Matt Norman
News and comment from my world...
- More Moondust
Way back in the day, a year or so after I read the Hitch Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, and was instantly hooked on science fiction, some one, probably called ‘David Hartley*’ introduced me to ‘A Fall Of Moondust’ by Arthur C Clarke. If I recall correctly, I first heard this story as a BBC dramatisation recorded from the radio onto cassette tape. As the dramatisation was abridged, I probably - the exact details escape me - read the book shortly after. It was one of those books that gelled with me - and I listened to the tape until it wore out.
So a couple of years ago, in what was maybe the beginning of my mid life crisis, I decided to read the book again. I bought the book, and, because I seem to have lost the ability to read words on paper, it has sat on my shelf ever since. Around the same time I used the internet to search for the BBC dramatisation. This search was rewarded by failure **.
My prime source of recreational ‘reading’ material now is audible - I use the hour or so I get travelling to work and back each day listening many different types of spoken word on the ipod - but even audible let me down. I sadly filled in the request form on their website for a version of a fall of Moondust, but never was dignified with a reply. I have filled in that form four times now.
But a month ago, just before I filled the form in again, I discovered to my delight that they now had a recording of the book is now available. Not my beloved BBC version - but a full unabridged reading. I bought it straight away, and then realised that it was an Audible Frontiers recording - which means if I understand correctly, they commissioned and recorded the reading themselves.
I never did get an email from them about it - I never had a reply - or even a ‘this is now available’ mailshot. But I hope in my own little way I had a part in getting this version of the audio book released.
I’ve just recorded a short review of this book for Scifidig. If you have any comments please leave a message here or on the scifidig forums.
* David, a baker from Leeds who loved 2001, if you are reading this please get in touch.
** of course now you can just buy it on Amazon..
02 Feb 10 Add comment | Permanent Link
- Goodbye Borders
This morning the BBC announced that Borders the bookshop was closing down. This made me sad. Since I moved from Birmingham I have missed the huge bookshops that I had grown up going to. I first went to Borders in Inverness, and was astounded at the size of it. It had a coffee shop, a decent scifi selection, and loads of magazines. One day I found out that Borders was coming to my town, and now I go into the shop at least once every two weeks.
I’ve spent many an hour in Borders’ Starbucks, whiling away the hours with a Caramel Macciato, reading a magazine or a book from the shop.
But I’m not surprised its closed down. I got to thinking - when was the last time I bought a book from Borders? A coffee - yes. A pen - yes. A photo album from Paperchase - yes. But a book? Erm. I remember the last book I bought. I found an interesting book on Sharepoint that I needed for work. I flicked through the book. Liked what I saw. But then what did I do? I took a picture of the ISBN on my phone camera and PUT THE BOOK BACK ON THE SHELF, went back to work and bought it from Amazon.
Conventional bookshops are wonderful places. Places to meet, to waste time, to browse. But are they places to buy books anymore? I’m sorry Borders, I love your shop - I love being in there - But I’m sorry that I haven’t bought from you. I hope all bookshops don’t go the same way. But I’ll wager all but second hand and specialist bookshops will one day disappear from our streets.
Look at them all. A huge sale. No place to park. Stuffed full of customers. Why could we not have bought from them all along? Why are we here now? Its ironic that they are going to get their best trading times in the few days before they close for good.
30 Nov 09 Add comment | Permanent Link
- MOONDUST
Just finished listening to MOONDUST: In search of the men who fell to earth. This was a fascinating account of, well not just the Apollo programme and landings, but of the author, Andrew Smith’s personal attempt to meet and talk to all of the people who have walked on the moon.
I was quite amazed at how long ago this happened, and that the first landing was when I was about 10 months old. When I asked my mother if we had watched it, she said my dad probably did, but she didn’t. Was I there? Did I see the ‘LIVE FROM MOON’ flashing ZX81 style graphics overlaid on the screen while my father was excitedly watching, along with most of the rest of the world? I’m sad I missed it - if I did - I’m sad I will never know about what happened then, where I was, if I was by a turned on TV. But I feel it did happen. Men went there.
But what of it? I remember when I was growing up I always heard people say ‘If they can put a man on the moon they can [insert some kind of unfixable social problem here].’ But did they? No. No government can truly fix the worlds problems.
I haven’t heard people talk about men on the moon for a while that way. And It’s not surprising that now, people doubt they ever went there. I think they did, but wish they had carried on going. The book says that China was trying to get to the moon again. I’m not sure when this was planned, or if they still are, but would love to see full HD images beamed back from the surface and to watch it live with my kids. Of course now we DO have the technology to do a realistic hoax, but also probably have the technology to detect it as well.
I’m not going anywhere with this post. The book was interesting and really gave me a thirst for finding out more about Apollo than the standard Discovery channel programmes and the Right Stuff and Ron Howard’s Apollo 13. I’m going to try and find if any of the 12 men who did walk on the moon, of which only 9 are still alive, have any biographies available on audiobooks. I may write again about them if I find any.
Image from NASA archives from wiki which states it is public domain. Used without permission but assumed ok.
06 Sep 09 Add comment | Permanent Link
- The right tools for the right job.
I cycle to work. I love doing it - I’m in so much of a better mood by the time I get there. I’ve got a winter and a summer bike as well which I got using my company’s ride to work scheme. My summer bike has a problem though, in that I keep on breaking a spoke on the back wheel. Now I it probably does a lot of work, it has my heavy weight on it (the cycling isn’t making me loose weight - but at least its stopping me putting it on) and my panniers and all of the rubbish I take to work with me each day.
So each time I blow a spoke, it costs me £10.20 to get my bike shop to repair it. Changing a spoke cant be that hard - I’ve had a spoke spanner for the last 20 years - but I’ve never used it. But its the taking off of the cog thingy to remove and add a spoke that’s the problem. Anyway today I did it. So I thought I would write about the experience. Youtube gave me the information that I needed - that there were two types of cog thingy, which I now know are called a freewheel, or a cassette. And you need a couple of special tools - which ebay provided for £16.
So removing the cassette was about the simplest thing I’ve done on my bike, once I had the tool, the whole thing took 15 mins. So no more Mr Bike Shop charges for that repair, as I have 35 more spare spokes on the donor wheel that I am using for spares. So, although I spent £16 to save £10, I should be quids in the next time a spoke breaks. But what’s the betting that I now have no more spokes break ever…
Update 29th June 2009: Just fixed two broken spokes.
05 Jun 09 Add comment | Permanent Link
- Posterity
The last couple of days I have felt like writing something. But its so long since I have updated this site that I almost feel embarrassed doing it. I have so many more important things to do now. Things that I have to do and things that I want to do, as well as responsibilities I have. I used to have the sort of job where I had quite a bit of free time every so often, and yet now I don’t. But the other day I realised that I do have about an hour each week where I usually have my laptop but dont have much else to do. So today I thought I’d write something for the site. Its strange really. Its not that many people will read this, and I probably don’t want them to really. Maybe its just for posterity.. Which is also strange. Maybe one day I will look back at this and see what I was doing when I wrote this. Probably though, if at some point in the future I feel like looking at this, this site, my server, the datacentre and the domain name will probably be long gone..
Its strange how I get the urge to write. I wrote my two books, and years before, as most people do, I started writing a novel. I’ve written a couple of short stories as well. But I don’t really know WHY I suddenly want to write. I was listening to the Mighty Mur on my cycle back from work today. Ok, so the podcast is called 'I should be writing' so I shouldn’t really be surprised that it made me want to write. It wasn’t that that was strange though, it was that lots and lots of ideas about WHAT to write were flooding into my head while I was listening. And one of those ideas, of which I have committed several to paper now, was about posterity and how I viewed it. Do I want to remember now? Or in the future, will I have so many better things to do with the time I’m given?
16 Jan 09 Add comment | Permanent Link