Although man-made waterways have been around since ancient times, it was with the coming of the industrial revolution, and the need to cheaply move mass amounts of materials, that canals began to change the face of Britain.  More than 100 canals were built in England and Wales alone between 1760 and 1820.

Tavistock Weir, the source of water for the canal

Growing up in Tavistock, I was no stranger to canals, as the Tavistock canal runs along the edge of the park and playground.  Completed in 1817, the canal was used to connect the town to the navigable river Tamar 6 km away.  As with many of the canals of this era, it was an engineering marvel, including innovative features such as twin track inclined planes, and a 2.3 kilometre tunnel drilled through solid rock.  Now used as a feeder for a hydro power station, the canal is not navigable by boats.

Quite a different story to the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, a network of canals running through the Brecon Beacons National Park in South Wales covering more than 50km.

We hired the narrowboat Merlin from Llanfoist, just outside Abergavenny.  With a thoroughly modern interior but retaining a comfortably traditional exterior, this 43 foot boat was our home for the last four days in October.  Unfortunately, British Waterways close the canal for maintenance on 1 November, or we would gladly have stayed for longer.

The canal has an interesting history, and is actually made up of two joined main canals, plus a couple of branch lines.  We travelled north from Llanfoist towards the top of the Canal at Brecon.  With a speed limit of 2.5 mph (slightly slower than a casual stroll, and a lot slower than my normal walking speed, it is not the way to travel if you are in a rush.  For 37 kms, from south of Llanfoist until Llangynidr, the canal follows a single contour high up on the hills above the river Usk in the valley below.  For two days we wound around the hillside through dense forests, farmed land, and picturesque villages.  With the thick canopy of trees the red-golden hue of autumn, the canal was thick with leaves creating a picturesque setting, but also a hazard to propellers!  Squirrels were never far away, using the express ways high above the canal as a bridge from one side to the other.  Herons, kingfishers and more were frequently seen.  The canal due to close soon, there was not much traffic about (a fact we were quite happy about given the difficulties in passing others without running aground in the shallow edges), but the banks, wharves, basins and marinas were often lined with everything from traditional narrow boats to more modern plastic runabouts.

A 43ft narrowboat handles quite differently to anything I have sailed in the past, but it doesn’t take long to get the feeling, and Merlin responded well to the tiller. We meandered north until we reached the first of the six locks that begin the climb up to the start of the canal at Brecon, before having to turn and head back to return the boat.

What is with the current (mis)use of the reflexive pronoun (myself, yourself) instead of the subjective (I, you) or objective pronoun (me, you)?

Any questions, please see myself.

Is it that people are so scared to use ‘me’ because as a child they were constantly told ‘Say Jane and I, not me and Jane’?

Really people, the rules are easy. If the sentence is about something you are doing, you are the subject, so use ‘I’. If the sentence is about something being done to you, you are the object, so use ‘me’.

I ran to the ball.
The ball was thrown to me.

Likewise in the second person, but there it’s even easier! Both subject and object use ‘you’.

If you have questions, see me.
I have some questions for you.

Wikipedia defines the reflexive pronoun as:

A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that is preceded by the noun or pronoun to which it refers (its antecedent) within the same clause. In generative grammar, a reflexive pronoun is an anaphor that must be bound by its antecedent (see binding). In some languages, there is a difference between reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns; but the exact conditions that determine whether something is bound are not yet well defined and depend on the language in question.

Sounds complicated? I agree, but it can be summed up quite simply: If you are tempted to use ‘myself’ or ‘yourself’, ask yourself this question: (see what I did there? Wasn’t that clever!)

Is the person being referred to both the subject and the object?

If they are not, then do not say myself!

Of course, as with all things in the English language, there is a catch – ‘myself’ can also be a noun. ‘I am not myself’. But don’t let that confuse you.

I eventually managed to track down a copy of this book yesterday, and what a treat it is. Neil Gaiman to me is a little hit and miss – but he is undoubtedly a master of many different genres and styles, from science fiction to fantasy, dark gothic horror to light fairytale.

I recently complained that WALL-E felt like a kids movie. Well, this book is a children’s story, but is fantastic all the same. Nobody Owens’ family is murdered at the beginning of the book, and he is raised in a graveyard.

The book has been a long time in the coming, with Gaiman first having the idea in 1985, and has close parallels and allusions to the classic Kipling The Jungle Book. The book is well written at an easy level for children, invitingly descriptive, and each short chapter is a self contained short story of just the right length. The characters are well portrayed, and being mainly ghosts of people from times long gone, Gaiman is careful to give them only knowledge from their own eras. The protagonist Nobody ‘Bod’ Owens is not a ‘straight as an arrow never getting in trouble’ child, but neither do you ever feel like strangling the obnoxious brat – both sides being all too common in the portrayal of growing children. If there is one complaint, it is that the main antagonist (who originally killed Bod’s family) is very vaguely sketched in. A little more depth here would have helped me, but it’s not unnatural for Gaiman to want to focus on his protagonist.

All around this is a nice quick, fulfilling read for an adult, with enough depth to keep you reading. I would still pick Anathem over this for the Hugo, but it would be a close thing.

4.5 stars.

My latest attempt to read a good selection of Hugo nominees prior to the announcement of the winners failed utterly. They were not anywhere to be found in New Zealand. The winners were announced last weekend, and the winner of the ‘Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form’ was the Pixar animated movie WALL-E

The previews and reviews of this film really didn’t inspire me when it was released, so it was not until I heard it had won that I had any inclination to watch it. As I’m sure you know, the story follows a waste management robot in the future, whose job is to clean up waste on earth, while humanity waits in a fully automated ship in space. Probes are sent to Earth periodically to see if life has regenerated, and WALL-E eventually falls in love with one of these EVE probes.

It was a critical and box office success, winning the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, and the 2008 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and was nominated for five other Academy Awards, as well as the Hugo nod. To be honest, I’m really not sure why!

To give it its due, the film is funny, the characters well portrayed, charming and sweet. The animation is incredible. As light entertainment, it ticks all the boxes. But for me, a Hugo winner needs to be a lot more than that. Yes, it is set in the future, has robots and artificial intelligence, but it just doesn’t feel like ‘science fiction’ to me. It’s a kids story. What themes there are are lightly portrayed, barely brushing the surface of the psychie. Director and conceptional creator Stanton felt the moral of the film was ‘Irrational love defeats life’s programming’, which does hold up to some scrutiny, but scarcely seems enough to hang a whole movie on.

The ‘science’ is frighteningly absent in places. We find that the humans of 700 years in the future have grown obese and unobservant of their surroundings, with all their cares handled by machinery. There is a throw away line about how living in a micro gravity climate may have led to atrophied muscles and bone structure, but it is unclear as to whether this is why everyone is too obese to even move themselves, or pure laziness is the cause. Indeed, when they do return to Earth, everyone can magically stand and walk around, implying they have been living at a higher gravity level. One of the tension building moments introduces us to large scale versions of WALL-E in the Axiom (the future humans spaceship home). Waste is simply ejected into the vacuum. This shows that they have not learned the lessons of the consumerist society that they were trying to escape. Worse, if all waste is being ejected rather than recycled, where is the raw material coming from to continue the consumerism in a closed ship?

Okay, so maybe I’m looking at this at the wrong level. My advice, turn your mind off before watching, and you will enjoy the movie. The lack of dialog will make this an easily understandable movie across languages, and it does touch the heartstrings. But worth a Hugo? Not in my book.

3/5

The Hugo’s to me will always be first and foremost about the written form, but this only makes up a percentage of the categories. While it is hard in New Zealand to find the novels, novellas and short stories that are nominated, the ‘dramatic presentations’, or television and film productions, are generally easier. The nominations for the ‘short form’ this year were:

• “The Constant” (Lost) Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof, writers; Jack Bender, director (Bad Robot, ABC studios)
• Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Joss Whedon, & Zack Whedon, & Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen , writers; Joss Whedon, director (Mutant Enemy)
• “Revelations” (Battlestar Galactica) Bradley Thompson & David Weddle, writers; Michael Rymer, director (NBC Universal)
• “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead” (Doctor Who) Steven Moffat, writer; Euros Lyn, director (BBC Wales)
• “Turn Left” (Doctor Who) Russell T. Davies, writer; Graeme Harper, director (BBC Wales)

Neal Stephenson has been a ‘buy on sight’ author for me since Cryptonomicon. His ability to meld intricate scientific and historic themes into works of literary significance, and keep them accessible to the masses was only proved further with Cryptonomicon’s ‘prequel’, the Baroque Cycle.

With his latest door stopper of a novel, Stephenson has left historical fiction for a tour of the multiple cosmi theory of quantum mechanics, and delved deeper than ever into a fantastically realised world. Such is the depth of the immersion that the book contains a preface to explain things such as that it is not set on Earth. A little over the top for my liking, but if it helps to gain the book a wider readership, then it can’t hurt. Of course, not everyone likes this level of immersion…

His publishers appear to have spared no expense at promoting the book, the trailer above bearing remarkable resemblance to one that would be produced for a major motion picture.

The story itself is set on Arbre. Some 3000 years ago, civilisation was in a golden age, not unlike our own. After a series of catastrophic events, scholars were split from the everyday populace, and secluded themselves in strict communes, only having contact with civilisation for ten days once every year, ten years, 100 or 1000 years, depending on the order. Secure in their studies, civilisations have risen and fallen around them while they maintain knowledge.

The Protagonist and teller of the story is Erasmus, a young scholar in a Decenarian order. (One that only has contact with the outside world once every decade). Stephenson uses the the fact that Erasmus is both student and teacher to hide vasts amounts of info-dump, and the story never bogs down. In places the work refers to calca in the appendices to enable some of the more theoretical maths to be broken out, but even these are easily readable, and the story is no worse off if you miss them out.

Mixing philosophical discussions, the aforementioned maths and physics, and a gripping storyline could not have been easy, but Anathem pulls it off. One of Stephenson’s biggest weaknesses from my point of view is his writing of endings. I have not been fully satisfied with any of his books in this respect – but even here I am pleasantly surprised.

****1/2. A most definitely worthy candidate for a Hugo. A must read. If you can find a copy.

Author J. Michael Straczynski tells a moving story about what it meant to him to win a Hugo award. When he was young with no money, his family were constantly moving. He could not visit libraries, and so would pilfer books to read, and then return them undetected to the store. He discovered that books emblazoned with the words ‘Hugo Winner’ were the key to finding quality amongst the chaff. These were the books that he would risk all to read hidden beneath the covers at night.

Growing up, though in a more affluent setting, I also hungered for these pearls of quality. That isn’t to say I didn’t voraciously work my way through any and all libraries, but it was my father’s collection of Hugo and Nebula winners that really opened my eyes to good writing.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the lengths to which book stores in New Zealand will go to hide quality literature. For several years, I have tried to find copies of the five Hugo nominees for best novel as soon as they are announced. They are not stocked. They’ve never even heard of them. They look at you as if you are mad. My goal this year is to find and read at least two before the winners are announced at Anticipation in August.

One of the weird contradictions in life is that the longer and stupider hours I’m working, the more tired I get, the more time I actually have to read. Essentially because I lack the energy to cycle to work, and fall back on buses. This gives me a good uninterrupted 15 minutes each way to lose myself in. First up, a single lone copy of Stephenson’s Anathem was recently spotted in a local bookshop…

The ukulele is known as a Hawaiian instrument, but it is quite pervasive throughout the Island groups of the Pacific. While not a ‘traditional’ instrument of the Cook Island Maori (whose music prior to western cultural influence was heavily rhythmic, with different toned pātē or drums intertwining in counterpoint), the uke is now highly prevalent, and Island made instruments are a common souvenir for tourists.

My eight string uke, a souvenir of Rarotonga

My wife bought me this lovely instrument from the market in Avarua. Ukuleles on the island came in two distinct styles. The first, a half coconut shell formed the sound box, with a thin ply fret board extending out from this. These were commonly painted with island scenes, and resembled the common four string ukes you would find in Hawaii. The more beautiful ones were single blocks of hardwood, with lovely carvings on the face, and an echo chamber hollowed out of the back.

Intricate carvings on the body.

The instrument I bought is tuned in the common ‘C’ tuning. That is, G-C-E-A. The four pairs of strings are all tuned in unison (as opposed to octaves as they would be on a 12 string guitar). This tuning means that chords are simply a fourth above the same fingering on the top four strings of a guitar. ie, finger the common guitar ‘D’, (x-x-0-2-3-2), and you will be playing a ‘G’. Finger a ‘G’ (x-x-0-0-0-3) and you will be playing a ‘C’. etc.

The distinctive strumming sound of this instrument comes from the fact that the A string is not tuned to a fourth above the E string – it is a fifth below it, or a tone above the G string. This means any down strum is going to hit a relatively low note last, which pulls the ear down with it unexpectedly.

With chords easily worked out transposing from the guitar, I needed to practice some ‘island’ strumming patterns. These are taking some – but for now I can make do with more traditional guitar strums. The thing I am finding hardest with the instrument is picking. With eight strings very close together and very low over the body, there is no room to get your fingers in there. I’ve browsed the web for hints and tips, and everyone I’ve seen has a four string uke with inches between the strings! So, does anyone out there have an eight string uke? Is it a strum only instrument? Are my clumsy fingers just too used to nice easy classical guitars? Any tips?

Autumn is upon us, and as any good poem will tell you, with it comes a tonal palette of soft amber hues…

Photos taken during voyages 519 and 546 on STS Spirit of New Zealand, March/April 2008/2009.

For several years, the Spirit of Adventure Trust has been working with the Sir Peter Blake Trust to help clean up New Zealand’s coastlines. We put our forty trainees ashore on a remote beach, and spend a couple of hours collecting and cataloguing any rubbish found. This data is sent back to the organisers who collate it all, and a break down is available on-line. Voyage 546 was a bit different. On the 3rd and 4th of April, a new group called Sustainable Coastlines had organised a huge clean up of Great Barrier Island. As the Spirit of New Zealand was in the vicinity anyway, we were invited to take part. School children and adults were shipped in to Tryphena harbour from all around Auckland, fishing boats played their part collecting the rubbish and taking it away. We were asked if we could handle Katherine bay, and said ‘sure’.

Thus began the largest beach clean I have ever been involved in. Katherine Bay comprises more than 20 nautical miles of shoreline, and our 40 trainees and ten crew trawled through a sizeable portion of it throughout the day. Among other things we collected were a massive motorway traffic barrier and half an aluminium boat, along with the more usual piles of plastic, glass and metal fragments. Broken buoys and huge piles of netting from mussel farms were also in large number, posing a huge danger to the fragile marine eco-system.

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New Zealand prides itself on its clean, green, natural reputation. It is quite shocking to consider the reality – that one virtually uninhabited island off the coast has so much rubbish, the majority obviously carried there by the currents from Auckland. Unfortunately, by the time I got back to the SoNZ, most of the rubbish had been collected by another boat, but I am trying to get access to some photos that others in the crew took. I will post them here when I do. Sam Judd has also promised to put more information on their website, and I’ll update this with links if they do.