How's your attention span?  I said how's your... oh never mind.

For those of us with grasshopper minds, here's the resource we've been waiting for.

Ten Word Wiki invites contributors to deliver bite-sized definitions of ideas and things, people and places.

The less is more approach can be poetic:

Egg: Fragile, oddly shaped, calcium capsule. Origin of life. Came first.

...or pathetic:

Scotland: Weather's shit. So inhabitants drink whisky, fight and never work.

But some of the entries are quite ingenious:

• Omelette: Egg with identity crisis. Scambled and fried at same time.
  
• Rick Astley: Giving up, letting you down, running around, desertion unlikely.
  
• Angelina Jolie: Heavily tattooed kinky actress. Wants one child in every colour.
• Ipad: Giant $500 iPod Touch. No Flash, no porn, no use.
• Brevity: The art of saying everything while actually saying bugger all.
• Prime Minister: Government head. Elected by population then hated by the same.
• Britney Spears: Former SexKitten Pop Singer, Now Slightly Mental, Miming Train Wreck.
• Wasp: Insect world's Paris Hilton. Pointless and irritating in equal measure.
• Man flu: In any other species, a Common Cold, in men, Apocalypse.

Now, wasn't that interesting?  I said wasn't that... oh, forget it.

What may well be seen as one of the best television programmes of the year aired here on Sunday night.  Julie Walters gave a compelling and convincing portrait of a woman racing against time.

Mo Mowlam was that rare being,  a politician whom the public held in high regard.  Some found her direct, informal approach too strong a flavour, but there’s little doubt that Mowlam’s style was crucial in bringing peace to Northern Ireland.

The drama reflected Mowlam’s people skills, on the one hand facing down loyalist paramilitaries in the Maze prison, on the other charming Bill Clinton. But it also underscored Mowlam’s struggle to keep her career on track while fighting what we now know was a malignant brain tumour.

Amid the drama of peace deals and hospital visits, there were some light-hearted moments. Storming after her deputy, Adam Ingram, she continues an argument with him in the gents’ toilet. Confronting him at the urinal, she suddenly looks down and grins: “Ooh, not bad. Don’t forget to shake it.”.

Some don’t emerge from the drama so well, notably the vinegary Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble and Mowlam’s successor in Belfast, Peter Mandelson. Tony Blair gets it in the neck too, for sending her to take charge of the Cabinet Office -  “minister for paper clips”. Putting a brave face on her departure from Stormont, she briefs her staff on Mandelson: “His boyfriend’s called Reinaldo and his dog’s called Bobby. For God’s sake don’t mix them up.”

Yet, as her condition deteriorates,  there’s a realisation that her chummy, cheeky persona might be a by-product of the cancer that would kill her.  Informed by her doctor that the disease can prompt uninhibited behaviour, she asks:  “So, which part is the real me, and which is the tumour?” Finally, incoherent, incontinent, unconscious, Mo Mowlam succumbs to the inevitable. 

Julie Walters has confessed she almost turned the role down.  Lucky for us she didn’t, as she was predictably brilliant.  All credit to her and a superb supporting cast (Gary Lewis as the smouldering Scotsman Ingram in particular).Over 3 million people watched the programme, an eight-year record for a Channel 4 drama. If this doesn’t win every award going, there ain’t no justice in tv-land.

 

When the January blues strike, when I find myself staring out the window and contemplate how many times I'd bounce after hitting the ground, when I catch sight of myself sitting at a desk and wonder who that sad old git sitting at a desk is...

...there's always Overheard in the Office to brighten my day.

Crack a few tinnies, stuff yourself with Tim Tams and snog a possum.  Or, you could celebrate Australia Day by licking a writer's back side.

This year, Australia Post's Legends stamps honour Aussie writers.  Peter Carey, Colleen McCullough and Thomas Keneally are among the celebrated scribes. 

But not everyone’s happy. Keneally lamented the absence of any poets in the selection, while Evan Maloney thought the choices were too white and too male:

 “What, exactly, was the criteria for eligibility? I have these horrific images of a group of white men sitting around like Bruces in the philosophy department, going through the names of contemporary authors.”

Well, yes. But you’re never going to please everyone. And surely the fact that not yet dead writers are being featured at all is cause for a couple of cheers. In the UK, you only get to be on a stamp if you're a royal or a relic. Australia seems to have moved on.

As Bryce Courtenay, one of the writers featured on the stamps, puts it:

''It was the king's head on stamps when I was young. Now they just put old shitbags on them.''

Happy Australia Day!

First book of the year is “The Island of Lost Maps” by Miles Harvey.  It’s a story of one man’s obsession about another man’s obsession. 

The author charts the course of Gilbert Bland: child of a broken home, VietNam vet and map thief.  In the 1990s, Bland cut a swathe across the libraries of North America, surreptitiously slicing pages from atlases and selling them to hungry cartophiles.

Unable to meet the incarcerated Bland himself, the author retraces his steps, encountering librarians, map dealers and a psychologist specialising in the mind of the collector.

 It’s a good tale, well told, although his prose can get a bit purple.  Harvey’s take on my own profession is of particular interest, although it doesn’t start altogether encouragingly:

“Librarian – that mouth-contorting , graceless grind of a word, that dry gulch in the dictionary between libido and licentious – it practically begs you to envision a stoop-shouldered loser, socks mismatched, eyes locked in a permanent squint from reading too much microfiche.”

But it gets better:

“If it were up to me, I would abolish the word entirely and turn back to the lexicological wisdom of the ancients, who saw librarians not as feeble sorters and shelvers but as heroic guardians. In Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian cultures alike, those who toiled at the shelves were often bestowed with a proud, even soldierly, title: Keeper of the Books.”

That’s more like it. Here I am, a heroic slayer of bibliocrooks, a defender of knowledge, a valiant standard-bearer for readers’ rights.  (Now whose prose is turning purple?) 

And, if you care to check, you’ll find my socks are perfectly matched. Today, at least.

The Island of Lost Maps
by Miles Harvey
Broadway, 2001
ISBN-0767908260
ISBN-13: 978-0767908269

 

I hope everyone had a good Christmas Day. It's been snowing again in Glasgow, which means we did get a white Christmas.  Meanwhile, down by the riverside, the sun continues to shine.

I might not have surpassed last year's record of 40 books, but with a couple of dozen under my belt, 2009 has still been a great big year of reading.


End-of-year lists are pretty meaningless, and I could have included plenty more among my favourites of 2009.  But here's my attempt to shoehorn my reads of the year into a top ten:

10. The Real Global Warming Disaster, by Christopher Booker
Is the obsession with climate change turning out to be the most costly scientific delusion in history? That’s the big question at the heart of Christopher Booker’s chronicle of climate change. For Booker, the real global warming disaster is a misreading of scientific evidence, combined with media scare stories. Imagined fears, he says, have bulldozed governments into disproportionate and potentially ruinous responses.

9. Borrowed Time, by Roy Hattersley
A brisk gallop through the inter-war years. Hattersley's pen portraits of the first BBC director general, John Reith, and of Edward Elgar make for enjoyable reading, and the final chapter is as good an examination of the drift to war as any you're likely to read. Unhappily, a book which promises “the story of Britain between the wars” turns out to be very Anglo-centric.  An entire chapter is devoted to Ireland, but it seems the main contribution of the Irish to English history was their effort to escape from it.

8. The New Spaniards, by John Hooper
In 1950, three million tourists visited Spain. Today, that figure is over 50 million.  It's just one indicator of how Spain has changed, but it's by no means the most dramatic.  John Hooper's majestic account of Spain's transformation from dictatorship to democracy shows the country has come a long way in a short time.  From politics to prostitution, ballet to bullfighting, everything has changed.

7. Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, by Christopher Brookmyre
A novel that sticks two fingers up at the world of psychics and mediums.  Investigative journalist Jack Parlabane sets out to expose one of its most successful practitioners as a money-grabbing trickster.  It's a fast paced, eye-opening book, with the sharp, sardonic tone which has become a Brookmyre hallmark.  And, as it's set in Glasgow, there's a liberal dose of down-to-earth banter. 

6. Wrath of God, by Edward Paice
What better way to escape the doom and gloom of economic meltdown and impending plague than by reliving the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755? The author notes that, even though 40,000 died,  the earthquake hasn't remained in the popular imagination compared to other catastrophes, such as Pompeii or Krakatoa. Perhaps his book will change that.

5. Coming Out: Irish gay experiences, edited by Glen O'Brien
A book that offers Ireland's gay community the chance to pause and draw breath; to look back on the achievements on the thorny road to equality and forward to the next set of hurdles.  The testimonies of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals,  their families, friends and loved ones represent a snapshot of a small country at the crossroads.

4. The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery
To her neighbours, the concierge is invisible. But behind closed doors, Renée is a cultivated, cultured dame who reads Tolstoy and ruminates on the meaning of life.  Deep? Or deeply pretentious? Reviewers are divided.  But it's a book that will make you homesick for Paris, even if you've never been there.

3. Garnethill Trilogy: Garnethill; Exile; Resolution, by Denise Mina
Abuse, alchohol, murder: all part of the rich tapestry that is Maureen O'Donnell's life.  The central character in Denise Mina's trilogy doesn't have her troubles to seek. But they still come looking for her.  Mina's take on Glasgow is spot on.  Post-industrial cultural capital it may be, but as long as Mina's writing, the city can't paper over all of its cracks.

2. King Leopold's Ghost, by Adam Hochschild
A vainglorious monarch uses deceit and charm to weasel his way into personal ownership of an African colony, then proceeds to rape the land of its natural resources, subjecting the natives to appalling torture and mass murder. As a record of the lasting damage caused by colonialism, Hochschild’s book may come to be seen as definitive.

1. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
It's all here: love, war, drugs, crime and curry. At 933 pages, this is more brick than book. But what a book. Roberts is the supreme story teller, weaving memorable characters into his tale of adventure and daring-do. It's not for the faint-hearted. Graphic violence and explicit torture haunt every chapter, to say nothing of the blood, sweat and saffron of Mumbai slums. But, if you're still alive at the final page, you'll be glad to have survived the Shantaram experience.

Well, not even 24 hours in London and already my feet are begging for mercy. I didn't so much hit the ground running as attempted several marathons. The train journey down was fine, although I was seated next to a woman who, once she sat down, did nothing. No reading, no music, she just sat staring into space. In the meantime, I planned an invasion of Luxembourg, wrote a sequel to War and Peace and wet myself (she didn't move to let me go when I had to go). Otherwise, an uneventful journey.

Things improved once I got into the city, and the weather has been reasonably kind - cold, but dry. This being St Andrew's Day, my first port of call, naturally, was Canada House. The Canadian High Commission has a plum spot in Trafalgar Square. It's impressive outside and opulent inside. There was also an exhibition about the Winter Olympics, but sadly no hunky Canadian ice hockey players to show me round.

Still, Horseguards Parade can always be relied upon to provide a bit of military beefcake, and I wasn't to be disappointed.


Onward, to Westminster Cathedral. I took some photographs, but it's very dark inside, and there was a children's choir rehearsing a Christmas concert, which I didn' t think should be allowed in a church. After that, it was off to register for the conference I'm attending tomorrow. It's being held at Olympia, which is a bloody long way to travel. Surely they could have chosen somewhere nearer than Greece.

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It's an Aladdin's cave of decorative arts - everything from sculpture to Raphael cartoons - kindly loaned by Her Majesty. Plus textiles, jewellery, furniture, ironwork, silverware, gold and stained glass. I need hardly say, I was in seventh heaven and almost used up my first memory card. But I must have walked miles in the museum alone, and my unfortunate feet are already throbbing.

So, a punishing schedule on day one. Still, I'll be on my backside for most of tomorrow at the conference, listening to information professionals tell me how it should be done. No doubt I'll return to work filled with missionary zeal after this, only to sit at my desk to find three weeks' worth of mail and five hundred squillion e-mails. Hey-ho.

Tonight, I'll drink a toast on my national day and make sure I give my tootsies a well-deserved rest.

Yes, yes, I promised no more churchy photographs for a while, but this is a bit different.



The exhibits are nicely set out, and a lot of natural light flows into the building. Even at this time of year, that creates its own special luminescence.

If you ever wondered whatever happened to the elaborate headgear once worn by the sainted Carmen Miranda...

After days of rotten weather, Mother Nature finally relented and gave us some respite from the wind and rain. So, I ventured out to see if Glasgow had recovered from the deluge. Happily, it had, and here's some photographic proof.

Channel 4 has been making much this week of re-discovered 3-D footage of the Queen's coronation. I didn't have the special spectacles needed to get the full effect, but the reviews I've read suggest I didn't miss that much.

At times, the deferential narration and gushing reminiscences of those who were there gave the feeling that we'd never really left 1953. It was also jarringly anglo-centric. The news that Everest had been conquered, for example, was seen as a fitting start to England's new Elizabethan age. Never mind that it was a New Zealander and a Nepalese who did all the hard work.

The one amusing moment came when the programme turned its attention to the Queen of Tonga. Queen Salote, we were told, endeared herself to the crowds by riding to Westminster Abbey in an open carriage in the pouring rain. Weighing over 350 pounds, Salote was accompanied by a very small man. Asked who this might be, Noel Coward replied: "Her lunch."