Sue Bailey

July 1st 2009 15:39 | Category: Self-Indulgence | Comments (1)

My mother was 10 when Bill Haley’s song Rock Around the Clock got to number 1 in the UK. When I was around the same age, there was a “25 years of rock n roll” programme on TV, which talked about teenagers ripping out cinema seats to the new soun’ that was goin’ aroun’.

“To this?” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “Even I find it hard to believe now.” (As people who were married before the summer of love, I’ve always found my parents to be, musically, two generations behind me. So there you go.)

As part of my current, involuntary project to turn into my parents, I had a similar experience today, with (in a bit of synchronicity that’s almost too corny to note) another Bill. Mr Idol’s White Wedding was released when *I* was ten. If I’m honest, I don’t recall the first release at all, but the 1985 re-release that coincided with some horrible family holiday in (iirc) Cornwall, with me turning on the car radio and my father telling me to shut off the noise “or else” (I couldn’t imagine what he could do that was worse than a week in a grotty place we couldn’t really afford, pretending we actually liked each other, but again, there you go).

The odd thing about White Wedding is that it teetered on the edge of all sorts of interesting Gothic stuff, as I did then myself (”what have you done with your eye makeup, young lady?”), without actually sliding off into anything beyond middle of the road rock. I can’t imagine anyone ripping cinema seats out to it. Which is why I love the literal video so very, very much:

June 10th 2009 01:41 | Tags: goth, music, random shit about my childhood | Category: Self-Indulgence | Comments (5)

Once upon a time when I was doing my A’levels, it was the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, and Granada Television (I think it was) made a sumptuous version of A Tale Of Two Cities to celebrate. As I was doing both English and History (though neither Robespierre nor Dickens came into it), I was one of the students dragged along to the launch event, about which I remember nothing except that we were given the Penguin tie-in edition of the book, and Kenneth Baker came to give a speech.

Someone had the bright idea of giving a room full of Manchester teachers and students a Q&A session with the Education Secretary, and the first question up was (see, I still remember it 21 years later): “Mr Baker, does the fact that you’ve given us all a copy of A Tale of Two Cities mean that the government has reversed its policy and is actually going to supply schools with books?”

After the applause had died down and we had all resumed our seats, Mr Baker’s response was that the books had nothing to do with the government and were the generous gift of Granada TV and Penguin. Oh, how we larfed. I still have my copy of aToTC.

So I was a bit sad today to read that Governor Schwarzenegger is proposing to save millions of dollars from the Californian education budget by scrapping paper textbooks in favour of digital ones. It’s inevitable, I suppose, but I can’t help feeling a little loss for the physical object of the textbook. That wonderful moment when you find that your French grammar book was used last year by the very boy in the year ahead that you’ve had a crush on for two terms! Or better still, that your physics book was used by the science nerd and his notes are still in the back!

Facebook just doesn’t, somehow, seem the same.

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BTW, if any restaurateurs are reading, I think Tempura Mutantur would be a superb name for a Japanese/Ancient Roman fusion establishment.

June 8th 2009 23:11 | Tags: books, Thatcher's cabinet | Category: Self-Indulgence | Comments (2)

On Tuesday, The Guardian had a feature on the book that changed my life. I’ve been considering this question every since it arose in Mig’s comments so long ago that I can’t even find the post, and the conclusion I’ve come to is this:

to change a life is a big ask from a book.

Let me make this clear – I love books. If I had to choose between [sex + alcohol + music] or books, I would pick books. If I had to choose between the internet or books, that would be tougher – because it’s all about the reading, innit.

If you want to talk about pivotal moments in my reading, I don’t need whole books: two sentences cover it. Aged 7 or 8, reading that “most evolutionists reckon the natural world to have emerged in the same order as that listed in Genesis”, and realising I didn’t have to disbelieve in science to carry on believing in God. (I expressed my delight to my mother, who responded that the theory of evolution was just a theory, while the Bible was fact.)

Read the rest »

May 28th 2009 17:13 | Tags: books, religion | Category: Madness, Self-Indulgence | Comments (4)

So I thought I would buy a self-help book from Amazon because it looked slightly less awful than every other self-help book I’ve ever bought –

to the ticket inspector who picked up the copy of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People which I abandoned on the train between Southampton and Reading that time, I’m really, truly sorry: it’s an astonishingly bad book

- and because it promised, you know, actual stuff to do rather than going “rah rah you’re fabby”. And because Amazon France is just terrible at delivering English language books –

mon dieu, can’t you buy a book in French? Here, we have interesting biographies of Sarko

- I bought it from a Marketplace seller.

And yes, I know that means the author doesn’t get a cut and I’m *sorry*, okay, I’m sorry. I’ll buy a dozen things full-price from Amazon UK as penance, promise.

And about a week after I’d paid, I suddenly had an email from Amazon saying I’d been refunded, and eventually another email from the seller saying they were out of stock. So I bought it from another seller. And waited, and waited, and waited. And am now about to do a chargeback with Amazon.

Shall I bother ordering it a third time? Or is maybe the Universe trying to tell me something here?

May 25th 2009 17:26 | Category: Self-Indulgence | Comments (2)

There ought to be a name for people who obsessively follow Stephen Fry’s every word, middle-aged, middle-class, middle-weight women transforming from fag hags into real hags while watching reruns of QI… oh, that’s just “me”. So yes, I wept at Sir Stephen’s letter to his 16 year old self, and predictably foresaw that there would be a rash of other letters written to 16 year old selves. And inevitably, I began to plan my own…

It’s massively tempting to send back instructions to try to change the course of one’s life: but I think the temptation ought to be avoided. For one thing, it assumes that the older self is so much wiser than the younger, and I’m not sure that’s the case. Older minds are easily convinced that experience and cynicism outweigh joy and hope, and that makes for a sadder, duller world. So I won’t tell her to go to St. Andrew’s not Cambridge (even though I think she should have); I’ll just give her some more tools, because:

1. 16 feels invincible. You’re right. It is. The next two years of your life are the best two ever. Don’t let it all drift downhill after that: figure out what’s so amazing, and do more of it.
2. In a couple of months, your parents are making you move to Manchester and you’re protesting about it. You’re right to protest, because you’re practically an adult and your wishes are not being consulted, but bear in mind that this move will be the best thing that ever happened to you. Negotiate things in your favour: I don’t think you actually did badly, but still, do more. The world is tilting in your favour. And remember, new town means easier church avoidance.
3. This move, and the way it leaves behind the whole of your childhood, means you can reinvent yourself. It’s both inevitable and right that you should do this, but don’t reinvent yourself into a chameleon. You don’t need to be so desperate to fit in. You *don’t* fit in, and that’s what’s cool about you.
4. In a few months, you’re going to meet two women who will change your life. One is a crazy, chain-smoking, pissed-off history teacher. The other is the woman with the most perfect breasts you’ll ever get your sweaty hands on. Yes, you heard me right. Treat both of them better than you did.
5. Look, don’t start smoking for real. It’s idiotic and it stinks. Why are you trying so hard to do something so horrible?
6. Your depression is a disease. It’s not who you are. It can be dealt with. Go ask for drugs. Keep asking for them til you get them. And also, ask for therapy. I’ve seen you, cutting and stubbing ciggies out on your arms. This will only get worse. Go and ask for help now (the scars will help you get it).
7. Forgetting to eat is still an eating disorder. Get help. If you don’t, you’ll screw your metabolism forever.
8. Would it kill you to go out in the sunshine now and again? Your Gothy white foundation will cover over any potential tan, but if you’d leave the library, the pub and your room now and again, you’d feel a whole lot better. Believe me.
9. Stop being so scared to ask for stuff you want. For example (and this is going to be the only specific thing I tell you to do), tell your Latin teacher you want to do A’level Latin in your upper 6th year. You can manage it; so can he. And it will make your university choices so much better. While you’re at it, get him to teach you some Greek. It’s not all about acting out the Aeneid funeral games with paper boats.
10. Somewhere there’s a political group for you. So Michael Meacher’s constituency party isn’t the one: look further! That energy you used to put into religion has to go somewhere, and you’re not a preacher’s daughter for nothing: stop stifling that evangelical impulse.
11. Your father is trying to be your friend. You won’t notice; I think he was far too late, but I merely present the information for your perusal.
12. Actually, dump your parents. You’ll need to decide on the form this dumpage might take, but trying to have their goodwill *and* live the life you choose to live isn’t possible. Prepare for the thought that you might go to university and never come back: it could be a good move for you. And incidentally, that letter your mother sends you the day before your second year uni exams start? Burn it unread. Better still, mark it deceased and send it back.
13. Find a way to exist that doesn’t need other people’s approval. Get some self-confidence. You don’t believe in a god who’s just waiting to send you to hell, so stop acting like you do.
14. Stop being so secretive. Wear your heart on your sleeve, even if you think it’ll make you look silly. It’ll stand you in good stead for this thing called blogging you’re going to do a lot of one day. You’ll see
15. You’ll be tempted to make rash decisions because you’re afraid of being unwanted. Try not to. Better still, get over your fear of being alone, lest you come to a time where alone is all you want to be but you can’t be it. Goodness knows why, you self-centered little snob, but people do sometimes like you.
16. Computers are way cooler than you think they are.

May 6th 2009 02:07 | Tags: Stephen Fry | Category: Self-Indulgence | Comments (9)

Stolen from Sevitz.

May 4th 2009 23:36 | Tags: scepticism, science, YouTube | Category: Secularism | Leave a comment

Happy Ada Lovelace Day! And if you’ve missed it so far,

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines.

The woman I want to talk about is Mary Somerville. Mary was born in 1780, the daughter of a vice admiral in the British Navy. In her own words, her education was “scant and haphazard”: she had just one year of formal schooling. But when she was widowed at the age of 24, Mary decided to get herself the education she’d never had. She taught herself astronomy and mathematics, and began to conduct her own scientific experiments. And she flew.

Having become the first female writer to have a paper read to the Royal Society, in 1827 she was asked by the wonderfully-named Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge to write popular versions of Laplace’s Mecanique Céleste and Newton’s Principia. This began a writing career that lasted until her death at the age of 92, producing books on astronomy, maths, chemistry, physics and geography that remained in use in schools and universities for decades. She was one of the first women elected to the Royal Astronomical Society, was given a pension of £200 a year by the King, and even had her scientific work preached against in York Cathedral. Not bad for one who, in her own words, was “allowed to grow up a wild creature”.

There are two things that inspire me about this story. Firstly, the education. It terrifies me how close I came to living a life where no one thought I was worth educating. My own father left school at 15 to start work with no qualifications whatsover. Not that he failed any exams; the school he was sent to simply didn’t offer them. If I’d been my grandfather’s daughter, I suspect I’d have been at home looking after my motherless brothers, not in school learning tricks like reading and writing. I hope I’d have had the strength to do what both Mary and my father did: to take charge of my own education long after the formal system had finished with me.

Mary’s stroke of fortune was her early widowhood, which left her financially and socially secure enough to pursue her own interests. Mine was finding the internet, which was both my second education and a place to parlay that into a living. It’s a thing I’m eternally grateful* to have had available to me, and something I believe should be available to everyone on the planet. It takes education and opportunity out of the hands of the privileged and the fortunate, and dumps it in the lap of anyone who wants it.

And by this circuitous route, we come to my second point about Mary Somerville. She popularised. When I first read about Ada Lovelace Day, Mary’s was (for no apparent reason) the first name that popped into my head. And I almost dismissed her; popular science writer seemed too down-market, not important enough. I was wrong though: popular science writer, popular technology writer, is everything. The person who takes the knowledge from the rarified few to the masses, is the person who changes the world.

This is the thing I’d like to take from Mary Somerville: that science and technology are for everyone. It’s a thing we internauts** forget too often, I think. We get the idea that Twitter matters and we update our Dopplr accounts from our iPhones, and we forget that for most people online email is still where it’s at, and that most people aren’t online at all.

I’d like to change that, somehow.

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* grateful. Seems a strange word. But I am grateful. I’m just not grateful to anything. /secularism.

** it’s a perfectly valid word in French.

Picture of Mary Somerville courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

March 24th 2009 15:43 | Tags: Ada Lovelace Day, AdaLovelaceDay09, Mary Somerville, science, the Internet, unfocused ramblings | Category: Self-Indulgence | Comments (3)

1. A polecat
2. Philip Pullman
3. A pope (one of the cool medieval ones, not Bareback Benny)
4. Saul of Tarsus (I would take a different road to Damascus and save the world a lot of grief)
5. Alistair Campbell (this one, not this one)
6. Romana
7. Joseph Bazalgette (my hero)
8. J C Loudon (another hero)
9. The Library of Alexandria
10. Margaret Thatcher (yes, really)

What interests me about this list is that the two people I hate most in the world are on it.

Nicked from Whirly.

March 23rd 2009 15:24 | Tags: lacking context, lists | Category: Self-Indulgence | Comments (1)