"...don't ever tell anybody anything..."

The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get whenever I hear JD Salinger described as a "recluse". I just don't get it at all. A brief definition of a recluse, as filched from Wikipedia is;

"A recluse is someone in isolation who hides away from the attention of the public, a person who lives in solitude, i.e. seclusion from intercourse with the world."

Now, it strikes me that this is an entirely incorrect description of Mr Salinger. For one thing, all the while he's been living in New Hampshire, he's regularly seen in his home town doing all the things any ordinary person will do. If you can be bothered, you can search for all sorts of reports of sightings of him by people, be they fans or journalists, on the internet. Photos even. I don't like looking at the photos, so I never do. I remember when they did the top 100 books on the BBC a few years back, they did a segment on The Catcher in the Rye, and in that they showed some video footage of him going about his business. That really made me uncomfortable; it felt like an invasion of his privacy.

At least one of the books about him mentions trips made by him to London. Is that the action of a recluse?

I would suggest that there are plenty of people out there who go about their lives in a manner entirely similar to Mr Salinger; they live private lives, going about their business as they see fit.

The trouble is, that as Mr Salinger is seen as a public figure, by dint of his writing, that means the expectation is that he must, therefore, live his life in public as well. The celebrity culture we have insists that the minutiae of every celebrities life should be part of the whole parcel of that person; that we have a right to know. Know, there are certainly celebrities who cherish a lifestyle like that, going to the extent that they have cameras following them essentially filming their life story. Unfortunately, it does appear that the people who tend to want the most exposure are those who deserve it the least.

We have no right to know the details of any other person's life, unless they choose to tell us. Another person has no compulsion to give interviews, appear at showbiz parties, or do anything they don't want to do; and we have no right to demand it of them. Yes, we'd all love to see more writing from him; but we have no right to demand it of him. It is his choice, and we should respect it. Everyone has the right to a private life, and all Mr Salinger is doing is exercising that right.

He is a private individual; he is not a recluse.

Run 1

Saturday September 19th 2009.

Today I ran for the first time in over twenty years. When I say run I really mean run. That is, proper running. Not the sort of running you do when you realise your train's leaving in 42 seconds and you sprint to the platform to get it. I mean, proper running. Running for the fun of it.

"Ah," said Arthur, "this must be some strange usage of the word fun I wasn't previously aware of..."

There is, of course, a reason behind me running. Last Monday I put in an entry for the 2010 Reading Half Marathon, to be held March 21st 2010. That's 13.1 miles. For someone who hasn't ran in over twenty years (the last time being during PE lessons in the 80s; but more on these another time) that's one heck of leap.

So why did I do it?

To answer this question, we have to go back to the 2009 Reading Half Marathon. There we were, me and my daughter Maddie, stood watching the race go by. Part of the course goes just round the corner from where we live, so we went to have a look and to cheer people on, and to see if we could see a few of my work colleagues who were running. They they were, all manner of people running by. We were cheering them on. Maddie was especially cheering on anyone in pink or yellow (or even better; both) as they're her favourite colours. It was great.

Then, she looks up at me. And in the way that only small four year old children can do, she asks;

"Why aren't you in the race, daddy...?"

And I was stumped. I just could not think of a good reason why I didn't enter. So, I promised her I would enter the race the next year. I was half thinking that she might forget about this, and the idea could be quickly dropped. For anyone else thinking along these lines, I offer this piece of advice;

Never underestimate a child's ability to remember things you want them to forget.

So. She mentioned it again. And again. And again. There was no way out of it.

Unless, of course, I couldn't actually get a place in the race when the entries came out. After all, the London Marathon apparently fills its places within about 108 picoseconds of the entry list opening.

But, no. I got the email, and submitted an entry. And got back an email that said "Your entry into the Reading Half Marathon has been successful."

There's no way out now.

So, today, I went for my first run.

I had a route planned out. It was quite a short one, really, two miles. Round the block, more or less. I should have been able to do it quite easily, I thought. But, no. I start off well, going at a decent pace. It's not too bad at all. I can do this, I think. But then I get to about half a mile and already the old lungs are starting to feel a bit tight. I slow down a bit, but it's not enough, so slow to a walk. I walk a bit, then run a bit more, but realise that I'm really not going to do the whole course, so I cut off the end of it. Just over a mile and I start to regroup a little. Get a bit of a second wind, and start to think that I could have done the whole course. By the time I'm home, I'm feeling tired, but essentially quite good. The whole run was about 1.5 miles, over 16 minutes.

For a first run, it's not that bad at all. Not really. I could have had an asthma attack and died, I guess. One thing I think I do have to gauge is the difference between when the ol' asthma is affecting me, and when I'm out of breath due to the exercise. That will come with time.

Also, no music today; apparently listening to music whilst running can help give you that extra oomph. Maybe next time.

Anyhow, I'll end with the stats;

Run 1

Distance; 1.47 miles

Time taken; 16:07 mins

Average speed; 5.5 mph

Average heart rate; 152 bpm

Culmulative distance ran; 1.47 miles.

Culmulative time running; 16:07 mins

"...I sometimes feel I'm sweeping the nation..."

Just looking at this blog, I realise I've not updated in almost two months. I managed to go the whole of July without typing a word. I mean, it's not like the time since June 10th has been uneventful; it's been packed. New baby. New job. New Dr Who costume. Teasers for the last Season of Lost. It's not like I've had nothing to write about. Odd.

Other things I've not written include any kind of fiction. I keep on trying to start, but end up failing. I seem to be as productive as Douglas Adams (early 80s on) only I don't have a publisher to lock me in a hotel room and refuse to let me out until I've written something. I'm not even sure that would work. It's not like I don't have ideas. I do. But it's the whole process of taking those ideas, those vague character notions, the stories (I hesitate to use the word "plot"), and weaving it all together in to at something at least bearing a slight passing resemblance to a coherent whole.

Now, reading back through this blog post; it's not that bad. I'm churning it out at a fair old pace, it's largely (typos, and the odd change of word) unaltered. It's not like I've been moving around sentences, changing paragraph structure, or indeed really doing much more than just typing the first thing to come in to my head. But it's working. Well, in as much as this is just meant to be a throwaway blog post that'll be the electronic equivalent of chip-paper tomorrow. Heck, with the speed the web moves it'll probably achieve that status in an hour or so.

So, why, when I have a screen in front of me in which to type fiction, do I freeze? Unable to commit to putting a word down in front of me. Even though, pinned to the top of the monitor is a quote from Paul Cornell reading;

"Don't agonise about what you're going to write. Have an idea. Write it. It will be bad. Then you re-write until it's good."

It's brilliant advice. Concise. Clear. To the point. Yet, I cannot get around to writing anything. From memory, my total finished fiction output since starting to attempt to write things properly amounts to four short stories, and really only one of them is any good. 25%. Not a bad hit rate, really. Oh, there's loads of fragments, starts of things, things that go nowhere. Some of these fragments are even quite good. But, rightly, no-one cares for fragments; they care for the whole. 

I really, really, must get on with at least one of the ideas. So, I've been listing them in my notebook (that's olde worlde pen and paper notebook; not a 'puter), in the hope that something will spark off. Other ideas, and notions. I'll get there in the end. Sooner, or later. 

Probably later...

"...I have in my hand a piece of paper..."

It's not very often I talk about important topics on this blog; by important, I mean those things that can have a profound effect on people's lives. The Salinger post was rather important, but this one even more so.

Recently, the MP expenses scandal has been the main political story, overshadowing everything else. But, really, this pales in to insignificance when compared with what happened with the European elections last week. 

The BNP won two of the 72 seats in the UK. 

Their leader, Nick Griffin is now in a proper position of power and inlfuence. 

Frankly, given the choice between an expenses fiddling, home-flipping, duck house owning, mortgage free (yet claiming mortgage payments) chancer of an MP or Nick Griffin I'd take the former any day of the week. 

It is truly a sad day for this country that he, and his colleague, were elected to this  proper position of power and inlfuence. But, at the end of the day, as much as we may loathe and hate this, he was elected fairly and squarely and therefore must take up his position in Brussells. 

There are a number of issues at heart here. How on earth did he obtain enough votes to get in to office? The expenses scandal will have played the main part in this, with the Labour party especially suffering. I've heard people they expected the Tories to fiddle their expenses, but expected better from Labour. This rejection of the Labour party (the only party to lose seats) saw UKIP take joint second place with them (13 seats a piece). 

But, as I said before, Griffin has his seat fairly and squarely as a properly elected MEP. The question is what to do about it. I say this is what we do about it;

nothing

We just ignore him. 

Take his press conference in London yesterday. He turned up with his heavies, started making his speech, and in no time at all the protesters arrived and interupted him. He scuttled away, making a hasty exit. Then he was on BBC news decrying that his democratic right to free speech was curtailed by this mob (which, if you believe him - I don't - was organised by the Labour Party). The whole exercise appears to be a big piece of PR puff engineered to allow Griffin to appear as a poor suppressed individual, silenced by the mob. I swear, if you look at the footage on the BBC site of the incident, as the protesters arrive that he smiles a little smile, knowing that things will go as he always intended them to.

Now, imagine the following scenario;

Griffin arrives at the conference and is allowed to make his speech. But there are no protesters. Just one single TV camera, waiting for that moment when the mask slips and the real Griffin shines through. Other than that it's just him and his cronies. He's just stood there preaching to the converted, the handful of his supporters there and his heavies. It doesn't get reported as no-one cares. It passes without a thought.

But... that one camera. Sooner or later he'll slip up and the mask will slip off. Allowed to talk freely, sooner or later he'll give himself enough rope to hang himself. It'll happen. 

Every time he is spoken about gives him publicity. Even this blog post is giving him publicity. And I hate the thought of that. The fact that this individual is even in my thoughts saddens me. The thought that he will be one of this country's representatives in the European Parliament is saddening. But the worst thought of all is that people voted for him in large enough numbers to get him, fairly and squarely, elected to office. 

This is the fist post I have made about him. Wit luck, it will be the last.

"...if you really want to hear about it..."

Okay. Some people have crazy ideas. It happens. But there can be fewer crazier ideas than that of a certain "JD California" (not his real name!). His bright idea was to write a sequel to The Catcher in the Rye...

Now, call me Picky McPicky, the Pickiest Person in Pickyland, winner of the Gold Medal in the Olympics for Pickiness, but if I were ever to be interested in reading a Catcher in the Rye sequel, really, there's only one person I'd want to have written it, and that's JD Salinger. The characters contained within the book are his to do as he pleases. No-one else. 

So, this "JD California's" sequel, entitled "60 Years Later; Coming Through the Rye" again sees Holden Caulfield on the run, only this time it's not from his school. It's from his retirement home, where the setpugenarian Caulfield lives. And there also appears to me some element of meta-fiction in the book, as Salinger appears as a character within it, deciding whether or not to revive Holden's story. Hmm.

The question you have to ask about this book is a very simple, brief one; why? I mean, what is the point of it? Just because he got a publisher for it, what's really the difference between this book and any number of fan fiction Caulfield stories? None at all. As mentioned previously, there's only one person I'd be interested in seeing a Catcher sequel from...

It would appear that I'm in good company in not liking the idea of this book. A certain JD Salinger dislikes the idea also, and has taken legal steps to prevent its publication. I hope he wins. This chancer is standing on the shoulder of a giant; he knows there will be a certain number of people who will buy the book out of sheer curiousity as to what happened to Holden next. But whatever suggestions he posits on the book are irrelevant, and are no more important than my ideas, or your ideas, or anyone else but Salinger's. 

There is talk that Salinger may not be able to block the publication of the book, citing the case of the unauthorised sequel to Gone With the Wind which had a similar lawsuit taken out to prevent its publication by Margaret Mitchell's estate. This lawsuit failed, and the book was published (though, the estate got a cut of royalties). It strikes me that the main difference here is that Salinger is still alive, and therefore could argue that the publication of an unauthorised sequel could harm the market for any sequel he might desire to write. Though, of course, chances of such a sequel are slim.

However, surely the most salient point is that Holden Caulfield is Salinger's character; he owns the copyright in him (and indeed on all of the characters within the book). For someone to be allowed to take characters which belong to someone else, and exploit them in a way that their creator does not intend is clearly wrong. Now, as mentioned earlier fan fiction does exist; but this is small potatoes in comparison. Fan fiction is shared freely between fan communities, and no attempt is made to gain financially. It's a very niche section of any fandom, as there will always be plenty of fans who do not care for it at all. Indeed, I count myself among their number. The release, however, of a published book takes things to a different, higher, level. 

There are some very real issues at stake at the heart of this lawsuit; that of the right of the creator of a work to be able to control how it is exploited. If Salinger loses this case, this is a fundamental blow to the rights of creators of works of art. 

"...I heart you online..."

This song is a work of genius. Two girls sat on a bed. One singing, the other playing a ukelele... turn up the twee factor to eleven, please. 

I heart it (online) to bits... 

"...I sometimes feel I'm sweeping the nation..."

Oh, mere days after the Lost season finale and I am becoming ever more aware of how a junkie must feel if told he's got to wait something like 8 months for his next fix... 

But what of this blog? Surely it cannot have escaped your keen gaze that the number of entries here with the tag "Lost" is roughly the same as the four next most common tags put together... what will I write about? Never fear, oh faithful reader. (They always say you should address each reader as if they were the only reader; however, just between you and me, you really are the only reader...) There are many more things to write about. 

This is the shape of things to come;

There's that thing starting the next Bank Holiday Monday (that's next week, dude). There's my further plan to start up some kind of new fanzine. Really, this time I'll get it done. There's talk of the novel; which will mostly be me berating myself for lack of output, and the sub-standard quality thereof. And plenty of other TV shows. I'm behind on Dollhouse by four weeks, and behind on Fringe by pretty much the whole season. 

So, there's plenty for me to yak about...

"...it only ends once; anything that happens before that is just progress..."

In my last post, I commented on how Heroes really doesn't know how to do end of season episodes... they could do well to take a few hints from Lost which, conversely, does end of season episodes brilliantly. The Incident, the two part finale to Season 5, does not disappoint. 

Oh, where to begin, though... 

...the beginning. And at long last we get our first, genuine, look at the elusive Jacob. Here he engages in a conversation with another, un-named, chap, who appears to be his rival, and we learn that all the people who come to the island are there because of Jacob. He brings them there. In the specific case at the start of tthe episode, we see a boat - presumably The Black Rock - appraoch the island. In an echo of the Ben/Widmore conversation from season 4, it seems that the other chap - already dubbed MaybEsau on the interweb (Biblical reference...) - can't kill Jacob unless he finds a "loophole"... 

Intriguing is that Jacob is another ageless character (the first being Richard who says "I'm this way because of Jacob") who essentially looks the same in the Black Rock times, as the 70s, and through on in to 2007. He visits (and in each visit touches) various of the castaways. Kate, whilst shoplifting; Sawyer at his parents' funeral; Jack just after the operation on his wife; Sun and Jin at their wedding (the only time this season we see the two characters together); Sayid just before Nadia dies; Hurley, to get him on A316; and most  intriguingly Locke just after his plunge from 8 floors up... he is unconscious to start with, and when he gets Jacob's touch he wakes up. There has been much talk in the past of how someone or something had been manipulating the 815ers in order to get them on the island, and now it seems that we have this person. How exactly all this works... well, that remains to be seen.

Anyhow... as per recent times we have two parallel story thread; 1977 and 2007. 2007 concerns Locke's plan to meet, and get Ben to kill, Jacob. As well as this Ilana and Bram have a mysterious box with something interesting in it. "Terrific" says Frank as he is shown in it... As ever, we're kept waiting for the answer...

... which comes quite quickly. As Ben and Locke enter the room under what's left of the statue, we get probably the biggest shock of the episode. In the box is Locke's corpse. Now, it's a skill that a show can pull the same trick in two consecutive finales and still make it work... and work it does... 'cos if that's Locke in the box, who exactly has been walking around the island since the A316 crash...? We soon learn when Ben and notLocke meet Jacob. He talks of a loophole, and is clearly, somehow, the same person Jacob was talking to in the opening scene of the episode. But, again, how does it work? If we take it there are these two forces on the Island, Jacob and MaybEsau, which is for good and which for evil? And how are they connected? We've seen various other dead people appear on the island - Christian, Yemi, Alex, etc - are they all some manifestation of MaybEsau? When notAlex told Ben to do everything notLocke commanded was this because they were one and the same entity? Is this other entity the smoke monster?

Still, whatever, Ben does exactly as notLocke commands and kills Jacob. Or does he? They make a great play of the stabbing, and how when he's down he's kicked on to the fire, and catches fire. As if to somehow intend to be saying "he's not only merely dead, he's really most sincerely dead". So, I think we'll be seeing Jacob again next season...

Meanwhile in 1977 things are going as expected. Faraday's previous dictum, "whatever happened, happened" is once more evident. Whatever the 815ers do, the Incident will happen, and indeed it does. We get to see how Pierre Chang loses his arm. There's huge wodges of electromagnetism, the bomb is dropped... and doesn't go off. All sorts of metal things go rushing in to the drill pit... including some chains which wrap around Juliet who plunges down to what looks like certain death. There have been some comments that the way how Juliet is pulled down the hole is similar to how Smokey pulled Locke down a hole in Season 1. There's even a school of though that suggests that this incident is what leads to the creation of Smokey, and that Juliet is somehow turned in to it. Still. I think it's a load of baloney... 

And then we get to see Juliet, down in the pit. Still clinging to life. She bashes the bomb with a rock. It goes off and we fade to white. Black text "lost" on a white background. And we scream "NO YOU UTTER SWINES, YOU CANNOT END IT THERE!!!" at the television. This is the mark of a wonderful finale. It built the tension up wonderfully throughout to a - literally - explosive ending. And all the events occurring followed logically on from each other (unlike the Sylar/Nathan thing in Heroes), which makes it ever more satisfying. That we also got to see some key moments in the characters' hirstories - Sawyer starting to write his letter, Jack counting to five to let the fear out for the first time - was the icing on the cake. Just wonderful.

We now have an agonising wait until February next year for the final season. Those last 17 episodes. It's going to be a long wait, and I kind of want to be even more spoiler-phobic about these episodes. I've long since disliked spoilers, but haven't minded teasers, but I think for the final season coming to not even look at casting lists. As soon as they announce the regulars for the next season, and early guest casts it'll be obvious if Jacob, or Juliet, are actually dead or not. And, really, I don't want to accidentally find out the final ending before I see it on the telly. I may, for the duration of Season 6, go to almost complete internet exile. We'll see.

Still, if the accuracy of some of the "spoilers" for this finale are anything to go by, it won't matter as they'll pretty much all be baloney. Such as:

• Sawyer sacrificing himself for the greater good at some point during the incident. (Can you imagine the outrage if ol' shirtless were killed off and not be in Season 6?)
• A scene some time in the future whereby we see Aaron and Ji Yeon in their twenties getting married. (Which actually turned out to be a flachback to Sun & Jin's wedding...)
• An aged Jin, 30 years older, emerging from beneath the statue and being reunited with Sun. (Total tottenham...!!!)

I could list more, but... 

Still, it's going to be very interesting to see where they go from here. It's very hard to see what's going to happen next. According to Damon Lindelof, once you've seen the season 5 finale and the season 6 opener you will have enough information to hypothesise how the show will end. This is again another reason why I'm kind of wanting to avoid, at least Lost places on, the internet in the approach to Season 6. 'Cos someone will work it out, and whilst it will be mere speculation, I just don't want to know it. I want to work things out myself. Maybe the only Lost place I'll go is Lostpedia as they are very good about ensuring spoilers are not shown. We'll see. 

So, 17 to go. The last season. Let's just hope it doesn't go all Babylon 5...

As a coda to this post; one of the finest moments in the whole episode is the Rose & Bernard scene. The world and his lobster has wanted to see them again since they were last seen just before the time jumps started. It's a truly touching moment; the pair of them are clearly at peace with themselves, and are living a great life on the island. "We just care about being together; that's all that matters in the end" Bernard says. They're clearly unbothered by the hostiles; I can't imagine they do not know they are there. Maybe the hostiles realised that the pair of them want to live in harmony with the island, not exploit it, and are happy to leave them alone. It only ever appears to be those who wish to harm, or exploit, the island that the hostiles are... er... hostile to. The way the scene is played, I can't help but think this may be the last time we see the pair of them.