More free energy

Well, the steorn machine rolls ever onward. The guys in Mount Street in Dublin are getting a lot of attention for their claims, including items on ABC in the US and now on Fox News. (You can download an interview of Sean McCarthy, CEO of Steorn from here ). It has been featured on news programmes all over the world and in hundreds of newspapers. There is even an official sceptics group now, located at www.steornwatch.com.

The Guardian in the UK published a nice piece last week on this story, including the following:

According to McCarthy and Walshe, the marketing manager, there have been no fewer than eight independent validations of their work conducted by electrical engineers and academics "with multiple PhDs" from world-class universities. But none of them will talk to me, even off the record. I am promised a diagram explaining how the system works, but then Steorn holds it back, saying its lawyers are concerned about intellectual property rights. And that European partner, the one with the moving, almost perpetual, prototypes? It won't talk to me either and Steorn has undertaken not to name it.

"It's the Pons-Fleischmann factor," says McCarthy, and he and Walshe look at each other darkly. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann were the last experts to excite the scientific community with free-energy claims when, in 1989, they reported producing a nuclear-fusion reaction at room temperature - what happens in the sun at millions of degrees centigrade. The subsequent controversy resulted in the scientists being pilloried, even though the scientific community remains divided to this day over claims of "low-energy nuclear reactions".

This is possibly the ultimate wait-and-see. But if it's possible, just imagine a world freed from the shackles of energy consumation costs. Free travel, no pollution, ever lasting watches and mobile phones - there's a lot of neat stuff that could be done. And yet it's impossible. Or is it? Either way, it's certainly entertaining.

Once a fortnight

What’s a fortnight? I got a commission this morning from a newspaper with a deadline of “Monday fortnight”. Eh? Is that a week from Monday, or two weeks from Monday, or a fortnight from next Monday? Exactly what is a fortnight anyway?

Well, according to Wikipedia, that fountain of all human knowledge(!)

A fortnight is a unit of time equal to two weeks: that is 14 days, or literally 14 nights. The term is common in the British Isles and many Commonwealth countries, but rarely used in the United States. It derives from the Old English feowertiene niht, meaning "fourteen nights".

Breakdowns

* 1 fortnight = 2 sennights (or two weeks)
* 1 fortnight = 336 hours
* 1 fortnight = 20,160 minutes
* 1 fortnight = 1,209,600 seconds

So there you go, that's what a fortnight is.

The levee breaks

Typical! You wait all week for a blog entry, and then three come along all at once. Been very busy with work lately, so the blog has taken a backseat to writing that pays. Sadly, even proper writing (The Novel) has had to take a back seat to writing that pays for now.

Normal service will be resumed soon. Meanwhile . . .

Free energy? Only if it's hot air . . .

I’m very busy today, and really shouldn't be blogging, but sometimes I’m easily distracted. This is a story that deserves some attention from this blog – of that there’s no doubt. An Irish company has claimed to have invented a device to create energy.

Hmm. Even I, someone with a frankly feeble education in physics, know that the first law of thermodynamics states that you can neither create or destroy energy, merely change it’s form. This company, Steorn, claims to have built a machine that uses magnets to ‘create’ energy. It put a full page ad in the Economist last week challenging the scientific community to prove their research wrong.

I think it’s a scam. I really do. I can’t say why, but I looked at the website, and I think it’s hooky. Other people agree (read this excellent article by Rupert Goodwins) but if it is a scam (and it is) then it’s scam of applaudable proportions. If you are going to pull off a caper, then by god, make it big. They have created a world audience for this, and will forever more be famous as a result. If it's true, they will have not just rewritten the laws of physics, they'll have changed the world for the better immeasurably and they will be very rich. If it's a scam (and it is) then they are setting themselves up for a big fall. Either way, it's intriguing.

I will eat my hat if anything comes out of this. And the reason? Intuition. I’ve met people and worked with business people who come across very similarly to the executives who are fronting Steorn, and put it this way, many of them are disqualified from holding executive positions in Ireland as a result of fund raising irregularities. I also have enough experience with public relations to know a managed campaign when I see one. The company claims it has reasons for doing things this way, but . . . well, wait and see.

Review: Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?

Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround
By Louis V Gerstner Jr, Harper Collins, stg£20
Reviewed by Alex Meehan, January 5th, 2003, The Sunday Business Post

When Louis Gerstner Jr took over as chief executive of International Business Machines (IBM) in 1993, the company had gone from being a world leader to an out-of-touch dinosaur losing $16 billion a year.

IBM had been speedily bypassed by both Intel and Microsoft and the so-called Wintel PC duopoly was making massive inroads into corporate IT. As a purveyor of clunky, expensive and old-fashioned mainframe computers, IBM was in big trouble when Gerstner accepted the job.

Ten years on, the company is more profitable than ever; IBM's share price has increased by more than 800 per cent, and its market value has grown by $180 billion. In Gerstner's new book, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?, he describes the painful process of reversing IBM's fortunes, and offers his opinions on today's most pressing corporate questions.

Issues such as corporate governance, multi-region enterprise and the importance of diversity in business as well as the place of philanthropy come in for attention.

Interestingly, Gerstner admits that when he agreed to take the helm at IBM he knew next to nothing about technology or the company's products.

His gut feeling was that the firm's problems could be solved by good old-fashioned strong management, and that detailed knowledge of the product was largely irrelevant.

Gerstner believes that good business is good business, no matter what the sector, and in the ten years since he took over at IBM this belief has largely been proved right.

The key challenge facing IBM in the early 1990s was the rise of the desktop PC, and with it the widely held belief that the mainframe was dead. In addition, the company had no clear direction, huge duplication of resources and competing internal divisions that frequently sabotaged each other in an attempt to produce better figures.

Gerstner's first major decision was to reverse his predecessor's strategy of splitting IBM into small companies, each specialising in a particular area. Instead he kept the company together and set about refocusing IBM to compete in the cut-throat IT sector, where concepts such as speed to market and first mover advantage were leaving it behind.

IBM had to concentrate on delivering what its customers needed and on becoming a key player in the emerging fields of technology integration, e-commerce, services and the internet. At the same time, the mainframe issue continued to dog the company.

IBM's mainframes were older, more expensive, less powerful and harder to upgrade than anyone else's.

In order to halt the losses, Gerstner reduced the cost of IBM's mainframes in each of his ten years there, regaining massive market share and restoring confidence in mainframe technology.

But while the internet and e-commerce gave the company the chance to branch out, its business culture was holding it back. As Gerstner points out, companies that achieve success become difficult to change, lose their sense of entrepreneurial spirit and become resistant to new ideas -- and this was certainly the case with Big Blue.

In order to change his employee's outlook, Gerstner altered IBM's compensation plan, basing managers' pay primarily on the overall company performance and not just that of their own division. He also changed the dress code and unified the company's marketing and advertising campaigns.

Crucially, he insisted that senior management sink their own cash into IBM shares in order to link the company's fortunes to their own.

Unlike many of his counterparts in the industry, Gerstner largely eschewed the limelight during his time at IBM. While Microsoft's Bill Gates, Apple's Steve Jobs and Oracle's Larry Ellison give many interviews and have become pseudo-celebrities, Gerstner believed it was better to give no more than three interviews a year, and then only to journalists that met his approval.

He also banned all press releases concerning IBM's internal organisation, insisting that executives should be focused on the customer and not on promoting themselves.

Gerstner's top class corporate credentials -- prior to IBM and Nabisco, he spent 11 years at American Express -- mean that Elephants will appeal strongly to junior and not-so-junior executives hoping to learn titbits of business knowledge that they can put to use in their own offices.

There is much on offer here for the business reader, but it is not easily accessible -- Gerstner reveals in the foreword that he wrote the book without the aid of a ghostwriter, and in places this certainly shows. But while this is first and foremost a business book, it is also intimate, and for that reason presents an interesting insight into the mind of one of the United States' top chief executives.

There is a light that never goes out

What do you say about Steven Patrick Morrisey? Well, he’s never boring, for a start. I went to see him play last night at an outdoor concert in Marlay Park in Dublin, and he put on an excellent show, if a little short. As a performer, he’s really going strong – although perhaps he should stop taking his shirt off quite so regularly. The last time I saw him he played a tiny gig for around 2000 people at Dublin Castle, and that was only two or three years ago, but he’s aged quite visibly since then, including adding a few pounds to his waist.

I don’t really care about that – I don’t expect my entertainers to look like Britney Spears, I expect them be talented songwriters and singers – but even so, I could do without watching a 47 year old man taking his shirt off, which he did five times before throwing them into the crowd. They looked like quite good shirts as well.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Morrissey’s voice is getting richer and more versatile as he ages, with the result that he’s sounding better and better in concert.

The material he played at the gig tonight was drawn overwhelmingly from his last two albums, Ringleader of the Tormentors and You are the Quarry, along with classic Smiths tracks – he opened with Panic and closed with How soon is now?

Morrissey is a guy who inspires a lot of obsessional types and one of them made a break for the stage last night - to attempt to shake his hand. I've seen this done at a few of Morrissey's gigs and it seems to be sort of a obligatory ritual. However this time, the security staff seem to have given the guy a pounding. I couldn't see from where I was standing, but Morrissey could, and he stopped the song he was singing to plead with the security, so presumably they were laying into the fan. A shame - there were six or seven security staff restraining one guy - this situation doesn't require violence.. Anyway, such is life. I'd rather spend time over a cup of tea with my heros, not run on stage to attempt to . . . touch them I suppose. To each their own though. Morrissey did say 'thanks for trying' to the poor guy as he was carried away.

One other thing worth noting is that just like other concerts I’ve attended of Morrissey’s, he refuses to allow meat to be sold at his gigs. The burger vans and fast food outlets that set up stall at his concerts must agree to only sell vegetarian products if they want to be allowed to do business.

It was with some admiration for this man’s commitment to his ideals that I watched some bottom feeder give out at the Abrakebabra van when he was told he couldn’t have a quarter-pounder. Of course, someone like this isn’t seriously going to stop eating meat, but many other people who attended this gig might actually be prompted to to think about the issue, and that might actually make a difference.

Overall, a fabulous evening out and the rain even held off – something of a miracle given the menacing clouds overhead. Outdoor gigs in Ireland are always a triumph of optimism over meteorological likelihood.

The set list for the evening was: Panic / First Of The Gang To Die / You Have Killed Me / The Youngest Was The Most Loved / Let Me Kiss You / Girlfriend In A Coma / In The Future When All's Well / Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice / If You Don't Like Me, Don't Look At Me / I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero Now / Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before / Human Being / We'll Let You Know / Irish Blood, English Heart / Ganglord (stopped due to Fan/Security altercation) / Ganglord / I Will See You In Far-off Places / At Last I Am Born / I Just Want To See The Boy Happy / Life Is A Pigsty / How Soon Is Now?

Just like heaven

Cheesy I know, but I recently found this video clip on youtube from 1989 - this was the first time I saw The Cure on TV, and I was blown away. 17 years later, I have pretty much everything they've ever put out and been to a lot of concerts.

Funny how things from our early teenage years can stay with us for a long time. It's hard to imagine getting as engrossed in a band today. Smith is a genius though, and there's nobody quite like him. You can't really say that about many people in music.

I've never met him, despite once or twice having the opportunity to possibly organise it for work reasons. I don't think I want to - it would be too weird. Anyway, Just Like Heaven from the 1989 MTV US Video Music Awards.

Bigger, better, stronger, faster

I hate advertising. Really, I hate it. All of it. I can grudgingly admit that some it is occasionally useful, like when I see an advertisement for something that genuinely interests me. However, most of the time, it’s nothing more than a crass and frequently dishonest attempt to sell me something by definition I don’t need.

If I actually needed it, I wouldn’t need an advertisement to sell it to me, as I would know that I needed it and so would go looking for it. So, no need for an advertisement.

So why do I have such strong feelings about this issue? Well, there are a variety of reasons. The first and most obvious is that I work in journalism and have to live with the insidious influence of the commercial agenda in my day to day work.

Briefly, to explain to those who may not have come across the idea before, newspapers don’t actually make money on the cover price they charge for their product - the €1.20 or €2 you fork over for your daily newspaper actually just subsidises the printing costs. Newspapers actually make money through the sale of advertising. The thinking here is that companies will pay to have their products or services advertised to the readership of the newspaper.

Newspapers are commercial operations themselves – they exist to make money and not for any altruistic purpose. It's important to state that I'm not anti-capitalist and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with making money or wanting to make more money than you already do.

In order to make more money, newspapers need to grow their circulations, to attract more readers. The more readers a publication has, the more it can charge advertisers to place their ads before the eyes of the readers. To make their advertising space more attractive, newspapers commission research to show what the demographics of their readership is. The more information they have on their readers, the easier it is to persuade advertisers that that particular newspaper is the right one for them to get in front of potential customers.

So far, so good, eh? I mean, this doesn’t sound that bad? Advertisers get to draw attention to their goods or services and newspapers get paid for the privilege. However, in the middle of this there is massive potential for someone to lose the plot.

Because in a country like Ireland, there are a relatively large number of media outlets competing for the advertising budgets of large companies. So what happens when a journalist gets a story that concerns a company that spends hundreds of thousands or even millions of euro each year with the newspaper that employs them?

Tricky huh? After all, the reader is best served by the publication of the story, but the paper, and by implication it’s shareholders, is best served by growing the revenue the advertiser spends. However, it’s the readers and the circulation they bring with them that controls the amount of advertising the paper gets and how much it can charge for it. It’s chicken and egg territory.

The editor, the guy caught in the middle, the guy with whom the buck stops, frequently has to stand alone and argue for the editorial independence of his paper and the right of his journalists to do their jobs. Surprisingly sometimes the editor, and by default the interests of the reader, wins. However, disturbingly, it’s often the commercial interest that wins.

And what’s more disturbing is that there is a change occurring in the media business in Ireland which is seeing more power vested in the hands of the management at newspapers. Given the commercial nature of publishing, often the people judged most capable of guiding the company to increased profits are people are promoted out of the advertising departments.

In general, advertising executives see journalists as annoying and difficult to deal with - they get in the way of the commisions that come with selling advertising. There are always exceptions and I’ve been lucky to work with some very intelligent and conscientious senior management as well as a few truly excellent sales people who knew their jobs inside out and never promised preferential treatment to an advertiser as a means to a sale. But I’ve also met those who would sell their grannies for a sale, and there are a lot of them out there. But let's face it, nobody buys newspapers for the advertising, they buy them for the news.

To an extent, highlighting the problem is a little like tilting at windmills – it’s everywhere and it’s growing and it will continue to grow. It’s also a symptom of a bigger issue, the commercialisation of the world we live in. I understand that this is inevitable and I also understand that it’s not necessarily always bad, but it does require people with back bones to stand up and be counted, to take the side of integrity and honesty and not to ask whether we can get away with something but whether it’s the right thing to do.

There are people out there who get this, but they are sadly in the minority and the wagons are being circled.

Author Interview: Anne McCaffrey

When I first started getting serious about writing, I decided to shamelessly use my professional contacts to help me get a head start. I'm lucky in that I can get to meet published succesful authors and while doing the interviews that get published in newspapers, I also get to ask them quite a bit about the process of writing.

In this case, I was interested to learn that Anne McCaffrey lived extremely close to me (a ten minute drive) and so I thought it would be neat to conspire to meet her. That's one of the nice perks of the job, I have an excuse to meet people who seem interesting, when otherwise accosting people you don't personally know is just stalking. : )

We actually talked about a lot more than made it into the article, because the piece was for publication to a mainstream audience. I still have the notes and tape recordings, so I may put something togther specifically for writers, as she really has a wealth of knowledge, and like all truly succesful people, she shares it quite freely.

Anyway, Anne was a delight to meet, a really charming lady and we spent a very pleasant couple of hours chatting at her kitchen table, surrounded by her cats and dogs. Seeing as this is already on the web elsewhere, I thought why not put it here. Enjoy!The Dragon Queen
Published Sunday, May 01, 2005 - By Alex Meehan

Unless you are a devotee of her genre, the odds are you probably haven't heard of Anne McCaffrey. McCaffrey has written more than 70 books in her 40 year career, and in 1978 her novel The White Dragon was the first science fiction book to make the New York Times hardcover bestseller list.
This weekend, the 79-year-old author picked up the top accolade, the Grand Master award, at the Nebulas, the science fiction world's equivalent of the Oscars. Previous winners have included Robert A Heinlein, Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Brian Aldiss.

In short, McCaffrey is sci-fi royalty.

However, this stalwart of the world of speculative fiction chooses to live a distinctly low-key life in Co Wicklow, where she indulges her dual loves of writing and horses.

McCaffrey is best known in the science fiction world for her Dragonriders of Pern series, a collection of 17 books set on a future planet where fire breathing dragons are employed to burn deadly acid-rain type ‘thread' out of the sky. Despite this, the author is adamant her novels are at least partly rooted in - albeit speculative - reality.“The dragons themselves were biogenetically engineered from an indigenous life form. They are not magical, which makes them science fiction and not fantasy,” she says.

For the uninitiated, the difference between science fiction and fantasy is that fantasy deals with the impossible - magic, elves, wizards and the like - while science fiction deals with the potentially real.

McCaffrey was born in 1926 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She published her first novel, Restoree, in 1967 as a reaction to what she describes as the “absurd and unrealistic'‘ portrayals of women in science fiction novels in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

“Science fiction has evolved from the era of bullet proof bras and all that nonsense into a genre that can pose reflective and intellectual questions,” she says.

“The beauty of the genre is that it is essentially born of metaphor, and you can explore topics you probably couldn't in mainstream fiction, merely by giving them a fantastic backdrop.

“There are also quite a few good mainstream writers that dabble in science fictional waters. Iain Banks is definitely a science fiction writer who has successfully straddled both sides of the fence. Clive Cussler and Wilbur Smith come close to writing pure science fiction,”

The genres of science fiction and fantasy aren't always as far fetched as some might think. Many of the high-tech gadgets we take for granted today have their origins in the science fiction of yesterday.

The communications satellite was first mooted by Arthur C Clarke, the flip-top mobile phone by Star Trek. In a world obsessed with the evils of genetic engineering and cloning, it's interesting to note that McCaffrey has been writing about bio-engineered creatures for more than 30 years.

“Mankind is ever ingenious in finding ways of subverting proper diligence and discretion. When I look at the world today, from the Terri Schiavo case to the debate on euthanasia, I'm disturbed by what I see. There are some choices which really should be left to God,’' McCaffrey says.

“I try not to state any moral position in my books, I prefer to demonstrate and I rarely come up with a moral tone, unless it suits a character's position. I don't know enough myself to start preaching to other people.”

For bookstore owners, science fiction and fantasy novels are strong sellers. Fans are extremely loyal to favourite authors and eagerly snatch up each new title in a series.

Occasionally, this level of fervour reaches the mainstream; for example, when JK Rowling produces a new Harry Potter novel. Despite this, sci-fi and fantasy are still the skeletons in the closet of the literary world.

While it is unusual not to find a fantasy or science fiction title in both the hardback and bestseller lists, it's even more unusual to see an sci-fi title reviewed by a mainstream publication.

Most science fiction and fantasy novels are considered by non-fans to be little more than juvenile escapist nonsense - a book buying phase intelligent adults grow out of.

Despite this, it would be difficult to find a mainstream bookshop anywhere on the planet that didn't have a bookcase of the stuff tucked away somewhere. And the odds are it would include a title or two by Anne McCaffrey.

McCaffrey believes the stereotype of the average science fiction fan as a spotty teenage boy is unfair. She says as many women as men read her books, and that the majority are not the nerds they are sometimes made out be.

“Most of them like my books probably partly because I have victims who become survivors, people who also don't fit in and don't conform but who find a place where they do fit in and they do conform. This has been a motif that appears in every lead character - I try to focus on someone who will change for the better or find themselves in the course of the book.”

McCaffrey is one of several internationally successful US writers to have made the move to Ireland, attracted initially by the favourable tax breaks offered by the government.

“I was divorcing my husband and wanted somewhere else to live. I was raising three kids and I thought that a move to Ireland might give me the push I needed. So in 1970 I moved the family here and put my kids into school. My mother came too and she felt safe here in the last few years of her life. That was important to me,” she says.

“The move here can allow people to advance their earning power considerably. Not having to pay tax means that writers have an amount of money in their pocket equivalent to earning substantially more. It can make the difference between being able to write as a full time occupation, and not.”

McCaffrey is aware of the contentious nature of the tax breaks. “In the past I worried about being an unwanted guest. But then it occurred to me that I have around 40 to 50 people who come to visit me from all over the world each year who wouldn't come otherwise and who spend their money here. I probably make the money back for Ireland, so it's not necessarily a one-way street.”

With dragons, heroes and stories that catch the imagination, McCaffrey's Pern series seems ripe for a movie adaptation, but book-to-film adaptations are not without risk.

For the studio, because a successful book will deliver a ready-made audience. But for the author, there is significantly more risk: frequently once contracts are signed, they have no control over how their work is depicted on screen. This is a problem McCaffrey knows only too well.

Past attempts to adapt her Pern series have collapsed amid creative differences, but not at McCaffrey's behest.

“The studio took the original scriptwriter's work and gave it to a script doctor who dumbed it down to the point where, when it came time to shoot, both the director and the main lead actor refused to do it as it was not what they had signed on for.

“I had no opt-out clause and couldn't have stopped it, so their integrity was much appreciated.

“Authors have little to do with films made of their books; I understand JK Rowling is an exception to this,” she says.

McCaffrey is still writing Pern novels, but has also passed the torch of the series to her son Todd, who has a keen interest in science fiction. The most recent Pern novel, Dragon's Kin, was a collaboration between mother and son. Todd McCaffrey has also recently published his own solo Pern novel, Dragon's Blood.

For McCaffrey, the pleasure in the writing process comes from telling the story. “Todd plans his books but I have never planned mine. I have written exactly two synopses in my career and I wrote neither of the books they describe. Once the story is told, I lose interest in it. I'm lucky my publishers don't require me to write synopses.

“Writing takes a lot of discipline, and as I had to support both myself and my children, I just sat down and did it.”

ENDS

(I've borrowed the fantastic dragon illustration at the top of this blog entry from http://www.pen-paper.net/artgallery/d/13066-2/dragon.jpg)

Review: Blue Eyed Salaryman, by Niall Murtagh

BLUE EYED SALARYMAN By Niall Murtagh, Profile €24.45
Published Sunday, March 20, 2005

Japanese companies are among the most successful in the world, and firms like Mitsubishi, Sony,Toyota and Honda have become household names. Japan's corporate culture is quite different to that of the west and in The Blue Eyed Salaryman, Niall Murtagh is uniquely placed to provide an Irishman's view of the inside of a major Japanese corporation.

An avid traveller and free spirit, Murtagh spent ten years touring the world before taking a PhD in computing at Tokodai University in Tokyo and applying for a job inMitsubishi. While he initially intended the job tobe a short-term measure, months turned to years and he was invited to become a permanent employee.

Eventually he settled down, got married and had children there,working withMitsubishi for 15 years. While the corporate culture outlined by Murtagh is not quite the stuff of workaholic salarymen sleeping under their desks, it's still fairly different to our experience in Ireland.

On joining the firm, Murtagh is unsettled to discover that Mitsubishi requires himto live only in company-vetted accommodation, so before he can rent an apartment, his boss must approve it. This level of company involvement with employees' lives is typical in Japan, as are some highly unusual work practices. For instance, official clocking off time is 5pm, but nobody leaves the office before the boss several hours later, regardless of whether there is work to do or not.

Employees are expected to put the company first, and can be permanently transferred to remote parts of the country without consultation. One of Murtagh's colleagues, who had a new baby and who had just bought a new house, was told he was moving fromTokyo to Osaka. Instead of protesting, as most Irish employees would have done, he sold the house at a loss andwent where he was told. Mitsubishi employees are given a generous 25 days annual leave per year, but are expected not to take more than a week or two, and never in one go. Sick days are deducted from annual leave, and ‘good' employees would never dream of claiming the overtime they're entitled to.

Rates of pay are determined only partially by rank within the company, and mostly by age, and it's inconceivable that a salaryman would resign from his job. If he tried, he would be encouraged to rethink the move as it would reflect badly on his superiors.While there are women executives in the company, they occupy token positions and still experience a very real glass ceiling. Surprisingly,there is a uniontorepresent workers' interests but, as Murtagh discovers when he becomes a rep, officials are obliged to submit questions in advance to their bosses for approval.

Japanese employees are encouraged to place more importance on the needs of the group rather than the needs of the individual. Times are changing in this regard, and many of the experiences related by Murtagh inTheBlueEyed Salaryman took place in the early 1990s.

But conditions like those he outlines are mild in comparison to other companies in Japan. Earlier this year, a senior Japanese executive in a transport company won a landmark anti-bullying court case against his employers. A skilled senior manager, he had been forced to pluck weeds from a car park for more than 30 years. His crime had been speaking out about his company's involvement in illegal cartels. With all this as a given, Blue Eyed Salaryman should be an engaging and entertaining read, but mostly it underdelivers. The book meanders along for 214 pages, and while I waited for the bit that inspired the author to write the book in the first place, it never really arrived.

We get a good feel for the mildly oppressive experience of being a cog in the wheel of the massive Mitsubishi corporation, but what'smissing is the incisive exposéof how a company like Mitsubishi harnesses the work ethic of the Japanese. In the course of The Blue-Eyed Salaryman,Murtagh doesn't learn any major lessons, doesn't undergo life-changing experiences and doesn't crack under the pressure and leave.

However, the book remains an engaging account of modern Japanese corporate culture and also of Murtagh's personal journey from carefree travel junkie to suited executive. There have been 101 books written on the experience of westerners in Japan, a country that can be first world in its economics and third world in its attitudes. Most of themare fascinating, in a gee-whiz type of way, and set out to sensationalise. This one doesn't, and is probably more honest for it. Anyone who is curious about Japan or who works for a Japanese multinational should enjoy Murtagh's take on how things are done in the East.

Oh dear . . .

I’m writing a book review for a newspaper . . . and it’s awful. Just dreadful. It’s the latest book by a well known, well regarded and quite fashionable writer and he’s just written the most dreadful book. I’m actually kind of stunned.

I hating writing negative reviews, because it can feel like you are being personally nasty about the writer. I have a growing appreciation for just how much people put themselves into their writing.

But, at the same time, the author’s publishing company have put the book into the firing line, because it is looking for publicity to help sell the book, I have a responsibility to the reader of the newspaper to be honest, balanced, accurate and fair in the review.

It would be a betrayal to write a nice review of a bad book and then have someone buy it and be disappointed as a result.

Still, I’ve just noticed the author lives in Dublin, despite being an international name. He populates his books with psychotic, drug-taking, violent, alcoholic lunatics, so hopefully I won’t run into him.

Information is power, sort of.

I’m slow when it comes to internet trends – I actively try to avoid them until they’re unavoidable, or have something tangible to offer me, just because there are too many of them. Keeping up with the Internet could actually be a full time job, and for someone who’s self employed like me, distractions are an occupational hazard I need to avoid.

Just witness the phenomena of blogging – I’m well into it, but it’s taken me several years to actually get involved. Even though this is a form of distraction, I find it quite useful, as it kick starts me into creativity mode in the morning. The mind is like a muscle, and if you don’t use it, it becomes soft and floppy. Blogging helps me start thinking, but I don’t blog when there’s nothing worth blogging about – because then it would really end up being a distraction and the benefit to me of doing it would start to be undermined.

The reason for this entry is that I’m feeling the love for wikipedia. This website/idea/concept is a seriously impressive piece of work, and not simply the latest fad on the e-block. For those who don’t know, wikipedia.com is a website which contains a searchable encyclopaedia in several languages. It currently contains 1,301,271 cross referenced articles in English and around 4.6 million overall in other languages about pretty much anything you can think of.

It’s in the top 20 most visited websites, and for a writer, it’s a fabulous resource, because it presents information on wildly diverse subjects, cross referenced and hot linked. You can jump from article to article and spend hours reading about wide ranging ideas, people and aspects of history. It’s an excellent research tool, it’s great for firing your imagination and also, it’s a great way to waste time and still feel like you’ve done something.

If you are looking for information on something and there isn’t yet an article about it, you can create one. If you are a subject matter expert and you come across a page that is not properly referenced, then you can edit it. I can see how in time, this could become one of the most significant repositories of human knowledge.

So, is this starting to sound familiar yet?

Wikipedia does what we were told the Internet would do when the world wide web started to become commonly available for access, around 10 to 15 years ago. The web was to be the grand liberating force, our generation’s contribution to the great work of mankind. Publishing for the people, the death of the printed word, the end of physical and socio-economic boundaries.

Of course, over time, the web has become less and less useful, not more, as the lack of any kind of quality control mechanism or editing filter means that out of the millions upon millions of webpages out there, only a tiny minority are intelligently put together or even actually useful. The problem when you give publishing to the people and consider that a good thing, is that you forget that publishing is the end result of a chain of events that are based around the sequencing of ideas. It’s the flashy bit, but it’s not the clever bit.

The most important person in the publishing chain of author, editor, typesetter, publisher and printer is the editor, the person that’s employed to make sure that what gets published is original, thoughtful, responsible and competently put together. Without the editor, you have a million monkeys pounding away on a million typewriters.

This is why wikipedia is so successful, it’s information presented with a QC filter. If someone writes something libellous or factually inaccurate, it can be changed. IT’s not without it’s problems – it’s written collaboratively by volunteers, allowing most articles to be changed by anyone with access to the website and there has been some controversy over its reliability and accuracy. The site receives criticism for its susceptibility to vandalism, uneven quality and inconsistency, systemic bias, and preference for consensus or popularity over credentials.

On the other hand, it’s free distribution, constant and plentiful updates, diverse coverage, lack of advertising, and versions in numerous languages make it a winner. Other than the world wide web, wikipedia reminds me of something else.

I met Douglas Adams once. It was a great day, one of the fondest memories I have of my childhood. I was 11 and had been reading the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy and loving it. I talked to my mum about it, and one Tuesday morning, I got up to go to school. I put my uniform on and we got in the car as normal and I worried about the homework I hadn’t done for the test I wasn’t ready for. I was seriously nervous about school that day.

However, when we got to my school, mum slowed down, then just drove past. She left it until then to tell me she had seen a notice in the newspaper that Douglas Adams was doing a signing in Dublin that day, so that’s where we were going.

I don’t think I’ve ever been happier, at least, not as a kid.

It was quite a big deal for her, because it was a two hour drive and she had to skip out of work to bring me. It was so worth it though, and to this day, I measure happiness against that moment, and probably Christmas Eve when I was 10. (I got the Millennium Falcon from Santa.) We met him and talked for a while. He was a very cool guy, and I still have a complete collection of the first couple of Hitch Hikers books that he signed for me that day.

Anyway, In his books, his characters carry hand held computers, called the Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy. To all intents and purposes, he had secribed wikipedia 20 years before it came into being. A good idea is a good idea. Like ditching school.

Has modern sci fi disappeared up its own hyper drive?

This blog entry is inspired by a friend 's blog - A Career in Writing - Brian is an excellent writer and I have no doubt he will do much in future. In his current blog entry he talks about why so much space is dedicated to "Star" novels in the bookshops, a phenomenon that's just as common in Europe as the US. The "Star" novels are those written in the universes of Star Trek and Star Wars. I hate them. Orson Scott Card hates them. Most of the people I met at bootcamp hate them too. In fact, most 'serious' sci fi fans hate them.

They are almost universally badly written, cliched steaming piles of Wampa* crap with the notable exception of those written by proper writers, like Diane Duane (who used to live in a house my father designed - small world, eh?) There is actually a school of thought that says that Trek and Wars and these spin off novels have actually done more damage than good to science fiction. It's an interesting debate, and while I like both franchises, they long ago left behind the qualities that made them unique and enjoyable for me.

However, Brian makes a point in his blog that I'm afraid to admit may be correct. He's asking just why are these things so popular with the buying public. It's a question that any aspiring sci fi novelist really can't afford to ignore, at least not if they have any intention of making a living from writing.

Brian's theory is:

It’s not the tie-ins that people want to read, precisely, but the way they are written. It’s the old style of writing that has vanished in the science fiction community over the years.

I think he's right. I made this point at bootcamp, when we were dissecting some stories, that I liked homespun old fashioned science fiction. I really do, and I think the genre could do with a look in the rear view mirror every now and again, even as it moves forward. I was first introduced to sci fi by a series of 'best of the year' short story anthologies I found at home on the bookshelves. I've long since lost the tattered, much read copy I owned, which was covered in tea stains and had lost it's cover.

However, through the beauty of the Internet, I managed to track down the actual book that got me into science fiction and I now find my recollections do me proud. The book I read as a 10 year old was The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume I which you can now get on Amazon for €8.

It's a book of short stories by the likes of Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, John W. Campbell, Robert A. Heinlein, Fritz Leiber, Cordwainer Smith, Theodore Sturgeon, and Roger Zelazny, as well as Tom Godwin, Jerome Bixby and Daniel Keyes. These are the names I grow up on and the benchmarks by which I judge my own writing. If you don't own this anthology, get it, as it may be the best science fiction ever published.

The fiction found in this book has a feel to it that is highly atmospheric and immersive. These stories were all about the story and not about the author. I have difficulty finding anything to relate to in much modern sci fi, and for a while, I kept quiet about it, because I thought maybe other people were just cleverer than me, or perhaps they just 'got it' and I didn’t. It’s unfashionable to want good old fashioned stories with beginning's, middles and ends, characters to believe in and plots that fired my imagination.

So has modern sci fi disappeared up its own hyper drive? Perhaps it has. Perhaps in the rush to be different and original, science fiction has lost its star chart. Much as I dislike the tie in novels and the Star books, it would be arrogant to ignore the fact that a lot of people like them. As Brian points out they like the style of writing and they like the familiarity of a universe they know, whose rules and boundaries they are already familiar with.

This allows them to get lost in the story, with some assurances that they are in a place with consistencies. Anne McCaffrey once told me that the purpose of sci fi and fantasy was to provide writers with a means of writing stories that highlight issues that would be hard to write about in mainstream fiction. Early sci fi did just that, whether it be political commentary, race relations or even early gender equality, it presented emerging social ideas in a format that was acceptable to the status quo because it ‘wasn’t real’.

The first interracial kiss on TV occurred on Star Trek, and for some reason was more acceptable for it than it would have been had it occurred in a gritty drama. Funny that, isn’t it?

*it’s the snow creature in Empire Strikes Back.

The family coat of arms

Since my last blog entry, I've been up to my eyeballs with work, which is good, but it hasn't left me any time for writing, which is bad.

However, in my spare minutes I've been developing a serious interest in my family's geneaology. I've never known a huge amount it, but as a child, my grandad had a plaque with the Meehan family crest hanging on the wall. I knew Meehan was an Irish name, but this looked much more like an English coat of arms. I presumed it was just some cheesy knock off, put together in modern times and attributed to the name. However, I've been knocking around the net, and discovered that, amazingly, it's actually an authentic family coat of arms, granted by James the Third to the Meehan family for their bravery and sacrifice at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

Here's the story of how that happened, taken from an american website devoted to the Meehan family history.

Christopher The O'Meighan had been a loyal subject of Charles II, who had restored the ancestral lands to this Chieftain in gratitude for the clan's service against Oliver Cromwell (who had executed Charles' father). For the period between the reacquisition of Ballagh and the death of Charles, Christopher and the remnants of Clan O'Meighan lived and worked at Ballagh.

Upon Charles II's death, James II, a Catholic, ascended to the throne. This was in 1687. Catholic Ireland was quite excited by this turn of fortune, as it appeared James wanted to reverse the many discriminatory practices against the native Catholic population. However, as optimistic as the Irish population was, the English establishment was as determined to protect their own - i.e. Protestant interests.

Therefore, William of Orange (a Dutch Prince who was married to James II's daughter Mary) was encouraged to prosecute a war against James and sieze the throne of the three kingdoms (England, Scotland, and Ireland) for himself. He recruited armies from the Continent, including French Huguenots, Danes, Dutch, Germans, and only a small number of English and Scots. (He distrusted these because the Stuarts - James II's ancestors - had legitimaeley ruled previously, and he was uncertain that some of these armies might turn on him.

A European army of 35,000 met an army of 25,000 Irish at the Boyne in 1690, and - as we know from history - William's European Army was victorious.

Christopher The O'Meighan lost his life in this critical battle, and the ancestral lands were again confiscated. Two of his sons, James and Charles (aged 15 and 13) continued fighting all the way through to the Treaty of Limerick, and then were transported to France.

In appreciation for the bravery and sacrifice of the Meehan family at the Boyne, King James III of England and Ireland bestowed the honor of a coat of arms for the Meehans. It is a shield divided by a chevron and three bucks. It was granted to James O'Meighan (Mehegan) for his family's part in the Battle of the Boyne.

I'm particularly chuffed to notice that not only is it a cool coat of arms, it also features a griffin - a mythological creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. I take this as a good omen, as I am writing a fantasy novel at the moment. I will have to include a griffin somewhere.