Courtesy of redscharlach, two things we miss: the Muppet Show and Peter Sellers.



As someone says in the comments, it'd be great if Tom Waits covered this song. It'd be even better if he did it with the Muppets.

Does anybody have a better idea for a name than 'London Observations'?

Please excuse the hiatus in blogging. Life gets in the way.

LIfe is still getting in the way a bit. I have a couple of London Observations in hand (I'm going to move those onto a blog of their own in the near future), plus some bookblogging (whales! scientists! genius 12-year-old cartographers!), Skye and so on. How much of these I get to write at all, I don't know. But in the meantime, here is a picture of a wolf called Mosi, who I met yesterday on a walk through some woods near Reading, courtesy of the UK Wolf Conservation Trust.



It's a strange thing, meeting a wolf. Obviously, they look like dogs. But you very quickly realise that they aren't dogs. Dogs, let's face it, are a bit goofy. Easily distracted. Soppy. Wolves are none of these things. They are self-possessed and confident. They focus. They are quiet. They size you up, and they aren't going to go all gooey if you scratch them behind the ears.

In fact, their handlers tell you specifically not to scratch them behind the ears.

I like watching dogs. They wear their hearts on their sleeves. I do this thing I call 'dog ventriloquism' - you watch the dog, you watch its expression and body language, and you supply its inner monologue. Watch a dog at the beach. 'I'm running! I'm running! Look at me! Did you see that? Did you? Yay! Running into the water! Ohshitthatwater'scold!'

You can't do that with a wolf. Those golden eyes are piercing and unreadable. The best you're going to get is 'I know who I am. I know who my packmate is. Who are you?'

Beautiful, fascinating animals, and as enigmatic as a book in a foreign language, with a blank cover.

No Surprises

A warm and sunny lunchtime, and St James's Park is that curious combination of tranquil and crowded that only Central London parks can manage. The deckchairs that dot the lawns are mostly taken; every patch of shade under a tree is colonised; office workers lounge on the grass, eating their sandwiches as an impromptu picnic; the paths are thick with people. But there's no pushing or shoving; no collisions; everybody has managed to create a perimeter of personal space, carrying it around with them; wrapped in themselves or together with companions, determinedly soaking up the late spring sunshine and the fresh, green smells; watching the sun glint off the small lake; looking at the fairytale spires and cupolas of Whitehall over the water.

Camille O'Sullivan whispers her cover of No Surprises through my earphone as I wander towards Buckingham Palace, soft Irish accent and chiming piano against the quiet desperation of the lyrics, when I spot a glint of gold on a bench ahead of me. But it's not metallic; it's a soft shine, like a sheet of golden satin. And it appears to be coming from a man sitting on a bench. As I come closer, it doesn't resolve itself: the man is elderly, slight, sitting relaxed with his head back, and he has what looks like a thick bracelet around his right wrist.

Drawing level, I see the man seems to be asleep. He's dressed in something like faded motley: a cotton baker's cap, which might have been red once and is now a softly faded pink, with frayed fabric fringing the peak; a blue and yellow jacket, equally softened into powder and lemon pastels; pale canvas trousers; black plimsoles that have surely run their last race. Curiously, his eyes are hidden behind plastic wrap-around sunglasses with oversized kidney-shaped lenses.

The gold bracelet moves around his wrist and raises its narrow, diamond-shaped head. Its tongue flickers out, tasting the breeze from the lake, with its whiffs of goose and moorhen. The body of the boa constrictor is thicker than its keeper's wrist at its widest, and it is coiled at least three times around his arm; its tail disappears behind the man's elbow. Its head, blunt-nosed and wide-jawed, sinks down onto the back of his hand. It's maybe three feet long, I guess, and looks sleek and content, basking like everyone else, maintaining its personal space and that of its owner.

The old man shifts slightly as he snoozes, his arm brushing across his knee. The snake uncurls a little, settles itself into a more comfortable position, and raises its head again, regarding me calmly as I walk past.

No alarms, Camille croons into my ear. No surprises.


Home, home on the trains

Tucked into a corner seat on the way to work, I'm reading my book; an atmospheric story set in Wyoming and Montana, peopled with taciturn old cowboys and a new, curiously tech-savvy breed of railroad hobo. Reaching the end of my chapter, I look up: and meet the eyes of a character from the novel.

Whipcord thin and tanned like soft, worked leather, he's weathered and mournful like a range-rider without a horse. There's nothing showy or fake-Western about him; he shifts his legs uncomfortably, obviously more used to riding-boots, although his sand-coloured, dusty workboots are creased across the toes, with well-worn soles. Blue jeans worn and faded at the knee; a blue shirt showing below the hem of his short brown denim jacket, buttoned up to its mustard-coloured corduroy collar. The edge of a pair of glasses shows from his breast pocket: half-lenses for reading the saloon-bar price list. Tattoos show on both sides of his wrist below the cuff: old, blurry blues and greens.

His face is narrow and tired-looking; gravity has pulled on it and is turning his narrow, hawkish features into a mournful mask, with deep, shadowed bags under his eyes and worried creases across his forehead. His hair is greying; more iron than the jet it once was, pulled back sharply from a deep widow's peak into a straggling ponytail. HIs eyebrows are thick and winged, echoing the upward slant on his cheekbones and giving him a Native American cast; tracker's blood, or hunter's, somewhere in his ancestry. Below the thick but neatly trimmed goatee beard, his mouth is turned down at the corners and accentuated by folds of skin along the jawline; he couldn't look more downcast if his ranch had been repossessed. The furled telescopic umbrella on his lap looks shockingly anachronistic and he handles it gingerly; it's in its right environment and he's the awkward visitor.

At Tottenham Court Road, the woman sitting next to him — plump and kindly-looking with soft curly hair, wrapped in a black felt parka — leans over and murmers something, her mouth close to his ear. He turns to look at her and animation sweeps across his face; dark eyes opening and a slight smile twitching the corners of his moustache. The sadness of his expression turns into a look of patience and wisdom; he squeezes her hand and kisses her on the mouth as she stands to get off the train. It's a surprising moment: he'd seemed so self-contained that seeing him connect with another human, and one that doesn't share his air of being ripped out of another reality, is almost jarring. Once his partner has left, he casts a gaze across the carriage and settles back into his prairie reverie, eyes hooding again and mouth turning down.

We both get off the train at Oxford Circus, and I end up directly behind him on the escalator. He rides the steps leaning forward, one foot one step above the other, his whole lower arm resting on the handrail, still and poised as a falcon on a fence-rail. At the top, he slows, and I walk past him; he rubs a thumb between his eyebrows and waits. Waiting for the wind to settle. Waiting to catch up with time. Waiting to step into the Wild West End.

Thoughts and comments are, as ever, welcome.

Rob Buckley runs a regular Wednesday meme on his indispensable TV blog, The Medium Is Not Enough (TMINE for short), and today's is the old classic Favourite TV Moments. Here are some of mine, skewed a bit towards the recent.

Cracker, Albie Kinsella stabs David Bilborough, who then crawls through the house out to the street, giving his final statement over the radio as he does so, before dying in the road just as his colleagues turn up.
Later in the same story, Albie and Fitz in the interrogation room, Albie chanting 'L I V E R P double-O L Liverpool FC' and Fitz roaring CELTIC! at him.

Edge of Darkness: 'GET ME PENDLETON!!' and Jedburgh's magic tricks with two bars of plutonium.

West Wing: Many, but Bartlet cursing out God in Latin in the cathedral, then stubbing a cigarette out on the floor; Josh reliving the moment when he put his hand through a window; Bartlet walking to Capitol Hill.

Fast Show: Rowley Birkin QC gets serious.

Ultraviolet: Vaughan Rice, a gun pressed under his chin, waits for the coffins to open; Pearce Harman decides he's had enough of John Doe and turns on the UV floods.

Being Human: 'You shouldn't have gone after Mitchell. It got my attention.'

Doctor Who: The Doctor Dances: 'Oh, please, give me a day like this!"; School Reunion: 'I used to have so much mercy.' Family of Blood: 'Why can't I be John Smith? Isn't he a good man?' Utopia: 'What about now? Can he see it now?' Turn Left: 'Please...' Forest of the Dead: 'Doctor. Are. We. Good?'

David Attenborough getting equally excited about hedgehogs in his back garden and being in a RIB alongside a surfacing blue whale! And the incredible crystal cave in Planet Earth!

I was sat in front of the TV aged six months, propped up with a horseshoe of cushions, to watch the Apollo 11 landing (my Mum said 'Watch this, son, it's history'), but unfortunately I don't remember it. A certain comics writer has been passing off that experience as his own ever since I told him about it.

If you want to join in over at Rob's, he'd be happy to hear from you. And it's a great blog, so you should all read it anyway.

The first two-gig week for quite a while. The divine Camille O'Sullivan on Monday, and the peerless Duke Special on Tuesday. Am I too old for this?

Hell, no.

There was a touch of luck involved with Camille O'Sullivan. I saw she was doing three small gigs at the Soho Theatre last week, and quickly nipped in to buy a couple of tickets. Unfortunately, I'd completely forgotten about Duke Special, but the Soho Theatre box office swapped the tickets over for the Monday night without turning a hair. And I must have timed it just about right, because the Soho Theatre is small, and it was packed.

Camille is French/Irish (and very Irish) and what you'd probably describe as a cabaret singer with a touch of burlesque. That doesn't do her justice, though. And she doesn't do the normal cabaret standards. You'll get Jacques Brel songs; you'll get some Kurt Weill. But you'll also get what she calls 'their modern equivalents' - Nick Cave, Tom Waits, David Bowie, Kirsty McColl.
The stage is cluttered: a piano, a rudimentary drumkit (actually a miked-up dustbin); a bentwood chair covered with a crocheted blanket. Two sparkly dresses dangle from hungers suspended from the ceiling, along with a swing. There's a table with a bottle of wine; two Japanese parasols; a cuddly knitted sheep. And into this Camille slinks, svelte in a black velvet jacket, a long black skirt, a net veil over her face and high-heeled black ankle boots on her feet. She comes down the stairs alongside the seats, ruffling hair, stroking necks, blowing in ears. She wanders over to the chair, sits down, leans forward, propping her microphone hand on her knee, and croons: a slow, throaty version of 'God is in the House'. Each irony picked out with a twist of the mouth; her eyes unfocus and stare forwards with the fear underlying the song. She acts and lives every second of the song.
Normally, Camille performs with a big-band set up, with horns and strings; this time, she has three accompanists: a pianist, a guitarist (who also plays mandolin, banjo and musical saw), and a multi-instrumentalist who takes turns on percussion, guitar and trombone. And they make a hell of a racket: quiet and delicate sometimes, raucous and roaring at others. Camille removes a few layers: the black skirt goes, revealing a short strapless dress underneath; she unpins her hair, letting it fall loose as she sings 'The Ship Song'. She climbs up into the audience and lays across the laps of the women behind us: 'Don't be scared,' she says, 'it's only a song.'
Between songs, she chats in a soft Cork accent. 'I have to cut down the talk because we don't have much time tonight. Those you've seen me before know how I go on. Jaysis, it doesn't make much sense. But come downstairs and see me after the show, and you'll see me disintegrate.'
Before each song, she pauses and composes herself, getting into the right state of mind. 'Rock and Roll Suicide' starts out barely whispered, but she works through each chord change, dragging herself to her feet, ending up on her knees, wringing every ounce of pleading and desperation into the final lines. Then she gets back to her feet, gives us a grin, and tells us how the single word 'miaow' can defuse any argument, even with the bank manager.
Kirsty McColl's 'In These Shoes' is a barnstormer, Camille taking every opportunity to flash her legs and red sparkly stilettoes, while another whispered song, 'Look, Mummy, No Hands' (Amanda Palmer does this one) ends with Camille and seemingly every other woman in the audience in floods of tears. Camille dries her eyes, swigs on some wine ('It's only Ribena', she says, with a sidelong glance that makes us think she's lying), and applies white pancake make-up to sing Tom Waits' 'Misery is the River' in a high-pitched girly squeal and marionette jerks, her vocals accompanied by a sinister croaking whisper from one of her side-men, distorted through a megaphone so it sounds like Waits himself is operating her. She roars through Jacques Brel's 'Port of Amsterdam', and quietens down for two final songs, leaving the stage to sniffles, wiped eyes, and thunderous applause.
Downstairs, Camille is holding court from behind a table of CDs and DVDs, still caked in white make-up and blathering away, selling CDs and stuffing tenners down her bra. 'The left one's the float,' she says. 'Aw, I'm sorry I made you cry,' she tells a couple of girls. 'I advise you to go and drink heavily now. That always helps.' I buy a CD and she signs it, giving me a hug. As we leave, she's just about to pop up to her dressing-room to get another copy of a CD for a woman who was sitting behind us. 'You have lovely red lipstick and all that hair, and you need a copy of that one,'she says. 'Jaysis, I said you'd see me disintegrate.'

Duke Special review to follow, when I have time!

Appearances can be deceptive.

It's a classy, but not flashy, bar in a smart Mayfair hotel. A long, narrow room with dark walls and carpet; huge, faded, gilt-framed mirrors at either end reflect three crystal chandeliers back and forth to infinity. Big comfy chairs, small round shiny tables, solicitous staff rush around with trays of glistening glasses, with bowls of olives and nuts, whisking away finished drinks.

In the corner, a couple laugh over a shared joke. They're mismatched: he is elderly, in his 70s, his collar overflowed by fine silver hair at the back and fleshy jowls at the front. He's dressed impeccably in a dark, tailored suit and a shirt whose whiteness and crisp French-cuff styling doesn't disguise his corpulence. But he's animated and attentive, chatting and gesticulating and focused completely on his companion.

Which isn't surprising. She's young, slim and extremely beautiful. Ebony-dark skin with a high forehead and elegant cheekbones, a wide, generous smile in a heart-shaped face, a thick cascade of straight black hair, a long, slender neck rising from the smooth M-shape of her collarbones. Like the bar, she's not obvious, but classy: high heels, but not vertiginous; skirt mid-thigh, but very tight; fingers manicured, but not coloured; a single gold pendant, small sparkling ear-rings. Her suit jacket is slung over the back of her chair; her patterned blue blouse is open low over a smooth swell of cleavage. She's sitting in the corner, looking out over the whole bar, but her attention is fixed on her older companion, keeping up a flow of chat and a throaty, bubbling laugh.

We all assume, perhaps unfairly, that she's an escort and he's her client. One of the group, a regular at this bar, says she's seen her here before, with different men; but she's been here with different men herself, so who knows? Whatever their relationship, there's nothing sleazy about this encounter: two people, seemingly enjoying each other's company in a glittering, comfortable place. No overt flirting beyond eye-contact and attentiveness; no touching of hands to emphasise a point. A quiet intimacy and a feeling that there's personal space that's not to be invaded, but it's that kind of bar. Luxurious.

There's a commotion behind me and my chair is buffeted; no mean feat, considering its bulk and weight. A male voice, grating and slightly nasal: 'I'm slim, but I'm not that slim.'

I twist in my seat. He's not that slim.

A suntan the colour of chicken tikka and curly, greying hair like wire wool; jeans and a leather jacket; he looks scruffy, but the sort of scruffy that takes serious money to manage. I can't see the flashy watch but I know it's there. He isn't looking at me; he's looking over his shoulder at two younger men in suits whose gaze roves over the bar. They haven't been here before. He has.

I raise an eyebrows slightly and, with a little effort, shift my chair a few inches to one side to let them past. We're between them and the couple in the corner, who are still sipping cocktails – something long and iced for her, a Martini glass for him — and continuing their conversation. The three men slump into seats and fuss over menus; brillo-hair man flips his menu around and points at various cocktails. There's some slightly raucous laughter, and the sort of talk which isn't exactly about business and isn't exactly bragging, but somewhere in the hinterland of both. But the tables are widely spaced, and talk doesn't carry; the couple in the corner are comparing mobile phones, we're discussing the vagaries of Welsh chefs and the merits of a Singapore Sling over a Perfect Manhattan, and I can pick up the odd brand name mentioned by our new neighbours.

Eventually, the couple in the corner finish their drink and call for the bill. The man hands over a platinum credit card and does the appropriate ballet with the waiter, the electronics and the tip, and then excuses himself and leaves the bar while his companion puts on her (impeccably tailored) black suit jacket and checks her (flawless) make-up.

Brillo-hair man catches her eye.

She gives him a long, steady look.

He stands up and comes over, squeezing behind my friend's chair (not that slim) and leaning over to talk to her. She pulls her jacket closed.

The chat is quiet. I can catch phrases like 'I didn't recognise...' and 'wasn't sure' from him, and nothing at all from her, although she's smiling and nodding. Is there some tightness around her eyes? I try not to stare. He asks a question; she reaches into her bag — black and shiny as the polished granite bar-top — and pulls out a thick diary, closed with an elastic fabric band. She leafs through a couple of pages and makes a note, while he smiles and nods.

Can he see, in the corner of his eye, that the older man, her companion, has come back? Does he notice the expression on the fleshy, high-coloured face, almost blank but watchful? Does he see her glance upwards and make a gesture with her left hand, fingers together and palm down?

Would he care if he did?

The couple get up to leave and walk towards the door, both thanking the barmen who are painstakingly mixing. As one of the staff open the door for the couple, brillo-man settles back in his chair and grins at his companions in a manner he probably thinks is raffish. I hear him talking about 'a gorgeous six-foot Brazilian girl.'

Later, I relate the encounter to a friend 'Wonder if he knows that the Brazilian was a tranny?' she says. 'Cos she so was.'

Appearances can be deceptive.

For those who are interested, the Coburg Bar at the Connaught Hotel. The Sazeracs are fantastic. Any comments are welcome!

The magazine I write for is now on Twitter, at TheEngineerUK. We'll be tweeting headlines, updates on what we're up to, links to picture galleries and stuff like that. Followers are very welcome — we're funnier than New Scientist, less up ourselves than Wired, and more accurate than BoingBoing!

...or possibly rechargeable shaver.

This is a self-balancing vehicle for people who can't stand upright. This is a prototype version, but it went wrong. And this one wasn't much better.

We think they need to work on the design a bit. Possibly add a dustbag, or a sideburn trimmer attachment.

In the Czech Republic, there's a tradition of spanking on Easter Monday.

In Bermuda, they fly kites...

Different strokes. But only in Prague.

I have new glasses, courtesy of The Internet (aka Glasses Direct). Well below half the price I would usually pay. They're a bit retro, and seeing as I'm wearing a suit today, I look like something out of Mad Men.



Time for the late-morning martini, I think.

(They're also quite similar to a pair my Dad wore in the 70s, which is taking me aback a bit. I really do look nothing like him)

One really thick one, two slightly slimmer.

Cultural musing
Matter, by Iain M Banks

Banks's science fiction stuff has been better than his mainstream for quite some time. Breaking loose from reality seems to improve his focus: the ideas are clearer, the characters more sharply drawn, the politics more coherent. I tend to pick up Iain Banks novels thinking "Please be good; please be good." When I pick up an Iain M Banks book I'm sure I'll enjoy it.
We're back in The Culture for this one — Banks's galaxy-spanning techno-utopia, run by artificial intelligences so the humans can get on with what they do best, which is have fun. But of course, loads of people having fun doesn't make for great fiction, so Banks focuses on The Culture's shadier side: Special Circumstances, the organisation which interferes, subtly or not so subtly, with more primitive civilisations to nudge them towards The Culture's view of enlightenment.
Much of the action here takes place away from The Culture, in a partly-mechanised, fully-militarised society on a Shellworld — a series of nested spheres, connected by huge elevator shafts, which were created aeons ago by a now-extinct race for some unknown purpose. A Special Circumstances advisor spent some time in this society some years ago, and as a result, the territorial war that's been raging for most of the king's adult life is almost over. But an unexpected event places the king's two sons in danger: the younger within the palace, where he is exposed to intrigue and power-politics; and the elder becoming a hunted man, fleeing to the surface of the world and beyond to track down the king's other child — a daughter, who herself left to join Special Circumstances as payment for its advice.
Flitting between the three storylines takes the book from hard SF to near-fantasy, which makes it not quite as engrossing as some of the other Culture stories or even the last Banks sf, the non-Culture The Algebraist. But all three stories have highlights: the elder prince's gradual realisation of his strengths and weaknesses, which culminate in a visit to an oppressive, high-gravity planet where a manufactured war is raging; the younger prince's involvement in an archeological dig at a brilliantly-described series of vast waterfalls; the Special Circumstances agent's enforced de-powering as she undertakes what should be a courtesy mission but becomes much more serious. The Shellworld, too, is a brilliant invention; each level is a planet to itself, illuminated by fixed and moving 'stars' on the ceiling, which is the underside of the level above, with the whole system under the supervision of a variety of species whose motives are not clear to each other or to the humans and others who live on the various levels.
Without giving away any plot points, it's fair to say that the end of the book is extremely startling, as what you thought the plot was about is completely stripped away, the big confrontation you were expecting never happens, and the forgotten history of the Shellworld takes centre stage. It feels a bit of a cheat, but the resulting action is gripping, and the gut-wrenching final scene has been haunting me for weeks.
Not up there with the best of The Culture, and it's not a short read — it's a breeze-block of a book which could easily stun a ferret, or even a badger — but it's an enjoyable, disturbing ride, and its central theme of outside influences manipulating other society's wars for their own ends is subtle, affecting and nastily relevant.


Local heroes
The Ghost Map, by Stephen Johnson

I work on Poland Street in Soho. If I stand at the door to my office building and look to my left, I can see a replica of a Victorian water-pump, a black-painted iron tube about three inches across and maybe four feet high, ending in a short spout. It should have a curved handle at the top, but this is missing. It commemorates a cholera epidemic, one of the most severe to hit the city, in 1854. The pump is notable because two local residents, Doctor John Snow and the Reverend Henry Whitehead, tracked down the source of the cholera to this particular pump. It was the first time that the cause of an infection had been tracked so precisely, at a time when there was no germ theory of infection; when the overwhelming consensus was that disease was caused primarily by bad smells; and when London was growing so rapidly that it had fatally outstripped its ability to deal with its own waste.
The pump was on what was then called Broad St, and the epidemic it caused must have been terrifying. A particularly virulent strain of cholera had contaminated the water in the Broad St well, which was previously known for having the best-tasting water in Soho. Over five days, it killed almost five hundred people, many of whom went from completely healthy to dead within 12 hours. In the end, almost a thousand people died. In less than a fortnight. There were so many dead that the hearses were queueing up. Anyone who could flee, did.
And in the middle of all that, John Snow, who had been building a reputation as a pioneering anaesthetist, was striding around, taking samples of the water from the well and making marks on a map of the area, showing that the cases were clustering around the Broad St pump. Henry Whitehead was talking to his parishioners, tracking the spread of the disease through human stories. The two men, taking considerable risks with their own health, stayed in Soho; Snow refining an old theory of his that cholera was water-borne, and connected with sewage, Whitehead looking after the masses of poor workers, mostly semi-skilled, who lived in the crowded warrens of Victorian Soho.
Johnson tells the story vividly and journalistically; the early parts of the book, detailing the effects and spread of the disease, are harrowing. Snow's struggle against the orthodoxy of the day and their belief that cholera was caused by a miasma, or foul gases, is a tricky one — we take germ theory so much for granted that their objections seem completely stupid.
After discussing the Broad St epidemic and its resolution, Johnson goes on to talk about its implications today. This is where it becomes really interesting. Snow's map-making is a direct ancestor of geo-tagging and the cutting edge integration of geographical information into other data-streams — something which I've written about a lot in the past year or so. He also talks about its implications in terms of terrorism and asymmetric warfare; how the design of cities can make them their own worst enemy, and an easy target, as London's evolution and spread, while also bottling people up in ever higher densities, made it easy for cholera to rip through the population. Meanwhile, with the world's population moving into cities at ever higher rates and many cities developing ad-hoc scavenger cultures for waste handling, much like Victorian London's, Johnson points out that one question is going to become increasingly important: What are we going to do with all this shit?


Her father's daughter, his father's son
The Ingenious Edgar Jones, by Elizabeth Garner

Elizabeth Garner is the daughter of Alan Garner, who is a genius. He's mainly known as a children's author, but his books, generally set around the part of Cheshire where his family has lived for hundreds of years, are utterly brilliant, bringing folklore, myth and history into the modern world and adding shadows to dark corners. His latest books, for adults, are stripped back and challenging, often told mostly in local dialects and switching between time periods; they often seem like the ghosts of stories and people, pulling at your sleeve and demanding your attention to something which is almost, but not quite, there on the page. If you haven't read any Alan Garner, have a look at The Stone Book Quartet, The Owl Service, and his two latest books, Strandloper and Thursbitch. His collection of lectures, articles and essays, The Voice That Thunders, is also fantastic and should be required reading for anyone interested in storytelling, education, archaeology or psychology.
So, no pressure then, Elizabeth.
Fortunately, Elizabeth is decidedly no slouch herself, and while her writing doesn't have the stone-and-iron clashing poetry of her dad's, she has a spare, clear style and a real gift for phrasemaking. I'm honestly not sure whether this is a children's book or not; it has a child protagonist, the eponymous Edgar, but the backdrop of the story, 19th century Oxford, is rooted in reality and the dark undercurrents of the city and the university run through the book like veins of ore in a mine.
See, this stuff is catching.
Edgar is a child prodigy — a craftsman and inventor, obsessed with making things, building devices and harnessing the power of materials. His parents, stolid college porter William and his increasingly isolated wife, Eleanor, don't understand Edgar: William wants him to be an educated man, a man of the university, but Edgar can't seem to learn to read. William can't understand his son; Edgar can't please his father; and Eleanor, caught between them, seeks solace in dressmaking, which gradually becomes a lucrative, but secret business. But Edgar loves William's telescope, and he loves to climb, and he loves to take things apart. His curiosity and hunger, along with a drive to become a person his father would respect, leads him to a series of apprenticeships, and a meeting with a university Professor, who is building a great museum of Natural History, and whose willingness to use people for his own ends comes to dominate the lives of all the Jones family.
What with the Oxford setting and the fable-like story, this is going to draw comparisons with Phillip Pullman. Garner is easily as good a writer as Pullman, and her philosophy is more subtle — I never felt I was being banged over the head with a message, as I did frequently in His Dark Materials, especially towards the end. The themes aren't quite as massive as Pullman's — the fate of the multiverse isn't at stake here — but it's no less ambitious, with the debates on evolution and psychology of the day brought neatly and vividly into the story. The descriptions of the city and its atmosphere are just as vivid, and seen through Edgar's eyes — eyes which don't always see everything, leading the reader to figure out exactly what's going on with the other characters. Throughout, Garner avoids the fantastic — everything here is grounded in reality, although some of the scenes, such as iron riggers riveting together the framework of a glass roof by flying on a sort of hang-glider, hanging from pulleys and steered by a rope-man on the ground, definitely have a tint of the fantastical. But at the end, the story veers beautifully into magical realism, sealing the fates of Edgar and his father.
Being an engineering writer, I was a complete sucker for this stuff. But it really is a lovely book; anyone who enjoyed Phillip Pullman, as well as those who were put off by the talking animals and angels and things, will enjoy it.

Still reading the big book of Romantic Scientists — almost at the end now — and well into what's shaping up to be an excellent book about whales. And I've got Sebastian Beaumont's second novel on order...

Cooking pizza for my sister and her girls on Monday. This recipe — another one from Jennifer Klinec — might be a foodie leap too far, but I think it looks fab.

Pizza with Radicchio, Escarole and Bagna Cauda
Makes enough for 1 large pizza

Ingredients
1 recipe pizza dough (use half the dough)
65 mls olive oil
6 leaves of radicchio, roughly torn
6 leaves of escarole or Italian endive or rocket, roughly torn
1 ball of buffalo mozzarella or a small chunk of ricotta stagionata, shaved or broken into small pieces
1 large egg, the best quality that you can find
6 slices of guanciale (cured pork jowl) or pancetta, torn into pieces

Bagna Cauda
12 anchovies
6 cloves of garlic
freshly ground black pepper
250 mls olive oil
a few drops of lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest

Instructions
Preheat the oven temperature to 250 C and place a large baking tray in the oven to heat up.

Meanwhile make the bagna cauda by placing the anchovies and garlic in a mortar and pestle with a little pepper. Pound until roughly mashed and stir in the olive oil, lemon juice and zest.

Roll the dough out into a large rectangle and place on a sheet of parchment paper. Dip a pastry brush into the bagna cauda to moisten it with olive oil and brush the dough all over with oil. Scatter generously with the radicchio and escarole leaves (these will wilt down significantly during baking so it’s best to overdo it a little) and spoon generous dollops of the bagna cauda across the pizza. Scatter with the mozzarella or ricotta shavings.

Slide the preheated baking tray under your parchment and transfer the pizza, parchment and all into the oven. Bake for 7 minutes or until the crust looks lightly golden and puffed and the leaves are wilted. Crack the egg in the centre of the pizza being careful not to break the yolk.

---

Pizza Dough
Makes enough for 2 large pizzas

Ingredients

325 mls warm water
½ tsp dry yeast or 1 tsp fresh yeast
450 grams flour
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil

Instructions

To make the dough, mix the water and yeast together until dissolved and let stand for 5 minutes.

Place the water and dissolved yeast in a large mixing bowl and gradually mix in half the flour to form a loose, sponge-like dough. Cover with a damp tea towel and place in a warm spot to rise for an hour.

Add the sea salt and oil to the dough and using a wooden spoon, mix in approximately a half a cup of flour at a time until the dough is too dense to stir with the spoon. Remove to a work surface and knead, incorporating the remaining flour until the dough is smooth and manageable.

Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover again with a damp tea towel and place in a warm spot to rise for another hour.

Roll out and use as required.

ETA this dough is ridiculously sticky and needs to be heavily floured. But if you cook it as rolls, it's a very good ciabatta!

Posting this mainly as a reminder to me, but if anyone else tries cooking it, tell me how it goes!

This comes from Jennifer Klinec, via Londonist. Jennifer runs cookery classes called EatDrinkTalk, and I'm planning on going to one at some point.

Calçots with Romesco Sauce

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients
24 leeks or calçots, washed, dried and trimmed
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
10 tbsp olive oil

Romesco Sauce
3 dried Ñora peppers
100 grams Marcona almonds
3 plum tomatoes
1 thick slice chewy, peasant-style crusty bread, either left to go stale or dried in a low oven until hard
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tbsp smoked paprika
4 tbsp red-wine vinegar
juice of 1/2 lemon
65 mls olive oil
Sea salt

Instructions
Preheat your oven to 200C. Place the leeks or calçots in a heavy roasting dish and scatter with the salt and pepper. Drizzle over the olive oil and toss well with your hands until the leeks are lightly coated in the oil. Place the leeks in the oven and roast for 20-30 minutes or until tender and charred all over. Remove and allow to cool slightly.

Meanwhile make the romesco sauce by placing the dried chilies in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave for 25 minutes to soften, then drain. Toast the almonds in a dry frying pan on medium heat until golden and toasted smelling.

Blanch and peel the plum tomatoes by making an 'x' in the bottom of each tomato. Place in a bowl and pour boiling water over the tomatoes to cover. Leave for 3-4 minutes, then plunge the tomatoes in cold water. Leave for another minute or so and then peel off the skins.
Place the almonds in a mortar and pestle and pound until coarsely ground. Add the garlic, drained Ñora peppers and bread in batches, continue to pound until you have a thick paste.

Scrape the paste into a bowl and add the peeled tomatoes by crushing them lightly into the mixture between your fingers. Stir in the smoked paprika, vinegar, lemon juice and olive oil and season to taste with salt and set aside.

To eat, peel away the charred outer leaves of the leeks and dip the soft inner hearts into the romesco sauce with your fingers.

I tried on a cardigan at lunchtime. It was a nice one, in Banana Republic (reduced), and yeah, it was green and I probably own too much green stuff. But still.

I am still unconvinced by cardigans.

Possibly you have to be very young, or very old. Possibly you need to be very skinny, with directional hair. My hair is multidirectional, especially at the moment when it's a bit Jewfro. But I did not look like a cutting-edge follower of fashion. I did not look stylish. I didn't even look comfortable. I looked like a dork.

I mentioned this to the girl supervising the fitting rooms. 'I think you need to wear skinny jeans,' she said. 'You know, the cigarette-leg ones.'
(Who decided there was a style called cigarette leg?)
Seeing as I have some muscles in my legs, I can't wear skinny jeans.

So. No cardigan, then. It's probably best for everyone.

In other news, my editor appears to have been interviewing a Rupert Penry-Jones lookalike. Mate, if you're not a student, don't wear a university scarf.

A couple of quickies...


On a corner crowded with lunchtime drinkers, enjoying the sun but shivering slightly, a skinny, unshaven man blunders over the road. The bulky cardboard box in his arms blocks the view of his feet, and he stumbles on the kerb. The contents of the box judder around: the naked upper torso of a shop-window dummy, nipples carefully glossed in candy-pink; a lower leg, whose toes stretch out to the sky, and a green, wobbly rubber snake.
-----------------

Small, dark and incredibly dapper, the young Asian man is in an impeccable brown pin-striped three-piece and a fantastic pair of ivory-on-brown co-respondent brogues.
'Nice shoes!' I say as he walks past.

He stops in his tracks, the wheels on his brown leather trolley case almost squealing as he comes to a halt.

'I can make you a pair!' he replies. 'Here, have a look!'

The case is an old-fashioned miniature trunk, all reinforced corners and brass metalwork, with an extending handle cunningly grafted onto one side. He flips it onto its side and clicks the locks open, swinging up the lid and revealing the carefully-stacked contents, in interlocking trays: leather samples, sketches of suits, swatches of wool and silk. I swear there were some cologne samples too, in those little glass vials with the dropper lids. A jigsaw of suavity.

'If I custom-make a last for you, the shoes'll cost two grand, but after that, it's a lot cheaper,' he says.

'Suits too?' I ask. I like suits.

'Mate, suits is what I do,' he says, handing me a card.

'Well, if this isn't bespoke service, I don't know what is,' I reply.

I can well believe he's about to start measuring me up, on the pavement at the entrance to Carnaby Street. And they say Swinging London is dead.
-----------------


and while we're on the subject of suits...

Errol the alterations tailor, the man who fixes my suits, has sent me out onto Berwick St to find some fabric to reinforce my overcoat pockets; it needs relining before the weather gets cold again. So I've levered myself into a cramped corner of Fabric King to rummage through a box of tie silks, as directed by the crop-haired young man at the counter.

A small commotion makes me look up.

'Man! Lookin' for suit fabric!'

If there's a picture in the dictionary under 'gangly', it looks a lot like this. Well over six foot, loose-limbed and very slightly stooped, the Rasta seems to have at least three elbows in each arm. Dreads caught up in the inevitable red-gold-green wooly hat, his narrow face is beaming, creasing deep seams from nose to mouth and revealing glittering gold incisors. He's dressed in burgundy overalls, huge dusty boots and a high-vis vest, and none of it looks bespoke. Except maybe the hat.

'Yeah mate, feel free,' says the assistant, a young crop-haired type, waving vaguely at a wall full of rolls of cloth.

The Rasta goes over to a shelf heaped with heavy dark grey worsted.

'This good stuff, yeah,' he says, rubbing a piece between finger and thumb.

The assistant comes over, looks at the Rasta dubiously with his head on one side.

'Pretty heavy,' he says. 'This for you, mate?'

'Naw, 's for ma cousin.'

'Where's he live?'

'Kingston, Jamaica!' the Rasta says, bouncing on his toes.

'Aw, mate, that's gonna be too heavy,' the assistant says. 'Make a suit out of that, in Jamaica, it'll be like wearing a sauna. Come down here.' And he leads the way down to the narrow end of the shop, where there's barely room to pull a roll out before it hits a wall display of buttons.

'See this?' he says, gingerly pulling out a shimmering silver-grey roll. 'Italian mohair. Lovely stuff. Really lightweight. Make a beautiful suit, cool as anything.' He sweeps a hand over the smooth surface, rippling the prince of wales check pattern.

The Rasta shrugs with most of his body, lopes over and runs a finger, gnarled as an olive twig, over the fabric, twists his knuckle into the roll. He curls his lip slightly, flashing gold.

'Nah, man, it's too t'in! Can see right t'rough it! If I send that to ma cuz, 'e'll 'ave a fit!'

One stride takes him back to the worsteds.
'Dis da stuff, man. Mek a suit will stand up by itself. Look great, man!'

In the meantime, I've found some fabric and the assistant takes a break from his exuberant customer, slices me a four-inch strip with a swoop of his shears and charges me the princely sum of £1.20. I take it up to Errol, who is busy berating his apprentice for fixing some lining too tight into a Vivienne Westwood jacket.

'Good stuff,' he says. 'About a quid?'

We agree on a price for the relining, and I hurry back down the stairs into D'Arblay St. Over the road, the Fabric King is still arguing with his fluorescent customer, who is gesticulating, arms wide, filling most of the front of the shop.

'Quality, man! Gots to 'ave quality!'
-----------------

Meanwhile, back on the Tube...

Is he dreaming of Sweet Gene Vincent? Feet stretched out across the aisle, his pointy black shoes are jittering gently to some internal rhythm; he isn't wearing earphones. Weathered blue jeans and a green bomber-jacket with a check lining, but not as an ironic style comment — this is his life, he breathes this in every day.

and the jump-back honey in the dungarees,
Tight sweater and the ponytail...

He's in his fifties, easily; face lined like soft leather and a silvering scrub of neatly-trimmed Vandyke moustache and beard. A rayburst of crows-feet wrinkles frames blue eyes, and his hair is receding but still thick and the colour of wet sand. At the back, his comb has pulled it into two wings, converging on the nape of his neck in a perfect duck's arse; above his forehead, it rises in an improbable four-inch peak, shaped like the bow of a ship, rising straight up towards the ceiling of the train and sloping gently back to the crown of his head.

Will you guess her age when she comes backstage?
The hoodlums bite their nails...

His arms are folded across his chest and his fingers, nestled in the crook of his elbow. They're tapping out the unheard but irresistable beat.

and your leg still hurts and you need more shirts,
and you got to get back on the road.

The music stops and he levers himself up, like a jack-knife blade coming out of its handle. He walks off the train, shoulder rolling. I was wrong: the music hasn't stopped. The music never stops.
-----------------
Thoughts, comments, spare change all welcome!

Readers of an environmental bent might be interested in this article I co-wrote with my colleague Jon about green technology in India and China. Very interesting to research, and there was loads of stuff we had to leave out, but it gives a pretty good idea of the differences between the two countries.

We should be setting up Facebook and Twitter accounts for the magazine tomorrow, along with a group blog, if we can figure out a way to do it that the advertising monkeys don't recoil from. Worth joining if you're interested in cool tech (and excellent writing, obviously).

A couple of weeks back, The Guardian did a series of celebrity recipe swaps — they show us theirs, we show them ours, that sort of thing. The first in the series was Simon Schama, the historian, who it turns out is a serious foodie. His recipe was an oozy mustardy cheese soufflé, which looked fantastic, but as some readers might remember, I have a bit of a history with cheese soufflés. I'm not counting it out, you understand. I just need some more breathing time before I cook another one. A year or so should do it.

The recipe was accompanied by an article about Schama's journey into foodiedom, from his mum's well-meant but somewhat dodgy North London Jewish regular reportoire (I sympathise, Simon. I think my Grandma had the same book), via Elizabeth David and Julia Child into unwise experimentation, and finally the dishes he cooked as his children grew up. It's an utterly lovely article, full of generosity and laughs and, of course, food, and you should all read it. I teared up a bit at the part about meatloaf.

Of the many dishes he mentions, one that caught my eye was Kashmiri raan. It's a lamb dish, and a particularly sumptuous one; it has the look of moghul banquets about it. You start with a joint of lamb on the bone, then you coat it with three separate marinades. The first is a spice rub, scented with garlic, ginger and lemon juice and freshly ground into a thick paste. The second is a puree of almonds, pistachios and yogurt, coloured gold with saffron. The third is a drizzle of honey. You let it marinade for two days in the fridge, then you slow-roast it, covered, until the meat is tender enough to fall away from the bone with the slightest pressure of the knife.

If it sounds like I know a bit about it, that's because I do. Do I look like some low-rent TV chef? I ate it 35 minutes ago.

Well, what's good enough for a moghul banquet is certainly good enough for a weeknight in Wanstead, isn't it? As luck would have it, there was a half-leg of lamb on special offer at Waitrose on Saturday, so I snapped it up.

Schama didn't give a recipe, so I found one online, which comes from the Bombay Palace Cookbook. I didn't change it much — added some black mustard seeds and fennel seed to the spice mix, because I like them. It took about 20min to assemble on Sunday night, then it sat happily in the fridge for the next couple of days. I turned the lamb over each morning and spooned the yogurt mix back over the top. Then, when I got in tonight, I just stuck a double sheet of foil over the top and put it in the oven. 45min on 200°C, then about an hour on 150°C. It smelled fantastic.

The accompaniments deserve a mention, because I made them up myself and I want to blow my own trumpet. I made a pilau rice using a mixture of white and brown basmati and Camargue red rice, with a couple of cloves, some cardamom pods and a bayleaf and the smallest amount of oil I could get away with, using veg stock (out of a bottle) as the liquid, plus some cashew nuts and sultanas.

As a vegetable, I made up a dry cauliflower curry. This really is good, so here's the recipe.

For two:

One small cauliflower, broken into small florets.
Half a teaspoon each black mustard seeds and fennel seeds
One clove garlic, finely sliced
One green chilli, sliced into shreds
A small tomato, or two cherry tomatoes, peeled and chopped (don't de-seed them)
Lemon juice, salt and pepper
Fresh coriander

Heat a little oil in a frying pan with a lid. When it's really hot, add the mustard seeds; they'll spit. After about ten seconds, add the fennel seeds. After another ten seconds, turn the heat right down and add the garlic and chilli; stir-fry until the garlic starts to go translucent. Throw in the cauliflower and stir everything around, then pour in about 1cm depth of water or veg stock. Add salt and pepper, bring it to a simmer and stick the lid on for five minutes. When the time's up, take the lid off and turn the heat up; you need to evaporate almost all the liquid. Stir it every so often so the cauliflower stays covered in the spices. When there's almost no liquid left, add the chopped tomatoes with their juices and the lemon juice, stir well, and keep the heat on until the liquid has gone. Add the chopped coriander, turn the heat off immediately and stick the lid on until ready to serve.

Again, I say, this is really good. Even if you don't like cauliflower, you will like this.

So, the raan. My God, it's incredible stuff. For a start, it tastes of lamb. Not like some lamb curry from a restaurant that only tastes of the sauce; you can taste the meat, and if it's good quality lamb (and this was), it comes through loud and clear. The slow, covered cooking keeps the meat moist and tender, and all the flavour stays in, but it's permeated by an amazing, intense but delicate fragrance from the spices, the nuts and the honey. It doesn't taste hot, but the heat builds as you eat it, just leaving a pleasant warmth. The remaining marinade concentrates down to a richly coloured sauce a bit thicker than double cream; I poured it into a fat separating jug to avoid the small layer of fat that had collected on top. The lamb fat had enriched the sauce and given it a meaty flavour, but the taste of the almonds, pistachios and saffron came through, with a slight sweetness from the honey. The marinades had formed a firm, set layer around the meat — not a crust, more of a very thick paste; I mixed that with my rice.

The rice mixture worked really well, with different textures and a nutty flavour. I think it was better than just a basmati pilau, which works fine with dishes with a lot of sauce, but not so well with mostly dry dishes like this one.

And did I mention that the cauliflower was really, really good?

This is definitely one I'll be cooking again. It's surprisingly little hassle — you just need to make the marinades up, and that's quick work with a pestle and mortar and a blender. It's one of the best things I've ever cooked. Fit for a maharajah. It also looks fantastic; I'll get some photos up tomorrow.

Thanks to you, Mr Schama.

She's a character from science fiction. And it's not because she's in metallic clothes, because she isn't; it's not crazy plastic hair, or vertiginous-soled boots, or white contact lenses. None of them.
She's tall and slender and oddly ageless; mid-forties at the youngest, late-fifties at the oldest. Beneath the fringe of a sharp black bob, her face is a strong-boned triangle, with wide brows narrowing to a pointed chin and a short, turned-up nose. Angular glasses are saved from harshness by their deep burgundy frames; the arms blending into the top bar in a heavy, sculpted double swoop, arcing in line with her eyebrows, the rest of the frame narrow and dark, skimming her cheekbones. The lenses distort her eyes; she's severely myopic.
She's pushed her large bag, an upright wheeled holdall in matt black neoprene, against the glass panel beside the door and is half-sitting on it, half-leaning on the panel. Her long legs tense to support herself and her thigh muscles ripple the fabric of her black cheongsam, making the chocolate brown embroideries of ferns and small flowers catch the harsh carriage light. One black-stockinged shin emerges from the slit in her skirt; she swings it across the other leg and taps her toes on the carriage floor.
It's warm in the carriage, that stifling heat from dry air pumped up from the seat-backs, but despite that she's wearing a fur coat, old-fashioned with a wide collar, mid-thigh length. It looks like real fur, mottled brown and black, with the slight lumpiness that comes from many pelts stitched together. It would stand up to a St Petersburg winter; it must be sweltering inside it. But she wears it casually, open over the embroidered black fabric, showing off the regularly spaced brocaded toggles. The fabric gapes slightly between them, revealing black lace and pale skin.
She's engrossed in a book, carefully flicking the pages with one red-lacquered thumbnail. It seems rather incongruous that it's an autobiography of Shirley MacLaine. 'A charming memoir', says the back-cover blurb.
Maybe it's the ageless maturity or the quietly cross-cultural clothes that give her the look of the future. Something from Blade Runner or a William Gibson novel. Easy to imagine a set of implants behind that black bob, cradling the base of her skull across the occipital ridge. Silicon nanofoam permeating vat-cast hydroxyapatite, set into channels cut into the natural bone. Flush with the skin just below the hairline, they show as rounded oblongs of silky brushed aluminium. Spring-loaded slots crown the finials behind each ear, guarding sockets for memory wafers. At the centre of the curve, pointing down the spinal cord, an inverted teardrop of power electronics, finned in a fractal fern shape to disperse the heat of the circuitry.
Back in the 21st century — and doesn't that still sound like science fiction? — she's probably in fashion. Nobody else could get away with that razor-cut sharpness or the smooth futurism of that black neoprene. As the train slows into my station I slip an old ticket into my novel, a new Iain M Banks, and shift to get up. She looks over at me, her finger keeping her place in Shirley MacLaine, and raises her eyebrows.
'Gonna nick your seat, now,' she says, softly, and grins. Twenty years fall away from her face.


He's asleep with his head back, is my first though. But on a second glance, he's lost in the music humming and ticking from his earphones. Eyes firmly shut behind the late-period gold Elvis shades, the sort with the wide stems with holes in them, and lips slightly parted. His hands rest on the armrests, fingers flickering with the chugging rhythm.
If it weren't for those sunglasses, he'd look scruffy, going on disreputable. Dark, frayed jeans, nondescript trainers, a dark beige hoody with the name of some American college on it. Almost certainly a pose; he doesn't look American. Something about the grooming always picks Americans out: a manicured look, even when they aren't. This bloke is pure North London, from the hair grown out just the fuzzy side of cropped, to the stubble like black moss over cheeks and jaw and the skin stretched tight over the adam's apple as his head lolls against the back of the seat.
The steady hiss and growl from the headphones is unmistakeably classic soul, and something about the combination of hair and shades catapults him back across the decades. He rolls his head from side to side in time with the music, his eyelids flickering. Just like Ray. Just like Stevie.

2009 - return of the reading mojo!

Lancashire, and some other places
Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North, by Stuart Maconie

The North, according to Maconie, starts at Crewe and goes up to the Scottish border. That's a lot of ground to cover. To be fair to Maconie, he does say that this is a personal journey, and you only have to listen to his accent (not difficult, pick any pop culture clips show at random and he'll be on it somewhere) to realise that this book is mostly going to be about Lancashire. A good third of it is west of the Pennines, and the rest of the North is squeezed in, not too successfully. Maconie's love of a good anecdote brings Wigan and Skelmersdale back into the passages about Yorkshire, County Durham et al with all the force of a meat pie in the face.
That's not to say that Pies is bad. It's a fun read, with interesting perspectives on Liverpool (not really Lancashire, more like New York), a stirring defense of George Orwell against charges of being patronising to poor Wiganers, and some sharp and insightful writing about Manchester (massive chip on its shoulder, but the absolute home and basis of socialist politics). As a child of the late 60s growing up in the shadow of Saddleworth Moor, he's particularly good on the Moors Murders, the flipside of Northern friendliness, where all your Mam's nagging about not talking to strangers had a cold and horrible reality, and childhood bogeymen were very real.
It doesn't pretend to be an exhaustive look at the North, and it isn't. Once away from the pies of Wigan and the black pudding frenzy of Bury, there are stereotypes aplenty and a lot of 'isn't this place lovely, and you'd hear a damn sight more about it if it were in the South'. He's also very fond of the phrase 'don't get me started on...'
That's OK, Stuart. I won't. But your brief bit of writing about the Lakes was fantastic, and I'd like to read a whole book on that, a bit easier on the wisecracks, please.
Maybe you have to be a Northerner to get the best out of this. Lancastrian would probably help, too. For anyone else, worth a look, but Bill Bryson does this stuff better.

Your mother should know
Coraline, by Neil Gaiman

Very late to the party here, and I feel guilty because not only have I had this for ages, it was a present. But better late than never, and I wanted to read it before the film came out.
There's a quote on the back cover blurb saying that it could knock the Alice books off their throne. Leaving aside the question of who puts books on a throne, this is complete bollocks. Lewis Carroll is in no danger of being eclipsed by Gaiman. Neither's Roald Dahl, for that matter. Or Alan Garner.
I don't think Gaiman himself would ever dream of putting himself into that category, but some of his fans are a funny lot. Coraline is a perfectly good bit of squirmy kids' horror, probably more horrifying for older readers, and Gaiman is a skillful storyteller. But he's a bit too nice for this. You never really feel that much is at stake here; you don't feel that there might not be a happy ending. It doesn't have the unhinged leaps of logic of Carroll, and it certainly doesn't have the spite, malice and glee of Dahl.
Still, perfectly good fun and a quick read - to work and back, and it's done. And Dave McKean's illustrations are lovely, too.

Road to Nowhere
Thirteen, by Sebastian Beaumont

Stephen Bardot, a Brighton taxi driver, depressed and despondent after the failure of an inherited business, drives himself into exhaustion on night shift after night shift. Ferrying around the distraught, violent, elderly or just plain drunk, he begins to enjoy the feeling of dislocation and the odd moments of connection with his passengers. Stephen finds himself uplifted by the positive attitude of a young, terminally ill woman from 13, Wish Road, and when she stops calling for lifts, he assumes the worst. But when he asks after her at the taxi office, he finds that something stranger is happening. Wish Road doesn't have a number 13. As Stephen tries to get his life back on track, he finds that other people are associated with the non-existent Thirteen; they appear and disappear seemingly at random, and some of them know a lot about him, but asking questions proves to be a bad idea. And when he decides that he wants out, the people from Thirteen have other ideas.
Well now, this is an interesting one. Full of ideas and oddly unsettling in places, it reminded me of those stories of strange shops that are never in the same place twice. Beaumont was a taxi-driver himself for a while, and a fair bit of Thirteen is made up from vignettes and observations from the driver's seat (quite like the sort of thing I'm trying to do with London Observations). But the slips into an alternative, puzzling world where time doesn't seem to work in a straight line, where personality and location become slippery, and where everybody knows your name even though you've never met them, are all well-done.
It's not a masterpiece; the dialogue is a bit clunky, as though Beaumont has thought very hard about what he wants his characters to say, but not so much about how they'd say it. The people from Thirteen are often more convincing than the 'real' people, although it's not precisely certain who's real and who isn't, and what makes a real person 'real' in the first place. There's a lot of this sort of ambiguity, which might annoy some people; personally, I like not being told every detail, and having something for my imagination to work on.
In an interview, Beaumont said that the book is an exploration of one man's psyche. It also works as a ghost story, as Stephen (definitely Beaumont's alter-ego) is a haunted man, but they aren't the usual sort of ghosts. If you're interested in the concept of haunting, you'll enjoy this. If you're the sort of person who gets spooked by odd-looking houses and things glimpsed out of the corner of your eye, it's also worth a look.
Beaumont's second novel, The Juggler, is out soon. I'll be looking for it.

Still on the go: a massive book about the scientists of the romantic era - currently reading about Humphrey Davy and his giggly experiments with nitrous oxide.