lundi 21 juillet 2003

Once more into the ... mayhem, dear friends. Repairs I've lost count of blood tests and other bids to determine My Condition. I had a little more drained from my arm this morning. And received enlightenment in two respects: the endoscopy took more than an hour, not the unbelievable five minutes I blogged last night. It was the bit at the other end that went quickly. The lurid picture indeed shows my "stomach's ear", but in itself does nothing to explain some 10 weeks of the shits and the rest. Ah, to be mended! The Mac needed much mending, for which I, along with others on many a site and bulletin board, blame Apple's latest downloaded security update. We really should never install these things blindly! Now it's the blog's turn again. Absolutely everything will be backed up before I resume tweaking. But there are one or two bits I can't do offline. Advance apologies for mess and mayhem. This time, I know what I'm doing... 12:45:45 PM  link   your views? [] The Kelly tragedy: no answer, ever more questions Up before seven again this morning -- this is getting bad -- I've already been asked by three French people what I think of (as one tried to sell the man to me) "your prime minister." Everybody's interested after the appalling death of Iraq arms expert David Kelly (BBC). At present, I'm weighing up whether I just might add another "B" to my "bash 'em" list: "B" for Beeb. My gut reaction is to leap to the defence of the venerable institution and its controversial correspondent Andrew Gilligan. That's what I did back in April, when A.G. was lambasted for a looting in Baghdad story. That entry was called 'The media and the spoils of war'. Observations on this latest development could almost bear the same title. Nothing is black and white, even in the world of news and print. The French apparently have a good grasp of one issue, the row between the government and the Beeb, but have been perplexed at the behaviour of what many regard as the main media outlet of the British state. This common perception applies equally, in most minds, to France and my "factory", AFP. This is wrong. No media organisation with our respective charters, status and staff of scores of different nationalities works that way these days, though the pressure is evidently always there. Kelly's death, however, isn't just a wretched distraction from the main question about what the government knew and what it said before the Bush administration pulled Blair by the nose into Iraq. It once again raises fundamental issues of sources, secrecy and security, on which I plan to reflect. My heart goes out to the Kelly family. zzz On lies of state, friend Mark sent me a remarkable piece which I blogged before the great crash. Much of it still holds good: "One Congresswoman, Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, released a statement on July 8 that cuts right to the heart of the matter: 'After months of denials, President Bush has finally admitted that he misled the American public during his State of the Union address when he claimed that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium in Africa. That is why we need an independent commission to determine the veracity of the other so-called evidence used to convince the American people that war with Iraq was unavoidable. 'It is not enough for the White House to issue a statement saying that President Bush should not have used that piece of intelligence in his State of the Union address at a time when he was trying to convince the American people that invading Iraq was in our national security interests. Did the president know then what he says he only knows now? If not, why not, since that information was available at the highest level (...)'." What I found novel was the force of William Rivers Pitt's editorial on 'truthout,' where he quotes Schakowky. Pitt pulled an old orator's stunt with a hammer: "Bush and the White House told the American people over and over again that Iraq was in possession of vast stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Bush and the White House said over and over again that this was a direct threat to the United States. Bush and the White House told the American people over and over again that Iraq was directly connected to al Qaeda terrorism, and would hand those terrible weapons over to the terrorists the first chance they got. Bush and the White House told Congress the same thing. Very deliberately, Bush and the White House tied a war in Iraq to the attack of September 11. It was all a lie. All of it." Pitt lists dates and remarks how come "now again reports of the infamous Iraq-al Qaeda connection, an administration claim meant to justify the war". The columnist's fist-pounding push for a probe was reminiscent of many a happy-end movie on the wheels of US justice, reaching for hearts and minds by starting with "our troops". India did finally spurn a US request (AFP) to send some. New Delhi refused to "help" unless the United Nations runs the show. Jolly good. I listened to Blair being closely questioned by members of parliament before his own pre-war Iraq policy came under fire. At that time in London, a parliamentary enquiry was announced, but no independent judicial one, despite a remark by a visiting US politician (I've forgotten her name) who remarked on the contrast between the massive fuss in Britain and the relative lack of any furore in America. This is unlikely to last. I presume the parliament probe into Iraq policy and practice will now accompany the new one. An interesting angle on how any investigations may go now lies in the fact that Blair still enjoys a comfortable majority in the legislature. That can hardly be said of George W. Bush, with politicians already gearing up for a new election there and lingering doubts as to whether the president even won the last one. zzz On a differently painful political note, British Home Secretary David Blunkett, up against more domestic problems, astonished me on July 16. "'It said 'Remove genitals and insert penis" but then it was withdrawn," D.B. told the Commons, broadcast the next day. That followed comments on -- was it "French? -- teeth" as a form of "aggressive defence". If Blunkett (Grauniad) didn't utter those words in parliament, then I'm mad too, but they're what arrested me 'twixt computer and bathroom. Fortunately the summer recess starts before the heat kills them all. Last week's prize for failing to answer a simple question, "yes" or "no", went to Dotty Blanket's counterpart in the health department, John Reid, who was asked three times on the Beeb by James Naughtie whether a zero-star hospital was rated as providing worse treatment than a three-star one on the YuKay government's new health service scale. The hapless twit must have realised that this was another blunder, since he thrice sought to pass the buck to the misnamed Commission for Health Improvement. zzz Should I find a soundbite of Blair addressing the US Congress at the end of last week, thanking Americans for the kind of reception he no longer gets at home, I'll blog it for posterity. It gave me another good chuckle. Since then, most hacks I've heard have been more preoccupied with the man's state of mind, fatigue and facial expressions than with his deeds. AFP joined the club, finding him "rested and relaxed" today in Beijing. His Chinese hosts are giving him a cosier time than some of us expected. 12:14:57 PM  link   your views? [] African gallery (1... ? ) : BÈa goes to the polls (Initially posted on July 7 & last for tonight:) Gradually getting ready for a posting to Nairobi, Béa looked summery and fit when she took time out to cycle over and join me for a very agreeable lunch. This talented fellow Africanist shares a taste for the sun. So the clear sky over a market scene must have been a particularly welcome sight for her after Lagos, where she joined the crew to cover the Nigerian elections last April (AFP and photojournalism entry). This snap could be of many such places in Africa, but Béatrice was by then in Libreville, capital of Gabon (Lonely Planet guide), where everybody might be richer if chunks of the country's oil wealth hadn't been turned into real estate owned in Paris by some of its élite. It's Africa's oil giant, Nigeria, this post is really about, but Béa's photolog has moved... 1:21:26 AM  link   your views? [] Diverse distractions and virtual visits (Initially posted mostly on July 13 & 14:) Marianne and I compensated for the screwing-up of holiday plans by My Condition with a spending spree on books and CDs. My education into my daughter's current metal 'Wicked Land'-style music is complete. After an overdose, I ordered: "Si c'est Korn, c'est le casque!" ("Korn => headphones"). But she also bought several things much more to my own taste. Among the books, she asked for 'Ventus' (reviewed last month) in French. And I found for her that a good translation of the wonderful 'Earthsea quartet, is back in print (published by Robert Laffont as 'Terremer', the trilogy, and 'Tehanu'). So much for the idiot at the FNAC who said 'Tehanu' would never return to the store's shelves "because it's crap compared with the rest". I have no doubt that Marianne will become as committed a fan of Ursula K. Le Guin's Worlds (a good unofficial site in Sweden) as I am (she's also blogrolled). I bought a couple of books myself and music by Bach, Madonna, Phil Glass and other "minimalists", Radiohead and Stockhausen. After the high points of 'Ray of Light', Madonna's 'American Life' was a letdown. The title track and the withdrawn video that caused all the fuss (Guardian arts reviews) back during That War do less, for me, than half a dozen of the other songs on the album, mainly among the last ones. The clip is still out there on the net: hint: try Arts and Entertainment at Salon.com, where they found that a "bootleg copy of her bomb-throwing 'American Life' video proves provocative -- but not nearly as disturbing as her decision to yank it." For her next stunt, I'd be happy to see Madonna end her partnership with French producer Mirwais Ahmadzai. But tracks like 'X-Static Process', make me marginally more generous than Johnny Davis at NME: I give the woman 7.5/10 for this one. I have no sympathy for those who bemoan the contrast between Madonna's lifestyle and the this-is-me-now lyrics on 'American Life'. Song-writing has never been the chameleon's strong point, unlike sheer style. Anyway. Who knows? She may mean what she says and is as entitled to be mixed-up as anybody else. zzz In the neighbourhood, Lee abandoned Odessa Street to Tony and his daily monitoring of pollution levels, going back to the u.s. of a., family and open spaces with a fine plan for "a healthy diet of physical activity and mental numbness" She first found that when "trying to catch some rays, somebody decided that Parisian trees were thirsty." In summer, this is a daily risk. I've often been showered along with people's geraniums. One only hopes it was just water, because there are still weeks to go before it's relatively safe to stroll down the middle of the road. Visiting home from France, Lee must have been given the illegal alien treatment before customs scrubbed her through decontamination and granted her visa for "at least getting an accurate and semi-diverse glimpse into current American pop culture" (Gadabout is sometimes where I keep tabs, while Lee sporadically posts on her own latest finds). Google appeared to have decided, for what it's worth, that July 14 was "Let's be nice to France Day". What's come over them? [So I asked at the time.] I missed the flypast. One annual sport at "the factory" is to watch the death machines hurtle low down the Champs Elysées on telly, then see them moments later tearing up the sky behind the building. There's always somebody to claim that one went missing in the meantime. I doubt any of my readers are ignorant of what Bastille Day is, Tseguereda Mogues spells it out here in great detail and without pictures. Later, I learned from a funny site in Québec that Google had made no such decision to remind the world of the existence of the French. Confused? Neither 'pssst!' nor I initially realised that the lily-livered cowards chose to put that banner on Google.fr only! In the past few days, 'pssst!' has sadly shut down and turned into a four-year archive. zzz I [had then] to stop eating bread, which is hard when Paris's second-best baker -- so their award sign proudly proclaims -- is a few doors away. Even a bit of baguette is banned. I have yet to work out whether pizza is among the forbidden fibres or allowed on a par with pasta. In: "Los Alamos, NM - Dr. Sidney P. Dinsmore, a senior researcher with the US Department of Energy, has achieved a scientific breakthrough by creating the first sustainable cold fusion reaction in a laboratory by combining enriched pasta with anti-pasta, something that physicists and Italian chefs heretofore had thought impossible. (...) Not all scientists, however, are convinced that Dinsmore's discovery will be successful outside of a highly controlled laboratory environment. Indeed, a few highly reputable physicists believe that a functioning pasta/anti-pasta 'Dinsmore generator' could set off a chain reaction so powerful that it could end up causing a rift in the space-time continuum or, in a worst-case scenario, actually causing the complete destruction of all matter in the universe." First, I am myself a perfect environment for such an experiment. I have managed to contain the destruction of all matter in my innards for two months, notwithstanding hot ... never mind. Secondly, this recipe for the very kind of fusion I'm seeking was reported by Broken Newz (via the entertaining Tim Swanson). zzz Something we're told Americans excel in is service. As well as taking people to court. I'd been looking for something on Princess Di, currently back in the news as a multi-million dollar transatlantic spat, apart from the apparently initially true story that Marvel comics planned to turn her into a mutant superheroine (ABC). This has since been denied (Silver Bulletins reports). Di got a look-in at 'More a way of life...', but I was reading Jon's jaundiced look there at the "British Concept of Service. 1:10:19 AM  link   your views? [] 'Mappa Mundi': genetics and government - an explosive mix (Initially posted on July 7:) In a recent column in 'The Guardian', Justina Robson's new novel, 'Natural History', won high praise from fellow science fiction writer John M. Harrison (article: 'Meat versus Machine'). Waiting for the paperback will be a test of patience after racing through the last chapters of 'Mappa Mundi' (2001, link to Amazon UK). The Yorkshire-born Robson's ambitious second novel tackles the possibility of mind control through nanotech. It's a prospect she makes frighteningly real as rival governments and people of varied intent race for a monopoly on the technology. Throughout her work, Robson* has been preoccupied with the question of consciousness in one form or another, beginning with artificial intelligence in 'Silver Screen', published in 1999. In 'Mappa Mundi', the shock-headed Natalie Armstrong is a British pyschologist and research scientist seeking to map out a model of the human brain to provide treatment for the mentally ill through nanotechnology. Her goal on the way, achieving a working theory of consciousness, is shared by others less concerned with the practical medical applications than with the manipulation of the mind. Including the US adminstration. Across the Atlantic, the half-native American FBI agent Jude Westhorpe has long sought the truth about a dangerous defector from Moscow, currently working in mind-mapping for Washington but with a criminal past and still hot Mafia connections. This "mystery Russian", another strong and pleasingly ambivalent character, has plans of his own for the Mappa Mundi project. Jude's path crosses Natalie's when he needs her help to decode evidence turned up in a bizarre bid to kill his estranged sister, White Horse, a political activist who regards his career as a sell-out to the State. All three find themselves crossed, double-crossed and manipulated in a political world where the rule is 'trust nobody, not even yourself'. It's through the fine portrayal of the key characters in the novel, rather than an overdose of hard science, that Robson succeeds in the difficult task of drawing the reader forward into a near future where the biological implications of nanotechnology, one of the key research fields still in its relative infancy at the start of this century, could prove far-reaching indeed. A pre-review comment, with an extract from the book, on June 30 (second part of the entry), noted how the author launches into a multi-threaded thriller more than 50 pages after 'Mappa Mundi' begins. The first part, in fact, consists of a series of brief, apparently unrelated short tales, which take on all their importance once we are deep into a nightmare plot whose outcome can't look good from any angle. The end is as inexorable, in its way, as scientific progress itself, despite all resistance put up by those opposed to change. Like the research that brought the world the hydrogen bomb, once the work Natalie and her colleagues are engaged in begins to produce results, there can be no going back. If your country hasn't got it, somebody else's will. Illustrating this new kind of "arms race" in one vivid passage, Robson takes FBI agents to a secret US medico-military research site to witness an experiment gut-wrenching enough to sicken even one of the most ruthless and callous of her characters. The "national interest" calls for activities few people would care to reflect on too much, but this author provokes thought all the way along the line. To a non-scientist, the science woven into the book is as credible as it is chilling. On re-reading a passage or two, Robson's initially surprising notions of the nature of consciousness and indeed the nature of time became perfectly plausible. Events such as the long unexplained appearance of a top-secret Pentagon folder in a York guest house and the even more bizarre disappearance of one of the main characters make a frightening sense. Robson's use of Anglicisms for one or two things American led the only reader to comment on the book to date at Amazon UK to give it two stars. The poor person had a problem with that, with the unfortunate outcome that the review was completely beside the point! In an interview she gave Cheryl Morgan at 'Strange Horizons' (no spoilers) last April, Robson was more riled by an 'SF Foundation' writer who accused her of making up her science. "I was so cross about that. Of course I made some of it up. It wouldn't be SF otherwise, it would be realism. But I think his problem was that I wasn't explaining how any of it worked, so he assumed that I hadn't done any research, that it was just some sort of thought experiment that wasn't going anywhere. What really annoys me is that I have drafts of that book in which it is all explained, and it's really long and boring, it jams the storyline. In order to explain how it all works, you first have to decide where to start. In this case the poor layman doesn't have a great deal of knowledge of neuroscience or nanotechnology or biochemistry, so you end up thinking that you need to include an entire lecture series, and I don't want to do that in a novel." Elsewhere, I've remarked on Robson's gift for seamless gear-changes in style on the way to a perhaps literally "mind-blowing" climax, but omitted to say that her bleak outlook is well leavened with many a touch of occasionally dark humour. It wasn't until I read that excellent interview after the book that I learned that both her parents are scientists, hence her insight into method, and that when she's not busy exercising an original SF talent to watch closely, she's become a yoga teacher. That, after 'Mappa Mundi', makes sense too. _______ *Just a reminder of Robson's own site. There isn't much on it apart from a bare bones bio and brief factsheets, but it's a good jumping off point for more on her work. (Probably next up for review here: Neal Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age' (1995); "tackled" by Susan Stepney in October 2000. This guy's an author whose work I'm reading backwards...) 12:23:43 AM  link   your views? [] Specially for my mum! A striking view of your servant The first part of this entry, before I "lost" (i.e. blew apart) the blog, is a slightly edited version of testimony to my worst night of the year. Last Wednesday. Then I reveal how much wiser we are now... "Going to give a running commentary?" she asked. I had no such intention. But since I also have no idea what's going to come out, this might be of interest. (Update: I can do far better than merely write, anyway..) I have tasted far, far worse than fortrans (that was sachet/litre n° 2). Mixed with Coke, it's acceptable. The 'X-Prep' taken at 8:24 pm looked so vile in water, a muddy brown, that I knew it would be bad news. I left reading the contre-indications until after swallowing. Then I learned that this "médicament NE DOIT PAS ÊTRE UTILISÉ dans les cas suivants: (...) maladie de Crohn." Great. I thought that was what we were looking for. I just hope they know what they're doing. It's not me that shouted, the caps are on the notice: "Must not be used." Item n° 3 will accompany me in the morning. Many of them. I'm supposed to be out of the clinic in the afternoon. Now I've begun to wonder. As to the effect of these things or even what they are for, I have absolutely no further comment to make. None whatsoever... I'll be back to finish this in a moment. There are times when I regret my mother's conviction that the internet is beyond either her interest or her grasp. Never mind. The flowers are in the post. zzz Dire though that night was, my humour improved walking to the clinic in the sunshine and then back, to "the canteen". Lesson learned after an anaesthetic: you don't snap your fingers at the specialist when you come round, even if calling out when he strides past your trolley draws no response. "Je ne suis pas un garçon," Dr V. protested. But then he consented to inform me that "a priori, you don't have Crohn's disease. But you've got something." No more would he say, which is why I got lesson two. Ravenous at the canteen, I was stupid enough to order a pizza with all the veggies at last. Sam nearly had to walk me home. Never mind the awful cramp, I saw stars and almost passed out for 15 minutes. Sam threw away the uneaten ice cream and even gave me the pizza on the house! It's scarcely suprising a system as clean as this couldn't take the onslaught. I found this picture and the letter this morning. Thoughtful chap, Dr V. If I read the jargon correctly, it's a part of my stomach delightfully known in French as the "ear", i.e. lughole. Or plughole? The probes went down as well as up. My Condition, however, remains a mystery, pending the biopsy reports. On Friday, bloghero Yang was as bemused as me, if less miffed. Past history pointed so much to Crohn's that the doctor, who had spoken to Dr V. but not seen these first results, was almost sorry to be going on holiday with the puzzle unresolved. The tentative "conclusion" vaguely fingers the pancreas. Who knows? I'm asked to see Dr V. in a week's time. Yang was going to write me off work for another month, but we settled for a couple of weeks. I didn't want it to be Crohn's, but now we find it's neither that nor anything I might have picked up in Africa, knowing more would be nice. Those probes, awaited for two months, took all of five minutes according to the the video-endoscopy report. This I find hard to credit, given that it speaks of "difficult progress" because of the twists and turns... The rest I will spare you. When I was in a fit state to return my mum's call this afternoon, she didn't want details on a full stomach. (First picture courtesy of 'L'Écran Fantastique' (a fan site which has yet to be updated by one issue. Second snap by way of modern medicine.) 12:13:32 AM  link   your views? []

nick b. 2007 do share, don't steal, please credit under artistic licence terms; contributing friends (pix, other work) retain their rights.