There’s a company here in Colorado that I’ve gotten to know over the past three/four years. They’re pretty successful in their particular market segment (which isn’t software or related to software, as it happens). To help with their success they use a database/web app from a third-party company (I’ll call them Hackjob Software) that essentially just targets this particular company’s market. […]
READ MOREImagine a prism. White light goes in on one side, and the different wavelengths comprising the light are split because they travel at slightly different speeds in the glass. Since the other side is at an angle to the first – the prism is a triangle – these different wavelengths come out as a rainbow. That’s what it is like reading a Priest novel: the true story, whatever it may be, goes into the triangular prism, and comes out as variations of the same tale. In The Adjacent, his latest novel, somehow Priest has discovered several new colors. […]
READ MOREOne of the pleasures I had from the late 80s and early 90s, before I moved to the States, was watching Inspector Morse on the telly. The episodes were longer than the average TV cop show and had a leisurely pace which perfectly suited the Oxford setting. It also helped that the title role was sympathetically played by John Thaw – leaving you with a slight disturbing thought that Morse was perhaps an older gentler Jack Regan – with his sidekick, Sergeant Lewis, by Kevin Whatley. Undoubtedly, one factor in the success of the series was due to the chemistry between these two characters and their evolving relationship as well and the interactions with the other permanent characters in the show (one of which was undeniably Morse’s red Mark 2 Jag). The end-titles music was incredibly memorable and poignant, being derived from the Morse code for ‘Morse’. […]
READ MORERecently one of my favorite authors, Christopher Priest, discovered a stash of first editions of three of his novels, including the one that had the most effect on a much younger Bucknall, The Affirmation. (I reviewed it here, and reviewed Priest’s latest, The Islanders, set in the same fictional place, here. I’d forgotten until just now but I’d reviewed another of his novels, The Prestige, here.) He offered these first editions up for sale on his blog at very reasonable prices so I jumped on it and bought a copy of The Affirmation from 1981. (I have this vision of these books being discovered hidden deep within a boxroom, a quintessentially English place and nothing so banal as a basement where most of my books are stored.) […]
READ MOREGiven the links on my site, it should come as no surprise to you that I have written a technical book, originally for a publisher, and then, once the copyright reverted to me, re-published by myself, first as a physical print-on-demand book, and then as an ebook. […]
READ MOREWhile we were away last week in Paris for the Marathon, I finished The Islanders, a novel by one of my favorite authors, Christopher Priest. […]
READ MORESo it seems there’s this TV show in England called Wheeler Dealers. The premise of the show is to find a classic car in need of some TLC, buy it, do it up, and then sell it on. It’s presented by a duo: there’s Mike Brewer who does the buying/selling and Edd China who does the repairs. I’d never heard of the show before, but I was doing some surfing regarding Volvo 1800S parts and came across a particular episode that featured a white P1800 (a 1968 1800S, F reg, as it happens). I decided to add the links here for later. […]
READ MOREFor some reason I missed this from a month or so back. I’m subscribed to David Langford’s Ansible newsletter on science fiction topics, but for some reason I missed reading March’s issue where he noted the death of John Christopher. […]
READ MOREOver the weekend, I finished Exile, a three-part drama series from the BBC. I’d ordered the DVD from Amazon.co.uk never having heard of the production, but since it starred John Simm (I hugely enjoyed his performances in both Life on Mars and State of Play) and Jim Broadbent (think any number of TV productions or movies, he’s one of the top actors of his generation) I felt that I couldn’t go wrong. […]
READ MOREAfter the longest time dithering around, finally someone at the Beeb got round to publishing the complete set of this remarkable TV series from the mid-80s onto DVD. I bought it pretty much as soon as it appeared on amazon.co.uk. […]
READ MOREI picked this up the last time we went to England in September, and I was half way through it when I got the phone call from my sister in mid-December that my Dad had been admitted to hospital with a heart attack. […]
READ MOREIt almost goes without saying that, when I'm on holiday in England, I pick up a bunch of books to bring back and read. All right, all right, I not only pick them up, but also pay for them. […]
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