If you were born on April 16th then you’d share your birthday with Dusty Springfield.

If you were born on April 17th then you’d share your birthday with Posh Spice.

I’d know which one I’d rather be. :-)

An interview with Neal Stephenson in Wired, which gives a bit more background to the new book, The Confusion (warning, contains some minor spoilers).

Incidentally, I have worked out why I find the new book much more interesting than its predecessor - the first book’s tales of England and Daniel Waterhouse are so much duller than the lively and at times surreal adventures of the two other main characters, Eliza and Jack. I’ve now got to the bit in the second book where Waterhouse is re-introduced, and it quickly starts to falter.

Incidentally, for anyone reading the book, Neal Stephenson has provide some annotation to help the reader in his Metaweb wiki.

Ah shit - the gods just don’t like me at the moment. My computer speakers have just died (three year old Creative Cambridge Soundworks 2.1 set). Totally died. They don’t turn on at all when I turn on the switch (no light). The power lead is supplying the right amount of juice so either the switch is fucked (bad), or the circuitry inside the subwoofer is fucked (really bad). What with it being old and out of warranty and stuff I doubt it’s even supported by the repair people now, so I’m probably going to have to fork out and replace the subwoofer, if not the whole lot. :-(

Oh well. In the meantime I can play with the Dance CD Title Generator (via GromBlog) and pretend I have music instead…

Every blogger in the world seems to be doing this:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

Disturbingly enough, this is what my one is:

Finally another well-lubricated man in leather underpants performed the same series of movements and ended up standing next to Yevgeny in the same pose: this was a very dark-skinned Negro, not as tall as Yevgeny, but heavier.

From Neal Stephenson’s “The Confusion”. It’s describing a wrestling match between slaves in 17th Century Algiers, by the way, in case you’re were worried I had some sort of gay porn habit going.

I haven’t produced much thoughtful blogness for a variety of reasons, but lack of time has been one of the main factors. This has annoyed me, as there have been various issues flying about and I’d have liked to have put some of my own thoughts on them while they were still hot.

I did want to add some thoughts and links on the debate on multiculturalism, so I will do so now. There’s been a flurry of recent debate on the issue, triggered by Trevor Phillips’ call to drop multiculturalism, as a theory of separate cultures coexisting, and replace it with a philosophy of tolerating separate cultures but maintaining a common thread of British values through them. The problem is, judging by a wide variety of comments made, is that the definition of ‘multiculturalism’ varies according to your own personal experience. How a third-generation middle-class person of Indian descent would describe multiculturalism, say, would be very different to a recent asylum seeker from the former Yugoslavia living in poverty. My own desired outcome for a ‘multicultural’ Britain is pretty close to Phillips’, but then I am of mixed race and grew up in a household where combining non-white and white cultures was simply unavoidable.

Britain’s ethnic makeup has changed rapidly - not just that many people of many different races have moved here, but also that the patterns of immigration keep on varying. Different races have adapted to (and have also changed) British society in different ways and to diffrent degrees. But thanks to political correctness, and a widespread denial that racial tension does still exist in this country, the much-needed debate on what Britishness is now, and how much we want people of different cultures to interact with that Britishness has been stifled. Phillips’ comments are a welcome kickstart to the debate, though it provides very few answers as to how much integration is right. Where does tolerance of a culture and adapting to it stop and the core laws and values of the nation start - a recent example is whether halal and kosher meat should be banned for animal welfare reasons.

It’s not just where on the scale we make our mark that’s up for debate, but the very scale itself. The ’separateness’ and ‘British core values’ that Phillips describes - how are these measured? We now all eat Indian and Chinese food, a healthy sign of cultures coming together, but the low popularity of Afro-Carribbean cuisine is no indicator of black people’s integration or separation from the community - just as our having so few Asian sporting heroes compared to black ones doesn’t mean Asians are not part of the community. And factors like poverty, class differences within ethnic groups and the changing geopolitical situation play their part in the degree of integration as well, and need to be taken into account.

Personally, I think part of the problem is that unlike virtually every other country in the world, we have no written document (such as a constitution) that defines our country and what basic rights and values it is built around. The oaths that new citizens have to swear are to the Crown, which is a ridiculously outdated concept and doesn’t do anything to promote integration, nor does it inform new citizens of their rights and duties. If we can’t define to ourselves what our core values are and how much we are willing to change to accept different cultures, then we cannot expect newcomers to adapt to their new home. While I do not believe, as I’ve said before, that society will totally fall apart if we do head down the road of Balkanised, separate cultures, it will be for the better if we have a more open debate about British values and how much change both the majority and minority cultures have to undergo to further racial harmony.

This has been bugging me for years - in Cambridge, on King’s Parade, there is a paving slab with the words “HIGH MAINTENANCE LIFE” carved into it (see pic). Does anybody have any idea why?

…still looking at that LiveJournal photo thing from the last entry, it’s like I’m addicted or something.

Coming to the end of my 5 day-long Easter weekend. Yesterday I went to Ironbridge (the town mobile telephony forgot) yesterday to Sarah’s farewell party (she’s off to work in Germany for ever), saw the bridge, drank lots of red wine, now feel very tired but had a great time. I went there on the train, which was suprisingly punctual, but took forever. I didn’t mind, though, the long journey was a blessing as it gave me a chance to read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and it’s absolutely brilliant. Believe the hype. It’s touching without being soppy or clichéd, superbly written and a marvellous insight into the very different world that autistic people live in. I couldn’t put it down (the only time I did was when I had to get off the train and change).

Incidentally, I’m also ploughing my way through The Confusion, the second instalment of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle. I like it better than its predecessor, Quicksilver - it’s a bit sharper and more focused, Quicksilver had a tendency to wander aimlessly at times. But I’m barely a quarter of the way throguh so I’ll wait till I finish before writing a complete review.

I like this - the latest pictures posted to LiveJournal (caution, may not be suitable for work), in a sort of creepy spyish way, well, not just that, but definitely as an illustration of the rich human fabric of the online community. They range from the amusing to the peculiar, from stunning to just plain “WTF?”