Cumbria update

I must apologise for not blogging about the Cumbria Book Appeal project for a while. There really did not seem to be much to say after I had announced the postponement, but I do want to impress on everyone that a) it is still very much on, and b) we still want as many people as possible to get on board.

Several authors and illustrators have joined since I last did a list and some people have been in touch, eager to send the books they have. Can I ask everyone to continue to be patient and hang on to those books. They are definitely wanted and they will get to Cumbria, I promise. But not quite yet.

I have not been in touch with anyone from the council yet as the snow has simply added to everyone's problems and there seems no point in even trying to discuss logistics yet. When the snow has gone and everything has calmed down, we will begin to talk about a date and so on.

In the meantime I am getting together a small number of people that I can run ideas past. I have never wanted this to be about me and a small committee will hopefully mean that we come up with the best possible solutions. The important thing here is that the books everyone donates are delivered in the most effective way.

More news when I have it.

Feedback

The snow that has been falling all over Britain has finally arrived in Cambridge, though so far there hasn't been very much. There is enough to make my son's return bike ride from school a little treacherous. He only went back today and already I can see that we may have more snow overnight and the school may close. My wife is worried that all the textile designs she has been doing over Christmas may amount to nothing if her agents can't make it to the Heimtex trade fair in Frankfurt.

I have been having a clear out in my office ahead of getting down to work properly, now that my son is back at school. My desk had become covered in all kinds of junk - ditto the floor and chairs and shelves. I am slowly working my way through whilst importing some more music into my iTunes library now that I have twice the memory on my lovely new blue iPod nano. I have just been enjoying the massive wall of feedback that opens Anthrax by the Gang of Four. Excellent.

Very sorry to read Martin Salisbury's obituary for Susan Einzig in the Guardian. I have raved many times about Philippa Pearce's wonderful Tom's Midnight Garden. It is a brilliant book and it was blessed with an illustrator who caught the mood of the novel perfectly.

But you're an absolute idiot, Ginger

There was another very sharp frost this morning. The house has been fairly warm over the Christmas break, but the heating does not seem to be able to quite cope with this fall in temperature.

We have been working our way through the DVD collection of Jeeves and Wooster - the old series starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. It holds up pretty well. My son loves it. The thing that hits one straight away is that it should not have been a surprise that Hugh Laurie went on to be a very successful actor (he's very good). Stephen Fry on the other hand - though practically perfect in every way - seems to think that all there is to playing Jeeves is arching an eyebrow, pursing his lips and saying, 'Indeeeeeed, sir.'

We watched the last one and it was hilarious. Bertie Wooster's old chum Ginger announces that he is to stand as Conservative candidate in the upcoming by-election.

Bertie: 'No!'
Ginger: 'I am!'
Bertie: 'But you're an absolute idiot, Ginger,'
Ginger: 'I know!'

Priceless.

Cortez the killer

My son and I went to see the Moctezuma - yes, Moctezuma - exhibition at the British Museum today. It was fascinating. It still seems utterly incredible that Cortes and 500 men could take over a whole country and destroy the Aztec culture but they did. A display comparing the Aztec weapon of choice - what looks like a wooden chopping board with flint teeth - and Spanish armour and weapons (which included muskets) did not really explain it. It's a sad and complicated story and the exhibition left us both wanting to know more.

The artifacts are amazing. The exhibition was not too busy so we were able to have a good clear, long look at things. The bas relief carving was great. I've always loved the Aztec sense of design - the way they fill the space. The look of the Eagle and Jaguar warriors is amazing too.

Of course, I have also always - like all boys - been fascinated by the human sacrifice aspect of Aztec culture: the ripping out of human hearts to feed the sun. Death is a massive presence throughout, with stone skulls at every turn. The exhibition was full of reference to this act - drawings and sculptures, knives for removing hearts, elaborately carved stone vessels for holding hearts.

Turquoise and gold are the overwhelming colours of the show - but blood red is the colour that really dominates.

After the exhibition we had lunch and then wandered down to Soho for a haircut and then to Covent Garden. We went in the Tintin shop in Floral street and my son ogled the lovely but horribly expensive collection of cars and figures. Then we went a couple of doors down and I ogled the clothes in Paul Smith. We agreed that if he could not spend £50 on a a model of Tintin and Captain Haddock riding camels, then I could not really justify spending £30 on some stripy socks for my iPod.

Must be Santa

My son and I watched a Top of the Pops Christmas special on BBC iPlayer. It was a collection of Christmas song ranging from the sublime (A Fairy Tale of New York) to the rest. Actually that's unfair. Slade and Wizzard's Christmas songs have almost taken on the mantle of secular carols, as much part of the British Christmas as turkey and the winter vomiting bug.

The other gem was mad old Robert Zimmerman's video for Must Be Santa from his rather surprising Christmas album. As Mark Radcliffe pointed out in the commentary, the famously tangle-haired Bob seems to have received hair-straighteners for Christmas.

I am an unashamed fan of Dylan and I love the fact that he is determined not to be his own tribute band. If you see him as a dour and humourless old curmudgeon - then this is the video for you.

A lukewarm chiller

I was looking forward to the BBC's adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. After all, costume drama is a strength of the BBC. But I was disappointed. And I can't have been the only one. It apparently gathered 4.8 million viewers eager for a chill at Christmas.

I had been a little concerned when I read that the setting for the book had been moved from the 1890s to the 1920s. The story seemed so fixed in that buttoned-up world of Victorian England, that the shift seemed counter-productive. Most of the atmosphere of the book rests on that claustrophobic, repressed, straight-laced backdrop.

The reason for the move seemed to be about giving a kind of spurious added dimension to Quint's behaviour - that the house was devoid of men (because of the war), and to allow for the addition on a wholly unnecessary madhouse scene at the beginning and end. The subtlety of James was obviously considered to confusing for the likes of us. Much better for the governess to be unequivocally sex-starved and for Quint to be a serial rapist. It's clearer innit?

But I would have forgiven them such clunky devices if they provided us with even one single solitary scary moment. But no. They had clearly watched The Others but learned nothing about how to induce a chill. It's like they expended all their effort on the additions and forgot it was meant to be creepy. The ghosts even had a ghostly glow around them like something from a 1960s children's TV programme - so that we knew they were ghosts. And inevitably we had to see Quint having sex. We have to be shown everything now because we are too stupid to have things alluded to.

It made me quite cross. Not just because I write chillers myself and am naturally a bit of ghost story geek, but because the BBC used to do so much better with so much less. The production values of The Turn of the Screw were far higher than their adaptation of Dickens' The Signalman, say, from the 70s and yet The Signalman was far, far better. 4.8 million viewers hungry for a good-old fashioned ghost story at Christmas. Maybe next year.

In the meantime, get yourself a copy of The Innocents directed by Jack Clayton and see Deborah Kerr showing how it's done.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone. I hope it's a happy, healthy and successful year for us all (however you personally define 'happiness', 'health' and 'success', of course). It would be nice if people could stop trying to kill anyone who doesn't agree with their world view, but I suppose that would be too much to ask.

We took a walk round Wandlebury Ring in the Gog Magog hills just outside Cambridge. The car park was packed but it was still nice to get out in the fresh air for a while. It was very cold and clear with a low sun that barely reached inside the woods.

We watched the second part of Doctor Who and the rather confused and mawkish farewell from David Tennant. Russel T Davies (who is also leaving) is credited with reviving the fortunes of Doctor Who, and that must be true to a large extent, but it is surely David Tennant who must have played the biggest part (so to speak). I actually think it is the writing (and this last one was a case in point) that most often lets the programme down. The plots bear very little analysis and are often unintentionally hilarious - I loved the idea that The Doctor and The Master seemed to have had these names since birth. We never got to hear what the other Time Lords were called: The Plumber, The Dimwit etc?

It is the acting that saves it. David Tennant managed to add both gravitas and humour to a role that was often very thinly written. The even more cartoonish role of The Master was brought to life by John Simm. He was superb and clearly had a great time making it.