Alasdair Watson

Coming back from Tenebrae, ranting aout the state of my love life at Marysia. See it’s been bothering me lately, because people have developed a distressing tendency to ask me if I’m seeing anyone, and when I say that I’m not, they say something like “Oh, never mind, I’m sure you’ll meet a nice girl soon.” to which I am always tempted to reply one of three things:

• “Actually, I like to fuck men.” (Untrue, but it’d be worth it to watch some of their reactions.)
• “Why would I want a nice girl?” (Substantially more true, almost as much shock value for some of them.)
• “Piss off, you interfering old bat. I like being single, and your notion that somehow being in a relationship would in some way validate me as human being is as offensive as it is antiquated.” (A bit of a mouthful, really, but accurate.)

I mean, yes, a love life that could be described as something other than “non-existant” would be an interesting and not unwelcome change of pace, but I’ve got used to being single, and I like it. And I get irked when people seem to think that I must be in some way incomplete because I’m single…

It’s been a good day today. The sun has been shining down from a beautiful blue sky. At lunch, I sat in the beer garden of a pub, drank an ice cold lime and soda, and enjoyed the summer. I took a walk in a park this afternoon, and strolled underneath trees, before visiting my family for dinner. As the sun set, and the sky turned an amazing red, shot though with silver clouds, I hopped on a train to see some good friends I haven’t seen in months, visiting from the states.We sat about and laughed and drank gin and tonic and ate great food and we had a wonderful time. It’s been a really good day.

I was laid off this afternoon.

Just read e-mail from Warren Ellis, telling the world that he’s just finished writing TRANSMETROPOLITAN. The final issue is three months away. This means, allowing for two specials and a skip month, that I started reading TRANSMET five years ago this month, in the middle of an Edinburgh summer that was never going to end. It really and genuinely does seem like yesterday. I remember reading that first issue, sitting in the sun with my girlfriend, on the steps down to our basement flat, passing a cigarette back and forth between us. I remember laughing out loud at the opening sequence, and grinning with recognition at the closing page.

And I think about the time that has passed between then and now, and I smile. That comic has been part of my life for half a decade, and while I’m not going to miss it, because it’s a story, and I’ll have it on my shelf for a long while to come. But still – five years, I’ve been buying the book. It’s going to be a little odd, never buying a new issue again.

What’s been with you for the last five years?

Suddenly, I’m homesick for Edinburgh. It feels like someone has just punched me in the gut. I’d got past this. I know I had. I turned down the chance to go back to Edinburgh over a year ago. I opted to play out my hand in London, and OK, so I spent six months in a weird kind of mental hell as a result, but I got through it. London’s my home, now. But then I hit Hugh‘s Livejournal, and then on to the friends page, where I find Lisa and Paul and Sally and I hear them talking about friends I haven’t seen in ages, and places I love to go, and bars I like to drink in, and a whole social scene I used to be a part of and now am not, and god, I want to go back. Or I want them to come to London. Or something.

For the first time since I got engaged, I am wearing a knotwork silver ring on my right little finger. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a momentous thing in the way it sounds – I mean, it’s been three years, now. No big thing, there. But it’s a habit I’d fallen out of, having given away a ring that really meant something to me. (And if I’d been wearing the head I am now, back then, I’d have known the whole affair was doomed when that guy’s backpack destroyed the ring, on the bus…)

This ring is not the one I’m going to wear on a permanent basis, it’s a stopgap. This is a piece of 4 quid tat that fits well enough. When I have the spare cash, I’ll pop along to a jewellers. But it’s got me thinking about habits, and the way we fall into and out of them. Patterns, and how we break them. The need for stability and order. But more importantly, then need to stop and reassess every so often, and the number of things we think are important or significant when they’re only really patterns of thought and unquestioned habit.

Another thought: what is social conditioning, but unquestioned habit? What is the desire to conform, be “normal” but unquestioned habit?

Yeah, it sounds a bit teenage, I know. But I’m not talking about just being different for the sake of it, or breaking a thought pattern so I can sneer at the “herd” and declare myself “better” than them. I know that social conditioning has value and that conformity isn’t a bad thing. But still, it makes me wonder about how may of my habits and thought patterns are useless – what should I jetison? Which leads me on to another point, which I’ll try and get back to later…

Having resolved to get more work done, I started thinking about the ideas I wanted to crank up. A chance remark by Marysia has kicked by brain into high gear on the Dee thing, and I’m looking into 16th century piracy and putting together some thoughts about Raleigh. The whole idea of a fictional Elizabethean England, one foot in history and the other in mad fable and Hollywood action really appeals to me, so I’m just going to keep playing there until I get bored…

Mind you, the Dee thing is now much bigger than I had planned. Might take a while to just get the note-making done…

Why I’ve been in such an odd mood for the last couple of weeks, that is. I was catching up with Hugh, when I made the blindingly obvious observation that I have nothing on the horizon – no big projects, no social events, nothing. I have no plans, and nothing I have to get done with any urgency (or indeed, at all) between now and ooh, Christmas. And I really don’t know what to do with myself. So I think it’s time to really sit down and force myself to work, for the next wee while…

Post Office To Steam Open Your History File [from stand.org.uk]

One of the more extreme powers the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) handed out two years ago let government agencies obtain “traffic data” without a judicial warrant.

Traffic data is best described as the writing on the envelope of a message, instead of its contents. It can be the list of phone numbers you have called in the last six months. Or a full list of Websites you have visited. Or the times you log on, and from where. Or who you e-mail, or what programs you’ve downloaded, or what newsgroups you read. Or the position of your cellphone last Tuesday at five.

Because the risk of abuse of this power (there’s no judicial oversight – all that’s needed is the permission of a suitably high-powered boss), those who could wield it were strictly limited. Only the police, Customs and Excise and the secret services were allowed access to traffic data in the original act.

Not any more.

On Friday, the Home Office petitioned parliament to add a vast array of organisations to that list. If their passes, everyone from the DTI, any local authority, the Food Standards Agency, the Home Office themselves (of course), and staggeringly enough, Consignia. The final entry in the list says that “A Universal Service Provider within the meaning of the Postal Services Act 2000” has the same power as the secret services to read your traffic data. There’s only one USP in Britain right now, and that’s the provider previously known as the Royal Mail.

If the idea that the fricking Post Office has access to your web logs (access which would cost a competitive company millions, and would probably get them investigated by the Data Protection people), let alone every minor apparatchik on the block, you might want to kick up a fuss about this. It’s due to appear before MPs on June 18th, and the Lords a little after.

How do I find out more?

Read the Order before Parliament. It’s very short (although the list of allowed organisations is very long – two minutes should do it).

Flick through our quick notes on the original RIPA law. (The notes are based on an earlier draft, so the section numbers are a bit off. But you get the idea.)

What can I do?

Fax your MP now. The Order is to be debated next Tuesday, and these things are usually rubber-stamped. Tell your MP which groups you don’t want to be spied on by (list them all), and tell him why. Explain what traffic data means (your MP might not now how wide-ranging it is). Explain it in terms he or she can understand – if they’re a Conservative, explain how it’s government prying into people’s lives. If they’re Labour, talk about civil rights. If they’re Liberal, say what you like – the LibDems are usually down with this sort of nonsense. Ask for a reply.

It’ll take twenty minutes of your time. It’ll make a difference. Members of Parliament hate having this sort of wide-ranging power sneaked past them as much as you do. If you’re feeling a bit lazy today, you could forward this message to one of your more overactive friends. And then write your letter tomorrow.

Experts

If you’re a journalist, or want to write a detailed piece for others, you can contact Ian Brown (+44 7970 164526) at The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR). As ever, they were the ones to spot this piece of nastiness first. And if you’re feeling flush, for £25 you can join the Friends of FIPR which will get you advance alerts and a warm feeling about these issues.

Had a bad day today. The football really fucked me off, and one thing got on top of another to just push my stress levels up and up. So I’m home after a session at the gym, working, with Shane MacGowan on the stereo, and candles lit. Add a good whiskey and a handful of chocolate covered coffee beans, and the world seems a much better place.

Giving me chocolate covered coffee beans is a great way to get me to love you forever, incidentally. I adore them, but for some reason, I almost never think to buy them myself.

I don’t recall if I’ve mentioned this here before, but you need to go here, and read Richard Kadrey’s Viper Wire stories. The ultra-short prose form has always fascinated me (mostly because it’s the only sort of prose I stand any chance of making work), and Kadrey’s a genius at it. These stores are hugely immaginative, massively varied, and very rich indeed. They’re exactly what SF should be – hard and fast and clever. If there was any justice, I’d be buying these in some kind of lavishly illustrated hardback on glossy stock, and Richard Kadrey would be sucking the money from the pockets of the wealthy all over the world.

It’s work like this that makes me want to write. Every time I read one of his shorts, I think “I wish I’d thought of that”. Marvellous stuff. Go.