My new office chair arrived today and I spent a little longer than I expected putting it together. As is de rigueur these days, an Allen Key was included, to add to my large collection of Allen Keys from previous bits of flat-pack furniture, but it was a bit redundant when the majority of screws required a Phillips screwdriver. Anyway, it is made and it is stable, and I sat on it to write some fiction this afternoon, the first new words for quite some time. Admittedly not many words, but it’s a start.
After supper I had a look at the first episode of a Russian SF show on Netflix; it looked quite interesting, but unfortunately the dubbing into English was poor and I’m not sure if I can put up with any more of it. Shallow, I know.
Over on Twitter, I’ve just muted a writer, whom I like, because they have a new book due out; I’ll unmute them again when the marketing engagement is done. As it happens they have a second account in a different name that never mentions their writing. That one remains unmuted.
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In other news, it looks as though more and more people are recognising the prime minister as a charlatan who is a stranger to the concept of truth, while, at the same time, his lead in the polls increases. Something has to give. The same, by the way, is true here in Scotland: the first minister and the Nats are increasingly telling porkies and floundering about economics. Notoriously, they are, or were, taking credit for a Labour policy that the SNP vigorously opposed. Support for Indy is also dropping back, though you wouldn’t know it from London-based commentators.
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Music: annoyingly, mention of our prime minister put me in mind of a song to post here that, it seems, I’ve already posted. How very prescient of younger me. So I went off on another tack and lit upon another tune, to find I had also already posted it. Anyway, here’s Fleetwood Mac: Little Lies
I went for a long walk on the hill behind us earlier, and took a video camera along. My plan was to put together a vlog. The footage was quite disappointing, unfortunately. On the plus side there were appearances by a treecreeper and a buzzard; on the downside there was a lot of wind noise blowing across the microphone so, for the most part, it’s unuseable. I got a nice walk out of it, but it was otherwise a failure.
I came off the hill and went down to the shops for a bottle of wine. That was successful, but the traffic on the main road was nose to tail, creeping along, engines pumping out the pollutants. It was thoroughly horrible. One of the positive things from lockdown was the drop in pollution levels both generally and on that stretch of road. All for nothing.
The air on the hill was clean though, and it, and the gentle exercise, meant that a glass of wine with supper was enough to put me on the edge of catatonia.
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I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I’ve been trying to plot some writing. After a couple of days staring at a blank screen, I think I cracked it last night. I still have to put it all together, but I can see my way through it, I think.
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I’ve commented here on one or two Marvel/Disney productions that I’ve enjoyed watching. There are some upcoming things I’m sure I’d enjoy too. However. Long-term readers of SF will know the name Alan Dean Foster. He wrote a number of novels under his own name, but is best known for official novelisations of, for example, Star Wars and Aliens. Disney’s many acquisitions means it has acquired the rights to those novelisations, but also adopted the novel position that, although it acquired the assets, it didn’t acquire the liabilities–such as paying Foster royalties. I missed this when it first became public. Foster posted a copy of the letter he wrote to Disney on his blog. It read:
Dear Mickey;
We have a lot in common, you and I. We share a birthday: November 18. My dad’s nickname was Mickey. There’s more. When you purchased Lucasfilm you acquired the rights to some books I wrote. STAR WARS, the novelization of the very first film. SPLINTER OF THE MIND’S EYE, the first sequel novel. You owe me royalties on these books. You stopped paying them.
When you purchased Twentieth-Century Fox, you eventually acquired the rights to other books I had written. The novelizations of ALIEN, ALIENS, and ALIEN 3. You’ve never paid royalties on any of these, or even issued royalty statements for them. All these books are all still very much in print. They still earn money. For you. When one company buys another, they acquire its liabilities as well as its assets. You’re certainly reaping the benefits of the assets. I’d very much like my miniscule (though it’s not small to me) share.
You want me to sign an NDA (Non-disclosure agreement) before even talking. I’ve signed a lot of NDA’s in my 50-year career. Never once did anyone ever ask me to sign one prior to negotiations. For the obvious reason that once you sign, you can no longer talk about the matter at hand. Every one of my representatives in this matter, with many, many decades of experience in such business, echo my bewilderment. You continue to ignore requests from my agents. You continue to ignore queries from SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. You continue to ignore my legal representatives. I know this is what gargantuan corporations often do. Ignore requests and inquiries hoping the petitioner will simply go away. Or possibly die. But I’m still here, and I am still entitled to what you owe me. Including not to be ignored, just because I’m only one lone writer. How many other writers and artists out there are you similarly ignoring?
My wife has serious medical issues and in 2016 I was diagnosed with an aggressive variety of cancer. We could use the money. Not charity: just what I’m owed. I’ve always loved Disney. The films, the parks, growing up with the Disneyland TV show. I don’t think Unca Walt would approve of how you are currently treating me. Maybe someone in the right position just hasn’t received the word, though after all these months of ignored requests and queries that’s hard to countenance. Or as a guy named Bob Iger said…. “The way you do anything is the way you do everything.”
I’m not feeling it.
Alan Dean Foster
It seems that Foster has now reached an agreement with the Mouse, which is good news. However the word on the street is that there are a lot more unpaid writers out there. It will be difficult to justify watching the channel or the movies if the Mouse is stiffing writers.
Time for Harlan Ellison:
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Music: I wasn’t sure about what to put here tonight, but the problem was solved when Lindsay mentioned this song over supper (in the context of the BBC montage after the London Olympics). Lyric by Sandy Denny; music and performance by Thea Gilmore. London
I was out like a light last night, through until about eight this morning. Today has been pretty low key (nothing new there) and it’s hard to point to anything much happening, and certainly not anything bloggable. Some was spent watching a Korean SF drama on Netflix (not bad, but the pacing is decidedly leisurely), thinking about the work in progress, and speaking with a friend about websites and design. All very interesting to me but not, I suspect, to you. Looking back, my entry of one year ago, was similarly a post in search of content.
It occurred to me that last week I said I’d try and do a vlog, It’s a bit late to do anything about it today, but I haven’t forgotten. One of the issues is that it needs to be loosely scripted to avoid rambling, but even loosely scripted often means looking like it is being read, and I want to avoid that. The stuff I filmed last week with the shaky camera work was on my evening walk, and I haven’t done an evening walk for a while.
Anyway, this is one of the things I filmed last week with the camera resting on a solid surface, complete with birdsong. It’s unlisted but should play either here or by clicking through:
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News
Arlene Foster learns the hard way never to trust the Tories, and resigns.
FBI execute search warrant in apartment and offices of Rudi Giuliani (remember him).
Michael Collins, the third man on Apollo 11, has died. RIP
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Music: Los Mustang were formed in Barcelona in the early 1960s, and made a name for themselves playing covers of international hits. Here Merseybeat meets Besosbeat with a cover of Please Please Me
I had a poor night’s sleep last night and I have no idea why. Maybe it was the change in the weather: today has been miserable. As I write this, the clouds are coming in from the east, which is always a suspect proposition.
Today has also been more expensive than expected. The chair at my desk is rickety and likely to fall apart in the very near future, so I wanted to find a new one. Unfortunately, even if places are now opening, stock is low because of manufacturing issues during lockdown combined with the number of people working from home. I wanted to go and try a few chairs but it wasn’t possible so I’ve taken a punt and ordered online, paying a bit more than I thought I would had I been able to get to a shop with stuff in stock.
Not a lot has happened at the desk itself–some revision and an attempt to put some plotting together. Concentrating is a problem when the seat is precarious and I keep falling asleep.
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Meantime, evidence grows that the party of sleaze has been conducting itself in a sleazy manner. I make light of it, but mainly because it is baked into their essence. I dare say sooner or later a straw will break the camel’s back, but my guess is that it’ll be something unexpected that transcends the routine lying.
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Music: Skeeter Davis singing an early Goffin/King song? What’s not to like? Well, the pre-feminist lyric is pretty suspect, but the vocal performance is perfect.
Monday comes around again, with the significant difference that shops are open. I went out this afternoon, ostensibly for some root ginger but also to rediscover the pleasure of browsing the charity shops. I didn’t buy anything, I rarely do, but it was a gentle reintroduction to old habits. Everyone was still masked up too.
I also went into the newly reopened GuitarGuitar. I have two Martin acoustic guitars, and I’ve been toying for a while with trading them both in for a single, higher grade guitar. I wanted to check that, post-lockdown, this aspect of their business was still happening. The trip was nearly divorce-inducing because there was a gorgeous Huss and Dalton acoustic sitting there calling out my name but, at £2,800 second-hand, a tad beyond my price range. Likewise the second-hand Avalon guitar (£2,200). Good to know the market’s moving, though.
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Otherwise I’ve been revising or plotting. Things are coming together, but the pace seems glacial sometimes.
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I’m aware of the latest outrages about things the prime minister probably said. I’m outraged too, but his character, or lack of it, was well known to Tory MPs when they elected him leader, and to the electorate when they gave him an eighty-seat majority. At the time of writing the outrage is in the wrong places: anyone with an ounce of humanity is appalled, but people with an ounce of humanity don’t become Tory MPs.
As someone said on Twitter: Surprised to find long standing mendacious chancer Boris Johnson is a mendacious chancer. If only there had been some sort of sign.
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Music: Avalon guitars are handmade in Northern Ireland by the people who made Louden guitars, most famously used by Richard Thompson.
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