So it's not just being a grumpy old man

I was very sad to hear about J. G. Ballard's passing. He's my favourite modern writer by a long way, and I'm very sad that I didn't discover him earlier in life. I hadn't really thought that deeply about why I like his work so much and why I find his books so thought-provoking. But an article in The Spectator contained a potential clue:

Ballard was always, pace Hobbes, a little pessimistic about the human condition — the traditional disposition of the thinking conservative. I wonder if we will ever see a British writer with such a breadth of imagination again?

[From J.G. Ballard was a man of the Right — not that the Right really wanted him | The Spectator]

I mentioned before that my personal confirmation of Ballard's greatness came when I got deja-vu visiting a place I'd never been to before purely as a result of his powers of description and imagination, but I can now see that something in the bleakness of his vision resonates with me.

Ballard's descriptions of the buildings, the executive cars lined up out side them, the trees partly hiding the landscape, are so perfect that my brain slipped out of gear for a moment as it tried to come to terms with the fact that I hadn't actually been there before.

[From Citizen of the World (Well, Woking): May 2008]

Since I'm going to be spending a lot of time on planes over the next couple months, I'm going to be reading a lot of Ballard, so my tone may be somewhat bleak. But hey, we're living in his world now.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Notorious J.K.R.

When I was in New York recently, I happened to read in the newspaper there about a court case involving multi-millionaire J. K. Rowling and some hapless fan of hers. I won't go into the details because they are too boring, but following another blog trail when I was bored because there's no footie on, I came across this, which I can't resist linking to...

Rowling's hypocrisy is so thick I can hardly breathe: Prior to the publication of each novel, there were books about them that were no more intrusive than Lexicon. I contributed to one of them, and there was no complaint about it from Rowling or her publishers because they knew perfectly well that these fan/scholar ancillary publications were great publicity and actually boosted sales.

[From J.K. Rowling, Lexicon and Oz]

As far as I know, this case is still awaiting judgement, but I had an idea for a settlement: since Harry Potter fan fiction and the like must have resulted in more books being sold and more movie tickets being sold, she could just give say 10% of her take to the fans who create and maintain these sites. Turn them into co-productions. Or, alternatively, just go away and leave them alone.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.

[posted with ecto]

Super, super Cannes

In all these years, I'd never been to Sophia Antipolis before, so I was quite looking forward to my first visit. Unfortunately, the visit was spoiled because as I stepped out of taxi and looked around, I suddenly found the landscape both familiar -- despite never having been there -- and strangely sinister. For a moment I was genuinely disconnected, and then I realised that it was because of J. G. Ballard. One of the greatest of all English novelists, his Super Cannes, which I read some years ago. Ballard's descriptions of the buildings, the executive cars lined up out side them, the trees partly hiding the landscape, are so perfect that my brain slipped out of gear for a moment as it tried to come to terms with the fact that I hadn't actually been there before. Although I'd forgotten about the book up until this moment, the sense of lurking amorality washed over me as soon as I breathed the air there.

It actually is quite an odd place, in that while it's in beautiful hills and no more than an expensive taxi ride away from Nice, there is a pervading artificiality that is slightly jarring. If you're driving around the Cambridge Science Park, say, then it is openly artificial, a medium-is-the-message artefact of the times, and so it's not odd. But you don't get that feeling here. Maybe it's because it's just new. Fortunately, none of the people I met looked as if they might be murdering immigrants in their spare time, but you can never really tell, can you?

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.

[posted with ecto]

Now this is a traveller

I went to the launch of the book "A Brief History of Disability" by Bryan Breed. It's been published, posthumously, by John Coleman of New European Publications. I've known John for many years, so kindly invited me along. The launch was at a travel show, and John brought along his 1925 Austin -- he drove it up to London, it's still running -- that features in the book "Coleman's Drive". He drove it from Buenos Aires to New York -- solo up mountains, through jungles, across rivers -- in 1962. And there's me complaining because they didn't have my first choice left for dinner on my last flight back to London. Here's John with the car...



Anyway, it was a pleasure to be at the launch. Baron Morris of Manchester (better known as Alf Morris) gave a talk on the introduction of the 1970 Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act that was behind. He then went on, 1974, to become Britain's first Minister for the Disabled.



It's a privilege to spend a little time with men like these.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.

[posted with ecto]