Reg

I write in tribute to an old friend - Reg - who has not, let me hasten to add, shuffled off this mortal coil just yet. Though he has endured a slightly littler death, i.e., retirement. If my rudimentary maths are correct, Reg has just achieved 40 years of service at the House of Mouse, retiring last week. I feel bad because I was (at least partly down to laziness on my behalf; though there are other reasons - to do with a sense of inadequacy after my being made redundant from there - for my unwillingness to make the pilgrimage to Hammersmith) unable to attend the party.

Reg is a man of true heart and soul, and I feel privileged to have made his acquaintance. Historian, writer, romanticist, fixer, boozer and carer. Viking, alternative universe-dweller, Terry Pratchett fan, Baloo the Bear costume wearer and (not quite. But this is what makes us human, the 'not quite' bit, isn't it?) all-around good guy.

Reg is a human. Long may he reign.

Miracles

A graph from the Office for National Statistics on age profiles. Interesting how it resembles a Rorschach blot, don't you think?

DISCLAIMER. This post was due to go live tomorrow, but I've been looking through my archives and realised that I have posted on 2nd February in each year since I started this thing (I only began in June 2007, and could not have done so in that year, even if I'd wanted to) so the anally retentive numerologist in me just had to make the change to today. For that reason, the piece may not be as (ahem) exquisitely crafted, and adherent to Aristotelian Unities as you would normally expect, so please forgive me, but here goes.

As I watch my life ebbing away to the background of Bargain Hunt and re-runs of Top Gear, I realise that all the current noise about ageing, death and all that brouhaha is becoming increasingly relevant to me. A terrifying spectre punctured the fog of my cold-infected brain the other morning as I listened to Today on Radio 4. Somebody was speaking about the population profile of the UK, and came up with an image of certain towns in this country only being populated by pensioners as our inevitable march towards immortality (though it looks set to be an immortality of almost total lameness, propped up by countless interventions and cocktails of drugs. No thank you) continues. I'm no spring chicken, as you are doubtless fully aware, but the thought of living only among the over 60s in such circumstances is not an attractive one, to say the least. I've nothing against the older generation per se, and as with any age group, I do try to speak as I find. There are of course as many curmudgeonly kids as there are sprightly OAPs. But I digress.

What I wanted to elucidate was the feeling of confusion I have over medical science in these marvellous modern times. We are proving ourselves increasingly able to defy nature and prolong life (in whatever condition said life may be) almost indefinitely. Don't misunderstand me, I have no ethical objection to stem cell research or any of that good stuff, and I can too completely understand why any family would wish to try and keep someone alive for as long as possible. I also respect those who (on the flip side, if you will) wish to push the boundaries of legality and question the status quo when it comes to the right to die. Terry Pratchett is - and we would expect no less - making a fine stand on this point, as I'm sure you will have heard. It is a complex issue, no doubt about it, and open to some SERIOUS abuse, which is why I feel that English law (though an ass, let's face it) is perhaps for once best suited to dealing with it - i.e., on a case-by-case basis. If only the media could be kept at a distance, we might see some sense. But that ain't gonna happen.

So (once again trying desperately to return my thoughts to the original argument) I really want to talk about the disparity between what we are capable of when it comes to keeping people alive, thanks to increasingly sophisticated treatments (along with - naturally - much hand-wringing to accompany them) and our inability to safeguard the health of children for the want of the most basic care in countries less fortunate than our own.

I have a problem understanding where we're going with this, and begin to question the point of it. Why do we expend so much money and effort in developing procedures and medicines which can fight almost any disease (even the most fundamental disease of growing old) and injury when we allow millions of kids to die from malaria (I'm sure Ashton Kutcher is well-intentioned and all, but it won't really cut the mustard, will it?) and malnutrition every year? Especially when the treatments are only available to a - in relative terms - select few. In much the same way as Barack is diverting vast sums from the 'folly' of space flight to pay for some much needed basic stuff back home, perhaps we could think about doing something similar with the extraordinary sums pumped into prolonging what is often already a lost cause on the hospital wards? Easily said, I know.

The Colour of Memory

You will see from previous posts that I have long been a fan of Terry Pratchett, and believe (in common with some other luminaries) that his Discworld novels have evolved over time to become significantly more than the sum of their parts. The earlier books were amusing, if a little lightweight, but were definitely appreciated more by, shall we say, devotees of the fantasy genre.

Since the development of Vetinari and Vimes, I feel that a darker edge has appeared and the books are more allegorical than they were. Despite the almost square-jawed hero cliche, and the sometimes slightly cloying relationship details (not that I'm scoffing at girly romance you understand...) Sam Vimes is a character I have greatly enjoyed following.

Then, along came Moist von Lipwig, rescued from the hangman's hemp in order to do the bidding of Vetinari in setting up the Discworld mail service in Going Postal. And a fine novel it was, I would hazard, a complex and still darkly humorous adventure containing some excellent parallels with the communications industry on our own spherical floating rock.

So I eagerly awaited the next installment in the Lipwig series - Making Money. Apropos of nothing, perhaps, this was TP's first novel since he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. I have a slight problem (and I stress slight. This is a purely comparative criticism...) with the book, I must confess, though it has been hard to put my finger on the reasons why. So I was glad to be presented with the challenge of critiquing it by my good friend from long ago and far away. I had forgotten, however, what a time-intensive and difficult task literary criticism can be. Add to this the slight indifference I feel towards Making Money (I mean the book of course, not the activity. Although...) and the huge amount of reading and writing there is to do, and I admit that I have struggled. After all, I ain't no Frank Rich.  But, what the hell, here goes.

Where Making Money suffers most is that it follows the highly entertaining Going Postal, and - to rap on one of Terry's themes - it cannot match this gold standard.  At times, it feels as if Pratchett is trying too hard, while at others it feels as if he isn't trying hard enough.  I sense a little creative fatigue, an element of formula creeping in. As always, the cheesy old gags are tossed off in such a way as to endear rather than infuriate, but there is still a slight shifting in the chair; a sense of unease that so many don't quite come off as well as we all know they can.

Additionally, there are only so many ways to say that Vetinari is a devious political player, only so much mileage in references to his raised eyebrow, and it is, I feel past time to retire him. I have read that this move is on the cards in any case, but I think perhaps it hasn't been - to use a very Vetinari word - executed soon enough.  Finally, to return to the girly kissy stuff mentioned above. What does Adora Belle Dearheart actually bring to the party?  I think it says it all that she is conveniently shipped off for the first two-thirds of the book, and only returns towards the end to assist in a little lazy tidying-up of loose ends.

I must stress again that it is not my intention to be beastly, because the book is still good enough to rank in the higher reaches of TP's oeuvre. It is far and away (out beyond the Circle Sea) better writing than I could ever hope to achieve, and I will not be ceasing my subscription to the Ankh-Morpork club any time soon.  Long may the man live and continue to gift us with his wonderfully dark and funny characters, but for now, let's just roll out a trite, glib cliche and say:

"Could do better."

Lords A-Leaping

How edifying to see the spectacle of the Queen's Speech again this year. I actually smiled at the Sun cartoon on Wednesday, which depicted an open-top tourist bus passing the Houses of Parliament. The tour guide was saying: "And over there you will see the traditional dawn raid of the House of Commons by the police." That I think shows just how much the world has changed. A smile from the Sun cartoon. It has to be a first (though as a child I did enjoy finding the little man and the little bird hidden in the Franklin ones every day. Mind you, I also used to enjoy Hagar the Horrible - how times have changed, and not for the better) for me.

I am intrigued by the current power play over the arrest of Damian Green, and how it illuminates (or otherwise) the debate on the powers of police and Parliament. Terry Pratchett hints at this whole area in his 'Watch' books on the Discworld, and neatly demonstrates how fine a line is trodden by plod as a tool of the state, though he does sidestep a little by turning the Watch into something of a paramilitary organisation, whereas we haven't (yet) got that kind of set-up in jolly old England.

There is a good deal of strenuous and tenuous posturing by some in the Grauniad, about the sanctity of Parliament and the threats to the long-held freedoms enshrined in the democratic representation which we are so privileged to have. The arrest of Green they say - though this did not take place within the precincts of the Houses of Parliament, and which was ostensibly for a criminal matter - is somehow a major threat to this age-old system, on which other 'great democracies' such as Canada and (in part) the US, model themselves. What utter tosh!

At the risk of sounding like a rusty saw, I would simply state that anyone who witnessed the (there is no other word for it) travesty of justice employed as justification for the Iraq war cannot place any faith in the integrity of our politicians. Neither can anyone doubt that they will do whatever they can to further their own causes.

And a merry Christmas one and all.

Races

I have been a fan of Terry Pratchett for a while now.

Initially, I was a bit unsure about him, but my respect has grown steadily (Rincewind excepted) and, I think, so has the quality of his work.

I am two thirds of the way through Thud! at the moment, and I really like Sam Vimes,* though I like Moist better, even though I've only read the one - Going Postal - which features him. Maybe that says more about Pratchett's style, and the growing maturity of the Discworld** than it does about me. Or maybe it doesn't.

I am intrigued about the theme of racism in Thud! and wonder whether TP had some Earth equivalents in mind when he was writing it. Is it just me, or do the Trolls seem just a little like Afro-Caribbeans - specifically as imagined by a man who spends most of his life in faery land in a garden shed? I'm thinking in particular of Mr Shine. And the dwarfs... Are they Israelites?

We are dealing in broad strokes here, but I certainly feel that there's another ahem dimension to his work these days. Fewer gags, though... Clearly, I should be logged on to the forums over at TP's domain, but they're so... lame. Sorry.***

* I've never found a reasonable likeness of Vimes. He is not a stringy-necked long-hair with a cheroot. Sorry. Again.***

** I may be stealing bandwidth, but anyone who spends so much time folding paper to make a REPLICA of the Discworld surely wants other people to see it?

*** Sorry