Questions from lark_ascending

[ewx]

1. Black denim is suddenly discovered to be funding George W Bush. What do you wear instead?

It'd have to be a choice between blue denim and some alternative black fabric. I'd lean towards the former on practical grounds, I think - something relatively thick and strong is desirable for cycling given winter and the occasional fall.

2. Would you ever consider psychotherapy just for the hell of it?

It doesn't seem very likely...

3. How much do you think the modern world has learnt from Graeco-Roman history?

We've certainly learned what some of the questions are concerning how to run societies and how societies should interact with one another. Is might everything, as Thucydides had his Athenians argue, or is there a role for right even between the unequal? Within most western societies I think we have tipped things pretty decisively in the direction of law but in international relations things don't look so good: we have a notion of international law but the powerful all too often ignore it when they are inconvenient; legislatures have a habit of setting it second to domestic considerations; and in too many cases it signally fails to serve the weak.

4. Pick one film you think should be remade and tell us why and how.

Hardware is about fifteen years old now, and the fears that it reflects have changed. A remake wouldn't be set post-apocalypse, but in some economically devastated city, its younger sons fighting questionable wars overseas, with the rest of the population - those unwilling or unable to leave for some reason - making a living through what little work they could find, unreliable welfare, and poking through acres of abandoned factories (which would be where someone finds the Mark 13).

5. What's the best book you've read in the last year?

The Decline And Fall would win in the non-fiction section, though I was reading it more than 12 months ago, so I'm not sure if that counts. An interesting and, despite its bulk and age, highly readable account of a subject I was fascinated by in the first place. Today it is a historical document itself, as well as a history, which adds to the interest;

Of fiction, the book that stands out most is Alfred Bester's Tiger Tiger (aka The Stars My Destination). The unsympathetic nature of its vengeful protagonist is matched only by the hand life deals him, and that only barely, but he remains an interesting character. It's not without flaws, some of them perhaps more glaring today than half a century ago, but still, I don't think I'm alone in recognizing it as a classic of its kind.

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Please ask me some questions (bearing in mind that I probably won't be able to answer them until Thursday evening at the earliest).