, some due to misuse of the environment or to over-heavy moderation. In the end, there was an almighty row and it was 'temporarily' taken down. In a sense it was inevitable, as Peter, who largely funded the whole enterprise from his own pocket, had a different idea of what Litopia was for than most of those involved.
This take-down happened some while ago, but I am only commenting on it now because it seems clear that this temporary suspension has become permanent. Litopia isn't coming back. The good news for Litopians who miss their online friends is that there are ways to get together online still and many of the old faces regularly do - but I still think the passing of this worldwide meeting place is sad, a bit like an often-used pub closing down, and as such it is important to mark its passing. 
A lot of people got a lot out of Litopia - for me it was mostly the social aspect, as writing can be an isolated business where you don't meet others doing the same job. For others it was a major boost to their writing, with free (if sometimes ferocious) criticism available of their works in progress. So farewell, Litopia. You started a lot of good things.
I ought to point out that Litopia's sister, Radio Litopia, a collection of podcasts and web-based broadcasts on writing and the wider communication world is still up and running and can be found here.

Ebooks and skip-reading

Said ebook opening.
(Is it just me or is there no way to have
the cover full screen in iBooks?)The other day I was stuck somewhere with nothing much to do. I had finished the book I had with me, but I had my iPad about my person, so I fired it up and opened a book I had downloaded some while ago in Starbucks' nice little Apple collaboration where they have those weekly little cards that allow you to get a free book, tune, TV programme or app.

It proved sufficiently engrossing that I read about 1/3 of it on my train journey from Cardiff to Swindon. But it did make me wonder if ebooks and page turners were a dubious combination. The thing is, I tend to skip-read fiction at the best of times. I will slither my eyes across a descriptive passage, getting a general feel without bothering with the detailed words. I'm sure it's very sad for authors who have spent hours crafting that beautifully drawn setting, but I just want to get on to something happening.

What I found with this book was that I was doing it more than usual. I was getting through an iPad page in just a few seconds before flicking onto the next. In that time I was getting all the dialogue, all the essential plot details and a feel for the descriptive bits. It was quite addictive, flicking forward, soaring through it. It really did seem that the combination of relatively short pages and the ability to so easily flick on encouraged this naughty way of reading.

Now this wasn't great literature, it was a popularish title and an easy read. But my suspicion is that whatever I read on the iPad I will read less thoroughly than I would if it were a paper book. I haven't noticed it before as this was the most extreme example, but on thinking about it, I suspect it is true. And I don't know if I should be sad that the growth of ebooks means that more of us are likely to be reading books in this rather summary fashion more frequently.

On the other hand, it would mean I could read some of the more poseurish literary novels in about 10 minutes, as I would constantly be flicking and never hitting any substance. So perhaps it isn't so bad after all...

The Late Pig and the Daily Mail

Whatever your politics, it's hard not to feel sympathy for Ed Milliband when the Daily Mail makes such a scathing attack on his late father, and if the Mail intended this to turn people off Labour, I suspect it has backfired in quite a big way.

Part of the problem with any such headline-based spat is that we get immediate knee-jerk reactions to 'the man who hated Britain' and yet actually the picture is much more nuanced, something that has struck me while reading a book by one of my favourite authors, Margery Allingham.

Let's be clear - I do not agree in any way with the late Ralph Milliband's politics. I think Marxism is a dire system that more than throws the baby away with the bathwater. It is ill thought out and destructive. But popular British books from Milliband senior's formative period really do demonstrate that there were things to hate about Britain back then. I've commented before on the casual racism in Dennis Wheatley's books. We may still have some problems with race, but the British attitude back then, which considered even as close and kindred a nation as the Irish to be sub-human, was well deserving of hatred. And in the Allingham book I'm reading at the moment, another aspect we've pretty much forgotten now rears its very ugly head.

The book in question is The Case of the Late Pig. It should be classic Allingham, written in the 1930s, but in fact it is one of her weaker books about Albert Campion, in part because she chooses to write it in the first person with Campion narrating, which means we lose the wonderful contrast between his apparent foolishness and actual cleverness. But another problem for me is a truly hateable concept at the core of the story.

A major player in the book is the local Chief Constable, very local by modern standards, dealing with a tiny police force. Campion treats this man with a huge amount of respect and deference, despite the fact that he is clearly a complete idiot and incompetent. What we forget about Britain in the 1930s, and I'm sure one of the things that Ralph Milliband hated, was that we were expected to defer to such people simply because of their status and class. It didn't matter how awful they were at their job, Allingham makes it clear that this bumbling ineptitude should be treated with affection, because the Chief Constable (an ex-army officer, of course) was the right kind of person. Thankfully this attitude has entirely disappeared, with the exception of some people's ridiculous attitude to the royal family. But it is a powerful reminder of what the country the young refugee Milliband was brought to was like.

So, yes, let Ed defend his dad, and tell us that he loved Britain. But it's not all black and white. There was plenty not to love that has got a whole lot better since. And we shouldn't forget that.