Your Consumer Rights

I left my Stereo Amplifier in to be fixed in mid-September. I told them I'd like it done free as it was covered under my consumer rights. They said no. I said fix it anyway and we'll argue the toss later. On the thirteen week anniversary I kind of ran out of patience and gave up on going through the correct channels so I rang and asked for the manager. I told him I'd been speaking to the consumer rights people - they were very helpful and told me to mention the sale of goods act 1980 to let the shop know I was serious. I said the C Rights people told me to forget about repairs and to look for a replacement. This is what we in the retail trade call a big fat lie. Anyway, I was unhappy and wanted my amp back. The manager rang the manufacturers - there's no-one in Ireland who fixes this brand - and they said the amp was awaiting a spare part. They then enquired if I would like a new amp in its stead. After about one millisecond's careful consideration I accepted their offer. So, I've got a new amp. By the way, the old one will be three years of age on December 30th. In the EU you're guaranteed protection against manufacturing faults for two years. In Ireland it's six. So don't mess with us Irish consumers.
Anyway, I bought a vinyl LP while my amp was being fixed, or not. It was Big Star's No. 1 Record. It's recommended in the 1001 records you've got to hear before you die and Big Star have been touted as comparable to sliced bread by Uncut, a music magazine for boys of a certain maturity. I got their greatest hits (best of) on CD a few years back 'cause that was all that was available at the time. But I never really got it. Until now.
First thing played through my new amp was Big Star. How were they never the next big thing, at least? No. 1 Record is absolute brilliance. It defines the power pop genre and blows away most of what came after (though I will still listen to Fountains of Wayne). Yeah, I know, you've never heard of Big Star and couldn't give a monkey's. Or you've heard them and just couldn't see what all the fuss was about. Well, I'm off to the shops to see if they've got either or both of the other two Big Star records.
The Big Star is dead, long live Big Star. Oh, and long live vinyl.

Bob in 3D (or Alias Clark Kent)

I had a very strange experience in the cinema yesterday. I took my son to see Avatar. It is a very long movie. I had a very big drink.About two hours in I went to the 'rest room'. When I got back I couldn't see my son momentarily or work out where my seat was. The entire cinema was filled with Clark Kent lookalikes.
I have held onto my 3D spex and will post a photo on Facebook as evidence.
Avatar is about what everyone was saying it would be. But like all James Cameron films it is too long. A judicious half hour off the running time and it would be pretty hard to beat. I enjoyed the 3D experience though it is difficult to say if it actually added to my enjoyment of the film. It may indeed have detracted from it as I was often distracted by the 3D effects.
From a spectacular/epic viewpoint i was great. Storyline was predictable from the off and there were absolutely no surprises in the plot.
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: Worth seeing but is it worth going to see?
If you are interested in i at all do not wait for the DVD. This needs to be seen on the big screen.

An Open Letter to Neil Clarke and John Scalzi

This is in response to posts regarding low paying fiction markets in SF magazines.
Well, I guess it was inevitable that I would disagree fundamentally with your post, Neil, and with Von Post ( a coincidentally aptly named poster of a comment on Neil's post). As an editor who does not pay professional rates to the slush pile, that is inevitable. But I am also a writer who has sold his work for pennies and been happy to do so for the exposure and the possible feedback and the chance to be seen and read and for reasons too many to enumerate (thank God for the spell checker on this thing).
But, like life and business, there is a food chain in the marketplace and everyone should have a chance to find a place in it. Why should amateurs and wannabees be paid the same as professionals. They aren't in any other business. When you're starting out people don't want to pay you the full rate until you have proved yourself. It's only natural. Also, there are businesses that can only afford to pay minimum wage. This may be because of profit margins in the industry or overseas competition or whatever. But their failure to pay top whack doesn't mean they are not doing a valid or even vital job in their market or within a given economy. So lighten up guys. If there was no-one paying low rates then there would be no premium market for the big fish to inhabit. Surely everyone being paid the same rate smacks of (I'll call it) socialism. But everyone is not equal in our Western society. And I believe that the best people should get the best pay. And just because someone doesn't offer the best pay rates does not mean that their market lacks validity or worth.
There are a lot of e-zines out there who pay pro rates. And that's fine - even if they do not present the writer with an actual product to hold in his hand and to archive. I happen to like hard copy and believe it has a value. That is why Albedo One has remained as a hard copy item even though the costs of production are outrageous and it costs more to post a copy from Ireland to the outside world than it does to actually purchase some magazines. But people like what we do (some of them) and some writers feel it is worthwhile to support our efforts even though our rates of pay are poor.
We have been struggling to keep our hard-copy magazine afloat in difficult circumstances in a minute market (about four million people live in Ireland) and we do it for no pay - yes we're amateurs - because we believe in what we're doing. I'm sorry so many people, writers and non-writers feel so strongly negative about low paying magazines. You have not shaken my resolve, but you have left me feeling saddened and absolutely unappreciated.

Let there be light.

A short update: in September my shop, Yellow Brick Road, had two fires in quick succession. Anyone can have one. We've been operating out of next door's basement in the meanwhile. Three weeks ago our electrician rang ESB Networks who own the cables and applied for a re-connection. So far, so standard. The person (spelled b***h, or worse) in charge of the north of Dublin city - possibly she was having a bad day or a bad week - decided that instead of being re-connected she would require us to institute a new connection. The various builders, electricians and insurance people involved in the process, with decades of experience, had never heard of such a thing. Instead of being connected on the day of application or the next day, at the latest, a new connection would take TWELVE weeks. Which would include, of course, the entire Christmas period. It would also mean our temporary arrangement next door would time out and we would have nowhere to trade. Which means no cash coming in. Which means six jobs down the toilet. But the person (spelled b***h) in ESB Networks was fully prepared to let this happen.
So we started saying, half joking, to everyone we met, 'You got a contact in the ESB?' And visiting a sick friend Stacey asked another visitor - (Saint) Michael - that question and he said, 'Yes.' and he contacted the guy on the spot. I emailed details of what was going on to Michael and he sent them to his friend.
Tuesday morning, eight-thirty I got a call from an ESB Engineer. He wanted to meet our electrician. They met at lunctime. He asked for some changes to be made and made an appointment to re-connect us on Friday. All we had to do was apply (again) to be re-connected. I did that Tuesday at five forty-five.
Wednesday morning at eight thirty I get a call from another, different ESB engineer. 'Is you electrician on the premises? I was hoping to do this call first thing.'
Wednesday the person/b***h rings our insurance loss adjustor all sweetness and light to ask if everything is going okay.
This afternoon (Friday) the lights in Yellow Brick Road were turned on for the first time since September 11th (no, not THE September 11th).
In Ireland there is an old cliche that says, 'It's not what you know but who you know.' In this, as in all things, the cliche proves true. So thanks to all those who wished us well during our 'interesting' times. We will be open for business in our usual premises in about a week. Watch the Yellow Brick Road fanpage or website www.yellowbrickroad.ie for details.
Wednesday

At Last

I've been trying to post this review for a while but the blog wouldn't let me. Is it because it is a shameless promotion for the magazine I edit (with friends)?

Anyway, it originally appeared on the Western Writer's Centre website. That's in Galway, Ireland by the way.

ALBEDO MAGAZINE NEW HAVEN FOR EUROPEAN WRITING

The Dublin-based Irish journal of alternative and explorative literature, Albedo 1, has broken very new ground by making contacts with European masters and apostles of imaginative fiction and producing an issue which features some examples of their work. Australia hasn’t been left out, either. The Editorial explains all: “We thought about the amount of excellent fiction that must be out there in other languages, even if we’re simply looking at Europe. So we talked to the Poles and the Germans and the French and the Swedes, along with a couple of Americans . . . .” Now it would be hard indeed to get any contemporary Irish literature magazine that would devote this kind of energy to escaping the stifling and unmoving satellite of Irish writing. There are reviews, interviews, short stories, even one by Sarah Joan Berniker, whose work has appeared in Playboy. Notice too of the illustrious French journal, Galaxies (www.galaxies-sf.com) The cover art is mind-blowing. Submissions and enquiries to bobn@yellowbrickroad.ie Why in God’s name isn’t the Arts Council, who fund magazines whose repetitiveness and predictability make them akin to journals kept by inmates in someone’s guest-house, fund this exciting and richly-diverse magazine? Well, I have a story about the why not of it all, and siffice it to say that the Arts Council of the Republic do not take speculative fiction seriously. They don’t see it as literature, dontcha know. One Arts Council personality some years ago declared it would be more than their job was worth to advance the argument. In fact our Council rather ridicule it, which indicates, in truth, that they’d never have funded Orwell to write 1984 or Stoker to complete Dracula. Yet for years they’ve had the neck to keep a portrait of a famous alternative fiction writer and solid Dubliner hanging in their foyer at Merrion Square. Safe to do so, one supposes, because he’s dead and therefore reasonably unlikely to look for funding.

Albedo 1- Issue 37. €5.95. Pbck with card covers in colour. 2, Post Road, Lusk, Co. Dublin, Ireland. ISSN: 0791 - 8534 63pp

Cheating Scum

This is a post about sportsmanship. anyone not interested in fair play should log off now. Unfortunately those not interested in football will probably also bail out.
However, it's not really football I'm going to moan about, though I will be referencing it... a lot.
Last night Ireland played France in Paris in a (football) World Cup qualifier. We were beaten as usual, And we got beaten by a bad refereeing decision. Sour grapes, I hear you think. Well, yes and no. But the goal that put France through was scored after two, not merely one, handballs, an offside in the run up and a possible foul on an Irish defender. The other two incidents can happen, but a guy handling the ball twice - it hit his wrist then he controlled it with his hand - should never go unseen by the officials. And there are a lot of people who feel it would not have gone unseen had it occurred inthe French box. This is not a claim of prejudice on the ref's part merely that he succumbed eventually to the incredible pressure exerted on everyone concerned by FIFA. They made it very clear with every action that they wanted France to qualify. It was probably not the referee rahter the linesman who succumbed to the pressure. The (Irish) players all thought he had a good view of the incident. But he chickened out. The referee had only just refused (correctly - Anelka, the cheating Chelsea ~~~~ dived) a French penalty claim and disallowed a goal for an obvious off side. But he did't see the hand ball.
It was suggested on Irish TV that the player - one Thierry Henry - might have been asked by the referee if he had handled. In other sports players admit to breaking the rules and will sportingly penalise themselves. Henry glanced fearfully towards the lineman - there's a great shot of his horrified/worried face just as the goal goes in - but afterwards he smeared an enormous smug grin over his self-satisfied mug and even claimed o one Irish player that he had not handled, though he later admitted it, insisting that it was accidental. I've played the game. You know when you've handled and you know that although your hand may be drawn instinctively toward sth eball, when I played you would try to stop yourself. Nowadays the dishonesty is so ingrained in the game that even the pundits have accepted that cheating is a vital part of their SPORT. You hear them all the time. "Oh the lad touched him. He had to go down." No, he didn't. Yes you have to fall down when th eother played kickes the legs from under you. But not if he brushes past in an attempt to go for the ball. Throwing yourself to the floor as though shot by a sniper is called CHEATING, in any man's language. But you feel that if a player didn't throw himself to the floor looking for a penalty - when he's got no chance to score but someone has waved a foot near him - then that plyer's manager and club might just fine him a couple of weeks wages. FOR NOT CHEATING. You listen to the ex-players who are now managers or commentators or analysts (yes the word anal is deeply entrenched in there) and all of them will agree that ifyou're touched in any way when in the penalty box it is fair to look for a penalty. it's not. And it's making people sick of the game. That and the way players treat the game. It is not a sport. They are now entertainers. Superstars. Celebrities. So it's all about money.
In the final analysis, that's why Ireland went out of the World Cup last night. France are a bigger draw on television. Worth more money to FIFA and the TV companies. And reall, that's what sport is all about isn't it?
What happened to the sheer joy of taking part? Very soon football will only be ;ayed for money. There will be no-one left who wants to play for the plweasure of it, or for the exercise, or for the social aspects of the game. Because they (which used to be all-important) are now totally unimportant to the game.
What game?

A river in Egypt

Writing has been much on my mind of late, as always. Unfortunately not much has been hitting the page. Yet again life has jumped up and stolen all my free time. At the moment I’m living a Chinese curse – May you live in interesting times. For me interesting is not the half of it right now.

Three months ago my car was set on fire in the driveway of my home. Somebody carefully places a plastic 7 Up bottle on the bonnet (hood in America) and set it alight. I’m pretty sure I know who it was and the Gardai pretty much agree with me. So far, so bad.

Eleven weeks ago my business premises (a shop called Yellow Brick Road) went on fire. Twice. In the space of three days. The second time the Gardai declared it a crime scene, not surprisingly. Fortunately it was quite obviously an electrical fault that caused both of them. Otherwise I’d be writing this from Mountjoy jail.

So, over the past three months I have done almost no writing. But I have done quite a lot of thinking about writing.

So I got to thinking about writer’s block and thinking about writing rather than writing has to be one of the most effective definitions of writer’s block I can think of. I would love to hear other writers’ definitions and anecdotes as WB is something that every writer must fear, if they think about it at all.

But you’ve got a great excuse, I hear you say. There was the car faire and the Gardai and buying a replacement car and the fires in the shop and putting your business back together and all of that stuff.

And you’re right. All of that is valid. But it didn’t eat up all my available time, it simply swallowed all my head-space. I could have sat down ad wrote a short story or maybe even a book review on several occasions during my interesting times. But the point is that I didn’t. Even when I had the time and a touch of motivation. And I have to take responsibility for that.

I don’t claim to have WB but that may be because I am in denial. What I am going to do, however, is take responsibility for the fact hat I haven’t been writing and say that it is one hundred percent my fault. I am in control of my life. If I want to write I will.

Look, Ma, I’m doin’ it right now.