31 March 2004.
Inspired by .
Someone I'm assured is a distinguished Spanish columnist attacked my Guardian piece yesterday in El Mundo, though I only found out this morning. Though I don't normally bother with this, I thought a reply might be good practice for my Spanish. If you click MORE at the bottom, you'll get the English translation both of his piece and my reply.
For background, here's the original piece and, after free registration, here in Spanish is his.
Una repuesta a Víctor de La Serna, que escribió su columna en El Mundo de ayer.
(NB como todo el contenido de mi página, éstas son mis opiniones personales y no desde The Guardian ni otra publicación)
Es interesante lo que usted ha escrito, y estoy muy orgulloso por haber ganado un premio tan fuerte como "la reescritura histórica de la semana". Pero me veo obligado a rechazarlo porque no lo merezco.
El principal problema se produjo con las palabras de Ignacio Escolar, un periodista que entrevisté sobre lo que pasó el día 13-M en Madrid. Parece que nos equivocamos - las manifestaciones salieron en cadena Ser y en el canal digital CNN+, y probablemente más temprano de lo que dijo el. Sr. Escolar, que ya se ha disculpado aquí. Yo también quiero añadir mis disculpas sobre algún dato incorrecto que contenía mi artículo.
Pero una cosa muy distinta es afirmar que, lógicamente, todo mi artículo y la idea de espontaneidad de las manifestaciones fueron incorrectos también. Pero no lo es.
Aun si hubiera salido por todos los medios tradicionales, las noticias necesitan ser relevantes para ser retransmitidas. Ésta fue una manifestación convocado en un tiempo muy muy corto - y para hacer algo así tan rápido, y así de efectivo, es impresionante y no hubiera podido pasar antes de nuestro nivel de tecnología actual.
No soy un periodista político. Mi artículo sobre lo que pasó fue incluido en el suplemento de tecnología. Y lo que me interesó fue la manera de convocar a la gente, al margen de la política.
No creo que todo que pasó fuera solo gracias a tecnología. Los SMS y emails no cambiaron la resultad de las elecciones. Como dije en mi artículo, después que el candidato a la presidencia por el PP apareciera por la televisión para intentar disolver las manifestaciones, el número de manifestantes creció, y quizás, solo quizás, tuvieron un efecto sobre el resultado final de las elecciones. "Nadie sabe el efecto," dijo Ignacio Escolar. Y así es.
Pero sigo creyendo que el primer impacto fue gracias a emails y teléfonos móviles. Pero, hay una cosa más que no entiendo. En la página de El Mundo - el periódico del Sr Serna - hay un articulo aqui que dice "más de 5.000 personas que se congregaron de forma espontánea en forma de protesta a las puertas de la sede del PP en Madrid" y "Según algunos de los asistentes, la manifestación fue convocada por distintos movimientos sociales vía SMS, foros de internet y mediante el boca a boca". Usted habla en su articulo sobre "el mito de la espontaneidad" - este me parece un poco extraño.
La verdadera historia existe como una mezcla de muchos puntos de vista. Podemos no estar de acuerdo, sin que eso signifique ni que seamos unos mentirosos ni reescritores de historia. Solo estamos intentando hacer nuesto trabajo de la mejor manera posible.
Y por eso, arrepentido, me veo obligado a devolver su premio.
Un saludo
A.
More...
30 March 2004.
Inspired by .
"It's Futura Extra Bold," explains Tony. "It was Stanley's favourite typeface. It's sans serif. He liked Helvetica and Univers, too. Clean and elegant."
"Is this the kind of thing you and Kubrick used to discuss?" I ask.
"God, yes," says Tony. "Sometimes late into the night. I was always trying to persuade him to turn away from them. But he was wedded to his sans serifs."
Stanley Kubrick, diseased genius and typographic monster. Jon ronson's excellent piece goes on:
Tony goes to his bookshelf and brings down a number of volumes full of examples of typefaces, the kind of volumes he and Kubrick used to study, and he shows them to me. "I did once get him to admit the beauty of Bembo," he adds, "a serif."
Blimey.
Update: If only he'd known about Typeface - the comic book villain for our times (new roman).
30 March 2004.
Inspired by .
"You know," he said contemplatively, pondering Belle and the Dragon while staring at the fire, "I remember when writers and not PR stuntmen used to get book deals."
29 March 2004.
Inspired by .
"Herge created 23 Tintin adventures, which have been translated into 51 languages" says the BBC, showing a panel in French to prove its point.
Surely the previous panel in English would have proved it a little more accurately?
PS Did anyone ever see any of the supposed cub reporter's journalism? Was he a high-society gossip columnist or perhaps a fly-by-night cricket correspondent? Was Thompson his Deep Throat? Or was it Thompson? Was Haddock merely the pushy PR for Loch Lomond whisky? How much hair gel did his quiff really need? And surely they should have promoted him from mere cub at some point in his adventures? I think we should be told.
29 March 2004.
Inspired by .
"If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done."
"In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from."
"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious."
RIP to one of the great raconteurs, writers, linguists and people.
More quotes for Ustinov fanshere and The Blog of Death, as ever, provides a good summary.
25 March 2004.
Inspired by .
From the Hit List in today's Daily Telegraph style section (not on their website, perhaps because the webmonkeys refused to upload it):
"WHO is Belle de Jour? This question has been tantalising the publishing world ever since a well-read prostitute, who writes a web diary under the pseudonym, was offered a book deal, rumoured to be worth six figures. Newspapers have attempted to match Belle's style to that of several writers - including Toby Young, Sarah Champion and Christopher Hart - but each has denied responsibility. The astute diarist's latest money-making venture is to sell T-shirts, thongs and journals (from $9.99), declaring "I am Belle de Jour", which will surely only add to the enigma."
Muppets. Expect this week's The London News Review to have something to say about that.
UPDATE: Matt has the scan here.
25 March 2004.
Inspired by .
Excellent news on the Neil Gaiman blog: he's working on a stage version of The Wolves in the Walls.
Even better, it seems it may be a Paines Plough production as the designer is Julian Crouch (co-creator of Shockheaded Peter) and the director will be the very short but highly-talented Vicky Featherstone, who directed the original stage version of Sarah Kane's Crave. I interviewed Vicky once (text not currently online) and she was truly lovely. As was Sarah when I briefly met her, but that's a whole other story for a dinner party sometime in the future.
The putative composer I don't know, but his credentials look good enough for me to feel warm and gooey about the whole thing already. More creative collaborations of this kind among my favourite people, please.
25 March 2004.
Inspired by .
For those wanting a little more information on what happened at the Spanish elections, I've a piece in today's Guardian here, including the obligatory spelling mistake.
24 March 2004.
Inspired by .
Something deeply odd going on here. Mr Le Carre, I believe this one's yours.
22 March 2004.
Inspired by .
I seem to be in danger of being outed as either Belle de Jour or Andrew Orlowski. It was just my turn, I guess. Who's next?
22 March 2004.
Inspired by .
"Qb4+ is probably winning for black, but playing it on move 24 loses instantly. You can tell she was eyeing this move, which probably explains the silly 21. ...f6 and couldn't resist playing it even after it was no longer feasible. Additionally she moved the wrong rook. 23. ...Rhe8 is better. All in all Lauren Bacall should have crushed Bogart here."
Celebrity chess games, including Einstein vs Oppenheimer, Napoleon vs the Turk automaton (that wasn't) and Ray Charles vs Larry Evans.
(via the ever-reliable J-Walk)
19 March 2004.
Inspired by .
Back from the dead... and this time he's angry. This year, they battle in the movie charts. Next year, expect a Freddie vs Jason-style spin-off combining them both.
17 March 2004.
Inspired by .
According to one of the Belle's, The Times has employed Don Foster to tell everyone exactly who she is, which is a real shame as he probably will. And I'm not just saying that because I get a cut from the thong sales.
An American professor of literature, he's better known as the man who unmasked Joe Klein through his writing style - and then had to put up with him whining for weeks that it wasn't him, before eventually confessing.
Foster wrote a great book about it all, the intro of which is here. Highly recommended reading - unlike The Times this weekend, who will try to end a mystery that really only they care about solving.
17 March 2004.
Inspired by .
One more post then I promise I'll get to work: this is the best blog I've seen for a long while, reflecting on the way that words surround us, and without any unnecessary commentary whatsoever. Compelling, thoughtful... and a revelatory inventory of things in a room. This guy is to blame.
Another for my list of "ideas I'll steal to write short stories". Don't say I didn't warn you.
(via J-Walk)
17 March 2004.
Inspired by .
Because it's exactly the kind of thing I do when I have too much time on my hands, it's a hearty backslapping due to a fellow who seems to be called Andrew for charting the history of that penguin game that has led to millions of hours of lost productivity all over the world.
Even more distressingly, he reports that the creators, the improbably-named Edelweiss Medienwerkst, have just released part two: Orca Slapping.
(via DMJ)
17 March 2004.
Inspired by .
"Gord may raise taxes on alcohol and tobacco. But he fears the anger of the shires."
The Guardian Unlimited team triumphs again. Deeply, deeply silly. But very well done, which is the important thing after all.
17 March 2004.
Inspired by .
The truth is out. I am Belle de Jour.
15 March 2004.
Inspired by .
This is just very very wrong. We seem to be entering an infinite loop.
(via Haddock)
12 March 2004.
Inspired by .
Really interesting piece on the ethics and realities of photoediting, re: the recent bombings, in the Guardian here. No such squeamishness in the papers here either, as the article points out.
11 March 2004.
Inspired by .
Imagine an Al-Qaeda attack in Washington DC, three days before the presidential elections.
Now you may have some idea of the level of conspiracy theories that are already emerging here in Spain. The elections are Sunday and early polls said that it was going to be close. That may no longer be the case.
Gut reaction from some seems to be that it was too big, too co-ordinated, too damaging for ETA.
Others say they've just been biding their time, that the elections are the only time they would do something big, some even saying that ETA are so determined to keep their self-identity as a group that the bombs are designed to keep the right wing party in power - because a left wing government would be open to talks and an eventual ceasefire. The end result could be that ETA is left without a bloody fight to keep it united, and they become just another political squabble, as has happened in Ireland. The need to remain a victim can be as forceful as the need to be an aggressor.
Or maybe the whole thing was Muslim extremists. The lack of a warning or a claim for responsibility initally points that way. Either way, the country is in shock and today no-one knows where to turn, what to blame, who to vote for, or what happens next.
UPDATE: It later emerged that three further devices destroyed in controlled explosions had been planted to hit the emergency services as they arrived on the scene. The interior ministry said the explosives were all of a type used by Eta.
10 March 2004.
Inspired by .
"As far as I know, from having spoken to him, Alan's view on Constantine itself is the same as his view on From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which is that he'll probably rent the DVD one day, you never know, hell might freeze over, -- and that the important work is the comic"
Neil Gaiman, in his role as official Alan Moore spokesman, provides further evidence as to why the man is a good thing all round. At first he just cashed the cheques from Hollywood and left it there. Now he doesn't even take the cheques.
A similar level of cultural pragmatism comes from Lambeth Palace: : The Archbishop of Canterbury calls the theatrical adaptation of the His Dark Materials trilogy "a near miraculous triumph".
08 March 2004.
Inspired by .
While on the topic of design, I nearly forgot to annouce to you all that the next issue of the award-winning M-real magazine is now available to order, for free, via the website. And so far it's received the best reception yet.
Themed Launch, it includes interviews with the entire launch team of Glamour, an exclusive short story by Dominic Holland (one of my proudest moments of commissioning, that), a look at classic launches from around the globe courtesy of Mr Magazine Prof Samir Husni (shouldn't that be Prof Magazine?) and plenty more to boot.
Coming up in the autumn: an all-new look and feel to the magazine. But it's a secret. Sssssh...
Still on design, there's a rather fab article here (via Design Observer again - see below) which also explains why I've not been reading many books recently.
Font junkies like me will also be enjoying this entry. Time to buy some Aimee Bender, methinks.
08 March 2004.
Inspired by .
Like everyone else, I’ve trusted those instructions, pressed the buttons and waited dutifully, fearing – and, indeed, this is the literal interpretation of the sign – that the light would not change, ever, unless one pushed the button. Now I learn that I’ve been the dupe of what Times reporter Michael Luo calls mechanical placebos.
Michael at Design Observer muses on the buttons that do nothing on the world's streets. The essence of functional design is generally assumed to be the principle of the user getting what s/he wants without noticing the design at all. Mechanical placebos have neatly turned that on its head. Or maybe the buttons actually do something else in a world hidden beneath the city streets. Hmm. Paging Neil Gaiman...
06 March 2004.
Inspired by .
If you're wondering why I've not been posting lately, there are three basic reasons:
1) I've been busy
2) I've been away
3) iBooks don't bounce.
Point 3 is being investigated by a local emergency room. Point 1 comes as no surprise to anyone, but to keep you happy there's my slightly silly piece on obituaries that I wrote for the rather wonderful Decease magazine available over here.
Point 2 led to three further sub-discoveries: auroras change very quickly, snowmobiles sink very easily and Santa's official souvenir shop sells reindeer meat. Oh and Finlandia ice bar capes are perhaps the best garments in the world. More on that last one when Matt and Fi decide to reveal it.
The ride may be bumpy but you sure do get a good view from up here.