Who says you can't go home...

Tags: Paisley visit homecoming

This summer marks ten years since I left high school, and three years since I left my hometown permanently. And this week I have returned, for a short visit with family.

Julia is attending a conference and I am taking the time to write. Well, rewrite actually. I have a few bits of housekeeping to get sorted, short stories that need redrafting for submission elsewhere, and then it's back on to the main novels.

I had also planned to record some podcasts while I was up here, but then I saw this: Behringer USB Podcast Kit. If anyone wants to contribute to help me get it, then it will get the podcasts up here a lot faster!

Anyway, I'm back in my hometown. It's strange, my home is no longer here, and yet the taxi ride from the station was more familiar to me than any journey I might make in London. It was as if I had only left on a short holiday, and was coming back to my true home.

Today I went in to the town centre. It's sad, every time I revisit Paisley, to see which shops are no longer there, and how nothing has replaced them. The town is dying. The local businesses and councillors can argue all they want about the influence of Braehead and Glasgow being just on the doorstop, but the simple fact of the matter is that the people of Paisley wouldn't go to Braehead or Glasgow if Paisley had a halfway decent range of shops. And no retailer will move in without other retailers being there. And so the rot sets in.

I live in one of the outer suburbs of London. It is smaller than Paisley, with a smaller population, and yet even it has a better range of shops than Paisley. If I need to go shopping, I rarely go in to Central London. I go to Hounslow, and if I can't get what I want there, I go to Kingston.

This is no longer the town I grew up in. When I was growing up, Glasgow was where you needed to go rarely, for fancy items you couldn't get in the shops in Paisley. Now, if I lived here, I couldn't imagine favouring Paisley over Glasgow for any shopping, outside of food.

The nostalgia of it being ten years since I left high school (and effectively started to move away from Paisley) has evoked a sense of homesickness in me. But I think this visit will kill any last vestiges of that feeling.

You take the home from the boy, but not the boy from his home
These are my streets, the only life I've ever known, who says you can't go home

Not so. This is no longer my home. These are no longer my streets. And I know a very different life now. I don't think you can ever belong to London unless you were born there. It is a transient city. So if I don't belong there, and I don't belong in Paisley, where do I belong?

You can't go home. You can never go back.

We Can't Turn Them Away

There's really not much I need to add to this that hasn't already been said in other blogs.

We invade their country. We promise them we'll make it all better. We make use of their knowledge and expertise. Then we shaft them when the going gets tough. The work they do helps keep our troops safe. The least we can do is protect them from harm. Whether you agree with the war in Iraq or not (and I am firmly in the latter camp) we owe these people. Britain has a history of turning its back on people in this part of the world.

We did it in the 1930s, which created no end of problems for us 70 odd years later. We did it to the Afghans after the Russians left (again, storing up problems that would bite us a few years later). We did it to the Marsh Arabs after the first Gulf War. We're at risk of doing it to the Afghans and Iraqis again.

For once, let's actually keep our promises, and not turn our backs on people who we have an obligation to protect.

I think I need a new name...

Tags: Paul Anderson Paul Anthony Anderson common name mistaken identity flattery

Last night I got a really nice comment through the Contact form on this site. D (to hide his identity) wanted to pitch an idea to me for a film. He knew a guy who knew me, and he also had a connection to my dad.

Someday, I'd like to be the guy that people pitch movie ideas to, but sadly I'm not at that stage. Not yet anyway. Which D realised probably about 10 seconds after he hit the "submit" button, as I had a follow-up comment from him apologising for his error - he had the wrong Paul Anderson. He was looking for Paul Thomas Anderson, the writer and director of Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love amongst others.

I hope he managed to get in touch with Paul T, and I hope the pitch was successful.

He's not the first to mistake me for someone else, and I don't think he'll be the last. A lot of people come to my site looking for Paul T Anderson, or Resident Evil director Paul W S Anderson, or Liverpool football player Paul Anderson, or Scottish fiddle player Paul Anderson, or world's strongest man Paul Anderson, or Wigan rugby player Paul Anderson, or club DJ Paul Anderson... Hence the blurb on the front page of this site, and the list of Paul's I'm not.

It's the curse of having a very common name, and why I think I'm doing none too badly in Google ranking, considering the name is so common, and I haven't really achieved much! So maybe I do need a nom de plume after all. Bad enough trying to make a name as a writer when there are two film directors and a slew of bigger names in the sporting and musical worlds who share the name with you. Consider also there are two novelists of the same name (with variations in spelling).

Or maybe I should aim that one day, movie directors and so on will open their mailboxes, hit reply and say "I'm sorry, I think you wanted Paul Anthony Anderson, the writer. I'm just the director/footballer/musician..."

So many things to say...

Tags: slow news day non-story demonised by the press Pete Doherty drug addicted idiot misplaced blame

Bit of a mixed bag for this entry - there are several stories that have astounded me today, and I'd love to rip into all of them at greater length, but there is so little time, and there are a couple of genuinely important stories to blog about next, so I'll keep it short and sweet.

Co-op's classics to deter youths

So, a supermarket playing classical music to stop youths congregating outside it. Interesting news. 3 or 4 years ago. When it was news. I mean come on - the "See Also" sidebar on the BBC website has a link to a story from two and a half years ago, telling us exactly the same thing! I remember when I was still in Scotland the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow were doing this to stop the goth kids hanging about on the steps. August truly is a slow news month...

Madeleine cops on alert for 'breakthrough'

Apparently we can expect an "imminent" arrest in the case. This is a concept of imminence only previously seen in the US political sphere relating to the right to use force in self-defence. "Imminent" meaning "at some undisclosed point, maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, we really don't know". Do remember that arrests have been "imminent" before. On 20 August a suspect was to be arrested "in hours". Just like on 17 August when we were "hours away from the solution". But remember on 3 August there was a "dramatic breakthrough" as Madeleine was spotted in Belgium. Or not as it happens. Still, at least we are now at the critical stage in the investigation. Which is unrelated to the critical stage we were at on 16 July.

Still, it was reported today that with all this imminence, Robert Murat is expected to be cleared soon. I take it that the papers will be lining up to make front page apologies to the man for painting him as the lowest scum in the world. Or have they forgotten headlines like this, this, this, this, this and this, all calculated to instil in us a sense of revulsion towards him. But I won't hold my breath...

Pete Doherty arrested again

Again. Once-a-fucking-gain. Please, for the love of god, can someone throw this drug-addicted criminal in jail. He's had more chances than any other drug addict would ever receive. It's not even as if he is a talented musician to excuse the failure of the courts to lock him up. He's famous for knobbing a supermodel (how?) and being a knob. Lock him the fuck up and maybe, just maybe, he might stop pissing all over the justice system, believing he can keep taking drugs and keep getting second, third, fourth, however many chances. Do him, and us, a favour. Please.

Headteacher's Killer to Stay in UK

Man with right of residence in the UK allowed to exercise that right. Yawn. Not news. Human Rights Act gets a kicking from the Tories. No change there, and I'm not even going to touch that aspect of the story - I've got an entire book I'm working on to deal with this one - but I'm guessing we all know what the Di-ly Express and the Daily (Hate) Mail will be headlining tomorrow...

"How do you spell that sir?""As it sounds"

Tags: naming your child common mistakes things to avoid stupid names @

There is a basic law that all parents ought to observe, and yet very few do, in reality. It is as follows:

When considering names for your child, think like a child. Take the name. Look at it. Study it. Look at the initials. Think of the sounds. Think of what it rhymes with. Come up with every conceivable insult under the sun, and then some.

If you can quickly and easily come up with some nasty insults then don't give your child that name!!! For example, there is no excuse for a Mr & Mrs Head calling their son Richard.

The same consideration applies to giving your offspring bloody ridiculous names. Unless you are rich and famous, and can therefore insulate your child from the outside world until they are emotionally stable enough to deal with the ludicrous name you have chosen to saddle them with (Peaches, Apple, Fifi Trixibelle, Pilot Inspektor - I'm looking at you...), then don't call your kids something ostentatious. Even Zowie Bowie prefers Duncan Jones... how much teasing do Armanni and Versace McLetchie, and Pocahontas McLoughlin receive? (I dearly wish I was making these up...)

Now, we're not even using language - it was strange enough when Prince decided to name himself "that strange symbol thingy", but now we've got ordinary people who don't have the excuse of being so rich they can do whatever the hell they want for shits and giggles. In China, a couple have decided to name their son "@".

Yes, as in the accounting symbol that is now so familiar from e-mailing - the "at symbol". Whether they are allowed to do this remains to be seen (Britain, unlike a lot of other countries, has a very relaxed attitude to what you can name a child).

What next? A combination of symbols and letters and pictures? "This is my daughter %p39**#l33th4x0r - the "#" is silent". Never mind the teasing, never mind the astonished bewilderment that will meet this kid when he tries to explain to people what his name is, have they thought through the practicalities?

What happens when the kid wants an e-mail address, and tries to use his name? I'm not sure @@hotmail.com will work, and there are damn few places that would allow you to enter "@" into a "First Name" field...

Parents. Think. Then think again. Then think like a child. Only then should you select a name. Now if you'll excuse me, my son King Kong Stumpfucker 3 would like me to read him a story...

You can set your watch by it...

Tags: A-Level results rising pass rate inflated grades education lazy journalism same old story

I confess, I haven't even bothered to read this news article, I just wanted to find it (or similar) as an example. You can click it though, have a read and tell me what I got right and got wrong.

As inevitable as the "big broon envelope dropping through the letter box" story on Reporting Scotland each year, the annual (and only) A-Level story has been reprinted, © all newspapers (as Private Eye would put it).

Let me guess what the story entails. Again.

• A-Level pass rates have gone up.


• There will be a picture or video footage (or both) of a single girl or a group of girls getting excited over their results.


• If the news source is The Telegraph, The Evening Standard, The Daily Mail or The Express, said girl/girls will be of the "totty" variety. And probably from a public school.


• For all other news sources, it will be a comprehensive school, but there will still be a disturbing propensity to photograph only the most nubile of girls who have passed their A-Levels.


• There will be a general bemoaning of how easy A-Levels have become, and how grades are artificially inflated.


• A spokesperson for at least one examination board will state that this is nonsense.


• A government spokesperson will also state this is nonsense, and that rising pass rates show what a good job the government is doing.


• A spokesperson for at least one opposition party will disagree with the government.


• Girls will, yet again, outperform boys in just about every subject, especially the sciences.


• If the news source is left-leaning, there will be much hand-wringing about how we are failing our boys, but with little concrete suggestion about how to reverse this. Otherwise, it will get a passing mention and nobody will give a toss.


• Journalists covering the story will take a well-earned half-day off and spend the rest of it in the pub, the hardest thing they've had to do today being copying the pass rate statistics into last year's story, updating who the relevant education spokespersons are, and checking the press releases to see which quote they are going to use, before filing the same damn story they did last year.

So, how did I do?

Shokipedia

Tags: Wikipedia CIA Wikipedia Scanner vandalism disinformation

Holy crap. I simply can't believe it. This can't be true, can it? What's that you say? An online encyclopaedia that can be edited by anybody on the planet with access to the internet was actually edited by self-interested parties in a way that attacked people that they disliked, and covered up damaging information about people they like?

In other scandalous news, we can exclusively reveal top sources at the Vatican have informed us that the Pope is showing worrying Catholic tendencies. And finally, bears. Turns out there is no indoor plumbing in the woods...

I mean honestly. The only thing that is news about this story is that it has taken this long for people to discover that this kind of behaviour goes on. Vandalising Wikipedia pages has a long and (ig)noble history, from subtle changes to the April Fools Day page on 1 April (resulting in Wikipedia locking this page to prevent edits on the day), to the deliberate vandalism of celebrities' pages as part of a game, members of the public have long been taking advantage of the "wiki" nature of Wikipedia to score points, denigrate, or just try to be funny. I remember reading the Wikipedia entry on the Battle of Thermopylae only to be told that the Spartans used advanced laser blasters to defeat the Persians. On refreshing the page, this little bit of historic revisionism had been edited out by the ever-vigilant editorial team.

The point being, it was not beyond the realms of possibility that an intelligence agent might decide to subtly edit certain entries in order to wage a campaign of disinformation. I think the only truly disturbing thing about this entire story is that CIA agents have enough free time to piss about on the internet and post abuse about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Aren't they supposed to be, you know, saving the free world from imminent destruction from terrorism as part of the War on Terror? Surely if they were telling us the truth about the threat from terrorism, they wouldn't have the time to change the details on Oprah Winfrey's Wikipedia entry.

After all, people employed to lie to the public for a living wouldn't lie to us... would they?

Underwhelmed AND overawed...

Tags: Perseid meteors shooting stars astronomy anticlimax

Well, in the end the Perseid meteor shower I mentioned in my last blog post was a bit of a galactic anticlimax. Less "shooting stars", more "damp squibs". The most spectacular ones I saw were on Saturday night, when I saw a huge orange fireball, and Julia and I both saw one that streaked across about a third of the visible sky.

Sunday night was supposed to be the best time to see them, and I saw maybe three or four? I was outside talking on the phone to my mum just after ten and saw one, maybe two small meteors. Then later Julia and I stood out and I saw one, which Julia missed because of the drunken idiot who decided to go to the toilet in our front garden (nice...). We did see another impressive fireball, bright orange with a long blue trail, but that was it. It was well past midnight, we were both tired and we both had to be up early for work.

So perhaps the promised 100 per hour came closer to 3am, when we were fast asleep. Meteors can be so inconsiderate. At least the sky wasn't completely obscured by clouds. I hope the next few big showers are accompanied by equally unimpeded views. Roll on late October's Orionids and mid-November's Leonids!

Catch a falling star...

Tech Tags: Perseid meteors shooting stars astronomy

I've just come in from spending about an hour sat outside on my front step, drinking coffee and staring up at the sky, watching for meteors from the Perseid meteor shower. The maximum for the shower (as many as 100 per hour) will be tomorrow (today actually - it's past midnight!) between 22:00 BST and Monday 03:00 BST.

It's a rare day that I get to observe the spectacular meteor showers. Usually, as has been the case with the Leonids meteor showers in November, whenever I try to observe these big meteor showers the sky has been clouded over.

Tonight though, there were no clouds in the sky, and we had a new moon, so the only light sources to spoil the view were the street lamps. And the trees out front kept the light levels down. Almost perfect.

How many did I see tonight? I'm not sure. My eyes may have been deceiving me when I thought I saw two or three. And the large orange fireball I saw, whilst probably a Perseid, seemed to have started too close to Ursa Major to have been a Perseid, I thought. But I did at least categorically see one. And it was huge, spectacular. A bright white streak across an inky sky, that seemed suspended in the darkness for a few seconds before fading into nothing.

I can go to bed happy now. I'm going to head back out for the maximum though. When you've seen one, you want to see more.

I remember the very first meteor I saw. It was just over ten years ago, very early hours of the morning, and I was playing a video game. Just by chance, I looked out of the window, just in time to catch a glimpse of a streak of light shoot across the sky. Come to think of it, it was probably in August, so it may very well have been a Perseid!

I haven't seen very many shooting stars since. Hopefully that will change over this weekend. When I was growing up, I wanted to be an astronomer (briefly, amongst other things!). I devoured books on astronomy, I got a telescope, and I used to sit out at night, looking up at the sky. But my eyesight was never quite good enough to spot things with the naked eye. Perhaps that's why I like meteors so much? You don't need 20/20 vision to spot them.

One of the first story fragments I wrote whilst toying with the idea of becoming a writer was about stars. Tonight I enjoyed just sitting out, looking up at them, and being nostalgic and talking. I remembered that ten years ago I was sitting out on garden steps watching comet Hale-Bopp. I'll probably write something a little more poetic about stars in honour of the event some time later, probably sometime on Monday, after I get inspired by the upcoming maximum.

Right, enough rambling about meteors. Time for bed. Good night all, and I hope you get to see some spectacular Perseids!

Victory in the loosest possible sense...

Tech Tags: BAA Heathrow injunction Plane Stupid AirportWatch Hacan Clearskies No Third Runway Action Group Camp for Climate Action civil liberties freedom to protest victory

BAA have won a Pyrrhic victory today in the High Court. They have won the injunction they sought. Well, kind of. Barely. The injunction is nowhere near as sweeping as the one originally applied for which I have mentioned previously.

In the face of massive public outcry, BAA have had to make a humiliating climbdown from their original stance. They no doubt expected the protesters to, you know, protest. I don't think they expected civil liberties groups and politicians to round on them. And they certainly didn't expect Transport for London to send in their lawyers to object to the Piccadilly Line being brought within the terms of the injunction with no consultation. BAA were forced to amend the application and remove the Piccadilly Line from its ambit. But it didn't stop there. The injunction will not apply to members of AirportWatch, and so the 5 million people who would have been banned from Heathrow are now free to go there. BAA always maintained that they only sought an injunction against the protestors, but they cast their nets too wide, and that was why people were so hostile to their action.

In winning this injunction, what have BAA actually achieved? They have enraged politicians, transport executives, the Mayor of London, environmentalists and ordinary members of the public. They have succeeded in publicising The Camp for Climate Action, and brought it to the attention of many people, like myself, who were not even aware that it was happening. They have at great expense got a piece of paper from the High Court, which basically forbids people from doing something illegal.

You read that correctly. BAA went to one of the highest courts in the land, to request that people be forbidden from breaking the law. The terms of the injunction apply to members of Plane Stupid, and certain members of Hacan Clearskies and the No Third Runway Action Group, but crucially only if they are intent on unlawful action.

So, thousands of pounds in lawyers fees, mountains of negative press publicity, and simmering resentment from politicians and the public...

... and BAA have won the right to ensure that nobody does anything illegal during the protest. A right they already had by virtue of the fact that we're generally forbidden from doing unlawful things anyway.

Way to go BAA, bet it was all worth it...

Are you a thieving scumbag?

Tech Tags: Scott Sigler stolen guitars Carvin LB75 bass Ibanez RG7420-BPL left-handed, 7-string with tremelo help thieving scumbag

Not only that, are you a thieving scumbag who has stolen two incredibly rare guitars belonging to a celebrity? The guitars are so rare that any attempt to sell them will result in a huge amount of attention being drawn to you, and pointing you out as the thief. Moreover, both guitars are for a left-handed player, so unless you are left-handed you can't even play these bad boys.

Not only are you a thieving scumbag, you're not a particularly bright thieving scumbag. Best thing to do would be to return the guitars to their rightful owner, before Very Bad Things happen.

And if anyone out there happens to come across these guitars, drop Scott a line, details below and let him know.

digg story

So how attached can you be to an inanimate object? Turns out, pretty damn attached. This weekend, back in Michigan, I found out some rotten fucker stole my custom Carvin LB75 bass. I’m a lefty, and I play 5-string, neck-through basses, and there are very few of those in the world. Add to it that I saved for a year to buy this one, and had it painted in an obnoxious, sparkly “harlequin prismatique” finish, and you’ve got one rare bass. The guys at Carvin told me they made less than 10 of this same combination.

I will never get this gem back. I played over 100 shows with it, and it was my pride and joy for the longest time. I like unique things, and this puppy was unique. Under the stage lights, it looked like molten glass.

The serial number was 68706. That’s stamped on the base of the fretboard, right down at the body. If anyone ever sees an instrument like this, please, email me scott@scottsigler.net.

Said thieves also made away with an Ibanez RG7420-BPL left handed, 7-string guitar. Ibanez only made 50 of these. Hard to find left 7-string guitars with a tremolo - I found one, and now it’s gone as well. The serial number on that one is F0021555.

Fuck.