Isaac Asimov

 As a kid, I enjoyed science fiction. My dad grew up in a remote place in the Forties and Fifties and passed in his love of reading and some of his books to me. One of my childhood favourites was Isaac Asimov and the recent Apple TV version of Foundation has made me think about him again. This has left me with mixed feelings about Asimov.

Asimov was born in Russia in around 1920 and moved to America aged 3. He completed a PhD in Chemistry and was in the American army for a time.  He was an intelligent man and a prolific writer and sadly it seems that he was a sleazy bastard.

As a kid I got a lot from his books. My favourites were really the Robot detective books featuring Elijah Bailey such as The Caves of Steel and Robots and Empire. I also enjoyed some of the later Foundation books as well as his detective series the Black Widowers and Azazel. I have great memories of reading these books while visiting family in rural parts of the West Highlands. 

I also read some of his autobiography and found his scientific work inspiring which indirectly led me to my current job and life,

I did not know he was a sleazy bastard who was notorious for his bad behaviour but I guess he died more than 30 years ago when I was a young teenager. 

I only found out about the unpleasant side to Asimov when googling after watching the impressive Foundation TV series. The adaptors (including Asimov’s daughter) have made a good show and have diversified the characters in keeping with the futuristic setting of the story. Im looking forward to further instalments.

Sadly books such as The Caves of Steel are currently out of print on the Kindle and other e-reader devices. After watching Foundation I would love to reread some of them. Maybe someday….

Bruce Dickinson - What does this button do?

 I never liked Iron Maiden.  I just never for into them. I liked lots of other heavy metal stuff over the years but Iron Maiden just never floated my boat.  I think it's the way they dressed.  They just didn't do it for me.   I was never really a fan of Bruce Dickinson either.  I have vague memories of him messing about on the BBC Heavy Metal Heaven season in the eighties.  In retrospect he must have been channelling Spinal Tap.

I listen to audiobooks a lot.  When I'm commuting I like to use the time to do something and audiobooks seem efficient when I can't be bothered with music or the kindle. Using Audible you can often get an unexpected gem of a book for a couple of quid.

Which is how I found What does this button do?

Dickinson narrates his autobiography himself and he is funny.  He is very funny.  He doesn't take himself or anything else seriously.  Between his boarding school education, his adolescent interests and his general positive mental attitude this is a real feel good book.  He did very well with Iron Maiden and he became a pilot flying commercial airliners while on a break from music.  Eventually he was flying Iron Maiden around the world in 'Ed Force One',

He is, sadly, a 'Brexit wanker' although I do see that he has expressed dismay at the impact of Brexit on UK musicians which is good.  Thankfully we don't get any Brexit stuff in the book.  Just fencing, beer making and Spitfires.

He would be a better Prime Minister than the one we have.

Stephen King

 As a young teenager in the late 80s and the early 90s I went through my Stephen King phase.  I was always aware of Stephen King, even when I was younger than that but I was led to believe that the books were 'too scary' for a wee kid and to be fair, they probably would have been.

I can't remember which ones I started with but I did read almost everything that was available and fast.  I remember buy and loving the paperback of "The Dark Half'.  I'm sure I had a copy of Carrie and a few of his other early books.  I did have the hardback of the revised version of 'The Stand' with the Bernie Wrightson pictures.  Most of them I borrowed from the East Kilbride library.

More recently I've taken the time to catch up on some of his newer books.  11.22.63 is pretty good, The Outsider is enjoyable with some great characters, I finally managed to read the Gunslinger (book 1 of The Dark Tower) and I'm finally reading Doctor Sleep, the follow-up to The Shining. I'm glad I'm taking the time to read these books.

I can remember reading the Bachman Books collection when I was young and I was a bit surprised that King had withdrawn one of the Bachman novels (Rage) from print.  I think he had good reasons to do it but it is a bit weird to think that a book I remember reading 30 years ago has now disappeared from the shelves.

King writes with comfortable rhythms and that has been good over the past month while I've been recovering from minor surgery.  Looking at him now, I think he is a decent bloke.  I think his heart is in the right place so I'm glad that the young me spent so much time reading his work.  I don't think I'll ever read it all but some of it is good.  I wonder if my son will like his stuff when he grows up.

Two decades of Tory rule

 I think we are stuck with Prime mInister Johnson in the UK.  He doesn't give a shit about anyone other than himself and the recent Sue Grey report seems to imply that most of his staff were drunk for a significant part of 2020 while the rest of us were miserable during the early COVID times.  I think he will be here for another year or so and I strongly suspect that the Tories will find another poster boy for the 2024 election and probably win again.

All very shit.

Post-op recovery

 2021 turned into 2022 fairly quickly.  Life continues to be busy.  My son is now 2 years old and is a constant source of joy.  The poor wee fella has chicken pox just now which is a bit miserable but he continues to be stoically cheerful.  His main interests are Bing, his soft toy Froggy and scribbling on things with his crayons.

I'm off work for a couple of weeks as I had scheduled minor surgery at the start of the week.  It was under a general anaesthetic (third time I've had one) and fixed a chronic problem at least partially.  I might need a further operation later in the year but I can already see some improvement.

I had the joy of a couple of hours of urinary retention when the general anaesthetic was wearing off.  Between the morphine, the glycopyrrinium as well as pain and local anaesthetic I couldn't pee for a bit and my mouth was dry as a bone for a few hours afterwards.  I felt fairly good for the first 24 hours, probably on a lasting high from morphine and propofol but the pain kicked in later on.  I lost a fair bit of today just sleeping and painful.

Watching the decline of the United Kingdom on Sky News led by Prime Minister Johnston, hoping he doesn't start a war with Russia because he can't follow his own rules or say no to a party.  I will never understand why people have voted for such a shambling garbage bag.

I've been reading Val McDermid books and watching the Book of Boba Fett on Disney+.  The episode today was amazing.

Summer in Scotland

 I've been off work for the past week on holiday and I'm glad of it.  Temperatures have been in the high twenties and certainly warmer than Tenerife is in January.  We are lucky to have a garden and be able to cool down outside.  The nights are too warm at times and it highlights that we are lucky to have proper winters too.

The heat actually makes Scotland smell different.  It smells like a foreign country.  In this time of the virus and lockdowns and travel bans this is enough to make a holiday at home bearable.

As always I want more time off work.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

 I read Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell about 16 years ago and I loved it at the time. Piranesi was published last year and I've just had a chance to listen to the audiobook.  It's fairly short and well read by Chiwetel Ejiofo.

Piranesi is a magical and mysterious book that reminded me of the Narnia tales of CS Lewis. It's a story about a massive house, deserted and partially flooded, filled with strange things and inhabited by the narrator and another.

The story flows and was succinct and well constructed.  I totally recommend it.

we often forget how lucky we are

 on a Friday night I'm often knackered after a week at work.  A week at my well paid, comfortable job.  after putting the baby down to sleep I'm often sitting and, as always, I feel a bit brain dead.  sometimes I listen to music.

This evening I was listening to some jesus lizard music and remembering the great times when I saw them play live.  Then I realised that I was once lucky enough to see scratch acid play.  And then I remembered seeing the elephant 6 orchestra play enlightenment by sun ra. twice. and that was really fucking special.

and then i remember how fortunate I am.  how lucky I am.  I have a great wee family and a nice house and a good job and i've had amazing experiences over the years and nothing is perfect but it's important sometimes to just remember how good things actually are.

I hope all of you out there get to feel this good some times.

Mogwai number 1 album shocker

 It's very odd when someone you know ends up having the best selling album in the UK.  I've known members of mogwai for nearly 30 years and it's just amazing to see them do so well.  Hard work pays off!

WANDAVISION

 I spent a lot of my childhood reading Marvel superhero comics.  I think the first one I read was the UK weekly Secret Wars comic although I also read Spiderman and Zoids.  Prior to that I read the Beano and Battle Action Force, Star Wars Weekly and Transformers Weekly.  I loved it all and it was all mind rotting garbage but in a good way.  Comic books and punk rock made me who I am today.

I was always a bit of an obsessive kid, always wanting to read more and know more and understand more. I'm still a bit like that which is good and bad.  I was into Marvel in a big way, I read the official handbook of the marvel universe cover to cover and I learned all about the crazy, colourful minor characters of the Marvel Universe including all of the B listers and the C listers, like the Vision and the Scarlet Witch.

Now the Vision and the Scarlet Witch had a couple of limited series published in America in the early '80s and the stories in those comics were very off the wall.  Some of the weirdest comics out there with a mind bending storyline.  Definitely not mainstream and probably the product of some serious drugs.  Bad hippy drugs.

And it seems that Disney have made that mad shit into a TV series.

And I think to myself what a wonderful world.....