So, Ed the Leader has spoken. It was one of those speeches that I’ve got too used to as a member of the Labour Party where our representatives say some sensible things but then wrap them around a wad of stupidity calculated to appeal to the centre even as the right (Labour and Tory) and […]
I appear to have misplaced my copy of Dead Water by Simon Ings, which is annoying and makes reviewing the book tricky because my notes are scribbled all over it. If anyone finds a copy in a second hand bookshop somewhere with the phrase “I fucking love this” repeatedly scratched in the margin in HB1 […]
It is a cliché to argue that science fiction is never about the future but always about the time in which it is made. Yet, as with many a cliché, there is often a nugget of truth beneath the grimy accumulation of lazy associations. So it was hard to watch the range of films that […]
So watching the (mostly dreadful) debate in Parliament today about the riots, Paul Graham Raven (@PaulGrahamRaven) made a comment in a tweet that hoping for progressive change in politics in the “last decade feels like a litany of futility”. Being more of a pint-half-full person and slightly obsessive about the details – I decided to […]
Watching the little shits who are causing the riots in London wreck and rob and burn their way through the streets can’t help but make you angry. The urge to give them some of their own medicine – to respond to violence with violence – is almost overwhelming. But it must be resisted. You won’t […]
Perhaps the strangest and most depressing thing about the situation unfolding at the top of American politics this month has been how little of it has anything to do with the actual economic situation facing America. As I started writing this piece there was a senior Republican congressman on my television explaining how the Boehner […]
When faced with appalling events such as those that occured in Norway yesterday it can be difficult to respond rationally. The murder of so many young people who were guilty of nothing more than enthusiasm and idealism inspires pity, grief, anger and disbelief. There’s no reason that could excuse such an act but that it […]
Judging by the excitement in some circles it appears that there are an awful lot of people who believe that something fundamental has changed this week as the disgraceful antics at the News of the World finally bubbled to the surface of the nation’s political consciousness. Murdoch’s News International empire has definitely taken a battering […]
So I was reading a story submitted by an author in a writing group I belong to and he’d decided to write a story with a political background. It was supposed to be set in the future but he couldn’t resist dropping in one of those slightly ranting asides about the present state of the […]
If I’m honest if I don’t feel entirely comfortable with contributing to the women in science fiction debate that’s been filling the blogs and tweets of people whose opinion I like and respect (links below). It’s not that I don’t support equal opportunities for modern women writers (or even just women in general) or that […]