Hello everyone.

Last year there was a Literary Pub Quiz. My team, of course, won, because we were the best. You’ll remember, most likely, the victory celebrations - open-top bus, cheering crowds, champagne and speeches in Trafalgar Square, the Queen giving us all a special medal for being cool and smart. I’m just a little embarrassed that I can’t remember where they put up that statue to us.

Anyhow, the quiz returns! This year, however, I won’t be competing, I’ll be setting. This is obvs good news for you because it gives you a chance.

So, come along to the Wheatsheaf on July 14th, and answer some questions of varying degrees of difficulty concerning books. There are prizes. It should be a fun night whatever: I expect a lively crowd, and no-one except me will make fun of you if you get questions wrong.

Oakley Hall, the author of Warlock has died. I spent a while with his books a few years ago for this (nb. too long for the web, and starts horribly and incorrectly). I enjoyed his writing, and am sorry to see him gone.

Three quick things.
a) I finally got to read ‘The Platonic Blow’ by Auden. I’d heard about it for years, but never seen it. It lives up to the word of mouth (lols not intended) - dirty, not great. Solid, but then you wouldn’t expect anything less than technical and syntactic control from Auden.

ii. I only just heard that Larry Marder is back at work on Beanworld. This is incredibly cheering news; it’s one of my favourite comics ever. On a gushy & blathery blog I had in the day I said this about it:

Final word: there are acts of creation that you can understand. They exist within generic models; talent and craft are both evident; inspiration and skill both visible; though they can be challenging, you can see where they’ve come from, and what they’re doing. Then there’s stuff like this - much of the same applies (there’s no lack of craft here), but there’s something almost impossible to grasp about how these works came into the world. They’re strange, really not like anything else. They’re not necessarily better, but they are rarer - pay attention when you sniff these out.

That’s about right. Though ‘not necessarily better’ is wet, and I would rescind it.

Three: Mark E Smith, Wyndham Lewis, Evelyn Waugh, Jocelyn Brooke… this guy’s okay by me. Actually, I’m slightly jealous that he’s lighted on the Brotherhood of Ruralists as a subject. The shitness of Second Series Arden Shakespeare covers is a topic that requires urgent scholarly attention, yet academics remain all Q-this and F-that. What gives?

Here’s the latest in our series of Classic poems in Rot-13.

‘Gur Eryvdhr’, by Wbua Qbaar.

Jura zl tenir vf oebxr hc ntnvar
Fbzr frpbaq turfg gb ragregnvar,
(Sbe tenirf unir yrnea’q gung jbzna-urnq
Gb or gb zber gura bar n Orq)
Naq ur gung qvtf vg, fcvrf
N oenpryrg bs oevtug unver nobhg gur obar,
Jvyy ur abg yrg’hf nybar,
Naq guvaxr gung gurer n ybivat pbhcyr yvrf,
Jub gubhtug gung guvf qrivpr zvtug or fbzr jnl
Gb znxr gurve fbhyrf, ng gur ynfg ohfvr qnl,
Zrrg ng guvf tenir, naq znxr n yvggyr fgnl?

Vs guvf snyy va n gvzr, be ynaq,
Jurer zvf-qribgvba qbgu pbzznaq,
Gura, ur gung qvttrf hf hc, jvyy oevat
Hf, gb gur Ovfubc, naq gur Xvat,
Gb znxr hf Eryvdhrf; gura
Gubh funyg or n Znel Zntqnyra, naq V
N fbzrguvat ryfr gurerol;
Nyy jbzra funyy nqber hf, naq fbzr zra;
Naq fvapr gung ng fhpu gvzr, zvenpyrf ner fbhtug,
V jbhyq unir gung ntr ol guvf cncre gnhtug
Jung zvenqrf jrr unezryrffr ybiref jebhtug.

Svefg jr ybi’q jryy naq snvgushyyl,
Lrg xarj abg jung jrr ybi’q, abe jul,
Qvssrerapr bs frk ab zber jrr xarj,
Gura bhe Thneqvna Natryyf qbr;
Pbzzvat naq tbvat, jrr
Crepunapr zvtug xvffr, ohg abg orgjrra gubfr zrnyrf;
Bhe unaqf ar’e gbhpug gur frnyrf,
Juvpu angher, vawhe’q ol yngr ynj, frgf serr:
Gurfr zvenpyrf jrr qvq; ohg abj nynf,
Nyy zrnfher, naq nyy ynathntr, V fubhyq cnffr,
Fubhyq V gryy jung n zvenpyr furr jnf.

I read TS Eliot’s classic analysis early:

gur zbfg cbjreshy rssrpg vf cebqhprq ol gur fhqqra pbagenfg bs nffbpvngvbaf bs ‘oevtug unve’ naq bs ‘ober’. Guvf gryrfpbcvat bs vzntrf naq zhygvcyvrq nffbpvngvbaf vf punenpgrevfgvp bs gur cuenfr bs fbzr bs gur qenzngvfgf bs gur crevbq juvpu Qbaar xarj: abg gb zragvba Funxrfcrner, vg vf serdhrag va Zvqqyrgba, Jrofgre, naq Gbhearhe, naq vf bar bs gur fbheprf bs gur ivgnyvgl bs gurve ynathntr.

And I wonder if his authority didn’t make this one of the cornerstones of my taste. Lovely sonics in that line of course: the alliterative run is most obvious: ‘oe’, ‘oe’, ‘no’, ‘ob’, but the run of distinct long vowels(oenpr, oevtug, unver, obhg, obar) is just a beautiful piece of work. Spectacular. Qbaar is such a show-off; but who else has had so much to show?

Old-school annotations used to suggest that ‘N fbzrguvat ryfr gurerol’ was a saint, I think? Surely he’s referring to the big man’s son? I’m not really up to speed on Qbaar studies.

Bored.

I just finished reading Wikipedia. Who knew there were so many Pokemon?

But that’s it. I’ve reached the end of the Internet. You wouldn’t believe how long Gutenberg took me. And Korean Starcraft fan sites weren’t a short stroll along a tarmacked road neither.

So, bored.

Only cheap laughs at stupid mistakes can cheer me up now.

No no no.

Come on.

There are worthwhile things…

Like….

Swift’s Journal to Stella!

This went around the book blogs a little while ago, but I haven’t mentioned it till now because I’m unbelievably lazy. It’s a day-by-day post of Jonathan Swift’s letters back to his friend-partner-confidante-complicated-something in Dublin, written as he’s politicking and meeting people and watching the world in London.

In paper form, the Journal is a bit of a block on the page; it’s kind of dense and unfriendly, full of in-jokes and private language games and names you need to flip to the footnotes to recognise. Once you’re through that, though, it’s tremendous: Swift being funny, sharp, silly, playful, touching – it’s just a really great private book. Swift tends to mean one thing (’coruscating satire’ & don’t get me started on ‘coruscating’’s sliding meaning) to a lot of readers. That obscures a little how much range he has: what a keen observer he is, how well he’s listening to speech and watching the town; how he can be casually and harmlessly funny, just pointlessly entertaining; how he’s firing from an over-inventive imagination that’s racing ahead of itself all the time; and just what a neat stylist he is, whether writing plainly or working up the rhetoric.

There’s never been another like him; the old saeva indignatio doesn’t begin to cover it.

I think it’s a fine service to the world this being up: Paddy (see below for full disclosure!!) was spot on in realising that the Web would serve this well; that the barriers to enjoying it would be greatly reduced with links and daily posting. It’s inspired, of course, by Phil Gyford’s Pepys’ Diary; and I think it would be great to see more things like this. A Wood! Evelyn!

That full disclosure!!: I did the back-end & design work on the site, and the mastermind is a good friend of mine. The hard & impressive work is his; I’m responsible for the things that don’t quite work. Send complaints this way.

Saturday Guardian From The Blogs section? Here’s a time-saver for you:

Sean at The Midnight Bell took a more generous view of Allen’s place on the panel: “There’s been a healthy crossover between literature and showbiz over the last few years. Look at David Mitchell – how does he fit it all in? And the Alain de Botton/Martina Cole Celebrity Wife Swap was must-see TV. ” But he has one reservation: “Some of us will cry ‘foul’ if there’s another all-woman shortlist.”

SERIOUSLY

LACOSTE ADVERT PRETTY GIRL.

GIVE IT UP.

YOU’RE NOT GOING TO CATCH THE FUCKING KITE.

It’s been like three years now.

To important business. Conrad at Vunex needs information about… well, he’d better explain. It has to do with wiping your arse on a goose’s neck, Rabelais and Liam Gallagher.

(I initially wrote wiping your arse on a Gosse’s neck. Obviously remembering that famous scene in Father and Son.)

Hey - you should read Image of a Drawn Sword by Jocelyn Brooke. It’s hard to get hold of, but unbelievably fabulous. I’m telling you now that over the next two years we’ll be seeing the following:

a) Article by some guy on Guardian Book Blog about how Brooke’s a great neglected writer.
b) Article by minor novelist in Saturday Guardian about how Brooke’s a great neglected writer.
c) Republication by C&R or NYRB classics or someone.
d) Everyone pretending they were into it before me, which they weren’t (except you Tom; thanks again for the tip).

Prologue

Some of you may remember this post from a while ago – Easter 2006, in fact. It explains what happened at the old London News Review, and why we are not enthusiasts for Paul Carr.

His response to the post was a lot of bluster, accompanied by corporate threats to sue me for defamation. A favourite moment from the exchange:

I promise you, once we start incurring legal costs, the rules of the game change dramatically so if you choose not to remove the material immediately, I’d strongly advise you to find a very, very good libel lawyer.

I imagine judges love being told the law belongs to those with most money.

(Aside: You’d honestly think that a start-up publishing company would have better things to do with its time, legal time, energy, capital and goodwill than getting a Mergers & Acquisition Lawyer to threaten me; but you get drawn into that kind of lunacy when Carr’s around. I don’t blame the company: they seem like a decent small house with enthusiasm, commitment and a healthy list, and I don’t see any reason to bear them ill-will or draw them into this; I further suspect they’ve had to work extra hard to recover from the mess that Carr will have left behind. Sympathies.)

My legal friends thought he’d have to be mental actually to try to sue me; when I explained he was, in fact, mental, they suggested it was likely too much trouble to keep the post up. I like twitting an ass as much as the next man, but you’d have to be an idiot to run wilfully into a libel action; I took it down, but offered no apology or retraction because it is, of course, all true.

I was pointed at this site the other day, and specifically this post. She’s on the money with sociopathy, I’d say (despite some reservations about institutional pathologising of what is essentially being a dreadful lying shit).

As the great me once said, “God forbid he’s getting away with this stuff somewhere else”.

So, it’s going back up.

The Old Post

This may not be interesting to most readers. It’s about events almost two years ago at the London News Review. Some people know there’s a beef between a few of us and Paul Carr; I get asked about it every now and again.

I think it’s probably the right time to explain what happened back in the day. It means I have to send fewer long emails and the public record is a little fuller. Good news for everyone!

Background: the Carr/LNR split

Round March and April 2004, things had got bad at the LNR. We were out of money and no-one wanted to work with Carr: he was no good at the job he’d been pretending to do.

It was a lot of things: The incompetence; the smoke and mirrors; lateness; the bluster over figures; the blame-shifting; the computer screen turned away so that no-one could see what he was doing (until one morning an exasperated Circulation Manager got in early and simply turned his desk round).

God forbid he’s getting away with this stuff somewhere else.

Virtually the LNR motto for that spring: “I just can’t work with Paul any more”. This wasn’t something any one of us was thinking. It is what we were all thinking.

So, Charlie dissolved the Hangingday partnership.

Carr did not leave the London News Review because we had a difference of opinion over its direction; really he did not “leave” at all - he was told to go; it was not because we were bought out by venture capitalists and he prized his independence; he was simply an incompetent editor and bad at people. We were, however, happy enough to maintain that we just wanted to work on our own projects.

An amicable split seemed best.

The Beef, or why the Computer Crime Unit got involved

A couple of months down the line. I was getting to grips with the server, and over the course of my investigations I found out that someone using the computer Carr had in his bedroom - he was obviously no longer welcome in the office and our lives - had spent the month following the LNR split breaking into Charlie’s email.

He also broke into Alan’s account, and had a go at the Circulation Manager’s and my own.

Whoever did this also stole the flatplan of a new project we were working on which we hoped might be attractive to investors (it was a remodelling of the LNR that would take good writers from around the web - the blogs in particular - and put them into print.)

We went to the Computer Crime Unit of the Metropolitan police. They were very keen to help, and believed that we had a serious criminal case against the intruder; things got underway quickly, and we were liaising with them a lot.

The evidence is sort of boring, but I should present it. Skip the next two paragraphs if the word ‘Unix’ makes you feel nervous or confused.

Short technical version : the logs and history files offer a coherent account of someone remotely logging in, su-ing to root, su-ing to ‘charlie’, then running pine on Charlie’s mail repeatedly to go through various of his folders.

(Much fuller info here, including log extracts, email headers, pine debugs, and lots of other fun things that show us a clot’s delusion: he believes that using telnet to snoop round an email account is cunning and skilful, without realising he’s actually leaving a fabulously accurate to-the-second papertrail. That full evidence also features us being nearly as incompetent, and destroying bits of evidence as we demonstrate what happened to Charlie.)

And criticise us if you like for not changing the locks on the server: it’s just that we didn’t expect someone at Carr’s bedroom computer to break in and read Charlie’s personal and business mail using the password which the person at Carr’s computer must have somehow known.

Trusting people. That’ll learn us.

Charlie and Al confronted Carr about it. First came outright denial - that what we were claiming was impossible - then explanations that became increasingly convoluted and contradictory as we presented him with more of what we knew. In the end, if I remember their reports correctly, he was claiming that if he was breaking into Charlie’s account, going through his mailboxes and taking flatplans, then it was all in the cause of server and mail maintenance.

The Computer Crime Unit had a lot of paperwork to do; by the time they’d gone through the necessaries, Carr’s ISP no longer had the records that would allow the Unit to press charges. They suggested there may be another way to consolidate the case, so we’re not sure that it’s entirely over, but this far down the line we’re a little pessimistic.

A few final words

We didn’t mention this for a while because of the police involvement: we wouldn’t have liked to prejudice or derail anything by shouting in public about these events.

Since the investigation stalled, I’ve deferred to the others. They, Charlie in particular, were the injured parties; and it’s never seemed the right time to mention the whole sorry business.

Now, however, it does.

Some CHICK who writes about LESBIANS on SPACESHIPS?

I think they’ll probably list me as ‘United Kingdom’, but my family might like a mention of Ireland. I’ll email the committee about that. I’m sure they’ll speak English. You can’t get by with Romanche.

I think the theme of my speech is going to be ‘Human Rights and the Force of Literature’. I’ll quote that Auden stuff about poetry making nothing happen.

Bloody hell. My passport expired last month. I’d better sort that out.