Oh, the cleverness of me
Mario had been thinking for some time about reading a big book…
Please forgive me for this momentary lapse in lucidity. I’ve not been well. Honest.
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I have not read Belle Du Jour
Sunday night became Monday morning about an hour ago, and I’m skimming through the television channels. Billie Piper is on one of the channels, and she’s not wearing much. Actually – strike that – she’s being really very naughty indeed; and now I can’t turn to another channel.
It turns out the amazing scenes unfolding in front of my rapidly diminishing eyes are from the drama “Secret Diary of Call Girl” – based on the book “Belle du Jour”.
I have not read Belle Du Jour, and suddenly it seems that I should have. I’ve certainly read about it, and seen it in numerous railway station booksellers, usually topping the charts. My not having read it is an anomaly of sorts – I’ve read quite a few controversial books.
“Lolita” asked difficult questions, and didn’t answer them. “Tropic of Cancer” opened a window onto a very dark world. “We” still sits in my pile of books to read one day; famous for getting it’s author into quite a lot of trouble with the Soviet state for promoting the idea of being an individual, and having free thought.
I have Billie Piper stuck in my head now – some kind of short circuit is going on – the wholesome young girl who sang “Because I Want To”, and partnered Dr Who on countless adventures was a well rounded character in my mind. I thought I knew her. Of course that was before a few minutes ago when I saw her cavorting with an uncomfortable businessman, dressed in the most impressively fitted underwear I’ve seen in quite some time.
Dr Who will never be the same again.
Brooke Magnanti joins Heather Armstrong and Catherine Sanderson in the pantheon of "outed" bloggers
News broke in the UK this morning that the writer of “Belle De Jour” had finally been outed by the press – it turns out she is/was Brooke Magnanti. I haven’t read the Sunday Times article (and probably won’t), but have read a little of the surrounding coverage by – how shall we put this – more balanced journalists.
I have a passing interest in the variously famous “A-List” bloggers being outed because I vaguely know Catherine Sanderson – author of Petite Anglaise. In the run-up to our adoption a couple of years ago she incredibly kindly offered us the use of her writing studio in Paris as a weekend getaway. I’ll never forget it, because it re-inforced something that is easy to forget… these are real people – just like you and me.
Of course now I’m wondering – having not read “Belle de Jour” – what it’s like. I’m trying to keep away from Amazon as I write this, and failing badly. One of the capsule reviews mentions her candid and sometimes hilarious insights into people on London Underground trains – I can certainly relate to that at least. It might have to join the growing list of controversial books I have read – along with Lolita, Tropic of Cancer, and many others.
If there’s one thing that really annoys me, it’s people who have opinions about things without having experienced them themselves. Books are perhaps the most common casualty. I remember people staring at me on the train while reading “The God Delusion”, but nobody making a second glance when I read “Thus Spake Zarathustra” (which has historically had far more impact than many other books).
When SysAdmins Ruled the Earth
I discovered “When SysAdmins Ruled the Earth” while looking at the ePub digital document format last year. I was commuting into and out of London each day, and found myself dipping my toe into the ebook waters.
The story is one of a collection by Cory Doctorow called “Overclocked”, and imagines a scenario where a global apocalypse has occurred, wiping out most of the people. Chief among the survivors are the system administrators of large computer networks – holed up in the atmospherically controlled server rooms of large corporations around the world.
The story imagines the global communication – the sharing of news from country to country via IRC, email, and instant messaging, and the chaotic plans put in place by those few people who considered they might be the last left alive in the world.
Cory Doctorow has the following to say on his own website;
I started writing When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth on July 6th, 2005, while teaching Clarion. The next day, the London Underground and busses were bombed, including the bus I rode to work every morning (I was in Michigan, teaching Clarion, thankfully). These kinds of coincidences can be spooky when you’re a writer. I ended up putting the story away for some months.
When I returned to it, I was fired anew with the story of Felix and Van and their vainglorious struggle to keep the servers online as the world went offline. Once created, apocalyptic anxiety can’t be destroyed — the 1980s fear of nuclear annihilation I grew up with surfaces anew with each theoretical disaster: Y2K, climate change, und so weiter. There’s something primal about a story of the Earth’s impending doom.
I was a sysadmin at an earlier stage in my career and I have infinite respect for the field: sysadmins are the secret masters of the universe, and they keep your life running.
It’s a wonderful, wonderful story if you have any past experience of the internet, network infrastructure, IRC, usenet, or the other early protocols that still underpin the infrastructure we rely on. You can download the ebook for free from Feedbooks at the following address;