vilakins | Books and cats

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Books and cats

I haven't been posting much lately. I haven't even reviewed the last two Pretender eps I watched a while back, which I'll try to get round to today. I've been feeling rather blah, with nothing much interesting to say about my life. I have a few hours of underpaid work a week which is so crap and boring I don't want to talk about it, and this is very discouraging when I once thought I'd never be out of proper work with my degree and other qualifications. :-(

So I've been taking refuge in the world of books, one of the best escapes I know. I've read the first in the Gentleman Bastard series, The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch and thoroughly enjoyed it, though it was a little slow to start. Great characters and world building, and Lynch does seasons and months on another planet right.

I've just finished Enigma by Robert Harris, another one I really enjoyed: code breaking and skulduggery at Bletchley Park, a fascinating place I visited in 2004. azdak, Turing was only in the book briefly, at King's College with his teddy bear Porgy, then he was off in the US and only mentioned in passing; he certainly wasn't misrepresented. I can hardly remember the film, but the book is definitely worth reading for the atmosphere and conditions at Bletchley. I've decided I wouldn't have wanted to be there with the sexism that relegated brilliant women to clerks while men got to be cryptanalysts.

I've just started The Truth by Terry Pratchett as I felt like something light. After that, it's back to Robert Harris andPompeii, then his other Roman books eventually.

What else? Oh yes, Jasmin went to the eye specialist yesterday for a final check-up (which is why it rained (it always rains when I go there) and she's healed up amazingly well. She and Ashley are getting quite big,and Ashey's a year old in a couple of weeks. They're both very cute and playful and extra cuddly now the weather's getting cooler. Right now all three girls are curled up in their fleecy snugglers in the TV room, and Vic's upstairs on the spare bed. :-)

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It's sad when life has a 'blah' stage. :( I hope things get better soon...

Glad to hear the cats are OK. :)

And for you!

The cats are healthy and happy; they love me being around most days. They run to greet me, meowing with pleasure, when I'm away for a few hours.

Thanks gods for the books! Hopefully it is just such a "bad spell". I believe with your lovely cats around, you will find your sunny days again - no matter how much it rains. *Hugs*

I'd feel better if I didn't feel such an unwanted failure. We define ourselves so much by what we do. :-(

We define ourselves so much by what we do.

But you do so many creative things, as well as providing a loving environment for cats! It's not fair that "what we do" should be limited to paid work. In many lives, that's just what you do so you can afford to do the other things.

Very true! I'd feel better if I earned enough to afford those things without subsidy from Greg.

He does sometimes point out how good I am with cats, and the vet does seem wildly impressed that I can introduce new ones and get them all to live happily together and even love each other. I may not have been very diligent with my click training (sheer laziness) but I do seem to be doing something right. :-)

The trouble with being creative is that it's not so easy when you're feeling crap about things. I should make myself write more of my story each day though instead of just thinking about it.

I'm sorry the work is getting to you, you deserve better.

Aww, curled up cats :0)

It's everything: having to do something I hate, and barely earning enough to pay for the things I want to buy.

The cubs are in this room now. They like being near me which is so sweet.

I read Hodges' review of the Enigma film on his Turing home page, and he says some very flattering things about the book, but intensely dislikes the film (largely because the film not only edits Turing out, but gives some of his key ideas to the young male lead, thereby implying that Turing never existed at all).

If you have the inclination, there's a short play about Turing by Hugh Whitemore called "Breaking the code", which does a terrific job of distilling Hodges' mammoth biography and turning it into drama. If I had a time machine, I'd love to go back to 1987 and see Derek Jacobi as Turing (and also, in the Broadway production a very young Robert Sean Leonard - Wilson from House - as Christopher Morcom, the schoolfriend who was the great love of Turing's life).

The main character in the book, Tom Jericho, is a cryptanalyst who was studying under Turing at King's College and recced to Bletchley by him. He has nothing to do with Turing's ideas about computing machines, being a code-cracker (and a former mathematician). We 'see' Turing briefly in his prewar rooms, messy and with his teddy bear in them, then he's in the US for the rest of the book. Jericho does think about him though, cycling in his gas mask, and when the Americans decide to build Cobra, the four-wheel bombe, which is getting close to Turing's ideas for a fast thinking machine. I was impressed with the book for its depiction of Jericho's life as a cryptanalyst in horrible conditions (cold, cramped, dreadful food) and for Hester Wallace, the woman who helps him, a genius who won a crossword competition and was recruited on the strength of that, only to become a clerk whose bottom is patted by the oily creep of a supervisor while the guys she beat are cryptanalysts. She's still doing her crap job at the end. Harris lists BP workers he interviewed, so I think he got it right, and a few of the characters are real people (one mentioned as gay in passing). I know a couple of the incidents, like the Morse code radio interceptor who rushes out after Jericho and asks if what she does matters, because it;s so boring but it will be all right if it does, really happened.

I remember seeing a TV play about a woman who worked there, I think when I was a teenager. It was the first I'd heard of Bletchley Park and I was fascinated--and upset at how she was treated, very like Hester in fact.

I'd love to see the Turing play! Is it on DVD?

I'd love to see the Turing play! Is it on DVD?

I don't know, but I'd be surprised if it was - the production was in 1987. But I ordered the script from amazon, and it's very readable.

only to become a clerk whose bottom is patted by the oily creep of a supervisor while the guys she beat are cryptanalysts

Turing was briefly engaged to a woman called Joan Clarke, who was a fellow cryptanalyst at Bletchley (Hodges, who has a nice line in dry irony, tells us at the beginning of the Bletchley chapters that once they'd seen the Polish bombe, the government realised they had better get in some "men of the professor type" to work on the Enigma code, and that "Joan Clarke was one of the 'men of the professor type' who was a woman." As with Hester Wallace, the powers that be refused to pay her the same as the men. The Bletchley men, to their credit, spent quite a lot of time trying to get her a commission in the WRNS so she could have a proper salary, but it didn't work out.

The Harris book sounds very good. I think I might get in when I place the next order.

the powers that be refused to pay her the same as the men

Bloody typical, and frankly I'm sure that still happens with salaries here and in the UK being secret. I found the German attitude of everyone knowing what everyone else earns so much more healthy.

There's a thriller plot, but I loved it for the characters and background. I'm looking forward to his Roman books.

They did a television version (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115749/) of Breaking the Code, but it wasn't as good as the stage play. In the original, it was explicit that he committed suicide, and it seemed an entirely logical (and not necessarily tragic) conclusion to all that had gone before. In the TV version, they seemed to be leaning towards his mother's view, viz "He couldn't have done that, so it must have been murder!" Which just felt like "Murder is sexier than suicide, so let's go for that instead!"

Hmm, that's interesting. In the play - as in life - Mrs Turing maintains that it was an accident - that he was always experimenting with dangerous poisons (true) and that he never washed his hands properly (also true). In fact, the very early scene with Christopher Morcom ends with Chris admonishing him to wash his hands. No one seems to have thought it might be murder, which is surprising, because it's very fertile ground for a conspiracy theory.

Thank you for the link, by the way! I've just followed it, and it's evident from the inclusion of a "Young Alan Turing" in the cast that the film is a proper TV movie and follows the conventions of those, rather than being a filmed version of the play (which plays around with space and time, and contains non-naturalistic sequences etc etc).

Yes, I think theatre can be much more creative than television, which tends to lean towards naturalism just because it can.

To be fair, I think his mother does say "accident", but from what I remember (and it's a very long time since I saw either version!) the TV account at the very least is trying to keep all possibilities in play, and I was certainly left with the impression that they were trying to push murder as the solution - because I was so annoyed that they'd abandoned the play in that way.

[I presume it doesn't count as a spoiler to discuss how Turing died...]

[I presume it doesn't count as a spoiler to discuss how Turing died...]

LOL! Historical figures are fair play, surely?

I can understand why the murder theory gets advanced, because it just seems so *plausible*, although there is nothing in the way of evidence to back it up. Then again, short of Turing dying at a time when his life was utterly fucked up, there's no evidence for suicide either. He didn't leave a suicide note, and he hadn't put his affairs in order, and he'd bought tickets for the threatre the following week. So I can quite see why murder is an appealing idea. But as an ending to a play, and as a logical outcome of his situation, and his work, and his ideas, and experiences, suicide makes so much *dramatic* sense, that I share your annoyance with the TV version (without having seen it!). Murder is contingent; but suicide arises from the interaction of character and circumstance.

OK, even if it's flawed, I have to see if I can get hold of the TV play (and Einstein and Eddington). Because, not just Turing, but Jacobi! He's one of my favourite actors.

I was lucky enough to see "Breaking the Code" with Jacobi as Turing, when it came to Guildford (which is near where I live) as part of its "running in" prior to its going on to the London West End. Both the play and Jacobi were brilliant.

I am trying to cope with the intense feelings of jealousy I feel towards you and

kalypso_v :-) Jacobi strikes me as absolutely ideal casting for the part.

Will it make it worse if I say I saw him play Hamlet in the late 1970s? On the stage, I mean, not the BBC Shakespeare.

But yes, Turing is one of the parts Jacobi was born to play. And the line I really remember him delivering is his last one, as he's calmly preparing the apple for his final experiment... which is why I was so annoyed at losing it, of course!

Ugh nothing is worse than the blahs.

Nothing wrong with taking refuge in books though. I often find myself doing the same. I've heard good things about the Robert Harris books. I will have to read them one day.

I'm happy to hear Jasmin is healed. Awww playful kitties are so adorable. My Rascal is almost 14 but in great healt and still quite playful. She's a lot of fun to watch.

I'm impressed with the two Robert Harris books I've read so far.

My parents had two cats who lived to 18. I've found cats stay playful all their lives if given attention. :-)

I love your witty SF, usually ST icons! Awwww, Spot! I got weepy with Data when he found him on the crashed Enterprise.

I like Thomas Harris more than Robert Harris.
Alright, that's a leetle unfair - but I found Archangel a bit boring - and it didn't have Hannibal Lecter in it. Saying that, I thought the book Hannibal was pretty bad, too...

*thinks* I guess I'm hard to please. I just finished the 98 Booker winner, McEwan's Amsterdam, and it just went flop at the end. Have you read any Angela Carter? Now that is something special.

Hope you feel better soon -how nice to have cuddly kitties!

I read the Angela Carter about the Circus, and man, that was so vivid there are scenes I will never forget. The whole book felt heightened and full of saturated colour. I should try more of hers, and also more Mary Gentle.

It is nice having cuddly (though at this age too active to cuddle for long) cubs. (They're cubs because they not fully grown yet but they're too big to be kittens now, and they look like a lion and a white tiger anyway.) I just had to go out and get them in because the lawn guys are here and the noise freaks them out, so now they're charging madly about the house.

Hang in there. *hugs* I'm glad you have cheerup kitties.

Me too! They make me smile, even when they bite my knitting yarn. THey're just adorable.

I'm so glad you got Ashley as a companion for Jasmin. Cat-friends for life. :^)

That was the intention, and it's certainly worked! They're the third companion pair I've had now. I can hear them thundering about upstairs as I type. :-D

*awww* None of my three are particularly friendly. Tara and Tommy were kittens together, but as adults they pretty much ignore each other. I suspect it works better if they're both the same sex.

Possibly! Both cubs love Claudia, who cuddles up with Jasmin and doesn't mind Ashley. Vic however just lives peacefully with them but isn't affectionate. He likes cuddles from us though; they all do.

If I *ever* wind up without a cat and can freely choose without having one miraculously land on my doorstep, I'd try to get two young females.

It even works if they're two years apart, as and Claudia and Tessa were. My first two, Sigi and Petra (two tabbies), were like these ones though; only three months apart. :-)

It's easier if they're young together, though. I've had adult cats who cheerfully accepted new friends, and others who despised the newcomers forever. You can't tell ahead of time.

You can't tell ahead of time.

Quite so! Tabitha and Rosie are from the same litter, have spent all their lives together, and clearly decided some time before they reached me that they'd had quite enough of each other! I've seen photos of them curled up together when they were young, but the best they can manage now is to sit a few feet apart and resist the temptation to swipe at each other. I'm constantly having to intervene, usually because Tabitha's attacking Rosie, but sometimes I catch Rosie getting her retaliation in first.

Whereas my previous sibling-cats, Thomas and Kitty, did curl up together, and I don't think there was any tension except when Kitty overdid her attempts to wash him.

Some cats just plain feel that ONE of me in the territory is quite enough, thank you.

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